Jump to content
Twins Daily
  • Create Account

nicksaviking

Community Moderator
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    24,960

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    126

 Content Type 

Profiles

News

Minnesota Twins Videos

2026 Minnesota Twins Top Prospects Ranking

2022 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks

Minnesota Twins Free Agent & Trade Rumors, Notes, & Tidbits

Guides & Resources

2023 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks

The Minnesota Twins Players Project

2024 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks

2025 Minnesota Twins Draft Pick Tracker

Forums

Blogs

Events

Store

Downloads

Gallery

Everything posted by nicksaviking

  1. nicksaviking
    Ha, for sure. But to be fair to him, I don't think St. Peter and the Pohlad's knew what they were doing with the TV deal until the last minute. Nor do they know what they are doing now.
  2. nicksaviking
    The fact that Provus is predicting a Buxton trade but in his interview didn't predict a Baldelli firing makes me think Provus isn't as in tune to what's happening behind the scenes as we may think. No players called out Baldelli, but plenty called out the 'culture'. I'm thinking this move may fall into the Buxton Likes column as opposed to the Buxton Dislikes column.
  3. nicksaviking
    An overhaul all at once would have been best. Piecemeal changes will drag things out, but at least it's a start. Maybe Favley would have been out too if Dave St. Peter hadn't (100% justifiably) been pushed out. With the chaos surrounding ownership and the organization as a whole, getting a new POBO might have been a logistical challenge. Plus, Joe Pohlad is obviously not equipped to make the decision about new one.
  4. nicksaviking
    I'm not going that route. Stealing from the Rays and Joe Maddon's lineage is how we are where we are now. And really, a lot of what Baldelli did seemed to be what he thought Maddon would do, but without the nuance OR big picture thought behind the moves. I don't want the next manager to simply be thinking, what would Terry Francona do?
  5. nicksaviking
    Corey Koskie was a butcher in the field. So was Michael Cuddyer. And I remember in Justin Morneu's second season people were thinking Matthew LeCroy of all people was the better person to put at 1st bast. Both of those guys would have been looked at as oafs. David Oritz, Jason Kubel and Brian Buchanan as well. Other than Koskie none were ever great fielders, but they also didn't draw the ire of fans that we've seen the last several years. Their errors didn't tend to be mental mistakes and they played their positions at a passable level. But still I'm burying the lede, because I mostly care about improving the hitting aspect. I am concerned it was a top down policy as well, and agree, there's only one way to find out. Or maybe we never find out, because I do think between Joe Pohlad, Rocco Baldelli and Derek Falvey, Falvey is the one with some self awareness and has a history of changing up what wasn't working. Maybe not on a broad level like we need here, but at least on the strategic level. And again, not a Derek Falvey endorsement.
  6. nicksaviking
    The Twins have had managers do that in the past, but it's probably more a responsibility of the coaches. But what the manger is/was failing to do was putting the players in position to learn and develop their athletic instincts. Micromanaging is going to stop them from learning to hit opposite handed pitching, and learning when to take a pitch and when to swing, when to steal a base or take an extra one, when to cheat toward the line or when to play back a step, when to gun a throw home or hit the cutoff man. If it's a clutch game in the 9th inning, these guys aren't going to learn how to handle the pressure and get the game winning hit or get the best jump of their life off of first and score the winning run if they were pulled from the game three innings ago. They need consistent reps in big situations, and consistent reps making their own decisions. Sure, there's plenty of times where team strategy requires you to do something specific, but it's not every pitch of every game of every inning.
  7. nicksaviking
    Even if the manager doesn't allocate his time that way, he can allocate OTHER people's time that way. And both Molitor and Gardenhire DID allocate their time that way. Kelly did too until he delegated that assignment to Gardenhire. But for the record, I care way more about the young guys consistently hitting the ball than I do anything else.
  8. nicksaviking
    I don't think about Nelson Cruz and think of 'fundamentally sound' baseball. Which is something I'm repeatedly seeing as a requirement from most of these posts.
  9. nicksaviking
    This is nonsense. Do you even remember who Baldelli's mentor was? It was JOE MADDON. I want Favley replaced, but this Falvey is the devil and is terrible at everything and is selfish and doesn't want the Twins to win and kicked a dog and took candy from a baby hysteria is getting old.
  10. nicksaviking
    If McCarthy is healthy and after the Browns game maybe. The Browns game still counts. I don't think you can go with Brosmer and McCarthy though, they'd certainly have to bring in another vet. And honestly it's probably a bad idea to have Brosmer active when McCarthy is back. Soooooo many Gopher fans think Brosmer is the next Tom Brady because of a preseason game against the Titans 3rd stringers. Currently Wentz is acting as a really good buffer to insulate McCarthy from an all out hysteria of unreasonable local fan expectations for Brosmer. McCarthy will be getting booed and Brosmer chants will happen the first 3-and-out or interception McCarthy throws after he returns. He's got to stay inactive. And I'd guess the KOC feels the same.
  11. nicksaviking
    Joe Maddon would be a cool add. But while he's a big name and would add some excitement, the people who hated Baldelli's in game moves would quickly realize Maddon's are just as upsetting to 'old school' fans. Relievers as openers, pulling pitchers before the third time through the order, defensive shifts, not aggressively stealing bases; these are Maddon staples, hell he may have invented half of them. And obviously it's where Baldelli drew his inspiration. I'm not one of those people though, I doubt Joe Maddon is un-retiring for the low amount the Twins will offer, but I'd be interested.
