Jump to content
Twins Daily
  • Create Account

ThejacKmp

Provisional Member
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    2,113

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    4

 Content Type 

Profiles

News

Minnesota Twins Videos

2026 Minnesota Twins Top Prospects Ranking

2022 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks

Minnesota Twins Free Agent & Trade Rumors, Notes, & Tidbits

Guides & Resources

2023 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks

The Minnesota Twins Players Project

2024 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks

2025 Minnesota Twins Draft Pick Tracker

Forums

Blogs

Events

Store

Downloads

Gallery

Everything posted by ThejacKmp

  1. ThejacKmp
    14 pitchers ties up the 25 man. The Twins should have a place for a bat like Valenica/Vargas/Byung Ho.
  2. ThejacKmp
    First of all, Danny Valencia has played OF in the MLB level and is likely equal to Garver out there. He also can play 3B at least adequately. He's by no means a Vargas or a Byung Ho who can only DH/1B. The other 100 games Valencia is a backup infielder and pinch hitter. Mauer and Castro both being LH really crimps the "Garver for backup 1B" mantra. Garver can't be the platoon for both of them. If Castro were RH, I would agree with you 100%. Garver could catch against righties and play 1B against lefties. But that's not reality. You need someone else because Garver should be catching vs. any LHP. That could be Valencia if Vargas/Byung Ho are not in your plans. You're wrong when you say Danny Valencia isn't good. He isn't a complete player but he does one thing very well that is valuable - mash LHP. Career OPS .872. I think people here are blanching at Valencia because of his name and their prior experience with him. Also, consider me on team Danny in this interaction. That's pretty crappy of Billy Butler. Also hilarious that guys who knew Butler a long time backed Valencia.
  3. ThejacKmp
    If you're going to have Garver playing against LHP, you want him catching instead of Castro, not playing first in place of Mauer. You still would ideally have a 1B platoon partner. That isn't Garver unless you give up on him catching.
  4. ThejacKmp
    I'm not 100% sold on Garver being ready for that. I know he's a darling of TD but he may have some adjusting to do going up to the bigs. In my mind, if he demands playing time, Danny Valencia is super easy to trade. I also think that with Castro at C and no real DH option, there's plenty of space for Garver to get time without making him a 1B platoon. I worry that if he struggles, we'll see Mauer playing every day and that's not ideal.
  5. ThejacKmp
    If Joe Mauer wants to play past 2018, there will likely be a spot for him. Sano is going to be at 3B for the foreseeable future. Kepler is entrenched in the OF. The Twins don't have a big 1B prospect pushing his way to the minors. Palka has stagnated, Vargas seems like a bench bat and there's no one else exciting in the high minors. The closest is Lewin Diaz, a nice prospect but still a guy in A ball. And that doesn't even take into context that the Twins also have a DH spot with no clear takers. Unless the Twins are going to go spend big at DH/1B in free agency (seems unlikely), Mauer is going to have every chance to be the part of a LH platoon at 1B. Given the draw his name still is, it's hard to see the Twins finding someone better in the short-term market. I can see a 2 year $10-12 million deal with the understanding that Mauer is going to be platooning at 1B/DH. He's well worth that money. P.S. My offseason desire: the Twins sign Danny Valencia to a 1 year deal ($5 mill) and platoon him with Mauer. Dude mashes LH pitching and would be an ideal platoon with Mauer. And if the season doesn't work out, teams are always looking for a bench bat like that for the playoff run.
  6. ThejacKmp
    I think the point would be that the Twins can get a nice haul of prospects for Santana and then go out and sign a similar guy with the money they would have spent on Santana (it would actually cost them more to get a similar guy because of inflation but that's life). If you can have Santana or similar guy + prospects, you take the latter. Especially if you think that Santana isn't going to be a lock to replicate this season.
  7. ThejacKmp
    Let's not selectively use stats. Tell the whole picture. Chris Hermann has a -0.9 WAR this year and it's only 2/3 over. He's never had a positive WAR season other than last year (when his BABIP was 110 points higher than his career BABIP). My money is on his WAR with Arizona being negative cumulatively, likely by the end of this year. That would make the Twins the winner of the trade. Sometimes not playing a guy is winning.
  8. ThejacKmp
    I always liked JRM more than most but this seems like a fine deal. The Twins are relatively set at C and it seems unlikely JRM would play a role there in the next few seasons. That said, my biggest JRM feeling will always be confusion. He isn't some prospect who flamed out - he hit, damn it. At the MLB level. I a not-insignificant sample. And then he came to the Twins and forgot how. Again, in a not-insignificant sample. This continues to not make sense to me. I didn't think he'd be an all-star but he seemed like a low ceiling, low floor guy - until that floor dropped out under him. Glad he's in the NL. Makes it easier to cheer for him to turn around his career.
  9. ThejacKmp
    Yeah, you can't do that in baseball. It's so hard to project guys five or six years away. Kohl Stewart was a solid pick, the results turning out subpar doesn't mean the process was bad. There's a whole lot of luck in baseball development.
  10. ThejacKmp
    See I would give up Granite in a heartbeat. He profiles as a 4th OF to me and that's pretty easy to get. Maybe he proves me wrong but I'd definitely swap that (but I'm low on Granite)
  11. ThejacKmp
    Yeah, change the prospect, not the money.
  12. ThejacKmp
    And they spent years under budget. Years of terrible baseball. Get people excited, the boost in attendance from a playoff chase has to augment a lot of that anyways.
  13. ThejacKmp
    Again, those are your words. No one says it wasn't important to give his best, just that the context of the situation matters in regards to going all out.
  14. ThejacKmp
