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ashbury

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Everything posted by ashbury

  1. ashbury
    All these other teams... have a grand total of 2 hitters in the majors at the moment who are younger than Kiriloff, and 1 additional guy a few days older but still in his age-20 season. And none of these players missed a season due to arm surgery. Next year you say, but still, the narrative that the Twins slow-play their prospects is questionable.
  2. ashbury
    Then that gives us three MI who profile best as starters at 2B, and everyone else who profile as backups (on a contender). Polanco's suspension raises a shadow of doubt for me, depending on how far back his illicit usage went during his development. If he loses just a tad of arm strength, or a smidgen of power in the bat, my amateur scouting opinion of him changes greatly. I agree with never ruling out a SS high in the draft. They are just too valuable and you never know who will pan out and stick at that position. Gordon looks MLB ready, and Lewis has the chance to advance quickly, otherwise MI help is far far away in the low minors. Plenty of talent to follow as fans, but with a long lead-time.
  3. ashbury
    If only there were some way to put something in the article title to clue readers in for what's coming.
  4. ashbury
    If McCann's not blocking the plate, he's sure impeding progress toward it. I agree it's good to re-think strategies, but this picture suggests to me that Kepler's a larger and (more importantly) higher target to swipe at if he doesn't slide.
  5. ashbury
    I was already wordy enough, but yes part of the delay/conservatism had to be doing every possible bit of due diligence to reduce the odds of a revolting development like this. More due diligence than for a player who had no track record of success at all, for instance. You and I can eat our own shorts, but the actual decision makers might have to pay a higher price than that (hard to believe, but yes).
  6. ashbury
    We need to bring up another left-handed bat pronto, and platoon Kepler with him.
  7. ashbury
    The $$ are a sunk cost regardless of their decision. (That's not a new observation of course.) However, a team will want to exhaust all opportunities with players who are out of options, and/or have enough service time to refuse a minor league assignment, before making a move that can't be reversed. That's why young inexpensive talent gets jerked around like they do. Add to that the uncertainty involved in Hughes coming back from another surgery, and a track record of success. These factors all happen to correlate with good salaries, so people tend to point to the salary and not be far wrong in drawing conclusions, but it's still the wrong logic. I guess the only way the salary plays in, is a PR calculation - will it harm marketing? And can they withstand the PR hit if Hughes goes 13-8 next season and starts in game 3 of someone's postseason? A conservative approach to the decision was warranted, but not because of the contract.
  8. ashbury
    I think not enough credit has been offered to the catcher, McCann, who made a very fine play, one that might be considered bread-and-butter at the position but gets bollixed up often enough. Nice throw by JaCoby Jones, as well, unless you are adamant about hitting the cutoff man in every situation.
  9. ashbury
    It's not a bad thing until a second person comes along who also claims to know what goes on between the player's ears but has a different conclusion than yours, and then endless bickering is the likely result, with no hope for a resolution.
  10. ashbury
    Teams knew about Small Sample Size before it was cool. Only they call it "let's see how he does when facing the same opponents for a second series," and other verbiage. / edit - ninja'd somewhat by Seth, but oh well
  11. ashbury
    Is there anything at all about Sean Miller's offensive game that suggests he has a shot at the majors? My small time observing him in the 2017 AFL left me unimpressed, and disappointed that the Twins invested one of their allotted slots there on him.
  12. ashbury
    More likely, when TR was replaced, the faction lobbying for his removal no longer needed to continue that message, and a different faction has their opinions on the new team. You can't judge by posting volume, pro or con. Someone will always have a different approach to offer than the current one. Lumping everyone together into "we" clouds that. Best would be to rebut those opinions you disagree with, rather than focus on the people.
  13. ashbury
    Without doing the necessary research I'm going to guess that this is different people saying different things at different times. Opinions will always vary.
  14. ashbury
    I'd like a sweep.
  15. ashbury
    Yeah, darn our stodgy front office for NOT promoting all our 1.300 OPSing hitters at low-A, and promoting again from high-A to AA after they OPS 1.256, and promoting to the majors after a .981 OPS. Darn them all to heck!
  16. ashbury
    You're preaching to the Adopt-A-Prospect choir, sir.
  17. ashbury
    If he's been under Rowson's tutelage, I would suggest Byron have a heart-to-heart with Eduardo Escobar, who has a sneaky ability to pull the ball with intent once in a while but seems not to overdo it, and see what he can glean from him. My own suggestion would be to impose the self-discipline to swing for the fences at most once in a game, for the rest of the season. One swing. As the pitch comes in, consider whether this is the one pitch that is worth taking a crack at like that. Otherwise, level line-drive swing, or bunt for a base hit, or work the count toward a walk. Of course, Yogi said* you can't think and hit - and perhaps Byron would not benefit from my tutelage either. * And if he didn't, he probably still did
  18. ashbury
    Slegers is a great example of what I'm talking about. I happen to believe he could settle in as a workhorse in a good rotation. But, the lack of strikeouts is a warning flag for many, and maybe I'm foolish to believe in him. It's that difference of opinion that might give him the Marlins opportunity you speak of, if the Marlins are more interested in results than form. But no way were the Twins investing minor league starts in him because they were hoping he reaches a ceiling of a #4; the opportunity cost is too great through the years as he's coming up the ranks. These rotation numbers are so arbitrary and roster-dependent as to make them meaningless, except as "potential #1/ace", "potential #2/#3", or "make him a reliever before it's too late". Someone who's a AAAA guy flunked out of whatever ceiling people thought he had.
  19. ashbury
    Best insight of the day, IMO. A major league starting rotation is what it is, so a given successful pitcher may get a number assigned for discussion purposes. But no organization develops a guy whose ceiling they view as "a #5". The 5 slot is for promising guys getting a chance (e.g. Fernando Romero) or for veterans on the way down (e.g. Bartolo Colon). A 5-designation isn't for very long - neither is a 4 usually. If one's view is that a guy will never be a 180+ IP workhorse, you damn the guy with faint praise by calling him a 4/5 or less.
  20. ashbury
    That's not the interpretation I would have recommended.
  21. ashbury
    Nice video of the strikeouts. I'm not sure any two of those strike-three pitches were the same. Batters have a lot to think about.
  22. ashbury
    Heck of a pickoff move by Flaherty. Baserunners beware.
  23. ashbury
    In this regard I think your faith is well placed.
  24. ashbury
    FTFY?
  25. ashbury
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