jay

An observation is nothing more than a possible conclusion your mind has reached based on the quantitative things you've experienced and suffers from a lot of perception errors (sample size, confirmation bias, etc). When you make an "observation" after you've seen something 10 times out of 20... you could word that a little differently to call it a stat, just a very inaccurate one. Now, being too lazy to back up your claims is a whole different issue.

Please refer to this thread for information on one of the best stories in the Twins farm system and my fellow Italiano, Chris Colabello. Position: 1B (primary), LF/RF (secondary) Bat: R Throw: R Height: 6-4 Weight: 220 Signed: Minor League Free Agent - February 2, 2012 Previous: Independent League (Worcester, Canadian-American League) College: Assumption College High School: Milford HS (Milford, MA) Born: October 24, 1983 - Framingham, MA (30 min W of Boston) Baseball-Reference Player Page - here. MiLB Player Page - here.

No. Outside of Hicks in MLB, it's seriously been insane. Combined 2013 MiLB hitting stats for Twins prospects that made Top 100 Lists (Buxton, Sano, Rosario, Arcia): 45 G, 166 AB, 39 R, 69 H, 10 HR, 35 RBI, 114 TB, 17BB, 7 SB, .474 OBP, .687 SLG, .416 AVG, 1.102 OPS. And that's not to mention similarly great starts by Hicks, Polanco, Ortiz, Pinto, and Colabello.

Guys, GUYS... The Twins don't pitch-to-contact anymore, remember? So says Rick Anderson.

Chris Colabello, grazie.

This is very true. We've bought into the narrative that Gardy sells on a number of occassions. Slowey is a bad guy... Garza, Lohse, even Perkins. I remember an awful lot of people wanting Perk shipped out of town, mostly due to Gardy's doghouse. Glen seems to be just about the only guy that has ever made it out. More and more, I can't buy into the stuff that Gardy spews. Look at the recent crap about Hicks not running out that fly... give me a break. My personal take: don't let Gardy's rants cloud your view of a player's personality.

A sweet interview with Glen (one 'n') on Y!'s Big League Stew: Y! SPORTS It made me gush man-love on multiple occassions. He professes his love of numbers (gush), not running (gush), talks smack to his wife (gush), and plenty more.

For a guy I normally side with, I was surprised to read this. A - sample size. B - measureable impact / correlation vs causation. I haven't ever seen anything overcome those two related to giving a prospect a little taste of the majors. I'd have to believe the odds are highly in favor of a young player struggling with a first taste of MLB.

But then it wouldn't fit my narrative... so, surely that can't be true.

Can't say I ever understood the Slowey hate either. He's no All-Star, but it could quite well just be that the narrative fits what we want to believe. I ran into him a few times and he never came off as a dick, including a time on the road when he was out with Morneau, Nathan, and Punto. He was the drunkest of the bunch (why not when you're the only guy in between starts?), but he fit right in with the other guys.

So he wasn't wrong in his actions, but it's his fault he got injured because he took the wrong physical approach? I don't blame him for defending his mound one bit and I'm not sure we can expect him to be trained on the proper approach to a charging bull.

Heard about this for the first time today... something to hopefully lighten the mood a bit. Twins pitching prospect Trevor May moonlights as a DJ with the name 'DJ Hey Beef'. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEUeRUFpd7U Maybe he can spin walk-up tracks and rally music in between his starts at Target Field in the near future?

To jump in here... I had been hoping the Twins would have signed Andres Torres. He's no huge upgrade over Mastroianni, but he would have given us better depth in the OF (including CF) in any event at a pretty reasonable price (signed for $2M). Torres signed a week after the Revere trade.

It'll be interesting to see what kind of a suspension Quentin ends up with. Does the injury become an aggravating factor in determining the length? Mostly, I think I'm upset about it because Greinke is on my fantasy squad...

Brandon Boggs play any CF?

Two more errors last night. If he moves, where's he going? 1B or RF? Baseball America scouts his arm as a 75 on the 40-80 scale, so I'd hope RF. Granted his speed is graded at 40, so then you question if he'd be quick enough to get around out there...

Consider me stunned! The light has already begun to shine down upon you. Now, come forth, and be saved!

Gardy blasting Hicks (front page of startribune.com) for a lack of hustle on the flyball that Cain dropped. I'm not so sure he would have been any farther along than 2nd even if he had been in a full sprint the whole way. It almost looks like Gardy is laying some groundwork to make a change of some type...

Those seem to end poorly quite often... hope it doesn't lead to TJ.

Good question. I think you'd put him back out there if the pitch count was reasonable for a chance to finish the game. The key is that you'd have your closer warming and ready in case the plan goes awry. It illustrates the point many are making that Burton should have been ready to go.

Oh yes, just piling on..

This is the weakest point of the argument. A 32 year old with over 1000 MLB innings isn't exactly in the 'learn from it' stage. He's a pretty known quantity. We can find some old baseball "wisdom" to support almost anything. The conflicting "wisdom" here would be that you don't let your starter take the loss after a strong day. Gardy should have had someone warming up.

RE: PitchF/X -- "It’s tough to go off of what other guys do because it everybody is different." While this is certainly true, you'd think the Twins could aggregate data for similar pitchers and it would be useful. He's not the only righthander in the league with a 90mph fastball that works off his command. The sample size would be a lot better than just looking at what he has personally done.

Great stuff, Nick. No reason not to give the kids plenty of time this year to prove or disprove their ability to be MLB players. Struggling or not, I'd rather see the ABs go to a Hicks, a Parmalee, a Dozier than some washed-up scrub vet.

Have to agree with this one. It's a great concept and certainly a valuable aspect of catching. I just don't think we're currently capable of measuring it well. Jose Molina is worth a half run per game more than Doumit solely due to framing? Doesn't pass the smell test. However, it's universally acknowledged that Doumit is not strong in this area and it absolutely makes sense to keep him away from young pitchers looking for confidence.