    Nope. Don't put words in my mouth. Also read them before you say "based on his words." I never came close to saying that, you inferred it because it fit your argument. All I ever said was that he wasn't going at top gear. That's not the same thing as not trying fully. Not trying is willful laziness, Grossman was just treating the game in its proper context. He wasn't going all out because he shouldn't be, the Twins don't need a risky all out play.
  15. ThejacKmp
    That one has always bothered me. As have ones where the ball bounces off of the receivers hands. They should split INTs into "QB fault" and "freak INT". Anything iffy goes to QB Fault.
  16. ThejacKmp
    I'm not bad at my job, I do it well most of the time. But if something crazy happens and we have a deadline, I always have another gear that I can hit. I can't live in that gear but I can hit it for awhile. I imagine that's true of most people. It's definitely a thing in sports - how many times have you heard that the NFL playoffs are faster, guys hit harder etc. Or that NBA basketball has wrinkles no regular season game has. There's a reason that young teams sometimes have trouble adjusting. We even see it with the Twins - a criticism of Buxton is that he plays all out too often and is more prone to injury. He's the exception rather than the rule. Just because something doesn't show up in data doesn't mean it's not there. I think Morris's point (self-serving as it may have been as he argued for the HOF) is valid and is proof that this exists. I've also heard other players talk about it. It hits common sense too - when you're up 9-0, you throw a guy a fastball at 3-2 because a walk is no good. You want the ball in play at that point. I was lazy with the we but my point is that TD is a place that is stat-friendly. I've heard many people, yourself included, citing context when talking about stats. I'm just saying that "the collective we at TD" are often citing context in hitting but not in fielding. And we should be. Robbie Grossman's error was pretty meaningless and certainly isn't a resounding reason to have a subpar bat in the lineup.
  17. ThejacKmp
    We say that a home run matters less when it's hit with the Twins down 9-0 than if its tied. The pitcher is just throwing strikes to get the game over, the batter was just swinging for the fences etc. We don't do the same with fielding - we count all errors the same. I've never heard a stat like "runs caused by errors" or "error importance" but they should be. In the same way that pitchers maybe aren't going max effort when you're up 9-0, guys have a different attention to detail in blowouts and close games. Not saying he was lazy, just that the play lacked the urgency of a different situation. Baseball has a long season, I don't mind a guy having another gear for the big moments.
  18. ThejacKmp
    To be fair, while any error is bad, Grossman's was a "dropping the ball after a single and letting runners advance error" with the Twins up 5. He didn't throw a ball away or not get to an easy fly ball. We take context into consideration for hitting stats, we should for fielding as well. Anytime the Twins play a LHP, I want Grossman in the OF and one of Rosario/Kepler sitting. But they do need to get Vargas back up. He's nice to 1B/DH in these games against LHP. No need for Polanco to DH.
  19. ThejacKmp
    When a guy goes on the 10 day DL I don't think that you stop making plans because of it. CF is not a hole, Buxton will get at least til 2019 to develop out there. C is a league-average situation. SS is pretty set too - none of those guys is a star but between the three I think you're okay in the present and can likely cover 2B as well. And Gordon is not really a fingers-crossed kind of prospect - he's a high floor, medium ceiling kind of guy and a top 100 prospect. I get things can go wrong but I'm not at all concerned about him. Vielma's glove is MLB ready but he's more of a utility guy. That's a lot of depth in the middle infield. I also would never make moves based on the TD boards. Man, that would be chaos. If they trade Dozier for a legit starting pitcher, that would be smart. Gotta find the right guy though.
  20. ThejacKmp
    I wonder if the Twins leaned on Duffey too much early in the year. He was one of the few dependable relievers and he was out there multiple innings day in and day out for a team that was exceeding expectations. That's tough for a guy with a limited professional relief profile. I'd like to see Duffey in the pen next year and hope that a better pen uses him less frequently. He has the stuff to be a really nice late inning reliever.
  21. ThejacKmp
    I can never give up on the Thorpedo. I'd like to see the Twins make a minor move for a Neshek type, send Pressley to the minors til September, cut Belisle and bring up some of the AA and AAA arms and see who sticks.
  22. ThejacKmp
    I'm not sure we have a hole at SS. Between Adrianza, Escobar and Polanco the Twins have three perfectly adequate options at SS. Not to mention Vielma and Gordon in the mix for 2018. In fact, you can make an argument that the Twins need to open a spot at 2B in the next 9 months. CF seems like a stretch too. Buxton's defense and pedigree make any CF pickup a strange call. Especially since Kepler and Rosario can each play an adequate back up CF and Granite's issue is not defense. Catcher has also been fine and if you're looking for a solution, Garver in AAA seems like the best one. Dozier needs to be traded for starting pitching. Nothing else.
  23. ThejacKmp
    Yeah, that is the issue with RBI. It's not completely and utterly useless like wins but it's pretty darn close. I think it's when people use it on it's own that it's bad. If you're talking about runs driven in within the context of other stats (OPS, etc.) I think it can be okay. But every time I see it used it's the Lead Argument, You're also right in saying that it's hard to figure out how to do it. Every solo HR is an RBI but wouldn't be calculated as one in a runners-on-base thing. I was reading about a stat called RE24 that I've never heard of before. Might be worth reading about.
  24. ThejacKmp
    The last sentence is true but RBI is not the way to judge it. You want to create a stat that says, "RBI % per opportunity" and I'm down. But RBI is a raw number that means nothing. Stats need context to matter.
  25. ThejacKmp
    Way after the fact but there's a difference between expecting something and being militant about it. They hit the ball hard and had some bad luck with hitting it at guys and having a close play at the plate. I find it hard to blame the Twins for the outcome - and your tone certainly does that.
×
×
  • Create New...