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Willihammer

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Everything posted by Willihammer

  1. Willihammer
    He's been around forever and we still don't know what he is, where he fits
  2. Willihammer
    I hold out hope that a fresh start with a new manager will benefit Hicks. By the end of last season it seemed clear to me that, fairly or unfaily, he was in the doghouse.
  3. Willihammer
    I'd peg Hicks upside at Desmond Jennings. Walk rate around 9%, strikeouts around 25%, not a lot of pop, good baserunning. Average defense in Center but above average in a corner. Never an all star, but an acceptable .725 player at the bottom of the lineup.
  4. Willihammer
    One problem I see with "timing" is that the core we all envision might not be the core we'll end up with. Example. According to this top 22 list written 3 years ago, the Twins best prospects were: 10: Kepler 9: Salcedo 8: Bullock 7: Arcia 6: Revere 5: Hendriks 4: Sano 3: Hicks 2: Wimmers 1: Gibson Flash forward to 2014 and the best players were Brian Dozier, Trevor Plouffe, Danny Santana, Revere, Arcia, Gibson, Pinto, and Kennys Vargas - only 3 of whom ranked in the top 22 of this particular prospect list. I'm curious - has anyone gathered the various BA, MLB.com, minorleagueball.com prospect lists over the years and determined how accurate they are? Who the most accurate forecasters are? Trends? (ie. are certain types consistently overvalued or undervalued?) Has anyone considered the possibility that the new core is here already?
  5. Willihammer
    I'm as big a Mauer bobo there is but he has to come back stronger next season. There are too many other good options for 1B.
  6. Willihammer
    I generally agree with that reasoning but Plouffe has burned his backers before. Between his age, recent production, years of control, I suspect his stock is at a high water mark and is more likely to nosedive than continue rising. Also, Escobar's cut out perfectly to be the bridge to Sano IMO. There isn't room at DH-1B for Sano to get regular playing time. He'll have to play third to get regular at bats.
  7. Willihammer
    I wonder if the Padres would be interested in a package centered on Plouffe, what they would give for it. Think they'd trade Ross, Cashner, or Hahn?
  8. Willihammer
    I would be fine with starting Sano but am a little gun shy about Buxton. At least Sano had dominated AA. He would have been up in 2014 at some point, had the elbow not happened so if you assume he'll be able to pick up where he left off, we'd only be accelerating that timeline a couple of months. Buxton has all of 3 PAs in AA and I don't want another Gomez / Hicks type fiasco.
  9. Willihammer
    What if Plouffe 2013 shows up?
  10. Willihammer
    Really fun to watch Dozier play this year. Probably my favorite player.
  11. Willihammer
    Arcia was tied with Jose Bautista for 3rd in ISO in the 2nd half behind only Stanton and Kemp. Still struck out over 30% of the time. If he can improve the BB and K rate then you're talking about Justin Upton or Chris Carter as comps. I would call that a win for sure.
  12. Willihammer
    I remember Magglio being used as a ceiling. High batting average, good power. Arcia's minor league track record was that of a perennial .300 hitter. Funny how differently we view him now.
  13. Willihammer
    Nobody's pretending to know who the best candidate is. We all have a lot more questions than answers. But if you believe the next manager should be able to wield analytics to give his team an advantage on the field, as I and others do, then its a little discouraging to hear one of the candidates say: "I have to admit that I'm not tremendously up to speed on the analytical side of it. I still believe in trust your eyes." That is the exact quote. Seems pretty clear to me but I admit, I could be totally wrong and Doug Mientkiewicz could actually be an analytical genius.
  14. Willihammer
    The other thing with hiring a young guy, I think you have to be doubly sure he's the right choice. Because if the Twins history is any indication, he'll be here a while. I don't want to find out we hired Gardy 2.0 and then be stuck with him forever. For that reason, hiring an older guy doesn't scare me that much. Its ok to swap out managers more than twice every 30 years.
  15. Willihammer
    From what tidbits I've been able to gather, Dougie is actually more of an old school guy than Molitor. If you listened to Reusse ask him (Mientkiewicz) about analytics, for example, Doug's response was basically "yeah we'll listen" but ultimately settled on "I believe in the eye test."
  16. Willihammer
    Why do people assume he has managerial ambitions? He declined the job once already.
  17. Willihammer
    Why not?
  18. Willihammer
    I'm sure Souhan is a standup journalist but I don't believe for a second that Sano and Buxton independently gave the same answer to the that question. Having said that I've heard enough about Molitor with respect to helping Plouffe on his footwork and Dozier with his baserunning that I would hope the new guy gives him strong consideration as a bench coach. Ditto Brunansky. Ditto Anders- I mean, just not Anderson.
  19. Willihammer
    If batters are noticing, with accuracy, who the best framers are, then what more proof do the last framing skeptics need?
  20. Willihammer
    Maybe the biggest benefit of getting to a 2 strike count is the hitter expands the zone for you, less framing is required. In Plouffe's case, he didn't strikeout looking but he did strikeout 7 times swinging. How many strikes did Molina steal getting to those 2 strike counts? Those would seem to have a trickle down effect.
  21. Willihammer
    I'll concede this about the Myers-Shields trade: The Royals sure haven't gotten much of an attendance bump from it.
  22. Willihammer
    Yeah I'm much more concerned about being "old school" than just old. I get the impression Mientkiewicz is as old school as they come, but I could be wrong about that.
  23. Willihammer
    I'm not sure its safe to assume the difference between NY culture and Puerto Rican culture is any greater than the difference between Venezueland culture and Puerto Rican culture, for example.
  24. Willihammer
    Sold!
  25. Willihammer
    I'm gonna go ahead and assume 90% the fans who want Dougie Baseball want him for the same reason people wanted the Vikings to draft Johnny Football - they like saying the name.
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