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bighat

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Everything posted by bighat

  1. bighat
    Awesome, so thrilled to see Lewis back on the diamond. Balozovich on the DL to start the year already? C'mon man.
  2. bighat
    Yeah I notice that too - specifically pitchers. It does seem very strange for the Twins to draft a DH-type in Sabato, out of college, and then let him marinate for 5 years in the minor leagues. Especially with their FIRST ROUND pick! Pick college guys all you want, but if they're not ready for prime time, wait until the later rounds. That said, this Mark Contreras guy seems like a fantastic athlete, good dude and it looks like he has the tools to make the majors. Nothing wrong with having guys like that in the system, it means we can trade maybe bigger names like Larnach, et al, for pitching and still have Contreras ready to contribute. Great interview and here's looking forward to seeing Contreras in St. Paul and maybe in MSP this season.
  3. bighat
    Gary Sanchez was going to make this team no matter what. Speaking of which, I was watching some YouTube highlights of a condensed game against TB a couple days ago. Sano comes up, bases loaded nobody out. Strikes out. Sanchez comes up right after him and HE strikes out too! It was the first inning, Twins ended up not scoring after having the bases loaded with 0 outs. Rocco can't bat Sano/Sanchez 4-5 in the order during the regular season, please no. They should be batting 6th and maybe 9th, just keep them away from each other in the order so we never see those guys strike out back-to-back this year with men on base and less than 2 outs. To be fair I like both players but those kind of ABs just make it so hard for me to continue to support the Twins' offensive strategy.
  4. bighat
    So Coulombe over Godoy - who got DFA'ed and then they signed another catcher to replace Godoy at St. Paul....does that mean they assume Godoy will be claimed on waivers? Or did they just outright release him? The Rooker v. Garlick question is a big one. Garlick is 3 years older than Rooker, but if you read the tea leaves, Rooker doesn't look like he'll ever be as valuable as Garlick is now. I can see why the Twins don't want to lose Rooker, but at this point I don't think he'll ever be a major contributor on this team. And they don't have room for prospects who hit .200 right now, and even if they did they've already got Trevor Larnach to do just that and he's next in line. Kohl Stewart was a sunk cost and the Twins just let him go. I'm thinking they should do the same for Rooker. Who knows, maybe he hits 23 HR for Baltimore this year, or fills in as a 4th outfielder in Oakland. If that's the case, the Twins should be OK with that and wish him the best. Garlick should get the job.
  5. bighat
    Yeah, Sanchez just came taped to the side of the box. Nothing the Twins could really do there, but now that they've got him they're going to at least see if he works out. He's a 2-time All-Star still on the right side of 30, Roll the dice with the guy, I don't think it's unrealistic to think he could duplicate Garver's numbers if things go right. Considering the mess the Twins were in at the end of last year (89 losses, no shortstop and no pitching) I think they got pretty creative and did the best they could. They are clearly trying to be competitive, let's see how this works.
  6. bighat
    Pretty much my thoughts too. Off the top of my head, I can't remember the last time Lewis Thorpe had a stellar or even memorable outing. If the guy was on the bump it was 4 innings, 5 hits, 3 ER and a strikeout or two. Then there was that bizarre story from last year's Spring Training when he just left camp for "personal reasons" for 10 days last year. Don't get me wrong, everyone should be able to take time off for their mental health if needed, but we really never heard what exactly was going on there. Some very cryptic quotes from both Thorpe and Rocco surrounding that issue as well. The MSP media isn't New York and they never probed or speculated, but other team executives have done their homework and they know what happened. It's possible they view Thorpe as someone that might prove to be a problem, and since his numbers aren't outstanding nobody wanted to take a flier on him on waivers.
  7. bighat
    Great write-up, thanks for keeping us informed on our farm system's best and brightest! Henriquez, Ryan, Woods Richardson, Martin, and Strotman all made the list and have been acquired via trade. Can't wait to see some of them this year in Target Field (fingers crossed).
