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bird

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Everything posted by bird

  1. bird
    If we need a CF for "a few years" before Buxton is ready, we're in a world of hurt. If i"m the GM, Buxton and Sano are competing to come out of spring training as my CF and 3B. If they prove to be not quite up to it, I'm leaving Santana, a better defender than maybe any of the outfielders we've trotted out there, as my CF, Escobar as a starter at SS, and Plouffe as my 3B until they ARE ready. If they need all of 2015 in the minors, well, that's gonna suck. If they ARE ready, Santana moves to SS, Plouffe platoons with that Arcia in either LF or RF, and Escobar is a utility guy. My main goals over the winter are to acquire via trade or free agency a two-way corner OF for either RF or LF, and I'm going for quality, a starter that meets or exceeds the Hughes Standard, and a young catcher who we perceive as an upgrade to Suzuki. Minor tweaks to the BP.
  2. bird
    The best minds in baseball couldn't tell you what impact Hicks will have in 2015. All I know is that, if I'm the GM, he's competing for the 4th OF spot in spring training. I am not going to count on him.
  3. bird
    First of all, I place close to zero credibility in the quote purportedly extracted from Ryan by Sir Sidney. I'm relying on the myriad of quotes that clearly state that this is not a certainty. That said, I have this nagging suspicion that Gardy is a goner, and that they have been leaning towards a change for over a year, but being the slowest-moving decision-makers imaginable, they just weren't quite ready to pull the trigger last fall. If it's Molitor, they may already have had secret conversations about who stays and who goes. And if it's surprisingly someone from the outside, I'd be inclined to think they would limit the new manager's authority and do what they've always done, which is make those decisions in-house and then describe them to us as a consensus decision. My guess is that Ryan's safe for now and will be firmly in charge of it.
  4. bird
    Sorry if you took it that I was insinuating anything related to your own point of view. I was just responding to the question on its face value. My own observation is that many many more of us feel a sense of loyalty and connection to the players, which is natural. I've never seen Dave St. Peter do anything awe-inspiring. As I raised my own kids and brought them to games, we occasionally talked about keeping our admiration for the players "between the lines". And for me personally, having had what I think of as a career filled with challenging managerial decisions, I suppose I have a high level of empathy for guys like Ryan, and even Gardy, and am likely to cut more slack when they inevitably screw something up big time. But loyalty? No, none at all, really.
  5. bird
    Exactly! Well said!
  6. bird
    The one thing I can think of off the top of my head, Nick, is that it's easy to attribute loyalty as the reason someone supports Ryan or Gardy when in actuality its a judgment based on entirely different factors. And that's one of those things that sours a good discussion, when a non-supporter gets called a whiner or a supporter gets called blindly loyal. Personally, that fries my behind.
  7. bird
    After reading the whole article, i came away with these cursory observations and thoughts about it: 1. It's a good idea to come up with some set criteria by which to help fans make judgments about how good their GM is. But in the three years the author intermittently worked on the project, I wonder if he researched common practices boards of companies use to establish performance measurements for corporate management. His criteria, while obvious and logical areas of measurement, lack even the most rudimentary means of adjusting and discounting outside variables. 2. His credibility for me was weakened considerably by his descriptive prose of each GM. It all sounds like subjective observations to me. 3. And when the author does in fact talk about his statistics, it behooves his argument to at least have the facts straight. In his very first one, he starts with hyperbolic praise in his first sentence, and then backs it up in the next sentence by saying the Cards had the highest-ranked farm system in baseball last year (2013, I presume, since the article was penned this year). I looked around, and find the ranking of their system to be no better than #6.
  8. bird
    I think Terry Ryan is the absolute best GM in all of baseball. This is cut and dried. There is no room for argument.
  9. bird
    Funny thing, I've always viewed the Twins as being a Harvard Business School case study on how NOT to conduct public relations. I didn't need this stupid question on what is probably a sophomoric "survey" to tell me that the Twins management had selected a poor ad agency again. Had been hoping that letting the former Director of Marketing go last year would result in quicker improvement. Looks like they're still a long way from attaining a standard fitting for a billion dollar business with extremely high public scrutiny.
  10. bird
    This makes sense. Although I remain skeptical that a significant part of the problem might stem from not being forceful enough in requiring guys to make adjustments in advance. And I noticed the announcement today that Bill Springman, roving minor league batting coach, has been let go. I also wonder if another factor is too few Latin American coaches in the system. Just a wild guess here that maybe we're seeing some signs that the Twins are going to be more open to some turnover in the future. Maybe just wishful thinking as well.
  11. bird
    I'm really hoping that Ryan disagrees with you that Nolasco, Hughes, and Gibson comprise a quasi-decent front of the rotation. I hope he thinks of Hughes as a passable #2/3, Gibson as a passable #3/4, and Nolasco as a passable #4/5. I'd like to avoid putting salt in the wound of not having an ace by simply suggesting that our biggest need, going into 2015, is a proven starter that meets or exceeds the Hughes Standard, i.e. another passable #2/3 starter or better. That way, we can sit back and enjoy whatever journey Meyer and May are going to take us on, hoping that, maybe by 2016, at least one of them slots in as a front of the rotation guy. All the other guys- Johnson, Milone, Pelfrey, Darnell, Gilmartin, are part of a commodity that can be easily found in the marketplace for the price of, say, a 4th outfielder. I'm afraid this extends to AA prospects like Rogers, with the one important exception of Berrios.
