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bird

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Everything posted by bird

  1. bird
    Who are you calling Kepler? I mean, how would YOU feel if someone called you ErnieBanks?
  2. bird
    Name one.
  3. bird
    The Justin Upton signing is an obvious and desperate attempt to temporarily cycle up into contention one last time before the bills start to come in. It might just work. But after 2016, they seem fairly destined for a sustained period of obscurity. The farm system outside of Norris, Fullmer and possibly one other guy is barren. They'll have years of contract obligations with almost nothing to show for it, and they've moved just about every prospect they have now. And the Upton signing is not going to be enough unless everything gels for them, most importantly Verlander and Sanchez. It's at least a possibility that Arcia and/or Park give the Twins about what Upton gives the Tigers, let alone a full year of Sano and a MLB-ready Buxton. Counting on productive starts from Norris, Fullmer and that one other guy is no better than counting on Berrios, Duffey and May to bolster the Twins rotation in 2016.
  4. bird
    Okay, you got me. I cringed at the thought of Arcia and Sano flanking even Buxton. I think you convinced me that Fowler would be a decent idea, as I'd forgotten he was a FA. So, in my mind, if any three of Buxton, Rosario, Santana, Kepler, and Sano prove to be inadequate defensively out of the gate...and it certainly is possible that four of these guys leave something to be desired on opening day. I suppose Ryan thinks he's covered that potential "temporary" problem with Mastro, Sweeney, and Benson. It's a cobbled mess.
  5. bird
    And sure, all six things could fall OUT of place to start the season, but how likely is THAT? Sano, Buxton, Rosario, Arcia, Santana, and Kepler. If you vote for four bad outcomes, you push for them to trade valuable assets off for Fowler I guess. Even if, for example, Buxton and Kepler are ready later in the year? That's where it gets questionable for me.
  6. bird
    Actually, this may be the depth chart coming out of spring training for a reason other than that suggested by you, Levi, and Mike. 1. The Twins appear to be more confident in Sano's ability to perform in a corner OF spot than most of us. I can see him surprising us out there with his defense. 2. The light bulb could go off for Buxton. We might be quickly reminded about the kind of extraordinary impact scouts are projecting this player to offer. 3. Either or both Arcia and Santana could reclaim the stuff they showed us in glimpses. For both of them, the answer is very likely to come from straightening out what's in their heads. So, if Kepler is "better", great. But calling this situation a "cobbled mess" is extreme to me. Uncertainty, yes, a mess, no. As for Kepler, I'm excited about a couple of things. First Bernardo reports that other teams kept asking about him this winter, which is nice affirmation. Second, Molitor's comments are glowing and somewhat telling. He said he's looking forward to seeing if Kepler puts himself "in the mix" during spring training. I know it's popular around these parts to immediately assume the Twins will favor a less deserving veteran. But I think Molitor would be fairly assertive if he thought Kepler was ready and the third best starting option to start the season.
  7. bird
    Yeah, it's simply amazing to me that this organization continues its long history of ineptitude when it comes to public relations.
  8. bird
    In order to have the same conversation, we might have to agree about what we generally see in AAA versus in AA. With a few exceptions at a given moment AAA is filled with guys who are MLB ready but just not quite good enough talent-wise, whereas AA is filled with guys who are good enough talent-wise but just not quite ready. From a development standpoint, I doubt there's a huge discrepancy regarding which level is better for a guy who maybe has a thing or two left to work on or just needs a tad more experience. The placement decision probably has little to do with the level of play and more to do with which environment offers the better playing opportunity and teaching conditions.
  9. bird
    It's difficult to look back and then put everything into proper perspective. We tend to elevate our level of optimism about our own prospects. I try to remind myself about how dismal the success rate is, and remember that the success rate starts to fall off a cliff even before the end of the first round. And by the second round, expect one in six to ultimately become a contributing MLB regular. If one gets a Google Machine and points it at The Interweb, one might see a study or two, perhaps from a site called BA, that supports this. Whether a team has a "strategy" of selecting high-velo pitchers (low-velo pitchers throw hard too) or athletic outfield prospects with their non-first round picks, the odds absolutely suck for those prospects, like 17% success for a 2nd rounder and that falls off to closer to 5% for a 5th round guy IIRC. Worse I'd guess for pitchers because of the injury toll. I'm not sold on an intense focus on drafting high-velo guys in those early rounds, although it might be that there aren't many left to pick from after the early rounds other than the types who grow into their bodies and increase their velo. So, if the odds of MLB success are roughly one in six for guys picked after the first round, we should probably feel fortunate if two or three of these guys pan out.
  10. bird
    Maybe I'm being fooled (probably am), but I felt better after listening to what Ryan said during his interview with MLB.com yesterday. Essentially, he said the team has quantity but needs to upgrade the quality, and he was quite clearly referring to pitching. This leads me to think they're focused on perhaps a single target, and this would be an understandable departure from past years when there were lots of holes to fill. For me, I will be disappointed if Ryan fails to find one upgrade that meets or exceeds the Jepsen Standard. Sipp and Bastardo types. My hunch is the internal BP options will be a pleasant surprise to us in 2016, but they need that one high-leverage lefty.
  11. bird
    My disappointment regarding Pinto occurred two years ago, when it became clear that, after a decade of minor league ball, his catching skills were still below MLB standards in the eyes and minds of the pros who saw him in action every day and were able to competently assess every aspect of his performance. And unfortunately for Josmil, his battle with concussions probably puts the nail in the coffin on his future as anything other than a DH. It might be a long shot for him to become league average as a DH as well.
