Article: MIN 6, BOS 2: Bats Get to Boston Bullpen

[mikelink45]

So fun to see the posts in a win.  Berrios, Escobar, Rosario are the stories for the first half of the year. Lets hope there are more stories in the second half. 

[Tomj14]

 

Or the Twins did a good job getting Sale up to 105 pitches through seven so the Red Sox would be foolish to bring him back out there?

Berrios was given a chance but once a guy gets on base, the odds of the tying run scoring go way up. At that point, you want a fresh arm throwing heat rather than giving the Red Sox lineup a 4th look at Berrios. I thought it was a great time to go get someone and a great spot for Hildy. He’s got a funky delivery that is a jarring transition from Berrios. He’s also young – Benintendi and Bogaerts had each only seen him once and Martinez had never seen him. That’s another nice advantage.

 

Thought giving Berrios a shot was great but realizing the leverage of the situation and the better bullpen option was smart.

The Twins did a great job of running up his pitch count after the 4th no doubt,  IMO the Red Sox had a better chance of winning that game with Sale pitching the 8th then anybody else. He had given up 3 hits, one a fluke, one was a amazing hit (Escobar) and one solid hit to LaMarre.

An 8 year vet, with 1426 innings, 1692 K's, should be able to start the 8th inning with 105 pitches in a 2 - 2 game. IMO

 

also IMO high pressure pitching is "suppose" to be more important than innings or pitch count. And sending a guy out to start a inning with requirement that he is perfect is very high pressure.

[Tom Froemming]

 

Tom, for the greater good of Twins Territory, please make the personal sacrifice to the Baseball Gods. Ill buy you a beer (or a few) sometime. Thank you.

 

PS love the recaps, keep up the good work.

 

https://tenor.com/view/hotfuzz-greatergood-evil-funny-good-gif-5283257

I may double down and not only avoid watching the Twins tonight, but watch Cleveland instead. Think I can jinx them, or will my jinx carryover to their opponents? I still haven't figured out how these new powers work

[Tomj14]

We should trade for him.

As long as we don't have to give up anybody we actually like or is good in the minors.

[Tomj14]

 

Berrios has been allowed to go deep into games quite often and he didn’t have his best stuff last night, not even close. You thank the guy for his effort and let the bullpen take it from there.

I agree he didn't have his best stuff, but then why bring him out and ask him to be perfect, then knowing full well if he is not, you are bringing in a relief pitcher and basically asking him to be perfect as well?

[PDX Twin]

 

Thought giving Berrios a shot was great but realizing the leverage of the situation and the better bullpen option was smart.

 

Wait ... Who was the manager who made this correct bullpen call?

[Number3]

So the very unpredictable way this season is shaping up continues. Last years all-star in A ball. This years all-star essentially his full time replacement. Thank goodness Berrios has rebounded from a couple of shaky starts earlier and Lynn is coming around.  Just take the field expecting to win and go out and play baseball. (I know not very analytical. Will leave that to the pros. I just enjoy "talking" about the Twins).

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

The argument against it would be that then you're going to have to compete on the market and that guys who turn down qualifying offers seem to not want to sign with the team that extended the offer.

 

That said, I think Escobar loves being in MN and loves playing with these guys. I think if you told him, "We're going to extend the QO but then we want to bring you back", he'd understand.

 

Any payday he gets will be much higher than he'd have expected before this year and especially before last year. I imagine that gives a guy a different mentality than a guy like Dozier who has been outperforming his contract for the past three years and has not been given an extension. Not sure the Twins will extend a QO to Dozier but if they do, that might be the kiss of death for him as a Twin.

If the Twins want Escobar, I suspect they'll have more than a fair chance to keep him.

 

Escobar is a hard player to predict and frankly, I'm more interested in keeping him if his OPS is .800 than if his OPS is .900 at season's end. I think he can sustain an .800 OPS for awhile but am incredibly skeptical of him holding at .900 for a prolonged period of time, which means I don't want to bid for him after a .900 OPS season.

[Otto von Ballpark]

 

The argument against it would be that then you're going to have to compete on the market and that guys who turn down qualifying offers seem to not want to sign with the team that extended the offer.

I'm not sure if that's on the player, though -- the team that extends the QO is incentivized to let the player sign elsewhere. Although that incentive has been reduced in the latest CBA -- unless the player gets $50 mil, the comp pick is at best going to be in the range of the pick we sold with Hughes.

[bighat]

 

I think the last MVP on a sub .500 team was A-Rod with the Rangers like 10-15 years ago. The voters tend to give the award to guys on contending teams. Speaking of which, the Indians have a pretty good third baseman as well.

