Jump to content
Twins Daily
  • Create Account

bird

Verified Member
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    1,413

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Profiles

Minnesota Twins News, Rumors & Analysis

Minnesota Twins Videos

2026 Minnesota Twins Top Prospect Rankings

2022 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks & Signing Bonuses

Minnesota Twins Trade & Free Agent Rumors

Minnesota Twins Fan Guides & Resources

2023 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks & Signing Bonuses

The Minnesota Twins Players Project

2024 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks & Signing Bonuses

2025 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks & Signing Bonuses

2026 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks & Signing Bonuses

Forums

Blogs

Events

Store

Downloads

Gallery

Everything posted by bird

  1. bird
    The scouts couldn't disagree with you much more, Mr. Brooks. They assign an extremely high probability to his success, and most every one of them describes his other tools as a whole lot better than "no other tools", with speed being his worst at 40 on the 20-80 scale as I recall. His arm is way way better than average, and lots of pros think he has a good chance to stick at 3B for a few years at least.
  2. bird
    We should also cool the notion that selling high means getting an All Star corner OF for him. My biggest complaint about this FO is, forever, they have disposed of players for abysmal returns. I attribute this to the fact that they don't have a strategic plan pertaining to a "sell discipline". Selling from surplus to fill holes is a strategic process, and the Twins suck at it. Escobar conceivably represents a salable asset that meets the dual criteria of coming off a good year with some doubt about its repeatability, and being a player for whom there are very solid prospects that your replacement for him is an upgrade, perhaps immediately. Put him on the market this winter, and accept only an overpay. If you get it, live with some combination of Santana, Nunez, Rosario, Florimon, Michael. Hell, make this whole collection available, but set your price. Set it nice and high.
  3. bird
    I'd wait until the message gets through his thick hair to stop pulling the ball and slap it the other way. Once that's accomplished, we can send him off grumbling about the Twins Way for the proverbial bag of baseballs.
  4. bird
    Also concur. Especially in light of the fact that Florimon is doing in AAA what they hoped he'd do up here, Polanco appears to be at the doorstep as a very adequate utility guy, Nunez is an OK fallback as a bench guy, and even Michael may be turning the corner at AA. Maybe we could buy low on Liriano.
  5. bird
    Good point about being contextual. I'd advise putting the whole subject of their "past approach" in context as well, which I think you generally do. They have never, ever simply told pull hitters to slap the ball the other way, I'm absolutely certain of that. I'm also certain that, when a pull hitter is struggling to make adjustments to well-located change-ups and breaking balls and find themselves contending with huge holes in their swings at the next level of competition, the very most common and sound piece of advice a hitting coach is going to supply is to adjust to get better plate coverage and to hit the ball where it's pitched. Plouffe is a recent example of how this advice works. I'm just not so sure that Ortiz didn't get similar advice and was simply a bit misguided in his criticism. I'm not blindly defending any coaches, but don't we often blindly accept a player's criticism as gospel? If we knew the entire context of most of these situations, we'd probably be less critical of both player and coach and recognize how nuanced some of these changes are.
  6. bird
    Key words: "right now".
  7. bird
    On Arcia, like I said, right now he's a very ordinary player, a league average corner OF with a .300 OPB, a tendency to get over-amped in the clutch and have gawd-awful AB's, so I agree 100%, he should open his ears and shut his yap, because he has all the makings of being a beast. And while stealing bases is a god-given gift, using all fields is much much less so. Lots of players make that adjustment. You know, this other subject, about what coaches do or don't do with certain players? I think we grasp for the same narrative a lot, and IMO it's an oversimplification at best and a convenient criticism at worst. The Ortiz story has become this truer-than-life thing, and frankly, I think it's a half-myth. Wish we could compare spray charts of his time here versus in Boston. He DOES hit to the opposite field. I don't think he overcame a coaching issue when he left here. He simply grew up as a hitter. And this notion that we run a risk that coaches are going to sap Meyer and May of velocity by forcing them to "pitch to contact", in my mind, is completely senseless. Give me the names of past Twins pitching prospects that threw it up there at 97MPH. Until recently, we haven't drafted a single pitcher with that sort of velo, mainly because when you draft at #22, you get stuck with the likes of Kyle Gibson. Even Justin Verlander and Yordani Ventura have to throw it in the zone.
  8. bird
    I'm sorry, but Arcia is a very very ordinary player right now. He'd be well-served to close his mouth and open his ears.
  9. bird
    If the decisions were based on highest ceiling, Stewart and Thorpe would be ahead of ALL of these guys, right? Meyer just needs to fully demonstrate that he's got his arm strength and command. He'll get his shot, but unfortunately for us, in 2015.
