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MeleMouth

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Everything posted by MeleMouth

  1. 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.
  2. MeleMouth
    This prediction is probably an overstatement. Many players have hip surgery and return to top performance.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. 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.
  7. 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.
  8. 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.
  9. 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.
  10. 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.
  11. 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.
  12. 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.
  13. MeleMouth
    Someone who smacks you on your tushy.
  14. 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.
  15. MeleMouth
    you got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away, and know when to run.
  16. MeleMouth
    Most teams can do this fantasy "if everything goes right we'll be golden" game. Cleveland's payroll for 2027 right now sits at $39 million. Messick, Williams, Bibee, Cantillo, and Cecconi will all return, plus they'll have Logan Allen and all have that payroll room. K.C. will have Wacha, Lugo, plus the fantasy health of Ragans and Gonsolin, and about $60 million in payroll room to get to this year's number. ChiSox return four of their five starters, including deadline acquisition Castillo, as well as Schultz in AAA, who should be better next year, and maybe Smith will make a comeback, plus perhaps this year's success encourages the new owners to add salary. Detroit: Valdez, Ryan, Montero, Jobe, Anderson, Melton, Olson, plus a payroll right now that is 50% of this year's. All of them could tell themselves a story about good health and good fortune in development that gives them the best staff in the AL Central.
  17. MeleMouth
    I agree that they wouldn't have to trade Jenkins to get a Lopez-equivalent player, but still believe they would need to trade at least Jenkins to get a Correa equivalent. Reports this summer were that the Angels wanted Jenkins plus others for Zach Neto, and Neto is probably below Correa as a star, particularly if the goal is to excite fans, so it would probably require Jenkins plus a whole lot more to get a Correa equivalent in the trade market. Jenkins also probably isn't enough to get CJ Abrams from Washington, and Abrams also probably wouldn't excite fans like Correa did. FYI, both Neto and Abrams are around 3 WAR with three and two years of team control remaining after this year, respectively, as a way to triangulate Jenkins' trade value.
  18. MeleMouth
    There is only one possible "Carlos Correa move" in free agency this year, which would be to sign Skubal. That has maybe a 1% chance of happening and maybe a 10% chance of working out better than the Donaldson and Correa signings if it does. (Remember how everyone wanted to say "good riddance" to both of them within about 18 months?) The price for Skubal would also be much higher than the price for Correa, so high that it would eat most of the team's budget, making it difficult to plug any other holes. They could try to make a trade, superior to Arraez for Lopez, but to get talent superior to Lopez they would probably have to offer Jenkins plus another top prospect. That sounds like a good way to continue the Twins' streak of futility. (Since 2011, tied for second-worst playoff record in MLB; since Falvey's arrival in 2017, fourth worst in playoff wins among the 28 teams that have qualified for the playoffs, and absolute worst in winning percentage.) If Pohlad really wants to run the team well, he should tell his baseball experts to come up with a sustainable plan that requires two to three years to execute. Trying to solve years of meandering and oscillating by one or two big moves is what they keep doing; doing it again would be a good way to extend their mediocrity. We have to stop thinking in terms of quick fixes to deep problems.
  19. MeleMouth
    I would agree that the "second-half collapse" is a faulty premise, because the team basically performed a small amount above its ability for most of the year and now just had some regression. A 40-45 team becoming a 67-73 team is not a collapse. Early in the year, they had luck on batted balls and sequencing, resulting in better offensive stats than would be expected by performance, but many people mistook results for a true talent level and convinced themselves that a bullpen upgrade, removal of Matt Wallner (with Martin? Roden?), Royce Lewis becoming a star, and insertion of a couple of top prospects would lead to 1987 redux. But the overall talent level remains relatively low and regression to the mean is a thing,
  20. MeleMouth
    So there's no reason to blame anyone for the margins being thin in the first place? Nobody's performance to improve or upgrade? No mistakes to avoid in the future? It's hard to look at several years of Twins history and say that there aren't patterns of sub-par decision-making, poor roster construction, and failure to create and stick to good plans.
  21. MeleMouth
    I sure hope they limit Prielipp for the rest of the year. Save those bullets for 2027-28.
  22. MeleMouth
    Lewis is no Buxton. Lewis isn't terrible, but people have to give up on the idea that Lewis is on the verge of becoming an All-Star. One key difference from Buxton is that Buxton never displayed the lack of humility or unwillingness to take feedback that is common with Lewis. You can hope for a positive surprise in the future, but it is more likely that what we are seeing now is close to peak Lewis. Lewis has been better since his return, but his xwOBA over this time period - expected results based on how he hits the ball - is the same as Josh Bell's full season xwOBA, which is tied for 70th among 142 qualified players. Further, most of his value was produced in June, when he was just back from AAA, while his wRC+ was below replacement level in July and August, even with his incredible first half of August. A median hitter is not a bad player, but it's also not a tremendously valuable one either, especially for a first baseman. And this comparison of Royce's stats since his return against everyone else's full year stats completely ignores his horrible first two months of 2026. This article concerns what went wrong for the Twins in 2026. One key answer is that they refused to accept the reality of who they are, but instead convinced themselves they were better than they actually were based on short samples. We need to accept the reality that the totality of Royce's performance is mediocre. He is not comparable to Buxton, who, although injured frequently, is one of the best players in the game when he is healthy.
  23. MeleMouth
    This continues a multi-year trend of trying to have multiple simultaneous plans and pivoting from them based on the last two or three weeks of data. "Competitive rebuild" is definitionally having two plans in conflict with each other. Deciding to make most of your players utility players, so they can play multiple positions but not be very good at any of them, is having two plans in conflict with each other. Trying to develop prospects but then bringing them up when they've had a few weeks of good games and the team has a long-shot chance of the playoffs is having two plans in conflict with each other. Having a superstar who clearly needs medical help muddle through months of poor performance before deciding to get medical help is having two plans in conflict with each other. Hiring baseball experts while also having a new owner with extreme self-confidence whose main baseball experience and business accomplishment was inheriting billions of dollars, but who who wants to be involved in running the team, is having multiple plans in conflict with each other.
  24. MeleMouth
    Lots of the discussion about Jeffers seems to be assuming he will accept the qualifying offer. That may be an iffy assumption. He is aging, this has been his best year, and the catcher market is pretty weak. This could be his best chance ever to get a big contract and it's foreseeable that several teams with large budgets could be looking for a catcher this winter. If he thinks he can get 3 or 4 years at $20 million, he'll probably leave.
  25. MeleMouth
    Signing free agents has often been a regretful experience for the Twins, but if Josh Bell is the second best available bat, they should look hard at Jake Bauers if he will take less money than Bell.
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