Brock Beauchamp

Can't tell if serious. The third inning part is throwing me off.

I meant the core pieces of OPS - SLG and OBP - have been in use for 60 or so years. I seem to recall SLG was invented in the 50s but I could be making that up (there were several versions of a SLG-like stat that people used for short periods of time). Going from hazy memories of articles read long ago. OPS isn't really a stat... It's two other stats added together. Hell, the popular triple slash doesn't even use OPS because it's redundant.

Yep, 86 here as well.

1. I'd hope most people would want to discuss a book with their wife. 2. Advanced stats do not fundamentally change baseball or a broadcast, they enhance it by telling a more complete story about the sport. You seem to believe we are advocating half the screen to be filled up with complex formulas to explain Brian Dozier's WBIAREAGBARGH stat when all we're saying is "use OPS because it's better while still very easy to understand". When you get right down to it, if a person can't understand OPS, they can't understand baseball. It's a fundamental part of the sport that has been around for 60 or so years and uses some of the most commonly understood statistical measures we have in the sport.

How many 5 WAR catchers are available this offseason? None? Well then, now that we've settled that, I'm glad we can all agree the Twins should keep Dozier.

I have a sneaking suspicion they're not afraid to cut Nolasco if he continues to drag down the team. The Twins are now a winning ball club and Ricky Nolasco has only brought negative value since he arrived 18 months ago. Add in Ricky's suspect behavior and attitude since he signed the deal and I think you have a situation where he could be released or traded relatively soon. But Santana? No, they won't cut him.

Who said anything about geniuses? Unless your definition of "genius" is "able to understand basic arithmetic", I don't think we're talking about the same thing here. Also, I'm curious what you find so exciting about the Error and Win that it makes you tune into baseball games just to hear those magical words spoken multiple times per game.

Im sorry but this thinking is fundamentally flawed. A team shouldn't pick up a bad, overpaid shortstop just so they can offload a bad, overpaid pitcher and clear room for a young, underpaid pitcher. Just cut the pitcher and leave Reyes out of this idea entirely.

To quote my wife's favorite character from Leverage: Age of the geek, baby. Maybe your thinking is why baseball is having a hard time capturing the under-40 crowd. Treat your audience like idiots and you'll guarantee yourself an audience full of idiots.

Oy. The Error is a terrible stat to judge a player unless they're an outlier with virtually no errors or have more errors than you can shake a stick at. 1. Escobar would have scored on that ball had Paredes missed it. Two outs, running on contact. Escobar is not a slow guy. 2. Paredes barely had to move to catch that ball. He could have stood in place and still put leather on it. The ball was that close to him. http://m.mlb.com/video/v403752183/minbal-twins-take-lead-in-12th-on-error/?game_pk=415501 Escobar probably wouldn't have reached second had Machado not reached the ball but come on, that ball was about as playable as a grounder can be at short. Both plays would have been huge dings on a player's stats in advanced defensive metrics, whether that be UZR, DRS, etc. Those were two extremely playable balls that any competent fielder gloves cleanly nearly 100% of the time. http://m.mlb.com/video/topic/6479266/v403964883/minbal-error-allows-escobar-to-reach-second-in-12th

I don't think anyone would argue results-based stats have no value, they're simply a lousy tool to evaluate a player from a single data point. And it's not like there aren't just as easily understood stats out there that tell a more accurate story. SLG is not a difficult stat to understand and OPS is even easier to digest. And again, why are we so enamored with history when MLB front offices no longer put stock in these stats? If you want to tell the story of 21st century baseball, it makes sense to use stats 21st century front offices study to compile a team.

I'm not expecting baseball announcing to pivot overnight and start using xFIP... But every front office makes extensive use of advanced metrics. Why are announcers using stats no longer respected by front offices around major league baseball? I'm not asking for a complex explanation of DRS... But refusing to reference horrible stats like Errors is a good place to start. They don't even have to replace it with another stat, just get rid of Errors and pretend they don't exist. And use OBP/OPS. Use the triple slash that is so commonplace in baseball as the "quick and dirty" reference of a player's ability. They're not difficult to understand.

Yeah, that one often gets a laugh out of me.

Yeah, I get we're all used to it and it wasn't until this season where I started paying attention to at-bats versus plate appearances. No announcers I've heard this season use plate appearances more often than at-bats. It's so entirely nonsensical. Even a cursory examination of the stat should reveal it's an inferior statistic to use and plate appearances should be the referenced statistic. It's not even "old school vs. new school" argument... It's just dumb.

That's why I don't like fWAR for pitchers, particularly ones like Nolasco, whose real-world results underperform his FIP/xFIP every. frickin'. year. Nolasco has pitched 1500 MLB innings and his FIP/xFIP are .7 runs under his career ERA. At that point, it's not statistical noise... FIP/xFIP are not properly evaluating Nolasco's talent level.

