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Steve Lein

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Everything posted by Steve Lein

  1. Steve Lein
    I don't think he'll spend much time in AA if he shows he's back early in the year.
  2. Steve Lein
    Since he went down with the injury last year that one wouldn't necessarily think would keep him out the whole year, I've been waiting for some news on how reliever Nick Burdi is doing. Ran into this article today from Mike Berardino: http://www.twincities.com/2017/01/31/minnesota-twins-nick-burdi-changes-arm-slot-in-hopes-of-staying-healthy/ Lots of interesting stuff about what the injury was and what may have caused it. Doesn't look like he will get that Spring Training invite after all, which disappoints me, but sounds like he is healthy. Hopefully the change isn't a roadblock to seeing him this year.
  3. Steve Lein
    I wrote the preview for TD on Tyler Jay heading into the draft. You have to look at the other pitchers the Illini had on the roster. They had a REALLY good staff as a whole. Jay was a Junior, 3 of the 4 other starters they used were seniors. Those 4 starters combined to go 33-7, with what would be around a 2.40 ERA as a group. In interviews, the coaches made it pretty clear that it was because they didn't need Jay to start. They needed him to close out the games from their starters. Jay also pitched over 65 innings in that role, which is an extremely high number for a college reliever. Only 1 other reliever on that staff pitched over 30 innings. It was quite common if you go through the game logs that the Illinois starter would throw 6-8 innings, and Jay would polish off the game. If I remember correctly over half of his appearances were 2 innings or more. Also, welcome to Twins Daily!
  4. Steve Lein
    My Over/Under is at about 72.5 Wins right now. If everything breaks right, they could be around .500. Don't see them losing 100 again for sure, though. I think this will be a pretty good offense. Improvement into top 2/3's pitching-wise, will go a long way looking at 59 wins in 2016 as the baseline.
  5. Steve Lein
    Good stuff. I've been following all the sites you mention and their lists since I started blogging about the Twins and prospects about 10 years ago, and agree with pretty much all of your takes on them. Keith Law especially. He gets a lot of criticism for having outliers in comparison to others, but I also tell people he's one of the few that actually gets out to see the players in person.
  6. Steve Lein
    The thing with prospect height/weights I've found, is their listings don't get updated from before their draft or when they are drafted, until they make the bigs. Thorpe is still listed at 6'1", 160 lbs on baseball reference, as an example. I'm nearly 6'3", 160 lbs. When I interviewed him when he was in Cedar Rapids, he was not noticeably shorter, and obviously much better built, than I. Would wager at that point he was 185 lbs, minimum. He also was spectacular in the game, by the way
  7. Steve Lein
    Of the three you mention, I'm hoping Alex Faedo has a great year and makes the pick easy on the Twins. Kendall looks and sounds like an Adam Eaton type to me.. Adam Eaton doesn't impress me as a #1 pick. Hunter Greene's write-ups read a lot like Kohl Stewart's did: "should improve once focus is on the mound." Ton's of potential, but also the most risk of the three by far. There's also the caveat that no high school right-hander has ever gone #1. Other name I'm watching the most is Kyle Wright.
  8. Steve Lein
    Napoli to start at 1B? Then maybe... To DH? Last time I checked we already had 5 bodies suited for that role on the active roster. Let Park/Vargas/Grossman/Sano/Mauer have at it. I want to see roster and player development, not stagnation. Would Napoli be better? Quite possibly. Would Napoli be worth it at the expense of all those others? Not likely.
  9. Steve Lein
    Was great to see everyone briefly at the end! I had other obligations that kept me away for most of the night, but is always a fun time and definitely was cool to chat with Stephen Gonsalves. Interesting nugget from that conversation: When I asked if his pitching arm was sore from signing autographs, he said it was fine as he signs right-handed. Definitely a smart guy, hope to see him up at Target Field soon!
