Jump to content
Twins-Giants game thread is live — talk the game with us! ×
Twins Daily
  • Create Account

Cris E

Verified Member
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    1,028

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Profiles

News

Minnesota Twins Videos

2026 Minnesota Twins Top Prospects Ranking

2022 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks

Minnesota Twins Free Agent & Trade Rumors, Notes, & Tidbits

Guides & Resources

2023 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks

The Minnesota Twins Players Project

2024 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks

2025 Minnesota Twins Draft Pick Tracker

2026 Minnesota Twins Draft Tracker: Picks & Bonuses

Forums

Blogs

Events

Store

Downloads

Gallery

Everything posted by Cris E

  1. Cris E
    Dear God. You do realize how hard it is to catch and do anything else? The last catcher before Mauer to win an AL batting title was 1933, largely because catchers get beat up badly and there's also the DH position to content with for top hitter. He won three. You think that's some sort of coincidence? When healthy he was an MVP or close to it, finishing in the top ten in MVP voting four times as a catcher. What the guy was getting paid should not affect your judgement of how well he performed. But he earned his money in the first three years, so you're complaining about the five years when he was fighting concussions. Would you have felt better about his back going to pieces and him sitting on the bench? The fact that he was an above average 1B at the MLB level while he was dealing with this mostly tells me you don't know anyone who has suffered a serious concussion. But here's the deal, he caught most of ten years, 921 games, as one of the top in the game with a solid peak and some fancy awards. If you don't think that's worthy of the hall then you're probably unhappy with most of the catchers that are in there now and will never be happy with any catcher ever entering again. Then again I'm sure you'll never be impressed any any pitcher ever making it either, since the game has changed in many ways. Sorry for your loss.
  2. Cris E
    Sano is at the top of that Unsigned For A Reason list. That showcase was Tuesday, easily long enough for all the excited teams to throw out $5m or $2m or $1m or non-roster invites to camp. Crickets so far though, both unanimous and loud. He was fun but he showed nothing last year and no one has even hinted that they might be interested.
  3. Cris E
    Why give Australia and Canada teams when Great Britain has a squad? Because they have their own identity, because this isn't the Olympics at all, because it's about fun and bragging rights. You want to get all outraged over this then go look into the "standards" that many countries are employing to engage players. Anyone even remotely Jewish can play for Isreal, which makes sense because they've had a broad definition of "nation" for 3000 years. You like Olive Garden, you can be Italian for March. You don't even need to like it, necessarily, but if one of your parents wasn't above eating there you can claim them. I saw this WW2 documentary on Netflix that mentioned the Netherlands plus Bert Blyleven circled someone in my section in 2005 so I am eligible for that squad even though my elbow gave up on baseball 40 years ago. Best advice: take none of this seriously, revel in the joy of baseball and hope the pitchers get enough work in without anyone getting hurt.
  4. Cris E
    The alternatives to Kirilloff are not good. Miranda is likely to get the first call, but after that I really don't expect Gallo to play much 1b at all because his glove is too valuable in the outfield. If I were in player development with this org I'd be on Amazon right now ordering a pallet load of first baseman gloves, and a lot of guys would be be handed the big mitt when they arrive next week and be told to do some learning if they want to claim time. Larnach, Wallner, Julien at the bare minimum are blah defenders in their best positions, guys that could shorten their road to the majors with some time at first base. Polanco might want to tag along if his lateral mobility isn't coming back the way he hoped. For all the talk about positional flexibility that this management likes to point to, sometimes you need to manufacture it like they did with Arraez. EDIT: Wallner has 0 games at 1B in the college/minors and Larnach has one, and Julien has a bunch, mostly at Cedar Rapids in 2021.
  5. Cris E
    Eh, over-rated is a weak analysis point. "Some people said good things but we smart people know better" is just a lame topic. Talk about rentals vs long-term roster construction if you will ( almost none of those guys are back only four years later) but insisting that years of control amounts to a goal in itself makes no sense if your prospects aren't good. And if you like a player you can buy years of control by signing a longer term contract. Control is not a useful measure. You know the last time we had such an outlier offense in a ridiculously high offensive environment? 1987 was eerily similar in both the spike in league-wide power and the Twins' crazy exploitation of it. It was fun to watch the batters slug and the pitchers hang on, and, in the big difference from 2019, they lucked out in the playoffs. You can still see the pennant hanging out in center field.
  6. Cris E
