Brock Beauchamp

Yeah, I’m tired of losing but Giolito was filthy. If the Twins play like they did the last two days, this season won’t be a total loss.

Yep, that's what I meant, though I didn't really describe it well. Arraez has been marginally better than Sano, though both have been below average.

Ah, finally found on B-Ref where I can sort team by WPA: Team Win Probability* Name Age PA BtRuns BtWins Plays WPA ▼ Jorge Polanco# 27 160 0.7 0.1 165 1.0 Byron Buxton (10-day IL) 27 98 15.5 1.5 105 0.9 Nelson Cruz 40 155 7.2 0.7 157 0.2 Rob Refsnyder 30 9 2.5 0.2 9 0.2 Jake Cave (60-day IL)* 28 93 -5.8 -0.6 96 0.1 Nick Gordon (40-man)* 25 3 0.6 0.1 5 0.1 Jose Berrios 27 2 -0.5 -0.1 2 0.0 Kenta Maeda 33 2 -0.3 0.0 2 0.0 Josh Donaldson 35 116 6.4 0.6 119 -0.1 Michael Pineda 32 2 -0.5 -0.1 2 -0.1 JT Riddle* 29 6 -0.1 0.0 6 -0.1 Kyle Garlick 29 67 -0.1 0.0 68 -0.2 Max Kepler* 28 119 0.8 0.1 127 -0.2 Alex Kirilloff (10-day IL)* 23 44 1.0 0.1 45 -0.2 Ben Rortvedt* 23 26 -2.0 -0.2 27 -0.2 Trevor Larnach* 24 27 1.1 0.1 27 -0.3 Luis Arraez* 24 136 1.3 0.1 142 -0.4 Miguel Sano 28 99 0.5 0.1 99 -0.4 Brent Rooker (40-man) 26 30 -3.6 -0.4 30 -0.5 Willians Astudillo 29 82 1.7 0.2 83 -0.6 Andrelton Simmons 31 110 0.3 0.0 112 -0.7 Ryan Jeffers (40-man) 24 37 -3.7 -0.4 38 -0.9 Mitch Garver 30 99 -0.4 0.0 99 -1.3 League Average Team Total 29.2 1522 22.4 2.2 1565 -3.8 Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table Generated 5/19/2021.

As Mike said, WPA calculates that. And while Sano's WPA is kinda bad this season (-0.4), it's not terrible in the context of the 2021 Twins. Mitch Garver has been much worse at -1.3, Simmons has been marginally worse at -0.7. Sano is actually tied with Arraez at -0.4, though Arraez has played a lot more.

No, wRC+ is not position adjusted and one definitely wants better than league average from a first basemen. My point was to show just how little Sano had played to this point and that a couple of really good games completely changes his season stat line.

Also, Sano's wRC+ is now at 102, just a tick above league average. Which is higher than the 99 wRC+ he had in 2020. His K% is also at 35.4%, which is... wait for it... The lowest mark he's had since... Literally ever. It's his lowest mark since he entered the league.

Microscopic sample size alert, but... Miguel Sano Batting Gamelogs for Career Games 561 to 564 Date Tm G GS Rslt PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB IBB SO HBP SH SF ROE GDP SB CS BA OBP SLG OPS BAbip aLI WPA acLI cWPA RE24 DFS(DK) DFS(FD) May 15 to May 18, 2021 MIN 4 4 2-2 17 15 5 6 0 0 4 7 1 0 3 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 .400 .471 1.200 1.671 .250 1.38 0.881 .45 0.16% 3.81 74.00 100.50 per 162 games 162 162 689 608 203 244 0 0 162 284 41 0 122 41 0 0 0 41 0 0 35.7 6.5% 154.4 2998 4071

How does this blog entry not have comments? This is really a fantastic take and nails exactly how I feel about this team. I'm frustrated as hell by the Twins' play since starting the season 5-2 but people are scapegoating way too fast and way too readily without a lot of evidence to support these takes. The point I keep hammering at is "how do you explain a team of veterans losing 10% of their OPS in the last third of the game?" These aren't young players being "tainted" by a coaching staff or clubhouse cancer. These are guys with thousands of PAs each, guys who have been in the league 5+ years, guys who never had this problem until roughly five minutes ago. The Twins are unlucky, shades of bad (seemingly different every night), and unlucky. Josh Donaldson, one of the best third basemen of this generation, had three errors in two nights. To that I say "WTF" and there are so many instances of that kind of completely nonsensical situation in the Twins 2021 season.

