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bird

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Everything posted by bird

  1. bird
    Another way to see it, Kwak, is that guys like Hunter and Cuddyer stumbled out of the gates. It's a common occurance. Therefore there's little logic in taking a sober view towards Hicks just yet. Someone (cmath?) posted BA's top 10 Twins prospects from 2008 in another thread, juxtaposing it with our 2014 top 10. Virtually everyone will agree that the 2014 group is vastly superior. And yet, every single prospect on the rather unimpressive 2008 list had at least a cup of coffee in MLB. So, when I see the stats and read the scouting reports on the 2014 group, it doesn't sober me, it excites me. Hick's experience is completely irrelevant to me.
  2. bird
    I take your word for it, jokin. No opinion and no skin in the game here. Produce a top 100. I'll throw it on the spreadsheet with Sickles, Law and the other experts. Then my answer would have been: "Berrios would probably be ranked by most as the best pitcher in the Cleveland and Detroit system and one of the two or three top prospects in Chicago's system." Hope this is satisfactory with you, Eric Johnson, and any other dissenters of the experts' rankings.
  3. bird
    jokin, I have no argument against your love for Micah Johnson or Eric Johnson. If I had an opinion it would be valueless. The above statement about Berrios is supported by the rankings from MLB, Bullpen Banter, Sickles, Baseball Prospectus, and Top Prospect Alert. None of them ranked Abreu. Most of them did not rank Micah Johnson. The question was simply, where might Berrios rank in other systems, and I shared what I knew the experts were saying about teams in the division. You perhaps disagree with these experts, which is fine by me.
  4. bird
    I believe most rankers would say that Eric Johnson might be a tad better or worse than Berrios. Abreu doesn't qualify, and Micah Johnson makes mybe one or two top 100 lists. Berrios is ranked anywhere dfrom #49 to 125 on the lists I've seen. Most recently, I believe Baseball Prospectus ranked seven Twins prospects before the first (and only) White Sox prospect, and I don't recall that it was either of these two Johnsons. At any rate, jokin, Baseball Prospectus is highly credible, so I'll take the dissenting votes from these White Sox prospects with a huge grain of salt.
  5. bird
    Love the lists, thanks. The depth of the system may be underrated. On the lists I've tracked, 22 different prospects have made someone's top 10 this year and last; 49 have made someone's Top 25. Gilmartin can barely make a top 25 with us, and where did he rank last year with his former team? Top 10 guy I think.
  6. bird
    Sorry, I missed the fine print that restricted the conversation about the power rankings to 2014 outcomes. So, sticking to that, the outcome for 2014, for me, will be a much more fun, interesting, and hopeful season and the Twins will end up with a better poewr ranking than #26. Even better that Chicago. And San Diego's farm system was no match for the Twins in 2014, not even close.
  7. bird
    Twelve prospects ranked among MLB to 125 in the past tw years: Buxton, Sano, Meyer, Stewart, Rosario, Pinto, Berrios, Gibson, Hicks, Arcia, Kepler, and Thorpe.
  8. bird
    You're absolutely right, mike, there's practically zero chance either team will even reach the level of mediocrity in 2014. But there's nothing wrong with hope unless it's false hope, and that's the difference between the teams. I certainly wouldn't tune in to watch the Twins if there was little hope. But here's why I'm willng to tolerate whatever happens in 2014: Arcia, Pinto, Hicks, Gibson, Tonkin, Meyer, and Sano. I hope they ALL contribute by or before 2015, and it's very highly likely that most of them will. That's a boatload of hope,and then it gets even better: Buxton, Rosario, Santana, May, Gilmartin, Baxendale, and Turner. Another seven who could possibly arrive as early as 2015. So that's 14 players that make the hope very real and huge improvement very likely, starting in 2014 and accelerating. The Twins have 12 prosects who have been ranked among baseball's top 125 prospects by various credible sources. Twelve!! The White Sox? Three. The Twins will be more fun to watch in 2014. ecae wehave real hope arriving.
  9. bird
    He might possibly be regarded as the White Sox' best prospect and would rank as the best pitching prospect were he in either Detroit's or Cleveland's system I think.
  10. bird
    The salt in the wound for Chicago is that their farm system ranks #26, a slot or two better than Detroit's.
  11. bird
    There you go, moderators. Testing....testing.
  12. bird
    Dave, Dave, Dave. Sigh. A brilliant man died because he was an addict and he was unable to avoid succumbing to a disease he was born with and fought. Hardly "laughable", my insensitive friend, and the name-calling reflects poorly. On you, not him. Sigh.
