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cmathewson

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Everything posted by cmathewson

  1. cmathewson
    In time. It's tough to jettison the guy who led your starting staff in innings pitched and WAR last year. Especially if he's cheap. When they jettison him, it will be because Gibson and/or Meyer are better. It won't be because Diamond or Worley are better. They will eat innings in spring training. One might make the bullpen, the other will get DFAed. And so it goes. Yawn.
  2. cmathewson
    If he can't get into shape for a new team and pitching coach, when he is basically given the ball on Opening Day, it doesn't bode well for his career. That says something about his competitiveness. We expected to get Vanimal, and we got Goo-animal.
  3. cmathewson
    This. I share concerns about his shoulder. The main thing there was he had pitched more innings than in his entire career and he just overdid it, causing the injury. He pitched with it for a month before they shut him down. He had it cleaned out, is pain free now and should actually be throwing better come spring training, if you believe the reports. Anyway, let's see him pitch in spring training before we declare that the injury will affect him. When he was healthy, he was one of the better pitchers in the league. There is simply no comparison between him and Worley. Some have suggested that Deduno is "injury prone" because he had two injuries last year. The first injury was a groin pull suffered in the championship game of the WBC, when the field conditions were way worse than anything you'll see teams play through in the MLB. He suffered the injury in the third inning and pitched through the fifth in pain, keeping Puerto Rico off the board. I would argue he should have been the MVP of the tournament based on that and the other games he started. Worley is the second coming of Nick Blackburn, who is only as good as his sinker. And we all saw how fickle that pitch was. Worley was more consistent with it last year, in the sense that he never got it to sink. It was consistently awful. So it was one belt-high two seamer after another. His OPS against was over 1.000. That's batting practice. I haven't written him off. But he is an extreme long shot.
  4. cmathewson
    A more likely scenario is Sano being promoted, Plouffe moving to right field, Arcia to left and Willingham to a DH platoon with Kubel, or traded. In the unlikely event Buxton makes it up here, it will have no bearing on the DH position.
  5. cmathewson
    Parker did a good analysis on why he regressed so much. Much of it hinged on the fact that he was really unlucky on BABIP with the Twins. Righties hit over .400 against him when they made contact. Lefties we're not far behind. Some of that was not surprising considering his LD% against. As Bert likes to say, he left a lot of balls up last year. But his numbers have to regress to the mean. He was better than his numbers and could be a useful player in 2014. Unfortunately, he's a long shot to make the team and he's out of options, so...
  6. cmathewson
    Nothing against Chris Hermann. He's a good player. But he's a converted outfielder. That's a really tough transition. According to scouts, he still has a lot to work on in the catching department. Given his athleticism, it seems like he's better suited as a super utility guy than a catcher. And that is how he's been used the last couple of years, further stunting his development as a catcher. In the age of 12-man pitching staffs on 25-man rosters, his versatility is a really valuable thing. For that reason, I wouldn't be surprised if he spends more time on the Twins roster than Eric Fryer this year. But, by most accounts I read, Fryer is a much better pure catcher than Hermann.
  7. cmathewson
    Point is, the Twins need three guys who are primarily catchers in case of injury. Hermann is not primarily a catcher. he's an outfielder who can catch. Ergo, Fryer can't be DFAed. Herman
  8. cmathewson
    I disagree. Hermann is a converted catcher. He's still better at playing the outfeld than catching. He might make the team out of spring training because of his versatility. But Fryer is the only guy who could step in on a regular basis in case of injury, especially injury to Suzuki.
  9. cmathewson
    It won't be Fryer. He's the third catcher.
  10. cmathewson
    I think he'll be DFAed at this point.
  11. cmathewson
    Well, if you don't think those are fair value for players at the top of their value, it will be hard to find a case that will satisfy you. You might have to go all the way back to Knobauch. No, wait, Pierzinski. Oh wait, Milton, Guardado and Hawkins. This could take a while....
  12. cmathewson
    OK, well, in another thread, there were people giving up on him because, it seems, he will never be a good defender. I saw him take a few bad routes and get a few slow jumps. I also saw him make a couple of really good plays out there. So I don't think he's hopeless. Even if he's below average, he'll be a good player out there because of his bat. Perhaps his long-term position is DH. I'm not ready to say definitively that it is. A lot of teams have sub-par defenders in right field. The main thing that keeps those guys employed is their bats. His bat is special.
  13. cmathewson
    My bad on Arcia's minor league record. I read the chart wrong. If Gibson dominates in AAA, they can trade or release Correia. Also, injuries happen. Gibson has options and stuff to work on. At times last year, he would just lose control of the fastball for an inning. That's not uncommon in the first full year back from TJ. If he predictably shows he can be more consistent, they'll make room for him. It's the guys without options and upside that get squeezed by the Pelfrey signing. To some, that's Diamond and Worley. I think both will regress to the mean this year. Because they were so bad last year, that means improvement this year. But neither is likely to make the team out of spring training. So that regression will likely happen elsewhere. Oh well. That was inevitable with Gibson, Meyer and May knocking on the door anyway.
  14. cmathewson
    I didn't see it. But perhaps I was blinded by his bat to ignore his defensive lapses. I certainly wouldn't give up on him after a half a season in any case.
  15. cmathewson
    Still not a good fit. If he played shortstop, sure. He doesn't come close to being a goo shortstop (let alone a good second baseman, for that matter). (For those who wondered where I got the idea of him playing shortstop, it's in the title of this post.) But we have Dozier, Rosario and Polanco at second. I would trade one of them for a true shortstop. Swapping one player for another of equal value at the same position makes little sense.
