The Twins stat rankings - after 50 games

[mikelink45]

I am always curious where the Twins are on the leaderboards so I went on MLB.com today to find out.  Most of these are traditional stats:

Hits - #131 Byron Buxton (40) - leader Bo Bichette (78)

BA -  Solano with 270 does not have enough ABs to qualify but would be #58, Among qualifiers Buxton is #141 at 225 and Correa is $153 at 210 -  leader Luis Arraez 376

2bs - Correa is tied for #58 with 11, Yes Spencer Steer is way ahead of him -  Freeman leads with 23

3bs - this almost extinct stat has 5 tied with 4 and Trevor Larnach leads our team with 2

HRs - Joey Gallo has 11 and is tied for 16th with 10 other batters - Pete Alsono has 20 .

RBIs - Trevor Larnach is our leader with 27 and is tied with 9 other batters for #55 - Adolis Garcia has 49

BB - Soto has 50 and Buxton and Correa combine to tie him with 25 each.  Tied for #29

SO - Teoscar Hernandez is having a very disappointing season and has 76 Ks, Our team leader is Byron (Sano) Buxton with 60 - #50 and Joey Gallo with 55 less ABs has 54

SB - Esteury Ruiz has 27.  Our leader is Willi Castro with 9 good for #19

OBP - lead by Arraez as 433 our leader is Solano at 349 - among qualifiers our leader is Gallo at 338 #76

SLG - Judge is out of this world at 629. Gallo is 524 Which would tie him for 16 if he had enough ABs. Buxton has 455 which puts him #65.  Brent Rooker is #25

OPS - Judge is 1.087 and Diaz is 1.018  Our best is Gallo at 862 #26 if he had enough ABs  and  Buxton 780 #75

AB/HR - Judge is one every 9.33 and Buxton at #24 his one every 17.8 ABs

K% - Luis Arraez .050%.  Buxton at 291 is #152

PITCHING - a lot nicer story here

ERA - Sonny Gray is #1 at 1.94 

Games - Jorge Lopez is tied for #7 with 25.  The leader is Matt Brash and Andrew Nardi with 27 and I have no idea who either is

Saves - Emmanuel Clase leads with 22. 

Inn - Eovaldi has 74.1 Our leader is Pablo Lopez with 65.2 #15 right behind Kyle Gibson

Ks - Spencer Strider is the only one over 100 (102).  Pablo Lopez leads the Twins with 81 good for #5

Whip - wow another former Twin Tyler Wells leads with 0.83 while Johann Duran has 0.891 and Ryan is 0.951 which ranks #3

RELIEF PITCHER STATS DO NOT SHOW WELL AT MLB.COM SO I WENT TO FANTASY PROS

BS - Lopez and Jax are tied for second with 4, Clase who leads in Saves leads in BS with 6

ERA/RP - Cole Sands is #17 with 0.90 in 10 innings - maybe we should use him more?  Yennier Cano is 0.98 with a 0.54 WHIP in 27 innings 

WHIP/RP - looking at RP with more than 10 innings - Jeffery Springs 0.50, Johann Duran is 0.891

Let's bring on the rookies!

 

 

[wsnydes]

The disparity between the hitting and pitching stats should not shock anyone.  It's still alarming to see how the numbers unfold by comparison though.

Gotta do something with the offense.

[stringer bell]

I believe Buxton and Correa are the Twins only qualifiers (3.1 PA per game) so any category that requires plate appearances would eliminate most of the team and Buxton and (particularly) Correa are off the less than stellar starts.

Rather than look at individuals, I think the better way is to look at team stats. The Twins stand 14th in runs scored in MLB, so pretty close to the middle. They are highest in strikeouts, in the top 10 in homers (7) and have a middling OPS (19), Batting average is 24th. Offensively, there is a lot of room for improvement. Add in Polanco (who should be back next week) (.802 OPS), Kirilloff (.907 OPS) and Lewis (one game so far) and maybe the offense isn't so bad. The catcher rotation seems to be shifting towards Jeffers (.834 OPS), also an offensive improvement. 

The pitching, especially the rotation, has been outstanding. It would figure that there is some regression (Ryan and Gray are good, are they that good?) but the bottom of the rotation is relatively solid and there seem to be rays of hope in the bullpen. Some team pitching numbers: 2nd in ERA, 1st in strikeouts, 1st in OppBA, 1st in WHIP, 10th in walks, tied for 3rd in Quality Starts, tied for 3rd in HRs allowed (+24 HR differential). Last I checked, the starters had logged the most innings in MLB.

