Matthew Lenz

"Anything approaching those figures would be unrealistic, not to mention irresponsible, for Minnesota to offer." I know why we think it's unrealistic. That would more than triple our top FA contract in franchise history. I don't know why it's irresponsible though. The Pohlad's have the money and there is no cap so it wouldn't limit us in the future. I'll use the example I used in your article "open windows" from last week. The Pujols contract for the Angels looks bad. In fact, pretty much every big contract is not worth it from a production/dollar stand point. That said, I am going to assume that Art Moreno/LAA hasn't lost any value. Quite the contrary, I would assume that the value of the organization has still increased in that time. So I will pose my question again. When you're worth $3.8 billion and have no cap limit...why is irresponsible? Where is the risk?

When Tom approached me about the Big Blog Blowout I was struggling to come up with something to write about. When he gave me the list of topics people had "claimed" it seemed to have a historical theme. So I bring to you the best Twins team that ever was(n't). What I have attempted to do is create the best 25 man roster regardless of era. Interestingly enough, after I compiled my list Seth Stohs wrote about the "Top 15 Minnesota Twins Players". You'll see a lot of overlap here, but I put it in the form of a 25-man roster. Here is how I constructed the 25-man team. the roster had to be realistic. This specifically pertains to the bench and bullpen. the player had to spend over half their career with the Twins, the player had to play for the Twins for at least 5 years, the player had to play for the Twins between 1961 - current, and the player had to play at that particular position for a majority of their career. The exception to this rule is the DH. Hitters Catcher - Joe Mauer Not a lot to say here. By far, Joe Mauer is the best offensive, defensive, and overall catcher in franchise history. He will go down as one of the best catcher to ever play the game, and arguably the best hitting catcher to ever play. Don't let the contract and the latter part of his career overshadow his impact on the field when he was at his best. 1st Base - Kent Hrbek When choosing between Hrbek and Killebrew I had to consider the defensive numbers. Hrbek was not a great defender himself but he was much better than Killebrew, so he gets slotted here. Behind Killebrew, him and Justin Morneau were the two players to consider here and Hrbek was an easy choice over Morneau. I mean who can pull a guy off 1st better than Herbie? 2nd Base - Rod Carew I wasn't around to watch Carew play but his number is retired for a reason. With the Twins he played most 2B, but later in his career he became a full time 1B for the Angels. Other than Knoblauch and Dozier, there really aren't any other options here. As much as he is known for his offense, he was an okay defender as well. 3rd Base - Corey Koskie This was a toss-up between him and Gaetti. From my perspective, Koskie was the better overall player and thus garnered the starting job. The former Canadian hockey goalie was a superb defender and also a good guy to have in the middle of a line up. It's too bad concussions limited his career as he could have been a solid player for a long time. Shortstop - Roy Smalley In the entire history of the Twins franchise, there are only three guys to even consider for this spot. Smalley, Zoilo Versalles, and Greg Gagne. Smalley wins the job and it's not even close. The other two were better defenders but were non-factors at the plate. I'm the kind of guy who would prefer a player who can contribute in both aspects of the game rather than one aspect really well. Left Field - Shane Mack Even behind shortstop, this is probably the weakest position in franchise history. Bob Allison would have been the shoo-in here but he spent a majority of his career in right field. Mack was the de-facto left fielder. Hey, at least he brings some championship pedigree to the team. Center Field - Kirby Puckett Was there ever a doubt? Torii was great, but Kirby was greater. I was a little too young to watch much of his career before his unfortunate early retirement, but he may be the most popular and adored Twin of all time. I've never heard it live, but I can still hear Bob Casey announcing Kirby's name in the Dome. Right Field - Tony Oliva This one was easy. Obviously, Oliva was one of the best Twins of all time as his number is retired. Bob Allison was the only true contender at this spot outside of Oliva. Oliva is one of only a few Twins to finish their career above .300, was the Rookie of the Year in 1964, and finished second in MVP voting twice in his career ('65 & '70). DH - Harmon Killebrew This is the perfect spot for him. He wasn't a good defender at all and he is one of the best hitters of all time. He is the best Twins hitter, probably even player, in the franchises history. Pitching Staff - I used innings pitched to determine if the player spent more than half his career as a Twin. Ace - Johan Santana This was a tough call. Arguably, he was the most dominant pitcher in Twins history but that was only for a stretch of five or so years. The two behind him weren't so much dominant, but were able to maintain consistently solid production over a longer period of time. Nonetheless, on my list Johan is the ace. Over the 5 or so years he was the best pitcher in baseball winning two Cy Youngs ('04 and '06) while garnering some MVP votes in those seasons as well. If I needed to win one game, I'd choose Johan in his prime. Starting Pitcher No. 2 - Bert Blyleven Excluding Steve Carlton, who didn't