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ashbury

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Everything posted by ashbury

  1. ashbury
    Who even brought up dancing? The article was about something else entirely than this. Max Kepler's parents are ballet dancers, but I don't recall hearing anything about Max performing a Jeté after a home run.
  2. ashbury
    No. I don't know where you found tons of emphasis on fun. It certainly wasn't mentioned in the article, and the word shows up once in passing within a reply post. The article went into some detail to describe what I'll summarize as players "being on the same page" about things, by focusing on common ground. Which, to bring in someone else's comment about the Charlie Finley A's, could explain that their chemistry might have been better, or at least more productive, than some folks realized. Uniting around a common enemy, Finley himself in their case, was widely understood as giving them shared motivation.
  3. ashbury
    Good one! Don't let anyone tell you your writing is sub-par.
  4. ashbury
    Cool! Back in Spring 2015, I did a fairly thorough scan through the previous season's stats, and then dug further back to look at prior seasons for the better performers. That summary is here, 30 Twins Prospects I'll Be Watching In 2015. For humorous effect, I left out Buxton and Sano from the list of hitters, since their 2014 seasons had been curtailed for various injuries. (I added them back to the top, in my last paragraph.) Anyway, I ranked the hitters this way: Polanco, Kepler, Harrison. Then some other players. I'm just a guy on the Internet. But maybe you'll be entertained, or whatever. Pleasedtameetcha.
  5. ashbury
    In case someone else is interested in this tangent, I located what I remembered: MiLB.com has it. Here's the one for Garver: http://www.milb.com/player/index.jsp?sid=t498&player_id=641598#/career/R/hitting/2019/ALL It mentions a DL stint in June 2014, marked as "Concussion symptoms", and then another in September of that same year, without a notation other than being on the DL. Perhaps it was a recurrence of the symptoms, perhaps not. He then had another trip to the DL in 2016, again without a notation of the cause. The 2018 injury doesn't show up at all(?!?), whereas his ankle injury in 2019 does. Ah, knowing there was an injury in 2016 at Chattanooga led me to this TD article shortly afterward, which stated it was a concussion that year too. So, the running total now is (at least) three: '14, '16, '18. BTW, I also find that the Baseball Cube has a search tool for its transactions database, which includes injury information, and can be used for searches other than for just one player. Unfortunately, such a tool is only as good as the data entry that it was given, and for Garver the information is similarly spotty, so it has to be treated with care.
  6. ashbury
    I think to find this out you need to google just his name, with the word concussion, and then sift through. Most of the links deal with the big one in September 2018, but this one also mentions a 10-day DL stay back in 2014: https://legacy.baseballprospectus.com/card/102593/mitch-garver I thought there was another but haven't turfed it up yet. (I used to know of a link where player's injuries through the career were logged, but I seem to have misplaced it.) Because concussion is believed to be a cumulative injury, the length of time between incidents may not be as benign as for something like a pulled hamstring, and may be the reason the incidents are referred to as "multiple".
  7. ashbury
    The Pirates fired their pitching coach. That suggests they would not be very eager to part with Archer cheaply - better (from their POV) to let their new coach try and bring out his best, than to let the Twins' coach try. I imagine Archer could be pried from Pittsburgh, but at the cost of one of our top prospects, like other trade targets mentioned.
  8. ashbury
    I share the uncertainty 2019 might have been a career year at the plate for Garver. The historical examples given were of players with many years of established performance. I would like to give this decision some time.
  9. ashbury
    Eventually he's going to retire, too. Cut him now and save everyone some time. It's fair to disagree that he has any value at 3B right now. But having him at 3B, if he still qualifies as "adequate" or better (as I do see him), does keep open the choice to find a better bat than Cron's at 1B, if that potential exists out there somewhere. Moving Sano to 1B means finding someone with better fielding skills than that, and may be more expensive, in an off-season where (yet again) financial resources need to be directed toward pitching.
  10. ashbury
    If not having Cron leads to Marwin being our 1B starter then I re-cast my ballot. Marwin's 2017 was his career year, and the Marwin we have now does not have near enough the bat for starter's numbers at such an offense-first position.
  11. ashbury
    He's only arb-eligible, thus under team control, so a QO isn't really something to consider for him anyway.
  12. ashbury
    If the larger roster is brought up to suggest that Cron makes it only as a 26th man, it would seem unusual to pay millions in salary for that. He's the wrong half of a platoon, as he was substandard against righties in 2019. OTOH, maybe a bench bat who mashes lefties isn't the dumbest idea for a 26th man... I guess that puts me on the fence but still leaning toward replacing him.
  13. ashbury
    Then I think you're going to be disappointed in Gordon's SS defense, too. My small-sample of observation is that he has a knack for coming up just short of making the difficult plays you expect a major league SS to complete. We have no shortage of MI, but they all skew toward 2B.
