Hey the Preseason Top 25 polls just came out. You know what that means, time to write about how bad all these teams suck. I'm taking a look at the AP poll instead of the Coaches poll because I chose it at random. Spoiler alert: The Gophers aren't in here.
1. NORTH CAROLINA. They only lose J.P. Tokoto who entered the NBA Draft for some reason but that's fine because I think he mostly made people mad at his shooting. Marcus Paige is back and he's really good when he's not being terrible. They had zero outside shooting other than him last year, and unless one of the freshman can shoot (one supposedly can) or somebody else learned how to hit a 3-pointer in the offseason this is not the best team in basketball. Also I just read Paige is out for 3-4 weeks with an injury so maybe that will lead to somebody else being good. SPOILER: nope.
2. KENTUCKY. Hell I don't know.
3. MARYLAND. It's hard to wrap my head around Maryland being this high, but I can't argue with it. They were a 4 seed in the tournament last year and even though they didn't make it out of the weekend they were still a solid team. Melo Trimble came back and might be the best player in the conference, they added two big time transfers, and got a late commitment from Diamond Stone who is supposed to be awesome despite the ridiculous name and fills their only real hole. Still, three seems really freaking high.
4. KANSAS. Want to hear something that will blow your mind? Perry Ellis is back for another year. Even so, these guys are my pick for title winner. Ellis sucks but he's not completely useless, and even if he is Kansas has everybody back (except Kelly Oubre who was meh anyway) and they're adding two McDonald's All Americans who are both forwards. This team is deep as all hell, all they need is someone to make the leap. With so many above average players in both ability and pedigree you'd think somebody's going to do it, and if two or more do these guys will be really, really good. Bet on them. Do it. Go do it. They're like 10-1. Do it.
5. DUKE. Uh, you guys know they lost Tyus, Okafor, and Justice Winslow, right? This is all because Grayson Allen, who makes J.J. Redick look downright lovable, had that good stretch in the National Championship game, isn't it? Does he really seem like the kind of player who can carry a team for a while season. NOT BLOODY LIKELY. Good luck with him and one million freshmen. Oh, right, they got a transfer from Rice coming in too. Yes, Rice. The college. If you read any preview of Duke this year they call out a transfer from Rice as a huge positive. I am currently making a dismissive wanking motion.
6. VIRGINIA. Hoops nerds like to tell you that if you think Virginia basketball is boring, you don't really understand basketball. Well I understand basketball and I know what the pack line defense is and all that and I'm telling you - Virginia basketball is freaking boring as all hell. And basically the whole team is back again to be boring and annoying and get handjobs from announcers. Ugh. Stop already.
7. IOWA STATE. If you asked me to guess where Iowa State was rated I would have said like I don't know, maybe mid-20s or something so this is a bit of a surprise. But I guess Georges Niang is back which seems impossible and possibly illegal, and, you're not going to believe this, but the Cyclones get a couple of big deal transfers from other programs. Add that to almost the whole team being back and I guess I see why they're this high. They should be really fun and pretty good until one of their players gets suspended.
8. OKLAHOMA. The opposite of Virginia, these guys are fun as hell to watch and since Buddy Hield, who is basically a lock to lead the Big 12 in scoring, is back they probably will be again. They also ranked 8th in defensive points per possession, so it is actually possible to play fast, fun, and good defense all at the same time. Take notes, Cavaliers. Also, this is way too high for these guys.
9. GONZAGA. Lots of people say stuff like man Gonzaga is overrated, they stomp the WCC, get all this Final Four type buzz, and then flame out. Last year they finally made the Elite 8, which is definitely an accomplishment, but also just the second time they've gotten that far, the last coming in 1999. So I don't know that they've proved that they're anything more than a small conference bully. They've got a rock solid front court, but lose their entire back court so things could be rough early. This section was extremely boring.
10. WICHITA STATE. They have Ron Baker and Fred VanVleet back. That right there is enough to win the Missouri Valley. No really, you take those two and Greg Marshall and you could roll out of their with three toddlers and the Shockers would roll. Unfortunately it is both unsafe and illegal to play with toddlers so Wichita State will use real players to complement those two. I don't really feel like looking up who any of those players are, but since Wichita has been good for so long at this point I'm guessing they're probably pretty good.
11. VILLANOVA. God that sucked when these guys got bounced last year, and not just because they were my non-Kentucky pick to win. They were so freaking good. Then a dopey NC State team knocks them off. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, that's kind of Villanova's thing. Also their thing: guards. And they have a bunch of them again. So expect the Wildcats to shoot a ton of three pointers, own the Big East, grab a high seed, and flame out early. It's what they do. Lesson learned.
12. ARIZONA. Stanley Johnson, T.J. McConnell, Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, and Brandon Ashley are all gone. That is a lot of people to be gone. However Arizona is Arizona, and it must be nice to be Arizona, because they get a star transfer from Boston College and picked up one hell of a recruiting class, including stealing Allonzo Trier from the Gophers. Also, they still have Kaleb Tarczewski and he is awesome and looks like he would fight you. And you would die.
13. MICHIGAN STATE. Another team with a couple of big losses which catches a break with a big time transfer, ready to step right in. For Sparty it's Eron Harris who only scored over 17 points per game in his last season at West Virginia, no big whoop. I'm really fascinated by Lourawls Nairn (remember him?) here. He only took 8.5% of the team's shots when he was on the floor. The lowest Gopher with any real minutes played was Bakary Konate at 11.1%, which is actually way higher than Nairn. I only found two other Big Ten players under 10% last year (Jaylon Tate of Illinois and Jeremiah Kreisberg of Northwestern) but both played far fewer minutes than Nairn. So like, is that his thing? What does he do if nobody guards him? He's the anti-chucker, which in a way, is as fun as a real chucker. I love watching how teams guard Rajon Rondo - they don't. I hope that's what happens with Nairn.
14. CAL. This team could be like whoa. I bet them at 60-1 to win the whole thing this summer, and I still like them now down all the way at 20-1. They have a ton back from last year's team, not a great year, admittedly, and add two Top 10 recruits. Yes, that's TWO top 10 recruits. If the name on the jersey was Duke instead of Cal this would be a Top 5 team. Plus, I like Cuonzo Martin as a coach. This is my favorite sleeper this year.
15. INDIANA. Oh come on! Do we not play defense any more in basketball, because if this is offense only I would say the Hoosiers are too low, but overall? No chance. It's the same team. The only difference is they got some stud recruit center, but can one player suddenly take a swiss cheese defense and make it good? Or even passable? No. Maybe Antoine Broxsie back in the day, but nobody can make Yogi Ferrell look good on defense. Should score a lot of points though. Gopher/Hoosier games should be in the 160s.
16. UTAH. I know they have at least one, and maybe two, big giant tall guys, and that's generally a good start when it comes to basketsball. Ok I decided to check and they only have one, but he's really good you guys! His name is Jakob Poetl and he's a possible lottery pick who held Jahlil Okafor to 6 points and 4 turnovers in March. He can score, rebound, and block shots and now that Delon Wright is gone he should be the offenses focal point. Should be fun. No idea about all these other guys.
17. WISCONSIN. Oh come on! You're kidding me. Look, I love Nigel Hayes, I love him as much as I could ever love a Badger. I think he's most likely a more skilled Noah Vonleh and I loved Noah Vonleh and thanked Jehova every day that Tom Crean was such a terrible coach. But the Badgers are basically Hayes, Bronson Koenig who is whatever fine, and then nobody else. I know people say it's stupid to bet against the Badgers and Bo Ryan, but people like blood sausage too. People are morons. Badgers suck this year.
18. VANDERBILT. Here's another team I like, although I can also see them sucking. On paper it looks good - a potential lottery pick at center (Damian Jones) surrounded by shooters (Riley Lachance (remember him) and Wade Baldwin (him too) among others, and a team that really gelled as the season went on with most of the team back. Vandy started out 1-7 in SEC play, but closed out 8-2 and looked really good, so yeah, on paper this looks good. In reality, it's Vanderbilt so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
19. NOTRE DAME. Jerian Grant is gone, which is a fairly huge deal considering the game plan was generally "hey Jerian, go do everything for us." The back-up for that was, hey Pat Connaughton, you go do stuff instead but oops, he gone. Zach Auguste is a super stud, I'll give you that, and he's probably going to be better than Noah Vonleh, but somebody has to get him the ball. In summation, these guys suck.
20. UCONN. They have Amida Brimah who I love because he blocks like, every shot ever taken, and their transfer train is rolling, picking up Sterling Gibbs (who is kind of a dick) from Seton Hall to go with Rodney Purvis whom they stole from NC State last year or maybe the year before. Actually looking at this roster I've heard of like, everybody which seems goodish. How the hell is Omar Calhoun still in college basketball? That's insane. Also, I probably watch too much basketball.
