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jmlease1

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Everything posted by jmlease1

  1. jmlease1
    I think McCusker just has to keep sustaining it and hope for an opportunity. If he were on the 40-man, he might have gotten a look already? But OF just isn't where we're short right now, especially with Castro back. Would he provide more offense than Keirsey? Almost certainly, but Keirsey is mostly being used as a pinch-runner/defensive replacement right now anyways, which isn't something McCusker brings to the table. And when the Saints are collectively putting up a .797 OPS, McCusker's 1.058 does lose a little of its luster. Mickey Gasper looked overmatched in MLB, then immediately started destroying AAA pitching again. The step from AAA to MLB is treacherous. Hope DeBarge comes back soon; hate seeing guys miss extended time from getting HBP. Good to see GG hit another dinger too. I think seeing where his power production is at will determine how quickly he gets bumped to Wichita, but he's on a nice path so far.
  2. jmlease1
    Yeah, fearful managing of the bullpen right now and over reliance on Jax...whose stuff has been there but the results have not. Why not the well-rested Stewart? Maybe he had the same bug that nailed some of the other guys. A very nice gritty win. wouldn't have complained about a series win, but a sweep is great. Rest up and let's go throw Balto an anvil and see if Jim Bowden can write a fire sale article for them like he kinda did already for us! :P
  3. jmlease1
    Excellent win to clinch the series. Eventually the win streak will end; the trick will be not to let a losing streak creep in, but to keep winning series. With the pitching staff going like this, we have a real chance to keep up this kind of excellence. Really nice work by Ryan, especially coming off the illness. (sounds like the stomach flu went rampaging through the Twins clubhouse!) SF had been on a nice run and was beating up on the AL coming into this series. Nice to see the Twins take down a pretty good team.
  4. jmlease1
    GG having a very nice start to the season. Looks healthy and hitting well. He's a guy on track for a promotion to AA if he keeps this up for another month or so.
  5. jmlease1
    Great job by Paddack, exactly what the team needed. The bullpen had been worked pretty hard recently, so it's great to have him going deep into the game and only needing 2 guys to finish off the win. Love a Buxton triple. Most exciting play in baseball. Twins have the pitching to compete with anyone in baseball. Hopefully the warmed up offense can keep up their end of the bargain like they have during this lovely little win streak. Team's been a little unlucky so far (3-6 in 1-run games) but they're playing very good baseball right now.
  6. jmlease1
    It'll be very interesting to see where the data lands by the end of the season. One of the biggest concerns with the 4-seamer is that with a loss of velocity (which is funny when it's still averaging 100mph, but he isn't humping it up to 102-104) whether or not he could get by simply blowing it past guys. But if they can't catch up to it enough to more than foul it off, it still generates strikes, even if it's less effective in finishing a hitter off. The splinker is still ridiculous. The fact that he can throw that at 98-99 mph is absurd. But the curve is flat-out filthy as well. If he's able to mix in a sweeper and balance his pitch mix even more, he's well positioned to keep dominating without needing to hit 104. There's some concern about the walks, but with dominating stuff, I'd rather have him walking the extra guy from time to time than giving up hits. baserunners are less scary with a guy throwing this kind of gas, deadly K-rates and a WHIP under 1.00. He's doing very well, and his consistency has been nice in a season where Jax has had some awful luck, fluky results, etc.
  7. jmlease1
    Name 30 MLB starters that are better than Joe Ryan. I'll wait. It's not a crazy idea at all, especially when you factor in his age and contract status.
  8. jmlease1
    Sweeeeep! Man, I looove winning, you know? Like, it beats losin'? Ober did a good job filling in for a sick Joe Ryan. Like seeing Larnach get a dinger. Team made the most of their 5 hits, and maybe it was a little satisfying getting the big knock against Cano. Bullpen is doing a nice job of run prevention during this streak.
  9. jmlease1
    Miranda is more likely to be back up with the Twins when he returns from injury; I don't think they're concerned about his playing time one way or the other, but we'll see: this administration sure likes to have as many assets as possible to draw on in case of injury, even if it means bumping along with a poor player hanging on the bottom of the active roster for weeks on end. Julien got demoted because they want him playing and not gathering dust on the bench, i think. But he will have to really hit to get back up. He clearly lugs his struggles at the plate into the field with him at the MLB level, which is a real problem for a guy who is below average on D to begin with. Clock is ticking on both guys, though. Brooks Lee and Keaschall are past both of them at this point, and with Castro and Lewis back, the ABs and innings are shrinking. Personally I wouldn't waste much time on Clemens, and Bride doesn't have much upside, but neither Miranda nor Julien have done enough to demand they get picked right now.
