Braves 5-Twins 0, Kirilloff 2 errors but Twins pitchers hold Luplow hitless.

[RpR]

[Irishman]

Twins looked bad.   Still too many Ks!   Very disappointing.   

[MABB1959]

I know ST results should not be taken super seriously.  But they look horrible so far.  11 strikeouts and 3 for Larnach alone.

[Doctor Gast]

SO don't matter, do they?

[akmanak]

I hate going off of ST, but the Twins look bad.

[Guest]

Spring trading does not matter. At least the starters are looking good, just the third string losing all these games.

[Guest]

Isn’t that right nicksaviking?

 

[PseudoSABR]

Performances like that will lead to a lot of Santana at 1B against RHers with Kiriloff at DH.

[Guest]

ELEVEN more strikeouts today, just outs. But at least they are killing it in the egg toss. https://www.mlb.com/twins/news/twins-egg-toss-spring-training-2024

[FlyingFinn]

Nice to see Paddock and Canterino on the mound. Great news is that everyone except Winder is healthy.

[Kenny Powers]

Any velocity reports on Canterino?  He's a forgotten guy, but that guy has impressive minor league results:

85 innings, 130 Ks, 1.48 ERA and 0.86 WHIP.  If he's healthy, he is a guy that can be a factor this year.

Edit:  I found a write up on the Twins website that states he was hitting 95 mph.  I definitely see him as a bullpen option later this year as they will likely need to limit his innings.

https://www.mlb.com/twins/news/matt-canterino-pitches-in-first-twins-game-since-2022

[MMMordabito]

[strumdatjag]

When is it time to panic?

[Mike Sixel]

Could AK play himself to AAA?

[RpR]

If one is a big Kirilloff fan, better than being traded.

[RpR]

Happy thoughts: Acuna was thrown out twice; picked off by Funderburk, and caught stealing by Jeffers!

[SteveLV]

Twins outscorered 40-19 so far in ST.  A third of the Twins runs were in one late inning where they walked in 3 runs.

They look terrible so far.

Not time to panic, but I am growing concerned.....

[John Belinski]

It looks like we are going to have another season of Rocco leading the Twins to keep hitting into double plays.

The Twins had runners one first and second with no outs, but didn't score a run due to double play. Rocco will just never learn to have his players move runners over.  I think there were at least 6 games the Twins would have won last year with one bunt to move runners over. I guess his computer tells him not to bunt runners over, but most winning teams bunt runners over to reduce double plays and to score more runs.  Really hard to be a Twin's fan with Rocco as manager.

[chpettit19]

31 minutes ago, John Belinski said:

It looks like we are going to have another season of Rocco leading the Twins to keep hitting into double plays.

The Twins had runners one first and second with no outs, but didn't score a run due to double play. Rocco will just never learn to have his players move runners over.  I think there were at least 6 games the Twins would have won last year with one bunt to move runners over. I guess his computer tells him not to bunt runners over, but most winning teams bunt runners over to reduce double plays and to score more runs.  Really hard to be a Twin's fan with Rocco as manager.

Spring Training is not the time to bunt runners over. They need to work on their hitting far more than they need to work on sac bunting.

The most sac bunts of any team in baseball last year was Arizona with 36. No other team had 30, but 6 other teams had at least 20 sac bunts. I think you're significantly overestimating the use of sacrifice bunts by any team. The best offense in baseball (Braves) had 2. There were 9 teams with fewer than 10 sacrifice bunts. That's more than teams with over 20. League average was 14 sacrifice bunts. Twins had 12.

[Twins_Fan_For_Life]

17 hours ago, MABB1959 said:

I know ST results should not be taken super seriously.  But they look horrible so far.  11 strikeouts and 3 for Larnach.

I think we need to dial back the criticism of Larnach.  He is fighting for a job on MLB 26-man roster. Joey Gallo's production must be replaced by somebody!

[Richie the Rally Goat]

[cHawk]

It seems significant that Buxton, Correa, and Lewis, likely the Twins' three best position players, did not play in this game.

[jctwins]

On 3/1/2024 at 8:20 AM, chpettit19 said:

Spring Training is not the time to bunt runners over. They need to work on their hitting far more than they need to work on sac bunting.

