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Taildragger8791

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Everything posted by Taildragger8791

  1. Taildragger8791
    Why does everyone keep saying to dump Santana? He's one of the few SP above AA with a shot at being decent. You still need to fill out a rotation this year and next and there aren't 5 solid SP behind him. Without Nolasco/Santana/Hughes you'd have Gibson, Berrios, and Duffey as the only decent starting pitchers for next year. Possibly May on the unlikely chance he jumps back to starting. I don't consider Dean a real prospect and the rest of the names are pure lottery tickets. If the Twins went into the season with no reliable #4 and #5 starter, an no options for fallback or injury replacements, it would be absolute mayhem again. Stewart, Gonsalves, and Jay aren't going to be ready for the start of the season and may not even be ready by midseason. I'm not clearing out the major league roster for them this early.
  2. Taildragger8791
    Good list. Unfortunately it's fantasy to believe Terry Ryan will change his stripes and suddenly start clearing out vets, dumping expensive contracts, or trading someone at their peak of value (Abad). This is going to be the same roster next year except for the pieces that we let walk away for nothing. No creativity or gumption.
  3. Taildragger8791
    Barring a setback, I'm expecting Chargois will be up within a month or so which would still give him 2-3 months to adjust at the MLB level in preparation for next year. That would still be an impressively quick rise for a guy who has only 86 innings over 1.5 seasons played in the minors (not counting missing 2 full seasons due to Tommy John surgery). He hasn't been held back at all. The catch-22 we seem to keep running into here is that you can't promote a guy who hasn't demonstrated sustained success at his current level, but as soon as someone does demonstrate that sustained success there are screams to promote and quit holding him back. Yes, there are some guys who have legitimate gripes about lingering at a level, and Chargois is not one of them (yet). The Twins have been moving top performers faster over the last few years and if anything they have moved some guys too fast through the upper levels. Though I do wish they'd flip flop on the handling of pitchers (too slow at times) and hitters (too fast at times) based on the limited shelf life of many pitchers and fewer adjustments needed.
  4. Taildragger8791
    Is there any word on what Jake Reed's struggles are at AA? He walks a few too many guys but he's very hittable as well. The shine is wearing off him quickly and it doesn't look like he'll be helping the big club anytime in the near future unless there's some yet-unidentified adjustment to be made. It's too bad he and Burdi haven't put it together at AA at all, they were really pushed as surefire MLB relievers that should move quickly. What's the health status on Burdi?
  5. Taildragger8791
    I'm not sold on Buxton being ready considering he still has an extreme K/BB ratio which was the #1 thing he needed to address in the minors. In May he has 15 Ks to 6 BBs, and over his last 10 games it's 10 Ks to 2 BBs. Strikeout rate is 20.5% in May and 23% over his last 10 games as well. So he isn't trending in the positive direction yet. It was expected he was going to put up numbers in AAA due to his speed and the lower quality defense and pitching. It's the plate control and breaking balls that were killing him in the majors, and that's what he needs to show improvement on.
  6. Taildragger8791
    I have to imagine Chargois will be up soon enough. I can't get worked up about it considering he hasn't moved slowly, spending less than a season at each level he's been assigned. He was drafted, had TJ surgery after 12 games of rookie ball, then came back and flew from High-A to AAA in barely over a season's time. That's one of the fastest rises I can remember for a Twins pitcher. If he isn't up in a month or so and is still dominant then I'd start to ask questions, especially since the Twins bullpen isn't deep enough to block a talent like him.
  7. Taildragger8791
    The issue with looking at season averages is it masks the fact that in half his performances he's been pretty solid and in the other half he scuffled with control. This isn't one bad outing he's being judged on, it's just the one where mild concerns over his control were validated a little bit. In 4 out of 8 starts he's gone 6 or fewer innings with 3+ walks. The hits/ERA look good because he's facing less experienced hitters in friendly ballparks that can't consistently punish him. Based on his elevated pitch counts, even in most of his good starts, I assume he's trying to nibble & throw junk and inexperienced hitters are getting themselves out. For that reason alone I think a taste of AA could be a good test and possibly a wake-up call that he needs to throw better strikes.
  8. Taildragger8791
    I think his point was that Gonsalves already has a high walk rate at High A ball but is getting away with it due to the competition level and pitcher-friendly league, making his numbers look better than his actual performance. If the Twins are trying to get him to throw better strikes to avoid a blowup at AA then putting up a game like this shows he has work to do still. Walking 4 per 9 and rarely getting past 6 innings is a potential recipe for trouble when jumping from High A to AA. It's just speculation, but it seems logical.