  12. nicksaviking
    And just about all those hitting prospects came out of the gate hot, the other teams adjusted to them, and then the players never adjusted back. That's on the players and probably more specifically the MLB staff. And 'fundamentals' wasn't the biggest issue with the prospects, the biggest issue is they couldn't hit the damn ball with any regularity. Even so, tell Tom Kelly, Ron Gardenhire and Paul Molitor that you don't improve fundamentals at the MLB level. Your education isn't done when you hit AAA.
  13. nicksaviking
    I'm not looking to promote from within, but blaming the minor league managers for not transitioning the prospects to the majors doesn't track. The prospects played well under them, the MLB coaches were the ones who clearly didn't help the players adjust at the MLB level.
  14. nicksaviking
    I'd prefer someone who's managed, but I don't know that I'm looking for MLB managing experience. Salty old veteran MLB managers likely aren't going to be a fit for a young rebuilding team. Minor league or maybe even a college manager who likes to work with and teach kids is probably a better fit.
  15. nicksaviking
    Looks like the Saints play the Jets and Titans back to back in week 16 and 17. That battle royale will probably decide draft order. Between those three teams, the two wins up for grabs might be the only ones for the three combined all year.
  16. nicksaviking
    The Bengals already have two wins though. The Jets would have to play them twice.
  17. nicksaviking
    Man, the Bengals have some top end skill players, and they can't do anything. Bad QB and even worse OLine. Sounds like what is going on with our Vikings, yet the Vikings are exponentially better somehow. The Broncos are clearly better, but it's fun to see that they are average at best. For always and ever cheering against Sean Payton.
  18. nicksaviking
    Bad owners make bad decisions.
  19. nicksaviking
    I don't think manager pay is going to be an issue. Data on manager salaries is sparse but World Series champ AJ Hinch at 1.2M is the 16th highest paid manager. Only 12 guys make more than 2M and 14 are at 1.2M or less. https://frontofficesports.com/highest-paid-mlb-managers/ These guys just aren't getting paid any longer: https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/columnist/bob-nightengale/2023/10/08/major-league-baseball-managers-grossly-underpaid/71106218007/ Baldelli is already near the bottom of the payroll scale and they're willing to eat his salary. Sure, with what they probably aren't talking Joe Maddon out of retirement but I doubt anyone expected that anyway. Whether they pay the manager 800K or 1.2M, it's probably going to be the same guy anyway.
  20. nicksaviking
    Hold on here, I just read the presser, and I think we all missed a big distinction. This was announced by Joe Pohlad('s AI). This wasn't announced by Derek Falvey. Looking back, I can see that Terry Ryan announced the Gardenhire firing and Dave St. Peter and Thad Levine announced the Paul Molitor firing. Ownership hasn't done these announcements in the past. So for those upset Falvey is still here; this may not have been his call, and it may indicate he doesn't have the leash people resenting his presence suggest he has.
  21. nicksaviking
    Well that would be good wouldn't it? Either get a really good manager that's capable of turning things around or one bad enough to cause even more changes.
  22. nicksaviking
    “I think that when I look out at this team and I see a group that's really young, that's still learning, that's still growing, that is going through some pains and moments in time," Falvey said. But I also see a lot of players that are taking those steps forward.” This rings a bit differently now that he's fired the manager the day after the season is over. I want a clean house, but implying the the current manager and coaches aren't the ones to help the young guys with the 'learning', 'growing' and 'steps forward' is at least encouraging that he recognizes the problem. It will be more telling when we hear what kind of people are getting interviewed. If the young guys are supposed to be the foundation, it has to be somebody with a clear history of instruction and development over someone who prioritizes rote commitment to conventional baseball wisdom.
  23. nicksaviking
    I'd like Falvey replaced as well. I presume he had some influence over Baldelli's micromanaging, but I have no idea how much. The one thing I can say for Falvey that I can't say for Baldelli, is that Falvey pivots and often. We go from control pitchers who can't miss bats, to flame throwers who are too wild. Then pivot to a pretty solid meld of the two approaches. We go from Bomba Squad that strikes out too much, then to focusing on OBP. Then they try the Bomba Squad again with next to no success and immediately get low strikeout, high contact players. Offensively it hasn't worked, mostly because they can't develop their own hitters, but he does change it up. If he can't or won't change the MLB development areas of the team, you're right, we're stuck back at square one, but I think there's a reasonable chance he understands this needs to change.
  24. nicksaviking
    Yeah, Falvey should be replaced too. But I know Joe Pohlad and Rocco Baldelli are terrible fits for this organization, I'm only pretty sure that Falvey is. He's done more for the organization than the other two from what I can see. And Falvey does get credit in my book for modernizing this dinosaur of an organization after Terry Ryan anchored the team to the back of the pack in terms of any kind of innovation for three decades. He should go, but not because the old school anti-math crowd would rather watch the team lose playing 1980's style baseball instead.
  25. nicksaviking
    The fact that Baldelli made it seem revelatory that giving them free reign to steal bases as they saw fit, after SEVEN years on the job, says all there is that needs to be said about his development ideas. If every decision every player makes on the field has to first go through Baldelli, these guys were never going to develop proper baseball instincts.
×
×
  • Create New...