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bird

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Everything posted by bird

  1. bird
    I have two gripes about St. Peter, and they're both major. The first is that he suffers from the same cursed obliviousness, or maybe ambivalence, regarding the importance and value of good PR. And more to the record, the enormous damage that is done by bad or nonexistent PR. The second gripe is that he inserts himself into conversations about the baseball side of the business, and when he does, he invariably sounds so foolish. Bring back young Andrew MacPhail.
  2. bird
    Terry Ryan. (*ducks)
  3. bird
    I missed that piece, although I might give it even less credence than I give Reusse's take on Sano frankly.
  4. bird
    Yes, we're hearing more and more speculation about the clubhouse environment, which is to be expected. So far, however, I can't cite a single circumstance where someone with real information and access has talked specifically about this. No beat writer has insinuated that a certain player or players are toxic, or that the team is playing too tight or too loose, etc. The third-party reference here to the Buxton comments is really the first inkling of anything for me, and this is pretty specious evidence of a problem. And yet, I find myself wondering if Molitor, Allen, Brunansky et al aren't struggling with managing the clubhouse, and with getting the best out of the players. The problem with speculation on TD is that the more there is, the more likely that speculation becomes "fact", evidence notwithstanding.
  5. bird
    Nicely said.
  6. bird
    Nicely said.
  7. bird
    Nicely said.
  8. bird
    The small sample size is what you and others have been looking at, not me. It includes a number of starts, some mediocre, some good, at least one bad, but that hasn't stopped people from declaring that he is overdue for promotion based on a few overall stats. Sorry about being so unclear that you failed to grasp my point.
  9. bird
    Perhaps it's not such a no-brainer that Gonsalves should have been advanced to AA by now.
  10. bird
    I'm a guy with a reputation for pushing back fairly hard when I think the criticism is overly harsh and when the comments get irrational, personal, stupid, or stupidly redundant. But I disagree with your point of view here. I'm a daily reader here because a lot of my pals here make very astute and reasoned arguments when they disagree with something the team isn't doing or has done. I may disagree with or question the opinion, but It's offensive to characterize 99% of us as hyperventilating and as members of a peanut gallery.
  11. bird
    This is the most plausible theory that's been suggested on here IMO. Not sure how guys like Polanco or Kepler seem to avoid this, if in fact they have. Without looking, I'm going to guess that the team K rates for our four full-season minor league teams is worse than league average. The question that surfaces for me is, has there been a concerted effort to draft/sign power position players similarly to the conscious effort to accumulate high-velo pitchers? And does this help explain a pattern? I think of guys like Diaz and Minier, and think maybe they rightly or wrongly have had a focus on power guys. However, I still don't rule out the remote possibility that Arcia, Vargas, Rosario, and Danny Santana are "flukes". I have come to the conclusion, however, that their scouts haven't had a very good eye when it comes to projecting on these power guys. Too many misses, or at least what appear to be misses at this juncture.
  12. bird
    so hurtful
  13. bird
    Which minor league prospects, pitching or otherwise, are languishng a level below where they should be? Name a few prospects for whom there isn't a valid, fact-based argument that they are well-served for now at the level they are at. Maybe Toronto did in fact promote guys faster than the Twins might've, I don't know, and I guess I'm skeptical as to how instructive those examples might be. I'll grant this: the Twins give non-premium prospects more and better chances to succeed. They are exceedingly patient. This explains why Pat Dean is getting a spot start in a couple days, and why guys like Darnell Logan get a cup of coffee in MLB, and why Wimmers is still toiling away in AAA. I don't think this slows the advancement of the premium prospects like Berrios at all. I also think there are more benefits associated with this patience than there are problems with it. I agree, the Twins don't appear to have great talent, for example, in AA with guys like Baxendale, Slegers, Eades, etc., but remember, we said the same thing when Duffey was one of them.