21. LSU. One of my favorite sleepers this year. Tons of guard play back and they're bringing in the #1 recruit in the country and another big deal new guy too who just got eligible. As far as negatives go, I have a short list of what I call "dumb teams to never ever bet on" who are always dumb and do stupid stuff and lose when they shouldn't because they are dumb every year no matter what. LSU is on that list.
22. BAYLOR. Baylor still? I figured they'd drop off the face of the map with recruiting violations or something by now, but here we are. The front court has a monster in Rico Gathers who is basically a bigger Montrezl Harrell (yes bigger) without the jump shot, but their entire back court is gone. Oh what's that? A really young back court coached by Scott Drew? I smell some early season anti-Baylor wagers.
23. PURDUE. Another team I like, mainly because facing them is like going against a bunch of gigantic monsters from a Goosebumps book. A.J. Hammons is seven feet tall, 261 lbs., Isaac Haas is 7-2, 297 lbs., and incoming freshman Caleb Swanigan is 6-9, 260 lbs.. It would be pretty sweet if they figured out a way to play all three at the same time. I mean, it wouldn't make a lick of sense, but it would be pretty sweet. Anyway, Purdue plays pretty good defense, and it's probably going to be even better next season. They also can't shoot at all. So there are going to be some ugly, ugly games.
24. BUTLER. I tried to write about Butler like 4 times. That's probably enough.
25. MICHIGAN. Michigan loses nobody from last year's team, and that's good even though last year's team missed the tournament. That was more because Caris LeVert and Derrick Walton played only 37 combined games than Michigan being an actually crappy team, because I am learning John Beilein is a wizard who doesn't make crappy teams. They're still basically lacking any kind of skilled or capable big man and Zak Irvin is kind of wild out there, but this should be a pretty good team. Probably better than this ranking. Man, if Purdue could trade one of their big dudes for a shooter from Michigan, that would be pretty sweet. College sports needs trading, would be so awesome. Not like they care about the kids anyway, which is ok because neither do I. PLAY GAMES FOR MY AMUSEMENT!!!
Thursday, November 5, 2015
Monday, November 2, 2015
Gophers 74, Crookston 57
I did not attend the exhibition game against Crookston this weekend, as I was busy. My father, however, did. He also texted me, "It's going to be a long season." My father is an optimist. This can't be good. Since we live in a glorious time to be alive and we have this thing called the internet there are box scores and highlights. That is neato. I might as well take a peek at them and see what there is to see.
First, the highlights are mostly meaningless because most highlights are as an analytical tool, particularly against a school completely beneath your league, but four things standout.
1. Gaston Diedhiou covering the distance from near top of the key to the rim in one dribble and dunking (0:38). That is some serious distance covering skills, which taps into his athleticism. Also, having the confidence to execute such a move gives us a hint as to how far he's come in his development. That move was as important to the team this is year as it was shocking. What if he's good?
2. Ahmad Gilbert shake and bake and step back jumper (0:56). Granted, it's generally been accepted by analytical basketball types, which I like to consider myself, that 18 foot jumpers are pretty much the worst shot in the basketball, but I liked this play. You don't take that shot unless you consider yourself a great shooter, and I like great shooters. Of course, not every player who considers themselves a great shooter is indeed a great shooter, but he's also a lefty so he probably is.
3. Jordan Murphy's three pointer (1:11). I was unaware Murphy could hit threes, but he did and his form looks good. Perhaps you were aware and that is good for you. I was not.
4. Nate Mason's hair (the whole thing). That is spectacular.
The box score, now, let's see. Well, they held Crookston to 38% and just 0.78 points per possession (I think, I've never actually had to calculate this for myself), which are both good but expected. The 21 turnovers is also nice to see, given that it's the whole point of Pitino's defensive style. Allowing 13 offensive rebounds on 36 missed shots is kind of horrible. Thats even worse than their 33.4% last season, and that number ranked dead last in the Big Ten. And, just a quick reminder, they were playing Crookston last night. So that's, you know, probably something to keep an eye on.
The Gopher offense wasn't much better, putting up just 1.03 points per possession which would be an ok number against a Big Ten opponent but is flat out lousy against an exhibition foe. It turns out when you shoot 39% from the floor and 52% from the line you're not going to score a ton of points. Only 8 turnovers is good. 35% three point shooting is fine, depending on the looks. Diedhiou's 11 shot attempts is encouraging, but his size and athletic ability should let him dominate a team like this. I'm still encouraged by him so far.
Thirty-four points in the paint seems kind of awful against this opponent. Or if that's not awful, then Crookston getting 28 in the paint is awful defense. One of those two numbers is awful. Ugh. Sounds like a horrible game to watch.
So we move on. Friday night they play somebody. Southwest Minnesota State I think. For some reason I'm going to that one. But I think I'll have my damn weiner kids, so at least they'll distract me enough I won't have to pay too much attention.
First, the highlights are mostly meaningless because most highlights are as an analytical tool, particularly against a school completely beneath your league, but four things standout.
1. Gaston Diedhiou covering the distance from near top of the key to the rim in one dribble and dunking (0:38). That is some serious distance covering skills, which taps into his athleticism. Also, having the confidence to execute such a move gives us a hint as to how far he's come in his development. That move was as important to the team this is year as it was shocking. What if he's good?
2. Ahmad Gilbert shake and bake and step back jumper (0:56). Granted, it's generally been accepted by analytical basketball types, which I like to consider myself, that 18 foot jumpers are pretty much the worst shot in the basketball, but I liked this play. You don't take that shot unless you consider yourself a great shooter, and I like great shooters. Of course, not every player who considers themselves a great shooter is indeed a great shooter, but he's also a lefty so he probably is.
3. Jordan Murphy's three pointer (1:11). I was unaware Murphy could hit threes, but he did and his form looks good. Perhaps you were aware and that is good for you. I was not.
4. Nate Mason's hair (the whole thing). That is spectacular.
The box score, now, let's see. Well, they held Crookston to 38% and just 0.78 points per possession (I think, I've never actually had to calculate this for myself), which are both good but expected. The 21 turnovers is also nice to see, given that it's the whole point of Pitino's defensive style. Allowing 13 offensive rebounds on 36 missed shots is kind of horrible. Thats even worse than their 33.4% last season, and that number ranked dead last in the Big Ten. And, just a quick reminder, they were playing Crookston last night. So that's, you know, probably something to keep an eye on.
The Gopher offense wasn't much better, putting up just 1.03 points per possession which would be an ok number against a Big Ten opponent but is flat out lousy against an exhibition foe. It turns out when you shoot 39% from the floor and 52% from the line you're not going to score a ton of points. Only 8 turnovers is good. 35% three point shooting is fine, depending on the looks. Diedhiou's 11 shot attempts is encouraging, but his size and athletic ability should let him dominate a team like this. I'm still encouraged by him so far.
Thirty-four points in the paint seems kind of awful against this opponent. Or if that's not awful, then Crookston getting 28 in the paint is awful defense. One of those two numbers is awful. Ugh. Sounds like a horrible game to watch.
So we move on. Friday night they play somebody. Southwest Minnesota State I think. For some reason I'm going to that one. But I think I'll have my damn weiner kids, so at least they'll distract me enough I won't have to pay too much attention.
Wednesday, October 21, 2015
Oh. Hello.
It has been a long damn time since I posted. A month. Not dead, just lazy. I do plan to be back full force once Gopher basketball gets going, I really do. For now, since at least 1 person is asking for a new post, I'll write something.
- Welcome aboard, Eric Curry! Quickly following up the Amir Coffey signing (yay!) the Gophers also picked up forward Eric Curry. He's a combo type forward from Arkansas, and while he's not ranked on Coffey's level he's well regarded in his own right: ranking #106 by 247sports national composite and the #21 ranked power forward. He ended up besties with Coffey and once Amir signed Curry was pretty likely to follow in what hopefully becomes a trend.
He's described as a combo forward, which generally means he's either too fast for PF and too strong for SF or too weak for PF and too slow for SF. Hopefully the former and it sounds good so far. Scouting reports tout his athleticism and he's already got a decent amount of polish posting up which will be a nice change for a Gopher team that hasn't had a true post up artists since, I dunno, Ralph Sampson I guess. Before you jump all over that remember Ralph had some moves. Curry's other highly touted attribute is his "high motor" which means the Sampson comparisons can pretty much end now.
His weaknesses are he needs to get stronger and he needs more of a perimeter game. Well, he's a high school senior right now, and I'm pretty sure the ESPN scouting report just rubber stamps "must get stronger" on early every recruit because that's a pretty common and understandable need. The perimeter game should come around because, get this, he's a 78% free throw shooter. Sign him up!
