biggentleben
-
Posts
4,657 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
3
Content Type
Profiles
Minnesota Twins News, Rumors & Analysis
Minnesota Twins Videos
2026 Minnesota Twins Top Prospect Rankings
2022 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks & Signing Bonuses
Minnesota Twins Trade & Free Agent Rumors
Minnesota Twins Fan Guides & Resources
2023 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks & Signing Bonuses
The Minnesota Twins Players Project
2024 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks & Signing Bonuses
2025 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks & Signing Bonuses
2026 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks & Signing Bonuses
Forums
Blogs
Events
Store
Downloads
Gallery
Everything posted by biggentleben
-
No, they didn't wave the white flag. They traded off pending free agents. Waving the white flag would have been going all-out and moving guys like Santana and Dozier. With the value of Garcia and Kintzler exponentially lessened on August 1 vs. July 31, you make that move if there's any question at all about whether or not you'll hang around all season. There was legit reason to question, they made the moves, neither of which was a move that decimated the opportunity for the 2017 team to compete.
-
Well stated. I recall reading multiple conversations through the season about how hard he was hitting his shins with balls. I wondered when they discussed going down due to essentially repeated trauma if the bone may have finally given way to some degree.
-
Tigers not bringing Brad Ausmus back for 2018
biggentleben replied to Paul Pleiss's topic in Other Baseball
They've made huge strides in their system in the last 18 months, which does at least give them a start to a rebuild, but they've really moved the guys that they could hope to get anything for in trade right now. -
-
Why can I not like this twice?? LOL
-
I like him a lot (had him #1 in my Southern League prospects that came out yesterday), but there's a fairly low floor with him still, as high as that ceiling may be.
-
Um, you do realize the move to Fort Myers was on Doug's request, do you not?
-
You're fighting for the guy with the least tenure the hardest. So, if he wasn't famous, would you even know? Would you care? I think it sheds a light on some of the discussion...I'm quite certain none of the scouts let go were going to have a 16-page thread about their dismissal.
-
I'm not by any means saying they had any reason to tell him anything. I'm just talking about who makes the call. That point would still have to follow set protocols if he was under contract.
-
Exactly. I remember being told so many times as a young player to hit the ball on the ground to move over a runner. I was a farm kid that could exceed 80 MPH off the mound when I was barely a teen. My swing was not going to be best suited for ground balls. My final year, I had a coach who didn't care if I went 1-4 or 4-4 but wanted me swinging with my strength behind it, and the results were so much better. No one told me a proper launch angle or anything of the sort, but being allowed to pull the ball and hit it in the air, even if that could mean a fly out or line out, is a thing suddenly baseball is realizing there is data to back up as a better way to do things.
-
I would wager visually that Sano was in the 10-12% range max this spring. For a guy with significant muscle, that's about as lean as you want to get to protect yourself. He was also reported in the 260 range in spring. Losing 25 pounds off of that 260 would put him at a higher risk for injury at 235 pounds of basically pure muscle on his frame. Even if he was up some, he wasn't adding in areas of fat retention - more areas of muscle retention, which says he may have still been gaining muscle.
-
And this season, he hadn't missed any real major time until August when he was plunked on the hand and missed 3 games. Otherwise, it was 2 games or 1 game at a time that he'd be out, which is pretty routine rest that all the guys in the lineup got.
-
You obviously mistook my comment about direct quotes. Sano was quoted throughout the offseason about his workouts, put in a very strong offseason of work (which was documented on a few different IG and Twitter spots), and reported to camp quite fat-trim, albeit who knows what the exact weight number was. He had worked throughout the offseason on his flexibility and agility as well as his defense to improve his defensive play this season. He was quoted throughout the offseason, spring, and early season locally and nationally on his weight. The topic was something he was very open about and very willing to discuss, yet there wasn't a single direct quote about the concerns the front office was having AT THAT MOMENT for Souhan's original article of issue. That was where I was making plenty of noise about Sano quotes needing to be in that article. Others asking for quotes, I'm not sure, but I can certainly tell you that I was more than aware of this piece from LENIII as one of the numerous articles done from the point he ended 2016 injured and the point of Souhan's article where Sano was directly quoted about his own weight, often even giving a number.
