StormJH1

While I'm not a big fan of defensive statistics to begin with (or trying to say things like "I can predict 10 fewer runs over the course of a 162-game season because of _______ player in the lineup"), I don't view this as an above average defensive team. Where are the "plus" defenders?! Yes, the combination of Span/Revere in left and center should be "rangey". Willingham is OK. I do not buy that Jamey Carroll will be an asset as a 38-year old at a position he's never held for a full season. Valencia and Casilla may be average at best. Mauer hit a point around the 2010 All-Star Game (where he missed a throw to 2nd by about 20 feet) after which he has NOT been a great defensive catcher. And who even knows if it will be Mauer, Morneau, Doumit, or Parmalee at 1B this year. The best thing we did for run differential this year was add Willingham, and hopefully will get more out of the M & M boys. But Willingham/Span is not going to be offensively more productive than Cuddyer/Kubel. I just feel like 80-85 wins is the upside​ of this team. I hope to hell I'm wrong.

Love the site so far, and there's just tons of potential here. Lots of great baseball minds in this fan base, but sorting through all the trolling and garbage on something like Rube Chat gets pretty tiresome.

Thank you!!! It's not just an "iPhone" thing, I think pretty much all of the major smartphones have this app. And browsing forums on a phone without a good app (or mobile site) can be a huge pain.

You left out the best part - "Slightly above average reliever...with closer's experience" Haha, what a joke...ask 2004-09 Joe Nathan how bad his lack of prior closing experience hurt him.

I don't understand the Carroll signing at all. I know Aaron Gleeman and a lot of bloggers have been moderately high on it as a short-term fix, but the guy has never been an everyday SS. I understand he didn't even make it to the majors until he was 28, but to ask him to just "discover" the ability to play 120+ games as a shortstop in one year at age 38 seems a little ridiculous. Also, yeah, it's great that he's a selective hitter and has the potential for a high OBP, blah blah blah. You know when that isn't great? When you have CF, LF, 2B, AND SS all occupied by guys with basically no potential to drive in runs. Yes, you can do the Piranha thing where a bunch of "table-setters" in a row keep singling in runs, but that really is not a reliable method of generating offense. And when you combine the fact that we're not even trying to have a slugger at those 4 positions (and maybe Catcher too, depending on how Mauer rebounds)...uh oh. It would be one thing if we had guaranteed power at 1B and 3B, but there's not sure thing there either. People slam the Willingham signing and he's about the only spot in the lineup I feel somewhat confident in for 2012!

Agreed. I think what Seth said above makes a great deal of sense...he's not "worried" about him because you'd have to be nuts to EXPECT a full season of top-level production out of this guy. I think Morneau's quote from a few weeks ago shows that he's beginning to "understand" the gravity of his situation. He was asked if he would just switch to DH if playing 1B was too much of a risk for him, and his response was to the effect of "Look, if I'm so fragile that I can't even play in the field, talking about DH is basically pointless because I probably shouldn't be playing at all." It'd really be one of the great tragedies of Twins history if this guy were to hang it up so soon because you recognized that Hrbek's number hangs in the rafters, yet Morneau's star potential was so much greater. Unfortunately, the seeds of this thing may have been planted in that one moment in Seattle 2005, along with any other cumulative head trauma he may have picked up playing hockey, etc. in his youth. I really wish he could play and not suffer any effects of this - the only Twins jersey I own with a number on it has the "33" on the back.

It isn't a mystery to me because it fits their pitching M.O., which is "don't walk guys". Of course, they don't make "pitch to contact" closers because the whole point of that designation is that if you only have 3 dudes to get out, you probably should miss some bats. So, out of the mid- to low-tier closer options available to the Twins, Capps has some of the best control. But at a 4.7 K/9 rate over 69 games last year, we're looking at a disaster of "Ron Davis"-like proportions here (admitted, before my time). He really isn't a power arm even though he looks like he should be, and the scary thing is that there really isn't a great alternative available to them. Seriously, a health Joel Zumaya (which NEVER happens) may be their one chance. The good news, so to speak, is that this is a complete non-issue unless the Twins have actual 3-run leads in the 9th to protect. Given that, I'd be happy if "closer issues" were at the top of our list of actual problems for this season.

Interesting points. But while part of me hopes you are right, two things lead me to cling to my initial position, which is that they try him out again this year: (1) I expect that he would look pretty good in Spring Training. He's been working down there days before the pitchers and catchers even arrived. And I have to think he looks good fundamentally in practice and beating up on AA-level pitchers in front of 1,000 people. Nishioka's problem, to me, seemed to be that he was just completely overwhelmed by the spectacle of a Major League Baseball game. I think Gardy knew it, I think the fans knew it, and not only is there no way of predicting that happening based on past performance, but I don't know how you fix it. (2) This team's M.O. is not necessarily to cut and run from mistakes when they swing and miss. They usually stick out a little bit, or compound the error. Gomez got a second year. Delmon got two years before his mirage of a "breakout" year in 2010. And I think Matt Capps is the best example here, because about 90% of the blogging/media community viewed Capps for Ramos as a sunk cost, but rather than dumping him for another compensatory pick and picking a cheaper relief option that would at least be a new face for the fans to hate on, they brought him back.

