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markos

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Everything posted by markos

  1. markos
    I think Dozier's contract is an asset but just not very valuable. It is an asset because I think he will be underpaid relative to his performance - if he was a free agent, he would make way more than 2y/$15M. But at the same time, there isn't any obvious buyers right now for a league-average second-baseman. Almost every contender has an entrenched player that is as good or better than Dozier. And looking forward, I think the Mets are the only team losing their starter (Neil Walker) this offseason. So supply/demand forces are not in the Twins favor at all. His situation is very similar to the Plouffe situation last offseason.
  2. markos
    Hughes was already mentioned, but he definitely needs to be considered for the bullpen next year. Additionally, I would scour the waiver-wire and minor league free agents for 1 or 2 failed AA or AAA starters and see what they could do in the bullpen.
  3. markos
    I think there is a lot to like with Grossman, or at least to be cautiously optimistic. His overall profile, including the minors, was pretty solid except that he lacked the power for a corner outfield position - but that has been his biggest improvement this season (even in AAA to start the year). He obviously won't keep up a .300 ISO, but even a bump up to .150-.200 ISO isn't unreasonable (career .ISO was .100). He definitely wouldn't be the first player to have a power-spike in his late-twenties. I wonder if he made some swing/approach improvements, as he is hitting more flyballs and liners, making harder contact, and pulling the ball more often. Anyway, assuming he keeps his walks (he has always had a solid walk rate throughout his career) and some of this new found power, he should be a solidly average hitter. That isn't great for a corner-outfielder, but not the end of the world. And it is pretty solid as a 4th-outfielder/bench bat, even more so when factoring in his switch-hitting ability. Sometimes I wonder if Travis Harrison will have this kind of season in 2020.
  4. markos
    He was a late-1st rounder last year, but could agree with the (I think) Dodgers and went back for this senior season. He was pretty crappy this year, though I guess he was better lately. I would definitely take a flyer on him.
  5. markos
    I think he is a bit behind expectations. If you look at the 20 top HS pitchers taken between 2007-2013, there is the following breakdown. By Year 2 (second full season after drafted): 4 had reached the majors (Bumgarner, Turner, Fernandez, Bundy) 5 had reached AA (Parker, Miller, Taillon, Bradley, Stephenson) 5 dealt with major injuries (Giolito, Fried, Guerrieri, Purke, Hobgood) Of the remaining 6, one (Wheeler) started Year 3 at AA. The remaining 5 (Matzek, Travieso, Sims, Stewart and Ball) all repeated A+. There are a couple ways to look at this. On one hand, I think there is a good argument that of the healthy pitchers, Stewart has progressed on the slow side and that his peers in this regard are not terribly inspiring. So that is reason to consider Stewart a disappointing pick so far. On the other hand, a lot will ultimately depend on how Stewart responds to AA and above, and how well his health holds up. He could certainly "catch up" over the next year or two if things go well, as many of the arms "ahead" of Stewart stalled in AA-AAA for performance/health reasons. My stance is that is it disappointing (though not surprising) that Stewart isn't a phenom, and it is disappointing that he hasn't performed better or moved faster. Relative to his draft status, I think he has under-performed. However, I still consider him a Prospect, I don't think he is a bust, and I certainly don't think his selection at #4 was a poor one.
  6. markos
    They would probably look a lot like the Tom Kelly teams.
  7. markos
    But at the same time, I don't think I've seen anyone argue that you need to be 100% certain that a pick will sign. And there is some evidence over the years (Pirates with Appel, Blue Jays with Beede and Bickford) that teams will make a pick even though there are sign-ability questions. Basically, my thoughts are this. First, it is unanimously agreed that 1) top picks contain almost all of the value in a draft, so punting a top pick loses a ton of value. 2) the next-season compensation pick recoups some, but not all, of the lost value. So that is the downside, and why everyone agrees that it isn't smart to intentionally punt a pick. The upside is that in certain cases you might get a better player than you otherwise would if you needed to be 100% certain that he would sign. How the upside and downside relate depends entirely on the specific situation: the probability that the player is bluffing, the talent difference between the players, etc.
