ashbury

Teams don't want left-handed batters. They want batters who succeed against right-handed pitchers. Contreras does that just fine.

Turns out throwing water balloons is a capital crime in Maricopa County, wasting water dontchaknow, so just send a memorial donation to our widows.

I had the distinct pleasure of watching the Thursday and Friday games with @USAFChief, plus I stuck around for the morning game on Saturday. Here are some observations, going from memory since I didn't maintain my commitment to run a scoresheet for more than about two innings - I'd never earn a living as an advance scout, with too many instances I have to sheepishly mark WW on the scorecard ("wasn't watching"). Maybe Chief will speak up to correct any misinformation I offer here. It was fantastic to have Martin and Julien play two games each, and especially so when the game they overlapped had them manning the double play combo. Martin played CF on Thursday and I don't recall him being really tested in that game. I think there was one play where a throw home would have been an option but he took the arguably smarter play of throwing to second to prevent the batter from taking a free base. There were two or three base hits that dropped in, where my reaction was "Buxton would have had that"™, and that is partly joke and partly impossibly high standards due to being spoiled. I'd certainly prefer my center fielder to play within himself rather than dive and miss and give up the four-bagger (*cough* Jake Cave *cough*). All in all my general impression was that Martin will not be more than "adequate" there in CF, but he was okay. Julien at second base on Friday likewise didn't really get tested as far as I recall. I see the box score lists him for what must have been a strike 'em out throw 'em out double play, so good for him to complete that. Isola. He played catcher on Friday, and as I just mentioned he did nail a runner going to second. But he has this annoying habit of usually lobbing the throw back to the pitcher. Makes me wonder if his arm is less than 100% and he's favoring it unless he has to put something on the throw, while Chief is of the opinion they wouldn't put him out there in that case so it must be the Yips and is just a mental thing. Since the AFL is all about instruction, I can't believe the coaches are just watching him do that, on throw after throw (even with men on base), this late in the fall season. As it is, I consider Isola to be Not A Prospect at catcher, unless and until this is corrected - in the majors I imagine other teams exploiting the flaw every game or so. And if he's not going to be a catcher in the majors, the bar is set pretty high for how good his bat needs to become. Bentley. As the story above tells, he had a pretty rowdy couple of innings on Thursday. Live arms that lack command are kind of a commodity in the minors and at age 24 he's not exactly young so he needs to harness this pretty soon. Peguero. I also didn't see a lot to like about the guy we acquired along with Sonny Gray. Sorry, but I'll be surprised to see him reach the majors, and nothing in his two appearances made me think different than that assessment. Olsen. Wow, I did not know the back story on him. I'll be rooting for him, for sure, just on a personal level, and the game he had on Friday was pretty nice. Still, I didn't see something about him that stood out as being a future major leaguer, although that afternoon Chief and I were more interested in finding shade on the first base side of the ballpark and so our vantage point wasn't really the best for looking at pitch movement, as he's no fireballer. Good luck to Jon and if he reaches the majors then I'll remember that "I saw him when". Oh, and that Saturday game. I was hoping for some difficult chances at second or short, to get a feel for what to expect from our possible DP combo of the future. Well, again there weren't any challenging plays that I noticed, to see how their range is or how their throws are when the going gets tough. However, there was a "room service double play ball" hit to Martin, who fielded it cleanly and ... threw wide to second. Julien got credit for the putout of the runner, which I thought might have been a gift from the umpire but give Julien credit for staying with it. But my impression of Martin in that game was, again, he's stretched to be anything more than "adequate" at shortstop. He's going to have to hit like he's done in the AFL, if he's going to be an asset while not playing an up the middle position. Finally, Julien disappointed the Friday home crowd, because In-N-Out Burger has a promotion where occasionally a player is named before the game that if he hits a double then everyone in the crowd gets a coupon for a free burger (the legendary Double Double, I don't know). Edouard hit a single that game but that wasn't good enough so Chief and I departed burgerless. In the game on Saturday our DP combo led off the game so they accounted for the team's first run when Martin doubled and Julien immediately drove him in. In N Out picked the wrong Twin and the wrong game, those jerks.

We all want pitchers like Morris. It was very exciting to get him, and even more exciting how it panned out. You didn't address my point. How do you propose to get another Morris, the way we got him? Usually what you get that way is another Archer or Bundy or Shoemaker.

