jokin

Not that hard, heh? Then you try explaining it to Gardy....

I can't believe that I am ending up siding more frequently with management, but I'm in the "Get Arcia Right" camp at this point. Arcia wasn't right in ST, and his first PAs in April before his trip to the DL was more of the same, along with his OF mis-adventures. Gardy was quoted by LEN3 as saying that he wants Arcia back soon, or even sooner, just as soon as he shows glimpses of himslef at his best last year. I'm willing to have him get a little time in Rochester before they make the move. I really like what he can offer to this team when he's at his 100% best. The Pinto/Suzuki deal is a different kettle of fish. Give the Braintrust credit for scuttling the "Fryer for All-Star!" campaign and giving Pinto his well-deserved shot. And as we've seen, his play behind the plate is still a work in progress. This leaves the Twins in a classic case of being on the horns of a dilemma- and exacerbated with Gardy's anal obtuseness about the use of only 2 catchers on the roster. Both choices for who gets playing time, and how much, hurts the team in the present. Perhaps the best course of action is to let the situation evolve, eventually Suzuki will revert to his career norms or worse at the plate, and hopefully, Pinto is getting the 3-On-1 crash course in Catching 101 from Steiny, Mauer and Suzuki, meaning that gradually in the next few months the playing time ratios for Suzuki and Pinto get reversed.

Don't the Twins have access to Skype?

And there's nothing wrong in seeing if he can hack it at a higher level, especially when he appears ready (at the plate, anyways) and, that there's a crying need at the next level for what he brings to the table. If you have any doubts about this, see: Mejia, Aderlin, for further confirmation of this fact. If Polanco struggles, he can simply retrace his steps and make the necessary adjustments back in Ft Myers, no harm done.

Is there anything to be read into Arcia getting pulled in both of his games after 3 PAs this weekend and not playing in the OF on Saturday ? Is he really 100% yet or not? The Twins could use another LH bat, but Arcia wasn't delivering when he was active. I argued that he should have been sent down right when they broke camp. He still has a lot to work on, at the plate and in the OF. As long as there are other options producing, there's no need to rush. If anything, if they do need that additional LH bat, Parmelee might better fill the bill than Arcia at this point.

"Woodshedding" is about right! Amen.

Following you around the threads, twinsfan. I think the Polanco situation is the most significant development offensively in the Twins system thus far. While there is a general consensus on TD to keep him down in Ft Myers for a couple more months, I would hope the Twins see what's happening with him and consider their options. The guy has turned it around, literally at the plate, his BB/K rate is in the positive range, about 1.33- and much better thn his career numbers, and nearly the best in the Florida State League, despite the fact that he's just about the youngest player in the league. And he's doing all this with all the added pressure of being placed on the 40-man and playing SS full-time. I propose that as soon as the weather finally breaks to move Polanco to SS at New Britain. The Rock Cats lineup is a complete train wreck right now. Can you imagine them with this lineup at the top of the order, instead: Buxton, Polanco, Rosario, Vargas, Walker, Hicks? This will help protect Polanco and get him up with the class that is likely to be breaking onto the big club's roster in the near future. (Kepler is probably going to move up more slowly- looks like a one level per year guy to me at this point).

Jumping two levels to AA would be a tremendous development- thanks for the supplemental stats, twinsfan. The Twins have been on the lookout for tall starters for years- and have regularly failed in their endeavors. After seeing this video, I'm far more encouraged than I was previously- shout out to JC! He really only had one year of stats in college, and virtually nothing can be determined from a college player pitching at E-Town- so I was on the skeptical side. He's now yet one more to watch more closely. Can you imagine Bert's giddiness and colorful discourses and rants about the nuances of "downward planes", with both Meyer and Slegers in the rotation?