  10. Steve Lein
    While it would be awesome to consider all prospects in the system for their own thread, I think that's a bit ambitious. Almost certainly I would do the Top 20 Twins Daily prospects that we write specific articles for. Then beyond that anybody that any member wants to follow for the year. Could have just 20, could have all of them, never know. Definitely should include same/similar information that the Daily Reports identify in the Adopt-A-Prospect thread. As a writer of those, however, I would find it to be a tedious task to link to all the player's threads in them. We could however, be better about tagging the MiLB posts with the names of the day's strong performers. By clicking on a players tag in the MiLB report, you should be able to find their Adopt-A-Prospect thread pretty quickly.
  11. Steve Lein
    Exactly what I was getting at, and the response even reads as he was looking for extensions that happened on any FA contract that still had 2+ years remaining.
  12. Steve Lein
    As a follow-up to this given I was so curious. I asked Baseball Prospectus the following question given the Cot's component of their website: "do you know the history of Free Agent signings where a 3+ year contract was extended after 1 season of said FA deal?" Their response, from Jeff Euston, is the following in its entirety: "This is exceedingly rare. Among active players, the only other case of this I can find is Glen Perkins, who also received an extension after one season of a free agent contract from Twins GM Terry Ryan. Absent an opt-out clause like the one in CC Sabathia's first Yankees contract, it's generally not done with free-agent contracts. The handful of other cases in which a player was extended with two or more years remaining were young players who had signed below market long-term deals before free agency, put up performances so strong they were still underpaid, then later signed an extension with the same club. A few of those examples are Miguel Cabrera (March 2008 and 2014), Ryan Braun (May 2008 and April 2011), Justin Verlander (February 2010 and March 2013), Evan Longoria (April 2008 and July 2013), Salvador Perez (February 2012 and March 2016) and Ryan Zimmerman (April 2009 and February 2012)." So realistically, and given Glen Perkins is the only other name they came up with, I can count the number of times this has happened on exactly one finger as lined up with my intuition. And Terry Ryan is literally the only GM to do this in modern times.
  13. Steve Lein
    Nope, nope, nope. You put him at AA, especially considering what he did in the AFL. He didn't get put there, and probably exceed expectations at his age, to be kept in Fort Myers. 17.4% K-rate on it's own shouldn't be worrisome, ever. The walks do need to be better, but he is a good hitter. If you need another opinion, In Keith Law's words: "Gordon can really, really hit, and while his offensive potential isn’t that great because of the lack of power, I think he’s going to hit for high averages for a very long time."
  14. Steve Lein
    So really, his best pitch coming out of the draft is now a cutter. I find this to be yet another fault on the development staff and methods the Twins have employed. I've seen Kohl throw as well, but that was when he literally was not throwing any breaking balls or on the back fields at Spring Training. How may games to you go to in a season?
  15. Steve Lein
    I think I've always been higher on Stewart than most, and it's not just because he is also a diabetic He limits hard contact. He gave up a lot of hits at AA last year (1.47 WHIP), but his walk rate was better than Gonsalves and he still had only a 3.03 ERA. I think there's less he needs to figure out in there among his style and stuff to improve on what he's lacking, than there is for a lot of others. He had a lot of good games with Chattanooga (10 "Quality" starts in 16 turns). This is a big year for him though, he needs to show he can be more than a groundball guy to reach anything more than back-end potential.
  16. Steve Lein
    Loved what Hughes brought in 2014, it was an awesome season. But there was absolutely no reason to extend his current deal at that point in time. I've kind of believed that the Twins got him to sign here with a gentleman's agreement saying they'd tear up his deal with a new one if he performed. Seriously, tell me how often that has happened for any free-agent signing in baseball history, the extending/increasing of a 3+year free agent deal after one year of it? My intuition says I could count them on one-hand. Possibly one finger.
  17. Steve Lein
    I would like this package. Dodgers have a high view of Buehler though. Have seen many reports saying he is not available in a trade or that they hold him and Alvarez in higher regard than De Leon.
