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bird

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Everything posted by bird

  1. bird
    Spun facts regarding Abreu, my friend. Again, you characterize the Twins as bunglers for having missed on a no-brainer like Abreu, and grant them no room for possibly having other priorities than a DH/1B, or for missing him in the same way 29 teams missed him, i.e. for their own reasons. You continually paint a picture that portrays the Twins as being in an elite category in terms of missing out on this guy. I used Sano as an example of another guy, another no-brainer, that 29 teams missed on. I could have used Hughes, I suppose, but the point to be made is that it's patently unfair to castigate 29 teams as bunglers for missing out on Hughes or Sano. Or Abreu. The Twins bungle plenty. So do other teams. Abreu is not an example of a bungle, that's all.
  2. bird
    Miguel Montero was on my Christmas list, just below Clayton Kershaw.
  3. bird
    I mostly agree with this, if everything works out. While Rodon is a stud, the others are less exciting. The scouting reports on Montas are mixed, despite his ability to throw it fast. He projects as a #3 starter or likely bullpen guy. May, Meyer, Berrios, Stewart, Thorpe, and Gonsalves all have higher ceilings than Spencer and Danish, from what I've read. They compare more favorably to Rogers, Eades, and the like. So, if by some stroke of luck, Sale, Rodon, Quintana, and now Shark remain free of injury, I'd grant that this will be a top 5 rotation when they're all healthy and going well.
  4. bird
    Gotcha. So by your logic, only a few teams had an immediate need for Sano. And Abreu was a major miss for the incompetent Twins, but not for a majority of the other teams, according to the way YOU spin it. Got it.
  5. bird
    So by your logic, you must conclude that every team in baseball is incompetent. After all, they all missed on Sano. I mean, talk about a fat pitch. Except the Twins, who maybe just got lucky.
  6. bird
    Sorry, I thought your main point was that, unlike the Twins, who are merely talking' a good game (one day of winter meetings behind them), the Whities are actually doing something (one day, no confirmation on the Shark trade). My bad. We agree that Hahn is acting boldly.
  7. bird
    Two words: one day. Maybe we should ALL wait on talkin' a good game, eh?
  8. bird
    Oh, and the Twins didn't "miss" on Abreu. They chose not to swing, with logical reasons, whether one agrees with them or not. And they added a better bat than LaRoche last year. Both Arcia and Vargas will prove to be better bats. Let's noe see if they can match up with Sano and Buxton as well.
  9. bird
    The Whities have "a few" Top 100 infielders? Tim Anderson for sure, but now find me two others that are in this category, jokin. And if you're counting Shark on the CWS side of the ledger, it's only fair to subtract Semien. Not to take away from what CWS is accomplishing. I think Hahn is doing a nice job of creating a formidable big league team in very short order, although I question whether he can build a sustainable level of excellence absent either a further resurgence of the farm system beyond two elite prospects or further aggressive spending in FA markets.
  10. bird
    I'm humored by the pre-judging of Ryan after one day of the winter meetings. If one was to put stock in what's been discussed so far, Ryan is clearly not serious. Also, he's talking to all the wrong agents. Besides that, he's pretty much just sitting on his hands while the rest of the division passes him by.
  11. bird
    Hahn certainly had an impressive off-season last year. Looks like he's going out for an encore. Semien, from what I can tell by reading the reports, is perhaps comparable to Jorge Polanco at best. Bassitt had a very nice AFL, but probably compares to Tonkin, or Zack Jones maybe. Both rank among the Whities top 10 prospects. It's of course impossible to know right now, but given Shark's contract status, this might be a bad trade for both sides.
  12. bird
    Even though his moniker is General Soreness in my household, I've become convinced, like a lot of you, that his primary issue is a failure, and perhaps a refusal, to adjust his thinking, and his approach, and that his performance decline has less to do with injury and/or physical decline. First pitch strikes. Big sigh. And 97.327% of his line drives are hit to an area with a radius of 7.334 feet according to BirdGraphs. But even more maddening to BirdGraphs is his clear failure to adjust his mentality with runners on base. According to BirdGraphs, he still is just as happy to coax a walk in that situation as he is to plunk one of his liners just out of the reach of the left fielder. Until BirdGraphs sees that he's jerked a few mediocre fastballs to right with men on, I'll remain in the camp of the less optimistic. Just hoping that, absent Gardy's fawning over how great he is, General Soreness will be up to the task of changing his stubborn ways. Gotta warn you, though, that BirdGraphs can be a bit temperamental.
