Liriano, finally
The Twins designated Craig Monroe and Livan Hernandez for assignment yesterday. They were replaced with Randy Ruiz and Francisco Liriano. Ruiz started right away and was the DH. He went 1 for 3, scoring on Mauer’s homer. He did have a prodigious strikeout where he swing through three fastballs. He put up good numbers in AAA, and Monroe put up pathetic numbers with the Twins. I have no problem with this move. We needed someone to come in an mash lefties, or just mash in general. Might as well give Ruiz a shot at some ABs. I hope that Kubel still gets the bulk of DH at bats, but it will be nice to have someone who can hit on the bench and not have MIKE REDMOND as our DH against left handed pitching. I don’t think Ruiz actually owns a baseball glove, but I don’t care.
This Liriano move is also a good one. We replaced a bad player with a better one. Seems like a no brainer, and I think the twins waited too long to make this move. After his first few starts which were quite good, Hernandez was a 5.3 ERA pitcher. For all of may, june, and july, LIVAN WAS A 5.3 ERA PITCHER! That is terrible. I don’t like the excuse that he is a veteran presence. We have other veterans, coaches, and advisors, how will the loss of one player who barely speaks english affect team chemistry? If I were on the Twins I would be upset if they continually trotted out a 5.3 ERA pitcher, something that clearly doesn’t give us the best chance to win. This move does. We upgraded our rotation and bench in one day. I think the next move is to DFA lamb when cuddyer comes back, but I have a feeling Ruiz will head back to Rochester, unless of course he is playing really well. Then we would have no choice but to DFA Lamb. This all assumes that the current roster stays healthy, which is a big assumption.
8 comments8 Comments so far
Leave a reply
I think Ruiz scored on Harris’ double.
These moves were a long time coming, but the reason it took so long was because they were trying to trade Livan and Monroe and nobody (but us) was dumb enough to take them.
That makes sense, but it begs the question did Bill Smith actually think someone would want Livan at this point? It is pretty well known that some teams really need another starter, and nobody ever called about Livan.
I suspected that trading him at the deadline was part of the plan when we signed him, a la Ramon Ortiz 2007.
Unfortunately, Livan was just a little bit too much like Sidney Ponson 2007 instead.
I can’t criticize Smith for wanting to trade Livan and finding no takers — it’s Livan’s fault he sucks.
(And signing him wasn’t THAT horrible an idea — Liriano wasn’t ready at the beginning of the year, and we needed some half-year rental to step in and throw the ball every five days. Don’t tell me you wanted that guy to be Kyle Lohse.)
Oh, and by the way, we might get a little ROrtiz 2007 action out of Livan yet; the Rockies are interested in Livan.
Maybe they remember picking up a 7th starter last year in ROrtiz, and sparking a dramatic run that sent them to the World Series. Maybe they think there’s just something about those crappy veteran castoffs from the Twins.
And maybe, just maybe, they’re willing to fork over a middling AAA shortstop in the deal, or something.
(After DingFA Livan, he has to pass through waivers and we have 10 days to trade him — so the deadline wasn’t the bitter end.)
((And DingFA is short for “Designating for assignment.” Much like RsBI instead of RBIs, I think this is better than DFAing. Assignmenting?))
sometimes the fit on my baseball glove is not very good ;*:
my baseball glove really fits well on my small hands, i don’t know what brand is it~-*
the fit of the baseball glove is always critical to get a good a pitch ..
‘*` I am really thankful to this topic because it really gives useful information ..”