qualify for my list anyway, Bert is the only Twins pitcher to be elected to Cooperstown. When choosing between him and Jim Kaat that was what gave him the edge. Bert spent just over half (51.6% IP) as a Minnesota Twin. In all, he pitched for 22 big league seasons. Never truly dominant but almost always a reliable pitcher. Starting Pitcher No. 3 - Jim Kaat If Bert is in the Hall of Fame, then Kaat needs to be. All of their statistics are practically the same, although Kaat only won one World Series back in '82 with the Cardinals and he wasn't much of a contributor for them. That said, he holds the major league record for winning 16 consecutive gold gloves. Most pitchers careers don't even last 16 years. Starting Pitcher No. 4 - Camilo Pascual Camilo is another guy who wasn't too dominant, but was able to consistently produce over a long career. He was the franchises first "ace" and deserves to be in the rotation. To be fair, the candidates drop off pretty quick after the top 3 or 4. Starting Pitcher No. 5 - Frank Viola Viola was key to the 1987 World Series championship (he was the MVP) and followed that up by winning the Cy Young in 1988. If it wasn't for being traded he probably would have been slotted as the No. 4, but it hurt is Twins resume a little bit that he wasn't here longer. That said, we did end up getting a key piece back that will show up later in this list. Long Relief - Jim Perry Admittedly, I just took the Twins starting pitcher who just missed the cut and put him here. Honestly, I think Pascual, Viola, and Perry could all be put in whatever order you wanted. He fits the description of most Twins pitchers (sans Johan), which is not dominant but consistently solid. The two best years of his career were in '69 and '70 where he finished 3rd and 1st in Cy Young voting, respectively. Middle Relief No. 1 - Tom Hall Hall spent the Twins portion of his career bouncing back and forth between the bullpen and the starting rotation. He had a very non-descript career never garnering an award vote of any kind and never making an all-star game. That said, as a reliever Hall could give you multiple innings and averaged over a strikeout per inning. Middle Relief No. 2 - LaTroy Hawkins If you can last as long as LaTroy did in the era that he did it, then you are one of the best to do it. He pitched for 21 seasons in the big leagues and was solid all the way through his retirement season in 2015 with the Blue Jays. Hawkins was converted to a relief pitcher after 5 largely unsuccessful seasons as a starter. As with Hall, he never garnered an award vote of any kind and never made an all star game. Set up No. 1 - Glen Perkins The Twins second best closer of all time would be my first choice as the set up guy. Perkins was unsuccessful as a starter, but found his niche as a fire throwing closer with the team. It's unfortunate that injuries derailed the last few years of his career and forced him into an early retirement. I have to imagine the highlight of his career (for himself and Twins fans) was seeing him close out the 2014 All Star Game in his home stadium. Set up No. 2 - Rick Aguilera Aguilera came to the Twins in the trade that sent Viola to the Mets in '89. Although he made 11 starts that year, he made 460 relief appearances as a member of the Twins. He did well with the Twins as he made the all star game three times, garnered MVP votes in 1991, and was a key contributor to both World Series titles. Set up No. 3 - Juan Rincon Rincon had a pretty good stretch from 2004 - 2006. When the Twins in a crunch he could be relied upon to get out of the jam. Obviously a key skill to have as a set up guy. Closer - Joe Nathan Not much to say here. He is the best Twins closer of all time. Finished his career with the most Saves in Twins History and was one of the best in the game when he was in his prime. In 04 and 06 he was actually in the Cy Young and MVP talks a little bit. In all of baseball, there aren't many that were as good as him. Honorable Mentions (Bench) OF/1B - Bob Allison He technically did play A LOT of left field, but he played right field more which disqualified him from the left field spot. I feel like he is one of the overlooked Twins greats. No his number isn't retired, but he spent all of his 13 years in a Senators/Twins uniform and hit 256 homeruns in that time. If it wasn't for injuries I think his career could have been longer and he could have passed the 300 HR plateau. C - Early Battey Any realistic roster needs a back up catcher. Battey is the guy. While with the Senators/Twins franchise he won 3 gold gloves, made 4 all star games, and finished top 10 in MVP voting three times. 2B/SS - Chuck Knoblauch A key cog to the 1991 World Series and a good player for the Twins over 7 years. He'll be a good guy to have off the bench when we need speed on the base paths. Utility - Gary Gaetti He was Nick Punto before Nick Punto was Nick Punto. The only two positions he didn't play throughout his career were CF and C. He wasn't necessarily a great player, but was solid for the Twins. He was another important piece in the '87 World Series team. In my eyes, my biggest "snub" was Torii Hunter. When constructing a realistic 25-man roster I needed to have a back-up catcher which is where Battey made the list over Hunter. Another area I struggled with was the bullpen construction. After Perry, Nathan, Aguilera, and Perkins the pickins' got slim and I ended up having to consider individual seasons over career stats. Carl Willis was a name that almost made the cut, but Rincon and Hawkins had individual seasons that were better than any of Willis'. So what do you think? Who did I miss? Let the debate begin!

