Jump to content
Twins Daily
  • Create Account

ashbury

Verified Member
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    42,488

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    471

 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

2026 Minnesota Twins Draft Tracker: Picks & Bonuses

Forums

Blogs

Events

Store

Downloads

Gallery

Everything posted by ashbury

  1. ashbury
    No. Delicious is a totally different variety, and vastly inferior. Oh, and Fuji, FTW!
  2. ashbury
    Trading Revere frees up less than a million, to be replaced presumably by someone at half a million - how does this allow the Twins to spend what it takes to get a top starter?
  3. ashbury
    Or even 2 years. Mastro is strictly 4th-outfielder material, and it's a risk to assume the minors will produce both the starters needed even in 2014. (Parmelee seems miscast in RF and will take over 1B in 2014 probably.) Aim for serious contention in 2015, with 2014 as the transition year.
  4. ashbury
    The negatives on May are that he walks a lot of guys, and the high fastball that was striking guys out in the lower minors wasn't working as well at AA. I'm not sure if that is quite a top-10 profile, even if his stuff is electric.
  5. ashbury
    Sound like any team we know?
  6. ashbury
    I think I wrote unclearly. Very few if any FA would fit both. All transactions (not just FA) this off-season should be viewed in terms of the criteria, each individually satisfying one or the other, and not making one or the other uncorrectably worse. A few, such as a trade for Holland, have a potential to help both. Transactions will complement each other, more so than usual. No, I don't view a target date like 2015 as like turning on some light switch. If kids are ready to give it a try in the big show in 2014, they should be brought up, which hopefully makes them even more ready for 2015. If they are not ready, they should not be force-fed, as it just burns a year of arbitration eligibility. As in any other season, you make a plan for a few years down the road, and when the inevitable bumps in the road show up (TJ surgery, prospect plateauing at single-A) you adjust. I'm saying that 2015 for the Twins looks like when a real turning point could start in terms of competitiveness, and you should load up for then and beyond, while making short-term moves to get you through the coming two years without it being a revenue-killing drought and without mortgaging that more-promising future. I think it can be done, piece by piece.
  7. ashbury
    Very weird 2012 for Pelfrey - judging by his game log. His third game he went 8 innings, 1ER, against the Giants, going just above 100 pitches so you'd think all was well. Five days later, TJ.
  8. ashbury
    I think it's also been said he lacks a reliable third pitch that you want a front-line starter to have, which additional time may allow to develop.
  9. ashbury
    They should not accept a 110-loss team for 2013-14. All transactions must be viewed in both of two positive lights: a) it helps a contending team in 2015, it helps bridge to 2015 by having a decent team in 2013-14. A 3-year contract to Dempster satisfies but violates a) assuming he is bad by then. A trade for Holland probably satisfies both. The trade of Span for a stud SP prospect satisfies a) and frees some salary for . Taking on salary for 2013-14 in a way that brings prospects, such as a large trade involving Alfonso Soriano, could accomplish both. Et cetera, et cetera.
  10. ashbury
    As others have responded, the outside-the-box thinking is great. Wells's contract is exactly the right length, ending before the 2015 season, but unfortunately he is too decrepit to play CF (I never liked him there in the first place) and his preferred position of LF is exactly where we aren't looking at the moment. And unfortunately I don't believe Willingham is going to fetch a good prospect at this time, not to mention that Wells would be such a serious downgrade at the position in terms of offense. Alfonso Soriano is eerily similar to Wells (2B is not an option, LF only) except he might be still worthwhile on offense for two more years. A three-team trade where the Twins get Soriano from the Cubs and a stud prospect from Team C plus some other assorted youngsters, and give up both Revere and Willingham to be distributed between Cubs and Team C, might work? But taking on huge salary negates the other type of plan that could involve trading Revere: signing someone for 2013-14 to let Hicks take his sweet time to develop rather than force feed him and pay arbitration a year or two too soon. A trade that takes on salary 2013-14 would prove that the Twins timetable is 2015 and not 2014. Maybe for PR reasons they can't do that. Or, if Ryan is actually hedging his bets toward 2014 being good, then such a trade won't happen - he'll want budget flexibility to sign someone at a position of need that year, not an untradeable $18M albatross.
  11. ashbury
