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bird

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Everything posted by bird

  1. bird
    To clarify, I'm grading Cwik's pathetic work here. My own Twin's grade would probably be a C, although INCOMPLETE would be the appropriate grade at this point untll we know how Park, Murphy, and the pitching staff works out. In my old job, if a stock analyst graded a stock and was more articulate about his grade than about his underlying assumptions, he was sent off to work for the competition pronto. If Cwik said he believed Park was a poor move, great. He gets a C-. He instead said they "did nothing". A stupid and lazy and false statement. D-, you're fired.
  2. bird
    I don't think that's true at all. With that reasoning, why haven't we been hearing accolades about expendable trash like Nolasco? I've not heard Cy Young and Hughes mentioned in the same sentence either.
  3. bird
    Latos, Danks, Johnson, and Fulmer....they'll likely need all four of them during the season. As long as the top 3 guys stay healthy. And wouldn't counting on Fulmer be fairly equivalent to the Twins counting on Tyler Jay?
  4. bird
    Cleveland was a darling pick last year, but not mine. This year, they are. Even though serious hitting help from their system is still a year away.
  5. bird
    Have you heard this from a credible source, or just from Chief? Kidding, Chief.
  6. bird
    Sorry, Mr. Cwik. D-. Do over.
  7. bird
    It may not be a huge difference, but my hunch is that it will be. Latos, Danks, and Johnson as #'s 4,5,6, and chances are good that they go at 1 for 3 with them to start the year in terms of performance. I'd much prefer my options after my top 3 to be Duffey, Milone, Berrios, May, and Nolasco, knowing I still have Dean, Darnell, and Rogers in deep reserve. But yes, if the Sox can keep the top 3 healthy, that's a huge advantage for them. I just think the chances are good that one of them hits the DL for much of the season. If we want to pick on Sano and Abreau, I'd contend the Sox would suffer a worse falloff. But, I'm aware that you see this as an over-emphasis on the importance of depth, and maybe you're right.
  8. bird
    Back in the days of Correia, look at who the "depth" was. No one was talking about depth as a strength back then, and it's just not an apt comparison to 2016's 7-8 deep group, every one of whom are measurably better than Correia was I 'm guessing. Her'e why I don't think it's a wash and favor the Twins over the Sox: 1. Rotation injuries are almost inevitable, and they take down top guys as readily as more replaceable guys. Teams need an extra 3-4 starters over the course of a year. I like the Twin's chances of withstanding this inevitable challenge. Chicago has DeVries-type quality at best past starter #5 or #6, and their 4 and 5 guys are pretty suspect to start with. 2. They traded away 3 guys who among their top 5 or so prospects (Micah Johnson, Trayce Thompson, and another guy). They have very poor replacement depth in both the outfield and infield, whereas the Twins have some very viable replacement candidates. There will be injuries. 3. People are skeptical about the quality of our BP options, but the numbers game overwhelmingly favors the Twins and works against the Sox. 4. I personally believe my many of my pals here on TD are under-estimating several of the new guys on the Twin's 40-man roster, starting with Buxton. The Twins may end up being an improved last-place team with a worse record than last year. If that happens, I believe it will be because the Tigers and Sox avoided the injury bug to their rotations and lineups.
  9. bird
    This might be huge. Neither Chicago or Detroit can easily withstand two injuries of major consequence, such as a top end starter or middle-of-the-order bat.
  10. bird
    Pfft, Bill James Schmill Schmames. He's the Nickelback of baseball writers.
  11. bird
    I've been placing O/U bets on the Twins in Vegas for many years on behalf of my local parish. My record is unblemished. I have Jesus on MY team. PM me for my address so you can send the beer in advance if you so choose.
  12. bird
    One of my favorite things is when someone dutifully reminds me that PECOTA is simply a projection. It is not a prediction. To which I automatically respond, "WTF?"
  13. bird
    That may be crystal clear to you, but for Mauer, the lines are blurred.
  14. bird
    Detroit, Chicago, and KC have all chosen to trade minor league assets more readily than either Cleveland or the Twins. Having either a superior or poor minor league balance sheet is mostly a function of strategy and not so much a reflection on scouting, drafting, and developing. A poor minor league balance sheet becomes a problem longer-term when the major league balance sheet is also poor enough to include several deficiencies, which is where the Twins found themselves to be a few years ago. Free agency has its limitations, economic and otherwise, and if a team doesn't grow some of its own All-Star calibre talent, at some point the piper will get paid. It'll be interesting to see if Detroit and Chicago have depleted their farm systems in a way that leads to immediate success. I liken their approach to my old business, where one distinguished between a stock trade and an investment. Both could be profitable, of course. I like Cleveland's and Minnesota's chances longer-term, but wouldn't bet against either Chicago or Detroit in 2016.
  15. bird
    Yeah, he dominated the leader board for strikeouts. To me, it doesn't much matter, AAA or AA. It's about where he gets the best chance to improve. He'll get plenty of attention this spring and the field staff will see if he's showing signs of figuring out what pitchers are doing to him. As for the angst about time being wasted or spots being taken up by "failures"? Not really. Every one of those guys will have to show something to stick.
