The Boof Conundrum
In his first relief appearance I thought, “Man, maybe Boof has actually turned a corner and can thrive in a middle-long relief role”. I was wrong. He continues to look lost on the mound. This makes me sad because I’ve always liked him, but it seems we must face the cold, cruel dawn and realize that maybe he just isn’t going to thrive as a big league pitcher. Could he pitch while down the line for a different team? Probably. When Liriano comes back later this summer, I think the twins need to do one of two things: Cut Livan or Cut Boof. Boof has more upside, and Livan isn’t going to be on the team next year anyway, so that seems like the logical choice. I was hoping he would pitch well until the end of summer and we could trade him at the deadline for more than a bucket of baseballs, but sadly that is about all he is worth now. I would rather keep Boof than Livan, but one of them will most likely be out when Liriano eventually returns. Another reason Livan makes sense is because we have to essentially make two roster moves. 1)Take a guy off the 25 man roster, and 2) Remove a guy from the rotation. If we get rid of Livan that kills two birds with one stone so to speak. Cutting Livan is even more essential if we fall out of the playoff race before the deadline. What is the point of having a terrible pitcher on the team who isn’t part of the future plans. I know Gardy likes having guys with “veteran” status, but who really cares. Sometimes I think Gardy would take a bad veteran over a good inexperienced guy. I hope that isn’t true, but he could prove it is later this summer by keeping Livan when everyone knows he shouldn’t. The way I see it, the guys who are most likely to be sent down (or cut) when Liriano comes back are the following:
- Livan
- Boof
- Brian Bass
- Breslow
- Bobby Korecky
That is in no particular order, but its pretty close to most to least likely. Korecky and Breslow have been quite effective, Bass has been forgettable but not terrible, and the first two have been pretty close to terrible. The reason I have limited it to pitchers is because the team seems set to have 12 pitchers. Also, with Nick Punto due back soon, I assume that Buscher will be the casuality when he comes back. If anyone has more creative method of shuffling the roster in the coming weeks/monhts, please, share.
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Korecky’s not even on the 25 man roster right now (he was the pitcher sent down because he has minor league options left whereas Boof, Bass, and Breslow don’t).
I think Livan has to go before Boof does — it’s still possible that Boof figures something out and can be useful next year.
But Gardy will definitely take veteran mediocrity over young talent. Examples: Juan Castro over Jason Bartlett, Mike Lamb over Brian Buscher, Craig Monroe over Jason Kubel, every other decision he’s ever made.
But it’s not just veterans that he likes. He also seems to prefer young mediocre players over young good ones — Garrett Jones.
And … you’re probably right that Buscher will be first on the chopping block when Punto gets back, and it’s a big damn shame. He needs to be our starting 3B, not Mike Lamb. They’re basically the same player, except Buscher is younger, cheaper, and seems to be able to actually hit a baseball. What’s holding him out of the lineup, much less the roster?
Good call on Korecky. I forgot that Baker recently came back, I think it was two starts ago. So was Korecky the guy who got sent down for Baker, and Rincon the one who got cut because we had like 40 pitchers (actually 13) and that was just a bit overkill?
Yes, that is exactly the sequence of events. (Buscher got called up when Rincon was cut.)
My advice for Wild Bill:
1) Find someone willing to give up a PTBNL for Livan.
2) Find someone willing to give up a PTBNL for Lamb.
3) Call up Liriano.
4) Slap Gardy in the face until he promises to play Buscher at least 5 days a week.
5) Send down Bass (nobody will take him on waivers, seriously, he was cut by THE ROYALS) and call up Korecky. This will HELP THE BULLPEN.
6) Find out from Gardy if Reyes is actually capable of throwing more than 8 pitches in a game — if not, cut his ass. If so, slap Gardy in the face until he uses him a little more intelligently. (Like, not at all, perhaps?)
I didn’t mind the Livan/Lamb signings when the happened. But there’s no point in continuing to waste money and roster space on a couple of guys who are dragging the team down — especially when we have less expensive, higher quality replacements just waiting to be used.
(Sorry about the Reyes ranting there in #6.)