- The Twins season ended, you may have learned, and I struggle whether or not to say this was a successful season though I lean towards yes. We got to watch some meaningful baseball almost all the way to the final day of the season - that's good! Then again, they cratered and didn't get the Wildcard spot - that's bad! Though, they probably weren't as good as their record anyway - that's bad! But we got to see a glimpse of many of the future hopefully building blocks of future success - that's good! So I'll stick with slightly good. Here's some other Twins stuff:
1. Say good-bye to Trevor Plouffe. I found some sight the other day that gave projected arbitration salaries for players, and Plouffe is guessed at $7.7 million. I like Plouffe and he's a decent player who works hard and seems like a good dude and was part of some very bad teams without complaint, but at that salary, with Miguel Sano slated to be the third baseman for the next billion years, the world's most unmovable contract stuck at 1st, and a slew of younger, cheaper bats that need DH appearances and spot starts there's nowhere for him to play. Whether via trade or simply non-tendering him I just can't see him sticking around, which is unfortunate because he's WonderBaby (who is now 7)'s favorite player, though she calls him Treasure Poof.
2. Do the Twins need an ace? More on the need for an ace later, if I feel like and/or remember, but I don't think this is doable. They've tossed way too much money at Ricky Nolasco, Ervin Santana, and Phil Hughes lately to really go after it, unless they were going to pony up the big bucks and do it right by going after David Price or Jordan Zimmermann or something but I don't see that happening. With Hughes, Santana, Kyle Gibson, and a slew of young arms worth trying out I'm not even sure they need to do anything with the starting staff (but the bullpen? Fire everybody). There are enough decent names out there that if they can get a steal (a real steal, like that 2/$20 million contract the Cubs gave Jason Hammel) then it might be worth it. But please, no 4 year deal for Jeremy Guthrie. Please.
3. Overall the future here seems pretty neat. They need a catcher and a shortstop for sure and those are not very easy to fill so hopefully dudes who are already here can fill those roles, but other than Brian Dozier's second half cratering things seem pretty clear. I hated the Torii Hunter signing when it happened because that money could have been better spent, but hell, maybe there is something to clubhouse chemistry and veteran leadership. I'd be happy to see him back at a reduced rate assuming he's cool being the 4th outfielder at best. Next year should be pretty fun. Looking forward to it.
- Seems like we are heading towards a Royals vs. Mets World Series. I'm good with that. Of the playoff teams you had teams that were too successful (Cardinals), too evil (Yankees), too rich (Dodgers), too big of assholish fans (Toronto), too unlikable (Rangers), too it hurts because it should have been us (Astros), and the Pirates, Cubs, Royals, and Mets, and you have to eliminate the Cubs because the whole Back to the Future thing is already more irritating the constant DFS commercials.
- Wolves should be pretty fun. Rubio-LaVine-Wiggins-Towns-Dieng. Could be a lot worse, right? At least it should be fun. A legit shot at back-to-back Rookie of the Year winners, finding out if LaVine can be like, good, and seeing if Rubio can stay healthy is a good reason to at least occasionally watch. I mean, Rubio running a break with those two wings and Towns trailing? That's awesome.
And how good can Towns be? Rookie of the Year is pretty much a lock, the only question is can he challenge for MVP. I say yes. Did you see him hitting those threes against no defense this offseason? I mean, most guys can't do that. And have you seen his preseason stats? Averaging 10.7 pts, 6.7 rebs, and 1.0 blocks per game, but that's only in 21 minutes per game! If you extrapolate that out to a whole game it comes out to something like 35 pts, 18 rebounds, 9 assists, and 7 blocks per game. You know the last player to put up those kind of numbers? Yep, that's right - Hot Sauce. Towns is that good.
- I know what you're thinking - "this blog sucks now." But I know what else you're thinking, why is there no mention of this year's Gopher hoops team? Well, I'm not ready yet. I'll rip something off at some point, but right now it's like, no. I am not ready to write about Joey King just yet, and I don't really know how to spin the Bakary Konate/Gaston Diedhiou stuff into a positive, nor can I figure out how to look forward to Carlos Morris being a big key to the season. I'll get around to it, I swear. For now, let me write something quick about other NCAAB stuff.
- ACC is going to be garbage, relatively speaking. Only North Carolina looks poised to be good. Duke lost everybody and will now count on Grayson freaking Allen, Virginia I'm pretty sick of already so move on, Louisville lost literally their entire roster, Notre Dame without Jerian Grant is meaningless. Miami and FSU could be semi-interesting but in general I'm expecting the Big 10 to take the challenge thing.
- LSU is one of my big sleepers and you can still get them at 50/60-1 to win the National Championship. Yes, they lost Jordan Mickey and Jarrell Martin, but they have a ton of guard play coming back and two absolute stud recruits in do everything big man Ben Simmons (likely #1 pick in next year's draft) and swingman Antonio Blakeney (who is now linked to the Louisville "scandal"). There are a lot of questions about the front court, though Simmons can maybe do it all, but all those guards back and a monster recruiting class scream contender to me.
- Another team I like a lot is Cal (don't worry, Justin Cobbs is gone). They pick up the #4 and #7 players in the entire country, both front court guys, who join their three best players, all guards. Add in Cuonzo Martin, a really, really good coach, and you'd be a fool to pass them up at 20-1. A FOOL!!
- I might end up doing a Big Ten preview post, and if I do I promise I won't be like every other writer and say something like "based on talent the Badgers shouldn't be this high, but Bo Ryan blah blah blah barf" No! This is the year the Badgers suck ass. They are gutted. They have Nigel Hayes, who I love and is awesome, Bronson Koenig, who is annoying and super hateable and sucks, and that's it. All of their other players suck. They won't be bottom of the basement, but there's zero chance this team makes the NCAA Tournament. None. Zero. None.
- A Big Ten team I do like a ton this year is Purdue, though that seems like a not uncommon thought. And their games are going to suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck to watch. Massive rim protection in A.J. Hammons and Isaac Haas (Hammons is elite, Haas is 7-2 so should get there eventually) is joined by 6-9 Caleb Swanigan, one of the top couple center recruits in the country, and Raphael Davis is back who, you surely don't remember this, won B10 defensive player of the year. They also couldn't shoot for shit last year and there's no real reason that should change. I fully expect multiple games where they win without breaking 50 points.
- Oh yeah, speaking of points we have a new shot clock now at 30 seconds. Even better though they got rid of the 5-second closely guarded rule. I'm not sure if that's a positive change as far as the game goes, but it's going to be super fun to go to games this year and hear morons yell "5 seconds!" one billion times because nobody reads anymore. Also, speaking of going to games, Snacks and I were lining up our trip out to Sioux Falls with our sons to go check out the Gophers vs. Oklahoma State game and then right as we were figuring stuff out bam, it turns out my parents' have this dumb christmas party that same day where we are supposed to be blackjack dealers or something. Thanks a lot, mom and dad.
- Perry Ellis, the 37-year old Kansas power forward, is back for another year. He has now surpassed Wade Lookingbill, Jess Settles, and Brian Cardinal for longest tenured player in college basketball history.
- I don't know. I guess that's all for now.
- Oh yeah. Also Rick Pitino 100% knew there were sex parties for recruits and also that happens at every single school. Haven't you seen He Got Game?
- Welcome aboard, Eric Curry! Quickly following up the Amir Coffey signing (yay!) the Gophers also picked up forward Eric Curry. He's a combo type forward from Arkansas, and while he's not ranked on Coffey's level he's well regarded in his own right: ranking #106 by 247sports national composite and the #21 ranked power forward. He ended up besties with Coffey and once Amir signed Curry was pretty likely to follow in what hopefully becomes a trend.
He's described as a combo forward, which generally means he's either too fast for PF and too strong for SF or too weak for PF and too slow for SF. Hopefully the former and it sounds good so far. Scouting reports tout his athleticism and he's already got a decent amount of polish posting up which will be a nice change for a Gopher team that hasn't had a true post up artists since, I dunno, Ralph Sampson I guess. Before you jump all over that remember Ralph had some moves. Curry's other highly touted attribute is his "high motor" which means the Sampson comparisons can pretty much end now.
His weaknesses are he needs to get stronger and he needs more of a perimeter game. Well, he's a high school senior right now, and I'm pretty sure the ESPN scouting report just rubber stamps "must get stronger" on early every recruit because that's a pretty common and understandable need. The perimeter game should come around because, get this, he's a 78% free throw shooter. Sign him up!
- The Twins season ended, you may have learned, and I struggle whether or not to say this was a successful season though I lean towards yes. We got to watch some meaningful baseball almost all the way to the final day of the season - that's good! Then again, they cratered and didn't get the Wildcard spot - that's bad! Though, they probably weren't as good as their record anyway - that's bad! But we got to see a glimpse of many of the future hopefully building blocks of future success - that's good! So I'll stick with slightly good. Here's some other Twins stuff:
1. Say good-bye to Trevor Plouffe. I found some sight the other day that gave projected arbitration salaries for players, and Plouffe is guessed at $7.7 million. I like Plouffe and he's a decent player who works hard and seems like a good dude and was part of some very bad teams without complaint, but at that salary, with Miguel Sano slated to be the third baseman for the next billion years, the world's most unmovable contract stuck at 1st, and a slew of younger, cheaper bats that need DH appearances and spot starts there's nowhere for him to play. Whether via trade or simply non-tendering him I just can't see him sticking around, which is unfortunate because he's WonderBaby (who is now 7)'s favorite player, though she calls him Treasure Poof.
