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2wins87

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Everything posted by 2wins87

  1. 2wins87
    No, this year's version of Tyler Wells is Bailey Ober. But Sammons has some nice potential as well. :-)
  2. 2wins87
    When most of the hitters are struggling and most of the pitchers are dominating it's probably a good idea to look at the overall run scoring environments of the leagues that they are playing in. So far, for whatever reason, offense is down in both the Southern League and the Florida State league from last year. It's pretty close to the same in the Midwest league and way up in the International League (further evidence that, yes, the MLB ball was juiced a couple years ago, and at the very least it is a lot better for offense than the minor league ball).
  3. 2wins87
    If the first batter was out, then the third out would have come on the sac fly which scored the first run... so yeah. I do sort of feel that if a batter reaches base after the third out would have been recorded, and then still comes around to score that those should start to count again, and there were a couple of those. Bottom line is that there are 3 or 4 stats to look at before ERA. It also doesn't seem like Stewart pitched terribly overall. It was pretty much one ground ball through the infield after the next, but it does seem like he came a bit unglued after the damage started.
  4. 2wins87
    Blankenhorn's overall minor league production is very Plouffe-esque. So it's certainly possible that he turns into a good major leaguer, but I'm not sure we want to see the scenario where he gets a long enough leash in the majors to do so...
  5. 2wins87
    I'm not someone who feels strongly on Rortvedt one way or another, but this does bring up an interesting question. How much of a consideration should minor league framing be? And when should it start to be important? I'm pretty curious to see how Garver's numbers look this year after a month or two. He was worth -10 runs last year according to Fangraphs' new numbers, but we've heard several times that framing was a specific offseason focus for him. If he's average or better this year then I think we'd have to give pretty heavy consideration to the hypothesis that all it really takes to be a good framer is the willingness to work on it and amount of effort put into it (there already is evidence that as teams have become more aware of framing everyone has clustered closer to the average). Basically it seems like the approach is mostly just to lower the stance and get a bunch of better calls on low strikes. Maybe it won't be that simple, but we'll have to see. It seems possible that it might be the kind of thing that players don't really need to focus on until AA or AAA once they have all the fundamentals down, then they put in a some time with their catching coaches and voila, average mlb framer.
  6. 2wins87
    Looks like a better team this year. Looking for bounce-backs from Gordon and Wade. Decent mix of young guys with potential (more than last year) and some older AAAA types. The roster should also probably be less affected by guys being shuttled back and forth between the majors this year.
  7. 2wins87
    Looking at the strengths of the farm system overall, the top two is obviously among the best in baseball. It'd be easy to take Vladito and Bichette over Lewis and Kirilloff just on the strength of Vlad, but after that they can go toe-to-toe with any other team's top two. The rest of the top 5 still match up well against the rest of the league. It'd be fair to be underwhelmed with the back half of the top 10 though. There are a lot of question marks or guys that are still looking to break out. Looking just at 6-10 they'd probably be below average. However, outside the top 10 the depth is better than I can remember from any year since I've really been following closely (2011 or 2012). I think the 11-25ish slots are nearly interchangeable and they all are just a good season away from looking like a solid top-10 prospect or being a contributing piece in the majors. There are plenty of guys even outside the top 25 that seem like we'd be talking about more in other years with a weaker system. Case in point: Luke Raley, who's numbers in AA really don't look all that different from Rooker's. Most years he'd probably have to be somewhere in the top 20 based on the fact that he seems to be able to hit even if his athleticism is questioned and he doesn't have a defensive home. This year there are enough exciting athletes in the system that he's kind of an afterthought in the 25-30 range for most. I don't have a very good handle on the depth of other teams' systems, I know the Padres and Rays have crazy depth all the way down their systems, but beyond that I have to think the Twins' depth is probably only exceeded by a couple other teams. Which along with Lewis and Kirilloff make it a pretty exciting farm system.
  8. 2wins87
    I wonder if they give him some reps in center this year just to give him a little flexibility. It seems like positional flexibility is starting to come back into vogue a bit these days. Having a guy that can play multiple up the middle positions would be exciting. And it could help him get in the lineup regularly when he comes up, even if he sticks at short long term.
  9. 2wins87
    Certainly seems possible to me. All of the guys ahead of them on MLB.com's list are likely to exceed their rookie limits this year. Probably not all of them will but each would be expected to individually. So if they both perform, yeah maybe.
  10. 2wins87
    Looking into stats and projections, I think Polanco's contract would have been pretty close to Kepler's had he not been suspended for half the season last year. Assuming he had the same rate stats for the full year he probably would have been worth about 2.5 WAR last year, about the same as Kepler, and they both project to be about 2.5-3 WAR players this year (according to Steamer). Kepler had a bit more consistency in his first couple of seasons, but overall they would have been in a very similar spot without the suspension. So the PED use and suspension might have cost Polanco a little less than $10 million in earnings. I'm generally not that into discussing the morality behind PED use, but it's interesting to see what the penalties of the league policy are now. I think for a more established player, the penalty wouldn't be much more than the lost earnings during the suspension, and it's hard to say how it might affect a younger player that gets busted before really getting established in the major leagues.
  11. 2wins87
    Also, I don't get the negativity on this deal. If it is around 5 mil per year and Polanco is just a 1 WAR per year it'd probably still be tradeable to a team that needs a stopgap SS or utility infielder. I think it's extremely unlikely that Polanco is worse than that and pretty likely he'll be more like a 2-3 WAR player.