The most sac bunts of any team in baseball last year was Arizona with 36. No other team had 30, but 6 other teams had at least 20 sac bunts. I think you're significantly overestimating the use of sacrifice bunts by any team. The best offense in baseball (Braves) had 2. There were 9 teams with fewer than 10 sacrifice bunts. That's more than teams with over 20. League average was 14 sacrifice bunts. Twins had 12.

Just making sure you'll say the regular season is the better time to "work on" sacrifice bunting in game situations?

[chpettit19]

1 hour ago, jctwins said:

Just making sure you'll say the regular season is the better time to "work on" sacrifice bunting in game situations?

I'd say they shouldn't work on it in any game situation. They should practice it during BP and that's it. Arizona (team with the most sac bunts in the entire league last year) had 36 sacrifice bunts the entire year. They had 6124 total plate appearances. They sac bunted in 0.59% of their plate appearances. That lead the league. Practicing something you're going to do .59% of the time instead of something you're going to do 99.41% of the time doesn't seem like a great use of game situation reps. Let's say they were really bad at it and they were only successful 50% of the time so they actually used 72 PAs on that skill. That jumps them to 1.2% of plate appearances. Still going to say they should spend 100% of game reps practicing the skill they use 98.8% of the time. Wonder how many sac bunts have been laid down by any team in spring training this year.

[jctwins]

6 hours ago, chpettit19 said:

I'd say they shouldn't work on it in any game situation. They should practice it during BP and that's it. Arizona (team with the most sac bunts in the entire league last year) had 36 sacrifice bunts the entire year. They had 6124 total plate appearances. They sac bunted in 0.59% of their plate appearances. That lead the league. Practicing something you're going to do .59% of the time instead of something you're going to do 99.41% of the time doesn't seem like a great use of game situation reps. Let's say they were really bad at it and they were only successful 50% of the time so they actually used 72 PAs on that skill. That jumps them to 1.2% of plate appearances. Still going to say they should spend 100% of game reps practicing the skill they use 98.8% of the time. Wonder how many sac bunts have been laid down by any team in spring training this year.

Or maybe they should practice it in meaningless games and do more of it in the regular season?

[chpettit19]

Just now, jctwins said:

Or maybe they should practice it in meaningless games and do more of it in the regular season?

If their goal is to score fewer runs, sure. The math is overwhelming, sacrifice bunts are not a good strategy in most situations. There's a reason it's such a seldom used strategy in the league as a whole. You don't have to like it, but the sacrifice bunt isn't a weapon that will be used frequently anymore. It's just not a good way to win baseball games.

[jctwins]

22 hours ago, chpettit19 said:

If their goal is to score fewer runs, sure. The math is overwhelming, sacrifice bunts are not a good strategy in most situations. There's a reason it's such a seldom used strategy in the league as a whole. You don't have to like it, but the sacrifice bunt isn't a weapon that will be used frequently anymore. It's just not a good way to win baseball games.

If someone wants to dig up a stat on how many guys were left on 1st or 2nd base when the inning ended on a strike out or especially back to back strikeouts I'd like to see that.

[USAFChief]

16 hours ago, jctwins said:

If someone wants to dig up a stat on how many guys were left on 1st or 2nd base when the inning ended on a strike out or especially back to back strikeouts I'd like to see that.

I'm no expert, but it seems to me sac bunting won't result in more runs scored if followed by "back to back strikeouts."

 

Take me through how that works, please. 

[big dog]

1 hour ago, USAFChief said:

I'm no expert, but it seems to me sac bunting won't result in more runs scored if followed by "back to back strikeouts."

 

Take me through how that works, please. 

I think the poster meant having a sac bunt instead of striking out, then having a strikeout that ends the inning. 
Wait a minute, that doesn’t sound useful…

[ashbury]

42 minutes ago, big dog said:

I think the poster meant having a sac bunt instead of striking out, then having a strikeout that ends the inning. 
Wait a minute, that doesn’t sound useful…

Get the leadoff guy on first (huh, I thought everyone on this team strikes out), then three sac bunts bring him home - or for style points, two bunts and then a sac fly.  Oh wait.

Baseball really is a beautiful game when you think about the various way it's balanced.