We are at 1/3 of the season. There have been some glaring flaws in the Twins so far, but they are two games up in the standings and reinforcements since Opening Day have kept the team going. Some adjustments are due, some are already here. I'm more enthusiastic about this team than I was when they were 4-0.

 

[Eris]

It is hard for me to remember a team which offensively was this disappointing. Maybe because I expected the Twins to be good while they just seem to be playing poorly not withstanding the fact that they are in first place. 
 

There are a number of factors that drive my disappointment. The team leaders, Buxton on Correa are doing poorly. Several players who were expected to have good seasons have either bombed (Miranda) or are in the IL (Larnach, Gordon, Mahle ).  Then there is the situational components such failure to score runs with the bases loaded.  Watching hitter after hitter K in critical at bats, and BS from the bullpen. 
 

Add also to this add to this that several ex-Twins who were either traded, given away, or left unprotected are having very good years and it is really easy to be negative on the team. 
 

Maybe Kirilloff, Lewis and getting Polanco back will help turn things around. 

[Possumlad]

8 minutes ago, Eris said:

It is hard for me to remember a team which offensively was this disappointing. Maybe because I expected the Twins to be good while they just seem to be playing poorly not withstanding the fact that they are in first place. 
 

There are a number of factors that drive my disappointment. The team leaders, Buxton on Correa are doing poorly. Several players who were expected to have good seasons have either bombed (Miranda) or are in the IL (Larnach, Gordon, Mahle ).  Then there is the situational components such failure to score runs with the bases loaded.  Watching hitter after hitter K in critical at bats, and BS from the bullpen. 
 

Add also to this add to this that several ex-Twins who were either traded, given away, or left unprotected are having very good years and it is really easy to be negative on the team. 
 

Maybe Kirilloff, Lewis and getting Polanco back will help turn things around. 

Agreed. Wonder how close Rocco is to considering a change at Hitting coach? I can't think of a single player who's meaningfully outperformed hitting expectations at the major league level. Hitting coaches only do so much in the bigs, but Popkins' seat has to be getting warm.

[Rosterman]

We knew Gallo would strikje out a lot, but sadly Buxton is on the verge of putting up Sano-like numbers when coming up with men on base and chasing pitches.

[Jocko87]

17 minutes ago, Possumlad said:

Agreed. Wonder how close Rocco is to considering a change at Hitting coach? I can't think of a single player who's meaningfully outperformed hitting expectations at the major league level. Hitting coaches only do so much in the bigs, but Popkins' seat has to be getting warm.

I don't know about a change but the issues I see are all coaching related.  They can only do so much but scouting, approach, attacking tomorrows pitcher by doing X are all coaching.  It feels like they are swinging for the pitcher to hit their bats, like the 8 year olds I played wiffle ball with yesterday.  I guess we shouldn't be surprised the very young coach with no major league experience is getting out maneuvered regularly. 

[Vanimal46]

The Twins have scored 3 runs or less in 25 out of 54 games. I don’t know what other teams’ record is scoring 3 runs or less. Too lazy to take on that project. The Twins record is 6-19 in those games. 

IMO 4 runs isn’t enough most of the time to win games. League average is 4.57 runs per game. If we count the games the Twins have scored 4 runs or less it is 32 out of 54 games. In the 4 runs scored games, the record is favorable at 4-3. Bringing their overall record scoring 4 runs or less to 10-22.

Nearly 60% of the time the offense is not doing enough to consistently win games. 

[LA Vikes Fan]

5 minutes ago, Vanimal46 said:

The Twins have scored 3 runs or less in 25 out of 54 games. I don’t know what other teams’ record is scoring 3 runs or less. Too lazy to take on that project. The Twins record is 6-19 in those games. 

IMO 4 runs isn’t enough most of the time to win games. League average is 4.57 runs per game. If we count the games the Twins have scored 4 runs or less it is 32 out of 54 games. In the 4 runs scored games, the record is favorable at 4-3. Bringing their overall record scoring 4 runs or less to 10-22.

Nearly 60% of the time the offense is not doing enough to consistently win games. 

Agreed, but probably what we should have expected. We scored less than 700 runs last year and the only meaningful off season "improvement" was Joey Gallo. Let's say Gallo is basically as wash with what we expected from Miranda, and until recently we've been really running out the same team as last year most of the time. 

The change if it comes will be from adding younger guys into the core. We've added Kirilloff and now are adding Lewis. Frankly, Castro is becoming part of the core over time. I'm not sold on Julien but he's a possibility, although likely a casualty when Polanco comes back. I'd prefer that they DFA Castro and give Julien some run - he could be a lot better. 

