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nicksaviking

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Everything posted by nicksaviking

  1. nicksaviking
    I like his attention to details. I'll like it even more if he can get the young players to also concern themselves with attention to details. It's not always easy to get 23-year-olds to focus like that but his track record as an instructor may indicate the youngsters may follow suit.
  2. nicksaviking
    I loved Viola, though while his 'playing days' pitching philosphy of change up, change up, change up would likley appeal to an organization that loves the pitch, I wonder if that would raise those strikeout totals mentioned above. Let's also look into St. Louis' minor league pitching coaches. Perhaps it's just their scouting, but someone over there certainly knows how to get those young guys ready for the MLB.
  3. nicksaviking
    Just as I prefer it. I do however see a bit of hypocrasy in chastising a team that may experience muliple years of losing due to large but unproductive contracts when the team you're defending is losing for a similar or longer period of time.
  4. nicksaviking
    Joe Mauer only takes up 26% of payroll because the Twins keep payroll low. Detroit is not singled out despite all of their bloated, ugly contracts. It is some solid research, but I still think it boils down to the question: "Has Joe Mauer's contract been the reason the Twins haven't signed better free agents?" I think the answer is still: "No." The math above is sound, but I'm guessing very few teams, playoff or non-playoff, have a player making more than 20% of the team's salary. I'd say that the reason you don't see many teams built that way in the playoffs is simply because the scenario is rare. Foolish, but mostly just rare. After all, most of the ugly, albatross contracts are on the big market teams and the 20% guideline would not be in play with a $180+ million payroll. Unless you signed a guy for $36 million per. Edit: Just did a Cot's Contract check. Only three teams had players take up more than 20% of the team's payroll last year. The sad sack Twins, the Mets, who are keeping payroll down artificially while still hanging on to David Wright, and the Seatle Mariners and Robinson Cano who finished one game back of a playoff spot.
  5. nicksaviking
    I said above that the game wasn't exactly rigged, it was just that Molitor was possibly given an insurmountable advantage. Jon Heyman has a good piece and while it's not the lede, he does cite a "former Twins person" who thinks the hiring process involved a canine and equine parade. http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/writer/jon-heyman/24779999/twins-choice-molitor-made-sense-for-the-twin-cities-team-all-along Ryan, notoriously thorough, interviewed about 10 candidates even though others saw Molitor as the obvious call all along. While one former Twins person suggested the search seemed at times like a "dog and pony show" with Molitor the obvious call, and at least one other potential candidate suggested he believed Molitor was the strong favorite all along, the fact that there were multiple interview of multiple candidates suggest Ryan was just doing his homework, as usual. I guess one of the other men being interviewed thought the same. I hope it wasn't an internal candidate who had that view, though if the source is a "former Twins person" it's likely quite possible.
  6. nicksaviking
    I don't want the Twins to go hogwild in free agency because the market looks awful this year. But Detroit's fans won't have to be frustrated that long. Only Cabrera is under contract for more than the next six years and all but he and Verlander are off the books by 2018. So if you're going to be critical of the Tigers and a possible 4-6 year low point, I fail to see how you can continue to defend the Twins when they are begninning year 5.
  7. nicksaviking
    As long as the pitcher only gets a one year deal. This club has shown the willingness to eat a bad contract if only one year is remaining, but I don't want this club to give itself any more excuses for not calling up the prospects. I don't care if they fantastically bomb, we have to know, and they have to get their feet wet early if we want to have hope they can carry this team to relevance in 2016. We aren't going to get relevant based on mid-low tier free agent pitchers.
  8. nicksaviking
    I'll look back fondly on the Gardy years anyway. Until the last four years, it was a pretty good run. I wanted a championship and I wanted change, but I still think Gardy was a fine representitive for this organization, even if I didn't think he always made the right decisions.
  9. nicksaviking
    I don't think the process was a show, I think Ryan wanted to consider outside personalities, but he said early on that his preference was to hire internally. The game wasn't exactly rigged, but it was likely heavily tilted in Molitor's favor. I'm guessing the outside voice would have had to be head-and-shoulders better than the existing option. Lovullo probably would have had to be an A+ and Molitor a B+ for this not to turn into an Occam's Razor situation.
  10. nicksaviking
    At least it wasn't a payroll related threadjack!
