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jmlease1

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Everything posted by jmlease1

  1. jmlease1
    It's great to see Julien make the necessary adjustments and start to hit hit again. The peripherals have been looking good this season even when the results weren't there, so it's good that he's been able to stick with the change and start getting the result he and the team might have expected. I do think he's taken his struggles at the plate out into the field with him at times, so while I don't expect him to be a plus defender I think we might see improvement still at 2B. But frankly the team can handle him being below average defensively if he's putting up an OPS+ in the 110-125 range. I would expect pitchers to adjust to him again; if he can keep from chasing it wouldn't surprise me at all to see the walk rate start climbing back up, even if the K's go back up a bit more too. Miranda has some work to do. Previously when he's struggled in MLB it's been more injury related; there really doesn't seem to be that issue for him right now. He's just a mess at the plate in every way, swinging at everything, while not getting the barrel on the ball like he needs to. You look at his launch angle and it shows a player who needs a big ol' reset. Hopefully he can go back down to Saint Paul and find himself again. He's never going to be a player that takes lots of walks, but he can be a guy who makes lots of good hard contact. It's interesting, since he doesn't appear to big fighting an injury this time, to see whether he can get himself out of this. Wallner pulled it off last season and when he returned he was a damn good hitter for the Twins. Hopefully Miranda can as well.
  2. jmlease1
    I loved Bremer, but let's not pretend he wasn't a homer. Part of that was Dick is Mr. Positivity, but still. And Bert wasn't much different that today's crew when it came criticizing Twins players and basically never took a poke at the manager or front office. When Dick & Bert were in their prime, it was great, but you're clearly not remembering the last several seasons with Bert, where he was mailing it in and frankly dragging Bremer down with him. Bremer got a second wind when he got new partners.
  3. jmlease1
    Julien is a good fit for the leadoff spot if he's made the adjustments that will keep him hitting. Nice to see him doing well right now, and hopefully he's got his confidence back. Reasonable choice to pull SWR; I suspect they might have let him go longer if it was a bigger lead. He doesn't dominate, but he keeps the team in the game. Hope Ryan can go deep against the Mets, and the offense can generate enough to give us a chance.
  4. jmlease1
    Good to see DeBarge showing some pop. He's off to a nice start. Bummer to have Culpepper going to the IL; he was playing well and injuries to top picks just make me twitchy as hell at this point. Happy for Tanner Schobel to see him off to a good start. It had looked like AA had flummoxed him and he might have hit his ceiling. long way to go, and he'll need to keep hitting, but this is a real crossroads season for him: if he can't hit AA pitching in his 3rd shot at it at age 24, then he's probably cooked as a prospect. But maybe he just needed a little more development time and a key adjustment to get it going. Wichita is interesting this year in that most of the lineup are guys who are 24-25. (only 3 under 24, only 1 under 22) It'll be interesting to see where the average age lands in AA this year, I think. Just happy to see Prielipp apparently healthy. Hope to keep seeing results from him into the summer. Very nice job by Dasan Hill. Twins are clearly being careful in trying to build him up (which I have no problem with at all--he's only 19) but boy oh boy the stuff looks good. He's going to be fun to track this season as he makes his professional debut.
  5. jmlease1
    No one is saying that a bad manager can't cost games, or that a superior manager can't win games for their team. It's the scope that's the issue here. Baseball managers simply don't have so much impact on the game that their decision-making makes them responsible for 20 wins or losses. They're not calling every pitch, they're not personally positioning every fielder on every play, and they're not making swing decisions on hitters like a video game. Lineup selection & construction matters, as does when to go to the bullpen, who to send it and how many batters to have them face, pinch-hitting, defensive replacements, etc. But those decisions are also in the context of what the players actually do, which is always much much more impactful. A great manager making perfect decisions simply can't take a team with the talent of a 70 win team and make them a 90 win team.
  6. jmlease1
    Great to see Soto have a dominant start. So much talent there, but it doesn't always translate. Soto is really impressing at 19. His starts should be appointment viewing for Cedar Rapids. It's going to be interesting to see how the Twins manage his innings this season. There's no real injury history there, so maybe they'll handle him differently than someone like Raya? It's an interesting group of hitters at Cedar Rapids right now. Feels like Iowa is the prime spot for Twins prospects right now. Amick keeps raking: it's only 7 games, but it's everything we could have hoped for from the 2nd round pick. Would love to know more about what his defense is looking like at the corners?
  7. jmlease1
    Hard to feel good about the decision to pull Festa there. Yes, he'd surrendered the lead, but he'd been pitching well. Not Festa's fault there was an error in there. Not much faith there from the manager. Only 64 pitches thrown, multiple clean innings, he's throwing strikes and there's 2 outs in the inning. Instead we burn Coulombe for 1 batter and after Alcala implodes ask Blewett to go 2+ to finish so we don't use 5 relievers to finish out the game? I don't blame Baldelli for Alcala imploding; that's on the player. But Festa isn't in his first go-around, and the quick hook is a mistake. Feels like Baldelli is managing scared, trying to keep his job and instead is making it worse.
