jharaldson

Is there a quote you can point to besides the picture? In the article Rand goes out of his way to praise Mauer. I think with the exception of the picture choice the article is balanced.

I don't have a problem with opposite field hitting being a tool in the toolbox. I do have a problem with it being the only tool. I did a search of the star tribune looking for gardenhire quotes regarding opposite field hits and pulling the ball. I found 0 quotes in the past year where Ron Gardenhire positively endorsed a hitter pulling the ball but found several where he praised a hitter for going opposite field or ripped a guy for not doing so. It would we be nice to hear some balance from this organization between teaching opposite field hitting and also teaching how to pull and drive the ball. I think that is the point Gladden was trying to get to.

Agree, it is highly likely that at least 1 and possibly 2 of these guys will not perform at such a level where this will be a hard decision due to the nature of prospects failing.

I may not have been clear in my previous post but by "ducking" them I mean when he retired when decisions needed to be made and they were not the type of decisions he liked (Scouting and Player Development). Here are a couple of quotes from the article when he retired: http://www.startribune.com/sports/twins/11700821.html Terry Ryan didn't like the big contract, free agent part of the job so when that was going to start dominating his time he took his ball and went home. After the hard decisions were made and the team had some limited success before falling apart he suddenly wanted to GM again when the focus is prospects and player development as opposed to resigning huge free agents. Bill Smith was a poor GM but I respect that he at least had the guts to make the hard decisions. I fully predict that Terry Ryan will retire again in the next 4-6 years as the hard contract decisions for guys like Buxton, Sano, and Meyer come due.

I think we also need to acknowledge that an overall improvement in pitching has happened the last few years and that offense is down this year. If you look at ranking of the Twins to other teams as opposed to the raw numbers it tells a less optimistic story. Starter ERA 2014 - 28th 2013 - 30th 2012 - 29th Hovering around last in Starter ERA isn't great. Yes there are guys in the minors who may help and some peripherals are up but the end result this year is the same end result the last 2 under Terry.

While I don't think Smith did that great of a job the one thing I do respect him for is actually doing the job. When some of the toughest decisions in recent Twins history were coming due (Torii Hunter Free Agent, Johan Santana Trade, Joe Mauer Contract) Terry Ryan quit and went home. Bill Smith stepped forward and actually had the guts to make these decisions, right or wrong. When the tough calls were made and it was back to prospect development Terry Ryan rushes back in and takes over pushing Smith to the side. Smith is remembered for his many failures while Terry Ryan gets almost no heat at all for ducking those big issues.

I think getting anything we can at the trade deadline is great but I think this question needs to be answered. I can't see Hicks being on this team again this year. Is it Santana full time out of position? Is Parmalee the backup? Is there a warm body that we can pick up like Mastroianni? Will CF just be a cluster-bleep for 2014? I hope TR and Gardy provide some clarity here in the next couple of days.

I agree that he is pitching beyond what his peripheral stats would suggest but I disagre with the idea of a spectacular collapse. He is currently sporitng a FIP of 3.52 and a xFIP of 3.77. Both of those are in line with his good years in Philly. Both of those are significantly better than his 2013 with the Twins. Both of those suggest he isn't a top of the rotation guy like his 2.54 ERA suggests but both suggest to me that he can be a fine 3-4 starter when things correct.

Luck is defined as "success or failure apparently brought by chance rather than through one's own actions". The front office can't control a 3rd baseman getting Tommy John. The front office can't control somebody having 2-3 seperate wrist injuries. That is all luck. The front office can control acquiring a pitcher with mechanical issues. I would describe the injury to Meyer as the highly likely outcome to acquiring a tall pitcher with mechanical issues as opposed to bad luck. I am also not opposed to the move because there are examples of tall pitchers with mechanical issues figuring things out and becoming dominant so I am willing to take the time in the minors to fix things and the potential injuries to be endured while waiting for that.

I think the Alex Meyer issue comes from a front office decision and not bad luck. Prior to the trade fangraphs wrote a big article on Meyer stating: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/washington-nationals-pitching-prospect-alex-meyer-scouting-report-video/ We traded for a guy with mechanical issues and call it bad luck when the mechanical issues predictably turn into an injury. On Trevor May I think we had good luck this year with him because until now I assumed he was not going to be a factor after 2 mediocre/bad AA seasons. The luck of him looking like he has upside far outweighs the bad luck of a minor 3 week injury.

I'm not sure why Polanco is less green than Vargas? Age = Polanco 21/Vargas 24 (in 7 days) Highest Minor level = Polanco A/Vargas AA Experience = Polanco 5 years/Vargas 6 years If we are sellers and looking towards next year then lets get a glimpse of Vargas because I have seen enough of Parmalee and Colabello.

