ashbury

An insurance run or two would feel good.

Me, I love bunting. I'm hopeful of seeing some again, in a postseason to come. http://archive.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/extras/extra_bases/peteabepics/bunting.jpg

PLONK!!!!

Goes to show what a faithful satire that movie was.

That's real Managin' for ya.

I'm getting ads for Minnesota Twins paraphernalia. How do they know?

Number two son watched them from the cheap seats in Salt Lake City and reported very good things about Rubio to me last night.

Infants, when they have kept mom and dad up the entire previous night crying.

Thanks for the personal perspective.

I disagree. It was supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

Get him up to the majors pronto, and let Castro start framing him up to the 85-90% range.

You'll forgive me if I continue to forget about him.

http://www.milb.com/images/602928/t498/180x270/602928.jpg Felix De Jesus (Estevez) Jorge Born: January 2, 1994 (age 23 this season) Birthplace: Santiago de los Caballeros, Dominican Republic Signed as an international free agent 2010, $250K Height: 6' 2" Weight: 170 Position: Pitcher Throws: Right Bats: Right Pitching arsenal: fastball (mid-90s), curveball, change Stats at baseball-reference.com After suffering a puzzling setback at single-A in 2014, Felix Jorge (Twins Daily's 12th ranked prospect) has resumed his rise through the Twins' minor league system, breezing through Cedar Rapids in 2015 and Ft Myers for the first part of 2016. His Ft Myers numbers were ERA 1.55 in 14 starts, WHIP a phenomenal 0.935, and K/9 a slightly less phenomenal 7.5. A mid-season promotion to AA Chattanooga in July, 2016 was not quite as successful: in 11 starts his ERA was 4.12, WHIP an OK 1.278, and K/9 a rather disappointing 3.9. Nevertheless, the year saw him pitch 167.1 innings, which is as important as any other stat when watching a starting pitching prospect's progress. In the off-season he was added to the Twins' 40-man roster, to protect him from greedy talent evaluators in the Rule-5 draft. The willowy right-hander begins 2017 with a return to Chattanooga, with high hopes but still something to prove. He's scheduled to make his first start tonight (Sunday, April 9). With a good first half, a promotion to AAA Rochester would not seem out of the question, and he might be even a longshot September callup. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lf-t3eTYCqE The above video of him in Spring Training is courtesy of fellow TDer Bob Sacamento. Felix has been a popular guy to cover in this Twins Daily forum. You can have a look at past years' entries for interesting tidbits, such as the initial confusion about his name: Felix Jorge Adopt-A-Prospect 2012 Felix Jorge Adopt-A-Prospect 2013 Felix Jorge Adopt-A-Prospect 2014 Felix Jorge Adopt-A-Prospect 2015 Felix Jorge Adopt-A-Prospect 2016 - he got skipped last year

Hope you don't mind a repurposed photo of Palka at the plate, from my spring training blog:

If we're doing bulk drafting, I'll take Ben Rortvedt (note the spelling ) while I'm at it.

Guh. Somehow the Day 2 thread was on top of the list of recent threads and I didn't look carefully enough for something out of order. It did seem odd that nothing new had been posted in this thread, but did I take that as a reason to look a second time? Nooooo...

My attention to TD was scant the past few days, and I completely missed the AAP draft announcement(s). If I'm not misreading, it looks like the flurry of drafting activity has died down, and we need to start taking on larger quantities of players. If so, I will volunteer for Engelb Vielma, Felix Jorge and Aaron Slegers to start with.

Giving reps at SS to the guy with the higher upside but who still has questions about whether he can stick at short, plus adding positional flexibility for the other guy? Just a guess. Vielma was playing 2B in Florida the week I was there, too. As with Polanco, fulltime duty at 2B at one minor league stop doesn't close the door on shortstop. If it were me, I'd give him (some more) time at 3B too. / edit - I took a look, and the guy who played 3B last night, Ryan Walker, has been mostly a second baseman in his career. Maybe the new regime is emphasizing positional flexibility a little more?

He may need to commit to being a junkballer soon, using the fastball only for show outside the strike zone. Guys have survived on that after losing the fastball. Frank Tanana made a career of it.

Not nearly as neatly as that. When I said "blue states", I didn't mean en masse. Piecemeal. And maybe some present states break in two, as part of the process. Tying in with Brock's comment, dissension and conflict would be the motivating factor, leading to randomness that would be silly to try to predict now.

I say we stomp him! Then we tattoo him! Then we hang him! And then we kill him! http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m0scrdYXEP1qgjvrso1_500.jpg "I say, you let ME have him first."

Otherwise known as the "Let's You And Him Fight" gambit.

I didn't have great success coming up with a definitive source, but my strong impression is that it's illegal to take out a nation's leader unless at war with that nation. It's not the Geneva Conventions, exactly, but something related. Or maybe, it's just US policy - an executive order from the US president - Gerald Ford forbade covert operations to take out a leader, and Ronald Reagan extended this: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2009/07/are_assassinations_ever_legal.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_12333 Aside from legalities, it seems there's a consensus that emerged that it's "just not done". Fidel Castro lived to a ripe old age, and while there were attempts on his life at first, a concerted effort to take him out surely would have worked eventually.

Why not both? I view the long game from Russia's perspective to involve the breakup of the US. Blue States seceding from the Union ten or twenty years from now, for example. Or Red States doing likewise if Congress and the White House flip. Other combinations surely exist, and from their perspective they don't care, as long as California and Texas (for example) wind up on opposite sides of the fence. Getting everyone at each others' throats over the election of Donald Trump, merely dicking around from a short-term viewpoint, fits that scenario to a tee.

For once this really is Fun With Numbers!