Agreed. That still doesn't better prepare us for the postseason where winning really matters.

This is a strange comment...

To me, it goes without saying that summers are more fun when they win. Obviously, watching a winning team (in any sport you enjoy) is fun. Heck, I love baseball. I think it's fun watching baseball. Period. But, I will be expecting the Twins to win 90+ games this year if not even 95+. Now if they go and win 100+ I will probably be more optimistic about their chances in the postseason. But when other teams are putting up the same or more wins in a season and playing better competition...then how was our schedule "advantageous"?

"This puts the Twins in a seriously advantageous position" This "advantageous position" made the Twins looks like a great team when they really weren't in the 2000's. I'm sorry but doing well in the regular season and getting swept in the playoffs doesn't do anything for me. It's easy to have a good record when 3/5 of your division is not interested in competing. That is 35% of your schedule is against teams that are battling for the rights to draft Nick Lodolo or Bobby Witt, Jr instead of the rights to hoist the World Series trophy. Don't get me wrong...I am excited to see what the Twins are going to do with the talent they have over the next few years. This squad definitely has more raw talent and a higher ceiling than most of the 2000 teams did. Nonetheless, I won't be impressed until I see some postseason success.

I know (think) you're being sarcastic. But honestly, this is a reason reason I want him here. He doesn't care about the money. Just cares about hanging banners, baby!

I get what you're saying, but I think the same revelations can be made going the percentage route. In other words, Dozier strikes out quite a bit more than Mauer. That would be interesting. One would assume that there is a negative correlation there, since when you strikeout you don't get on base but I am sure there are some outliers to this rule. I bet Sano would be one of them. A lot of Twins fans were pleasantly surprised about Polanco performance last year. He would be a good sleeper/breakout candidate this year. But him at first base?

You pose a very interesting question here and lots of good information. I do feel that hitters are changing their approach at the plate which is resulting in more strikeouts which would mean it's easier on the pitchers now. I think your last two paragraphs kind of prove this point.

