ThejacKmp

Hey, I love building Hotels on Baltic and Mediterranean. Nothing more deflating than passing go, getting your $200 and then giving me $450 because you landed on my hotel that cost me only $250. I think people are freaking out about "We didn't get Greene, Lewis sucks. Pohldad is cheap" halfway through. I'm surprised you don't feel similarly actually, you're usually pretty cognizant of the bigger picture. The Twins haven't picked Day 2, we haven't seen what they plan to do with the considerable savings they have from Lewis and Rooker. P.S. Also, I'm not saying that they may not have outsmarted themselves. Just that to call them cheap is to ignore that the MLB draft (like Monopoly) is a game with rules and fixed amounts of money and thus is subject to game theory. Sometimes you don't get Pacific and Marvin Gardens but that doesn't mean you were "cheap" when you passed on Park Place.

Lewis might be better than Buxton. He might be the next Mike Trout. He might cure cancer. See, I can do it too! Not a single player the Twins took this year would have any effect on the team this year. It is very unlikely that a player the Twins took this year would have an effect on the MLB team next year. This isn't basketball or football. The Twins pitching for the next 2 years will either be fine because two of Gonsalves, Romero, Thorpe and Jorge are ready for MLB or it won't. This draft is about 3-6 years from now, not today. Finally, you take the best player available. Not drafting a QB in the first because you have Cam Newton is smart in football. Not drafting a SS because you already have a SS is dumb in baseball. Who knows where you will be in 3-5 years? Who knows if there'll be a trade you can fit a prospect into? Take the players you think are the best and worry about the rest later. If Lewis is a CF who plays LF because of Buxton that will be just fine.

Lewis has been extensively talked about as a CF. While the Twins have some depth in the OF, Lewis could fit very nicely as a CF-in-a-corner in four or five years. Can't pay so much attention to the position drafted at.

Everybody cool out. This is the end of day 1. Maybe you'll feel the same way after tomorrow, maybe you'll see a larger plan. That old cliche about open heart surgery applies.

That's not being cheap, that's using a common strategy. It's saying that you see little difference between two guys at the top and one saves you the money to get something better down the line. It's not cheap, it's strategy. The only way you could accuse the Twins of being cheap is if at the end of the day they don't spend their draft money. That seems unlikely. You can disagree with the choices they make but calling them cheap shows an ignorance of how the MLB draft works.

I mean, you realize that's not the same thing right? If I'm missing sarcasm apologies but this isn't "the team is too miserly to buy a Ferrari and is going to get a VW Beetle instead". It's more "I'm passing on Park Place because that way I can buy Pacific and Marvin Gardens." It's about budgeting how you use the limited amount of money available, not being cheap.

I hope he has a nice start for many reasons but also because it would help the Twins get around the doubleheader next weekend against Cleveland. Santiago could come off the DL and be the 6th starter on Saturday.

Yeah, and the crazy thing is that they haven't even been super lucky. Santiago has overall been the pitcher you'd expect - he was hot early but has sucked of late and that feels pretty even. Santana has been better than expected, Berrios has pitched as his minor league track record would make you think he might. Gibson has been way crapper than expected and Mejia has been about what you'd expect. I'd say that Hughes has been worse than expected but I'm not sure any of us expected him to pitch at all. he ate innings? Overall, this Twins staff seems about as expected overall. Not a strength but not an anchor.

Are they though? It seems to me that the Twins have essentially taken Michael Tonkin's spot and just moved a bunch of borderline guys through it. It's like streaming in fantasy sports. Yeah it doesn't build your team for the future but as long as you're only doing it with one roster spot, you're not hurting your team and you occasionally strike gold. I guess I can't think of a single time where the Twins lost someone useful this year. Tonkin made it back to AAA and Daniel Santana is not someone I'm going to cry about (though he does have a .749 OPS with the Braves thus far).

it's also not crazy that Kyle Gibson is a function 4th starter the rest of the year. He's not good and the hopes of 2-3 years ago that he could develop into a facsimile of a #2 starter are gone but he's also not as bad as he was to begin this year. He's had a nice run and I could see him settling in at the back of the rotation. The Twins have good defense behind him and he's a guy who isn't going to strike out people with any consistency. You can continue to compete if you have Santana, Berrios, Santiago, Gibson and Mejia with Hughes/AAAA pitcher filling that 6th starter spot (if nothing else, for all those doubleheaders the Twins have coming up). Especially since you have the potential for a Duffey-like cameo by a Gonsalves, Romero or Jorge down the stretch in late August, early September. Gotta hit. Gotta hit.

