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PDX Twin

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Everything posted by PDX Twin

  1. PDX Twin
    Thanks for giving some thought to the impact of attitudes and team cohesion. It's probably less important in baseball than in other sports because so much of baseball is individual, but having a group that wants to win for the team and for each other can make a big difference. We spend so much time looking at raw numbers that it's easy to forget that these are humans producing the numbers, and human performance depends a lot on the mind-set of the players involved.
  2. PDX Twin
    Did you mean this to come out the way it did?
  3. PDX Twin
    This being the era of manic shifting, I'm guessing that they have a secret plan to use two firstbasemen.
  4. PDX Twin
    It will be interesting to see how the veteran pitchers on the roster respond to someone with no pro coaching experience.
  5. PDX Twin
    What could Sano do if he got into shape like Astudillo?
  6. PDX Twin
    Pretty amazing numbers at every level. How is it that he didn't get more love in college recruiting or in the draft? Is there something that scouts wouldn't have liked?
  7. PDX Twin
    This situation sure makes me appreciate all the wonderful things I read (here) about the good "character" of young players such as Lewis, Kiriloff, and others. I agree with the comment much earlier that it is getting harder and harder to cheer for MS, and there is increasingly less that warrants a cheer on the field or off.
  8. PDX Twin
    Wonderful! Is there any way that TD could create an index to these player profiles? It would be great when a little-known player does something later on to easily be able to go back and read the background again.
  9. PDX Twin
    Maybe the Twins can arrange a package deal for Mauer and Oliva. Both, in my opinion, deserve to be in the Hall and would be first-ballot selections if not for debilitating injuries. It would also be interesting to know what Oliva's last 10 years would have been with today's medical procedures for rehabilitation of injured knees!
  10. PDX Twin
    Do I remember some discussion that Hildenberger was tipping pitches earlier in the season, or was that someone else? If that's the explanation, it sure seems fixable.
  11. PDX Twin
    I was thinking about this conundrum as I was reading the piece. You might think about a variation to the ranked voting idea: Have ten ranks for your eight choices. In your case, you would rank the top three #1, #2, and #3 (10, 9, and 8 points). Then leave #4 open to indicate a gap in your assessment, putting your next two in as #5 and #6 (6 and 5 points). Another gap at #7 leaves your "6A, 6B, and 6C" as #8, #9, and #10 (3, 2, and 1 point). It's probably not worth the confusion it might cause, but it would allow a voter to express that not all ranks are equally spaced. If you felt really strongly about the top candidate, you could even leave a double gap at #2 and #3 and rank your second-best candidate at #4.
  12. PDX Twin
    Shocking: Allowing 2 hits and 1 run to the Yankees was not even the best pitching performance in MLB last night. There were at least two that were better! I happened to look over the scores at bedtime and, in addition to the Twins' effort: The Athletics allowed no runs and just 1 hit against BaltimoreThe Rays allowed one run and just 1 hit against ClevelandThe Red Sox allowed no runs and 4 hits against TorontoThe Mets allowed no runs and 5 hits against MiamiWow, what a night for the arms!
  13. PDX Twin
    Carrot cake with white-chocolate cream-cheese frosting!
  14. PDX Twin
    Jinx?
  15. PDX Twin
    "Entering play on Monday, the Cedar Rapids Kernels will have a shot at clinching the second-half championship. The Kernels are 40-23 in the second half and sit 3.5 games up on the Peoria Chiefs. In the second half, the Kernels are the only team in the entire league to win at least 20 games at home and on the road." They've really taken off since they unloaded those clowns Kiriloff, Lewis, and Graterol!
  16. PDX Twin
    As an old-timer---it hurts to type those words!!---I experienced both Harmon and Kirby in their primes. I'd have to give the edge to Puckett because he was a complete ballplayer. Killebrew hit tons of homeruns, but he also struck out a lot, rarely hit much over .270, was a liability in the field wherever he tried to play (1b, 3b, lf), and was not the slowest player on the Twins teams of his prime only because Earl Battey was truly molasses incarnate. I remember that in the late 1960s, before injuries brought him down, I thought that Tony Oliva was a better player than Harmon. Puckett on the other hand was an outstanding defender at a premium position, regularly hit well over .300, and was always a threat to steal or take the extra base, even though his power did not approach Killebrew's numbers. Both were great players, but Kirby was great in so many dimensions that I just have to give him the edge.
