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ashbury

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Everything posted by ashbury

  1. ashbury
    You start the free-agency (and arbitration) clock a year, or maybe two, early. While the Twins don't necessarily have to view themselves as bottom feeders, they can't waste the high-talent/low-wage years that the CBA gives them. That, at least to me, is the answer to "why not". You can make the trades you outline, but decent talent for a two-year bridge needs to be found as replacement. That's a fair argument...one could also say nitpicking a player's game to death in the minors or staling him might take away confidence. Yes, it's a balancing act. You can't (and shouldn't) let a player waste productive years in the minors just because it's not his "turn" yet - for one thing you'll find it much more difficult to sign your draftees in years to come. But, if they are not yet productive, i.e. they are brought up and allowed to "struggle", then that side of the argument starts to weigh less, and you have the converse problem of establishing a certain amount of complacency in the clubhouse because 'hey, they don't have someone they can replace me with anyway'. A GMs job is just hard. I keep coming back to that.
  2. ashbury
    You start the free-agency (and arbitration) clock a year, or maybe two, early. While the Twins don't necessarily have to view themselves as bottom feeders, they can't waste the high-talent/low-wage years that the CBA gives them. That, at least to me, is the answer to "why not". You can make the trades you outline, but decent talent for a two-year bridge needs to be found as replacement.
  3. ashbury
    Age, and the assumption a 3 year contract is needed in order to land him. Two years, as a bridge to the next contending team, would be a different story I think.
  4. ashbury
    Where's a good list of rule-5-eligible players?
  5. ashbury
    Conversely, if you trade away all the valuable veterans, and aim for competitiveness with the young'uns in 2015, you need to go acquire some stopgap talent to bridge 2013-12014, hopefully for not too much money, and good enough that you can keep the fanbase engaged for those two years. We don't want a team of Rule-5 draftees that lose 110 games. A contract/talent combination like Willingham's is exactly what's called for. Wish we could get a few more like him - not all plodding powerhitting outfielders, I mean guys who fit the timetable and have some talent at their respective positions (pitching especially!). They aren't totally easy to find. Guys like Morneau, signed only for 1 year, don't fit that two year bridge, and make sense to shop actively. If we had someone signed for 3+ years who wasn't really great and was blocking a young'un who'll be ready in 2015, likewise, but I don't think anyone other than Mauer is signed multi-year by now, and he's good enough to contribute heavily to a contending team in 2015-16.
  6. ashbury
    The production stats already factor in his speed to an extent (the OPS would be lower with the triples as doubles, some of the doubles as singles, and a handful of the singles as outs), his SB/CS isn't quite as favorable as Revere's, and I'm not convinced his other baserunning is that much of an advantage over someone like Florimon - he should not be compared to Willingham on the basepaths to gauge his value. Morover, if we were to trade even a non-top-ten prospect, I would hope for more than someone we can "survive" with. I really think the Dodgers have concluded that Gordon's value will decline to the point he's waiver-wire fodder in couple of years, and are trying to salvage anything better than that now.
  7. ashbury
    Sounds like Revere with less defensive ability. Do we need more table-setters on offense? I grant that any realistic SS/2B will be a table-setter, but does Gordon bring significantly more than what we already have in, say, the Florimonster?
  8. ashbury
    Based on his results the past year or two (or three...) in the DH-less NL, I just don't see how he is anymore.
  9. ashbury
    That reminds me, I think Ben Revere's arm is kind of weak for CF, does anyone agree or disagree?
  10. ashbury
    Picky, picky, picky. -- Pat Paulsen
  11. ashbury
    Sounds exactly in line with the stats I see for him on baseball-reference.com. His range factor looks about average, he makes more than his share of errors (not that that's a prime metric for a middle infielder) and his bat should be more of an asset by age 24 than it is. If, as another poster states, the Dodgers are posturing that they want a prospect-not-a-suspect in return, I'm not interested.
  12. ashbury
    If the right price is $1M, sure, but it won't be. He's a Proven Commodity and will command $5M, won't he? I guess for this discussion to work, we need to reach some consensus on what each of the pitchers on the market will go for. I'm sure that my guesses are shaky.
