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mikelink45

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Everything posted by mikelink45

  1. mikelink45
    I enjoy seeing you put this in print since I listen to your podcast and enjoy the give and take - I wish you had both put this down with your normal arguments, but that would be at least the length of a major magazine article so not likely here. I am one who feels BP is priotity and your choices are excellent. SP would be great, but not the ones that people list like Tillman who we might sign and hope - I am sorry to say that our one starter acquisition - Garcia - makes me fear out FO might consider signing one of the vets who underperformed last year. I hope not. I would rather have us fail with one of our own prospects than fail and spend on someone who is a long shot. The extensions are good but the one I fear the most is Sano - I wonder how the operation goes, how his maturity and reduction of Ks progresses, and if he is going to have longevity or be a DL regulat visitor.
  2. mikelink45
    Easy question - none. Why would we do this? What is the upside? Someone else is always better than what you got. Nope. Save the money. Look at something better.
  3. mikelink45
    And someone else takes him on. I am not high on Palka, but saw him as one of many who could slug and strike out and therefore they are all eligible to move on. I like players like Altuve that make contact and ocassionally hit HRs. Will that be Wade, Rooker????
  4. mikelink45
    Nice job. I find this intriguing, but I would not sign Tillman. I think he burned out and we do not need another mediocre veteran SP. If he is the best we can afford I go with the young guys which almost always my personal position. ​I am fine with all the cuts you make, but not with the Reynold's or Napoli options. Palka can do that well - slug and K. We already have Sano doing that and we do not need two K artists in the middle of the lineup. I like Grossman better than either of them and I am ready to move on with Grossman. In this age slugging is not a big deal. Mauer extension intrigues me, but I like the idea of letting the market settle for him. I would be interested in having someone look at all the teams and their 1B and tell me where there might be interest in him.
  5. mikelink45
    We have pulled the cream of the crop into the majors, Gonsalves and Littell are the lone guaranteed additions, the rest are questionable and will not damage the organization - in reality very few are chosen rule 5. Diaz is intriguing the way that Vargas has been intriguing, but I expect Vargas to be DFa'D. The biggest question for him is whether he is attractive enough to force a roster adjustment.
  6. mikelink45
    I am curious - how many years has TD been praising May and expecting great things? I would love to see him be the stud that everyone has writtena about, but I am a Skeptic. Some players tease their entire year and never get it done - like Meyer. Good luck May, I just would not plan on you for any of our open roles.
  7. mikelink45
    Chargois being this low on the list and 27 years old is concerning. We have watched guys with stuff like Burdi and Meyer and May constantly having an issue or two that keeps them from performing. At this point in the listing I am more interested in 20 - 22 year old guys who can move through with speed. Robinson is particularly intriguing as a hard throwing lefty. I like Bennington and Vasquez, but question if Bard will ever make it. ​Good winter fodder. Thank you.
  8. mikelink45
    I think Gordon will be a major leaguer but not a star, Gonsalves will be a #4 rotation arm and not a star. Rooker and Lewis could be stars - they are number one and two for me.
  9. mikelink45
    Thanks for the notes. Correct me if I am wrong, but right now the AFL players do not look like people who will be on the MLB team in 2018 unless it is a September call up. Although I wonder about Paul since he is a FO addition, will we be moving Garver and have Paul take his place in the pecking order?
  10. mikelink45
    Sano to DH puts a potentially good fielder at 3B and, perhaps, reduces his potential for injury and keeps his bat in the lineup all year. Is one of our young minor leaguers ready to take over at SS with a better bat? Can Polanco play 3B? Last year Escobar was a great story - can he continue at this level? I heard a variety of opinions on Granite - is he a really good OF - defennsively? Is he ready to take over for Grossman? Do we have another good hit, good defensive OF in the mnors who is ready to step up? I think the Vargas, Palka slugger type player should be a thing of the past - Sano fills that role and we learned this year that defensive is really significant. What is significant to me in looking at the fielding stats is the total caught, plus assists - http://www.espn.com/mlb/stats/team/_/stat/fielding/seasontype/2 Not a perfect stat, but it implies range and this drops us from #4 to 24 - if you do the sortable reorder on this site. So where is our range limited? When we put Adrianza and Grossman in the outfield, when we have Vargas or others in place of Mauer at 1B. It is a reflection of our 2B/SS tandem and probably the assorted 3B options. Is it our catchers who are supposed to be good at framing, but how is their fielding? ​This is far from a perfect way to review range, but it is fascinating to me that we would drop that far from the original fielding pct ranking. How do our fielders rank in zone coverage? I know Buxton is number one.
  11. mikelink45
    Nice work - I would not miss any of those named. The best news for the Twins is if we drop players who have some talent so we can add players with a lot of talent.
  12. mikelink45
    I will keep my negative voice in the discussions. I really do appreciate your work on this series, but in the end I am not moved by any of the options and would rather have our new pitching coach work with what we have.
