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ashbury

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Everything posted by ashbury

  1. ashbury

    Twins union rep

    ashbury commented on ashbury's blog entry in Left Coast Bias

    A fair question, and while I don't think my purpose was quite that direct, I did think it fair to point out the timing, plus ask for additional information. It's also the case that these two players are of an age where a team might be looking to make a change. Among the data that I don't have is whether that is a common situation for other teams as well - union reps probably are chosen from players with more than a little major league experience, but I don't know this for certain, or whether it's universal. Maybe it's common for reps to be traded, even in years where relations between owners and players weren't so strained. I'd love to get an informed opinion from an investigative reporter like Ken Rosenthal, rather than wing it with half-baked questions. I almost never use Twitter but maybe this is an instance worth trying to catch his eye with a question.
  2. ashbury
    Oh, for sure, and I kept the mention brief, because I really didn't want to derail the thread with this tangent but still felt it was at least an angle that hadn't been mentioned. Without any data on hand to back it up, I'll guess that most union reps are relatively senior players and thus the type who teams might consider dealing away. It's more the timing than anything. And indeed, Boras would be someone I'd love to ask the awkward question to, and get reassured that if anyone would be on the lookout for red flags, it would be him, and he saw nothing in the timing that bothered him. It honestly and for truly was just an observation. One of those co-winky-dinkies.
  3. ashbury
    Are we looking at the same records? Here's b-r.com's game log for Pagan: https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/gl.fcgi?id=paganem01&t=p&year=2021 He had an ERA of 2.77 on June 14, but that's a long way way from his final 10.1 innings, which began after the game on Aug 24 where his ERA was 3.23. This all is splitting hairs but since you pushed back I want to understand.
  4. ashbury
    Well, not quite sub-3, but in the low 3's. That's exactly what I want, a player who wilts just as the playoff season approaches!
  5. ashbury
    I'll summarize my 3 concerns in assessing the trade: 1) Paddack has a low-grade tear of his UCL. Hope the Twins scrutinized the medicals. 2) Pagan has benefited his entire career from home parks that skew strongly toward the pitcher. 3) The union's rep and the assistant rep (Rogers and Garver) both are gone via trade, post-lockout. Things that make you go hmmmm.
  6. ashbury
    We just flipped Chase Petty for Sonny Gray.
  7. ashbury
    Near as I can tell, Pagán has spent his entire career so far playing for teams in pitcher-friendly home parks. His home/road splits over his career decidedly skew toward being less effective in road games - true of most players but a little more than ordinarily - home OPS-against of .615 (good), road .774 (below average). Target Field is close to neutral in this respect, so it's not like he's moving to Coors or anything. But it's a concern, for me. Wes Johnson has his work cut out for him, if the task is to work a miracle on this arm that's about to turn 31 years old.
  8. ashbury

