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mikelink45

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Everything posted by mikelink45

  1. mikelink45
    Four home runs and 845 OPS is a very good start. His walk rate is not good, but hopefully he like so many young hitters can work on that as he progresses.
  2. mikelink45
    Very nice to see Hildenberger shine in this one. He has done well in every opportunity and I hope he gets into more higher leverage situations.
  3. mikelink45
    This is really fun. It is a reminder of how disruptive Rickey Henderson was. It changes the other teams defense and pitching. I love it. I love the SB which has had its value diminished by many new sabermetrics guys like Law in his book Smart Baseball, but speed can make a professional team look like little leaguers trying to hurry the ball around the bases but never catching the speedy guy.
  4. mikelink45
    Nice for Jorge, but it would have been nice to use this option to try out another of our minor league starters. Lets see Gonsalves, for example, on the major league stage.
  5. mikelink45
    I would like to see Rooker moved up. I know it is early, but he is an older prospect and needs to be moved to a level that challenges him if he is going to maximize his talent.
  6. mikelink45
    Recently I read a column analyzing the catchers - I believe it was Bleacher Reports - and Castro was down a lot further in ratings, even framing, than I expected. I do not know how to analyze this, but I wonder if Castro is as good as advertising. Is he responsible for Santana's success or is it Santana? Berrios has had Giminez catching a lot of his games. I am not trying to dump on Castro, but this was the big move and I would love to have a greater analysis of his play. Baseball prospectus has him #9 http://www.baseballprospectus.com/sortable/index.php?cid=1899425 which is very good. Stat Corner has him one of the worst - http://www.statcorner.com/CatcherReport.php So where are we?
  7. mikelink45
    I am trying to develop a clever response, but all I can come up with is No and No. Neshek is getting old, will be a free agent, and might reach the tipping point really quickly meaning we rented a player for little value. Hand looks good, is in his prime, is much more interesting, but if Twins Daily and Seth Stoths reports are to be believed, the answer might be in the minors already. Save the prospects for something of real value, we do not need the world's greatest reliever, we just need to improve over what we have.
  8. mikelink45
    Gibson saved his season on July 4, but Santiago should be toast and not in the pen, he has no weapons to be lights out in the pen. We can see what happens with mediocre stuff when Hughes trots out there. But yes - test the young guys in mlb. Rotate them in and out. Use the year to find the right ones, give them experience, and get rid of Santiago.
  9. mikelink45
    Shouldn't Breslow and Belisle be on this list? They certainly aren't major league relievers.
  10. mikelink45
    Thanks - but my real question is - when he comes back with some rest, will he bust out and give us one of the half seasons of great hitting he has done in the past two years?
  11. mikelink45
    Time for Gonsalves to get a start in mlb. We know what Santiago and Gibson are and its not good. Their upside is gone and we should start experimenting with the young pitchers to see who is next in line. Mejia is settling down and now we have Santana, Berrios, Mejia - lets put new names after them. Lets also move some young arms in the bullpen. We have sunk to .500 level for now, its time for a boost and we should be rewarding guys in our own system.
  12. mikelink45
    With Vargas gone I expect that Grossman is DH and that means we could use a fourth outfielder - Granite on the bench. Putting Ehire in the OF like Molitor has done takes him from excellent defense (IF) to terrible (OF) and there is no excuse for damaging the defense when there are other options. I have been disappointed in Duffey'r performances lately and suggest we use Hildenberger to spell him and give him more time off if he is wearing done. Finally, Dozier being out of the lineup raises another performance question - is it time for his annual half year of brilliance?
  13. mikelink45
    Call more up - Santiago has to go, but so does Gibson. His best is mediocre. Lets try for better. I have no idea if this group is better than what we have, but I would like to find out. Jorge did not even make the top five and he won a game for the Twins.
  14. mikelink45
    I understand and I am happy for the fans who enjoy the game. I like the exercise of naming the team and that is it. In the old days of Mays, Williams, Aaron, etc. they did more than play the first three innings with the front line all stars. Now the replacements play more than the starters. Imagine a game like 1941 when Ted Williams goes 1 for 4 and hits a gaming winning home run in the 9th. http://www.baseball-almanac.com/asgbox/07081941.shtml By that time today's all star starters are catching their plane home. http://m.mlb.com/video/topic/155065792/v6448299/1941-asg-ted-williams-walkoff-home-run Those early games were played with intensity and each side wanted to really be the best, no world series home stand on the line, just the fun of the game. I am less excited by the reason decades.
