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jmlease1

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Everything posted by jmlease1

  1. jmlease1
    Yeah, the Margot trade was a bad one. period. he sucked last season, and couldn't fill the role he was needed for, and they almost certainly would have been better off looking elsewhere. being adequate against LHP while being awful against RHP (which is where half his ABs came) and being poor in the OF...hells bells, we would have been better off with Kiersey even if he couldn't hit LHP. I think Doncon is more likely to play meaningful time in MLB, assuming he can stay healthy. He's got some upside as a hitter, even if he's a little limited defensively. Miller is an excellent SS, but he hasn't developed at all as a hitter and shown no signs of it either. maybe he'll do better in AA the second time around, but pitchers have no reason to fear his bat at all and can simply overwhelm him. His upside is defensive replacement/utility guy, but his bat looks so weak right now that he's most likely only going to see MLB if a team has him in AAA and gets hit with a bunch of injuries where they have no other viable SS options. While Miller's glove plays, he looks like a complete zero on offense, so how comfortable is a team going to be even as a utility guy? He's only 22 so there's still a chance he finds an approach at the plate that makes him a legitimate SS option, but he's never had a season with an OPS over .700 in his career. the walks dried up in AA because he couldn't steal walks from pitchers who couldn't throw strikes any longer, and was facing pitchers who were advanced enough to understand that if they ran a 3 ball count they could throw a fastball over the plate without fear. For those who were convinced the Dodgers were going to transform him through their vaunted development system...he looks like exactly the same guy: all glove, no hit.
  2. jmlease1
    lot of bleeders in those hits, plus a "balk" that either wasn't a balk or they should be calling about 47 of them a game now. he was much better in his second start, but the first one looked like it had a combination of him not being super sharp, bad luck, and a pretty key bad call, not just his own error. regardless, he definitely looked like a lockdown #1 in outing number 2, which was good to see. Hopefully he finds some consistency and gets on a roll.
  3. jmlease1
    I will be thrilled to be wrong about Bader; I'm still very worried about his overuse against RHP, but if he's able to ride a hot streak early while the Twins are otherwise struggling at the plate, I'll take it. If it means I have to eat crow at the end of the season, I prefer mine grilled. Pablo did great. one slip to give up the dinger, but awesome to see him mowing through 7 without much trouble. yes, CWS stink but they should be a better squad than last season, and even crap teams win 40% of their games (usually). Little surprised that they went to Coulombe; with him having pitched the day before and no off day today we now don't have a LHP available until Friday at best. Wouldn't this have been a good spot for Topa? 5 run lead, 1 inning, and him being rested? real relief for Correa, who had been unlucky so far, to get a hit and then follow it up with another one. I suspect he'd been pressing a little. I'm quite confident he'll hit so long as he's mostly healthy, so glad to see him off the schnide.
  4. jmlease1
    It's not a great start for Miranda at the plate, but it's also not been a good start at the pate for everyone not named Bader or Castro, so I'm not going to single Miranda out too much. But he does need to get going; he's got too much talent to struggle for a month or longer and the Twins need him to hit. We'll see if he can stop expanding the strike zone? I will say, he's been doing fine defensively, so it's good to see he's not tracking his woes at the plate into the field, and he's made at least one play already that I would not have expected from him this season (charging in on a slow bouncer with a runner crossing in front of him, he made a clean play and good throw to get the runner against StL. Feel like he would have rushed the throw last season assuming he got to it cleanly in the first place). Hope that continues, it would be nice to feel confident in him at 3B.
  5. jmlease1
    Hard not to be intrigued by Hill, and Mercedes has big potential. But it feels like a roster where we need some guys to step forward and show some quality a bit more than usual. There's more known star power at Cedar Rapids to start the year than Ft. Myers, but it doesn't mean there aren't some guys that could take some big developmental steps. I'm curious to see how Chourio does this year after having last year to adapt. His speed is intriguing at the very least.
  6. jmlease1
    thinner group of prospects at AA this season (for now, anyways) than we've maybe become accustomed to? But any roster that has Walker Jenkins on it is pretty exciting to me. Hope Prielipp can stay healthy. Be great to be looking at him as a LH power arm relief option later in the year. Huge talent if his arm can take it. Fairly impressive that his stuff doesn't seem to have dropped off at all despite the injuries, surgeries, and so little game time. Feels like Olivar isn't going to stick at C, so he'll need that bat to keep producing. I like Rosario, but he's got to make more contact if he wants to get past AA. (and I feel like he should be a better OF than he's shown; he's got good athleticism but he's been meh at best in the field)
  7. jmlease1
    I suspect that the benefits, if any, will be relatively small and incremental over the whole of MLB. But it could make a difference for players who have been struggling to square up on balls as much as they need to and are close to getting more barrels on the bat but are just slightly off. Guys who are doing well already at getting the barrel on the ball might not see much difference. It'll be interesting to see at the end of the season if there are significant differences for a relevant sample of the players using the new bats. I have no problem with this: the bat meets the rules as written, it's available to all players and teams...go ahead an experiment. No difference than going from ash to maple to me.
