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TheLeviathan

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Everything posted by TheLeviathan

  1. TheLeviathan
    Psuedo killed what I was going to say, I feel like I read an article not long ago analyzing the strategy of Epstein in Chicago. His farm isn't hitting-heavy on accident, it is a deliberate strategy for precisely the reason Psuedo listed - high end hitting prospect have a far lower bust rate. Or at least that's the premise driving their strategy. The truth is, if you load up on a lot of prospects that don't bust, you have plenty of ammo to go out and acquire what you need. If you worry about balance at the expense of overall talent, you're losing a considerable amount of value. So if they're right that focusing on hitting will give them a stronger core of assets to rebuild with, then I'm not sure knocking down their farm ranking for balance is fair either. I'm very curious to see how this works out for them. The more high-end talent you have the better, you can sort out who plays where or who you keep later. Having the financial means to sign the Jon Lesters of the world doesn't hurt either.
  2. TheLeviathan
    If there is a 70% chance it's Milone or May I can get behind that. I'm really ok with either of them getting the shot out of the gate. But I'm still sharpening my pitchfork daily in the event of Pelfrey.
  3. TheLeviathan
    I think the Twins have done a nice job keeping their retired numbers to a very elite class of player and found more appropriate honors for guys like Radke and Morneau in the future. To me, Mauer is the only guy that has played the last 20 years that warrants that spot.
  4. TheLeviathan
    I hate Twitter and refuse to use it, but I will say this: Sometimes it's nice to see dirtbags humiliating each other. This whole exchange is a good reminder that Knoblauch is still a jerk and Pettite gets way too much of a pass for basically being a narc interested in saving his own rear-end in the court of pubic opinion. Being a nice cheater who only came clean under legal duress doesn't give him much of a pass IMO. Sure, he's not in the Bonds category, but sometimes I think he's closer to the Jeter category than Bonds and it shouldn't be that way.
  5. TheLeviathan
    It's refreshing to see more countries in the region taking the fight to this group. Granted, it took some pretty outrageous action against their own citizens to motivate them, but at least it's finally happening. The scary part is that their numbers are actually swelling with each new act of barbarism.
  6. TheLeviathan
    I expected 71-72 as the Vegas line before it was posted, so closer now to what I thought it might be. I'd lean the over, but it wouldn't be the line I'd want to gamble on.
  7. TheLeviathan
    Right, but McCutcheon lays out why minor league baseball vs. college football is no contest for most athletes. The question is how do you keep more kids like McCutcheon involved in the sport and part of that solution, IMO, is to level the disparity between choices. If a full ride scholarship for basketball or football is what you are competing with, you need to balance that with a higher minor league salary and other incentives. The relative pittance it would cost for MLB to double MiLB salaries would likely help significantly at attracting better athletes to baseball.
  8. TheLeviathan
    I was referring to the big league product. In order to get more young fans the product that they see on TV needs to be more entertaining. That includes better pace of play and allowing more character and excitement in the game. A guy like Gomez might act like a tool sometimes, but so does David Ortiz. Stop letting players try to squash characters out of the game - those guys appeal to a lot of fans.
  9. TheLeviathan
    There is a passionate bunch of baseball fans out there that want to minimize any successes Dayton Moore has so years of memes still have play. As for this thread, I think with what the Twins have coming up we may just have to embrace the masher mentality. Interestingly, we're basically becoming the mid 2000s White Sox model we used to mock.
  10. TheLeviathan
    That was an outstanding read, thank you. To me baseball has to fix three things if it wants to get baseball back in the minds of young kids from poor or sparsely populated areas: 1) Most importantly they need to make minor league life worth living and enticing. Paying them peanuts so they eat cereal for dinner is part of the problem. McCutcheon says it exactly right - if you want the big dollars from being a baseball player you basically need to grind it out for 4-10 years before you get there. In other sports it's a fraction of that time. So double every minor league player's pay and provide them housing. 2) Invest in those communities in more than just creating nice ballparks. Make sure every little league and tournament is free for any kid that wants it. Basically - scholarship that stuff so guys like Jimmy Rutland don't have to sponser the next McCutcheon. 3) Speed up the game and make it fun again. Let players have personality and punish the hell out of "old school" guys that try to retaliate that element out of the game. Pick up the pace of games. Make baseball something kids want to watch and want to play.
  11. TheLeviathan
    You could make a compelling case for a number of counter-things that could go right as well. Personally I see this team as 75ish, but that may be a bit optimistic. I will say this, everything else could stay the same as last year and Hughes just reverts to NYY Hughes and we'd finish 3-4 games worse just with that one plausible thing happening. Winning baseball games often has a thin margin for error and having a guy who pitched like an ace for us last year go back to a 3/4 starter he's been his whole career could alone account for a difficult drop. I'm pretty confident the Hughes we saw last year will continue, but a two game dip from 70 to 68 is the equivalent of Eduardo Escobar going from last year back to a replacement level player. Obviousy none of this will happen in the vacuum of everything else staying the same, but it does show to me how small the margin really is.
