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gunnarthor

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Everything posted by gunnarthor

  1. gunnarthor
    I've listened to Jeff Robinson speak on race issues a couple times. He's fantastic. He's the ACLU's racial justice expert and has a heck of a compelling past. This video is long but he's a darn good speaker.
  2. gunnarthor
    Lynn might regret that one year deal ...
  3. gunnarthor
    Is that from last year or how he's predicted to be this year? I think Mauer is firmly in that third tier of first baseman now but another .390 obp year is good enough with the rest of the offense around him.
  4. gunnarthor
    Here's a bunch - AL Central final standings: Twins 92-60 Tigers 81-81 Cleveland 80-82 Royals 68-94 White Sox 62-100 I think the Twins have three all-stars - Buxton, Sano and Dozier. Rodney finishes #3 in saves but no one trusts him in the post-season Buxton finishes top 5 in MVP voting. Sano finishes top 5 in HR. Sano, Morrison, Dozier all top 35 HR Kepler is traded as part of a package for Archer during the season. Kiriloff is minor league comeback player of the year. Baddoo has a huge jump in prospect rankings. Twins draft Tristen Pompey in the first round.
  5. gunnarthor
    Again, Nick is the one that is suggesting that "people are cheating but it's not fair for the DR players because they aren't as good at cheating." I certainly never made that claim. As for the claims you're hyping, yes, I think we've seen with BALCO and a few other large scale doping like Biogenisis that America is far ahead of the DR in terms of places where players can get masking agents and designer PEDs. A disproportionate number of PED suspensions in baseball have been of Domincan ball players. There could be several reasons for that but very likely one of them is that they are not getting the highest level PEDs in the DR. Yes, MLB's testing procedure is a joke unless you think only about 20 or so players have been using PEDs since 2014. The NFL, in the same time frame, has caught many more players despite having a less rigorous testing plan. The reason for such an ineffectual plan is either mlb is incompetent or that the league wants the good PR of drug testing without actually getting PEDs out of the game. Or, I suppose, you can believe that players policed PEDs out of the game themselves. I'm not sure where you think I said no one thinks the players are to blame. I've pointed out that they are not the only ones to blame. A bit of a difference there, chief.
  6. gunnarthor
    If you wanted to, you could build quite a few bricks with all the straw men you created there.
  7. gunnarthor
    I think the masking agents in DR aren't as good as the agents the players in the US are using.
  8. gunnarthor
    The penalties are unfair and the testing is a joke. MLB has set up a system that will catch a handful of players a year while letting most get through so fans can pretend that PED use isn't still part of the game. According to wikipedia's list, only 19 ML players have been caught since the renegotiated system in 2014. I'm not sure if 19 is the exact number but it feels right. I'm pretty confident a lot more than 19 ML have been using PEDs in that time frame. Masking agents have improved greatly which is allowing athletes to use more and better drugs. We've seen that in the Olympics (where Russia essentially put all their athletes on something), we've seen it in chess, football, horse racing. But, yeah, baseball is super duper clean. Baseball teams are investing millions to figure out how to have players perform better are completely ignoring drug use b/c AJ Preller and Thad Levine are virtuous guys.
  9. gunnarthor
    You're missing the point. The player and the team both want the same thing. They want the player to use PEDs. If teams didn't want this, there are concrete actions they could take to stop it. This isn't "babysitting." It's an investment.
  10. gunnarthor
    I'm not even sure what that means unless you're suggesting players aren't roiding as much as 10 years ago which of course you have no evidence for.
  11. gunnarthor
    This seems like such a dumb policy for MLB. Baseball isn't as popular as football but they have this opportunity to grab all these young kids away from football because of the health concerns that football is creating. Baseball should want to pay these kids more.
  12. gunnarthor
    Poor multi-billion dollar owners. If only they could have done something about the PED problem in the sport. Oh, wait. They created a system that completely blames the players and gets fans to side with them. Great job, victims! If you think baseball teams are ignorant of the PED use, fine. There isn't a lot of concrete data out there but we have several examples of the Yankee and Red Sox front offices knowing of PED use among players on their team and on other teams. I'm sure as front offices have gotten smarter, they've decided not to keep tabs on those sorts of things. The Twins could easily set up their own training compound in the DR and fill it with their own trainers/medical people/dietitians if they wanted. Teams didn't do this at the height of the PED era for a reason. They wanted plausible deniability. They aren't doing this now for the same reason. They want the benefits that the drugs can give their players to help the team.
