kab21
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Everything posted by kab21
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Are The Twins Drowning In Bad Contracts?
kab21 replied to Nick Nelson's topic in Twins Daily Front Page News
One could actually say that none of these contracts are killing the Twins right now. They are bad contracts but what players have the Twins not been able to sign because of lack of payroll? They could have a cheaper team but it wouldn't be any better.- 72 replies
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- phil hughes
- ervin santana
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You guys think you have it bad? My autoplay ads start shouting Chinese at me because I live in Taiwan. But that is probably the reason that I didn't get assaulted by this nonsense until a week or two ago - nobody wanted to pay for audio/video ads in the Taiwan market. I believe it is the first ad slot above the right sidebar. This has been happening on many sites recently but it is driving me crazy.
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WAR has its problems but you have completely misused WAR and a team's record. According to nearly every advanced metric the Twins are very lucky to have a .500 record so you can't just subtract off X number of wins to find what a replacement level team would be. I think you would get a more consistent number if you used base runs for a team's record for example. http://www.fangraphs.com/library/team-record-pythagorean-record-and-base-runs/
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You do realize that you could pick the wrong prospect to trade and the one that you kept fails and you are stuck with no good plan B in AAA? I have never seen how there is a problem with the OF in 2016. You start out the season with Hicks, Buxton and Rosario as the likely starters. Hopefully they keep Arcia as a 4th OF'er and possibly a platoon with Hicks. Hicks hits .841 OPS against LHP. Arcia hits .779 OPS against RHP. This might be the resolution for these two. Kepler remains in AAA as plan B in case any injuries happen or a prospect fails. It is very likely that 3 unproven starters make it through next season healthy and meeting expectations. He can also be a trade chip for a piece of critical need but you don't put him on the block and make a trade because of supposed depth.
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Why have a philosophical debate about something that doesn't happen? I named one trade to show just how rare it is. It is incredibly rare. And the ironic thing is that if you look back at that trade you will see that the surplus of starters for the Twins quickly turned into a shortage and they ended up with too many OF'ers.
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I have always hated this idea of 'we can't have a good bench hitter because of positional flexibility'. Nunez can play every position on the field (except CF) and Robinson can play the OF positions. What teams can't have is 13 pitchers because of positional flexibility. Vargas should be up. Or another hitter.
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I am not sure how people don't understand that prospect for prospect trades don't really happen. Garza for Delmon is one rare example where two contenders matched up with a surplus that other teams needed. But typically teams trading for prospects are rebuilding and they want to part with older MLB players. We won't be trading buxton for Urias. We would be trading Buxton for the next year's equivalent of Cole Hamels but typically these guys are only signed for 2 or maybe 3 years when they get traded.
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Should/Will Twins re-sign Torii Hunter?
kab21 replied to John Bonnes's topic in Minnesota Twins Talk
I don't understand the angst. Arcia lost his starting spot to Rosario. He wasn't doing that great before his injury and then demotion and another player was outplaying him. It had nothing to do with Hunter. Hunter had a role on this year's team but is less necessary next season with Rosario and Hicks claiming starting roles and Buxton and Kepler in AAA pushing for MLB roster spots. Next year's situation is completely different than last year's when Hunter was needed. -
Should/Will Twins re-sign Torii Hunter?
kab21 replied to John Bonnes's topic in Minnesota Twins Talk
Arcia was already expected to contribute. The Twins have gotten lucky that Rosario (almost out of nowhere) has been able to pick up the slack as well as he has. They needed somebody in the OF. But he hasn't helped in Jul/Aug (and Apr). He has been dreadful recently. that will be the one thing that could lead to him not being resigned by JR. -
Should/Will Twins re-sign Torii Hunter?
kab21 replied to John Bonnes's topic in Minnesota Twins Talk
And that was why Hunter was a fairly good signing last offseason. The Twins needed a stopgap that could play reasonably well before the prospects started coming up. the Twins didn't need a 34 yr old dreadfully awful fielder that should only DH clogging up the roster for 4 years. My hope is that he isn't brought back as a starter but I have a feeling that will happen. That is the concern here. -
No, I didn't. I called a $15/hr minimum wage as extreme socialism. Having a minimum wage is fine compromise between capitalism and socialism. Increasing the minimum wage $1 or even $2/hr is not out of line but I would leave it in the hands of the states or even the cities to decide. This allows for there to be differences between NYC and SD as mentioned above.
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Perhaps you missed the part where I said that I thought the best solution was a mix between capitalism and socialism. If you go too extreme to either side there will be issues and there are benefits that society needs in both.
