Note: If you wouldn't say it to someone's face, don't say it here. Comments deleted on a whim.
How many more starts does Ortiz get? 1? 2? It's so odd to be rooting for these guys to fail while still pulling for the team's success.
Very true Kiki, Ortiz is a 3.1 mil investment, 3x what Ponson's was. As much as this shouldn't influence the decision to keep him around the reality is that it does and will.
I hope he is gone by May 1, Garza has ACE stuff and is ready. Slowey should spend the year in Rochester and find his way into the rotation next spring...
regarding young pitchers: yesterday i heard some manager say that one of his young pitchers needs to mix his pitches more. correct me if i'm incorrect but doesn't the catcher call for pitches? and doesn't the manager call for pitches? so if the pitcher isn't mixing pitches properly there's two levels of management on the field who can fix that problem. and if it's a matter of a pitcher not being comfortable throwing a mix of pitches it seems like the manager has two options: make the pitcher throw the pitches anyway, or don't use the pitcher. seems like blaming the pitcher for not mixing pitches is deflecting responsibility. am i missing something?
[i]I hope he is gone by May 1, Garza has ACE stuff and is ready. Slowey should spend the year in Rochester and find his way into the rotation next spring...[/i]
May 1 is like 3 weeks ago....:)
I assume you mean June 1, or perhaps you were envisioning a perfect world in which we could drift back to May 1 and bump him off. Isn't there a young hitter in the Yankees organization we could snag/ Ship them Ortiz and a young starter. Don't you think Cashman is desparate?
On May 1st we could have shipped him to the Yanks.
:)
Aaron,
Did you catch KG in the audience at the Lynx game? Made me laugh. . . .
. . . Also, I really like that new(-ish) Rotoworld.com "Grab It" sidebar with team-specific content.
"Isn't there a young hitter in the Yankees organization we could snag/ Ship them Ortiz and a young starter. Don't you think Cashman is desparate?"
Not that desperate, but for education's sake they have Jose Tabata, who would be hot in Twinstripes come, say, 2010.
BTW what are we going to do if Reyes has to go on the shelf? Carmen Cali or Ricky Barrett????
Don't need Reyes. Down with logys!
Do we have a timeline on Reyes failing to mention his sore shoulder and the club selling Venafro's contract to Toronto? LaVelle's column mentions April 20th or so as far as the start of Reyes' pain but I don't know exactly when Venafro was dealt. While he may not have been posting great numbers at Rochester, I could see Gardy petitioning Ryan for a lefty replacement if Reyes goes on the DL.
Venafro was pitching poorly in AAA and consequently not seeing much mound time, which was why he asked for an opportunity elsewhere. If the Twins thought he was a decent left-handed option, he would have been called up before Perkins.
As for Ortiz, I think it's telling that the Twins aren't making excuses for him ("It was just one bad pitch" or "Bartlett should have made the play behind him", etc.). I doubt Ortiz has more than one or two starts to get back to attacking hitters with his sinker before he gets sent to the bullpen and Slowey gets called up. Ortiz would just be getting the same treatment as Silva last year. It's all pretty much mental anyways and this would allow Ortiz to work on stuff in long relief.
If Reyes is headed to the DL, then both Guerrier and Perkins will be used in more prominent situations, so that leaves De Paula as the long relief, which I don't think he's really stretched out for that.
I wouldn't necessarily call 96 pitches "his pitch count was low". That said, I think I read somewhere that Gardy was indeed confused and thinking it was a save situation. So, no new ground broken there by Einstein...
"Of course, it was also the sort of outing that shows why trusting young pitchers like Baker was a better idea than messing around with Ponson or Ramon Ortiz in the first place."
This line really made me laugh. Is your memory really that short? Baker was absolutely bombed in Spring Training and was in no position to start for the club on day 1. It was precisely because the Twins started with veterans that allowed the necessary development for young pitchers to be ready to hit the ground running when they reached the bigs.
Slowey is about ready, but it is doubtful that after one start above AA he could have pitched an entire season at the MLB level. Garza looks close as well, but has been incosistent in the minors, so a little extra time to add polish won't hurt. Perkins is OK, but probably better longterm in the bullpen.