  11. nicksaviking
    Maybe you're right, history wasn't the correct word as last year was first time they actually had prospects and blocked them with the non-prospects. The excuses used to keep May and Meyer down when healthy last year were poor. They should never have wasted innings in AAA last year once the team was out of contention. They can learn the same things at the MLB level that they could at Rochester all while not wasting the precious bullets that were finitely put in their arms
  12. nicksaviking
    Well that really depends on if the front office bought their own tickets, or made Lovullo pay for them. I hope he had a big enough guest room for them to stay in.
  13. nicksaviking
    Can we just get some good news around here? http://seamheads.com/2008/04/04/the-greatest-world-series-of-them-all/
  14. nicksaviking
    Innings Pitched is not an ability, it is a result partially based on the quality of the pitcher. It's like saying you like your pitcher to have a high Win total. Being able to strike out batters is an ability that can lead to that result. 8 of the top 10 leaders in IP had a K/9 over 7.5. All of the top 10 pitchers in WAR had a K/9 over 7.5, and 17 of the top 20. Strikeouts don't guarantee success, but they are a strong predictor that the pitcher will be successful.
  15. nicksaviking
    At some point you have to give the prospects enough leash to sink or swim on their own. Yes, May should get a spot in the rotation out of spring training because we don't need to see anything else in AAA, he gets a spot on the MLB roster until he proves otherwise he can't cut it. Non-prospects like Logan Darnell and Tommy Milone should not be blocking a guy who has a chance to be a rotation anchor.
  16. nicksaviking
    Great, so now our team is the fat kid with a social disorder who spends all his time away from school playing World of Warcraft.
  17. nicksaviking
    As long as it's not short for "The Buck stops here."
  18. nicksaviking
    Colby Rasmus making this team a .500 ballclub seems like pretty high expectations. I like his pop and he can play decent defense, but that guy's got some serious strikeout and walk issues. I think for a contending team he'd merely be a platoon/4th OF.
  19. nicksaviking
    I recall that one now.
  20. nicksaviking
    All this talk of who should be calling who reminds me of a report or interview we had posted here two summers ago about how Ryan goes about trade deadline deals. Basically Ryan stated that the Twins don't do much soliciting themselves, they wait for other teams to call them for trade offers. The implication was that the team getting the call generally has the upper hand in negotiations.
  21. nicksaviking
    Where did we hear this? All I've heard is teams were initiating contact.
  22. nicksaviking
    This would seem to be a terrible reason not to interview Maddon. After all, the dozen or so other teams interested in Maddon don't seem to have a problem with the perceived slight against a manager they actually have under contract. Not to mention, who the hell would want a manager with that thin of skin? Any first time manager who couldn't understand why the club may want to find out about a guy as high profile as Maddon isn't a guy I want in a Twins uniform.
  23. nicksaviking
    Particularly when your team's offseason base of operations is actually only a two hour car ride away. They sent people to watch and talk to Nick Gordon weekly, and Orlando is twice as far.
  24. nicksaviking
    True on all fronts. With no ill will intended, those three were never looked at as future building blocks. If improper usage in the DWL is a legit concern, I don't want any prospects down there, not just TJ victims. Let's find an alternate solution for winter playing time.
  25. nicksaviking
    I still fail to see how Maddon to Minnesota is that much more of a stretch than Terry Fancona to Cleveland. This club is just too damn conservative, and not even so much in a financial way. A forward thinking team would say to themselves, "If we were OK with paying Nick Blackburn $5.5 million NOT to play for us, why is $5 million to much to pay a manager who may actually impact games? Geez, $7-8 million might not even be a bad investment" Would anyone here really be upset if the Twins used their budget on a top end manager instead of another back of the rotation arm? But of course this team is going to be followers sticking to the league mantra that MLB managers are worth $2 million. Period. This will change when the rest of the league changes it for the Twins. Why is it too much to ask for a GM/organization that is willing to be at the forefront of a new philosophy? Trends toward shifts, analytics, strikeout arms, etc, why must our favorite team always be among the last to follow suit Can we be a leader for a change? The Twins used to be a low power/high contact team with good defense. Now they've shifted to power propects with poor contact and questionable defense because that's what everyone else did 5-10 years ago. Guess what, the league has shifted back to high contact and defense and the Twins are left with yesterday's theories all over again. Lemmigs. Lemmings that are still wearing last decades fashion trends.
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