  8. bighat
    For sure. We're all worried about the 5th starter here, but what happens when starters 1-4 get their doors blown off in the 2nd inning? Because that's gonna happen. Here are the lines from 3 starts in a row from Bundy's last year: 3.1 innings, 6 ER 4.0 innings, 7 ER 2.1 innings, 4 ER That's our number two guy! Egads! Meanwhile, they won't even let Ober or Ryan throw 5 innings? Madness. So what happens if Bundy, Ober, and Ryan start to majorly tank at the same time? Heck, even if one or two of them hits a rough patch it's going to be trouble. Imagine Gray regressing or god forbid going down with an injury? Rocco's been known to quickly "forfeit" games in short order when the team gets behind by more than 3-4 runs. So if things go south, we might see position players pitch or just let a bullpen guy 'wear it' for the night, resulting in a good many 16-4 or 12-2 losses for this team. When they lose, they're going to lose big.
  9. bighat
    I think Smeltzer's not even really a consideration anymore. Had a shot, impressed a bit his first season but wasn't blowing anyone away in the metrics department. Didn't make the team out of ST last year, got recalled and then was put on the 60-day DL in May of 2021. Got outrighted off the 40-man over the winter and is now pretty much just trying to hang on to his professional career. Sounds rough but that's the way the cookie crumbles for 90% of professional baseball players. I'd be totally happy if the Twins gave any of the other 4 guys you mentioned a shot. The Twins may be forced to play their hand if they don't come up with anyone via trade of FA soon. I'm all for it, frankly. Let's see 'em.
  10. bighat
    If we can see it, Falvine can see it. They're obviously working on it, and clearly the asking price is too high (Royce Lewis & Luis Arraez for Frankie Montas, for example). Are you saying the Twins should literally give up the farm for a guy like Montas - a 29 year-old who has only played 1 true full season as a starter and only had 1 decent year?
  11. bighat
    Alas, as a powerful half-human daemon, Boras has the ability to hide the horns & tail. Most nights he transforms into a làbh-allan - a type of evil Scottish water-shrew - and feeds on the blood of cattle and other livestock. Quite a sneaky guy and extremely difficult to catch while in shrew form. As for the captions, it was probably just an oversight. Every once in a while on places like TD, you'll see signs that maybe not all of the writers spent 4 years in journalism school or worked as a reporter before starting here. Frankly, that's part of the fun - you can have real discussions with managing editors, authors, and other staff members (Reusse's not writing you back, is he?). Overall they do a VERY solid journalistic job, any mistakes are usually corrected quickly, but they are usually very minor. They also put up with us obnoxious commenters bickering about things like WAR, BABIP, OPS+ and players' shoe sizes, so we all cut 'em a break and don't sweat the small stuff.
  12. bighat
    Aside from last year, Montas had never started more than 16 games in a season. He went 13-9 last year with a 3.37 ERA. That's a nice arm to have in your #3 spot in the rotation if you're an elite team. But those aren't "ace" numbers. And he just turned 29. Do the Twins really gamble away Martin or Lewis on someone like that?
  13. bighat
    Agreed. It's like the "trade Polanco" crowd who crawls out of their caves every year. These aren't prospects, they're established, legit big league players in their prime. They could bat in the top 3rd of the order in any MLB lineup right now. I realize you have to give something up to get something back, but if you can give up a Larnach instead of a Polanco/Arraez, you do that every time.
  14. bighat
    Played 148 games last year and had 630ABs. From a Twins' fan perspective, that's not an "injury prone" player. We know what that phrase means, and Correa ain't it. He's going to play more games than Donaldson this year, I'm betting.
  15. bighat
    He has redeemed himself. Correa hit 279/.366/.485 with a career-high 26 homers in 640 plate appearances this past season.
