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bird

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Everything posted by bird

  1. bird
    I pretty much agree that the $1M guys become that, basically, because teams are in competition for their services. But let's not pretend that the international marketplace is clean and orderly. A lot happens behind the scenes involving relationships and deals between player "agents" and team scouts. It's extremely likely, because of the fuzziness of things, that the Twins liked Polanco, for example, much better than they liked half the prospects on BA's top 30 list. BA's list should be viewed with a whole quarry of salt IMO. How many of the guys from BA's top 30 from 2011 have ever been on BA's Top 100 prospect list COMPARED to international signees that were NOT considered to be top 30 guys? These signing bonuses don't reflect the prospect's true status very clearly.
  2. bird
    First off, if there was "equal distribution" among teams, each would have signed one 'top 30" international guy each year. In this regard, the Twins haven't cheated us recently (Javier, Diaz, Minier, Sano, etc.) although the real test is the results. Any one who questions whether the Twins are competing for international talent effectively just needs to look objectively at the pipeline. Scouting is the separator, not cash.
  3. bird
    Once you spend it, it ain't yours.
  4. bird
    Yeah, and they could get day-of-the-week underpants.
  5. bird
    I agree, but it would be an interesting exercise to look at a BA list from five years ago and see how many of those prospects are Top 100 type prospects compared against the other international signees who are.
  6. bird
    This is a wonderful explanation and answer to mike's question. It makes zero sense to make comparisons when the paths of the prospects are so different. It's convenient to the argument to compare say, Buxton's "struggles" to Correia and then draw a conclusion. Let's not mention elite prospects on other teams who struggle, guys like Soler. Let's not mention Eddie Rosario as a Twins success. Let's not mention that Bryant and Corria are elite prospects and Vargas and Danny Santana are not. Let's simply draw a false blanket conclusion that other teams' elite prospects are good out of the blocks and the Twin's "elite prospects" are not.
  7. bird
    One of the theories being floated out there is that they want to give Chad Allen a crack at him. Not substantiated, but the thought was that they want to see if he responds better to him than he has to the Rochester guy and to Bruno.
  8. bird
    Reusse mentioned this afternoon that someonee with the Twins suggested people hold their horses a bit regarding Kepler, that he's not ready quite yet for the big show.
  9. bird
    He's been rehabbing from injury for the better part of a year now. I think if you had better inside knowledge, you'd find that your notion that they're moving players too slowly is pretty much baseless.
  10. bird
    You might very well be right that these guys don't change the game for us in their first few months. But it shouldn't be some unexpected buzzkill if they don't. And let's be clear: all the shouting and hype we've been hearing about these prospects is coming from the industry. You have not been witnessing a whole bunch of chest-thumping going on from the Twins. They've been admirably constrained in talking about these guys.
  11. bird
    Why does there have to be "blame"? How about looking at causes? In what way is Vargas detached from whatever has caused his poor performance? Every player must overcome some less than ideal circumstances. This is all up to Vargas. He's got a terrific system of support and world-class coaching.
  12. bird

