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nicksaviking

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Everything posted by nicksaviking

  1. nicksaviking
    Ha, please let that be a scout for the White Sox! It's a real shame that rival scout's team couldn't muster $1.5M to match the Braves offer to gain the rights to Kurt Suzuki.
  2. nicksaviking
    I understand those who don't want a rebuild, but it's really hard not to roll one's eyes when bringing in vets to go for the "trying to win now" strategy basically boils down to Castro, Giminez, Beslise, Breslow, Stubbs and Vogelsong. No rational baseball mind is going to say a defensive only catcher and 5 DFA candidates is what a 100 loss team needs to contend. If that's the kind of effort put into free agency, is there really much downside to going for the rebuild?
  3. nicksaviking
    I can see it considering the skill set, but Granite is considerably bigger than Revere or Dyson. I'd think that would translate into a greater ability to drive the ball instead of slap them into the turf should someone advise him on a different approach. Not that someone necessarily would, just that there is greater potential to do so than a more slight guy. I actually think the Dozier comp in the title is more apt than we recall. Prior to his demotion Dozier was much more of a high contact slap hitter. He significantly changed his approach only after his original MLB demotion.
  4. nicksaviking
    After watching Buxton's success last off season, I think I'd like to see these speed guys stop using their speed by intentionally hitting grounders and trying to beat them out and instead drive the ball and turn singles into doubles and doubles into triples.
  5. nicksaviking
    If for some reason they had some kind of Chris Sale comp in mind I could see them doing it. Maybe there's a development angle we're not privy to. Unlikely, but we're largely in the dark on this one. I'm not a huge fan of the move but I will admit that doing this right now raises many fewer red flags than if they did it mid-season. Not that there still aren't plenty of red flags. I just really hope this isn't all driven by Jay. Say, he prefers closing but knows he's not getting drafted high if he doesn't tell teams he wants to start. Probably not the case but it's lingering in the back of my mind.
  6. nicksaviking
    I would prefer Berrios in the rotation over Mejia but I'd like them both. Putting Mejia in first might accomplish that goal fastest simply because everyone wants Berrios to get a spot so he's less likely to be held back by a semi-competent veteran starter. Also, the Twins likely will insist on having at least one lefty in the rotation, so if Mejia performs fine at the onset, it will be easier for the Twins to make other arrangements with Santiago.
  7. nicksaviking
    I don't like 30-year-old pitchers, there's nowhere to go but down. I'm also in the camp that spending on position players is a better move. If the team still can't develop their own arms, I'd rather trade for a young arm, even if it's a painful trade. Or you know, the team could instead spend the money needed to make the team's scouting and development of pitchers the cream of the crop in the league. How much would it actually cost to steal other teams best scouts and minor league instructors? It's probably a pittance compared to what they'd pay for even a back of the rotation starter.
  8. nicksaviking
    I think you mean Tim Salmon.
  9. nicksaviking
    And now that the strikezone is being raised this year there might be a greater emphasis to pitch up in the zone regardless of upper-cut swings.
  10. nicksaviking
    You just have to put in a year there then you are eligible to get hired by the D-backs.
  11. nicksaviking
    Yeah, one of these days fangraphs is just going to up and hire Parker.
  12. nicksaviking
    Yes, it was a key talking point for the new front office, something that is more than welcoming. I'm great with everyone having a swing that best suits their skills. I just want the players, Kepler included, to have an open mind when it comes to listening to the coaches who may have more insight than him.
  13. nicksaviking
    I think the problem is that the batters embrace his changeup and curve as well. They're just not very good pitches. He'd just be throwing more of a bad pitch. There have been plenty of relievers who have succeeded on a cutter heavy approach though.
  14. nicksaviking
    Max knows more about hitting than I do (but less than Parker!) so at this point I'll judge his swing by his results. But in my view this is a completely unacceptable attitude. With how often players and teams change their swings, approach at the plate and in-game strategy, a guy can't be this resolute in what he wants to do. It 100% does not prove everyone else wrong and thinking so and saying it on record to a reporter is just going to make him want to commit to that swing even if it ends up needing to be revamped.
  15. nicksaviking
    Phil is making 13M per year. While that's too much for a back of the rotation arm, it's actually not really out of line with back of the bullpen arms these days. If Phil could show some effectiveness in the pen he still might have some value. Hughes also still has some name brand appeal likely. Mark Melancon is making way more than Hughes for example. Melancon also has low velocity and largely uses a cutter.
