cmathewson

Garza's elbow is a ticking time bomb.

This seems like another thread altogether. This thread is about 2014. I assume Hicks and Arcia are part of the mix. Parmelee is a possible dark horse, but his two previous opportunities didn't go that well. Buxton is unlikely to see a major league locker room until September at the earliest. Ditto Rosario, and then only if he moves back to the outfield after what looked like a permanent move to second base. Of the others, Kepler has the best chance of ending up in a major league uni. But that is years away, and then as likely at first base as in the outfield. Long term, I dream of an outfield of Rosario (7), Buxton (8) and Hicks (9) with Arcia at DH and Kepler at first base.

That's about what I thought. Also, Kubes has the better arm. Willingham just does not hit as well as a DH historically. All things considered, the team will score more runs with Kubel as the DH than it would prevent with Kubel as the left fielder.

You'd rather have Pressly hitting than Kubel? Good luck with that.

Most player struggle when they come to the majors. Ben Revere had one of the worst Septembers I ever remember in his debut. Hunter was bad when he came up, in fact, the whole 99 team sucked that year. Michael Cuddyer. Jason Kubel. Justin Morneau. Jason Bartlett. The list goes on. More recently, Carlos Gomez says hi. Brian Dozier was horrible in his debut. Everybody fixates on the season opener and forgets the rest of the year. I don't get it.

I agree that you should make trading secondary to putting the best team together. Using Hicks in Left makes sense when Buxton is ready. Until then, the best line-up this team can muster might have Hicks in center and Willingham in left. If Kubel's defense is that much better, swap them out. I'm not convinced that it is.

I agree with Seth. Willingham might be the best DH candidate looking at the roster in a vacuum, but it is never a good thing to look at the roster in a vacuum. The strategy should be to maximize Willingham's trade value at the break. For that, he needs to play everyday in LF. It's not like he's that much worse than Kubel in the field. They are both extremely range limited. The other thing to consider is, some guys hit better when they play in the field. Kubel has been a DH for most of his career, so he is used to it. Willingham, not so much. For his career, Willingham has an OPS of .843 in LF, .979 in RF and .706 at DH. Kubel's splits are closer, though they still favor playing in the field--.780 in LF, .804 in RF and .787 at DH.

With fresh hands and fresh legs, I think Mauer will hit more than usual. Perhaps 20. But it is just so hard to hit homers in Target Field the opposite way, like he did for something like 19 of his homer the year he hit 29, that he will struggle to hit homers at home.

There's a lot to that. His whole family in attendance. Leading off against Verlander. First pitch strike on a curve ball that went six inches around the plate. That was like choking on your first line. After that, his confidence took a nosedive. The fact that he recovered is encouraging.

Correction, he had about the worst first fourteen days of a major league career you can have. But he made adjustments and did decently for a rookie thereafter. In March and April, his OPS was .356. In May is was .707. In June, it was .708. In July it was .671. You do him a disservice by ignoring the improvement he made last year. From May through July, Hicks had a higher OPS than Presley did in September (.699).

I understand keeping him down if the staff was performing. It was not. In fact, it was historically bad in the first half. They desperately needed Gibson and they still refused to do anything. That is not honoring the fans, imho.

I remember the whole Bartlett/Castro discussion like it was yesterday. Half of the people said the Twins were wise to send him down because he was so much better than expected after his recall. The other half said the Twins were stupid to send him down because they just wasted prime playing time for a guy who was clearly more talented in every way than Castro. FWIW, I sided with the latter half. Unfortunately, there is just no way to prove a counter-factual. It requires an assumption. Namely, it is better to go with the more talented player rather than the more experienced player, all things considered. In the case of Gibson vs. DeVries (or Hendriks or Hernandez or...) it was obvious after May that he was the more talented player. In fact, he performed better than them at the major league level after dominating in AAA. He wasn't great, but he was better than a half dozen arms the Twins were forcing their customers to suffer through while Gibson was dominating in the minors. Based on his performance in the majors last year, he should start the Spring behind only Deduno for the fifth spot. I know options are an issue for the other two, and you certainly don't want to lose them. But lose them you will by the end of 2014 if not the beginning. Gibson is just the start of it. Meyer and May both have higher upside than Gibson, imho. Diamond and Worley don't belong in that group talent-wise. In the interim, I really just want the best five guys taking the ball every fifth day. Both Deduno and Gibson belong in that group. I'm sure the Twins will find a way to work it out. But I hope they don't fixate on keeping marginal guys because of sunk costs or other fallacious reasoning. Unlike some, I don't believe they will. This is a team that ate two years of Nick Blackburn's contract rather than letting him pitch in the majors.

