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Rod Carews Birthday

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Everything posted by Rod Carews Birthday

  1. Rod Carews Birthday
    There is about one reason to do this -- get some power production right now. However, there are several not to do it, as many other posters have commented. He's getting old. Too many years. He's an "old" 30. The cost isn't affordable. Etc. etc. etc. Signing him would require a massive investment that the Twins aren't willing to make, nor does the player project well enough to justify the cost for any team to make it.
  2. Rod Carews Birthday
    Analysis of anything produces information. Sometimes that information isn’t easily quantified mathematically (not in this specific case), at which point you can still use the information anecdotally. VERY frequently anecdotal evidence and mathematical evidence line up (like almost all the time). It just isn’t always easy to translate one into the other. “Gut feel says I know what the analytics tell me but I don’t care. I’m going with how I feel.” Again. No. Managers definitely care. Gut feel says that I have anecdotal information that will enlighten my decision. It’s still analytics. It is (and always has been) a pretty rare manager who would choose a significantly poorer statistical possibility over a greater one. It’s the seatbelt argument. Lots of people drive successfully and successfully survive accidents without wearing seatbelts, but the odds are much better if people in the car are wearing seatbelts. Same thing with people who say they don’t need to go to a doctor or a dentist. Most people would choose to go to a doctor or dentist when needed and likely would wear a seatbelt on their way there.
  3. Rod Carews Birthday
    Wallner has been raking the past week or two, so that makes sense. None of the other guys are putting up particularly strong stats, save Will Holland who doesn’t have much of a pedigree. You left off Austin Martin who has put up a ridiculous OBP since being sent back down. I’m not sure that there is a ton of help there at the moment, but given time, there might be more, especially in Brooks Lee’s case.
  4. Rod Carews Birthday
    No. That’s not quite right. IF the left-hand hitter has always hit this particular pitcher pretty well, that goes into the “analytics/gut feel” analysis for both managers. One manager just chooses a more intuitive sounding term, while the other says, we looked at the numbers and made our decision. For most (but not all) left-handed batters, this scenario doesn’t really come up very often. Most of the time an averagish RH batter will do better than most left handers.
  5. Rod Carews Birthday
    I think if there is a catcher injury and Camargo comes up and fills in well, that makes a decision for NEXT season a possibility. Right now, there is practically no chance that Vazquez is replaced this season, especially with his improved hitting of late. If Camargo doesn’t get any playing time this season, I think they will be quite reluctant to move on from Vazquez this winter, as they won’t have seen him play enough in the majors to make a good judgement. Plus, there’s that contract. . . .
  6. Rod Carews Birthday
    But what do you suppose “gut feeling” is? Tom Kelly and Ron Gardenhire, the guys who are given lots of credit for being “by the gut” managers, certainly knew a great deal about players, their tendencies, and what matchups lead to success. They just didn’t talk about it in terms of “analytics.” Gut feeling is actually the thing that someone’s experiences have told them is the right thing to do — which incidentally is what analytics are, perhaps more carefully measured. Would I occasionally make some different calls? Maybe, but “analytics” is not immense evil that you portray it to be. As always, when the team struggles, we look for it to be the manager’s fault and they are idiots. When the team is successful, the manager is a genius. Having been involved in large group activities for many years, my experience is that when the group was successful, I got much more credit than I deserved, and also when the group was not so successful, shouldered more blame than I had control over. Any type of team is a complicated dynamic that can change from year to year (or month to month or day to day). Figuring out how to manage that is complicated, especially when individual players are not performing well.
  7. Rod Carews Birthday
    Unfortunately that also makes him a not particularly valuable trade chip.
  8. Rod Carews Birthday
    It seems like this is a smokescreen for something really (more) idiotic and embarrassing. Or it might not be.
  9. Rod Carews Birthday
    Pillar might be the best option if he can avoid going back to being terrible. Miguel Sano did WHAT?!?! Yikes! That guy can’t seem to catch a break.
