Jump to content
Twins Daily
  • Create Account

mikelink45

Old-Timey Member
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    10,533

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    27

 Content Type 

Profiles

Minnesota Twins News, Rumors & Analysis

Minnesota Twins Videos

2026 Minnesota Twins Top Prospect Rankings

2022 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks & Signing Bonuses

Minnesota Twins Trade & Free Agent Rumors

Minnesota Twins Fan Guides & Resources

2023 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks & Signing Bonuses

The Minnesota Twins Players Project

2024 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks & Signing Bonuses

2025 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks & Signing Bonuses

2026 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks & Signing Bonuses

Forums

Blogs

Events

Store

Downloads

Gallery

Everything posted by mikelink45

  1. mikelink45
    Fun to speculate. He certainly has shown the drive to improve and continues to show that he has more potential. I am not wise enough to know if that is star level, but certainly a vital clog - like Bob Allison from the sixties. https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/a/allisbo01.shtml
  2. mikelink45
    Park has 5 HRs. Since power is his game, this is a really poor showing in the minor leagues. I put him down as a bust - time to take him off the speculation lists.
  3. mikelink45
    Duffey is averaging more than a hit per Inning Pitched which is a real problem for a reliever, especially if they inherit any runners. His ERA is rising, but he is also damaging the ERA of the man he is relieving. An interesting blog about Duffey written at he All Star break was asking the same questions we are and hoping the break would get him on track - it didn't http://fpbaseballoutsider.blogspot.com/2017/07/contemplatng-tyler-duffey.html
  4. mikelink45
    The key stat for the 2005 Cy Young voting is that all the other top 12 Cy Young vote getters (both leagues) are retired! Bartolo is a fun story, but father time is waiting and will be watching the game.
  5. mikelink45
    I agree with HitInAPinch and have noted my disgust over the mediocre set of "veterans" that our new age FO has paraded in front of us and I feel the same about Colon even if he ends up being a wonderful summer time story for us. I do not care about the division and I do not want us to stop developing the future because other teams are mediocre. Being the best of the worst is not the goal. We want to have a legitimate run at the World Series and this team this year is not going to have that. We just watched Altuve light up a game, taking bases at will and all our group could do was throw the ball around the infield. The Astros are clicking on defense, offense, fielding, and speed and they have good enough pitching to take advantage of that. We are not there yet and it will take some work to get there. The last lesson that this gave us is the idiocy of the large contracts for players who have passed their peak - Verlander, Hughes, Mauer, and many others eat up budget while producing memories of what they used to be. Pujols might be passing milestones, but he is not elevating the team. In our push towards the top I hope we can avoid this kind of foolishness.
  6. mikelink45
    Let's not use any of these young arms - let's turn to a fat 44 year old. What is going on. Move these players up to levels where they belong.
  7. mikelink45
    I did not think about this the first time I read your essay, but why is Bartolo up now when he will not pitch until Tuesday? Maybe a relief pitcher could be of more immediate importance for Sunday/Monday
  8. mikelink45
    I am concerned about Duffey. His line shows no runs allowed, but in reality he was set up for disaster and he has now had a long period of ineffective pitching. I had hoped the rest over the all star break might help, but it did not. Can any of your analytic team see what has happened to him? Santana continues to be our ace, but tonight he was a lucky Ace. Had the fielders blown one of the many special plays that are illustrated here all the based loaded jams could have given him a line like Berrios had the night before.
  9. mikelink45
    The obvious question that Garver must be asking himself is what more does he have to prove in the minor leagues? Get him up or trade him, a lot of teams need catching and he might prove more valuable in a trade than some of our expected chips. As a person who feels our current catchers are over rated I would welcome him to the Twins too.
  10. mikelink45
    What is the purpose? Of course putting our best young pitchers in to games against the best offenses in MLB might not be good either so Colon is fodder. At least I hope he is just a short term move. I had to see what pitchers succeeded in their later ages - http://www.billjamesonline.com/other_pitchers_who_pitched_well_in_their_old_age/ when I get to the 44 and older group there are 12. Four of them were knuckleball pitchers. Two were spitballers. Jesse Orosco was a relief pitcher, Satchel Paige was an amazing story, Warren Spahn was nearing the end of remarkable career just like Nolan Ryan and Tommy John was ending his career. Bartolo will be on the list because he is old, but not because he is any good any more.
  11. mikelink45
    Berrios like every pitcher is going to have bad games - note that our best pitcher, Santana on June 3,14, 20 gave up 7,5,6 runs. It happens. Fielding is another issue. Polanco has an error every 7 games and often it is on a DP ball and his rating in the fielding stats is really poor here. That does not excuse Berrios, but we also cannot excuse Polanco. The ESPN site fielding rankings have him number 11 at SS in the American League - not MLB so number 11 of 15. We do not have anyone better to put in at this time, but with his current batting stats he could be replaced by Adrianza or Vielma. http://www.espn.com/mlb/stats/fielding/_/position/ss/league/al/order/true Hughes reminds me of the Pelfrey years. Starters do suffer from relief pitchers who quickly give up the inherited baserunners, but more important, he has not shown any ability that is worth a position in the pen. Let's hope this is an anomaly and not a sign for the second half.
  12. mikelink45
    Okay I am confused - Nik Turley leads the Twins MiLB prospects in all those critical areas, but in MLB he stunk. What happened? What am I missing? I keep thinking Gonsalves and Romero need to make the move, but they do not rate with Turley. Someone needs to explain to this old guy what is going on and what these ratings mean.