  8. jmlease1
    it's possible Sonny Gray has never thought he should come out of a game in his entire life. It's like asking Buxton or Lewis if they can play that day: even if a limb was falling off they'd say yes. Ask Gray if he's got another inning in him and he's going to say yes. It's both admirable and foolish. He had a good first season with MN followed by one of the best seasons of his career. If coming off one of the best seasons of your career, where you were the runner up for the Cy Young award you're mad at the team for how they handled you to the point of not wanting to come back? Maybe you don't have the first damn clue what's actually best for you on the field. but Gray wasn't going to sign here because we weren't going to give him 3+ years at $20M+ per season. I would argue the Twins made the correct choice in making him the QO, then letting him go when he declined.
  9. jmlease1
    I'm not sure these seasons do much to refute my point: Julien's 2023 was substantially better than Cave's 2018, and Julien produced more in his 2+ seasons than cave did in 7 MLB seasons. Cutting off everything from Cave after 2020 doesn't make him a more impactful player. was Julien bad last year? yes he was. There's literally no one arguing that he was good last season. If this is about Baldelli's relationship to Cave & Julien, then skip the 2018 season when Molitor was his manager? Cave was an ok-ish bench bat and 4th OF his first couple of seasons in MLB. Then he stopped hitting and was basically a replacement level player after that. Julien had a great rookie season and a bad sophomore slump after MLB pitching adjusted to him, he was less lucky, and struggled to adjust. He's made a substantial adjustment this season and so far hasn't got any breaks with it, but there are promising signs (barrel%, hard hit%, etc) as well as ones that are worrisome (chase rate). but he doesn't really look like Jake Cave.
  10. jmlease1
    he's 10th in games played and ABs so far this season. (and would almost certainly be lower if Brooks Lee wasn't hurt to start the season) You'd prefer more Mickey Gasper? the Cave comp is weird: Julien has already been more productive in his 2+ seasons than Cave was in 7, and Cave never had a season as good as Julien's 2023. If Julien can't improve over last season he'll likely be gone and/or fighting to try to get a roster spot. But I'm always amazed how quickly people want to give up on him, though: dude produced in 2023, and now people act like that never happened and he's trash with no upside left. If Julien can reduce his chase rate while getting the kind of barrels he's been registering so far, he should see better results. We'll see if he can do it. It's a good sign that he's been able to change his approach up from something that was working for him for a long time, but clearly he's got work to do.
  11. jmlease1
    this is the thing though: they're clearly not just doing it based purely on pitch count or number of times through the order. They're also looking at his velocity and factoring in his illness and lack of innings so far. Whether or not they made the correct decision in this case, we'll never actually know, but it's not a dogmatic "ope, you're going to face the top of the order for the 4th time, so out you go!" This is why so many of the "Rocco manages off a spreadsheet" and the anti-analytic arguments are unpersuasive. cherry-picking 1 or 2 bits to reach a predetermined conclusion doesn't convince many people of anything, just encourages those that already agree. I don't think Rocco has done a particularly good job so far; there have been decisions that were questionable at the time that have not gone his way, and basically none of the levers he's pulled have worked so far. But in baseball I always lay the vast majority of the blame on the players. Even the actively bad/stupid managers aren't going to substantially change a team's destiny. Look at the White Sox last season: would a good manager have made them an average team? No. At best we're talking about going from historically bad to just regular bad. Sizemore was ok as a manager when he took over, but the team still stunk. (even the fire sale didn't make much impact; Fedde was the only guy playing well, maybe gets them a few more wins, but it was the end of July with 2/3 of the season already done and dusted.)
  12. jmlease1
    Huge bummer for Martin, who didn't pout about going back to AAA but instead put his energy on the field, hitting well and showing improvement in the field. Sucks to see him going down like that, especially when he's on a heater. Glad to see Winokur get a hit (his reaction tells me the ofer was getting in his head) and hopefully that gets him started. He's been very cold so far. GG and Amick are both off to great starts in Cedar Rapids, which is very nice to see. GG looks healthy and his power production is back to where we thought it would be. he seems like someone who if he stays healthy and on track will be looking at a midseason promotion. Amick is doing almost everything you could ask for from a draft pick in his first full year pro season; the only possible concern is the K's but it's a small thing for a guy who's hitting so well.
