Brock Beauchamp

I don't count NL teams because they play by different rules. It muddies the conversation, as NL teams score less runs because they deem it necessary to walk a clownshoe to the plate every ninth appearance. Use AL-only or NL-only, I don't care... But when you're calculating offense in any way, mixing the two gives skewed results. The AL will dominate the top while the NL dominates the bottom of the list. The overall run gap was me looking at the wrong column, nothing more. 200 runs versus 160 doesn't change the argument significantly, as some metrics are still putting 50% of the runs allowed gap on the defense.

Absolutely. I liked Gardy overall and thought he did quite a bit right... But the wrong bits really got under my skin once the Twins started losing and he refused to change.

I'm really not. The runs allowed gap in AL teams was 160 runs. Could half of those runs (or, as some are arguing, more than half) be attributed to defense? Are some actually arguing that defense is more valuable than pitching? That's my problem. I don't think anyone would argue that pitching is more valuable than defense yet the metrics some are touting suggest just that. The metrics don't work in real world application unless we're arguing "this team is better than that one", which I can get behind. Again, this doesn't mean defense isn't valuable or that it can't drastically impact a season... But these run numbers are simply absurd.

True, but as outlined in another thread, the gulf was as much as 125 runs a season in some metrics. When a metric outputs that kind of calculation, we're kinda obligated to question its validity. When the largest gulf between most and least runs allowed in the AL was ~160 runs and the gulf between defense is 125 runs while that defense metric has to fit inside the runs allowed metric (because pitching and defense are intertwined), the numbers enter surreal territory. For all intents and purposes, the metrics are arguing that defense is worth more than pitching (125 defense fitting inside 160 runs allowed overall gap), yet defense doesn't touch the ball a significant portion of the time.

I used hits because others have used the runs argument. I'm giving an actual real world example how the math doesn't hold up. The Royals' pitching staff would have gone from very good to essentially tied for the Twins solely based on defense. That doesn't make sense. The Royals had good starters. They had an elite bullpen. Yet you take away that defense and suddenly, they're a bottom five pitching team? It doesn't add up.

Half a run makes sense to me. In no way can defense have more of an impact than offense or pitching. There are simply too many things going against defense: 1. The gulf between best and worst defender is generally lower than best and worst hitter or best and worst pitcher. 2. Many defensive plays are gimmes. Going from memory, we'll say that 33% of all balls in play are flyballs. Pretty much every defender on the field will catch 75% of those flyballs that stay in the park. The same applies to infield grounders and other "gimme" plays that defenders make all day long. 3. Defense has zero impact on walks, zero impact on strikeouts, zero impact on HBP, and virtually no impact on home runs. Taking the AL average of BB/SO/HBP/HR, each team racks up about 11.8 of those per game when combined. That's roughly a dozen times per team per game the defense has no impact on what's happening.

I later adjusted my math in the second post to reflect 1.5 singles. I realized my math was bad there and was going from memory.

To go a bit further, let's just say that the best defense saves 1.5 singles per game. At 0.5 runs per game saved, that's a fair number because for all intents and purposes, home runs do not count on defense and they're the only way to get one run from a single plate appearance. So to average half a run, you're going to need a bit more than a single. In 2014, the Kansas City Royals gave up 1386 hits, good for fifth best in the AL. So we'll add 234 hits to the Royals' 2014 total, saying they had the worst defense in the league (instead of the best). That puts them at 1620 hits for the season. In 2014, the Minnesota Twins gave up the most hits in the AL at 1588. These hypothetical Royals would have given up 1/4 of a hit more per game than the 2014 Twins, making them the worst in the AL by a healthy margin. These numbers just don't make any sense and this is using (admittedly rough) math based on giving up just half a run more per game. Some of you are voting for one full run a game, or double that number. Then we get into situations where defense has no impact whatsoever. Say a pitcher walks a guy, gives up a line drive that no defender on the planet could catch, and then serves up a homer. That is a pretty common scenario in baseball. Three runs. The defense had zero ability to counteract any of those runs. Once we start whittling away at the scenarios where the defense could not positively nor negatively affect the outcome of runs being scored, the numbers go into insane WTF ludicrous territory. Defense is important. It saves runs... but these numbers don't make a lick of sense if you take a moment to apply common sense to the metrics.

