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Willihammer

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Everything posted by Willihammer

  1. Willihammer
    This is the sort of ballsy trade I'd love to see the Twins make over the winter. Maybe not these two players exactly, but something similar.
  2. Willihammer
    Its also worth noting that 2/7 of these guys were being talked about last offseason as bounceback candidates - Johnson and Villanueva. I'll ask again. If the Twins didn't already have Pelfrey and Nolasco under contract, wouldn't they be part of this list too? How many more bounceback candidates do we need?
  3. Willihammer
    4/32 was an example based on the $8m annual figure put forth to be spent on 1 year lotto picks. People get carried away with the bifurcated outcomes. I don't have hard data but the instances of players given 1 year bounceback contracts - starting pitchers coming off injury in particular, who turn in QO-level seasons seem to be very few and far between. Fewer and farther between than the healther, more productive pitchers who earn similar AAV's with longer term commitments, or that would be my guess. The market - particularly for starting pitching, isn't so inefficient that 1 year steals are just waiting around to be signed every offseason. Heck, finding a guy as productive as Hughes has been at 3/24 is extremely rare.
  4. Willihammer
    Seems like a great defensive replacement, pinch runner to have on the bench. He should not be in competition with Hicks or Rosario for a roster spot, IMO.
  5. Willihammer
    How often do these sort of players - pitchers, specifically, hit? Without knowing that, it seems hasty to say the Twins should be in on one of these contracts every year for ~$8m per. If the hit rate is less than say, your average 4 yr/32m contract, maybe its better to just ink one of those every 4 years instead?
  6. Willihammer
    Hypocrite warning, because I didn't like the signing at the time, but in retrospect a critical 4th reason that Hughes was a great signing was his good health. That doesn't apply to most of the players on your list. One could say Nolasco was "good when healthy" in 2014. Would he be on this list if he weren't already under contract? What about Pelfrey?
  7. Willihammer
    I can think of about a dozen things, most of them pretty obvious, that MLB oughtta try before mounting a ****ing shot clock.
  8. Willihammer
    Because after 4 90 loss seasons TR still has a job? Owners can say what they want, but actions speak louder. Look around baseball. Two GM's in Atlanta and Arizona got fired for one losing season. The difference between them and the Ryans, Luhnow's and Epsteins is that the other three have lost on the cheap. If TR wants to keep his job he won't raise payroll, no matter what his boss says.
  9. Willihammer
    I appreciate that angle. I would counter with the majority of the Gardy years when middle infielders were health but getting production from them was a chronic problem. Part of that undoubtedly was that the talent just wasn't very good. Another part I think was in Gardy regularly rotating in the Alexi Casilla's, Brian Buschers, Matt Tolberts, and Brendan "Just Looking" Harris's in order to keep them "fresh." That's why they need to make a firm judgment about what kind of talent Escobar really is, IMO. If he's good enough to start, then he should start, and they can let a Doug Bernier or Ed Nunez backup the left side of the infield *only* if there's an injury. Those guys aren't hard to find. Likewise if he's a backup talent, then he should sit on the bench and shouldn't be rotated in ahead of better players just to keep him "fresh."
  10. Willihammer
    Escobar is a tough dilemma. He's sort of the poster child for needing everyday at-bats to get into a groove. From a purely asset-maximization perspective maybe the right thing is to exercise an option on Santana next season and start Esobar at SS. Give him a month to sink or swim. On the other hand, how can you option the best batter on your team? IMO trying to trade Escobar now, at age 25 with his mixed track record, would be like trying to trade Plouffe at age 25. Nobody is going to bite on an arb-eligible, no option guy unless / until he proves to be a starting talent. For that reason, maybe Plouffe is the release valve. He's had his late bloom. He's shown he's worth the arb-raises and can be a starter on a good team. He will have trade value. It comes down to making an accurate eval of Escobar's true talent IMO. Is he poised to take the next step or would he sink back into a .650 batter if the Twins rolled with him as the 3B option next year. They need to get this one right.
