bean5302

If only people could watch the games! LOL

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

Margot and Vazquez are sunk costs without options. Brooks Lee is getting absolutely owned by any/all types of fastballs. Cutters, 4 seamers, sinkers. They're just eating him up right now. I don't think Lee has a terribly long leash at this point. Once Correa is back, probably in a couple weeks, I'd be surprised if Lee remains up unless he turns things around.

Box score says 2 errors there including a play at 1B, but I didn't watch the game so if there was a 3rd, I missed it.

I don't know where you got that? Teams deal with injuries to their most important players all the time. The Braves, Orioles, Diamondbacks, and Yankees have all lost ace's for a ton of time this year.

Eh, people are sure being hard on Dobnak here. I don't think there's a lot you can take away from 10 batters faced. Need a little more data on it.

Ahhhh, Varland. He had a great start for sure, but the 5.33 FIP last month isn't inspiring to me in the least. The sooner he moves to the bullpen, the better. He's not needed in the rotation with Dobnak and Plutko as back end rotation options, and guys like Andrew Morris ready to move up.

Honestly, Soto gets it here for me. All three games were good starts, all 3 had great FIPs, great K rates, reasonable to great BB rates. No clunkers. That's important to me. Morris definitely deserves some praise, but the 5 hit, 5 (unearned) run 1.0 inning start on 7/14 wasn't pretty. That said, he only had an FIP of 3.46 there. Just brutal with a .500 BABIP. Still, 3 outs from 10 batters? Sorry. That doesn't work even if you mix 2 errors in there. Went Ground out, Ground out/Error, Liner base hit. Ground ball base hit. Line drive base hit. Ground ball out/Error. Ground ball base hit. Line drive base hit. Fly out. Connor Prielipp gets on this list for me as well despite the super short rehab starts. Varland does not. He ran an FIP over 5.00 in July. Sorry, but luck doesn't get you rewards IMHO. None of these pitchers had a great month, to be honest. Morris and Bengard had clunkers of games, MacCloud ran some pretty pedestrian FIPs, Varland had a clunker and a bad FIP for the month. Clunkers (RA > 6.00) Soto - 0 clunkers, FIP 2.28 for the month Morris - 1 clunker (1.0 IP, 5 runs allowed), FIP 1.84 for the month Plutko - 0 clunkers, FIP 2.85 for the month MacCloud - 0 clunkers, FIP 4.93 for the month Dobnak - 0 clunkers, FIP 4.09 for the month Bengard - 1 clunker (2.2 IP, 2 ER), FIP 4.45 for the month Varland - 1 clunker (2.2 IP, 2 ER), FIP 5.33 for the month

There are very few pitchers out there who can sustain ERAs/FIPs far below xFIPs. Across MLB over the past 4 seasons with 83 pitchers having 400 innings pitched there are ZERO with a more favorable split of xFIP to FIP than Woods Richardson this year. 1. SWR +0.58 (2024) 2. Kirby +0.43 3. Javier +0.37 4. Cortes +0.35 5. Cease +0.31 6. Sandoval +0.30 7. Manoah +0.30 8. Irvin +0.27 SWR cannot sustain his spread between FIP and xFIP. He can either generate fewer fly balls or he's going to give up more home runs. Things will balance themselves out substantially. Just a matter of time.

The Twins need to stay healthy, and to stop laying eggs against Cleveland. I'm a lot more concerned about the Twins advancing in the playoffs than making them. I'll probably be furious if they get swept out yet again.

3.74 ERA vs. 3.96 xERA, 4.33 SIERA, and 4.34 xFIP. If Woods Richardson isn't unusually skilled at keeping fly balls in the park, he's due for a lot more regression. Since SWR's pop up rate isn't abnormally good, and he's a fly ball pitcher, it's unlikely he can avoid a regression in his home run rate which shifts him well out of a preferred playoff starter.

Moving is an idle threat. Target Field is a great stadium and relatively new, attendance has been lower recently, but the team is still no where near the rock bottom, and the Twins are only 1/2 way through a 30 year lease which doesn't expire until 2040.