  17. PDX Twin
    "Over the past two weeks, we have been counting down our Top 40 Midseason Minnesota Twins Prospect Rankings." If we have been counting down, we should be moving toward the bottom, yet here we are, concluding the list at the top. Weird language this idiomatic English...
  18. PDX Twin
    Jake Cave will be Aaron Hicks in reverse.
  19. PDX Twin
    So ... controversial point here: There are some advantages to the American system of trading players rather than buying and selling for cash as is the norm in world football. (Principally, it limits the ability of a rich owner to acquire players without giving any up.) But there are serious disadvantages. Monetary economists argue that the advantage of money transactions over barter is the elimination of a "double coincidence of wants." Under barter (as in MLB), we not only have to find a seller with something we want, but he must want something we have. Only a few teams are interested in a 2B and they may not have the ideal trade pieces that the Twins would want for Dozier, for example. One way in which this impacts the Twins currently is the inability to use multiple small sales to finance one big purchase. For example, suppose that we were able to sell 4 players (Dozier, Lynn, Duke, and Rodney, for example) for $5m each. We could then use that money to fund a $20m purchase (Realmuto?). The numbers are made up, but you probably get the idea. Under the current system, no one wants to pick up 4 useful but not stellar players that we could offer (especially a team like Miami). So although we may have sufficient assets to obtain a star, the transaction technology prevents us from doing so. This means that (as per my earlier post) we are left with trading away each of our "little" pieces for other little pieces like non-elite prospects. All of the proposed moves discussed in the article seem to me unlikely to make the Twins better in 2019 and beyond. We are shuffling off little pieces we don't need for someone else's little pieces they don't need. Under a monetary system, we could sell multiple resources that have higher value to others than to us and pool the proceeds to buy a difference-maker.
  20. PDX Twin
    I couldn't agree more. Our trading strategy seems to consist of acquiring young, future replacement-level players in exchange for old replacement-level players or players with expiring contracts. It's hard to get very excited about that, although I guess Escobar fit that label at the time we obtained him for Liriano.
  21. PDX Twin
    Interesting. I was trying to twist it into something having to do with photographic plates and Kodak...
  22. PDX Twin
    Wait ... Who was the manager who made this correct bullpen call?
  23. PDX Twin
    Just a thought that hasn't been mentioned: Having a three-man bench makes it really difficult to "manage" a lineup. In the "old days," you could sit a slumping player down for a few days to get his head together. If a player commits a bonehead play due to lack of concentration, he could be benched. But now, with one spot necessarily reserved for the backup catcher, there is practically no bench to sit him on. Sano had options, so we could send him out. But Dozier, Morrison, etc. could have more "mental-health days" if they had a 5-man or 6-man bench as they did a few decades ago. I'm not sure how this affects Molitor in relation to other managers. But if his skills at "managing" his team's mental approach are not strong, this takes away one potential tool.
  24. PDX Twin
    I can't agree more about the three-outcome syndrome being boring. Watching homeruns is about as interesting as watching weight-lifting. Yes, it's amazing that players can hit the ball a long way, but that doesn't make it fun to watch. A game-changing grand slam? Sure, that's great. But the game transitioning into 3.5 hours of home-run derby is not fun. My favorite plays to watch (ahead of homeruns, walks, or strikeouts) would have to be triples, double-plays, diving and leaping catches, stolen bases, "hustle-doubles," and the occasional quirky play that no one would ever draw up on the tactical chalk board. (Rosario seems to be particularly good at the last ... not always to the Twins' benefit!)
  25. PDX Twin
    It's easy to see someone like him developing into a manager or front-office executive some day.
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