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tobi0040

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Everything posted by tobi0040

  1. tobi0040
    If we only had a left handed veteran with great plate discipline, around another three years or so to discuss hitting..... Or a coach who struck out 10.2% of the time during a 21 year, HOF career.
  2. tobi0040
    I was thinking last year was the 80 game suspension year. The frustrating thing for me is if he can hit .270'ish while swinging this wildly, he could be a very good, borderline elite player if he reined in his srike zone discipline. He would walk more and get better pitches to drive.
  3. tobi0040
    Crawford struck out a lot less and swung at balls outside the zone less after his first season. In his first 4.5 years he had 14.7%, 15.4%, 12.1%, and 12.2% k rates. His o swing was 42%, 36%, 33%, and 33%. Eddie’s k rates have been 24.9% and 23.8%, o swing’s 47.1% and 46.1%. Eddie had some luck the first year and benefitted from a smaller sample in his first year. If he doesn’t drastically cut down on the o-swing like Crawford did he simply will be getting himself out and not see any pitches to hit. The book is out on him. Why throw a strike when he will swing at every other pitch out of the zone?
  4. tobi0040
    I just re-read the article and had a chuckle about the early comp to Bobby Abreu. His career .395 OPB, 18% k rate and 14% BB rate could not be more of a polar opposite to Eddie Rosario
  5. tobi0040
    I am not following the “why”. Do you think that the ball to the face has impacted his vision long term? His biggest issue is a strike zone discipline issue, which I suppose could be brought on via a vision induced recognition issue. But I suspect it is more of the recognition issue and another failure of the Twins to work through that with a player in the minors and gearing him up for MLB success. For example, in 2014 he started in high A, went to AA, and then the fall league. He compiled a .674 OPS with a .286 OBP across 350 AB’s. Based on those numbers he started 2015 in AAA and was with the Twins in early May.
  6. tobi0040
    Very good summation. May I add, veteran players have a strong bias in the pecking order of said players tripping.
  7. tobi0040
    We need completely new leaders. This was a huge man-made issue
  8. tobi0040
    I sincerely hope that our new GM revamps our entire development program. Guys on A ball need to be taught where their gaps are and they need to work on them. I would not be surprised if many other teams scout their own top prospects and provide research on how the player will likely be attacked in the future, then work on that. Along with that, I hope We get another hitting coach. This one is not working for Buxton and he is that important to the franchise.
  9. tobi0040
    I am not suggesting that this has much to do with his struggles. But four years into our system, I am surprised Buxton is still this skinny. I would have figured he would have added 20 pounds of muscle by now. It doesn't look like he has to me
  10. tobi0040
    One can make a case that Buxton does have a place. He is 22, a top prospect, adds value defensively, and given that he has done well in AAA he has nothing to prove there. Some believe his biggest issue is identifying major league breaking balls, so he needs to be up here to develop. Santana is pretty much the opposite in every sense. He is 25. Never highly regarded. Getting worse. Doesn’t add value defensively. No upside whatsoever.
  11. tobi0040
    One can make a case that Buxton does have a place. He is 22, a top prospect, adds value defensively, and given that he has done well in AAA he has nothing to prove there. Some believe his biggest issue is identifying major league breaking balls, so he needs to be up here to develop. Santana is pretty much the opposite in every sense. He is 25. Never highly regarded. Getting worse. Doesn’t add value defensively. No upside whatsoever.
  12. tobi0040
    Santana has 925 PA's and Buxton has 356. After his BABIP driven 4 WAR season in 2014, Santana has -2.6 WAR in his last 500 AB. He has no place on an MLB roster.
  13. tobi0040
    They are going to likely make some tweak. Three or four weeks later he will be hitting AAA pitching like he always has and they will call him back up. First it was the toe tap for timing. Smalley keeps saying they were working on keeping his head still. Some think we need to shorten his swing. He tries pulling breaking balls down and away, so he still has a recognition issue. And he seems to foul off strike one and two and start 0-2 constantly. I would like to see a new hitting coach work with him. Call me completely crazy here, but wouldn’t Molitor in theory be someone that would be beneficial to work through these issues with? He had an extremely low k rate throughout his career. He didn’t have much power (averaged about 10 HR a year) and he relied on his speed for 2B, 3B, and stole a ton of bases. Isn’t a successful Buxton going to look an awful lot like Molitor, although the k rate will never approach Paul’s based on what I have seen of Buxton.