  13. jmlease1
    It's absolutely hilarious to invoke Earl Weaver in an anti-analytics screed. Earl was one of the forerunners of modern analytics in how he constructed and ran his teams. But we've also seen that Baldelli generally lets his starters go as long as anyone in the league...when his starting pitching is good. But he (and this is true of most managers today) doesn't just go "well, it's one of my best guys, that's the most important thing". This kind of decision is one that there's literally no way for the manager to win on: if he pulls Ober and 'pen implodes, he's an idiot. If he leave him in and Ober melts down, he should have known better. If he leave him in and Ober cruises through another inning, then it's all because of Ober. (and he'll get killed if he goes to the bullpen for the 8th too). Even if the bullpen gets through the inning, he's going to get hit for pulling his starter "too early" and using up his bullpen. Baldelli made a significant mistake in letting Ober start in StL while needing more recovery time. Since it was the start of the season there's no reason they couldn't have shuffled the rotation or simply given Dobnak the start. that's a case of him probably trusting the player too much. Now people are mad because he supposedly didn't trust the player enough. I think Baldelli has some problems with lineups and bullpen usage. But he's generally been good at handling the starting pitching. Last night was just one of those ones where it went sideways. the problem is, he's getting the worst possible result on these kinds of decisions that ight normally go his way most of the time right now as the team flails. This magnifies the impact of those choices and makes him look worse than he probably is. If the team doesn't score more runs and win more close games it's not going to matter much: he'll eventually get fired. Baldelli is like most managers in baseball: he looks good when his players are good and are healthy. He looks bad when his players are playing poorly and his got a bunch of injuries to deal with. Right now, too many guys are still playing poorly, especially on offense.
  14. jmlease1
    it's part of why I mentioned his WHIP. having a great K/9 tells you things about someone's stuff, how dominant they are, etc. And K's help you out a lot when you allow that baserunner with no outs. But the WHIP also tells you some things about where they're at through the number of baserunners they're allowing. You can survive in the minors letting people on base at times, but it gets much much harder in MLB and that weak contact sometimes does turn into hard contact in bad ways. I don't think we know yet how hittable Morris is yet. It'll be interesting to see where Morris is at after 5-7 starts. He's clearly got talent and is doing fine so far.
  15. jmlease1
    Really hope it's nothing serious with Walker Jenkins. feel like the Twins deserve better luck with prospect injuries. Great start to the season for Morris. he's another guy like Zebby who shot up through the system in a big old hurry last season, so it's good to see him doing well in AAA. It'll be interesting to see where his peripherals are as the season goes along and see where his K/9 and WHIP are sitting after a few more starts. results matter the most, but I'm a little concerned he's going to start giving up runs in bunches if he's not able to K a few more batters and limit the baserunners. Wonder what the internals look like on winokur; is he just a little off? because right now he's having a dreadful start. Hopefully he just needs some warm weather? Culpepper & Amick certainly don't seem bothered and it's good to see two guys in their first full season of pro ball off to a nice start while being moved fairly aggressively.
  16. jmlease1
    Ryan was great. Did a fine job in keeping KC down, and was efficient in getting there so he got through 7, which was great for the bullpen. He looks fully recovered from the injury from last season, which is great. We need him. Maybe all the Twins needed was nice weather? Nice to see the defense add rather than subtract too.
  17. jmlease1
    It is a question, isn't it? Winokur is playing some CF, deAndrade & debarge are both playing 2B, but I'd think someone needs to get pushed up to AA or slid back to Ft. Myers. Maybe the good start for DeAndrade gets him to Wichita faster?
  18. jmlease1
    He didn't hit last season in MLB because he was battling injuries. defensively, he was our 2nd best SS last season behind Correa, our best 3B (looked excellent there), and while he had a couple of errors at 2B it was a small sample of innings and otherwise looked good there. he also hit the cover off the ball in AAA last season (hello, .974 OPS!), so I'm not sure what another 200 ABs in AAA are going to prove. When he comes up, he's starting every day at 2B or 3B.
  19. jmlease1
    Gasper. yes, it's a small sample, but he hasn't looked good at the plate, and while I love his willingness to learn another position on the fly, he looks more like a guy without a position than Julien. I agree with Sixel: the others might have futures (even if they're scrabbling like so many Twins hitters), hard to see much with Gasper so far. but the most important thing is getting Brooks Lee up here as fast as he's healthy. he'll improve the D at 2B and at 3B (if they slide him in there) and I still believe in his bat if he's healthy.
  20. jmlease1
    Zebby is looking great so far; nice to see his velocity high on the fastball. It's a small sample, but he seems to have no concerns facing AAA hitters. No fear if he gets called up to take Pablo's spot in the rotation for a turn or two...and I hope that if he does well the Twins start thinking seriously about giving him Paddack's spot. He's off to an excellent start. A little concerned about Winokur, who is definitely scrabbling at the plate. Doncon is off to a slow start as well. Hope it's just early season/cold weather/small sample noise. Culpepper and Amick are both off to good starts, however and that's nice. I've heard Culpepper is good enough at SS to potentially stick there and he's hitting like a first round draft choice for sure. It'll be interesting to see how they manage time in the field for him & DeAndrade (who is also starting well). Amick is interesting and someone I'm going to be paying more attention to. Like the quick start to the season from him and the XBHs, but the K's are something to watch. Would love to know more about where his defense is at and whether he can stick at 3B? Wouldn't mind seeing him develop as a 3B-1B guy.