Most of you probably don't know that I am a high school math teacher and junior varsity baseball coach. Recently, a student of mine asked for me to write about the record breaking home run and strikeout rates from the 2017 season. I'm going to dive into those numbers for you today, but then also look at how these numbers are reflected in the projected 2018 opening day lineup for our beloved Twins. League Overview To get a good set of data, I took the K% (K/PA) and HR% (HR/PA) for the last twenty-one major league seasons. Below you will find a graphical summary (follow link for a closer look) of my findings: You will notice that although both statistics see an increase over this timeframe, there is a much more significant increase in HR% versus K%. The most notable differences in both stats can be seen in the "statcast era" from 2014-2017 where exit velocity and launch angle data as literally been changing hitters approaches at the dish. Furthermore, it's been well documented that 2017 was a record breaking year for strikeouts and home runs. Twins Lineup Implications The last two seasons have seen the Minnesota Twins hit the 3rd (2017) and 4th (2016) most home runs in franchise history, which includes the 60 years they spent being known as the Washington Senators. Interestingly enough, they finished 2nd (2016) and 3rd (2017) most strikeouts in a single season over that same time. (If you're curious, the 2013 Twins struck out a franchise record 1,430 times but only hit 151 homeruns which is 70 less than their 2017 total. Ouch.) Comparably league wide, their 2016 and 2017 combined totals put them 15th in the league in homeruns and 6th in the league in strikeouts. Below shows where the each Twins player ended up in 2017 when comparing strikeout and homerun percentages: Not surprisingly you will see Miguel Sano lead the team in both categories and Joe Mauer was at the bottom in both categories, among the regulars. In the middle, you see the average for 2017 was a 3.29 percent homerun rate and 21.6 percent strikeout rate. Ideally, we want our Twins to be closer to the Doziers, Rosario, Escobar, and Keplers of our lineup. Guys who finished below the league average in strikeout rate but above in homerun rate. Here are some of my takeaways: Much ado has been made about Rosario’s plate discipline in 2017. Not only did MLB strikeout percentage drop from a career mark of 25.2 percent to 22.2 percent, but he also set a career high in homerun percentage. He will be very valuable to the Twins if 2017 wasn’t a fluke. Admittedly, I am someone who is ready to see Vargas find another employer. So I was a little surprised to see how high his homerun percentage was in 2017. He can become value to the Twins or elsewhere if he can work on his plate discipline. That’s a big if. Jason Castro was an excellent defensive catcher in 2017. He was pretty good behind the plate too. Though he lost some of his power he tied his career low in strikeout percentage and a career high in OBP. I’d love to see his power rebound a little, but most teams will take any productivity they can get out of their catcher. I mentioned this earlier, but I really like where the core of Dozier, Rosario, Escobar, and Kepler fall. I think this is ideal for the middle of the order where these guys hit. Rosario and Escobar had broke out in 2017...is it time for Kepler? This season is huge from the Twins. They have yet to extend any of their young talent and there haven’t been any rumblings about contract talks. Maybe the organization is waiting to see what happens with Yu first or maybe they are waiting to see what 2018 entails. We all know this is a huge year for our young core. We’ll be looking to see if guys like Escobar and Roario are for real, while looking at Kepler and Berrios as possible breakout stars. What do you think about the data? Is it meaningful or are there other numbers we should be looking at here?

I understand Fox Sports North is not as lucrative as Time Warner (LA Dodgers). I understand that adding a big time free agent or making a splash trade from 2012 - 2015 would probably not have done much with the talent, or lack thereof, that Twins had at the time. Honestly, even in 2015 and 2017 I didn't think of them as "contenders". A possible playoff team? Sure. But not true contenders. Where I completely disagree with you is that calling them cheap is lazy. According to Forbes, in July of 2015 The Pohlad Family is worth an estimated 3.8 billion (with a "b"). In the same article they said he bought the Twins for $36 million and they are now worth $670 million, which is a $634 million profit. I'm not saying that they need to get every big free agent, but if they don't get a big free agent it should never be about money. Ever. For example, from all reports I can find Torii wanted to stay a Twin back when he left for the Angels. If he wanted to stay a Twin, then either they didn't make him an offer (sources indicate that is not true) or they lowballed him (which is what most people think). I have closely followed the Twins for the better part of 20 years. I can't think of a time where the Twins were actually tied to a big name FA. To be fair, not all rumors make the news but I have to assume that if they had actually tried to pursue a top FA we would have heard about it. Pursuing big time FA's is a risk that rarely gives the team 100% value, but the fact is that a lot of teams do it and it is necessary at times to become a true contender. If the Twins didn't even pursue the FA...that's cheap IMO. As much as the Pujols contract is terrible for the Angels, I don't think the Moreno family or the Angels organization has become worth less in the last 6 years. So as much as a "risk" these big contracts are...where is the risk in a no salary cap league?

