Monday,
December 19, 2010
Monday Twins Topics
Good Monday
morning, Twins Fans! Thanks again for stopping by SethSpeaks.net. I think I
have this site figured out, although I am using a different system that I just
don’t know well at all yet, so bear with me. Today, I’ll just cover a few
topics to start off the week.
Tsuyoshi Nishioka
Signs and Meets Press
On Thursday afternoon, it became known that the Twins and Tsuyoshi Nishioka had reached an agreement on a three-year contract.
There was no surprise because he was not going to travel to Minnesota without
having general terms figured out. The press conference was shown live on
FSNorth.com, and it was interesting to watch. After answering a question from LaVelle E. Neal, Nishioka wanted
to make a quick statement. Impressively, he spoke in English. He introduced
himself and said he was happy to be in the Twins family. The rest of his
statements and comments were interpreted by a translator. Asked about his role,
he said that he sees his job as trying to touch home plate as much as possible.
Asked whether he has a preference to play shortstop or second base, he came
back with a great Twins answer, that he is still new to the team and will do
whatever the manager wants him to do, but he will prepare for both. In fact, if
the manager wants him to be the ball boy, he will do so happily. It was fun to
watch. Bill Smith specifically talked about how important it was for the Twins
to be recognized in Japan. Ron Gardenhire
congratulated the UMD Bulldogs who won the Division II National Championship
for the second time in the last three years.
So, now Nishioka is signed, about a week before
the deadline. Obviously he will start at either shortstop or second base. It
was good to see his wife, Naoka Tokuzawa,
who is a model. Nishioka is a celebrity as well, and
I am sure you have seen his Adidas commercials over the past year or two from
Japan. This is a nice signing. I am thinking a .700
OPS would be about what I would expect. He has a nice, smooth swing. He does
have a good glove. He isn’t Ichiro ,but that isn’t to
say he can’t be a very solid contributor to a winning team. He also has the
speed thing that Gardy and Bill Smith have talked
about. Fans and stat-heads can talk about UZR and OPS and such, and I’m right
there with them. But think about this… how many times during the course of a
season will JJ Hardy be on 1B with two outs and not be able to score on a
double? Nishioka will be about to score on that. Is
it 10 runs a year? 5? 15? I know that’s not a measurable statistic, but it is a
fair point to bring up.
Zach Greinke
Traded to Milwaukee
Late on Saturday night, Jim Breen
of the blog Bernie’s
Crew posted a blog saying that he was hearing a lot of rumors about a
trade bringing Greinke to the Brewers. In fact, he
was specific enough to say that what he was hearing was that the Brewers would
get Greinke and shortstop Yunieski
Betancourt from the Royals in exchange for shortstop Alcides
Escobar, outfielder Lorenzo Cain and minor league pitchers Jeremy Jeffress and Jake Odorizzi. Many
didn’t buy the reports because it came from a blogger, as opposed to someone
from the main stream media. After it became official, Breen tweeted that he had
received upset phone calls from people with the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, the
paper that hosts Bernie’s Crew, unhappy with the blog posting. In the end, I
was happy to see the blog get its due on ESPN’s bottom line and SportsCenter and around the Twitter universe and more
places.
So, the Brewers get the 2009 AL Cy Young Award
winner with a lot to prove. He was incredible in 2009, and just mediocre in
2010. He can be dominant, but playing with the Royals, it may be difficult to
find it every time out. Greinke should do well the
next two years, although it certainly isn’t a slam dunk, and who knows how he
will respond should the Brewers become a contender. Now, based on their
rotation, the Brewers should be in contention in the NL Central. Their starting
rotation will be Yovani Gallardo, Greinke,
Shaun Marcum and Randy Wolf. It should help their against a Cardinals’ rotation
that features Adam Wainright, Chris Carpenter, Jaime
Garcia and Jake Westbrook. I’m not sure that either competes with the Phillies
(Halladay, Lee, Hamels, Oswalt) or the Giants (Lincecum,
Cain, Sanchez, Bumgarner), but they are very good.
The Brewers certainly are “going for it” this offseason, likely coming to the
realization that they will not be able to rid themselves of Prince Fielder for
what they would be looking for in return. So, they will try to win by putting
together an impressive pitching staff to surround the likes of Fielder, Ryan
Braun, Rickie Weeks, Corey Hart, etc. Note that the Brewers gave up their top
hitting prospect, Brett Lawrie, to acquire Shawn
Marcum from Toronto. Of course, the Royals also got the Brewers to take back Yunieski Betancourt, who is coming off of his best season
since 2007 (a .692 OPS despite 16 homers).
So, what did the Royals get in return? Escobar is a very good glove at
shortstop. He is the reason that the Brewers were willing to trade JJ Hardy a
year ago. Offensively, he posted a .614 OPS, so he may
not contribute much with the bat. Lorenzo Cain is a very good defensive
centerfielder. In his 158 plate appearances with the Brewers, he hit
.306/.348/.415 with 11 doubles and a homer. He began the season at AA and in 62
games, he hit .324/.409/.434 with 15 extra base hits.
