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jimbo92107

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Everything posted by jimbo92107

  1. jimbo92107
    I can't say I'm surprised by Brent Rooker's success at the plate, given his consistent good AB's in the minors. What I'm hoping now is that he works his butt off to become at least average in a corner OF spot. Meanwhile, I'd love to see the team find some excuse to bring up Duran. Another horse? Let's find out, yea or neigh!
  2. jimbo92107
    Two things: Duffey's not even using his best benders because the throwing motion is too different from his fast ball. Berrios should consult Romo on improving his slider. Or maybe he already did. Bonus thing: Can somebody interview Caleb Thielbar on how he increased his spin rate so radically?
  3. jimbo92107
    Pineda's poise and mechanics are conducive to good command. I expect to see him loosen up his throwing arm a lot. I expect to see a lot of pitches low in the zone. I expect to see balls pounded into the dirt. I'm not worried about Pineda. The problem is hitting. No more Bomba Squad. Seems it's back to two guys that hit homers, Cruz and Sano, and the rest are table setters. Sadly, the table setters are setting records for whiffing and poor contact. Bring up Lewis or Kirilloff? How about both, and Larnach and Rooker, too. Team needs hitting, and the 4th OF guys aren't getting it done. Lewis in CF lets Kep go back to RF. Larnach lets Rosie take a break. All four prospects are talented hitters. Might as well try something. Maybe Rooker can supply some bombas.
  4. jimbo92107
    The thing we're really missing is the full season. Gives time for guys to find their swings, find their pitching groove, etc. Better baseball all around. I lieu of that, I'd sure like to see some hitting. Supposedly Cave and Wade were well-trained for that. I'd love to say "Close your eyes and swing hard," but pitchers have figured out this shortened season that spinning the ball is getting a ton of outs. They don't make it to the show without hitting heaters, but it's still a rare boy that can knock the snot out of a good bender without seeing thousands of them in practice. Kirby once said, "A left-handed curve is a gift from God." What did he mean? What did he know? Doesn't that mean a right-handed curve is also a gift from God, if a lefty batter knows what to look for? How did Puckett hit over .400 against lefty curve balls?
  5. jimbo92107
    The counter argument is that you can play both guys about half the time, thereby keeping both from getting beat up too bad during a 162-game season. Plus, both can be used as mid-game replacements or as pinch hitters.
  6. jimbo92107
    Incredible good fortune that the Twins have Mitch Garver and Ryan Jeffers at the same time. This duo should be solid for the next handful of years, possibly with Jeffers turning out even better than Garver. Jeffers plays the game with the ease of a superior athlete. The word "prowess" comes to mind when I think of Jeffers, while I see Garver more as a hard worker that gets better by working his ass off. Don't get me wrong, I think Garver is an athlete too. However, if you give both guys a unicycle, I have a feeling Jeffers would be riding it in about five minutes, where Garver would get the trick in a couple hours.
  7. jimbo92107
    Height of the throwing elbow. Rogers usually has his elbow exactly level with the ground as he pivots off the leg drive. If that elbow creeps down just an inch, his stuff will elevate in the zone and lose some of the zap. Today against Cleveland, Rogers had his elbow perfectly level. The old snap came back, low in the zone, almost impossible to hit. When he does it right, it's a beautiful thing.
  8. jimbo92107
    Nailed it. Your shots from 2019 show a Polanco whose swing looked more like Nellie's, with the bat held more vertical, and a shorter path to the ball with a tighter snap and a more explosive swing that gets you just as high an average, plus it lifts the ball more, getting more HR's and balls banging off walls. Polanco 2020's swing looks longer and flatter, more like a conventional infielder trying to hit line drives and keep his average up. Problem is, that kind of swing makes it very hard to get any snap on an off-speed pitch that gets you on your front foot. See how Cruz does it? He steps forward, yet still keeps the bat pointed upwards, saving the snap, which he knows he can do in an instant. Even when he's fooled, Cruz can still hit the ball a long way with that late snap, off his front foot. Polanco can't do that because he's uncoiling as part of his initial forward movement. Weak ground balls if he's out front. You don't see a lot of those from Cruz.
  9. jimbo92107
    Small note of congrats to Danny Coulombe, who looked like he expected a Monty Python 10,000-pound anvil to smush him, yet managed to pitch through a look of certain doom to finish his inning. We had all grown accustomed to Tyler Duffey's expression of low self-esteem, but now this season that has disappeared in favor of a sliver of self-forgiveness for not being perfect. Now that Danny Coulombe has fought through his first appearance for the Twins, I hope he looks a bit more optimistic for his next outing. Bad stuff's gonna happen, guys. Go out there with a py-rate grin, laugh in the face of dane-gair - HA! -then make 'em earn it by hitting your best stuff. See? No pressure!
  10. jimbo92107
    A new pitch mix is exactly what I'm talking about...after Dobbs gets through the order once or twice. We see how his ducks dominate at first, but after one or two times through, hitters start to adjust. That is when he should be ready to, say, work the outside half instead of the bottom half. If something like that gets him through the order one more time, then we have a six- to seven-inning horse.
  11. jimbo92107
    Good pitchers seem to have a lot of good luck.
  12. jimbo92107
    Maeda's the "Ace" because he's always been this good. Dobnak is #2 because his stuff has always played this way, and there is no reason to think he'll get worse. Berrios is #3 because he's the guy we keep hoping will become a consistent winner. Smeltzer is #4 because he gets guys out for at least a few innings. Odo is #5 because he's coming off injury and we expect him to pitch better. One thing we may see this season is domination from guys that can spin the ball for strikes on the edges. Seems like batters are whiffing a lot on good curves, sliders, sinkers, etc. They are definitely punishing pitches in the middle.