  16. cmathewson
    Wow. That is a sad commentary on the board. Hicks is closer to the guy we saw in Spring Training, when he played like he had nothing to lose, than the guy we saw in April, when he played like he had everything to lose. Gibson is a lot better than he was in the majors last year. His main problem he had was getting strikes called because umps weren't used to his movement. I've never seen the likes of it. He'd consistently hit the outside corner at the knees according to Pitch FX and the ump would call a ball. That has to improve. I haven't given up on Eades, but I didn't see anything special about him in postseason and pro ball. He was sitting in the high 80s with a long delivery. I think his arm was tired, as is typical for Friday night college pitchers. So let's see how he does after resting his arm before we pass judgement. Arcia played center and left through most of his minor league career. It takes time to adjust to the way balls spin in right field. Even Kirby struggled with this in his first year over there. He's played about a half season there in the majors. Giving up on his defense at this point is silly.
  17. cmathewson
    I agree with most of the comments. I think they signed Kubel and traded Doumit to make Kubel the primary DH. Hammer will get some reps there when the Twins face a tough lefty and need better outfield defense. Say, when Hughes pitches against Sabathia. But the normal lineup should have Hammer in Left and Kubel at DH.
  18. cmathewson
    FWIW, I don't expect improvements on the offensive side. Catching is such a grueling position, and he has caught so many innings, his hitting will continue to decline. Perhaps if he catches less than half the time, his hands will be fresher. Otherwise, he's just OK offensively. Defensively, he doesn't score well on the limited metrics available. But that is not why they brought him in. They brought him in to help Pinto work with pitchers. On that score, he is one of the best catchers around. I have often heard people like Bert say "he handles a pitching staff well." I wondered how to quantify that. The best measure I have been able to come up with is team ERA. This is a stat that requires many years of varying staffs to be reliable. Fortunately, in Suzuki, we have that. Oakland continually restructures its rotation. Despite that, they are consistently near the top in team ERA. I think this is good evidence that he handles a pitching staff well, which is the biggest hole in Pinto's game.
  19. cmathewson
    Ryan Doumit.
  20. cmathewson
    Right, but second base is arguably the strongest position in the organization, with Dozier, Rosario and Polanco. So I thought the thread was about upgrading short.
  21. cmathewson
    First of all, catching depth is a problem in the organization. So this helps them add depth by allowing Fryer to start the year in AAA. Hermann is a decent player, but, as a converted outfielder, he's only caught part time for four years in his entire career. So he isn't even an option as the primary back-up. Maybe as a bench bat/third catcher. No GM in his right mind would try to have two rookies catching on the same team. Secondly, they needed to add a veteran presence for young Mr. Pinto. Suzuki knows the hitters in this league. He can help Pinto run the scouting meetings and handle the pitching staff. A lot goes on in the catching position that we don't see and it's some of the most important stuff to preventing runs from scoring. Bottom line, he was the best catcher left, after they failed to sign Pierzinski, much better than Buck, all things considered.
  22. cmathewson
    It's not as simple as that. To me, Kubel is an upgrade over Doumit. Mauer is a big upgrade over Morneau. A Pinto/Suzuki platoon is a downgrade compared to Mauer. At that point, you're about even. But, Arcia is a big upgrade over Parmelee, so a couple of extra months of him should help. Also, we won't have to suffer through two months of Hicks leading off. That experiment killed our offense in 2013. Overall, a slight upgrade, I think. I expect Ryan to upgrade the shortstop offense in January (or before) with Stephen Drew. That might be all we can reasonably expect, beyond the natural regression to the mean of several of the guys who underperformed expectations last year. The biggest part of the regression is health. Willingham spent about a month on the DL and played hurt a lot. Mauer missed the last six weeks of the season and, when he was playing, he had the typical catching dings that affect hitting. Plouffe played through a lot of things. Arcia missed some time. If those guys are more healthy in 2014, they should produce more than they did in 2013. It certainly is not a line-up to inspire fear in the likes of Justin Verlander. But it should be a little better. In 2015, it will get a lot better when you add Buxton and Rosario to the top of the order and Sano to the middle.
  23. cmathewson
    When he first retired, Ryan was quoted as saying that Antony has a rare gift for scouting, all the more rare since he did not play the game, so he never developed those instincts. What he has learned is necessarily more analytical. I would have no problem with that if he used all the tools in his arsenal. But several interviews have shown him to lack basic SABR skills. This is a problem if you didn't grow up around the game. (If you did grow up around the game, you tend to be overconfident in your scouting judgements, which is the other kind of problem.) BS is the poster child for a guy who didn't grow up around the game and never learned to use math to compensate for his lack of instincts. I have some hope that Antony will escape Smith's fate. But he better study up.
  24. cmathewson
    I thought this thread was about Antony, and all I see is stuff about the draft, which Antony had almost nothing to do with. He's the guy who works with the scouts to identify potential FA signings and trade targets. He then works on contracts and stuff when they get interested parties together. His tenure in this position started when Ryan first retired and BS was promoted to GM. Antony identified guys like Mike Lamb and advised BS to use our best trade chips to acquire the likes of Delmon Young. A rough start if there ever was one. But he's learned from his failures, and grown much faster since Ryan has taken him under his wing. He's even learned a bit of statistical analysis, though not as much as I would like. If he is the heir apparent, I hope they give Ryan a couple more years to mentor him before giving him the tiller.
  25. cmathewson
    Correction, he's 22. Still he had an OPS+ of 102 as a rookie after having a career minor league OPS of .915, including .955 in AA as a 21 year old and 1.020 at AAA as a 22 year old. In short, he's the best hitting prospect to land on the Twins since Morneau. By the numbers, he's even better. And he plays a decent right field. Right field is not one of the positions I worry about on this team, short or long term.
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