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Dman

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Everything posted by Dman

  1. Dman
    I tend to agree with you Mike. I think once he starts abusing baseballs he isn't gonna see anything good to hit. Pitchers\teams are gonna game plan big time around him so I think he will have a hard time topping 30 homers this year. He has surprised me with how mature he is as a batter so maybe he goes over thirty but I doubt it. I would be impressed if he does at least this year. I guess we'll find out soon enough.
  2. Dman
    Wow looks like my being naive has killed me on this one. That pretty much points to my assumptions as being dead wrong. Gonna have to eat some crow on some of my statements. I still blame the White Sox though as they had to see this coming and that it could end badly. La Roche also had to see this as a possibility and he did what he felt he needed to do. That is his decision not the White Sox. He could still have played for them this year without his son showing up everyday. Given how this situation played out I would guess no team will ever allow themselves to be put in such a situation again. Very odd situation all the way around.
  3. Dman
    I agree that most players would be ambivalent about this situation but likely both ways. Who cares if he is there or not. They have jobs to do and the kid doesn't change anything they need to do. He is just another body in the mix of other bodies. No different than a bat boy on game days. Is it a good precedent to set? I don't think so because if you give this privilege to everyone then you might have 30 kids in your locker room all the time. I just think that verbal or written if it was agreed upon it should not be changed. From what I can tell LaRoche doesn't have a problem with how the White Sox are handling this as he is ready to retire. It looks like lots of other people see things differently though.
  4. Dman
    I think you might be right. I don't think he wants to make waves with the White Sox or his former teammates. If we can believe the letter he wrote he understands the privileges he had in bringing his son with him to work. His body is hurt, he hasn't been playing well and the agreement he had with the White Sox about his son appears over so maybe just honorably retire and let everyone move on is his motivation but it all got tangled up in the process. Time will tell.
  5. Dman
    Obviously we can't know who was affected by the kid as no one seems to be willing to complain about it except Williams. The fact that Laroche did this with the Nationals for three years and it never was an issue doesn't really support your theory that many players were relieved that the boycott didn't happen. They all might still be pissed at Williams for letting things get to this point. We don't know. I mean the vast majority of the reports about this kid are glowing and there is nothing negative about his time with the Nationals. I think the evidence right now is almost non-existent that players are up in arms over the kid hanging out. There appears to be more evidence that the players don't care if he is there or not or that they actually like the kid. So relieved that the Boycott didn't happen and a witch hunt for the dissenters I doubt it. Just some players not understanding why this matters now when it didn't before is the far more likely scenario.
  6. Dman
    Touche. Verbal agreements are dangerous and cannot be relied upon. They are based on trust and Honor. LaRoche is doing the honorable thing and retiring the White Sox just don't come off looking trustworthy or honorable in their approach to this situation. That is just the way I see it and kind of how Sale explained it. Certainly more information will come out and it could drastically change the way I feel but given what I know now I'll still side with LaRoche.
  7. Dman
    I only have the information from the articles I have read and TD. In one article it was explained that LaRoche had WhiteSox management reach out to the Nationals about how the proposed son hanging out all season went. Supposedly the WhiteSox did that and felt comfortable enough to at least verbally agree to those terms. But again I only know what I read and comment off of that.
  8. Dman
    I don't think Sale speaks for all the players but the article I read said that the TEAM was going to boycott\forfeit their spring training game in protest of what happened. I don't think Chris could do that all by himself. There is teammate support for LaRoche and likely more than just a handful. Does anyone want to speak out about it. Probably not and especially now that management has specifically asked them not to.
  9. Dman
    I think the answer to this question lies with the Nationals. Supposedly whatever happened there LaRoche expected to happen in Chicago and I assume the White Sox anticipated would happen with them. If his son was with the Nationals all year long then the White Sox had to know what the expectations were.
  10. Dman
    Your logic is sound there. I do not know what was or was not agreed to, but really the White Sox set the precedent for expectations last year when he was given a locker and allowed there throughout the season. To me that means that was the agreement else they would have said something during the year last year but they didn't. The precedent is set why should he expect anything else. They should have never allowed it in the first place. I will quibble with your analogy. In your analogy none of the things promised appear to be a condition of employment. In LaRoche's case it was a condition of employment. I think those are very different scenario's. I think most of us agree that if you are promised something as a condition of employment and it is taken away you would likely move on.
  11. Dman
    None of this is relevant though if the Whitesox said no to LaRoche from the beginning. There was only an issue when the terms changed. They should have never promised or allowed it from the beginning. It is on them to see that this was a bad idea from the beginning. I will concede that LaRoche is taking an all or nothing approach which is extreme but again the WhiteSox should have asked more questions and probed the situation better before saying it was fine for him to do that. I can agree that it might impact players etc but disagree with the blame being put on LaRoche when the Whitesox appeared to change the terms. They set the 120 game precedent last year why would or should he expect anything different this year?
  12. Dman
    Yep to me you are dead on. They agreed to what LaRoche wanted and so they should honor that agreement. Some might think it bizarre or whatever but the Whitesox agreed to it and then LaRoche agreed to sign. The Whitesox never should have agreed to it in the first place, but they did. This whole issue is on them.
  13. Dman
    While I understand the Sox management dilemma of having a kid there everyday it looks like there may be greater blow back if they go back on their word so to speak. The players seem firmly behind LaRoche on this issue. You lose the trust of your players and I sense many trades in the White Sox future. IMO if there was an agreement, even a verbal agreement they need to honor that. Call it a one time deal. Say you will never do it again but honor the agreement you made or pay the price. If they lose the clubhouse they will lose the season as well.
  14. Dman
    He has looked pretty rough this year. He just seems too hittable to be left in the rotation but odds are they will give him a shot anyway. Personally I don't think that I like him in reliever role though either. Hope he turns things around though.