    Nunez

    bird replied to DaveW's topic in Minnesota Twins Talk

    Gee, with production like that, you'd almost forgive a manager for slotting Nunez temporarily in the DH spot if his current DH happened to be stepping on his tie.
  13. bird
    You did mention new thought processes, in your first sentence, but that's neither here nor there. I believe a few of his other starts met the old "quality start" standard, which I've never been a big fan of and don't "advocate". But, let's be fair. He hasn't had that many blow-up starts, and relying on his xFIP numbers doesn't tell his story. I don't debunk advanced statistics. I wish others (not you) wouldn't so readily debunk opinions based on other facts. All I'm saying, jimmer, is that in Pelfrey's case for 2015, while the stats overlook the fact that a meaningful majority of his starts were MUCH better than average, the opinion that he's been bad based on the peripherals either unintentionally or obtusely ignores the complete picture of his value and performance.
  14. bird
    Maybe what the players and managers see, with their old-school thinking, is the fact that, out of 15 starts, Pelfrey has given them 8 starts of 7 innings or more, and in each case, gave up 2 earned runs or less. This fact gets overlooked by the new thought processes to which you allude.
  15. bird
    You know, I find myself agreeing pretty much with this, except I can't think of a single commenter, ever, on TD that could accurately be called a Pelfrey booster. Lots of people have castigated the Twins regarding him. A handful of people have pushed back and argued that the decision to insert him in the rotation when Ervin got caught instead of Alex Meyer wasn't necessarily a horrible, mind.boggling decision. That hardly qualifies us as being boosters, does it?
  16. bird
    This. The decision was a high-quality decision, especially given the historical context. The "tall pitcher" thing is specious. The result is obviously incomplete, but for those inclined to bring the jury in now, the verdict is guilty of a far less onerous crime than some would portray it.
  17. bird
    Based on xFIP perhaps. But hasn't he "given the team a chance to win" in most of his starts, and hasn't the team won a majority of the games he's started? Doesn't that account for something? It seems to be a big deal to ballplayers and their managers. We hear it all the time, right?
  18. bird
    Yeah, I completely agree.
  19. bird
    No need for snark, as I was simply referencing the fact that it's rather commonplace to see a campaign on TD for the promotion of a hot prospect. I don't discount the possibility that Berrios, or someone else, can have immediate success. But the skepticism some of us have had has been proven out much more often than not. For example, when you and others were clamoring for Meyer and expressing how mind.boggling it was to start the year with Pelfrey in the rotation, perhaps my skepticism was warranted, no? And perhaps the harsh criticism of the FO was, let's just say, defensible. How a single example like 25-year old Cody Anderson bolsters any argument for a quick promotion of Berrios is beyond me. But hey, I'm as in favor of seeing Pelfrey traded and Berrios promoted as the next guy, just with perhaps more tempered expectations.
  20. bird
    I love it. Another countdown. Like we had with Alex Meyer.
  21. bird
    Based on Pelfrey's entire body of work in 2015, and not one horrific start? Be reasonable, my friend. And if the unlikely event happened and Berrios pulled an Alex Meyer in his first appearance, will he, like Pelfrey, be a bad pitcher? It's not as unlikely as you think that Berrios, like many before him, stinks up the joint and shatters your expectations in his first dozen appearances. I mean, I want to see him sooner rather than later, but I'll be very pleasantly surprised if he's an immediate game-changer.
  22. bird
    With all due respect, mike, I think you're selectively critical of the Twins and you ignore what's similarly happening with other teams. Moustakis, Hosnmer, and Cain all struggled until year 3 or so, much like MUCH lesser prospects on the Twins, Hicks, Dozier and Plouffe. Even second-year players that are excelling are more the exception than the rule. Marcus Semien has a billion errors for Oakland. Zunino and Ackley are batting under .200 for Seattle. In NYC, Gregorious is batting .226. For Houston, Valbuena's at .197 and Singleton is hitless. Lindor's struggling in Cleveland. I could name a dozen more first and second year prospects that are struggling, and every one of them were thought to be vastly superior prospects compared to Hicks, Pinto, Vargas, Santana, and Arcia. And keep in mind that almost ALL of these guys from other teams I mentioned have had time to settle in. Our top prospects, position-wise, are Buxton, Sano, Polanco, Rosario, Gordon, Kepler, Walker, Minier, and Diaz, none of whom have 50 MLB games under their belt, if any. So, any criticism of the Twins in terms of comparative success is pretty lame based on three things. One, it doesn't make sense to compare our secondary prospects like Pinto, Arcia, Vargas, Santana, and even Hicks to these top tier guys on other teams. Second, let's do a comparison in a year or so, when some of these prospects of ours have 100 AB's or so under their belt. And third, let's paint an accurate picture regarding how few prospects come up and shine right from the start.
  23. bird
    That very well could be the case. It could also be the case that he begins his MLB career and performs better out of the shoot than any of the rest of them. History tells me to be skeptical though. I'm an old man who remembers the struggles of studs like Viola and Radke. Hell, if it was up to me, I'm dangling the whole rotation at the trade deadline and taking any overpay I can, because my sense is the team ain't going nowhere too exciting until we have one more incremental upgrade of 2-3 rotation slots and 2-3 of the fireballers in AA or below make their way up here.
  24. bird
    And...?
  25. bird
    If you make THAT argument, you probably can't credibly criticize the team if Berrios has a 7.98 ERA and averages 4.2 innings a start, or something like that. They're in contention. Wouldn't you be one of those people who might think they "punted" if they inserted a poor performer in the rotation right now?
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