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gunnarthor

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Everything posted by gunnarthor

  1. gunnarthor
    My timing was excellent. The MN Supreme Court essentially ruled today that no Minnesotan can refuse to take a breathalyzer test. If you refuse, you can be arrested for refusing to take the test and they can then give you the test as a search-incident-to-a-arrest. All without a warrant. Alan Page dissented.
  2. gunnarthor
    BP had a chat on its list. From the chat: Herb (Tonawanda): Some people are down on Meyer, Sanchez, and Stephenson due to control/command issues at higher levels. Your rankings seem to indicate you believe you're confident in all sticking as starters long term? Top 101 Chat: A little more nuanced -- I think the rankings indicate that they have a chance to start OR have a floor that makes them a potentially impactful relief arm almost immediately.
  3. gunnarthor
    http://www.si.com/nfl/2015/02/06/oco-coliseum-jumper-2013-oakland-raiders-brittany-bryan-donnie-navidad Lady fell/jumped off of Oakland Colosseum but survived b/c some guy tried to catch her. Hopefully she has a good life.
  4. gunnarthor
    Yeah, but you're giving too much weight to defensive numbers that fluctuate a ton, year-to-year. The numbers said that, two years ago, Hunter was better in RF than Stanton. There is a lot of noise in Hunter's defensive numbers and it is such an extreme it's probably wrong. And Hunter has a few things going for him. Moving from Comerica to TF will help him. Comerica is probably the worst RF to play in the AL, esp for range. The Tigers CFers graded out a lot worse than the Twins CFers so Hunter had little support for balls to the gap which made him play deeper (and let more stuff fall in front of him). The Twins are more open to shifting players around then Detroit was - they did this with Orlando Hudson whose defensive numbers jumped a lot with the Twins - so that should help Hunter. He'll probably be rested more. Additionally, Detroit blogs said that Hunter was still dealing with a hurt leg at the beginning of the season. I have no idea how much, if any of that is true but he did miss 9 games in the first half of the season for leg injuries and his bat picked up in the second half of the season. And the Twins saw Hunter more in the second half and thought he looked ok in the field (although what were they going to say? "He looked like a statue"?). So maybe his hurt legs affected his defensive numbers in the first half. In any event, if his bat holds up, I think you can reasonably expect his defensive numbers to positively regress so that he's still an improvement for the Twins.
  5. gunnarthor
    ****ty, ****ty pitching. There is certainly room for the offense to collapse. I don't trust Vargas at DH (although if he fails, putting Hunter at DH and Schafer in right softens the blow somewhat). Santana will regress and Hicks/Schafer is not an ideal CF right now. But they do have depth - some of it is young and inexperienced. So, sure, the offense could go from 5th in the AL to 10th and that would suck. But at the same time, Arcia and Mauer should both be better. Dozier/Plouffe/Suzuki (combined) should all roughly be the same value. Hunter is an offensive improvement (unless age turns him into a pumpkin, which could happen). Ryan expects Buxton up sometime during the season. And they do have a few tradeable pieces if they need/want to.
  6. gunnarthor
    Sure it is. Most teams don't have ideal rosters, they never do. The Royals went to the WS with Hosmer and Mouse at the corners and Butler at DH. How many truly good CFers are there right now? Maybe 7? Padres are going with Upton/Myers/Kemp in the OF and they are trying to win the AL West. Houston has Gattis in LF. Last year our CFers sucked so much last year we had to put an minor league IFer into center field and got lucky when he did enough to hold it down. Wait, sorry I was talking about Boston, not us. Suzuki isn't an elite catcher but he's not the worst defensive catcher out there, by any metric (that usually goes to Derek Norris - who was traded to the Padres. I would also disagree that the Twins don't have a proven shortstop. Again, there aren't many good shortstops out there but do you know which team led fWAR at shortstop? Twins. Obviously, that's because they double counted Santana's CF contribution on top of Escobar's numbers but both place among the top 12 in WAR for shortstops, ahead of guys like Simmons, Lowrie and Adrus. Sure, there might be some regression but the team has depth there. Most teams don't. But the Twins do have a solid roster right now, which is why they were 7th in all baseball in runs. They don't have elite guys anywhere (yet) but they had solid or better in most places and those types of lineups tend to be underestimated.
  7. gunnarthor
    You could say most of that about nearly every team.
  8. gunnarthor
    Well, sure. But this thread was about what our starters needed to do. Hell, the starters could all go backwards and the team could still reach .500 if the offense explodes. (Replacement level isn't going to change significantly for back of the napkin measurements like this).
  9. gunnarthor
    To be .500 our starters need: Hughes and Gibson need to combine for 64 starts and 8 WAR again. Santana and Nolasco need to combine for 50 starts and 5 WAR. (That would be a 3 WAR improvement over Nolasco/Correa). Our 5th starter would have to make 20 starts at 2 WAR (a 1 WAR improvement over May/Pino last year) Our 6th starter would have to make 18 starts at 1 WAR (a 1.5 WAR improvement over Pelfrey/Swarzak/Milone/Darnell last year) Our 7th starter would have to make 8 starts at 1 WAR (a 1 WAR improvement over Deduno last year) Something in that neighborhood would get the Twins to roughly .500 or maybe a little better. Obviously the Santana/Nolasco part is key (as is health in general). They both have the track record where a combined 5 WAR isn't out of the questions and if Nolasco struggles, his starts could be replaced by Meyer, for instance. A .500 team needs roughly 33-35 WAR. Twins had 30 by fangraphs last year, 24 by B-R. So they'd need a 5-10 improvement depending on your version.
