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drivlikejehu

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Everything posted by drivlikejehu

  1. He's breathing and has two legs, which I guess fits the bill at this point in time. There are probably more interesting AAAA guys around, but it's all about timing with these filler moves.
  2. It was serious enough for him to sit a few games. Coming off a 50-game suspension, that's not very encouraging.
  3. May doesn't have #1 potential. The Twins view is pretty clear - he's just another guy. How they move players says it all. They think Thorpe is the truth so he's 18 in full season ball. May is almost 25 and has thrown ~760 minor league innings, and he has been passed over repeatedly for AAAA options. There's no conspiracy or mystery - the Twins don't think he's all that good. There's a good chance they are correct, though of course I strongly disagree with promoting 30 year old filler instead. Meyer is different - I think they believe it's best for him to build up innings in a lower-stress environment.
  4. You can choose to doubt or not doubt as you see fit. His offense so far is pretty fluky. He has no plate discipline and pitchers will increasingly exploit his weaknesses. I've always thought he should stay at SS because that's where his potential value is - either at AAA or with the Twins. On the other hand, his experience this year will help with his most likely role of utility player, once the bat comes back to reality.
  5. Rosario ate up lower-level pitching, but he has always lacked plate patience and his contact-oriented approach hasn't worked at AA. He's a corner outfielder without the ability to hit for significant power or get on base via walk, which means he will have to hit for a very high average. Those concerns have always been there, but with him not hitting for average at age 22 in AA, his stock is definitely way down. I can't see ranking him higher than 9th in the Twins system and even that might be a stretch.
  6. If any other team had interest in Milone, they easily could have acquired him for very little. The guy just isn't very good.
  7. Milone's peripherals are down this year, along with his already-marginal velocity. That's why he was available practically for nothing. The very fact the A's made this deal tells us that Milone isn't a real asset.
  8. Shoulder injuries are much, much worse than elbow injuries. It seems like they got him out of there pretty quickly once it tightened up. In a situation like that, one pitch can ruin a career.
  9. I don't think it's the looking that is the problem - it's the willingness to commit money. Obviously 250K is a drop in the bucket for a professional baseball organization.
  10. Sounds more like a pattern than a single incident. His prospect status has mostly disintegrated anyway, maybe this is a hint as to why.
  11. The Twins have made bad decisions over and over and over again. So the fact that they are losing season after season is not "bad luck," it is exactly what we should expect to happen. There are organizations out there that know what they are doing. St. Louis doesn't win because of luck. They let someone else have Pujols as an older, ordinary player, while the Twins pay Mauer based on the player he used to be. Oakland isn't good because of any one move or strategy... Beane is just relentless in making every last incremental improvement he possibly can. The Twins make too many mistakes to succeed, large and small. It's a simple, empirical reality. Baseball is too competitive to sweep all that under the rug and pretend like something else is afoot. Draft better, trade better, sign better contracts, and the team gets better. Don't, and it doesn't. The Twins aren't.
  12. Why does Kanzler need to play CF every day? Cedar Rapids in general is low on legit position player prospects... finding at bats should be very easy.
  13. Nor is 1.3 WAR something to brag about, especially when that represents a surprising level of success.
  14. How about this question - has any player in MLB history shown a special ability to score runs despite a horrible OBP? Could you point out such a player for us? Or is Walker unique in the history of professional baseball? He just magically scores a lot of runs?
  15. Hicks has hit in AA before. He still isn't hitting the ball with any authority.
  16. I suspect that might not be a very successful thread, because that issue has been discussed and caused problems recently. There is a lot of quality research out there that many posters do not accept. What typically is meant by "luck" in the baseball context is a sequencing of events that is not repeatable by skill. Clutch hitting, leaving tons of guys on base, etc. The good result happens because of timing, but players do not have the ability to control timing. They benefit or suffer due to random variation that occurs anytime variability exists. Pino is a perfect example. Going from AAA to MLB, his BABIP has gone up 100 points, while his walk rate is identical to the hundredth. The former was luck, the latter was skill. That's why one continued and one did not. It was not a bluff in any way, shape, or form. I spoke with a top MLB official several years later at a legal event, and was convinced that Pohlad was completely serious.
  17. The Twins can't "win now." So a "win now" strategy is quite worthless to them.
  18. Well that's the whole point. With just a couple exceptions, they weren't. Minor league counting numbers don't matter. Every years tons of minor leaguers put up big numbers but aren't good prospects. That's just how it is. Sorry.
  19. Baez and Vargas are prospects, not Major Leaguers. Kemp, Votto, and Ozuna were all significantly younger and better than Walker in the FSL. Here's another way of looking at it- here are the top 3 HR hitters in the FSL from 2004-2010 2004: Brandon Sing, Delwyn Young, Raul Tablado 2005: Andrew Wilson, Matt Kemp, Garth McKinney 2006: Jay Garthwaite, Brock Peterson, Jesus Flores 2007: Jacob Butler, Sergio Pedroza, Allen Craig 2008: Ryan Strieby, Brian Dopirak, Jeramy Laster 2009: Brahaim Maldonado, Caleb Gindl, Chris Parmelee tied with Kirk Nieuwenhuis 2010: Mike McDade, Melky Mesa, Quincy Latimore Of those 21 players, 2 turned into MLB regulars, so about 10%. Both- Kemp and Craig - hit over .300. All the others "produced" in the FSL and yet did nothing in the Majors.
  20. Players peak earlier than that. Here's a recent Fangraphs article on hitters: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/hitters-no-longer-peak-only-decline/ Pitchers: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/pitcher-aging-curves-starters-and-relievers/ So the typical peak age is more like 25-26. Of course individual players vary but there's nothing unusual about a talented player moving up the ranks at a young age. That's what we should expect to see.
  21. Overrated in that he has severe flaws in his approach/swing that make is highly unlikely he ever plays in the Majors. If, at age 22, a player can't make consistent contact against FSL pitching, he's a huge, huge longshot to pan out at all. I'm not familiar with a single example. He's still an OK prospect because of the raw power. There's a tiny chance something clicks and he turns into a solid MLB corner outfielder. But that's not the profile of a top prospect.
  22. I think teams are reasonably good at signing amateur players. Draft studies show that MLB production is very high at the top of the draft, in aggregrate, and then drops sharply before eventually levelling out. Signing players at 16 certainly increases the variance, but consider the cost of acquiring MLB production - 1 win above replacement costs $6-7 million in free agency. The spending has be considered in totality - yes, most fail, but it doesn't take much justify the expense.
  23. Sounds like a great guy. Unfortunately his plate discipline problems make him one of the more overrated prospects in the system.
  24. Well, the Twins cheaped out on Miguel Cabrera... he's pretty good.
  25. I don't know about the pitch calling aspect, since presumably Nolasco could tell his catcher beforehand not to call so many fastballs? But Suzuki is a horrible pitch framer, which certainly doesn't help, and Nolasco has been a bit unlucky on top of not being good in general. I liked the signing at the time. I still think he'll ultimately be OK.
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