Call me Captain Obvious

[Sousy]

4 minutes ago, jmlease1 said:

Polanco is not playing SS next season except as an occasional backup. That's pretty clear, and if it keeps him healthy and performing like he is right now it's 100% the right decision. Gordon is not an option at SS next season, or he'd be playing SS right now. And everyone is going to scream bloody murder if Drew effin' Maggi is handed the starting SS job. (You think the tired "Pohlads are cheap!" refrain is loud now? You could pump the payroll up to $180M and people would scream that if Maggi is the starting SS)

Any analysis that includes Polanco getting slotted in at SS next season needs to just stop. It's not going to happen.

Totally agree.  Gordon doesn't seem to be the 'everyday starter' type of player anymore either, just due to his problems with health / weight, etc.

I also can't imagine the Twins adding Maggi to the 40 man roster at this point of his career. That has the feeling of 'total disaster', even though the Twins org in general seems pretty short of middle infielder prospects.

[Sousy]

On 9/6/2021 at 4:07 PM, RpR said:

Larnach, has shown so far, he is closer to AA than AAA, Kirilloff is an unknow and could just as easly regress to Rooker and Larnack level.

It will be interesting to find out more about Larnach's injury.  He was a guy that looked like the real deal early on that struggled with breaking balls, then continued to struggle more than we would have liked at AAA.

Kirilloff in retrospect has / had that incredible ability to completely adjust his hitting style after the wrist injury. Assuming rehab goes well he seems to be the kind of guy that will bounce back pretty well.

[MMMordabito]

[gman]

The Dodgers with the best starting staff in baseball only get 1 more out per game than the Twins get from their starters. Much, much better pitching but still only 1 more out. Garret Cole of the $4 Billion contract barely averages 6 innings. So I think whoever pitches for the Twins next season expect the rotation to get just 5 innings a game. Maybe 5 1/3 if they're lucky.

Based on that I would expect that most of the starters if not all are currently in house. Pineda, Dobnak, Ober, Ryan and 2 hotshot rookies piggy backing the 5th spot. Maybe Jax and or Gant in the 5th spot. Expect lots of rookie tryouts.

[Brock Beauchamp]

2 hours ago, gman said:

The Dodgers with the best starting staff in baseball only get 1 more out per game than the Twins get from their starters.

Say this louder for those not listening in the back, please.

2021 baseball is not 1983 baseball. For good or bad, the Twins aren't acting any differently than MLB at large.

[RpR]

Is there a statistic for Earned Runs that are earned because the relief pitcher comes in and lets them score?

[ashbury]

18 minutes ago, RpR said:

Is there a statistic for Earned Runs that are earned because the relief pitcher comes in and lets them score?

Yes.

[ashbury]

20 minutes ago, ashbury said:

Yes.

But, to be slightly more helpful, you will find it on baseball-reference.com's "detailed stats" for a team.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/MIN/2021-pitching.shtml

Scroll about halfway down, to "Team Starting Pitching" and "Team Relief Pitching".  For the starters you will find "Bequeathed Runners" (BQR) and beside it the number that scored (BQS). From the opposite perspective of the relievers who inherit runners, there is IR and IS.

This year, Rogers, Thielbar, Duffey, and Robles have all allowed more than average percentages to score, while Alcala, Coulombe, Colome, and Minaya have done better than the league as a whole (which is about one-third).

Among starters, almost no one except Pineda has had good luck in this regard, but Maeda really stands out with bad luck of 9 of 12 runners coming around to score.

These raw stats aren't situationally adjusted, e.g. to distinguish between a reliever coming in with a runner on third with no one out, versus a runner on first with two outs. But stats this bad don't suggest we're imagining things - the firemen have not put out a lot of fires.

Still, if I read this correctly, it wouldn't make a huge difference to the season. If the Twins' 46% IS rate had been more like an average team's, maybe 14 fewer of the 143 inherited runners would have scored. 14 taken away from 728 runs given up this year might reduce our losses by one, maybe two. The team has gotten its bad record the old fashioned way.

 

 

[RpR]

Thank you.

[sampleSizeOfOne]

9 minutes ago, ashbury said:

For the starters you will find "Bequeathed Runners" (BQR) and beside it the number that scored (BQS).

Makes it sound more like a choice than perhaps it is.

"To you i bequeath the bases full. Don't spend them all in one at bat!"

 

As i am too lazy to look it up, how fare our starters on those stats?

[ashbury]

5 minutes ago, sampleSizeOfOne said:

Makes it sound more like a choice than perhaps it is.

"To you i bequeath the bases full. Don't spend them all in one at bat!"

 

As i am too lazy to look it up, how fare our starters on those stats?

I edited my post to fill in some of this information, but the summary is: they have fared unluckily, but not to a degree that would really change much.

[sampleSizeOfOne]

1 hour ago, ashbury said:

I edited my post to fill in some of this information, but the summary is: they have fared unluckily, but not to a degree that would really change much.

Thanks for your due diligence. I owe any childlike simplicity i have to you (and people like you*)

 

 

 

 

*They do. Really.

[sampleSizeOfOne]

2 hours ago, ashbury said:

Still, if I read this correctly, it wouldn't make a huge difference to the season. If the Twins' 46% IS rate had been more like an average team's, maybe 14 fewer of the 143 inherited runners would have scored. 14 taken away from 728 runs given up this year might reduce our losses by one, maybe two. The team has gotten its bad record the old fashioned way.

This thought diverges slightly off topic (well not the stated topic, but the topic implied by example) in that I been following the Blue Jays from the fine details shown in the standings, and they got themselves a huge run differential, and have been severely underperforming their pythagorean. I thought maybe getting Berrios would kick start them, and it hadn't through most of August. But they seem to be on a tare and may work their way into the play off picture, at least if i'm not jinxing them right now. I hope they make it, and can even play some home games!

[Greglw3]

On 9/8/2021 at 10:10 AM, jmlease1 said:

Polanco is not playing SS next season except as an occasional backup. That's pretty clear, and if it keeps him healthy and performing like he is right now it's 100% the right decision. Gordon is not an option at SS next season, or he'd be playing SS right now. And everyone is going to scream bloody murder if Drew effin' Maggi is handed the starting SS job. (You think the tired "Pohlads are cheap!" refrain is loud now? You could pump the payroll up to $180M and people would scream that if Maggi is the starting SS)

Any analysis that includes Polanco getting slotted in at SS next season needs to just stop. It's not going to happen.

Barring an increased risk of injury at SS as opposed to 2B, I offer this:

Polanco SS, Twins 101 wins

Polanco 2B, Twins ~70 wins

I’m not saying that Polanco caused the dropoff or caused the 101 wins but to show what is possible with him at each position.

That said, see my response to John Bonnes request for prospective 2022 lineups. My thinking has evolved a little. My response is near the end as of 2 pm Friday.

[RpR]

3 hours ago, Greglw3 said:

Barring an increased risk of injury at SS as opposed to 2B, I offer this:

Polanco SS, Twins 101 wins ---- 22 errors SS

Polanco 2B, Twins ~70 wins ---- 12 errors 2nd B

I’m not saying that Polanco caused the dropoff or caused the 101 wins but to show what is possible with him at each position.

That said, see my response to John Bonnes request for prospective 2022 lineups. My thinking has evolved a little. My response is near the end as of 2 pm Friday.

With him at SS this year, it would have been losses.

In 2019 we had Schoop, C.J. Cron whose errors combined this year equals 16.