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ashbury

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Everything posted by ashbury

  1. ashbury
    Susana makes the most sense to me, if he literally can't be traded for a while. Also, if there is any contingency aspect to the eventual choice of player, today's start by Paddack serves to bump up the quality of our mystery player by some tiny increment.
  2. ashbury
    Bah.
  3. ashbury
    There's a good argument that a robo-ump will favor the hitter more than the pitcher. Hitting is about timing, pitching is about disrupting timing. Anything that decreases uncertainty in the batter's mind has to help lock in on the pitch - the category of pitch that's "too close to take with two strikes" will become smaller, for instance. So, the term "fairness" may be interpreted differently by a pitcher than by a batter.
  4. ashbury
    Both these principles coincide with what I understand, too. I just don't know quite for sure how they translate to the case of a trade, and likewise I don't recall such a case to use as a precedent. I trust that our FO will know, and not find themselves having to expose someone to waivers unexpectedly because the order of the steps has to be carried out some certain way.
  5. ashbury
    Also too, if the guy you trade for is on the 60-day IL, can you transfer him directly to yours, without first opening up a 40-man spot and then IL'ing him? I don't think so, but that's only from playing OOTP.
  6. ashbury
    I'm repeating myself to say that having a stud catcher is a rich team's luxury. It means all other needs are filled. I'm all for having a great catcher fall into my lap; but when consciously investing, such as an early first-round draft pick, I want a shortstop or a pitcher or a hard hitting center fielder. Second-rounders Ben Rortvedt and Ryan Jeffers are my idea of how to draft catching, if it's a priority.
  7. ashbury
    Haven't seen Paribus on the prospects lists - I'll keep an eye out. Thanks for the tip.
  8. ashbury
    Just so long as it's not Ted or Cliven/Ammon
  9. ashbury
    If we're going to discount Donaldson's accomplishment, it's only fair to point out that the inning was still alive and the bases were loaded for Sanchez because Kirilloff hit into an error instead of the third out.
  10. ashbury
    I think this b-r.com page shows the list of players born in a given year. The earliest year of birth I can find is 1832. https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/majors/1832-births.shtml Nate Berkenstock. Now there's a trivia answer to keep in the back of your mind for your next SABR convention. The 1871 National Association is generally accepted as the first season of major league baseball. The sport itself, of course, has no exact beginning date, and the taint of "professionalism" drifted in as soon as grown men started playing seriously. As for the New York Game article you referenced, you will never go wrong by reading what John Thorn writes.
  11. ashbury
    It bothered me too, but I refrained from highlighting my OCD tendency last night.
  12. ashbury
    Not to mention Palacios, who is by no means on a par with the others but is a significant part of contingency planning for 2022. At least, mine, not that I have any say.
  13. ashbury
    I have little doubt that prior to the trade, Levine had a discussion with Baldelli - "look, we have an opportunity to trade Rogers for some younger arms - what will your plan be if he is off the roster next week?" And then Levine listened, and formed the rest of the plan accordingly. This FO and their manager surely don't engage in the kind of passive-aggressive behavior you described.
  14. ashbury
    Yeah. Imagine how good he'll be when he learns a bit of plate discipline.
  15. ashbury
    The opposite of 1/30 isn't 50/50.
  16. ashbury
    I'm not Otto but I play him on TV. Julio Rodriguez is a rookie and had not faced him. As stated in the article, this was his first major league hit. J.P. Crawford was 0 for 2 with a strikeout. Despite playing for several years (sparingly with Colorado, a couple of years in tandem at catcher with Seattle), Tom Murphy does not seem to have ever faced him before. The fourth guy, Adam Frazier, had struck out in his only previous attempt against the Duffman.
  17. ashbury