2. Do the Twins need an ace? More on the need for an ace later, if I feel like and/or remember, but I don't think this is doable. They've tossed way too much money at Ricky Nolasco, Ervin Santana, and Phil Hughes lately to really go after it, unless they were going to pony up the big bucks and do it right by going after David Price or Jordan Zimmermann or something but I don't see that happening. With Hughes, Santana, Kyle Gibson, and a slew of young arms worth trying out I'm not even sure they need to do anything with the starting staff (but the bullpen? Fire everybody). There are enough decent names out there that if they can get a steal (a real steal, like that 2/$20 million contract the Cubs gave Jason Hammel) then it might be worth it. But please, no 4 year deal for Jeremy Guthrie. Please.
3. Overall the future here seems pretty neat. They need a catcher and a shortstop for sure and those are not very easy to fill so hopefully dudes who are already here can fill those roles, but other than Brian Dozier's second half cratering things seem pretty clear. I hated the Torii Hunter signing when it happened because that money could have been better spent, but hell, maybe there is something to clubhouse chemistry and veteran leadership. I'd be happy to see him back at a reduced rate assuming he's cool being the 4th outfielder at best. Next year should be pretty fun. Looking forward to it.
- Seems like we are heading towards a Royals vs. Mets World Series. I'm good with that. Of the playoff teams you had teams that were too successful (Cardinals), too evil (Yankees), too rich (Dodgers), too big of assholish fans (Toronto), too unlikable (Rangers), too it hurts because it should have been us (Astros), and the Pirates, Cubs, Royals, and Mets, and you have to eliminate the Cubs because the whole Back to the Future thing is already more irritating the constant DFS commercials.
So really, Royals and Mets gives me probably two of my top three choices (with the Pirates). And yeah sure, the Mets are terribly run organization and the Royals are kind of dickish and have the most clueless manager in the playoffs, but you're never going to get perfect. It should be fun and I won't be annoyed no matter who wins. What's wrong with that? Plus the less R.A. Dickey there is to watch, the better. Though I will really miss watching Kyle Schwarber play outfield.
And I'm determined to do a live blog of at least one World Series game. I think I have almost every year, so I can't just stop now.
And I'm determined to do a live blog of at least one World Series game. I think I have almost every year, so I can't just stop now.
- Wolves should be pretty fun. Rubio-LaVine-Wiggins-Towns-Dieng. Could be a lot worse, right? At least it should be fun. A legit shot at back-to-back Rookie of the Year winners, finding out if LaVine can be like, good, and seeing if Rubio can stay healthy is a good reason to at least occasionally watch. I mean, Rubio running a break with those two wings and Towns trailing? That's awesome.
And how good can Towns be? Rookie of the Year is pretty much a lock, the only question is can he challenge for MVP. I say yes. Did you see him hitting those threes against no defense this offseason? I mean, most guys can't do that. And have you seen his preseason stats? Averaging 10.7 pts, 6.7 rebs, and 1.0 blocks per game, but that's only in 21 minutes per game! If you extrapolate that out to a whole game it comes out to something like 35 pts, 18 rebounds, 9 assists, and 7 blocks per game. You know the last player to put up those kind of numbers? Yep, that's right - Hot Sauce. Towns is that good.
- I know what you're thinking - "this blog sucks now." But I know what else you're thinking, why is there no mention of this year's Gopher hoops team? Well, I'm not ready yet. I'll rip something off at some point, but right now it's like, no. I am not ready to write about Joey King just yet, and I don't really know how to spin the Bakary Konate/Gaston Diedhiou stuff into a positive, nor can I figure out how to look forward to Carlos Morris being a big key to the season. I'll get around to it, I swear. For now, let me write something quick about other NCAAB stuff.
- ACC is going to be garbage, relatively speaking. Only North Carolina looks poised to be good. Duke lost everybody and will now count on Grayson freaking Allen, Virginia I'm pretty sick of already so move on, Louisville lost literally their entire roster, Notre Dame without Jerian Grant is meaningless. Miami and FSU could be semi-interesting but in general I'm expecting the Big 10 to take the challenge thing.
- LSU is one of my big sleepers and you can still get them at 50/60-1 to win the National Championship. Yes, they lost Jordan Mickey and Jarrell Martin, but they have a ton of guard play coming back and two absolute stud recruits in do everything big man Ben Simmons (likely #1 pick in next year's draft) and swingman Antonio Blakeney (who is now linked to the Louisville "scandal"). There are a lot of questions about the front court, though Simmons can maybe do it all, but all those guards back and a monster recruiting class scream contender to me.
- Another team I like a lot is Cal (don't worry, Justin Cobbs is gone). They pick up the #4 and #7 players in the entire country, both front court guys, who join their three best players, all guards. Add in Cuonzo Martin, a really, really good coach, and you'd be a fool to pass them up at 20-1. A FOOL!!
- I might end up doing a Big Ten preview post, and if I do I promise I won't be like every other writer and say something like "based on talent the Badgers shouldn't be this high, but Bo Ryan blah blah blah barf" No! This is the year the Badgers suck ass. They are gutted. They have Nigel Hayes, who I love and is awesome, Bronson Koenig, who is annoying and super hateable and sucks, and that's it. All of their other players suck. They won't be bottom of the basement, but there's zero chance this team makes the NCAA Tournament. None. Zero. None.
- A Big Ten team I do like a ton this year is Purdue, though that seems like a not uncommon thought. And their games are going to suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck to watch. Massive rim protection in A.J. Hammons and Isaac Haas (Hammons is elite, Haas is 7-2 so should get there eventually) is joined by 6-9 Caleb Swanigan, one of the top couple center recruits in the country, and Raphael Davis is back who, you surely don't remember this, won B10 defensive player of the year. They also couldn't shoot for shit last year and there's no real reason that should change. I fully expect multiple games where they win without breaking 50 points.
- Oh yeah, speaking of points we have a new shot clock now at 30 seconds. Even better though they got rid of the 5-second closely guarded rule. I'm not sure if that's a positive change as far as the game goes, but it's going to be super fun to go to games this year and hear morons yell "5 seconds!" one billion times because nobody reads anymore. Also, speaking of going to games, Snacks and I were lining up our trip out to Sioux Falls with our sons to go check out the Gophers vs. Oklahoma State game and then right as we were figuring stuff out bam, it turns out my parents' have this dumb christmas party that same day where we are supposed to be blackjack dealers or something. Thanks a lot, mom and dad.
- Perry Ellis, the 37-year old Kansas power forward, is back for another year. He has now surpassed Wade Lookingbill, Jess Settles, and Brian Cardinal for longest tenured player in college basketball history.
- I don't know. I guess that's all for now.
- Oh yeah. Also Rick Pitino 100% knew there were sex parties for recruits and also that happens at every single school. Haven't you seen He Got Game?
Monday, September 21, 2015
Welcome Aboard, Amir Coffey!!
I'm currently on a plane, drinking Woodford Reserve because why wouldn't I, and I have a really horrible internet connection but it appears that twitter says Amir Coffey committed to the University of Minnesota and holy shit dude. Not since the Rodney/Royce double pick up year has the U gotten a guy like this. ESPN ranks him as the 33rd best recruit in the entire country for 2016 and 247 Sports composite puts him at #45. That's a big deal! Dude had offers from tons of blue chippers like Arizona, Michigan State, and Texas but bam, sorry losers we got him.
The writing was pretty much on the wall that he would be a Gopher after his official visit back on September 3. He tweeted pictures of him and his dad (Richard, duh) at Williams Arena, reports came out that he kept going back for unofficials to hang with the players, and he canceled an official visit to Texas. It was still terrifying of course since, Minnesota sports, and I am glad I was on a plane and unable to load up anything to see who he chose until well after the fact, but it happened and we got him.
Coffey is a 6-7 guard, yes a 6-7 guard, and everything about him sounds awesome. They say he can play all three perimeter positions. He's smart, a good ball-handler and passer, and can hit from the perimeter or get to the rim. He can defend already. I mean everything sounds good. His negatives are he needs to build up more strength, very common for a freshman, and he could be a more vocal leader. That's all they could come up with. ESPN calls him a special player with upside off the charts and even compared him to Jalen Rose. Just the fact that he'll be able to come in and start and can already shoot and play defense puts him ahead of most freshman. This is just awesome.
None of that is even the most important part though. With Jarvis Johnson, Michael Hurt, and now Coffey Pitino has started to close the borders. This is good, but I also must clarify. The reason closing the borders is good is not because you get all the Minnesota players and if you think that way I bet you love P.A. too. The reason closing the borders is good is because when you do have an instate awesome player his thought process STARTS with I'm going to be a Gopher. It's not going to result in landing every stud, but that as the default is a much better way to start than "hey where should I go?" Pitino is on a good run right now.