  12. bird
    So they took a chance on Bard instead of going with the sure thing? Impossible.
  13. bird
    For sure, the results have been a mixed bag. I'm still unwilling to concede that the "strategy" is flawed. I base that on the overall history of failure of all picks for all teams past the top half of the first round. The injury history for these high-velo pitchers is almost shocking. But the Twin's track record is definitely spotty going back to Shooter Hunt, Carlos Guttierrez, and Billy Bullock. Since then, injury, and not faulty selection, is to blame for much of the subdued optimism: Bard, Chargois, Melotakis, Jones, Romero, Landa, Curtiss, Cedaroth, and a few others. Expectations maybe got a little out of control (pun intended) regarding Burdi and Reed. But those two have issued zero walks in about 20+ innings so far in Arizona, so things are looking up for them. And we have others in the pipeline too: Peterson, Booser, Rosario, Jorge, etc., let alone guys who may still emerge like Pressly, Tonkin, Graham, and Meyer. It's important to note that every one of the pitchers named here possess good velocity, and that I'm not talking about guys like Hildenberger, Baxendale, Darnell, Rogers, etc. Something tells me that before the end of the 2016 season, relief pitching might be described as a real strength rather than a catastrophic weakness.
  14. bird
    #1 by a long shot for me was Ervin Santana being a cheater. 2. Arcia being utterly futile in every respect. 3. Mauer. Sigh. 4. Kennys Vargas, Danny Santana , and Josmil Pinto going 0 for 3 in terms of establishing themselves as part of the future. 5. Alex Meyer.
  15. bird
    Fantastic job with the homework on this guy, thrylos. We should root hard for this man.
  16. bird
    Let's think about it another way though. Teams have to get power and extra base production from somewhere, The chances of getting to from C, SS, 2B, or CF are generally limited. That's the reason historically that teams look to the corners for that kind of production. So, a team can sacrifice that type of production from one or two corners, but only if they're getting it elsewhere, right? I think you might be right when it comes to the Twins, but that's assuming your 2016 power production comes from 2B, 3B, DH, and ???. The caveat about "corner OF type" is that power production has to come from somewhere else if Mauer is manning 1B for example.
  17. bird
    Yeah, I agree with your first two sentences. Radke was never an ace. James Shields? He's a 1/2. Whereas Radke was a 2/3. What makes me uncomfortable is that Ryan probably disagrees with me, based on his love affair with innings pitched and blinders in place about other qualities. But in fairness, it's not that easy to find guys who, year after year, will give you front-end performance, especially due to the injury factor. Right now, Ryan has a bunch of fence-sitters in the rotation. In a good year, they can fall off the front-end side, and in bad years they can become back-end guys. Such is the fickle nature of things for pitchers, so I can't completely diss him for liking durable innings-eaters with quality, i.e. guys who are usually 2/3 and sometimes 2/3. That's what he has with Hughes, Santana, and maybe Gibson. Give me five guys in a rotation who have a fairly decent chance to give me a 2/3 year and I'll take my chances that some guy like Price pitches like a 2/3 come playoff time. That is, if my other choice is a 9 figure contract.
  18. bird
    Danny needs a hug. I'd hug him.
  19. bird
    This list features 3 guys who are trying to climb back into the picture. It reminded me of just how many promising former and present prospects we have that fit in that category: Arcia, Vargas, Santana, Melotakis. Romero, Bard, Pinto, Wimmers, Michael, Chargois, Meyer, and Thorpe. The Twins need 4-5 of these guys to become either part of the future or valuable assets on the trade market.
  20. bird
    Given all the pros who value Butera as much much more than a BP catcher, shouldn't we question, just a little bit, the use of bWAR as the be-all and end-all when discussing a player's value?
  21. bird
    Because Rogers would have been eaten alive by MLB batters perhaps?
  22. bird
    Yeah, I'm more in this camp. I've been hearing forever how the Verlander's and Sales's are necessary to get you to the postseason, and how the Price's and Arietta's are necessary to advance in the postseason. Signing a FA ace is easy, but so is chopping your hand off with a hatchet. Having TR pay for an ace is admittedly much smarter, but still. I'd be fine with having 4 starters that match up competitively against the opponents' #2,3,and 4 guys. The problem for me is that I'm not confident we have 4 guys under contract will do this for us, except for if they're performing at their peaks for a full season. But I'd avoid the costs and risks. I strongly disagree that money not spend on a long fat contract for an ace will be money never spent elsewhere. If this core group truly comes together, there'll be plenty of opportunities to spend money to keep them. And I'd rather part with assets for things we need, like a catcher, and roll the dice that one or more of Hughes, Gibson, Santana and maybe even Berrios give us solid #2 starter seasons, and that May, Duffey and ?? turn into mid-rotation starters. Jim Kaat was a #2 who gave us a couple #1 seasons. So was Mudcat Grant. And Jim Perry. And Dave Boswell. But not Cole DeVries. Not him.
  23. bird
    I'm going to give this list an 8 out of 10 in terms of really good names.
  24. bird
    Yeah, the notion of a disconnect among scouts drafting fireballers, Ryan signing "control" FA's, and developers struggling to get the Burdi's of the world to the next level is interesting. One thing that seems to stick out is that guys like Burdi, Jones, and Reed struggled, but not because of reduced velocity. Their problems were more about control, right? So I'm not sure that leads us anywhere.
  25. bird
    Yeah, I thought this was really interesting. Platoon describes it in post #42. It was cryptic and vague insinuation rather than something definitive, but telling nonetheless. Just wish we had a journalist who would pursue the topic.
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