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drivlikejehu

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Everything posted by drivlikejehu

  1. drivlikejehu
    It's amazing how many Twins fans are just aghast at the idea of accountability. In what organization, of any kind, should failure be rewarded? Despite the GM switch, this is essentially the same leadership that has been in place for a long, long time. The excuses are endless. Guess what- every team has bad luck. Every team has injuries and draft picks that go awry. The Twins stink because their management made bad choices over the years, period. That is just an empirical fact.
  2. drivlikejehu
    I'm not seeing where any of those teams capitalized player salaries? Even if they did though, I'm not following how there is a 'duplicate expense.' Maybe I'm misunderstanding you.
  3. drivlikejehu
    Relying on a best-case scenario is pretty much always the step right before failure, in baseball or anything else. But the pitching situation is just an organizational problem that we can't trace directly, from the outside. Johnson would seem to be an obvious factor, and no doubt he is one, but the groundwork is all laid by the scouts on the ground across the country (and world). Not to mention, Johnson and the scouting department, and every other aspect of the organization, are part of a Twins' culture that is outdated. If Ryan has a real strategy to turn things around, we wouldn't know about it. Unfortunately I suspect it's something along the lines of 'get back to the old ways' rather than 'let's rethink things and see how we can bring ourselves up to date.'
  4. drivlikejehu
    The situation is beyond terrible. The Twins are going to have to rely on the free agent and trade markets for several years at least. And starting pitching doesn't come cheap.
  5. drivlikejehu
    Among all MLB starters with 70 or more innings, five have a K/9 rate less than 4.5. The ERAs for that group (including Blackburn) are 4.49, 5.18, 7.33, 4.58, and 5.52. All of them are groundball pitchers to one degree or another, whereas Hermsen currently profiles as a moderate flyball pitcher (batters hit the ball in the air more often at higher levels of play). It is literally impossible to succeed with that combination. But the even bigger problem is that 4.5 K/9 in the Majors is a lot different than the same rate in AA. In other words, Hermsen would actually have to improve a lot just to have a small chance of being a short-term 5th starter, which is basically a worthless commodity anyway. This is the same issue as with Herrmann, who is not really a prospect because back-up catchers are easy to acquire. There are finesse pitchers that improve on their ability to keep hitters off-balance. Doug Fister is a current example. It is pretty rare, though. There are dozens of pitchers in the system who could make unusual strides- and most likely one or two of them will. My point is just that nothing really separates Hermsen from a bunch of other 'C' prospects that get little attention.
  6. drivlikejehu
    Payroll didn't cause the team to fall to the bottom of the league. But it certainly could limit their ability to get back in contention.
  7. drivlikejehu
    It's not only about strikeouts, per se. Hermsen just isn't fooling anyone, even at AA. Slowey struck out around 8 per 9IP there with decent fastball command alone. There is a reason it's the minor leagues. Any MLB-caliber pitcher should get K's at that level without even trying. Most hitters they face wouldn't even hit .200 in the Majors. It would be great if he learned an effective new pitch or something, but at this point he's not much of a prospect. Probably in the #40 range for the organization.
  8. drivlikejehu
    Hermsen just doesn't have Major League stuff at this point, and probably never will. He would be batting practice. The key for him will be whether he can add velocity with a move to the bullpen. Bringing up Milone in comparison is just nonsense... he struck out nearly a batter per inning in AA.
  9. drivlikejehu
    Because of Joe Mauer and Ryan Doumit, it's likely that Herrmann will be a backup catcher for the Twins. But I don't at all see that as his ceiling. I think he can play for the Twins in that same Doumit role, where he is the #2/#3 catcher, but he is also a very good defensive outfielder. He's a catcher prospect who gives versatility, can hit .270ish, get on base a lot, hit 10-12 homers, hit doubles, and even steal a dozen bases. There's a lot of value in that. He's barely doing what you describe as a 24 year-old in AA (over 200 games at that level)- how can he be expected to do that as a Major Leaguer? He is nowhere near the same caliber of hitter as Doumit... when he was the same age, Doumit hit .345/.415/.630 in AAA and then held his own with the Pirates. A .743 OPS at age 24 in AA just isn't any good at all. And Doumit himself was cheap to acquire and re-sign, so a homeless man's version of Doumit just isn't worth much.
  10. drivlikejehu
    Felix Jorge has thrown 25 2/3 innings in the GCL with a 1.40 ERA. He's a top 20 Twins prospect for sure, though not #11. I don't get why so many people think Herrmann is a good prospect. He's really not a prospect at all... he's most likely a AAAA player, with back-up catcher upside. Back-up catchers are not a rare commodity. Maybe he could be ranked somewhere but not top 30.
  11. drivlikejehu
    If they convert Zack Jones to a starter successfully and he continues to develop a solid third pitch, I bet you'll change that. He is actually one of the 3-4 Twins' pitchers with higher upside than Gibson. I doubt that is plausible for Jones. He doesn't have great stamina and is really just blowing away inexperienced opposition right now. He threw plenty hard at San Jose State and was still projected to be more of a 6th or 7th rounder by BBA. I like him but he's not really close to top 10 status at this point. I'd still have Gibson ahead of Berrios, mainly given the fact we don't know if the latter will hold up physically as a starter.
  12. drivlikejehu
    Walker has a .311 OBP in the Appy League. That is horrible for a college player. It's a pretty disappointing debut and he has a ton of work to do if he's going to hold his own in low-A next year.
