Hosken Bombo Disco

So you're this guy: (link to page is safe; video not quite SFW/language)

If the DH got injured.. did Gardy have to pull the catcher out of the game to DH? Seriously though, as long as there's a Designated Hitter in the AL lineup, it should be perfectly ok to bring a guy up to be full time DH, if that makes sense. There's the David Ortiz story, of course. Edgar Martinez was a pioneer of it. If in your judgment Kennys Vargas should get a shot at it, I'm all in favor.

maybe he's studying hitters in his off days??

Listening on radio, some loud outs, sounds like it's nice to have outfielders in the outfield this inning?

This deserves a bump.

If nothing else, Antony needs to realize that he's always on the record when reporters are around and be thinking about smarter ways to say things.

Meeting on mound... Hughes: I'm bored. I want some excitement. Can't I just walk Bogarts to face Ortiz? Suzuki: nah, let's try to get this guy. Keep throwing strikes.

I agree with that also - the comments are much tamer than they seemed at first blush.

Interesting topical story here: http://m.espn.go.com/mlb/story?storyId=10935698

Thanks Seth. Hicksies performance at the plate speaks volumes enough without needing to pile on with the work ethic stuff. The same issue came up with Plouffe during his outfield experiment a few years ago, iirc.

The outfield clusterbomb is only temporary. The injuries and stubbornness are hopefully behind us, and moving forward the rest of the year: LF: Kubel/Willingham platoon CF: Fuld/Hicks RF: Parmelee/Arcia with the thought of moving one of them to left for 2015. We're told Santana can play a major league center field though nobody sounds very convincing about it and these are the same mouths that sold us on Escobar and Colabello. Anyway I guess either Hicks or Santana should be playing center in AAA then, while the other is here backing up Fuld. Santana can then compete in center next spring. Overall, it's not a bad situation anymore.

Next thing you'll tell us is LaTroy Hawkins thinks he can still pitch.. oh wait

Political ads already aired on FSN? Rob Antony running for office against Hicks this fall?

At least you got to see a Mauer 4-3 putout live

I don't doubt that was said. Kubel stepped up big time when Hammer and Arcia went down. But it's still hard to hear them claim that playing too much is what's causing his struggles.

Maybe Francona didn't think much of Ortiz or didn't realize what he had, and Epstein forced Francona's hand? I've never personally begrudged Ryan for releasing Ortiz, since he's owned up to it and Mientkiewicz was such a great glove and we had Morneau coming up. It is ironic though that Ortiz was such a Yankee killer in the postseason..

I wouldn't have expected sac bunts to be middle of the pack either. Steals will be down since Revere was traded, I bet.

Go ahead start a thread on that & I will prove it to you beyond a shadow of a doubt

I think Bonds was walked intentionally once with the bases loaded. Be interesting to know how that one scored.

And regardless of any data or statistics or ex-Twins, I believe the free agent signings of Nolasco, Hughes, Pelfrey, the discussions on signing Correia to an extension, not to mention failed attempts to sign Garza and who knows who else, are all indications that the Twins simply are not in the business of developing their own pitching anymore. No that's not all on Anderson or Gardenhire but I would assume they'd take a little of the responsibility instead of letting Ryan take it all.

I think lists lists are a secondary issue. Just the idea that this team has gone on a multi-year skid, including the worst pitching in the majors, and has done absolutely nothing about it, gets people (me included) a little concerned.

Well you left out Hardy. Shortstop is a pretty important position. If they traded him mainly because he was still hurt (like I've read here) then they should have just waited for him to get healthy. I don't care about Worley but I will try to get the thread back on track. I got into this fight once before. Will try not to now. So after that prior episode, I set up a little study to look at former pitchers for all MLB teams, to compare teams of ex-pitchers against each other. It wasn't exactly like Thrylos's but yeah it was a lot of darn work. Life intervened and I set it aside. (…For example, if the Twins staff ERA in 2013 was 4.55 (second to last) and OPS against was .770 (also second to last) then former pitchers let go by the Twins and pitching elsewhere in the year 2013 should together finish with about those same numbers, and if they did, that would make Twins ex-pitchers about middle of the pack, and not really reflect poorly or favorably on Twins pitching. However, if Twins pitchers together pitched better than those numbers, that would work against the Twins. I got about halfway through it and saw that the Twins were at best heading towards a bottom quartile finish (but not dead last!) and stopped. It was skewed by high performing free agent guys like Greinke, who had a great year with the Dodgers in 2013 and counted as an ex-Angel and ex-Brewer last year, hurting the Angels and Brewers for this study. The Angels finished worse than the Twins and I think they were last for the teams I got through. Hey Mike Scioscia's team! Another example is Worley, who pitched so poorly for the Twins in 2013 that it reflected well on the Phillies for moving him. The study was also skewed by a couple teams who had very few pitchers to analyze. Interestingly the only ex-San Francisco Giant starting pitcher still active in MLB is Kevin Correia, who pitched for them too long ago to count for what I was looking at… also Kyle Lohse, one of the favorite names bandied about here, pitched too long ago to be considered an ex-Twin for what I was doing and his 2012 season didn't count against any of his former teams.) Anyway, if anyone wants to demonstrate with data that the Twins have actually done very well developing pitchers and are making good decisions about which pitchers to invest in and which to let go of, be my guest.

Mostly agree but I've heard a lot of stories about how TK was always the hardest working guy in the organization. Not a lot of patience for young guys from him though if they didn't want to put the work in, true.

Doc, the source of much of the negativity/criticism comes from the inexplicably poor playoff performances when we did have great teams, and more recently from the 90+ loss seasons. The fact that you could almost literally field a team of ex-Twin All Stars and MVPs does not help.

Meanwhile Parmelee, who was born and raised an outfielder, was sent to AAA. Is it hindsight to say that Parmelee should have made the team ahead of Bartlett?