  8. markos
    That might work in a vacuum, but every other team is thinking along the same lines, and many of them are in much better position than the Twins to be creative. Right now I think the odds of any top-30 talent dropping to #56 is exceedingly small. Too many teams have multiple picks between #15 and #56: Dodgers (3: 20,32,36)* Cardinals (3: 23,33,34)* Padres (3: 24,25,48)* Mets (2: 19, 31) Pirates (2: 22,41) White Sox (2: 26,49)* Orioles (2: 27,54) Nationals (2: 28,29) Reds (2: 35,43)* A's (2: 37,47)* Rockies (2: 38,45)* Diamondbacks (2: 39,52) Braves (2: 40,44)* The *s above all have larger bonus pools to play with as well. And this list doesn't even include the Phillies, who are going to have a ton of leftover money to spend at #42.
  9. markos
    This was a good read. It is also a good reminder of how shallow each draft is. Even with perfect hindsight, the best players available around #30 in a seemingly deep draft were relievers, middle-of-the-rotation arms and flawed position players. At lot of people have criticized the Michael, Boyd and Harrison selections, but the odds of them producing any significant value in the majors has always been fairly small. To contrast, the expected value that would be lost if the Twins miss on any one of the 2012-2015 1st-round picks is probably an order of magnitude higher than missing on all three of the 2011 picks.
  10. markos
    Just out of curiosity, what do you have against Dunn and Manning?
  11. markos
    It isn't exactly punting a pick to select the best player and hope they were bluffing about their bonus demands. If, as an example, Matt Manning is saying he won't sign for less than $3.5M, but the Twins pick him anyway at #15 and offer him $2.8M (or maybe go overslot up to $3M), is Manning really going to forego the money and security over $500K? Maybe he won't sign at that number and go to college, but I have to think it is at least 50-50 that he will sign. So is taking a 50-50 risk (or 25-75, or 90-10, or whatever you think the odds might be) "punting" on the pick? Or should the Twins be 100% certain that the player they pick will sign at $2.8M? Personally, I mostly think these HS pitchers will all sign for a lower amount than they say, provided it isn't an egregious discount.
  12. markos
    This is a really good sign. I can't find the study right now, but someone went through all college hitters drafted in top of the first round over the past ten years or so. Strikeout-to-walk ratio is as good as you can get for a single, simple predictor. 1:1 or better, and they hit in the majors. Worse than that, and they were busts.
  13. markos
    I'd be fine with the Hudson pick as well. I haven't read anything about Dunn or Zeuch. What do they have going for them? College pop-up guys? This certainly seems to indicate that the Twins are leaning toward the college ranks. Interesting... I also noticed that BA had Zach Burdi taken at #12 to Boston.
  14. markos
    I wouldn't describe his current performance as 'meh', but I don't think it is significantly different than his performance at AAA in 2015: slightly above the league-average strikeout rate, slightly below the league-average walk rate, and buoyed by a high BABIP. The biggest difference this time around is that he is in the midst of power-spike - his current .242 ISO is way above his career average. My goalposts haven't changed: I want him to have 150+ PAs with a <20% K%, >10% BB% and >.150 ISO. And while I would like to see him get another 100 PAs or so to see if he can get back to taking walks like he was in 2013, but I don't see that happening. His overall stat line is just too good right now, even though it is mostly BABIP and ISO driven (which can be so noisy in smallish samples). My guess is he is back up within two weeks.
  15. markos
    I'm disappointed that Rochester missed Indianapolis's two best pitchers this week: Jameson Tallion and Tyler Glasnow. Both are among the best prospects in baseball. He also missed out facing Blake Snell (another top prospect) when they played Durham last week (Buxton was injured). It would have been nice to see Buxton match up against them.
  16. markos
    I wish I had more time to write out my thoughts about an ideal front office (though for the most part would just be a re-iteration of what has already been said by other), but these two points sum up most of my thoughts: 1) I want to see a plan in action. Frankly, I don't necessarily care what the plan is, and I don't need to have it stated explicitly. But I just want to see the moves made at all levels (drafting, player development, trading, signings, etc) reflect a coherent strategy for the team. Again, I don't really care about the details too much - there are a lot of different ways to put together a winning team. 2) I want to see them exploring methods for gaining a competitive advantage. Yes, I definitely want to see them improve their analytics department, but in many ways that was the last war. I don't know what the next frontier is, but maybe it is something with player health, or minor league development strategies, or something else no one has even thought about yet. But I want the Twins to be the team that finds a next frontier and has other organizations trying to catch up to them, rather than the other way around.