Pitch F/X is accurate--more accurate than umpires. What we have seen, especially with the taller Twins catchers, is umpires reluctant to call the low strike. The other side of the coin is that both Mauer and Doumit got more high strikes called. Considering that the staff has consisted of mostly sinkerball guys, that is not a good thing. Hopefully both Suzuki and Pinto can bring the strike zone down a bit. I'm more interested in that trend than the overall percentage of balls brought in or strikes lost.

Yes, it is a skill. But I don't think the metric as currently used is a good one for development. Why? Because there are too many uncontrolled variables. If there was a way of breaking down the metric to that which a catcher can control, it would be worth tracking those factors over time. Perhaps an anology is needed. Say a player wants to improve his batting average, but fails to do so mostly because of luck. Perhaps his LD percentage goes up but his BABIP goes way down. That is, he hits a lot of liners right at people. Because he used average as his KPI, he is a failure. If he had used LD percentage instead, he might have a better gauge of his improvement. I just don't know how to break down the metric into similar smaller bits. And therein lies the problem. It is OK as a gross measure of one aspect of catching, given sufficient sample sizes. But it is a poor measure of ability or improvement. Also, as big an impact as it might have, pitch selection is bigger. It just goes to show how underrated the catching position is. We can only focus on what we can measure, which isn't the half of it and which is subject to the perils of small samples.

If that is the definition, it is suspect. In theory, it is just as important for a catcher to get the strikes his pitcher deserves as getting balls called strikes.

This. Also, it needs to be said that some of Gibson's sub-par games were umpire-induced. Parker did an analysis of some of his games and he was the most robbed pitcher in the game in terms of strikes called balls. Umpires weren't used to his movement, and often called pitches where they were caught by the catcher rather than where they crossed the plane of the strike zone. In one game, 18 strikes were called balls by an umpire.

Over for 100. Alex.

Amen. Also, I don't blame anyone for not wanting to play in the VWL.

I'll say Plouffe with 26 and Arcia with 24. Kubel: 20 Mauer: 18 Sano 16 willingham: 14(traded) Dozier: 13 Hicks: 12 Pinto 10 Florimon: 10

I don't buy the 70-win crap. I expect them to be competitive this year (above .500). But this team doesn't have the horses to contend. They should in 2015, with Pinto, Arcia, Gibson, Meyer, May, Hicks, Sano, Rosario Santana, and Buxton breaking through. At least five of those need to break through sometime this year. So it is by definition a transitional year. It can still be competitive, but the September Twins will look very different from the April Twins.

Liam Hendriks pitched exactly two games with good results, over a three- year span in which he received six opportunities and dozens of starts. Gibson's debut was short and spotty. Coming off of elbow surgery, he was nearing his innings limit by the time he was called up. He pitched his best innings in the minors, when his arm was still fresh. Last year was his year to build arm strength. This year is his year to produce. They will find a way to make that happen by May at the latest .

According to reports from For Myers, Deduno is throwing bullpens at full speed. If so, he has to be the favorite. His numbers last year were actully much better than the 3+ Era suggests. He hurt his shoulder in August and continued to pitch with it for a few games. Prior to that, his ERA was sub 3. He's the only one of the the three who gets easy outs, which will be hard to come by in 2014.

Hey, it's not my money, so yeah, let's just put it on red. Thing is, it's not just money. It's a draft pick. And it's an opportunity for a top 10 prospect (Santana). Look, I have said I would sign him for 2/20. But I would be very careful not to extend that, because he does not really help that much. And rumor has it, he's still holding out for 3/30. Caving to that is like putting your money on green.

I guess my point is they are not very comparable. LeCroy was a hitter who could catch. Pinto is a catcher who can hit. He's just below Butera with the glove. But unlike Butera, he can drive the ball.

I expect some regression from 3+, about 1 WAR from age and the + from home ballpark. My projection might be more pessimistic than most. But, there it is.