  15. mikelink45
    I really enjoyed this, but one qualification that you gave is a sign of the times and not something this old man agrees with - wins do matter as do strikeouts by the batter. I am reading Keith Law's Smart Baseball and enjoying it, but also disagreeing with parts The win is still a good measure for pitchers because it represents the fact that they pitched long enough to qualify and that is getting rarer just like shut outs are getting rarer. Imagine a player setting the record of 16 in one season! http://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/SHO_season.shtml Wins for relief pitchers do not matter, but I still put value in the win total for a starter. The fact that Warren Spahn won 20 games or more 13 times is really impressive. The fact that Steve Carlton won won 27 games for the last-place (59-97) 1972 Phillies is amazing. In the same way that saves mean nothing the wins still count and there is a reason Santana has 10 wins and Gibson and Santiago have 4 each. The second stat that drives us old guys crazy is the total acceptance that K's are not a problem. They are. We used to have power hitters who also did not strikeout 1/3 of their at bats. If Sano is a 270 hitter and strikes out 216 times we all lose. He does not have less power by striking out less. But if we remove 100 of those strike outs his average tells us that he should have at least 27 more hits and I think we would all take that. In fact his BABIP is .366 so that would be 36 more hits.
  16. mikelink45
    That's nice, but I lost interest in All Star contests in all sports long ago. In the ancient days the all stars played the game, now it is like little leagues - everyone has to get into the game and by the end you have no idea who the real all stars were.
  17. mikelink45
    I am hoping Lewis and Rooker are on the fast track. They look ready.
  18. mikelink45
    Looking at the Twins record - we are hovering around .500. I know our pitching is the big problem, but I cannot imagine that we are so good that we could not use Granite on the MLB roster.
  19. mikelink45
    Belisle and Boshers tainted the start for Jorge and left me wondering why we keep using these guys instead of giving Hildenberger some more innings to find out what he has. Maybe Molitor is just enamored with names that start with "B".
  20. mikelink45
    I am excited to have Jorge pitch tomorrow rather than a cast off like Gee or one of the other revolving doors we have used. I really hope he turns some heads with a big performance. I also suspect that Busenitz will be back up quickly based on his success so far. I do agree that we could have used two different 26th man choices - one for each game since I believe the rules allow for different players to be designated for each game and right now Jorge contributes nothing to game one.
  21. mikelink45
    Four outfielders who are all defensively talented would be nice. Put Grossman at 1B/DH. I am afraid that Vargas just has not done enough to hold his roster position and the pitching staff continues to grow so we cannot just add another bench player.
  22. mikelink45
    I really enjoy this kind of update. It is disappointing to realize that all our attention and anticipation over players in the system is not shared by the larger national press, but still you give us some really good news to work with. I would love to see Felix really shine and force the Twins to think about him as more than a 26th man. It would be great to see both he and Gonsalves in the rotation and move on from Gibson and Santiago. Granite is a really interesting player and how the Twins handle him is intriguing. He needs to be rewarded with some MLB time and I hate to have to wait until an injury on the Twins to bring him up. Vargas has not produced so much that he has a protected roster spot and Grossman is the ideal DH and backup 1B with Granite rotating with the starting three outfielders we would lose no speed or defense.
  23. mikelink45
    Really good teams have excellent players stuck in the minors, but is that the case with the Twins? It would seem that the problem always is with pitching. If we cannot have decent starters we need to have 13 (maybe more) relievers. And when the relievers are not that good we need even more to throw on the fire. Berrios and Santana and then the roster falls apart.
  24. mikelink45
    The only thing we know for sure is that the Twins do not know what to do with their star talent, they bragged about his five tool skills and somehow caused him to be so messed up in the batters box that we are now down to fielding and baserunning. Who is at fault? So hard to tell, but such a shame.
  25. mikelink45
    If we need another starter this weekend, I would rather give Gonsalves a start than Gee.
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