  12. 2wins87
    Why would the Twins want to backload it that much (or Polanco for that matter)? They have payroll flexibility this year, and front-loading more would increase their future flexibility. So I'm thinking it'll be closer to 5 mil per year for the first 5 and the team options are probably significant raises, probably getting into the 10 million range.
  13. 2wins87
    Larnach snuck into the top 100 at Fangraphs. They've consistently been a bit higher on him than most others. Here's what they have to say:
  14. 2wins87
    "Plodder" is a little harsh from what I've heard. He will have to hit though.
  15. 2wins87
    I hope that him being a starter is still in their long term plans. I assume that Perez has the 5th spot to start the season unless something significant happens in spring training. In that case I would rather Romero starts the season in kind of a swingman role in the majors than as a starter in the minors. And I would also hope that Romero would be stretched out into a starting role when someone goes down with an injury (when is the last time we've been trough an entire season without one of the starters going down for a significant amount of time), or if their plans for Pineda or Perez change due to ineffectiveness or some other circumstance.
  16. 2wins87
    Agreed although I think the #6 ranking is perfectly fine. The guys behind him have plenty of question marks or are far enough away that they still have a lot of downside risk. I don't have a great feel for what kind of percentages we should apply to different outcomes, but once a hitter has spent at least a full season at AA or above, I think the projection systems like Steamer and ZiPS start to give a pretty good idea of the median short term expectation (I'm less convinced that projection systems do a good job for minor league pitchers at any level). And you can ballpark a projection for modest improvements from there. Rooker's rate stat projections on Fangraphs from Steamer (the Twins always seem to be one of the last released for ZiPS) are solid for a rookie. So it looks like based on his stats the median projection should be for a bit above average offensive projection a couple years down the line. This would probably be enough to be a marginal major leaguer at 1B or DH but you're probably looking at a more optimistic end of his projection if he's going to be a long term starting DH. This is pretty much in line with expectations when he was drafted, and the floor has maybe moved up a bit.
  17. 2wins87
    Pretty unfair to be comparing him to Acuña and Soto. That was never even close to the expectation for Rooker (or it never should have been). I don't know what you were expecting from a college senior drafted 35th overall, but so far he's progressed pretty well, though the question marks that were always there haven't magically disappeared either.
  18. 2wins87
    I've learned to be skeptical of high strikeout power bats in the minors. It seems very tough to make the jump to the majors without a bit better contact rate. That said, I like the reports that I've heard on how much effort he puts into studying and improving his swing, and he seems to be a guy who can make adjustments. There's a pretty good optimistic case to be made, but I expect the adjustment period to the majors to be rough. Hopefully he makes it through.
  19. 2wins87
    http://www.statcorner.com/pitch.php?id=626929 No numbers on called strikes exactly, but all indications are that he gets plenty of swinging strikes, so I would guess that there is nothing out of the ordinary about his called strike rate. His contact rate is consistently below league average, his swinging strike rate comfortably above average, and his swinging K rate as a percent of all strikeouts seems to fluctuate around league average. All of this adds up to a guy who has gets lots of whiffs but without a go-to pitch.
  20. 2wins87
    I don't think it's entirely bad luck when Thorpe was getting hit since he was getting hit very hard. Most of the home runs and a lot of the other XBHs against him came early in the season. But his K and BB rates were pretty much the same all season, which is definitely sort of odd. The scouting reports suggest he's always going to get guys out more with deception and surprise, which makes me think part of his problem early in the season was probably that hitters knew or were guessing what was coming a lot more often than they should have. Have there been any reports on him changing sequencing? Or was he tipping his pitches somehow?
  21. 2wins87
    http://www.statcorner.com/bat.php?id=668731 Yes, he was K'd looking more often than league average but actually K'd swinging slightly less than league average. Also worth noting that his K rate in April and May was 32%, but he seems to have made some pretty big adjustments and his K rate was at 20% for the rest of the season. Not sure how his looking/swinging splits might have changed between those periods.
  22. 2wins87
    I was very discouraged by Littell's initial appearances in the majors, but honestly watched very little Twins baseball in September. Did his curve improve at all against major leaguers? He seemed incapable of getting whiffs with it in his first few appearances, but I know his numbers improved some in September. I can't see him ever having success in the majors without a better secondary. Gonsalves, for example, I could see having success throwing a higher rate of secondaries, but I think hitters will continue to sit on either Littell's fastball or curveball and the results won't be pretty for him.
  23. 2wins87
    I'm a big fan of Miranda right now. He'd be my pick from this group to be in the top 10 next year. He's got some power now but I think there's more to come. His line at Ft Myers was hurt a lot by bad BABIP luck (and if you add his plate appearances from the playoffs, where he raked, his batting line improves quite a bit too). As mentioned in the write up his peripherals mostly held up there, and its rare to see that kind of strikeout rate combined with power.
  24. 2wins87
    Jeffers has actually gotten solid defensive reviews in his professional debut. I've actually heard a bit more concern (from John Sickels for one) over whether his offensive production holds up when he faces more advanced pitchers given that he was older than a lot of his competition this year. Given how well he's hit so far that's not really all that discouraging to hear. He'll just need to go out and continue to prove it. I'm feeling optimistic about him right now. I think there's a very realistic chance he turns into a starting backstop for the Twins a few years down the line.
  25. 2wins87
    Although I'm still curious if any of the writers have thoughts they would share on where he might slot on a prospect list.
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