Classic blunder is an apt description. Was there actually ANYBODY else seriously bidding for Pelfrey's services? But there is another classic blunder that Twins committed in this case: falling in love with players because of "personal makeup", "positive clubhouse influence", etc. I must admit, it's hard not to like Pelfrey personally, but I'd take the "disruptive influence" of somebody like a Kyle Lohse, any day of the week, all things considered- making things easier for a manager should be at the bottom of the priority list.

Your description of the three camps is excellent. But if I may disagree, I think it's very justifiable to sign Drew for those of us in both Camps 2 and 3. I really don't see the need to be nervous in Camp 2. Having Drew around for 2015 and 2016 shouldn't be filled with dread. He's a left-handed hitter with an extreme postive split against RHP- this is extremely valuable in a platoon situation should a dropoff in Drew's play arise that necessitates limiting his playing time. He's already said he would be willing to fill a role other than SS, should it help the team. And if they get Drew for say, 3/$30M, that $10M annual nut that the Twins are responsible for shouldn't overly hamper them from further FA accquisitions. Correia, Hammer, Suzuki, Burton come off the payroll this year, and Pelfrey, and probably Duensing come off the payroll next year. Financially, it's a new day in Twins Territory, this isn't Budget Ball in a plastic dome any longer, time to disabuse ourselves of this mindset of one mistake crippling the franchise.

I disagree. There are plenty of roster-clutterers at this point, and a trade, 60-day DL or DFA can be accommodated in an instant. And who would the 4 guys ahead of him be? May, Johnson and Darnell, plus Deduno would be my assumption. The Twins have been all over the likelihood of Meyer's good chances for joining the big club since ST, and the reporters are repeating this message ever since- he's clearly a better option than any of the other 4. The Twins are making a concerted effort in putting a competitive team on the field, finally! It's a new day in Twins Territory. Once Meyer passes the arb date, it's only a matter of time that Meyer is called up, either as a starter or in the pen.

A lot of arms and legs for a batter to have to differentiate from the baseball. Smoother delivery than I expected. But what do you think of his arm action- does he tip the breaking ball? Did anyone have a gun on his fastball?

You simply can't go with Florimon any longer.....his hitting is epically bad....epically. Permanent psychologically epic damage unplayably bad. And why make a trade in the offseason, which would certainly be costly, when all you "trade" is money (and a chance to recoup the pick in the compensation draft should Drew work out well). Just one lower level example here: trading for Didi Gregorius, who got beat out for the job in Arizona, would cost you Josmil Pinto, do we really want to go that route? The Twins may or may not have their SS in the organization, but that consideration should be separate to stabilizing the situation now, and in the intermediate term of 1-2 more years with Drew.

Your bolded sentences don't follow, logically speaking. How does a SS sign an expensive contract to some random team if he's "likely to be among the poorest big league shortstops"? When healthy, he overall is in the top third of SS, as demonstrated in 2013. As we've discussed in countless other threads, it's Drew's health that is in question, not his ability as a quality hitting SS- and rarest of valuable middle infield rarities, hits lefthanded.

Mets, Padres and Twins are definite surprises. But since I've defended them in the past for what they were doing with their rebuilds, I may as well do so again, here. The Marlins had incredibly good young pitching last year (franchise record ERA of 3.70), and incredibly good young and maturing pitching (3.49 ERA in 2014) and position players this year (.321 wOBA this year vs. .279 wOBA in 2013)- so this is really less of a surprise than at first glance. And they actually added key FAs, Salty to catch, plus McGehee and Furcal (hasn't played yet). The Marlins are doing a textbook teardown, rebuild, and they have RedDog, who is proving to be a good manager. I would expect they get even more adventuresome next offseason in anticipation of a strong run in 2015. And I was amongst the very few on TD that noted and defended the White Sox, who made a series of good off-season moves to strengthen their lineup, especially at the top of the order with Eaton, as well as getting Abreu at a bargain price (that one still hurts, Terry Ryan!). The Twins regression of the notable few is definitely already happening, and the League is going to make severe pitching adjustments to the Twins patient approach at the plate, but I expect that some of the hitting slackers thus far, plus the starting pitching, are going to improve markedly in May, so hopefully, this year's Twins edition can hang around and make the season interesting into July, at least.

