Jdosen

You know I had pretty much exactly the same observations of what I saw of CB yesterday. I even made a joke on twitter about his wife wanting him home early for dinner. And then I went on brooksbaseball.net which has some really great stuff on pitchers and strike zones, etc. Anyways, I found that there were only 3 or 4 calls that were really egregiously wrong. The lesson, as always--even the worst home plate umpires are really really good at what they do. Here are the charts: http://www.brooksbaseball.net/pfxVB/zoneTrack.php?month=4&day=03&year=2014&game=gid_2014_04_03_minmlb_chamlb_1/&prevDate=0403

I honestly think what I'm noticing is that he doesn't make the throws well when he thinks he has plenty of time. Seems like when it's a speedy guy he just throws the ball hard, but when he doesn't have to rush he doesn't throw as hard and seems to lob the ball. I could be completely wrong and I have no data to back that up, but that's what I'm seeing.

I wasn't speaking of the posters here per se, but the general rube comments I seem to hear when I'm out and about.

My neighbors had a tennis court when I was a kid, and believe me it was rarely used for tennis. In the winter, it was a hockey rink, but in summers, it was for home run derbies. By the time we were 12, it wasn't even fun anymore because hitting one out of there wasn't all that tough, but when we were real young, we would pitch to each other and fetch homers all day long. I miss those days.

Why baseball? I wish could better articulate my feelings about the most beautiful game I've ever known. I'll try anyways, but I won't do it justice. It's my dad's favorite sport. I never once had to beg him to toss the ball around in the summertime. I really fell in love when I was a kid, maybe 8 or 9 years old. The summers were the best. Beginning of May was when the Big Ten tournament was always on TV and when Little League started in my town. I would watch the Gophers play whoever during the day and then go out to the garage and throw myself grounders off the door for hours. I fashioned myself a shortstop and I wanted to play for the Gophers. I had some pretty high goals! The most fun I ever had in baseball was my 14-16 year old summers playing VFW baseball in Hibbing. We had practice every morning at 10 unless we had games. The carpools were so much fun, as well as our relative success. The coaches I played for on that team were really fun, but great motivators at the same time. My first year, the last game I hit 9th and ended up hitting about .220 on the year. That's when I decided I actually wanted to get *good* at hitting, so I quit my winter sport and got a makeshift cage with a Mauer Quickswing in my garage. The next year I was hitting in the middle of the order for the varsity. I put in a lot of hours, but I loved it. I'm happy I did, because baseball is a lot more fun when you're not an automatic out! My high school career was ok, but I wasn't good enough to play at the only D3 school that I wanted to go to: St. Thomas, so I ended up getting cut as a freshman. Now I'm playing town ball every summer and I don't plan on stopping any time soon (I'm only 21). Also, this past summer, I got the privilege to coach with the guys who coached me in VFW ball, which was an honor and a thrill. Why the Twins? They're the home team, and they've been on every night in our living room as long as I can remember. I grew up on the Hunter/Jones/Mientkiewicz/Guzman Twins that revitalized baseball in the state. Those were fun teams and now that I'm living in the area, I can't wait until we are back to winning teams. Hopefully sooner than later. That's basically my baseball story to date. I hope I didn't toot my horn too badly

There's too many to name, it's hard to narrow it down. I know I criticize the team and its players all the time, but I truly want to see them do well. Last year my guy was Dozier. I loved the progress I saw out of him last year. This year, I'm really pulling for Aaron Hicks to figure it out. I think he was overwhelmed last year and he clearly has the tools. I really want to see him put it together. Good start today! Another guy I love on this team is Colabello. He's got one of the best road to the big leagues stories I've heard. Today when he got the first hit of the season, I said to my roommate that if they were to make a movie about him, that's the end of it. Great story. The pitcher I was extremely excited to see make the team is Kyle Gibson. As a former top prospect who's gone through a lot of adversity, I really want to see him succeed in a make or break year of sorts. I think he has the talent to become a solid 3-4 in the future rotation slotting in behind Meyer and Stewart. The last guy I want to mention that I get excited about is Eduardo Escobar. I love his personality on the field and think he's a better option today than Pete Florimon. If given the chance I think he could be a semi-valuable role player. I'm all aboard Brad Swanson's #Eddie400 bandwagon!