Baker pitched pretty good this weekend but we have all seen this from him before - remember that Yankees game last year? He will likely regress to his AAAA form.
I hope he gets traded while he still has value...
Remember 2005?
Hey Aaron
I am curious about potential replacements for Reyes.
One of the blogs was pointing out that Ricky Barrett has strong numbers at AAA. What do you know/think about him? Could he be an effective LOOGY?
If not Barrett, who is likely to be called up if Reyes goes DL.
I'd say Cali if not Barrett.
Barrett has strong numbers but www.milb.com says he's only pitched like 9 innings (or 9 and change, I don't recall exactly), so I don't know if he's going to be the first choice.
"The last thing Anderson wanted to see was a low fastball over the heart of the plate -- the power zone for Jenkins, who otherwise has holes in his swing the size of butterball turkeys."
Shecky strikes again, - nice.
Reyes is hurting the team out of the pen. What a reversal from last year.
And the team that supposedly does the little things, failed to do them again on Sunday, with the lead run at second and nobody out in the 7th.
Where exactly is Punto's mind at? Can't bunt? Gets caught off first by a right handed pick-off move?
Little things add up to a long season.
What the hey? You're steadfast in support of Baker, you rip fans for their lack of loyalty, yet you acknowledge he has a tiny, Silvaesque margin for error when it comes to his command. To channel Stephen Colbert, pick a side, we're at war.
Baker is young, so you can't write him off like Silva and Ortiz, who've demonstrated their limitations over a period of years. But clearly, Garza and Slowey have more upside, and it'd be nice to see them here, since they should comprise 40 percent of the '08 rotation.
I guess though Terry Ryan will sit on that arbitration clock a while longer...
Since the team decided to go north with Ponson, Ortiz and Silva comprising 3/5 of its rotation, it was clear that every decision this year is made for the sake of setting up 2008. Which makes sense, given the ridiculous strength of the AL Central, and the fact that Filth-iano won't be back until next year.
Cornish game hens? Butterball turkeys? Souhan is either hungry or he has a poultry fetish. I hope to see him referred to in this space with sentences that begin, "Local poultry fetishist Jim Souhan...."
I just hope we can get rid of Ponson by May 1.
I dont know what is worse - dick & bert not knowing the definition of a save situation, or not knowing that if a guy gets picked off 1st, but then advances safely to second because of an errant throw by the 1st baseman (in the opinion of the scorekeeper) then the baserunner not only does not get credit for a stolen base, but is charged with a caught stealing ...
Brehmer seemed astonished to learn this, and even made some fairly silly comparison to taking cookies from a cookie jar (?) - when the obvious official scoring comparison would be a dropped strike 3, with the batter advancing to 1st - not only dont get a walk or hit and still charged with a K ... oh well, whatever ...
I guess though Terry Ryan will sit on that arbitration clock a while longer...
Go check out TwinsGeek for an analysis of where all the young pitchers stand in regards to arbitration/free agency clocks.
However, while he was at his best Saturday against a strong lineup, Baker's faults were also on display if you looked hard enough.
I happened to notice this too. Despite throwing an overbearing number of strikes all throughout the game, Baker had a tendency to leave some of his breaking pitches up in the first half of the game. This resulted in hard hit balls, 2 of which resulted in a double and a homerun and several others that somehow found their way to an open mit, as you mentioned, AG.
But once Scott made it to the 5th inning, he was dead on and, dare I say, dominant. Until the homerun he gave up to Hall, he was in total command of all his pitches, and mixing in the changeup, sinker and slider perfectly to confuse hitters like Jenkins and Graffanino, who he dominated in the 7th.
My conclusion for Baker's first outing is that rather than digress to his AAA statistics, this game will give him lots of confidence and he'll keep pitching aggressively and attempt to get ahead in the count as fast as he can, like he did with the Brewers. Hopefully he can induce some confidence in all of the pitching staff and help TR and Gardy realize that they need to bring Slowey and Garza up ASAP.
Oh and one more thing, AG. I went back and looked at your preseason Twins prospect list and noticed something. Rochester SS Matt Tolbert, who has gotten little publicity while leading AAA with a .356 batting average and carrying a .972 OPS, wasn't included on the list. Is this because his numbers are exploding right now and he's on a career hot streak, or are these numbers legit?
