Monday Musings

I know, I'm a terrible blogger.  But it's really not my fault.  Gopher basketball is in a dead period for recruiting, so there's nothing to talk about there, and the Twins are sucking the life out of me once again on their way to another probably 90+ loss season.  How depressing is it that they're at .500 at the quarter mark of the season, but it feels like they're overachieving on a massive level?  It just feels like they're about to go on a 3-17 streak.  Anyway, since I have a bye in softball tonight, might as well put the time to good use.  I mean use.  Here's some stuff:

-  I suppose the biggest news locally is that Kevin Love has come out and said he won't sign an extension with the Wolves and plans to test free agency after next season - which means there's no chance in hell the Wolves end up signing him.  It was somehow both completely expected and a huge stomach punch at the same time.  Kahn really fucked us by not giving Love that fifth year (plus the whole out clause thing), and the only hope was that Flip could somehow trick him into staying.  Looks like it didn't work, so it's time to shift into getting as much as the Wolves can for him.  I would prefer it happen prior to this year's draft since it's so loaded, but Love wants to go to a contender and it's hard finding one of those with both young and promising players and draft picks, and assuming nobody will trade for him unless he agrees to sign a long term deal with them Love's going to need to be on board with his destination.  Some possibilities:

• LAKERS:  The long rumored destination given Love's ties to LA, this is going to be a tough one to make work.  The Lakers have a ridiculous amount of money tied up in Kobe ($30m) and Gasol ($19m) and would almost certainly have to include Gasol to make the money work and that does the Wovles very little good.  They also have basically zero interesting young players with the possible exception of Kendall Marshall.  They do have the sixth slot in the lottery in this year's draft, but they've already traded their 2015 and 2017 first round picks, which means they can't trade 2016.  No chance Love gets to the Lakers without a third team getting involved.
• CHICAGO:  Taj Gibson and Jimmy Butler are a decent starting point to get a trade done, and the Bulls have #16 and #19 in this year's draft, and Chicago has 2015 first rounders from both Sacramento and Cleveland.  Gibson, Butler, and four first round picks would normally be enough to get it done but both those 2015 picks have some weird protections on them that actually mean they're either going to be non-lottery picks or no picks at all.  Probably the front-runner.
• GOLDEN STATE:  The Warriors can offer the best package of players, giving either Harrison Barnes or Klay Thompson as the centerpiece and maybe including either David Lee or Andrew Bogut.  They have zero draft picks to trade, however, having given up their 2014 and 2017 already.  The Warriors would likely need to get a third team involved, but starting with Barnes or Thompson is a good jumping off point.
• BOSTON:  I'm assuming the Wolves have no interest in Rondo, but Boston can still start with Jeff Green and Kelly Olynyk which is a decent enough start.  More interestingly, the Celtics have the #5 spot in the lottery in 2014 and the #17 pick as well, along with three 2015 firsts, and two first in each of 2016, 2017, and 2018 (thanks Brooklyn!).  I'm not sure if Boston's involved at all, and they're further from contention than anybody else on this list, but the combination of draft picks and the ability to use Rondo to entice a third team to throw some stuff in makes Boston the team I'd most like to see Love traded to (also it's nice to have traditions, and Minnesota stars going to Boston is a tradition as old as time).  
• PHOENIX:  The Suns have the last spot in the lottery this year and picks 18 and 27 as well, and will get the Wolves pick if it falls to #14.  They also have the Lakers' 2015 first rounder.  Assuming they won't give up Erik Bledsoe there isn't much here player wise, but I can already see the Wolves trying to talk fans into some combination of the two Morris twins and Archie Goodwin.  
• KNICKS:  They're going to come up because they're New York, but they have no chance of getting a trade done.  Their only asset is Tim Hardaway, because they've completely traded away their next three drafts.  The Knicks' only hope is that a trade doesn't get done and they can get him as a free agent.

Best case scenario is some of these teams and others get together and somehow the Wolves end up with a huge haul.  Something like the Wolves get a bunch of the Celtics picks, and the Celtics ship Rondo to the Bulls who then throw an extra pick or Jimmy Butler or somebody the Wolves way.  Of course, I've been a Minnesota fan for long enough to expect a terrible trade.  They'll probably deal him straight up for Andrew Bogut.

-  I suppose I may need to do a Phil Hughes breakdown at some point, given that he's been lights out in his last four games.  Seriously, a 1.37 ERA, a WHIP under 1.00, an opponent's slash line of .230/.228/.300, and 20 Ks vs. 0 BBs in 26 innings is really impressive stuff.  He'll throw again on Wednesday in San Diego, and if he throws another gem, which seems likely given both the opponent and the park, I'll put up a post looking at his results a little more in depth.

-  Remember how I hit the trifecta in the Kentucky Derby and was going Sizzler?  Well I hit it for the Preakness too.  Same bet, same risk amount.  Big difference, however, in payout.  The Preakness had 10 horses, while the Derby had 19, so odds were significantly reduced already, and then the Preakness had 3 big favorites hit the first three spots while the Derby at least had one significant longshot sneak in there.  So the Derby payout was $1,541.  The Preakness payout?  $38.  No joke.  Was quite the letdown, but at least I've hit two now so I'll be playing for my own Triple Crown in a couple weeks.

-  Looks like Justin Morneau's skull seems to finally be ok seeing as he's off to a hell of a start.  He's hitting .327, which ranks 5th in the NL, with 9 homers (6th) and 32 RBI (4th).  Seriously once teammate Troy Tulowitzki finally gets hurt Morneau might be the front runner for MVP.  His power is way up, with an ISO near his career high in his MVP year, and although you can at least partially credit Coors for that, Morneau deserves the credit for cutting his K rate nearly in half and getting back down to where it was in his prime years.  He's being more aggressive, particularly at balls in the strike zone, and is hammering them pretty good.  His HR/FB rate is probably unsustainable so the home runs will probably taper off a bit, but he's in line for a pretty damn good season.  Here's a nerdy article talking about how he's one of the top players when it comes to hammering the ball compared to last season.