I don't like the idea of having to pick between which player is better or worse when the metrics say they are almost exactly equal. Gun to my head, Joe Mauer is more talented, as WAR per 600 PA would bear out, but Puckett gets the nod due to the 2 World Series titles. Yes, I do realize that baseball is not an individual sport that can be taken over by 1 player. Joe Mauer was one of the very best players in the world at the time the Twins were going to the playoffs, but there were 24 other guys (and a coaching staff) that had to pitch in in the playoffs as well. Same for Puckett--yes he won the WS, but had the 24 other guys flopped, he wouldn't have. Using the idea of leadership to nitpick Joe Mauer bothers me too. It's a personality thing. Mauer may not have the type of personality to speak up. If that's the case, his teammates know it, and if he were to start trying to vocally lead, it would be awkward. Cuddyer, Torii Hunter were leaders and Mauer kept his head down and was the best player. That's fine. People seem to want to blame Mauer for the playoff losses and the failures of the past 3 years, which is the most misguided thing in the world. Joe Mauer is not the problem. When I hear people criticizing Mauer at the game or at a bar, etc, I really don't put any stock in their opinions on baseball. That's the smell test between if they're a rube or if they know what they're talking about for me.

The idea that the Twins will hit (or pitch) enough to be sniffing the 2nd WC spot to me is laughable. Hope I'm wrong. .500 at the break, Buxton in the Futures Game stays here after to start in CF for a semi-contending team not unlike the one in 2001.

On the Mauer subject, I don't think he can be bashed too much for the way he is in the clubhouse. It's just not his personality to be a "rah rah" guy and if he tried to be, I think his teammates would see right through it. If you remember those 2004-06 teams, Mike Redmond was one of the biggest vocal leaders in the clubhouse, one of the biggest chemistry guys. And he was the backup catcher. I don't think it per se is on the best guy on the team to be that guy. It takes a certain type of personality to be a clubhouse leader, and it doesn't have to be the best guy.

I don't put much stock in ST stats (0, exactly) but I'm encouraged by his performance so far. I'd like to think last year was just an anomaly. I want to see him in the majors again and let him get 500 plate appearances. My main qualm with Hicks is his switch-hitting. I think he is much better from the right side and the numbers bear that out. I'd like to see him give up hitting lefthanded and just hack from the right side, but I don't see that happening. It seems like it's a last resort type of move but I just don't see him being a legitimate lefty hitter in the bigs.

I don't understand why the Twins seem to want to pencil Florimon into the starting SS job automatically. I really want to see Escobar given a chance to play everyday. I don't think he will ever be a league-average hitter, but if he can put up an 85-90 wRC+ while providing 96% of the defense Florimon does, it would be an upgrade. #Eddie400 Also, I don't see any scenario in which Kubel or Bartlett are kept. My 25 if I ran the team-- 2B Dozier 1B Mauer LF Willingham RF Arcia 3B Plouffe DH Pinto CF Hicks C Suzuki SS Escobar OF Presley 1B Colabello SS Florimon 1B/OF Parmelee Nolasco Hughes Pelfrey Correia Gibson Perkins Burton Fein Swarzak Thielbar Diamond Duensing

Well done. I was excited to read you again this year. Best of luck going forward, I'm pulling for you.

I agree that it's far-fetched that Sano will see any time in real games at all this year. It's frustrating to me that it took this long for surgery as I was hearing whispers about his shoulder last fall. As as position player, TJ is not the end of the world for him, but he will miss another year of development and a pretty likely graduation to the majors at some point. Instead I see them moving him along pretty slowly and conservatively in his rehab and reintegration back into games next year. I'd be surprised if we now saw him at Target Field any earlier than June 2015 now. Should be interesting from a Plouffe standpoint as he now has another chance to prove himself without any legitimate push from anyone. Hopefully he can have a bit of a breakout a la Dozier last year and build a little value--enough for the Twins to want to keep him around as a utility man/bat (think a worse defensive, poor man's Zobrist playing 3B 1B and corner OF at times) or as a trade piece to make way for Sano. If not, we should get a look at the often overlooked Debinson Romero at a time later this summer.

