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ashbury

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Everything posted by ashbury

  1. ashbury
    Rumors are that Jim Beam, George Dickel, Johnnie Walker, Jack Daniel, and Glen Fiddich will round out the coaching staff.
  2. ashbury
    I will be shocked if a corner outfield prospect of any caliber, alone, brings high-end pitching in return - I have been skeptical all along about our early-round drafting strategy. Pitching, and right now salary relief, are the coin(s) of the realm. And I'm not too thrilled with trading top pitching for pitching. So, a combination of taking on salary, trading a high-end corner outfielder, and offering a smattering of lower-caliber pitching prospects, seems the way to go, if a difference maker is to be obtained. Which... I want.
  3. ashbury
    Mohr's trade was a month later than the AJ trade. Not saying there couldn't have been a connection, but it is not listed as such. Indeed, if Mohr was conceptually a Player To Be Named Later in the big trade in November, it's odd that the way b-r.com lists his trade is that he departed in December for a PTBNL who arrived two days afterward.
  4. ashbury
    My main concern is that he will never again pitch enough innings to qualify for an ERA title, due to fragility and pitch inefficiency, and the cost-benefit ratio is thus not as good as might at first glance be expected. But, good pitching is hard to acquire, and if the FO can't see a better avenue for obtaining it, I won't complain too greatly if we end up signing him. I just don't think he'd be my top priority, going into the negotiating period.
  5. ashbury
    Schadenfreude is the only way I can slightly justify taking pleasure in this turn for the worse, since it's a rival team.
  6. ashbury
    Can someone please explain the Brady Bunch reference?
  7. ashbury
    News regarding a couple of vaccines might have more to do with today's jump. Very hard to separate signal from noise, let alone signal from other signal.
  8. ashbury
    -- Nathan "Chip" Hale
  9. ashbury
    Articles like this are why I continue to pay the monthly Premium Subscription fee.
  10. ashbury
    Jordy Blaze is indeed a given, and Rortvedt was the name that jumped out at me as likely to be interesting to another team. Although... keeping a 3rd string catcher all season long is hard to do, and a 2nd string catcher has bigger responsibility than most understudies on a squad so you have to be pretty sure he's ready, to make such a draft pick. I took a look at the 2017-19 rule-5 drafts and I didn't see any catchers taken in the major league portion. AAA portion, yes, but I presume Rortvedt would be added to the protected list at that point. Teams take pitchers. Pitchers, pitchers, the occasional shortstop, and pitchers.
  11. ashbury
    They keep track of these things, and you are quite correct - the Twins as a team had a season total of 7 PA across 4 games, after pitch #100. https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/split.cgi?t=p&team=MIN&year=2020#all_pitco Maeda had 1 game, 4 PA. Berrios had 2 games, 2 PA. Pineda had 1 game, 1 PA. Not much, is it?
  12. ashbury
    The size of the strike zone is indeed an additional variable at our command, but whatever the size of the zone, pitchers will have incentive to try to work at the edges, so I believe the effect on walks would be small. The main reason pitchers risk walks is that the alternative is too costly; so if they are reassured that pitches that catch a little too much of the plate won't automatically get launched out of the park, that to me is what will drive down walks. How much the ball should be deadened is hard to judge, and I don't want it to become the norm that 18 HR leads the league, but it needs to be deadened enough that the default launch angle isn't optimized for homers on every ball-strike count like it seemingly has become now.
  13. ashbury
    Every team makes moves like these every offseason...
  14. ashbury
    The glove routine obviously is just a means toward an end. One frequent refrain you hear in player interviews is that the game will move too fast if you let it. It's true for batters and for pitchers - if your concentration isn't 100%, you're walking back to the dugout with three strikes, or conversely facing a bases loaded situation, before you even feel you had time to blink. Every pitch is valuable, to both opponents, and they want to make sure their mind is in the game for each and every one. The argument would be that you are seeing baseball at its best, with everyone giving their best on every pitch. This creates some natural tension for the fans, who have to sit through what sometimes seems like a chess match. There is also the obvious rejoinder when a pitcher can't find the strike zone or the batter looks clueless on three pitches in the dirt - "this is baseball at its best?" I don't have a better solution than to enforce a clock on the pitcher and to not freely grant time-outs to batters. Make the batter and the pitcher equally uncomfortable, in the name of moving the game along.
  15. ashbury
    Two pitchers for whom control seems to be the weak link. Maybe the Twins think they have a secret sauce to fix that particular failing. Or, these two will just hold a place until the 40-man fills back up and the team hopes they will be able to pass waivers then.
  16. ashbury
    If you want more base hits and fewer walks/HR, deaden the ball and lower the mound. These specs have varied through the years anyway. The combination of the two stands a chance of keeping offense levels around the same, but batters will quickly wise up that fewer HRs come to them, and pitchers will be more willing to throw strikes but less able to catch only front or back corners of the three-dimensional strike zone. Win win. This has the advantage also of not changing any of the familiar ground rules of the game, just the effectiveness of strategies.
  17. ashbury
    That's the ESSENCE of satire, as opposed to just parody. The best satire picks a worthy target.
  18. ashbury
    You can. But every game you DH somebody with defensive skills, you are still paying a portion of salary for that glove sitting idle. If indeed it's a prospect earning MLB-minimum, as you propose, that's not an issue. But if it's sometimes someone with seniority, then there's a cost. I continue to believe Cruz was an excellent signing because a top-notch DH is a very cost-effective roster move for a budget-conscious team like the Twins; in almost no games in 2019-20 did we pay to have a good glove sit unused. That bat must be top-notch, though, or the move doesn't work.
  19. ashbury
    In the early days of the game, basemen were required to be standing on their respective bases when the pitch was made. The SS was viewed as kind of a rover. We traditionalists might advocate going back to that. I applaud the historical POV but Keeler faced 70 MPH fastballs so the art of hitting may have changed juuuust a tad. Going with the pitch is one thing now, but trying to go the other way when the pitcher and defense are on the same page is a bit harder than when Wee Willie was a Highlander. Anyway, I'm not too much in favor of trying to outlaw shifts in baseball, as I think it will wind up like when the NBA tried to keep the zone defense illegal - everyone was pushing the boundary of legality, with lots of borderline calls by the refs.
  20. ashbury
    He earned his money, and we thank him for his contributions, but it's time to part ways.
  21. ashbury
    Fun watching him in pregame infield practice, taking grounders at shortstop. He would not have made a good major league SS. But he was nimble for a big man. And he would take the extra base when it was a close decision and rarely get thrown out. So, concur: he was a ballplayer, not just a slugger.
  22. ashbury
    Besides pitching, the other three line up nicely with the classic Five Tools for a position player. Throwing is way down on most everybody's list, but would you not put hitting for average in that list of ingredients? How about the elusive sixth tool of batting eye? Me, I have always thought that contact is the one must-have tool. Maybe must-have doesn't correlate with postseason success, but I would probably not put it any lower than just behind power, for what separates the elite teams.
  23. ashbury
    In the analysis-synthesis paradigm, you just cut to the chase and went straight to the evaluation step there.
  24. ashbury
    I have this sneaking hunch I wouldn't have been fond of Kent had he played for anyone else, but as a Twin he's one of my favorites. And since I'm not originally from Minnesota it's not solely the hometown aspect. Some other players may have stood out a little more but Kent was heart and soul of this team.
  25. ashbury
    Rowson is a candidate to manage Boston, FWIW.
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