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Capitalism is not interfering and letting the employer and employee agree on the wage. Socialism is setting a high minimum wage and making sure that everyone gets paid regardless if they have any skills. The ideal solution is somewhere in between. $15 minimum wage is at the extreme end of socialism. Instead of focusing on the minimum wage I think it is far more despicable that employers maintain large numbers of part time employees so they can avoid paying benefits. If you think it is hard to live on min wage then try min wage at 25 hrs/wk with no benefits.
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the reason that he won't get in is because the HOF voting is completely screwed up right now. He won't be eligible for at least 5 more years so maybe they will fix it. There are way too many deserving names on the ballot and too many deserving candidates are getting their votes split unless they are a no doubter. Beltre is deserving but he isn't a no doubter.
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Almost every team needs more than 5 starters to make it through the season. 3 of those players have options. Nolasco is probably never going to be good again and will be dangerously close to being cut/relegated to the bullpen. Milone was left out but pitching depth is good and having too many pitchers should never prevent the Twins from signing an ace. Other things will but not something like bumping May from the rotation.
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You are closer to having two front line starters once you have one.
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Signing Wieters and an ace make the Twins a 90+ win team if they get any of the expected improvement or breakout from the young players. I am not talking about multiple ROY contenders but just a few becoming average players. Payroll would go to about 130M. That's okay with me (Mr Pohlad however thinks differently).
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You either go big or stay home with free agent starting pitching. The single biggest thing that will hold the Twins back in the next 3 years will be an ace but there is no chance that the Twins will even call Price or cueto's agent so FA is pretty much going to be a non-event this offseason. The Twins don't actually have a lot of holes to fill and they have a lot of fairly good prospects that need to get the opportunity. Desmond - the Twins do have a hole at SS but I have a hard time stomaching the eventual 3-4 yr contract at 12-15M/yr that he will get. Wieters - I am interested. It might take 4/64 but the Twins have literally nothing at C anywhere. If he returns from injury and can catch 75% of the games then he is a borderline all star. His hitting has already bounced back. No average pitchers - the Twins have average already with Hughes, gibson, santana, May and Milone (and Berrios coming). Yes, those FA's are better but not that much.
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Twins Minor League Report (8/14): LIVE UPDATES
kab21 replied to Seth Stohs's topic in Twins Daily Front Page News
Adrian Salcedo - how we loved you as a rk ball pitcher. What memories. -
I think this would affect small businesses more than corporations but perhaps that is what you want. Corporations would likely invest in more automation and hire fewer people. Small businesses don't have that luxury.
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The Twins may have used an 8 man bullpen several times but they didn't need an 8 man bullpen especially if they improve the bullpen. If you have Hicks in RF and Arcia/Walker platooning at DH then there aren't problems. Even Vargas isn't that bad as part of a platoon if you have Eduardo Escobar who can play OF.
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Just for clarification I don't have a problem with having a minimum wage. I don't have a problem with raising the minimum wage by $1-2/hr which would put it on par with many of these progressive countries that are mentioned (not Australia of course unless of course you look at PPP). I am against this ridiculous $15/hr min wage movement. This is absolutely ridiculous. All it says to me is that 'I don't have any marketable skills but I want to be paid really well'. I expect that to infuriate some. But instead of raising the minimum wage I would first figure why on earth someone making 7.25/hr is losing nearly $1/hr in taxes and other deductions. Raise the income level that taxes are taken out to above the min wage level and waive the SS deduction for lowest income earners. This combined with some progress in the ACA is fairly good recent progress. Hopefully the democrats and any moderates can also make progress with more affordable higher education and training programs. Of note is that if you use PPP instead of raw numbers then the numbers level out more. Australia PPP min wage is closer to $10/hr. When looked at his way the gap is much smaller than people are making it out to be.
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You can't just take raw OPS numbers for a player that plays at Coors in the inflated stats era. Mauer needs to hit better but Helton was a tad worse 3 times. The Twins are stuck with him but hopefully he can at least hit like last year. He isn't great but you don't even think of doing any of the stuff (performance ultimatums) for a hometown hero, a fan favorite and a possible HOF'er because you have some average at best prospects to play. Not all of the prospects are average at best but with the OF/3B versatility of these 'blocked' players many of them are average at best. Mauer's current level of play (wRC) - last five years 99 - injured 138 145 105 93 Helton's wRC 116 133 101 131 88 - injured 120 88 87
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Another way to look at it is if there are so many people willing to work at these low wages then the problem isn't that the wage is too low but there are far too many people that need jobs. If you have fewer people that accept a min wage job then companies need to raise the pay for these jobs just to find workers.
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You won't have any police officers, firefighters or teachers if you start them at the same wage as minimum wage. Your price hikes go well beyond consumer goods. It is better to create a more skilled worker class that can provide more value than a completely unskilled worker that still gets a high minimum wage.