Morris is the exact opposite of the big time contract being discussed. He signed for one year, kind of a make good deal to rebuild his value, and indeed departed after walking off the mound in Game Seven, to a team with a higher bid. Imagine if Archer or Bundy had bounced back to stardom. This Twins FO already is signing Jack Morris types of contracts. Those just aren't panning out.

Gaetti was more the one with that POV, as I recall.

Tommy Herr is just waiting by the phone, waiting for that phone call to solve the Twins' second base problems.

I thought Brian just explained why it won't.

The author of this article has gotten a lot of discussion mileage out of what he probably thought was a throwaway introductory sentence.

115 will not totally astound me, if Correa moves on. "Sometimes you just can't get free agents to take your money." -- Terry Ryan

I missed this tidbit, and can't find a confirmation online. Where did you run across it?

Kudos to the FO if they can get much for Max. He's not a bad player - league average is nothing to scoff at because of the high level of overall talent - but he's past his inexpensive years, and other teams have corner OF players they may forecast to produce about as much for much less cost. A contending team probably shoots for higher, a rebuilding team won't want a veteran like him. If he goes it'll be part of a package, but I can't begin to guess what team(s) would bid for him - Phillies? Giants? As with many trade candidates, he's probably just about as valuable as a RF/bench piece to his current team, as he'd bring back in trade.

Just to be clear, this wasn't a single year's draft, it was a compilation of all the best prospects in the system, whatever way they were acquired, at that snapshot in time. That list would be a hell of a draft, though. Maybe it's my incurable optimism, but I think the retrospective on this year's 2022 ranking of prospects will look better than this one, 4 years (or is it more like 5) down the line. The list of 9 players who populated major league rosters this year is so-so, overall. We lamented the loss of Wade, Baddoo, etc, but see now that we didn't lose THAT much. Still, it always bothered me that these players were snapped up by other teams, yet presumably the FO wasn't able to work out trades for something of value before they were exposed. At least a lottery-ticket arm in low A ball, for instance. This was mlb.com's ranking. TD had a ranking too, did it not? How did TD's do in comparison? Where the lists differed, was the trend that if TD ranked them higher the player has done better by now?

Now adjust your sarcasm meter. I thought I gave away the joke with the second line at the bottom. But if you're looking for a serious reply to the point about Lewis's error rate, I believe raw numbers of errors are not considered a primary way to evaluate a shortstop.

He'll be fine. He's made only 6 total errors in the last three years. / 0 games 2020-21. Picky picky picky.

The trade made sense at the time even if Donaldson had done well. As events came out, it's just icing on the cake. Only thing I didn't like was throwing in Rortvedt. I don't like giving up pitching, but I think I'd have preferred the sweetener be a young lottery ticket arm than him. Better would have been a corner bat like Sabato, but that kind of hope is pretty vain these days.

[Comment redacted - I just remembered this is a Bogaerts thread]

The latest update I've seen on Miller is that he won't turn 20 for a few more weeks. Mentioning him in the same breath with these other SS prospects is way premature IMO. Far too young to flush away; far too young to count on yet, either.

I had honestly forgotten how consistently good he's been at the plate. My recollection was he's been up and down, but his last mediocre season was when he was 24. Since then his OPS+ has been between 128 and 139 for five years. And decent defense? I like Correa better but if the terms for Bogaerts are better then go get 'um.

WAR is backward looking. "What did the guy contribute during the season in question?" If he DHed, then the contribution is lower - Buxton's dWAR suffers for that reason in 2022 as well, as he wasn't good to go in CF. It's fair in one sense, unilluminating in another. The data is there but it's not presented usefully for projecting. I too would like to see some kind of split-outs, because that would be used for deciding what if a guy played a position full time. Gordon, Miranda, Arraez, and I'm probably forgetting someone - hard to see where the opportunities are on all of them. Positional flexibility is desirable but blended stats make it hard

That 7-minute video clip should be required viewing. "Carlos, get your nose out of those spreadsheets. Pedro, put away that computer."

Fair points, but you realize I was joking around. Drafting that deep is always a crapshoot. I guess fact-checking my nonsense is just deserts though.