  14. tobi0040
    If I had to boil down the struggles the last six years it would be: We struggle developing talent And we use a lot of high picks on raw, athletic, high school players. It is a really bad combination.
  15. tobi0040
    Regarding the demotion, it is a tough pill to swallow. Our games are meaningless and Plouffe should have been traded 8 months ago. If Buxton has nothing left to prove at AAA and our best hitting coach is up here....
  16. tobi0040
    I think it is another example of the Twins promoting good MILB results versus gearing up a player for MLB success. Duffy was sent down to develop a third pitch. We went from toe tap, now a shorter swing. And one of the fastest guys in the league didn't learn how to bunt in our 3 plus years. The Twins are failing their prospects. Just look to Keith Law when he says he would really like Buxton to get a shot in a new org or with a new regime here.
  17. tobi0040
    Regarding if they spend the money or not, it comes down to the GM. If we do the right thing and hire a competitive, young, bright GM and give that person some control I would expect they get at least the same payroll as this year. That means this person may have $20m to spend, maybe more depending on who is brought back and what the decision is regarding Dozier/Ervin.
  18. tobi0040
    Just a personal opinion here. But a new GM comes in and assesses the roster. The conclusion is the biggest issue is starting pitching. While in a vacuum, $8m for him is a decent bargain. But when you have nearly $15-20m off the books in Plouffe, Jepsen, Fien, etc. I think Santiago's $8m will look like a nice way to improve the rotation. Especially when you consider most of the lineup will be consumed by rookie deals.
  19. tobi0040
    It is tough to know the value they placed on Meyer and what we simply could have sold him to the Angels for. This is a deep pocketed team. Clearly an owner that is competitive and wants to win.
  20. tobi0040
    I gotcha now. The value being defined as the other team thinks a chance exists that a change of scenery, new coach, whatever will draw potentially better results. Because the mid 5 ERA is something most teams should be able to exceed via the same methods the twins have, prospects, AAA fillers, waiver wire, etc.
  21. tobi0040
    I think Ricky was held to the deadline in hopes we could haved moved him. I think he was a DFA candidate after. Sure, we could have put him on the DL or in AAA, or the pen. But as you note, the valuable piece of the trade would have likely not cleared waivers and those actions for Nolasco would have lowered his already low value.
  22. tobi0040
    I don't neccesarily agree with this. In theory i think he proves that you could accumulate WAR at the SP position no matter how bad you are. But he was worse than all other qualified starters. To me it comes down to the alternative. Could we have pieced together Nolasco's innings and thrown someone out there who would have given up fewer runs, i.e. a lower than 5.50 ERA? Between guys like Dean, Wheeler, Berrios, some minor league free agent, Trevor May, etc. I have a hard time believing we would have been worse off. And that doesn't even factor in the value associated with setting your team up in the future. Even if Berrios or May would have matched his 5.50 ERA, you could argue them getting some innings has some value to the team.
  23. tobi0040
    I am not sure an inning advantage for Nolasco is a good thing!
  24. tobi0040
    If his mechanics improve or he is more comfortable out of the stretch, then maybe we should just have him pitch out of the stretch all of the time.
  25. tobi0040
    I think Santiago is better than Nolasco, but one could argue that we were at a point with Ricky where we were going to DFA him and move on. Assuming we keep Santiago next year (I actually lean towards a new GM non-tendering him), but if we do keep him one could argue that this is not a good move because while we are better with him over Nolasco, that is really a false comparison since we weren't going to keep Nolasco in 2017. So the real question in that scenario is are we better off with Santiago vs. something else? And would you rather take Santiago at $8-9m next year or think bigger and take some savings associated with Plouffe, Milone, Jepsen, Fien and this money to sign or trade for an actual good pitcher? I have used this stat a few too many times. But Ricky had the worst ERA since 2014. So anything compared to him is better than him. How much better and a difference maker is the question. I think most would agree while an improvement, Santiago is not likely going to be be a top four arm on a team with a good rotation.
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