Game 54: New York at Minnesota
Posted by ubelmann on Friday, May 30th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
Today, Joe Posnanski has proposed the Dayton Game.* Basically, how many tools are there on your team that are 60 tools. 60 is a rating on the typical scouting scale, and well, I'm not a scout. Posnanski suggests that a 60 tool is an All-Star caliber tool and provides examples and such. Also, All-Star caliber is a bit misleading since you need to adjust for position to determine who is an All-Star, so, yeah.
*How much money do you suppose it would take to lure Posnanski to Minnesota to cover the Twins? At that point, I think I would just stop writing about the team and maybe stick to posting relevant numbers.
Anyway, how about the Twins? Let's see:
60 Tools
Mauer's arm
Cuddyer's arm
Delmon's arm (he throws to the wrong base a lot, but I believe that's a "makeup" issue, if we're playing pretend scouts)
Mauer's hitting*
Morneau's hitting
Morneau's power
Delmon's power**
Gomez's speed
Casilla's speed (I think, but then again his SB% is really awful)
Everett's defense (when healthy)
Mauer's defense
On the bubble, I would put:
Gomez's arm (strong, but can be erratic)
Gomez's defense (he's fast, but I'm not yet convinced he's great in center)
Punto's defense (if we're not adjusting for position, he clearly has a lot of defensive value, though I'm not convinced he's a special player on defense)
Punto's arm (good, but certainly has never impressed me from SS)
Maybe tempting, but:
Casilla's defense (he's fast, but I'm not impressed with his hands and he is still probably error-prone)
Cuddyer's power (he's had one good power year ('06) but overall has a sub-.200 career ISO)
Kubel's power (sub-.200 career ISO, could improve, but to All-Star levels?)
Gomez's power (it's good for a center fielder, but compared across positions, not really)
Kubel's hitting (pre-injury, I would have said .300 hitter, but these days I'm thinking more like .270-.280)
Tools that could become 60 tools:
Casilla's hitting (I glanced again at his minor league record, and he's just 23, and I decided that he might hit for good average)
Delmon's hitting (.286 career hitter as a 22-year-old, I think it could still be there, but the power is a big ??? now)
*We're doing things the scouting way, and hitting=hits for average.
**Just kidding.
I don't know really whether that's good or bad overall, but sometimes it's just fun to take a look at what the team is. (Certainly I have more tools listed than Posnanski had listed for the Royals.) The scale is subjective, making it prone to disagreement, but that might provide for a better conversation piece. Certainly hitting for average and hitting for power are pretty easy to quantify, so sometime it might be fun to try to quantify the scouting scale a bit.
New streak! Delmon in LF.
Im so excited.
I just cant hide it.
I have a bad feeling about this game. Frankly, I have a bad feeling about this series. I'd like to avoid the sweep.
I think we could see a lot of Yankee walks today. I hope I'm wrong.
I happened to waste five minutes of my life reading Top Jimmy's column today. What an embarrassment he is.
I havent read him in 5 years
Pat Borzi at MinnPost had an interesting article today about the Twins and attendance
Good jump by Abreu, but Mauer might have gotten him with an on target throw.
the Twins did not walk a batter in the KC series
it took what, two Yankees batters to draw one
There's a world of difference between control pitchers like Slowey and Blackburn pitching against KC and a guy with shaky control like Perkins pitching against the Yankees. And not even just like a Mercury world...more like a Jupiter world.
right. Plus KC is not known for taking walks
I just hope a walk in the first inning does not set the tone for the series. I guess Im a bit paranoid today
I think it's fair to be paranoid against the Yankees.
It's not that I'm paranoid, it's just that everyone's out to get me.
--Frank Burns
Ugh. Punto would've had that.
Dammit mlb.tv, I thought we'd finally worked out a nice, sound-free commercial break system.
Gomez got totally fooled on that. Oh well.
I'm still surprised that Mussina signed such a small contract to stay with the Yankees last year.
Nice platience by the laddie.
That was a really nice swing from Casilla to hit an offspeed pitch.
Casilla really has had some good looking plate appearances.
Casilla's been impressive at the plate in this little stint, better small sample size theater than his performance last year.
Yeah. I got to looking at his numbers at Rochester last year. Supposing for a second that he was a bit unlucky on singles last year, he was really pretty close to his minor league career numbers. And he's still young. I had almost totally given up on the kid after last year, but sometimes baseball is about patience.
Yankees snakebit. hopefully a game's worth
M11 would've gotten that.
Curse of the Dougbino?
It appears as if we are dealing with a small strike zone tonight.
W00t! Past a lunging Rodriguez.
Mussina is sort of getting squeezed here.