  12. TheLeviathan
    Right, I don't recall many lines that were more than 1-2 games off of what the final results were. I'm not sure how they make their predictions, but it's uncanny. It takes something pretty crazy for a team to jump these lines and even a 1-2 game swing isn't a dramatic change for a team from year to year.
  13. TheLeviathan
    I think the Twins are in a similar boat for the opposite reasons, but it does make me wonder if my 75 projection isn't optimism speaking. If Vegas felt like we'd be better I would've expected 70.5. 68.5 makes me nervous about thinking 75 wins.
  14. TheLeviathan
    That Cub line is really interesting. Clearly Vegas feels like there will be a lot of optimism on that team that they can set the line that high. They've added a lot of talent but they've got a lot of young question marks on their team too. I think I'll be taking the under on that record.
  15. TheLeviathan
    For them to finish with an under they would need to be two games worse. I think it's absolutely hyperbolic to say "everything must go horribly wrong" or that it is "irrational" that they might be two games worse. Sorry, whatever your intent was, the statement was far too dramatic in tone. I wish we could retire that. I find it unlikely we will be worse, but I don't think it requires an utter catastrophe to be two games worse.
  16. TheLeviathan
    This "everything has to go horribly wrong" meme should be put to rest already. How many bad years do we have to have before that hyperbole can die? Look, we've got some much higher ceilings we are about to start playing and that's great. But ceilings don't win baseball games now, they might be promises to win in the future, but they aren't wins now. Do I personally think this team slides back? No, I don't think so, but I can see why the betting public believes it.
  17. TheLeviathan
    It's possible that they are setting it this low because national betting perception is that we'll be bad and this is the only way they can get some over bets. Either way, these lines are often very, very close. We can hope to be one of the exceptions but this should be a bit sobering. Schoenfield isn't the only one with some doubts about this team. I think there are some really valid reasons to think we could get worse.
  18. TheLeviathan
    Just because something is, doesn't mean it ought to be. Just because some behaviors are liked by teammates doesn't mean it was professional conduct. Lots of unprofessional guys have been popular, it just means they are popular. It speaks to nothing about their professionalism. Earlier I think you were conflating the two and that is part of the disconnect.
  19. TheLeviathan
    People are welcome to like a player for any number of reasons, including unprofessional behaviors, but I'm not sure why we have to characterize juvenile, unprofessional behavior as something else. The logic that "clubhouse" rules should be exempt from those of normal society are a dangerous slippery slope. Lots of what is acceptable in the "clubhouse" or the "lockerroom" or whatever else to make you one of the boys is absolutely unprofessional and unacceptable conduct. I wouldn't hide behind that with any sense of real merit. Torii has many great traits, including his passion and attitude, but he's got plenty to criticize too.
  20. TheLeviathan
    68.5.....people around here aren't going to like that.
  21. TheLeviathan
    I'm an advocate of a good clubhouse dynamic mattering, but I'm going to need to actually see results before any back-patting happens.
  22. TheLeviathan
    I remember Vegas coming in around 72 and we heard a lot of complaining about what an offensive number that was as well. And we finished with an under. I feel like a lot of this thread just echos this tendency we have to take national opinions as some kind of affront to our fandom. There is room for this team's offense to regress and it may regress way more than any of us feel comfortable admitting. There is a really, really wide swing of reasonable expectations for this offense ranging from maintaining 5th-ish to being dreadful. The pitching was bad and most teams are not fielding elite corner outfielders, but most teams also don't run out a pitching staff that specializes in fly-balls either. The problem isn't just the bad defenders, it's that the bad defenders play the least ideal positions possible for this particular pitching staff. Personally I see the team around 75 wins based on a bounceback from Arcia, Mauer, and Nolasco. But I have some serious, serious concerns about some spots on this team. Most notably the bullpen and the typically hard adjustment for second year players.
  23. TheLeviathan
    I think that depends on who is making the pick. Saunders has done alright at it so far, but as an organization the Wolves basically don't pick well anywhere.
  24. TheLeviathan
    It's not jsut trading prospects. They turned that awful Fielder contract into Kinsler. They signed JD Martinez and now Cespedas as relative bargains with good bouncebak potential. They turned Granderson, a guy with a skill set that wouldn't age well, into Scherzer and Austin Jackson. Say what you want about their age (they are old) and their farm (it's not good), but the Tigers have proven to be remarkably effective with what resources they have available to them.
  25. TheLeviathan
    I'm sorry, but I've been hearing about the demise of the Detroit Tigers thanks to a bad farm system for about 5 years now. And every year someone thinks THIS is the year it bites them. It hasn't bit them for a long, long time. It will eventually, but they've proven remarkably resourceful time and time again. I wouldn't bet against them just because your perception of their farm is weak.
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