Punting DH

[Vance_Christianson]

I wouldn't object to Stauffer being DFA'd and we call up Danny Ortiz to play some RF. He's had a pretty good first 2 months so far at AAA. That would allow us to DH Torii more, and not Escobar or Nunez. That would also allow Arcia and Vargas another 2-3 weeks in AAA to keep working on plate patience, etc. Arcia is 0-11 so far in AAA during his rehab. Vargas can hit the ball, but he has no plate patience, hence why his BB rate is too low.

[Mike Sixel]

If I gather the comments correctly, here are the theories (ignoring all the comments about the FO people):

 

They want Vargas to mature in his approach.

Arcia is not healthy, and also needs a new approach.

Pinto, we don't know, probably defense (must. bite. tongue.).

They like Escobar (not sure what they like in the OF or at the plate)

 

What worries me, this is the same GM that went with Rich Becker and Jason Tyner at DH.....and it makes me nervous we are on that path. All of those things are reasonable to want......but, imo, if this team is going to continue to win, they should probably not recreate the mistakes of the past.

 

to those that actualy participated in the conversation, thanks.

[woolywoolhouse]

If the Twins go deep into the season still in contention, I'm forseeing a platoon at DH of Arcia and Pinto, with Hunter thrown in on occasion (which would then see Arcia back in right field.) Unless they bring up Sano, who would likely stick at DH with the above-average baseball Plouffe is still playing at third.

[Kirby_waved_at_me]

Yeah - the only justification I can think of regarding Pinto is that the Twins must not think he's good enough to be the regular DH, and they don't think he's good enough defensively to be the backup to Suzuki.

 

Personally I think he's a better defender than Suzuki, and a better hitter than any catcher the Twins have above AA (I like Garver and Stuart Turner, but they are good hitters for their current level, they'd be lost in the majors). But that's just, like, my opinion, man.

 

The Twins are committed to give Suzuki the playing time, so Pinto is the odd man out. With how little Herrmann is getting to play, it seems like having Pinto instead of Herrmann doesn't make much difference. I don't see anyone being particularly effective playing just one game a week.

 

If Pinto was up, I'd want him to be in the lineup.

[Kwak]

I think the issue here centers around Santana. The Twins like him and want to give him a chance to succeed, but they need a back up plan in case they need to send him down. Thus they are keeping Escober to take over shortstop and Nunez to take the utility role. Otherwise, why would you keep two utility infielders on a team where Plouffe, Mauer, and Dozier play everyday. They also need the fourth outfielder and back up catcher. They need 13 pitchers because they are carrying a rule 5 pitcher that Molly doesn't trust and will rarely use which puts a lot of innings on the rest of the bullpen. I'm OK with it because we need to see if Santana's for real and it seems to be working out. If Schafer coming off the DL and they keep both him and Robinson then I will be annoyed.

Nailed it! Santana is Molitor's preference at SS and Escobar is Ryan's SS. Escobar is "playing out of position" because: the Twins have a dearth of OF who are competent at defense and hitting, and to keep Escobar "sharp" when the rug is pulled-out from under Santana.

 

Regular DH? The Twins have typically abhorred that concept. It runs counter to the philosophy of "multi-talented players", player rotation (keep 'em ready! 'ya kno), and is generally very expensive (again the Twins are cheap--paying a ton of money for a guy who doesn't defense). Soon, (next season for sure) that philosophy will have to be cast aside. The Twins are overloaded with "hitting-only" prospects and they will have to change because they can't put all of them in the field every day.

[Willihammer]

I have a feeling Molitor wants speed out the DH spot and that the break-even point where he's willing to trade speed for power is very high. I'm basing this on the few balls Vargas smashed to the wall where he was either tagged out at second or forced to stand at 1B. For anyone else they would have been doubles. With Vargas' speed he is going to be 2, maybe 3 base hits away from scoring from 1B. Thus they charged him with putting more balls in the seats. So the strange part to me, in addition to the timing, is that before all of this, we heard a bunch of chatter about how Vargas needed to stop treating BP like a HR derby.

[Gene Larkin]

For me, the biggest negative with Vargas is he is super slow. With many hits, he is held to a single when almost anybody else would have a double. I even member a game when he was on first and was forced out at second after a clean hit to the outfield. His ability to score from second on a hit to the outfield also is a rarity. Unless he is hitting it over the fence regularly, he tends to clog the bases.

[Kirby_waved_at_me]

To me, the note about treating BP like HR derby was more an issue of not taking the assignment of Batting Practice seriously. As in, making daily pre-game BP a home run derby was defeating the purpose of taking BP in the first place.

 

I've listened to several former Twins players (specifically Tim Laudner, Dan Gladden) and Molitor discuss on various radio shows the purpose of taking batting practice this year. They all talked about it as if it was a chore, like mowing the lawn or something.  

