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nicksaviking

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Everything posted by nicksaviking

  1. nicksaviking
    https://theathletic.com/5250968/2024/02/05/rosenthal-zack-greinke-oakland-athletics-mlb/ Still looking for a shortstop, and have I got a deal for you!
  2. nicksaviking
    I mean, either he'll be really, really good, or he won't be. Come 2029, it seems hard to envision a scenario where he'll be good enough to be worth paying 35M per year but not good enough to elect free agency. I suppose there's a real fine line there somewhere.
  3. nicksaviking
    I presume it will be Gordon or Larnach, which doesn't trouble me as I've kind of seen enough from them. I just don't like the fact that now there are more hurdles for the higher ceiling players. It's becoming a yearly thing. I mean it's a better situation than when even worse vets like Jordan Schaffer Pedro Florimon and Doug Bernier were taking up roster spots, but back then there were no realistic options in AAA either.
  4. nicksaviking
    I hope it's not for long as Raya is the pitcher I am far and away the most excited about at any level. He obviously struggled early in Wichita, but his last five starts were utterly dominant. Sorry for the gushing Raya tangent, back to the excitement about Lewis projections. The Twins have been great at getting these later round pitchers to work out.
  5. nicksaviking
    Witt's deal also doesn't buy out any free agent years, unless Witt wants it to. If Witt is as good as the Royals hope he is, he'll get to walk and cash in an even bigger payday. If he's not, this deal will become an albatross. Edit: Looks like the Royals bought ONE free agent year. He would have been a free agent in 2028, now he can opt out in 2029 and every year after. That young man did well for himself. And I'm sure the Royals are happy to have the cost control.
  6. nicksaviking
    I loved Greg Maddux, but pitchers aren't throwing harder today just because they can, they're throwing harder because in today's game everyone can hit an 88 MPH fastball and umpires don't give 3 inches on each side of the plate to experienced veteran pitchers. Whether we like it or not, velocity matters a great deal. I'm curious about Lewis' command. He struggled with walks in college, but not last year. Was it because he improved? Or was it due to 18-year-olds chasing his weird repertoire?
  7. nicksaviking
    Yeah, the Twins do as well if not better with the lesser regarded prospects. I'm excited to see many of the non-sexy youngsters.
  8. nicksaviking
    But should we expect Santana to even produce as he did last year? He only did that once in the past four seasons, so if he only has a 25% shot at replicating last year, yes, I'd say the odds that at minimum one of Miranda, Severino or Martin could do that is higher. And that's not including Lee, Camargo or Prato who should all be similarly ready. Or the loser of the final roster spot which would likely be Gordon or Larnach at this point.
  9. nicksaviking
    There’s another solution to that……
  10. nicksaviking
    Easier to deal with it now than mid season. With the expanded playoffs, teams have to be REALLY out of contention to trade top arms then. Plus, comparing Twins offseason pitching trades vs in-season pitching trades……yikes.
  11. nicksaviking
    Die hard fans will, but what casual fan will pay a dime for it? And casual fans have made up the majority of the sport's fans for a century. The sport is in dire trouble. People who don't know the Broncos from the Buccaneers have NFL games playing in the background of their Sunday afternoons. MLB needs to get back to that level or it's going to die. It will never gain new generations of fans. Young people who don't know baseball but are willing to give it a shot aren't going to fork over money to see it.
  12. nicksaviking
    I don't dislike the player, it could have been worse, but did it work last year? Doesn't last year's team have more wins had Jeffers, Wallner and Julien had 75-200 more PA each?
  13. nicksaviking
    It was over 900 plate appearances in 2020-21. He was a great player back in the day but no longer. But even if he meets those goals of 100 OPS, Juilen, Wallner, Jeffers, Lewis, Miranda and even Lanrach and Gordon have surpassed that number unexpectedly when called upon in a season. And they keep leaving the runs created by those numbers in AAA or on the bench because the team is tethered to these vets which they have to keep on the roster. Santana was great in his prime, not for any particular trait other than his awesome OBP. Now he can't even top .320, even in a rebound year. Even a little regarded prospect like Anthony Prato can do that in his sleep. And he'd be like the third option at best at this point. They can do better internally. Big names do not equal an upgrade, just fanfare. I'm completely serious here, what will the state of this board be come April if Miranda is absolutely crushing in spring training and they have to send him down because Santana has a locked in roster spot? It's going to be really ugly.
  14. nicksaviking
    I think there is a pretty reasonable divining line with players. It's more than fair to expect the young players to get better. Once they've peaked, I think it's unreasonable to expect better. Still, I don't expect Varland to meet those numbers, mostly because I think others should have those innings. I hope there's another big arm added for the rotation and Varland dominates for fewer innings in the pen.
