Jump to content
An AL Central clash with the Royals tonight! Come join our game thread! ×
Twins Daily
  • Create Account

ashbury

Verified Member
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    41,100

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    463

 Content Type 

Profiles

News

Minnesota Twins Videos

2026 Minnesota Twins Top Prospects Ranking

2022 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks

Minnesota Twins Free Agent & Trade Rumors, Notes, & Tidbits

Guides & Resources

2023 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks

The Minnesota Twins Players Project

2024 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks

2025 Minnesota Twins Draft Pick Tracker

2026 Minnesota Twins Draft Pick Tracker

Forums

Blogs

Events

Store

Downloads

Gallery

Everything posted by ashbury

  1. ashbury
    Sometimes I think the organization believes it gets extra credit for each drafted player who makes it to the Show for a cup of coffee.
  2. ashbury
    If a player is prone to that, he will find something else to be in a funk about, a few weeks after being promoted. I think this should be a non-factor in deciding promotions. Sano injured himself running down the first base line. How does DHing protect against that?
  3. ashbury
    Also, when he's not hitting, Buxton can still beat the other team in a few ways. Park on the other hand is merely taking plate appearances away from Mauer or a DH-du-jour.
  4. ashbury
    I am neither a good chess player nor a good baseball player, but I believe the concepts of one can guide the other. A young chess player can first be taught some simple combinations that will lead to mate, and then the player practices doing that to opponents to get a feel for exploiting a winning edge when it's there. After that, the player learns to wait until a suitable opportunity presents itself, rather than try to force a winning combination when it's not there. After that, perhaps, the player needs to be taught how to not make mistakes of his own, while playing this waiting game. Then, the player learns to add feints and other tactics to try to provoke error by the opponent. And so on, with varying layers of complexity that I personally never can hope to aspire to. Eventually the player also learns how to play a long tactical game where you build a series of tiny advantages that winds up being decisive. But... and this is the important part... at the heart of chess at even the highest level is the constant threat of unleashing a lethal combination of moves that destroys the opponent seemingly without warning. You never want to lose that spirit of aggressiveness, but conversely you can defeat yourself by trying for a winning combination too soon against a competent opponent. And I think a batter's approach at the plate can benefit from this sequential approach as well, over a period of several seasons in the minors. When all is said and done, the batter needs to know what pitch is the kind he can inflict the most damage with, and wait with varying degrees of patience until it is presented to him. The better the patience, within limits, the less often that patience will need to be exhibited.
  5. ashbury
    I felt like an idiot this spring after last off-season saying "Sano won't see an inning in RF. Book it."
  6. ashbury
    I've witnessed batters taking liberties with Grossman's arm and taking second base on a clean single, so maybe they are counting things like that. I didn't spot anything else about him.
  7. ashbury
    Every team has this. I just took a look at the two Missouri teams, held in pretty high repute these days, and both the Cards and Royals have three or four of their 40-man pitchers on the DL. (OK, if you are on the 60-day DL you aren't on the 40-man, but you get my point). Naming a couple of guys and calling it a trend just means it's a major league team.
  8. ashbury
    I expect out-house results if that is the decision.
  9. ashbury
    We can agree on this, if nothing else. "Solid... starting catcher" is a pretty high bar for any prospect. Right now I forecast him as under 700 OPS at the major league level, which means even if he is at some point installed as a starter there will be constant searching for someone better to take over. In this view, he might manage one "solid" season, above .700 OPS and good defense, where everyone relaxes and enjoys his contributions, if EVERYTHING breaks right for him and his team. I'm mainly just taking the more cautious position. I hope your bet proves the winning one. / edit - and yeah, I undersold my opinion of him when I phrased it more tersely as "doesn't add up to a great shot at a starting role". Odds against, but not a super longshot.
  10. ashbury
    I'll go along with the other points, but an assemblage of poor defensive OF is no (ahem) defense of Arcia.
  11. ashbury
    Everyone's pretty much agreed on that. But that's only a neutral statement. Don't you want to take the additional step of saying he is a "give them an out" (or a base) guy on defense?
  12. ashbury
    Age 25 and still a year away doesn't add up to a great shot at a starting role. Stranger things have happened, but...
  13. ashbury
    I hate this DFA of Arcia. Santana wasn't off the 40-man, so only a 25-man roster move was needed to add him. There are 3 guys who would be easy IMO to option to Rochester, leaving room for Arcia for the time being: Buxton, Kepler, Park. I would pick Park. But the argument given against sending ANY of them down is that they won't learn to hit major league pitching at AAA. In that case, why didn't that argument get applied to Arcia the last two years, while he did still have options? A puzzling double standard. (And I hesitate to open another tangent, but we're working toward a similar scenario with Polanco in 2017.) Adding Park this past off-season was a good move - increasing the talent pool always has to be good. The problem is not making a corresponding move. TR stated that he was in talent acquisition mode, and wasn't looking to move any of the players he already had. Unless that was purely a negotiating tactic to keep the value of a trade chip like Plouffe high (didn't work!), the glut of corner/DH types stood out a mile at the time, and never was addressed. And now one of those corner/DH types is about to be lost for pennies on the dollar (if we're lucky, otherwise for zero), and it doesn't seem like it had to happen. I don't claim trading Plouffe was going to be easy, or return full value. But TR apparently was afraid of getting only 85 cents on the dollar by trading someone like him, and held on too long. These things all tie together.
  14. ashbury
    But you're a defense guy. Bad defense negates some portion of whatever offense is produced. Whether you espouse one particular formulation of the tradeoff, you surely have a mental format for doing the tradeoff, and surely Arcia's defense bothers you, doesn't it? He's way down from his ceiling on offense these past two years, but even if he comes back to that ceiling, his glove is giving back some of those runs.
  15. ashbury
    That sample size becomes much much larger when you include all the guys he faced, and not just the two outs recorded. Seemed like an entire season's worth of plate appearances.
  16. ashbury
    Anybody got insight on how you get a high schooler to sign for less than slot? Seems to me the kid has the stronger negotiating position than the team, and he doesn't need Scott Boras to point it out to him.
  17. ashbury
    Nah, it's a feature.
  18. ashbury
    Ho hum, another WINNAH!
  19. ashbury
    Reminder: Ramirez gave up only two hits in his long tenure as a Brewer. Both homers.
  20. ashbury
    As long as he throws that change with the same motion, it's got to be unhittable.
  21. ashbury
    If that's your entry in the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, it needs some polishing.
  22. ashbury
    Danchat says he's trying his best.
  23. ashbury
    This was supposed to be good. Hope things work out as well for Robbie.
  24. ashbury
    Yes, because nothing can go wrong with a #1-overall draft pick. http://www2.pictures.zimbio.com/gi/Minnesota+Twins+Photo+Day+H5NfVhlbxP9l.jpg
  25. ashbury
    This is a... good thing... in Canadish?
×
×
  • Create New...