xBA doesn’t take into account park factors or any number of things that affect a single ball. All it does is take the exit velo and launch angle data and outputs a number with the batting average on balls similar to that one based on historical data. There will always be fringe cases like this one where a ball doesn’t have a great historical record but goes for a home run in certain parks and certain conditions.

Out of curiosity, I wanted to see if Baseball Savant tables will copy to the site. Jose Berrios Pitches Swings Pitch Velocity Exit Velocity Pitch Type Count % Swings Whiffs % CS CS+Whiffs CSW% Fouls BIP Max Min Avg Yr-Avg +/- Avg Min Max Curveball 41 40 18 4 22 7 11 27 6 8 85.1 80.9 83.1 83.9 -0.8 ↓ 79.0 38.4 99.0 4-Seam Fastball 28 27 15 1 7 6 7 25 8 6 96.2 92.3 94.1 94.2 -0.1 ↓ 97.3 73.0 113.7 Sinker 23 22 13 1 8 4 5 22 6 6 95.0 92.2 93.5 93.9 -0.4 ↓ 92.2 76.6 102.9 Changeup 11 11 7 3 43 0 3 27 1 3 86.5 84.0 85.2 86.2 -1.0 ↓ 90.3 66.3 103.5 103 53 9 17 17 26 25 21 23 96.2 80.9 88.6 88.7 38.4 113.7 Pitches Spin Vertical Break Horizontal Break Pitch Type Count % Max Min Avg Yr-Avg +/- Max Min Avg Yr-Avg +/- Max Min Avg Yr-Avg +/- Curveball 41 40 2600 2244 2394 2349 45.0 ↑ 49 37 43 42 1.0 17 6 12 14 -2.0 4-Seam Fastball 28 27 2463 2200 2296 2288 8.0 ↑ 19 12 16 16 0.0 17 9 11 10 1.0 Sinker 23 22 2345 2033 2178 2181 -3.0 ↓ 24 16 20 20 0.0 19 14 16 17 -1.0 Changeup 11 11 1703 1480 1563 1490 73.0 ↑ 38 28 32 32 0.0 19 12 14 14 0.0 103 2600 1480 2230 49 12 30 19 6 13

I'm heading there in a couple of hours and will feel completely safe... just as I've felt every time I visit downtown Minneapolis.

I don't know how much this means but maybe it's possible Shoemaker could be an effective reliever. The first inning is the hardest to get through, as it's the only inning the opposing team can control who bats. And Shoemaker's OPS against tells a pretty damning story of what happens when batters get multiple looks at him in a game. Those OPS against numbers in innings 4-6 are just brutal. Of course, this could also be statistical noise, but it's enough that I think putting Shoemaker in the pen is worth a shot, if only because it's so hard to be worse than what the Twins have been putting out there in relief this season. By Inning Split G IP ER ERA PA AB R H 2B 3B HR SB CS BB SO SO/W BA OBP SLG OPS TB GDP HBP SH SF IBB ROE BAbip tOPS+ sOPS+ 1st inning 7 7.0 4 5.14 30 25 4 5 3 0 0 0 0 2 5 2.50 .200 .267 .320 .587 8 0 1 0 2 0 1 .227 39 62 2nd inning 7 7.0 2 2.57 25 23 2 4 0 0 1 1 0 2 4 2.00 .174 .240 .304 .544 7 1 0 0 0 0 0 .167 28 57 3rd inning 7 7.0 3 3.86 31 29 3 7 0 0 2 1 0 2 4 2.00 .241 .290 .448 .739 13 1 0 0 0 0 1 .217 70 101 4th inning 7 5.2 7 11.12 29 26 5 9 2 0 2 1 0 3 4 1.33 .346 .414 .654 1.068 17 0 0 0 0 0 0 .350 145 207 5th inning 5 5.0 3 5.40 22 19 3 6 0 0 2 0 0 2 6 3.00 .316 .381 .632 1.013 12 0 0 1 0 0 0 .364 131 180 6th inning 4 2.1 6 23.14 14 13 6 6 1 0 3 0 0 1 0 0.00 .462 .500 1.231 1.731 16 0 0 0 0 0 0 .300 278 369 Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table Generated 5/15/2021.