-
I really do think some of the scouting stuff that's come out from Fangraphs and Keith Law recently discussing a shift in the scouting game is going to make a number of scouts dismiss-able. When so many things at the ballpark can get you the home to first times, the radar readings, the first to third times, the pop times, and everything else, the job becomes 100% player skill and personal evaluation. Many scouts have lived on a career of essentially jotting numbers in a book that they report to the team while providing minimal analysis beyond that. The position will become much more focused on getting to know the player on and off the field and the type of player he can become more than rattling off pitch velocities and home to first times.
-
Not asking for anything you can't divulge, of course, but curious why on this particular guy vs. some of the other ones not (yet) let go? I know he's certainly not the youngest blossom on the cherry tree, but I don't know his other beliefs outside of that.
-
If Doug is still technically under contract (be it for one more day, 10 more days, or another 45 days), the team needs to follow set standards within their structure. Perhaps it isn't the "good ol' boy" way to do it (not that Terry Ryan/Andy MacPhail did it that way every time either, but don't tell Souhan), but it's the way that helps to avoid lawsuits. Baseball settles a lot of employment suits every year because of someone stepping outside of set HR boundaries, but you just don't hear about them because usually what happens is that the step is made for someone like Doug and it costs the team when Jim from accounting is dismissed without the same treatment and can sue for damages. While we talk about the on field/analytical stuff, that's another part of the influx of business school educated front office types that have become desired - their experience helping to run an actual business and not lose money for reasons that could be avoided.
-
Nearly all of whom let go had longer Twins tenures and none of whom have seen this sentiment raised in their threads. Just saying.
-
That's the whole point that's been lost on a lot of the coverage of launch angle. In talking with the Driveline guys, most of the mainstream media coverage of launch angle flat out sucks. No one wants to hit more fly balls, at least not fly balls without significant velocity added. The point of launch angle, and what hitters are striving for, is a perfect sting at the upper scale of a line drive swing. Line drive swings have significantly better BABIP and general results, and that's what launch angle is finding. You don't want to hit fly balls as much more of them turn into outs.
-
Based on current suspensions, this is more accurately a steroid era as actual steroids are being caught, not performance enhancing substances. I do think that much like the late 90s and early 2000s, there are many factors coming into play all at once to do what's going on.
-
Gordon hit his 8th home run, not 17th. In fact, the ironic part of the whole thing was that the qualified batter with the lowest slugging percentage in baseball is the guy who hit the home run that broke the record. He's really had a terrible year, but this was one solid moment for him.
-
I don't know, I think having me on the night that Jaime Garcia rumors became a thing to discuss Braves/Twins couldn't have been much better timing! LOL
-
HIPPA isn't an issue here. However, the contracts in minor league baseball (depending on team, but as a general rule) run until at least October 1, and sometimes until end of the major league season. It is very feasible that Doug was (and is) still under active contract that will not be renewed when the call was made.
-
You may want to just skip the offseason, then. I have a feeling you'll be upset about a number of "poor decisions". Of course, no comment was made in the Rasmussen thread or any of the threads on scouts being let go about who contacted them, so apparently it's not years of service that matters, it's level of "fame".
-
Does not change the procedure on who makes the call on a non-renewal. All HR procedures would still apply while the employee is currently on contract.
-
And if the employee would report something directly to Falvey rather than Steil, they'd be told to go through proper channels. It works the other direction as well. For legality purposes, there are set HR guidelines in most organizations on who does firing of supervised employees. I do remember a case in one of my HR classes in college about an upper management person losing their job for going around the employee's direct supervisor in a termination because it violated company policy. There are often very strong legal reasons why a certain person is the one making the call.