  10. Rod Carews Birthday
    It doesn't seem likely that the Twins are going to spend big bucks by picking up expensive players at the trade deadline, and for lower paid players, the cost in prospects could be very steep. It would seem that the answers are most likely to come from within. I'm a huge Martin fan, but I think he has plenty left to work on at AAA after his initial taste of the majors. Brooks Lee also needs time to play his way back to peak form, and so far, hasn't done so. Gabby Gonzalez is at high A (do you mean Emmanuel Rodriguez, who is at least at AA - and raking?) so he's not coming up any time soon. I might be on board with giving up on Farmer and Vasquez, although we don't really have a replacement for the backup catcher yet. Kirilloff is a admittedly a bit of a puzzle. Not sure what to think of him. However, Wallner and Julien were excellent last year but experienced their first extended slump this year. Giving up on them would be very foolish at this early date. The Twins don't have that many guys of that caliber to be able to just discard them. Frankly, I have at least as much faith in Julien as I do in Brooks Lee who it seems we have anointed as the savior even before he has hit the show.
  11. Rod Carews Birthday
    True. It would seem rather silly to trade away Kepler, and then trade a bunch of prospects for a big bat. While the bat could be bigger, it would seem a foolish use of resources.
  12. Rod Carews Birthday
    He’s a decent reliever with decent stuff. He hasn’t been amazing, but he’s much better than some others would be. I’m not ready to anoint him closer, but until he loses my confidence, he has it. Let’s ride that as long as we can. And then the next guy will come along.
  13. Rod Carews Birthday
    Whenever the team goes on a little bit of a downturn, we all look for the magical answer to fix whatever might be wrong at that moment. The offense has been all over the map, but figuring out exactly what is causing that is pretty tough to do. Yesterday, we made a big addition to the offense in Royce Lewis. Let's give that a chance to play out before trying to throw darts at a moving target. Reality is that his presence isn't going to fix everything, but it could be enough of a start that other things start to click. Word has it that Wallner has started to hit a little in the past couple of weeks in St. Paul. Add the good version of Wallner to the mix along with Lewis, and this thing starts to look a little different. That's without Julien figuring things back out and/or Brooks Lee coming up. My point is that there is help arriving for the offense, and likely more on the way. At some point, the Twins will have to take the big leap of faith and cut Margot and Farmer. The later we get into the season, the more likely that becomes a possibility. I would rather have that than to overpay for a middling bat and expect that guy to be our savior. Don't misunderstand. I'm open to trades, just not desperate ones. Now, if the Yankees would take us up on my offer of Willians Astudillo's ghost for Juan Soto, I'm in!
  14. Rod Carews Birthday
    The part that none of us know might be key to the decision to send Julien to St. Paul. Do you think it was a surprise to Julien? Do you think he was angry and did his best Kyle Lohse impression and punched a door? Do you think major league pitching was eating him up mentally and he was looking forward to the relative break of AAA to reset? Do we know how many and what kinds of conversations have been had between Julien (and others) and coaches and Rocco in the past week or so since Lewis' return became imminent? I definitely didn't want to see him sent to St. Paul, but given his lack of production, I can certainly see it. The ironic part is that when he came up last year, many of us saw him not sticking because of his limited defensive skills, but those have improved quite a lot and it's his bat that is getting him in trouble now. The next step is up to Julien. I hope he can really hit the ground running, get some confidence back and go back to being the hitter we saw last year and briefly in April.
  15. Rod Carews Birthday
    I wasn’t suggesting that Larnach or Kirilloff would get the job done, only that that was as far as I would be willing to go for a relief pitcher in return. I agree that it will take more but Julien or ERod is a bridge much too far or me.
  16. Rod Carews Birthday
    It’s all about the cost. If it’s for one of our many not quite there youngish corner guys like Kirilloff or Larnach, maybe. But for more than that or multiple, I say no.