  14. bird
    I get what you're saying Mike, but i don't think saying the playoffs matter, or for that matter maybe on fairly rare occasions delaying a promotion until the break says much, if anything. The development staff is not going to impede a player's development. Two more starts at the lower level does not impede a prospect's development. I'm glad you brought up Gonsalves, because he's a perfect example of how fans skew their thinking about how ready a guy is strictly on the basis of their desire to see the guy advance, or maybe because it gives one a chance to be critical. The reality of Gonsalve's last start: 93 pitches in what, 5 1/3 innings? Completely dominating? Hardly. Isn't it just possible that he's well-served right where he is until maybe he can eke out a 6-7 inning per formance in fewer than 93 pitches in back to back games or something? So, to answer the question, I have zero clue as to if Gonsalves is ready for the next level, just like all the rest of the gang on TD.
  15. bird
    If Fernando Romero, Lewis Thorpe, or someone else had pitched 30 innings at Cedar Rapids to the tune of 8BB/43K and a 0.97 WHIP, like Francisco Rios did, do you really think they'd be held back because someone was worried about the standings? Such nonsense. Toronto is novel though, in that they don't have a lot of talent potentially reducing some openings upstream. This is in contrast to the Twins, who have Stewart, Gonsalves, Jay, Rosario, and others at High A. And I know some think those guys are wallowing around a level below where they should be, but a very sound argument can be made for why each of them has been best served so far doing their growing in Fort Myers. Advancement will come, and it has never been stymied one iota because someone was worried about the playoffs.
  16. bird
    Good observation. He threw 93 pitches before being pulled with one out in the 6th in this game.
  17. bird
    There were a hundred prospects better than Wade in his draft class. Benintendi may prove to be among the five best from his draft class. And Benintendi was beating up adults in the minors. This explains the difference in their current status, not some imaginary difference in how the two teams move prospects along. I bet if we looked hard enough, we'd find a Bo Sox prospect toiling in low A who is the same age as Berrios and thereby prove how slow Boston is to advance its prospects.
  18. bird
    Promote him to Target Field right this second!
  19. bird
    I'm very interested in hearing about which of these players you believe the FO is receiving an undeserved free pass. I so often find myself wondering why the discussion isn't more often skewed toward the performance of the players instead of the FO? Or even the hitting coach or manager? Not picking on you, but while we're at it, we might address an earlier post about excuses related to Ryan's bad decisions that used Sano, Buxton, and others as the apparent examples. Ryan Ryan Ryan Ryan Ryan.....
  20. bird
    Not sure how to answer this. Chief?
  21. bird
    I almost feel guilty, but I have a very long list of Twins players I hope perform well for the sole reason that I want them to be traded for good value as soon as possible. Nolasco and Milone are at the top of my list, but there are so many! I mean, so so many!
  22. bird
    I understand the issue and more or less agree with you, but with three caveats: first, they weren't using early first-round picks, and once we get down to the 40-50 overall selections, where virtually every prospect has flaws to overcome, it's arguable that picking the occasional flamethrower is a good idea; second, the jury is still out on a lot of these prospects; and third, the KC success story might be telling us that these prospects have been under-valued in the draft.
  23. bird
    I agree with this, and with ashburyjohn's thoughts about weighting the scores dramatically to factor in the reality of how few, and how important, those handful of elite prospects become to the success of their clubs. There aren't a dozen truly elite prospects available in any given draft. Draft order is by far the largest determinant of the eventual success, IMO. Additionally, the league has taken considerable steps to level the playing field via the allocation system, and more clubs have recently decided to commit to the draft and development process rather than spending in FA or attempting to outsmart other teams via trades. There just aren't many teams who are "bad at drafting" anymore, but still, playing catch-up with a depleted system is harder than ever. The ticket is drafting in one of the half-dozen top slots for consecutive drafts. And BTW, contrary to some opinions, the Twins have been really good at drafting for a decade or so now. A person holding to the belief that they are bad at drafting would be hard-pressed to maintain credibility if forced to present the complete facts, which would require a comparison of the results of teams who drafted each year within a few slots of where the Twins drafted.
  24. bird
    Apparently, in at least PECOTA's case, wildass projections.
  25. bird
    Based on this arithmetic, what are your projections regarding PECOTA's accuracy for 2016?
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