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TheLeviathan

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Everything posted by TheLeviathan

  1. TheLeviathan
    This is a racket. Racket I say!
  2. TheLeviathan
    I wasn't really making my arguments relative to that. I can see both sides of that decision and I'd lean to agreeing with the Twins on their approach. I would agree with you that it should not be a punitive measure. That would've been the wrong reason for this. To me, this is a motivational tactic. My point was that I keep seeing posters here (Nick did it in a blog a few weeks back, gunnathor here, some of your points) try too hard to repaint the past with Buxton. Everything is done to shed the most positive possible light on his career so far and spin it that way. I've taken nothing away from Buxton in my points - when he has been good, he has been damn good. Carried us to the playoffs once. But on the whole, the bad has far outweighed the good. Spin to the contrary annoys me. I just don't think that's accurate or necessary. Buxton has mostly been an awful baseball player, but that doesn't change my desire to see him a Twin and succeed. And it need not for anyone else either.
  3. TheLeviathan
    I want to say again: I like Sherrod Brown. I'd vote for him. But he has little or no recognition. He deliberately talks to blue collar whites and, as some here have demonstrated time and time again, there is a segment of the liberal base that bristles at that almost immediately. (Not you, you've been pretty clear that you recognize that need) He isn't particularly charismatic. He'd kick ass in a town forum or a meet and greet at the state fair....but in a national campaign does he move the needle with people? Does he sway them away? Maybe. But when I consider that question, but gut reaction is not overwhelmingly positive.
  4. TheLeviathan
    Part of Bernie's appeal was novelty: An old dude talking to millenials. I'm not sure how well Brown fits that mold. He's more of the old school successful Democrat. A guy I like a lot who is authentic and blue collar. But that is precisely why he's unlikely to make a good candidate. No one wants that, least of all the left. They should, if they were smart....but they don't. He's much more Tim Kaine than he is Bernie. And how did the left talk about Kaine after the election?
  5. TheLeviathan
    Now you're cherry picking how you use initial success. Implied in your dismissal of his awful beginning to his career is the assumption that those PAs don't matter because he's new and learning. Yet for Sano, they were absolutely brilliant. So.....they do matter. Being new and learning isn't a justification to remove those ABs from consideration. And once again we're talking about the hopeful and possible. I'm talking cold, hard facts about what he has been so far. You want to talk hope about the future? Fine. I share it. I think there are good things to see. I think he can still put 2018 behind him and look to 2017, but what prompted my rebuttals to you and gunnathor were arguments about what he has been that don't hold water. So I'm going to make this clear again because you are attempting to side-step my point while presenting what appears to be an argument against it. I am talking about who Byron Buxton has been as a baseball player for the Minnesota Twins so far. Not what he was for 17 games in AAA, or 30 games in September of 2017, or any other arbitrary number. The overwhelming majority of time Byron Buxton has been a Twin he has been a dreadful offensive player. He's had a few stretches of being ok and a few stretches where he looked like Babe Ruth. But when you look too far above the data at averages you lose sight of just how frequently he's been really, really bad. I hope that changes, (I believe it will!) but them's the facts. No more pig lipstick. We can talk about Buxton's future without it.
  6. TheLeviathan
    They're going to have to flip some voters or bring in new ones in a handful of states or they won't win. I'm not anti-Sherrod or anything, but these are the questions the Dems need to ask themselves. As much as it's fun to scapegoat Hillary, the problems run deeper than that.
  7. TheLeviathan
    It's not about his ability to out-debate Trump, just that he'd have to pull voters away from Trump in order to win. Is that even possible? And if so, is Brown the guy to do that?
  8. TheLeviathan
    That may have nothing to do with your use of supper.
  9. TheLeviathan
    Sure, so far his performance mirrors that of Hicks. And we can hope that continues, but if it doesn't he will be Billy Hamilton. In other words, a player who does provide defensive value and speed, but who just can't make enough contact to be anything other than a marginal big leaguer at best.
  10. TheLeviathan
    Yeah, it seems odd that there would be a three team deal and then another subsequent deal between two of the three teams involving one of hte same players again. That would be....a weird way of doing things.
  11. TheLeviathan
    My biggest concern is.....does he close the gap with Trump? How many voters of Trump would flip to him and do the Bernie stalwarts show up? I like him, I just wonder if he's enough of a contrast to Trump. I think he makes authentic emotional appeals...that's my biggest draw with him as a candidate.
  12. TheLeviathan
    Yeah, I don't see how anyone can be upset that Byron is upset. Moping? Now that's a problem. Fired up? Good. Calling him a diva is ridiculous. Telling him to shut up and play is also ridiculous. Be happy he's fired up and hope it translates into something more than we've seen so far.
  13. TheLeviathan
    Bour for half the price of Cron makes me sad. Every day makes me hate that move more.
