Jump to content
Twins Daily
  • Create Account

Taildragger8791

Verified Member
  • Posts

    1,133
  • 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

Forums

Blogs

Events

Store

Downloads

Gallery

Everything posted by Taildragger8791

  1. With a strikeout rate half that of Buxton's, and a K/BB rate closer to 2 instead of 7.
  2. It's not about "proving" anything. I'm kind of tired of hearing that phrase. It's about going to an environment more conducive to learning and making adjustments for young players because the difficulty level isn't ratched up to 11. That said, I'm not ready to send him down yet since there has been glimmers of progress lately. Let's see if that turns into anything or if it's just a blip.
  3. I've always wondered this as well. There are many reports about how great and major league ready most of his pitches are, yet that same stuff doesn't seem to be good enough to overpower minor leaguers. He gets by but it doesn't seem sustainable as he keeps moving up. But then again what do I know (don't answer that).
  4. What is going on with Kohl Stewart tonight? 4 wild pitches already, along with 4 runs and a whole bunch of baserunners. The wheels are coming off...
  5. Agreed. I'm thinking this can't just be a platoon thing since Mauer and Vargas are both playing.
  6. That would make me more optimistic about the lack of promise in our pipeline if the Twins had a proven ability and desire to acquire pitchers from outside the organization. Because right now that's the only way this front office is going to get a league-average staff pulled together before the end of the decade.
  7. So how do you differentiate whether the difference is due to luck or due to loss of effectiveness? It's surely a combination of both, but Gibson has been pretty ineffective for the better part of a year and a half now. It's not just luck that he's regularly living on the wrong side of his already unimpressive career numbers.
  8. I was thinking about something like this today too. To take it a step further you could account for outs in the inning as well. Guy on 3rd with no outs shouldn't count against the new pitcher because they can score even on a fly out or slow ground out. Things like that should be considered. But overall I like the idea of splitting the responsibility for the runners.
  9. I flat out admit I don't understand anything about Santiago. The dude just seems to get the job done despite logic and stats saying it doesn't make any sense. Maybe he's the inverse Ricky Nolasco that out-pitches his FIP by a run instead of lagging it by a run. My stance is to be happy and enjoy it for as long as it lasts. No need as a fan to pick it apart with questions while it's working.
  10. I'd much rather have a dominant reliever that can go 2/3 innings than a #4 starter, and I'd guess Duffey would prefer to be one of the best relievers in baseball over being a middling starter. Everyone likes to have an important role that they can execute well and the key bullpen pitchers are heralded more than the back end rotation guys these days. It's not a step down by any means. Find someone else to fill those back-end spots and let's see if Duffey can really carve out an anchor spot in the bullpen. The impact of having a reliever that can salvage short (but not yet hopeless) starts without burning half the bullpen is pretty huge in the modern game.
  11. That haircut. Woah. You could have told me that thumbnail image was from 1992 and I wouldn't have even questioned it. Looks like he's going for the Ricky 'Wild Thing' Vaughn look.
  12. Don't forget Reed injured and not pitching yet. And as good as Berrios has looked it doesn't mean anything until he translates it to the majors. Sooooo...not a lot going on with the minor league pitching right now. At least Burdi is healthy and throwing strikes.
  13. He changes the leg kick usage from pitch-to-pitch at this point. No consistency. He'll use 2-3 different kicks/toe taps in the same at-bat. Definitely something going on there that needs to settle down.
  14. Cheating the quota system? That's a paddlin'.
  15. And the intimidating Grossman forces the 4-pitch walk with bases loaded, stirring up memories of Albert Pujols in his prime.
  16. For how impressed DickNBert are with sky-high popups you'd almost be fooled into thinking they count for something.
  17. As if it was even a competition when to pit Hicks against a 6-foot-7 275-lb slugger with the name "Judge".
  18. I think of a little under .200 reasons why JRM wasn't entrusted with the backup role. The backup catcher spot is pretty far down the list of reasons this opening day roster confuses me. I'll wait to get too riled up until games are played and we see how the roster shakes out over the first month. But I also don't buy into the idea that the opening day roster doesn't matter. As we found out last year the games count in the first week as much as they do in the last week. I'm going to be seriously disappointed if we start out losing big with a bunch of uncompetitive games, ending yet another season before April is over.
  19. Alex Meyer, the one with a 7.20 ERA and 2.20 WHIP in spring training for the Angels this year? That Alex Meyer?
  20. Arcia's problems had nothing to do with being sent down/up. The dude is a thick-skulled knucklehead who stubbornly believes that the only plate approach that matters is swinging hard enough at every pitch to throw his back out every year. He seems like a good guy and teammate, but proved to be incapable of learning the finer points of the game required to be successful in the majors. Vargas isn't at all like that, I think he just doesn't have the requisite contact skills for his role. He has a decent plate approach and will draw walks when his pitches aren't there, which is good. But he's a bit of a guesser and a mistake hitter. He only hit .200/.292/.400/.692 with a 35% strikeout rate in 41 games after the all star break last year. That's brutal production out of your designated hitter. Vargas is going to get extended run in Minnesota this year so starting in AAA shouldn't be a big deal. There will be plenty of at-bats to go around between Mauer, Park, and Vargas for the DH/1B roles. But for now he hasn't done enough to displace Mauer or beat out Park for the everyday job.
  21. While I'm encouraged with Gibson's spring I'm also hesitant to get too excited since he's a bit of a spring queen. His ERA is 2.52 since 2014 in spring training. As we know his regular season ERA is nearly double that, so I'm trying not to get my hopes up too much yet until I see his new approach working in April or later. But maybe that's just the abused Minnesota fan in me that is scared to have good feelings about anything lest they be yanked away in the most painful way possible.
  22. Dominating AAA doesn't prove MLB readiness by itself. They aren't sending him back there to make him dominate AAA some more. They're sending him back there to work on the root cause of his severe struggles he encountered trying to pitch to actual MLB hitting. He's proven that he can't hang with MLB hitters right now. Where do you draw the line on a young pitcher with regards to letting them work through struggles or sending them back to the minors with things to work on? 7.00+ ERA? 10.00 ERA+? You have to draw a line somewhere. He's already north of 8.00 in MLB and didn't show any improvement in camp or the WBC. Why would you run him out there again before having confidence that he's made an effective adjustment? The guy is young and he's an extremely hard worker. He'll get there but you have to have patience. It's perfectly okay to give him a controlled environment to get comfortable with his mechanical adjustments before throwing him out there against the best competition in the world again. Trying to do that at the MLB level while getting utterly hammered and knocked out of the game after 3 innings isn't going to be very productive.
  23. Thanks for sharing, that was interesting. What was with the overly dramatic music and tone in the video? Yeesh. I felt like I was watching a seriously tragic documentary or something.
  24. It's all relative. For some teams their top pitching prospect is a can't-miss stud who would never put himself in a position to be blocked by marginal back-end pitchers. For other teams that top pitching prospect is an at-best mid-rotation guy that is mightily struggling to leap from AAA to MLB. When your top pitching prospect is completely and utterly out of his element against major league hitters, and hasn't shown any progress towards competence, then yeah it makes sense to let them develop in the minors where they won't utterly destroy his own and your team's morale.
  25. Okay. I don't know why anyone would be upset at the Twins over this development. Disappointed, sure. I am too. But often times things don't go perfectly and there are little setbacks along the way. That's especially true in baseball.
×
×
  • Create New...