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 wouldn't assume that Morneau comes off. Both Ryan and Antony have said it is their preference to keep him. And Morneau has said he wants to stay, provided he thinks he has a chance to win. He will likely be cheaper, but I'd say the odds are better than 50/50 that he stays. Blackburn, yes. Carroll probably (but he has a cheap option and he's a player/coach). If they draw better this year (which they will, imho) payroll will go up. And it will go up in proportion to how well they draw this year. And, yes, they will spend it. This next offseason they actually have decent options on which to spend it, unlike last offseason, when the top four FA pitchers were Greinke, Sanchez, Dempster and Lohse. The only one of those four who is worth it is Dempster, and he wanted to go to the Red Sox, so he wasn't really an option. They have spent between 50% and 52% of revenue for the last 10 years. I see no reason for them to stop that trend. If you have such a problem with the smallest tax subsidy of any stadium in the league, go to Ramsey County with your money.
  2. cmathewson
    Jamey Carroll with RISP in 2013: [TABLE=class: sortable stats_table] [TD=align: right].429 [/TD] [TD=align: right].556[/TD] [TD=align: right].429[/TD] [TD=align: right].984 [/TD] [/TABLE] Thus, he should be the starting third baseman. What's that you say? He's only had 9 plate appearances with runners in scoring position? So?
  3. cmathewson
    What money? After two consecutive 90+ loss seasons, the days of $100 million budgets are gone, until they start winning again and fans start showing up. Unlike a lot of teams in this league, the Twins have a very small pool of money from TV and radio. So they have to rely on attendance. The budget\was a little above $110 million in 2010, when they expected to sell out every game in the new stadium. After that monster year, it went up to $115 million. Last year, they didn't expect nearly as many fans in attendance, and they budgeted accordingly. There's a similar thing happening this year. If they go, say 81-81 this year, you can expect them to increase their budget on the anticipation of higher attendance. I expect it to be somewhere around $90 million in 2014, assuming they find a way to win at the current rate in 2013. What they don't do here that they do in places like Detroit is subsidize the team out of the owner's bank account. If you expect them to do that, you're rooting for the wrong team. The Pohlads have never and will never bankroll this team.
  4. cmathewson
    The post was about how he was the worst pitch framer for the week. And he'd only caught one game that week. My comment is about sample size. Framing requires large samples to be meaningful because there are so many variables. One game is the smallest of samples in this area. I get that he has been historically bad. But that is not what the post was about. Also, for those who say he's not producing with the bat yet this year, small samples also hold. If you want to evaluate him on his career offensively, fine. If you do, you will find that he is one of the best offensive catchers in the last few years. But you can't say: he's historically bad at pitch framing and this year he's bad at offense. That's picking all the rotten cherries and throwing them at him.
  5. cmathewson
    Off topic, but anybody heard anything about Harden? Last I heard, he was pitching off a mound at extended spring. Not sure how many innings or pitches he's up to, or how soon he'll be able to do a rehab start.
  6. cmathewson
    The velocity sure helps, but the bigger thing was location. When you throw sinkers down, they sink. When you throw them up, they flatten out. He got on top of ball well and finished his pitches better in this start than he had in previous starts. He basically did everything Parker told him to do. Go figure. I saw the replay of the tag. He definitely tagged him on the hand. The tag was obscured by dirt. But in those situations, the ump will give the play to the defensive team 9 out of 10 times. He could have held the tag longer, but the bigger issue was with the ump on that call.
  7. cmathewson
    I don't think the GM has much to do with the draft. Smith in particular was quoted as saying he just wanted to "get out of the way". The architect of the current farm system is Johnson, who has drafted very well. I do think we have to give credit where credit is due on international signings, not just Sano but Polanco and Keplar as the start of a trend to pay what is needed to get the talent over there. Also, Smith upgraded the Dominican Academy considerably, which was the worst in baseball for decades. Contrast the Sano signing with how Ryan handled Cabrera, who was at our academy and only signed with the Marlins because Ryan was too cheap to pay fair market value.
  8. cmathewson
    I wouldn't put Allison ahead of Buxton. Allison was a great player, but he had two fewer tools than Buxton.
  9. cmathewson
    I'm glad Pelfrey read Parker's post about staying on top of the ball, working out front good and getting that good downward plane. 'Cause he's suddenly the pitcher we all dreamed about in the offseason. Hopefully he can keep it up. But he was a hot mess for his first five starts. If I were Gardy, I'd a been counting my lucky stars that the Tigers hadn't figured him out in the first two times through the order. But I wouldn't test fate. With Duensing ready, there aren't a lot of managers who would risk what Gardy risked there. Is it enough to get him fired. Hell no. He's done way worse, and not just for one game, for weeks and months (Juan Castro).
  10. cmathewson
    I see no reason why he can't. Defensively, he's like Escobar, with maybe a little less arm. At least a second baseman. That said, I don't know why he DHs so much. For the sake of his development, they should play him in the field more.