I just did a pull on Fangraphs and there are 6 players this year that are 25 and under and here are my immediate observations on how Gardy has affected their seasons: Tonkin - Tonkin has had a poor season and has been demoted to the minors. I attribute much of this to sporadic work due to Gardy's desire to have overly large bullpens. I view Gardy as a negative on his development. Santana - Santana has been a quality hitter so far this year but has played out of position (CF from SS) which reduces his value. This situation was caused by Gardy wanting Bartlett over Alex Pressley which created a gap in CF. I view Gardy as a negative on his development. Pinto - Pinto has had defensive issues at catcher and was cooling down after a hot start as a hitter. Some of that cooling could be because Gardy refused to play him due to his 3rd catcher fear and sporadic play caused the decline. I view Gardy as a negative on his development. Escobar - Escobar has really stepped up in place of Florimon but it doesn't negate that Gardy wanted Florimon instead of Escobar. Gardy did realize his mistake and switched though. I view Gardy as a positive on Escobar due to that realization. Arcia - Arcia has blown up AAA two seasons in a row but struggled in the majors. I can't evaluate anything specific so I will say Gardy has been neutral on his development. Hicks - Hicks failed again a second time in the majors and was required to stay in the majors due to the lack of CF options. This situation was caused by Gardy wanting Bartlett over Alex Pressley which created a gap in CF. I view Gardy as a negative on his development. That is 4 negatives, 1 neutral, and 1 positive in regards to our under 25 players. That feels like a bad job to me.

There are ways around this. Last year I was an advocate for trading for Dan Haren. The Angels bought out his $15.5 million contract for $3.5 million. I have to think we could have traded for him for virtually nothing and gotten $2-2.5 million back. If you believe in fWAR Haren was the 7th best pitcher of the last decade. Trading for a guy like that and paying $13 million that year on a contract sells a little hope and tells me you re trying.. Signing a guy who had been dropped from the rotation on one of the worst teams in the league and backloading his contract (2013 = $4.5 million, 2014 = $5.5 million) is selling the fact you are cheap and don't care. Note: I know Haren and Correia had nearly equal fWAR last year, from a hope standpoint I would say that was as good as Correia could have been and in the bottom 1/3 of outcomes that Haren could have had.

Something is screwed up here because I even cross-checked the schedule and found Hicks game from the youtube video above and it lines up with the Mets and it lines up with a HR. I wonder if the Minor League Central site is screwed up and not tracking this correctly.

The following site has all 83 PA's this year as RH. http://minorleaguecentral.com/player?pid=543305&type=batter&split=2014

I agree that "Big Data" and "Hadoop" are overused in the industry but that doesn't mean they still can't add value here. The purpose of Big Data is to allow people to take overwhelming amounts of data and use it to make better decisions right now. This sounds exactly like what the Twins need to do.

Hi Jack, I noticed in the technology list that you are focused on structured DB technology (SQL Server) and don't appear to be looking for any unstructured or "Big Data" technologies like Hadoop, HDFS, ect... Has your team explored "Big Data" technology and found it wanting for your application or is this something you have not researched? Thanks! PS: The Azure platform has support for Big Data and Hadoop through their partnership with Hortonworks.

http://shamasportsheadliners.com/mauers-grandpa-not-blaming-booing-fans/ Has to be hard to see your Grandpa calling you out in the media ;-)

In all fairness, my understanding is that they fired the head trainer, promoted his #2, and kept everyone else so it isn't like there is a new group of people there.

Nothing, he was outright released. A's picked him up for nothing.

Revere was on track for 1.75-2.00 fWAR last year before injury and is on pace for the same this year. By your measurement he is right around average. Your speculation about his skillset being prime for quick decline is valid but you can't describe a guy as "all sorts of terrible" when he has actually been right around average.

Revere has been worth 1.8 fWAR the past 1.5 seasons, .5 of which he was out with injury. I would personally describe "terrible" as negative value and I would describe Revere as slightly above average.

I just looked at Fangraphs at his pitch types and he is throwing 8.7% more fastballs this year than last year. That means in 2014 you are getting a mediocre fastball 57.8% of the time vs 2013 when it was only 49.1% of the time. In my mind Gardy, Suzuki, and Anderson need to take a hard look in the mirror and think about if they are truly utilizing the skillset Nolasco has or if their adjustment of his pitch selection is setting him up for failure.

I think the only legit concern is he is building service time which could make him more likely to get super 2 status at some point in the future. The only negative is a minimum salary year is replaced with an arbitration year so that is not even that bad. http://www.fangraphs.com/library/business/super-two/

This is my understanding, which may be wrong as I am not an expert. Once you are on the 40 man roster you are required to use an "option" if that player is going to play in the minors so this should not affect the number of options he has. Any time he is up in the majors goes towards his service clock so the .1 or .2 years he spends up here while Plouffe and Nunez are getting healthy would count towards service time. It is doubtful this would allow him to become a free agent any quicker but there is an outside chance it could get him to super-2 status.