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Everything posted by bird

  1. bird
    There was a time there two years ago and beyond where we just kept replacing lousy players with different lousy players, and let's hope we don't go there again for a dozen years or so. I think that's how Ryan is trying to execute the strategy: building a system that can sustain a certain level of quality because it has its own well (the farm system) from which to draw.
  2. bird
    Very succinct and clear illustration, Parker. Thank you, and it's nice to have another example that helps dispel the silly narrative about Gardy and others trying to take the power out of hitters' games. Arcia seems to be responding to coachng instead of doing the coaching. Good thing Vargas isn't heeding Ozzie's advice to try to yank the ball. Kennys drove a homer and double yesterday to the opposite field. I wonder if Arcia has a chance to be a total beast once he calms himself and his swing down just a bit more and begins to hit more like he did throughout his minor league career. Without doing any research, I'm guessing he hit the ball to all fields with some authority.
  3. bird
    The way teams get in trouble is to count on one or two prospects to come through. In our case, we're not talking about a bunch of non-prospects. And you would have described Santana and Vargas as suspects this spring, maybe Arcia too. The Twins have exceptionally strong MI depth now. SD Buhr has been watching Vielma all season, and the Twins are treating him like he's an equally intriguing talent to what Polanco and Santana were the previous year. So, I think it's fair to classify all these guys as higher-ceiling, higher probability prospects, Michael excepted because of his performance and injury history. The caveat on all this is the question of who among them can play adequately at SS. I'll bet you the majority of us would have given Escobar a thumbs down to that question in April.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. 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.
  7. 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.
  8. bird
    Key words: "right now".
  9. 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.
  10. 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.
  11. bird
    Yeah, me too, and I keep getting warnings about it.
  12. 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?
  13. bird
    Anderson should have no trouble fixing Jason Adam. Ducking now...
  14. bird
    No reason to be discouraged. This is Dick Bremer we're talking about.
  15. 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.
  16. 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.
  17. 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.
  18. 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.
  19. 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.
  20. 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.
  21. bird
    There IS some actual talent, and it's being tried right now. It just so happens that the best CF prospect in all of baseball is a year away because of injury, and they decided this guy was a better alternative right now than Farris or Wilkin Ramirez or Daniel Ortiz, who are manning the outfield for a Rochester team that's ten games over .500. To suggest that one waiver wire castoff move indicates a failed rebuild is nonsensical to me. If one wants to complain about losing Mastro and Presley due to sloppy roster management, fine. Some bitched about that awful waiver wire castoff Fuld too. And the Fuld acquisition said zero about the rebuild just like this move. Swapping him out for Milone, on the other hand, says something about the rebuild.
  22. bird
    I don't think this move says a thing about the rebuild. Arcia, Gibson, Hughes, Santana, Polanco, Buxton, Meyer, May, Pinto, Hicks, Tonkin, Pressly...the list is much longer. Those are the names that say something about the rebuild, not some replacement for Fuld. And would you rather they not acquired Milone?
  23. bird
    Trouble is, who do you replace to give Beresford a shot, and why?
  24. bird

    Meyer and Span

    bird posted a blog entry in Blog birdwatcher

  25. bird
    Lester Oliveros.
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