  16. nicksaviking
    Hughes doesn't have a very good curve though and he's barely thrown a change up in five years and it wasn't very good when he did. He just doesn't seem to have very usable off speed stuff. Also, Buerhle was a lefty. Lefties just seem to have so much more leeway when it comes to velocity than righties do.
  17. nicksaviking
    He'd likely have a better chance of ramping the velocity back up to a usable range in the pen. Just my two cents. Mariano Rivera worked with a 90-92 MPH cutter exclusively for years. That's Hughes' only reliable pitch anyway. Heck, Rivera might have been who he learned that pitch from.
  18. nicksaviking
    It's not the Twins call, they're not opting for anything. Kirilloff isn't a piece of property, he's a young man who gets to make his own medical decisions. Which of us would immediately choose the torturous process of getting knocked out, cut open and subject to a very lengthy period of incapacitation if there was a chance something else would work?
  19. nicksaviking
    The team may be lacking veteran leadership, but they aren't lacking veterans. If they feel that leadership is important and the current vets don't have it, then they need to be making some hard decisions, not easy ones like optioning the young guys. Who is supposed to be learning these leadership skills anyway, the young guys sitting in AAA or Robbie Grossman and Phil Hughes? If Hughes, Gibson, Mauer, Dozier, Escobar, Kintzler, Pressly, Perkins, Grossman etc. aren't good enough veteran leaders that the team has to bring in more, then they should go, not Kepler, Berrios and Chargois. Even if it hurts. Even if it makes some people look foolish. Even if it costs money. If those guys ARE good leaders, then they have more than enough.
  20. nicksaviking
    Barring an injury or surprise trade, it's pretty much a lock that 11 of the players on the 25-man will be 27 or older. I'm really flummoxed as to how it's possible that this is not enough veteran leadership. How many vets do they want, because it sounds like they want to find a way to have 13 or 14 minimum. Is there a specific ratio of vets to pups I'm not aware of? That seems like a lot for a team that lost 100 games last year.
  21. nicksaviking
    I don't disagree, but I am going to really be disappointed if this regime is making roster decisions because they feel obliged to a contract they probably would have preferred to be shorter all things being equal. In other words, I really hope this team gets away from the "get our money out of him" kind of thinking that doomed the club in years past. *Hypothetically* if Garver or someone else was by every account and measurement the best catcher on the team, Castro should be the backup from day one, contract be damned. And there should be at least one young guy given that opportunity in my opinion.
  22. nicksaviking
    But it also makes the Jason Castro signing make less sense in my view. Why are the Twins signing two veteran free agent catchers for the 25-man when they need to find a long-term solution? Forget about Gimenez, I want Garver, Murphy or mystery door #3 to at least have a shot to overtake Castro by next year if not earlier. I'm fine with the Castro signing, but it's not like he's so good that the team shouldn't be actively looking for a young guy as an improvement.
  23. nicksaviking
    Was that before or after the Falvey and Lavine hiring and the Johnson & Johnson scouting director switch? Just wondering because Wright looks more like a vintage Terry Ryan kind of pitcher. On the other hand Deron Johnson lately seemed to go the other way and take the bigger FB/higher ceiling arms.
  24. nicksaviking
    That's the feeling I get, though to be fair, they probably do actually care about the players and do want them to have success, it would be hard to get into coaching if you don't have at least some interest in young people. They just seem to care about their job security much, much more. Unreasonably too considering college baseball coaches don't get fired nearly as much as their counterparts in the higher profile football and basketball ranks. I'd bet they justify it to themselves because the pitcher says he wants to go out there for another inning, they then conveniently forget that athletes, and young men in general, have a tendency to have low impulse control and a vision only of the here-and-now and these young men need an adult with a big picture view to reign in their recklessness.
  25. nicksaviking
    After Greene I've been most interested in Faedo. That might change though if he keeps throwing 120 pitches per game. Man, the velocity will leave his FB before he's 25 if he keeps getting abused like that. Seriously, It's still February, some of those coaches from big programs seem to have next to no concern for anything past the June college WS. A playoff by the way that Florida is almost certainly going to be part of whether Faedo throws 119 pitches in February or not.
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