Thrylos

When you are 30 games under .500 3 years in a row you should resign instead of being re-signed...

John Paul \

Taiwan this season. Last season he was in the Indians' organization

This is utterly and totally ridiculous. According to every single defensive metric out there (including fielding percentage, btw) he is a much better than average SS (won the gold glove there in this winter's VWL too), better than average 2B and worse than average 3B. Also he is about 5'8" (with cleats on) and totally not suited for 3B. But, again, we are talking about a guy who had Punto as his starting third baseman for half a season... I'd love to see the Twins give him a chance to start where he belongs (at SS) because I think that he is better with the stick than Florimon and there will not be much (if any) drop off with the glove. But saying that 3B is his best position is not only ignoring the metrics but is watching him play with their eyes closed...

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Originally published at The Tenth Inning Stretch --- As in the past few years I will use dashboards to keep track of the performance of the Twins' players during Spring Training in order to get a numerical and visual representation of who is doing what, of the players who are battling for a position on the 40-man roster. With few games in and the first cuts coming early next week, it might be a good time for the first one of these. To determine that, we need to figure out who are the "locks" to come up North with the Twins. As far as position players go, Joe Mauer, Brian Dozier, Trevor Plouffe, and Josh Willingham are locks for starting positions. Kurt Suzuki is also a lock to make the 25-man roster, but not a lock to start, so he is included in the list. A lot of people might think that Pedro Florimon might also be a lock, but I think that he has to work to make it up North. The major Spring Battles for position players are: The starting and backup catcher jobs, the starting SS job, the starting DH job, two of the starting OFs, and bench positions. As far as the rotation goes, Ricky Nolasco, Phil Hughes and Mike Pelfrey are locks. Kevin Correia might still be considered a lock by man, however he could potentially be beaten for the fourth spot in the rotation and get traded before Spring Training. In addition, the fifth spot in the rotation is wide-open. As far as the pen goes, the only locks I see are Glen Perkins, Jared Burton, Brian Duensing and Anthony Swarzak, again pending trades. The starting pitcher combatants for the last rotation spot(s) could also gain positions in the pen. From the list I excluded players like Kennys Vargas, Byron Buxton, Max Kepler et al who will not make the Twins out of Spring Training. A reminder of the scoring system: For the pitchers, I quantify using a measurement created by Bill James more than a decade ago called " Game Score". It is calculated as follows: You start with 50 points for each pitcher. Add 1 point for each out. Add 1 point for each strikeout. Subtract 2 points for each hit. Subtract 4 points for each earned run. Subtract 2 points for each unearned run. Subtract 1 point for each walk. There is a point bonus for pitching more than 4 innings as well, adding 2 points for each IP after the 4th, but this is not too applicable here. Game Scored of 49-51 are "average" (yellow), everything higher than 51 "above average" (green), and everything below 49 "below average" (red). For position players, I devised a similar metric that goes like this: Start with 0 points (unlike the pitching Game Score that starts with 50) Add 1 point for each Run, RBI, 2B, SB, BB, and HBP recorded. Add 2.5 for each hit, 3 for each 3B and 4 for each HR. Subtract 1 for each CS and GIDP, subtract 1 for each error, for catchers add 1 for each CS Subtract 0.2 for each SO and 0.5 for each AB. Again, as in the Pitching Battle Dashboard, the Position Player Battle Dashboard is color-coded based on average, above average and below average performances, where: Average is Batting Game Score between 0 and 2 Above average is Batting Game Score higher than 2 Below average is Batting Game Score less than 0 Players on the 40-man roster are in bold. The ones without options are also underlined. Lefty pitchers are in italics. Here is the Dashboard for the Twins' position players: http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7417/12938185454_9148dee6eb_o.png And here for the Pitchers: http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7375/12937878823_9dc4fab48e_o.png

Thus, from now on they should be referred to as "the rules formerly known as Unwritten"

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That he could be with the bat. Just needs to be better about decision making on the field than he is right now because shortstops get many more balls their way than center fielders.

