BHtwins

I really dont get all the angst over Trevor Plouffe. I just dont. He is a cheap, averagish 3rd baseman. There are at least 10 spots on the 25 man roster that need addressed worse

They've been as good or better than the Twins for cheaper and longer. If World Series is your threshold...how many have the Twins won? or even play-off series? I'm not saying they are a golden franchise, I'm saying they make better use of their resources than the Twins

I think the A's draft, sign and trade for baseball talent. The Twins and most of the other league to some extent are over concerned with tools that they hope to develop into baseball talent. The A's figured out a long time ago that baseball talent is inheritantly different than athletic tools. If a pitcher strikes out a lot of guys at every amateur level there is a good chance as he progresses through the professional ranks that will hold true. They dont freak out when his fastball tops out at 89 because they are more concerned about the objective results. Any G.M. can draft Joe Mauer or Byron Buxton and have a good idea that there is a good chance that got a good player. Its the later rounds, the trades and the free agency that a roster is filled out.

I dont think TR is off the hook either. There are no other franchises that would go through 3 consecutive 90 loss seasons while staring a 4th one next season right in the eye and let the GM and manager stand. Its time for the Pohlad's and St. Peter to show the fan base they are interested in something beside making money on the back of the public largesse. You got your stadium now do the fans a solid and show us that your serious about winning. Find some new blood.

I think its an organizational issue. I'm not exactly thrilled with Brunasky though I think the Twins screwed up Lew Ford who had these incredibly fast hands and could turn on almost anything. 500 at bats though and he hit everything on the ground at someone. I think to a lesser extent the messed up Jacque Jones. They screwed up JJ Hardy while he was here. I think they cost Cuddyer power. I swear to god they would have screwed up Ted Williams because he wasnt a prototypical hitter either. I think until the organization figures out that they cant turn every hitter into a carbon copy of their dream ideal of a bat control guy it doesnt matter who the hitting coach is. I swear to god I hear Tom Kelly saying "You gotta hit the ball up the middle and the other way" in my nightmares. They dont platoon well, they dont play to a hitter strengths, they seem almost oblivious to controlling the strike zone. How often do the Twins really punished a pitcher who cant keep his pitch count down? Doesnt matter who the hitting coach is.

He is scoring in the top 2 or 3 2nd baseman by most metrics. Problem is he plays in the AL with Pedroia and Cano.....meaning he probably wont win one.

Those who dont think Bill James and Theo were not using advanced metrics to build the teams that win those championships really are blind are fooling themselves. Baseball clubs are loaded with as much intellectual talent as some wall street firms and think tanks. Some of the freelance guys you say are pulling stats off pitch fx in their mommas basement are really trading 9 figure derivatives on Wall Street and doing this on the side. Hell, the most famous numbers guy in the country now is Nate Silver and he freaking wrote at Baseball Prospectus BEFORE going to work for the NY Times. Some clubs are throwing all this intellectual weight to find a few runs here and save a few runs there. The margins (like derivatives) are miniscule but matter in a 162 game season. The reason advanced metrics "work" is because baseball is largely a fixed repeatable process with a large enough sample to help filter the noise and drill down to what really matters. Unlike any other sport. 4 balls is a walk, 3 strikes is an out, you get 3 outs an inning and 27 outs in a standard game....162 times a year. No clock, no turnovers....you get 3 little measly outs in your half an inning to make something happen and 27 outs in a game.\ All the pushback is largely based on the romantic notion of baseball (which btw is another cool thing about the sport). However, its gets so overblown that it gets to be largely BS and becomes a life raft for those unwilling to budge on that notion to desperately cling too. You hear it all the time. Baseball is test of will, and character, an fortitude and blather blather blather....like ballplayers are some kind of knight in shining armor. We win in Minnesota because gosh darn it we try harder and battle our tail off and play small ball....blech

Hurdle was on the the Jim Rome show (guest host) a few weeks ago and said that absolutely that they thought Liriano was capable of being really good and was on the top of their list in the off-season of project pitchers. paraphrasing but that was the gist of it.

My wife was out within 24-36 hours of all 3 of our kids. So that she is still in the hospital at day 4 is not standard. Kids less than 5lbs is also a bit touch and go and all kinds of bad things can happen in the first little bit. Also I suspect if the Twins were in the midst of a pennant chase and not another 90 loss season things may be different

Josh Gibson was the greatest power hitting catcher of all time. He raked MLB pitching in documented exhibitions. Wasnt his fault they wouldnt let him play. Mauer is probably a top-5 catcher now maybe top 3 of all time. Almost certainly will be a hall of famer if he can stick around and pad his stats.

I personally think people are thinking too much about his BAPIP regressing going forward. Hitter BAPIP is never been a particularly static number anyway. His BAPIP increase is completely a product of driving his GB % sharply downward this year. I think its clearly because of increased leg strength. He is particularly healthy this season, has developed the right programs to build his leg strength and they have done a decent job of mixing his positional appearances. He is elevationg the ball better because of it I think. His BAPIP (GB %+) will drop of as the sason progresses but I bet its not as sharp as years past because I just think he is healthier this year with a stronger lower body.

I see no reason to trade him without a decent return He isnt even Arb eligible until next year. Through similar career plate appearances he is basically Michael Cuddyer without the magic tricks.

