ThePuck
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Everything posted by ThePuck
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Additionally, I think there's zero chance Buxton is on the table and close to zero chance for Sano as well, regardless of what Ryan says.
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Oakland has also been willing to trade guys at their peaks for other players. I think that helps them stay competitive....kind of like what TB did with Shields. Your thoughts?
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I've brought that up many times in here over the last month or so. IMO, part of that is Gardy waiting too long to make the necessary moves, but certainly part of it is on the bullpen as well. It has been talked about, though....but Ryan isn't going to bring it up. Besides Pelfrey and Correia, it's the bullpen and the up the middle defense he wants to emphasis as good.
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There are few stats that are perfect. For me, it cracks me up when our announcers talk about how leadoff walks 'almost always' end up scoring. First, that's not true...but if it was, why wouldn't they talk about how leadoff HITS also almost always score? How is a leadoff walk worse than a leadoff hit in terms of potential to score?
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Seems his WHIP was as bad as it was due to all the walks. 5.2 BB per 9IP is gonna jack up a WHIP. They've made not walking people a pride thing. They've often pointed glowingly at the walk totals, even when the reason walks weren't happening is because batters were beating the snot out of the ball instead...like this year.
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Presley is a below average defensive CF and RF and his OPS under .700 doesn't play anywhere especially on the corners. He's, at best, a 4th OF...and should probably stick to LF when he does sub.
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And you're right. ERA, BAA, Ks, IP, all horrific for our starting pitching staff. There is nothing Ryan can point to to convince anyone the rotation wasn't as bad as it was. He instead focused on the poor offense, since he didn't make an offseason claim last year that he'd seriously address that. Quite the opposite, he got rid of our #1 and #2 hitters. He never admitted that maybe part of the problem with the offense was the loss of those two and the downgrade that we had endured. We don't have anyone really ready this year to help, we won't pay to get anyone really good, and we have no one good enough on the MLB roster to trade in order to acquire truly good pitching prospects. And since we rarely trade any of our very good prospects for proven MLB players, we're gonna be looking at the same kind of pitching we have these last two seasons.
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Ah, okay. I guess I gave him too much credit. I read the following from his Q&A I posted a couple days ago and thought maybe he'd avoid going there. 'We've got a lot of work to do, and it's not injuries anymore. We could use that a couple years ago, but not anymore."'
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Article: Can Ron Gardenhire Develop Young Players?
ThePuck replied to John Bonnes's topic in Twins Daily Front Page News
Trying to convince people accountability is stressed in this organization is hard to pass off when we're told the guy making all the decisions has a job for as long as he wants it. -
Well, yeah, but there's many case of top 10 picks busting too...you have to pick the right guys AND develop them properly. I do believe that if you almost exclusively count on drafted talent to be a contender, you better draft and develop better than most other teams. Look how long the Pirates and KC drafted high...and they're only now seeing the benefits...so drafting high is no guarantee for success and drafting low is now guarantee for failure. The odds are just better drafting high. Just like there's no guarantee money gets you to the playoffs, but I THINK if one looks at the time frame when spending started really booming in MLB, the bigger spenders spent more time in the playoffs. Of course there are exceptions...always...to everything.
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I claim St Louis has drafted well because they have. I also claim St Louis has done a good job of getting talent using all avenues, cause they have. They continue to win, even drafting low. As does Oakland. And there's a team that can still actually claim money problems. As far as refuting the statement the Twins have drafted poorly, who said that and why is it my job to refute it? The problem is, a person says something, and you try to drag that person's comments to another place in order to try to defend this organization. I'd rather stick to defending things I actually say. I'm sure there are plenty of people who will have the 'who has drafted the best over the some preconceived time frame' debate with you, but it's not a debate that really interests me. Start a thread and have at it.
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I never claimed a team's odds weren't better if drafting higher...not at all...but there are teams who have drafted late and have gotten real talent from the draft....and also got talent in FA and by trading prospects to get talent. St Louis comes to mind. Blaming our lack of ML talent on drafting in the 2nd half of the draft for so many years doesn't cut it...because the draft isn't the only way to get talent and because talent is there to had had past the 20th pick of round one if it's able to be recognized, drafted and properly developed. Basically, blaming our talent woes on low draft position holds no water.