It was only a matter of time for Vargas. Historically, he's been a slow starter, batting only ~.740 OPS in April in his career. Maybe it's his warmer weather preference, but he's averaged over .900 OPS for the rest of a typical Vargas season, including a 1.053 OPS in May. And additionally, it would also be nice to see how well he can hit with someone better batting behind him and more runners on base in front of him, New Britain's lineup is currently very underwhelming. How good might he do with Buxton and Polanco batting in front of him and say, a hot-hitting Walker behind him? I would love to see Vargas up by September, but the decks will have to clear out a little and he needs to bang down the door to the major leagues to make it happen. Is it wrong to maintain Hope for the Next Big Papi? At the time of his demotion, Antony said that all Parm had to do was show he could get his hitting stroke back and he'd get another chance. Is it just possible that Parmelee gets a shot with the Twins before Arcia? Arcia's K rate was alarming before he went down- perhaps an extended stint in Rochester is what he needs. And there is bound to be regression and an injury or two amongst the big lumber guys currently on the Twins roster. And a trade or two in the offing (Willingham?).

And even when the typical 8-walk victory is resulting in the latest phenomenon- the 9-inning, 4-hour-long game. The games are morphing into cricket matches, but yes, I'll take it.

All torn up. That's 7 Ks plus the slash. [TABLE=class: tablehead] [TR=class: evenrow player-10-6341] Trevor vs. Justin Verlander [TD=class: textright]24[/TD] [TD=class: textright]4[/TD] [TD=class: textright]1[/TD] [TD=class: textright]0[/TD] [TD=class: textright]0[/TD] [TD=class: textright]0[/TD] [TD=class: textright]0[/TD] [TD=class: textright]7[/TD] [TD=class: textright].167[/TD] [TD=class: textright].167[/TD] [TD=class: textright].208[/TD] [TD=class: textright].375[/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE]

Bernier is NOT the answer at SS. And how does Florimon "figure it out" on the bench? He needs to go back, today, and get swings in AAA or AA, and learn to become a utility guy, which, quite frankly, pretty much is his only hope to stick at the major league level.