Personally, I don't think the "out of options drama" is a problem. Like you said, I think Pressly is pretty safe and I won't be at all upset if we lose Vargas to waivers. I have two cases of fatigue when it comes to Vargas and Gibson. Personally, I think we give Gibby a shot at a starting spot, send him to the bullpen, or cut him. No need to set him down to AAA unless they are desperate for arms and AA doesn't have anyone worth calling up. At this point he is what he is. Challenge #5 is what will make or break the Twins season, IMO. Assuming a regression in Santana we need another #1 (Cobb, Darvish, etc.) or we need Berrios to take a big step this year.

Yea, I wish it could be broken down more. I remember that pitch...it should get a good QOPV since the formula doesn't take into account the result of the pitch.

I think this is a very real possibility.

I agree that with Darvish there is less of a need. That said, I think the #4 or #5 spot in the rotation should be completely up for grabs even with Darvish.. I don't have much faith in Gibson and I think Phil Hughes is a major question mark. I would love to see Gonsalves and Meija get an extended opportunity to see what they can do at the major league level. Admittedly, Meija had a rough 2017 but, at 24, obviously too soon to give up and not give him another shot.

Nico job Twins FO. The Twins bullpen is going to be solid this year, even if Rodney were to fall off a cliff for some reason. Now on to Yu!

Not too long ago, Tom had the great idea for the bloggers to list their breakout candidate for 2018 in his Twins Weekly article. So I spent days...nay, hours...nay, minutes(!) scouring some of my favorite baseball resources looking for the dark horse breakout candidate that nobody would ever think of. Minutes (!!), looking for the dark horse breakout candidate that would take me from a blogger-in-training to a Schefter-esque insider. Minutes (!!!), looking for the dark horse breakout candidate that would leave readers wondering if I am some crazy baseball sorcerer or just plain crazy. After awhile I thought to myself: "What are you doing?? Just listen to your gut." So here is where I fell. My breakout candidate for 2018, the 2016 and 2017 TD MiLB Pitcher of the Year, is 23-year-old LHP Stephen Gonsalves. So much for a "dark horse", eh? Gonsalves had a terrific 2017 where his most notable improvement was his command finishing almost a full walk less per nine innings than his career average (2017: 2.54 BB/9 v. 2013-2016: 3.47). Over 46 tracked fastballs (PITCHf/x has only tracked 71 total pitches), his average velocity sits at just 89.72 mph, which means control is going to be a key factor for him to have any success. Surprisingly, and despite his lack of velocity, he finished the 2017 MiLB season with a 9.65 K/9 pitching 87.1 innings at AA and 22.2 innings at AAA and a 10.78 K/9 in 74.1 innings during the 2016 season at AA. In that same timeframe he did struggle with his command posting a 4.48 BB/9, so we could say that 10+ K/9 was a result of being "wildly effective" a la Edwin Jackson. An improvement in command over a two-year period is another reason why I see him taking the next step this year. Gonsalves batted ball data in minors suggests that he is a flyball pitcher, which isn't a huge deal as Target Field is a pitchers park and...well...you know...Buxton/Rosario/Kepler. But what impressed me even a little more is that hitters don't hit him well. At levels where he made 15+ starts his LD% are as follows: 17.2% (2015 High A), 13% (2016 High A), 18.1% (2016 AA), and 19.2% (2016 AA) which are all below the MLB average of 21%. Admittedly, I know this is a little bit of apples and oranges using a MLB average to analyze minor league numbers, but I do think it gives you a gauge of where he's at. Again, Target Field tends to treat fly ball pitchers well especially with our defense...another positive sign that this could be his year. For me the make or break variable for Stephen Gonsalves will be the development of his slider and curveball. Below you will find a graphic from Brooks Baseball that uses a standardized score to rate Stephen's velocity and movement against other pitchers who fit similar criteria. Unfortunately, this is a very small sample as they only tracked 71 pitches over Gonsalves' 2016 Arizona Fall League appearances. To briefly explain this chart, a negative number means he is below average and a positive number means he is above average. You might notice that his slider and curveball weren't great in this limited sample. There is no PITCHf/x data for him other than this and no other resource (fangraphs, baseball ref, etc.) keeps very great MiLB SABR stats. In a recent interview with Seth Stohs, Stephen said that he was able to work on his slider so much in 2017 that "it is almost as good as his change up". If this is true and if he can carry this into 2018, then Stephen already has three solid pitches in his arsenal. In that same interview, he said that he has been working with former big leaguer David Wells this season who was known for his curveball: If Wells can help him develop his curveball into a reliable 4th pitch, then I think Stephen will be primed to make the next jump. As I said before, I think his slider and curveball are his biggest question marks coming into the season and will ultimately define if he spends most if his time in Minneapolis or Rochester this year. So what does all this mean for 2018? I think Gonsalves is part of the Spring Training battle for a back end rotation spot but ultimately starts the year at AAA. He will perform well at AAA to the point where he will be the guy called on to fill in during DL stints or for a spot start here and there. Eventually, he makes his way to the MLB roster and doesn't look back. I think he provides a boost to the back end of the rotation that may not be RoY/Cy Young worthy, but that consistently gives you a chance to compete every 5th day. What do you guys think? Who are some other breakout candidates? Anyone have a breakout candidate from a lower level in the Twins organization who may rise quickly in 2018?

