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mikelink45

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Everything posted by mikelink45

  1. mikelink45
    Nice profile I like the MiLB managers that I have learned about through TD. Thank you.
  2. mikelink45
    An Ace stops losing streaks, holds his own against the number 1 pitcher on the other team and sets the standard for the rotation. So far this year Santana has been our ace and it does not matter what others are doing on their teams - he is our pitching leader. He took Berrios under his wing, he has given us consistent performances and is the only pitcher that I currently expect to win or come close in every start. But on your list I think Arrieta has fallen far from that rating, but was one the last two years, Madison Bumgarner is injured but a true Ace among Aces, Zack Greinke is a number 2 and last year was not even that, Felix Hernandez has to figure something out or his Ace days are over, Clayton Kershaw ranks Ace of Aces with Bumgarner, Corey Kluber ace, David Price used to be an ace, Chris Sale is an Ace, Max Scherzer the third Ace among Aces, Justin Verlander is a shadow of his old Ace days. So we have three HOF type aces, some number one starter aces, and a lot of downward spirals. Few Aces sustain that rating so celebrate Santana's rise and enjoy it as long as it lasts.
  3. mikelink45
    Nice recap. I am all in on Berrios and hope he thrives, but you are right we now have Santana, Santiago, Berrios - we need more and Santiago is not high on my list, just doing better than Hughes. Mejia is not doing all that well in the minors. Do we have anyone else in the minors that we could try? Sleger? Joe is just Joe, not good on quotes and not too spectacular in the field any more either. We can live with him, but I thought we were going to give him more days off. I do not seem him making adjustments - he says he just has to keep doing what he is doing to which I would say, you have been doing this for the last three years and it is not working - make some adjustments. I am more happy with Sano's BA than his HRs. I expect the bombs, but controlling the plate and hitting bombs too is really great.
  4. mikelink45
    There are fillers here, but otherwise it justifies our ranking as a middle of the pack minor league with minimal star potential.
  5. mikelink45
    This site continues to show me great relief pitchers, but it does not seem that the Twins have any belief in them or we would see some of these arms coming to the bigs instead of recycling Boshers and picking up scraps from other teams. Are we overrating our relief pitcher prospects? I know Tonkin had great reviews in the past, but no team would even take him off the wires when we DFA's him - http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/players/playerpage/2027421/michael-tonkin I keep waiting for Burdi and others from these reports to replace Pressly and Breslow. Please explain to me why the Twins are not using these arms while they are still young.
  6. mikelink45
    This is great news - now J O - run with it.
  7. mikelink45
    You justify my continuing criticism of our new think FO. Scrap heap vets do not improve our situation. The Minor league arms need to be used, get over your need to show that you can find the hidden gems - that was what TR was fired for doing. Move on. Get young, get the arms in the MLB. Berrios is the starter and the relievers have a long list. Move on.
  8. mikelink45
    I give him a vote of no confidence. 28 years old, at his peak, he is not showing us the skills that we should expect from a key reliever.
  9. mikelink45
    I think the Buxton comp is a good one. Bring him up, give him time, let him settle in. The long run is what is important now, but to get there Berrios has to get past and issues in MLB>
  10. mikelink45
    I have nothing to add, no wit or wisdom. I just want to follow a long Sano career and enjoy homer after homer.
  11. mikelink45
    Maybe TD has a spot for Jason Stark and Mark SImon and Jim Bowden? Just kidding, but I will miss them for their writing. ESPN with no Baseball tonight has forsaken our sport. Your article missed the key to the series - because of bereavement for Santiago we have Bosher back in the pen for three days! One miscellaneous thought - I do not know why, but I am rooting for KC in the match up with Gibson. I know none of the players so I should not want to see someone fail. I just do not have faith in Gibson and with the Twins a player, once established, has to really bomb before change comes and I want to see the rotation get some new faces behind Santana and Santiago
  12. mikelink45
    Joe Mauer has a great swing - he always has, but the difference is that hitting a ball hard at a fielder is not as successful as Wee Willie Keeler's dictum - "“Keep your eye on the ball and hit ‘em where they ain’t,” http://baseballhall.org/hof/keeler-willie That is why Mauer hits in to so many DPs. Hard to an infielder makes their job easier. Sano hits them long and hard and it there "ain't no fielder that counts on the otherside of the fence".
  13. mikelink45
    The Key for us is giving them steady time at one position - it took the Twins a long time to figure that out, and when they field good they are in a comfort zone that impacts their hitting too. This is the best since Zoilo and Killebrew were on that side or Gaetti and Gagne.
  14. mikelink45
    With the recent implosion of relief pitchers on the Twins it is time for Melotokis and Burdi to be up. We have four relief pitchers with eras over 5 including Pressly at 9. Relief pitchers should have lower eras than starters. They are short stints, if there are men on base the previous pitcher gets charged. This is a seriously flawed pen and now that we basically have one month in we should try something new. After starting 5 - 1 we have gone 5 - 10, this is not a good team and we need to develop our talent. Last month fangraphs rated our bullpen #27 http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/2017-positional-power-rankings-bullpen-16-30/ And they had Pressly and Belisle with good years last year listed to be contributing 0.9 WAR to what they expected to be a total bullpen WAR of 2. That does not look like a good prognostication at this point. This is not to say that some might not get turned around, but if we have players who might succeed rather than just compete I want them on the MLB team.