Apparently the Yankees didn't get the memo, he's gotten 4 innings in so far: [TABLE=class: sortable stats_table] [TH=class: tooltip sort_default_asc show_partial_when_sorting, align: left]Year[/TH] [TH=class: tooltip sort_default_asc show_partial_when_sorting, align: center]Tm[/TH] [TH=class: tooltip sort_default_asc, align: center]Lg[/TH] [TH=class: tooltip sort_default_asc show_partial_when_sorting, align: center]Age[/TH] [TH=class: tooltip sort_default_asc, align: left]Pos[/TH] [TH=class: tooltip, align: center]G[/TH] [TH=class: tooltip, align: center]GS[/TH] [TH=class: tooltip, align: center]CG[/TH] [TH=class: tooltip, align: center]Inn[/TH] [TH=class: tooltip, align: center]Ch[/TH] [TH=class: tooltip, align: center]PO[/TH] [TH=class: tooltip, align: center]A[/TH] [TH=class: tooltip, align: center]E[/TH] [TH=class: tooltip, align: center]DP[/TH] [TH=class: tooltip, align: center]Fld%[/TH] [TH=class: tooltip, align: center]Rdrs[/TH] [TH=class: tooltip, align: center]Rdrs/yr[/TH] [TH=class: tooltip, align: center]RF/9[/TH] [TH=class: tooltip, align: center]RF/G[/TH] [TH=class: tooltip, align: center]lgFld%[/TH] [TH=class: tooltip, align: center]lgRF9[/TH] [TH=class: tooltip, align: center]lgRFG[/TH] [TH=class: tooltip sort_default_asc show_partial_when_sorting, align: center]Awards[/TH] [TR=class: full] [TD=align: left]2014[/TD] [TD=align: left]NYY[/TD] [TD=align: left]AL[/TD] [TD=align: right]26[/TD] [TD=align: left]3B[/TD] [TD=align: right]19[/TD] [TD=align: right]15[/TD] [TD=align: right]12[/TD] [TD=align: right]144.2[/TD] [TD=align: right]46[/TD] [TD=align: right]10[/TD] [TD=align: right]35[/TD] [TD=align: right]1[/TD] [TD=align: right]1[/TD] [TD=align: right].978[/TD] [TD=align: right]-2[/TD] [TD=align: right]-17[/TD] [TD=align: right]2.80[/TD] [TD=align: right]2.37[/TD] [TD=align: right].950[/TD] [TD=align: right]2.55[/TD] [TD=align: right]2.54[/TD] [TD=align: left][/TD] [/TR] [TR=class: full] [TD=class: light_text, align: left]2014[/TD] [TD=align: left]NYY[/TD] [TD=align: left]AL[/TD] [TD=class: light_text, align: right]26[/TD] [TD=align: left]2B[/TD] [TD=align: right]5[/TD] [TD=align: right]5[/TD] [TD=align: right]2[/TD] [TD=align: right]33.1[/TD] [TD=align: right]12[/TD] [TD=align: right]4[/TD] [TD=align: right]8[/TD] [TD=align: right]0[/TD] [TD=align: right]2[/TD] [TD=align: right]1.000[/TD] [TD=align: right]-1[/TD] [TD=align: right]-40[/TD] [TD=align: right]3.24[/TD] [TD=align: right]2.40[/TD] [TD=align: right].985[/TD] [TD=align: right]4.46[/TD] [TD=align: right]4.44[/TD] [TD=align: left][/TD] [/TR] [TR=class: full] [TD=class: light_text, align: left]2014 [/TD] [TD=align: left]NYY[/TD] [TD=align: left]AL[/TD] [TD=class: light_text, align: right]26[/TD] [TD=align: left]SS [/TD] [TD=align: right]3[/TD] [TD=align: right]0[/TD] [TD=align: right]0[/TD] [TD=align: right]4.0 [/TD] [TD=align: right]1[/TD] [TD=align: right]1[/TD] [TD=align: right]0[/TD] [TD=align: right]0[/TD] [TD=align: right]0[/TD] [TD=align: right]1.000[/TD] [TD=align: right]0[/TD] [TD=align: right]0[/TD] [TD=align: right]2.25[/TD] [TD=align: right]0.33[/TD] [TD=align: right].980[/TD] [TD=align: right]4.05[/TD] [TD=align: right]4.00[/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE]

I don't know about Romero's glove, and Bernier and Hermann are definitely not the answer- for the bat in Bernier's case and both the glove and bat in Hermann's case. And neither of the first two have proven they are major league players. How about Mauer? And then if Plouffe goes on the DL, maybe Parmellee gets a recall to share time at 1st with Cola? And I agree with you, they have to go back to the 12-man staff.

Markedly different vibe this year. Over the past 3 years, there's no way the Twins win this game. A few more gamers in the lineup, plus the luck factor part of the game is finally evening out. The calls for Hughes's head have been effectively silenced. After the top of the 7th, I couldn't tell if Andy and Gardy were more happy for Hughes or their own good fortunes.

Inappropriately soliciting a review of "Our American Cousin ".....

I was impressed by Polanco's headiness when I saw him play last season. Here with all the pressure of expectations by going on the 40-man, a new league, newly full-time at SS and struggling defensively at SS, and yet he hasn't missed a beat at the plate in the pitching-heavy FSL. Get him on the fast track to New Britain- they need him.

The only thing missing is Jim Leyland's facial expression of irksome exasperation: [TABLE] [/TD] [TABLE] [TD=align: left] Reddit [/TABLE] [/TABLE] http://media.mlive.com/tigers_impact/photo/9612078-large.jpg