  13. drivlikejehu
    I thought this was interesting, when I looked up the Swinging Strike rankings on Fangraphs: Jason Vargas- 7.2% Mark Buehrle- 7.2% Wandy Rodriguez- 7.1% Scott Diamond- 7.0% Randy Wolf- 7.0% Joe Saunders- 6.9% Paul Maholm- 6.8% Clayton Richard- 6.8% I omitted a couple righties in there but this group of finesse left-handers stands out towards the bottom of the rankings, since generally they have done pretty well. The downside with these guys is that the margin for error is low and they are very dependent on their defense (and ballpark). Missing of course are the countless finesse lefties that haven't been able to sustain success or achieve any in the first place. Diamond has been a very pleasant surprise but it's hard to say exactly what he is at this point.
  14. drivlikejehu
    My concern with the rebuilding approach is that the Twins have so little pitching in their system... even a couple trades can only do so much. Say you get 3 'B' pitching prospects somehow... a reasonable outcome will be one getting hurt, another being a reliever, and one making it as an OK starter. That's just not going to make a difference. They really need 3 legit starters, which is an extremely tall order. Usually impossible, but between a solid group of free agents and the possibility of a trade or two, I guess it's theoretically possible. It may make more sense financially than trying to rebuild without much in the way of pitching prospects.
  15. drivlikejehu
    He probably can do a bit better, but I doubt he'll ever be above-average. This is a guy who barely hit in college- before they reigned in the metal bats. So just to get to where he is now required a massive amount of improvement from ages 22-25. Dozier has done well to get the most out of his limited tools but there might not be much more he can do.
  16. drivlikejehu
    Clubs can pick up players like Escobar and Hernandez off the waiver wire. They have almost no value at all. If it's true that Liriano had no value in the eyes of every other MLB team, then just keep him and see how he does down the stretch. If he pitches well then the qualifying offer is a consideration. This reminds me of the Santana deal, in that the Twins decided they had to trade someone and thus accepted a joke offer, when in fact standing pat was a perfectly viable option. It's just hard for me to believe that TR didn't even get one offer that included an actual prospect. Not even a good prospect, but maybe a 20 year old with some small possibility of upside. As opposed to AAAA players that can be acquired at any time without much difficulty.
  17. drivlikejehu
    Of course they got less than the value of a compensation pick. TRfail.
  18. drivlikejehu
    Why would you need to do it? Fangraphs and Baseball Reference already do this in their WAR calculations. That's why he actually has a negative positional adjustment for the first time in his career. Mauer is at $13 million right now, so he's roughly on track to 'earn' his salary on the field (putting aside things like merchandise).
  19. drivlikejehu
    It's even worse than that, because the new stadium significantly increased the value of the franchise. So in reality their "contribution" to the stadium is just a slight reduction in their massively increased overall return.
  20. drivlikejehu
    The problem for the Twins is that they have no starting pitching and little in the way of pitching prospects. So at what point will they be able to field a competitive rotation, and how will it happen? This could easily be a 5+ year issue. Trades can help, but free agency would almost certainly have to be part of any solution.
  21. drivlikejehu
    The Pohlad family has complete control of the Twins. The law allows the use of LLCs to limit liability, but that doesn't impact operations at all. Well, unless the stadium caves in on top of 30,000 people or something. Unincorporated businesses can experience some tax benefits in general, but in this case it is pretty unlikely. I'd explain but you would require a background in the legal and tax accounting issues in order to understand. So, to sum up, your point remains wholly incorrect. The only issue with raising payroll is that it would mean less profit for the Pohlads. Like I said, it's their money, but that doesn't mean fans have to justify their thrifty ways.
  22. drivlikejehu
    That is just totally irrelevant. Pohlad can make bank transfers (or anything else) all the same. The banker doesn't say, "But Mr. Pohlad, you aren't liable for debts exceeding the LLC's capital accounts!" He has complete, 100% control, with no impediments. The LLC form just provides some legal and tax benefits that don't have anything to do with Twins operations. Nice try but you should have checked Wikipedia before making error-filled posts in the first place.
  23. drivlikejehu
    Sorry, you just don't understand the law. Legal separation is only the case with incorporated business. Unincorporated businesses, such as LLCs, are pass-through entities that have no independent existence. The Pohlads control any Twins-related LLCs just like their own personal bank accounts. There is zero difficulty in adding payroll, unless it would mean operating at a loss. Even then it would not be a real problem unless the amount was quite large. LLC's don't pay dividends, they make distributions as someone else already pointed out. Again, you do not understand what you're talking about. Cutting payroll doesn't save the Pohlads anything on their taxes. What is it about the internet that makes people think they can just randomly spout off on a subject despite complete ignorance of that topic?
  24. drivlikejehu
    The OP just has no idea what he's talking about. There is no "legal separation" between the Pohlads and the Twins. Whatever unincorporated business entities they use is irrelevant for anyone except their lawyers and accountants. The Pohlads have 100% control of the team. They have instant access to all cash inflows and are responsible for all cash outflows. They are free to sign contracts as they see fit. When they choose to cut payroll, the reason is that they are cheap. It's not complicated. They own the team and that is their right. Likewise, the First Amendment gives me the right to say they have fleeced taxpayers and arguably perpetuated non-actionable fraud in their pursuit of said taxpayer money. We see now that the purpose of the stadium is only to enrich the Pohlad family, rather than fully support a competitive baseball club.
  25. drivlikejehu
    Isn't Heyman known as a mouthpiece for Boras? Could be a negotiating ploy, though I'm not sure to what end. Appel would have to be insane to walk away from that kind of money.
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