bean5302

Pitch clock not relevant based on current study data. Velocity is absolutely proven to be the key factor in regard to elbow stress. Biomechanical studies have proven it. There is still "sticky stuff." Rosin and sweat = very sticky. Tighter grips on the baseball does increase forearm stress. Aaron Nola got 7 years and $172MM. Yoshinobu Yamamoto got 12 years and $325MM. There were a group of free agents this year who really overplayed their hands, IMHO. All that said, find me the high school pitchers throwing 4-5 pitches these days that teams could draft if they wanted to. The standard starting pitching prospect these days has 3 pitches. The emphasis on developing pitchers even down into high school has been velocity to get drafted, velocity to succeed later. It used to be more focused on more quality pitches to keep hitters off balance, more command, control and deception to succeed.

Are you sure the computer is right down to the millimeter? Even down to a centimeter? You'd expect calls at the very edges of the zone to get closer and closer to 50/50, As you see here, the missed strikes (called balls) were within millimeters of being a true ball as recorded by the equipment. If the equipment is off by 1 cm (totally believable) then those were good calls. The low-center "ball" call was also within millimeters of being a true ball as recorded by the equipment. Miller did a really lousy job, but I don't have a problem with 3 of those balls as I don't think equipment used would be any more accurate.

I hope the Twins don't deploy Miranda the way they deployed Martin. I'd like to see Miranda getting every day playing time. It'll be interesting to see how the Twins go about it.

Baseball is entertainment. Spreadsheets are not entertaining to most people. Computers are not entertaining to most people. Sports fans love to blame the referees and umpires, and bad calls are especially engaging with the audience. A computer determining borderline calls is a disaster in terms of fan engagement. The only time umpires would be a problem would be if a team consistently was victimized by bad calls throughout a a full season. Also... how many of you know the names "Joe West" and "Angel Hernandez"? That's fan engagement, even if you think it's for the wrong reason. I would be for a challenge similar to the minors, but no need to announce it and the ball/strike call should be instant. The ump should just have a button to press and the call gets spoken to him. Walk off to the side a tick, then make the ball or strike call from the side of the plate. All the fans will pick up and know what's going on quickly. Say what you will about Manfred, but almost every rule change he's made over the past couple years has benefitted fans. The game is already so much better now than it was.

Yes. It's too early for whining from a rational standpoint. That said, emotions aren't rational, haha. It's frustrating to watch the Twins struggle so much against the Guardians and parts of the team sputter so early. Honestly, I'm with @Squirrel when it comes to how much wind was knocked out of my sails by Lewis' injury. It was catastrophic to my excitement level. On the bright side, did you guys see that awesome infield grounder play by Julien? He really looked like a stud at 2B there. I was impressed as all hell watching it in the stands. Sprint towards 3rd and in, grab the slow grounder, spin 180* and fire dead on to 1B for the out. It was great. Optimal lineups? Well, here's what I'd wish for. vs. RHP starter 1. 3B Castro 2. 2B Julien 3. SS Correa 4. LF Wallner 5. DH Kirilloff 6. CF Buxton 7. RF Kepler 8. C Jeffers 9. 1B Santana vs. LHP starter 1. 2B Martin 2. 3B Castro 3. SS Correa 4. CF Buxton 5. DH Farmer 6. C Jeffers 7. LF Wallner 8. RF Kepler 9. 1B Kirilloff

Falvey is already salivating... if only he could get his K rate up to 100%...

I have to confess, these types of articles feel like a lot of work, and the guidance the team has provided on them actually drives that message home a bit. I haven't looked too deeply into it. Is there a youtube video or something which is kind of like a sped up/tutorial on how to create them you could share with people?

The Twins were over .500 to begin Thursday. Two days later, the sky was falling... I've noted this in another thread, but great teams win 60% of their games (97 wins). terrible teams win 40% of their games (97 losses). Baldelli has been the most outspoken on the subject of strikeouts doing a 180* in the summer of last year. In early summer, he talked about the strikeouts being a problem. By late in the season, strikeouts were irrelevant. It doesn't take an expert to read between the lines and figure out Falvey doesn't feel like strikeouts matter. Now, strikeouts are not worse than any other kind of out. They're better than medium grounders with runners on, for instance. A swinging strike out provides a little extra for a runner trying to steal, the catcher can miss the ball and a strikeout can wind up with a guy on first, etc. What I don't think has been researched is how a bunch of strikeout prone hitters in the same line up cause a chain reaction which reduces overall offensive value. Pythagorean is not a good metric. It's nice compared to straight wins/losses, but it doesn't tell you the trend. 12-0-2-8-3-1-1-9-3-2 = 43 runs. Probable record? 4-6 <--Twins 4-5-5-3-6-2-1-4-5-5 = 40 runs. Probable record? 5-5 <-- Lower K/HR teams That's what I think

Wallner would be better if balls weren't called strikes. He'll be fine. Not sure why people are all bent out of shape about it. Jeffers, Castro, Julien, Santana, Farmer, Margot, Vazquez, and Martin are all worse OPS wise to start this year.

