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ashbury

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Everything posted by ashbury

  1. ashbury
    MLB Trade Rumors has an item saying an extension is in the works for Jorge Polanco. Seems like a good idea, assuming that our normally cautious front office is not suddenly agreeing to crazy terms.
  2. ashbury
    Um, isn't that somewhat the exact definition of what a good change is?
  3. ashbury
    I clicked Like to be friendly, not because I agree.
  4. ashbury
    Another way of saying it: currently the business model is that the small and medium markets are given a fighting chance by being able to lock up the best part of most players' careers, via service time manipulation and then a lengthy apprentice period. Only the very best players are useful outside of this pair of start/end points. Competitive balance (as well as the players' collective share of the overall pie) needs to be addressed in some new way, because analytics in part have refined how to extract that maximum value from the player's career to the average player's detriment. IMO the players' position should be "we want x% of the overall MLB revenue, and within reason we don't really care how you accomplish that", instead of focusing on the highest-end salaries to drive the entire market upward via the arbitration system.
  5. ashbury
    The hitting in the NFL can be hard too, or so I have heard.
  6. ashbury
    If he'd spend more time in the weightroom and less in the darkroom he might have a better chance for success. / yes, I am old - darkrooms? Also, in case anyone would be misled:
  7. ashbury
    Hey at least we're not rehashing Harper and Machado now.
  8. ashbury
    I award A's to both of you.
  9. ashbury
    Or, maybe you meant "Mark".
  10. ashbury
    Or (from the article): Do you have more information on what it’s like to work for Sen. Klobuchar? Get in touch: scoops@huffpost.com
  11. ashbury
    This 538 article covers a lot and doesn't require the patience to sit through potentially 47 minutes: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/amy-klobuchar-2020-democratic-nomination-kickoff
  12. ashbury
    There's an opt-out for the player about a week before Spring Training ends, so it puts some tiny bit of pressure on the team to give him at least some solid hope, if not add him to the 40-man right then. I expect a good FO to deal with pressure, particularly when self-imposed pressure. But, still, it's not just like every AAA signing.
  13. ashbury
    Someone posted a tidbit about Kyle Gibson losing a lot of weight due to a bacterial infection, shortly after the signing, and I couldn't help wondering about that connection, if true.
  14. ashbury
    If you have to wonder, then it isn't you. / Though, if I had a nickel for every TD'er I've discussed Straw Man arguments with.... I could purchase a lot of straw.
  15. ashbury
    I'm going to stick my neck out and say that gender is a confounding factor in nearly every single aspect the HuffPo article raised. Judging only by the ranked list of turnover rates in one of the linked articles, maybe Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren learned quicker how to navigate those particular waters, but other explanations are possible, for example a Minnesota senator might have a smaller pool of outstanding applicants to choose from (than CA and MA) and the winnowing process through the years might be more painful. Any senator who hasn't had a staffer pick up dry cleaning probably is the one to start the impeachment* process. * Hat tip to a fellow TD poster whose discussion has led me to think about sharpening up my Straw Man game.
  16. ashbury
    I wouldn't say that. His metaphor really was that poor, the more I think about it.
  17. ashbury
    I haven't looked at the details yet. But the meta-idea of discussing big ideas, well in advance of the next major election cycle, is a healthy one. Even if it means that the opposition will shoot down any unworkable aspects and try to pin them on the people suggesting them, while simultaneously adopting some portion of it and saying "well yes, of course" by the time the election actually rolls around. It's a much better way of effecting economic change than the top-down approach, adopted most recently but not uniquely by Bernie Sanders in 2016. You have to get buy-in from the electorate, or else they will turn you out and undo/subvert your accomplishments a short 2 years later when your legislation goes beyond your cautious rhetoric (or vice versa). The Tea Party eventually ushering in the Trump Era is an example of how it can succeed, as well as an example of the perhaps unexpected ways it can turn out.
  18. ashbury
    I looked up who said "he plays bat", and it was our own Gene Mauch when Glenn Adams was purchased from the Giants, I bet in his standard slightly-condescending style, in response to concern about Adams's defensive shortcomings. It seems like we are signing guy after guy about whom our front office is saying this now. More broadly, we're assembling quite a collection of very similar looking players in various categories - interchangeable fourth outfielders, he-plays-bat guys for DH and grit-your-teeth 1B duty, pitchers with AAA credentials who haven't established themselves yet. There's an awful lot of sorting-out to be accomplished during the short weeks in Ft Myers this Spring, of the nature, "just pick one, there's not a great deal of difference among the lot, the choice isn't really going to be that consequential, is it?" If the guys they do eventually keep get all the coaching attention they need, then no problem, but I hope we don't discover that effort was spread too thin.
  19. ashbury
    A reminder (and I may be as guilty as any of forgetting), but this thread is not for extended discussion of this tangent or that. It's an aggregator for "Twins stuff from around the web".
  20. ashbury
    I wander how many more of these puns we will see.
  21. ashbury
    Yeah, if he's going to use that metaphor, my response is that maybe it's time to stop messing around with fingers and just pay for the heavy duty crowbar that's for sale, to pop that sucker wide open.
  22. ashbury
    The latter is exactly what I meant by AAA depth. He can't play that role unless we sign him, and apparently he wouldn't sign without the opt-out clause - so if he does invoke it then we wish him well, nothing much lost unless there was someone else we ought to have signed for the purpose instead. That still doesn't mean I see it as likely that he has any role at all on the big club - but the thing about AAA depth is "never say never". I don't criticize such signings. I just don't want to contemplate the sequence of events that would cause it to be a necessity to bring him up.
  23. ashbury
    I am super leery of Gonzalez's career year in 2017. Without it, his baseline going forward looks like an OPS just slightly above .700. Ehire's sample-size is smaller but his last three seasons suggest a baseline just under .700. If you factor in defense then the edge for Marwin is even harder for me to see. If he's got another 2017 in him, he's worth the money that's been suggested, and indeed he should earn starter's minutes. I don't claim to be an expert in forecasting but part of the art is in detecting an outlier versus meaningful information for going forward, and for better or for worse I try.
  24. ashbury
    And at the price they had him for, he made sense. Moreover, now that he is free to negotiate his own price, they said "go ahead, good luck". Maybe he won't get more than what he got last year, and they'll still have him back. This year's Twins payroll still has headroom, but I'd sooner spend it on one of the pitchers named (if a short enough contract), than on someone I see as a wash with somebody we already have. I didn't say he was worse than Adrianza. I just don't think he's, you know, better. If you do, then to pay differential makes sense.
  25. ashbury
    I'm not enthused about Gonzalez. His bat only looks good in the context of the skill positions, except he's not skilled there. His bat does not look good in the context of corner positions. I don't see him as making the team any better than Adrianza does, whose profile basically is the mirror image of Gonzalez's. Both are tweeners in their individual ways, neither is someone you want as a starter, so why pay some kind of salary premium for one over the other?
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