  13. gunnarthor
    I hope that the players will insist that PED penalties affect both the player and the team in the next round of the CBA - even if it's just making the lost salary get donated to charity instead of staying in the owners pockets. And no one is saying Polanco shouldn't be blamed. But he's not the only one who should get blamed. MLB has created a system that pushes PED use. The Mitchell Report even said that. I don't think it's unreasonable to say that both sides - not just one - should be penalized. The Twins knew (or should have known) who their players are training with in the off season. And they also knew (or should have known) where these guys are training and the risks that might create.
  14. gunnarthor
    This take puts all the blame for PED-use on the players despite no one in baseball thinking that is true. We saw in the ARod fiasco that the Yankee owners were begging MLB to suspend him so they would get out of paying his salary while at the same time people in the FO were emailing ARod asking him to get Cano some PEDs. Drug testing in MLB is a joke which is why their catch rate is so low. MLB pretends that they are stopping PEDs and occasionally they'll catch someone. But their aim in PR, not actually stopping PED use. If they really wanted to stop this, they would put penalties down on teams for violations which would mean teams would stop letting players train with the Angel Presenal's of the world. You are right that the players bargained for this, which makes it fine. But it's still stupid and unfairly penalizes one side and ignores the bad faith work of owners and teams. sheesh.
  15. gunnarthor
    I think Buxton will finish top five in MVP voting this year. Should be a fun year to watch him.
  16. gunnarthor
    My main problem with the punishment is that it only punishes players and actually gives some benefits to the owners (not paying salary). The Mitchell Report (as crappy and owner-favored as it was) made note that PED use was a problem caused by both players and teams. Any punishment should affect both, not just the players. But baseball doesn't really want to get PEDs out of the game, it just wants to pretend it's doing something.
  17. gunnarthor
    You don't think agents and teams know which players are juicing? You don't think teams and agents are helping/condoning such behavior? You think players are roiding up all by themselves?
  18. gunnarthor
    He'll be fine.
  19. gunnarthor
    Escobar will start the year but he'll have a short leash and Gordon will come up quickly if needed.
  20. gunnarthor
    I suspect a lot of front offices know/suspect that their players are doing this and are ok with it so long as they don't get caught. It's hard to imagine why front offices let players continue to train with Angel Presenal back in the day if they didn't think PEDs were in use.
  21. gunnarthor
    I expect Escobar will be our starting shortstop but Gordon might get called up a bit faster if he's hot in AAA.
  22. gunnarthor
    Wouldn't be Gleeman without a shot at Ryan. I'll take the over on 83 wins and I think we could win the division. Cleveland is going to collapse this year - two brutal post-seasons and the loss of Santana and their rotation has been ridiculously healthy the last few years. Their due for a rough season.
  23. gunnarthor
    Fangraphs writer makes some predictions for the upcoming season and it included this one - https://www.fangraphs.com/fantasy/trey-baughns-10-bold-predictions-2018/ 7. Akil Baddoo is a Top 50 prospect by season’s end (FanGraphs) Let the record show that this bold prospect prediction has been penned before Eric and Kiley finish their 2018 Twins team top prospect list. The age 19 outfielder did not land on the recent FanGraphs Top 100 prospect list, but he did make an appearance as an honorable mention of sorts here. Baddoo is intriguing because of his speed (above average), his high probability of sticking in center field, and most importantly, for his ability to flat out hit. At the age of 18 (2017), Baddoo managed a .963 OPS while walking more than he struck out. That combination of youthful power, speed, and discipline just doesn’t materialize very often, and if his profile continues to develop over a larger sample, Baddoo may rocket up the prospect lists with an almost Ronald Acuna-type trajectory. Projecting prospects is hard, and predicting prospect breakouts is bold, but Baddoo has a foundation that looks promising.
  24. gunnarthor
    Wow, here's a link. https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2018/03/astros-nearing-extension-with-jose-altuve.html That's good for Dozier if not the Twins.
  25. gunnarthor
    I think guys like Buxton are probably going to wait a year to see how the new free agency works out before agreeing to be locked up long term.
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