Jump to content
Our free agent ranking is up to 100 names, and now you can filter by player position! Click here to check it out! ×
Twins Daily
  • Create Account

Taildragger8791

Old-Timey Member
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    1,140

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Profiles

Minnesota Twins News, Rumors & Analysis

Minnesota Twins Videos

2026 Minnesota Twins Top Prospect Rankings

2022 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks & Signing Bonuses

Minnesota Twins Trade & Free Agent Rumors

Minnesota Twins Fan Guides & Resources

2023 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks & Signing Bonuses

The Minnesota Twins Players Project

2024 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks & Signing Bonuses

2025 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks & Signing Bonuses

2026 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks & Signing Bonuses

Forums

Blogs

Events

Store

Downloads

Gallery

Everything posted by Taildragger8791

  1. Taildragger8791
    Couldn't an injury like this be tested before spring training prep to see if it is indeed better or not? Waiting until crunch time to give it a go doesn't leave enough time to adequately deal with the injury or find a replacement. That's a bad spot to put your team in.
  2. Taildragger8791
    I kind of expect this too. At the same time it seems like it could be a savvy move to run an end-around on Darvish and sign before he gets his pick of the litter and the dominos start to fall. Assuming you can get a team you like to bite. The passive-aggressive Minnesotan in me hopes the dominos fall without Darvish and he loses his leverage, thus signing a smaller deal with whoever is left offering. That would at least bring a smile to my face after this annoyingly cold stove offseason. Or maybe I'm just spoiled by the wild and crazy NBA offseason we just had.
  3. Taildragger8791
    If you're trying to point out something offensive about the swinging friar logo or the team name then you're going to have to explain it, because I don't see it. Padres were named for the Spanish friars (fathers) who founded San Diego. The logo doesn't depict an exaggerated racial caricature. I'm not aware of any controversy surrounding the team name, logo, or history.
  4. Taildragger8791
    It's not just about race vs sub-culture, it's about respect. You could offensively represent any group of people if you tried. Depicting Vikings and Spartans as warmongering mascots is accepted because their descendants don't have a connection to their history, having long since assimilated into the world around them (usually after being conquered). Yankee is just an informal term for American and isn't used in a derogatory sense (unless it's by a Southerner still carrying a grudge against the North). Chief Wahoo needs to go because it's a cartoonishly ridiculous way to depict a Native American. The name...I see a good argument to change it because there isn't a credible history of it honoring or respecting anyone. Same with "Redskins", a word with a complicated history but that was still strongly used as a slur for a period and isn't honoring anyone. But it seems counterproductive to remove all Native American references from sports and other areas just because they're tied to a particular race.
  5. Taildragger8791
    It's time for Cleveland to give the people what they want and change their name to the Cleveland Wild Things, featuring a Ricky Vaughn mascot.
  6. Taildragger8791
    Certainly. But the idea of a contract that reduces salary or shifts money to incentives in the later years is still pretty foreign across sports, at least for stars. Sometimes you'll see it in the NFL when they're playing games with bonuses for salaray cap purposes.
  7. Taildragger8791
    Doesn't the union frown heavily on these types of deals? It would make sense to be able to taper off the guaranteed salary in the later years of older players' contractcs, maybe making up the difference with incentives. But I think the union pushes back on that for one reason or another (maybe to keep the AAV up, or avoid a slippery slope of conditional deals that would be abused by teams).
  8. Taildragger8791
    I'm not sure the logic follows. I mean...those guys were exceptional even for Hall of Famers. And one was buoyed by steroids. By definition of being exceptional they are outliers and should be considered the best possible outcome, not a likely one. Plus those contracts were 3-4 years typically, not 5-6. So unless you think Darvish as good as those HoFers (or has the hookup on some new fancy undetectable steroids) I don't see how the comparison lends confidence to the 6-yr $150 million contracts being speculated about.
  9. Taildragger8791
    I don't know if they can wait around til midseason with the collection they have now. There isn't a #5 pitcher on the team coming out of the gate, unless you're going to transition Duffey back to rotation or bring a prospect north from Spring Training. I don't think you'll get anything from Hughes.
  10. Taildragger8791
    I've mentally prepared myself for the likelihood that we'll be left out of the game of musical chairs and it'll be another year of trying to plug 11 holes with 10 fingers. There are only a few impactful FAs out there and it's tough to both win a bidding war and sell a candidate on coming here. Maybe the new front office will buck Twins history and pull the trigger on a trade involving actual prospects (and have it turn out positively for a change). I just hope I'm wrong because this team is talented and we shouldn't settle for the usual revolving door of crapshoots filling the back-end of the rotation.
  11. Taildragger8791
    Nishioka and Park didn't return bonuses. They forwent the salary they were guaranteed for future years if they stayed with the Twins. Big difference. In fact, the Twins tried to recoup some of the posting fee from the Nexen Heroes and were denied by the team (naturally). Bonuses aren't salaries. They're to persuade a player to choose you over some other opportunity.
  12. Taildragger8791
    It's interesting seeing the coaches, vets, and older prospects talk so much about perfecting or altering mechanics contrasted with Kiriloff's comments. I assume his position on that will change as he matures and faces better competition, unless he's just a natural "see ball, hit ball" wunderkind.
