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cmathewson

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Everything posted by cmathewson

  1. cmathewson
    Come now. Arcia is 21 years old. He's the youngest prospect to come up and perform at the major league level since Mauer. I think we can cut him a little slack on his first partial year in the majors.
  2. cmathewson
    The Twins need the depth in the outfield. Plus, Ryan would never trade a guy who's stock is so low. Hicks is due for a bounce-back season, and you don't want that to happen after you trade him. As for Franklin, I don't know if he's available because of the Cano signing. Cano is a second baseman who hasn't played short on a regular basis since the minors. I can't see him moving at this point.
  3. cmathewson
    I wouldn't say that. He was a top 5 prospect in the Braves system prior to pitching through some arm problems last year. None of the other lefties you are apparently referring to have ever been much in the way of prospect rankings. What does Gilmartin have that they don't have? When healthy, he has swing-and-miss stuff. His fastball touches 93 and sits in the low 90s, which makes his above-average change and slider effective. He doesn't need to be as fine as the others, but he is capable of it. Diamond, Darnell and Albers sit in the high 80s, which makes their average secondary pitches hitable when they are not located in just the right spots. I don't think Gilmartin will be better than a #4 starter. But his upside is 3/4. In my book, he is the best lefty starter in the Twins system who pitched above A ball last year. I would rank Thorpe and Gonsalves ahead of him. He's a notch above Sulbaran in my book, being older, more advanced and possessing a more complete arsenal. I would put him at 14 in the Twins system, with Thorpe ranked 8th, Gonsalves ranked 10th and Sulbaran 19th.
  4. cmathewson
    Funny how this board was talking about DFAing Doumit yesterday and now the general tenor is that trading him for a former first-round pick was a bad move. Kubel would likely beat him out of the DH role. Fryer is a better defensive catcher. And Arcia and Parmelee are better options in right field. If they sign another catcher (which I expect), they would have needed to DFA him and eat his salary. Instead they traded him, dumped his entire salary on the Braves and acquired a player in an area of organizational weakness. I don't really see a downside.
  5. cmathewson
    He plays the wall well and he has a good arm. Beyond that, his range is limited, which is typical for a big kid. He's a lot like Cuddyer, which is plenty good when you have a career OPS+ above 110, but not it is below 90.
  6. cmathewson
    Reynolds makes no sense. If they want another 3B option, Chavez makes more sense. But my understanding is they want to give Plouffe every opportunity to put up or shut up. Reynolds complicates that.
  7. cmathewson
    Honestly, it's for the best. He shouldn't catch anymore anyway. He is in a two-man fight for the full-time DH role with Jason Kubel. May the best man win.
  8. cmathewson
    They had the same injury. Both had bone chips removed from their elbows. Worley's were removed in September of 2012. Diamond's were removed in December of 2012. They both struggled mightily out of the gate, though Worley more so than Diamond. They both got sent down. Diamond pitched well enough in AAA to make it back. Worley never did. Worley's game is about getting the inside strike called on a sinker that starts at the LHB and nicks the inside corner. That's how he got half his strikeouts in the NL. That stuff doesn't work in the AL when you just touch 90. Often last year, the pitches that he had been getting backwards Ks on were either called balls or ended up in the seats. If he wasn't getting his backwards Ks, he was getting pounded. I'm not impressed.
  9. cmathewson
    Deduno, hands down. Then Diamond. Then Gibson. Then Worley. Then Albers.
  10. cmathewson
    I think they have given Plouffe as many at bats as he can handle. Prmelee was just lost at the plate. I wouldn't be surprised to see him DFAd at the end of ST, if not before. Hicks was rushed. But he still has a lot of upside. Arcia will progress. Willingham was hurt a lot last year. He won't likely have another year like 2012. But 2013 is his floor. Look around the diamond and the only position player who exceeded expectations was Dozier. Plan on him regressing and the others experiencing the other kinds of regression to the mean. But I get your point. They have a lot of question marks on offense. The difference is, they also have a lot of top offensive talent coming up. Outside of Meyer, we can't say that about their pitching depth. Also, FA pitchers are a little less risky than FA position players. Pitchers can be flakes and still fit in. The Mike Lamb's and Tony Bautista's of the world are not just bad on the field. They poison the dugout.
  11. cmathewson
    Moot point. Signed with the Mariners.
  12. cmathewson
    Right. I could see him competing for the full-time DH role in ST and losing to Kubel. But they will need to find DFA candidates from a list of AAAA guys if they sign anyone else. Fortunately, that list is still pretty long.