-  Among major league starters the Twins' have three of the highest 15 WHIPS -  #1 Kevin Correia at 1.68, #10 Ricky Nolasco at 1.53, and #15 Kyle Gibson at 1.47.  That, of course, doesn't include Mike Pelfrey who got shut down with a fake injury with a WHIP of 1.99.  I mean that's just like what?  Doesn't something need to be done at this point?  From the constant injuries that go from day-to-day to season ender without a trip to the DL, to the jettisoning of any talented player if they don't play "the Twins way", to this constant need to go back to the same shitty veterans like Matt Guerrier and Jason Bartlett just because they've been Twins before, to the in season roster mis-management that leads to not having a center fielder but having four shortstops this organization is a complete mess.  I need to write a whole post on this before I find myself down the rabbit hole here.  To sum up:

-  I was going to try to hit on the Gophers recruiting targets for 2015, but holy hell are Richard Pitino and the boys busy.  According to 247sports.com they have 26 offers out to 2015 unsigned players and I just really don't feel like going through all of that right now.  There are various levels of interest from the recruits, so I'll just hit a couple of the highlights (all rankings from 247 industry composite number) -

PG Jarvis Johnson (Minneapolis, MN), #81 overall/#18 PG - A De La Salle kid and the first legitimate shot for Pitino to keep the border closed on the players he wants. At all but the top programs keeping the borders closed on your top talent is a good way to build a program, and a guy like Johnson is good enough to boost the Gophers without being so good he's got programs you can't say no to after him - although Michigan State did just get involved so gulp.  The Gophers are considered a pretty big favorite over Wisconsin for his services, but the whole Sparty thing throws everything off.  Pretty important recruit here.

SG Jimmy Whitt (Columbia, MO), #96 overall/23 SG - This guy is piling up offers left and right, and although Arkansas is considered the favorite I've seen his name pop up around the Gophers a couple of times and there are so many teams involved things are still pretty murky.  One wrinkle is it looks like he digs Kansas but they haven't offered yet, so most likely once Kansas misses out on some of their top targets they'll move on to Whitt and he'll sign immediately even though he acted like he liked all these other schools because Kansas is jerks.

SF Danjel Purifoy (Centreville, AL), #43 overall/#10 SF - Worth noting as he's the highest rated player who is given "Warm" interest in the Gophers by 247, along with every SEC school and Maryland, Michigan, and Wichita.  Yes, Kentucky has reportedly offered but I'm guessing he's a back burner type for them, just given Calipari's ability to grab top 10-ish recruits at every position every year.  Purifoy should get you seriously excited given he's an absolutely insane athlete who can handle the ball.  He'd come in and immediately start for the Gophers and he can score, defend, and rebound already.  His jumper isn't very good right now but when nobody can stop your drive you can be a bit more patient with that.  This guy, we want.

PF Alex Illikainen (Grand Rapids, MN), #65 overall, #17 PF - If you could say the Gophers have one traditional recruiting strength regardless of coach, it's been out state Minnesota kids.  I'm trying to remember a non-city kid from the state who the Gophers wanted and didn't get and I can't think of one.  The closest I can come is Cody Johnson who ended up at Iowa State but I don't think the Gophers really recruited him.  I guess you could count J.P. Macura if you wanted but I meant more country kids, not places like Lakeville, and the whole coaching change thing makes it a crap shoot.  In any case, the Gophers should be in decent shape for Illikainen, although the competition isn't from anyone who strikes particular fear into my heart (Cal, Creighton, Iowa State, and Indiana are the other schools who have offered and he's shown interest in).  He's a perfect stretch four who can also run the floor well and finish in transition, so he not only is from Minnesota but he'd fit Pitino's system perfectly.  He's pretty much a Gopher Hole wet dream, and in this case I can't blame them.

C Akolda Manyang (Duluth, MN), #1 overall JUCO, #1 overall JUCO C - Pulling kids from Junior College is always a crap shoot as their are some incredible success stories and some disasters and everything in between, but he's highly rated, he's seven feet tall, and he's at least got some other high majors after him (Oklahoma, Arizona State).  I promise if things heat up I'll try to track down some kind of scouting or more info on him, but for now he's really tall and some people like him.


Honestly if Pitino got an all Minnesota class (with Manyang, Illikainen and Johnson) that would be a pretty good class and make those weirdos who want the team to be like, only Minnesota kids happy too.  Two top 100 kids and the top Juco would be a nice step up for the program and a natural build, made all the easier by it being local kids.  That being said, Pitino is so aggressive and he has so many offers out to so many top kids I'm hoping that after so many near misses last year he finally lands somebody that is like wow - #22 Allonzo Trier, #39 Eric Davis, #42 Jalen Adams, #21 Brandon Ingram, #6 Chieck Diallo, #27 Moustapha Diagne, and #16 Doral Moore are all in play to various degrees.  Hopefully he gets one (or more).

Who's this Danny Santana guy?

One thing you can be sure of when you're a fan of a crappy baseball team is there will be people running in and out of the lineup you've never heard of all the time, and with the Twins' crappy options at shortstop given Pedro Florimon's inability to hit at all they've gone with the revolving door approach at the position.  I should have hit on Eduardo Nunez after they acquired him, and may still do that, but with Danny Santana getting all the playing time lately it's time to figure out just who the hell this guy is.

John Sickels from minorleagueball.com ranked him the Twins' #15 prospect, Baseball America ranked him ninth, and Aaron Gleeman put him at #14.  In short, he's a possible "shortstop of the future" and somehow we should be paying very close attention to and pulling for as hard as you can pull.  If you click on that Baseball America link you can see his ranking within the organization the last four years has gone 25-20-11-9, so he's been improving and moving in the right direction.  Sickels had estimated he'd be up late 2014, so he's a little bit ahead of schedule.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.  We should look at a little background.