  10. gunnarthor
    Yeah, I'll grant you that. Most judges I've met are very smart, very driven and know a lot about their field - immigration law, criminal law, bankruptcy law, whatever. My problem is that very few are flexible enough to see the problems within the system. Most judges, for instance, know that police officers will lie on the stand (it's called testilying), most judges know that minorities are profiled by these same cops. Yet no judge does anything about it. The judicial system essentially made it impossible for minorities to even point that out. It was the judicial branch that severely weakened most 4th amendment protections, not the legislature or executive branches.
  11. gunnarthor
    This exactly. Meyer, Stewart, Berrios.
  12. gunnarthor
    That's a great write up on him from a typically harsh grader but he doesn't say that Berrios has four plus pitches. He actually grades them - 60 or better is plus. He gave him a plus on the fastball and a future plus on his curve. The others would be avg or above avg (50-55 grades). His future role is still a #3 starter to McDaniel - which is great.
  13. gunnarthor
    No, I'm a lawyer. Judges are a significant part of our broken justice system. Very few are really "neutral." Nearly all side with the government and most come from that background. And lower court judges often make stupid, arbitrary decisions knowing that the hurt party probably can't afford to appeal.
  14. gunnarthor
    Honestly, based on what? I mean the Twins get ripped for bad defense but Houston was a lot worse. A lot worse. And now they are going to have Brett Lawrie play short? And Luis Valbuena play third? They have three huge regression guys in Altuve, McHugh and Keuchel. Altuve might be a real solid piece but he's not having another 6 WAR season. The other two guys were journeyman pitchers having career years. (Amazingly, the Twins pitchers amassed more WAR than the Astros guys last year, despite those two huge years). Frankly, I'd rather go with the Twins pitching staff this year than Houston's. They'll hit a lot home runs but they'll have an insanely low team OBP and could break the ML record for strikeouts (again). For a team with a bunch of crappy seasons, they don't have that much in the minors, esp in the upper levels.
  15. gunnarthor
    I really like May and think he ends up leading the Twins in strike outs this year. I think he gets the #5 spot out of ST and makes 32 starts for us. I remember reading a few years ago a Reusse column where he asked someone in the FO if the Twins had any guys in the system that could just be an innings eating anchor - not another Johan, but a guy who constantly takes the ball and throws 200+ innings, year after year. He was told May was going to be that guy.
  16. gunnarthor
    I'm less concerned about Hunter's defense than most. If the Twins can stay healthy this year, I think they have a shot at .500 or so. And they won't be worse than the Astros for sure.
  17. gunnarthor
    I think the walk rates were one concern but IIRC he was dinged up a little in the second half - a skipped start or two? And the Twins were trying to give starts to Milone and May as well and they had a healthy Nolasco back so it was a bit of a crowded rotation. If he was healthy, I think they would have brought him up but his last start was pretty ugly and they just shut him down. That said, I still think he makes the team out of ST.
  18. gunnarthor
    Yeah, frankly, this is why it's so fascinating. I expect that the ethics panel removes him from his post again.
  19. gunnarthor
    Obviously, this is everywhere but Alabama chief justice instructed the probate judges of Alabama (who technically report to him) to only rely on Alabama law and constitution and to not issue same sex couples marriage licenses. This is in response to a Federal Court ruling that Alabama's ban on same sex marriage is unconstitutional. Moore was kicked off the bench a decade or so ago for refusing to follow a federal court ruling to get rid of the 10 commandments at the courthouse. So he's kind of a dick. On the plus side, same sex marriage is ok in 37 states now and the USSC isn't issuing a stay so it's pretty well assumed that they will allow same sex marriage everywhere within the year.
  20. gunnarthor
    Do you even read your own website?
  21. gunnarthor
    They don't have a lot of the drafted guys ranked. No Kolek at all, Jackson is 68th, Rodon 41, Schwaber at 77 is a bit of a surprise. Nola and Freeland are in the 60-70 range, too. They seem to want the draft guys to prove it.
  22. gunnarthor
    My guess is that they like the shortstops more for defensive purposes.
  23. gunnarthor
    Yeah, BP loves the Twins. Last year they had Thorpe 101. Jason Parks was their main prospect guy last year but was hired away by the Cubs. Nice to see the Twins love continue without him. A few surprises, but not necessarily wrong. Addison Russell #2. I like that choice (over Correa). Russell seems more likely to stick at short. They really like Bundy. Wisler made their list pretty handily but I think he missed a few other lists. For the Twins, I think I'm most surprised on how low Gordon is.
  24. gunnarthor
    Man, Twins never win anything.
  25. gunnarthor
    Before the draft, a lot of draft mock drafts had Burdi going to Detroit in the first round. A few had another team taking him but the consensus was that he was a first round talent. Hoey was a 13th round pick. While he could throw hard, he never excited prospect guys like Burdi has. Obviously, Burdi might not throw a pitch in the majors but I would bet a lot of money that he has a better ML career than Hoey.
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