bird
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Everything posted by bird
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In reading Molitor's comments about Vargas, I'm confident he strongly disagrees that Vargas was doing fairly well during those two weeks despite the numbers. Some like to mock Ryan when he refers to the desire for "consistency". In particular, there was a lot of criticism directed toward him about Meyer. But maybe he's trying to describe something here and the word consistency doesn't cover it. Wouldn't we all like to see Vargas, Pinto, and Arcia up with the big club? My own sense is that there's probably things we aren't able to read between the lines for all three of these guys, and that each of hem has his marching orders about what they need to work on. None of them are doing anything at the moment in AAA to write home about. Vargas has maybe been a bit "inconsistent" from what I can see in the box scores.
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I'm not defending the decision, but isn't a big part of his being idle for the past 5 games at least in part due to the fact that Allen and Molitor see his role as the long reliever? When every starter goes six or more, that causes a problem. I long for the days when Swarzak led the team in appearances.
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Promotions and Rotating thru the league
bird replied to Mike Sixel's topic in Twins Minor League Talk
Yeah, and I wouldn't classify it as either a philosophical or a policy/rule thing. Each prospect is a material investment for its organization and is logically going to be subjected to intense scrutiny. Because so few are exceptional, it seems to be the rule of thumb that a young prospect is going to be thoroughly tested at a given level. -
I might be a mob of one, but Ervin Santana and every cheater like him is loathesome to me. I will not enjoy his return to the team.
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Exactly this. Ervin Santana caused so much damage. Loss of a supplemental pick, possibly a couple/few regular season wins, ticket sales, and maybe more, and I don't recall hearing anything from his agent about what he plans to do to make up for his "mistake". The man just gets to step right back in practically as if he did nothing wrong. Grrrr.
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What Can We Expect From the #6 Pick
bird replied to Seth Stohs's topic in Twins Daily Front Page News
I agree wholeheartedly. It's a good thing the Twins have consistently hit on their first round picks now for a decade or so. -
Because they were deemed most likely to perform at some reasonably professional level. Last year, the choices were all bad, and these guys were the least bad as options in the opinion of the people with a vote on the matter in Rochester and in Minneapolis.
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Pino and Kris Johnson were not promoted for the purpose of confirming anything. Unlike the Cards, the Twins didn't have any ultra-elite pitching prospect ready for major league action. Now I'll sit back and wait for someone to once again promote a false narrative about how deserving of promotion May and Meyer were. A convoluted justification that ignores the extenuating facts regarding injuries and innings limits and out-of-whack mechanics that effected those two, let alone a very sound argument that those two would have had their heads handed to them at the time. As for Berrios, I predict he will be ready for Target Field in the eyes of us fans a half-year ahead of when his developers think he is, and they'll probably be right.
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Mike, you must know the answer to this question. I mean, how absurd would it be to compromise the success of your MLB team in favor of a minor league team? How absurd do you think the Twin's FO is? Criminy.
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Of course he doesn't mean that, mike. He didn't say that either.
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Let's put some context to this though. No one with a pedigree even close to that of the four studs you mentioned was passed up in favor of Dinkelman. And none of these scrubs jeopardized a playoff run, did they? If they're in contention in September, we're not going to see Beresford and Ortiz.
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The key to a minor league system is the elite talents, for sure. I'm going to disagree with you, as I think the Twins have both quality and remarkable quantities of promising pitching prospects. I'd say a fair definition of what "elite" means might be prospects earning a spot on a Top 100 list. The Twins have nine such prospects, and five of those are pitchers. In addition to this, Keith Law and John Sickles, among others, have commented about the fact that the system is loaded with pitching prospects, citing both the quality and depth in the system. No one has lowered their rating on Stewart or Meyer, and I'd be less quick to discount them. And you could balance out any sentiments you might have about those two by mentioning the likely rise in the stock of Hu, Gonsalves, and May, who were NOT on anyone's Top 100 list, but certainly will be in the future. May will graduate though.
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While I agree with this, they were doing pretty well before those two call ups, and most of the credit on offense goes to Plouffe, Dozier, and Hunter. Escobar and Mauer, and now Hicks and Rosario, are making for a more balanced threat. And I especially think the plus defense they're providing could be absolutely huge.