Santana was signed out of the Dominican by the Twins as a 17-year old and who has had a rather rapid rise to AAA, playing at a below average age for the league at each stop.  His career slash line is .274/.318/.393, which means he walks little and doesn't have much power - then again as a shortstop you don't necessarily need those things to be effective.  He has some speed with 117 career minor league steals with a decent success rate of 69%, and although he strikes out a lot (career 18.5%) he had improved in 2012 and 2013 with a rate of 14.1% and 16.0% before ballooning up to 26% this year in AAA (in fairness, his first year at that level).

Since he's a shortstop, if he can put up his exact career numbers at the major league level, get a little better on the bases, and play above average defense he could conceivably grab the SS position on the team for the foreseeable future.  That .274 average would have been 6th among all big league shortstops last year, while a .318 OBP would have been 7th and the .393 SLG 8th and his .711 OPS would have been 6th.  Remember, the bar of shortstop offense is quite low outside of the freaks, so Santana's numbers, despite his lack of walks and power (just 25 career home runs, not a ton of extra base hits though he could be a 20 double/10 triple guy if everything breaks right), would make him a top 10 offensive shortstop.  The steals are intriguing too, given that just 6 shortstops stole 20+ bases last season (Santana had 30 in 2013 at AA ball).  It may be asking a lot, but looking at the numbers it's not out of the realm of possibility.

More important, however, is if he can play defense at a high level.  His career fielding percentage at shortstop in the minors is .932, which is really, really bad.  He was at .918 this season when he was called up, and even his best seasons were around .940-.950 which is still really, really bad.  Like, dead last in the league bad.  His range factor per game is 4.01, and as unreliable as that metric is (it's just assists+putouts / games) it's all we have for the minors.  I couldn't find any leaderboards for it, but just checking a guy with range (Florimon, 4.63) and a guy without (Jhonny Peralta, 4.33) that number doesn't inspire confidence either.

That said, he's definitely a guy to keep a close watch on.  The fielding could still develop and he's at least intriguing enough with his bat that it's worth giving him time.  I wouldn't be against just handing him the starting job and pretty much letting him run with it for the year.  If he can field and hit at the big league level the Twins may finally have a real shortstop.

Thursday Thoughts

-  So the "big" news of the day in Gopher land is that the Big 10/ACC Challenge match-ups were announced and the Gophers got screwed.  No, it's not Florida State for the 12th time, but they ended up getting slated to go on the road to Wake Forest.  Despite finishing 7th in the league, the Gophers get last season's 11th place Demon Deacons who are probably going to be even worse.  At the same time, the 6th place Hawkeyes get North Carolina, and Illinois and Indiana, who both finished below the Gophers, get much more favorable match-ups in Miami and Pitt, and last place Purdue got a fun match-up in NC State.  This is horseshit.

There are 14 Big Ten teams.  There are 15 ACC teams.  Should be pretty straight forward, although with the realignment I suppose they had some leeway to play with things, but this is bullshit.  No chance in hell Purdue, 12th in the Big Ten, should get NC State, who finished tied for 7th.  If things were fair, horrible shit box Virginia Tech sits out (not Notre Dame) and based on records you get:

Virginia vs. Michigan
Louisville vs. Wisconsin
Syracuse vs. Michigan State
Duke vs.  Nebraska
UNC vs. Ohio State
Pitt vs. Iowa
Clemson vs. Maryland
NC State vs. Minnesota
FSU vs.  Illinois
Miami vs.  Indiana
Wake vs.   Penn State
Georgia Tech vs.  Northwestern
Notre Dame vs.  Purdue
BC vs.  Rutgers

Way better and much more fair.  Fucking NCAA Fascist bastards.  Wake sucks, and they might even be worse next year.  One of their top bench guys is transferring, and they're losing two starters.  It's probably not all bad because their two leading scorers are back and they've got some decent young players, but I'm crabby so I'm bitching because the Gophers clearly got screwed because they're looked at as a bottom tier Big Ten program.  Maybe they are but shit, you don't have to out of your way to fucking remind me.  I need a drink.

-  Going with Knob Creek.

- A little more news that might be of interest to Gopher fans is that Naadir Tharpe is transferring from Kansas.  You may remember Tharpe from blogs such as this one because at one point he was ranked #90 overall and the #20 point guard in the country and all things pointed to him being a Gopher.  If you don't feel like reading back, Tharpe had a two school list of Minnesota and Rutgers and then Rutgers signed Myles Mack so he canceled his official to Rutgers and the Gophers were in the driver's seat.  Then Josiah Turner signed with Arizona (which did not work out well - DUI, kicked off team, transfer, reneg on transfer enter NBA draft, not drafted) which meant Kansas didn't have a point guard in their incoming class so they called Tharpe and about five minutes later, without even a visit, he was a Jayhawk.  Once again, I don't need to be reminded constantly how the Gopher program ranks nationally.  Thanks again, Tum Tum Nairn (who did almost the same thing).

Now, after 3 so so years in which he's made pretty good progress each year (1ppg/1apg to 6ppg/3apg to 9ppg/5apg) he's out.  Kansas is fairly loaded at guard, and Tharpe actually lost his starting spot for a few games, but Tharpe is transferring to be closer to his daughter in Massachusetts (I think) who has been having some health issues.  I would assume BC, UMass, and any of those Rhode Island schools are in play, and who knows, maybe UCONN.  This is a pretty clear case of somebody who deserves a hardship waiver to be immediately eligible.  So he's probably 50/50.  The NCAA is neat.

-  It's been awfully hard to keep up with the Twins this year considering they never seem to play, when they do it's almost always day games, my vpn trick to make mlb.com think I'm in California so I can watch their games on my computer has stopped working, and the pitching staff is once again horrible.  Who could have possibly predicted that trying to upgrade the starters by signing two mediocre or worse starters and resigning a terrible one wouldn't have worked?

