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Cris E

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Everything posted by Cris E

  1. Cris E
    If anything I'd put Santana at SS while he's hot and let utilityman Escobar play CF while he's hot. Then when things need to change just send out Santana to learn SS at AAA.
  2. Cris E
    What if Arcia is still not ready? Parmalee?
  3. Cris E
    Fuld to the 7 day DL and Nunez on his way.
  4. Cris E
    "What, a Fryer, Herrmann, Florimon bench doesnt do anything for you?" It would be kind of cool if they had Florimon start catching. Who else could claim a five C roster? I mean, if you want to be interesting then you gotta do more than buy a bad hat.
  5. Cris E
    The Twins are doing a bad job solving the problem at SS, but I do cut them some slack in cases where there's a prospect coming that makes it hard to sign a real player to a real deal. What CF wants to come here knowing that Buxton is bearing down on his position? And even if that guy wanted the job do you want to sign that contract? They chose to use the time to find out who Hicks is rather than invest in a damaged Upton or bring back Span or whatever other notions were floated. It wasn't a bad idea; the bad idea in CF was not having a plan in case you didn't like who Hicks turned out to be, or in case there was an injury.
  6. Cris E
    I don't know what you guys are talking about. Why, in Rochester alone there are three outfielders on the roster: Chris Parmelee, Wilkin Ramierez and someone named Chris Rahl. And there are four, four!, in New Britain, one of whom is even hitting over .250. Seriously, it does seem a little strange that not a single one of them is listed as a CF. The only two guys appearing as such are Buxton and the awesomely named Zack Granite in Cedar Rapids. That Alex Presley cut is looking worse each day.
  7. Cris E
    Diamond and Deduno were already pitching last year and couldn't have picked up an extra 30 starts. And bargain bin signings do work out if your goal is just filling holes in the short term. It's not a good way to fill long-term holes (like their current SS vacancy) but it's a fine way to manage the back of the rotation. But the real point is that they did spend $11m and they got 2 years of Pelfrey. That's about what you can get for $10-12m. It's a little high and the second year was probably a bad idea, but check out the list of free agent pitchers signed last winter (http://espn.go.com/mlb/freeagents/_/type/dollars/position/sp). There were a couple of slightly better options perhaps, but some of these guys had relationships to draw on, and in general you're not only dealing in salary, they want as many years as they can get. And then you have to convince them they can win in MN, that they might make some endorsement cash, and that you might keep them around longer than it takes for the kids to figure out AA and displace them. That makes it harder for 90 loss teams trying to go young. The trouble with signing a guy for this year to win games is that we have no place for the kids to play. We've already got Deduno blocked from the rotation by Pelfrey, and the day we decide Meyer or May is ready they're even further back in line. (Deduno might not be your idea of a kid to block or not block, but he's a better option than a new two year deal for Pelfrey. The rotation is still crammed with more guys than we needed to sign.) Money is pretty irrelevant compared with roster management.
  8. Cris E
    But that's the thing: you're talking like there are these freely available AAA guys are going to show up and deliver hundreds of innings of average work. They don't exist: you either sign fringy guys like Pelfrey or Marquis or Livan or Liam H or the rest of the guys we sent out last year and accept that they are going to range from meh to argh, or else you go try to pick up real starters for real money. Casually saying "Garza for $12m" is not real. He's making $50m/4 yr plus a $13m vesting option. It's not a marginal difference. You're not just spending an extra $5m, you're signing a 30 year old with a serious and recent injury history to a four year deal. That's substantially different. They did go out and sign Hughes and Nolasco this season, which is better than a Garza deal because they're more likely to stay healthy. They didn't go get a SS because many of the options were bad, expensive or both. In retrospect they should have done more at that position a few years ago, or at least kept their eyes open for a quick win at some point, but this year the SS market wasn't good. Who knows, if Sano was healthy and hit the ground running maybe the plan was to trade Plouffe for a SS. Lots of plans don't see the light of day, but hoping for "above average production...for a marginal difference" is not realistic.
  9. Cris E
    Escobar, Florimon and Nunez are your options. Dozier is playing well at 2b and they won't create a hole there to take a chance he fixes things at SS. So who's left in the org? - There was a thing someplace recently (citing sources is important!) that Polanco has 10 errors in 16 games this spring. - Rosario hasn't been on a field in half a year (and wasn't tremendous when he was playing 2b.) - Goodrum is still in Hi A. - Santana is the best of the bunch, and he's hitting below .240 in AAA, not walking and striking out in over a quarter of his PA. If you don't like Florimon you're going to go crazy watching Santana. You can make an argument that the SS position in the organization is similar to where starting pitching was in November and that they need a transfusion of outside talent for a year or two. I think Santana might be ready next year, but the point remains that during the 2011-2014 period the team took the field without a proper SS. That's a real problem. (EDIT: And we still have five months of 2014 left.) EDIT: Also, I skipped a lot of guys that aren't the future. Sue me. Berrisford and his ilk are a response to the problem I've described, not a solution.