The other super awesome thing is that Coffey is besties with Eric Curry. Curry is a power forward from Arkansas who visited the same time Amir did. He's not ranked as highly as Amir, but he's the 106th ranked player by 247 composite and #22 power forward and that's still pretty damn awesome. I won't get into talking too much about his abilities and what not since he hasn't committed here and may not, but it's looking better than ever right now. You know Amir is on snapchat or periscope or whatever kids use recruiting him.
In short - hell yes.
The writing was pretty much on the wall that he would be a Gopher after his official visit back on September 3. He tweeted pictures of him and his dad (Richard, duh) at Williams Arena, reports came out that he kept going back for unofficials to hang with the players, and he canceled an official visit to Texas. It was still terrifying of course since, Minnesota sports, and I am glad I was on a plane and unable to load up anything to see who he chose until well after the fact, but it happened and we got him.
Coffey is a 6-7 guard, yes a 6-7 guard, and everything about him sounds awesome. They say he can play all three perimeter positions. He's smart, a good ball-handler and passer, and can hit from the perimeter or get to the rim. He can defend already. I mean everything sounds good. His negatives are he needs to build up more strength, very common for a freshman, and he could be a more vocal leader. That's all they could come up with. ESPN calls him a special player with upside off the charts and even compared him to Jalen Rose. Just the fact that he'll be able to come in and start and can already shoot and play defense puts him ahead of most freshman. This is just awesome.
None of that is even the most important part though. With Jarvis Johnson, Michael Hurt, and now Coffey Pitino has started to close the borders. This is good, but I also must clarify. The reason closing the borders is good is not because you get all the Minnesota players and if you think that way I bet you love P.A. too. The reason closing the borders is good is because when you do have an instate awesome player his thought process STARTS with I'm going to be a Gopher. It's not going to result in landing every stud, but that as the default is a much better way to start than "hey where should I go?" Pitino is on a good run right now.
The other super awesome thing is that Coffey is besties with Eric Curry. Curry is a power forward from Arkansas who visited the same time Amir did. He's not ranked as highly as Amir, but he's the 106th ranked player by 247 composite and #22 power forward and that's still pretty damn awesome. I won't get into talking too much about his abilities and what not since he hasn't committed here and may not, but it's looking better than ever right now. You know Amir is on snapchat or periscope or whatever kids use recruiting him.
In short - hell yes.
Tuesday, September 15, 2015
Best Gophers of the Tubby Era: #11-#15
Throughout the summer I'll be writing up each of the 34 players who played for the University of Minnesota under Tubby Smith. Why Tubby? Because it's the most recent era that's over. If this goes well perhaps I'll go back and do Monson as well. I'll be looking at any player who played at Minnesota under Tubby at some point, even if it was just a year. And I will be considering their entire Gopher career, so guys who started under Monson or finished under Pitino will have their whole career considered, but anyone who transferred in or out is only evaluated on their Gopher stats. With me? Here we go:
#34 to #31 can be found here.
#26-#30 can be found here.
#21-#25 are here
Here's #16-#20
15. Julian Welch (2011-2013).
- This feels high for Welch considering he was a two year player whose playing time dramatically shrunk in his second year, but Welch somehow managed to rank top 10 in assists, three pointers, and steals among all Gophers in this countdown. I don't remember him as a particularly great shooter or passer, but I remember the steals simply because of the difference between his hand speed and foot speed. He had, without question, the fastest hands of any Gopher I can recall. He also was essentially a lawn gnome when he tried to guard anyone trying to get to the lane. I legitimately loved watching him simply because of those two things.
14. Elliott Eliason (2011-2015).
- This is a tough career to try to sum up, but you could probably do it best just by looking at his minutes per game each year: 15.0, 13.7 (regression), 21.9 (big leap forward!), 11.2 (ugh). That's about right. He had that one stretch of brilliance his junior season where he put up double doubles in four of eight games with two other near misses, and that stretch included five Big Ten games, where it looked like he might be becoming something, but alas, it wasn't meant to be and his career kind of spiraled to an underwhelming conclusion. However it's almost impossible to look back on this guy with any kind of bad feelings. He was a guy who came and gave it everything he had whenever he was on the court, and never let playing time get to him in any way you could see or hear about it. Good dude.
13. Lawrence McKenzie (2006-2008).
- McKenzie ranks high because even though he was only a Gopher for two years he was pretty much the man both of those years, averaging 13.3 points per game, and led the Gophers to the NIT in Tubby's first year which seemed like an impossibility following the disaster that was the final Monson/Molinari year and suddenly everything seemed possible and we were on our way and we could build this dream together standing strong forever nothing's gonna stop us now. Or whatever.
12. Maurice Walker (2010-2015).
- Walker played for 17 years as a Gopher, and that kind of time is tough to forget. I also think he might have lost some weight once Pitino came in, but I'm not sure I thought I heard that somewhere though. Seriously though, the first time I saw Walker play as a freshman I could tell right away he had a great feel for the game. You know how a lot of big men get the ball on the block and go right into score mode? Walker didn't, he saw the court amazingly well, although it's not backed up by his assist numbers I stand by what I saw. Injuries and weight issues (perhaps related) robbed him of some athleticism and explosiveness, and who knows what might have been? He was clearly a hard worker, just looking at his weight loss and free throws, and I believe he could have developed an outside shot at some point. This would be a good guy to take a do over on, if you could do such as that.
11. Spencer Tollackson (2004-2008).
- No bonus points for being the radio guy for the Gophers, though not because I dislike him or anything - I actually like when he weights in from the player's perspective on things, even if he's behind only Paul Allen on the homer list. That actually kind of sums up his playing career - a little bit annoying and a little bit likable. Similar to Walker, he was clearly a hard worker who wanted to win. I remember him completely revamping his free throw form to try to fix that issue (didn't work) and going from a garbage man to someone with a variety of moves. Unfortunately, all that hard work to develop those moves didn't really work because he didn't have the natural talent to finish. Clearly worked at it though, which is cool.
#34 to #31 can be found here.
#26-#30 can be found here.
#21-#25 are here
Here's #16-#20
15. Julian Welch (2011-2013).
- This feels high for Welch considering he was a two year player whose playing time dramatically shrunk in his second year, but Welch somehow managed to rank top 10 in assists, three pointers, and steals among all Gophers in this countdown. I don't remember him as a particularly great shooter or passer, but I remember the steals simply because of the difference between his hand speed and foot speed. He had, without question, the fastest hands of any Gopher I can recall. He also was essentially a lawn gnome when he tried to guard anyone trying to get to the lane. I legitimately loved watching him simply because of those two things.
14. Elliott Eliason (2011-2015).
- This is a tough career to try to sum up, but you could probably do it best just by looking at his minutes per game each year: 15.0, 13.7 (regression), 21.9 (big leap forward!), 11.2 (ugh). That's about right. He had that one stretch of brilliance his junior season where he put up double doubles in four of eight games with two other near misses, and that stretch included five Big Ten games, where it looked like he might be becoming something, but alas, it wasn't meant to be and his career kind of spiraled to an underwhelming conclusion. However it's almost impossible to look back on this guy with any kind of bad feelings. He was a guy who came and gave it everything he had whenever he was on the court, and never let playing time get to him in any way you could see or hear about it. Good dude.
13. Lawrence McKenzie (2006-2008).
- McKenzie ranks high because even though he was only a Gopher for two years he was pretty much the man both of those years, averaging 13.3 points per game, and led the Gophers to the NIT in Tubby's first year which seemed like an impossibility following the disaster that was the final Monson/Molinari year and suddenly everything seemed possible and we were on our way and we could build this dream together standing strong forever nothing's gonna stop us now. Or whatever.
12. Maurice Walker (2010-2015).
- Walker played for 17 years as a Gopher, and that kind of time is tough to forget. I also think he might have lost some weight once Pitino came in, but I'm not sure I thought I heard that somewhere though. Seriously though, the first time I saw Walker play as a freshman I could tell right away he had a great feel for the game. You know how a lot of big men get the ball on the block and go right into score mode? Walker didn't, he saw the court amazingly well, although it's not backed up by his assist numbers I stand by what I saw. Injuries and weight issues (perhaps related) robbed him of some athleticism and explosiveness, and who knows what might have been? He was clearly a hard worker, just looking at his weight loss and free throws, and I believe he could have developed an outside shot at some point. This would be a good guy to take a do over on, if you could do such as that.
11. Spencer Tollackson (2004-2008).
- No bonus points for being the radio guy for the Gophers, though not because I dislike him or anything - I actually like when he weights in from the player's perspective on things, even if he's behind only Paul Allen on the homer list. That actually kind of sums up his playing career - a little bit annoying and a little bit likable. Similar to Walker, he was clearly a hard worker who wanted to win. I remember him completely revamping his free throw form to try to fix that issue (didn't work) and going from a garbage man to someone with a variety of moves. Unfortunately, all that hard work to develop those moves didn't really work because he didn't have the natural talent to finish. Clearly worked at it though, which is cool.