  13. jimbo92107
    Best part was Romo used that energy to throw even better pitches. Yes, the first call was a gift, but after the bitching started, Romo was legitimately nailing the corners with perfect pitches. That's a competitive dude. Go Romo!
  14. jimbo92107
    I'm glad Maeda is on the pitching staff this season. Maeda can show a guy like Dobnak how to get even more guys out by moving the ball around the zone, not just along the bottom of the zone. Venturing away from the floor is what Dobbs needs to do if he wants to keep hitters from golfing for his sinkers.
  15. jimbo92107
    Dobnak will of course fare worse against better competition, by definition. However, even a good-hitting team isn't chock full of guys that can straighten out all those sinkers, sinking sliders, sinking curves and sinking change-up's that Dobbs delivers low in the zone, over and over. Assuming every other guy doesn't launch a 5-iron golf swing homer off him, let's say they do get some 1-iron line drives. Some still get caught, a few in the gap. Now you have a runner on 2nd base. Unless the next guy is just as good a golfer, you may get a ground ball out, a strikeout, or some other kind of out. The inning can still end without damage. Why the rosy scenario? Because I've seen Dobnak work out of situations. He doesn't buckle under pressure, he keeps fighting. He's got statistics on his side. If he continues to command low, sinking pitches on the edges, chances are good that a single hit does little damage. Nor is it likely that his stuff gets hammered for 5 or 6 runs in an inning, for that same reason. Sinking pitches tend to get pounded into the ground, over and over. Other than even better command, what I'd like to see from Dobnak is to develop a high-riding heater he can plant in the upper corners. 92 mph is just fine if you can throw it where Odorizzi does. But it does need a fair amount of backspin...
  16. jimbo92107
    Usually when we see stuff like Dobnak has, he would be a long reliever. Sinkers, curves, change up's, all low in the zone. Apparently he's better than that. Looks like he's starting to vary the speed of his offerings, making it even harder to square them up. Today he got just 3 K's, but he got lots of whiffs, too. Randy Dobnak: Stud horse.
  17. jimbo92107
    Hitting seems to be lagging behind pitching this season, so Duran and Balazovic might make more sense than one of the position players. So much depends on guys getting healthy off the IL...
  18. jimbo92107
    Congrats to Caleb Thielbar for a decent comeback appearance. Not sure how sustainable it will be if he keeps hanging those loopy curves to right handers. Some of those could have been tape measure home runs. I think Pirates hitters were shocked by how many of them he threw. Next opponent may be ready to cash in on those giant cookies.
  19. jimbo92107
    Two more good relief pitchers in Matt Wisler and Jorge Alcala? "Pen Pals," indeed. I'm thinking the Stealth Fighters.
  20. jimbo92107
    Randy Dobnak did a pretty good Carl Willis impersonation against Cleveland, the team for which Willis is pitching coach. Like Willis, Dobnak zips sinkers low in the zone to get strikeouts and lots of ground balls. Unlike Willis, Dobbs appears pretty comfortable going 5 innings, and might stretch out for more. The key for Dobbsie going more innings is a very nuanced change to his sinker. Right now certain hitters are able to foul off his current offerings, rather than whiffing or hitting a ground ball. Counter-intuitively, the solution is to sink the ball slightly less, thus allowing more weak ground balls from players that currently are just barely ticking the top of the ball. If Randers can vary the sink just a little, he can prevent those 17-pitch at-bats that keep him from going into late innings. Meanwhile, I do believe that Randy Dobnak is the young stud horse that I thought he was. Good to be right, now and then...
  21. jimbo92107
    Indications?? How about average physical collisions per minute? Even as a kid I could tell you the order of violence. Football by far was the worst, with regular concussions and injured limbs, every game. Second was soccer, with constant feet smacking together, lots of leg tackles, pushing and shoving, etc. Third and fourth were basketball and hockey, and somewhere around fifth was baseball, a relatively safe sport. Only tennis and golf were safer. As far as spreading Corona with maximum physical contact, I'd start with kid wrestling, all combat sports, then football (face to face collisions on every play) basketball (constant contact around basket, indoors), hockey, etc. Because these men are going all out, there's no way masks would help them. Look what is happening to baseball - a relatively low contact sport, played outdoors, now with empty stands. Still, two teams are now stricken. Were they doing anything different than the Twins are doing? Anyway, if you can imagine how radically increasing player proximity to other players, plus regular hard physical collisions, plus men sweating furiously, gasping for breath, throwing off spit and sweat particles in all directions... how all that could spread Corona more efficiently than men spaced out on a baseball field, there's you indication. I predict those sports will grind to a halt within two weeks.
  22. jimbo92107
    Sorry guys, it's blowing up. This should be an instructive lesson for pro basketball, pro football, pro hockey, etc. You just can't do pro sports during a deadly viral pandemic, no matter how hard we wish for it.
  23. jimbo92107
    His stance seems like a mix of Mike Trout and Chili Davis. His swing is more like Trout. All field threat, this guy will indeed be a decade of bad news for opponents.
  24. jimbo92107
    40 years old should not be considered over the hill anymore, not in baseball, anyway. Remember, on July 4th 1966, ageless wonder Jack LaLane pulled the Moon out of its orbit with his teeth. He put it back later, of course. Point is, with careful exercise and good nutrition, Cruz should be able to hit baseballs over 400 feet for the next seventy years. I plan to be there to catch them with my cybernetic implants.
  25. jimbo92107
    I felt bad for Fauci. Didn't anybody play catch with him, even for a few minutes, before he threw that ball? Fauci when young was a very good athlete. It looked like the first time he'd thrown a ball in several decades. I guess he grew up early.
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