  10. Cris E
    I think a lot of teams have a lot more than $5m of dead wood each year. It's not much at all in a world with a $0.5m minimum salary and total budgets running over $75m. Think of it as two guys not meeting your expectations, and then look at the list of lottery tickets you named. Frankly those were all longshots, and if they worked out they'd have been huge bargains; 200 IP of league average starting pitching costs a lot more than $5m. If you think about it, saving the last 5-10% of your budget for gambles like those is not a bad way to manage your payroll. Marquis didn't work out here, but two months later he was awesome for San Diego. Livan wasn't league average but he did pile up a bunch of innings when we really didn't have much ready in Roch. Pelfrey and Correia did pretty well last year in the midst of a terrible season, sparing everyone more exposure to PJ Whatever and the rest of those guys. Kubel looks like he's got more left than he showed in March, so if he keeps it together he might be what the team needed to fill LF while Willingham is out (again.) No gambles in your lineup can only mean two things: the roster is perfect or you're sitting still when you could be trying things. A little dead wood is not bad, and in fact is a sign you're trying things.
  11. Cris E
    The bunt the other day was a change in approach. That's Joe making a change and taking a free base, so if you're going to complain about *that* you just need to take a deep breath and admit to yourself that the root of the problem isn't with him. It could be frustration with the entire team, jealousy of his virile sideburns or simply that you like to complain, but be honest with yourself and admit he's playing pretty well and trying a few things. EDIT:"you" was some general comment on an earlier page, not a specific person.
  12. Cris E
    Given the names on that list there are going to be plenty of times when at least a couple of them are dinged up or tired or flat out injured. This is not exactly a series of Ripkens and Gehrigs we're looking at.
  13. Cris E
    Kent Hrbek, pepperoni and onion
  14. Cris E
    After Crain and Gueereruier went through these flat spots they eventually faced long lasting injuries. And in his past Burton has had serious bouts with the injury bug, losing most of 2010-11. For him to blithely say "I'm fine, it's not physical" after stinking the joint up last summer, rallying for a few weeks and then falling flat ever since sort of raises a flag.
  15. Cris E
    Mauer has had 57 PA and even with the strikeouts his OBP is still .388. If you want to play small samples and chasing endpoints, how about five multi-hit games in his last eight? How about the fact that he struck out in all but one (including two strikeouts in four of eight?) Does any of this mean anything? No, it's mid-April. This is not a thing.
  16. Cris E
    Two guys parked on the bench watching the pinch hit opportunities roll by makes me wonder: if they'd won today would they still have done this? I like to think they would have, but regardless it's good to see injured guys getting replaced. Too bad Arcea didn't own up in time to get another hitter up here for today's game.
  17. Cris E
    Barreiro and Reusse are tired, lazy and need to produce sounds for hours at a stretch almost daily. Mauer works for their purposes because he's well-liked enough to draw defenders and disappointing enough to make some people pause. When people blame individuals for team failures they are over-simplifying, especially over a series of 160+ game seasons.
  18. Cris E
    That's what you want 'confirmation bias' to mean...
  19. Cris E
    I think if they move any bullpen guys they'll keep Swarzak (homegrown) and move Burton or Fien, probably Burton since he's got a better track record so he'd bring a better return. If Willingham is toast it'll be obvious by May and he'll be sitting in MN on August 1. At that point there's little reason to play him or trade him until Sept, when his playing time will be more valuable in the hands of the kids. My guess is that is if he bombs we'll see more Kubel, and if he bombs too by the end of June we'll see the end of the Eddie Rosario 2B Experience and the dawn of Rosario: LF. When his 50 games wrap up they'll tune up his bat and have him go stand in LF, defense or no.
  20. Cris E
    Lots of pitching injuries this spring, so some guys that you wouldn't consider in Feb start looking more plausible as April rushes towards you. I'm thinking OAK, TEX, ATL, for example. Diamond would be a great #4/5 if you have a good enough bullpen to keep him on a short leash and can score enough runs to make his starts worthwhile. Basically a good team where you're not quite ready to bring up the kids but you lost 170 innings to Tommy John. He's a cheap replacement level starter who seems like a solid citizen. He'll find work.
  21. Cris E
    "50 game suspension to start the season." Yes, but he is allowed in camp until the games start. The real issue is that he's been out of camp for "personal reasons". Honestly I don't particularly care what they are, but it is a bad year to be missing a heap of playing time. He was on the verge of getting a major league cup of coffee as soon as this Sept, and the team is short on both middle infielders and hitters. I hope all is well in his life, but the timing was unfortunate.
  22. Cris E
    Reality check: The more moving parts there are the less likely it is to happen. In this case there are more starters than roles, so the easiest path to clarity is a simple move like sending Diamond to OAK. He gets a chance, they shore up the rotation, MN picks up a prospect (hopefully a MI.)
  23. Cris E
    If there was any gentleman's agreement, it certainly would have included some sort of expectation that Kubel or Bartlett wouldn't be utterly terrible. You can hear the discussion already: "Jason, if you'd given me any excuse at all I'd have made a place for you..." The team isn't at a point where they can be fine tuning the 25th man selection. It's still in a raw rebuild state and these guys are not moving the team forward. I like the idea of placeholding with easily discardable oldsters from happier days, but there are actual players to evaluate and the old guys are not filling the places.
  24. Cris E
    A real SS prospect would be very welcome. All the guys mentioned there are glove-first, maybe-enough-bat or probably-a-2B guys rather than genuine top shelf SS talent. Eventually one of Hicks and Rosario should be packed up and send out for a solid SS. A lot will ride on if missing a third of this season affects Eddie's progress at 2B. He's still got work to do and if he wants to be part of the action in 2015 this was a really bad time to sit out.
  25. Cris E
    It's a silly premise for an article. <Inflamatory Strawman Title?> No! Perfectly reasonable action in context, and no one is saying this at all. But if they were this piece would be refuting those arguments.
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