jokin
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Everything posted by jokin
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At least with the Rangers he was blocked by Andrus, Kinsler and Profar. And he did just beat out a 4-year MLB vet, Nunez, for a roster spot on the Yankees. In watching his video highlight package, his play in the field looked competent. And I was stunned to see that both ZiPS and Steamer projecting him for a positive dWAR this year. He's a mystery man, for sure, and he's not a major league SS and most likely Util player of the day material, but it is the kind of highly unlikely story, like Colabello only moreso because of the Yankee media spotlight, that makes the game so interesting.
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We can only hope. I'm not sure if Gardy has declared his set of rules for playing 3 Catchers simultaneously yet.
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I get why he's now the starting LFer tomorrow. He has a good arm and he's certainly better than Hammer and Kubel, but I didn't see enough last season that led me to conclude that his overall OF defense was "terrific". Anyway, this misses my point in that the over-riding aspect I was referring to remains in effect, IMO. And that is- the strong likelihood that he's up to stay. His versatility is nice to have available, and he showed glimpses in ST of breaking through as he has in the past- but it was only 17 ABs- more likely another tease and a mirage. In larger samples, he hasn't yet mastered AAA pitching, let alone Major League, he still likely ends up as a net drag on the 25 man as a 5th OF/3rd C (2013 WAR -0.3/2014 WAR -0.4). Hope I'm wrong and he comes out like Cola has and makes things regarding playing time issues even more interesting.
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Revealed to whom? The 2013 "Replete with Clete/Stick with Hicks" OF should have revealed their shallow situation to the Twins decision-makers on that matter. Unlike most of us on TD who were already concerned about OF dpeth after the Span/Revere purge, the Twins actually doubled down on last year's strategy. When the reveal of today's LF debacle leaves you pining for some Willingham web gems, and then having the likes of Chris Hermann coming to the rescue, the term "shallow" in describing the OF depth situation is probably too kind. And the urgency of this immediate situation still doesn't even address the still-"deeper" issue of only having one person qualified to play CF on the 40 man roster. But let's celebrate the new record just set on "Least amount of time for Gardy to break his vow of only needing 2 catchers". But at least the "Free Pinto!" faction now get to see a guy, who could potentially be among the 5 best hitters on the team, get 2 or 3 more PAs per week.
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A month? You give it that long to die down?
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The Sox brought him to be platoon DH true because that's kind of what he'd deomonstrated his career had merited to that point in time. And by Ryan's own admission that releasing him was his worst move ever, the team that should have known the most about what Ortiz's upside potential actually was, was the Twins. And do the "pollyanic rips on the Twins" include Ortiz's own words, as well? Thankfully, I doubt we'll be having this discussion about Solarte 10 years from now.
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Or sinks his sub?
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This is Florimon's 9th year as a professional. And all we've had confirmed thus far is, the only thing worse than Florimon at the plate the last 8 years, is post-appendectomy-Florimon at the plate in his 9th year. Unfortunately, the time has probably passed for signing Drew, as Boras is probably lining up the June bids for his services as we speak.
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Exactly. The big teams are playing chess on Drew in just this way. If you are a team like the Twins, your chess move was signing him in March-especially when Florimon went down with the appendectomy, by June you'll be checkmated by at least a half dozen other teams for Drew's services.
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It's been announced that Hermann is coming up. How about Kepler.....AND Polanco, as well, optioning Florimon back to Rochester? That's an outside the box, wild and crazy risk 2-fer.... it would definitely get my attention.
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I just watched the replay. The lead-in to the presser was a recorded tribute to Gardy from Ryan and Kelly to mark the 1000th win. In respect to today's outcome, Kelly got it right about Gardy's historical willingness in taking wild and crazy chances, but Ryan's tribute rang hollow regarding how much he respects the game and is driven to playing the game the right way. I didn't have a problem with most of the tenor of his exposition of the game, but regarding his thoughts on Bartlett's performance, well, that struck me as him feeling bad for putting someone in a position he had no business being.