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To me, the second most encouraging aspect of all this is that Arcia, Vargas, Santana, Buxton, Sano, Hicks, Rosario, Polanco, and Pinto have not been in any way responsible for the impressive offensive showing we're seeing. Some of these guys may never emerge as above-average position players, but think about it, this is a full lineup worth of prospects at the cusp. And I didn't mention a few guys at AA having nice years in Kepler, Harrison, and Walker. The first most encouraging thing is that the real strength of our minor league system, according to most pundits, is pitching.
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I guess I can quite easily see a contending team with an injury-riddled pitching staff give up something of value to take on Fien or Milone. As a matter of fact, both might be candidates for extracting a bit of an overpay, assuming Fien returns as his better self.
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Every year, a dozen highly touted prospects around the league make it to the majors and then sort of peter out (not that Hicks will necessarily be one of them). How come, when this happens, fans blame it on the GM? Maybe it's the player's doing. Hicks has been disappointing so far in his previous stints with the Twins, and maybe he'll redeem himself this time around, and maybe not. If he suddenly lives up to "expectations", I doubt the same people who currently blame Ryan for the kid's failures will turn around and heap praise on him. Although doing so would be as misguided as blaming him now.
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Not long term, but temporarily it's a good bar until Buxton shows up, probably yet this year. Buxton is the long term bar for CF.
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The six major ranking publications disagreed with you during the off-season. Most regarded Hu in more similar light to Gonsalves than Duffey. Only one publication (MLB) ranked Duffey at all, while Hu was mentioned by four of the six. Keith Law actually ranked Hu a couple of slots higher than Gonsalves while not mentioning Duffey at all. Given the performances we're seeing from all four, I think we can predict that Berrios will continue to be viewed as a more elite prospect than the other three.
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sigh
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But we're not privy to every "appearance" , jokin. Neil Allen and Paul Molitor are. I'm just reacting to the notion that it was all luck like you say. Paulie admitted he took a chance or two, right? So, it worked out. I like his modesty, don't you? Oh, and who called him a Savant? Must've missed that.
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This is obviously not verbatim, but Paulie recently said some things to the effect that you can overthink things, and you can spend a lot of energy analyzing and preparing for something that has little chance of happening. An example of that might be a pinch hit homer, right? I'm glad he looked up from the spreadsheets long enough to use his considerable intuitive capacity. Who knows, maybe Graham has had some good BP sessions, maybe Perkins could have used the luxury of a day off. But whatever, luck had close to nothing to do with the outcome. Just academic curiosity, but does anyone know how many games Bernier has gone between home runs?
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Twins Minor League Report (5/20): Wins For Everyone
bird replied to Jeremy Nygaard's topic in Twins Daily Front Page News
The Lookouts have at least six bona fide pitching prospects on the roster, and yet they probably have the 3rd most talented staff among the four full-season minor league clubs. -
Leave it to you damn stat heads to bring up the math.
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My gut tells me that if you polled scouts from every team and asked them what their eyes tell them about the defensive production of any outfielder they've all properly scouted, their responses would be remarkably similar. Now, if you polled the TD community after telling them to burn their spreadsheets and forget what they read, my guess is that 53.7% of all commenters would say Hunter is pretty bad, but not all THAT bad. Another 17.8% would say Hunter absolutely sucks and makes them miss Delmon and Hammer. 9.8% would say Hunter deserves a Gold Glove and a Nobel Peace Prize. The remaining .7% would say he should be the center fielder, and that would be Ryan. The remainder would have no opinion and still be grousing about their burnt spreadsheets.
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I'm a big believer in the eye test when it comes to defense. As long as it isn't my eyes or the eyes of any of us here on TD that I'm relying on. No offense intended. The caveat being I'm fine with general categories. Like, Nelson Cruz is a bad defensive outfielder, or Lorenzo Cain is a good defensive outfielder, or Torii Hunter is an average defensive outfielder. The last one was a joke. But really, why would anyone care if a guy is the 19th ranked fielder versus the 24th ranked guy? Aren't they both bad?
