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MeleMouth

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Everything posted by MeleMouth

  1. MeleMouth
    "Walker Jenkins sure has a lot more swing-and-miss in his game than anticipated. It probably is too soon to bench him, but it sure would be nice if he could make some good contact ahead in the count." This was also his issue when he first got to AAA last year. The thought that he could come up to the majors and immediately be a star without an adjustment period was always based on hope and not reality. This doesn't mean that he's bad, but it does suggest that keeping him in AAA would have been a good idea.
  2. MeleMouth
    In AA this year, he has 11 SB's against 2 CS's. His earlier stats were not as good, but those could be due more to inexperience than lack of speed. I mean, maybe he truly isn't that fast, but we might not be able to read much about his speed from his caught stealing numbers.
  3. MeleMouth
    In the Texas League this year, 10 of the top 60 hitters in terms of highest percentage of swinging strikes have played for Wichita (of 128 players with a minimum of 180 PAs). Kendle, who has *struck* my interest, is among them, although he is much closer to #60 than he is to #1. While noting that Houston and Diaw are among the 10 lowest in the league, such a large group at the top makes wonder if grip it and rip it is the team's strategy? (Seven Kernels are in the top 60 in the Midwest League, out of 211 with at least 100 PAs. There is overlap among the Surge and Kernels players with high swinging strike rates. Only three Mighty Mussels are in the top 60 in the Florida State League, out of 154 with at least 100 PAs. Believe it or not, Quentin Young is just sixth highest in the league.) Further on Kendle: he has the best BABIP in the league and only decent contact numbers (for each ten times each of them swings, Kendle makes contact one fewer time than either Houston or Diaw, but one more time than Billy Amick), suggesting that some of his success is due to luck, but he is also #4 in line drive rate, at a very high 31.7% (caution: Texas League this year has higher rates than other leagues), so his success might also be due to frequently making very good contact when he does connect.
  4. MeleMouth
    Diaz's option for 2027 has vested at not too high an amount, so it's hard to see TB letting him go. Arraez is great and I hope he cashes in this winter, but between Culpepper, Clemens, Lee, and Houston, the Twins hope to be in decent shape at 2B and SS for the next few years. Where would Arraez play?
  5. MeleMouth
    This year in MLB, Liam Hicks is the catcher with the best plate discipline who is low on power and doesn't throw out many attempted steals. Diaw is age 22 in AA; Hicks had a similar AA season at age 24. Diaw's age 22 stats are actually mostly better than Hicks' age 24 stats, except that Hicks had better success against the run game. Being equivalent to Hicks would be a great outcome for Diaw, and there is potential for more.
  6. MeleMouth
    Luke is a nice ballplayer, but the long-term plan for him should probably be that he's a key piece in a trade that brings back a solid player, e.g., Arraez for Lopez-plus.
  7. MeleMouth
    He's a ballplayer. We project good qualities to players, particularly ones who are telegenic and play with grace like Hunter, but we would be better off not assuming any good or bad qualities about them as people.
  8. MeleMouth
    If only Lewis could learn to hit the outside pitch to right field like Culpepper just did.
  9. MeleMouth
    Pickings will be slim in free agency for back-up catchers. After Carson Kelly, who may get more money than we expect, the top choices may be the not-too-exciting group of Heim, d'Arnaud, Hedges, Sanchez, and Rogers. I would hope they sign another Jackson or Pereda for St. Paul, so that neither Cardenas nor Cossetti are the emergency catcher. Consideration should be given to having Lackey leap ahead of Tait.
  10. MeleMouth
    If I had to put together a bullpen as part of a team in 2027, I'd much prefer Acton at $800 thousand over Hoffman at $12.67 million.
  11. MeleMouth
    Based on history, I expect Buxton to be a good to very good player when he is healthy and plays, but to miss a lot of games. The median outcome for his surgery is probably that it will not affect him materially, but he will be a year older and need to adjust to a long layoff, which sometimes takes him longer than the average player. Based on those guesses, I expect him to be an asset to the team and once again worth his contract, but agree with you that the high likelihood that he will miss a lot of games and possibly have recovery issues would make it a mistake to rely on him to be the leader of a successful team.
  12. MeleMouth
    This prediction is probably an overstatement. Many players have hip surgery and return to top performance.
  13. MeleMouth
    If you think something is "the way it is done on every team and every sport," you're definitionally wrong. It is doubtful that anyone on team fan sites has full knowledge about what one team does, much less every team. What is much more likely is that each team lies on a continuum within its sport, regarding whether they shut down an injured player or give star players more leeway to decide if he should have surgery or is ready to play.
  14. MeleMouth
    Buxton should get to make his own decisions about whether to have surgery. Frankly, all athletes should. Whether he plays, however, should remain up to the manager, who has to decide who he thinks will give the team the best chance of winning right now. Whatever great things someone did in the past should not matter if he is not capable of them now. In that sense, Buxton should be treated like Kreidler, particularly if evidence suggests Buxton is not capable right now of better performance than Kreidler.
