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2wins87

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Everything posted by 2wins87

  1. 2wins87
    Severino was actually already rule 5 eligible last season (the last 2 actually) and wasn't taken in the draft. Seems like good fortune, because he did already have a great season last year though it seems to have still been a bit under the radar. He put up about a 35 HR per 150 G pace overall between high-A and AA. Prior to last season I definitely didn't think he seemed like a very big prospect, but he was probably underrated coming into the season. He hasn't been a particularly high K bat in past seasons, so I'm not sure how much to read into his early season Ks. K rates generally drop as the season progresses, so I'd like to see where he ends up in a few months. His track record would suggest he can maintain the power with a reasonable K rate as well.
  2. 2wins87
    There was another delay for lightning after the first inning also. Probably long enough that they didn't want to fire him back up again. *** Keirsey got derailed by injuries so much in his early career that I still have hope for him to be a late bloomer. He has the defense to be a good depth option and has been healthy and reasonably productive over the past year plus. Festa should be expected to be a big part of the team in a year or two, and Severino is putting himself on that level as well.
  3. 2wins87
    Nice summary. The first thing that jumped out to me were the K-BB numbers too, which also led me right to the plate discipline numbers. He did seem to make a smaller improvement in that regard last year too, so it seems like it might be sustainable. I have a feeling the discipline numbers won't be quite so good at the end of the year, but he does seem improved. He's on his third org after the Twins so I would hope that no one is complaining that they made the wrong decision letting him go, though I wouldn't be surprised, probably from the same people saying they need to cut whomever 4 weeks into the season.
  4. 2wins87
    I know it's a joke, but if I have my anatomy right, the posterior elbow would be much less worrying than the anterior elbow where UCL tears often require TJ. Not a doctor so I could be mistaken on that point, but I think that's why Rocco was repeating that particular phrase from the team doctors as it could be critical to his prognosis.
  5. 2wins87
    I think this Royals lineup is going to make the pitching incredibly dominant again over the course of the series. I'm not too worried about these specific arm injuries for Maeda and Mahle in the short term, but I am wondering about how well their arms are going to hold up over the course of the season. Maeda it seems hasn't even gotten back to the point where he can start every 5-6 days, and given is age I definitely wonder if he'll fully come back from TJ. Mahle once again seems to be dealing with durability issues. I think he was generally pretty healthy with the Reds so it's a bit puzzling, but hopefully with some extra rest he will be able to come back healthy for the rest of the season. As far as replacements I feel very confident right now. Varland had another excellent start for the Saints last night, so I think he could step into Mahle's slot. Ober could slot in at any point if they decide to make the move on Maeda. Honestly I have more confidence in Ober than Maeda at this point anyway. On the relief front, hopefully Stewart can be that 5th guy in the bullpen who handles big spots from time to time. His stuff certainly looked good last night, though I want to see him against better lineups.
  6. 2wins87
    I want to see Kirilloff get a long healthy stretch in the majors. The problem right now is who he could replace. It would be easy to replace Gordon or Castro without missing their bats, but currently it seems that Gordon is basically the only backup CF, and Castro is the only backup SS (so he's probably up until Farmer is back regardless). Now, they could have Kepler back up center or Polanco back up SS in a pinch, but it seems they have no desire to do that. Castro could also probably back up both center and short reasonably well, so Gordon might be the more expendable one at the moment. But without options left they have to be ready to probably say goodbye to Gordon for good, which is understandably not a decision to be made lightly with so much season left where they could miss him as depth at the very least later on in the season. The other option that has been discussed is Larnach. If Kirilloff is finally healthy, then I think probably he'll be a better hitter than Larnach long-term, but I think that's very much an open question. I would think that Larnach would look every bit as dominant if he were currently in AAA. We also haven't really seen a long enough healthy stretch from Kirilloff to see the adjustment/counter-adjustment period. Larnach has definitely seen the league adjust to him (throwing him tons of breaking balls and changeups), and he seems to be making the adjustment back now with the HR on a changeup yesterday, and the highest OPS of his career so far this season. We really don't have any idea yet how the league will attack a healthy Kirilloff and how well and quickly he'll be able to adjust. It would also probably be a bad move to "reward" Larnach with a demotion when he seems to be putting things together nicely. Probably they will option Kirilloff to St Paul for another few weeks. If there hasn't been an injury and he's still forcing the issue, then maybe they'll need to find a way to get him in the lineup.
  7. 2wins87
    For all the early season grumbling, this team is looking pretty good. Cherry picking the start date a bit, they've scored 5.25 runs per game over their last 8 contests. Not everyone is clicking yet, but the offense does seem to be coming around fine. The way the pitching lines up, I think they must be relatively heavy favorites in every game of this series. Of course the way probability works they are probably still much more likely to go 3 and 4 than sweep. Unless one of the starters has a bad day, I still feel like this team is ready for a sweep.