The only way we are going to improve the offense is to replace weak performers with guys who might be better and who would make us less reliant on the HR. We've replaced Farmer with Lewis, Miranda with Kirilloff, and may be in the process of a partial replacement of Vasquez with more Jeffers. I would like to see us replace Kepler with Wallner - risky and hard to do with Kepler's seniority - and replace MAT with Julien by playing Buxton in CF or LF (with Castro in CF) and opening up the DH spot to a rotation. Can't see anything else on the horizon that could help, but add Polanco back in every day to the above and we may improve at least some.  Have Correa and/or Buxton hit better would also add a bunch. A lineup of Polanco/Julien, Lewis, Correa, Buxton, Kirilloff, Julien/Polanco (depending on who you like leading off - Gallo is not the answer there), Castro, Gallo, Jeffers/Vasquez could perform a lot better.  Bench is MAT, Kepler,  Farmer, and the other catcher. 

[stringer bell]

I think coaches are mostly neutral, really having little effect on the production of players. There obviously are exceptions, but mostly it is up to the players to produce. Someone asked about a player who has exceeded their projections and I think one could mention Nick Gordon in 2022. However, he didn't show the ability to adjust to the adjustments that were made on him, maybe he's just not talented enough.

Whoever "fixed" Yennier Canó in Baltimore might be a candidate for Coach of the Year. Last year, he was a mess for both the Twins and the Orioles and thus far he's been a godsend for the Orioles.

Some of the stuff that has bedeviled the Twins so far this year is random IMHO. The bases loaded numbers can't continue like they are, at some point there have to be some mistakes hit and some bloopers fall in. The same for their record in close games, they're currently 4-10 in one-run games and that too sounds like a stat begging for regression to the mean. 

The team's offense is very reliant on the long ball and has too little small ball components, which include team speed and ability to make contact. Perhaps the additions of Kirilloff, Lewis and Polanco can improve those skills.

 

[jkcarew]

1 hour ago, Rosterman said:

We knew Gallo would strikje out a lot, but sadly Buxton is on the verge of putting up Sano-like numbers when coming up with men on base and chasing pitches.

Buxton  is definitely struggling with men on base, but striking out less frequently than he did last year and exactly at his career average. His OBP is actually better than it’s been in the past due to taking way more BB than previously. His overall production has been a little better than his career average.

IMO, 2023 has been ‘down’ for Buxton for these three reasons…

1, he’s been really bad with RiSP; 5 for 37

2. his SLG is down…fewer HR/XBH

3. Fans continue to have the perception that he’s a great hitter. He’s not.

But, he is capable of incredible hot streaks, and he hopefully has one or two left in the tank for 2023.

[stringer bell]

10 minutes ago, LA VIkes Fan said:

Agreed, but probably what we should have expected. We scored less than 700 runs last year and the only meaningful off season "improvement" was Joey Gallo. Let's say Gallo is basically as wash with what we expected from Miranda, and until recently we've been really running out the same team as last year most of the time. 

At the 1/3 point of the season, the Twins have scored 247 runs. That would project to 741 over the course of 162 games, despite some pretty disappointing seasons from the team's highest paid position players. Most of the time, players move toward their career averages, which would mean drastic improvement from Correa and Vázquez and some improvement from Buxton. Gallo is pretty much on his career track. Having Farmer, Wallner, Larnach, Castro and Julien as the next wave is so much better than Celestino, Gordon (yes, he did well last year), Palacios, Beckham and Contreras. Health and production from two former top prospects--Lewis and Kirilloff--could really change the offense.

Finally a lament. Does anybody remember Austin Martin? The Twins could really use someone with his skill set at the top of the order and playing left and center field. Julien carried a dominant AFL to his first taste of the majors and I'd call it mixed results, but definitely some positives. If Martine could be a .350 OBP guy who could steal some bases and roam the OF, especially against lefties, maybe the Twins would have a few more wins this year.

[Parfigliano]

5 hours ago, Possumlad said:

Agreed. Wonder how close Rocco is to considering a change at Hitting coach? I can't think of a single player who's meaningfully outperformed hitting expectations at the major league level. Hitting coaches only do so much in the bigs, but Popkins' seat has to be getting warm.

Popkins seat should not have been his seat weeks ago.

[Dave Borton]

6 hours ago, Possumlad said:

Agreed. Wonder how close Rocco is to considering a change at Hitting coach? ...

Which one? There are 3 of them (sighs)...

