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ashbury

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Everything posted by ashbury

  1. ashbury
    Announcement: due to the Twins' fourth consecutive 90-loss season and a concomitant decrease in social media activity, Twins Daily is instituting a reduction in its minor league coverage to only Cedar Rapids which is within a day's drive of home. Moreover, the discussion Forums will be condensed to two main areas, Major League, and Everything Else. John Bonnes will continue to write articles, when he has time after getting home from his new second job bagging groceries at Byerlys; the rest of the staff will be on temporary hiatus. TD remains committed to... oh, I can't finish this satire.
  2. ashbury
    What, and have nothing to show for trading away Drew Butera? What I'd like to hear from the FO is that in years they are below threshold on their major league payroll, the excess will be used in other ways to build the team, such as even greater investment in young players one way or another. I know that restrictions have been placed on signing young players, but surely there are ways the money can be invested to good purpose.
  3. ashbury
    I had tucked away in the recesses of my brain that, more generally, ten percent of all at bats have been taken by Hall of Famers. A quick search turned up this, in which somebody took the time to try and confirm this. http://darowski.com/hall-of-wwar/hofpct/ 9.6% to be exact. And 7.1% of all innings pitched. This despite the HOF accounts for only 1.3% of all players who ever played. Across so many eras, such numbers may be skewed relative to today's game. Still, the connection is clear; the best players are the ones who do it year after year, and their impact outweighs that of the mass of other players. It's interesting to see this borne out in the OP's list.
  4. ashbury
    I'm a little disappointed that anyone views the AZ job as more appealing. Maybe Hale's right to grab the job that is offered now, but that doesn't reduce my disappointment.
  5. ashbury
    Hicks just completed his age-24 season. Schafer today at age 28 and Fuld at 30+ aren't comparables for such discussions. OPS gains of .100 from one season to the next are not uncommon at Hicks's age. Going again without a legitimate Plan B on the 40-man roster would be foolish of course - this is true no matter how good your starter is. But I would lean toward Hicks as my starting CF in 2015 unless he flounders during spring training, and if he needs to be sent down to AAA I still wouldn't flush him from the organizational depth chart unless he failed again in 2016 (when he would then have no minor league options left).
  6. ashbury
    And getting thrown out going for two would still net you your single for the AB and PA.
  7. ashbury
    Also Bernier and not Dozier.
  8. ashbury
    I vote for this. Setting a major league record that is highly unlikely to ever be broken is always fun.
  9. ashbury
    Defense to pot.
  10. ashbury
    Rogers had a large icepack on his left wrist before the game on Friday, and after the game on Friday and then on Saturday it looked like a small cast, probably a removable one. I didn't think his shoulder was involved.
  11. ashbury
    I believe it was the final two batters of the game, and here is what AFL's website "Gameday" page for them shows: Hector Gomez: ball, foul, swinging strike, called strike Nick ("You Killed Kenny You") Basto: foul, swinging strike, ball, out to CF That doesn't pin it down, unless I'm correct in remembering that on the first guy it wasn't the first pitch where it happened. That would rule out it being called a ball. Don't know if a foul or swinging strike would be the one. Too bad the brains of my family wasn't keeping his scorebook that evening.
  12. ashbury
    I predict they will tire of the present ballpark and move the series to San Francisco for game 3.
  13. ashbury
    What similar hoop would he ask the internal candidates to jump through?
  14. ashbury
    Yeah, based on how he couldn't go down the baseline at all, and given our recent experience with Mauer's injury, this puts the Cards in a bad way at that position.
  15. ashbury
    I don't think we saw more than one bad plate appearance from him per game, if that. The hits were stroked, and even the outs tended to be at'em balls. My only quibbles were that nothing much was hit for power, and he was surprisingly slow down the first base line the one time I remember him trying to leg something out (not slow like a catcher, I was just expecting him to make it close and it wound up routine). He has stolen some bases. Quibbles, like I say.
  16. ashbury
    I hope ChiTown will feel proud of herself when she drains Chief's retirement fund like that.