  8. jmlease1
    actually scoring runs sure does make the game easier. Nice to see the offense bust out. Maybe that will be what they need to relax and play to capability. 10 hits and 6 walks is going to score a lot of runs. I will take it all day. Thought SWR did ok, but threw a lot of pitches. I suspect he wasn't loving the cold weather. Varland getting the win is a good reminder why Pitcher Wins are a dumb stat. Varland did a good job blowing some guys away, but needs to pitch a little smarter because hitters will punish his fastball up in the zone. Good bounce back for Alcala. Glad to get the win. Now, go win the series.
  9. jmlease1
    Probably because he missed so much time last season that they want to at least have a reality check with him at high A before slotting up up to Wichita? He hasn't quite turned 21 yet, so seems fine. Winokur is a fascinating prospect. He's got great athleticism, but still probably won't be able to stick at SS (I've heard Culpepper is definitely better there), so does it make sense to move him now, especially with DeAndrade & Culpepper both at Cedar Rapids? It sounds like he's plenty athletic for the OF, and it wouldn't hurt at all to have him as a giant target at 1B... I'll be interested to see how he hits this season. Soto is very exciting and I'm glad he's in high A where he'll get challenged more. Looking forward to seeing how he refines his pitches this season.
  10. jmlease1
    well, a hit is a hit. but he also had 2 walks. perfectly acceptable day for Jeffers. No complaints about Gasper drawing 2 as well. Thanks, Willi for getting another hit. Everyone else go back to your hotel room and think about what you failed to do...
  11. jmlease1
    Yikes. 2 hits? Only 2 effing hits? Paddack demonstrating that spring training is meaningless. Did he have the same virus as Ober? because that's just awful. but I'm still far more concerned about the horrendous offense, where apparently only 1-2 players per game are currently allowed to not suck. Martin Perez is the definition of Just Another Guy as a starter, but once again apparently all you have to be is a southpaw to ruin the Twins day. Appreciate that Jeffers showed up, but...yuck. No need to watch the replay tonight, that's for sure!
  12. jmlease1
    I think there's reasons why Gardy flamed out when he tried to make a go of it in Detroit and it wasn't just his health. But I guess if you want to go back to the day that the backup 2B has to hit second in the order because that's where the starting 2B hit, or your best reliever is only used as a 9th inning save situation only guy, etc than bring back a Gardy-type? me? I'll pass. I will say the one thing I find the most baffling on this site (and I'm not calling out anyone specifically; y'all can decide on your own if you meet the category) are the people who seem to take joy out of the twins failing/struggling...especially when they don't build the "type" of team the poster wanted or play guys that aren't liked or make decisions that are seen as "wrong". I don't understand the pleasure some seem to get by saying "see?!?! I told you they suck!" about the team that you supposedly root for...
  13. jmlease1
    Baldelli didn't do well to help his team win in the first series. I've generally defended him over the last few seasons because a) I thought he was doing a decent enough job, and 2) I think we overrate the impact of managers in baseball most of the time. But not great work from him this time. I get that there wasn't anyone already warming in the bullpen when Alcala took a shot like that, but they could have had someone start stretching immediately upon going out to check on Alcala and if you pull the pitcher because of an injury last time I checked the new guy gets extra time/pitches to warm up, even if they do have to do it on the mound in front of god and country. Considering how Alcala has imploded in the past, that would have been a good time to play it safe with him rather than hope his adrenaline would carry him through. I think it's fair to assign some measure of blame for running Ober out there coming off illness too. You'd think if Ober was barfing on the off-day you'd let Paddack know "hey you might need to be next man up"? the Bader usage is complicated for me: I don't want to see Bader out in LF that much when RHP are on the mound, so I was unhappy with the opening day lineup. Then Bader does great? but much more likely to see him do what he did on sunday: play good defense and add nothing at the plate. Knowing that Julien was also ill this weekend makes me less unhappy that he basically sat all weekend, but I'm already worried that Bader will get overexposed this season. I'm most concerned about the offense. It really didn't look good out there, with our best hitters doing very little. And it's not just an issue with approach "too much swinging for the fences, too many Ks, etc" that we frequently hear from people around here. Sure, they struck out 11 times in Game 1, but at least they had 8 hits that game; the 8 total hits in Games 2 & 3 were pretty terrible. game 1 at least they had some great defensively plays made against them; Games 2 & 3 things were much more routine. the offense looks rough right now from everyone except Willi Castro & Trevor Larnach (who may have been 0-4 on sunday, but has been doing fine so far). I'm not too worried about the starting pitching yet; Pablo was a little unlucky (the "balk" was questionable and there were some real bleeders) and his stuff looked ok. Ryan looked pretty good and seems back, and I'll give Ober a pass since he was sick. The offense needs to start showing up. If they start hitting thing improve a lot. If they start the season in a swoon, then it's going to get ugly.