When a fly-ball pitcher is cruising along and leading by three runs, it takes two baserunners to put a serious game-tying threat in play.
See: Ramon Ortiz on Sunday.
This line really made me laugh. Is your memory really that short? Baker was absolutely bombed in Spring Training and was in no position to start for the club on day 1.
I'm all about attacking where it's due, but I don't think AG said anything contrary to what he's said before. Going in to spring training he said the Twins made a bad decision with Ortiz and Silva. The minor league flyer on Ponson couldn't hurt (unless, of course, it wasn't a flyer...another reason why Ryan is not a good GM).
He said Garza and Baker should man two of those spots. Would AG have thought Baker ready after getting killed in ST? I don't think so, but there are ways to get through the first few weeks while the young pitcher gets it together in AAA.
The premise is still valid.
Personally, I thought Ortiz might be able to adjust enough to be effective, and that Silva (until ST horridness) would be okay. Have Baker as your 5th (changed to Garza after ST). I'm of the opinion that neither Ortiz or Ponson were bad enough to put the Twins in a hole, not if the offense was decent. And when it became clear that the AAA guys were far superior, then you make the move. Of course I wouldn't expect Ryan to do jacksh__ unless all was falling apart (one of the reasons he's not a good GM).
Nothing drives me nuttier than batting Punto 2nd (well, perhaps that he's a starter at all).
Nothing drives me nuttier than batting Punto 2nd (well, perhaps that he's a starter at all).
Unless of course it's bunting in the 6th inning of a tie game when the leadoff man just hit a double. Can someone tell Gardentool that the probability of scoring one run is no different with a man on third and one out than it is with a man on second and no outs? Please?
Oh, I forget, Punto is a good guy to hit a SF. I realize the squeeze play was on, but it was the sixth inning!!! Aarghhh...
As someone who's said the Twins have needed to deal Hunter (in 2005, then he got injured) again (in 2006, then the Twins went nuts and he got injured) and again (in 2007, if the Twins are trailing 2 or 3 teams in July and are 7 or more games back), I came to this realization this past week:
There is no way the Twins can hope to replace the new, improved Hunter in 2008. I can't think of a scenario where the Twins don't have a Darin Erstad or worse in CF next year.
Perhaps Boston trades Crisp and Lester to the Twins for Hunter in July. I thought that would be a good deal this past offseason, but Crisp has looked horrible thus far. Maybe Damon goes down for the season, and the return is M. Cabrera and the top (non-Hughes) starter(s) in the Yanks' system.
I don't know. The scariest scenario is that Hunter signs with Texas as a FA, Texas has one of the top 15 picks, and all the Twins get is a 1st rd supp and Texas' 2nd rounder.
What is the likely 2008 scenario?
What is the likely 2008 scenario?
As we all know, Dernard Span is supposedly the CF of the future for the Twins. If this really is the case, then the team's future is full of sup-par batting averages and no pop in the bat. Simply put, there's no way the Twins front office can be comfortable with replacing a red hot Torii Hunter with a player the likes of Span.
The most likely scenarios, in my opinion, are (listed by least likely to most likely)...
1. Trading Hunter to a team in need of bat and a glove in the outfield, like Baltimore, Texas, or possibly Pittsburgh, for prospects/decent hitters.
2. Resigning Hunter at seasons end for a pretty penny.
3. Trading one or more prospects (most likely pitching) for a bat and replacement for Hunter at mid-season.
I haven't given enough thought to who that bat might be, but I know the Willie Mo Pena is back on the market, and he still has a ton of upside. The only downer there is that he's got a "butterball turkey" sized hole in his glove, let alone his fielding game all together.
I just had this thought, and it's about as close as you can get to impossible while still being probable. Ichiro Suzuki in a Twins uniform next year. :-)
Suzuki to the Twins? Sorry, that IS completely impossible.
Baker wasn't nibbling (that's good).
Holding the Brewers to two runs was dependent upon inducing quite a few "at-em" balls - the type of thing that doesn't hold up game after game (that's bad).
Baker was still up in the zone a bunch - I don't think he has the velocity or movement to be effective over the long haul doing that.
Perkins to the DL, Barrett to get the call? Guess we'll see...
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