Puckett's Pond » Fetch

Who Is The Real Denard Span?

Fetch — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 17:39:19 +0000

Denard Span burst onto the scene in 2008 and really came out of nowhere to post very good numbers in his first major league season. They were especially heartening given his career .716 OPS in the minors. The next year he continued and posted strong numbers, and it looked like he was not only the Twins leadoff hitter for the next few years, but one of the best leadoff hitters in the American League. Then came last year, where he posted a below average season with the bat, one that was by far his worst of his major league career. So which is the real Denard Span? First, a table: (more…)

I Can’t Believe I Have To Talk About It, But Francisco Liriano’s Trade Value

Fetch — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 01:58:18 +0000

Well crap. According to USA Today’s Bob Nightengale, the Twins are keeping an eye on Yankees prospects and could be trading Francisco Liriano. While my message for Bill Smith is a simple “don’t effing trade him,” it couldn’t hurt to take a look at his trade value should Bill Smith pull the plug on the 2011 season.

Per usual, these values come from Sky Kalkman at Beyond the Boxscore.

First off, salary: Liriano is in his second to last year of team control, and is slated to make 4.3 million this season. He should make roughly 6 million next year, but using the 40/60/80 method for arbitration the spreadsheet would have him making roughly 14 million. I’m going to do a bit of a compromise and put it at 8.

Next, performance: Fan projections on Fangraphs have him at 5.5 WAR, and Marcel projections have him a bit lower than that. Because Liriano has had significant arm problems (and now apparently has another bout of shoulder soreness) I am going to depress his value even further and put him at 4.5 and 4 WAR for the next two seasons. Again, this isn’t necessarily what I think it will be, but more of a baseline/very conservative estimate. I’ll stop short of saying worst case scenario because, as we all know, with pitchers there’s always a worse case.

Lastly, I took out the value for draft pick compensation because it is extremely likely that will be done away with in the next CBA. Still, if you’d like you can give him probably 2.5 million for being a type B.

Let’s take a look at what we come up with: (more…)

Twins Sign Dominican Prospect

Fetch — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 21:24:24 +0000

The Twins have signed 17 year old RHP Felix Jorge for $250,000, according to Ben Badler of Baseball America. Jorge didn’t sign last summer even though he was eligible, which was mostly due to doubts about his velocity. He had a good workout for scouts in January, which led to him being signed. (By the way, that the Dominican Prospect All Star Game is in January is awesome.)

Jorge throws in the low 80s to mid 90s, but reports are good about him having the ability to throw strikes and a good breaking pitch. The fact that he is 6’4″ and only 175 pounds suggests to me that Jorge will fill out and increase his MPH to the point where he is sitting in the low 90s and hopefully dial it up to the 94-95 range when he needs it.