I agree, but Perkins seemed to be getting squeezed, too. As long as the Twins are willing to be patient, hopefully it won't be a big problem.
Okay, that second strike to Kubel was totally inconsistent with anything he's called so far. Wow.
Yeah, that call made my initial post seem stupid. Damn umpire
Hoo hah!
Nice "bite me, yanqui" basehit!
Heh heh, more like E-Rod
+10 beaut, dat.
on the
grillmenu tonight: Johnsonville brat, Doritos, diet Pepsi. plain and simpleLamb chops, fiddlehead ferns, and shittake mushrooms here.
Yowza, nice.
BST (bacon, spinach, tomato) sammies, tabouli from the Holy Land Deli, and a rather nice BV Coastal Estate Zinfindel.
H.L. Deli. Not shabby(ot).
+2 mitzvot, Bo.
Steak on the grill (first time with lumpcoal), steamed green beans, bing cheeries. A bottle of Scandia Ale.
Not in Madison. You'd get a long winded bag of crap about how evil Johnsonville brats are if you tell people that down here. Then someone else would walk by and call liberals idiots. It's the internet come to life down here.
It's the internet come to life down here.
That sounds like a dystopia if I've ever heard of one.
Well, there's loads of good beer around, so that helps.
Sort of like how the internet has a lot of porn lying around?
dude, it's spelled "pr0n"
BONUS - Drumsticks in the freezer!
leftover pizza
I haven't made a decision yet, but I was thinking about making some hash browns and an omelet. That might be too ambitious, though.
KUBEL! my man!
Delmon's day off do him any good? We'll see.
We're living on the edge hitting all of these ground balls with one out and the bases loaded.
I want at least a sac fly out of Del here.
Even better!
DY! Maybe he needs to sit more often (he says, knowingly)
W00t! Nibble, nibble.
Nibble.
Muscle past the Yankees with singles.
Almost even odds with Mr. RISP at the plate.
why couldn't THIS game be nationally televised? I wouldn't mind a good Yankee pimp-slapping in front of a large TV audience
Whoa, whoa, whoa. Let's not get ahead of ourselves here. With eight innings to go, no one has been slapped yet, let alone pimp-slapped.
I have my eternal optimist glasses on
Fair enough. I just have my superstition glasses on.
Anyone listen to the Cubs-Rockies game today... that one made even Jose Guillen cringe.
Nice catch by Delmon. There's something about the way he runs around out there that just seems weird. I can't put my finger on what it is, though.
Who's this new left fielder we got? He can actually catch the ball.
I dunno. Some kid skipping his college classes I think.
The TV goes off during dinner. I turn it on and 4-1. w00t!
Here's hoping you didn't over-cook those steaks.
Lucky me, the game is on TV in CT!
Brotha, what town're you in?
Man, Jeter looks great grounding out to third.
You could really sense the inspiration in his hustle to first base.
It even came through on Gameday.
Boy, Lamb's arm...leaves something to be desired.
He was brought in for his hitting right?
Yeah. He's actually showed some signs this last month that April was a fluke. Which is nice, since I had basically declared that he fell off the cliff.
The things that I find amazing?
Cuddyer's VORP so far is actually lower than Lamb's.
Not one, but two third basemen in the AL (Morgan Ensberg and Brandon Wood) have a lower VORP than Lamb.
Line-drive RBI single, diving catch and a nice cut off of a ball down the line and a perfect throw to third. Maybe days off aren't so bad, eh Delmon and Gardy?
Wow. Lexi pwned Matsui.
Casilla! Roll up your sleeve, son. We'll need two vials worth.
Man, Laddie's tearing it up.
okGO
Gameday delay. My apologies, AlexEE
Twins are really making the Yankees look old and slow in the first couple of innings.
Wasn't that TJ's thesis?
Joe's beard grows a little more.
How will all of that facial hair fit on his HOF plaque?
Interesting stuff from the Yankee tv crew.
1. Mauer is the third player in Draft history to be taken by his hometown team with the first pick.
2. Mauer had to be removed from his 4 y.o. tee-ball league because he was endangering the other kids with his hitting.
They didn't do the "only struck out once in high school" bit yet?
Maybe they're saving that for later
Or the "one of three #1 drafts to lead league in batting"?
Didn't he create the grand canyon while dragging his ax or something?
I hadn't heard that t-ball story before. Good stuff. (Though, in the interest of keeping Joe playing, they could have at least used a softer ball or something when he was up, right?)
I'm guessing he got to play with the older kids
Hmmm...good point.
Hasn't Barreiro already suggested that Joe is playing with softer balls?
I believe that Barreiro has suggested that Joe is playing with no balls.