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TheLeviathan

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Everything posted by TheLeviathan

  1. TheLeviathan
    Absolutely there was: "I appreciate the question Mike and I'm honestly not sure. The topic never came up in any negotiations I had and I can't speak for the clubs that didn't contact me. I understand that not all positions I've taken publicly are popular but it's impossible for me to say that my stance has hurt my negotiating power. I'm happy to be here with the Twins again and put an emphasis on helping this team get back to the caliber of baseball I'm accustomed to" I managed that in about a minute and a half.
  2. TheLeviathan
    I can say, with basically 100% certainty that a bad defense hurts a pitcher and a good defense helps one. Perhaps, if you'd like to test your theory, we should play Vargas at 2B? If defense is so utterly meaningless why do we even care where we play guys?
  3. TheLeviathan
    Now I'm the one that needs a drink....holy crap.
  4. TheLeviathan
    I think you have 4 and 5 out of order Brock.
  5. TheLeviathan
    Bernadino's logic for why he asked the question makes sense. He might have phrased it better, but I hadn't thought of that angle. I'm pretty ok with him having asked it the more I consider it.
  6. TheLeviathan
    I, for one, would like to utilize the following infield: 3B - Parmalee SS - Vargas 2B - Arcia Just so we can bash the pitchers for using the "excuse" that they have a bad defense. Buncha babies!
  7. TheLeviathan
    Yeah, I'm not sure how this turned into bashing Deadspin. They are absolutely both a credible news agency and the point Bernadino was bringing up was fair game. However, I think you can call into question the timing of it. If you want to drill Hunter on that it may be better to do it later. Regardless, Hunter's actions were absolutely unacceptable. He was on the job one day and we got to see what kind of "professionalism" he'll model for our young guys. Can those of you that were suggesting that nonsense see now why that was such a silly line of justification? But to play devil's advocate just a bit (even against my own position) - we too rarely see athletes get pushback for being ignorant, arrogant jerks. Mike was calling him out on being an ignorant, arrogant, homophobic jerk and you could make a case that it's relevant to balance all this "Yay...it's Spiderman! He's back! He's so awesome!" narrative with a little cold dose of reality about the public positions this man has taken. In that sense, I kind of like that he asked the question.
  8. TheLeviathan
    I'm sorry, when exactly was Sandy Koufax Kevin Correia and when did that magic happen? We systematically stocked our team with guys who were meant to rely on their defense and only very recently changed that philosophy. Fielding guys fully known to rely on defense and then not giving them a defense is really, really bad strategy.
  9. TheLeviathan
    Are you sure it didn't negatively affect him? Can you say, with certainty, that he couldn't have been even better with a league average defensive outfield? I agree that shifts in organizational philosophies take time, but the truth is that this defense is hurting the pitching staff. That is demonstrable in many, many ways. This is a team that is awful at preventing runs and pitching is only part of that equation. Saying a bad defense is a lame excuse for poor pitching is like blaming a QB for a bad completion percentage when his receivers are dropping the ball. Or a PG for not getting enough assists when his scorers are shooting 20%. These things go hand in hand and having a poor defense will hurt your pitching staff. One would think this team (and Torii Hunter in particular) would understand this. The long run they had in the playoffs was built on the back of a team that consistently sacrificed offense for defense and prided itself on not "giving" outs. The defensive outfield we look to be fielding this year looks like the damn Salvation Army of outs in the outfield.
  10. TheLeviathan
    I think it's fair to criticize the gay marriage question, that could be left to a later time. (Plenty of time for filler stuff before Spring Training) But the defense question is fair game and Torii's response was ridiculous.
  11. TheLeviathan
    So we want a leopard to start having stripes? These guys are what they are, it's not like they'll magically become Randy Johnson when they stop making excuses. The front office brought a bunch of high contact, fly ball pitchers in and are now fielding a defense that looks like they all put their foreheads on bats and spun around for 10 minutes before taking the field.
  12. TheLeviathan
    That doesn't help the reflection of this deal IMO.
  13. TheLeviathan
    Other posters in this thread have said that he "will teach them how to be a pro" and other such sentiments. You want a guy with a fiery personality? Fine, say that. But if you look through the first few pages of this thread the word "leadership" and "mentor" and "being a pro" are what was thrown around, not having a fiery attitude. If you want to commend this for bringing some attitude to the team (something I've been a champion of too) that's fine. I can't take issue with that. But we have plenty of evidence in his actions and words that demonstrate the terms above (like "leader" and "mentor") are probably at best overblown and at worst completely ridiculous.