The team's starters post an ERA of 6.08, a WHIP of 1.64, a FIP of 4.74, and a xFIP of 4.95, numbers that are second worst, worst, second worst, and worst in the majors and this was coming into the day not even accounting for Pelfrey getting destroyed.   Every single one of those numbers is worse than last year.  Look at this rotation (ERA/FIP/xFIP/WHIP):

• Ricky Nolasco:  6.67/5.36/4.32/1.75
• Phil Hughes:  5.14/3.42/3.72/1.39
• Kevin Correia:  7.33/4.21/5.24/1.67
• Mike Pelfrey:  7.32/8.22/6.87/1.88
• Kyle Gibson: 4.34/3.55/4.79/1.55

As Ian Malcolm once said, "that is one big pile of shit."  Gibson's the only one who has looked halfway decent but his last two outings have been pretty bad and I fear his hot start was mostly fluky.  Hughes has been far and away the second best starter on this team so far.  Phil Hughes!  The good news is most of these guys aren't quite as bad as they've looked since with one exception their FIPs and xFIPS are lower than their ERA, which suggests that either luck or bad defense is making things worse and considering the team's horrendous corner outfielders it could be that, but they aren't suddenly going to get better.  The bad news is that Mike Pelfrey might actually be worse than he's looked.  Worse!  

They're clawing around .500 thanks to an offense that has been putting up a shocking amount of runs ranking fifth in the majors, but man does that ever feel like fool's gold.  Second in the majors in walks (after finishing 7th last season) should hold up and the team likely will keep putting runners on base, but there feels like to much fluky, timely hitting bringing in all those runs especially since they were a bottom six run scoring team last year.  Sam Fuld (who I thought was brought in to be a fifth/sixth outfielder, not an every day starter), Trevor Plouffe, and Chris Colabello are all probably playing way over their heads, and I find it unlikely that Brian Dozier really has the kind of power he's showing so far.  Now Joe Mauer and Aaron Hicks should probably be better than they're showing (can you believe Chris Herrmann pinch hit for Hicks today?  Talk about a career low point) so it could kind of even out a bit, but if this team's going to do anything it's with pitching.  And this pitching sucks.  At least

-  The Kentucky Derby is this weekend, and I'm always big fan and have given you jerks picks each of the last four years.  Four years ago I hit Super Saver and two years ago my wife picked the winner with I'll Have Another, so you know what that means - I'm practically guaranteed to pick the winning horse.

My favorite bet is Intense Holiday at 16/1.  He fits the profile of your typical derby winner - solid year at age 2 with improvement at age 3.  He's also one of the best closers in the field.  If he can stay middle of the pack for most of the race he should be able to make a late charge.  Like this horse a lot.  Also put down on Danza at 9/1 and Medal Count at 25/1.  Danza is coming in hot and is a fast horse, but also has a lot of stamina in his pedigree, could very well be a wire to wire winner.  Medal Count is similar to Danza in that he has a lot of stamina, but similar to Intense Holiday in that his best bet is to win with a late charge because he's not as fast as Danza.  Long shot to win but I'll take a closer with stamina at 25/1.  My kids chose Candy Boy (25/1) because hey, candy, and the wife went with Vicar's in Trouble because "he sounds British."  So there you go.  I'll probably do some kind of trifecta or exacta or something with my three horses and one of the front runners.  Looking to win big this year.

BOATLOADS!

(ended up doing an trifecta box with Danza, Intense Holiday, California Chrome, Commanding Curve, and Wildcat Red)

Welcome aboard, Zach Lofton and Bakary Konate!

The Gophers' 2014 recruiting class is now complete (probably) with the recent signings of Zach Lofton (who almost certainly won't be eligible until 2015) and Bakary Konate, who join Gaston Diedhiou, Josh Martin, Carlos Morris, and Nate Mason to make up Richard Pitino's first official recruiting class.  It's not an amazing class by any means, with 247sports ranking it 9th in the Big Ten (this doesn't include Lofton since he's a transfer from Illinois State) but it's a dramatic shift in personnel traits.  All five of the freshmen are extremely athletic and should be able to get up and down the court.  Make no mistake - this team is changing.

Konate, who ranks as the 182nd best player and 15th best center by 247sports, is originally from Spain, and most recently played at Sunrise Christian Academy in Kansas.  Louisville had offered earlier, however Konate's academics weren't in order and the Cardinals moved on.  The Gophers swept in and grabbed him over Texas A&M, Tulane, and Creighton, foregoing any other visits other than to Minnesota because he says he knew this is where he wanted to be.  So that's cool.  Konate still needs to take the SAT and get a good enough score to gain admission to Minnesota, but his coach says that shouldn't be a problem.  Which is exactly what he has to say.

Hopefully it isn't an issue, because Konate sounds like he's going to be fun.  He's big, strong, and super athletic and he does two really fun things - blocks shots and hits outside jumpers.  He's a true center at 6-11, and although they say he's not super polished on the block the fact that he can step out and hit 2s and even 3s adds a nice wrinkle.  The one big weakness they say is that he's not as strong in the lower body as he is in the upper, which could get him pushed around in the Big Ten, but if Pitino can get Mo Walker to lose weight, hopefully he can get Konate to gain weight.  He's a great pick up this late.  Not much video out there, but here's him dunking against a D-I team.




Zach Lofton, originally from Columbia Heights, is transferring in from Illinois State.  It's said he'll be applying for a waiver to play right away next season, but he doesn't really have any good reasons for one so it's unlikely.  Of course, this being the NCAA who the hell knows what they'll decide.  Once Lofton decided to leave the Illinois State program he didn't look at anybody other than the Gophers, hoping they'd make him an offer.  They did, and despite a lot of whining and questioning from rubes at Gopher Hole, I think this is an excellent signing.

Lofton scored 11.3 points per game for the Redbirds last season (he also spent a year at a JuCo), which would normally have fans very excited, but his .339 shooting percentage including .292 from three has some fans up in arms about how he "sucks" and using a scholarship for three years is "a waste" and how the Gophers should get someone better (because everyone is just clamoring to transfer here).  Perhaps fans are scarred by the whole Malik Smith thing (small school volume shooter with iffy percentages), but this is a very different situation.  I promise.

