VandyTwinsFan

I've noticed that many posters here like to point to outliers in player stats and say they will improve/regress based on that. For proven players, I think this is a reasonable thing to do. But for guys who've never had success...maybe they're just not good enough. Maybe his fastball is too easy to see and square up. Maybe he's just not a big league pitcher. I don't mean to sound like I'm attacking your post. I regard your comments quite highly. I just think people too easily fall into that statistical analysis routine. This is not to say that you're wrong. It's possible that poor pitchers don't have BABIP rates that high. I honestly don't know (I guess I could compare him to the rest of the 2013 staff!). I'm just wary of the prediction is all. Agreed.

He has to hit at AAA in order to make it to the bigs, first. Wise decision for the team to make it a minor league deal. I used to be a big fan of Kubie Snacks, but now he's merely depth at the lower levels while the kids come up. However, if he regains his old form that would make this a nifty pickup. All in all, I like it.

Meh. He's still pretty young, but no one was fooled by his pitches. Maybe Twins pitchers are too predictable. If he figures it out somewhere else, super for him. The team needs to move on from guys who've failed for 2+ years without any big league success to speak of.

Hamels for 5 years and Plouffe at 3B frustrating me to no end.... or Sano launching bombs and no 1-2 starter (other than possibly Meyer). Shoot. That's a tough one.

I think the value of defense is a large reason why most people have Buxton ahead of Sano. Buxton has the potential to be a golden glove CF, while Sano could be a decent defensive 3B. I think that "small" difference tends to represent the idea that while Sano may be more feared in the batter's box, Buxton will provide more overall value to a team. However, that's just my take on other people's opinions. Also, the wRC+ comparison is quite an interesting one to see. It makes me even more excited for Sano than I was before. I keep forgetting how young he really is. He just looks older because he's so big. I'll have to keep an eye out for more of your writing. Nice work!

I had the initial excitement of getting someone new to roam the outfield, but I'm at the same point. Arcia and Hicks just made it up and have some learning to do, so they need playing time. Parmelee (who I used to be excited about) is pretty much done. Presley played well for us I thought. Who else batted above .280 for over a month? I hoped last year at ST that Mastro was the everyday CF so that Hicks could get more seasoning. Hopefully, he comes back healthy. Let Presley and Mastro work on CF. Hicks can play AAA for a few months and then replace the less valuable one. Bringing Buxton up this year is a tad aggressive if you ask me. I think Parmelee or Collabello is expendable. Parm plays a better outfield, but we have a plethora of guys like him to throw out there. I still think Collabello deserves an offseason to adjust to pitching.

Swarzak had the second highest WAR for pitchers on the team, after Perkins. Two relief pitchers had a better WAR than the entire starting staff...

Call me a sucker, but I still have some faith in the guy. If you look at his stats, he was batting .269 as late as July 4th, and that was with a pretty ugly April (.217). He has the second highest line drive rate on the team behind Mauer. He's a dead pull power hitter, but I saw him hit some line drives oppo last year. Unfortunately, they all seemed to go straight to the right fielder. His fielding % went from .935 to .956 from 2012 to 2013. He went from 17 errors in 804 innings in 2012 to 13 in 1035 in 2013. Better, yeah? Look, the guy is improving. Is it as fast as we would like? Obviously not. He's very streaky and thrives on confidence. I think all he needs is someone to click with and have some fun playing ball with. When the team starts tanking at the end of the year, he does too. Personally, I'd rather have him get a 1st baseman's glove and turn into Cuddyer. Hopefully he bats well enough to start every day, but he can always spell Mauer, Sano, or an outfielder. Maybe even grab an outfield spot if he hits well. Just don't give up on the guy. Wait for him to stop improving first.

Trade them Plouffe!!! Ahahahaha!

From the above mentioned article: "He found that some batters, such as Jack Cust, Dan Johnson and Josh Willingham, hardly ever stray from their points of contact, indicating rigid swing patterns that could leave them vulnerable to specific pitches or pitch sequences. Other batters make adjustments, such as Ichiro Suzuki, Brayan Pena, Coco Crisp and Ian Desmond, who made contact at all points in the strike zone with regularity." My brother and I would make bets on which pitch would strike Willingham out this year. It's interesting to see a report illustrating why he can't hit a breaking ball moving down and away (although, not necessarily located off the plate).