Luzardo is definitely a step above Berrios in terms of results. Berrios was an awesome workhorse (still is), but he's a #3 guy (bordering #2). Luzardo's a potential ace and his trade value on Baseballtradevalues reflects that to an extent, but even that value is probably much lower than what a team would pay. I'd say on the open market, Luzardo will project at 20pts higher than his listed value. That's why I tossed Ober in as a likely ask from the Marlins. Solid pitcher. Tons of control left, and he'll stay cheap due to the Twins misusing him by burying him in the depth charts at every opportunity. In the meantime, Brooks Lee gets the Marlins a highly hyped middle infielder prospect near MLB ready as he's going to get, and a potential starting MLB CF by the end of the year. Lots of control. Minimal costs, not a huge loss in terms of the rotation. TD waxes poetically about Pablo Lopez every time his name is mentioned, but Luzardo is better than Lopez in terms of results the past 2 years. The durability concerns are all that's holding him back. Again, this is all hypothetical because I don't think the Twins would make the deal, and I also don't think Falvey should make this type of deal if he wants to be employed next year.

Baseballtradevalues.com Luzardo = +62 Lee = +25, Ober = +23, Rodriguez = +20 Miami will absolutely demand a high value prospect or solid cost controlled pitcher back in the exchange. Twins' options are Varland or Ober. Or Joe Ryan would probably drop the 3rd prospect from Emmanuel Rodriguez to Gabriel Gonzalez, but again, I suspect the Twins would be loathe to part with fan favorite Ryan as part of the exchange. Luzardo's xFIP matches his ERA and FIP. Ober's xFIP is dramatically higher suggesting he's just been lucky with his ERAs. Not sure if this year's 54.00 ERA start is reflective of that. In any case, outside a Twins fan's perspective, Ober is not near the same league as Luzardo (who has been as good or better than Pablo Lopez the past 2 seasons a24/a25).

Agreed. It sure looks like the Twins kicked him to the curb hoping to court a better TV deal and it clearly didn't work out. Dave St. Peter looks like he might need to move into a more limited role to me.

Rooker will rake again this year, but I'd bet pretty hard against the MVP and HR record still hahahah.

Not really. Walk in one gate, walk out. Next ticket. Walk in the next gate, walk out. You could go with a group of entrepreneurial types.

Luzardo - Brooks Lee, Bailey Ober, Emmanuel Rodriguez I suspect you don't like that price tag much.

Situational batting average (runners on, bases empty, runners in scoring position, etc) isn't significantly different. If the Twins go 6 for 10, today, their team average will jump to .211. It's just a matter of time.

I expect the Twins bullpen to be great this year. Duran being out hurts right now, but after that, no biggie.

Buy 10 tickets for $10 ea. Show up at gate open. In-out-in-out, leave before game start. $150 profit. Also, did you ever see the lines on Caribou Coffee BOGO days from years past? People would drive like 20 minutes out of their way to save $4. Or the dad who drove 10 miles to save 5 cents a gallon on gas, LOL.

It seems like you're implying we should eliminate all pitching from the game to prevent all UCL injuries. I'm sure we have enough pitch machines where we could make it happen. I'm not for it though. I'd like to keep pitchers in the game. There is no safe workload. UCL tears are the result of an acute overstress. A single pitch causes a UCL tear. Not the 40th pitch or the 190th pitch. Just takes one. No meta analysis has found strong correlations with specific innings limits or pitch counts. Relievers often have UCL injuries and need TJ, yet they often don't pitch more than 60 innings a year or 30 pitches in a game. Pitchers are all different. Builds, genetics, how they wind up and deliver pitches, types of pitches, how hard they throw, how quickly they recover. It differs by pitcher.

