We're not quite the Mariners!

[ThePuck]

Now I know you're screwing with me. And I swallowed it hook, line, and sinker. Stupid me.

 

Not screwing with you in the least. BTW, notice I'm not the only one saying it...and I like how you ignored the comparison to Willingham...

[old nurse]

Funny, it's so easy to twist statistics to make them say whatever you want them to say. When I said statistics, I was referring to his rbi totals, which except for 2009 have been embarrassingly low for a #3 hitter.

Span and Revere would not be elite when it comes to OBP. There has to be someone on base to get an RBI

[ThePuck]

All in all, I still like Joe Mauer. I just expect more. I want numbers similar to what he put up in 2009. That's what he's getting paid to do. That's what got him his monster contract. How is this so hard for some people to grasp?

 

How do you know that's why he got the contract he did? Think the Twins brass was stupid enough to believe he was a HR hitter after all previous seasons showed other-wise. There's more to the game than HR and there's many reasons why a player is given the contract he's given. For example, Mauer being the hometown boy done good...in other words, he's a draw for crowd...a money producer.

 

1st catcher to lead the major in BA

1st AL catcher to get a batting title (now three times)

1st catcher to lead the AL in BA/OBP/OPS and 1st player to do it in almost 30 years at the time he did it.

Highest BA for a MLB catcher ever...and highest BA for a Twins in over 30 years.

 

You think it was about one season? He was gonna get paid even if he didn't hit the HRs...which is really the only thing truly way out of norm for him

[ThePuck]

Span and Revere would not be elite when it comes to OBP. There has to be someone on base to get an RBI

 

And over the years, even worse guys in the 2 spot than Revere...your Puntos, Tolberts, Casillas, etc...

 

not to mention the 9 spot.

[Winston Smith]

On Base Percentage is more important than Slugging Percentage (not making an out is the most important thing a hitter can do). Once you properly weight OBP against slugging, Mauer is absolutely a top ten hitter. No question.

 

I can understand that a high obp is a good thing. But in obp a walk is the same as a 3 run homer? If that is correct imo that makes the "more important" in this quote questionable.

Player a walks twice and goes 0-2 = obp .500 correct.

Player b hits a 3 run homer and goes 1-4 .250 obp correct. which is more important?

Please correct me if i'm wrong!

[Aaron Cross]

Not screwing with you in the least. BTW, notice I'm not the only one saying

it...and I like how you ignored the comparison to Willingham...

I haven't seen the willingham comparison, but didn't he go for 35 and 100? There is no comparison. BTW, I'm not a stats geek. I'm old school. I just pretty much go by what I see with my own two eyes when I'm watching the game. All of these new age stats are silly. The only stats I look at are OBP for the table setters, and rbi's for middle of the order guys.

[jokin]

I can understand that a high obp is a good thing. But in obp a walk is the same as a 3 run homer? If that is correct imo that makes the "more important" in this quote questionable.

Player a walks twice and goes 0-2 = obp .500 correct.

Player b hits a 3 run homer and goes 1-4 .250 obp correct. which is more important?

Please correct me if i'm wrong!

 

Thankyou! I haven't had the time or inclination to get into this again, this early in the season.

[snepp]

and rbi's for middle of the order guys.

 

Even lousy hitters will accumulate a bunch of RBI if they hit behind high-OBP players.

 

 

RBI, without the help of significant context, is useless for player evaluation.

[ThePuck]

I haven't seen the willingham comparison, but didn't he go for 35 and 100? There is no comparison. BTW, I'm not a stats geek. I'm old school. I just pretty much go by what I see with my own two eyes when I'm watching the game. All of these new age stats are silly. The only stats I look at are OBP for the table setters, and rbi's for middle of the order guys.

 

Willingham with RISP last year: .287/.424/.535 in 205 plate appearances. 8 HR/73 RBI/46Ks

 

Mauer with RISP last year: .372/.500/.514 in 192 plate appearances. 3 HR/72 RBI/22Ks

 

Who did better with RISP? Mauer did...even with Josh having an overall career year for him.

 

p.s. These aren't new age stats.

[Brock Beauchamp]

I can understand that a high obp is a good thing. But in obp a walk is the same as a 3 run homer? If that is correct imo that makes the "more important" in this quote questionable.

Player a walks twice and goes 0-2 = obp .500 correct.

Player b hits a 3 run homer and goes 1-4 .250 obp correct. which is more important?

Please correct me if i'm wrong!

 

They're not the same. But remember that Slugging goes to 4.000 while OBP goes to 1.000. They are not judged on the same scale and without getting into complex math, I think it's pretty easy to understand that when you're dealing with 4,000 possible points of slugging and 1,000 points of OBP, that .001 OBP does not equal .001 SLG.