  14. TheLeviathan
    Wait....so what's your point? They just have to suck it up and ignore a dude bumbling his way around the outfield to the tune of 3-4 runs on their stat sheet? That's not how baseball works. They can worry until the cows come home about doing their job and it won't matter a lick if they give up soft contact and watch it drop routinely in front of our OF when many other OFs would've turned it into an out. This team was friggin AWFUL at preventing runs and if you think that was only because of the pitching staff and "Excuse making" you are sadly mistaken. Defense - across the diamond - matters. And it matters more when you populate your staff with flyball pitchers. I feel bad for the young kids coming up to pitch for our team that have this gaggle of poor fielders roaming the spacious OF of Target Field. That's not an excuse, that's the reality of how the game is played.
  15. TheLeviathan
    Psuedo, I think you are right that there is a genuine hope on his part that he can instill an attitude in the young guys to help turn the franchise around. I think the team and Paul Molitor believe that too. Where you lose me is putting him on some kind of leadership pedestal that I don't think he belongs. This guy has a big personality, largely because of his huge ego and self-serving (often ignorant and misguided) ideas. Torii doesn't bring "professionalism", if you want that we had it with Josh Willingham and even with Joe Mauer. You want an "attitude"? Alright, maybe. But I can't help but think a guy whose attitude is embodied by punching a futility infielder to send a message isn't the right kind of attitude.
  16. TheLeviathan
    Then very strong cases can be made that they are very, very wrong.
  17. TheLeviathan
    I'm not 100% on this, but I seem to recall Arcia playing in LF for the Twins some in the last few years and the broadcast team and the team itself saying he wasn't comfortable there and he was playing it very poorly.
  18. TheLeviathan
    Even if comparing Hunter to Heyward isn't fair, there seems to be universal consensus by Tigers fans, metrics, and video evidence to indicate he's basically a butcher out there now. It's precisely the wrong kind of player for this team to add, especially with young pitchers on the way.
  19. TheLeviathan
    Oh I fully remember how bad they were. Even if Hunter is marginally better (by most accounts I've read that isn't true - he was rated the worst defensive OF by the metrics. I don't trust them, but they can be an indicator) - we're now taking that marginally better player and moving a bad defender to a position they are worse at and uncomfortable with. So even if Hunter is a bit better than Arcia in RF, Arcia in LF is for sure worse than Nunez and even Willingham. As sad as that is to say. There is just nothing to like about this.
  20. TheLeviathan
    Relative to giving Cuddyer 10M and giving up a first round pick? Or "do nothing well" Billy Butler 30M? At least Cruz does one thing well.
  21. TheLeviathan
    By most accounts, Hunter stopped "playing OF" a couple years ago. Even if that's where he jogs out to during defensive innings.
  22. TheLeviathan
    If the club feels we need more egotistical jerks that's fine, but let's not dress that up as "leadership". And maybe we should have found an egotistical jerk that, you know, could actually help make us better.
  23. TheLeviathan
    Hunter should be a platoon player and most likely a DH at this point. Starting RF that pushes our other guy that should be a DH to LF? I really, really don't like it.
  24. TheLeviathan
    Right, which makes all this hot air about leadership and personality really hard to swallow. Is Torii Hunter really a better role model for professionalism than, say, Josh Willingham? For whatever limitations Hammer had as a ball-player, the guy seemed like the consummate pro. I certainly don't recall him dogging players publicly, talking about "real" blacks, or devising the use of Nick Punto as a punching bag for clubhouse chemistry in his time here. Look, we all loved what Torii brought defensively in his initial stint. The guy was a ton of fun to watch and his you could even handle his quirks and mistakes along the way. But the romanticism of him as a leader and a professional are pretty hollow. If you wanted a guy to be a good pro and role model than sign Alex Rios or Nick Markakis. Torii Hunter? He's too busy "being Torii" to be any of the things we seem to think he's bringing for intangibles. And that isn't even touching the concerns about the tangibles and the ridiculous overpayment that constitutes.
  25. TheLeviathan
    Our rotation should be crying themselves into a bottle tonight.
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