This is an entirely different thing but I've always thought that it's nuts that a run is unearned if the pitcher makes an error. A run on a wild pitch is earned but if the pitcher throws the ball into the seats fielding his position leading to runs, it's unearned. Makes no sense - and maybe it would be an encouragement for pitchers to field their position well.

If you send Gibson back down, you don't have a 5th starter. I don't think anyone is super enamored with Gibson but who do you have start in his place? Duffey needs to get stretched out and after pitching last night, that's going to be hard to do. I'm not sure the AAA fodder is much of a step up. There wasn't a great decision to be made. Vargas down seems like the best of a bunch of bad ones.

I think the message is clear and easy to put across: "We had a marathon game and we don't have a day off to rest pitchers for a long while. You're the only one with options, we'll get you back up in 10 days." This will not effect his confidence.

I think that last part is the problem. We're all hoping Erv and Berrios can soak up some innings but that's not a given. Better to be proactive. Could have optioned Gibson but then they can't bring him up for 10 days (unless someone hits the DL) so they'd need to find another starter for his next two outings. I don't love Gibson but I'm not sure that they have someone amazing to fit in there. Duffey would take more than 5 days to stretch out and while i might be interested in seeing Wheeler/Sledgers/Hurlbut get a shot, I can't get too up in arms about it. The interesting thing to do might have been to take this moment to move Duffey down to AAA and stretch him out to start. That would open up a spot for a fresh arm in the interim. You'd give Gibson one or two more starts and then switch him for Duffey.

September? Let's think July if Hughes or Gibson doesn't become playable.

The only sad thing about Vielma is that it likely means this is the last year of Escobar. Vielma seems likely to take his place next year. It'll be interesting to see what happens to Eduardo. He's clearly a competent utility guy but that's the kind of guy who can be replaced on the cheap. A lot of guys hit where he is (one year from free agency) and start to get a little more expensive and find themselves with no job. Love the Thorpedo. Surprised he didn't move up the list at all.

This falls squarely in the "So what" category but Will should be ahead of Haley. Haley has actively destroyed games, Wilk has not. Yet. Wilk is way more likely to have a positive effect on the Twins than Haley, who is a Rule 25 guy in way over his head.

Players earn chances, nothing is given to you in life. Unless you're Donald Trump. Hey-oh! Vargas has earned PT this year but this is the first year that's been true. He has regularly struggled when given opportunities which is why he's on the edge of 27 and looking at his first full campaign. That said, this year he has earned the opportunity with his hot September 2016. He would have made the team out of spring training except for injury and made it back up relatively quickly. There's a clear spot for him in the Twins lineup, especially with Rosario struggling a bit. It'll be on him to prove he deserves PT. That said, your defense of him is a bit suspect. Excusing 2015 removes 27% of his career at bats and drops our data to 3/4 of a season - we're getting closer to small sample size there. I also think it's unfair to compare it to Sano - Vargas isn't the prospect Sano is, Vargas didn't have the rookie campaign Sano had, Vargas didn't tear up the minors like Sano did and Vargas hasn't done anything close to what Sano has done so far in his next campaign. To continue our theme, Sano earned his forgiveness while Vargas is just starting to. I think you go a little far with the extremelys - after all, even after removing the worst 27% of his at bats, Vargas's OPS+ is 115. For context, that's lower than Mauer's OPS for his entire big contract (119), including the four down years post-concussion. Vargas is a good hitter who is streaky and has not put it together yet (though I'll say I've been impressed not by power but by how willing he is to go the other way with balls like on Wednesday when they shifted him. That's a complete player move, not a Mark Reynolds three-true-outcomes move). If we can take out those extremelys, we're closer to Agreement-town. As far as the ranking, that depends what you value. You seem to place value on power. I think the OP would say that Castro's defense is quite a bit more rare and valuable to the Twins than a power hitter who doesn't do much else and has only done it for 74 at bats. Vargas would be easier to replace than Castro basically. And tt's not like power is useless to the OP - Sano is #1 and much of his value comes from his power. But Castro deserves some credit for 3/5 of the staff far exceeding expectations. I'm unaware of what reliever you're not liking. If its Pressley, I concur. He's been great the last four innings but he was garbage before that. I don't advocate him being sent down to AAA (though we heard a lot of that a week ago on TD!) but I think that ranking is a little high for a reliever with more potential than production. I could see him being a big riser in a month (Vargas fits that profile too BTW) but I'd have had him down around Vargas.