  14. TheLeviathan
    I don't care whose side you choose. I believe this strategy could absolutely fail, but I also think it has a chance to succeed. But your first sentence is exactly the opposite of the truth. The small samples that skew his numbers are the three months where he was Babe Ruth. That's the small sample that skews the numbers. Again, the fact is, most of the time he's been in a Twins uniform - he's been a putrid hitter. So much so that even his defense doesn't warrant keeping him in the lineup.
  15. TheLeviathan
    See, this is my problem though, people want to cherry pick segments of his time to make him look better. And they also like to use the whole sample to make him look better. The truth is that the Twins have invested 600 PAs in him in which he was a really awful player. Now, I admit my way of breaking it down has limitations too, but the point is a valid one IMO: he has been mostly bad in his time with the big league club. Most of the games we have penciled him in he has been well below average. He's just had some absolutely amazing stretches that have helped make the bottom line look a little better. That in no way makes me want to give up on him. Quite the contrary, I still believe in him, but I've accepted that my belief in him is mostly unsupported by the facts and driven more by hope and the abundant talent the man has. The facts say he's closer to Billy Hamilton than Mike Trout.
  16. TheLeviathan
    Pick whatever you want, gunnathor's point is glaringly false. You aren't an 80 wRC+ player and not, basically, a poor hitter. To my point, Buxton has about 1,000 PAs. Here is how his months breakdown: total PAs in months where he was sub .600 OPS: 569 .600-.800: 293 .800+: 249 Why does that matter? Well ,when you take the larger samples there are 250 freakishly good PAs mixed in that drag the averages towards a misleading number. Now, don't get me wrong, that production was amazing. He gets credit for that. But the vast majority of the time the team has fielded Buxton has resulted in play that can best be called putrid. Almost 600 of his 1,000 PAs were below .600 OPS. That's just plain bad. A few months of being a stud don't magically make up for that and you lose that perspective in the larger data sets.
  17. TheLeviathan
    Well said. I'm reminded of the old phrase about the fastest way to a man's heart. The fastest way to a voter's love is with emotional appeals, not good policy and reason. We don't have to like it, but that's what works.
  18. TheLeviathan
    Lighting a fire may not be to alter motivation, it might help him worry less about every at-bat and focus more on larger goals. Buxton seems to over-think at the plate and his approach suffers from AB to AB. This sort of kick may give him direction towards the macro vision of his success rather than over-scrutinizing every AB.
  19. TheLeviathan
    Oh, I'm dumb. I was thinking Baez....why I have no idea. At this point I'd be happy with what the Rays have averaged over the last three years with Kevin Keirmaier.
  20. TheLeviathan
    I guess we'll find out how much the decision motivates or handicaps him. Ultimately, only time is going to tell.
  21. TheLeviathan
    It is not only true, it's demonstrably true. He is a career .650 OPS player who has spent FAR more months being an awful hitter than a even an average one. This is a fact. Your posts here are largely a narrative. A wishful thinking one for a player you WANT to be successful. I share your hope and desire (you should've seen where I drafted him in fantasy baseball last year!) but I'm not letting it cloud reality. I'd like you to consider how much it is actually clouding yours. He has mostly been a very bad hitter for us in his first 1,000 at bats. that needs to change.
  22. TheLeviathan
    I wonder why people are so worried he won't sign an extension with us. At this point, the Twins aren't the ones who should want that anyway. I hope Buxton earns his way to putting the Twins in a position to grovel for him to stay. But right now, he's on the Billy Hamilton path.
  23. TheLeviathan
    I don't believe this is accurate. Buxton has had long stretches where he has absolutely killed the Twins at the plate. He's had some good stretches too, but people are way too quick to look at the highlights and explain away the low-lights. I prefer we hope for the highlights and be realists about the lowlights. He's often been a bad player for this team. No matter what his WAR says, you can't be that putrid at the plate and a positive contributor overall to the team.
  24. TheLeviathan
    I don't think that first sentence is true though. Those 14 games have been phrased as "getting hot" and that he "earned" his way back. Byron Buxton's early 2018 may have been injury riddled, but there were major red flags in ST about his approach as well. He was having some absolutely awful at-bats and that approach carried into the regular season even before the injury. Now, he's a slow starter so that could be as simple as that, but one look back at some of those early game logs of 2018 (pre injury) are horrifying. And lastly, (before I answer your question), I think the Twins did this to light a fire under Buxton and protect himself from further injury. For all intents and purposes they hit the hard reset button on a wasted season. If he ends up as Addison Russell I'd be happy with that. His ceiling is high, but no matter how good his defense is he can't be a .650 OPS player and play regularly. And he has yet to prove to me he's more than that. (In fact, more often than not, he's a significantly worse player than .650!)
  25. TheLeviathan
    Can we stop referring to 14 games in AAA like the dude was chasing down Mike Trout? We've seen brief windows of brilliance before, this move (IMO) was done to permanently change his approach to being a big leaguer. So far, mission accomplished. Now we can only hope he actually takes off so we don't have to play "put the lipstick on the pig" about 14 minor league games.
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