 

The point (to those guys) is not to have fun, but to use that time to get focused on the act of making solid contact and maintaining / refining your stance in the box, your stride, your swing, etc.  

 

It could be one of those new school / old school things, or it could be a cultural barrier... I don't know exactly.

 

Gene Glynn talked on this weekend's show about how he's glad he's not a hitting coach. To hear Glynn tell it, Rudy Hernandez and Tony O are working with guys in the batting cages for hours before each home game. Maybe Vargas and Arcia (the other hitter that has a penchant for taking BP home Run Derby) feel like they've put the work in already in the cages and are looking to get loose / stay loose before the game starts. Glynn pointed out that when he played, no one had batting cages in the stadium (at least, not the way they do now).    

 

I don't think Molitor or Ryan are ignoring the work these guys are doing to improve as hitters, it would be petty of them to send Vargas to AAA just because he was taking big cuts in BP. I think they know that he has potential to be a very dangerous bat, and they want him to learn some more skills in AAA while they focus on winning ballgames at the major league level.

[Otto von Ballpark]

Looking at our lineup and roster decisions around that time, it's fairly clear what happened when they started benching Vargas the week of May 10 -- Hicks came up and had to play everyday, and they were already committed to playing Escobar, Santana, and Rosario basically everyday too (not to mention Hunter and Mauer, plus occasional starts for Robinson).

 

Vargas got the short end of the stick so we could continue starting Escobar everyday in LF (want to talk bad defense?) or DH, instead of just letting Escobar replace the struggling Santana at SS (want to talk terrible K/BB ratios?).

 

It's far from clear whether the team's statements about Vargas working on things at AAA were honestly the cause of his demotion, or just an effect of it.

[Willihammer]

The point (to those guys) is not to have fun, but to use that time to get focused on the act of making solid contact and maintaining / refining your stance in the box, your stride, your swing, etc.  

 

It could be one of those new school / old school things, or it could be a cultural barrier... I don't know exactly.

 

Gene Glynn talked on this weekend's show about how he's glad he's not a hitting coach. To hear Glynn tell it, Rudy Hernandez and Tony O are working with guys in the batting cages for hours before each home game. Maybe Vargas and Arcia (the other hitter that has a penchant for taking BP home Run Derby) feel like they've put the work in already in the cages and are looking to get loose / stay loose before the game starts. Glynn pointed out that when he played, no one had batting cages in the stadium (at least, not the way they do now).

I get that the point of BP isn't to hit home runs per se. For all I know Vargas was being coached to do one thing mechanically then doing something totally different, reverting to bad habits, etc. once BP started. Only that wasn't how it was ever phrased. It was always that he crushes the long ball in BP which would seem to be a successful result if that's how you're coaching the guy to hit all along.

I admit we're short on insider info and I was encouraged by Kennys' tone when he spoke to Phil Miller about the demotion. He seemed to have some clarity about what he needed to do.

[Seth Stohs]

 

With all the foot-dragging going on with Vargas and Pinto, it makes me wonder if this all about Arcia moving to the DH role so Molitor can keep Rosario in left. If that's the case, I'm pretty okay with it, provided Oswaldo returns to Minnesota relatively soon.

 

My personal opinion is that Arcia isn't coming back any time soon. And, right now, I'm OK with that.

 

I don't mind having a rotation DH spot to give guys days off, or partial days off. I like Vargas. He'd be up if I was in charge, but I agree with the sentiment that he needs to provide power to have value and he wasn't. He's doing well right now in AAA, in terms of power, so that's encouraging.

[Otto von Ballpark]

 

In his last 10 games, he had 9 ks in 35 pa, right in line with his k rate all season. 1 bb.

 

Again, he scattered some singles and popped a couple hrs in the lowest leverage situations possible. This isn't a "hot streak" this is at best the bare minimum that should be expected from Vargas to stay considering he offers no other value to the team. I'm glad the Twins weren't fooled by this.

I don't like cherry-picking endpoints, but Vargas had a stretch of 31 PAs with only 4 Ks during his good run.  At which point, Molitor benched him for 4 of the next 7 games, while Escobar and Santana started over him at DH (and Escobar started another in LF with Bernier at 3B, Hunter at DH, and Vargas/Robinson on the bench).  The K rate wasn't driving the team's handling of Vargas.

 

And if you think Vargas's recent performance wasn't enough from a full-time DH, I could be persuaded -- it is nice to do better than a Kubel-style ~110 OPS+ at the position.  But that's an argument to invest more in a better full-time DH, something the Twins have rarely done.  It's not an argument that rotating utility infielders through the spot is necessarily better (especially when there is a glaring weakness among your starting infielders).

[Kwak]

If a guy will treat BP as "home run derby" what is to prevent him from taking the same mindset into the game? Players don't live in a vacuum. They have been bombarded with the stories about HR hitting and big contracts. See the examples of the Twins with Plouffe (and to an extent Dozier), Plouffe was extended many opportunities (after failures) despite indifferent fielding and periods of long slumps--because he had that one huge HR streak (I'm going to ignore the putrid stretches just preceding his HR streak). Of course his success is in front of them all. I didn't even get to David Ortiz of whom the "guys-from-the-islands" view as an oracle.