 

Not sure anybody's gonna catch Mike Trout.

[John Kelsey]

 

Not sure anybody's gonna catch Mike Trout.

 

Trout is having a historic season, he should win by a landslide. 

[jkcarew]

 

Then again, Mike Trout should be looking for his 6th MVP but only has two so maybe Escobar has a shot:

 

• 2012 he had 3.4 more WAR than Cabrera with equivalent stats while playing a premier defensive position and leading the league in stolen bases. As a rookie.
• 2013 he had 1.7 more WAR than Cabrera with equivalent stats and again, better defense and base running.
• 2015 was closer but he had 0.9 more WAR than Donaldson, played a better position, hit the same number of home runs with more stolen bases. This is probably the closest but I’d still give it to him.

I'd go with Trout "could" be looking for his 6th...not "should" be.  When you go down that path, you'd need to re-calibrate the award for a whole bunch of seasons in the award's history.  The award is named the most Valuable Player...and, historically, the value has been weighted to creating runs leading to wins in a meaningful season for the club.  Never in it's history has the award been considered to be the equivalent of  a 'Best player' or MoP award.  Trout is not the first victim or even the best example (see Ted Williams, 1947...then look at Ted Williams 1941 or Ted Williams 1942).  Although Trout might end up being the most frequent example before he's done.

 

If the award was MoP, then we could debate using WAR exclusively to determine the best player  

[RatherBeGolfing]

 

If Escobar keeps up his play at even 80% of his current play....there's no reason he shouldn't win the MVP. Even if they don't make the playoffs. Pitching has kept us in more games than not and Escobar along with Rosario have kept the offense rolling seemingly by themselves for most of the year. Pretty crazy.

PST

[Dantes929]

 

I'd go with Trout "could" be looking for his 6th...not "should" be.  When you go down that path, you'd need to re-calibrate the award for a whole bunch of seasons in the award's history.  The award is named the most Valuable Player...and, historically, the value has been weighted to creating runs leading to wins in a meaningful season for the club.  Never in it's history has the award been considered to be the equivalent of  a 'Best player' or MoP award.  Trout is not the first victim or even the best example (see Ted Williams, 1947...then look at Ted Williams 1941 or Ted Williams 1942).  Although Trout might end up being the most frequent example before he's done.

 

If the award was MoP, then we could debate using WAR exclusively to determine the best player

I agree with Jack Kemp though in that putting weight on winning teams for MVP and then using MVP for HOF consideration is ridiculous.    Much like the Cy Young  voting which might keep Santana out of the Hall.  

[puckstopper1]

 

If Escobar keeps up his play at even 80% of his current play....there's no reason he shouldn't win the MVP. Even if they don't make the playoffs. Pitching has kept us in more games than not and Escobar along with Rosario have kept the offense rolling seemingly by themselves for most of the year. Pretty crazy.

 

I'm wondering if you mean MVP of the Twins or the AL?  Certainly not in the AL  -  especially with the year Trout is having.  

 

I'd potentially argue against MVP of the Twins with the year Rosario is having.

 

Bottom line the "Ed's" are the hottest Twins duo since the M&M boys.

[Dantes929]

 

So fun to see the posts in a win.  Berrios, Escobar, Rosario are the stories for the first half of the year. Lets hope there are more stories in the second half. 

Agreed but lets not forget Gibson who has a better ERA than Berrios and also Rodney.   I will be the first to admit hating that signing but he has been really good after a so so start.    

Funny that Escobar is giving us what we wanted out of Sano but if Sano had been giving us what we wanted then Escobar might never have been given the chances.

[Otto von Ballpark]

 

I'd go with Trout "could" be looking for his 6th...not "should" be.  When you go down that path, you'd need to re-calibrate the award for a whole bunch of seasons in the award's history.  The award is named the most Valuable Player...and, historically, the value has been weighted to creating runs leading to wins in a meaningful season for the club.  Never in it's history has the award been considered to be the equivalent of  a 'Best player' or MoP award.  

Andre Dawson, 1987? Robin Yount, 1989? Larry Walker, 1997? Alex Rodriguez, 2003? Giancarlo Stanton, 2017?

 

It's certainly not common for an MVP to come from an also-ran team -- but then again, great players are usually on pretty good teams. The two things are kind of related.

[Otto von Ballpark]

 

I'm wondering if you mean MVP of the Twins or the AL?

The "even if they don't make the playoffs" qualifier seems to indicate league MVP, rather than team.

[Mike Sixel]

If only the twins could play the best teams in the AL more often, other than the Yankees. Though I'm sure I have that wrong in my head, and they aren't playing better against the good teams!