  16. bird
    I would think the evaluators would believe just the opposite. In addition to the seven prospects who have made the lists, we have a few that have made past lists and are still extremely viable prospects (Meyer, Thorpe, Burdi), and we have maybe a couple more who were fairly close to making it, Walker comes to mind. I'd have to think this system, depth-wise, is certainly in the top five or so.
  17. bird
    Thanks for throwing this out there. I've been curious about how the top prospects from the rest of the AL Central stack up relative to this list.
  18. bird
    I agree that the draft and these top prospect lists have pretty similar success rates. And I think a closer examination would show that both have had better hit rates in the last 10 years, especially for first-round draft picks and prospects listed in the first quadrant of this type of list. It's also arguable that more prospects fall off the map due to injury or illness than because scouts mis-assess a prospect's physical tools and skills. Probably more often than we know, a prospect's performance disappoints as a result of addiction, mental illness, and other factors in his life and not because we discover his tools were a mirage. You might be able to say that this was the case for Van Poppel, Taylor, and Delmon Young. In the draft, once you're picking the 40th available prospect, you're usually hoping to get a player capable of overcoming some pretty glaring deficiencies in skills and even talent. We don't see a huge number of those guys in a top 100 list like this. For example, every one of our guys on BA's list was a 1st rounder or high-bonus international signing. I love these lists, and admire the effort that goes into them. The most fun part is when a guy like Kepler has the light bulb go on and suddenly shoots up the list.
  19. bird
    Yeah, Milwaukee is the best example of it, but there are quite a few teams who made quantum leaps. Curious.
  20. bird
    right
  21. bird
    The 2015 team was both different and better than 2014, but even if one bought the argument that they were somehow the "same", other variables make it fruitless to compare the performance of the two managers based on a look at the records There were in-game differences, but I think in-game management is an over-rated aspect of a manager's performance anyway. As far as Molitor's performance in managing the clubhouse, which I believe was a strength of Gardy's, it's tough to get a read on Molitor's performance, but it certainly appears at first blush that he's not experiencing any big problems. Hunter was almost universally lauded for his contribution to clubhouse morale and chemistry, so it will be interesting to get some glimpses of that aspect of Molitor's job performance in Hunter's absence. I don't put much stock in any person's viewpoint about the manager's overall performance unless the opining person is relying on the opinions of players and others who have witnessed the environment firsthand. Making judgments based on things like how the manager uses his bullpen and bench doesn't cut it for me.
  22. bird
    Wow, that's a massive upgrade for Detroit.
  23. bird
    That's a good reminder. But look at the landscape from this angle: we may (or may not) get significant contributions from guys like May, Duffey, Arcia, Rosario, Vargas, Meyer, and Santana, and most of these guys didn't get more than a sniff or two of a Top 100 list. But you have to like our odds going forward, given that we also have a whole slew of players who have been ranked up among the top 100 recently: Sano, Buxton, Berrios, Kepler, Gordon, Jay, Park, Polanco, Stewart, Walker, Gonsalves, Burdi, Thorpe...that's 19 guys right there. Exciting stuff.
  24. bird
    OK Spy. You're the manager in February 2015. You have to work with what is presented to you when pitchers and catchers report. You can cut anyone you want, completely or off the 40-man to make room for someone else in the system, but you can't trade for anyone new. Tell me who you're going to bring north with the club. If you find a bunch of young players you want to argue were ready to rock and roll, who are they? Be prepared for some criticism regarding your judgment however. I just don't think you can make a blanket statement about there being a veteran's preference. Aren't the decisions much more a function of who is ready to contribute? Isn't it likely that every prospect's fate is determined individually on merit? Don't you think that Allen and Paulie were really hoping for Pressly, Meyer, May, Graham, Tonkin, and the other youngsters in camp to show them something? You don't generally acquire youth via free agency, or even through trades really. I'd submit to you that characterizing the Twins as having a vetoeran's presence is inaccurate despite the fact that they've installed a lot of veterans in the myriad of holes on the roster during the lean years. It just happened because they lacked young talent that was ready to contribute. And if they had a jones for veterans, how do we explain Arcia, Santana, Buxton, Rosario, and others?
  25. bird
    I think most everyone would prefer to see the young guy be the one to step up. Emotionally, I felt deflated by the announcements of Nolasco, Stauffer, and now guys like Kintzler and Strong are emotional buzzkills. However, other buzzkills have been provided by injury and disappointing performances from the young guys. In the case of Meyer, WE don't know what he might've done had he been called up in 2014. But we should acknowledge the reality that his coaches had their fingers on the pulse and were in position to make a credible prediction about that. They might tell you his confidence didn't sag, but his arm angle did. Our desire to finally see these prospects at Target Field probably inhibits our willingness to accept as reasonable any explanation as to why a player wash't promoted.
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