  11. Willihammer
    Hughes seems to have struck the right mix of pitches, swapping the slider, a chase pitch, for a cutter that he can command better and throw in the zone with confidence it won't get blasted like a hanging slider would. Another 11/1 K/BB season probably isn't in the cards but I suspect he's going to keep a strong K/BB ratio around 4 or 5/1. Similar to Lee who started dominating in 2008 after he swapped his 4 seem for a 2 seem fastball. I'd love to see the Twins target another pitcher like that, who they believe has the stuff to succeed (and is healthy) but just needs a tweek in repertoire.
  12. Willihammer
    There was at least a 5 day lag between Maddon exercising his opt-out (on the 23rd) and Lavelle reporting (on the 28th) that the Twins "will contact" (future tense) Maddon. Twins fans reacted based on the reports we had.
  13. Willihammer
    I won't bang this drum too many more times but I just don't like the strategy of betting on improved health. Seems like an impossible way to put any kind of plan together.
  14. Willihammer
    That's been the debate all along - what made Molitor the front runner? It certainly wasn't prior managerial success, or many other objective measures. In fact Molitor would seem to be at a disadvantage in many of those respects. On the GATG podcast, Bonnes tried to get McIntosh to answer the question "does being a good coach make for a good manager?" and McIntosh kind of skirted the question. That's really the $64,000 question nobody seems to have an answer for, and has lead some of us to conclude that maybe, Molitor's advantage isn't in his qualifications.
  15. Willihammer
    Seems like a pretty semantic distinction to me. Favoritism is not helpful to any process, like a personnel hire, where there are subjective judgments. Call it a dog and pony show or don't. If there is a "front runner" before the process even starts then it is by definition going to be unfair.
  16. Willihammer
    Like this post if you would have been upset with a Joe Maddon or Dave Martinez hiring
  17. Willihammer
    Not too worried about the finger. A break is a break. Its not hard to see the wrist and brain things recurring though.
  18. Willihammer
    Yeah I don't really buy that the replacement search was fair or honest. The wheels were set in motion last offseason when Gardy was extended two years and Molitor was brought on as successor / bench coach. That said, I am pretty stoked about Molitor. A case of crummy process, good result IMO.
  19. Willihammer
    I was skeptical of the trade from the get-go and am glad the Twins cut bait when they did. I only wish they hadn't penciled him in as the opening day no. 1 starter when our fallback guys were Sam Deduno, Pedro Hernandez, etc. Worley's success has always relied on the fickle combo of pinpoint control and batters keeping the bat on their shoulder, and good framing/friendly umpires. I remain confident that Worley doesn't have the stuff to stick in any big league rotation for very long, certainly not an AL one. Heh. I still remember opening day 2013 when he grabbed a handful of rosin and threw it at the Tigers leadoff batter. What a punk move.
  20. Willihammer
    OK point taken. There is an alternative possibility that the guy stinks so badly right away that the Twins don't double down and the team just stinks that year. For the record, I'm not in favor of standing pat either.
  21. Willihammer
    I'm pretty sure Meyer will get an extended look too, when he finally does crack the big league roster. All I'm saying, and I don't understand how anyone who's followed this team can debate this, is that if the Twins invest in a multi-million dollar pitcher, he's not going to be a part-time pitcher. The Twins will run him into the ground, then try and re-sign him, as they did with Pavano, Pelfrey, Capps, etc. I'm all for bringing in an established starting pitcher to mitigate our reliance on rookies like May and Meyer, I just prefer that it be someone ~10 years younger who is less likely to implode in a Pavano like fashion after the Twins inevitably double down on the guy.
  22. Willihammer
    Re: 25th man roster tweet. "No I don't regret that tweet. Its the 25th man on the roster. The Manager wanted Jason Bartlett, he got Jason Bartlett. And the fact that Jason came north with the team frankly did not have a significant impact on the success or lack of success of the 2014 Twins."
  23. Willihammer
    LOL Turn captions on @2:40 https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=JeogSBoMM8M#t=160
  24. Willihammer
    Then hold a fair an open interview casting as wide a net as possible?
  25. Willihammer
    If I'm TR, I'm getting on the blower yesterday to call Dave Martinez, Joe Maddon, and Tim Bogar to schedule interviews. If only to be able to say to the guy he does wind up hiring, "we passed over A, B, C, and D to hire you. Now go win a World Series."
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