  9. Taildragger8791
    The problem with your comparison is that first month stat line for Lindor is better than any single month that Buxton has yet compiled in the majors. And after that first month Lindor went on to crush it whereas Buxton has done nothing but flounder. He has shown almost no sustained improvement over ~180 plate appearances. He's still very young and flew through the minors with a lost year in 2014. Let him go work things out with a lower pressure environment for a while. I have no problem with lettings the struggling young players work things out at AAA away from the spotlight of the big club. That has to be a pretty toxic atmosphere up there right now. Meyer is a guy I really want to see put in the rotation to sink or swim, but that's more based on his age and service time at AAA already. If he bombs then move him to the bullpen until he either figures it out or plays his way out of the league. Polanco should be playing every day as well since he seems to be ready, but if he's just going to sit on the bench then I'd rather he keep playing at AAA instead of stagnating his development.
  10. Taildragger8791
    I didn't say the player has to be perfect to advance. None of these players are close to Trout, not even Buxton (so far). Trout is a pretty extreme exception and I'll bet that if you analyze him you'll find that his strikeouts aren't because he's guessing, wildly hacking, or regularly missing in the zone. He has elite skills, recognizes pitches, and is disciplined enough in his swing zone to succeed. He was also gold glove caliber defense on day 1. On the flip side we have young players coming up that can't recognize or hit certain pitches, can't control the zone or draw a walk to save their life, can't get a bunt down, can't play the defensive position they exclusively trained in, and make mental errors on the bases and in the field. They often feasted on inferior talent and got away with bad habits and discipline because they got results. Big difference. Clearly there is an issue with how the players were being developed or allowed to progress so I have no issue with taking a step back and trying something different. Pushing guys even faster sounds like doubling down on the past mistakes.
  11. Taildragger8791
    I think we've all seen how rushing guys to the majors has worked out over the last few years. And I think everyone would agree it hasn't worked out swimmingly for a single player that was rushed up at this point. I'm of the mind now to just slow down and let guys develop. If they're being held down I'm sure there is an adequate reason for it that doesn't show up in a box score. Pushing a guy up based purely on results without regard to command of his fundamentals is a recipe to get blown up and exposed eventually.
  12. Taildragger8791
    I've said earlier in this thread I'm all for getting Polanco playing time and even getting Sano to 3B. I don't see Dozier and Plouffe getting moved off their spot anytime soon though, so I don't know what you do. He's blocked until management or front office do something. I'm fine with Kepler getting time but obliviously they think he isn't ready, so I trust that playing at AAA is the right thing for him. I also think Meyer needs an extended opportunity given his age, but first he needs to get healthy and get on a roll at AAA. If he craters then throw him in the bullpen. Berrios has earned an extended opportunity, but you can't allow too many 1-3 inning outings. That puts a huge load on the rest of the team. He didn't start well this year and needs to get straightened out. I'd give him that chance before sending him down to work it out. He'll be fine.
  13. Taildragger8791
    I don't understand the heartburn over letting unprepared rookies work out their flaws in the minors. Nobody is saying Beresford, Mastroianni, or any of the underperforming vets are the answer to winning baseball. Throw that stupid strawman out the window and light it the f--- on fire. The proposal is to pull back the reigns on the prospects who are either 1) uncompetitive or overmatched at the big league level, thus stagnating or hindering their development; or 2) simply not improving on glaring flaws (ex: Rosario's plate discipline). Put them back at a level where they are still being challenged but aren't so overmatched that they can't improve. Put the Bad News Bears on the 25-man if you need to field a team, it literally doesn't matter. Developing the prospects the right way matters. 2016 and probably 2017 is going to stink, so just accept it. We've seen too many guys come up and look flat-out helpless, whether immediately or after the first trip around the league. Considering all the complaints about guys lacking fundamentals and well-rounded games I'd have thought this was be a more popular idea. Edit: Of course there will be rookie struggles and adjustments, that's expected and they should be allowed to work through it. But after a large enough sample size you have to enforce a threshold of competence or see improvements being made. Considering most of these players we're talking about have maybe a half-season of AAA experience it doesn't seem unreasonable to let them work it out down there for a while and see if it helps. The other approach wasn't working.
  14. Taildragger8791
    It's good for Buxton, which by extension is good for the Twins. He wasn't improving at the major league level. It's one thing to challenge a guy, but it's another to be completely overmatched. You can't learn that way, which is the point of sending him down to where he can have some success while working on the holes in his game. For Rosario, I think it's necessary for a different reason. He needs a reality check that his approach won't keep him on a major league roster forever. He gets away with it now while the twins are non-competitive, but you can't drag that swing-for-everything-walk-for-noone approach onto a playoff team. His plate discipline hasn't improved at all, and if he won't commit to improving that in the majors then maybe he'll find some motivation on the bus in Rochester.