    Twins union rep

    ashbury posted a blog entry in Left Coast Bias

    Does anyone here remember who have been the Twins' players union representatives in years prior to Taylor Rogers? Rogers was the team's rep, Garver was the assistant rep. Both gone via trade. After the CBA was finished up. I wish I had a history of the past several years, for this role on the team, before drawing conclusions from a Small Sample Size of 2. OTOH the recent CBA renewal was contentious, and perhaps recent history of the quiet years before the present wouldn't tell us much anyway.
  9. ashbury
    I am concerned about what MLBTR terms Paddack's "low-grade tear of the ulnar collateral ligament". Three years of contract control don't mean much if part of a season is consumed by mysterious sub-par performance, followed by a diagnosis requiring surgery, then a year off for post-surgery rehab, and then a year of sub-par performance while the pitcher gets his feel back for his pitches.
  10. ashbury
    Just win, baby.
  11. ashbury
    Paddack missed time last year because of an elbow injury, according to MLBTR. I hope the Twins FO and medical staff are diligently exercising all due due-diligence that is due.
  12. ashbury
    I'm taking the over, on all. Same air-tight logic as yours.
  13. ashbury
    Genesis 1:1, right? "In The Big Inning..."
  14. ashbury
    One of these gentlemen is on the 40-man roster and one is not. Roster management involves a multitude of concerns, but this might be the deciding factor in this case. If the FO still sees both Martin and Lewis as legitimate SS candidates, you can't have them on the same minor league roster (Palacios deserves some AAA innings at SS too, even as they continue to broaden his resume). In this light it makes sense to have the guy on the 40 be a bus ride away, the guy who would require a big roster move a little further distant.
  15. ashbury
    Greatest article so far in 2022.
  16. ashbury
    I'd have given Jimmy Kerrigan the same look-see, but he got released. Let Jake Cave re-establish his value, if any, for another team.
  17. ashbury
    Generally I despise grammar/spelling flames, but in this case you were being generous by saying only 3-4. As stated at this site by a man exactly as wise as myself, "if it's not worth your time to do at least a proof-reading pass of what you're about to submit, maybe it's not worth your readers' time either." That said, my reaction to the content of the OP is that apparently our FO didn't see enough of an upgrade to make it worth their topping the Padres' offer. Seems to me a package centered around the somewhat redundant Spencer Steer would have done the job. Maybe they are saving their ammunition for a bigger target. If not, they really are doubling down on their confidence of a young arm or two breaking through in a big way. Their confidence and optimism has convinced me... to at least see the season through a couple of weeks before I dig out my pitchfork and light a torch.
  18. ashbury
    Yeah, if I had a chance to chat over beers with our FO, that would lead into a question I'd want to ask them. They draft college players, players who (as in Contreras's record) seemed to be making normal progress year over year while in school, like you would expect of young men starting to complete their maturation in their late teens and early 20s. Then it takes that player essentially as long as a high-schooler to work their way up the Twins' ladder. Brent Rooker is exhibit B, Sabato's looking like another "big" bat that will take its sweet time to develop. Seems like other teams draft college guys who pay dividends in just a season or two. I'm not saying the Twins promote too slowly. Not at all. I'm saying these college bats don't demonstrate the progress necessary to promote quickly. I can accept that college instruction isn't quite on a par with the pros in the minor leagues. But Contreras is a example where it's almost like they had to throw out everything he had learned up to the point he was drafted, and he starts from scratch at age 22 and then it still takes him years to reach AAA. My question over beers to our FO is, why?
  19. ashbury
    The difference now, with no third catcher on the 40-man, is that any kind of injury to a catcher that takes more than a couple of days to heal will require a corresponding 40-man removal that could prove untimely. Godoy's big selling point was that he does have minor league options remaining, so his spot on the 40 gave the team flexibility to stash him in St Paul. Sisco, if he's ever added to the 40, does not; so adding him and then using him for short term duty, while Sanchez or Jeffers heals up, will then require yet another 40-man move, unless the plan in that case is to carry 3 catchers. Btw, who is our emergency third catcher for an inning or three to close out a game? I seem to remember mention of someone having had some experience in school - thought it was Rooker but can't find it.
  20. ashbury
    The simple answer to the headline question is yes, he plausibly could, as opposed to the 0.0000001% chance that you might assign all but a handful of players. Likely? No. But Trout's over 30 and you have to factor in the chance that his decline phase has begun, while Buxton is more than 2 years younger. Someone will pass Trout for the current honor, someday, and if it's soon, Buxton has the chops to be the one, if he stays injury free and also demonstrates he's actually reached a new level of sustainable performance. A 1% chance is certainly a lot more plausible than 0.0000001%. If the question were rephrased or reinterpreted to mean can Buxton reach Trout's extended peak for multiple seasons, I'm back to the 0.0000001% range of confidence. That ship has sailed.
  21. ashbury
    Many times I am annoyed by what I see as paths of least resistance (loading up on corner bats, accepting two lesser players in trade for one, giving up up-the-middle talent too easily), historically in this franchise and not simply most recently. But for asset stewardship at this time of the year, I agree 100% with Seth above, that going with whomever is on the 40-man now should take precedence unless a non-roster candidate is super compelling. That same candidate will be available to add, the first time a 60-day IL move has to be made, for example.
  22. ashbury
    Archer's just here to mentor Dylan Bundy, who will succeed because we need him to.
  23. ashbury
    Fair enough. And I hope that's how it plays out. (His splits last year would bear that out.) I guess I was just figuring that his initial usage pattern might tend toward the LOOGYish, as they break a young pitcher into the majors. But with only 3 lefties on the entire 40-man, LOOGY might be too much of a luxury and they'll just go ahead and see what he's got.
  24. ashbury
    But you did close an argument in this thread with "The Twins' front office can only make attempts." Unless... you draw a distinction between "attempt" and "try".
  25. ashbury
    Before reading the article but just viewing the headline, I was going to say B+ also, or maybe just B. Had they not signed Correa (and all the machinations that led to that), it would be C- territory or worse due to inaction with the pitching staff, and with the creative Correa signing it remains the uncertain pitching that keeps the grade below A. In a few months, that grade could be re-evaluated upward or downward (which is true of any off-season, but I think more so this year than most), because several of the moves have good upside if everything works out but significant downside if one bad outcome leads to another and another and a 2021-style avalanche occurs. The FO is gambling heavily on rookies, particularly among the pitchers, producing right out of the chute. Hope they're right. If so, then the gambles on old retread arms won't matter too greatly, and if those work out too, it could be a fun season. That's an adjective I wasn't prepared to use a month ago.
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