    First the dry: Gordon's performance was all over the place (OPS+ from 79-150) when his babip was quite high from April thru August, but he was quite average (97 OPS+) when his babip was closer to normal from September thru the end of the year. He really only had one hot month in August and the rest were meh even as he was getting pretty lucky in balls in play (season babip .340 vs AL .290). If he starts hitting into bad luck he might slide back towards his 2021 numbers where he only managed a 79 OPS+ while his babip was merely .310 vs the AL .291. Second the meat: I like Nick Gordon: he plays an energetic, fun, fast style of baseball, he's a good interview, he seems to really be enjoying himself out there and the world needs more guys like him. But in his career he's had injury problems, he's been over-matched defensively, he doesn't steal bases well despite his speed, his other base-running numbers aren't great and he doesn't walk. He's got value, but no one should pretend we don't have better options in the outfield corners. Splitting them IF and OF except in unusual circumstances sounds great. Farmer can PH against lefties and can catch when Vazquez is DH, and Nick can step in against righties and maybe pinch run. Lots of fun, but both bench players.
  7. Cris E
    Sonny Grey is a pretty good pitcher. He's never going to be the best guy in the league, but you're never going to be bummed out that he's starting for you. He'll be clearly above average and keep you in most games. However Sonny Grey has always had a problem with little injuries. He's only made 30+ starts in a seasons three times, and last year he missed time with hamstring problems and covid, and recovery from those reduced his effectiveness at times. It's to be expected. But when he pitches he's better than most. He's not an ace, but by modern definitions almost no one is. It's just too hard to throw as hard as you have to and to avoid injury while trying to stay ahead of hitters that are watching their last at bats between innings. I can barely imagine anyone doing this anymore.
  8. Cris E
    He's likely a back end rotation guy who will get chances to start. That's more than a Winder or Sands can count on, so good for him and good for the Twins. It's a valuable thing to have a #4 that aspires to be a #3. As mentioned above, these guys cost real money, and not having them means Aaron Sanchez starts getting more innings - good for him but not good for the team.
  9. Cris E
    I wanted Steve Fraley to be real. I still want him to become a recurring Randballs character, maybe a Raymond Chandler-esque, film noir kind of guy that wears a lot of bright colors to throw folks off. Also, Stu, there's room for a weekly ChatGPT feature where Google The Machine writes something for consideration. EDIT: Google is behind and has introduced Bard to catch up. Mea culpa.
  10. Cris E
    His 2023 performance might make or break the Twins' season, but he's not in any danger. He's very good, fairly paid, he's one of the only proven power hitter on the roster, his recent dips in performance directly tie to injuries and there have been no reports that there's been any setback in recovering from them. Every team loves having guys like this around. The fact that the Twins over-played him while he was hurt last year is not on him, as the playoffs drifted out of reach well before the end of the year and they kept playing him despite his injury. His job is to work his therapy, meet the new guys, knock the rust off and be ready for March. There's no reason for him to be worrying about anything else.
  11. Cris E
    If our starting rotation is Grey - Lopez - Mahle - Ryan - Maeda we've got good depth, and strides have been taken with Gallo and Taylor to fix the OF depth and Farmer to add infield flexibility to prevent a repetition of 2022's vulnerability to injury. We should never field a team as bad as last August's. When we roll into DET or KC or PIT or WAS or even CIN it's clear we won't be the underdogs very often even if we do suffer some injuries.
  12. Cris E
    Gallo is useful because we don't have many proven OF right now and he's pretty good with a glove and plays every day. And even in his worst year he produced a 79 OPS+, which is bad but better than the replacements we trotted out before he got here. Sano is a DH and poor 1B, can't stay healthy, and mostly only hits in streaks so he's not very suited for a PH role. He needs to play a lot so there are enough ABs to hold a few hot streaks, but then you have Gallo without the D in the lineup every day. Blergh.
  13. Cris E
    Moore isn't better because he finally got a shot at relieving. He did get a good shot at relieving in 2018 after they pulled him from the rotation. The second two thirds of the season he was in the pen and was almost three runs/gm better than as a starter, yielding only a .252 batting avg in 27 appearances. Alas, the improvement was from an 8.02 ERA down to 5.36 as he gave up 11 HR and 15 BB in 47 innings. It was not great. To build on that he threw 10 innings in 2019, missing 2020 completely, and then was terrible as both a starter and a reliever in 2021. 2022 was completely different, quite excellent. But the fact that pulled all this together at the age of 33 by throwing harder and improving his spin without any other underlying explanation is not reassuring. There are six forecasts for him at Fangraphs and the best one is thinking 3.99 ERA with a 4.22 FIP. Maybe he'll be better than that, but maybe he won't. The established level of performance is not anything close to 2022, so I guess I need to hear a good story about how he's going to sustain this 2mph gain as he gets older. The best I found so far comes from Pinstripe Alley last month:
  14. Cris E
    I think part of the reason the Al Central teams see such a switch is how bad we were last year. We looked bad and they play us less, but I expect us to be improved not only by roster changes and natural player growth but also in improved health. So fewer games against us makes the Guardians' schedule even easier than that analysis indicates. We'll see. It's going to be a much better year to watch baseball in MN than 2022.
  15. Cris E