  15. nicksaviking
    Really dang great stuff Seth. Impressive interview, you don't usually get this kind of repartee with a new prospect. Awesome initiative to reach out to him. Looking forward to seeing this guy advance, I'm confident we'll see him at Target Field. The Twins have crushed drafting guys in this area of the draft lately. I'm not surprised he was on the Twins radar before he was ever a pro.
  16. nicksaviking
    I'd do it, but personally, I'm more willing to trade Lee than E-Rod. With the way the Twins are built, I'll rather keep the low floor high ceiling guy over the high floor low ceiling guy.
  17. nicksaviking
    I'm not really interested in the Julien/Arraez aspect of the deal, but I've long thought adding Ryan to a package to upgrade to Luzardo or Garrett would be a great move for both teams. Ryan, Festa and any non-top prospects would be pretty tempting I'd think. Or Ryan and Lee. Heck, that might even be an overpay. Could be Ryan and someone lesser, though I'm Ok with Ryan and Lee to get back to something similar to the Lopez/Gray combo this team had last postseason.
  18. nicksaviking
    Sure, 2 to 3 times the money for 2 to 3 times the player. The Twins got a 40M TV deal. That's down only 10M. Payroll didn't need to drop by 30M, either of those guys were affordable. Had those two still been around when the deal was struck, I have no doubt the Twins would have been offering them deals. They weren't and Santana was the best that was left. And I'm not a 'Pohlad's are cheap' guy. To me this smells way more like some misguided negotiation strategy with Bally/Amazon or even MLBtv, and it clearly didn't work. More akin to the A's or Rays crying poor to leverage a new stadium deal when they obviously could handle a higher payroll. I'm not laying this on the on field operations, I'm laying this on St. Peter and ownership, this is not how Falvey and Levine have operated in past years. I mean, they signed him right after the TV deal was announced, like they were told they can't do ANYTHING until the optics were clean. They have gone for a bigger ticket guys in the past, but now there were none left. Or maybe the strategy did work. Perhaps they were crying poor because they knew the money they'd get from an MLBtv broadcast would be less and they were trying for a bigger cut knowing that a threat of a lower payroll was worse for the rest of the league in terms of revenue sharing.
  19. nicksaviking
    Journeymen QBs seem to have a good track record in coaching. Makes sense too, the guys with extreme god-given talent probably have a hard time explaining what it takes to be good; they just have it. Guys who had to work their tail off just to scrape the edges of a roster likely understand the minutia and nuances needed to work around any short-comings and deficiencies are probably 10x better teachers. I probably have never heard him interviewed and have no idea about his personality or intelligence, but I wouldn't be surprised if he's an OC candidate in the near future. Seems like the type.
  20. nicksaviking
    Ala cart options doesn't work for me and most others. Even if it was $20/month, it's hard to justify paying 120 per year just to watch baseball when that's the only thing that platform is good for and no one else is interested. It has to get on major streamers with a plan that's already budgeted. And $20/month is a pipedream right now; currently it's nearly $500 per year! The NFL reaches the masses, shouldn't getting back to the NFL level of popularity be the goal? Forget about die hard fans, they will lose every casual fan who watches baseball just because they're scrolling through the programs and that's the most appealing option. Like was done for the past half century.
  21. nicksaviking
    I had no problem signing a 1B, that was actually the one position I thought the Twins should target, but we defiantly should not expect a .730-.760 OPS player, he's done that one time in the past four years. The odds are that the team could have cycled through the numerous internal options and found a better hitter. It happens every single year lately. We should hope for a nice season, but expect an offensive liability. I'm not angry, I'm just not pleased. Unless the team has a clear hole and no internal options to fill it, I think you stay away from this caliber of free agent. Go with the clear upgrade, or stand pat. The ability to shuffle players with options through a roster spot is the most underrated aspect of building a team.
  22. nicksaviking
    That's great, but for a family of five that has three kids watching Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Disney+, Apple and random Youtube videos, how is one supposed to justify $93/month just to watch baseball? MLB has to get on to a platform that people already have, not some random fly-by-night streamer (sorry Fubo, Bally, whatever niche streamer comes next).
  23. nicksaviking
    Right, struggling rookies can be optioned. They don’t lock up a roster spot.
  24. nicksaviking
    I'm not sure either would move young pitchers. The Angels should still be building the future, the Rangers are the champs. Heaney should probably be in the pen anyway. Will Smith left, they could use another lefty there anyway.
  25. nicksaviking
    Whether or not that's true, it has no bearing on trading for a young pitcher.
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