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bighat

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Everything posted by bighat

  1. bighat
    @big dogI also hope the Twins have completed their evaluation of Jax. He wasn't really a high-ranked prospect, and I think in the end we all saw what we expected: a below-average shuttle bus guy who isn't a full time major leaguer. A shame that in this lost season, the Twins couldn't manage to give any of their home-grown highly ranked pitching prospects a big league audition. Guys like Jax and Barnes sure got a lot of time in the bigs, though. Head-scratcher. But every terrible year has a silver lining, this year's might be Nick Gordon, Bailey Ober, and Joe Ryan. I believe we'll see all 3 of those guys on the team next year. I know there are a lot of Gordon haters in Twins Territory, but am really digging this comeback story. From failed prospect to a guy who could be on the 26 man roster next year. Go Nick. As bad as the Twins have been this year, I will sure miss them this winter. Looking forward to seeing how the off-season plays out.
  2. bighat
    YES! Ugh, I know. And it's pretty sad that we are crossing our fingers and hoping the Twins can figure out how to do something as basic as this. I mean, this is Baseball 101. It's like talking about a plumber and saying "he really needs to figure out how to connect PVC pipes". Yeah, that's part of the job and he should have learned that on the first day of trade school! This team was predicted by just about all experts to finish 1st this season in the Central. They haven't just underperformed, they've been the biggest disaster in MLB this year. We all know that, but sometimes I think we collectively forget just how terrible this team is.
  3. bighat
    Embarrassed again in New York.
  4. bighat
    A 90-loss season and a dead last place finish in the AL Central is all but secured. Agree with @mikelink45 in that I don't feel too much like celebrating performances like Ober's last night. He's been a bright spot to be sure, but last night he got knocked around a bit by KC and couldn't finish the 5th inning. Outings of 4.2 innings and giving up 5 hits and 3 ER aren't good enough to win most days. The six strikeouts were nice but that's really just a silver lining to what was simply a below-average performance by Ober. That's what it was, and it's OK to call it that.
  5. bighat
    Great to see a resounding win. Polanco, team MVP by a mile. One more year of Bux, let's enjoy it while we can. What a player. Big picture stuff. The Twins currently own the 3rd worst record in the AL, and need to go 10-9 in their last 19 games to avoid 90 losses. Who's on tap: Yanks (1) Indians (2) Cubbies (2) Tigers (3) Royals (4) Blue Jays (7) Not exactly an easy road for our boys. Seven games against the Jays in the last 3 weeks of the season is nuts, and Toronto is going to have their foot on the gas. They are looking at the upcoming games against the Twins as red meat and the Twins are going to need to dig in and play spoiler. Twins are a sluggish 22-24 since the Nelson Cruz trade. They aren't really playing that much better than they have all season. But that's why we play the games, folks! Enjoy the Vikes opener everyone.
  6. bighat
    It's pretty clear the Twins are going with a rotation of Dobnak, Ober, Ryan and two free-agent signees next year. Make of that what you will, but it's pretty much set in stone. We could pump the brakes on Ryan, but the brakes on this Twins team fell off a long time ago. We're almost at the end of the ride, enjoy it for the next 2 weeks.
  7. bighat
    This was delightful to read this morning. Thank you Nelson Cruz!
  8. bighat
    This is frankly the truth on this date. People are giving Jeffers way too much credit for what they think he should be. It's embarrassing that we have Twins fans who think he's doing just fine and gee golly whiz we're all set at catcher for the next 5 years. If you saw a starting catcher on, say, Pittsburgh batting 8th and hitting .192, you'd think "Yikes. The Pirates have problems and this catcher experiment of theirs is clearly a complete disaster". Cue someone waiting with some obscure cherry-picked stats to respond with something like: "between the waxing crescent and full moon period of July, Jeffers actually was 14th among all catchers in BABIP and 11th overall in LIPS and also ate 15 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches" and then call me a dinosaur or something. Whatever. If you want to take off your Twins-colored glasses for a minute, you'll see that Jeffers is a real problem. Larnach had a good month but frankly he stunk too. He was the worst starting player in baseball in July and there's not even an argument against it. Pretending these guys are automatically going to hit 25 and 30 HRs next year in Minnesota is not helping any realistic discussion of what we can expect from this team in 2022.
  9. bighat
    Wow, of all the Twins disappointing guys on this team you found a way to put Astudillo in the bottom 5 on the entire team this year? Ryan Jeffers is batting .194 and is basically the full-time catcher for this team. To me that means he's providing little value. He's literally batting under .200 dude. It's not a small sample size either. Advanced stats don't look good either. Tyler Duffey came in with a new 2.2 million contract and was supposed to slam the door in the 7th and 8th inning. But instead he stinks. That's providing little value, especially considering he's making 3x as much as Rogers. Meanwhile they're paying Astudillo with Chuck E. Cheese tokens and he's got the last spot on the bench when he's not playing in St. Paul. He's not lighting the world on fire but he's gotten a few key hits and can spell just about everyone at 1st, 3rd, and catcher. Not much value, but for their money the Twins aren't getting ripped off or anything with this guy.