    If you're going far out like catcher conversions then I might start with a Julien type rather than a guy with serious wheels. The individual player's buy-in is going to matter most in this sort of move, much more than if his brother catches. But in the larger sense you're right: I'd be asking a lot more of these infielders that are hella blocked if they'd consider donning the tools of ignorance. Can't hurt.
  16. Cris E
    The truth is right now there are not that many experienced OF on the 40 man that have shown they can be counted on for 450 AB of average performance. Buxton needs the poor-hitting Taylor to cover his time off, Kepler hasn't got a great record with the bat of late, and Gordon hits well when his babip is over .350 and poorly when it's low, but hasn't established a level of performance yet. And as good as some of the kids look, Larnach and Kirilloff haven't proved anything, Wallner looked good for a tiny bit and at that point you begin converting Martin or someone to LF. They got Gallo to fill a huge hole and it's not solid enough to give away Kepler until after spring training establishes who can replace him.
  17. Cris E
    This list has always felt more optimistic than others, so sure, top ten, why not? But justifying that by his placement on other lists should not be the reason for this rank. He's fun to dream on and he hasn't taken himself out of any future role yet, and that's enough. Not for me, of course. I look for more in the way of production before the unbridled optimism is allowed to fly above everything else. I rarely support low A guys or younger anywhere near the top ten unless a system is seriously bereft of talent. He didn't destroy high A, so I think a guy like this belongs back in the pack with other revelations like the early years of Emmanuel Rodriguez, for example.
  18. Cris E
    I recall the Cruz trade being more about getting a well-liked late-career guy a shot at the playoffs than his being washed up. Regardless, I like watching Ryan pitch. He works quickly, doesn't nibble a lot and gets results. He seems like a good guy and not wound too tight so his interviews are interesting and he comes across kind of relatable. It's easy rooting for a guy like that.
  19. Cris E
    I don't want to say it's irrelevant, but there are a lot of other things that are going to matter more than the April record. Our team health, any injuries in Chicago that expose their lack of depth, how Cleveland plays are the first three that will have more impact than a couple games either way with 85% of the schedule to play. If the Guards jump out to a 19-10 record or something then we're in a hole regardless of how we play. A collapse in Chicago could have them selling vets by the all-star break, and we could be seeing the school buses full of youngsters here by June if Correa, Grey and Buxton all hit the DL early. The fact is we'll play KC and Detroit so many times and they probably won't be good at any point in the year. Miami and WAS and PIT and the rest of the scrubs shouldn't change a bunch over the season, but you never know when some rookie is going to burst on the scene and make one of them dangerous. Still, it's nice to have a couple cupcakes to build confidence while things are settling out, and it's nice to get the Yankees out of the way so they don't mess with momentum later in the year. But the fate of this season starts and ends in the trainer's room.
  20. Cris E
    (double post)
  21. Cris E
    It's like they were coming out of a... pipeline?
  22. Cris E
    This could easily have been suggested as part of an organizational move towards better health. Improving flexibility and reducing mass might help keep him on the field, which I think everyone is particularly sensitive to after the carnage of 2022. Regarding Miranda playing first, Plan A is still Kirilloff until he doesn't seize it. Past that, I also think they want to keep first open for whoever turns out to need it. If they have to make room for Lee or Lewis or Martin or Wallner they'll need different kinds of flexibility so starting everyone as far as possible up on the defensive spectrum leaves room on the easy end for injured or displaced guys as the season unfolds. Who knows, Polanco could get hurt and end up over there, or Wallner could shove his way into the discussion early, or Miranda could get shouldered aside by a SS.
  23. Cris E
    He's got something else that few others on this roster have: legitimate, displayed, non-2019 power. Until we see someone other than Buxton hit 25 HR he's the man. Polanco was the only other one on the roster last winter when they went out to find more: Gallo usually does, Correa should, the kids might someday. But Polonco shows up, plays hard, and hits well. He's an important person in this roster not as a 2b but as a #3-4 hitter. I could see him sliding to first if the Lewis/Lee/Martin infield crew arrives before the Larnach/Kirilloff/Wallner corner crew.
  24. Cris E
    I will caution that the vast majority those sift-tossing pitcher examples have not thrown an inning during the career of most MLB players. The game is different and there are fewer Doug Jones and Jamie Moyers around than ever. It's not just a stylistic thing either: batters can get in the cage and see as many changeups off the pitching machine as they want. There's film and analytics on when each pitch comes in the sequence and what each pitchers' tendencies are. It was hard to get by with an 88mph heater 15 years ago and it's even harder today. Luckily Varland is more Brad Radke than Jamie Moyer. He's got a fairly normal repertoire and can reach back for the big one when he needs to so hitters have to honor the fastball. I think his challenge is simply having to become a pitcher earlier in his career than the throwers who can get further into their career on power and crazy stuff.
  25. Cris E
    I don't care about HR if he can get his doubles and triples up. Line drives to the wall will keep me very happy until he learns to drive the ball with a little more elevation later in life.
×
×
  • Create New...