  13. mikelink45
    Keep developing the minor leaguers who can be major leaguers. Keep moving forward and move those that are not part of the future. But lacking the assets of the cubs and a few others don't get caught up in trades. Free agency is our best opportunity to add.
  14. mikelink45
    screw the options - if we want to take advantage of where we are call up the best we have and that seems to be Gonsalves. New approach? Lets get going and stop with this nonsense. If he is really ready to move up and we need him that don't keep going to Jorge or another weaker choice for the rotation.
  15. mikelink45
    It is more of a reflection on the fact that we no longer allow pitchers to complete games. He had 200 - 208 innings per year for the last four.
  16. mikelink45
    It is not the wins versus losses, but the total of both that concerns me. A good pitcher will stay around to tally more of both.
  17. mikelink45
    I know that he has a reputation and I am in the minority, but I have heard lots of praise from others, but I look at him as a bundle of potential and a good pitcher, but I think he has performed as a 3 and when I say he is underperforming it is because I think that with his talent he should be a 1.5 or 2 and not a 3. I know he was the ace for the sox, but 50 - 54 record over 6 years means he has not pitched deep enough to control the game and get either a win or a loss and his 3;13 K/W rate should be much better. Too many walks. His 1.25 Whip is too high for a #1 pitcher and that is the price the cubs just paid. Now that does not mean he would not go to the head of our rotation, but he is not the value that has been projected. I expected my comment to draw reactions so thanks for letting me dive in further.
  18. mikelink45
    Let's assume that we do not have the fire power to pull off a trade. Then the effort should be to push Gonsalves, Romero and even Sleger's into the fray as they have with Turley and Jorge. Get their feet wet, test them. See what we have. Santiago and Gibson are known and what we know is not good enough so lets prepare to move on. Our trade chips are too weak for a big splash and we have to think strategically about who will be at SS and 2B while thinking of who will be the missing two or three pitchers in the rotation. We need the defense to support pitchers that are #2 - #4 in talent and a bullpen to take over the end of the game. Straily does not interest me because we have a history of investing in career years only to see us paying too much for regression, Quintana is gone and has set the trade bar too high. Then there is May. How many years have I read about him, his talent, and his ability, but he reminds me of Pressly - lots of talent, but tough to get it to deliver the results He is now 27, will be 28 when he returns and will need to get back in shape as he starts to move through what should be his prime years, but he is 13 - 17 (Sorry Keith Law, but I do like wins) with a 5.14 ERA in 102 games over 3 years and that does not give me confidence. He and Meyer came in together with so much promise, but neither has made me a big league believer.
  19. mikelink45
    We have to develop talent and we do not have a #1 or #2 in our system so we have to have an overall set of pitchers who give us some consistency rather than star power. You can bunch up all the players in the essay looking at who is next for the majors and it would not have gotten you Quintana and I never though Q was really more than an underperforming #3. Of course that means that the moves we made in working the draft need to be really good in three years.
  20. mikelink45
    I love this kind of perspective, but it shows that we are not really set to improve the major league team with the current group. The pitcher section was pretty weak. Gonsalves is a #5, but should be given a shot. What about Romero it would seem that he is ready and should take the place of Gibson who has not been okay since returning. Curtiss seems the only obvious bullpen call up and that is amazing since we have talked about all the relief options the Twins were developing. The hitters also lack luster now that Granite is with the team. Vielma is a weak hitting Adrianza and Gordon does not project to be more than Polanco and the current version of Dozier. Palka is Vargas with more Ks. I have really disliked the way that Garver has been treated and he is now 26 which means its time to move him up and give him a chance. Maybe they can put Giminez in the Bullpen and make Garver number 2 (although I am less impressed with Castro than most so I would give Garver a much bigger role).
  21. mikelink45
    I am not against trading any of our prospects for a quality starter, but: Straily is only a one year quality starter, remember Hughes one good year? Not convinced on him.We have to have a plan for SS - we can trade Polanco and Dozier if we know who will fill in, but up the middle defense is essential and this team has demonstrated how hard that can be to get (as hard as a quality pitcher?).
  22. mikelink45
    I am more interested in seeing our minor leaguers develop into Twins than make the list. If Gonsalves and Romero are as good as we seem to think they are I want them on the major league roster soon. It is the call up list that gets me going because I really do not know anything about the other teams minor league players so the list has little meaning for me.
  23. mikelink45
    We have Mauer, Dozier, Grossman, Castro, Belisle, Santana, Breslow - that is enough veteran presence. Lets just concentrate on bringing up more youth.
  24. mikelink45
    Lets move Santiago first - get Gonsalves up, get Romero up, if they need fine tuning then there should be nothing better than a major league coach. Then get Gibson out with some more pitching auditions, but NO COLON. Has everyone been looking at the wrong calendar - this is 2017 not 2007. Colon is old, fat and done. He has no upside so don't bother and the same with all the other dumpster diving souvenirs. Let's investigate the minors and see if we have any talent because their struggles will be no worse than any of the other options unless we sign Sonny Grey. But please I do not want to see an oldtimers game every fifth day.
  25. mikelink45
    Garver has done all he can to earn a position with the Twins. Bring him up or trade him. He deserves to become MLB.
×
×
  • Create New...