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bean5302

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Everything posted by bean5302

  1. bean5302
    I suppose back on topic, if Ryan misses significant time, you'd have to assume it's either Varland or Matthews who has to take his rotation spot. I'm skeptical either one of them is MLB rotation worthy right now. We're already in a dicey spot with SWR's innings and Festa in the rotation.
  2. bean5302
    Or maybe they traded Polanco because he was in decline and they had better players on the roster already, as a side effect they expected to save some cash. Falvey made a bad deal after picking up a team option. That's not the Pohlad's fault. Falvey had a number of options on how to spend his financial assets. There were 4 potential contracts on the books he could have chosen to delete. None of these players have added major value this year. Vazquez $10MM Kepler $10.0MM (Team Option) -Polanco $10.5MM (Team Option) Farmer $6.25MM (Arb3) Subtracted from Polanco savings, all of nearly zero value this year. +Desclafani $4.0MM +Topa $1.25MM +Okert $1.06MM Other acquisitions +Santana +$5.25MM +Margot $4.0MM Neither Santana nor Margot are better than the players they blocked (Miranda & Martin). That's nearly $50MM in expenditures which could have been spent differently if Falvey felt the Pohlad's salary limits required adjustments to the roster. I blame the Pohlads for the trade deadline, not the $130MM opening day payroll.
  3. bean5302
    Not aware of Hill having pitched anywhere this year. Blake Snell made it pretty apparent a pitcher needs to ramp up. I doubt hill would be ready before mid September. Zack Greinke was wishy washy on pitching, but same type of thing. Honestly, I just don't see many options to replace a starter outside of our existing roster since the deadline has passed, and it'll take weeks to ramp up anybody who hasn't already been pitching competitively. The only name(s) that come to mind have been blacklisted by MLB. The Mexican League's regular season just ended, but there are a couple guys who have pitched in MLB who had nice seasons there. Zac Grotz, Joe Wieland. I really don't see that happening, but I don't think it'd necessarily be a horrible move to grab one of those guys on a MiLB deal if they'd want it.
  4. bean5302
    I'd prefer Zebby Matthews to Varland, even with the rough AAA results. We'll almost certainly know who it will be by Friday, though. Both Matthews tomorrow and Varland (Friday) are coming up on their spot in the Saints rotation.
  5. bean5302
    Winder isn't an option, I don't think. He hasn't thrown 3 innings or more in almost a year. Even last year, he was stretched out to long relief of 3.0-4.0 innings in just a couple games out of necessity as Winder was almost exclusively a 2.0 or less inning guy over the past 2 years.
  6. bean5302
    Lots of clubs who are in the playoff chase have lost either their ace or their #2 for significant lengths of the season, if not the whole season. Yankees, Orioles, Guardians, Diamondbacks, Astros, Braves, Dodgers, etc. It's pretty common, but those teams stacked some high upside depth into their rotations at the beginning of the season or at the deadline so the losses of a top arm weren't necessarily as catastrophic. Falvey prioritized depth players at the start of the season rather than front line starting pitching they needed. He gambled they'd be able to acquire what they needed during the season, but they they went cheap at the deadline, too. That said, losing Ryan for a short while may not even be a huge deal. Second half Joe Ryan results have been showing up for a while now. Last 8 starts: 4.60/3.10/3.27 First Half Joe Ryan ERA/FIP/xFIP 2022 - 2.99/3.99/4.75 2023 - 3.70/3.47/3.64 2024 - 3.53/3.45/3.47 Second Half Joe Ryan 2022 - 4.14/3.99/3.92 2023 - 6.09/5.43/3.99 2024 - 3.99/3.41/3.20 Still, losing him for more than a minimum stay would be potentially hard on the rotation. The available depth isn't fantastic. Varland, Dobnak, Matthews.
  7. bean5302
    I feel like this is one of those... 'I don't like what you have to say, so I'm going to continue to request more and more and more data, and every piece of data you present will be tossed by me because I don't like it.' Pitchers with 100+ innings and an ERA 3.30 or lower over the past 10 years, you'll find right around 30, which is about how many "aces" you'd expect to see in MLB at any given time. Sometimes there's a cluster of pitchers in that 3.31-3.39 range, like 2015 has 7 of those guys. 2021 = 31 2022 = 44 2023 = 20 2024 = 24 2020 = N/A 2019 = 16 2018 = 28 2017 = 19 2016 = 26 2015 = 26 The rest would take a huge amount of my time, but I didn't come to my position from the analysis of this article, I came to my position from previous analysis and just used the random data points I compiled from this article to support it. That said, just how many bad performances do you think a pitcher with a sub-3.31 ERA could really have? To get to that kind of ERA, you almost have to come up with consistent great starts.
