John Bonnes

It could be that he needed to adjust and get his slider more in the strike zone - that batter figured out to stay off that pitch because it was almost never hittable. The adjustment he made was to get it in there enough to keep them honest. I think I'll take him either way. You're still talking about a guy with a good strikeout rate, an average walk rate and a low hit rate.

A lot of names are thrown around about backup plans if Morneau isn't right this year. The first problem with those plans is: none of them are likely to produce like Justin Morneau. The second problem is that they all have such significant risks. 1) Mauer - But then Doumit is the fulltime catcher. I can't see either his defense or his body lasting long as a fulltime catcher. 2) Doumit - Ok, but then who is DH? One way or the other, I think this means a platoon of Hughes and Plouffe, which also means Ben Revere is the full time left fielder. 3) Parmelee - I'm as optimistic as anyone about his chance to have a MLB career. But rushing the kid to play full time after completely skipping AAA seems like the best method to jeopardize that. 4) The kid they got from Pittsburgh - Wow. Talk about reaching. I know we've been talking about how the Twins should spend $1-$2M on a relief pitcher, and that still is a higher priority, but I would sure like to see another $1-$2M spent on a good bat, even if he can only play DH. Talk about a low risk, low cost, high impact move....

You can view the page at http://twinsdaily.com/content.php?123-Delmon-vs-Revere

Does Revere's Defense Make Up For Delmon's Offense? Last week in a thought exercise, I wondered if who we could expect more out of this year – Delmon Young or Ben Revere. One offensive, one defensive. One defensively laughable, one offensively infuriating. So let’s look, sabrmetrically, at what each should be worth offensively and defensively next year. [ATTACH=CONFIG]48[/ATTACH] Offense I like using a very basic sabremetric stat to measure offensive production for players: Bill James’ Runs Created (or RC). Basically James discovered that by looking at the number of walks, hits, doubles, triples, homeruns and at-bat a team had, he could give a pretty good estimate of how many runs they scored that year. Then he used that same formula for players. (If you’re looking for more on Runs Created, I did a short story on it back in April you might want to check out. That theory is that basis for a huge chunk of the sabremetric work out there. It also started the alphabet statistical soup that people like to mock. If you want to be able to explain the basics of this stuff to people, it’s a good start.) Runs Created has been through all kinds of formulas and there are all kinds of pet derivations for it. I’m going to just pull mine from ESPN.com for both players. Delmon Young created 51 runs last year, 89 the year before and 76 &45 in his first two years with the Twins. My gawd, was he really here four years? I guess time flies when you’re flailing at first pitches. He’s probably good for somewhere between 50 and 90 runs, so I’ll go with 70 as a nice round figure. Revere played in 117 games with 481 plate appearances and created 46 runs. It’s not safe to assume he’ll be playing full time this year, but just so we can compare apples to apples, let’s assume he gets another 90 AB. That would give him about 55 runs of offense, about 15 less than Delmon. Defense The most widely used defensive metric, Ultimate Zone Rating (or UZR) also uses runs as its measuring stick, though this time it is runs in comparison to the average defender. We’ll take that number and add it to (or subtract it from) our offensive runs. We’ll get those numbers from FanGraphs.com. Young has been bad defensively, but did you know that according to UZR he has really improved over the last two years? Last year he only cost the Twins three runs compared to the average left fielder, seven runs better than 2010 and 11 runs better than the year before that. My guess is that Young costs between 0 and -15 runs, and so I’ll got with -5. Overall that leaves him with 65 runs. Revere is also a little hard to measure. His UZR in left field was also negative, but he only played there for a few games, so it’s hard to count on UZR. However, in center field he saved 10 runs, and that translates to 15 runs if he had played there full time. Generally, you would see that number go up in left field, just because the average left fielder is worse defensively than the average center fielder. So 15 runs seems safe, and it could be as high as 20. Let’s stay with 15. And the cry goes up: But WHAT ABOUT HIS ARM? Well UZR takes an outfielder's arm into account. So for now, let's go with it. Parenthentically, it should be a fascinating year for Twins fans as they watch a thought experiment play itself out in reality. Enormous range. No arm. Which is more important to an outfielder? I think it’s going to be “range” in a landslide, but I wonder if I’ll feel the same way after this year. That gives Revere 70 runs and Delmon 65. I wouldn’t take it as definitive proof that Revere is going to be more valuable than Young, but they’re a lot more comparable than I would have thought.

http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/01/13/yoenis-cespedes-names-six-teams-with-a-lot-of-interest/ Cespedes has named the six teams with the most interest in him and it ain't good news for the Twins.... "According to Cespedes those half-dozen teams are the Marlins, Cubs, White Sox, Orioles, Tigers, and Indians." I gotta think that the Marlins would be leading the charge on this one, and the Cubs (with Theo) could spend more money than god. But a couple of AL Central teams could be dangerous, too. I had worried about Kenny Williams because the White Sox have been pretty aggressive with some Cuban signings lately, but I hope that would not be the case due to payroll constraints. Now I wonder if a lot of that salary dumping was geared toward being a player here. And the Tigers have been awfully quiet this winter....too quiet. Unfortunately, Twins fans find themselves in a division with two owners who have shown they are very willing to up their financial commitment when they feel like the right player or opportunity comes along. This sounds very much like that kind of opportunity.

I also am encouraged that he is a switch hitter. And since he throws with his right hand, I assume that's his natural batting side. Along with that patience, it sounds like a possible ideal #2 hitter.

I gotta say, I'm with the person that questioned why Levi Michael isn't getting more attention. He seems like a younger version of Jamey Carroll. I really like that walk to strikeout ratio. ANyone have any idea where he'll start out? High A?

[attachment=7175:3699.attach]Aaron and John review a plethora of weird roster moves, wonder about the impact of Joe Mauer's bat, discuss pineapple sauce with [URL="https://twitter.com/LindsayGuentzel"]Lindsay Guentzel[/URL], endorse Eduardo Escobar, compare John's facial hair to Jack Morris' and interview Aaron's favorite bartender at Stella's. You can listen by downloading us from [URL="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/gleeman-geek-minnesota-twins/id457946327"]iTunes[/URL], [URL="http://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=41069&refid=stpr"]Stitcher[/URL] or find it at [URL="http://gleemanandthegeek.com/"]GleemanAndTheGeek.com[/URL]. View full article