  13. Taildragger8791
    It's pretty normal for a typical player to lose a half-step every few years starting in their mid-20s, which they have to make up for through gains in technique, experience, and growth in other skills. Most NFL "skill" position players (WRs, RBs, DBs) rely on extreme athleticism early in their career, but those impressive 40 times and combine numbers degrade pretty much every year after that. That doesn't stop a 39 year old Terrance Newman from covering guys nearly half his age. Rosario doesn't worry me because he has the proifle to still become a very good player despite only having average speed in his prime (if he keeps developing).
  14. Taildragger8791
    I don't see how those are even comparable. Gibson is 30 and his brief periods of success basically amount to league average performance for a month or so at a time. He's never going to cost a fortune if he finally clicks, so there's not much of an advantage for the Twins to lock him up. He doesn't even have a ceiling as an all star. Buxton is 24 with a crazy high ceiling and already is elite on D and the basepaths. If he starts hitting consistently over a full season then his contract demands will skyrocket 6 months from now. By the time you've waited for him to prove it he's got the leverage to jack his price up 50%. I don't think you'll ever get Sano to sign an early deal like that. There's a reason he went to Roc Nation as soon as he could. He's got his sights set on big things and taking a cheap deal to get locked up in Minnesota through his prime isn't part of that. That, and I have a suspicion he sees himself as more like Harper/Machado than as the "3 true outcomes" injury-prone slugger he's shown to be so far. The value gap between those two types of players is too enormous to close right now.
  15. Taildragger8791
    I understand the concern, but Royce is far to inexperienced and raw at SS to really get a feel for his projection right now. He only played one year in the hole in high school, didn't he? With his athleticism to fall back on he probably didn't even learn the fundamentals of the position. This next year should hopefully give us a much better read on his infield ability.
  16. Taildragger8791
    To be fair, when a prospect plays a full season at one level they tend to end up near the top of the lists in counting stats. He led the Southern League in plate appearances and had nearly 100 more ABs then his next closest teammate.
  17. Taildragger8791
    That's a fair concern. Our offensive line has been dinged up a lot lately which may be why the passing pocket hasn't been as clean. We should get Elflein back, which is huge. Keenum's downfield throws haven't been sharp in a while either. His accuracy in general concerns me. I hope the offensive has just been going conservative the past few weeks so as to not show too much heading into the playoffs. I hope they turn it on in the playoffs because I don't want the game coming down to late field goals...
  18. Taildragger8791
    No, but it’s still not an optimal use of resources if he’s perfectly capable of playing another position. Why limit your roster flexibility unnecessarily? That mistake would only be compounded if he doesn’t turn into the best DH in baseball, but instead continues to be a low average / high strikeout “three true outcomes” hitter.
  19. Taildragger8791
    It’s a little crazy that they wouldn’t give him a 1B glove for a while before resorting to DH. He’s way too young and athletic to clog up the DH spot already.
  20. Taildragger8791
    My concern is we could lose several games in what should be a competitive season while throwing stuff at the wall. And it leaves us with no depth if things go wrong. I'd hope we could be better prepared than that. Let the minor leagues sort out the depth and wall-stickiness and then supplement mid-season with whoever forced their way to the top.
  21. Taildragger8791
    It looks good at first glance to throw a list like that out there, but a plan based around that can fall apart in a hurry. Duffey was very inconsistent this year. Chargois isn't and may never be healthy. Moya is largely an unknown. Jake Reed still has control problems. Melotakis was removed from the 40 man roster for a reason. Jay is a health risk and didn't exactly light the AFL on fire. Nick Anderson is a lotto ticket. Rodney is...Rodney. The that leaves you with 4 young unestablished relievers that you're counting on all performing this year, which can quickly fall to 2-3 due to injury or non-performance. And those aren't the kinds of arms you should be taxing when your starter only went 4-5 innings for the 4th time that week.
  22. Taildragger8791
    Yeah those pictures are awfully hard to reconcile with the reports. I would have estimated 220 range at most, although he has good thickness in the lower half which can hide a lot of mass. You can kind of see a little more bulk in this gif of his pitching motion: https://gfycat.com/SeveralSimpleEmu
  23. Taildragger8791
    I don't know if this is a minor league transaction or a major league one. Kid is 19 but built like he's 23. Like Sano on a pitching mound. Edit: Okay, I'm confused. I just saw a report that we signed him a few months ago but Bollinger just reported it now? Did it take time to become official?
  24. Taildragger8791
    Good luck finding a catcher willing to stand in front of that ball.
  25. Taildragger8791
    Towns is still a stud and will be fine. He just needs to get stronger (find those man muscles) and keep gaining experience. Wiggy still has too many games where he doesn’t contribute anything outside of scoring with mediocre efficiency. In the last game he had 1 rebound and no assists, steals, or blocks. That’s unbelievable. Season averages on non-scoring stats are nearly identical to his career. Scoring efficiency is actually down, which is disconcerting since he focuses so hard on it. The guy doesn’t know what to do on a basketball court if he doesn’t have the ball or isn’t guarding the ball. The defense is a little better, which is nice to see, although I’m not sure yet how much of that is his own improvement and how much is from having Butler and Taj flanking him. You can see some improvement in his more active hands at least.
×
×
  • Create New...