For one thing, Malik Smith was a three point shooter and that's basically it.  His final year at FIU he took 71% of his shots from behind the 3-point line and only 12% at the rim.  Lofton took 52% from behind the arc and 19% at the rim last season - those are marked differences.  Smith went a little more extreme with the Gophers at 78% and 10%, but even if Lofton shifts more towards a 3-point shooter role (I don't expect this to happen) he would probably wind up with similar splits as Dre Hollins last year, a vastly different type of player than Malik Smith.

Watching the video on him (see below) some of his shot selection is cringe-worthy but he's also light years ahead of Malik in terms of athleticism.  I also don't see Pitino giving Lofton the same green light he game Smith given that they don't have a past relationship.  Illinois State was also a very young team which may have played a part as well.

The other thing people are all pantie bunched about is that he had some disciplinary issues and missed the final 3 games of the Redbirds' season.  Unless you're the kind of person who wants your players' all squeaky clean I don't see why this should bother you.  He was a little bit immature but it was clear this whole thing came about because of a bad relationship with his coach and there are two other players transferring out as well, both of whom played in every game last season, which tells me maybe the clash isn't because Lofton is some kind of bad seed.  There were also four transfers out the prior season, the current coach's first.

So you have a coach with 7 players transferring out since he got the job.  Hard for me to not give Lofton the benefit of the doubt, and even if he did act like kind of a dick (he did) who really cares?  Who cares about the 3 game suspension?  When Mo Walker was basically carrying the team did anyone give a shit about his early season suspension?  These things happen, and as long as the player stays eligible I don't really give a crap.  If he's acting up and being a general shithead I trust Pitino can handle it.  He's a completely worthwhile signee and in his first season he'll have a chance to step in and be a big offensive cog for the team considering both Dres will be gone.  I'm baffled by the people who are upset about this.  Well, I guess I'm not, actually.  I've pretty much come to expect it.

Twins ditch Mastroianni, pick up Sam Fuld. Upgrade?

[And right as I post this I see on Twitter the Gophers picked up commitments from Zach Lofton and Bakary Konate.  Post coming on that tomorrow.]

Never let it be said that I don't tackle the tough questions on this blog. With the Twins grabbing Sam Fuld of waivers and subsequently losing Darin Mastroianni to the Blue Jays it's finally time to look at the big question every is asking these days - who is the better sixth outfielder?  I know, I'm brave to put myself out there like this on such an important and controversial topic, but someone has to do it.  The people demand answers.

Mastroianni's career slash numbers are .220/.288/.295, while Fuld's are .233/.312/.334 - both pretty terrible.  Fuld's minor league career numbers are .283/.371/.402, and Mastroianni is at .280/.370/.370.  Generally pretty comparable and crappy.  The differences are Fuld walks a little bit more, Mastroianni strikes out about twice as often, and although neither is going to hit it out of the park very often Fuld has slightly more gap power.  Edge to Fuld.  Since we're talking sixth outfielder here (when everyone's healthy) the biggest value these guys could bring is as a pinch hitter, and I would definitely feel better with Fuld up there than Mastroianni who mostly just made me roll my eyes.  He's not a great bat by any means, but he is an upgrade.

Both had some success stealing bases in the minors and both have exactly one big league season with a nice steals total - Mastroianni had 21 in 2012, Fuld 20 in 2011.  For their careers Mastroianni has stolen 24 bases while being caught just 4 times, while Fuld totals 38 with 13 caught.  Edge Mastroianni, but in general I hate pinch running so maybe not having the faster guy is an overall positive?  Fuld balances the speed difference by being a better overall base running, at least according to UBR (Ultimate Base Running), a complicated way to try to quantify base running ability.  I don't know how much credence we can really lend to it, but for whatever it's worth Fuld's been goode for his career while Mastroianni has been simply average.
Defensively, and this is important since this is the center field back up spot, these guys are both quite good according to Fangraphs' defensive metrics, specifically UZR (Ultimate Zone Rating).  Fuld has overall been better over his career, but Mastroianni jumps ahead if you look at it on a per 150 games basis.  They both have good range and a good arm, and neither make many errors.  Call it a tie.

I'll take the swap.  They're pretty much dead even in most things except Fuld is better with the stick, and since their role is going to mainly be coming off the bench I'd rather have a better hitter.  Mastroianni is four years younger than Fuld, which would be a selling point in some cases, but not here.  Reality is these guys are non-prospects, so age doesn't really matter.  They're both better than Alex Presley, anyway.

Now you have the answer to this pressing topic that I'm pretty sure most Twins fans weren't even aware of.  I'm generous like that.

Is Kyle Gibson like, good?

Kyle Gibson had the pedigree of a star after constantly making top prospect lists throughout his minor league career, and not just for the Twins, but for the entire league.  He had the track record with some very good minor league seasons, including 2013 before he was called up.  Then he finally made his debut last June and looked very good against Kansas City and suddenly the sky was the limit, but that was where the good feelings stopped.  In ten starts he compiled a ghastly 6.53 ERA with a drastic drop in his K/9 and way too high of a line drive rate.  There were positive signs - his xFIP was a run and a half better than his ERA, his BABIP was unsustainably high, and his HR/FB probably was too.  But I was a little bit worried.

This season he's been dazzling, winning all three of his starts on his way to a sparkling 0.93 ERA and 1.09 WHIP.  In those three games he's totaled 19.1 innings pitched and allowed a mere 12 hits, although just 10 strikeouts versus 9 walks is a bit troubling.  Terrible last year, great this year, which begs the question, Is Kyle Gibson like, good?