  15. Taildragger8791
    I think most fans wanted every prospect that was close to ready to be in the majors ASAP and start getting those adjustments out of the way. We've seen the results of that and it's clear that few of the guys coming up were actually at that level of readiness. My thoughts: Sano is the only one that looks like he needs to stay. I suppose he can stay in RF until someone needs to come up, then move him to 3B and put Plouffe wherever. The bench, trade, doesn't matter. He's an alright piece but not the future, so we shouldn't mortgage the future for the sake of veteran-ness or whatever. Personally, I think playing out there is affecting his hitting but he should be talented enough to work through it. Berrios should get a couple more turns to work through things. If he doesn't, I'm confident he'll figure it out at AAA soon enough and be back up in no time. Polanco should stay but he's blocked at 2B and 3B until that toilet unclogs, so send him to AAA until the creative spark hits our manager and he figures out how to weave him into the lineup regularly. Hopefully before 2018. Rosario and the rest stay in AAA until they force their way up again. I wouldn't hold August 1st firm for everyone but I'd certainly hope they all force their way back onto the MLB roster by then. Anyone who hasn't simply wasn't ready anyways, or maybe wasn't as good as we thought. At this point the team's earliest timeline to compete is 2018 or 2019, so there's no sense in rushing the first few prospects out of the oven only half-baked just to watch them flail. It's depressing seeing hyped rookies come up with missing fundamentals, glaring issues, non-competitive performances, and then fail to improve. Not everybody is a Puckett or Mauer that learns at the big league level, some guys need that development time and the carrot of a promotion to iron out their flaws. We just need to have patience, bring them up as they're ready, ride out the unmovable veteran contracts, and find another use for that ticket money until then.
  16. Taildragger8791
    I have a feeling Gonsalves will struggle initially in AA with the better and more patient hitters. If you're just looking at hits, Ks, and ERA he looks pretty fantastic. But I see a fair number of walks and the inability to go beyond 6 innings per start, which indicates to me that he's throwing too many pitches. It's possible he's nibbling around the zone and being helped along by inexperienced hitters. Regardless, he's getting away with it now and it would be good to see him tested against better hitting to see if he can adjust.
  17. Taildragger8791
    Using the BB codes for tables, table headers, and table rows. But I'm too lazy to type that all out so I cheated and used an HTML table generator and just used a text editor find/replace to swap all the "<" and ">" with "[" and "]". This was the table generator I used: http://www.tablesgenerator.com/html_tables Make sure you click the checkbox for "Do not generate CSS".
  18. Taildragger8791
    Finally figured out the tables. Sorry for the 100 edits if anyone was seeing some weird formatting.
  19. Taildragger8791
    With Harrison, you mention that his slugging percentage is 50 points higher but his overall average is 57 points higher. That means he's punching a few extra singles through but actually demonstrating less power. If that's luck-driven, as spycake alludes to with the elevated BABIP, then it doesn't appear like he's turned any sort of corner. Maybe he's hitting more line drives and will sustain a fraction of that increase in average, but he's trading off 2Bs, 3Bs, and K/BB rate right now. If he maintained this pace here's what his numbers would look like in the same number of at-bats as he had last year: [table] YEARAB1B2B3BHRAVGSLG 2015396632345.240.356 2016396911817.295.399 [/table] You can shift those hit types a little but this is enough to get the idea. Those would be pretty underwhelming full-season stats from a 23-year old 3B at AA.
  20. Taildragger8791
    That doesn't sound like an accurate representation of Meyer. My impression was that Meyer has a great fastball & curveball, but an underwhelming changeup and issues with control/consistency on the latter two. The only problem I've heard about his fastball is when he gets wild then focuses too hard on throwing a strike, and ends up grooving it right down the middle.
  21. Taildragger8791
    Hopefully that helps him make better contact, but that would only be half the equation with Buxton. His primary hurdle to another call-up is still going to be pitch recognition and handling breaking balls. K-rate and BB-rate are the key metrics for him to demonstrate MLB readiness. But it's fun to see him hitting again, that's for sure.
  22. Taildragger8791
    Is there any concern around Gonsalves' walk rate? He's around 3.3/9 for his career but it's climbed to nearly 4.0/9 in High-A. He had a good start this season but it's been climbing again the last few games. I wonder if his promotion will be held off on the worries that it could get a lot worse at AA? Burdi/Reed and others have shown how tough that jump is for pitchers who aren't consistent strike-throwers.
  23. Taildragger8791
    This isn't how the internet works, fellas. I'm going to need you to pick up your standard-issue weapons of ad-hominem & strawman attacks and resume your fight to the death of your dignity.
  24. Taildragger8791
    I have led multiple teams to multiple championships in MLB 2K and The Show. Ryan just needs to figure out how to turn down the difficulty settings, but you know how older people are with technology.
  25. Taildragger8791
    I don't know much about the guy, but my initial guess is that 28.8% strikeout rate at AA right now has something to do with it. Would you trade ABW III or Vargas straight up for a backup big league catcher today? That's about what you're looking at from the other side of it.
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