Marlins 2, Twins 0: Twins Bats Have No Answers for Marlins’ Edward Cabrera

4 hours ago, Doctor Gast said:

Twins picked the wrong time to play the hot young MIA team. Not long ago MIA was willing to almost give away E Cabrera. Cabrera has always had great stuff, but had command problems. He finally got his act together. Alcantra is starting to come around, too. Ryan had his usual top stuff also but again MN offense was flat. With recently unpopular Lewis having the only hit for most of the game.

Interesting that Ronny Henriquez has pitched well for MIA with 5 saves in high leverage. While in BOS, Alcala that has pitched 4 innings in 5 games (not pitching multiple innings or on consecutive days) has yet to give up a run. & BOS is very high on Jovani Moran, doing very well in AAA. All Twins have given up on with nobody really in return.

Jovani Moran has thrown 2.1 innings in AAA for Boston. 2.1 innings. I can't emphasize enough how small of a sample size 2.1 innings is. "Doing very well in AAA" is such an outrageously misleading statement. He's thrown 10 innings all season. 3 at rookie ball, 4.2 at A+, and 2.1 at AAA. Stating that he's "doing very well in AAA" is nonsense. He's thrown twice.

Jorge Alcala pitched twice for the Twins on back-to-back days this year. Twice. Didn't allow a hit in either of those appearances. Walked 1 guy for an OPS against of .143. Boston hasn't trusted him in anything even nearing a high leverage spot. What point are you trying to prove with those 4 innings (which is wrong, by the way. He's thrown 5 innings)? He's pitched in 6 games for them. 5 losses and a blowout win (not sure where you get your stats from, but they're so frequently wrong you may want to switch sources). He isn't pitching multiple innings or on consecutive days because Boston doesn't trust him, not because they think that's the key to his success. They only use him in losses and blowouts so there aren't as many opportunities for him to pitch. Oh, and he has given up a run. 3 days ago he gave up a run against Cincinnati. Alcala will be 30 before the trade deadline. Let's not act like the Twins "gave up on" some 24-year-old with 30 innings pitched. He has 7 years in the majors and nearly 200 innings. And don't act like he was constantly thrown out there on back-to-back days. It happened 23 times in his 7-year career. That's an average of 3 times a year. That didn't tank his career and it's a joke to suggest it did. He's made 172 appearances. He pitched back-to-back days 13% of the time. It didn't ruin him. He pitched multiple innings 33 times. That's 19%. Only 31 times has he thrown over 25 pitches in an outing, even if he threw more than 1 inning. That's 18%. Alcala's problem has always been his struggles against lefties and his times when he just doesn't know where the ball is going. He has 2 wild pitches already with the Red Sox, by the way. Still doesn't know where the ball is going sometimes. But he's been much better against lefties to start his time there. He's likely going to have some very good stretches and then have some stretches where he is simply terrible. Like he has his whole career. I wouldn't go crowning him the next great reliever after 4 innings. Especially when he's thrown 5 and the 5th didn't go quite as well as the first 4.

Ronny Henriquez has 4 saves (again, your stats are wrong). But waiving him this offseason was always a risky move.

All of the stats you gave in that post were wrong or severely misleading. I'd seriously consider rethinking where I get my stats if I were you.

14 minutes ago, Doctor Gast said:

Ok, you are right, I'm wrong. Ronny Henriquez & Jorge Alcala are pitching terribly, good thing we got rid of them & the players we got are wonderful. 

Who's nitpicking? OK, I double-counted on Henriquez's last save, so he only has 4. Does that make him a bad pitcher? Alcala got an earned run since I last checked, a little over a day ago. which BOS still won the game. So his ERA with BOS is no longer 0.00 but now is ?. Big deal! Does that make Alcala a bad pitcher? A BOS podcast I listened to, said they were high on Moran & said he was doing well at AAA. Because that didn't agree with your philosophy, Does that make me a liar? You are again nitpicking to detract from the fact that we gave up 3 good pitchers & got nobody in return. And that they mismanaged Alcala by continually sending Alcala out for a 2nd inning & on consecutive days after returning from the IL. BOS hasn't done that & Alcala is pitching well because of that. How Alcala wasn't pitching well in those situations with MN is not the point.

I didn't say they were pitching terribly. In fact, I said waiving Ronny was a risky move. It's not a move I would've made. It's not a move I liked at the time. But it's hard to take you seriously when literally 100% of the information you provide is inaccurate. Why should we trust the point you're trying to make when it's based on inaccurate information? And now you're admitting you didn't look anything up before you made that post you just threw out numbers you'd seen days ago or things you heard on a random podcast and didn't actually look into.

I'm not nitpicking. You were 100% incorrect. Pointing out that you got literally every fact wrong is not nitpicking. Yes, Boston did win that game. 13-6. Like I said, they don't trust him in close games. Guys who aren't used on back-to-back days (or in close games where their team is leading) are guys who teams don't trust because they don't think they're good. He's been there for 3 weeks. My goodness. Like I said, I wouldn't go making definitive statements about him based on 5 innings. Once they start trusting him and they actually think he's good he's going to pitch on back-to-back days. Because every good reliever in baseball does. Literally 100% of them. And the Twins didn't "continually send Alcala out for a 2nd inning & on consecutive days." I already proved that. Less than 20% of his appearances fit that description. Your narrative is wrong and the numbers prove it. Alcala simply had bad stretches because he couldn't get lefties out and would lose his control for weeks on end. Not every Twins player not performing to your expectations is due to some mismanagement that would be solved if only they'd use that player in exactly the way you want them used.

My philosophy on Moran? What philosophy is that? I don't have a philosophy on Moran. My philosophy on guys "doing very well" is that they need to pitch more than 2.1 freaking innings before I will define them as "doing very well." I don't think that's just my philosophy. I think that's pretty universal to anyone who talks baseball on a high level. The fact that you don't even know how he's performing in AAA and you just said what you heard says a lot. So, no, it doesn't sound like you're a liar, you're just uninformed. He has pitched 2.1 innings and has already given up a run at AAA. Does that sound like he's "doing very well?" You want a lot of pitchers in your pen that give up runs every other outing? Sound like a recipe for success to you? That's after he gave up 3 runs in 4.2 innings at A+ ball and 1 run in 3 innings at rookie ball. Not exactly dominating those lower levels. The Twins are "very high" on a lot of guys. They're "very high" on Marco Raya. Should we clear a spot for him in Minneapolis? Jovani Moran had an ERA of 5.31 in 42.1 innings in 2023. You're calling him a "good pitcher" because some random podcast said the Red Sox are "very high" on him and he's given up 1 run in 2.1 AAA innings in the last week. He's thrown 10 total professional innings in the last year. More than a year, actually. Nearly 2 years. But some podcast said they're high on him and he has 2.1 innings at AAA so he must be good. Ignore the fact that he's 28 and not even on their 40-man roster. 

You're calling these guys good without being able to back it up with more than 5 innings of Alcala in incredibly low leverage work in Boston, 2.1 innings of AAA work for Moran you heard about on a podcast, and 4 saves from Ronny. Ronny has been solid for Miami, no doubt about it. I wish the Twins hadn't waived him. But Alcala earned his way out of town this year, and Moran has thrown 10 innings in 2 years. And not 10 impressive innings. You're going to need more than "I heard it on some Red Sox podcast" before you start calling him a good pitcher. The guy we got back for him has a 165 wRC+ in AAA. In far more time there this year. And lead AAA in wRC+ last year while Moran wasn't even playing. Is Mickey Gasper a good player? He's "doing very well at AAA" and is only a year older than Moran.