  17. ashbury
    One other plug for the AFL, in case anyone else is considering making the trip: no between-innings malarky1, like dizzy bats or mascot races. People are there for the baseball. 1OK, in fairness, I'll admit that in the middle of the seventh they do play this old-timey song about what it's like going to a baseball game. Some of the locals seem to know the words, and they sing along. Must be an Arizona thing. Charming.
  18. ashbury
    http://i.ytimg.com/vi/6Hs6-UI6bK4/0.jpg
  19. ashbury
    Fair enough - I'll address that aspect because I did think about it as I posted. (Putting aside for the moment that you stated that your own concern was low.) First, digressions (as opposed to willful changes of subject) are natural in any thread, up to a point, and are sometimes interesting or at least add life to a community-style web site. Second, there is a distinction between baseball threads and other threads, and this one is very much in the "other" category. Third, a digression that continues can indicate that the main discussion of the topic has pretty much ended and the silliness is just something that can be taken or left depending on the taste of the reader; if there is sentiment to continue the main conversation but it's getting drowned out by noise, the moderators are more likely to tamp down on the extraneous chatter. Finally, I think there is value in getting to know TD members (including mods) as people, and joking around is one way to do that. While it will never be a perfect document, the Comment Policy tries to be clear on such things and it's worth reading carefully if you care about "why this and not that, why here and not there" kinds of things. Feedback on the policy is welcome, by private message, or in this area of the forum.
  20. ashbury
    Jake certainly pitched himself into trouble in the bottom of the ninth in a one-run game. In a different situation, a new reliever might have been brought in, but apparently in the AFL you simply relieve yourself on the mound. It worked out. Of note that inning were two consecutive batters who appeared to get hit in the hand but were not awarded first base (which would have scored a run each). I don't recall if they were swinging at the pitch, but the umpire was most definite in his ruling and Lance Parrish (manager) didn't argue either time as far as I recall. After some internet browsing, I see that it's not as simple as "the hand is part of the bat," despite the old saying. So I'd like to know a little more about the umpire's reasoning.
  21. ashbury
    I figured that was meant as the joke leading off the article.
  22. ashbury
    I read the above to my son. He said, "Mom doesn't keep score". I told him, "you don't know anything about women". As for having good sons, Chief is in a position to know.
  23. ashbury
    Pssst... I think Paul was just funnin'.
  24. ashbury
    Rogers left because he got nicked on his pitching forearm by a batted ball. Chief and I watched the trainer (one in a Twins uniform) tend to him, in the opponents' bullpen for some reason. After a while they departed for somewhere hidden in the bowels of the ballpark. Rogers had been able to make the throw to get the batter out, and it didn't appear he was in any signficant discomfort while the trainer was looking at him, so I'm hopeful it's just a mild contusion. The 15-day Day To Day list, as Chief said. Lesson learned, I hope - avoid using the meat-hand for fielding purposes. Not mentioned above was Zach Jones who got in two innings of work. I was impressed with his off-speed pitches - curve or change or both? - that froze several batters, including for third strikes. Nice complement to his 95+ fastball. However, he gave up a ringing ground rule double (nearly a homer) on a 77 MPH pitch, so it remains to be seen whether he can avoid Anthony Slama Disease, i.e. get the knock on him that the pitches taken for strikes in the minors won't translate to the majors. Still, I'm hopeful he can continue to disguise his pitches to the better hitters, and this is what the AFL is for. Max's assist in RF was a very nice throw to nail a runner going to third.
  25. ashbury
    Normalized to the league, Plouffe's 2014 OPS of .751 was good for 110 OPS+. We do have two other world series winners to compare to: Gaetti's OPS of .788 in 1987 only comes to 102 OPS+, and Pagliarulo's 1991 OPS of .706 comes to a paltry 91 OPS+. (Scotty Leius did supplement Pags at third, in one of the more successful platoons in Twins history, so that their combined production was probably about in line with Plouffe's season.) Ah yes, I overlooked another world series Twins team, one that didn't win it all. 1965 had the legendary Rich Rollins and his .641 (OPS+ 79). Others have debated the substance of your position, but I couldn't let this Twins-specific aspect of it go without comment. It seems clear to me that a team could win with Trevor Plouffe at third base if he keeps up present production, and without the manager having to go to great lengths to work around him. 1991 was more of a challenge and required some actual Managin'TM for the position.
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