IIRC, at the time I thought it was a pretty good trade, though obviously a controversial one. It still looks that way on paper, though there's a lot more that needs to play out to see how the Twins fared in that deal.

It's an interesting idea but I wonder how many already-vaccinated people would take a second dose just to watch a free baseball game.

I’d rather see Shoemaker in the pen and Thorpe in Shoemaker’s rotation spot. If this team is going to be hot garbage, they should do it using young players in key roles so they know what they have in 2022.

Garver's season is a tale of two players. Since his OPS bottomed out at .517 on April 27th, this is what he's done. It's basically a 2+ week snapshot of the 2019 version of Mitch Garver. Mitch Garver Batting Gamelogs for Career Games 259 to 269 Date Tm G GS Rslt PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB IBB SO HBP SH SF ROE GDP SB CS BA OBP SLG OPS BAbip aLI WPA acLI cWPA RE24 DFS(DK) DFS(FD) Apr 28 to May 13, 2021 MIN 11 8 3-8 37 32 5 9 0 0 4 7 5 0 9 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 .281 .378 .656 1.035 .263 .86 -0.234 .52 -0.07% 1.82 89.00 118.50 per 162 games 162 118 545 472 74 133 0 0 59 104 74 0 133 0 0 0 0 15 0 0 -3

Duffey is having more than a down stretch. Look at these swinging strike percentage. Yikes. And that zone contact %. Double yikes. Season Team Level O-Swing% Z-Swing% Swing% O-Contact% Z-Contact% Contact% Zone% F-Strike% SwStr% CStr% CSW% 2015 MIN MLB 32.4% 62.3% 45.5% 63.0% 88.7% 78.5% 43.8% 63.6% 9.8% 18.3% 28.1% 2016 MIN MLB 33.1% 65.6% 47.3% 70.5% 89.6% 82.0% 43.7% 63.8% 8.5% 17.6% 26.1% 2017 MIN MLB 32.9% 67.4% 49.3% 63.1% 86.1% 78.0% 47.4% 63.9% 10.7% 17.0% 27.7% 2018 MIN MLB 36.4% 65.0% 48.4% 64.8% 90.4% 79.3% 42.2% 57.0% 10.0% 16.5% 26.5% 2019 MIN MLB 34.6% 71.9% 50.6% 50.5% 81.8% 69.6% 42.9% 67.2% 15.3% 14.9% 30.3% 2020 MIN MLB 40.3% 59.1% 47.0% 54.7% 78.2% 65.3% 35.9% 68.5% 16.3% 18.5% 34.8% 2021 MIN MLB 26.9% 60.4% 40.4% 58.3% 94.5% 80.2% 40.4% 59.3% 8.0% 19.6% 27.6%

@chaderic20 SUN MON TUE WED THU TOT Anderson 0 0 0 54 0 54 Did not pitch Thielbar 0 0 41 0 0 41 1-20 Pitches Law 0 0 19 13 0 32 21+ Pitches Alcala 0 0 12 0 16 28 Rogers 0 0 0 0 20 20 Duffey 0 0 0 16 0 16 Colomé 0 0 0 15 0 15 Robles 0 0 0 0 12 12

I agree with most of this, except that I believe the chance of Cruz being traded is close to 100%. No matter if the return is good or not, he'll almost surely be moved. There aren't many teams that need a DH but literally every single playoff team wants Cruz on their roster, if only for pinch-hitting duty.

I'm always fascinated how players develop these reputations and why people believe them. We have numbers to verify/disprove these narratives so let's use them. Polanco's career tOPS+ with RISP is 136, which means he's 36% better with RISP than he is overall. Polanco's 2021 tOPS+ with RISP is 126.