I think this is huge for Plouffe. Best case scenario he has a nice, healthy season showing good pop against lefties and more competent defense at third as well as the ability to move around the diamond to first and the corner outfield. If he has a breakout-ish season a la Dozier 2013, he could build a little value and the Twins could possibly move him for something while making way for Sano in a year and a half. I wrote about his subject and my thoughts on the impact on the orgainzation over at my blog today. Hate to be that guy but I think I did a good job here covering the moving parts to this injury, so I'm going to give myself the plug. http://troywilliamsonshands.blogspot.com/2014/03/miguel-sano-tommy-john-thoughts.html

I like Dozier. Love what I saw out of him last year. That being said, I need to see more than 4 good months to want to buy up his arb years and some free agency. By the time he hits FA, he will be going into his age 32 season. By that age, most players who aren't *special* are starting to significantly decline. I'll roll the dice with arbitration.

He certainly was, but that doesn't change the fact that his ST numbers don't correlate to regular season numbers.

Morales is valuable if used correctly (read: lots of DH and very little in the field). Cruz is just not a very good player. I was extremely pleased to see he signed with Baltimore because that means the Twins can no longer get hung up on all his #ribbies. I wouldn't hate a Morales signing, although it would protrude them from using Pinto in the DH spot very often. I would rather sign Stephen Drew as I would imagine his price has dropped considerably.

I hate to be a downer, but I think most of you guys saying he's going to hit .350 and hit 25 HRs are out of your minds. He's going to be 31 this year. Guys don't have jumps in production at age 31. I know the other factor at play is his moving out from behind the plate, and I agree that there is probably some sort of positive effect on his health, but if you put a gun to my head, I would guess that that positive effect will be negated by the negative effect of having another birthday. If you ask me, Steamer's projection of .297/.388/.439 is probably a little bit low, as well as PECOTA's of .312/.393/.448, but both of those systems are known to be a tad conservative. I would be pleased to see .315/.400/.450 from him, and would be pretty surprised if he was considerably better than that.

The flaw in saying that however is that a lot of Mauer's WAR was derived from playing catcher, so you can expect an automatic drop from moving to 1B.

I'd like to be optimistic on Hicks, and I think if he's handled correctly he can still be a valuable player, but if I had to guess, I would say most players who are as bad as he was last year never amount to much. I want to see Hicks in AAA on Opening Day. Not only has he not yet shown that he can hit Big League pitching, he certainly hasn't shown that he can hit AAA pitching yet either. I'd like to think that he can, and 5-7 weeks in Rochester will only help his development. If he's having success (not only in numbers, but if the coaches feel his approach is ready), then call him up and set him loose. Whatever the Twins do, I hope to God they don't let ST numbers (good or bad) decided anything. Hicks is not the only example for ST numbers not correlating with success in the regular season. Another one I remember is 2012 Liriano who tore it up in ST and was in the bullpen by May.

I've been on board for so long that I couldn't answer how I was referred to AG.com etc. I remember reading him and SethSpeaks.net when I was in like 7th grade every day.

"I pitch to contact"-Stephen Gonsalves *facepalm*-Jdosen In all seriousness, he's got good K/9 numbers so far, but he's only appeared in 8 games in his whole career. I hope that's just a quote and not a philosophy.

I hope they cut bait with Wilkin. I'm sure he's got *some* value to someone in the right role, but I don't like the idea of him taking away at bats from younger guys who may (however unlikely) have a role on the next winning team.

That's crazy to think about, but I remember asking Dave Cameron in a chat if Sano's floor was Pedro Alvarez, and he quickly dismissed it, saying every prospect's floor is replacement level or below. As Nick said, there's no such thing as a sure prospect. But it seems as though Buxton is about as close as one gets.

Per FanGraphs, a site that I and many others consider to be an authority on the topic, Mauer has provided value very much in line with his contract the past 2 years when placing a dollar value on Wins Above Replacement. In 2012, he posted +4.7 WAR, which was worth $21 million. In 2013, he posted +5.2 WAR, which was worth $26 million. That will probably take a hit going forward considering he is on the wrong side of the aging curve the loss of defensive value he will provide after the move to first base, but anyone implying that Mauer's salary is hampering the team in any way is just wrong.