  16. bighat
    Nice to wake up to this news! I'm shocked, thought Correa was as good as gone to the BoSox. Thrilled to see the Twins jump in and make this move, this season's outlook just got much brighter!
  17. bighat
    Fair enough. Rortvedt batted .169 last year, just in case you or anyone else here needed a refresher on his offensive capabilities. Sanchez might be more of a natural DH in my opinion.....so maybe without having to catch much he'll be able to focus on hitting only. Maybe he DH'es for the Twins 4-5 days a week and catches once every couple weeks. With Jeffers and Godoy sharing most of the duties behind the plate we might be just fine at the C position.
  18. bighat
    I know, it's bizarre. We lost our 3rd string catcher and people are acting like the Twins have forsaken their future at the position for years to come. Maybe it's just the culture of the internet now? There seem to be two options: you can be super excited or angry and bitter. If you don't love the trade, that means you HATE the trade. No middle ground. Also, many people think that if the Yankees wanted Rortvedt, he must have potential, and us poor Midwestern rubes just got swindled by some big city slickers. Relax everyone. Twins traded their 3rd string catcher, we signed a guy off waivers who has some experience to take care of things. The end, let's move on and talk about the pieces that matter.
  19. bighat
    Agree. The hand-wringing is out of control IMO. It's strange to me how people here look at Trevor Larnach's numbers and think "I hope this guy is our left fielder this year", but when they see Sanchez' numbers they think he should be demoted to AA and never see the pro field again. How about we just relax and see how everyone does? Larnach might improve with some extra batting practice, fielding practice, and some film study - why can't Sanchez do the same? He's only 28 years old, and he's been an All-Star TWICE already. And A-Rod once referred to him as a "hybrid of Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz". I think this feeling so many people have right now is simply due to the fact that we made a trade with the Yankees. We picture humble, hard-working, naive Minnesotans going into the big city, only to have their money stolen on a crooked game of 3-card monty. Relax everyone. Let the next couple weeks play out and see where the rest of the chips fall.
  20. bighat
    I was down in Fort Myers in late February. Alas, all I could do was drive by Lee County Stadium a few times and sigh in frustration. You'd think being in Florida it would be easy for me to go back down there, but it's a 5 hour drive from my location. You can fly direct from Minneapolis on Sun Country in less time. Yankees, Phillies, and Tigers are all about 2 hours from me. I've been out to Phoenix a couple times for Cubs Spring Training. Someone mentioned "baseball overload" and it's even more evident there. Most team sites are all within a 20-30 mile radius of each other. You can go to several stadiums easily during a week-long trip. Fun stuff.
  21. bighat
    I agree. I'm not sure how dropping $160 Million on a 5-year contract for a guy like Story - who is 29 years old and has played half his games in Coors Field for his entire career - helps the Twins. Even worse, maybe they give him a 7 or 8 year deal. Sure wish they'd have spent that money on pitching, but that ship has sailed.
  22. bighat
    About 20 teams in MLB would be happy to have Sanchez splitting time at the C position on their teams. Having a catcher with 30+ HR power who can DH on off days - along with a blossoming Jeffers - isn't exactly "blowing up" the position. That's my opinion, at least.
  23. bighat
    Good grief. If the Twins would've kept him, as soon as Donaldson pulled a calf muscle this year everyone would be sitting here complaining that the Twins didn't get rid of him when they could have.
  24. bighat
    Anyone consider that maybe the Twins simply don't think Donaldson has much left in the tank? Or they believe his injuries are only going to get worse? Or both? If someone told you that Donaldson would play 90 games this year, would you take the over or under? It wasn't just Donaldson's contract the Twins were unloading. Josh is an aging superstar who is both extremely vocal and injury prone. What I'm saying is, maybe unloading Donaldson didn't "downgrade" the Twins lineup as much as you think it did. At least consider it.
  25. bighat
    Worth clicking this link - it's cued right to the starting point you want to hear:
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