[ThePuck]

Even lousy hitters will accumulate a bunch of RBI if they hit behind high-OBP players.

 

 

RBI, without the help of significant context, is useless for player evaluation.

 

Exactly...but he's old school :-) Let's not put RBI into context, let's look at the final number and make judgements on those.

[Brock Beauchamp]

I haven't seen the willingham comparison, but didn't he go for 35 and 100? There is no comparison. BTW, I'm not a stats geek. I'm old school. I just pretty much go by what I see with my own two eyes when I'm watching the game. All of these new age stats are silly. The only stats I look at are OBP for the table setters, and rbi's for middle of the order guys.

 

These aren't new age stats. These stats have been available since the dawn of baseball, it's only that people now understand the game better and that context-based stats such as RBI are far too influenced by surrounding players to be useful as a solitary measurement of ability.

[jay]

Aside from the Mauer infighting, I thought it was interesting to note that the Twins had the 4th largest decline in payroll. We fall in just behind the Brewers and then further off are the two AAAA teams, Houston and Miami.

 

With $46M obligated for next year and another $10M or so to arb players, it looks quite possible that it will head even lower...

[StormJH1]

That's the first payroll breakdown I've seen for 2013. It is kind of sad, and yet, Pittsburgh and Miami are below us also with new stadiums, and it's entirely conceivable several of those teams with less money could compete for a pennant this season.

 

I think most fans have realized that 2013 is different than 2011, or even 2012, in the respect that the product is clearly broken right now. When your primary issue is starting pitching and your team is just BAD, that's the hardest situation to spend your way out of. Even if you could convince the Zack Greinke's of the world to come pitch for you (which they probably couldn't of), that's still only 1/5 of your games, at best, that Greinke even has a chance to improve.

 

What's really scary about 2012 is that Josh Willingham and Ryan Doumit DID make the Twins significantly better on a game-to-game basis vs. not making any signings, and yet, the team was still as bad as it is.

 

You could make an argument that the 2014 and 2015 payrolls could actually be less than $80 million, and yet the team could still be significantly better because the core of young talent will be on rookie contracts (and Morneau will be off the books). We need to get the number down now so we're in a position to retain as many of those guys as are worth keeping, as we did in 2008-10 with Mauer/Morneau, and as Kansas City will soon be doing with their guys.

[jokin]

Aside from the Mauer infighting, I thought it was interesting to note that the Twins had the 4th largest decline in payroll. We fall in just behind the Brewers and then further off are the two AAAA teams, Houston and Miami.

 

With $46M obligated for next year and another $10M or so to arb players, it looks quite possible that it will head even lower...

 

Bet on it, except it's such a sure thing, Vegas took it off the board.

[DaveW]

Aside from the Mauer infighting, I thought it was interesting to note that the Twins had the 4th largest decline in payroll. We fall in just behind the Brewers and then further off are the two AAAA teams, Houston and Miami.

 

With $46M obligated for next year and another $10M or so to arb players, it looks quite possible that it will head even lower...

 

I think it's telling because the Twins KNOW they are rebuilding at this point and there is zero reason to start wasting money for no reason. I still am pretty confident that both Morneau and Willingham were shopped late last season and this off-season, but since there wasn't an immediate in house replacement Ryan knows that he can wait until the deadline this year to possibly get better value then what was offered before.

[ThePuck]

These aren't new age stats. These stats have been available since the dawn of baseball, it's only that people now understand the game better and that context-based stats such as RBI are far too influenced by surrounding players to be useful as a solitary measurement of ability.

 

people like to embrace the term 'old school' as if it's a redeeming quality and, at the same time, label anyone who tries to look just a little past the 'traditional' numbers as a 'stats geek'. As if 'stats geeks' with their 'silly new age stats' somehow have an inferior outlook on the game and by using the term geek it solidifies that belief.

[jay]

You could make an argument that the 2014 and 2015 payrolls could actually be less than $80 million, and yet the team could still be significantly better because the core of young talent will be on rookie contracts.

 

Let's certainly hope the latter part of your statement is true. Alternatively, let's hope the payroll jumps up as the Twins bring in a few pieces on shorter contracts to fill gaps while we wait for a few more impact players to show up (ie Buxton, Berrios, Kepler, maybe this year's #4).

[ThePuck]

Let's certainly hope the latter part of your statement is true. Alternatively, let's hope the payroll jumps up as the Twins bring in a few pieces on shorter contracts to fill gaps while we wait for a few more impact players to show up (ie Buxton, Berrios, Kepler, maybe this year's #4).

 

payroll will continue to drop as minor leaguers are brought up to be the starters and we have a team consisting of Mauer and a bunch of pre-arbitration and 1st year arbitration guys on the roster. The money saved isn't going to be spent later.