would love your feedback!

I'm in the camp of extending Buxton ASAP. It's fair to confidently think that he will continue to improve on the offensive end, but with his defense being what it is...he can provide similar overall value as an above average to elite offensive player. He's always going to have injury concerns because of his play style. Last thing we want is for him to change how he plays the game.

FIP is fielder independent pitching. The stat is related to ERA, but it attempts to neutralize the pitcher from his defense. Essentially how many runs is the pitcher truly responsible for. A pitcher with a bad defense will typically have a FIP that is less than his ERA, because some of his earned runs were attributed to the poor defense. A pitcher with a good defense will typically have a FIP that is higher than his ERA, because the defense helped the pitcher save some runs. Here is an example...the Twins team ERA in '17 was 5.09 but FIP was 4.57. An indicator that the Twins defense was pretty darn good (which it was). SIERA is Skill-Interactive ERA. Essentially, it is an updated (supposedly) better version of FIP. It's very hard to explain (especially in text)...even fangraphs sends you to a different resource to attempt to explain it. So if you're interested in more details follow the link. The x-axis on the graph above is a standardized value. A standardized value of 0 means the pitcher through an "average" pitch according to QOP's measures, which would be a QOPV of 4.5. A standardized value of +1 means he threw a pitch that is 1 standard deviation above the mean, which would be a QOPV of 6.75 (the standard deviation is 2.75 according to the founder's findings). A standardized value of -1 means he threw a pitch that is 1 standard deviation below the mean, which would be a QOPV of 1.75. You're right, this does take a college level introductory statistics course to fully understand, so I have include the same line graph but with QOPV scores rather than standardized scores. Hopefully that should do a more clear job of showing that ERA/FIP/SIERA all decrease as QOP increases. As I said in my post, this was simply an introductory/overview of the stat. I intend to use it in the future and other writers on Twins Daily have stated they may as well. At this point, the QOP website only tracks year by year. Doesn't do splits or game logs. Hopefully something that will become more developed over time.

As many people have already suggested...Garver has done enough to be given a shot at the big league level. I think what's more important here is to give him a shot to see if he can take over as the primary catcher in 2020 or if we will need to look elsewhere.

I somewhat agree with you. It definitely does take into account location (mentioned in first sentence under "computation" heading), but I think the bigger flaw is that it doesn't take into consideration the situation. I mentioned this in my comment above to Tom...wish I would have included in the original post. But an 0-2 slider in the dirt gets you a bad QOPV although the location might be considered "good" due to the situation. Compare that same exact pitch to a 3-1 count and now we have a terrible pitch due to the situation and should earn a bad rating. This metric gives those two pitches the same rating. At the same time, is there a statistic that gives you a single numerical value to measure a pitchers "stuff"? I am not aware of one, which directly from my post, "I think it provides fans with a different, more insightful perspective than the traditional pitching stats (W/L, ERA, WHIP, etc.), especially when coupled with other SABR pitching stats." FYI, Deduno finished his career (assuming it's done) with a 2.3 WAR and a 4.44 QOPA. A 2.3 WAR is probably higher than you would have guessed based off of your post, yet a 4.44 QOPA is below the major league average.