  8. bean5302
    The Twins haven't played any of those teams recently, except the Phillies, who were the best team in baseball before the Twins took the series and pushed them to the brink of a sweep. Meanwhile, the Twins have beaten the teams who've been the best in MLB since June 1st on a regular basis, and in fact, the TWINS are the 5th best team in the MLB since 6/1 (31-23). Min (2-1) vs. Ari #1 (35-20) .636 Min (1-2) vs. NYM #2 (35-20) .636 Min (3-2) vs. Hou #3 (32-22) .593 Min (2-1) vs. Bos* #4 (31-22) .585 Minnesota Twins #5 (31-23) .574 The Twins haven't played Boston since June 1 so I included their earlier series result.
  9. bean5302
    I don't think the Twins wanted to transform Dobnak as much as Dobnak wanted to transform himself into a legitimate MLB rotation arm. He has permanent ligament damage to his middle finger, and it will never heal back to where it was prior to the rupture so he needed to make changes. Based on his results, and his lack of command, it seems like he's not quite there yet. He probably looks a lot better if Buxton was playing CF last night, but even under advanced metrics, he's been borderline serviceable. The slider and changeup are almost identical, and that kind of reduces Dobnak to a 2 pitch pitcher. To compound that, the sinker has the same movement profile as the changeup so hitters know what direction all his pitches are going to move, just not exactly how much they'll move.
  10. bean5302
    It's a pity Martin can tell where the ball will be when he's running the base paths, just not so much when he's playing CF, haha.
  11. bean5302
    FIP is a predictive stat, but as we approach a full season, ERA is more important to me. What actually happened vs. what a spreadsheet thinks should have happened. Looking at FIP vs. ERA, you can get a feel for how you might expect things to play out going forward. At a team level, having the two be way out of sync is unusual so you might expect a correction going forward. I prefer bWAR over fWAR for pitchers when looking at multiple years, but I generally prefer fWAR over bWAR during the season.
  12. bean5302
    I find Buxton's contract and production to be pretty difficult to quantify. In terms of raw production, I think Buxton's contract is worth it on a year to year basis comparing it to "free agency" value. But, Buxton wasn't a free agent, and teams pay more like $2.5MM/WAR on average because of cost controlled players. Furthermore, the $8MM per WAR value is what teams actually get, not what they try to pay. It seems to me teams try to buy WAR at $6MM, but players often underperform expectations due to injury or decline. The resulting net cost winds up being $8MM. I don't believe for a single second any team in baseball would have given Buxton north of 3 years had he hit free agency after the 2021 season, and the inability of the Twins to find a trade partner when they were trying to move him in 2021 should have made it more clear how the rest of the league valued him. In that regard, I think the Twins overpaid market value by a country mile. After 2022's 3.5 fWAR season, again hampered by a half season on the IL, I doubt Buxton could have gotten more than 2 years at $40MM. Buxton should always be backed up by an MLB caliber starting center fielder because expecting more than about 80 games a year out of him is unreasonable. In a full year, which will 100% never happen, Buxton is a 5-6 WAR player. Perennial All Star Caliber. He's never going to win an MVP or come close to it because he can't get on base, but his fielding and power more than make up for that, in the half season where he's healthy. I thought the Buxton extension reeked of panic by the front office, and I still think it was a panic button decision. It was a bad decision overall, but the impact wasn't felt until the Pohlad's decided to reverse course on their commitment to the team and process.
  13. bean5302
    Pablo Lopez through 8/6 2023 - 4.01 ERA, 3.38 FIP, 3.42 xFIP 2024 - 4.74 ERA, 3.82 FIP, 3.30 xFIP I feel pretty strongly people are misremembering Lopez's 2023 performance based on his outstanding playoff results. Similar to Jack Morris getting credit for "Game 7" despite him hardly being close to elite across his career. Lopez is a case of "he should be better" but he's generally not. He did have an insane little run with 3 starts in a row not allowing a run 8/7-8/18 last year, but outside that and a couple games right at the start of the season, he was pretty much a 4.00 ERA guy all year.
  14. bean5302
    Just because he's called up doesn't mean you'll see him.
  15. bean5302
    The Twins failure to acquire a long term real CF'er backup for Buxton this past offseason may come back to bite them. With Rodriguez missing so much time this year, it's going to be hard for him to get enough plate appearances to be ready for the MLB roster next season, and Willi Castro is about to get real expensive with an ownership group seemingly looking to aggressively cut costs. I don't see the Twins finding $7-8MM in the budget for Castro. Austin Martin is adequate as a backup utility outfielder, but the Twins are extremely lucky Buxton has played as much as he has this year. The Twins need a starting caliber outfielder who can play CF when Buxton is hurt.