[jay]

The money saved isn't going to be spent later.

 

Hard to make a solid argument otherwise...

[Mike Sixel]

Not to mention many potential FAs are being signed to deals by their teams right now, since EVERYONE is getting $25MM next year. If you like signing free agents that are actually good, don't go looking at the likely FA list right now......

 

If it was me, I'd pass a new tax, every dollar the payroll is under the (last year of the dome)+(increases in national revenue) goes to Hennepin county to pay off the debt faster.

[Mr. Brooks]

I haven't seen the willingham comparison, but didn't he go for 35 and 100? There is no comparison. BTW, I'm not a stats geek. I'm old school. I just pretty much go by what I see with my own two eyes when I'm watching the game. All of these new age stats are silly. The only stats I look at are OBP for the table setters, and rbi's for middle of the order guys.

 

Its a lot easier for a guy (Willingham) to get 100+ RBI when he has a guy batting directly in front of him who is on base more than 40% of the time (Mauer).

[Brock Beauchamp]

people like to embrace the term 'old school' as if it's a redeeming quality and, at the same time, label anyone who tries to look just a little past the 'traditional' numbers as a 'stats geek'. As if 'stats geeks' with their 'silly new age stats' somehow have an inferior outlook on the game and by using the term geek it solidifies that belief.

 

Honestly, I view terms like "old school" as a person admitting that they don't care enough to learn anything new and will stick to an opinion, even in the face of overwhelming evidence stating the contrary. It's not a badge I'd wear with pride.

[LaBombo]

They're not the same. But remember that Slugging goes to 4.000 while OBP goes to 1.000. They are not judged on the same scale and without getting into complex math, I think it's pretty easy to understand that when you're dealing with 4,000 possible points of slugging and 1,000 points of OBP, that .001 OBP does not equal .001 SLG.

 

Or how about...

 

Lineup A: 1.00 slugging = everyone goes 1-4 with a homer, no walks = 9 runs.

 

Lineup B: 1.00 OBP = everyone gets a hit or walk in every at bat = infinite number of runs.

[Brock Beauchamp]

Or how about...

 

Lineup A: 1.00 slugging = everyone goes 1-4 with a homer, no walks = 9 runs.

 

Lineup B: 1.00 OBP = everyone gets a hit or walk in every at bat = infinite number of runs.

 

To break it down to a basic example, yes. But basically, it's the same thing... Only your example shows just how silly it can be to directly compare the two statistics.

[Winston Smith]

Exactly...but he's old school :-) Let's not put RBI into context, let's look at the final number and make judgements on those.

 

Evan a lousey hitter will walk, get on via errors and hbp. All stats need context and to say one is the gold standard is silly. At the end of the day the team with the most runs wins. It's hard to drive guys in that aren't on base and hard to score if the guy behind you strikes out. Context, it's a team game!

To have a good team you need guys to get on base and guys to drive them in. Earl Weaver did it one way and Gene Mauch another who was right and who was wrong?

[ThePuck]

Evan a lousey hitter will walk, get on via errors and hbp. All stats need context and to say one is the gold standard is silly. At the end of the day the team with the most runs wins. It's hard to drive guys in that aren't on base and hard to score if the guy behind you strikes out. Context, it's a team game!

To have a good team you need guys to get on base and guys to drive them in. Earl Weaver did it one way and Gene Mauch another who was right and who was wrong?

 

I'm confused...is your post meant to counter mine or emphasis it.

[LaBombo]

The money saved isn't going to be spent later.

 

Hard to make a solid argument otherwise...

 

In fact the Twins have stated as much at times throughout the previous decade. Can't find the quote, but I believe Ryan described a given season's available payroll budget as something along the lines of 'use it or lose it'. No carryover to next season's roster.

 

But that was before the nonsensical 'money isn't an issue' meme took the place of frank discussions about payroll and roster construction.

[Brock Beauchamp]

Evan a lousey hitter will walk, get on via errors and hbp. All stats need context and to say one is the gold standard is silly. At the end of the day the team with the most runs wins. It's hard to drive guys in that aren't on base and hard to score if the guy behind you strikes out. Context, it's a team game!

To have a good team you need guys to get on base and guys to drive them in. Earl Weaver did it one way and Gene Mauch another who was right and who was wrong?

 

1. No one is claiming that a single stat is the be-all, end-all of statistics.

 

2. Just because all stats have their weaknesses does not excuse relying on the stats with the most weaknesses as a solitary measure of performance.

[Mr. Brooks]

1. No one is claiming that a single stat is the be-all, end-all of statistics.

2. Just because all stats have their weaknesses does not excuse relying on the stats with the most weaknesses as a solitary measure of performance.

 

That's not true. Aaron Cross is claiming that RBI are the end all, be all stat for middle of the order hitters.