Interesting finding. This may be my next task at hand...to figure out some of these discrepancies. Another limitation I thought of after I posted is that it doesn't take into account certain situations. For example, a pitcher ahead 0-2 could very likely throw a "garbage" pitch just to get the batter to chase. This pitch, although not bad at all, would probably result on a bad QOPV. Does that happen enough to make Gibson > Kershaw? Probably not, but could be a partial factor. Hope to dig in a little bit more here.

I've spent a lot of time over the last few days reading about a relatively new statistic called "quality of pitch" (QOP), which assigns a numerical value to each pitch a pitcher throws. The values can then averaged together to come up with a pitchers average quality of pitch (QOPA) or you can look at a quality of pitch set of values (QOPV) as another tool to measure the performance of a pitcher. The purpose of this post is to provide a simple overview of this data as it may be referenced in future articles. Background QOP was first publicly introduced in March 2015 by Jason Wilson and Wayne Greiner. Since then it has been written in various publications such as "Baseball America", the "Fangraphs", and by Yahoo Sports! columnist Jeff Passan among others. Meanwhile, Wilson and Greiner have presented their findings at the 2015 SABR Analytics Conference. In short, this statistic was introduced and quickly regarded as a good tool to measures a pitchers performance in a way the baseball community has not previously done before. Computation QOP is computed by integrating velocity (MPH), pitch location, and pitch movement. Pitch movement is defined as the vertical break, horizontal break, breaking distance, and/or rise. These variables are put together and assigned a number 0 - 10, where 0 is a very poor pitch and 10 is an excellent pitch. The MLB average QOP is 4.5 and median is 5. Here is an example of QOP being used. Validation Wilson and Greiner have measured QOP against ERA, FIP, and SIERA which all produced a strong, negative correlation. That is, the better the QOP the lower the ERA/FIP/SIERA. Furthermore, a search of the top 10 2017 QOPA leaders for pitchers who threw 1,000 or more pitches provides you with a list of some of the more effective pitchers in baseball. Limitations As with all stats, QOP has its limitations. From a mathematical perspective anytime we are averaging numbers together the data can be skewed by outliers, and QOP is no exception to this rule. To help minimize the effect of outliers Wilson and Greiner have created a guide to determine the margin of error depending on the sample size. From a baseball perspective, QOP doesn't take into account of a pitcher who misses his spots. That is, if the catcher calls for a fastball high and inside but the pitcher throws it low and outside he could still get a high QOP score despite completely missing his spot. If technology exists for the location and break of each ball to be tracked, then I would like to see something developed that also accounts for the movement of the catcher's glove. Author's Conclusion Again, this post was solely meant to introduce you to this stat without diving into specifics on Twins pitchers. Personally, I look forward to using this stat and wouldn't be surprised if we start seeing it more and more in future posts by me or any other Twins Daily writer. Despite its limitations, I think it provides fans with a different, more insightful perspective than the traditional pitching stats (W/L, ERA, WHIP, etc.), especially when coupled with other SABR pitching stats. I also wonder how well this stat can be used to predict future outcomes. I look at the list above and a couple names surprised me, but specifically Joe Biagini who was also a top 10 QOPA guy in 2016 under the same criteria. A quick look at his fangraphs page shows that he hasn't been great in 162.0 big league innings. Is this the sign of a good pitcher who has just had some bad luck early in his career? Or is he the poster child for how finding the average QOP can, at times, be a misleading statistic? What do you guys think about this stat? Is this something you would look forward to seeing in future articles? What are your thoughts in the curious case of Joe Biagini?

From what I know and am aware of, I think this is a fairly good prediction. As people have mentioned earlier this is three years away, so extremely hard to picture this. I have a hard time projecting Garver to be a starting catcher. I could see him being a valuable back-up, but not somebody who starts a majority of the games. Dozier moving to 3B seems very unlikely. I know the premise would be we need to find a spot for him, but I wonder if later in his career he becomes a super utility. An offensive player who can provide a little value at 2B, 1B, RF and LF or 3B on a limited basis.