  8. 2wins87
    Well, I guess winning more than the first two in a series is still too much to ask for right now. Without the Maeda implosion there would have been lots of positives to talk about. Miranda might be taking a step towards getting right. And more debatably, Gordon too. Headrick had another very good long relief appearance, getting tons of whiffs on his slider. I thought I was high on him pre-season putting him in my personal top 20 prospects, but it's gotta be a real confidence boost seeing his ability to get good major league hitters out. Probably he's destined for AAA after using so many bullets today, but I don't mind seeing him get back to a regular starting schedule in the minors either. On the negative side, Solano had another rough day in the field for the second consecutive game. While I knew coming into the season that his skillset was similar to Arraez, he doesn't take those skills to the same level, and without the goodwill that Arraez has, I'm not sure how much longer we're going to want to see him played in the field if it becomes a trend. And of course Maeda. I know that we have to actually give him a chance to come back from TJ, but I think it's becoming tougher to justify giving him a starting role over Ober and Varland. If Maeda's arm is tiring after a few innings, maybe he ought to be trying to build back up in a long relief role anyway? I think he's looked shaky all year. The fastball velocity is down a bit, though that's probably not the main issue. I don't know that I ever thought his control of his secondaries seemed to be "pinpoint", but they worked for him in 2020, and they definitely were not working today.
  9. 2wins87
    No idea what their plans are but I wonder if they'll just view him as a reliever going forward. He could be a long relief option this year and I could see him pretty quickly moving into a high leverage role focusing on his fastball/curveball/slider mix. Honestly a high leverage reliever outcome would be pretty good after last year, and even the year before when he was pretty inconsistent.
  10. 2wins87
    Severino continues crushing. He's putting his name in the mix of guys who figure to be a big part of the club in the next few years. It's a little reminiscent of Miranda 2 years ago.
  11. 2wins87
    It's early but Gallo's sprint speed is not good this year and that's continuing a multi-year decline. I really do not think he is a ceterfielder anymore, and his arm is propping up below average range in the corners as well. I think Kepler would be a good enough part-time backup there, but he's never been comfortable in center, and the team has seemed to have given up on the issue.
  12. 2wins87
    He's been getting a ton of weak grounders this year. Part of his breakout in Baltimore also seems to be related to his highest GB rate in his career, and it's been even higher this year. I was skeptical pre-season that we would actually see him reach the heights that he did in the first half last year ever again. Good set-up but not among the league best, kind of like Jax, was my guess. It's been a little different than last year but he looks great so far. I don't know that the 10 K/9 is necessarily coming back, given his overall track record. But given his sinker heavy repertoire, a ground-ball machine with solid swing and miss could be equally successful. I tend to doubt that the 70% GB rate is sustainable, but if he turns some of them into strikeouts, a few more flyballs probably won't hurt him too much. The big thing to watch will probably be his walk rate, which has never been particularly great throughout his career. If he has found a new level of command, I am bullish.
  13. 2wins87
    Are you actually looking at the hard data though? Kepler was 6th among all outfielders in OAA last year, and 13th in 2021. I'm not saying he's Ozzie Smith in the outfield but he's clearly a good defender and there is plenty of recent hard data to back that up. And his offense was about 5% worse than the league average the last two years. Overall that's still a decent player. I do think he is easily expendable, but he's hardly been a drag on the team overall.
  14. 2wins87
    Have you looked up what Baddoo has done since 2021? Wade has been moderately successful because the Giants have used him in a platoon role, almost exclusively against righties. I would have hoped to see Larnach break out more than he has, but neither of those guys have even outperformed him as is. Neither were let go specifically for Larnach anyway, with Kirilloff right at the door at the same time. And Baddoo in particular was a pretty shocking rule 5 pick given his situation at the time. No one was saying he was a must protect at the time so I don't think it's even fair to say the "let him go". Anyway, like others I think it's too soon to give up on Gordon, so in the near term the question will likely be Kirilloff vs Larnach. I think Kirilloff probably will be better if healthy, which he seems to be, but it's no sure thing either. I'd say give Kirilloff a shot at Larnach's expense, and give Gordon a chance to get right. Come midseason, I think they have to be willing to risk losing a few veterans if they aren't helping the team though.
  15. 2wins87
    I'm starting to buy into Ross more and more. It's always hard to know how a hitter from a small school will adjust to much higher competition, and when they perform as well as he has you have to take notice. He hasn't walked much but the strikeouts are well under control and developmentally he seems to already be farther along than many guys drafted in the same range out of the best D1 conferences. It seems like a very nice scouting job and a good pick to bet on a guy without the track record against better competition.