I really struggle with the concept that defense can contribute more than half a run a game. I'm not saying it's impossible, just really hard to swallow. Most defensive plays are gimmes or at the most, a marginal effort. Half a run a game equates to what, an extra double and a single in every game (using rough estimation here)? Or maybe roughly three singles. That's roughly one additional base hit every 12-14 PAs. I don't see it. With that said, half a run a game is huge. That's several wins over the course of a season, enough to make a mediocre team good and a good team great.

It will be interesting to see how Berrios and to a lesser extent, Stewart and Thorpe, progress through the system. Do the Twins truly have a philosophical issue with promoting pitchers or is there something they don't like about May and Meyer? When dealing with such small data sizes, it's hard to really say... Though there certainly appears to be a philosophical difference between hitters and pitchers.

Same here. I don't even know if it will work (the latter part of your paragraph) but because nobody has given it a legitimate chance over the course of the season, we simply don't know if it's a good or bad idea. The Twins' expectations for 2015 are low. It's a good time to think outside conventional baseball wisdom and give it a shot. What's the worse that can happen? The Twins lose 2-3 more games in 2015?

I'm fine with 12 pitchers on the roster. I'd prefer a game with 11 per roster but 12 isn't horrible. Baseball simply isn't going to return to 10 pitcher rosters and I'm okay with that. But you're right, specialization is a problem and whatever MLB can do to avoid over-specialization (short of rule changes), I'm on board with that. Roster expansion would only exacerbate the problem.

I always felt the way Gardy used his bullpen was because that's how everybody else did it, which drove me up the wall. I thought Gardy was a decent manager but IMO, his biggest weakness was critical thinking and challenging the baseball establishment. All too often, it felt like a decision was made because "that's just how we've always done it", which is one of my personal pet peeves in life. That's not an answer that will ever fly with me.

Yay! Yay! YAY, DAMN IT.

http://www.sikids.com/sites/default/files/multimedia/photo_gallery/1303/mlb-old-faces-new-places-2013/images/denard-span.jpg

At least they're not letting the goats inside the house. That'd just be weird.

I tend to agree that the 25th man isn't terribly important, I'm just confused as to what Nunez actually brings to the table. He's not a power hitter or good bat. He's not a defensive wizard. He's just kinda... There. And for just over $1m, it seems the Twins are just throwing money away. That guy can be found at the minimum at almost any point in the season. I know money doesn't really matter to the Twins right now but still, the decision doesn't really make sense to me.

Yes, but it's a lot more likely that you'll get 2004 Carlos Beltran performance from an elite player like Carlos Beltran than you will Trevor Plouffe.

In no way did I mean to imply that it's impossible to win in the playoffs without elite players, only that it's somewhat harder to do (again, IMO). Elite players can carry you through a game or even a series. Good players carry you through a season.

Neither game is televised. Booooooooo. Actually, I don't think any of the Grapefruit League games are televised today. Booooooooooooooooooo.

I wouldn't take Howard if he was given to me.

If used in a proper platoon, they probably won't kill you in center... Schafer is the real question mark here. I'm not worried about Hicks in a platoon, as he had an OPS of .792 against lefties in 2014 and has a career split of .758 against southpaws.

I've always believed that good players get you to the playoffs while elite players (or some luck, which can't be accounted for) help you win in the playoffs. It's a fine line to walk. A team of 2014 Trevor Plouffes will almost surely get you to the playoffs but I'm not sure they'll win once you get there (going by Trevor's offensive numbers, not his overall WAR).

I find it curious that people don't seem to realize how much baseball has changed in the past five years. Offense is WAY down from the early 2000s. Any OPS over .700 is respectable in today's game.