  14. jmlease1
    Lot of guys to be watching in AAA: deep rotation, some highly ranked prospects in the lineup, and some interesting other players to wonder about. And Eeles isn't even back from his knee injury yet! Wasn't sure where Keaschall was going to start the season, but it says something that he's in Saint Paul. Clearly the Twins have no doubts about him as a hitter, and having him in AAA from the jump makes it much more likely that we'll see him in MLB at some point this season. Glad to see Emma playing already; was a little worried about his sprained ankle and him missing so much spring training. That bat will play. Think we'll need his offense in MLB, but we'll see. Hope he can stay healthy. Nice job by Festa. I hope he crushes AAA so hard that it becomes very easy for the Twins to deal Paddack. It'll be interesting to see how the sinker plays for him, but it could be a nice weapon to get through hitters more efficiently.
  15. jmlease1
    It's just one game, so I refuse to overreact. But this might be the template for Twins losses this season: starter isn't sharp early, defense does us no favors, offense never really gets going, other team plays pretty well. But that's always going to be a losing formula? Some good and bad out there for sure: Ty France looks meh fielding out there...but did a nice job on scoops. Correa was a bit unlucky at the plate and didn't get the hits we needed...but also started a great DP Jax just looked a little off and really labored, but Topa's velocity looked up Wallner didn't get it going at all, but didn't look lost like he did at the start of last season either Larnach had good ABs which led to good results Bader looked great. Hope I'm wrong about him at the plate; it's just one game, but he did great. Miranda handled 3B pretty well (with some help from France); he made a really nice play charging in with a runner dancing in front of him that was good to see Varland looked just fine in the bullpen; I suspect he might have gone an additional inning if there wasn't an off day today? Twins just started a little flat. Maybe it's the rain delay, but StL had to deal with that too. (though it might be easier to handle when you're at home?) Need to come out better on Sat.
  16. jmlease1
    Bold prediction: Twins will have 5 players hit 20 HR in 2025
  17. jmlease1
    It's more about who is playing (Bader) against the RHP rather than just the RH/LH split. Bader should not be getting starts against RHP in the corners unless we have injuries that make it an issue. Larnach or Kiersey should be in the lineup in LF; if it's Kiersey, then Larnach should be the DH, and if it's Larnach, then Julien should be the DH. It's just one game, but if this is how the team intends to deploy Bader on the regular then it becomes malpractice unless Bader suddenly turns into a much better hitter against RHP than he has been since 2021.
  18. jmlease1
    I think this is a good Twins team. Quite a few things need to go disastrously wrong for it to be a bad team; even with the early infield injuries the team hasn't exhausted its depth yet, none of the injuries are looking that serious (it's not like anyone is lost for the season, and with all of them we should be thinking weeks rather than months, with Lewis potentially being the exception, but even there the odds are good that he'll be back in May, not June or July) and we also still have reinforcements in the minors that have potential to be real contributors: Keaschall might need time to get his arm in shape, but his bat looks ready. Rodriguez is rehabbing, but his bat is tremendous. And maybe the Sire of Ft Myers is your breakout guy this year? the rotation looks good and deep (and there's experience there too) from the jump, with real options should anyone falter or get hurt. The bullpen has some injuries, but also still looks deep and talented. The infield defense is a bit of a concern; outside of Correa and the catchers, everyone is average at best, poor at worst and likely below average until Lee gets back. the OF defense isn't bad; Larnach is more than solid when he's not battling turf toe, Buxton is still excellent, Bader is strong, and Wallner has the arm to be a threat. Kiersey gives them even more late inning defense. Not a lot of big holes? I think the biggest concern is what's the upside for the lineup? Is there enough there even if everyone is healthy? if we get first half Miranda & Jeffers, and 2022 France with a little more from Larnach the floor goes up pretty fast. there are a lot of players I'm excited to watch on this team. Lot of guys that are easy to root for. Healthy Buxton is one of the most fun players I've ever seem in my entire life, and I'm getting old, so I've seen a lot of them. the starters are pretty fun. there are young guys to root for a breakout.