The first place to look is always BABIP, and just as he was super lucky last year, he's been very lucky this year with his BABIP at .211 (it was .350 last season).  He's also stranded 90.5% of his base runners, a completely ridiculous number, and given up 0 home runs despite 33% of his balls in play being hit in the air - another number that simply won't hold up.  Perhaps the scariest part is his strikeouts and walks.  After being a big-time strikeout pitcher throughout the minors, and even being respectable in that regard post his surgery, that part of his game has completely gone away in the majors.  He was poor last year at just 5.12 K/9, and has taken that down another notch to 4.68 this season.  Gross.  His walks, never a problem in the minors, have also taken a turn for the worse, from 3.53 per 9 last year to a positively Bedard-ian 4.19 this season.

That makes his K/BB ratio 1.45 last year and 1.1 this season - both numbers would rank dead last in the majors last season.  Worse than notorious soft-tossing nancies Scott Diamond, Barry Zito, Trevor Cahill, Joe Saunders, Jeremy Guthrie, Mike Pelfrey, and Jason Hammel - these are not guys you want to mentioned with in pretty much any scenario.  I don't know if this is something physical still going on or if it's the "Twins Way" once again screwing up someone's natural talents, but his fastball has fallen from an average of 92.1mph last season to 90.8 mph this year, a fairly alarming drop.  He's also not getting batters to chase balls out of the zone and not missing many bats when he does throw strikes.  None of this is good.

That's not to say there aren't some positives here.  Part of the reason he's had success this year is he's been able to drastically reduce his line drive rate.  It was a slightly below average 21.3% last season, and it's been slashed all the way down to 10.5% this season, 4th in the majors (and a number that would easily have been #1 last season).  The best part is those line drives from last year are becoming ground balls (+7.4%) and pop-ups (+9.0%), the easiest ways to get dudes out.  Based on his batted ball percentage his ERA should be around 2.75, which shows that although Gibson has been extremely lucky this season that doesn't necessarily rule out that he could still be a very good pitcher.

Right now Gibson looks like yet another Twins' pitch-to-contact guy who has gotten extremely lucky this year.  He's definitely taken some strides forward from last season, but he isn't really showing that high end ceiling he was projected to have.  You simply cannot be a top line pitcher with those kind of K numbers.  If he can rediscover his old ability to get whiffs to somewhere in the 6 per 9 inning area he could maybe be a #3 pitcher, but as it stands right now he's looking like no more than a 4-5.  Dammit.  This is really not how I was hoping this investigation would turn out.

Is Chris Colabello like, good?

I've been getting a lot of shit lately because I haven't written anything Twins related.  Honestly between the one million day games and my two completely insane children I haven't gotten to see that much.  I have seen enough to finally make a post, and why not start with American League RBI leader Chris Colabello?

First off history is generally against him given that not many players don't crack the bigs until they're 29 years old and then go on to be stars.  He also struck out 32% of the time last season (in 181 plate appearances) which would put him somewhere near the all-time strikeout record if it held up for a full season).  When he did put the ball in play, he popped it up 17.4% of the time, a mark which would have been fourth worst in baseball.  In short, Colabello was a really shitty hitter last season.

The Twins were determined to bring him back this year because he had a tremendous 2013 in AAA (.352/.427/.639) and frankly they didn't have a lot of other options unless you still foolishly believe in Chris Parmelee.  So far he's rewarded them by hitting .333/.379/.519 with good power (6 doubles, 1 HR) and is leading the AL with 16 RBI.  Gaudy numbers, to be sure, and quite the turnaround from last season.  The question is, is Chris Colabello like, good?

Two major red flags right off the nerd stat bat - his walk % and his BABIP.  Last season Colabello walked in a quite good 11.0% of his plate appearances.  That would have ranked him in a tie for 29th in the majors last season.  That was one of the only signs for optimism last season with Colabello, and it's completely gone away this year with him walking in just 3.8% of his plate appearances.  Usually when a batter makes a leap you see that move in the opposite direction.  He somehow went from a patient hitter to someone who walks at a Delmon Young level (they have the exact same walk rate).  The other red flag is that his BABIP is .400 this season, a completely unsustainable number.  Things do not look good so far for young Mr. Colabello.

There are, however, some positives.  Most namely he's making more and better contact.  His K rate has dropped from that ugly 32% to a more acceptable 25% - manageable if you're producing offensively - helped by him making contact 70% of the time when he swings this year compared to 65% last year, and more importantly making contact 81% on swings on balls in the strike zone compared to 73% last season.  With that contact he's hitting more line drives (19% vs. 14%) and has yet to hit a single infield pop-up this year after doing it like it was his job last season.

So the real truth lies somewhere in between 2013 Chris Colabello and 2014 Chris Colabello.  He's not a worse hitter than Nick Punto, but he's not an all-star either, which I suppose gives you a pretty wide range of outcomes but that's the difference between the two Colabellos.  He'll probably regress and end up putting up something like .275/.320/.450 with low double digit home runs and an overinflated sense of worth when he finishes with 90-100 RBI.  With his subpar defense he'll probably hover around replacement level for his career, and having to play 1B or a corner outfield spot without supplying the high level offense those premium offensive positions usually bring is a big negative.

Basically he's a capable bat of the bench.  Who will end up starting 150+ games for the Twins.  That says a whole lot.


Coming Monday:  Is Kyle Gibson like, good?

Welcome Aboard, Gaston Diedhiou!

In a move that seemingly nobody saw coming, the Gophers received a commitment from Gaston Diedhiou for 2014, and there is pretty much zero info out there about this guy.  Most of the recruiting sites didn't even have a page for him until he signed.  Here's what we know:

-  He's 6-9, 225 lbs (maybe, but listed anywhere from 206-240) with a long wingspan over seven feet.  He fits a need at PF, specifically a physical power forward, and hopefully he can be a rim protecting center when Eliason and Walker move on as well.  If he can play.

-  He's from Senegal and played at the Canarias Basketball Academy in Spain last season.  He's the fifth player from there in this class to sign with a D-I program (Maryland, Louisville, Pitt, and UC-Riverside got the others) so they at least seem to put out decent talent.  They've had 15 other guys sign with D-1 programs the last four years, but the best of the list is Boris Bojanovsky at Florida State.

