Doomtints

Grossman's bat has been dead since May. He regressed as expected.

"He does not profile to be a great hitter." "Here are his wRC+ totals for three separate levels which only great hitters would have."

.325 is a bad OBP. So again, when has DH ever been a high OBP position? If you are determined to stick with OBP as a measure for good DHs, consider wOBA instead, which is Fangraph's weighted on base average. Vargas was at .352 last year, which is well above average. But forget about that. DH is about SLG, ISO, wRC, wRC+, pick your poison. Vargas's ISO of .270 last year is literally off the chart. His SLG was .500. wRC+ was at 120....

Since when has the DH role been a high OBP position?

I have not heard any criticism of Vargas from the Twins, though there are probably short quotes here and there that I'm unaware of. Fans of course have a lot to say but you can't go by that at all. At some point the Twins have to decide what to do with him and not just call him up when other people fail or get injured. The Twins act like he can't field. However, they also have never tried to field him off of 1B, which seems a bit braindead, esp. after bending over backwards to fit Sano into the lineup in the past. At least try Vargas in the OF once while he is in the minors! alarp - Vargas paces at 25 HR/yr if he would ever play a full season. That's not 34, but most teams would take it. A better question for this thread might be -- is Vargas a better option at 1B than who the Twins play at 1B currently? Yes he is. Vargas as not played a full season at AAA in a year, by the way, so his "he couldn't even hit dingers at AAA" argument is not a great one. Vargas is probably going to have a nice but not HOF career, but we have to admit that this won't happen with the Twins barring an unexpected Mauer retirement.

I would like the Twins to explain why Melville was called up in the first place. He performed as well as anyone could have expected. They then cut him for performing as expected right after the game? Why not use a prospect they actually think highly enough of to give a chance? Use a pitcher who they *really* want to evaluate? Seems like Molitor (or maybe the Twins in general) overthought/panicked over the whole "5 game series" thing. The team did not need 2 extra starters to make it through the series. Sure this was a "day off" on the original schedule, but so what? These games were scheduled months ago. The team conceded a loss by having a "bullpen game" to start a series when right now they only have 1 game to burn in the WC race.

Who doesn't like Dozier? The question is are there big needs on this team that a Dozier trade could help fill? Yes. Will the Twins tank without him? No.

Two of them will be gone. There is no reason to sign new paper for guys playing at their level.

This is like the politician who reads the polls before coming out with a strong stance on something. Yes, Gibson has not been good and yes he is gone after this year. He will get a spring training invite somewhere and the rest is up to him.

Why wouldn't he catch? Gimenez does a fair amount of catching and he has not been good recently.

We know Garver's hitting is good, always has been. He probably should have been up to AAA a year and a half earlier. As for his defense, all we have for the minors is Range Factor. His range factor per game this year is 8.58 which would be in the top 5 in MLB history for a catcher. His RF/9 is even higher and would be a record. He has a lot of passed balls this year, but that's the only negative on paper.

Yes, Garver is up... and I bet he never goes back down.

I agree with you. I would not have brought Perkins back.

A nice game for someone few of us talked about. We'll see him again soon.

I would imagine they want to evaluate Perkins to see if he will be viable next year, and that's why they called him up sooner rather than later. I would not expect him to pitch in any games that the Twins think they can win.

There have already been several bottom seeded teams who have won the WS. MLB has not been like the NFL where it took years for the wild card teams to be relevant in the playoffs.

Dozier fits the mold of a first baseman. But what if the Twins keep his bat at 2nd and find a more typical 1B bat too? Even better! Joe does not look to me like he is great defensively at first. UZR likes him this year, for some reason, but I'm not sure how UZR could even properly rate a first baseman. Other systems don't see anything outstanding about Mauer's defense. In any case, defense at 1B is an afterthought. This is why big bats end up at the position.

Not sure what you all are talking about. When I Google "Mitch Garver prospect ranking" I find him ranked 15th-17th. That's where AJ Pierzynski was ranked, by the way.

That's Molitor. He doesn't memorize matchups as he is supposed to, and this is one of the easiest ones to memorize.

SSS.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=trump+polls

Just say no to internal options. Hire the best, and the best can't be found within the organization. I feel like the "Cheap people we already know and want to support" ship has sailed.

I would not be upset if Molitor sticks around. I think he is terrible at managing pitching but who the hell am I. However, I would keep him on 1-year contracts because, like it or not, there are questions marks. He still has to prove himself, even 3 years in. If he won't accept that, I would let him walk.

I was expecting the Tigers to play the Twins hard, that's how they have played the Twins all year. For whatever reason, the Tigers players do not want to lose to the Twins and this year have been putting in extra effort when they play each other. The Twins were a little flat-footed and complacent in the lost game, but shut things down in the series finale (as best they could).