I've been watching a lot of out-of-market baseball this season. Tons of Astros games, Rays games, Royals, Nats, etc.. And the amount of out-of-date stats used in broadcasts has really worn me down. Dickbert are certainly part of the problem here but it's not only them... It's the entire frickin' sport. Even the vaunted Astros crew routinely makes me want to bang my head into my television. I know part of the reason for this - announcers seem to believe the fanbase is dumb - but there are a few oddities that continue to stand out to me. 1. At-Bats. Why did we ever use this as a metric to talk about playing time? ABs don't actually track playing time... Plate Appearances do that. Why does anyone use the AB statistic? Comparing ABs between Danny Santana and, say, Joey Votto will leave unaccounted roughly 10-15% of Votto's playing time. It's really dumb and I do not understand why it's used at all for anything, really. 2. RBIs. Yeah, I know... We've done this one before. The other day, Dickbert actually referenced Bird's RBI total in the minor leagues as a measure of... something. It's bad enough to use RBI for MLB players. I just can't even. 3. Batting average. Seriously. Yes, it's a useful stat but lacks so much context it's basically irrelevant unless the player is an outlier. 4. Errors. Dickbert spent the entire Orioles series talking about how great their defense was because, well... You know. *brain explodes* 5. Pitcher wins. No comment. The game has moved on in so many ways... Why are announcers one of the last parts of the game hanging on to this old terminology and how long are we going to have to suffer through this nonsense? I know this is preaching to the choir a bit but it has really worn me down this season. It's really hard to listen to these guys and respect what they're saying when they're spewing antiquated nonsense for most of an "at-bat" (plate appearance).

Yeah, while we were all gnashing our teeth over the pen, it's possible it turned into an acceptable pitching unit... Though obviously, it would have been nice to see this happen in mid-July when the Twins were well over .500. I don't have many concerns about the pen any more. I think it'll be good enough to get the job done, though I don't have a lot of faith in it becoming above average any time soon.

Why would resigning Milone be a nightmare? To me, not resigning Milone is the nightmare scenario. Tommy Milone is under team control through 2018. Letting him walk is the worst kind of asset management: giving away a valuable piece for nothing in return. If you don't want Tommy Milone on the team in 2016, fine... But you trade him during the offseason, you don't let him walk for nothing. Milone has an fWAR of 5.4 in roughly three full seasons of play. While he won't command a big return in trade, he's the type of player you can easily shuffle off to another team for a middling prospect in the low minors. On the topic of Milone, Ryan doesn't get enough credit for pretty soundly winning that trade. Fuld is a decent role player, sure... But Milone is more valuable, controlled for one year longer, and five years younger. Considering how the Twins acquired Fuld in the first place - and that they replaced him with the same player in Shane Robinson using the same process - getting Milone for Fuld was a really savvy move by the front office.

I think some people are letting the tail wag the dog on this one. The games still need to be played and these probabilities are a snapshot in time. What applied yesterday isn't necessarily applicable to today because scenarios change as games are won or lost. If the Twins go 62-60 through 120 games, they have a relatively low chance to make the postseason after 122 games. That's common sense, right? If the Twins somehow manage to go 30-10 through their final 40 games - a statistical improbability but certainly possible - their postseason chances after 162 games are nearly 100%. Was the projection model wrong because the Twins played well outside their statistical norm? I don't think so. The Twins doing the statistically improbable after 162 games does not invalidate the 122 game number. Teams get lucky/unlucky, succeed/fail against improbable odds, and change their dynamic on a regular basis. After all, that's why the Twins were given that 8% chance to make the postseason in late August... The projection model gave them a small chance of bucking the odds and playing well beyond their previous ability, thereby making the postseason. Are these metrics perfect? Of course not and I haven't seen anyone claim that to be the case... But they're a decent snapshot of the Twins' postseason chances as of August 24, 2015.

Here is a graph of the Twins' postseason chances through the season. Ugh. Look at that nosedive since the ASB, where they reached a 48% chance of making the postseason.

Heh. From yesterday's game recap: There's a lot to like about Molitor. http://m.mlb.com/news/article/144887454/twins-jump-on-errors-in-12th-to-sweep-orioles?game_pk=415501

Another series down and Escobar is still going pretty strong since August 1st: .263 .344 .439 .782 Fangraphs now has him at 0.0 fWAR, which is a bit of a feat considering how badly he started the season and how much playing in the OF hurt his numbers, both defensive and position-adjusted offensive numbers.

Not trickery per se but it's a tougher question than one would initially think. I wasn't sure if A-Rod had 600 homers when Thome crossed the mark (and Thome barely crossed the mark).

I'm thinking Bonds/Griffey and Aaron/Mays. edit: WAIT, no! I think there is trickery afoot in this question. A-Rod/Thome?

Does eyeballing the standings give you an approximation of how likely the Twins are to win the WC, the Rays are to win the division/WC, the Astros are to win the division, the Angels are to win the division/WC, the Orioles are to win the WC, etc etc etc? These formulas are a good way to get an general idea of how the league is shaking out at a glance and given how the baseball postseason continues to become more complex, they're handy tools to have around. Add in the fact they cover things like SoS and they're more useful than eye-balling the standings.