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TheLeviathan

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Everything posted by TheLeviathan

  1. TheLeviathan
    If Molitor was pulling Buxton, Sano, and Kepler out of the lineup every time we say a mistake in fundamentals.....wouldn't we destroy him for that too? Just sayin.
  2. TheLeviathan
    Is it really fair to blame Molitor for Buxton coming up and being unable to hit? How many hours had Molitor spent with the kid prior to last year working on hitting or anything else? Same with the fundamentals - should they be better? Absolutely. But again, I'd stress that those things shouldn't be something you have to learn at the major league level. If you do, your developmental system failed you somewhere. How you assign credit and blame on something like this has always been hard for me to determine. For instance, does Molitor get credit for Dozier? For Kepler's solid rookie season? For Buxton's bounceback? Is he to blame for the pitching being terrible? For trotting Sano out to the outfield? I don't know the answer to that. I think for any of us it's sort of a gut feeling more than anything we can establish with certainty. My gut still tells me most of this is on flawed organizational frameworks. Of course none of that explains the continued emphasis on playing Danny Santana or some other things I would disagree with Molitor about.
  3. TheLeviathan
    How much of that lack of development is just the natural process young players adjusting? I guess, personally, I always saw this season as a potential trainwreck (not of this proportion) just because it's not uncommon for young players to have to take a step back before they take two steps forward. So I'm kind of reserving judgment until we see those adjustments start to take hold, good or bad, over the course of the next calendar year. Most of my issues with Molitor stem from what seems to be a misguided attempt to squeeze out 65 wins instead of 64. And that mentality, throughout the season, has been a major detriment to the future. So my question would be- how much of that is Molitor and how much of it is organizational pressure? And what really baffles me is how so many of the "win at all cost!" folks are siding against Molitor when he's been doing exactly what they want him to do in theory.
  4. TheLeviathan
    So, by admitting small sample size, you basically admit this isn't much of an argument on my point right? Again, the kid would likely strike out 400 times if given a full opportunity. They're doing him a favor keeping him from being exposed.
  5. TheLeviathan
    I think there are some inaccuracies worth pointing out here. First, Dougie is NOT going to give you the modern game. He's on the record as basically dismissing the value of analytics. If you somehow think we turned down the more progressive coach in not hiring him, I think you're mistaken. Dougie M. is about as old school as you can imagine. Secondly, I have a hard time calling Molitor the "alpha" in an organization that has had Ryan's fingerprints on it for over two decades. Blaming him for what scouting, development, coaching, and all that just doesn't seem plausible. Those systemic issues preceded him. Now, he may be a product of them and complicit in them, but he isn't to blame. That guy resigned a few months ago. I'll blame him for who sits and who plays at the major league level and for other similar issues, but this is just going way too far IMO.
  6. TheLeviathan
    Name your favorite manager in the league and this team still misses the playoffs by 20 games. It's such a S*#^ fest I can't really judge anyone other than the front office.
  7. TheLeviathan
    I know this isn't going to sit well with some, but I'm far more concerned with larger organizational changes than I am with firing Molitor. I want to see significant changes to how we draft and develop players. I want to see a more analytic approach to player acquisition and development. I want to see better roster construction. Molitor does some stuff that really annoys me, but perhaps if a new GM makes it clear what his role is (to play and develop the future) rather than Ryan's way, then maybe we'd see some changes in how Molitor operates. And as markos has pointed out, I don't think it's really a detriment to hiring a quality GM. The only detriment that matters there is Pohlad.
  8. TheLeviathan
    On what basis do you make that claim?
  9. TheLeviathan
    Couldn't continue reading your post after the twelve year old in me doubled over in laughter.....
  10. TheLeviathan
    I agree with jimmer that the OBP is a problem. But good gravy people, the Ks aren't just a problem. They're an enormous, insurmountable problem if you think he deserves a promotion. The guys that are hitting .220 with 200 strikeouts (like Carter on Milwaukee), struck out roughly HALF as much as ABW in their minor league careers. HALF!!! Right now, if you were to project ABW to get 600 major league at bats he'd likely strike out in 350-400 of them. Unless he's going to get a hit in every at-bat he doesn't strike out, that's a massive problem.