  15. MeleMouth
    You mean like how the Dolphins' team doctor didn't shut down Tua Tagavailoa, or like how Kawhi Leonard got his own doctor because he didn't believe what the team doctor told him? The job of the team doctor, even today, is to do everything possible to keep the player playing, unless an injury is obvious or some kind of rule or mandated process requires the player to be shut down. They usually will communicate the risks, but the ultimate decision will be up to the team and player.
  16. MeleMouth
    It's hard to believe that even the toughest goalie could play with a hip impingement, or at least play well. See Gustavsson, Filip. My experience is that wingers can, however, except that hits can really hurt.
  17. MeleMouth
    I haven't read everything, but can you show us where it's been reported that a doctor said he could play? BTW, most team doctors rarely tell the team or a player that he should stop playing.
  18. MeleMouth
    I doubt you were making the kind of motions needed to succeed at major league baseball. If all he had to do was straight-line running, then you're probably right that there's no additional risk, but baseball requires motions that put a lot more strain on the hip joint, raising the risk of further harm.
  19. MeleMouth
    Could be, but that's not what most analysts say. There are 60 catchers in MLB who have caught a min of 250 innings this year, and only two have a CS% lower than Diaw - Ivan Herrera, a middle of the order bat who might be moving to 1B or DH; and Austin Hedges (?!), who, but for having by far the best offensive year of his career while also having his worst defensive year, might be hitting the end of the line. Interestingly, of the 60 catchers, Jeffers is the fifth-worst at CS% and Caratini is 13th, so maybe the Twins don't care as much as other teams, but, of course, they haven't seemed over the last few years to prioritize defense in general as much as other teams. It would be interesting to see the math or logic behind your assertion that SBs don't matter much. Diaw has given up 123 SBs this year and caught 10 runners. At 0.30 runs per extra base (approximate difference in run expectancy between a 1B and 2B), that's almost 34 more runs given up. Adding those to the Twins runs for and against so far this year produces an expected winning percentage of .448, which, after 140 games, would give a winning percentage of 63-77, or four games worse than their current record. Unless you think the math is different, I guess it's the eye of the beholder whether four extra losses would matter.
  20. MeleMouth
    Hernandez and Turner have earned chances at A+ before the season ends. Since July 12, when he became just 19 years and 7 months old, Hernandez has been excellent, and since about August 1 he has been dominant.
  21. MeleMouth
    Diaw's caught stealing rate is below 10%. He needs to significantly improve his throwing before he can be a consideration for the majors. His hitting is encouraging. Just a little more power and much better defense and he could have a good career.
  22. MeleMouth
    "He also has already drawn 23 walks, compared to just 21 strikeouts." This indicates very little for a college player in the low minors, other than he's not swinging very much, and Lackey isn't, because his HiA swing rate is below 30%. His contact percentage in HiA is 75%; it would be good for that to be higher, particularly for such a selective hitter. For comparison, at the same age and level, Rutschman was swinging at 39% of pitches and making contact on 81.5% of his swings. With a few exceptions, letting a lot of pitches go doesn't work as well as players move up the ladder and face better pitchers. Why do we have to hype every new top prospect as some kind of semi-savior, where he'll be in the majors in 12 months and a frequent all-star a year or two from that? It doesn't do anyone any good and I would argue that, although it kind of feels good, it's actually somewhat harmful. I'm not saying there's no chance for Lackey to become a great player, but that the blue sky in this article and others is based on a 100% outcome where everything goes great. Maybe that will happen, but history suggests that a median outcome for a player with Lackey's background is something like becoming a little better than Ryan Jeffers, who's a good player, but not an all-star. Writing up 100% outcomes is not analysis, but hope.
  23. MeleMouth
    Someone who smacks you on your tushy.
  24. MeleMouth
    I don't blame Zoll too much. Put yourself in his shoes. Your longtime boss just got the heave-ho for disagreeing with the new owner, so now you report directly to the new owner, who tells you to rebuild for the future while being competitive enough today to put fans in the seats. That means that you can't really trade your players with the most trade value, in order to build for the future, because they are assumed to be needed to keep people coming to the park. You are given some encouragement to spend money, but it comes after the team is 98% baked and years of history suggest that it could be more talk than reality. Oh, and you're on a one-year contract, the new owner seems to have the difficult combination of no experience and complete confidence, and pleasing the new owner is more important for your immediate career prospects than using your expertise to implement a long-range plan that you might not see to fruition. Most people, even if they think it's a mistake, would do about what Zoll did, which is nibble at the waiver wire and then make moderate acquisitions when given approval/instruction at the trade deadline.
  25. MeleMouth
    you got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away, and know when to run.
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