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bighat

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Everything posted by bighat

  1. 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!
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. 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.
  7. 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.
  8. 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.
  9. 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.
  10. bighat
    Worth clicking this link - it's cued right to the starting point you want to hear:
  11. bighat
    Dude that's my exact thoughts! I was really pumped about getting 2 years of IKF and thought he'd be a fantastic addition to this team. Sonny Gray made me even more enthusiastic. And now....this? WTF is going on. Initial thought is that I don't like what we're getting in returns here. Gary Sanchez is kind of a punchline at catcher. Gio Urshela is 30 years old, and coming off a 14-HR season as an every day 3rd baseman. We start to build for the present, then - boom - big salary dump.
  12. bighat
    MLB Network thinks so.
  13. bighat
    Guys, the Twins didn't trade the 2019 version of Mitch Garver for the 2021 version of IKF - this was a trade for the 2022 version of both players. The Twins clearly think that the 32 year-old catcher's best years are behind him. His trade value is at its peak right now. They also think IKF's best years are AHEAD of him, and that his numbers will improve as he hits his athletic prime. Plus they got a AA arm that they think has potential to contribute next year. How can you hate that idea before we even see what happens? They were never going to get a #3 starter for Garver. Obviously they tried, and nobody bit. They got the best they could and it was for an on-the-rise guy that fills a hole at a key defensive position. In short: Jeffers takes a step forward, IKF takes a step forward, Henriquez takes a step forward, while Garver takes a step backwards. That's the idea. Is that all so unlikely? Would you still hate the trade if that all happens?
  14. bighat
    I think it's too early to say that. In fact, this trade indicates that the Twins are going to spend their remaining $$$ on pitching. Johnny Cueto and Michael Pineda are going to be signed.
  15. bighat
    "Best bats"? Whaaa? All of a sudden everyone is moaning like Garver is Johnny Bench. Why? He had a great year during a juiced ball season. He's a slightly above-average hitting catcher with slightly below-average defense. The end.
  16. bighat
    Yes but the Twins aren't the Yankees, Dodgers, or Red Sox and they never will be. Signing Trevor Story or Carlos Correa just isn't something we Twins fans can expect to happen. Especially when the best starter on the team is a rookie who's tossed a grand total of 20 MLB innings. This is what we get. Now this trade isn't exactly a blockbuster but it's certainly not "disappointing". Garver had a great year during the Juiced Ball experiment of 2019, otherwise he's a very average player. And he's getting old without much in the tank. The Twins flipped a one-year wonder for a 27 year-old Gold Glove infielder who can bat in the middle 3rd of the order and play 162 games. The downside of course is that you have to believe Jeffers is going to hit .250 this year, but it's spring and this is baseball, so we can hope. Free agency's not done yet, and the trading has just begun. IMO we should be happy that the Twins are active and fixing holes.
  17. bighat
    Cool. I just moved back to the USA last year after living for 7 years in Guatemala, so I recognized it right away!
  18. bighat
    Your profile picture looks like Lake Atitlan in Guatemala?
  19. bighat
  20. bighat
    I'm going to chime in and agree with you here. Mitch Garver is 31 years old - if the Twins were going to get anything for him, it would probably have to be now. They may believe his best years are behind him. Don't forget that Garver had some absolutely miserable slumps for this team, including a horrific 2020 that saw him start the year 1-for-40 or something ridiculous like that. His value at this time last year was much lower than it is now. In short, I don't think Garver is as good as most people here think he is. Kiner-Falefa is 27, can play SS and 3B and is a monster upgrade over Simmons. The Twins must think that Jeffers/Rortvedt is the answer at C, which is a big gamble but you have to gamble sometimes when you're a GM. Mark me down for liking this trade.