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It's hard to make Josh Willingham look like a Gold Glove left-fielder by comparison to "Mr. 25th man team chemist" and the manager look ridiculous in just one afternoon, but the Twins "social experiment" just accomplished the impossible Since this whole fiasco is pretty much owned by just one Twins decision-maker, I think Gardy used up all of his "Mr 1000 Wins!!" goodwill in less than 24 hours.
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LOL. "Strong alternative" in CF? I'd settle for one with a modicum of major league mediocrity. For as much as the manager frets about not having the luxury of 3 catchers and 8 relief pitchers, having Jason Bartlett as #2 on the depth chart in CF should be even more hair-raising, both in the field and at the plate. How did the Twins not learn their lesson from "The Year of Clete" ? And now it's revealed that Arcia has the same wrist injury that he had late last summer, meaning the Twins are down to 3 actual and available OFers on the roster until at least mid-week- with the usual "day-to-day-while-we-wait-and-see-how-it-feels-and-go-from-there" routine, possibly leading all the way to potential extended DL time in the offing if things don't improve. How long would the Twins be willing to wait to make a roster move if it was Hicks instead of Arcia with the apparent day-to-day wrist situation? And the winner, by default, is the diminished Darrin Mastroiani, who also needs a roster spot BTW, and because of his health situation, has been reduced to "Year of Clete" level, if that.
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Article: Twins Minor League Report (4/5): Miracle Mashing
jokin replied to Seth Stohs's topic in Twins Daily Front Page News
Shane, do you or anybody else know if there are guys in EST that are close enough developmentally to infuse that CR lineup with some more punch? Clearly,with 4 OFer on the DL at Ft Myers, some of those guys will have to be moved down or released at some point. But I don't see much help in EST either (how close are Navaretto and Minier?). 8 position guys from the group that didn't perform well in E-Town last year are on the current CR roster. Looks like this level and E-Town could use a couple trades for some hitting prospects. -
Through 6 years up and down with the Twins and through 2 managers- to paraphrase an iconic movie- "what we (apparently) had there was failure to communitcate". The Twins apparently never felt that Ortiz was able to "get the basics down"*** before they were willing to consider him a "solid major leaguer", even as he was having a breakout year in 2002. Furthermore, they compounded their mis-assessment of Ortiz, clearly on the way up in his career, but also LeCroix (despite being the same age as Ortiz) who had done little to that point for the Twins, peaked in 2003 and quickly was on a career-ending crash-and-burn spiral. http://www.twincities.com/ci_23276584/tom-powers-after-all-these-years-david-ortiz Communication is a 2 way street, I think Ortiz had likely reached an impasse in this regard with the field manager- he was going to be a Dominican "Cool Hand Luke"- come hell or high water, making Terry Ryan's decision to release him a fairly easy one.
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He would likely CATCH 3/5 days in Rochester....And in a week's worth of 6-7 games in Rochester, he would be DHing at least 2 more times per week. I'm not saying that Pinto should be getting regular DH starts at the major league level at this point, but it's absurd not to be able to have him available daily as a pinch hitter and that he didn't enter the game as a DH for Bartlett in the 8th inning the other day. Can someone send a printout to Gardy of the mathematical odds of a pitcher having to bat more than once a season due to injury is practically infinitesimal? To dumb it down even more, just tell him, "as long as you hold emergency Catcher Escobar out when both Suzuki and Pinto are in the lineup at the same time, you've even got that infinitesimal thing covered."
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Big Papi would be the first to agree with you on your premise.
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Yeah, just as silly, because Eddie had a AA year at the plate like Solarte had...oh wait...he didn't. But as I said, I'm thinking Solarte starting for the Yankees in 2014 says more about them than about the Twins not putting him on the 40 man roster in 2012 But yeah, we lost Yangervis Solarte and have to move on from that awesome name uniqueness, but the future is bright, as we still have Amaurys Minier and Engelb Vielma
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I wasn't going to touch that one with a 10 foot pole. I figured either you or Snepp were on it with your own particular brands of Google-Fu. Well played.