I have also been very highly frustrated with the giveaway situation last year. Arriving 30-45min early for any giveaway which is decent isn't early enough. The attendance gets announced at like 25,000, but you look around the stadium and wonder if there's actually more than 10k. You'll find all the giveaways on ebay after the game. I suspect people are getting ultra cheap tickets, grabbing up the giveaways and selling them for profit. https://www.ebay.com/itm/186276421557?itmmeta=01HTP6RET3DJPF4VN372KHTTSX&hash=item2b5ef09fb5:g:0kMAAOSwQkRluFl6&itmprp=enc%3AAQAJAAAA8JkBOOI34bft7mwFSibJHSh1o7E9U2XgQMOBVsw1sLC%2BZTkJgosZlzUCj5J%2BCtzgqg61Y1HCqwa8caMmeCFkcOdOnYHHZQoPbtlyQHkO8NNP5Grpc1oLuZdZCE4ifZNKq1O8iCICePgjJzk5GDrOtPbDZuJokPV7xFqOnmM316xicajlalYXerNTHFe1Q0rPMwmCIup0bj%2FDeAF5ELq5lQuprgsjsCACZF3VisXfXoPcsIl1q4WLjW2pZbPaalrnMEr1MLpQNjA3cT1nHpNRlCmQKac6GE9JO088NhUVRckl%2FL7Xm%2FtnOO7XREs0NSTsgg%3D%3D|tkp%3ABFBMju3hxtVj

Many young pitchers have arm issues. It's commonplace these days and it cannot be avoided by giving them artificially low pitch counts and innings limits. The best case scenario is kicking the can down the line a year for their imminent UCL tear. The workload will eventually have to build up, and if injury is going to happen, it's going to happen. The single greatest risk factor for UCL tears is increased velocity. This is a known factor at this point. If teams want to avoid arm injuries, they can stop getting tunnel vision on velocity, but velocity produces results so I suspect that's not going to happen, and I suspect if a team did decide to be so magnanimous, the fans would quickly backlash at having 5 very healthy AAAA 87mph fastball pitchers in the rotation. How about we look at the Guardians as an example? They're considered pitching development gurus far, far superior to what the Twins front office has produced. 2015 - a18 Brady Aiken. UCL tear noted post-draft. Pitched 46 innings a19. Pitched 132 innings a20. 2015 - a17 Triston McKenzie. 12 innings (a17 post draft). 83 innings (a18). 143 innings (a19). 2016 - a21 Aaron Civale. 152 innings NCAA/MiLB (a21). 163 innings (a22) 2018 - a18 Ethan Hankins. 3 innings (a18 post draft). 60 innings (a19), 2020 no season. 0.0 IP. UCL tear immediate (a21) 2019 - a18 Daniel Espino. 24 innings (a18 post draft). 2020 no season. 92 innings (a20). 2019 - a21 5th rd Hunter Gaddis. 75 innings (a19 NCAA). 119 innings (a20 NCAA). 124 innings (a21 NCAA/MiLB) 2020 - a22 Tanner Burns. 87 innings (a19 NCAA). 80 innings (a20 NCAA). 22 innings (2020 NCAA). 76 innings (a22) 2020 - a21 Logan Allen. 74 innings (a19 NCAA). 99 innings (a20 NCAA/Smr). 26 innings (2020 NCAA). 111 innings (a22) 2021 - a21 Gavin Williams NCAA 81 innings (a21). 115 innings (a22) 2022 - a21 5th rd Tanner Bibee. 56 innings SP/RP (a19 NCAA). 113 innings (a20 NCAA/Smr). 30 innings (2020 NCAA), 90 innings (a22 NCAA). 133 innings (a23). Just some of the high rounders the Guardians have drafted in recent years. The biggest injury was to the guy they protected the most having him throw the fewest innings (Ethan Hankins). NCAA teams often have their a18-a19 pitchers at 80+ innings, even if they're RP/SP and don't have a rotation spot right out of HS. Sometimes high profile HS commits even hit 100 innings in their first college year. If there was some sort of recipe (pitch count, innings limits, etc.) to prevent UCL tears and losing 18 months of development time for multi-million dollar signing bonus, high profile draft picks, it would be published everywhere for all to see by now. It would absolutely be a set in stone practice in MLB because the MLBPA would demand it.

Tommy John had surgery in September, 1974. He didn't pitch in 1975, but did return 18 months after in April, 1976. John pitched 207 innings when the league leader pitched 315 that year and the 10th highest was 279 innings. So pro-rating things. 18 months down, then 142 innings pitched.

Maybe the Twins should just trade Wallner if they don't want to play him?

You sure are riled up about this, lol. Even a bad team will win 40% of their games and an outstanding team will win 60%.

Miranda is playing 3B because he's enormously more valuable, and much easier to roster if he can play 3B is my best guess. His defense hasn't been great, but Miranda isn't really a platoon guy and if he can hold down 3B with a wRC+ 115ish bat, he's a young, cost controlled, 2.5-3.0 WAR starting caliber 3B. Valuable stuff either for the Twins or to another team with maybe an excess of starting pitching? If he's at 1B/DH, he's a 1.5-2.0 WAR kinda guy. Good enough, but worth upgrading if the team has a chance.