  13. ashbury
    And since the Twins are in the unenviable position of lacking depth to even that degree, Lannan is worth pursuing, again if at a price that a Blanton would come at plus half of the Span Savings.
  14. ashbury
    I don't want either of these, nor Correia. They all are about on a par with Deduno, but because they are "proven" starters they command a significant premium in price. I'd rather see them take what they would pay for Blanton, add half of what they are saving by trading away Span for a prospect, and apply it to getting Saunders - as mediocre as Saunders is, he has a chance to provide positive value versus some AAA nobody, and I'm not sure Blanton is capable of that.
  15. ashbury
    Some people probably understand that they'll get no response to a reply in a thread already exceeding 20 messages, while they may get 3 or 4 if they start a thread themselves. We may wish human nature were different...
  16. ashbury
    Which is why I am skeptical about signing someone older like Dempster for 3 years.
  17. ashbury
    Happens to me all the time, I'm using Windows 7 Premium and it happens with both Firefox and Chrome. What happens? does it load the header and then stop there? Does it happen more often during certain times of day? I'll add my two cents worth that I do sometimes see it freeze up, and when it does it does so for a certain period of time regardless of which TwinsDaily page I'm trying to view, and the status line at the bottom indicates it's trying to load something from doubleclick or similar looking ad sites. Another gripe, which hasn't occurred lately, is ads that have video with sound that comes on without my asking it to. Maybe one should not be viewing recreational websites if sound is an issue, i.e. at work, but it still seems anti-social behavior from an ad. I realize you don't pick and choose the ads, but this is behavior that cuts down on my coming here. Maybe you fixed that and it's why I haven't noticed it lately.
  18. ashbury
    Just in case I was unclear, I'm a big Terry Ryan supporter and (as John Bonnes said succinctly on the very first page of these comments) I trust him on deals like this.
  19. ashbury
    I expected the Span deal to be multi-player, where the other team added a second legitimate (but lower-tier) prospect and the Twins added an even lower-tier prospect to provide a fig leaf. And if the other team really would not add anything, then just swap two equally questionable prospects to pad out the deal. That kind of thing lowers the pressure somewhat. It's brave, IMO, of Ryan to accept one-for-one and avoid this bit of game playing. Meyer simply has to make good, and Ryan is not worried about his job. So, maybe "brave" isn't quite the word, but something close, the calm that comes with being near the end of one's career but still fully engaged.
  20. ashbury
    Two FA signings, a multi-player trade bringing back more MLB-ready players than leave, and one Rule-5 pick, all during the Winter meetings this week, is my interpretation.
  21. ashbury
    My opinion is that the nature of the Span trade lays the path for more deals like it, that key toward 2015 rather than 2013. Yes they have to make various deals for 2013, but signings will be best viewed in terms of 2015, e.g. 2-year deals for older pitchers until a new crop is ready, and possibly a trade or two is still in the works that will not by itself make the team stronger for 2013. Had they instead traded Span for one or two MLB-ready players, that would probably have been it for the trades, because this was in part to reduce a perceived logjam in the outfield.
  22. ashbury
    Willingham ended the 2012 season on the DL, didn't he? I wonder if Terry Ryan is receiving lowball offers for him right now, and if he presses for a grade-A pitching prospect he's told "let's talk again near the end of Spring Training and we'll see how well he's recovered."
  23. ashbury
    I hated the trade, not because we shouldn't trade from surplus but because we picked the wrong guy to trade away. Him and Baker I'd have made untouchable, at the time, and I would have offered a GM his pick of any of the rest. But maybe GMs also assessed Garza as the best of the Twins starters and our GM wanted to get the greatest return possible. Oh well. Kind of similar to asking "why not trade Revere instead of Span, I like Span better" - yeah, and other GMs probably do too. Generals always are "fighting the last war", aren't they.
  24. ashbury
    I had a similar reaction, though I used "free and easy" as I was watching the bullpen video. Of course I don't know if that's his best fastball or if he's still taking it easy a bit - but the tailing movement indicates this isn't his first warmup throw of the session.
  25. ashbury
    It's explained in the article. A two-seamer where he moves his fingers closer together and off the seams.
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