He moved up to AAA and in 22 games, he hit .299/.384/.425. He appears to have a
little bit of a future, whether it is right away as a 25 year old big leaguer
in 2011 or within the next year. Jeremy Jeffress
pitched 18 games between Hi-A and AA in 2010, and then made ten relief
appearances for the Brewers at the end of the season. The guy has a million
dollar arm. He was the team’s 1st round pick in 2006 and
legitimately throws 100 mph. But he has a ten cent head. The guy has been
suspended twice for a “drug of abuse.” The first failed test is a warning. The
second failed test is a 50 game suspension. In 2009, he was suspended for 100
games for his third failed test. One more failed test, and he faces a lifetime
ban from baseball. Finally, Jake Odorizzi, the team’s
1st round pick in 2008, was also part of the trade. He was recently
named the team’s top prospect and went 7-3 with a 3.43 ERA in the Midwest
League. The 20 year old has upside, but he is obviously the furthest from the
big leagues. So, the Royals definitely got some talent, and three of the players
have big league service time already. The Royals already had baseball’s top
minor league system, and this trade only helps that.
So the question I got asked throughout Sunday was could the Twins have sent
an equivalent package to the Royals in exchange for Greinke.
The first answer to that question is No, the Royals
weren’t going to trade Greinke to the Twins unless
the package was completely overwhelming. But getting beyond that
simple fact… who are some comparables? The Twins don’t have a player in
their system comparable to Alcides Escobar. He’s
young and plays terrific defense. Not much offense. I’ve said Nishioka might be a nice comparable, although Escobar is
about three years younger. Ben Revere could be a comparable to Lorenzo Cain in
that he did spend a month with the Twins, but Revere is not as good defensively
and does not have any power. Cain has never hit more than 11 homers in any
minor league season, but that’s still significantly more power than Revere. Joe
Benson might be a comparable in a year if he continues to progress. In fact,
Benson has much more upside than Cain does, but he’s just not there yet. Jeffress throws hard, so the only comparable Twins minor
leaguer would be Carlos Gutierrez who got into two games for Rochester last
year, so he’s about a year behind Jeffress. Gutierrez
may not have quite Jeffress’s upside, but he is a lot
less risky. Odorizzi is the Brewers top pitching
prospect. Kyle Gibson is the top Twins prospect. Gibson is better than any of
the prospects that the Royals got, and he was a college draft pick so he should
be more advanced. The best comparable to Odorizzi
that I can think of would probably be Adrian Salcedo.
So, there really isn’t a good comparable trade, but maybe something like
Kyle Gibson, Ben Revere, Carlos Gutierrez and Tsuyoshi Nishioka
would be on par with the deal? Even if you replace Gibson with Salcedo, the package would be a lot to give up for a guy
who had a great 2009 and a mediocre 2010.
Ricky Nolasco
Signs Extension with Marlins
Another pitcher whose name Twins fans have throw out as thinking the Twins
should acquire is Ricky Nolasco of the Florida
Marlins. Last night, he signed a three year, $26.5 million deal with the
Marlins, so most likely he would not be available.
What Happens with Carl Pavano?
So where does all this leave Carl Pavano? Does it
make the Twins more likely to be his final destination? With Cliff Lee signing
with the Phillies, Nolasco re-upping with the Marlins
and Greinke being traded to the Brewers, Pavano remains the most sought-after free agent starting
pitcher. The Brewers were one of the teams said to be very much in on
discussions to sign him, but with additions of Marcum and Greinke,
it’s hard to believe that they would be interested any more. The Tigers have
shown interest, but not at more than one year. The Nationals apparently are
sticking to a one year offer. The Rangers were said to be considering Pavano as a backup plan to Cliff Lee, but to this point
there are no indications that they are showing the interest. Yesterday, a rumor
came out that the Pirates might have some interest.
The general overriding theme is that it appears more and more with each
transaction that it is becoming more and more likely that Pavano
will return to the Twins. IF there are not other teams that are even offering
two years, the Twins should feel good about offering two years, and even
throwing in an option for 2013. Completely guessing, I would think that Pavano would want a deal done before the holidays which
means in the first half of this week. Of course, the ongoing attempts by the
Rays to rid themselves of Matt Garza could play into that as well.
Blog Spotting
It’s always good to be able to give a little credit and recognition to many
other Twins blogs or bloggers that work hard to provide content as well. So,
check these out and if it is something you enjoy, be sure to bookmark some of
these sites too.
·
The first place you need to go every day (besides here,
of course) is Twinkie Town. Today you can vote
for your choice for the Twins #10 Prospect.
There will be one player added to a Top 50 list each day until spring training.
The discussion is a lot of fun as well.
·
Aaron Gleeman posted several Twins
Notes.
·
Nick Nelson writes on the Hope
versus the Expectations for Tsuyoshi Nishioka.
·
Check out the Over the
Baggy Twins Notes.
·
Josh from Twinkie Talk writes about how
the Greinke trade may give the Twins more leverage
with Pavano.
·
K-Bro writes some quick
notes to say good bye and hello to former and new Twins.
·
Andrew from Off
the Mark reviews his 2010 Predictions.
·
Phil Mackey posted his
annual non-sports post of non-resolutions. It’s been a good year for
P-Mac, I’d say!
·
Knuckleballs welcomes
Tsuyoshi Nishioka to the Twins and helps us
with our Japanese!
·
NoDak Twins Fan also discusses
the Greinke Effect on the Twins. He also
participated in the Ben
Revere/Danny Valencia conference call for Twins Season Ticket Holders
on Thursday.
Please feel free to Comment
in the Comment section.