ashbury

What you describe sounds a little like George Springer (.265 and 22). Houston doesn't bat him in the 7 or 8 hole real often. 45 players in MLB this year hit 20 or more homers and batted.265 or better. Of these, all but 5 OPS'ed .800 or better - the laggard among them was Marcell Ozuna at .758 (because he hardly ever doubles). OK, that's unfair, because it counts guys who hit way better than you're asking Kepler to do. So take just the guys between .265 and .285, and with 20 to 27 HR (actually I went to 30 but no one happened to have that combination at 28-30). 18 guys, again all but 5 with .800 OPS or better. I didn't exhaustively check, but spot-checking the lowest OPS guys, I found only Maikel Franco batting (occasionally) 7th. Kepler elevating to .275 while watching a few of those additional balls-in-play go out of the park would be HUGE. If he got there (still a big "if"), he wouldn't sit at 7 or 8 for any team.

Well, sure. Even Ehire has started 5 games at 1B in his career. In a purely backup role, Kepler could be part of the mix at 1B. What I seem to see people saying goes beyond that, that 1B is a desirable role for him. And I disagree with that. If you want him in the batting lineup, you usually will want him playing in the outfield; conversely if he is squeezed out of the starting outfield because of acquisition of significant talent, his bat (at present) probably will not be better than other 1B options you have. Finally if his bat improves from where it is at present to being an asset at 1B, we're back to the first scenario, because you want him in the outfield as a starter. It would be one heck of a team, where a productive Keplerbat* finds itself at 1B on defense. * My Germanic coinage of the day

He gets an RBI* for that, right? * Run Balked In

Did he start late? That had always been my assumption, but I ran across an article about him that said he played a ton of baseball in Germany as a youth, starting at age 6. His mother is an American, so apparently he embraced that side of his heritage. Obviously the level of competition in Germany wouldn't be high, but it's not like someone handed him a baseball bat at age 17 and said, "here, give this a try - no, hold it at the knob end". http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/15206207/max-kepler-big-move-germany-minnesota-twins https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Kepler

Defense matters at every position. I appreciate a slick play at 1B as well as the next fan. But there's a reason a lumbering DH-type is played at 1B - it's the best place to hide him. Guys like Kennys Vargas make scoops too. The differential between what Mauer can do on top of that is pretty small. And not every baserunner from a failed scoop turns into a run. And not every un-prevented run turns into a win. You need a whale of a lot of defense at 1B to even move the needle.

Took me 11 to think up the second sentence.

Shirley you can't be serious. Although, he is so good that they named an entire Fort after him.

You're crazy. Dang, that felt good.

It's the thing to try. But it's not as though it hasn't been known as his weak point (no pun intended) as he came up through the minors; I expect strengthening has been tried. Indeed he's been a little better at SS than I ever dared imagine, and I chalk that up to likely extra attention to building up his arm strength further.

True, it's a Polanco thread. The tangent about corner OF crept in by stealth. But no, I wouldn't accept a "bad but not horrible hitter" at every given defensive position, such as corner OF. No.

If Delmon had become the .900 OPS hitter the Twins thought they were getting, we would have just accepted the occasional fielding blunder as part of the package.

Compared to the parade of shutdown guys I see this post-season, I have to say that the Twins currently have not one bullpen piece that would figure prominently for any of these teams. Not one. I like Rogers but he'd be a LOOGY for a winner. I like May but he hasn't put it together. WAR is a counting stat, so I don't think it's useful to look at WAR totals for a bullpen unless it's in the context of innings pitched. You can rack up higher WAR total due to overuse, and indeed the Twins starters went less deep into games than, say, the Yankees. The Twins bullpen is solidly below average, and I don't even see the pieces currently available that will change that. Fundamental changes, like catching lightning in a bottle by converting a failed starter, or by signing big-time free agents, are needed.

Don Mossi had two. / sorry

Eddie and Willians are baseball players.

Mrs Ash was also on record as favoring Molitor's firing.

You don't compile an OPS above .750 simply by hitting .300. Arraez hits a fair number of doubles, and his so-so speed (scouting ratings, SB) doesn't suggest he's turning a lot of scratch singles into doubles. He doesn't even turn 22 until next April, so don't be surprised if some man-muscles show up and he hits a few more out of the park. (2018 video I just looked at of him suggests he already weighs more than the 155 b-r.com lists him at.) That said, I agree with not basing a 2019 infield deployment on a mere prospect who got a first taste of AA. Polanco has been moved from 2B to SS in the recent past. He could be moved back there again, if 2B looked like the right place for him at the present and then conditions changed.

Managers are pretty replaceable. A few are downright terrible and cost their team wins, but most (of those who make it that far) are pretty much care-takers; precious few can be thought of as difference makers. And they have a short shelf-life, in terms of the players hearing the same message over and over for several seasons. Nothing wrong with trying someone with a little different personal style. Molitor wasn't finding answers. So moving on seems fine with me, and I generally was in the mood for change before the axe fell. Doesn't mean I have insight into the clubhouse to guess who should be tried next. I'd be inclined toward a tough-love disciplinarian, and I don't know which of the candidates are that, but where it comes to managers change-for-change's-sake is enough.

I imagine a player with an insufficient arm for a position might feel rushed at times.

An advertising takeoff on Bada Bing Bada Boom - i.e. quick clean and done.

I'm pretty sure eyewitnesses had Daniela Sanó saying to hubby Miguel, "are you going to let a parking ticket police officer talk to you like that?" before he put his vehicle in reverse. / Do I have to put a smiley face here? OK, here it is:

I'm in favor of this. However, I don't expect there to be much or significant return. We could get good return for the guys we think are good, but those are the ones we should keep. The iffy guys, well, other teams have plenty of those too. A return along the lines of what we gave up to get Jake Cave will be good work by our FO if they can do it, for guys like Slegers. If not, we're better off extracting whatever value the Slegers's of our system can offer us.

Ew.

It's hard to know about these guys because we don't really hear that much about their day-to-day activities, and we have little way to evaluate them in light of what a manager must do. Rowson, for instance, is probably pretty buddy-buddy with his hitters, so it's nearly impossible to guess whether he'd have what it takes to crack the whip now and then in a role as manager. Perhaps either Shelton or Pickler has had the occasion to crack a whip, but we wouldn't have seen that, and it's always easier to operate as someone's #2 than to be the final authority. And of course managing isn't all whip-cracking; running a rotation and a bullpen involve listening and inferring, and playing-time decisions for position players can be subtle. All of this is nearly impossible to know until the guy is given the chance. It's like taking the training wheels off the bike - totally different experience. Running a AAA team could be harder in some ways than running the big club, since probably two thirds of the roster doesn't believe they belong there. OTOH many managerial decisions come down from on high. Skinner is experienced, but you can also call that being "a retread". He's kind of old by now, and after a certain point I figure that too many teams have considered him and passed, so I expect he gets passed over again. Too bad if circular logic gets in the way of a man's career aspirations, though. The ideal candidate is probably in his 40s. Both Pickler and Shelton qualify - Pickler is only 42 and maybe too green, Shelton is 48 and probably this is his chance, before he's viewed as "getting too old" as well. So Shelton stands out to me among these internal candidates, but it's based on shaky information.