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gunnarthor

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Everything posted by gunnarthor

  1. gunnarthor
    Robinson being a mentor isn't necessarily surprising. Obviously, it's more fun if the mentor was a pretty good player - Torii Hunter or Kirby Puckett - but most players talk about how other minor leaguers or HS coaches changed their lives a lot more than the superstars they worked/played with. Just being able to slow the game down and explain it in a way that works for the player is the important part. Maybe crappy ballplayers are better at that then guys who fall out of bed and hit .333.
  2. gunnarthor
    Dang. Hope he comes back next year better than ever.
  3. gunnarthor
    Ahh, skimmed that. Well, let's hope so. I probably agree that Romero's upside is higher (I was pretty low on De Leon in the first place) but his floor is much, much lower.
  4. gunnarthor
    What De Leon statement? Did I miss something in this thread?
  5. gunnarthor
    Yeah, if he's starting at AA, he's really not far away. Hopefully he dominates and makes the TD crowd look smart for making listing him as the teams #1 prospect.
  6. gunnarthor
    Oh, sure. But that's a few different regimes/draft coordinators. Things really changed under Deron Johnson. And "safe" college arms, to me, sounded like the control specialist college pitchers Radcliff drafted - Slowey, Baker, Duensing et al. Completely different from the high upside velocity/high risk reliever strategy of Johnson.
  7. gunnarthor
    I'm not sure that's true at all. Their drafts since 2012 have been some HS OF with tools but also several HS arms and some non-typical college arms (lots of relievers). Actually, looking at picks taken in the top 100 of each of those drafts only 5 players qualify as a "safe" college arm or HS OF - Buxton, Eades, Kiriloff, Babadoo and Jax. Lots and lots of college relievers and a fair number of HS SS were nabbed as well.
  8. gunnarthor
    What are the chances that Bakauskas can clean up his delivery enough to be a starter at the ML level? If we could sign him #1 at #4 money ...
  9. gunnarthor
    I'm hoping Cabbage has his break out year this year.
  10. gunnarthor
    Cool, thanks for the link. I know nothing about these international signings but I hope we do well.
  11. gunnarthor
    I think you're overreacting a bit.
  12. gunnarthor
    I think you're reading a bit much into this. The international signings under Smith were great and he pushed ownership to pay a record amount for Sano. That's all great. The point I was trying to make with Romero was that Romero wasn't a huge financial signing but a scout pushed for him. As for Ryan, not sure why we're set on dragging him into this but since we've just seen the 2009 international signing guys make the majors, we'll probably have a few years before we can see the 2012+ groups. As for why people are somewhat dissatisfied with Smith is because he inherited a pretty young ML team and made some trades that didn't work out in either the short term or the long term.
  13. gunnarthor
    I liked Joyce but his bellowing strike calls really bothered me.
  14. gunnarthor
    Yeah, they've certainly had their misses, too.
  15. gunnarthor
    ? I suppose we could argue that Ryan would have passed on Sano et al but we've seen his international signings as well so I'm not sure that's a huge point. And while Sano is a huge get, I'm not sure guys like Diaz, Javier et al won't be equal to or better than guys signed under Smith. It just takes a while to grade out the classes when most of them are signed at 16. But Ryan probably wouldn't have traded away Garza or Ramos either, so ...
  16. gunnarthor
    Yeah, fans tend to be pro-ownership in the sense that we root for the uniform. And I think you and Mike hit it on the head about how we view players - their worth to the team first and foremost. But even the analytical side seems to see players as cogs and very rarely do we talk about how the player's as people. Look at the scorn people have for the idea of Torii Hunter helping in a locker room. You can't measure it, it doesn't happen. But people (think) they can measure a player's value on the field and the player either is worth it or not. But at the end of the day, I suspect most people, when they stop and think about it, really dislike the owners, too.
  17. gunnarthor
    In all honesty, he deserves credit for pushing in Latin America and continuing to do so after he was dismissed as GM but the credit for Romero (and a guy like Thorpe) belongs to the individual scouts that said this kid was worth a quarter of a million dollars. I don't know who that guy was but he did good.
  18. gunnarthor
    http://www.si.com/mlb/2017/02/24/the-30-mlb-power-rankings-spring-training We start at #23 but ahead of the White Sox. Nothing earth shattering but they conclude with "What we can say with more certainty: This could, on many nights, be a fun team to watch."
  19. gunnarthor
    I don't think it was money related. Apparently, Jim is a huge personal fan of Molitor. Their daughters own a business together. Molitor (apparently) spent a lot of time the last seven years explaining baseball with Jim. As much as I want to rip the owners for being cheap, I don't think this is one of those times.
  20. gunnarthor
    Can you think of one positive thing that Molitor did to help this team last year? Vets were under-performing and were just lost for months at a time without any clue. It wasn't just rookies not figuring things out, which is the standard manager defense. Cripes, Kepler said it was Reggie Jackson who explained to him how to use batting practice to work on things rather than just ripping it. And sure, the pitching staff sucked but it shouldn't have been that bad. Jepsen shouldn't have been a DFA guy. Milone and Hughes and Gibson and Nolasco weren't expected to all have their worst years ever. Santiago basically said he stopped listening to the coaching staff here. And Molly kept throwing Duffey out there but had pretty quick hooks with Meyer and Berrios and never moved May back into the rotation. Molitor bunted too much, threw players under the bus, played favorites and his players sure didn't seem ready to run through a wall for him. I cannot think of one reason - other than the owner said so - that he is still the manager.
  21. gunnarthor
    I don't see how Molitor wasn't public enemy #1. Our roster wasn't that bad. This team massively underperformed. It wasn't ready for opening day. Nearly every single group of players - vets, rookies, position players, starters, bullpen - looked lost. Sure it sucked that Nolasco was on the roster but May and Jepsen were completely lost in the bullpen. Dozier struggled for months to start the season. Sano and Rosario were called out by Molly. He didn't stick up for players - including vets like Plouffe and Mauer - when they were getting squeezed by the umps or arguing with the home plate ump when he wasn't giving Gibson the low strike. Hell, at least Gardy would have gotten ejected a few times to defend his guys. It was a **** show.
  22. gunnarthor
    I like Romero a lot. Probably wouldn't have him #1 but six months from now it might look like the obvious decision. It's also a nice reminder that both Romero and Thrope were relatively unheralded international signings in 2011 that look pretty exciting.
  23. gunnarthor
    Well, this is a make or break year for Allen and I suspect Lavine will hire a new manager and pitching coach next year.
  24. gunnarthor
    Man, Matusz. Remember when he was an absolutely untouchable pitching prospect? He followed that up with a solid but unspectacular rookie season and then kind of stumbled.
  25. gunnarthor
    https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2017/02/white-sox-to-retire-mark-buehrles-number.html Buerhlre is one of my favorite non-Twins ever. In 16 seasons, he threw 3283 innings with a 117 ERA+ and amassed 60 WAR (61st all time among pitchers). His career numbers are pretty close to guys like Andy Pettitte and CC Sabathia, all border line HOFers. He wasn't a big strike out guy but he was a pretty good fielder for a pitcher and he didn't waste time between pitches. Obviously, with guys like Moose and Schilling not getting into the HOF, guys like Buehrle will have to wait a while, if ever, but his eight 4+ WAR seasons are more than many HOFers as well. Dang nice career. And he also made almost 140m in baseball contracts.
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