  13. cmathewson
    I'd say they are more likely to sign a stop-gap shortstop like Drew than a CF. That has as much to do with the players on the market as team need. I would argue they need both. But it is easier to upgrade at short than CF in this market. Davis was probably the best affordable option, and I wasn't all that fond of his career .300 OBP. I'd almost prefer sticking with Presley. Davis was a marginal upgrade over Presley. And now he's gone. Plus, there is some hope Hicks will bounce back. On the other hand, Drew is a clear upgrade over Florimon or Bartlett. Whoever they get to upgrade the offense needs to get on base. Drew gets on base at about a .333 clip. Not great, but better than any of the center fielders on the market.
  14. cmathewson
    I wouldn't cut bait with Doumit, but more as a bench bat and third catcher than as a back-up. I've seen enough of him to know he really struggles on the catching side. His main weakness is he doesn't get low enough to get the low strike. That is a tough deal for a staff full of sinker ballers. The paradigm cases was one game by Gibson last year when he had 18 (!) pitches in the FX zone called balls--all of them at the knees. As long as we have human umps, we need catchers who can frame the low strike. Doumit is really bad at this.
  15. cmathewson
    Good article. I agree. Lot's of posters here extrapolate from last year and draw conclusions about this year. I understand the sentiment. I even expressed frustration with Ryan last year. But it didn't jibe with some of the things Pohlad and Ryan said towards the of last year, which you quote here. So I hoped for what he's doing now. And I hope for more.
  16. cmathewson
    A #4 or #5 starter in this market is worth between $7 and $10 million. They save some dough from that in any event vs. signing Arroyo for 2/22 or Garza for 5/65. That's dough they can use to sign Drew and Suzuki. In isolation, it is a middling move. In the bigger picture, it is a good gamble.
  17. cmathewson
    To me, this is a decent gamble. The Twins want to pay for last year's performance and get something substantially better. His arm should be better overall two years removed from TJ, but he will suffer from dead arm here and there, as is typical after such a big innings jump. I expect the deal to really pay off in the second year, when he won't have any lingering effects of TJ or the hole in his innings history it caused. He had no right to be pitching in major league games so soon after TJ surgery, and his results make that plain. When his arm was ready, he was pretty good. I guess if they had kept him out on rehab those two months, his price this year would have been too high. So his horrible first two months in 2013 is a blessing in disguise in 2014-15.
  18. cmathewson
    I've always liked how he handles pitchers. And you can't argue with the results in Oakland, with so many young guys cycling through all the time. He'd make a good complement to Pinto in an unconventional platoon. And he could help Pinto with the parts of his game where he tends to struggle, especially running the scouting meetings, calling the game, mound visits, etc.
  19. cmathewson
    He is fragile. But, when healthy, he is the best starting pitcher on the staff IMHO.
  20. cmathewson
    I for one am glad they didn't sign those two. For sure, they would be better this year and last. But I don't like the long-term health of either of those guys. They could afford them. But they would only recover their salaries if they stayed healthy. Contracts for those dollars and years have rarely worked out. They are extremely risky. If they do work out, the GM is more lucky than good.
  21. cmathewson
    I'd probably have a couple of names in there that are missing (Thorpe, Gonsalves). But it's a good list.
  22. cmathewson
    Fair enough. But the gist of this article is that Ryan is somehow bending the truth when he says he tried just as hard to put a winner together this year as last. That argument can only be made if you prove that he didn't try as hard last year. John's argument dies when you show that Ryan could exert the same effort in the two years and get different results because the pool of available talent and their relative willingness to listen to his offers was different year to year.
  23. cmathewson
    Yes, they most certainly did. The issue is, did Grienke want to come here? We will not know the answer to that. But rumor has it, he did not. Sanchez was a similar story. Tigers made him a deal that was as good or better than other offers to stay on a team and in a park that he loved. Did the Twins try to sign them? We also will never know that. But, considering what has transpired this offseason, the speculation that they never tried is weak.
  24. cmathewson
    I think he'll sign Drew and Suzuki (though not for offense), and hope for rebounds from three of Hammer, Plouffe, Doumit, Hicks and Kubel. Other than Arcia, the real offense is coming in a year: Sano, Rosario and Buxton will give this lineup considerable lift. I'm sure he doesn't want to sign offense that will block them.
  25. cmathewson
    I wish I shared your optimism on Worley. To me, he's Nick Blackburn II. I saw nothing last year that would inspire confidence in him. Too many hard-hit balls, not enough easy grounders. Deduno misses bats. Unfortunately, he also misses the plate too much. But even when they put it in play, it is such weak sh*t that they can't get it out of the infield. I saw him get eight out of the first nine outs on choppers between the pitcher and first baseman in one game. It was a thing of beauty. He has the kind of movement that, even when they make contact, he just gets easy grounders. If Deduno hadn't pulled his groin in the rainstorm in the WBC final game, he would have easily been the top starter for the Twins last year. As it was, he was their top starter in the second half. Worley started the year as the designated top starter and finished with a middling stint in AAA. If it were me, I'd DFA him now to make room for Pelfrey. But they have too much invested in him with Revere to do that.
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