  10. jmlease1
    He's still young enough that the defense could improve, so consigning him to 1B only in his first full season of pro ball is probably premature. If he can be acceptable at 3B it increases his utility, even if he's likely to be a primary 1B. It's not like they're not giving him innings at 1B to learn the position. I'm hesitant to slide guys down the defensive spectrum too quickly, especially in A-ball.
  11. jmlease1
    Bowden loves writing pieces where he sends players from teams he doesn't like/care about to franchises he'd rather cover. He's never liked the Twins, always happy to write us off as soon as possible.
  12. jmlease1
    Except of course the reason SWR got yanked was that after getting the first 2 guys he went double, single (cutting the lead to 1), single. He missed on 3 straight guys, the 7-8-9 hitters and the lineup was turning over. If the lead had been 5-2, he might get the chance to finish it off, but hard to blame the decision-making here. Lopez or Ryan might have gotten the longer leash regardless at that pitch count, but SWR getting pulled for Coulombe was on him. Considering how inconsistent the offense has been this season, would you really risk coughing up the lead?
  13. jmlease1
    The Kernels hitters getting 6 HBP in one game does highlight the challenge in evaluating prospects based on their stat lines. The inconsistency of so many pitchers at that levels does mean that hitters with a decent understanding of the strike zone can really rack up an inflated OBP. While I'm pretty happy with what we're seeing so far with the hitting prospects in Cedar Rapids so far this season, AA should be a much better test to see where they really are...I think? DeBarge, Amick, De Andrade, Culpepper, and GG all doing well so far. A nice group.
  14. jmlease1
    There's clearly a contingent whose biggest priority is the manager and front office getting fired, so they probably are having trouble enjoying a win?
  15. jmlease1
    Lot of things to like about this game, but not the fact that SWR couldn't get out of the 5th. considering how much the team has struggled this season, I can't really blame Rocco for managing it tight and trying to hold the lead. If it was already 5-2, I think he gets the chance to go deeper, but it's fair to look at the O's and go "let's not give these guys hope". Let's be honest, we want them to go quietly tomorrow on getaway day too. Buxton looks to be on a real roll right now. This is the player we love, the one we always hoped we'd get for a full season. Stay healthy, buddy. Please! Nice to get the dinger from Bader. Good hitting from France, even if there's not much pop. Duran looked great, absolutely dominant. Just win, baby.
  16. jmlease1
    He's a college player who was a 2nd round pick, currently in High A. Long way to go before he becomes a serious option for "1B of the future", but there are some things to like about what we're seeing from Amick so far. He's doing everything we could really ask for him at the plate so far: taking walks and showing he knows the strike zone, making good contact, and showing decent pop at the plate. He hasn't been good at 3B, but he's not the butcher of cairo over there either, so it's reasonable to keep giving him innings over there. I'll be a little concerned that a guy whose hands are described as poor at 1B too, but so far he seems to be doing fine there and his range might help. He's passing the test in A-ball. I'm not going to get mad about people being excited about a guy doing everything he's asked to do in the job he's at. I think the real challenge for him will be when he gets to AA, which he seems on track to do some time this season, which is a good place to be for a guy in his first full year as a pro. The Sabato comp is interesting, though I would argue Amick is ahead of him right now in his development. Sabato really hit the wall when he made it to AA, and this year (at age 26, in his 4th attempt at the level) is the first time he's really hit at AA. Amick has more of a college track record to hang his hat on and has already gotten in about the same number of games in High A that Sabato did in his first pro season, so seems to be moving faster and more consistently already. But the real test for Amick is likely to come in AA when he faced more sophisticated and advanced pitchers. Amick is an interesting prospect, and seems to be doing fine for a 2nd round pick. Hope he keeps up this fast start and earns a promotion to Wichita.
  17. jmlease1
    Boy, Balto looked bad. As much as the Twins are struggling, you can see why the O's are below us in the standings. Here's hoping they can't get well against us; if this series goes like the Cleveland one (where we outscored them for the series but lost it) it'll be maddening. Great to see the power surge: life gets easier when you have some big bopper crushing some homers. Buxton is on a roll right now, hope he stays healthy for it. Jeffers is hitting great. Correa seems to be out of his funk. Just need 1-2 others to get going as well while we wait for Wallner to come back. Pablo wasn't efficient, but he was effective. Nice job by the bullpen finishing things off, even if Alcala still looks wobbly. O's made it easier by swinging through everything, for sure. (Varland definitely got away with one, as noted by Morneau. His curve is pretty good, but not good enough to hang up in the middle of the zone...) Just keep it up, Twins. Throw these guys an anchor and keep climbing out of the hole you made for yourselves.
  18. jmlease1
    I think it's more about their utter fear of running out of depth. They won't call up someone from AAA if it means losing a player off the roster unless they just have no choice or the vet has become utterly unplayable. I think it's a real mistake, but the scars from a few years ago when we ran out of outfielders appear to run deep.