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We can talk about him when he makes the Yankees, too. Or maybe Shane might want to do daily updates for Jacksonville's own "Joltin" Joe in a new thread? BTW, in a continuation of one of the most unlikely stories of the year, Solarte is quickly gaining a cult following in New York***, as he started his 3rd straight game for the Yanks today at 3rd, reaching base 3 times in 4 ABs while going 2 for 3. The manager seems sheepishly gratified that he is actually being asked questions about a player even he hadn't heard of until Spring Training and that his team is starting 2 career minor leaguers in the same infield alongside future of Hall of Famer Derek Jeter and all of the high priced off season acquisitions. ***http://www.forums.mlb.com/n/pfx/forum.aspx?tsn=1&nav=messages&webtag=ml-YANKEES&tid=533194
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Yankees 7, Blue Jays 3: Masahiro Tanaka, Jacoby Ellsbury, and Yangervis Solarte shine in Tanaka's debut "While Tanaka lived up to expectations by going 7 strong innings, the stars of the show on offense were undoubtedly Jacoby Ellsbury and Yangervis Solarte- who cracked 2 doubles in his 2nd consecutive start." "Mark Teixeira went down with a hamstring injury that won't be tested until Monday. That almost certainly means that Johnson will be playing first for the remainder of the series. Can't complain about that too much, as Solarte has more than earned more playing time." http://www.pinstripealley.com/yankees-scores-game-recaps/2014/4/4/5583304/yankees-blue-jays-score-recap-masahiro-tanaka-debut-teixeira-injury
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Couldn't Berardino have at least thrown us a bone on Sano's rehab progress?
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Amen to that. And if there was any doubt, 4 ABs batting LH today should offer a nice dose of reality. 2 years ago, Hicks wasn't moved up to the leadoff spot in New Britain until late June. This obviously turned out to be a smart move, as Hicks obviously had reached his comfort zone, as he was huge for the Rock Cats in the #1 spot for the rest of 2012 in AA ball. Supposedly, Carew has pumped up Hicks' bunting skills in the offseason, if he has become more adept at this skill, I'd especially like to see him employ it more often from the left side. Ferrari from the right side of the plate, Prius from the left side.
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The eye test tells me to go with Fangraphs in this case. But I think he ultimately finds himself having the most value as a SuperUtil guy. Guys that can hit with some decent power and in Plouffe's case, increasing willingness to hit to all fields, and play up to 7 positions in a pinch with at least a minimum of competence, are pretty valuable-- the Yankees are now forced to be employing Yangervis Solarte at 3rd- and even turned to Mark Reynolds last year- and kind-of have Kelly Johnson in their Super UTIL role now. But with Plouffe now actually showing some power potential to RF as well as LF, he could become attractive to the Yankees and their much smaller ballpark (He'd already have 2 RF HRs this year at Yankee Stadium).
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It is possible to be positive about aspects of the team compared to year's past teams- in my case- the pitching staff, yet still hold realistic views that this will still likely be a bad team. And I haven't moved one iota from this perspective after the first 4 games. After the SP signings, I predicted 70-74 wins- a "bad" team by any measure. And I'm not ready to abandon my pitching projections at this juncture, either- way too soon to push pitching panic buttons at this point. When it became obvious early in 2014 that: the Twins were "done" upgrading the offense, Bartlett and Kubel were going to make the team, Sano went down with TJ, Meyer and Buxton appeared to be on the slow track, I considered scaling back my W-L number, hence, an even badder team than what I'd already admitted to. But I think there were enough positive signs in ST from Hicks, Colabello, Pinto and Santana to surmise that 70+ wins is still feasible. But you're right. Now 4 games into the season, not one trend is confirmed for how the season will proceed. Lots of starting pitchers around the league, many better than anyone on the Twins staff, have had even worse first starts than anyone on the Twins staff. And on the positive side, guys like Willingham, Kubel and Plouffe are at least showing signs of a pulse at the plate. If Gardy finally figures out that he has to get Pinto playing in some capacity more than twice a week behind the plate and can get Deduno into a better-defined, better-suited role, things can improve even more.