Following them both from their early years in the organization and into the minors he really is not like Guzman other than fielding and base running. He is a good speedy runner like Guzman. Speed close to Revere, maybe a notch less. Same great range but occasionally boneheaded erratic play. Santana's hit tool is excellent. He does make good contact. He does not take many balls and he does not strike out a lot. He swats at the ball and try to outrun it. Much better than Guzman there who did have more power and was pull (and K) happy resulting in low .200s BA

I don't know where you see the fire in Gardy Seth... The last few seasons Gardy has been hanging off the top rail of the dugout with his arms down on a daily basis it seems. I see defeat in him and not fire. He used to have it at some point, but now, like his team, it seems that he lost it... Maybe he does not like that any more. I hope that this is true and he and the team changes. Really I do. You know the pose I am referring to: http://tripleinthegap.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/ron-gardenhire.jpg

With the new collaborative agreement he will automatically be an Article XX( Free Agent (Players who had an expired MLB contract last off-season but signed a MiLB contract.) As such he is entitled to an $100K retention bonus if not on the MLB roster or on the DL and has an Automatic June 1st opt out date. The thing is, that he will likely not be ready to pitch competitively by June 1st...

Good stuff! Couple of things: How about Arcia being a lock because of his skill to hit the ball far and have Kubel and Parmelee fight for a spot. I don't think that Kubel has had a hit in 3 ST games so far, has he? He should not be a lock, because of his past.... Re: Meyers: He threw all but 2 fastballs today according to what he said post game because he just wanted to get the feel and establish his FB command. Naturally he got hit. No reason to worry here. Swarzak on the other hand...

Good luck AJ! Enjoy the game. I am rooting for you.

I so cannot enumerate the issues I have with this one sentence... Let me just simply say a couple of things: a. A living wage should not require justification. Period. Full stop. b. Cannot divorce the MLB team profits (MLB teams are paying MiLB player salaries not the MiLB team owners who get the MiLB game ticket receipts) from the MiLB player salary equation. That's where they belong.

Good stuff I lived too long in New Heaven to recommend anyone (I like) to stay there. Agreed, if you like pizza, Pepe's is one of the top places (and their white clam pizza is to die for). Modern is pretty good too. Other than that, if you don't have anything to do with the big four letter school, New Haven is not that very worthy. Also, flying to any of the 3 NYC airports will be a. a pain in the rear b. begging for delays and c. more expensive, because you would have to get to New Britain. On the other hand you will have the experience of an awesome drive crawling through the Bronx on I-95, which might be nice (if you don't lose a wheel in a pothole.) Nah. Fly to BDL. Delta flies directly from MSP. Rental cars are cheaper there than in NYC and going through security faster As far as staying, based on the times I have been in the area, I think that either the Meriden-Wallingford area (about 15 minutes south towards New Haven) or the Framington area and from that side of I-84 west (North of New Britain) are probably better than Hartford. Not a big Hartford fun either. As far as food goes, the one thing I would recommend (in addition to the New Haven pizza, which is out of the way) because it is just so New England, is to google "fish fry" and find a small ma and pa joint that looks a lot like the old school Dairy Queens with just outdoor seating. Oh. Like MN, wine and beer is sold in liquer stores that in the local dialect are called "Package Stores". So if you are looking for microbrew offerings to take to your hotel room, ask for a "package store". Nothing to do with the UPS store.

or to and too or resign and re-sign

That would be the Rays...

No Really. He will be able to DH in September. If they are contending then and need a bat, that's an option

FWIW, lots of that info both on the TV and the Radio broadcasts (and somewhat but much less on the ink-stained press) is fed by the Twins' Front Office for a variety of reasons, including to motivate players. Interesting to hear Gladden talk about himself and his stolen bases in the minors compared to Mastroianni's, again. And I would love it if Gladden mentions his OPS in '87 (.673) and '91 (.662) to put things into perspective occasionally...

Give him a year or two and they might actually rename the town after him

Escobar does play 3B but is his worst position. SS is his best. He is 5'9" in platform shoes. You don't really want him in the hot corner, even though Gardenhire insists...

Did they move the old one? What is there now? And the new one is like at the stand level, past the bar that was (is?) at short right before the berm?

Not such a thing That's lawer-client privilege and has to do with criminal proceedings HIPAA confidentiality regulations you mean, likely. And those really have to do with diagnosis (i.e. linking a diagnosis to a person) and went out of the window when the Twins publicized Sano's injury (actually all players have that in their contracts regarding injuries, so the Twins or anyone else was not in any sort of violation there.) To your point, Dr. Andrews or any other doctor do not have to publicize their treatment advise to their patients. In this case not because of legal things (as I said, that went out of the window), but because they simply can...

Do you remember who the starting third baseman was for Gardy for a good part of 2007 and 2008? Plouffe is a gold glover compared to him and Romero is better. Romero has good hands and his footwork is fine. His range is lacking, that's about it. Butcher he is not.