Hrbowski

I see that he credits Strasburg for his good start to the season.

Yeah, Walker and Hillary Clinton planned this together, they are the two biggest jokes of politicians, so I wouldn't put it past them.

If Aiken is willing to sign and the Twins are OK with his medical records they will take him because he has the most potential of anyone in this, or last year's class.

My favorites are Mike Nikorak, Alex Bregman, Kyle Tucker, DJ Stewart, and then Funkhouser/Fulmer; I don't like Happ for some reason.

Yesterday I decided to take a look at Sean Hjelle, a local prep pitcher from Mahtomedi who was ranked the 28th best prep prospect in baseball by Prep Baseball Report. I took one look at him and thought, “This is the tallest pitcher I have ever seen,” but that isn’t surprising seeing he is an even seven feet tall. With that height some people might worry about his delivery, but he seemed to repeat it with ease, and threw 85-90 miles per hour into the eight inning. He showed a two-seamer, a four-seamer, a decent circle change, and a slider, throwing over the top consistently for strikes, with his height and over the top delivery he produces a lot of ground balls. Hjelle is committed to the Kentucky Wildcats to play baseball, although he was a two sport star in high school, so if a team drafts him they might have trouble convincing him to sign, but teams are looking at him, including the Twins, who had a scout there who was taking a look at him and also shortstop Grant Gibson.

Funkhouser is really wild, I compare him to Tyler Beede, who went 14th overall last year, Buehler has shown better control, but has a weird delivery as does Ponce, Matuella has the most potential but his health issues get in the way, and I have heard that scouts think Fulmer is a reliever.

It was a balk, if he continues in his normal delivery Hunter is safe. Since he changed his delivery it should be called a balk, because if Hunter was not running and he threw a pitch like that it would be a balk, so if the runner is going it should be a balk also.

Yesterday Buxton went 0-2 with 2 walks, a stolen base, and an outfield assist.

Right now Ron Gardenhire has tears of joy streaming down his face since the Twins have not left the straight and narrow of taking the ball the other way.

Herrera was suspended, but he will appeal it so he can pitch to us.

Hey Mat, you should try to convince John Curtiss to become a TD member

I LOVE participating in fangraphs chats.

Taylor Rogers is having a good day.

Phil Hughes and Kyle Gibson were the Twins best starters last year, but they are almost opposite pitchers, with Hughes being a fly ball pitcher and Gibson being a ground ball pitcher, and Hughes walking less and striking out more. First we will look at Phil Hughes, who as a fly ball pitcher allowed just .69 home runs per nine and 23.2% line drives, 36.5% ground balls, 40.2% fly balls (10.5% in the infield,) and threw 822 balls to 2224 strikes while Kyle Gibson allowed .60 home runs per nine and 19% line drives, 54.4% ground balls, 26.6% fly balls (13.6% in the infield) and threw 1086 balls and 1714 strikes. From the spray charts below you can see Kyle Gibson’s ground balls went more towards second and short while Hughes’ were more evenly distributed throughout the whole infield, and that Gibson’s fly balls had less hang time, giving the outfielders less time to catch them. https://scontent-ord.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xtp1/v/l/t1.0-9/1975054_1401994720122729_2895196675858088149_n.jpg?oh=125a3fc7789f5aec023102b003740029&oe=559F495E https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xap1/v/t1.0-9/1012919_1401994796789388_8093152344695583303_n.jpg?oh=e6889b78b0cc9736b0510c8150e3078a&oe=55DAAD73&__gda__=1441022895_934f4c0cad18032702345a9aa12d410d Another interesting stat is that Phil Hughes had a Fielding Independent Pitching of 3.01 while at home and a 2.28 FIP on the road, but Gibson had a 3.33 FIP at home and a 4.16 FIP on the road, showing that Hughes pitched better on the road but was still better than Gibson at home, despite being squared up more. Since neither is a big strikeout pitcher I will look at the Twins defense, which would be a very important factor. The Twins infield defense was average (16th at first, 27th at second, 7th at shortstop, and 10th at third which would rank them at 14.75), and be right in the middle of the pack, but the outfield was horrible (26th in left, 18th in center, and dead last in right which would average them at 24.67). Since Gibson is a ground ball pitcher he would have benefited from his defense better than Hughes who is a fly ball pitcher. So why was Hughes better than Gibson when he got less run support (96) than Gibson (106) and was squared up more? It seems the only possible reasons are because he stayed in the zone more, (which would allow him to be squared up more) or because he was a fly ball pitcher. The only other pitcher with a top twenty Wins Above Replacement who was a fly ball pitcher was Max Scherzer, who actually had a worse outfield than Phil Hughes, and the only pitchers whose defense came anywhere near the negative effect of Phil Hughes’ on their pitching were Nathan Eovaldi (ground ball), Justin Verlander (fly ball), Drew Hutchison (fly ball), Ervin Santana (ground ball), and Kyle Gibson. It seems that Phil Hughes was successful last year because of his ability to generate fly balls that had a fair amount of hang time, which actually gave the Twins outfielders time to get under and catch the ball, and his ability to throw strikes despite having the worst catcher in baseball at framing pitches. Phil Hughes was a pitcher who had a spectacular year despite all the odds against him, not mentioning the fact that he had been horrible the year before.

Just because it was a double header.

Ten, but I never trust Deadspin.

Booser was always a favorite of mine, thanks for the article.

Sending him down to AAA won't fix it, he would be better off trying to have Neil Allen fix it.

They should not have, players make mistakes and if they got pulled for every mistake they made you would have an empty bench. Instead Molitor should make him take extra practice on fly balls for the remainder of the week.

Gibson lost the game because of defense, not because of bad performance, I would rather have them find a way to have Meyer replace Nolasco and Pelfrey. (of course Nolasco should have four more starts before a decision is made on him.)

Do you have any idea of whether they are in on Fulmer?

The draft is built on dreams, and when someone who comes along with a swing like Ted Williams you have to look carefully, I wasn't saying that we were going to have seven players who were as good as Ted, I was just saying that I don't think it is as bad of a class as some people are saying.

I didn't think they were, but he reminds me of Knoblauch.

Rochester gets rained out.

I don't think it is that weak, Kyle Tucker is being compared to Ted Williams, and he was ranked seventh on Kiley's list.