Not much, IMHO. I don't believe in Kikuchi at all as a playoff guy. I'd rather have Lopez, Ryan and Ober on the bump, and I'd suspect most models would feel neutralish as well. My feeling was the Twins needed an "ace" to significantly improve their odds. Scott's great, but how much a lefty reliever impacts the Twins chances is pretty debatable if they're in the hole after the starter walks off the field after the 5th or 6th inning. I believe in Jhoan Duran, Jorge Alcala, and Griffin Jax. I think the Twins have the power in the bullpen they need to keep close games from getting away from them in the playoffs.

Whew. These last couple starts have really put the brakes on the Zebby Matthews train. Not sure if the Twins are having Matthews work on something or if his stuff just isn't playing as well against more polished hitters.

I don't know how many times I've seen the Twins' ownership all lumped together as a singular, static entity. Similar to the entity known as "Falvine" or that childhood couple who got the blended name like Nateiffer or whatever. The perceived sins of the father infect the rest of the family by association like the way people go after the blood relations of presidents. The arguments surround the Twins being owned by misers who hurt the team's chance of being successful because they won't pay competitive salaries. Inconceivably large numbers get thrown around and ranks are used to provide a convenient reference furthering the commenter's opinion. But, just how does the Twins' historical payroll stack up in a visual way? A way which can better illustrate at a glance how competitive they've been. Is Carl the same as Jim? Are the Twins the franchise today as they were 20 years ago? What does 16th or 19th rank look like? See for yourself how the Twins stack up historically, all the way back to 1988 based on data from The Baseball Cube. 2024 data comes from Spotrac so the methodology might be a bit different. You can see some major trends and how baseball competition levels were affected by changes to the CBA and television, etc. Up until about 1990, the differences from the haves to the have nots wasn't so huge. The Twins were right in the thick of things as one of the upper payroll teams. A paradigm shift occurred and baseball competition levels would never be the same. Another shift in the late 90s changed the landscape yet again. Suddenly, the gap became massive, and Carl Pohlad opted for the bare minimum cost philosophy as the Twins secured the lowest payrolls in MLB. Contraction didn't happen, and Twins payrolls rose to about the bottom of the 3rd quartile of teams until Target Field. When Target Field opened, Carl Pohlad was dead with his son, Jim, having taken over. Jim pushed payroll up a full bracket and more closely followed the bottom of the 2nd quartile of teams. Right about dead mid market combined from 2010-2022, but it appears there's another shift going on. Payrolls and revenues are trending up, and the Pohlad family appear to be more committed to trend back to the days of their father, and the Metrodome as attendance falters. Carl Pohlad was a miser. While generous from a charitable standpoint, and an honorable man with multiple purple hearts, a bronze star with clusters and a fantastic personal reputation amongst the people who knew him, he did not accept losses from businesses, and the Twins were a business to him. Carl's first love was football, and he actively attempted to purchase a controlling interest in the Minnesota Vikings, but was rebuffed because he owned a controlling interest in the Twins already. I have to wonder if Jim is getting miserly as he ages? Frustration with attendance and an inability to get a new stadium built led Carl to cut the payroll down to the bottom of the barrel and field more than a handful of terrible, non-competitive teams while threatening to sell the team to a party who would move the franchise out of state or even potentially contract the team entirely. This new philosophy for the Twins' ownership on the back of frustration with attendance potentially signals it's time for the Pohlads to sell the team to an owner with better business sense because Twins revenue shouldn't be as low as it is. Poorly negotiated TV deals, poor marketing and a lack of accountability at the head of the organization have allowed ownership to assume revenues are fixed so costs must be cut rather than understanding how to expand revenues to keep the team competitive with mid-market teams. The Pohlads also appear to lack understanding of how team payrolls work. Joe Pohlad pointed to the Orioles as an example, but Baltimore has fielded a payroll higher than the Twins in 21 of the past 37 seasons (57%) including 3 seasons above the maximum payroll in Twins' history despite a much smaller market than Minneapolis. The Orioles recently employed the tank Astros philosophy of the 2010s initiating a total burn down of their roster with the willingness to field the worst teams in baseball year in and out while undertaking a massive rebuild. Now in a competitive window, Baltimore is once again expanding their payroll rapidly, and I expect they'll surpass the Twins once again next season. Baltimore would never have burned down a team in their prime competitive window. This new (old) Pohlad philosophy is not only a poor look, it's a disservice to the fans, and the taxpayers who built Target Field with the expectation ownership would keep their end of the bargain and fund the team appropriately. It reeks of panic, frustration, poor business management, and dysfunction. If this is what the Pohlads bring to the table now, it's best to find fresh new ownership with a better philosophy.