  12. bird
    Thanks for another great article, Parker. I've been wondering about the subject of why these types of seemingly detectable flaws are being "discovered" for the first time once they hit the big leagues, after having spent many years in the system. I'm thinking about Vargas being coached on footwork for a few hours by Tom Kelly as an extreme example of why I have this question in my head: Why the hell are these guys-Pinto, Arcia, Vargas, etc.- coming up here with purportedly correctable flaws? What have the instructors at the lower levels been up to? Sure wish we could get someone to really grill Brad Steil or someone on this subject.
  13. bird
    Yes.
  14. bird
    Anderson. Definitely Anderson.
  15. bird
    Funny stuff. And who could give you better buy signal on the Twins than Sweet Keith just did? Fairness has never been a strong suit for that acerbic, mean-spirited cheap shot artist. But he IS funny sometimes. If Olbermann was a car, it would have been driven in the Mad Max movie.
  16. bird
    That damn Rick Anderson.
  17. bird
    Well said regarding Buxton and Sano. I'd leave Santana, Plouffe, and Escobar in the lineup until those two supplant them and Santana pushes Escobar out. And it's not illogical to think that both of them would be ready to contribute some time in 2015. In fact it might be illogical to think they wouldn't. So, they have two massive holes: an above-average corner OF and a starter that projects to be as good as we thought Hughes was going to be, or better. I'd love it if they'd shop for a young catcher too. The bullpen will get overhauled and is a minor concern because we have good options there.
  18. bird
    The answer to your question from last week is that none of us are confused about the difference between bad baseball and good baseball. Furthermore, almost no one is satisfied with the quality of today's baseball at Target Field. A handful of us ARE satisfied with the level of progress being made. So perhaps the young man isn't properly distinguishing the difference between being satisfied with the progress versus being satisfied with the level of play.
  19. bird
    No, no, no. Not sure why people are so hot to trot to move Santana out of CF. My eyeballs are telling me he's not too shabby out there in CF. I'm keeping Santana in CF until I have a better option, which might not be until Buxton is ready. Escobar's not too shabby at SS, so moving Santana doesn't fix a problem at SS, but instead maybe creates a problem in the outfield, depending upon what other moves Ryan makes. As for Hicks, I'm ambivalent about his call up, frankly. Rochester is in the throes of a chase for the wild card, and yet Hicks is on Glynn's bench? Is anyone convinced that Hicks improves things as an alternative in CF and LF to Schaffer and Santana, defensively or offensively? The timing for trading Plouffsie is bad. Why not wait until Sano is in place?
  20. bird
    My admittedly eccentric view is that all of professional sports, which includes college football and basketball, are enjoying the benefits of operating in an ultra-long and unprecedented financial bubble. In my opinion, even if all the little things like length of games were fixed, this won't stave off what I predict is forthcoming. I stopped attending games quite some time ago. I just can't feel good about paying for an experience that the average family of four can't afford. As someone who loves baseball, who grew up shelling out my paper route money at Met Stadium and worked at the stadium as a teenager to bask in it all, not having an acceptable "baseball experience" has broken my heart. I am one of the lucky ones who can afford season tickets, let alone a single game, but think about how estranged you'd feel about baseball if you were priced out of the experience. I predict the bubble will burst, and when it does, it will burst big-time. Teams, their TV partners, and their sponsors will find their sources of revenue dwindling, rapidly and significantly. There will be no other solution than to deal with the expense side of things, so player salaries will be the first thing to be under pressure. The pendulum may swing to the point of bankruptcy and contraction. I don't believe professional sports will recover from this downturn until the game day experience once again becomes something the middle class can afford. Now how's THAT for a whacky viewpoint?
  21. bird
    Oh my Lord. Has Ryan ever said something you wouldn't pick apart. I'm sorry, but this statement is just so far over the top.
  22. bird
    Andy MacPhail always said the same thing. Smith too. It's not relevant that you and I "don't know" what the budget was/is. The GM has ALWAYS known what the budget is, and they have always known they can go to ownership and get approval to spend more. I'm in solidarity about abandoning this constant futile exercise of looking into the past and attempting to attribute blame on GMs using whatever "facts" we have at our disposal in each of our little vacuums. I want people to tell me instead what they think the GM should focus on in the future, or at least stay in the present and soundly thrash the poor guy for all his recent transgressions.
  23. bird
    best post ever? back that up with some stats. provide links.
  24. bird
    C'mon now, nick. These are statistics, and we all know statistics are objective.
  25. bird
    Sorry, but have you been reading much of what Ryan's been telling reporters over the last couple of years? Wow. I mean, how could anyone possibly practice accountability more diligently than Ryan has? Name me one single instance, just one, in which Ryan has blamed someone else for a problem or used some lame excuse. And even if you can find that one, we can find dozens and dozens of examples where he's told us that it's on him. With sincerity at that.
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