  21. bighat
    That's because many of them are complete buffoons. I think a common mistake we make is to assume that these "billionaire business owners" are intelligent, self-made men who got where they are today thanks to an incredible work ethic, negotiation skills, and god-given wits. Bull roar. Jim Pohlad's dad was a self-made billionaire, but Jim himself probably couldn't figure out how to work the check-out counter at Pump-N-Munch. Same goes for many (not all) of the other owners. 75% of them are rich kids of the ultra-elite, sitting on a mountain of family wealth. These guys aren't smart and haven't worked a day in their lives, unless you count the little fake jobs their dads set up for them once they turned 25. Seriously, just pick an owner and google them, here are a couple at random: Ricketts family, CHC. - Their dad founded TD Ameritrade, but they've never done a damn thing. They moved to Chicago for college (thanks to "donations" from their dad to the University of Chicago), and liked drinking and partying in Wrigleyville so much that their dad eventually bought the team for them. That's pretty much it. Robert Nutting, PIT - Dad owned a huge newspaper publishing business, sent him to a fancy east coast college and handed him the reigns to the empire as soon as he finished undergrad. Bored an approaching a mid-life crisis, he bought the Pirates. John Malone, ALT - Born rich, inherited tons more wealth when daddy died and then their lawyers started gobbling up land on his behalf. Currently listed as the single largest landowner in the United States, but the guy hasn't ever set foot on 99% of it. Yes, there are exceptions, but the majority of these MLB owners wouldn't know how to negotiate their monthly bill with DirecTV, let alone make a deal with the Player's Union. They sit back and let their lawyers negotiate for them, people who have no interest in the game and are only looking to expand their own lifestyles so they can buy that 5th condo in Breckenridge. Time to stop calling these owners "businessmen", when all they've really done in life is sat on a fat pile of money their families left them.
  22. bighat
    Great list! Thanks for the write-up, I agree with most of your assessments. One tiny misgiving: How in the heck does Larnach get a B minus? Were you watching the same games I did? Did you take a glance at the stats? It's so weird that I keep having to appear like some kind of Larnach-hater on this site when all I'm doing is pointing out that the kid was, frankly, a major disappointment. I get that we all want him to be good, and I get that we all still think he might be good in the future. Unfortunately that didn't change THIS: https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/l/larnatr01.shtml
  23. bighat
    Was reading the MLBTradeRumors article, here's what unbiased baseball writers say about Charlie Barnes. "Barnes, 26, is a soft-tossing lefty and former fourth-rounder who made his big league debut out of necessity to help soak up some innings in an injury-ruined season for the Twins’ rotation. He was clobbered for a 5.92 ERA while striking out just 20 of the 175 batters he faced." I realize most here agree he's not much more than organizational depth, but I guess it's worth emphasizing just how awful so many of the Twins' "prospects" are. With Berrios long gone and Buxton soon to be shown the door, I'm not sure how this team doesn't become the Baltimore Orioles for the next 10 years.
  24. bighat
    Right, I mean at this point all we can do is just hope that Jeffers gets better. But we'd need him to get lots better to be the next Mitch Garver. If he gets a little better, he'll still be bad. So that's the issue I have right now with Ryan. As for Sano, I'm not really in the mood to get into a Sano debate - my post was about Jeffers so I'd like to stick to him if you don't mind.
  25. bighat
    Not sure why so many are bullish on Jeffers. Among catchers with 250 plate appearances in 2021, Jeffers ranked 38th in BA (.199) and 28th in OPS (.670). He did come in first in one category: #1 in K% - that's right, his 36.9% strikeout rate was the worst in baseball at the catcher position. With so many stats out there, we often like to jump to our desired conclusion first (ie: Jeffers is a solid starting catcher) and then work our way backwards, cherry picking stats to backup our positions. As you can guess, that's not really the correct way to assess a player. Even if we give Jeffers the benefit of the doubt that catcher is a weak-hitting position, he still ranks at the bottom of almost every category among fellow backstops. I anticipate the whole "but he's young" (25 next season) argument or "His BABIP is .269" but neither of those change his BA, OPS, or K%. I know cheering for our boys is just part of being a fan, and I'll look forward to Jeffers proving me wrong. But let's all do our best to stop lying to ourselves about players like Larnach and Jeffers. Yes, they deserve a chance, but we need to see them for who they are right now: below-average 25 year-olds who - unless we see drastic improvement - will not make an impact in 2022.
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