[jkcarew]

 

I agree with Jack Kemp though in that putting weight on winning teams for MVP and then using MVP for HOF consideration is ridiculous.    Much like the Cy Young  voting which might keep Santana out of the Hall.  

Winning will always play a part in evaluating a players career in Baseball...and in Football....and in Basketball, etc., etc.  Does it make for some 'unfortunate' outcomes?  Yes.  But it's better than the alternative where winning isn't considered at all.  It's the object of their games, and what all are supposed to be playing for.

[Dantes929]

 

Winning will always play a part in evaluating a players career in Baseball...and in Football....and in Basketball, etc., etc.  Does it make for some 'unfortunate' outcomes?  Yes.  But it's better than the alternative where winning isn't considered at all.  It's the object of their games, and what all are supposed to be playing for.

Well, yeah but you still need to consider within the team concept.   Santana wins all his games but the team finishes last he is still the best pitcher and deserves the Cy Young because he won all the games he was able to.   How can you say Cy Young goes to the best pitcher but then say 3/4s of all pitchers don't qualify because their team didn't make the playoffs?    Mike Trout can be the most valuable player in the league even if his value was on a team that lost a lot of games.    You start by saying if there is one player you can have on your team who would you choose.   Then you can say whose season that was just played would you like repeated on your team out of all those that played.   If both of those answers are Mike Trout then you have your Most Valuable Player.   The second part of that question ld eliminate his 2017 season for injury.    

[jkcarew]

 

Well, yeah but you still need to consider within the team concept.   Santana wins all his games but the team finishes last he is still the best pitcher and deserves the Cy Young because he won all the games he was able to.   How can you say Cy Young goes to the best pitcher but then say 3/4s of all pitchers don't qualify because their team didn't make the playoffs?    Mike Trout can be the most valuable player in the league even if his value was on a team that lost a lot of games.    You start by saying if there is one player you can have on your team who would you choose.   Then you can say whose season that was just played would you like repeated on your team out of all those that played.   If both of those answers are Mike Trout then you have your Most Valuable Player.   The second part of that question ld eliminate his 2017 season for injury.    

We could start a separate thread on this.  Which I won't.  I think it's great when the award goes to the best player.  I'm just saying that that has never been the overriding criteria, and I'm also saying that I have no problem when what you've accomplished with your team weighs in.  I have other, non-team sports to look to where the best always gets all the awards, like track, tennis, and golf.  Just an opinion.(Also, missing out on Cy Youngs is just one of  Santana's problems with his HoF case.)  

[Circus Boy]

 

Extending Escobar now is the literal definition of buying high.

I've bought a few things high. Mostly Fritos.

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

Motter showed a strong arm in right. Joe wearing his baggy shirt on that second HBP was huge.

[h2oface]

The official scoring that lets a pitcher get the win after blowing the save..... never have liked it. Especially if the pitcher that blows the lead did it all with his own batters, and no inherited runners. Way to go Duke. I guess relief is not spelled D-U-K-E! 

 

I still like to see pitchers get wins, regardless of how sabr statisticians like to say wins are meaningless. 

[ThejacKmp]

 

I'd go with Trout "could" be looking for his 6th...not "should" be.  When you go down that path, you'd need to re-calibrate the award for a whole bunch of seasons in the award's history.  The award is named the most Valuable Player...and, historically, the value has been weighted to creating runs leading to wins in a meaningful season for the club.  Never in it's history has the award been considered to be the equivalent of  a 'Best player' or MoP award.  Trout is not the first victim or even the best example (see Ted Williams, 1947...then look at Ted Williams 1941 or Ted Williams 1942).  Although Trout might end up being the most frequent example before he's done.

 

If the award was MoP, then we could debate using WAR exclusively to determine the best player

 

I get your point but in so many of those it's not close to me. I get using team success to figure out close ones but Trout is 30% more valuable by WAR in some of those years. They eye test also matches it - I bet all of those writers would say Trout for best positional player in those years. They just have some ridiculous criteria that makes it "best player on good team". That makes more sense in basketball where a player can really influence a game but less in baseball where so many guys need to do their job to get a win.

[jimmer]

If Escobar keeps up his play at even 80% of his current play....there's no reason he shouldn't win the MVP. Even if they don't make the playoffs. Pitching has kept us in more games than not and Escobar along with Rosario have kept the offense rolling seemingly by themselves for most of the year. Pretty crazy.

you mean team MVP, right? Cause Trout is absolutely killing it this season. Truly destroying it. Edited June 23, 2018 by jimmer