Not a Gardy fan, in fact I think a lot of the division wins were in spite of him not because of him. but He bears very little blame for this pile of crap called a rotation though. Good starters pitch well regularly past 75 pitches. This is not an unrealistic expectation. You cant give your pen an extra 150 innings a season and expect success. Radical idea time. 4 man rotation with no real expectation of them seeing the 6th or 7th regularly but in return pitch short a day. 12 or even 13 man staff (Twins bench isnt deep enough to matter anyway) Win the winnable games with the best of your pen and eat the innings with the dredges for the lost causes. In other words the best of your pen pitches high leverage innings but never "to get their work" the worst of your pen eats the `150 innings a normal starting staff would have with at least one extra arm to help even the load out.

The making an example of and "lighting a fire under" a player from Gardy is very tiresome. He applies this standard so inconsistently it just gets frustrating. Plouffe is fine defensively and is is potentially the best offensive 3rd basement the Twins have had since Koskie. Just leave him alone and let him play.

Yeah, should have said let him walk away for nothing

babip in play is a contrast stat. It tells you almost nothing out of context. Depending on the context it can tell you a whole lot of things.

The Cuddyer and Kubel moves/non-moves were the right thing to do. I wish they'd have tried harder on Baker. Santana didnt want to be here and Hunters Angel's deal was something the Twins couldnt compete with. Otherwise they actually havent been to bad at keeping the right players. In addition to poor drafts they also had some horrific deals that really wrecked things. Nishi, JJ Hardy walking away, the absolute disaster that the Delmon Young move was for example. It was a bad 4-5 year run of general managing and poor luck in that no move really worked out. Flip side is the Doumit and Willingham FA deals have shown some value

They look like the Bizarro 2005 Twins. Instead of RF/RA being almost equal in the high 600's, they will be almost equal in the high 800's

Of qualified hitters he led the team in 2010 and 2012 for OPS with runners in scoring position. He consistently is among the Twins best or THE best in those situations throughout his career. For example last year he had one fewer RBI than Willingham in those situations in 9 fewer chances last year. He is an elite hitter. Period. People rarely hit markedly different situationally Some hit a little better some hit a little worse but rarely is there a striking difference. That is simply a subjective bias.

I seriously dont know how you could predict much under a 100 losses. This starting staff is one giant question mark. They could catch some luck but on the face it looks worse then last year and maybe historically bad. Plus, the added bonus of the defense being several runs worse with the loss of Span and Revere. Its sad as I think they could actually score some runs...but I have a hard time seeing how they limit their opponents from scoring a lot more.

Yes, since there is such a long history of averagish NL pitchers moving to the AL with great success. Especially after their middle-aged seasons....oh wait.... His babip was 40 points lower then his career average in a small sample in Chicago, which is probably gotten the Twins FO drooling. This is an absolute yawner with no real impact if it happens.

Rocket, its not that I dont care or dont want to. I dont have time, or rather I'm not going to take the time for a wasted argument to prove something I know exists. Same with the agent thing. It exists and there is enough ancillary evidence to know whats going on. Again, I'm not trying to sway your opinion one way or the other because clearly it doesnt matter. People here spend all this wasted energy to prove a negative and I'm not going to do it. I'm not trying to get discovered by ESPN.com for my leet writing ability and I dont care if you dont think my opinion is valid or not. If you don't....then skip it. Theres enough garbage and good stuff here and everywhere on the internet to fit your view and validate your opinion. Thats not why I posted it in the first place. I posted to argue the point that A) It hasnt been 2 years. Its not just Twins fans. If you dont believe that...then skip it. Dont care. (This is pure opinion) I have no earthly idea whether the Twins med staff is good or bad or just has had a string of bad luck. I do have enough life experience to know that doctors are not infallible. So my suspicion is that there probably arent a lot different then any other middling MLB franchises medical staff. If results matter though ( and they should) then their track record sucks lately and that isnt opinion thats cold hard fact.

I'm not a staff writer for Strib or PP. I'm a poster on a message board. Im not getting paid to waste time. Pay me free lance rates and Ill find you at least 5 quotes from players over the last 18 months complaining about the Twins med staff blowing their diagnosis. The fact is I found them....but Im not citing them because I DONT CARE. You cite them if this matters to you. I'll find paragraphs of written angst from Joe Mauers torn meniscus taking too long. Weeks of written screed about shutting Liriano down to "rest" before he ultimately got TJ. Throw in some beautiful quotes of the staff questioning Grant Balfour's toughness when he complained of forearm tightness that ultimately turned into TJ. All of those are over 5 years ago. There are dozens of examples of Twins players getting 2nd and 3rd opinions and you'd have a tough time finding any major Twins player that had anything ortho done in-house. If you think things are great....then fantastic. I dont care, I stated my opinion, which in general is a hell of lot more interesting then regurgitated tripe.

It hasnt been just 2 years of complaining, its really been 7 or 8 of grumbling and 5-6 of some pretty serious questioning. Its not just Twins fanatics either. The Twins medical staff is pretty poorly respected among the agent community as well. Some players agents wont let a primary diagnosis come from them at all.

Gardy has been losing this team since "his" class of 2001 players started entering free agency. Torii, AJ, Doug M, Cuddyer etc etc were all rah rah fiery type players who probably responded to the stuff Gardy shovels. Compare that group to Mauer, Morneau and to a lesser extent Span who all are cold-blooded professionals. This team since 2008-2009 is a completely different animal then the 2002-2005 Twins. A great leader can change and adapt to what motivates his charges. I kinda think Gardy started buying his own press clippings a few years back and has shown an unwillingness to adapt to his teams personality.