  10. bird
    Yes, they are cautious about innings, but there are other fast risers too. Stewart and Hu come to mind. It has been injury, not a conservative advancement policy (other than controlling innings), that derailed others who were being fast-tracked: Zach Jones, Felix Jorge, Goncalves, Landa come to mind. And very obviously, Gibson, Meyer, and May can all blame their detours on health setbacks much moreso than any reticence to advance them otherwise.
  11. bird
    Yeah, me too, and I keep getting warnings about it.
  12. bird
    Which of the prospects now being indoctrinated would have looked anything but overmatched in 2013? We got the "no shortcuts" speech for a reason in 2013. The transition was in full swing then, but it needed more time in the oven. This is a more complete and more dynamic overhaul than the Puckett/Hrbek one. Probably 2-3 times more projectable individual talent this time around, and we'll have the ammo to make the Bruno-type trade to fill a hole or two.
  13. bird
    What am I, chopped liver?
  14. bird
    Jason Adam slid from being the 9th best prospect to the 16th best in KC. I'm wondering if he's even the 16th best PITCHER in our system. Where does he slot in? 1. Meyer 2. Stewart 3. Berrios 4. Thorpe 5. May 6. Burdi 7. Tonkin 8. Jorge 9. Romero 10. Goncalves And then, lots of guys more comparable to him? Which of these guys would you have given up for him? Gilmartin, Hu, Darnell, Johnson, Olivares, Rosario, Jiminez, Landa, Cedaroth, Rogers, Duffy, Lee, Jones, Melotakis, Eades, Slegers, Wheeler, Reed... Who's his best comp among our prospects?
  15. bird
    Anderson should have no trouble fixing Jason Adam. Ducking now...
  16. bird
    No reason to be discouraged. This is Dick Bremer we're talking about.
  17. bird
    There's more to pitching well than a handful of stats. In the minds of the staff who watches him every day, Meyer most likely hasn't pitched as well as his statistics. But if you have to hang your hat on numbers and are honestly trying to figure out why he hasn't been promoted, perhaps his pitch counts are telling.
  18. bird
    I personally don't know squat, but something tells me Gladden's comments are a bit simplistic. We're hearing Smalley lately talking about how Dozier could go from .240 to .280 if he uses the whole field. Plouffe's improvement was about plate coverage and how taking it the other way was his only option with those pitches. Arcia can look foolish up there, and Brock, I'm not so convinced he's talented enough to be dead-pull even if he rids himself of the hitch in his swing that gets talked about. I mean, wouldn't he be better of showing the ability to drive the ball with authority to all fields?
  19. bird
    Oh, and Liriano's stinking up the joint again. Must be because he reverted to all the old habits that rubbed off when he was mishandled by Anderson, right? Geez.
  20. bird
    First of all, I'm not defending Anderson. He's probably no better and no worse than the others. I'm blasting your argument because it has more holes in it than a hair net. For every pitcher, starter AND reliever, that you can put up some ridiculously specious claim that Andy is responsible for their performance, I can stack up two that improved once they got here or declined when they left. And think about how silly your argument is about Liriano. When he was exceptional with the Twins, was that in SPITE of Andy? And why would you argue that relievers don't count? Seriously, you want to NOT rip on Andy when a reliever fails? Like, lately, Burton? You can do better than that.
  21. bird
    I know the Meyer case is a source of frustration, but I think it's very feasible that, given his walk rate, he'd get eaten alive up here by the middle of the order and even struggle with the bottom of the order guys. The argument has been belabored for sure, but it feels like everybody just assumes any struggles he has will be nominal.
  22. bird
    So predictable! But hey, really, it's that incompetent fool Marty Mason in Rochester that has got to go!! Diamond gets turned over to Powers in Louisville, and boom, you see what a GOOD pitching coach can do. Diamond's unhittable now, thanks to Powers. That Mason, what a clown! Well, except if he was still working for the Cards. Because in THAT case, just like every other coach and manager and FO guy with the Cards, Marty Mason is a genius. Especially when compared to that incompetent fool Rick Anderson. I mean, look at the shambles Anderson's made of....hmmm....Worley?.....um....Fien?....er, Thielbar maybe? Never mind.
  23. bird
    This is an uplifting list for sure. A year ago, and especially two years ago, there were quite a few proclamations that the system was bereft of legitimate pitching prospects, and we can now see that the problem was well on the way to being corrected even then. Now, if only we could get some bats in the lower minors.
  24. bird
    A 40" vertical leap, right? 38" better than Willingham's, right? Maybe they can stand him out at the LF fence when Correia and Burton pitch.
  25. bird
    It's because they already know what they have and aren't going to care that we don't know what they have at this stage. Nothing's terribly broken in the MLB bullpen, although Burton's been more bad than good, but big deal. Perhaps they have concluded that Tonkin, Achter, Oliveres, Ibarra, and Thompson aren't better alternatives. They did bring up Pressly. Not sure what the complaint really is here, mike.
×
×
  • Create New...