  11. cmathewson
    The main thing is what Brock said: Bad drafting in the mid 90s. They also made several bad deals at the hands of Bill Smith, some of which we continue to pay for: 1. Garza and Bartlett for Young and Harris: A net WAR of like 70 for the Rays Though none of those players continue to play for their original tams, the Rays got a lot of value when they traded Garza and Bartlett 2. Ramos for Capps: Short term gain, long term pain. I shudder to think about a Ramos/Mauer platoon at C/DH 3. Hardy for Hoey and Jacobsen: just a bad deal all around, especially since they traded Hardy ostensibly to make room for the worst player in Twins history; Nishioka Still and all, they have not made any stupid moves since. And their farm system is starting to catch up. The one thing baseball fans need is patience.
  12. cmathewson
    Umm. Crow. Alghralgrhalgrh
  13. cmathewson
    Polanco has to be on the list. I rank him behind Buxton and Berrios and ahead of everyone else on that list.
  14. cmathewson
    Eduardo Escobar went 0-1 this week. His triple slash is 000/000/000. By the numbers, he's the worst hitter int he majors for the week. That's the level of insanity with using framing as a way of evaluating a back-up catcher.
  15. cmathewson
    The guy catches one game a week. How can he be judged in a skill that requires thousands of pitches to be meaningful when he only catches 140 or so?
  16. cmathewson
    Appel was the consensus best arm in the draft last year and he fell to #8 because of Boras. He doesn't have as much leverage this year. But neither did JD Drew, who elected to play independent ball and enter the draft a year later (a dumb move, imho). The presence of Boras might push Appel into the Twins laps. If so, should they take the chance? Personally, it would be tough for me to pass on him.
  17. cmathewson
    Thank you for the charity with which you interpreted my comment. Perhaps I should speak more plainly. 1. As others have posted, there were not enough free agents on the market to build a contending team in 2013. 2. The FAs that were available were overpriced as a result. 3. Signing them would restrict future payrolls in undesirable ways. 4. The most prudent thing is to invest when more of the pieces are in place internally for a championship team. 5. Perhaps as early as this next offseason, the Twins can get enough talent from the minors, acquisitions and free agency to build a contending team for the 2014 season. 6. Until then, the Twins acted prudently in getting guys who can make the team competitive and help the first wave of talent from the minors develop in a winning atmosphere. 7. The fact that the roster is cheaper than average is irrelevant to the Twins long-term strategy.
  18. cmathewson
    I'd be in favor of the Twins spending more money if I thought there were good investments to be had on the free agent market. It's not my money after all. But I honestly don't think there were many good investments our there this past year. There were a few overrated pitchers like Greine and Snachez who were going to get way more than they would eer be worth, And there were a lot of marginal pitchers who were not worth much, but could be had for a cheap price. Which ones were the best investment is a matter for speculation. But the Twins got decent value for their dollars there. This coming offseason might be more interesting. How do you manage a payroll to ensure that you will be able to retain the stars knocking on the door (Sano, Arcia, Rosario, Buxton, Meyer, May) long enough to win it all at least once? You don't do it by spending all your payroll on marginal upgrades. Fill enough holes to be competitive until the kids are ready. Otherwise save your money, 'cause this team will get expensive in a hurry.
  19. cmathewson
    Put it this way: Ending up with Hardy for several years vs. one year of Santana + draft picks would have been fair value.
  20. cmathewson
    Fair value should be judged against a year of his arm in the rotation plus two draft picks. They didn't get that. But they got close with Hardy.
  21. cmathewson
    If we had held onto Hardy, it would have been a fair trade. But we dumped him for parts.
  22. cmathewson
    Baxendale reminds me of Alex Wimmers prior to the injury. If he keeps pitching like this, he could move quickly.
  23. cmathewson
    It's been tried many, many times. The problem is two-fold: Stamina and lack of a solid third pitch. He tends to pitch well for two or three innings, and then he gives up a big inning. Hitters start timing him and recognizing the breaking ball, and they start hitting him hard. Also, he loses the life on his FB after about 50 pitches or so. That was the pattern the four or five times he was tried as a starter. So his role suits him very well. Let's keep him in it. I actually think they should limit him to two innings at a time. He starts to lose it in his third inning. He doesn't always get away with it.
  24. cmathewson
    Hendriks does not have much upside, as far as I can tell. He can refine his control. But that is unlikely. It seems like he would have better control by now if he ever could. Besides, he's had four opportunities to overcome the control issues in the majors and he hasn't. Time to give the next guy a shot. I think Gibson is the next guy up here. I wouldn't be surprised to see Meyer promoted when Gibson is. And then taking his innings when Gibson is shut down for the year. De Vries and Deduno take there place ahead of Hendriks when they're healthy. Both beat him out this spring. It took both of them getting hurt for him to make the team out of spring training. And it didn't take him long to lose his job to Hernandez.
  25. cmathewson
    We often say, "His numbers look good, but he's had a lot of hard-hit outs right at people." Or, "He's hitting better than his numbers; he seems to hit into a lt of loud outs." BABIP helps to validate these impressions. It also helps you predict if a guy is likely to continue as he is or get better. I normally use it in conjunction with LD% for hitters and GB% for pitchers. The thinking is, if a hitter has a low BABIP and a high LD%, he's due for some better luck. If a pitcher has a high GB% and a high BABIP, he's given up a lot of seeing-eye hits and, odds are, he'll do better in the future.
×
×
  • Create New...