Jump to content
Twins Daily
  • Create Account

cmathewson

Provisional Member
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    2,290

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Profiles

Minnesota Twins News, Rumors & Analysis

Minnesota Twins Videos

2026 Minnesota Twins Top Prospect Rankings

2022 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks & Signing Bonuses

Minnesota Twins Trade & Free Agent Rumors

Minnesota Twins Fan Guides & Resources

2023 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks & Signing Bonuses

The Minnesota Twins Players Project

2024 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks & Signing Bonuses

2025 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks & Signing Bonuses

2026 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks & Signing Bonuses

Forums

Blogs

Events

Store

Downloads

Gallery

Everything posted by cmathewson

  1. cmathewson
    I don't get the Escobar love. He's a nice utility guy. But his range is marginal, and his bat is not much better. His career minor league OPS is .673, which projects him at around .600 as a full-time player in the majors. For reference, Florimon is a career .675 OPS guy in the minors and produced a .611 OPS in the majors last year, with better range and a stronger arm. I suspect the Escobar love is a little like the back-up QB love we often hear on talk radio. He's a nice bench alternative, but he's not an upgrade. If you want an upgrade this year, you better hope that Bartlett returns renewed and refreshed and ready to make a comeback.
  2. cmathewson
    OK, and I am not interested in arguing about semantics. But I will say your definition is on the stringent side. I was looking at the run column. If you pitch 5 or more innings (in winter ball, where they are trying to protect you) and give up one run or fewer in seven out of eight games, I would say your season was dominant. When you are 18 and playing against a bunch of 24 year olds, many of whom are at high A or higher, it validates dominance. When Johan was winning Cy Youngs, he would have maybe one "dominant" game per month, by your definition. The rest of the time, he'd give up one or two runs over seven innings. His best seasons can rightly be described as dominant, even though he only had a shutout going with double digit strikeouts after seven innings once every five games or so.
  3. cmathewson
    Are we looking at the same thing? I see one bad game. I see several good games and a few dominant games. This is a matter of interpretation, and you seem only too quick to dismiss his efforts. Do you have a thing against foreign prospects not from the Caribbean? You have the same hypercritical attitude about Kepler.
  4. cmathewson
    It had everything to do with that.
  5. cmathewson
    I don't think you are looking at the right guys, except for Jackson, who doesn't walk as much as Hicks, but who strikes out about as much and has a similar ISO. Trout is not a good comp at all because he hits a lot of balls where they can't catch it. I wouldn't look at corner guys in general for the same reason. We're looking for center fielders, who get on base and use their legs. Power is a plus, but not a necessity. I look at Span, for example. He has a career OBP of .351. He doesn't strike out as much as Hicks, but he also has a higher GB rate, which leads to a lower BABIP. He had an OBP of .340 as a 22 year old in AA and .323 as a 23 year old in AAA. As he matured, he was able to develop a more selective eye at the plate. That's the kind of progression we can expect with Hicks, with a little higher power ceiling.
  6. cmathewson
    I don't tend to look at K rates when assessing potential OBP. I look at BB rates. Guys who walk a lot tend to strike out a lot. It's part of the discipline of taking pitches that you get called out on strikes more than the average player.
  7. cmathewson
    Sorry, meant to quote it. Yes, it is better than 50/50 considering age and level. BTW, "likely" means better than 50/50. "Highly likely" means "significantly greater than 50%." I wouldn't say it's highly likely, just likely.
  8. cmathewson
    I would add that the strike zone was different, which affected him most in the first 10 days. I'd like to analyze all of his at bats with Pitch FX and see how many called thirds he got that were outside the strikezone. My faulty memory says it was a lot. Welcome to the majors, Mr. Hicks. Don't let the ump take the bat out of your hands.
  9. cmathewson
    Hick's OBP in the minors: Year Age Level OBP 2008 18 Rook 409 2009 19 Low A 353 2010 20 Low A 401 2011 21 High A 354 2012 22 AA 384 Last year seems to be an aberration. Given what he did through his AA season as a 22 year old, a 350 OBP is likely. Only those who focus exclusively on 2013 would say it is "hardly likely".
  10. cmathewson
    Count me as one on the Thorpe bandwagon. He's in my top 10, ahead of Berrios. I wouldn't have said that before the Australian Winter League. I know it's probably at the level of the Midwest League, but he thoroughly dominated in all but one game. He was pitching against guys in their 20s. Impressive.
  11. cmathewson
    He was signed four years prior to a certain date. If he was not placed on the 40-man, he would be subject to being taken in the Rule 5 draft. It's a testament to how highly they think of him that they would not take that risk. Jorge Polanco, who played with Max last year, was also added to the 40-Man for the same reason. Interestingly, Sano didn't need to be added because he signed after the date (in the same year as Kepler and Polanco), so he gets an extra year.
  12. cmathewson
    I hadn't seen that velo number. I've seen "touches 94 and sits at 92." That's not Radke stuff. That's Hughes stuff.
  13. cmathewson
    I think there are times you can say a ranking is just wrong. Vielma should not even be on any top 20 list. May should be on every top 20 list. There's a lot of gray on these lists, but there is also some black and white.
  14. cmathewson