    Please don't ever play poker with Chief for money. But, if you do, please let me know so I have a chance to hustle up some side bets. Play me for money. I never can remember for sure whether a straight beats a four-flush. But, in your own realm, if you had to construct a short playlist for mainstream/AOR radio, and your boss handed you a list of 30 songs with the initials HC* to choose from, if that list included Hotel California and Holiday in Cambodia, you wouldn't flip a coin between those two on the presumption that past performance wasn't predictive and that all 30 songs in the list were 1/30 to be what won't cause listeners to tune out. I don't know what it means that you'd assign 1/30 to both the Dodgers and Pirates before game 1 of a season, either. * I hope you'll entertain us with your list.
  18. ashbury
    I still do not care about naming one guy "Closer". Teams focusing on that are trying to thread some needle that can't be threaded. I do want a bullpen populated by shut down guys. If you want to call one of them your closer and go to him every time he's rested and maybe sometimes when he's not, bully for you, but you could do it other ways when you have the horses. If all you have is one horse, you're going to lose the Kentucky Relay Derby when one of your burros takes its turn. It's not reasonable to expect every single member of an 8-man pen to be good enough to close, to say nothing of the 10-headed monster we'll carry until May 1. But I do think it's a reasonable ask - for a team with World Series aspirations - to have 4 or 5 shutdown arms - guys you would feel confident sending out to close out a win in the ninth. Some teams have that. So we don't have the horses ===> we don't currently have World Series aspirations. Probably that was true before trading Rogers. It will remain true until 4 or 5 guys step up. Data point - in 2 games, the Twins bullpen has begun 9 innings of work (not counting Thielbar's fireman work in today's fifth inning). Of these 9, a grand total of 1 inning was clean - no baserunners, accomplished by Coulombe in one of his two innings Friday. We can be thrilled about Duran striking out the side after having put two baserunners on yesterday, if we want - but Fernando Rodney used to do that sometimes too. A non-contender can put up with tightrope acts over and over, while waiting for a prospect to put it all together, because eventually those baserunners will get driven in, probably for crooked numbers that won't wreck their season anyway. A contender.... can not. Duffey today isn't what convinced me that, in the early going at least, we've got evidence of weakness. It's those other 7 innings. It's only 2 games. But no, I wasn't confident before and I'm not confident now.
  19. ashbury
    Jhes.
  20. ashbury
    Seems to me yesterday's game was exactly the type that Bleed Dodger Blue Tommy was talking about, in that "other third" category. It was anybody's ballgame right to the very last out, and our hitters were just one run worse. Miss the playoffs by one game and this one will loom large as a difference maker. The Blue Jays' game with J.O. Berrios unable to get out of the first inning was more the type to be philosophical about - you're gonna lose a third of your games because even your stars are human and occasionally produce an absolute clunker. Except - oh wait - they won. LOL. You're going to win a third of your games even when you try your darnedest to give one away.
  21. ashbury
    I'm glad that you are capable of maintaining this crystal clarity.
  22. ashbury

    Twins union rep

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

    Good points. With regard to that last one, it makes it all the more, well, "interesting", that they traded away two of those intangibles. Maybe intangibility is both ephemeral and fungible.
  23. ashbury
    If the object is identify one guy who is better than the other relievers, anoint him "closer", and then try to time his usage exactly right to extract the maximum wins from a limited bullpen, then I could see your point. If the object is to have a bullpen full of capable arms, then trading away your best arm is a step backwards, and I take Chief's comment in that light. On the third hand, a pitching staff is not just the bullpen, and starters generally pitch more innings as a group than the bullpen does. Getting a capable starter is a worthwhile aim and could be worth the sacrifice. On the fourth hand, because of a known injury risk and the downward trend of his past two seasons, I'm not sure we targeted the right guy. My feelings about this trade are very mixed.
  24. ashbury
    Uffda. I do NOT remember this from when Cavaco was drafted. Second Best Shortstop On Your High School Team (to a guy younger than you, on top of that) does not equal Major League Shortstop, 99 times out of 100 - even if that "other guy" is legit. Seems to make Cavaco's draft slot even more of a reach than I understood.
  25. ashbury
    Wichita was on the losing end, misfortunately.
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