    Take the two extremes: Twins pay for none of Morneau's salary, Twins pay for all of it. In the first case, I'm not sure any team would offer a prospect of any importance, but it is salary relief for the Twins that allows Ryan some flexibility in signing pitching. In the second case, maybe a team like the Orioles offers their third best SP prospect, but it harms the Twins 2013 in both talent *and* budget flexibility. I'm not hugely in favor of some middle ground, giving modest salary relief plus a mediocre prospect. As for the dichotomy of looking to the future versus improving for 2013, I don't buy it. You can (and must) do both. If you have a solid plan, such as keying toward 2015, then deals made now may be viewed in either that light or covering the interim with good players. As I've said elsewhere, two-year contracts for good but older players will make a ton of sense, while three or four-year contracts won't. Willingham is perfect in this light, and if the return for him isn't a real stud, it's questionable to use him as a trade chip. Longer-term FA contracts for good younger players cover both parts of the plan. Filling out the roster with one-year contracts covers the rest. And trading one of the few remaining high-dollar contracts, i.e. Morneau, should be done only to either acquire significant talent or to free 2013 cash that will be put to better use. No half-measures, please.
  12. ashbury
    They have teh internets in Dallas and LA too, y'know.
  13. ashbury
    2015, more like. And then you have to have somebody to do more than simply fill out the roster for those two years - you can't commit to 110-loss seasons, this market will quit on you if you did. Contracts have to be viewed in that light. I'd be all for Dempster except he apparently wants 3 years and he's a risk to be bad by that third year, so no-go. I'm fine with trading Revere but you have to have a cost-effective yet capable replacement in mind until the young'uns are really ready (the alternative being to start the arbitration/free-agent clock prematurely on the guys you want to have contributing after 2015 too, in effect paying arbitration money later on for a 2013 of below-par play by a future stud). And so forth.
  14. ashbury
    Not many are. Not true. You have to go to rec-league ball to find them, though.
  15. ashbury
    Looking at park adjusted ERA, Saunders has been average or above the past two years. If he's the best that we sign, then that's bad. But he can solidify a rotation better than calling him a #5, I think. Signing him plus someone better, we have a decent rotation that is simply missing a #1 guy. "Simply". Heh. No pennants, but not abject losing either.
  16. ashbury
    Yes and no. They won't all have the same time-frame as the Twins do, who are targeting 2015 more than 2013, and they don't all have the same urgency that Ryan does to reconstruct a destroyed rotation, so the contract offers won't be the same. Maybe Ryan can make some aspect of the multi-year be more attractive. I'm virtually certain that Ryan accepts that he'll have to "overpay" (whatever that means) to get one of this tier of pitcher. He also needs a second pitcher from a lower tier - I am thinking Saunders but others might be equivalent - and again must overpay a bit. After that, he can bargain hunt to fill out the rotation, or stand pat with the dregs he currently has under contract. 2015 is the main concern, but 2013-14 can not be left to decay to a 110-loss extent or the cash flow dries up alarmingly just when contention becomes possible.
  17. ashbury
    I suspect the price will be high as there will be too many other bidders capable of trading a top tier prospect for a chance to solidify their rotation for a pennant run now. But it's worth Ryan's time inquiring - Holland fits the 2015 time frame better than a lot of options being discussed, even at a cost that disrupts 2013 somewhat.
  18. ashbury
    Yes, very impressive. </PoliceSquad> I can't believe no one has proposed the obvious: Salt Lake Buzz hat!
  19. ashbury
    This is exactly the spirit in which rule-5 was devised: to let the Have-Nots get a few of the crumbs the Haves let slip off their plate ... and it is galling that it's *my* team that is going to be the beneficiary.
  20. ashbury
    A 25-year-old in AA who doesn't tear up the league at the plate and is still shaky making plays at 3rd probably is never going to be more than filler by this point.
  21. ashbury
    Very underrated player, I think he has a shot. Finished 17th in the NL in Plate Appearances in 2002, and followed that up the next season by tying for 30th in the AL in RBI. He really was that good, and his defense nearly matched that.
  22. ashbury
    You left out Roberto Clemente
  23. ashbury
    The Twins should pick Anthony Slama. He gets a lot of strikeouts. Another way of saying, I'm not too enthused about getting someone else's AAA/AA reliever, a few of whom seem available every offseason anyway. The best-case on a pick like that would be someone with only little impact as a player or trade value later on, unless he's really a candidate for closer. What appeals to me is a 23 year-old high-upside starter (yet who has the makeup to not suffer overly in a bullpen for a year), from a successful organization lacking room for him; Braulio Lara of the Rays for instance, as others have said, or maybe Tim Crabbe of the Reds. I didn't notice any non-OF position players fitting this profile. Rule-5 depends on scouting and I am no scout, so going by stats (and some analyst's verbiage) is really limited. I will likely be satisfied by whomever the brain trust selects. And I do expect they will pick one; 10% they even pick two.
  24. ashbury
    Sure. That's a chicken-and-egg question though - if they thought that Dee had super-upside and was about to break out, would they have acquired Hanley? I think they've made their judgement, and the Twins scouts need to be very very confident that they are smarter than their Dodger counterparts. Maybe they are, and maybe this is the last season Gordon will put up Nick Punto numbers.
  25. ashbury
    I think people are more down on his age and a three year contract than Dempster himself. I like the way you think.
×
×
  • Create New...