  16. 2wins87
    Like everyone else, I have no idea of what Cossetti can do defensively at this point. Also, as a senior sign, he's almost as old as the two guys from the previous draft (Winkel and Cardenas), so I'm going to take his hitting numbers in low A with a grain of salt. Hopefully he keeps it up and earns a promotion quickly so he can be tested against more age appropriate competition. I think assignments for catchers can sometimes be a bit of a proxy for how the org views them defensively. I'm a little surprised that Winkel has gotten promoted faster than Cardenas, as Cardenas has hit better by the numbers, and seems to be better at throwing out baserunners by the numbers as well. I take it they might think that Winkel is a little more advanced when it comes to all the other stuff, blocking, framing, game calling, etc. From the little I've watched of Cardenas I thought it looked like he had pretty good hands to go with his arm. They could also just be being more deliberate with Cardenas's development path vs Winkel, and they just needed another catcher in AA, I don't know.
  17. 2wins87
    I think if Maeda is going to make an IL stint, a roster move and Ober start on Sunday makes tons of sense. Ober would be on his normal schedule but it would give Gray and Ryan an extra day of rest before taking on the Yankees. They would go Gray, Ryan, and Mahle against the Yankees probably going Brito, Cortes, German. Maeda's IL stint would be back-dated to today, and Ober would get two turns in the MLB rotation. Not sure a very bad bruise will necessarily require an IL stint, but I would prefer the above scenario to Ryan, Maeda, and Mahle against the Yankees. Maeda will have to agree that he's not 100% though, so it's probably not really up to the team if they want to try to game it like that. Varland also hasn't made a minor league appearance since his spot start against the Yankees and Woods-Richardson has currently been scheduled today despite being on one less day of rest, so maybe they are considering bringing up Varland again. I can't see how they wouldn't bring up Ober if they need to cover two starts though, if only to give him a couple looks against MLB lineups and keep him from being passed over yet again.
  18. 2wins87
    Yeah I fixed it. The power is legit. I think the other two might have been pretty close to straightaway center if my memory serves.
  19. 2wins87
    I disagree actually. Keep him at 70-85 pitches in AAA to keep his arm slightly fresher. Most of the strength building/maintenance work happens in the background between starts anyway. Maybe his first MLB start is capped at 85-90 pitches or something, but it really shouldn't be an issue to ramp up from 75 to 100 in the majors.
  20. 2wins87
    Yeah I'm very excited about his start after what he did last year. I think the strikeouts are elevated because it is early with a small sample, but we'll have to watch where his K rate settles. All of his HR are from the left side this year, but he's only had 4 PA as a RHB, and showed more power per plate appearance as a RHB last year. I think he has a real chance to mash from both sides which is exciting. Definitely moved into my top 20 already and continues to have helium.
  21. 2wins87
    I don't have a problem with that since he is going for the win at that point, and it worked to keep the game tied and they took the lead in the next half inning. Imagine the outcry if Headrick had been brought in and gave up 4 runs or something. But Rocco does always tend to empty his bullpen of the best guys in those situations. I could be wrong, but I think he's even talked about having the high leverage bullpen arms go 2 innings at times. Lopez has been super efficient in almost every outing so far, but hasn't started a second inning once. Rocco clearly wanted Thielbar against their lefties at the top of the order, but I also wouldn't have minded seeing Lopez get a second inning after needing just 10 pitches in his first inning. It'd save a few bullets and give them more flexibility later, or possibly in today's game.
  22. 2wins87
    Honestly the way the game started it seemed like they might steal the win in the middle innings. Sale was almost back to his old self and Gray was fighting through it. He made some really great pitches to get out of jams in several spots. He doesn't do that (and/or the Red Sox lineup is more competent) and we're not even talking about the weirdness in the last few innings. I did question the Moran choice in my head as soon as the move was made. I have no trust in Pagan after repeatedly seeing him pitch his worst with small leads last year. However, you kind of know that Moran is going to walk one or two guys at this point. After they managed to score 2 runs, the last thing you want is a guy who is going to put more guys on base than just the zombie runner. In a one run game I think I might actually feel different and take my chances with the guy who is a little wild but can get more strikeouts. Who knows though, Pagan probably would have walked a guy and then served up a homer. Sometimes the weird and bad plays come in pivotal moments and that's what happened last night. Vasquez has been great but he was involved in two plays that changed the whole outlook last night. I also don't think I give too much blame to Kepler on that last play. He catches that ball in any other ballpark, but Fenway is just a very dumb ballpark. Maybe he should have gotten over to the wall better, but the ball was in the trickiest possible spot for a visiting right fielder so I don't know.
  23. 2wins87
    I don't think anyone is suggesting he skip AAA
  24. 2wins87
    I don't think they need to but I wouldn't be at all surprised if he started next year as the 6th starter like Ober did this year
  25. 2wins87
    I guess there is concern about his repaired elbow right now, so probably some discomfort. On the IL now, still in the evaluating phase from what I've read.
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