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jimbo92107

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Everything posted by jimbo92107

  1. jimbo92107
    I've been an off/on fan of Kyle Gibson for a while. At his best, he is a dominant starter with good command of his heater and his 1 to 7 curve, which is a legitimate whiff pitch. Unfortunately, Gibson has had just one season where he was healthy and his mechanics were in good shape. Today Gibson is battling a chronic illness that has literally left him emaciated and weak. I would much prefer that this man stop pitching until his illness is gone and his full physical strength is back. The world will get by without Kyle Gibson's pitching. He needs to get well before he gets back on the mound. Otherwise, Bomba city, y'all! Thorpedo again showed why he intrigues the team. Thorpe's command issues really come down to old Bert's mantra: Stay back, stay tall, and work out front. Mainly Thorpe is blowing the Stay Back part, releasing his drive foot too soon. The other thing he needs to refine is his balance point. As I've said before, a pitcher's balance is like an imaginary broom stick planted on the front of the rubber, running up through the pitcher's center of mass. For a pitcher to have good command, that stick must fall in a direct line towards home plate. If it falls to the left, the pitch will go left, and vice versa. Hitters watch for body lean during a pitcher's delivery to predict which side of the plate to cover. Anyway, Thorpe is one of a few Twins pitchers whose stick doesn't fall towards home plate consistently enough. May has that problem when he's missing. Perez has that problem. Duffey used to have that problem, but I think Wes Johnson fixed it. Romero has it a little, but mainly he needs to stay back and stay tall. Good news is, most Twins pitchers work from a very good foundation. Dobnak and Littell look really solid. Smeltzer has great balance. Stashak is almost perfect. Odorizzi is perfect. Perhaps coolest of all, Graterol looks almost perfectly on balance. This bodes well for their k/b ratios.
  2. jimbo92107
    Enter the pandering poobah of positivism! This Twins team is amazingly resilient. There is absolutely no giving up in this squad. Oh, and if anybody is wondering, Ronald Torreyes is not a hole in the batting lineup. He's a career .281 hitter that has played for the Dodgers and the Yankees. And he's not 5'5", even if that's what he looks like. He's 5'8". Gno. Yor. Twinkies.
  3. jimbo92107
    Exactly. If Arraez has any weakness as a defender, it's footwork, the exact same thing Polanco needed to work on last season. This season, Polanco looks good at SS. Next season, Arraez will have perfectly good footwork, at second base. Gotta keep a bat like that in the lineup. For the next decade. The future value of Arraez is going to be a solid 2B, with one of the league's highest average bats. He will set the plate for a thousand RBI, and knock in a thousand himself.
  4. jimbo92107
    Rule of thumb: High-OBP guys bat just before the Big Knockers. The OBP guys are Arraez, Kepler, Polanco, maybe Gonzo . The Knockers are Cruz, Garver, Sano, Rosie, and Cron when healthy. Rocco's lineups almost always follow this rule of thumb, in various shuffles. In a playoff scenario, I can see Arraez bat 1, with Cruz or Garver behind him. I would say Sano, but he strikes out too much to bat top of the order. I see Rocco also likes to bat L, R, L, R... Good idea, with switch hitters Polanco and Gonzo making it even harder for opponents to find an advantage.
  5. jimbo92107
    A right-handed Louis Thorpe, plus 5 mph? He might do more harm than good if he can't command his pitches. These guys need to learn to use their drive leg on the rubber. Calling Wes Johnson!
  6. jimbo92107
    Individual honors on a team that prides itself on its selfless team spirit? I assume the winner would not accept the award!
  7. jimbo92107
    Lewis Thorpe was having a terrible time finding his groove, mostly because he was releasing his drive foot off the rubber and lunging towards home plate. Or, as Bert would say, he wasn't "staying back." The result was that his arm wasn't catching up to his body, thus all the pitches drifting high and left, arm-side. I suspect Thorpe will be doing a lot more work with Wes Johnson to keep his drive foot on the rubber longer, and then we will see Thorpe's command come back. We'll also see him start hitting the low areas of the zone with his fastball.
  8. jimbo92107
    Of course Michael Pineda was using steroids. Are we going to feign stupidity? Athletes cheat all the time these days. I'm not going to forgive it or forget it, because it's just a fact of life in a capitalist society. People that grow up desperate for financial security will lie, cheat and steal to get it. Even people that grow up rich will lie, cheat and steal to stay rich. Now, if we have all thrown off our baby one piece jammies, should the Twins pitch a contract to Pineda? Heck yeah, he was a bargain basement special, and he might go slightly under top dollar to make things right with the Twins. He did put the team in a pickle by getting caught. He needs to learn to build his body legally. It can be done. Meanwhile, Pineda looks great on the mound for this team. Innings eating horse, with ace potential. Keep the man in Minnesota.