The only real problem will trading Lamb is we will have to play him a fair amount to “showcase” him. So can you handle a few weeks of Lamb taking most of the time at third in order to get rid of him, thus helping the team?
I’ve already handled a few months of Lamb taking most of the time at third.
And the thing is, Lamb is a “proven” veteran, whom you don’t trade because of their hot bat, but rather because of their “presence” and “track record.” We should be able to sell his .250 10 HR potential to someone. (After all, we bought it. Should we point out that everyone who comes to MN forgets how to hit, and everyone who leaves remembers? Might help us out in trade negotiations.)
except Doug. However, I am pretty sure he started the downward spiral before he left. Who was that loser we got to replace him? Justin someone? I remember when I worked for the twins and took a phone call and was yelled at by an old lady, who said TR needs to check with the “fans” before he makes any trades. And he was ruining the teams chances of ever being good for getting rid of Doug. Some people.
Yeah. That’s a perfect example of how the Twins manage to constantly upgrade, despite the outcries of the fanbase.
Did the team get worse with Morneau at first instead of Mientkiewicz? Of course not. But you wouldn’t have known that by listening to the fans.
This time around, everyone’s furious about letting Hunter go, but Gomez sure looks like he’ll be an upgrade within a couple of years.
Last season, everyone was angry about trading Castillo, but with Casilla playing like this it’s a pretty clear upgrade. (Is it really the GM’s fault that it took Casilla just a little longer to be ready for major league pitching than hoped? I don’t think so.)
What I don’t understand is that, given this tendency to continually upgrade, the organization still manages to fall in love with bottom of the barrel veteran free agents, rather than throwing our young players out there. Best case scenario for the old guys, is Lamb as good as Buscher? Is Monroe as good as Kubel?
My answer: No.
I just don’t get why they keeping acquiring medicore to awful veterans. Everytime they end up switching to the younger players about halfway through the season. Haven’t they learned anything? Not learning from past mistakes IS the GM’s fault.
I suppose it’s possible that they want to prevent their young players from reaching Super-2 status and getting to arbitration a year earlier.
Then again, that seems like a pretty dubious money-saving policy. Say you save $2M for Buscher’s first year of Super-2 free agency … and all it cost you was Lamb’s $3M salary!
It’s also possible that they just don’t think the young guys are ready and are leaning towards being conservative, so as not to screw the players up mentally. That’s something that’s literally impossible to second guess, of course, since we don’t know how ready the players are or anything about their mental fragility.
True. But remember what they did to Casilla last year? I wonder how they choose who to be conservative with and who to drive to the brink of mental breakdown.
It is weird that they seem to have it backwards — like last year when they wouldn’t skip Ramon Ortiz’s start because they didn’t want to mess with his head … and so they repeatedly skipped Baker’s starts, then criticized his lack of consistency.
Wouldn’t it make more sense to treat young players like they haven’t been here before, and to treat veterans like they could handle it a little better? You know, like every other team does?
The Twins keep hoping to find a diamond in the trash-heap of worn-out free-agents. It works about 1% of the time. Redmond is one, Reyes is one (yeah, Sean doesn’t like him, but ya gotta have a leftie reliever), Hernandez was one during April. I don’t remember how they acquired Luis Castillo, was he a free-agent?
We traded some low level minor leaguers for Castillo. About the same caliber of players we got back for him last summer. Some teams have luck with it, the Twins do not. I would say Redmond was a worn out free agent. He was a good backup catcher in florida, and we brought him in to do the same job here. And he has. That is way different than bringing Livan in to be the Ace.
Reyes was a great, cheap pickup for 2006. But that year was a huge aberration given the rest of his career, and the last year and a half have shown that.
That said, he’s cheaper and better than Rincon, and usually gets the “job done.” (I put that in quotes because his “job” is becoming increasingly small and “done” far too often involves walking the left handed batter he comes in to face and then leaving the game. It’s not his fault that his job is so small, of course.)
And Ramon Ortiz had a good April last year — that doesn’t mean it was a good free agent signing.
Reyes would be cheap if he was a regular relief pitcher. But one who throws no more than 8 pitches a game? I guess we can’t pay a guy per pitch, but this is a pretty extreme case of “lefty specialist”.