  13. bird
    But doesn't it make you wonder a bit, Chief, that if the Twins are fools to retain Ryan, how completely inept the Blue Jays must be to even consider someone so obviously incompetent? (Tongue firmly in cheek)
  14. bird
    The depth in truly promising prospects is so impressive. Roughly 30 prospects have been mentioned in this thread not named Buxton, Meyer, or Sano, let alone Arcia, Santana, Hicks, May, or Vargas. Only a handful of them are flyers. Go over to the Tiger's prospect sites and see if you can find even a dozen such prospects, especially since they just traded two of their top 10 prospects for a pitcher whose ceiling is arguably lower than that of Trevor May.
  15. bird
    JT Chargois and Michael Cedaroth.
  16. bird
    Go back and read what he said, because that's precisely what he did. He acknowledged the range issue, didn't he? Do you really feel mislead?
  17. bird
    I'm not sure what you'd expect Ryan to say that he didn't say, Hammer. Would you expect him to say Hunter is subpar as a defender? And why is it difficult to grant him just enough of a license here? Why is it so hard to conclude that, when Ryan balks at providing even the most modest praise, what he means when he says "average" is really the same as what we all know, which is subpar? And c'mon, you don't actually think Ryan would be OK with Molitor sticking Hunter in CF in anything but an emergency, do you? Give the guy some slack with these types of comments and give him a little credit. Do we really think all of us are seeing something that Ryan is missing here?
  18. bird
    This question is related to my comment in what way?
  19. bird
    Frankly, I wonder if a lot of my pals on TD shouldn't ask themselves this question: am I so enamored by the saber metric spreadsheets that I undervalue everything else that goes into making a competent evaluation and overvalue the limited information to which I DO have access? Not defending the Hunter move here. I hate bad OF defense. I bet Ryan knows that Hunter is subpar defensively, but is willing to overlook the problem, counting on the prospects to prove they can produce offensively during the course of what he hopes is a .500 season.
  20. bird
    With this, I agree to a great extent. Clearly, Ryan, not surprisingly given his scouting background and his fine track record that reinforces his view, has tremendous conviction about the value of scouting and the ability of a trained evaluator to see all the pertinent things. It's not as if he doesn't have a valid reason to value what his scouts see more than he values the things the advanced data somewhat inadequately measures. Ballpark nuances, routes, cutoff men, arm accuracy, all brought up here, require eyeballs, right? Clearly, Ryan has been stubborn, and slow to accept the value in some of the new data. They have moved forward at a much slower pace than many organizations, no argument there. But is it perhaps a cheap shot to attribute his stubbornness to hubris and an unwillingness to learn? I think it is. That's all I'm saying. We can be harsh in our criticism without falsely attributing negative personality traits to people.
  21. bird
    I don't interpret his statements as an arrogant dismissal of the stats at all. He didn't reject the data out of hand by any means. Accusing him of hubris and of being generally disdainful of knowledge, however, smacks of condescension and a lack of willingness to give the man any credit at all for acquiring new knowledge. See what I did there, mike?
  22. bird
    I suspect gunnarthur is onto something when he makes the distinction between a discussion of the validity of the defensive measurements and the value one places on what's being measured. My hunch is that Ryan undervalues OF defense to some extent, and that may be because he really doesn't accept the numbers. I mean, they can be a bit startling, when we're talking about a 100-run swing between the best and worst OF defenses. Ryan is astute about a lot of things, but he seems to be way off on this.
  23. bird
    Seems like a lot of handwringing over nothing, gentlemen. They're called journeymen for a reason, and every AAA team in the country has 'em, right?. They come and go, which is why we can conjure up a dozen names from the past within 15 comments here. Yesterday's Maestro is today's Robinson. Big deal.
  24. bird
    Well, then it sounds like he just needs some help with that change up. Let's just get him out there in the pen with Bobby Cue....never mind.
  25. bird
    I'm guessing Robinson is being brought in to mentor Schaefer.
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