    In isolation, this move is innocuous. Calling it part of a greater strategy is giving it too much thought. Guerrier has had a lot more success in his career than Villereal. So, perhaps they thought he had a better chance to be successful. Age has very little to do with it. Neither pitcher is likely to be around when this team matures into a contender.
  15. cmathewson
    I agree that the catcher can't control variables of stuff. But he can help the pitcher craft outs by calling the right pitches in the right locations in the right counts. If the pitcher is capable of executing on the game plan, the catcher can really help him. No catcher can help a guy throw a slider with more bite. The catcher can frame good strikes, but if the pitcher leaves it up and over the plate, there's nothing he can do but watch it fly.
  16. cmathewson
    You're right about when he started running the draft, in '94. So the first five guys on that list belong to Ryan, who ran the draft for MacPhail. But taking those years out, he still did a pretty poor job with the draft, with a few notable exceptions. The stretch from 96-2000, when he never drafted lower than 9th overall and just produced Cuddyer and LeCroy, was pretty poor.
  17. cmathewson
    I included Veritek, Lee and Heilman because it was Radcliff's responsibility to get them signed. Veritek flat out told them he would not sign with them if they drafted him, and they drafted him anyway. They didn't even offer Lee a contract before the deadline, so he was able to opt out of the deal and sign as a free agent with anyone. That was a huge mistake. And Heilman had signability issues as well. Part of his problem in more recent drafts was considering signability as the primary criterion. That's why chose Revere, for example, and payed him third-round money. Perhaps that had something to do with prior mistakes in drafting unsignable guys.
  18. cmathewson
    OK, well, the context was enhanced when Law made his ridiculous ranking, in part based on Radcliff's comments. So I think it's fair game to point out his past blunders. Nishioka is just the worst, but by no means the only one of his blunders. Taken for all and all, his draft record was pretty bad. 1. Jason Veritek 2. Dan Sarafini 3. Jesse Fillgrove 4. Marc Barcello 5. Kelcey Mucker 6. Travis Miller 7. Travis Lee 8. Ryan Mills 9. BJ Garbe 10. Adam Johnson 11. Aaron Heilman 12. Matt Moses 13. Steve Waldrop 14. Jay Rainville 15. Henry Sanchez 16. Carlos Guitierrez 17. Shooter Hunt Those are just the first rounders or sandwich picks who were drafted by Radcliff and who didn't succeed with the Twins. Johnson, Miller and Waldrop were the only ones to actually make it to the majors with the Twins, and none produced first round talent. Seventeen players in 15 years drafted in the first or sandwich rounds never made a difference with the team. Pathetic. That doesn't count other poor drafts, like 2006, which produced very little major league talent. Or 2007, in which he basically drafted three rounds lower than he could have to save the team money. He is a Peter Principle poster child. In just about any other market, he would have been run out of town. Here, he was promoted. The best thing that happened to the franchise was when he was promoted into a role that has little influence and they put Johnson in charge of the draft. Since then, the system has gone from worst to first. So, no, I don't take what says Radcliff did seriously. And I think much less of Law for doing so.
  19. cmathewson
    To me, this is a clear win for the Twins. Span is about a 2 WAR player. Meyer's upside is 4-5 WAR. Also, Meyer will be a cheap player at that WAR level for a few more years before Span gets expensive.
  20. cmathewson
    Of all the tools I want to see in a raw prospect, bat speed is among the top. If you don't have bat speed, you're offensive upside is Drew Butera, who could always put the bat on the ball, but it wouldn't go anywhere.
  21. cmathewson
    I would say the depth chart is closer to: Florimon > Santana > Bartlett > Escobar > Bernier TR has said Santana is a dark horse candidate to win the job outright out of spring training. It's still not as good as Drew. But it's not desperate. I'd say the Twins already feel they've signed their shortstop and are looking for a bench bat at this point. Part of a gentleman's agreement on a minor league deal is not to sign a starter on a major league deal. It would shock me if they signed Drew. We are wasting keystrokes talking about it.
  22. cmathewson
    I understand the frustration, but I know this is among the least predictable things in baseball. You consider all the data available and make a decision, hoping it works out. Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose. Sometimes it rains.
  23. cmathewson
    All I know is that the A's are consistently near the top of the league in pitching. Bean has traded more good pitchers than the Twins have developed over that span. Suzuki has to be doing something right.
  24. cmathewson
    Excellent points. I also think the idea of aging veterans blocking younger players is a bit of a myth. Yeah, there are obvious cases where the veteran received unwarranted support. But, for the most part, when the younger player is ready, he'll beat out the veteran. Suppose Guerrier is a solid reliever for a half a season while Tonkin closes games at Rochester. If Tonkin is clearly better, you can trade Guerrier for a prospect and bring Tonkin up. It's not as though Tonkin's development will be stunted. Chris Parmelee was given an extended look for two consecutive years. In both years, he had an OPS+ of 84. It might only be 631 plate appearances, but it's enough to know he's probably not going to be a star. Oh, by the way, the guy who replaced him put up a 102 OPS+ as a 22 year old. He actually has a chance to be a star. And, if Kubel beats Parmelee in ST for DH, fine. Because Kubel actually was a star, and has a chance to return to that level.
  25. cmathewson
    You're right. It's mid 45, probably lower. I'm sure the Twins already have a draft board that goes well beyond that, and are evaluating what the true value of the pick is. The fact that the Sox would rather have the pick than Drew is telling, though. But, to be fair, they do have a better replacement.
×
×
  • Create New...