Kepler gets regularly platooned so I'm not sure why you think otherwise? Over his career, Kepler has significant splits RHP and LHP, though the splits have narrowed over the years, ironically as the team has trusted him less and less because Broken Macro Baldelli's spreadsheets demand he immediately have security remove all the team's lefty hitters from the stadium the moment an opponent starts warming a lefty up in the bullpen. In fact, he watches the opponent's pitching coach and manager closely for movement towards the bullpen phone. Baldelli & Falvey 2024 - vs. LHP 61 PA (1.4 PA/G), vs. RHP 250 PA (3.1 PA/G) Ratio 24% 2023 - vs. LHP 97 PA (1.6 PA/G), vs. RHP 394 PA (3.2 PA/G) Ratio 25% 2022 - vs. LHP 119 PA (1.8 PA/G), vs. RHP 327 PA (3.1 PA/G) Ratio 36% 2021 - vs. LHP 129 PA (1.8 PA/G), vs. RHP 361 PA (3.2 PA/G) Ratio 39% 2020 - vs. LHP 53 PA (1.6 PA/G), vs. RHP 143 PA (3.0 PA/G) Ratio 37% 2019 - vs. LHP 163 PA (1.8 PA/G), vs. RHP 433 PA (3.4 PA/G) Ratio 38% ------- Molitor & Falvey 2018 - vs. LHP 167 PA (1.8 PA/G), vs. RHP 444 PA (3.0 PA/G) Ratio 38% 2017 - vs. LHP 137 PA (1.8 PA/G), vs. RHP 431 PA (3.2 PA/G) Ratio 32% ------- Molitor & Ryan 2016 - vs. LHP 133 PA (2.2 PA/G). vs. RHP 314 PA (3.2 PA/G) Ratio 42% Personally, I don't know as Kepler had much trade value. League average bat, good defense, but $10MM for a guy on a 1.5-2.0 WAR season path really deletes the surplus value.

Let's look at the ACTUAL trade. Flaherty valued at 9.3 traded to the Dodgers for 19.60 of assets. https://www.baseballtradevalues.com/trades/173210 Fedde was more complicated since he was moved with Kopech. Fedde +19, Kopech -0.7 was moved for 8.00 of total assets. What are the Twins prospects valued at close to the deadline? Jenkins = 58.3 Rodriguez = 46.6 Lee = 38.7 ----------------- Julien = 27.6 Keaschall = 20.7 Flaherty Actual Value Trade 19.60 Wallner = 17.6 Matthews = 15.1 Festa 13.4 Fedde Actual Value Trade 8.0 Gonzalez = 8.0 Raya = 5.1 Keirsey = 2.9 Now BaseballTradeValues is imperfect, but for major prospects and players, it generally lines up pretty closely with what actually happens. The Twins' top 3 were worth anywhere from 200% to 700% of what the actual trade compensation wound up at. Keaschall on his own is valued higher than any player traded. I don't care how terrible a GM is, turning down a compensation package which starts with a player worth more than any other guy moved is pretty nonsensical, and being a GM isn't an easy job to get. Generally, a lack of complete insanity is part of the mix.

.911 OPS isn't good enough for you? Yeah, sounds about right from the ultimate Matt Wallner hater, LOL