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nicksaviking

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Everything posted by nicksaviking

  1. nicksaviking
    To me, the biggest red flag with Hughes was his sharp velocity decline this year. I wondered if it was due to aging, injury or some kind of tinkering as Hughes has been known to be a tinkerer. I'm wondering how the velocity will be out of the pen. If he can't bump it up to past levels, I'm really concerned about the rest of his contract.
  2. nicksaviking
    Maybe he's auditioning for Danny Santana's full-time LH pinch hitting gig?
  3. nicksaviking
    I think the 'facts' being presented are as about as tenuous as the 'facts' given during a political debate. Are they true? Some of them, if you look at it from a particular perspective. Using Mauer's 2013-14 off season to judge his workout regimen probably isn't too fair seeing as he was recovering from his concussion issues, and just about every 'fact' is about the 2013-14 off season. I also fail to see how Joe stretching this past off season is some kind of indictment on his workout habits. Is stretching bad? If the intended implication is that Joe was only stretching, there was nothing in that link that suggested so and this post goes from borderline objective to intentionally skewing.
  4. nicksaviking
    But at only 3M, 6M and 9M in the final three years, that's a relatively minor investment, particularly since there is still upside. Silver lining regarding Dozier's fall: Previuosly the front office would have never considered moving him, even if prospects behind him were tearing it up. Now, I'd have to think not only would moving him not be out of the question should better options arise, but the team almost certainly wouldn't look to extend him unless he shows much more consistancy.
  5. nicksaviking
    Luckily he isn't then. The deal he signed didn't buy out any free agent years.
  6. nicksaviking
    I think Dozier's approach was specificly engineered by the club to take advangatge of Target Field's weak point. Dozier didn't have this approach or swing when he was initially called up and struggled. His current tendancies only happened after the Twins saw extreme pull hitter Josh Willingham beat what had previously been thought of as an unbeatable park.
  7. nicksaviking
    I understand why they thought they needed a pinch hitter, but Santana has actually been a lot worse against RHP this year, meanwhile Buxton actually has a reverse split, so much so that we probably would have much more mild consternation about his development if his overall OPS matched his OPS against RHP (.638). Still I agree, Arcia in that at bat would look better if a pinch hitter was absolutely going to happen. I wonder if that specific at bat alone will be the tipping point in convincing the front office to add Kepler once the AA season is done. I would also have taken Polanco and his track record of getting on base ahead of Santana in that situation.
  8. nicksaviking
    Let's just cut to the chase and get him that new Aaron Hicks leg kick this off season. That toe tap doesn't look good on him. Dozier, Plouffe and Sano do the toe tap but they seem to use their lower half when they swing. Do something to get him to use his legs, he's going to be a slap hitter if he's only using his arms and clearly he has the talent to be more than that.
  9. nicksaviking
    I think Morris has no contemporary comparable as the Twins only had him for one year. At the time it was infuriating when he left but we weren't as wise about pitching declines back then. He was almost exactly league average in 1992 and then completely collapsed in 1993. Start the young guys. All of them.
  10. nicksaviking
    As far as I can tell, the Twins have only had one > .750 OPS full season from a SS since Roy Smalley was traded, and only Zoilo's 1965 season prior to that. Escobar is becoming one of my favorite players, probably because he's getting overlooked in favor of bigger name prospects who haven't come close to putting it together yet. Also, he's doing this with a rather modest .308 BABIP and his hot steak has only seen it go to .343 for the past month. This isn't Danny Santana.
  11. nicksaviking
    Yup. If called up as things stand now, he'd never see a strike.
  12. nicksaviking
    It could be, but I do remember talk from the team of limiting his slider usage durning his final season, but it could be that I'm just a big fan of the pitch. Gibson's slider is a much better pitch than his fastball/sinker. He should be using it more too from my point of view.
  13. nicksaviking
    Could be. His K% is down from last year though and so is his OBP. His K% is lower than 2013 also, when he still had a .404 OBP.
  14. nicksaviking
    No clue, just speculation from a pedestrian baseball mind. I just seems to me that the only link between Old Joe and New Joe is his numbers when guys are on base. It seems to me that would leave it to either the intagible "clutch" gene or the propensity for the shift. Mayber there's something else, I'm no expert. If it is the shift, you'd have to think there should be hope though as wouldn't it just mean Joe has to re-adjust his approach or mechanics? He hasn't done it yet and maybe you can't teach an old dog new tricks, but plenty of other players, even in the same clubhouse, have become adept at beating the shift.
  15. nicksaviking
    I probably wouldn't put Beresford ahead of Walker, but I'd still rank Walker about where Jeremy did. I mean look at those numbers. It seems nearly impossible for a guy to have a 30-1 HR advantage over another player and still barely have a 100 point OPS advantage. I guess another way to look at it is, how does the league HR leader three years running only have a .807 OPS?!?! He should be getting pitched around nearly every at bat.
  16. nicksaviking
    Probably not so much the RHP part as much as it is the windup part, as that would mean no one is on base and the infield can shift as they please as no runners need to be accounted for. The increasing popularity of the shift has really taken a toll on Mauer.
  17. nicksaviking
    If he's 80% of what he's been, I'd take him as a starter for the next 8 years. Sorry Zoilo, but if he's 80% of what he's been during this current stretch, he'd be the best SS in team history. Actually, I wouldn't be sorry even a little bit, it wouldn't be close.
  18. nicksaviking
    The main head-scratcher regarding the Liriano situation was the use of his slider. It has clearly always been his best pitch and it was abundantly clear that Liriano had his good seasons when he had high slider usage and poor seasons when he didn't. It was also clear the Twins thought the pitch would lead to injury, yet it was the ultra-conservative Pirates who gave him a multi-year deal AND increased his slider percentage.
  19. nicksaviking
    His salary would matter if the Twins were in a payroll crunch. They are not. It's his production and positional inflexibility that are the real concerns here.
  20. nicksaviking
    I don't see how the MLB is covering up anything the announcers are saying. The punishment for getting caught using PEDs is spelled out pretty clearly. I'm not sure what you think the Union should do, not only did they agree to the punishment, but there was huge support from clean ballplayers to crack down on the cheaters. It sucks for the Twins, but there is nothing to argue here.
  21. nicksaviking
    I think we're making assumptions on this one. From my 20 years experience with a bad back, you never can tell when it's going to give you issues. Mine would lock up on me and put me out of commission even when I was a highly trained athlete back when I was a teenager. It's possible he's out of shape, but last year his issue was a forearm strain which doesn't seem like it would have much to do with conditioning. If I were to make an assumption, it would be that he's 32 and on the backside of his career. Age tends to rob pitchers of their most needed physical attributes before it does the hitters.
  22. nicksaviking
    I would also not lump anyone who criticizes his pay with those concerned about the roster crunch his full-time 1B inflexiblity creates.
  23. nicksaviking
    Positive pieces from folks generally seen as pessimists tend to ring more authentic.
  24. nicksaviking
    Me too. No sure there's a lot of hard throwers available this year though. Shawn Kelley misses bats but doesn't throw too hard, maybe he'd be worth a look. Jon Broxton might have turned the corner too.
  25. nicksaviking
    In terms of the Twins winning games down the stretch, Cleveland's pitching staff is frightening. They're young though, hopefully they are wearing down. I'm most worried about the Angels series. They always seem to be the West Coast version of the Yankees for the Twins.
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