  9. jimbo92107
    Something about Randy Dobnak says "future horse" to me. Not necessarily an ace, but a major mid-rotation innings eater. I really love his tempo - with no runners on, he appears to throw the ball about every 20 seconds. He gave up a homer today, but he's just getting started. He'll give up more!
  10. jimbo92107
    Time to call up Alex Kirilloff. Average outfielder, great hitter. Put him in RF, with Cave in CF and Rosario in LF. Swap Perez to the pen, replace him with Smeltzer. Start looking at Graterol as an Opener, with Thorpe as a Primary.
  11. jimbo92107
    More important is for the remaining healthy three or four guys to keep barreling up as many pitches as possible. Home runs are nice, but when you've got runners on base, it's vital to keep the line moving.
  12. jimbo92107
    I agree, except it was F&L that found and hired the coaching staff. Folks that do the hiring should get due credit for that. Rocco, Johnson and Rowston wouldn't be here if the Twins didn't have a pretty darn smart front office team.
  13. jimbo92107
    Falvey and Levine are the best thing to happen to this team since it moved here from Washington. Not only are they forming a winning organization, they're developing players within the system that will keep the team strong for years. Even if the Twins do get raided for some coaches, so be it. F&L will find other good coaches. They have an eye for talent, and a talent for building a good organization. All we need do is sit back and enjoy. Or sit back and complain. That can be fun, too.
  14. jimbo92107
    Odd that Ted and Matt didn't even have Vizcaya in their top five. I wonder why.
  15. jimbo92107
    If they can find room for him, I see no reason not to bring up the best hitter in the organization's minor league system. Hard to believe Arraez wasn't ranked that high...
  16. jimbo92107
    Good. That saves Management an uncomfortable silence.
  17. jimbo92107
    He should have asked Polanco if it was a good idea.... I would still offer Pineda a contract for next season. Pro-rated to deduct the games missed, of course.
  18. jimbo92107
    Smelt, Thorpedo, Dobs. Grats isn't polished enough. Best bet might be to start Smeltzer, then bring Thorpe in around inning 4, to see if he can go the next three. Tight leash on both guys if they walk anybody.
  19. jimbo92107
    I've been wondering for a while now if Rosario is playing hurt. His normal eager look has been replaced by something more like a scowl of frustration.
  20. jimbo92107
    Graterol so far has followed old Bert's mantra: Stay Back (on the rubber), Stay Tall (in posture), and Work out Front (with your release point). This bodes well for his effectiveness and his longevity. Also, the stock photo of Graterol must be from when he was 17 years old. After his debut, I watched him bump chests with Miguel Sano. Brusdar Graterol is virtually the same size as Sano. 268 pounds is a fair estimate. He is a large, muscular young man.
  21. jimbo92107
    Twins need to win games like this when playoff time comes. Good practice for it.
  22. jimbo92107
    My god, did you see when Graterol bumped chests with Sano? Graterol is the same size! We're talking a real 265 pounds, and it looks like all muscle!
  23. jimbo92107
    What I saw was a 100 mph four seamer that was dead straight, virtually no drop. In contrast, his 98 mph two-seamer bent down and to the right by about half a foot. That's plenty of difference to make a guy whiff if he thinks it's the straight heat. That will also put the two seamer right on the label of the bat. Many broken bats to follow... ;-)
  24. jimbo92107
    100 mph was nice, but Grat's most impressive pitch was his 98 mph 2-seamer that started outside, then broke in on the outer edge to a rightie. Over his career, that pitch will get him countless standing strikes. Batter has just enough time to recognize what looks like an outside pitch, then almost no time to get off a late emergency swing. That leaves the outside edge open to a four seamer that does not cut back in, thus getting tons of whiffs. Now you have right handed batters leaning out over the plate against a guy that throws 100 miles per hour. If Graterol learns to throw a cutter that breaks left, it will be truly unfair. Then he can play the same game with batters from both sides of the plate. If he adds a slider, change up or a curve, he'll be weighing his money instead of counting it.
  25. jimbo92107
    Baldelli made two big mistakes: 1. He should have batted Arraez before Garver. 2. He should have yanked Perez much sooner. First, batting a power hitter like Garver first is all fine and well, but wouldn't it be better if he is preceded by a high OBP guy like Arraez? Today that might have spelled a couple extra much needed runs. Second, of all the Twins starters, by far the most volatile is Perez. That is, his stuff is most likely to oscillate wildly from devastating to batting practice. When Perez implodes, it happens fast, even faster than Bad Gibson. A lot of this is because Perez's repertoire is too limited. Today he went inside far too much, especially to a lineup of all righties. Clearly Gardenhire had his guys sitting on inside pitches, and by the time Perez and Garver figured it out, it was too late. Moral: You've got to be ready to throw your pitches anywhere on or outside the periphery of the zone. Otherwise, if you fall into a pattern, mlb hitters will figure it out, and kill you.
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