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TheLeviathan

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Everything posted by TheLeviathan

  1. TheLeviathan
    Unless he's had a broken toe for the last four years, I don't really buy it. And it doesn't explain why AAA guys are striking him out like crazy. People keep trying to blame the broken toe but Buxton's hitting issues long pre-date that. And have continued since.
  2. TheLeviathan
    None of us know what will help, but most of us (all?) that are ok with this are banking on this factor. Hell, all the arguments being made have some wishful component of what will help. So your prior criticism can pretty much be applied universally and with similar skepticism.
  3. TheLeviathan
    Want to expand the sample size? It doesn't help. Want to look at his k rate in AAA? Also not helpful. I'm ok with people being frustrated by a service time decision, but let's be real here: the vast majority of Buxton's MLB time has been awful. So let's save the excuses please. Buxton has done himself no favors.
  4. TheLeviathan
    Buxton will be mad at the FO and has some cause to be. He also could have, you know, hit his way past a .383 OPS this season and helped with the decision. .383 OPS, look at that again.
  5. TheLeviathan
    The factor you aren't including is what is done between now and then to improve the confidence in him going into 2019. Cave is nothing special, but at least you have three viable OFs on the roster not including Buxton and there is certainly the financial room to add someone like Marwin Gonzalez (or some other non-lefty OF) to help supplement. My confidence is low in the short term, but I haven't given up on him in the long-term. If I'm the Twins I spend the next 7 months doing anything possible to turn his talent into production. What that is....I don't know, it's beyond my pay grade.
  6. TheLeviathan
    If this thread is any indication? Pitch Ryan LaMarre.
  7. TheLeviathan
    Some reports indicate the wrist is still an issue. And while he may not be struggling, he is far from dominating. He hasn't forced the Twins hand and the games are meaningless. There is no good reason to call him up IMO. All the reasons listed are about keeping up appearances. Nuts to that.
  8. TheLeviathan
    If the question comes down to "is he a major league baseball player"? I'd say the majority of the evidence says "No" At least not yet.
  9. TheLeviathan
    I guess I think the reason to not call him up is rather straight-forward.... His play has far from demanded it.
  10. TheLeviathan
    Also a good point. They may be switching from coddling him to a swift kick in the rear. I'm game for anything to salvage his talent.
  11. TheLeviathan
    This is a cop-out and the kind of argument about manages that really irritates me. You tried to slam Molitor for hititng a power hitter lead-off and immediately got that point demolished by truth/facts/evidence. You don't get to move the goal-posts and then accuse Van of not sufficiently answering the question. You said this: If you want a concrete example, can you name any other team that used their power bat to lead off? The answer is yes. Lots of them. And lots of the other complaints you and others have are driven only through a limited knowledge of what other teams are doing. Not facts, but by the absence of them. Jimmer has pointed this out about fans and bullpen management. Again - the vast majority of these criticisms lack relevant context and, because of that, aren't all that relevant at all.
  12. TheLeviathan
    Buxton could have hit his way into a situation where the Twins weren't considering this. His inability to muster even pedestrian numbers have lead us to this point. I appreciate your consideration of the human aspect, but at some point you're going to hvae to acknowledge that this is not realistic. What you posted here sounds cute as a bumper sticker, but isn't the way to run a business. Under your thinking, we might as well give life-time contracts and watch Mauer drive his Walmart scooter around the bases. It's not practical. There comes a point where you have to let the human element go and think about what's best for everyone - the team, the fans, and the business. Mauer is no longer helping the team win as a full-time player. And Buxton's only chance to be a help is to accept that he needs a serious reboot and his next chance might be his last.
  13. TheLeviathan
    What about the emotional/mental/confidence part? This is a player the team/manager decided to hit third as a way of infusing confidence in him. Maybe another month of gettting his butt handed to him by September roster fodder is an impediment to get him turned around.
  14. TheLeviathan
    The shrewd move is to shut Buxton down. The shrewd move is to offer Mauer a one year deal at a part-timer salary and let him know his role has changed.
  15. TheLeviathan
    I'd argue using one player's usage over a small time frame to attack another manager is where the unnecessary extremes happened. We wouldn't declare Tyler Austin better than Eddie Rosario based on the last ten days. And therein lies the real problem with this discussion - we simply don't have good metrics, with strong sample sizes, from which to draw conclusions. Instead we draw sweeping conclusions like "Well Molitor would never do this one thing that some one other guy did one or two times!" and think the argument has merit. It doesn't. Most of our observable criteria for managers are impossible to put into context, so we are driven almost entirely by perception rather than fact. And that observable criteria is but a shred of the manager's job, the rest of which we don't see at all. I get why we want to do it and feel compelled to do it....but we should probably take some time to consider the limits of our ability to do so.
  16. TheLeviathan
    I hear Paul Molitor doesn't like puppies. /thread
  17. TheLeviathan
    No, but I wasn't commenting on that notion. I was just pointing out that if people are valuing his defense (rightly) it's also fair to point out that he isn't an iron-man on the field. Over the last few years the team has been forced to DH him more in order to avoid injury and fatigue. It's not Molitor's fault or the team's fault - it's on Mauer's body that he isn't out there more.
  18. TheLeviathan
    Right, but I don't think it's fair to say it's "out of Mauer's hands". It's really not. His durability/health issues have forced people's hands. Yes, he's a pretty good defender, but his health has taken him off of the catching position and even off 1B on a regular basis. That's part of the story. His DH usage has been a result of years of health issues, not some misguided notion by the manager about his defensive value.
  19. TheLeviathan
    Perhaps Mauer is frequently not playing 1B because he has an established history of getting hurt/tired if he is out in the field too often. I don't think it's fair to lay that at anyone's feet other than Mauer. (And even that, some of it, is out of his control too)
  20. TheLeviathan
    And that's fair, I think most angst or praise for a manager comes down to perception bias. And we're all entitled to that opinion, I just think all of us have no leg to stand on for knowing what they are actually doing.
  21. TheLeviathan
    Also, the other guy we interviewed (Luvello) has 3 players with very similar usage. Maybe people have to accept that bullpen usage is changing. This might be driven less by Molitor's personal decisions and more by team, data-driven philosophies. It appears very much in line with AZ, SFG, and several other teams. Also, Pressley has appeared once every 2.6 days with Houston. With Minnesota he appeared once every 2.3 days. Perhaps these complaints are driven more by perception than fact.
  22. TheLeviathan
    Tony Luvello must be an awful manager then. Perhaps your point would have more weight if you use three years of data we have for comparison rather than one month. Maybe you are right, but as stated the argument is pretty weak.
  23. TheLeviathan
    If Molitor has pitched Magill more and he blew games the same people calling for that would've hung him out to dry with the reasoning of "Well of course we lost....why did he put Magill in that high leverage situation!" There is seriously no winning that debate for a manager. As fans we are irrational, hind-sight driven monsters.
  24. TheLeviathan
    I think it's worth pointing out that the Twins last year over-achieved, made the playoffs, and did a number of things very well after an awful season and the general consensus on this board was to give him little or no credit for that. Molitor could lead them to a 40-0 record the rest of the way, nearly win the World Series, and there would be many here who would still denigrate him. Perhaps we've lost the ability to be objective and should leave it to the people who actually see what he does day to day. We see a tiny fraction of what a manager does in today's game.
  25. TheLeviathan
    I have time to binge this weekend and I plan to. Especially since Groening’s new show isn’t getting well reviewed.
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