Brock Beauchamp

I was following his slider in-game and I'm wholly on board with the idea that Gibson needs to rely on it as his out pitch. Sure, throw the sinker because he needs multiple pitches to give batters different looks but stop it with the idea that he's a sinkerball pitcher.

Given the 3D nature of the in-stadium tracking, there's no reason for those systems to be inaccurate. It's simply not that hard to pull data from multiple cameras and spot a ball traveling through the air. Google and Facebook can build an algorithm to predict and defeat human behavior; the best Go players in the world have lost to machines built by those companies. Tesla and Google can build cars that predict and react to driving conditions with exponentially more accuracy and reliability than human beings. In comparison, tracking the controlled environment of an MLB game is child's play, something a CIS student should be able to build for their thesis project.* *in no way is this an advocacy for automated strike calling, something I am against, merely pointing out that the underlying tech is not terribly complicated

Yeah, I know it's a problem with pitch-type tracking but that's more of a judgment call, which is hard to automate accurately. If a guy like Santiago - who throws approximately 15 different fastballs according to DickBert - takes 4mph off the fastball with one grip and 2mph off the fastball with a different grip that cuts, that's hard to automate. But I always believed pitch tracking was automated; "see ball, spot ball". Sure, there may be slight discrepancies between different systems - which is why I didn't bring it up in the Mauer conversation - but the Romine grand slam isn't a discrepancy; it's flat-out wrong and misleading. Watching the game, I thought "damn you, Romine *hat tip*". Watching Gameday, I thought "**** you, Gibson *vomit*". Which makes me want to ignore pitch tracking of that kind going forward. Given how I've relied on it in the past, that's disappointing.

While watching yesterday's painful at-bat from Romine, it looked like he golfed that pitch out of the park. I was perusing the game info today and noticed Gameday had the pitch listed here: Okay, yeah, so that's not a golf swing. That's dead red in the wheelhouse. But then look at the actual game. Here's the swing: Okay, that meets the eye test of what I saw. Romine is swinging at a pitch well outside the zone, down and in. But here's the kicker: the actual in-game Fox Trax pitch tracking put the ball here (red square to emphasize which pitch was appearing on the screen as the ball launched into orbit): What gives? The eye test says that was a good swing on a pitch outside the zone, the in-game pitch tracker confirms it, and then the Gameday pitch tracker says the pitch was a gimme home run pitch. I've relied pretty heavily on pitch trackers in the past but this is giving me pause, that maybe I shouldn't trust the information found in Gameday. BTW, this is not the first time I've noticed this discrepancy; the first time was that ill-fated Mauer walk conversation from the KC series where I look at Joe's plate appearance a dozen times and the Gameday pitch tracker had the pitch a good 3-4 inches closer to the zone than the actual pitch looked on video. But I could chalk that up to both the pitch tracker being a bit off and me misreading the strike zone... though I'm pretty sure I wasn't misreading the zone to the extent of being off 3-4 inches. The ball was clearly at or just below Joe's knee and touching the black while the Gameday pitch tracker had it well inside the black and a few inches above Joe's knee. In any case, I can forgive a few inches here or there but Gameday has Romine's pitch in the middle of the zone while the actual pitch was outside the zone.

While I'm with Chief that Gibson created that mess for himself, I can't fault him for the home run ball. Was it a good pitch? No, it was so obviously not a strike that the hitter shouldn't have even swung at it. The ball was inches away from the dirt. But Romine put a hell of a swing on the pitch. He hit a ball out of the park that most batters would have swung over.

What an interesting article. I'd love to see Cameron follow up on it with 2012-2016 stats to see if his point still holds.

Ah, got it. Yeah, Santana's role is a bit different in Molitor's eyes, though I question why that's the case. Santana is not a good OF. The only decent skill he brings to the table is speed, really.

I think the Twins have more flexibility in that role than most teams given the starting OF of Buxton, Kepler, and Rosario. But that flexibility disappears if Buxton is demoted. But until that happens, I think the Twins should consider a bat-first fourth outfielder over an all-glove, no hit outfielder.

I have some hope Palka can put it together this year and get a taste of MLB pitching.

I loved her character in the first two films. "Mew mew!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0SnsP8YEN8

No. It drives me nuts. A few days ago, I didn't think this was an 85 win team. Today, I don't think they're a 60 win team. Molitor was not a brilliant coach two days ago and a moron today. The rotation was not rock solid two days ago and a mess today. 162 games.

It's not in the team's best interest for Granite to see an MLB roster in 2017, I think. The guy is a questionable hitter who hasn't played a single game above AA. What do you think happens to that guy if he faces MLB pitching? Aaron Hicks and Byron Buxton failed spectacularly in similar situations and they posted MiLB OPSes that were literally 150+ points higher than Granite.

Yeah, I noticed the Ks weren't lining up but I gave that a pass as no one's K rate matches Buxton's current pace.

Their results are similar. I wasn't speaking of expectations. And their numbers tracked through both the minors and majors are eerily similar.

Right about now, someone needs to explain to me how Gibson and Santiago aren't the same guy again.

Whoa. You'll have a hell of a time convincing me that Granite, with a MiLB career OPS of .703, is more of an offensive weapon than Grossman. You're seriously undervaluing Grossman's play with the Twins. Since joining the team, he has an OPS+ of 127. Miguel Sano's career OPS+ is 129.

Ugh.

Gibson at 31 pitches, Fulmer at 74. Bring on that Tiger bullpen.

So far so good.

Grossman has opened the season with an OBP over .400 and and OPS just under .800. You never cut that guy. Never ever. I don't care whether he perfectly fits your roster because you find space for that guy. Of course, Grossman may not maintain that OPS. Then you reconsider.

Mauer single, 3-0 Twins.

Crew chief review of long Sano foul ball. No call from the manager.

Good to finally get that out of the way, Brian. And nice hit Kepler.

I've watched most of the games and listened to them all. Polanco has looked acceptable out there, even good on a few plays. Though he botched an easy grounder... yesterday, was it?

Hey now, don't forget my sleeper on this year's roster: Jorge Polanco. Jorge has looked really good out there.