  19. jmlease1
    Some good hitting from the Cedar Rapids prospects. Glad Kaelen wasn't out long, hope the same is true for Amick. Less excited about the hitting in Wichita so far, especially with Jenkins out. (hope he's back to full strength soon! sigh.) Good quantity of pitching prospects continuing to move in the system and show upside and success.
  20. jmlease1
    Reported by multiple professionals covering the team, not just people at this site. Saw the interest in Vazquez from the Padres as well. How much were they worth? We'll never know. Would we have had to eat some salary to move them? Possibly. But it seemed clear that they were moveable players and contracts by professionals in the industry, not just "rubes" on this site that you seem invested in crapping on.
  21. jmlease1
    Yep. Pretty poor offseason. Bader has worked out better than I expected, but France is a lot more what we thought he was likely to be (ok-ish on offense, meh on defense, and not a difference maker). We were told that Vazquez had value, and I think Paddack did too, and I was an advocate to move on from both of them to try and free up payroll and make a move to improve the offense. Instead both are eminently replaceable. There were prospects in the system and enough depth to make some moves and it feels like they didn't seriously get there. Hard to know for sure what was really out there as an option, but between ownership's miserly ways and the front office being slow and hesitant to move...the only help we're getting isn't going to come internally, and with our usual spate of prospect injuries, it seems we're not getting that any time soon either. The pitching is still good enough to get us back in this, and the offense is probably better than it's been (Wallner and Lewis returning will almost certainly help) but it's been a depressing start.
  22. jmlease1
    I see this a lot with the front office. If they have a success, it's luck. If they don't it's because they're stupid/incompetent/failures. Brooks Lee is looking fine, Matt Wallner is an absolute success. Buxton developed just fine as a hitter; it's not the front office's fault he's had so many injuries. (Same applies to Royce Lewis) Jeffers is certainly a success. They need more guys like that, but it's not like there aren't plenty of examples.
  23. jmlease1
    Nice to see the Twins get a win against a good lefty. Complicated day for Larnach, who should have gotten an error, but got a hit and a walk. Didn't feel like he was running on his own when he was thrown out on the steal attempt, so curious to know what was going on there. Jax giving up a dinger makes you wonder if he's just going to be the whipping boy in the bullpen this year, and get no breaks, but there's a lot of season to go. Varland seems to be fitting in just fine, though and Duran is coping with his loss of velocity without too much trouble. Bride looked helpless at the plate today, but not a lot of options. Looking forward to getting Lewis back. His relentless positivity probably can';t hurt the team either. Happy to see them win some close ones, especially after that frustrating series in Cleveland. Hells bells, they outscored Cleveland by 6 runs in the series and lost 3 of 4 because they couldn't win a close one. Two straight tight wins against Boston on the road helps.
  24. jmlease1
    Not wrong. Franchise really needs new ownership. The Pohlads have simply exhausted everyone. They're not the worst owners in MLB but they're not very good. They don't care enough about baseball, have mismanaged the business operations, and appear to be using the team as an asset to support their other businesses rather than one to be invested in and supported. They have no idea how to interact with the fanbase, let alone energize them, and there's literally no urgency associated with them. Blame for where the team current sits is a little complicated. Ownership deserves much blame for their miserly ways, inability to grow the franchise, and for reversing their small investment in payroll right at the moment where sustaining it would have had real impact. That also hamstrung the front office, who clearly built their roster construction strategies around sustaining that initial investment. I also blame ownership for not authorizing the minimal payroll increases we got this year until so late in the offseason, which left us dumpster-diving again. Falvey deserves criticism; the one season where our OF depth utterly collapsed has clearly made them very risk-adverse about depth, and they're very deferential to veterans and seem to have minimal faith in their own development of young players. But at the end of the day, players play. And they're the ones who simply haven't hit enough, have melted down in the bullpen, etc. Rocco will be the most likely scapegoat initially (easier to fire the manager than make wholesale changes to the roster), but the results of the last 2 years will probably doom Falvey as well with new ownership, even if Falvey has been hamstrung by the Pohlads and their poor ownership. And if we get good ownership, then it's not the end of the world. Unfortunately, I think actually selling the club is going to be harder than we hoped. The fact that the Pohalds seem to want not just the top of the valuation for the a sale but also for the new ownership to take on the debt that they've piled on in the last 5+ seasons (and it's questionable how much of that is related to baseball operations) makes it a much less attractive and more expensive property.
  25. jmlease1
    Lot of good hitting from the prospects in Cedar Rapids to start the season. It's going to be interesting to see who gets tapped for a call to Wichita if this keeps up through May? Culpepper, DeBarge, Amick, and DeAndrade are all positioning themselves to get moved up. (Winokur has a bunch of work to do) I suspect 1-2 will get the call, which will also open up some infield PT. But it's good to see them hitting well.
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