  21. jmlease1
    2020 was a weird season but the Twins did make the playoffs. It was weird for everyone and we were one of the better teams in the AL. 2022 was going great and injuries utterly ruined the season. that's not on Rocco. It's totally underplaying just how bad the injury situation was to say "injuries played a part". we were signing outfielders off the street, and even with a patchwork rotation (Ober hadn't overcome his injury troubles yet, so it was Ryan, Gray, and Pray) the Twins were somehow tied for 1st on Sept 4th. 2023 also was an improvement over 2019 in playoff results; we beat a Toronto team that had 5 all-stars, 2 gold glove winners, and the league leader in strikeouts (Gausman was a really good pitcher that year!) I generally think that Rocco has been fine, and I frequently think managers are assigned too much blame credit when a team wins and too much blame when they do poorly. That said, this season very little has gone right: his moves mostly haven't worked, both in the ones he's made and the ones he hasn't. But what happens if they can Rocco at this point? Are things going to change significantly with Jayce Tingler as the interim? Are they really going to pull someone off the street to run the team with someone else's coaching staff? Last night's game was unbelievably frustrating, because seeing pitchers not able to throw to 1B is crazy. Hawk was definitely trying to cover for the pitchers a bit on the broadcast, talking about how hard it is to go from throwing a pitch and being all amped up to tossing a ball gentle to 1B. but Jax wasn't even close. France doesn't get to that with a ladder. Was Jax just gripping it too tight because he knows he's been crap so far this season? Ragans is a really good pitcher, and had a generous strike zone at times, so the fact that the Twins ran up his pitch count and saw the backside of him after 6 with the game tied wasn't terrible. Pablo looked like he was matching him, so it stunk to see him go out with an injury. but Maki not apparently knowing what was going on, seems very odd. It's not like there's a language barrier. I don't really understand putting Gasper out at 2B. Julien is sitting right there, and while he's not a great defensive player, he's far more experienced at 2B. Either he can play it or he can't. Julien was already starting, so you had a LH hitter in the lineup against the LHP pitcher anyways. These kinds of decisions are starting to pile up on Rocco, though, and they have to start working or it's going to be someone else's turn.
  22. jmlease1
    Please stay healthy. Just that. The stuff is electric and if he can get the changeup a little sharper (I'm guessing he rarely needed it before with such a strong slider-fastball combo) then he could be a monster. but can his arm hold up? please stay healthy so we can find out. I think I'd prefer him going to the bullpen sooner rather than later, because at the end of the day i think that's where he's most likely to thrive...and stay healthy. But I could be wrong: which is going to be harder on his rebuilt wing, trying to grind through 5-7 innings once a week or going max effort 2-3 times a week for an inning or so?
  23. jmlease1
    probably can't do it now, or at least not until the all-star break without either an injury or some off-days. But might have made a lot more sense to start the season. I'm unenthusiastic about paddack as well, but as long as he's healthy he's going to get some additional chances; having him in the "5th" spot makes him the easiest to skip IMHO. not sure how we'd get there, but it might be a better way to structure your rotation in general, rather than go "best-2nd best-3rd best-4th best-5th best".
  24. jmlease1
    Would the Twins be better off from a bullpen standpoint if they sequenced their starters like this? Lopez-SWR-Ryan-Ober-Paddack? Since they seem to not let SWR go as deep, but he's also less likely to get skipped for health than Paddack, wouldn't this fit better and give you a better chance of not overstressing your bullpen? Ryan and Lopez are both pretty proven as inning-eaters (as much as anyone is in today's game), and even when they're not as sharp they have the best chance of gutting out 5-6 innings, while also showing an ability to go 6-7 with reasonable consistency. probably too radical, and would bruise someone's ego too much by their placement.
  25. jmlease1
    the cedar rapids group is an interesting bunch this year, 5 position players on the top 20 prospect list, it's going to be very interesting to see who separates themselves this season. Winokur is athletic but streaky. DeBarge might be one of those guys that needed aluminum bats to hit for any power? Culpepper is a guy I like and am excited to have him in a full season of pro ball. GG is off to a nice start and has some things to prove. Amick looks like he knows the strike zone, so be interesting to see if he can make enough contact. (I like him 10% more because he's going by Billy rather than Bill/Will/William; something about it just feels like baseball, lol)
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