  16. bean5302
    I think it's very clear the front office wasn't happy with the strikeouts last year based on the changes to the roster. The most reasonable conclusion is a change of this type was brought on by analytics. Many of us suspect that high K rates for multiple players in the lineup significantly depresses average run production. The front office certainly has the resources to crunch those numbers.
  17. bean5302
    If only people could watch the games! LOL
  18. bean5302
    He faced 5 hitters yesterday and threw 25 pitches. As a starter, that's nothing. Not sure how the Twins plan to use him, but I'd think Dobnak would be available if they wanted him to pitch again.
  19. bean5302
    Yeah, Stuff+ is a tool which quantifies movement, velocity, location, etc in terms of how effective pitches are in against batters. It takes into consideration movement of offspeed/breaking pitches vs. the fastball as well. Supposedly Stuff+ is very quick to become reliable in terms of results and it's more predictive of results as a whole. I use it as a kind of quick double check. Dobnak's changeup seems insane because it looks like his sinker, but has crazy amounts of drop. Honesty, if Dobnak had a decent four seamer, that changeup might be unhittable. He's throwing 92mph sinkers. Not exactly an Eephus pitch, even if it's not Jhoan Duran out there. Dobnak's average fastball is higher than Ober, for example. His changeup has been dropping 10" more than league average (ultra elite). The slider at 83mph is middle of MLB velo for that pitch and it's movement is above average.
  20. bean5302
    Buxton's 19th in the AL (33rd in MLB) for fWAR among position players. He's lower than Carlos Correa and Kyle Tucker, who've both played fewer games in the AL. Mookie Betts, Christian Yelich and Patrick Bailey have more fWAR in fewer games in the NL. Let's also consider the top players vs. Buxton in regard to the gap. Top 5 AL range from Duran 5.3 to Judge 7.7. Top 5 NL range from Bailey 3.8 to Ohtani 5.7. Buxton isn't really all that close to any of them. The gap between Byron Buxton and the top 4 in each league is the same distance as Byron Buxton and the 178th position player in MLB. Categorizing Buxton as good might be a slight if you want to get nitpicky. He's been very good, but not elite.
  21. bean5302
    It all depends on how much shine you thought was on him. He certainly looks like a serviceable #4-5 starter to me, and considering he was a total afterthought coming into the year, that's a big win. Festa didn't exactly push his way onto the roster from AAA this year (4.03 ERA / 3.95 FIP vs minor leaguers). Not sure what makes you think he's got playoff caliber starter potential at MLB? He's certainly looking a heck of a lot better now that he's not terrified of issuing a walk.
  22. bean5302
    Varland almost certainly needs to move to the 'pen to help the Twins. I don't think there's a good chance he can be an effective MLB starter. While his sparkly ERA is 1.48, he's been up and down in terms of expected results. His FIP over that period is 4.08. Still serviceable, but Varland's consistently given up very hard contact as a starter at the MLB level.
  23. bean5302
    Yeah, but both doubles were on competitive pitch locations, in fact, the one to Vaughn was in a spot Vaughn has struggled with good sequencing. Dobnak left the game with 2Ks and a 1.67 FIP. The walk was bad, he was all over the place, but certainly no worse than we've seen from quite a few guys this year on a single batter. There haven't been enough pitches to grade his stuff much, but in the tiny sample size, Dobnak's change up has been absolutely filthy in terms of Stuff+. His sinker has been terrible (out of whack from history) and his slider's been serviceable. I'd want to see more before I declare him unchanged hot garbage.
  24. bean5302
    You have an interesting perception of me. I spent a lot of money on Twins tickets this year after renewing and upgrading my seasons last year. The commitment ownership put forth was not on par with my investment or what I expected. Do you get frustrated when you get ripped off?
  25. bean5302
    His defensive metrics are partially down due to his peers just being better fielders. Buxton's feet covered is up 1.7ft in his "jump" to 35.8 ft, which is the highest of his career, but his peers are at their best as well. In any case, Buxton's slowing down a bit, his arm isn't grading out quite as well, etc. Basically, the guy has entered his 30s so don't expect him to be able to avoid decline at this point. It's nice to see Buxton staying as healthy as he has been. Highly unexpected, even eyebrow raising to me, but he's on pace for 125 games this year. I'd say he has an outside chance to get to that 504 PA total which would qualify him. Wouldn't that be something? As I expected, his bat caught up to the fastballs he was behind earlier this year, and he's been feasting on them as the scouting reports always lag actual production. Buxton's always been good against the 4 seamer, and now that he's on top of them again, he'll probably see fewer going forward. Still, his OPS+ 135 is only a fraction higher than underlying metrics suggest. Buxton could be looking at a near 5 WAR campaign this year. Far from an MVP candidate, but right on par with his real ceiling.
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