  18. Steve Lein
    "Baseball teams, in general, seem to be losing their thirst for power. It's the name of Dozier's game, but the home run doesn't carry the same appeal it once did." I don't think this necessarily is it. A quick glance back at the history of player's receiving qualifying offers shows a lot of sluggers. It's not as appealing to sign these guys because of the cost of doing so. And I'm not talking about the money, I'm talking about the draft pick. With the picks that are lost basically determining a good chunk of a teams draft budget, if a team is going to sign that player, they absolutely aren't going to invest as much money in the player. Edwin Encarnacion demonstrates that pretty well. I would expect players to start accepting their Qualifying offer after how this offseason has gone. They won't get paid like they should on the open market until they don't have that anchor tied to them.
  19. Steve Lein
    He probably doesn't sign until June, just like Morales. I certainly would get in on the bidding then. Though so would everybody else.
  20. Steve Lein
    Since we have no idea what's been offered beyond JDL, that tells me it's nothing worth talking about.
  21. Steve Lein
    I could get behind signing Bautista. He has crushed at Target Field (pitching he was facing, not withstanding), and would provide some energy to fans. Also think it would be likely you could trade him at the deadline for something worth more than the 2nd round pick you surrender. (I do like the possibility of manipulating the draft with all their pick money too, though) As for a lineup, I'd go: CF Buxton 1B/DH Mauer 2B Dozier 3B Sano RF Bautista LF Kepler DH/1B Park/Vargas C Castro SS Polanco Could easily swap Polanco and Buxton too. There's a lot of bombs in that lineup. Edit: Plus, he followed me on Twitter last year. I like him and the bat flips.
  22. Steve Lein
    If the Dodgers are gonna low-ball the crap out of the Twins, I don't care. That is not a reason to give in. The Twins are still a 100 loss potential without Dozier, and De Leon added in going into 2017. Nothing changes on either side. Pay to play, or move on. If they pay, Twins have some more prospects to help their rebuild for the future, and the Dodgers have an added weapon everybody says they are missing.
  23. Steve Lein
    I think we're all in agreement, as our plenty if not all national writers, that De Leon plus nothing else of substance is not paying what the price should be for a player of Dozier's caliber. I don't like that the Twins might again end up with a good player that they couldn't capitalize on (for a different reason this time, though), but if that's how the Dodgers are gonna play it, I think it is their loss, not the Twins. Heck, go sign Bautista and light up Minny and Paul with fireworks the whole season. Maybe they can score enough runs to not worry about how many they give up! (haha)
  24. Steve Lein
    Found this mention interesting: Link Article is talking about the "17 most intriguing MLB people for 2017" "7. Andrew Friedman, president of baseball operations, Dodgers If building one of the game's great farm systems was the goal, mission accomplished. Corey Seager is the reigning Rookie of the Year, Julio Urias is an obvious breakout candidate, and, with Cody Bellinger and others, there's plenty more coming. But something tells us the more than $1 billion invested in player payroll by the Stan Kasten/Magic Johnson group over the past four seasons was aimed -- and the roughly $250 million payroll for '17 is aimed -- at advancing to and winning on the World Series stage for the first time since 1988. As it stands, the Dodgers have plenty of long-term viability, but do they have enough to go the distance right now? Merely retaining their prominent free agents (Rich Hill, Kenley Jansen and Justin Turner) cost the Dodgers nearly $200 million. Getting this roster over the hump might take a trade that forces Friedman to dip into that precious prospect pool."
  25. Steve Lein
    Personally, I would take Bellinger as the first piece over De Leon, even with the Twins pitching needs. He's a stud hitter. I know this isn't going to happen, but would be my preference all things considered. The same reason he is the off-limits fit for the Dodgers, works here. A-Gone is gone in 2 years, so is Mauer. Bellinger also can play outfield (probably pretty well) if you're on the Sano moves to 1B when Mauer is done side like I am. I would rate a Bellinger and Stewart led package just as highly as a De Leon plus anyone else one.
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