bean5302

I'm talking about once Lewis is healthy and back on the field. I'd trade him the moment the Twins can get a decent offer.

Yes. It's possible for a great pitcher to throw a clunker. It just doesn't happen often. If you crunch the numbers in the playoff series, the team with the best top 3 starters wins the series at a very high rate.

Range Factor is what we've got. If you have something better, I'd be happy to know about it.

Gordon is doing exactly what you'd expect from a super utility player. His bat hasn't been a black hole and his defense has been solid overall. In regard to the emergency-only SS option, Gordon has handled shortstop well so far in extremely limited opportunities. Almost every defensive metric shows Gordon as average to plus at SS. Granted, those metrics are pretty worthless with their sample size, but for a guy the Twins seemed hell bent to avoid, he's looked okay.

Because the playoffs are a different game than the regular season. In the playoffs, the back end rotation arms don't even pitch. There aren't rest days and depth is often irrelevant. Across a regular season, 3 starters worth a #3 spot can get you into the playoffs, but once a team gets to the playoffs it goes: Team A #1 vs. Team B #3 Team A 1-0 Team A #2 vs. Team B #3 Team A 2-0 Team A #3 vs. Team B #3 Team A 2-1 Team A #4 vs. Team B #4 Team A 3-1 Team A #1 vs. Team B #3 Team A 4-1 series over.

RF/9 is the best I think we have to work with for defensive value in the minors and the RF/9 coincides with Martin not being as fast as most center fielders or having a plus arm. The idea behind RF is (x) number of balls are hit to center field so the putouts for center fielders should be the same. As I noted, using MiLB general numbers is problematic as different leagues tend to play very differently (pitcher friendly, batter friendly, experience level, etc). That's why I'm comparing Martin's performance in the very same league as the other center fielders. Center field was Martin's second most played position at Vanderbilt, where he also played some left field. It's not a foreign position (unlike SS, which he's trying and failing to handle).

Earlier today I posted that Lewis was untouchable as I expected the knee was a minor thing... my opinion is 180* at this point.

Martin routinely grades out at 50-55 speed in scouting reports and that's awfully fringey for CF. A good center fielder should be 60+ speed (plus speed). Most scouting reports indicate it's possible he could handle center field if his instincts can compensate for his physical limitations. Honestly, though I remember reading about scouts universally expecting Martin to be a best fit at 2B due to his lack of range and arm, I just can't find anything to support it. Here's what I can say... I don't agree with using career MiLB numbers in all cases because it can be so apples vs. oranges at different ages, experience levels, and even league trends. Martin doesn't have much sample size in CF and this years' absurd 3.49 number is screwing up his career numbers. It's not a question of "most likely" regression. It's absolute colossal and guaranteed regression. It's more valuable to look at the sample sizes which are... insufficient, but at least reasonable in AA. If we were to compare Celestino (who is fringey as a CF when it comes to range), they do grade out similarly. In AA, Martin has a 2.34 RF/9 in Center Field across 435 innings in AA, but prior to the broken 3.49 this year 2.20ish) In AA, Buxton had a 3.44 RF/9 in a similar number of innings as Martin has at AA. In AA, Celestino has a 2.28ish RF/9 in AA Looking across the league Martin is playing in... Connor Lein (a25)= 2.65ish in AA JP Martinez (a26) = 2.25ish in AA (Frisco Roughriders) Max Schuemann (a25) = 2.60ish in AA (Midland Rockhounds) Cade Marlowe (a25) = 2.37 in AA (Arkansas Travelers) Nick Loftin (a23) = 2.32 in AA (Northwest Arkansas Naturals) Esteury Ruiz (a23) = 2.54 in AA (San Antonio Missions) Okay, I'm done with that. It's super time consuming. The bottom line is Austin Martin grades out as one of the worst fielders, if not the worst fielding CF in his league in AA. His grade is similar to Celestino, who is also fringey in CF. Martin does not possess a great arm or reported bonefide plus speed or supposedly a great first step. When compared to his CF peers in his league, he probably grades out at the very bottom. Could Martin play CF? Sure. Ron Gardenhire started Chris Parmelee in CF one game. It's just that Martin is going to have to make up for his defensive limitations in CF with his bat... i.e. he's not a good fit in CF. At least not in my opinion.