Man, RBI are a terrible argument. They're about how often you're in a situation, not how good you are. They are an utterly worthless and meaningless statistic, we should ban them. For example, dig deeper into these two. Vargas has had 52 baserunners in 74 AB, Dozier has had 91 in 182. Vargas has had BRs on in 70% of his at bats and Dozier has only had them on in 50%. That plays a huge role in raw RBI numbers. And that RBI boom is pushed in large part by home runs. Vargas has a 20% HR/FB rate compared to 9.2% for Dozier (he's averaged 12.5% the past three years). Vargas has a tiny sample size and will come back to earth, Dozier's success is likely to expand.

Sample size is the big thing for me. Vargas has never proven he can carry a team or sustain success and demand playing time. Dozier has done that and since everything else is pretty close, Dozier should win. I have no issue with Vargas on this list. He's got to do this for longer, 74 ABs is too small a sample size for any meaningful analysis.

Pressley is way too high. Matt Belisle too low. He's not great but he's been okay.

That's the thing they need - a trade for an expiring contract where the Twins dip into the savings of the past four years and pick up the contract and throw in a minor piece. They don't need to trade for Johnny Cueto, they need to trade for an R.A. Dickey type.

If Berrios and Santana are for real, I almost think World Series is as likely as the division. It's the back of the rotation I worry about the most - it's not hard to see Santiago, Hughes and Mejia being super messy the other three days. And if one of those is Tepesch . . .

I think the Twins need to swing a minor trade that brings back a 4th or 5th starter type on the last year of his deal - someone like R.A. Dickey or Bartolo Colon (thought they don't have to be super old). I don't want to give up valuable assets too early but to get a competent back-end starter, the Twins should be willing to give up a very minor piece and willing to pick up the salary of an expiring contract. We've been under budget for years, it's time to use that to not start Kyle Gibson.

Over the past four years Vargas has had the equivalent of one full season. Not a tiny sample but it's pretty misleading to say "over the past four seasons." I think it's rather telling that on a team with a need for power, a switch hitting power hitter has had a hard time sniffing the field. He has some hot streaks that buoy his stats but he's pretty streaky and undependable. And it's not like it was hard to get PT - the Twins have had an open spot at DH (last year 13 guys were DH for a game and no one had more than 36 games) that Vargas has never seized and made his own. Mauer has had 1100 more at bats. Mauer has also been recovering from concussions throughout the first part of that period and is now being used more appropriately as a 120 games, mostly against RHP guy. I'd still take Mauer over Vargas this year. I hope I'm wrong, it will likely mean Vargas is having an explosive year. And again, this thing started with a discussion of Mauer's place among best Twins hitters of all time. You ignored my response to that and turned it into a discussion of RBI. When I explained why RBIs were useless you ignored that and moved it to Vargas being better than Mauer right now. I think you're more interested in moving the goal line when it behooves you than in having a real discussion about anything. Unless you want to actually talk about some of the things I've mentioned previously, I'm likely respectfully done responding because this discussion isn't really very fun and you're more of a fencer ("scoring" points) than a debator (cohesive presenter of a reasoned argument). One tip would be to not just bold one phrase in a lengthy response and jump on that - deal with the whole concept or at least acknowledge the parts you agree with before zooming in on something you wish to discuss further. I wish you a pleasant Wednesday.