  13. bird
    And it would be based on the weakest excuse I've given you guys in years. Thanks to all of you for your work and the joy you add to each day for so many of us.
  14. bird
    Dave, are you sure it wasn't deleted because it failed to budge the needle on the Funny Meter? Which segues to my question: is gentle needling allowed?
  15. bird
    Well stated. The steak is in the reports, not in the stats. But yes, there may be a little to much sizzle going on.
  16. bird
    You are bound to be challenged, thrylos, when you dismiss the results in the Aussie league by describing the league as underwhelming. You also dismissed his spectacular performance in the GCL by writing it off as competing against a bunch of kids struggling with a wooden bat. And yet, while ranking Thorpe as your #18 prospect because the GCL inflated his numbers, you ranked a virtually unknown GCL teammate Jose Abreu as your #23 prospect based on his marvelous numbers as a relief pitcher. How do you account for this? I guess I'm picking on you here, but you've put your opinion out there. I find 12 rankings of Thorpe, all more favorable than yours. Same with Kepler, by the way: all 12 of the other experts rank him several slots more favorably in their rankings than you do. And with Kepler, you dismiss injuries, age, and inexperience as factors and simply cite the numbers. So that's where I get lost. Why just the numbers in Kepler's and Abreu's cases and then a blatant discounting of the numbers when it comes to Thorpe?
  17. bird
    There are as many as a dozen prospects that are the equal of or better than May. That's really encouraging. Oh, 13 if you count Engelb Vielma.
  18. bird
    Sorry, I don't buy this at all, oldguy. Can you please name one place, other than right here, that you've read anything that even hinted that he was self-serving and less than a positive clubhouse guy? Are you sure that the "much has been written" isn't all from this forum?
  19. bird
    And please also be careful as a moderator. The only comment I see in this thread that was "too personal" was an attack on the character of someone who is not here to defend himself, Cuddyer. Can anyone give us even anecdotal evidence that Cuddyer was not respected, even admired, by his teammates? Any "whispers" that Cuddyer was self-serving have come from right here, in my opinion, and from one person in particular. Cuddyer may be comfortable in front of the camera, and the media gravitates towards guys like him. Same with Puckett and now Dozier. I'd encourage the moderators to treat unfounded assaults against a person's character with the same vigilance regardless of whether the victim is a commenter or a celebrity who is not present. It is not alright to do that just because he/she is a public figure.
  20. bird
    Actually, my dear friend thrylos, what's unfair is for you to characterize Cuddyer in the way you have. You have been hugely critical of Cuddyer for years, haven't you? Both his personality and his proficiency as a ballplayer. Answer this question: what evidence can you give us that Cuddyer is not "a clubhouse guy" in the same vein as Pelfry? I'm callin' bias.
  21. bird
    Good point about Thorpe's test results from the Aussie winter league, against experienced hitters that know how to swing a wooden bat. I've been thinking about Vielma, particularly in light of how completely meaningless the statistics are from the Dominican Summer League in forecasting success for position players. Maybe we shouldn't be too quick to dismiss him. Let's hope he's that good!
  22. bird

    Meyer and Span

    bird posted a blog entry in Blog birdwatcher

  23. bird
  24. bird
    Actually, thrylos, I count six experts who rank Thorpe among the Twin's top 10, and five of them have surely seen him pitch, have talked to scouts, and have studied video. They have probably reviewed his stats as well. I count five others who have less information, but all of them rank Thorpe higher than you do. In fact, I have yet to run across a singlr author of rankings that has Thorpe ranked lower than you do. I don't know, but I'd guess perhaps you ought to be the one questioning your ranking and not the other way around.
  25. bird
    Taking a cheap shot at Radcliffe is small. Anyone with even a modicum of baseball knowledge who saw Nishi tape from Japan can see how glaringly different he was here in the States. What caused it? Personal turmoil? Culture shock? Gardenhire? Most of us don't think we have the answer... So, I think we can take in Radcliffe's comments on Vielma without a single grain of salt and accept it for what it is: observations of a 17-year old kid in the lowest levels of the minors who stands out. Radcliffe has said nice things about players who became stars, too, so it's pretty hard to know when to pick up the saltshaker, isn't it?
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