[Fire Dan Gladden]

6 hours ago, Eris said:

It is hard for me to remember a team which offensively was this disappointing. Maybe because I expected the Twins to be good while they just seem to be playing poorly not withstanding the fact that they are in first place. 
 

There are a number of factors that drive my disappointment. The team leaders, Buxton on Correa are doing poorly. Several players who were expected to have good seasons have either bombed (Miranda) or are in the IL (Larnach, Gordon, Mahle ).  Then there is the situational components such failure to score runs with the bases loaded.  Watching hitter after hitter K in critical at bats, and BS from the bullpen. 
 

Add also to this add to this that several ex-Twins who were either traded, given away, or left unprotected are having very good years and it is really easy to be negative on the team. 
 

Maybe Kirilloff, Lewis and getting Polanco back will help turn things around. 

If by disappointing you mean expectations, then there may be a talking point.  If by disappointing you mean bad, we only need to go back to 2011-2016 to find some really bad lineups.  You could also look at the mid 90's as well...

[Rik19753]

5 hours ago, Vanimal46 said:

The Twins have scored 3 runs or less in 25 out of 54 games. I don’t know what other teams’ record is scoring 3 runs or less. Too lazy to take on that project. The Twins record is 6-19 in those games. 

IMO 4 runs isn’t enough most of the time to win games. League average is 4.57 runs per game. If we count the games the Twins have scored 4 runs or less it is 32 out of 54 games. In the 4 runs scored games, the record is favorable at 4-3. Bringing their overall record scoring 4 runs or less to 10-22.

Nearly 60% of the time the offense is not doing enough to consistently win games. 

While I share your frustrations about the offense, you can't compare the run totals in individual games to the league average in runs scored.

When you look at runs scored per game, the distribution is going to look something like this. The median for runs scored is going to be smaller than the average, and given that the Twins' median for runs scored this year is 4, I would say that is right where they are supposed to be.

[MABB1959]

7 hours ago, Possumlad said:

Agreed. Wonder how close Rocco is to considering a change at Hitting coach? I can't think of a single player who's meaningfully outperformed hitting expectations at the major league level. Hitting coaches only do so much in the bigs, but Popkins' seat has to be getting warm.

I wonder how close the FO is to considering management changes.  Can’t keep blaming the next level of management forever. 

[Vanimal46]

29 minutes ago, Rik19753 said:

While I share your frustrations about the offense, you can't compare the run totals in individual games to the league average in runs scored.

When you look at runs scored per game, the distribution is going to look something like this. The median for runs scored is going to be smaller than the average, and given that the Twins' median for runs scored this year is 4, I would say that is right where they are supposed to be.

The subject definitely deserves a deep dive. My hypothesis is if a team scores 3 runs or less in a game, they’re winning that game 30-40% of the time. If they score 5 runs or more, they’re winning 60-70% of the time. 4 runs is a 50/50 toss up. 

[Richie the Rally Goat]

11 hours ago, Rik19753 said:

While I share your frustrations about the offense, you can't compare the run totals in individual games to the league average in runs scored.

When you look at runs scored per game, the distribution is going to look something like this. The median for runs scored is going to be smaller than the average, and given that the Twins' median for runs scored this year is 4, I would say that is right where they are supposed to be.

Standard of deviation matters here. Mean to median fits, I would expect it to as your graph so astutely shows, they can’t score negative runs and they rank on the middle of the pack in runs too. But the zeros and ones count. If the STDev was tighter, they’d win more games.

[Twins_Fan_For_Life]

No graphs or advanced analytics here:  the Twins have scored enough runs to win about half their games.   They have won about half their games.

[Aerodeliria]

12 hours ago, Vanimal46 said:

The Twins have scored 3 runs or less in 25 out of 54 games. I don’t know what other teams’ record is scoring 3 runs or less. Too lazy to take on that project. The Twins record is 6-19 in those games. 

IMO 4 runs isn’t enough most of the time to win games. League average is 4.57 runs per game. If we count the games the Twins have scored 4 runs or less it is 32 out of 54 games. In the 4 runs scored games, the record is favorable at 4-3. Bringing their overall record scoring 4 runs or less to 10-22.

Nearly 60% of the time the offense is not doing enough to consistently win games. 

That's a fascinating observation. I looked at runs and noticed that the Twins have given up the second fewest runs of any team, Their +40 run differential is most closely aligned with our nemesis the Yankees. The Yankees are +11 in the win column compared to +1 for the Twins. Thinking about both stats and what Vanimal46 has provided, it is quite clear that the Twins lose low-scoring and/or close games consistently while winning more frequenly in comfortable games. I would add that as of last week, they were 26th in team defense (based on errors). The latter point seems to have been a trouble spot for the Twins in the last few years, and this has bitten them frequently in tight ballgames again this year...and of course, to beat dead horse, they are whiffing at an astronomical rate. Is this a case of Earl Weaver's disease?

