Hosken Bombo Disco

We had the same velocity discussion about Perkins last March, FWIW My gut guess was always that they are paying Hughes lip service, and that he would begin the season on the DL. Hughes already saw his fastball velocity drop noticeably between 2014-2015. He might need to reinvent himself as a crafty righty. The BA against on 0-2 counts is alarming, either way. http://www.fangraphs.com/pitchfxo.aspx?playerid=7450&position=P&pitch=FA

May was hitting 96 in his start last weekend. Give me the young guys with lots of life still on their arms.

But what does Curt Schilling think, and can he borrow some money from you, Mr. President? He promises to pay you back.

Congrats to the founders and everybody else here. I love this place. Not to kiss a**, but I think the discussion moderators are what keeps this place so great. As a contrast, look at the Twins discussions the Star Tribune. They missed the boat. For the life of me I can not understand why more news sites have not devoted resources to moderating discussion of their content and finding good moderators.

and you managed to say so in less than 25 words!

No, Chief is tracking my thinking quite well. I am not trying to be your adversary, but I did look up Adrianza's range after you suggested I do so, and I posted what I found. Instead of checking RF at Baseball Ref, I checked RZR at Fangraphs, which I thought you might appreciate. Adrianza's RZR was the best of 73 shortstops with 200 innings at shortstop since 2015. I did not type this but posted a JPEG instead, which you might not have seen. Obviously it's too few innings but it should tell us something. So, I am expecting Adrianza to be a very good fielder. I am as curious as anyone about that Giants writer who described Adrianza as learning baseball from an in-flight magazine during his trip to the U. S. (or however he/she put it.) That was a great line and it makes you wonder what kind of entertainment the guy might provide when he's not fielding grounders.

If you mean argue in the sense of presenting data to support my own impression, then sure. None of us know much if anything about Adrianza. According to Fangraphs, RZR "measures a player's range." Sure it's only Fangraphs but I think Fangraphs is reliable. We were evaluating your claim that he is an average defender.

It was good, nothing blows your theory apart. The closest thing would be the Twins announcement that they believe in Sano at third. For the record I do, too. Sano could just as likely get better as get worse. Plouffe was terrible his first season there. First base for Sano would be learning a new position again, and it took Mauer more than a full season to play it adequately. Mauer is very good there at first now. But do the Twins have a plan B at third? Not that I can see. This particular season I think there are more important issues to address than having a plan B at third when they can just plug Polanco or Escobar there.

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Did that. What's the next step in your process?

Adrianza plays mostly shortstop, and apparently plays it very well. I might read those comments as smoke signals about the imminent release of one of the other players who plays those positions. Time shall tell.

It will be funny to hear Joe Buck try to pronounce his name at the All Star game next July.

I would assume Falvey/Levine think so.

Dick lied?

This guy can catch the ball. I like the move. We don't need every player to be a masher at the plate. Small sample but Fangraphs loves his UZR/150.

Concur. When you lost your tackle in the fourth quarter and brought in Compton as backup, I texted a friend and said "watch #76 - he is a kid who grew up in the Twin Cities (Rosemout) and played at South Dakota." It was Compton who looked fresh and made his blocks, while it was the other guys who got Ryan in trouble. Though to New England's credit they were harassing Ryan on and off all night.

Weighted ball training sounds fantastic. I also wonder what is the ideal hand or finger size for throwing certain pitches, like how we read about Berrios tipping his change or maybe certain other pitchers should give up on their split finger.

I would think you were on to something, except for the above poster's quote from 1500. My impression is that Cleveland has carried 13 pitchers more often than other teams, though I don't know how much Falvey had to do with that.

Don't forget his ability to enter a game late and get thrown out attempting to steal D-San is not long for this roster, otherwise if he has another blah spring and does make the roster anyway, I am putting on my tin foil hat and assuming Falvey is testing Molitor to see how he uses him.

Good article. I agree with all of it. The positional redundancies have been frustrating and Park's acquisition last offseason only made things more confusing. D-San doesn't really represent a redundancy as much as just a player not good enough to hang in MLB, so guess not so worried about going to camp with him. Hopefully Molitor has sobered up with regard to his value to the team (starting SS, or not batting him second in the order Opening Day) As someone pointed out, as a deep bench guy Santana has more value than Park.

I feel your pain but nothing about what was described above screams "trick" or "magic" to me.

Belisle will be fine. He's not here to save the season. The Twins have some young arms to play with. Falvey was one of the minds responsible for the Cleveland plan to shut down Toronto in the ALCS, and the pitchers executed very well. Cody Allen was a 20th round pick who raced through the Cleveland system, never optioned back to the minors after his debut, and became closer shortly after. They acquired Andrew Miller, enough said. Again I need to give the new front office and analytics guys the benefit of the doubt in figuring out how to put these bullpen guys in positions to succeed.

Ryan was fired because it was becoming apparent to Pohlad that Ryan was no longer up to the job, and a new set of eyes was needed. It was also becoming clearer to Pohlad that the analytic style and successes of younger GMs was no longer a fluke. To top it off, last season's team, right out of the gate, was almost purposefully assembled to lose 90 games. Trevor May was kept in the bullpen. Sano was put in the outfield (but in hindsight probably had some maturing to do anyway). Nolasco over Duffey, while Duffey finished 2015 pretty impressively. Opening day we went with Buxton and he wasn't ready; disappointing but not unexpected. Perkins was hurt but wouldn't tell anyone. Then you had the disappointing decisions of Molitor in that opening week: using Jepsen in tight spots, using D. Santana as a starting outfielder at the top of the order, not to mention some odd in-game decisions that I don't necessarily recall at the moment. Arcia was a train wreck (I was wrong about him) though in his defense he was never really allowed to settle into a routine. Ryan's big acquisition was JR Murphy who didn't exactly start out hot, and a bunch of other guys had slow starts too. When the team was sitting 8-20 in early May, the release of Casey Fein and demoting a couple other relievers was billed as a major overhaul of the roster, or some such. It obviously wasn't enough. In those following weeks was about the time Pohlad started sending hints to Ryan. Last season's team, simply was bungled to perfection. You don't agree?