  11. TheLeviathan
    I agree, it was a blow to his legitimacy. It also made him fit the stereotype of a pothead, which is maybe the worst part for his chances. I think the intent of that question was to expose Johnson by asking it in a way that was confusing or atypical. The problem was that it not only worked, but Johnson couldn't even spin it into something intelligible. All the libertarians needed to do was pick someone with a lot of personality and poise and they could be making this a true race. Alas....we got Johnson again.
  12. TheLeviathan
    I don't disagree, I was just responding to the idea that the rotation is an "unanswered" question. I think the answer is there, it's just not one we like. As far as particular pitchers are concerned I'd agree there are some questions - Will we move May back? And do we move Santana? But regardless of those answers, the question of "Do we need pitching help" is an obvious "Yes. Lots of it" That one is answered.
  13. TheLeviathan
    I guess I don't consider the rotation a question, insofar as not knowing what to do. I think that question has long been answered - we need a LOT of help.
  14. TheLeviathan
    I agree, I think it's wildly overblown. Both sides are overblowing it because they both want Johnson's voters. I feel like I follow politics pretty closely and I can't ever recall hearing that city name.
  15. TheLeviathan
    Ninjas.
  16. TheLeviathan
    Don't look now...but Trump is sneakily making this close again. Or at least, much closer than it was after his week of buffoonery a month or so ago.
  17. TheLeviathan
    I hope they are terrified about some of it. Some of what they did was just unwise. I agree with your larger point, but there are lessons to be learned from Arizona. Most notably, to be careful about what you judge your team to be and to need before you go out and try to change it.
  18. TheLeviathan
    And Twinsdaily sided firmly with Oakland! Woofta.
  19. TheLeviathan
    I think drastic changes are called for. Drastic, reasonable, changes. Brock is right about this analogy: yeah, you can't make the car run worse, but you can do serious damage to how quickly it is before you get it up and running again.
  20. TheLeviathan
    Sure, if everyone got a .150 OPS boost that would be awesome. The point is, if you have a bunch of .700ish OPS players, would you rather have them consistently be that or spend half the season being unplayable and the other half on fire? Personally, I'd take the consistent bunch. I wasn't blaming Dozier for anything this year, just speaking more generally.
  21. TheLeviathan
  22. TheLeviathan
    I tend to agree, but that's why I don't think a feast or famine player is as good as a consistent one. A lineup of consistent players gives your more than one person who are liable to produce for you over the course of every game of a season. As opposed to hoping a rotating bunch of hot hands can make up for the rest of their teammates.
  23. TheLeviathan
    Team wins don't really matter much to me when I'm evaluating trends in a hitter's results. If we want to extrapolate that to team success that's another matter. That five month gap can mean a lot or mean nothing and for many (most?) players it generally means nothing. I could just as easily argue that a logical cut-off of evaluation could be between adjustments by Dozier. We make similar cut offs when we judge young players (like we are with Buxton). The truth is, that five month gap is arbitrary as a cut-off for player production. We use it for convenience sake, not because it has any special meaning. (Unless there is a specific reason to believe it does, like injury rehab) We also make many cases for player evaluation based on cutting off statistical analysis at various points. We talk all the time about things like "Since June 1st Brian Dozier has slashed...." or "Since being moved to the top of the order" or "Pre-allstar". All of these are arbitrary. It doesn't invalidate them. Short of taking the whole players career into focus, we're always relying on arbitrary time frames. That isn't a valid argument against a statistical study, especially if it takes a large, time consistent sample size.
  24. TheLeviathan
    Meyer starts a game, walks four guys, throws nearly 70 pitches to get 10 outs, never sees the fifth inning and we call that "awesome"? Yeesh.
  25. TheLeviathan
    Any time period we choose to judge a player is arbitrary. If we choose April to September, it just seems more significant because that's one 162 game season stretch. But really, how different is that than me saying April 2015-September 2016? It's still random with the most notable trend being it's the same baseball player. While I don't deny I want to arbitrarily pick a stretch of consistently bad play that crossed seasons, it's no different than you. You just want to cut those dates apart arbitrarily. When Danny Santana sucks in 2016 like he did in 2015, we don't cut those dates apart because the season ended, we look at the whole of the data. Hell, if we didn't use cross-seasonal data to analyze players it'd be rather silly. Baseball reference could really simplify their site too!
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