  17. Rod Carews Birthday
    I think that ten days ago it would have been a Margot DFA. He has played enough better lately that makes me think he is playing for his job until Lewis is back (as opposed to earlier when his job might have been doomed). As @DJL44 said, he might have actually shown enough in the past week or so that someone could take him off of our hands, which I would take as a win and it would streamline the roster a little bit. Because I think this, obviously Margot will now catch fire and be awesome. After all I proposed the same trade scenario (IIRC it was for a bag of balls) for Kepler about this time last year and he showed me how foolish that would have been. if this comes true, I will select other Twins players who are currently sucking and demand a trade/DFA. I feel like this is how I can best help the team.
  18. Rod Carews Birthday
    It’s all about level of competition. At St. Paul, he may be running at full speed but the pressure is MUCH less and he can get himself back into the swing of things. That’s what rehab is all about. As someone who has rehabbed a couple of injuries, it is also true that when you think everything is good, suddenly your body decides to remind you that it isn’t quite there yet. MUCH better to have that happen in a lower pressure situation than at the MLB level. If he feels that little twinge of pain, since he is being eased back in in St. Paul, he comes out of the game. Given Royce Lewis’ competitive nature, do you think that he will ask to come out of the game vs. the Guardians or the Astros? Unless it is obvious and major the answer is no, and THAT is exactly the situation that a rehab stint in the minors is designed to avoid. Let that sink in.
  19. Rod Carews Birthday
    First of all, I’m a very big Royce Lewis fan. I think that he’s going to be one of the Twins’ best players going forward. However, since all of the other “sophomore” players have had some struggles this year, it would at least seem possible that he will as well. I hope he comes back and hits like he did in the first game of the season (Wow! What an OPS!), but he could also come back and struggle. Right now, there are too many people just assuming that he will be back and acting like an MVP candidate. I really hope that happens, but I think it is foolish to just assume that it will all work out perfectly.
  20. Rod Carews Birthday
    Can we just be satisfied with a player who is playing at a high level, instead of the mediocrity that he showed at the beginning of last year, and the year before? If the only measure of success is if a player is hitting home runs, then Rod Carew wouldn't be a useful player to have around, particularly because he wasn't also as strong a defensive player as Kepler? If Kepler can maintain his current OPS+, I don't care if he never hits another home run. It means he's doing a LOT of other things very well. Let's find more important things to worry about.
  21. Rod Carews Birthday
    There was a lot of luck involved in this trade for the Yankees. Gil wasn't highly touted at the time, and has since had TJ surgery. I'm certain that no one, not even the Yankees predicted he was likely to become a major league starter. Also, caution. . . there are plenty of pitchers who have come up as rookies and been good, but who never really develop well enough to have a good career. That said, I would gladly take him off of their hands now. To answer the original question, Gil was the bigger loss, because starting pitching is always the most valuable thing out there. Wade would have been a nice (and better) alternative than Cave at the time when Wade was traded away, but based on the hindsight of the time, it was quite a bit less than obvious who should go between Cave and Wade.
  22. Rod Carews Birthday
    Can't we wait until closer to the trade deadline to enter silly season? Love those articles and comments about acquiring a really good player for nothing but the guys we want to jettison anyway or have no real investment in. The Twins are not going to trade for a big hitter this season nor anytime soon. Maybe, another relief arm, but nothing more than that.
  23. Rod Carews Birthday
    Indeed! If only those terrible incompetent coaches would step aside so those MVP level hitters can all go back to being amazing! it would also probably help if those opposing teams would stop trying to win games as well.
  24. Rod Carews Birthday
    Agreed. Love Apple TV+, just not for baseball games. The announcers were painful and chasing the perfect game (VERY early IMHO) led to pretty spotty coverage of the Twins-Guardians game. Watching the game with no announcers on a half size (or smaller) screen doesn't lead to a good experience.
  25. Rod Carews Birthday
    I would agree that there have been some sloppy plays this past week or so. How do we know that Rocco isn't holding players accountable? Would that mean mid-inning substitutions? Public airing of grievances? Several games of benching? I'm not thinking that is a good method for the team or for the player. I'm reasonably certain that those plays don't get forgotten and that some bit of constructive criticism happens after the fact. We just don't get to see it, and that's how it should be. The players still have to execute and right now they're not doing that.
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