-  He will be 21 when he starts his career.  That's right, a 21-year old freshman.

-  It's irresistible to compare him to Gorgui Dieng, given their similarities and the Pitino connection.  This kid is not Dieng.  He may become him, but he's not him at this point at all.

Given that there aren't any scouting reports out there about him all you can do is watch a couple of youtube videos and I'm cautiously optimistic here.  Keeping in mind that the level of competition looked rather sub-par and that this was a highlight video with the whole point being to showcase the best of his game, Diedhiou showed a few nice things. 

He's definitely big and athletic, and he looks strong, although we'll see how that translates to the Big Ten.  He appears to fundamentally understand rebounding and has good instincts, his free throw form and results look good, and they even showed him hitting a couple mid-range jumpers.  He's comfortable putting the ball on the floor from the top of the key to get to the rim, and looks comfortable in the post going to his right either for a lay up if he can get around his man or a smooth looking jump hook.  He only went left from the block once in the video, so that's likely something he'll need to work on.

You will hear him called a project, and maybe rightfully so, but he looked more polished in that video than I was expecting, and as a 20-year old he should be.  Again, level of competition, highlight video and all those caveats but I was impressed.  Hopefully I don't end up looking like an idiot.  I'm getting kind of tired of that.

Season's Over

I guess I haven't posted in a while and you've probably been sad about it and cried a lot.  For that I suppose I'm sorry.  I've been busy and tired and quite lazy. 

So late congratulations to the Gophers on winning the NIT.  It sucks to be in the NIT, but if you get stuck there you might as well win the damn thing.  No, this is not better than a loss in the First Four as far as being a fan or program-wise, but hey, a bunch of kids worked their asses off, got to spend some time in the NYC, and won a championship for themselves.  Awesome for them, and although I doubt it helps recruiting it probably doesn't hurt to play two games in MSG on ESPN.  Great seeing Austin Hollins win MVP or MOP or whatever too after playing great, especially because somewhere around early mid-season some of the looney tune fans around here (gopherhole) were calling for him to be benched.  Because they're super rational you see.

Meanwhile Joey King reminded us that off the bench scoring guy is probably his upside, not his downside, and Dre Hollins told us the reason he didn't look healthy the second half of the year was because he wasn't healthy the second half of the year. Malik Smith managed to hit a couple of shots to close out his career, Oto Osenieks came back for an encore, and Maverick still fell down a lot.  Mo and Elliott continued to look like two halves of an excellent player, and DeAndre Mathieu looked like a contender for Big 10 Player of the Year next season.  Fun end to the year, even if I only watched 1.5 games of the entire NIT.  Sorry.

So close the books on 2013-2014, and I'd probably give the season a B.  I didn't expect this team to make the NCAA Tournament and they came awfully damn close, then closed with a strong run through the NIT.  It pains me to think that it's likely they were 1 win away from an NCAA bid and that the win could have come at any time, including at home against shitty Illinois.  Of course, it's also possible that even with that win they could have gotten snubbed which would really sting.  Good season based on preseason expectations, but slightly poor season based on mid-season feelings.  Sounds like a B.

Now we move on to Pitino Year 2.  It's a pretty solid roster.  The guards should be outstanding with Dre Hollins (hopefully healthy) and Mathieu forming one of the better back courts in the conference, if not the country and likely, I think, solid back-ups in Daquein McNeil who looked pretty good as a freshman and will be a year older and freshman Nate Mason.  Losing both true 3s in Austin Hollins and Malik Smith will sting, but JuCo swingman Carlos Morris can hopefully fill those shoes.  King and Charles Buggs are the returning PF, but freshman Josh Martin already has a Big 10 body so should be able to give minutes, if nothing else, and hopefully more.  Center will be the same two headed monster but with another year stronger, wiser, and hopefully better.

Plenty of questions and holes, but that describes most teams at this point, and having your starting back court and center position rock solid is a good start.  Plus the Gophers have three open scholarships for next season right now.  One of them is supposed to be filled by Djuan Piper, according to the rumors, and it was supposed to happen tonight.  It sounds like his decision has been pushed to tomorrow (Thursday) and according to the rumors it's either because of academic issues or second thoughts.  Neither is good. He's ranked #147 by 247sports now and is a damn sight better than anything else the Gophers are going to pluck from the high school ranks this late - Spring recruiting can get rough (Mav -> hi!) and Piper and Bakary Konate, who I need to write up at some point, look like about it.

Of course, the great thing about the Gophers' position is they have space and they have needs, and with the transfer happy NCAA culture these days (which I enjoy) a graduate transfer PF or shooter guy would make a whole ton of sense for both parties.  A lot of names are starting to surface and there are a lot more sure to come, not to mention non-grad transfers who could hope to get waivers or just sit a year before playing.  The Gophers have a lot of flexibility with the roster for next season, and there's no way they're done yet.  This should be fun.

Gophers 67, Florida State 64

Well they won.  Winning is better than losing, right?  Even in the NIT which forces me and you to watch another game that we barely care about.  They certainly tried to lose, but FSU just wanted the loss more.  Anyway, here are ten things I liked and didn't like.

1.  Joey King was a total spaz.  For someone who was such a big part of the offense in this NIT run to win with him scoring just 3 points is a good thing.  He only played 7 minutes due to foul trouble from the get go and I have no idea what he was doing out there.  With Eliason out the Gopher "bigs" were in such bad shape Oto had to come back and play, yet King's out there jumping around like a little kid up past his bedtime.  Maybe he was trying to hard to be a major factor, but the majority of his fouls were just stupid and caused by hyperactivity and lack of body control.  It was probably the worst game anybody has ever played in the history of basketball.  Probably.