Quality starts are hard to come by with a manager who is notorious for a quick hook regardless of how guys are pitching. Ryan 4/8 Paddack 0/5 Ober 1/7 Gray 2/7 Winder 2/3 Smeltzer 1/5 Archer 0/11 Gonzalez 0/1 Sands 0/2 The entire Twins pitching staff has a combined 10 quality starts in 58 games. Besides that, "quality start" isn't even a good metric the way it's designed because a 3ER 6 inning performance is much worse than a 5 inning 2 earned run performance in regard to the likelihood a game is won or lost. Bundy has 4 starts of 5.0+ innings and less than 2 earned runs allowed. Bundy has 3 truly bad games in 9 starts this year. He has 3 games with an xFIP over 5.00 as well. I'm still not a huge fan of Bundy, but intentionally cherry picking a (bad) stat for which almost nobody in MLB would deliver good results is disingenuous.

Dylan Bundy's Fangraphs page https://www.fangraphs.com/players/dylan-bundy/12917/stats?position=P Scroll down about 1/2 way to the category "Pitch Info Pitch Velocity" You can hover over the heading fields to translate what the symbols mean vFA = "vFA - Fourseam Fastball Velocity - (Pitch Info)" If you're curious about game to game performances, near the top of player profiles, you can hover over "Game Log" in the main header, then select the "Pitch Type" header which will appear below the Game Logs header.

The day I take Griffin Jax, AAAA talent, over Chris Archer against the middle of the Yankees lineup seems distant indeed.

Something I've noticed which is so very different than all previous seasons I've been attending games. The scoreboard is showing close plays on the replay. That never used to happen. If it was a close play that went against the home team, you'd never see it on replay. Guess they didn't want to incite the crowd or something haha.

I'm not a Bundy fan or fan of the signing, but he's had two bad starts, which followed two good starts, which followed 2 bad and 2 good. He's up and down and that's to be expected for a bargain free agent starting pitcher. xFIP on Bundy is 4.01. A guy has a bad week or two and the pitchforks really come out around here. I guess that's fine. After a good week or two, the player becomes the next sure fire MVP as well.

Bundy's velocities 4 Seam Fastball = 90mph Sinking Fastball = 90mph Changeup = 82mph Slider = 80mph Curve = 73mph Plenty of separation there.

OAA doesn't report Urshela as playing shortstop, even if they're comparing him against shortstops because he's lined up in an area a shortstop would normally play. If they're going to compare Urshela's play against shortstops, OAA should record Urshela's position as SS for the play. It doesn't. Basically, OAA doesn't tell you anything of value about a heavily shifted 3rd baseman. Does it tell you how that shifted 3rd baseman performs against his peers in regard to defensive value? No. Isn't that how most people use defensive metrics?

Martin's value has tanked pretty hard by this point. Martin continues to show virtually no power so his plate value is quite limited and his inability to field are well documented. That's not to say he won't put it together, but he's not exactly young at this point. Age 23 at AA is expected, even a little older than expected for a top prospect. Scouts have universally panned Martin's ability to cover SS and CF. Those were always pie in the sky positions for Martin who supposedly lacks the outright speed to cover center and lacks the arm to cover SS. Ultimately, he's projected as a 2B candidate because of the arm. I'm going to assume "best" in this article is not synonymous with "highest value." I think the best trade chip is Luis Arraez or Jorge Polanco. Maybe Trevor Larnach if opposing teams buy the fast start again this year or Max Kepler. Positions where we have some depth or log-jamming in effect and players with a lot of surplus value.

I'm not super optimistic on Megill, but I don't see any reason he shouldn't get opportunities while he's getting results and other Twins relievers are struggling.

I don't know. This feels like a have your cake and eat it too kind of thing. It boils down to this. Would you rather have the best relievers available when the Twins are up 6-5 or down 5-6? If the Twins are losing in the 6th, even with their absolute best relievers stepping onto the mound, they're still significantly less likely to win the game. At the top of the 6th, the Yankees were a 65% favorite to win and the leverage index was pretty low. Is that when the very best relievers are the best choice? I feel like they'd likely be wasted in that scenario because the Twins were required to score more runs... and lo and behold, they didn't anyway.