  13. mikelink45
    I would say I have nothing to say. Hardly worth posting, right? But it is the essence of judging coaches. We can only know their value after the fact. I can only hope. Allen should have gone last year, so I am glad he is gone this year. I went on line to see who the greatest pitching coaches of all time were - there is no list. Johnny Sain is the one name that has stood the test of time and there are some current coaches that get some love, but overall the best pitching coaches have the best staffs - so is it the coach or the talent.
  14. mikelink45
    Is there any award that has less value or less recognition than gold glove. It always has been a farce. The most important recognition is with the team and the fact that he had his best year since his concussion.
  15. mikelink45
    These two are really tough calls. The psychological reason would be that all of the players get the same treatment and we have a happy clubhouse. From a performance level I do not think Kepler has gotten there. I know Seth says that if Rosario has the same kind of year it will cost us more, but what is the cost if he regresses? It is a gamble either way. The one that seems so logical is Sano, but his issue is his health. He has given promise and then gone to the DL. Can his body hold up? Is he mature enough to cut down on the Ks? Yes big money goes to big boppers, but we are seeing some transition in this logic recently. ​The playoffs have given me my favorite player - Altuve. I love the get dirty, do whatever it requires kind of player that he is. I would love to see some of that spark in Sano.
  16. mikelink45
    There is no worst, there are only winners and losers
  17. mikelink45
    Slegers is a nice story, but he sure looked overmatched in MLB. Does he project to do anything in the bigs? Garver seems like he has the talent, but I am not sure that I see the Twins really giving him the chance in the bigs. ​Enlow is very interesting. What is his expected arrival? ​Finally for all you experts - what is a realistic expectation for the Arizona League players? For some reason I am not expecting any of them to make the majors.
  18. mikelink45
    My point is that we cannot be sure that the sure thing overpaid FA pitchers are really dependable either.
  19. mikelink45
    I can only go by the reports that Seth and others write. According to this site - https://www.twinkietown.com/2017/10/19/16301700/minnesota-twins-mlb-2017-year-end-prospect-review-minor-leagues Gonsalves and Romero are tied for third best prospects in the Twins minor leagues. That is pretty high praise. I can only rely on those who know more than I do for prospects, but this is good enough for me if we expect Berrios and Mejia to improve on 2017. MLB is now a bullpen game and that is where I would build. KC won the pennant and a WS without quality starting pitching and they changed the prospects for the league. The Yankees went BP heavy and it worked for them. The Cubs went heavier on SP rather than RF and it did not work.
  20. mikelink45
    https://calltothepen.com/2017/09/26/mlb-the-10-worst-free-agent-signings-before-this-season/I am always nervous about the FA fix. Think about all the great FA signings - like Price for the Red Sox who come with a big ticket price and seldom do what is expected or wished. By the time the pitchers reach the free agent market and seem to be worth MILLIONS they are also old and arm weary. Read the 27 worst free agent signings - 13 are pitchers - considering that there are 8 other positions that is a really high number - https://www.cheatsheet.com/sports/27-worst-free-agent-signings-mlb-history.html/?a=viewall Or the 10 worst signings before this year - https://calltothepen.com/2017/09/26/mlb-the-10-worst-free-agent-signings-before-this-season/ We got one good pitching free agent - Santana after how many busts? No - get the new pitching coach and start developing our own talent both starters and relievers.
  21. mikelink45
    Underwhelming is the word that comes to mind. Go young - nothing else looks worth and investment. Test the young arms, but not Pressly, he has consistently proved that he is Tonkin like when the big bats are up.
  22. mikelink45
    In the past it would have been Kintzler, but I think that FO will move on and up. I am not sure that Belisle does not return. Trevor May is like the ghost of Christmas past. How many years have we speculated on his potential. I say he comes to Spring Training and we hope to be impressed, but do not plan on him. Pressly at Closer gives me ulcers. He and Tonkin are the HR specialists. They fit with many of today's hitters, HR or K. Not what I want in a closer. ​It will be good to see what the rookies look like next spring with their seasoning behind them. I look at the list of relilevers and I am not excited by any of them. In fact the I am fearful of signing relief pitchers and expecting them to match past performance. The pen is erratic. Check out this essay: https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/relief-pitching-metric-correlations-year-to-year/
  23. mikelink45
    I have been wondering about that. Since I am a victim of Keith Law, John Bonnes, and Seth Stohs and what they tell me I only know I hear about Romero and Gonsalves and wonder if they are not ready to step up as starters. I do not know - certain Slegers and the others they called this year did not impress. I also do not know if our minor leaguer relief is as good as we hope too after watching Tonkin and Pressly the last two years. Great arms, no consistency.
  24. mikelink45
    Based on baseball today - the bullpen should have priority over the starting pitching. KC started this trend and the Yankees have adopted it.
  25. mikelink45
    No matter what they do, we and everyone else will route for their home team and baseball will continue to be the most popular regional sport while football is national. In football no one knows all the linemen - just the stars - in Baseball you have to know the entire starting lneup. In football just remember a few great QBs and they will start every game, in baseball we have five in the rotation and they only pitch half the game. It is a fascinating spectacle and the only reason to expand is to capture more regional markets.
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