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Since Gardy's playoff record is mentioned, A blast from the past: From Jim Caple's story on the Twins, the day after they were swept by the Yankees in 2010: The only solace the Twins could take Saturday was they didn't blow a lead as they had in their eight previous postseason losses to New York. They fell behind in the second inning and never threatened until loading the bases after scoring one run in the eighth on Span's RBI single, one of two hits the Twins had with runners in scoring position this series. (The other didn't bring home a run, though.)Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said "dominating" is not the right term for the Yankees' success against his team. "Recordwise, yes, they've won nine in a row. That's not dominating us, other than wins and losses; the games are really close and could go either way." Yeah, well, maybe. But wins and losses are the only things that really matter at this point. My comment: So, I guess that "putrid", is not the right term for the Twins' record the last three years. Record-wise, yes, we have lost 96 or more games the last three years, but that's not "putrid", other than wins and losses; the games are _really close_ and _could_ go either way. Please note: This post is not mine originally, it came from another site I frequent, but I had to share.
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My whole point was to say that using the fact that we've drafted low for so long as a reason for so little talent drafted is an excuse more than anything else because talent can be had throughout the draft. Are you disputing this or not, because that was the whole point of my post. I never even claimed we had drafted poorly in my original post, did I, besides pointing out ONE draft...the first draft that came to mind because of Myers? So why was automatic defense mode activated? I pointed to St Louis who has been in a similar boat. I could have used the As I guess...heck, practically any team really...not that it makes much difference when the overall point is....which is there's talent up and down the draft...serious talent is found past the #20 pick of the first round all the time.
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For me, in 2011, we had a boatload of injuries that helped us reach 99 losses...way more injuries than we had this year. On top of that, we utilized all of our resources in an attempt to field a better team. Part of what bothers me more about this year, besides it being the third futile year in a row, is that that I've seen no improvement in the overall quality of talent on the major league team from 2011 to now. In fact, IMO, it's gotten worse. On top of that, we've left resources on the table. For me, this year has been worse than 2011 or 2012...and we can't really blame injuries for this year's problems....heck even Ryan won't do that.
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Not only that, but there's talent throughout the draft.
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Zimmer: The worst season in Minnesota Twins history? | Argus Leader | argusleader.com It's a good read.
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What part of his post there is even debatable? -Under Ryan, we have only one playoff series win in 14-15 years. -The above doesn't seem good enough to him. He is the best judge of what is good enough for him. -Certainly where you set the bar to be a happy fan will likely tell whether you think TR is innovative or not. IF everyone had the same bar, there'd be no debate. -Certainly he knows that he, himself, would like to hear Terry or Jim Pohlad say "we are going to do everything we can to build a world series championship team" and then go out a try. -Certainly he knows what he can live with. So when he says 'failure at trying to be the best I can live with, failure at trying to be mediocre, not so much', the only person who could dispute that is him. That's the whole post.
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I'm not sure I agree with the breakdown of which team was better looking at that comparison, but to each their own. And yes, Cards did some trades we wouldn't do...but you blame salary issues. They've only broken 100M over the last 3 years...during a time we could have done the same. Maybe some of it also had to do with not being willing to trade prospects for quality players (Holliday) or sign some top end FAs (Beltran, Berkman). Regardless, the point still stands...there is talent to be had throughout the draft.
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If your goal is to build a team that can advance far into the playoffs, the division championships, or playoff appearances, should come.
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But there is talent to be had throughout the draft. KC committed an apparent baseball sin by trading big bad Wil Myers and he was a 3rd round pick. Our 2nd round pick that year was Billy Bullock :-) We also took Gibson in the first round that year and Trout was like 4 picks later. Both were low first round picks. On top of that, St Louis has been drafting pretty low for quite some time they seem to be getting production out of their draft.
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Fantastic post, mirrors my feelings exactly...especially about the pitching. That was the first thing I thought of when I read Brandon's post.
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I don't know of anyone around here, or anyone period, who believes: 'that anyone who doesn't bow at the SABR alter doesn't know anything about evaluating baseball talent.' I think what many people believe is that it shouldn't be tossed aside, used as an afterthought, or belittled, but rather utilized like any other way of evaluating talent.
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He got Ryan's double-talk down pat! :-)