[Kirby_waved_at_me]

So, various national rumor mills have floated the idea that the Twins might be interested in Ryan Howard. Is there any fire to that smoke?

 

Is it the worst idea, or just a terrible one?

[Mike Sixel]

Worst. Just promote Sano. Of all the veterans to trade for......ugh.

[Brock Beauchamp]

I can't see a scenario where Ryan is foolish enough to take on Howard with all the bats he has in the minors.

[Kirby_waved_at_me]

My guess is that the rumor is coming from the national media's collective imagination, though it's rare that the Twins' name comes up in rumors unless they've actually put feelers out, they are notoriously tight lipped on things.

 

Ryan Howard in a Twins uniform would be interesting, but chances are it would not be worth trading away any useable assets to find out just how interesting.

 

 

[Otto von Ballpark]

To be fair, I don't think anyone has reported any kind of Twins interest in Howard at all.  All I have seen is speculation that he's available and we have an open DH spot.

 

Theoretically, if they are near the end of their rope with Arcia and if Howard came as cheaply as Morales last year (read: marginal prospect, most of the contract covered by Philly), it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility to see some interest from the Twins.

 

But I wouldn't endorse it.  Even as he has struggled, overall Arcia has performed just as well as (or better than) Howard recently.  And Howard would muddy up the 2016 picture too.

[spinowner]

 

For me, the biggest negative with Vargas is he is super slow. With many hits, he is held to a single when almost anybody else would have a double. I even member a game when he was on first and was forced out at second after a clean hit to the outfield. His ability to score from second on a hit to the outfield also is a rarity. Unless he is hitting it over the fence regularly, he tends to clog the bases.

Maybe we can get special dispensation for him to use a Segway on the bases.

[drjim]

 

Please no more wasted at bats on Eduardo Nunez as the daily DH receipient. Bench guy fill in and occasional pinch hitter that is what Nunez is good for.

Twins would be better off saving the spot for the rotation of Mauer, Hunter, Suzuki, Plouffe, Dozier when they need a day off in the field.

Stauffer is only here because GM Ryan's ego is too big that he simply will not eat the salary and he is the only one that believes in that guy. Sooner or later Molitor and Ryan are going to have to have a come to jesus meeting about Stauffer being on the 5 man roster. There are not to many teams that would keep Stauffer around. He nearly blew a winnable game yesterday and continues to show since Spring training that he simply doesn't belong in the big leagues let alone the Twins roster.

 

In my mind it is comments like this that get people to overreact to perceived "negative" posts.

 

Honest critiques about real weaknesses is an interesting conversation, but saying Terry Ryan's ego is too as the reason for a move does nothing for nobody and gives honest critique a bad name.

[DaveTMpls]

I think Nunez and Escobar are place-holders at DH.  Twins FO is waiting for Arcia or Vargas to get their remaining offensive issues resolved, before bringing them back.  Twins are scoring plenty of runs, so there's no real pressure to make a change.

[Otto von Ballpark]

 

In my mind it is comments like this that get people to overreact to perceived "negative" posts.

 

Honest critiques about real weaknesses is an interesting conversation, but saying Terry Ryan's ego is too as the reason for a move does nothing for nobody and gives honest critique a bad name.

I honestly don't even read posts like the one you quoted, that take such a tone.  They're pretty easy to identify quickly by a variety of factors, and it seems our community does a pretty good job of controlling them.  They're not representative of this board at all, to me, anyway.

[drjim]

 

I honestly don't even read posts like the one you quoted, that take such a tone.  They're pretty easy to identify quickly by a variety of factors, and it seems our community does a pretty good job of controlling them.  They're not representative of this board at all, to me, anyway.

 

I agree with you that it doesn't represent the strong majority of posts, but when a reader considers the full volume of things read on the board it is posts like this that will stick in your mind. Plus, it provides convenient strawmen that can be responded to aggressively, even though it badly distorts valid points others might make and the extreme starts to represent the norm (at least in the minds of someone with a contrary view). So posts like this live on and poison the discourse.

[Mike Sixel]

 

I think Nunez and Escobar are place-holders at DH.  Twins FO is waiting for Arcia or Vargas to get their remaining offensive issues resolved, before bringing them back.  Twins are scoring plenty of runs, so there's no real pressure to make a change.

 

By the time they stop scoring runs.....how many games went the wrong way? There is no magic way to say when the luck will run out, why continue to rely on the luck, and not play the odds?*

 

*note, I am not saying there aren't good reasons to keep them down, it is the last sentence I am responding to.

[DaveTMpls]

I agree with you about one thing: this is a temporary situation.  Twins won't go much longer with Nunez/Escobar.