Defensive metrics are notoriously unreliable in small sample sizes; often needing multiple years of results to get a clear picture of how well a defender plays a position. I pretty much consider RF/DRS to be garbage stats for infielders because they doesn't account for the shift. The result is the metrics artifcially increasing or decreasing a player's defensive contribution. Twins fans like DRS and RF because these stats inflate popular players who are poor defenders like Jorge Polanco. UZR is a better, although still flawed, metric. It relies upon a scorer making a determination regarding whether or not a shift was on and only counts plays where the shift was not active. This means small sample sizes are actually even smaller. In my opinion, firmly relying upon UZR takes 2 full years of defensive play. OAA is brand new to infielders as of 2021 and is a stathead's dream that records distances the fielder travels to get to balls, how fast the runner is advancing to whichever base and the distance the fielder has to throw, right down to where the fielder is positioned. I have a huge problem with how OAA adjusts for position though. i.e. Urshela would be treated as a shortstop (not a third baseman) if he was on a shift and playing where a shortstop would typically play. In my opinion, it's a major flaw in the metric when you're comparing players who play the same positions directly against one another. In other words, if the Twins heavily shifted to the first base side 100% of the time, Urshela's OAA would be judged against shortstops, not 3rd baseman. Unless I'm misunderstanding the metric (which is possible). I, personally, like UZR/150 the most for infielders right now. It's not perfect, but with a few years of data to look back on, it seems like Urshela is probably an about average 3B.

Buxton was a good pick. It's not like the Twins, or anybody else, could have predicted how much Buxton would struggle with injuries. Buxton's physical talent level was absolutely elite and he's not only made his way to the big show, but provided a lot of value. I wish the writer would have clarified, the values posted here are bWAR. In many cases, the difference between fWAR and bWAR can be substantial.

Well @Nick Nelson, I'll place the Twins coaches, managers and Byron Buxton's knowledge and experience of how serious his injury up against your speculation that it's impossible for Buxton to slump.

Rortvedt can not catch a break this year. Strained oblique to start the season and as soon as he got healthy, boom. Arthroscopic knee surgery to clean up a meniscus. In the surgery world, pretty minor... but there's always the potential a minor knee procedure takes a lot more time to heal than expected (Mauer, 2011). Since Ben started the season on the 10 day IL into mid May, it was easy to retroactively move him to the 60 day IL. He's expected back around the All Star Break.

The Minnesota Twins front office? I mean, they're the ones who wanted a solid starting catching option in case last year wasn't an aberration from Jeffers. Sanchez was much maligned for his defensive skill, but he was clearly open to some coaching and changes, if perhaps only after being traded and seeing his stock plummet. To me, Sanchez has looked as good as the Twins could have hoped this year, and Jeffers has looked like I expected him to look after how he played last year, albeit his ISO is a bit lower than what I'd expect. It's also a bit early to make a final determination on Jeffers, though, at only 138 plate appearances so far this year.

Honestly, it comes from the desperate need some people have for Buxton to be the greatest hitter in MLB history. The moment Buxton doesn't put up MVP caliber numbers at the plate for more than a week, I guarantee you there will be an article speculating Buxton's injuries are at fault. Any injury. Even a minor injury from a month and a half ago. As has been my position for years, Buxton is probably a wRC+ 120ish hitter with declining, but still elite, speed and he will never play another full season in his entire career. He's a 3 WAR player in a normal year and a 5-6 WAR player in a full season.

I get the same sense of entitlement in this article as the "What's wrong with Jorge Polanco" thread. The acknowledgement the metrics don't show a problem and that slumps happen, but no actual acceptance of the fact sometimes luck gives you slumps. There is an expectation Buxton either hits a home run or steals all the bases consecutively after inevitably getting on base because he deserves a 1.000 OBP around here. Scarcely anybody had a word to say about how Buxton was too injured to play in the 10 games following the slide where he was hitting .317/.391/.805 for an OPS 1.196. How bad is Buxton's knee? Well, his sprint speed shows a significant, but not crazy, drop off this year, from 30.0 ft/sec to 29.1 ft/sec, but Buxton is getting older and hitting balls very hard. Despite his barrel rate being down a little, his average exit velocity is tied for a career best. Buxton probably isn't 100% (he doesn't look 100% watching him in person at games), but he's seeing and hitting the ball well and if his injury starts getting worse, I'd expect the Twins to move him to the IL.