nicksaviking
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Everything posted by nicksaviking
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Oh, nope, I missed the small detail up by the brim of the cap. Looks like it's the flip sunglasses which I don't remember Punto ever wearing. I change my pick to Chuck Knoblauch in his last season with the Twins. Which means that's the last throw of his that didn't end up in the dugout.
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ESPN Going, Going, Gone (after this season)
nicksaviking replied to The Great Hambino's topic in Other Baseball
I still think they need to figure out something with the major streamers. It seemed all football season long there was an icon/ad with Patrick Mahomes or Josh Allen on Amazon Prime's homepage promoting the upcoming games. MLB should want that too, even if it's a fraction of the time. -
He's got an infielder's glove and throwing like an infielder, not a pitcher. I think that's the late 1990's-end of the Metrodome era road uniform. I'll go with Nick Punto.
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ESPN Going, Going, Gone (after this season)
nicksaviking replied to The Great Hambino's topic in Other Baseball
It sucks, but honestly ESPN is a huge part of the current economic disparity. Until the mid 1990s, the Yankees, Red Sox, Mets and Dodgers were just your average MLB team, despite the bigger markets. ESPN was showing games fairly evenly, until they decided that ditching every other team and promoting the hell out of every Red Sox/Yankees game was their biggest draw. Followed by broadcasting the other games more frequently based on the market size. I mean, I get it, they all want to maximize profit, but it just funneled more and more viewers to the big market teams which in turn funneled more and more money to them as opposed to the flyover country teams. Not to say there aren't other factors in this growing problem, but ESPN certainly holds a seat at that table. -
Of course ZIPs is Dan's system. He can make or break the rules as he sees fit. He didn't HAVE to put them at DH, he chose to based on his own arbitrary prerogative.
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The author is certainly pointing out the thing the Twins do every single season.
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"Paddack is being paid $7.5 million and will be given every opportunity to hold a rotation spot." I'm not saying Paddack ISN'T the best option, but it's beyond frustrating that this organization still equates paycheck with playing time. If he does NOT look to be one of the best five, he shouldn't be in the rotation. Games in April count just as much as they do in September.
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I don't disagree that this is a manager thing. That's why I pointed out that Kepler was free to be terrible against lefties throughout Molitor's tenure as manager, and in his final year it paid off. Well, not for Molitor, he still got fired. But the persistence set Kepler up to get paid.
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The Twins let Max Kepler be terrible hitting against left handed pitching for years, until he wasn't, (Eh, relatively speaking.....). He started to hit them better in 2018, Molitor's last year. Kepler had a .453 OPS in 2017 against lefties in 137 PA. Neither Wallner nor Larnach were nearly as dreadful as Kepler was yet they only got 67 PA against left handed pitchers last year. Combined. But it was a memorable season, not like we'd have wanted to taint that beautiful memory with seeing young guys struggle with the goal of improving the following year.
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Is Chris Paddack still on the Twins?
nicksaviking replied to Brock Beauchamp's topic in Minnesota Twins Talk
Still on the Twins what? -
I also wasn't disagreeing with you, just emphasizing that I think Bader is going to get way more PAs than even his biggest supporters will like.
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My money is on Baldelli finding a way to put Bader in the starting line up opening day. And the Cardinals don't even have a left handed starter from what I can see. I'll guess he's in LF and Larnach or Wallner will DH. Manny Margot of all people was the opening day DH last year. Bader seems like exactly the kind of player Baldelli falls in love with, he's going to play a lot and get a ton of ABs. If this team is planning on starting France, who's only making 1M and not guaranteed a roster spot, they almost certainly plan on their budget buster free agent this year being a near every day player.
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You are missing the two stats most important to this organization though. Paddack is the leader in number of birthdays and the most money owed.
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To clarify, I think you mean six guys in ADDITION to the projected starting five? And I agree.
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Yeah, it sucks. Rooker was a casualty of MLB's reaction to the Bomba Squad. Rooker was likely drafted with that style of baseball in mind, then in 2020 with the deadened ball and the lackluster offensive results for the Twins, they shifted to signing and drafting up the middle contact hitters. This team is missing run producers at the moment though.