Thursday, September 10, 2015
Gophers of the Tubby Era Countdown: #16-#20
Throughout the summer I'll be writing up each of the 34 players who played for the University of Minnesota under Tubby Smith. Why Tubby? Because it's the most recent era that's over. If this goes well perhaps I'll go back and do Monson as well. I'll be looking at any player who played at Minnesota under Tubby at some point, even if it was just a year. And I will be considering their entire Gopher career, so guys who started under Monson or finished under Pitino will have their whole career considered, but anyone who transferred in or out is only evaluated on their Gopher stats. With me? Here we go:
#34 to #31 can be found here.
#26-#30 can be found here.
#21-#25 are here
#20. MAVERICK AHANMISI (2010-2014).
- Stuck around all four years, which is a positive, but never really developed into a third string point guard. Probably took more heat than anyone on this list, but you can't blame him too much because he basically got forced into more playing time than he had the talent to play. He did see his playing time dwindle from 13.3 minutes per game in his sophomore year to 10.5 as a junior and 9.6 as a senior. He ended his career shooting under 40% from the floor and with a 1.1 to 0.9 assist-to-turnover ratio. He was a late spring desperation signing and he generally played like it. But at least he tried and wasn't a whiner.
#19. JOE COLEMAN (2011-2013).
- He was a pretty important piece on Tubby's last two teams before transferring to St. Mary's when Richard Pitino came in despite having a game that would thrive in his system. He never developed an outside shot, but he excelled at getting to the rim and finding ways to score despite standing just 6-4. His amazing 29 point outburst at Illinois showed his potential, but he wasn't able to harness that consistently and now he's off to the Gaels. He played in one game last season before an injury knocked him out for the year.
#18. JAMAL ABU SHAMALA (2005-2009).
- One of the harder players to rank. He wasn't very good, but he played four years and had his moments, generally behind the 3-point line because he basically didn't do anything else. It was a special moment whenever he found himself with an open three and you just didn't care if it went in because if he was in the game when it mattered it was when the Gophers were terrible and if he was in when they were decent the game was probably out of hand already. Completely unfair to him, but for whatever reason he represents the failure of the Monson/Molinari years to me. Probably because he was actually starting at one point when things were pretty much completely off the rails. Now I can appreciate who he was, at pretty much right in the middle of this countdown seems about right.
#17. COLTON IVERSON (2008-2011).
- If you had to make a poster for guys who never developed under Tubby Smith, it would have to be a pretty big poster. But if you wanted to narrow down to two guys, Iverson is one of them. He was a so so post player for the Gophers, but once he transferred to Colorado State he turned into a monster who got himself drafted in the second round of the NBA Draft. Don't remember he became a monster because he played in a smaller conference way out west? Well he averaged 14 points and 10 rebounds a game his senior year. Those are amazing numbers. Could he have put that up in the Big Ten? Most likely not, but it's clear he was underutilized his three years as a Gopher.
#16. DEVOE JOSEPH (2008-2011).
- One of the most disappointing players of the era for me, I really thought Joseph was going to be a lights out scorer. There were times where he looked so good, but he and Tubby clearly didn't get along, both on the court (Joseph could get lost out there at times) and off (weed). Then, 8 games into his junior year he bolted after being suspended twice for an undisclosed reason (weed), apparently complaining about not getting enough playing time and shot attempts which was ridiculous. Al Nolen would get hurt later that season, which would have given Joseph all the playing time he could handle. By then he was already at Oregon, and, rather than sit out a full year to maximize his playing time, he joined the ducks for the second semester of the 2011-2012 year, which meant that in his final two years he played a grand total of just 36 games. Yeah, he ended up developing into that scorer I thought he would (averaged 16.7 points per game), but a series of poor decisions cost him a lot.
#34 to #31 can be found here.
#26-#30 can be found here.
#21-#25 are here
#20. MAVERICK AHANMISI (2010-2014).
- Stuck around all four years, which is a positive, but never really developed into a third string point guard. Probably took more heat than anyone on this list, but you can't blame him too much because he basically got forced into more playing time than he had the talent to play. He did see his playing time dwindle from 13.3 minutes per game in his sophomore year to 10.5 as a junior and 9.6 as a senior. He ended his career shooting under 40% from the floor and with a 1.1 to 0.9 assist-to-turnover ratio. He was a late spring desperation signing and he generally played like it. But at least he tried and wasn't a whiner.
#19. JOE COLEMAN (2011-2013).
- He was a pretty important piece on Tubby's last two teams before transferring to St. Mary's when Richard Pitino came in despite having a game that would thrive in his system. He never developed an outside shot, but he excelled at getting to the rim and finding ways to score despite standing just 6-4. His amazing 29 point outburst at Illinois showed his potential, but he wasn't able to harness that consistently and now he's off to the Gaels. He played in one game last season before an injury knocked him out for the year.
#18. JAMAL ABU SHAMALA (2005-2009).
- One of the harder players to rank. He wasn't very good, but he played four years and had his moments, generally behind the 3-point line because he basically didn't do anything else. It was a special moment whenever he found himself with an open three and you just didn't care if it went in because if he was in the game when it mattered it was when the Gophers were terrible and if he was in when they were decent the game was probably out of hand already. Completely unfair to him, but for whatever reason he represents the failure of the Monson/Molinari years to me. Probably because he was actually starting at one point when things were pretty much completely off the rails. Now I can appreciate who he was, at pretty much right in the middle of this countdown seems about right.
#17. COLTON IVERSON (2008-2011).
- If you had to make a poster for guys who never developed under Tubby Smith, it would have to be a pretty big poster. But if you wanted to narrow down to two guys, Iverson is one of them. He was a so so post player for the Gophers, but once he transferred to Colorado State he turned into a monster who got himself drafted in the second round of the NBA Draft. Don't remember he became a monster because he played in a smaller conference way out west? Well he averaged 14 points and 10 rebounds a game his senior year. Those are amazing numbers. Could he have put that up in the Big Ten? Most likely not, but it's clear he was underutilized his three years as a Gopher.
#16. DEVOE JOSEPH (2008-2011).
- One of the most disappointing players of the era for me, I really thought Joseph was going to be a lights out scorer. There were times where he looked so good, but he and Tubby clearly didn't get along, both on the court (Joseph could get lost out there at times) and off (weed). Then, 8 games into his junior year he bolted after being suspended twice for an undisclosed reason (weed), apparently complaining about not getting enough playing time and shot attempts which was ridiculous. Al Nolen would get hurt later that season, which would have given Joseph all the playing time he could handle. By then he was already at Oregon, and, rather than sit out a full year to maximize his playing time, he joined the ducks for the second semester of the 2011-2012 year, which meant that in his final two years he played a grand total of just 36 games. Yeah, he ended up developing into that scorer I thought he would (averaged 16.7 points per game), but a series of poor decisions cost him a lot.
Friday, August 28, 2015
Is Eddie Rosario, like, Good?
As you are probably aware, the Twins are fighting for a playoff spot while at the same time showing us a glimpse of their future with a whole lot of younger players up and making contributions. One of these is Eddie Rosario, who has used a good mix of hitting, fielding, and base running to end up ranked 4th on the team in WAR. You may now be asking yourself why I would question if he is, like, good in that case. Well, unfortunately there are some red flags. They might not necessarily mean much or call him out as a fluke, but there are some things to worry about.
Rosario has put up a slash line of .274/.296/.452 so far this season. Two of those numbers are respectable, but that awful OBP is bad enough to drag his OPS down to almost exactly the league average. That's his red flag #1 - horrendous strike zone management.
He has 87 strikeouts this season against just 11 walks, which is pretty staggering. His walk rate of 3.2% is the 6th worst in baseball among batters with at least 300 plate appearances, while his strikeout rate of 25.1% is the 34th worst. The spread of nearly 22 percentage points is monstrous. I could only find a few instances of other players with a similar spread, and they were either slap hitters (Chris Owings) or only ended up with that kind of spread because they strike out an absolute ridiculous amount (Randal Grichuk). The good news is that both his rates are worse than what he put up in his minor league career so although he's always going to be a free swinger these extremes may just be growing pains.
His swing rate is the worst on the team (outside of Oswaldo Arcia), but his contact rates are ok - not great, but ok. Interestingly it turns out major league teams aren't dumb, because less than half the pitches he sees are inside the strike zone and his percentage is the lowest on the team other than Kennys Vargas and Jorge Polanco. Basically teams are throwing him bad pitches, he's swinging at those pitches, and he's missing those pitches. Until he reigns in his hacking a bit that'll continue, and although you can have success being a free swinger it's much more difficult when you aren't getting anything to hit. Keep an eye on this.