  10. bighat
    If you think the write-ups on Ober are a bit too pollyanna, you'll fall off your chair when you read what people are writing about 26 year-old Griffin Jax and his 6.79 ERA and 1.5 WHIP..... Actually I think we should be cautiously optimistic about Ober - but I emphasize "cautiously". You know, in that Minnesota way where we might feel a glimmer of hope, but we keep it bottled up and very close to the chest, because hey, we don't want to get too excited don'cha know. Let's put it this way: Ober hasn't been a major disappointment unlike just about everyone not named Polanco this season. That's good enough for me right now.
  11. bighat
    @Matthew Lenz Great write-up as always. One tiny disagreement: what planet are we living on when giving up 4 earned runs in 4.2 innings is worthy of a "Jax bounces back" headline? I'd have gone with "Jax continues to struggle". Most of the comments here on Jax are spot on. I think we all respect the hell out of the guy and thank him for his service - but his overall body of work isn't inspiring. @jimbo92107 I admire the optimism but I disagree. In my eyes he's clearly a depth piece, ceiling would be a Smeltzer type. Nothing wrong with running him out there if there's nobody else ready to audition, though. Happy Labor Day all. Hope you are enjoying a peaceful day off.
  12. bighat
    Really good point. If Griffin Jax had put up Randy's numbers last night, the main argument on this forum would be whether he should be our #2 or #3 starter going into next season. If we can give Buxton a pass on his 2-27 effort since coming back, we can give Dobnak a mulligan on this outing as well. He's been a disappointment to be sure, but in my mind he is a big league pitcher and can be effective at this level. There's a microscopic chance this Twins team can compete in 2022, Randy returning to form is a big part of that.
  13. bighat
    I'm still not sure that Bailey Ober is the next Bailey Ober. I mean, I'm somewhat encouraged but this is all wayyyyy too soon. Maybe since I don't have anything nice to say, I'll just wait to comment on your next article, which will likely be titled thusly: "Viola. Blyleven. Santana. Ober: let's debate the top Twins pitchers of all time".
  14. bighat
    Corey Kluber, Charlie Morton, Alex Cobb, Andrew Heaney are not #2 or #3 starters, they are back-end guys at best. You maybe sign one of those guys to compete for the #5 spot, nothing more. Someone else mentioned Martin Perez as a possible target. Good lord, are we that desperate? Hmmm. After looking at the state of things, I guess we are. The Twins should absolutely sign one of the bigger names in free agency. The problem is that they'd honestly need to sign 3 big names in order to have a chance. Yeowch. And oh yeah, they've got to fix the bullpen too. The Twins didn't sign Josh Donaldson so he could rot on a last place team for 3 years. But that's what's going to happen. What a nightmare these injuries have done to this Twins team. The Twins are going to be picked to finish dead last in the division by just about everyone, and if I were a betting man I'd do the same. But, like the author of this piece, the fan in me hopes that Joe Ryan emerges as a true ace and becomes the MLB story of the year a la Stephen Strasburg in his rookie year, Bailey Ober becomes a vintage Adam Wainwright clone, Dobnak rises like the Phoenix and we strike gold on a few free agents. That's why we watch, after all.
  15. bighat
    Bats on this team are embarrassing. It's been like this the whole season - on the very rare occasions that the Twins do get good pitching, the hitters are so shocked they can't hit. I actually think it has to do with hitters feeling pressure in low-scoring games, and a manager that can't keep his team loose and/or confident enough to battle back.
  16. bighat
    Great news! Excited to see the kid pitch.
  17. bighat
    Totally get it, got no problem with the ads - gotta keep the lights on and then some, as you should considering the incredible content you all are posting here.
  18. bighat
    Yep, 'twas the ad blocker.
  19. bighat
    Ober enters the off-season as the Twins #1 pitcher. If nothing happened between now and opening day, he'd be the guy.
  20. bighat
    Anyone else have trouble with these pages? I can't seem to play the videos, it's not very intuitive here....
  21. bighat
    Agree. I think he pretty much has to start like this next year if the Twins are going to try and stay competitive out of the gate. Regardless, for now, as you said, it's nice to see.
  22. bighat
    I'd like to see Jax join Larnach in St. Paul and start seeing if we've got some minor league guys who can rise to the challenge at the major league level. It's well past time to start a revolving door of auditions. In other words: Next!
  23. bighat
    I'm sure we all wish that this great pitching performance came from a younger member of the guys auditioning for pitching spots next year, but ya gotta be happy for Andrew Albers. Quite the journey indeed and good for him. He's got to feel good about his abilities and hopefully he'll continue to play in the bigs for a couple years somewhere filling in as a spot-starter here and there. Crafty lefties who can eat innings can make a living at this level. I'm sure he's got some great stories to tell, he's a grinder. Made millions in Japan, so he's got nothing to lose. Gotta be on Cloud Nine right about now.
  24. bighat
    I think this is the most frustrating part of this Lost Season. Not only are the Twins losing, but they're not even getting any meaningful development. All the exciting prospects we should have seen full-time right now are injured (Duran, Lewis, Kirilloff) or the Twins just aren't ready to bring them up (J.Blaze, A. Martin, Joe Ryan). In what's become pretty much the worst case scenario, the franchise now enters 2022 coming off a last-place finish and zero additional knowledge about their top minor league pieces. Murphy's Law, man.
  25. bighat
    That you did. My last name is Johnson, too. Guess I am subconsciously trying to distance myself from the Twins pitching staff?
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