  17. markos
    Keith Law mentioned on twitter last night that both guys are pretty mediocre as far as prospects go: on the old side with iffy fastballs. I would think that Jorge and Landa are better than those two. Of course, Ben probably has a decent handle on Atlanta prospects. Hopefully he can come up with some comps for us.
  18. markos
    I might be mis-remembering, but I thought his stink had more to do with being hurt, getting optioned back to the minors, and then getting placed on the DL, thus losing major league service time. That's why the union got involved with his grievance.
  19. markos
    Souhan is doing a little bit of hand-waving here. He continually references that Perkins and Hughes showed up out-of-shape last spring, and it is only at the very end of the article that it becomes explicit that he is referring to the 2015 spring training and that "Perkins and Hughes looked to be in better physical condition this spring than last."
  20. markos
    Dozier wasn't quite at Revere's elite contact level in the minors, but he was still very good: K% of only 11.4% with a walk rate of 9.5%. That gave him plenty of room to sacrifice contact for power and still be productive.
  21. markos
    I share your concern, though Manning might be an exception - by all accounts he is a very good athlete and was a potential D1 basketball recruit as a shooting guard. I think the part of the poor history of tall pitchers in baseball is selection bias. If a tall player has very good coordination and athleticism, he is more likely to gravitate to basketball than baseball. So the population of potentially tall baseball pitchers is missing all the tall, hyper-coordinated basketball players (think Durant, Wiggins, Towns, etc) who naturally have the ability to maintain consistent mechanics. Was Alex Meyer ever a top basketball player in high school? So I am less concerned with drafting Manning despite his current (and potential) height.
  22. markos
    I am starting to think that there is a specific player development problem in the Twins organization. I need some more time to flesh out this idea fully, so it may be incomplete and/or incorrect, but hear me out: There has been a disturbing pattern on the position player side, and it has to do with discipline and approach. In particular, many of the young guys brought up in the past 3 seasons have had the same general profile: aggressive free-swingers who don't make enough contact, and therefore don't walk enough and strikeout too much. Rosario, Santana, Vargas, Arcia, and Buxton to a varying extents all have this profile. Hicks and Sano aren't free-swingers, but they both have contact issues. I don't know if this approach is specific developed in the minors, or if it is just how these players play. But it has a few major drawbacks: 1) It works in the minors. Pitchers have worse stuff, and much worse control/command, so it is easier to have success with a free-swinging, aggressive approach. Similarly, they can get walks just by being passive. 2) It might work in the majors for a while. Rosario, Santana, Vargas and Arcia have all had stretches of really good hitting. But as big league pitchers adjust to them (or their luck changes), it is hard to maintain success without a solid plate-discipline foundation. So you end up with young hitters that are achieving "success" in the minors, but aren't able to translate their skills into (sustainable) success in the majors. I think there is a disconnect there, and I think it might even point to a fundamental issue with the Twins player development.
  23. markos
    Pitchers... smh.
  24. markos
    In addition to talking to teams, the BA and MLB.com guys (and Law, too) actually go out and scout a lot of the top players. They can see what teams are also there, and the seniority of the scouts that get sent. It matters if a team's area scout is there, or if it is the scouting director or GM that shows up. That is one of the reasons that there is a lot of talk about Manning to the Twins - I guess Deron Johnson (Twins scouting director) has watched him several times. Yes, there is probably misinformation on both sides (in Moneyball, Billy Beane liked Nick Swisher so much he never saw him live and the A's barely sent any scouts there because they were afraid other teams might notice and pick him before their chance), but I do think many of the mocks are strong attempts to get things right based on legitimate sources of information.
  25. markos
    Klaw mentioned in his writeup that Manning lives very close to Deron Johnson (Twins scouting director), who has seen him several times.
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