Well, right, and that's the elephant in the room. In fact, I've been somewhat surprised that all we hear in-season every year is how Mauer needs to move to 1B, 3B, LF, etc., and yet, changing Mauer's position wasn't part of the narrative this offseason at all! When I think back on all of 2011, about the only encouraging things I can think of from that horrible year were (a) Baker pitching well, especially later in the year, and ( Learning that Mauer can play 1B pretty effectively. For all we know, Morneau could be essentially done, so it seems strange to me that more people aren't talking about getting Mauer out from behind the plate, his low back and knees appear to be two of his most "diagnosable" problems! And Parker is entirely right when he says that his position affects his contractual value. Look at the AL alone and tell me with a straight face that you would rather have Mauer as an everyday 1B over the other options there. And while some of those guys make Mauer money (Puljos, Cabrera, Fielder, etc.), most of them do not. Calling Mauer an "elite doubles hitter" is just false. If you take Mauer's best season (2009), he was 4th on that team in doubles behind Kubel, Cuddyer, and Morneau. Of course, that was the year Mauer hit 28 HR. But Mauer's never been in the Top 10 in baseball in doubles (http://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/2B_top_ten.shtml), though catching and injuries probably limit some of his at-bats. And if you look at the list of guys who do lead the league in doubles, it's guys like Cabrera, Cano, Butler, etc. In other words, hitting doubles and hitting home runs are not mutually exclusive. In fact, the vast majority of the guys who end up with 40+ doubles are also 20+ HR guys, because hitting the ball to the warning track or off the wall is a pretty reliable way of getting a double. And of course, Mauer since 2010 (and especially at Target Field, where Mauer has his 1 home run in two seasons) has not been a 20 HR guy. I also don't it's a sure bet that Mauer hits at .325, maybe .290 or .300. Of course, he's still an extremely valuable player because of his on-base percentage, but not to the degree of $20 million plus per year, at least not so far.

(Haha, this looks like it started as some type of test forum BEFORE the Tigers shocked the world and signed Fielder...) I was born and raised in the Detroit area, so I always keep one eye on the Tigers, as do most Twins fans anyway. No, I don't think the Twins, on paper, should compete with the Tigers this year. Even without Fielder, you have a pitching staff anchored by Cy Young & MVP Justin Verlander, a much better bullpen, and a lineup from top-to-bottom that destroys ours. But before people get too depressed, I think people should think back to the 2008 Tigers. http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/DET/2008.shtml History in these parts seems to forget about the '08 Tigers because it was such a transitional year for the Twins, and all anyone remembers is Game 163 and the Thome HR to lose 1-0 to the White Sox. But that was the year that Dombrowski/Illitch made their FIRST huge spending spree, swinging the trade for Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis, and then giving them both huge deals. People thought the Tigers would be unstoppable that year. IIRC, their payroll had blown up to something like $140 million. But if you look up and down that lineup at the average ages, they were old and slow, and this was exacerbated by the fact that Jim Leyland is a very power-oriented manager and he was stubborn and slow to adapt. I don't think a Tigers infielder took 2 steps in either direction to successfully field a groundball all year. And they ended up being a 74-win team. By the end of the year, they actually looked better giving significant time in the field to Santiago, Raburn, and Inge than the high-priced veteran sluggers who ended up at DH or being hurt. I'm not saying the same thing will happen in 2012, but I am just recommending that everyone slow down. The decision to move Cabrera to 3B reminds me of some of those same mistakes. I think their pitching is too good to let that happen again, not just Verlander but Fister and Scherzer (and Jacob Turner looks like a future star). But if they were a 95-win team last year, and everyone expects them to be even better this time, I don't think their defense will allow them to be anywhere near as good as they seem on paper. Perralta's an OK shortstop, but Austin Jackson is about the only "plus" defender they have. And if they end up with Cabrera at 3B and Inge learning a new position at 2B (or Raburn there)...yikes.

I'm very worried about Span, and as a general rule, I don't think you can put yourself in a position where you're "counting on" a player with legitimate concussion problems. People think concussions are some type of joke in baseball because it isn't a contact sport, but that's not the point. The margin for error between a fringe MLB'er and a legitimate player (or a star versus an average player) are extremely small. Anything whatsoever that affects your ability to focus the seams of a tiny baseball thrown 90 mph at the plate is a BIG deal. Really great players have just fallen off the face of the Earth for no reason other than that they turned 35 and their bat speed/reaction time just isn't what it once was. Plus, I think the perception of even a healthy Span was a little overblown. He was really good in 2008 and 09, but even in early 2010, I felt like he was just okay. He's the type of player that the stats guys appreciate because of his OBP, etc. I don't feel that Target Field is to blame because he was primarily a singles and doubles hitter anyway. So yes, while we certainly NEED a serviceable Span in either LF or CF (I'd prefer LF), even if his concussion problems weren't an issue, you're still giving away quite a bit of power potential in the outfield by having him AND Revere there at the same time. But it's not like we have the next Ryan Braun ready to come up from Rochester anyway...

Does this forum WORK with TapaTalk yet? I would love if it did, but I'm trying to figure out how to add it. The forum admins have to have something installed, iirc. If whoever runs the forum could click the link above and follow through with the instructions, I think that would be a BIG benefit to getting more traffic. If you think about what mobile devices have done for Twitter and Facebook, you can imagine how beneficial it would be to check this forum easily on your smartphone.

(First post - love the new site and the Gleeman & The Geek Podcast!!!) Nishioka's going to make the team. The guy was considered an elite defender in Japan. Last year was an unmitigated disaster for him, but it's only Year 2 and they made a pretty substantial investment in him, so maybe if you don't have him in a high pressure starting role right away, we can begin to develop some confidence in him and (more importantly) he'll get some confidence in himself. He can "play" SS and 2B, and with no Tolbert or Punto, we really don't have another guy that does that. No, I don't think you use him as a defensive "replacement" early in the year, but it's not unforeseeable that he could calm down and get to that type of role in the future. Frankly, if we're in a lot of games where we're even considering putting in a defensive replacement to protect a lead, this is a problem I would be happy to deal with.