[Aerodeliria]

6 hours ago, Vanimal46 said:

The subject definitely deserves a deep dive. My hypothesis is if a team scores 3 runs or less in a game, they’re winning that game 30-40% of the time. If they score 5 runs or more, they’re winning 60-70% of the time. 4 runs is a 50/50 toss up. 

I would say that if the Twins score fewer than 3 runs per game, they are going to lose consistently. A team like Houston probably fares a bit better because of lockdown bullpen.

[dxpavelka]

Probably just missed this one but Solano is 382nd in RBI

[Fire Dan Gladden]

18 hours ago, MABB1959 said:

I wonder how close the FO is to considering management changes.  Can’t keep blaming the next level of management forever. 

You rarely see these types of changes happen midseason, especially with teams that are contending.  If they do make a change, it will probably wait to the offseason.

[dxpavelka]

23 hours ago, MABB1959 said:

I wonder how close the FO is to considering management changes.  Can’t keep blaming the next level of management forever. 

About as close as you are to marrying a Kardashian.

[MABB1959]

5 hours ago, Fire Dan Gladden said:

You rarely see these types of changes happen midseason, especially with teams that are contending.  If they do make a change, it will probably wait to the offseason.

I don’t see them as contenders.  Maybe the ALC but not hard to contend.  Winning at least one playoff round doable??

[ashbury]

On 5/30/2023 at 4:53 PM, Rik19753 said:

While I share your frustrations about the offense, you can't compare the run totals in individual games to the league average in runs scored.

When you look at runs scored per game, the distribution is going to look something like this. The median for runs scored is going to be smaller than the average, and given that the Twins' median for runs scored this year is 4, I would say that is right where they are supposed to be.

 

On 5/30/2023 at 5:22 PM, Vanimal46 said:

The subject definitely deserves a deep dive. My hypothesis is if a team scores 3 runs or less in a game, they’re winning that game 30-40% of the time. If they score 5 runs or more, they’re winning 60-70% of the time. 4 runs is a 50/50 toss up. 

 

20 hours ago, Richie the Rally Goat said:

Standard of deviation matters here. Mean to median fits, I would expect it to as your graph so astutely shows, they can’t score negative runs and they rank on the middle of the pack in runs too. But the zeros and ones count. If the STDev was tighter, they’d win more games.

My knowledge of college statistics is poorer than I'd like, but the above graph displays both strong skew (lack of symmetry) and strong kurtosis (long tail).  Part of the problem with using simply the mean is that there's no practical upper limit to scoring, but you can't do worse than a shutout for these purposes.  That's the skew - exploding for 13 runs against an emergency starter and AAAA relievers and then scoring one run each against the opponent's two aces puts you in a worse position for winning a three game series than consistently scoring 5.

I agree that showing a team's standard deviation of their scoring would add useful insight to the simple mean and I don't really understand why that hasn't become a conventional stat.  It would highlight a team that operates like the example above.

I know what skew and kurtosis are (at least in a layman's way).  I just don't know what to do about 'em.

[Richie the Rally Goat]

1 hour ago, ashbury said:

 

 

My knowledge of college statistics is poorer than I'd like, but the above graph displays both strong skew (lack of symmetry) and strong kurtosis (long tail).  Part of the problem with using simply the mean is that there's no practical upper limit to scoring, but you can't do worse than a shutout for these purposes.  That's the skew - exploding for 13 runs against an emergency starter and AAAA relievers and then scoring one run each against the opponent's two aces puts you in a worse position for winning a three game series than consistently scoring 5.

I agree that showing a team's standard deviation of their scoring would add useful insight to the simple mean and I don't really understand why that hasn't become a conventional stat.  It would highlight a team that operates like the example above.

I know what skew and kurtosis are (at least in a layman's way).  I just don't know what to do about 'em.

The million dollar question, Ash!

[Fire Dan Gladden]

15 hours ago, MABB1959 said:

I don’t see them as contenders.  Maybe the ALC but not hard to contend.  Winning at least one playoff round doable??

If the SP continues to be torrid, then they really have a chance.  Playoffs are all about pitching.  With all the off days during the playoffs, the bullpen really gets narrowed down to about 3 guys.

This may not be a popular opinion, but if the SP stays in the top 3 in MLB, and the Twins make the playoffs, they have about as good a chance as anybody to advance and win it all.