  19. jmlease1
    AL East is a really interesting division this season. The NY club is in a bit of trouble with injuries already and their lineup needs guys like Bellinger and Goldschmidt to really step up or their offense is asking a lot of Judge. feels like a race between Balto & Boston to me, but the people writing off TB seem to be ignoring history. I think the AL Central is going to be a fun race; no team is perfect, but there are 4 teams that are all pretty good. My gut says Detroit played over their heads last season, and while they have a heck of an ace, the rest of their team doesn't scare me. Cleveland always seems to find pitching, but their insanely good bullpen last season masked a mediocre starting crew and I'm not sure they'll get that much bullpen production and health 2 years in a row. I think it might be Twins & KC battling it out? KC still feels one bat light, twins have a lot of uncertainty about health, but both have strong rotations.
  20. jmlease1
    Not wrong: Ober had 3 really bad blowups last season and two were against KC (he did dominate them in his 3rd pass, though so maybe he figured something out, stopped tipping pitches, something). If you dropped Ober's first 2 outings against KC and the implosion against Atlanta it would have dropped a full run off his ERA. (If you trim the best 3 by Game Score off as well, he still would have been looking at an ERA of 3.38, which is pretty nice. Interesting to see the impact of the best and worst outings on a starters season, though) I'm still a Joe Ryan guy (don't that I don't also like Lopez), but with Ober feeling good the Twins have a strong top 3 in their rotation, one that should be able to compete with most anyone.
  21. jmlease1
    Interesting player. I suspect the missing 2020 minor league season screwed up his developmental track, especially as the Twins tried to determine whether or not he could stick at catcher (and catchers usually need more time anyways). he seems to have good control of the strike zone, solid (if not always consistent) pop in the bat, and had a fine season in 2024 against more advanced competition. Does he have a defensive position? Doesn't really have the size you'd like to see at 1B, so corner OF might be the best option. If he can keep hitting, he should get a shot. As a RH bat he might find some opportunity if he keeps making good, hard, consistent contact.
  22. jmlease1
    well, since Pitcher Wins isn't all that informative of a stat, I'm not too worried about it. Last season no Cleveland starter had more than 13 "wins" and only 2 reached double-digits. I think what will be the most interesting thing to monitor with Paddack is whether or not his velocity stays fairly even from start to start, and how he responds after going 6 innings in his next outing. Despite it being a disappointing season in 2024, Paddack still had outings with a Game Score of 75. 73, 74, and 67: those are really nice games! Joe Ryan's best 4 last season? 68, 75, 74, 71. Ryan was much better last season because he had fewer clunkers and many more games with a GS in the 60's rather than the 40's or 50's, but you did see why the Twins have been clinging to Paddack's potential. If he's more consistent this season, and healthier, he could be a real asset in the back end of the rotation.
  23. jmlease1
    If he's healthy, Paddack is a capable 4th or 5th starter, which is the role he's expected to play for the twins. If he struggles or gets injured (again), we have festa, matthews, morris, raya and more waiting in the wings looking for an opportunity. If paddack is ok and healthy but one of the others is absolutely crushing it in AAA, there's no reason paddack couldn't get moved at the deadline or shifted into a bullpen role. I like the fact that we have realistic options for rotation depth that go more than 1-2 deep.
  24. jmlease1
    It would be interesting to know if this is Twins debt or debt added from other Pohlad business ventures? But regardless, it goes to the relatively poor overall business management of the Twins over the past decade or longer. As a business operation, they've done a poor job in growing their own revenue streams, were caught out on the dissolution of the RSNs, failed to develop their own network, botched radio ownership, haven't seemingly done much to expand sponsorships...what exactly have they done well at from a business perspective other than get the state & county to build them a gem of a stadium? Disappointing that the market is stagnating on a sale. I'm exhausted by current ownership. They're not the worst, but they're nowhere near the best, and I can't recall the last time ownership brought good news to the table for the franchise, at least as far as fans are concerned. Outside of Nephew Joe, the family aren't particularly interested in baseball, so them moving on to count their gazillions sounds great. Ain't no way the next ownership group is going to agree to keep Nephew Joe on in any capacity unless he's able to put up a real stake as a minority owner, and even then it seems beyond the pale. "Buy the team, but let the old ownership keep running it!" That's dumber than Glen Taylor's multi-year phased sale. A billionaire is almost certainly going to be the lead partner in any sale, and there's no way they want to hang on to Joe Pohlad as part of the deal. Hells bells that kind of stupid may have sent Justin Ishbia running back to the CWS...
  25. jmlease1
    pretty much for the past 30 years. several years of Rivas (who was bad), several years of Casilla (who was a good utility guy miscast as a starter), but only Dozier has put up good results over several seasons since Knoblauch and locked the position down. but this isn't unusual, and until Correa came in we had as much if not more trouble filling SS on a consistent basis. It would be great if someone could seize the job and not let go. Julien took a hold of it and let it slip through his fingers. Lee hasn't been healthy enough to claim it as his own...yet. Maybe Keaschall will make it impossible to keep him out as he's able to to throw and field again...maybe. but it would be great to pencil in the same guy for the next 4-5 years.
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