  15. Dman
    In many ways I agree with your sentiment. After following these guys from the minors up to MLB and being so invested in their success it is hard to give up on them even if they move to another team. Do I follow them as closely? Probably not but I guess there is part of me that wants to believe I was right about that player. That he would be good or great if given more opportunity. At any rate I get your point and agree that I spend far more time worrying about the players on the Twins than Ex Twins players. So I think in many ways you are correct in your analysis.
  16. Dman
    My take is he isn't just auditioning for the Twins. With a good spring he can drum up interest from any club in need of a decent bat and or platoon player. Doesn't matter what team he starts with if he does well in the spring maintains it in AAA he will find a team. He just has to prove he still has what it takes.
  17. Dman
    First let me say I am not a big WAR believer. It is used a lot to measure performance now but I don't buy everything about it. Math and analytics are obviously important to the game of baseball. We use it to compare players and a players performance all the time. There are, however, things that math doesn't tell us. It doesn't tell us that players are hurt and that is why they had a down month or down year. It doesn't take into account lot's of human elements it just cruelly spits out the numbers of performance. Can we glean information from those numbers? Sure. We can create averages and figure out how certain players will perform at certain levels year in and year out? Sure, but over time the math just doesn't project very well. Players decline sometimes rapidly and the math lied to us. Sometime players over perform for other various reasons and the math didn't see it coming. So IMO math is not the be all end all for measurement but it is very important at giving us an idea of what value a player might have over another player over time. Projection systems based on math are tough to swallow because there are so many things that can happen in a season that it is hard to take them seriously. The beauty of this sport is that anything can happen any given game. Even if a great pitcher makes a bad pitch at a bad time then game over. I like the math stats that people bring out on this board. Often times it changes my perception about a player or situation. And even though math experts will say the numbers don't lie I think when used incorrectly they at the very least mislead.
  18. Dman
    i kind of feel that the D- grade is a little harsh but like several people have said winning the off season doesn't typically mean much. Even if the Twins aren't D- the best I could see would be C- so not much difference anyway. I agree that it would have been nice to find one more fairly dominant bullpen piece because I don't think Perkins will be able to stay healthy for a full season anymore and we don't have a lot behind him right now. Once he goes down there is a lot of stepping up to do. Thing is though I am all for going with the younger players completely proven or not. We need to get Buxten, Berrios, and Kepler playing time this year and we need see which of the young relief arms have the stuff to make it in pro ball. We have to get our core young players the experience this year so that they can succeed next year. We have six years to get this team where it needs to be to compete for the World Series but we need to get them real experience. We need to find out sooner than later who has the right stuff because we are ripe with talent with little room on the 40 man to stash anyone anymore. Get some of these young guys going move the vets onto another team and create room for the future players to stay with the team. To me this is it. This is the start of many great seasons to come. No need to block players. Let's see what the young guys have and get ready to be the great team I know they will become.
  19. Dman
    Yeah a lot of us liked the moves the Sox made last year myself included. Your pitching is good but defense and timely hitting always seem to fall short. I for one think the Sox are due for a little extra luck but I think others are waiting to see if they will break out of their funk Despite your analysis I still question the hitting side of equation for your team but if they do find a groove with the bats they have the pitching to take the division. As I said earlier a lot of us here have liked the Sox moves in the off-season but just haven't seen the results so there is a little extra skepticism there.
  20. Dman
    I am a big Melotakis fan. I still think he could be a good starter but I guess elite bullpen arm will have to do. I think he needs to start in the minors and depending on how he does they can call him up. I am glad the Twins added him as I would have hated to see them lose him. I really think he has the pitches to very good to great. Hopefully he will be up soon striking out MLB batters.
  21. Dman
    Yeah I have to say i was extremely surprised that he had such great plate discipline last year. Typically rookies have trouble there. Seems like it is often times the last thing to come around. I can't wait to see this guy again next year.
  22. Dman
    Yeah I would have to go with Low as well primarily because there isn't much precedent for a guy his size out there. He is athletic but it doesn't seem likely to work out IMO.
  23. Dman
    Yeah Tate was there but there were rumors that unless the right guy fell that Colorado was gonna pick Jay third. http://www.hngn.com/articles/97976/20150603/mlb-draft-2015-tyler-jay-going-third-overall-to-colorado-rockies-much-uncertainty-among-top-picks.htm Allard and Aiken had injuries to sort out and it played out that they fell further down because of that. Fulmer was a tough call because of size and the high effort delivery. Personally I liked him better than Jay, but Jay is a lefty so I can understand why the Twins went the way they did. I'm just sayin that lots of scouts liked Jays stuff. He has a four pitch mix and decent control. He is already the number 3 on MLB top 30 prospects for the Twins. Given the Justification for some of this guys top 100 picks I personally think Jay slots in ahead of some of them.
  24. Dman
    Yeah I think he messed up not putting Jay in there. He has Dillon at around 50 and there was talk of Jay going ahead of him in the Draft. Also most scouts rated Jays pitches higher. Only reason I can think of that he didn't put him in is he doesn't believe Jay is a starter but a reliever. Seems a bit odd though since Dillon was a converted reliever last year. Most scouts were pretty high on Jay last year so i guess that makes me question this guy's ratings.
  25. Dman
    While I agree with you to some degree I think the Twins have to figure out what they have in some of the young bullpen arms sooner rather than later. Next year it is gonna be even harder to find room on the 40 man. I like Bastardo on a two year deal even if it was slightly more than 6M per year and they could have let Fien or someone else go but the Twins must have other plans. There is a bit of glut of starting pitching as well and they will need to make room for Berrios and Duffey at some point. They must think they have the guys they need on the farm or they cold have easily made this move.
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