I went to game 160 or something where Verlander pitched and sat in the home run "porch." Verlander hit 100 mph on his 113th pitch. I never knew such a thing existed at the time. I had only ever watched the Twins. That was a great season to be a Twins fan. Such an amazing September. The playoffs...well, that's when I really learned what it meant to be a Twins fan; the Yankees are the devil.

Unfortunately, things didn't work out. I'm in Dallas now and I gave the current lady friend the option of learning hockey or baseball. She chose baseball. I took her up to the Frisco Roughriders and watched Joe Benson play after he got traded. Outstanding ballpark for AA. Joe was underwhelming. The new lady still has some things to learn about baseball, but she does have relatives in Fort Myers...

Speaking of turtles, I've poked my head out here a few times to check things out. I've been mostly ignored, which is fine. I used to post at the Twins website in the comments section, but that felt like bringing a violin to a meth fight. Nobody knew what was going on and most didn't have a good time. I check this site several times a week. Since most have shared a story: The moment that I knew I would be a Twins fan the rest of my life was game 163 against the Tigers in 2009. Alexi freakin' Casilla gets a walk off hit to save his name after I had just cursed the living bejesus out of it after blowing that tag from 3rd. That was a great season ending rally to watch. Several weeks of critical baseball to culminate with an unlikely hero. Just awesome. My favorite Twins moment was 2010 when Jim Thome crushed a ball to right for a walk-off dinger. I watched every pitch of that game and was so in the moment that it gave me chills all over my body. The scene in Moneyball where a similar moment happens gives me the chills (to a lesser degree) because of the similarity. There's no particular reason to love that moment, but I was so into the game it couldn't have ended better. Most disappointed Twins moment...when the Twins didn't draft Sonny Gray. I was at Vanderbilt for grad school and watched him pitch many times. The guy had awesome all over him. Big situation...he got bigger. That curveball made college hitters cry. I know the Twins have had many disappointing moments, but that one was personal to me. The rest I can get over. Gray was my guy. If you can't tell I'm a recent Twins fan. I grew up in SD not really watching baseball and only got into when my college girlfriend in St. Cloud got me into it. I hope to someday make it back to MN so I can once again sit at Target field and enjoy the summer sun and baseball. If not, I'll go to Fort Myers.

Thanks. I believe I was thinking of the instructional league. I was going to copy the stats to get them in the thread but I got a character limit. Now I feel like a noob and will go find a nice corner to think about what I've done.

Anyone have some stats available for any of the twins representatives? I didn't think they kept track but even some basic stuff such as "2 HR in 30 AB" would be nice.

I agree with beckmt. I'm indifferent in regards to Gardy as a manager (I do love his hat kicking rants, though), but I feel that if the club is going to be bringing in new/young guys and they're trying to instill a new attitude...then a new manager is a good way to do just that. It's not that I don't think Gardy could do a decent job. It's a necessary statement to the team, the staff, and the fans that things are going to change. And if he stays...the roster just becomes another one of Gardy's teams. Bring on a new era of Twins baseball.

Good debating. Really masterful. I wouldn't mind discussing the possibility of Mauer at 3rd. I imagine 1st was the easiest place to move Joe with Morneau being hurt and Joe not really having experience in other places. 3rd has more nuances than 1st, but one could hope that over an off-season Joe could be an equal to Plouffe defensively and progress from there. I'd like to entertain the idea of platooning plouffe with mauer. Plouffe plays on days against lefties and the occasional righty who doesn't have a sweet slider to make him look stupid (or any other pitch down and away). Plus, having an athletic 6'5" guy standing at third sounds pretty sweet. Certainly more intimidating than our old buddy Carroll. Thoughts? Also, I realize Sano is on his way. But let's not assume he'll immediately succeed or be here next year for a second.

Gardy can kick a hat with the best of them...I love it every time. I couldn't find a picture of it but I found an article from 2008 mentioning one of his better punts. Gardenhire ejected out of Twins game | twinsbaseball.com: News

Is it just me, or has Buxton been putting up a lot of 0-fer's recently? The BA is starting to creep downwards in addition to quite a few strikeouts adding up. Is it just a tough stretch or have opposing pitchers found a weakness?