His second red flag, although not as big of one in my opinion, is his BABIP of .347, a generally unsustainable number. Unlike last year's fluke Danny Santana, however, it's not that huge of an outlier based on his past. His minor league BABIPs were almost always over .300 and he put up a few seasons in the .350 range, so though .347 is probably high it's not ridiculously high. His line drive percentage isn't great and he pops up too much, but he has an excellent hard hit percentage which can help account for a greater than it should be BABIP.
Overall, Rosario is going to be a quality player. The value he adds with his defense alone makes him a plus player, and advanced metrics (and the eye test) mark him as an excellent fielder both in terms of range and arm. He's fast and a good base runner (base runs mark him as 2nd on the team behind Brian Dozier at things like taking the extra base) and his stolen base mark should get better with more experience. How good he's going to be is going to depend on his bat, and that's going to depend on learning a bit more plate discipline. I think he'll adjust in Year 2+, and he's going to be a fixture in the outfield for a long time.
Or at least I hope. Wow. Optimism. Feels weird.
Rosario has put up a slash line of .274/.296/.452 so far this season. Two of those numbers are respectable, but that awful OBP is bad enough to drag his OPS down to almost exactly the league average. That's his red flag #1 - horrendous strike zone management.
He has 87 strikeouts this season against just 11 walks, which is pretty staggering. His walk rate of 3.2% is the 6th worst in baseball among batters with at least 300 plate appearances, while his strikeout rate of 25.1% is the 34th worst. The spread of nearly 22 percentage points is monstrous. I could only find a few instances of other players with a similar spread, and they were either slap hitters (Chris Owings) or only ended up with that kind of spread because they strike out an absolute ridiculous amount (Randal Grichuk). The good news is that both his rates are worse than what he put up in his minor league career so although he's always going to be a free swinger these extremes may just be growing pains.
His swing rate is the worst on the team (outside of Oswaldo Arcia), but his contact rates are ok - not great, but ok. Interestingly it turns out major league teams aren't dumb, because less than half the pitches he sees are inside the strike zone and his percentage is the lowest on the team other than Kennys Vargas and Jorge Polanco. Basically teams are throwing him bad pitches, he's swinging at those pitches, and he's missing those pitches. Until he reigns in his hacking a bit that'll continue, and although you can have success being a free swinger it's much more difficult when you aren't getting anything to hit. Keep an eye on this.
His second red flag, although not as big of one in my opinion, is his BABIP of .347, a generally unsustainable number. Unlike last year's fluke Danny Santana, however, it's not that huge of an outlier based on his past. His minor league BABIPs were almost always over .300 and he put up a few seasons in the .350 range, so though .347 is probably high it's not ridiculously high. His line drive percentage isn't great and he pops up too much, but he has an excellent hard hit percentage which can help account for a greater than it should be BABIP.
Overall, Rosario is going to be a quality player. The value he adds with his defense alone makes him a plus player, and advanced metrics (and the eye test) mark him as an excellent fielder both in terms of range and arm. He's fast and a good base runner (base runs mark him as 2nd on the team behind Brian Dozier at things like taking the extra base) and his stolen base mark should get better with more experience. How good he's going to be is going to depend on his bat, and that's going to depend on learning a bit more plate discipline. I think he'll adjust in Year 2+, and he's going to be a fixture in the outfield for a long time.
Or at least I hope. Wow. Optimism. Feels weird.
Tuesday, August 18, 2015
What the Hell are the Twins gonna do at Shortstop?
The Twins hit the back stretch of the season, somewhat limping and hovering around .500 and 2.5 games back of the second Wild Card spot. There are two ways to look at this season. The first is that the team overachieved and could never have sustained their early season success, but a .500ish year and semi-meaningful games with an outside shot at a surprise playoff appearance a year ahead of schedule (a .500 would clear their Vegas over/under on wins by 12 games) is pretty damn neato. The second is to say that the Twins were running away with the division and collapsed, and the season is a failure. Obviously, the first way is correct and the second way is for morons.
The other success of this season is you can see the future starting to take shape. Not so much the pitching side which has too many questions for even me to try to answer, but the position players? It's happening.
There's little doubt that the opening day outfield next year will be Byron Buxton, Aaron Hicks, and Eddie Rosario (and that should be a damn good fielding unit). Miguel Sano will have third locked down, and Brian Dozier is going to be at second for a while. 1B/DH is going to be some combination of Joe Mauer, because we're stuck with him, Trevor Plouffe, if they keep him around - he has value and they control him for two more years but he's getting spendy, and Kennys Vargas, if he remembers how to hit. Ideally Oswaldo Arcia does the same and becomes the fourth outfielder with some DH time as well. Catcher goes to Kurt Suzuki unfortunately for another year, and then the hope is either Josmil Pinto or Chris Herrmann step up. It's a nice solid start to team. But what the hell are they gonna do at shortstop?
They have three current options - Danny Santana, Eduardo Escobar, and Eduardo Nunez. They're all young and under team control so they'll probably get plenty of chances, but I don't see a full time shortstop here anywhere. Santana flashed a solid rookie year, finishing 7th in AL Rookie of the Year voting, but had all the warning signs of a fluke which came to fruition this year. In his 256 plate appearances in the majors this year he OPSed just .541, 3rd worst in all the majors, and rocked a 66-5 strikeout to walk ratio. I covered Escobar here, coming to the conclusion that his upside, last year, was adequate at best, and his downside, this year, is a crappy utility guy. Nunez seems to have moved into the starters role by default, but there's nothing there to suggest he's anything other than a replacement level utility guy, which he has been for his six big league seasons.
So what's next? Look at any Twins' top prospect list and you'll see two names, and only two names - Nick Gordon and Jorge Polanco. Gordon was picked just last year out of high school so he's probably not going to be ready until 2018 at the earliest, so it's Polanco or bust. And I'm really not sure how to feel about that.
He's certainly looked good in his limited time in the majors, slashing .313/.450/.500 with 4 walks and 3 strikeouts in 20 plate appearances and Fangraphs has him as a better than average defensive shortstop. All positive signs. His career line of .288/.349/.406 in the minors is alright, but more impressive is his 269 strikeouts to 182 walks, which shows that unlike a lot of shortstops he's not a complete hacker up there.
So what's the problem? No power at all. Zero. None. That .406 slugging over his minor league career would be one of the lower numbers in the majors this year, and if you look at his ISO, which strips out a high average influencing from influencing slugging, he's put up Ben Revere type numbers each of the last two seasons, only without the speed.
I'm not saying he's terrible or can't develop into more of an all around player. He hit very well in rookie and A ball, with some power, and he's only 21 and already at AAA with two flashes in the big leagues and he's pretty much hit for a high average everywhere. I'm fully rooting for him, it's just amazing to me that all the eggs have to be in this basket, but there's nobody else. Levi Michael was supposed to be the shortstop of the future, but he was drafted out of college in 2011 and is still stuck at AA so I don't think we can really count on him any more, especially since he has less power than Polanco.
Considering the free agent market looks pretty bare at the position for the next couple years we should all be huge Jorge Polanco fans and hope he gets to the majors, for good, sooner rather than later. Help us, Jorge Polanco, you're our only hope.
The other success of this season is you can see the future starting to take shape. Not so much the pitching side which has too many questions for even me to try to answer, but the position players? It's happening.
There's little doubt that the opening day outfield next year will be Byron Buxton, Aaron Hicks, and Eddie Rosario (and that should be a damn good fielding unit). Miguel Sano will have third locked down, and Brian Dozier is going to be at second for a while. 1B/DH is going to be some combination of Joe Mauer, because we're stuck with him, Trevor Plouffe, if they keep him around - he has value and they control him for two more years but he's getting spendy, and Kennys Vargas, if he remembers how to hit. Ideally Oswaldo Arcia does the same and becomes the fourth outfielder with some DH time as well. Catcher goes to Kurt Suzuki unfortunately for another year, and then the hope is either Josmil Pinto or Chris Herrmann step up. It's a nice solid start to team. But what the hell are they gonna do at shortstop?
They have three current options - Danny Santana, Eduardo Escobar, and Eduardo Nunez. They're all young and under team control so they'll probably get plenty of chances, but I don't see a full time shortstop here anywhere. Santana flashed a solid rookie year, finishing 7th in AL Rookie of the Year voting, but had all the warning signs of a fluke which came to fruition this year. In his 256 plate appearances in the majors this year he OPSed just .541, 3rd worst in all the majors, and rocked a 66-5 strikeout to walk ratio. I covered Escobar here, coming to the conclusion that his upside, last year, was adequate at best, and his downside, this year, is a crappy utility guy. Nunez seems to have moved into the starters role by default, but there's nothing there to suggest he's anything other than a replacement level utility guy, which he has been for his six big league seasons.
So what's next? Look at any Twins' top prospect list and you'll see two names, and only two names - Nick Gordon and Jorge Polanco. Gordon was picked just last year out of high school so he's probably not going to be ready until 2018 at the earliest, so it's Polanco or bust. And I'm really not sure how to feel about that.