2.  Speaking of Oto, was it all just a lie?  It has to be, right?  Just a month or so ago we were all told Oto had such a serious injury that he had to hang it up for his career, yet here the Gophers are short handed and all of a sudden he's not only playing, but playing 32 minutes.  He mostly looked like a guy who hadn't been playing basketball, but he made due with a hell of an effort and was pretty key for the Gophers - that rebound off a missed FT he grabbed in overtime was 100% pure hustle as he was boxed out by two Seminoles and just forced his way through.  But clearly Pitino told hm he probably wasn't going to get minutes next year and Oto chose to retire rather than transfer, and they concocted this bogus story.  I get it, but it sucks when it blows up like this.  I can never trust anyone ever again.

3.  Florida State did the Gophers a lot of favors.  With Minnesota undermanned and undersized in the paint FSU should have attacked the basket all night.  They grabbed 43% of their misses and were clearly better and bigger, but for some reason the majority of the night they were content to shoot perimeter jumpers, going 1-9 in the first half from three and then still doing it, going 3-9 in the second half and overtime.  When they made their big run to take the lead as the game was winding down they did it by pounding the ball inside, mainly to Okaro White, and it worked (helped by a Gophers shooting slump).  I have no idea why this wasn't the game plan consistently, especially when everyone on the Gophers ended up with foul trouble.  I assume it's because Florida State is a dumb team, year after year.

4.  Speaking of FSU, their defense was really horrible.  It's surprising because Leonard Hamilton almost always has his Seminole teams as top defensive squads and their size, but the Gopher guards had their way with FSU driving to the paint last night.  Fifty-one of the teams 67 points came from their guards, which shouldn't be surprising given the team make-up I guess, but Austin Hollins was as driving machine all night and Dre Hollins and Dre Mathieu were able to waltz in for easy layups on back to back plays near the end of regulation. With Florida State's size and shot blocking (23rd in the country by percentages) two little guys like that shouldn't be able to get to the rim, but they did it consistently either scoring or finding others for open looks.  FSU also turned the ball over a ton, but enough about FSU.  They done.

5.  The A topic on twitter last night was the horrible announcing team.  And they weren't wrong.  Bobby Knight was terrible.  Long stretches with no talking, rambling Abe Simpson like stories about wearing an onion on his belt (it was the style at the time) and his old teams and players, harping on the same points over and over, and asking his colleagues questions about the game he was allegedly watching.  I usually like Knight as an announcer and I'm not going to make the obvious joke about him being drunk and/or senile because it was pretty clear he was just completely bored with the game.  Even as it got towards the end and was supposedly getting pretty exciting he was still droning on about some dude from his 1978 team or something.  He clearly has no interest in the NIT, and honestly I can't even blame him.  Even I just wanted that game to hurry up and end.

6.  The court was left alone, unlike NCAA games.  You remember how back in the day the host schools court for the NCAA Tournament basically looked the way the court always looked?  Maybe they'd change a logo or two but it was basically the same?  And now how they white wash all courts to look identical, so if you're watching a game in Orlando and switch to a game in Anaheim it looks exactly the same except the location name is on the baseline?  I was afraid they'd do something similar to MSG, but luckily they left it alone other than replacing any Knicks stuff with NIT stuff.  Maybe it was apathy because it's the NIT, I don't know but I liked it.  I'm actually now realizing I didn't notice if they changed it for the Sweet 16/Elite 8 games.  This would be a way better point if I remembered to notice.

7.  Malik Smith is broken.  It's to the point where I'm actually feeling bad for him since this is the way his career is ending.   He missed three of his four free throw attempts including two with eight seconds left and the Gophers up 3 so one make wins the game, and all four of his three-point attempts which drops him to two makes in his last 34 attempts and a line of 8-58 since he exploded against Nebraska.  Did that game wreck him?  It shouldn't considering he had a few games like that in his FIU days, but the results since are pretty remarkable.  If you watch him his fundamentals are all over the place now too - he's not even squaring up to shoot a lot of the time.  It would be nice for him to have a good game to close out his career against SMU, but at this point I think you have to hope for just a non-shitty game.

8.  The Gophers did a really nice job of shutting down Aaron Thomas.  Thomas played 36 minutes before fouling out and managed just 3 points on 1-8 shooting.  Thomas led the team in scoring this year at 14.1 per, hit double figures in 16 straight games and 27 of their last 30, and had been over 20 points in each of their NIT victories before the Gophers stopped him.  This is where I'd write about how they did it but I forgot to pay attention to it and by the time I realized they had completely stymied him he was in the process of fouling out.  I'm a really good blogger.

9.  Dre Hollins looked a lot better.  His shot is still iffy, but he seemed much more lively to me and was attacking the rim more like he did prior to his injury, and his defense was a lot better too.  He's had 2 steals in three of four NIT games, and prior to that the last time he had more than 1 was the Ohio State, two games prior to getting hurt.  He's also had 7 and 4 assists the last two games with the last time he had more than 3 the Purdue game in Minneapolis on January 5th.  I was of the opinion that shutting him down for the NIT and making sure he's healthy for next season might have made some sense, but everything seems to be coming up Milhouse so party on.

10.  So now the Gophers have a chance at a Championship.  And what do you hear over and over?  "Making a deep run in the NIT is a springboard to success the following season."  Is this true?  I don't know, let's look.

NIT CHAMPIONS (next season results):

2013:  Baylor (sweet 16) over Iowa (First Four)
2012:  Stanford (missed tournament) over Minnesota (second round)
2011:  Wichita State (first round) over Alabama (first round)
2010:  Dayton (missed tournament) over North Carolina (elite 8)
2009:  Penn State (missed tournament) over Baylor (elite 8)

That's the last five years which is all the effort I'm going to put into this.  Seven of the 10 teams made the NCAA Tournament the following year with four of those recording a victory.  I'm going to say that making the NIT Championship is a decent indicator of a team that makes the NCAA Tournament the following season but that's about it - and I'll take it.  With only two seniors departing from this team they fit the profile.  Maybe next year is the year I will finally see LOCK:  Minnesota in ESPN's Bubble Watch.  Still waiting.

Up next is SMU, a really good team who probably should have made the NCAA Tournament.  I might preview it if I feel like it later.  No promises.