  14. ashbury
    I'm cautiously optimistic that the Twins will actually benefit if indeed Rowson moves on. Hadn't had occasion to mention this before. IMO batting coaches have a short half-life in terms of improving individual batters. He's brought a lot of our guys forward and deserves credit. But the Yankees series demonstrated, in my view, that there remains more to be done, to become a truly top-shelf offense. I hope the Twins locate a batting coach who has some additional situational tricks up his sleeve, as we've felt pretty one-dimensional.
  15. ashbury
    See, this is what I get for not doing my homework. My rinky-dink offer to Castro, up-thread, isn't even trend-setting in terms of percentage of buyout, and is light in terms of total 2-year dollars for a thirty-something catcher who seems to be sound. The Twins need to be pretty sure Telis could do the job, before parting ways with Castro, and maybe the lack of a September callup (and 40-man add) is telling. Just pay Castro Flowers-type money, if they have concerns about getting caught short for 2020.
  16. ashbury
    Above, I mentioned a 1-year offer to Jason, but after reviewing Kurt Suzuki's 2-year contract in his mid-30s, maybe I soften a bit on that limitation. But I still like the idea of vesting options (perhaps problematic for a backup) or team-options with a bit more significant buyout than normal (maybe there's a reason they're not common). "Play for us for $4M this year, and give us a team-option for $4M next year too. As protection against a catastrophic injury, that option includes a 25% buyout for you. $5M for sure, possible $8M. And if another team is willing to guarantee more, God bless you and good luck, we've enjoyed having you here." Maybe that's a bit light, but I don't think I'd go up too much more.
  17. ashbury
    Yep. I liked that so much about him as a prospect. An anecdote that I've repeated more than once: at Ft Myers, six springs ago I think, I watched a plate appearance by him, against some unnamed high-A prospect probably, since that was where he was slated to go too. Miguel took the first pitch for a strike. He smoked an absolute rocket down the line on the next pitch - just foul. At 0-2, the pitcher then teased him with four outside pitches. Miguel's body language made very clear that he intended to do serious damage to a pitch in the zone. He accepted the walk. I absolutely loved it. Aggressive yet patient. (Reminds me, now that I think of it, of Arraez's entertaining pinch-walk this season, though different in nature. People who think walks are inherently boring, I just don't know how to watch a game with them.) Sano probably lost some confidence when pitchers in the majors proved harder to read. But, he has that same look as before, when things are right.
  18. ashbury
    Biggest mistake teams make with top talent is to focus on what they can't do, instead of on what they can. Earl Weaver with the old Orioles* had a reputation for bucking that trend. An average defender who has Sano's hitting ability plus is "predictable" in his production becomes a shoo-in Hall of Famer, most likely. We're setting the bar pretty high if his present unpredictable production is debatable. * OK, not the really, really Old Orioles
  19. ashbury
    Coming off knee surgery, Castro was not to be counted on for any meaningful 2019 contribution at all, according to my off-season plan. Boy was I wrong. I think he's a better bet for 2020 than Astudillo, as a backup, so unless the FO somehow wanted to rely on Telis (I think he's considered average defensively), Plan A for me would be to see if Jason wants to go year to year, the rest of the way in his career.
  20. ashbury
    Lots of strageties work dandy, if you have that. / Which I guess is your point.
  21. ashbury
    In fairness, I think the players' union puts some pressure on the top players to push the envelope, on the principle that they are in position to make huge bucks because another superstar pushed the envelope a few years prior, a rising tide lifts all boats, etc.
  22. ashbury
    I realize this is a nitpick but I have to. If what you did there was extrapolate to 162 games (162*HR/G), Sanó isn't even 1st on his own team, much less the entire AL. Cruz and Garver both outpace him. Maybe it's true that if you factor in what a 162-game season would look like for him, he'd jump past everyone else's actual numbers - but in fairness you ought to let all the other players in the league get their multipliers too. (This leaves aside that only 6 major leaguers appeared in 162 games in 2019, and Sanó seems one of the less likely candidates to be allowed to do so even if never on the IL all season.) With that now out of my system, I'm in the camp that prefers to see if a bit more defensive capability can be taught to Sanó, in preference to any other solutions that cost significant salary to someone else. He handles slowly-hit balls as well as anyone I recall seeing lately, because his arm is strong and accurate, which means there is something to build on. He'll never be rangy to his left or right, but as long as he's got that bat, he's a plus at 3B (just not defensively), which means the team retains the positional flexibility to have an additional good bat at 1B. So if we do add someone at 3B and move Sanó to 1B, the comparison should be to Cron, not to Sanó.
  23. ashbury
    Big Whoop?
  24. ashbury
    Carefully. Carefully. Careful - L - Y .
  25. ashbury
    Yes, but how many were then mauled by Kent Hrbek? HOW MANY?
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