He's certainly looked good in his limited time in the majors, slashing .313/.450/.500 with 4 walks and 3 strikeouts in 20 plate appearances and Fangraphs has him as a better than average defensive shortstop. All positive signs. His career line of .288/.349/.406 in the minors is alright, but more impressive is his 269 strikeouts to 182 walks, which shows that unlike a lot of shortstops he's not a complete hacker up there.
So what's the problem? No power at all. Zero. None. That .406 slugging over his minor league career would be one of the lower numbers in the majors this year, and if you look at his ISO, which strips out a high average influencing from influencing slugging, he's put up Ben Revere type numbers each of the last two seasons, only without the speed.
I'm not saying he's terrible or can't develop into more of an all around player. He hit very well in rookie and A ball, with some power, and he's only 21 and already at AAA with two flashes in the big leagues and he's pretty much hit for a high average everywhere. I'm fully rooting for him, it's just amazing to me that all the eggs have to be in this basket, but there's nobody else. Levi Michael was supposed to be the shortstop of the future, but he was drafted out of college in 2011 and is still stuck at AA so I don't think we can really count on him any more, especially since he has less power than Polanco.
Considering the free agent market looks pretty bare at the position for the next couple years we should all be huge Jorge Polanco fans and hope he gets to the majors, for good, sooner rather than later. Help us, Jorge Polanco, you're our only hope.
Tuesday, August 4, 2015
Is Eduardo Escobar, like, good?
I was hoping the Twins would do something at the trade deadline, and they did. I was hoping they'd get bullpen help, and they did. So I suppose I'm happy with what they did. They couldn't really have done much more without gutting the future, and considering their performance since the trade deadline it looks like an every better decision to mostly stand pat. I was hoping they'd find a way to upgrade shortstop, but the two instant starters who may have been available are both expensive and have question marks (Jose Reyes and Starlin Castro) so whatevs. With Danny Santana back in the minors, it looks like Eduardo Escobar is the new shortstop, and may be for a while considering there's no readily available replacement unless Santana turns it around. So is Eduardo Escobar, like, good?
Current slash line: .239/.270/.380. Yikes. Down considerably from last year's decent .275/.315/.406. His OPS of .651 ranks him 19th in the majors among shortstops with at least 250 plate appearances - better than I would have guessed (and better than Castro). Considering Santana ranked dead last, that's manageable. Both his walk and strikeout rates are career worsts this year, and this approach change probably also accounts for his dip in BABIP from a career number .308 to .294 (it was .336 last year) and his line drive rate has plummeted from 24% to 17.8%. Both numbers are considerably worse than his career numbers, so we can hope he's just having a bad year.
One thing I've always liked about his bat is he's got some pop compared to your average shortstop. He ranks 8th in ISO (slg-avg) among shortstops with 250+ PAs, and that number has increased each of the last two years. He's also 16th in extra base hits, despite having a hundred plate appearances fewer than almost every shortstop ahead of him. Overall, he's a complete free swinger who refuses to walk and has a little bit of pop for his position. He's only 26, so his bat probably gets a passing grade, though it would be nice if he could revert back to last year's version.
He's a horrendous base stealer. He's gone 6 for 12 in his career and 2 for 5 this year, and it's probably best for everyone at this point if he just stops doing it. Though that would probably give Dan Gladden a heart attack. Seriously you ever listen to this guy on the radio? He's completely obsessed with the running game. It's maddening. Speaking of, Escobar is a pretty good base runner outside of not being able to steal base if a small child was catching. Well, actually this year he rates dead average, but last year he was slightly goodish. This is according to UBR at Fangraphs which takes note of such things as going from 1st to 3rd on a single or scoring from 1st on a double and stuff like that. Makes sense. Yet another regression from Escobar.
Last season, Escobar's fielding (at shortstop) was above average according to Ultimate Zone Rating. This year, however, like everything else it's plummeted to terrible. Granted defensive metrics aren't perfect, but considering he's on pace to make about 40% more errors than last season I can buy it. This year his UZR ranks 36th out of 40 shortstops with at least 210 innings played at SS (just ahead of Danny Santana). Last year he ranked 14th.
So what do we have? A player who would have been a competent starter last season who has been pretty rough this year. Add it all up and he's gone from 2.5 WAR last year down to -0.7 this year. Considering Santana is -1.2 he's an upgrade, but a disappointment at the same time. Last year WAR put him as the #14 shortstop in the majors. This year he's at the bottom, ahead of only Santana and Castro. Yuck.
Considering he's 26 years old and under team control through 2018 there's considerable reason for the Twins to hope he can be the new shortstop of the future. Not to mention the free agent market for shortstops is garbage. Last year he looked like he had a chance. This year, however? No, he's not good. Hopefully they don't rush Jorge Polanco.
Current slash line: .239/.270/.380. Yikes. Down considerably from last year's decent .275/.315/.406. His OPS of .651 ranks him 19th in the majors among shortstops with at least 250 plate appearances - better than I would have guessed (and better than Castro). Considering Santana ranked dead last, that's manageable. Both his walk and strikeout rates are career worsts this year, and this approach change probably also accounts for his dip in BABIP from a career number .308 to .294 (it was .336 last year) and his line drive rate has plummeted from 24% to 17.8%. Both numbers are considerably worse than his career numbers, so we can hope he's just having a bad year.
One thing I've always liked about his bat is he's got some pop compared to your average shortstop. He ranks 8th in ISO (slg-avg) among shortstops with 250+ PAs, and that number has increased each of the last two years. He's also 16th in extra base hits, despite having a hundred plate appearances fewer than almost every shortstop ahead of him. Overall, he's a complete free swinger who refuses to walk and has a little bit of pop for his position. He's only 26, so his bat probably gets a passing grade, though it would be nice if he could revert back to last year's version.
He's a horrendous base stealer. He's gone 6 for 12 in his career and 2 for 5 this year, and it's probably best for everyone at this point if he just stops doing it. Though that would probably give Dan Gladden a heart attack. Seriously you ever listen to this guy on the radio? He's completely obsessed with the running game. It's maddening. Speaking of, Escobar is a pretty good base runner outside of not being able to steal base if a small child was catching. Well, actually this year he rates dead average, but last year he was slightly goodish. This is according to UBR at Fangraphs which takes note of such things as going from 1st to 3rd on a single or scoring from 1st on a double and stuff like that. Makes sense. Yet another regression from Escobar.
Last season, Escobar's fielding (at shortstop) was above average according to Ultimate Zone Rating. This year, however, like everything else it's plummeted to terrible. Granted defensive metrics aren't perfect, but considering he's on pace to make about 40% more errors than last season I can buy it. This year his UZR ranks 36th out of 40 shortstops with at least 210 innings played at SS (just ahead of Danny Santana). Last year he ranked 14th.
So what do we have? A player who would have been a competent starter last season who has been pretty rough this year. Add it all up and he's gone from 2.5 WAR last year down to -0.7 this year. Considering Santana is -1.2 he's an upgrade, but a disappointment at the same time. Last year WAR put him as the #14 shortstop in the majors. This year he's at the bottom, ahead of only Santana and Castro. Yuck.
Considering he's 26 years old and under team control through 2018 there's considerable reason for the Twins to hope he can be the new shortstop of the future. Not to mention the free agent market for shortstops is garbage. Last year he looked like he had a chance. This year, however? No, he's not good. Hopefully they don't rush Jorge Polanco.
Guest post: Minnesota Vikings 2015 Preview
All things considered, the Minnesota
Vikings had a slightly above-average season in 2014. They didn't make the
playoffs, but they weren't absolutely embarrassing either. Some wondered if
they were going to be able to win games without Adrian Peterson and using a
rookie quarterback. Now that Peterson is back and the quarterback is more
mature, can they start to think playoffs?
The Green Bay Packers are still the best
team in the NFC North, but Minnesota is starting to feel a bit more confident
in general. They know that the offense could be the best in quite some time for
them, and it all starts with Peterson getting back on the field. People are
still drafting him very highly in fantasy football mockdraft set ups despite the fact he played in just one game last
year. Many are thinking he will come back refreshed since he was able to get
some time off. There are some concerns about distractions and possible hatred
shown towards him on the road, but players have to deal with that all the time.
Teddy Bridgewater made very nice strides
during the 2014 season. It was unknown just how good he would be as a rookie
for Minnesota, but the coaching staff definitely feels like they have their
franchise guy for years to come. With Peterson back, that should only open
things up for him more.
On defense, this team made great strides
last year, so building on that is going to put them in playoff discussion. Mike
Zimmer took a team over that gave up a lot of points, especially through the
air, and actually made them a slightly above average unit. They aren’t perfect,
but the offense won’t be forced to put up 30 points a week to win.
The schedule looks tough on paper, but
Minnesota should still improve on 7-9 from a year ago. Winning one more game
shows improvement, but winning two or more games puts them in the playoff
discussion. They might not be getting a lot of attention right now, but they
are a team to watch.
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