  15. mikelink45
    I am glad all of you can participate in this conversation. As an old guy still guiding hiking trips in my 70s and trying to pay for my daily expenses I watch and read about baseball until the adding machine comes out. When players are making more than I make in a lifetime - average players - how can I relate? Here are the salary milestones: http://www.baseball-almanac.com/firsts/first9.shtml None of it makes sense to me. After all I bought gas from Bronko Nagurski - arguably the greatest football player of all time (my choice) from his standard oil station in International Falls. I hope the Twins do all they can afford to do to keep Sano and Buxton and Kepler. I hope we get a winner again and I hope that with all this funny money circulating people will quit obsessing over Mauer's contract. But what do I know, I still like batting averages and win-loss records. http://onthelake.net/connections/nagurski.htm
  16. mikelink45
    If Falvey and Lavine are creative as some reported with the Bosher up and down call why not get creative and pull some of these pitchers up for a look - I would love to see us go through a sequence like this one time - what do we have to lose - and if it does not work, are we really worse off? This was a fun pitching day and we do not have a lot of these to obsess over in the Twins world.
  17. mikelink45
    In the fifties we had junkball pitchers on every roster - pitchers like Stu Miller who had a windblown balk https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/07/sports/baseball/stu-miller-dies-at-87-blown-off-mound-in-all-star-game.html?_r=0 He won 105 games and accumulated a 27 WAR. "Stu Miller never threw a pitch more than 60 miles per hour, yet he enjoyed a 16-year career that saw him save 154 games and may have had the best changeup that baseball has ever seen." http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1159429-mlb-the-30-quirkiest-pitching-deliveries-in-baseball-history I thought this article on who throws the slowest fastball in 2015 was instructive http://www.sportsonearth.com/article/125659856/mlb-slowest-fastballs-masterson-vargas-lincecum-haren-weaver-buehrle because we would take Buerhle results and two of the pitchers on the list included one former Twin and one Twin at the time. Finally this article from 2014 on how to survive without a fast fastball has some interesting pitchers on it https://www.numberfire.com/mlb/news/1666/how-to-pitch-in-the-major-leagues-without-a-90-mph-fastball All of which leads me to say that Hughes might figure it out and extend his career yet even if he does not get his fastball back. Although this list of the slowest fastballs in baseball in 2016 has only one pitcher that you might want in your rotation http://www.masslive.com/redsox/index.ssf/2016/05/who_throws_the_slowest_pitch_i.html
  18. mikelink45
    Molitor's quote is the key to the criticism Polanco received and the most important thing the new FO can do is get the minor leagues in tune with the Twins major league club. We have had awful adjustment issues.
  19. mikelink45
    well done. I like your research and data. It does not make Buxton shine, but it certainly gives us some perspective. I am so anxious for him to get this horrible period behind him. Yesterday I posted the worst starts for HOF players. We love baseball because it is filled so many variations, but sometimes they can also drive us crazy.
  20. mikelink45
    Now that Tepesch instead of Berrios is coming up I expect the team to soar. (Sarcasm alert).
  21. mikelink45
    3.2 War came in his career year. That leaves 1 for the other four years. Still not excited by this. http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/g/gibsoky01.shtml Wins above Average Adjusted - 0.4 I am glad Gibson has one fan - but it would take a lot to get me to join you. From last years horrible year his strike out per walk is down, his WHIP is way up (I value this stat a lot), his FIP is up. He is building off a horrible year with a worst year. I hope you are right and it turns around and he is great, but if so I will be very pleasantly surprised and wrong.
  22. mikelink45
    And I believe we specialize in the Blackburn/Slowey types.
  23. mikelink45
    I put this up on another essay in TD, but I feel it belongs here: Kyle Gibson - fifth year - record - 32-41 4.72 era 1.42 whip. His third year was good, his trend is not. -0.4 WAR for his career. Mejia did not deserve to stay up on a good club, on this club he was outperforming Gibson and we need to try something new. Of course I want Berrios, but based on the luck Twins have in bringing up their superstar MiLB players and converting them to MLB my expectations remain low. http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/g/gibsoky01.shtml I would love to see Gibson prosper, but I am getting the sense that he has peaked and as our #3 rotation guy we are hurting. Of course the question is - beyond Berrios, who is ready to make the jump, especially in this organization that seems to have a "Wall" between MiLB and MLB and we have not done well at getting players over it. I have tried to look at comparable statistical starts to see how Buxton compares. Since we have touted him as a superstar I looked at the worst starts of HOF careers and found this article: http://www.azsnakepit.com/2012/4/11/2938842/worst-starts-to-hall-of-fame-careers-cooperstown Even though the WAR figures are the same for Buxton and the worst of the starts - Brooks Robinson, the batting lines are so far apart that Buxton would have to start a new category of his own. Is he pressing? Is he unconcerned? Who is working with him? This is painful to watch.
  24. mikelink45
    Kyle Gibson - fifth year - record - 32-41 4.72 era 1.42 whip. His third year was good, his trend is not. -0.4 WAR for his career. Mejia did not deserve to stay up on a good club, on this club he was outperforming Gibson and we need to try something new. Of course I want Berrios, but based on the luck Twins have in bringing up their superstar MiLB players and converting them to MLB my expectations remain low.
  25. mikelink45
    Nice to get these thoughts. I would love it if you listed the top four or five at every Twins position for this year. Not their potential, but their current ability to be in the bigs. I keep reading about all these players and try to think who comes up if Dozier or Sano or anyone else goes down. I do feel bad for Garver and would love to see him get a chance.
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