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Willihammer

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Everything posted by Willihammer

  1. Willihammer
    Everything we read after Hammer's knee surgery indicated that he felt much better. Would have been encouraging to see an uptick in production though. I'm hopeful for something between 2012 and 2013. 260/340/460 or so. I don't think Dozier's a regression candidate necessarily. His BABIP was .278. HR/FB were under 10%. And most of his HRs cleared the fence by "plenty." Will be interesting to see if teams pitch him away more, and how he copes with that, because he established that inner-half is his wheelhouse. Arcia hit .734 while swinging at bad pitches and missing good ones. If he improves a little bit in both areas, he can hit .800 next year I think. Talent's there. Florimon didn't hit for average or OBP last year and he never has. The thing that kept his OPS above .600 were the 9 HRs but 5 of those were "just enough" to clear the fence. Take away a couple of those and he's a .5XX hitter. They tell us his RH side is his strong side but still waiting to see evidence of that. If true, maybe he's good for mid .600. I have stopped hoping for better from Plouffe and Parmelee. Maybe a platoon is the answer but then Escobar or someone will bat against LHPs, I wouldn't expect much from him. I really hope Hicks figures it out. If he can leadoff decently then we should have a pretty solid 1-5 but it could get dicey after that.
  2. Willihammer
    Wow, sounds like NPB went to bat for their players. Top bid is capped at 20m and player gets to negotiate with all the winners. http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2013/12/mlb-npb-reach-agreement-on-posting-system.html
  3. Willihammer
    The Yankees poached the BPA from their biggest rival. Its a smart move IMO
  4. Willihammer
    You cross that bridge if/when you get to it. I don't believe this contingency should have any bearing on the 2014 plans, since that's not yet happened.
  5. Willihammer
    We could go round and round. The bottom line is, you need superstars to win championships. Superstars don't sign 2-3 year contracts. The Twins might have a couple coming up the pipeline, they might not. What's far more certain IMO is that Tanaka, Garza, Santana, or Cano will be a superstar or something very close to one next season. Whereas Buxton could just as easily be the next Colby Lewis - good, but not quite the guy we were hoping for. And Sano could be the next Pedro Alvarez. Then there will have been no point giving 80% in 2014-2015, especially if the Twins wind up finishing 4-5 games out of a wildcard spot.
  6. Willihammer
    Not only is this a cherry picked group of FAs but I don't think these players have been as bad as you think. Arod? 21.5 WARs since 2008. Pujols? 6.4 in 2 years. Teixeira? 16.3 in 5. And for every one of these less than stellar values, I can point to a Manny Ramirez, CC Sabathia, CJ Wilson, Adrian Beltre who are workring out splendidly.
  7. Willihammer
    All Lofton did between 30-36 was hit .287/.368/.422 while providing excellent defense and baserunning. http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/yankees-sign-jacoby-ellsbury-bet-on-speed-aging-well/
  8. Willihammer
    Ladies and gentlemen...
  9. Willihammer
    Sounded to me like you were budgeting for 2017 already. I'd much rather the Twins blow their wad on FA every year to put the best product possible out there in case they pull another 1991 Twins and surprise everyone. The way you sustain long term success is by not blowing 1st and 2nd round picks on your Trevor Plouffe, Chris Parmelee types. No team sent themselves into a tailspin by committing one lousy 5 year contract to a player 3 years ago.
  10. Willihammer
    You know, there's a new draft every year. These kids don't stop coming. So I see little reason to meticulously plan every single move around hitting the (distant) peak years of a couple of guys taken in 2009-2012 who haven't even swung at an MLB pitch yet.
  11. Willihammer
    Ask him if we can cover up that hideous batters eye now that he's pitching.
  12. Willihammer
    I'm reserving necro rights here. 2/22, minimum.
  13. Willihammer
    He was basically Derek Lowe from 08 up to his TJ in early 2012. He tried accelerating his return but turns out he needed 16 months to recover just like everyone else. After that point, he picked up right where he left off. I fully expect him to put together a 190 IP 4.3 ERA season again. Plus, he'll be 30, which is on the younger side. So unless the Twins are going to make a run at Garza, Santana, or Tanaka, they should be all over that IMO. It would sure beat watching Pedro Hernandez pitch again.
  14. Willihammer
    OK Vargas maybe doesn't belong, but I think the other 3 do, and could add Colon and Arroyo too. Its only an overpay in AAV. All these guys so far have signed for multiple years though, so the QO is an underpay in that respect. If the Twins want to bring back Pelfrey now, they're going to have to guarantee 2, and maybe 3 (or 4?) years. So a few extra mil up front seems like a small price to pay for the insurance against losing talented guys and keeping some flexibility in the long term. JMO
  15. Willihammer
    1. Tim Hudson 2. Jason Vargas 3. Scott Kazmir 4. Mike Pelfrey?
  16. Willihammer
    I like it a lot better with Pelfrey there instead of the others. Too bad that rumor mill seems to have stopped.
  17. Willihammer
    I downloaded the data posted on fangraphs a couple weeks ago in their batted ball tableau chart for 2012-2013. If the run values they used (1.41 for a HR, 1.07 for a triple, etc.) are accurate then TF actually played slightly better for RH bats than NYS: [TABLE=width: 152] min nya 0.073 0.067 [/TABLE] These are average run values for all fly balls. For LH hitters, the avg run value of fly balls are: [TABLE=width: 152] min nya 0.044 0.113 [/TABLE] So sure, Hughes should clean up his fly ball luck when he faces LH at home (about 1/6 of PAs). But he's not going to have Gardner or Ichiro out there to shag balls that stay in the park and so overall I think its reasonable to expect a pretty marginal improvement. And again I'll take a ~4.3 ERA starter over the 5s that we've gotten used to seeing.
  18. Willihammer
    I expect marginal improvement. Hughes actually gives up more of his HRs to righthanders, which is still probably easier in NYS but the difference doesn't appeat to be as great. I appreciate that Hughes figures to be an improvement over whoever he displaces, but on a contending team he's probably in the pen.
  19. Willihammer
    Who plays left field?
  20. Willihammer
    Worley, Diamond, Hendriks, Thielbar, Darnell and Ibarra... heck Jose Mijares is a FA.
  21. Willihammer
    I like Phil Hughes too. He's like a slightly worse version of Matt Garza.
  22. Willihammer
    I'd put them through waivers without a second thought and would be surprised if none of them cleared. They are all replacement types IMO.
  23. Willihammer
    I am happy that the Twins seem to be out front and aggressive this offseason. Still need to bring back Pelfrey and get a catcher, and maybe a leadoff/CF. If they do that and catch some breaks then 85-95 wins is possible IMO. A lot depends on how the Tribe handle Ubaldo and Kazmir obviously. I expect KC to finish right back around 90 wins. Whities have some guys who could improve over last year (De Aza, Ramirez, Garcia). And if that sports hernia/groin injury hits Cabrera again then it could be anybody's game.
  24. Willihammer
    Some other stats I think are interesting. http://i.imgur.com/Lq7Tmvs.jpg * = 1st year available is 1988, so Morris gets shorted by some of these because he was already 33 by then. Also, Clemens threw approximately 750 IP from 1984-1987, but he seems none the worse for wear.
  25. Willihammer
    I'm a little surprised because the Moose was a notorious Twinskiller. Conveniently he started 33 games against us and went, W-L: 22-6 IP: 230.1 ERA: 3.09 SO: 186 BB: 53 WHIP: 1.168 HR allowed: 16 OPS against: .656
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