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ashbury

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Everything posted by ashbury

  1. ashbury
    What the heck does Logan Forsythe have to teach Kohl Stewart? I'd give a nickel to eavesdrop on that discussion in the dugout. Ugh, our pitchers with no command, our batters swinging through strikes in the zone. At least Grossman has the HBP thing going tonight.
  2. ashbury
    First rounder? I'm pretty confident someone will bring his name up in some context or another.
  3. ashbury
    Always a good sign when Matt Magill is up in the first inning.
  4. ashbury
    Every time I try to fall in love with Jake Cave, he disappoints in some little way. (Or majorly, sometimes.)
  5. ashbury
    b-r.com gives the pronunciation as \plett-KOH\. Let's see what our broadcasters do with it.
  6. ashbury
    I thought the minor-league deal for Jake Cave and the signing of Ryan LaMarre was this contingency. Not a starter - Byron Buxton was still Plan A, and either starter on the corner could be tapped for CF duty in a pinch. But "if Buxton goes down", these two were the plan. Something stronger would be akin to having four starting outfielders on the 40-man; hard to do. The jury's out on the front office's drafts, and so I'd combine a B for that with a C- for how they've handled the 40-man overall - if their offseason moves had worked out, it would be better, but process only goes so far and results are results.. Like some others, a Gentlemen's C overall, at this still-early stage. I have yet to see moves that make me say, "wow, something under the hood such as their Analytics team is really strong" - in fact their sifting through the Rule-5 dustbin has been embarrasingly bad.
  7. ashbury
    Most of us have metrics and/or deliverables in our job. I'd love it if a boss told me, "don't worry about the rest of 2018, just focus on 2019." I probably wouldn't be a good employee, but I'd love it. No, there needs to be some demonstrable goals for the rest of 2018, even if they are in preparation for 2019. I agree W-L record isn't necessarily the best or only way to measure the progress. But metrics (and they might be of the "inside baseball" variety rather than the ones we fans normally get to see) showing progress for Garver, for Austin, for Cave, etc, need to be there for him. Something Molitor can point to at season's end, when meeting with the boss. It could be that preparation for 2019 might also be, "OK, we've tried everything we know with [say] Garver. You need to come up with someone else at that position." If there are successes to point to, then the negative stuff also counts as preparation. If we see a bunch of games won with Robbie Grossman and Bobby Wilson and Joe Mauer somehow leading the way to a .500 September, then I don't know what to say.
  8. ashbury
    Moderator's note: The tone is getting excessively personal. Please stick to the topic and leave out the digs.
  9. ashbury
    Might be an appropriate level of enthusiasm for what they've accomplished. A good outcome for the season, with more to come, right? They're splashing around the carbonated beverages, like they're supposed to. But then, I'm not a huge fan of the often highly scripted celebrations. When teams string up the vinyl protection sheets and hand out goggles in anticipation of some champagne cheap sparkling wine being uncorked, it comes across as pretty calculated by now. This at least was more "go to it, guys, make a mess".
  10. ashbury
    A guy named Jason was their starter when 2018 started. Meanwhile Bobby Wilson had 300+ major league games behind the plate, so yes they did have an idea what his ability was. If you're going to print up pennants based on who is the third catcher... wait, you print up playoff tickets, anyway.
  11. ashbury
    A curmudgeonly way of stating, "the FO has their work cut out for them this off-season". I didn't take it as much more than that. Surely Reusse isn't interested in team marketing slogans themselves - those are probably Dave St Peter's domain anyway. (Though, "Bring A Coat" was well played.) And the inside-baseball maneuvering of the waiver wire and so forth, likewise isn't really his issue, since other teams do the same things too. It's just... this team is approaching a crisis point with regard to their much anticipated window of contention, and Reusse isn't apparently interested in hearing about pie in the sky at the low-minors level that buys the front office another 5 years of honeymoon. Sustainability isn't what he's looking for, it's present performance and some hope for 2019. He wants some success worth sustaining.
  12. ashbury
    Like the legendary Sports Illustrated Cover Jinx, do we have a Seth Stohs jinx brewing?
  13. ashbury
    Robbie Grossman cost $2M in rent this year. Rents usually go up. Their real estate agent is going to suggest they move and live somewhere else soon. I think the team knows pretty well what Austin's capabilities are in the outfield. I.e. in the Grossman/Palka range. Maybe his bat plays up enough to make it a better tradeoff than for those two - depending on what the team does to take advantage of the flexibility.
  14. ashbury
    If only the Yankees had allowed other teams' scouts to attend any of the approximately 2631.1 innings that Tyler Austin has logged at RF in the minors.
  15. ashbury
    Yesk.
  16. ashbury
    I'm not quite as bothered. When they "decide", it's based on a moving target: the player is still developing, and if you still see promise that they may improve just enough more, then when the bat is deemed ready for the majors maybe you ought to do it the way they did. I'd prefer a better outcome, but you don't flush a shortstop with a decent bat and the potential for some pop until you're sure he won't ever get over the hump on the defensive side. Otherwise, the risk is you get a glut at 2B or 3B, you trade from oversupply, and then the other team says, "hey, let's give this 20-HR guy another look at SS."
  17. ashbury
    With someone as good as Mauer at first base, Polanco is a shortstop. With someone less agile, he's not. We saw in yesterday's game what happens when Mr Clean isn't there to erase Jorge's color-outside-the-lines throws. But maybe Austin (back to the subject line) can get better at this aspect, hopefully soon. Otherwise, maybe outfield is a place to hide him.
  18. ashbury
    I also don't want to belabor the point, but this raises the angle that while Buxton is amazing in center there are other teams who have players making amazing plays there too. TB has Kiermaier, Boston has JBJ, Cincinnati has BIlly Hamilton - three who come to mind, I'm sure there are others. If Buxton is the best of these, it's not head and shoulders better. Cave on his best day will never be on a par with these great fielders, IMO. He would be there by now, if he could.
  19. ashbury
    This starts to get into the semantics that plague every discussion of "Ace".
  20. ashbury
    I'm willing to cut Cave some slack, but "great" seems to be off the table by now. We have a great CF to compare to as a benchmark. And Cave is a year older than him, and has nearly 1000 more innings of minor league experience in CF. I mark him down as potentially "adequate". The bar is set high, in center.
  21. ashbury
    Loooosah. No chicken dinnah today.
  22. ashbury
    Meanwhile, we've seen the opposite of perfection from the offense today.
  23. ashbury
    All I demand is perfection in the games I pay for a ticket to see.
  24. ashbury
    Maybe he needs to be shut down. Season is almost over anyway, though.
  25. ashbury
    I'm one of those hammerers, and of course it's pure second guessing. But the player still has to make the right guess and/or judgement. All comes down to risk versus reward, and visual judgement, and at the end of the day results. The one in CF at KC for a homer looked like no-hope from our vantage point behind home plate, but probably looking different from the other direction. And the game situation in KC was such that merely corralling it for a single wasn't a game-loser, but the HR was. Bottom line, if you don't play safe and pull up, you better make the play. The one today in RF was a little different in that playing safe seems less of an option given the slice of the ball - and of course he judged correctly that it wasn't going to drop too soon. Game of inches, as always.
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