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Agree with most. Between Bader, Castro and Martin, Baldelli can find a no-bat righty to plug in two OF spots when he feels like it. Also, while I don't like the Bader signing, I do like that they're putting him in LF. With all the accolades Max Kepler got for his glove, I always thought it was either a poor decision by the club or a stubborn decision by Kepler to plug him into RF all that time. Yeah, a good arm is best in RF, but RF in Target Field is one of the smallest in baseball. It requires next to no range, particularly if there is a rangy CF next to you. 38-year-old Torri Hunter had a -8.0 UZR with a -7.8 range factor in Comerica park and then as a 39-year-old somehow found his gold glove again improving those marks to 3.5 and 3.4? Right. Another example of why defensive stats are too flawed to rely on, but also another example of how RF in Target Field might be the easiest position in the game to play.
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Probably mostly a manager who tends to dwell on the warts of all of the players he knows but buys into the agent hype of all the players he doesn't. There's got to be a Desclafani we can find to plug in there!
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I frankly put little stock into prospect rankings, as they don't take a practical approach to these evaluations. I understand the real world value of high contact, but the player market does not. Every team in the league can afford to pay Luis Arraez. Or Denard Span or Luis Castillo (Marlins/Twins, not Reds/Mariners). If you have a guy pop up on these lists who looks to be an 1980's archetype hitter, good for you, but he's not nearly as valuable as the guys you'd otherwise not be able to afford should they hit the free agent market. And I'm not overvaluing Lee, I have also been the low guy on this site on him as well. I was always just that much lower on Martin who not only can't hit it out of the park, he rarely hit doubles either.
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I remember, and it was frustrating. He'd already dropped 30 spots or so in the national prospect rankings and TD still had him #1 some how. I think most people here still had shiny new toy syndrome. He was always and only ever going to be a slap hitter, and that was clear even before the Twins traded for him.
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Martin's days as a top prospect were over when he was still in Toronto. These aren't the same caliber of potential and never have been. I've never been as high on Lee most of the rest of the board has been, largely because he doesn't look like he'll have enough power to justify his prospect rankings, but he has exponentially more power than the offensively one dimensional Martin.
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I think everyone is doing Prelipp a disservice if they try to make him throw more than 80 innings a season. With guys you are more than 50% sure will end up in the bullpen, I would err toward the side of a fast promotion; that being, move them to the pen now, not until you've exhausted starting options and are up against the service time clock.
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Yeah, the 'bomba squad' drafted replacement guys. They stopped drafting those types of players, but based on 2019, it's understandable they wanted more Nelson Cruz, Miguel Sano, Eddie Rosario types. I don't get your nine year comment, it's been four years. Look at their drafts prior to 2021 and after. They drafted completely different styles of hitters before and after. Obviously the prior 2021 players were less likely to produce, as their 2019 counterparts on the MLB roster ALSO stopped producing due to the change in the game.
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The Twins had to make a significant philosophy shift after 2020. The team had success with the bomba squad and their drafts reflected the plan to keep it that way with big corner bats and questionable defensive positions. Then when the league deadened the ball and the 2020 results were lackluster, the organization changed both the plan for the MLB roster and the draft picks. So from 2021 onward, most of the bats were contact guys who played up the middle and a LOT of pitchers. We haven't had time to see the guys from this new philosophy much, only because they're too young. And they've traded the only two bats they drafted in the top six rounds from 2021.
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Yeah, I'm not sure Headrick will pan out, but I wouldn't have traded him straight up for the ghost of Ty France.
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But Miranda has been more productive more recently than France. It should be the other way around. If France can show he can be productive, there could be a place for him. This is the struggle with this front office and manager; they look at a Miranda and think that he hasn't proven enough to earn a job, but then they go and sign a vet who also hasn't proven enough recently that he deserves a job. For some reason they seem to think the number of birthdays you've had is meaningful counting stat.
