bean5302

We're talking about baseball 3rd strikes, not the pick up lines you were using in college. With gems like "Hey, do you like the internet?" or "Your three friends turned me down already so I'll settle for your number, I guess" or "I know we just met, but do you want to meet my parents over there? They're my ride home!" it's no wonder you whiffed so frequently...

Looks like the Twins will get to face off against Berrios tomorrow. It should be interesting to see if he's nervous or in the mood to show the Twins how badly they messed up. Toronto looks to have made some pretty good decisions going in big for the playoff run this year. They've got a +175 run differential right now which is good for 2nd best in the AL behind Houston so I'm glad to see them pushing for the playoffs. It's a bummer, but the chances the Athletics or Mariners can bump the Red Sox and Yankees entirely out of the playoffs looks slim since neither of them have head to head matchups in the AL East remaining. The Blue Jays play the Yankees 3 games and the Red Sox and Yankees have one 3 game series in Boston left against each other.

It's not that nobody on the list is productive, it's just that Sano is 12% worse than the next player on the list. Eventually, it gets so far out of proportion that a strikeout rate can't be overcome in terms of value. Sano is going to be on the Twins next year. His salary, remaining option buyout, inability to add defensive value in the field and status as an easy out when teams need that out (negative WPA) make him a liability. Sano is prone to hot/cold so a really rough month isn't unexpected, it's just part of Sano's game. I think he is working diligently on his strikeout rate, and I think he got a taste that his career in MLB is in its twilight if he doesn't make some changes hit him this year when he was benched. Time will tell. He's got a year left to prove he can overcome all the liabilities and stop the decline. He won't manage a single WAR this year and his WPA will finish in the negatives. It'd be great for the Twins, and Sano, if he can make the adjustments necessary.

Why do you feel that way? It's possible you may be right, there just isn't any data I can point to which suggests he's declined much physically since his early years in the big show.

Nice story for Maggi. Maybe it'll get him a little more exposure and get him a few plate appearances even next year?

I wonder if the Injury Gods mail holiday cards out? Like, does Buxton get the full package? New Years, Valentine's Day, etc? "Thinking of you!" haha

The numbers have consistently shown Escobar to be an average fielding shortstop. His sprint speed hasn't changed, his 90 foot times haven't changed, his arm is still strong and his lateral movement is still good enough. There's no reason for me to believe he couldn't play SS at a similar level to where he was a few years ago. As a career 2.4 UZR/150 shortstop, even if Escobar declined a bit, he'd still be a massive improvement over somebody like Polanco and likely just as good as Simmons' -2.2 UZR/150 performance this year as well. Ultimately, Escobar was an All Star this year at 3B and he's been productive at the hot corner, which is the position he was signed to play. The Diamondbacks had a GG, team built, 4 WAR shortstop (Ahmed). The Brewers have an All Star caliber shortstop (Adames) and a young, team controlled light hitting utility player (Urias) who's bat plays the best at shortstop. They don't need Escobar to move to SS to cover the position, and honestly, I can't fathom a reason why the Brewers would want to prove Escobar can play SS. In regard to the Twins, they mishandled Escobar since they got him. The played Florimon over Escobar, then Santana. By the time Polanco came along, Escobar was used primarily as a super utility player and Polanco's arm was already over-taxed at SS. Escobar stayed at 3B because Polanco couldn't handle it.

Honestly, if the Twins want a cheap, relatively short contract with a player who has utility and the arm to play SS, they should sign Eduardo Escobar and put him back at SS. His sprint speed and jump all look good enough to play SS adequately and he has the arm strength for it. He turns 33 in January next year and I expect a 2-3 year contract will get him at a price around where he's currently being paid. Escobar playing 3B has more to do with teams he's played at not needing a SS than Escobar being unable to handle the position.

Martin doesn't have the range or the arm to be be a good MLB stortstop. That's what's widely reported. It's not the members who are making the determination out of thin air, but opinions based on many scouting reports. Based on his physical skillset, he's probably best as a second baseman; however, I expect the Twins are working diligently to identify any mechanics they can change which might help him gain another mph or two on his throws or a way to improve his jump. They'll need to find something if he's going to be at SS/CF. In regard to Lewis, he does have the range and arm for shortstop. It remains to be seen if he has the glove for it or if he can hit well enough to justify a 26 man roster spot on an MLB team. His last competitive professional play at shorstop was awfully rough with a consistently poor error rate across multiple levels and years from 2017-2019. His defense is secondary though. There are major issues with his swing, including an enormous and early leg kick which dramatically complicates his timing at the plate. Lewis not only has to time the pitch, but he also must adjust to the timing of the pitcher's windup. Lewis has outstanding physical abilities (assuming he returns from surgery at 100%) and by all accounts, he has a fantastic attitude and work ethic. He's a guy everybody wants to see succeed, but the numbers keep staring back suggesting there's a problem.

Twins won. Jake Cave was just good enough to start in CF in 2018-2019. Since the Twins had Buxton, Cave was relegated to 4th outfielder to which he was better suited, but he was a good everyday player in the long stints of Buxton's injuries. Gil will not stay in an MLB rotation without a legit 3rd pitch and it's pretty questionable one develops for him. He was rocking a 4.66/4.47 ERA/FIP at AAA before joining the Yankees and his 5.4 BB/9, 1.28 WHIP, 3.97 FIP and 4.76 xFIP suggest Gil is due to get pasted a few more times as things balance out. Ultimately, he's going to be a bullpen arm who is getting his first appearance 3 years after Cave was already producing value for the Twins. Will Gil turn into a closer? Probably not. He just doesn't have the control for it and if past results are to be relied upon, Gil is going to have to sacrifice some of his velocity or movement to get his control to acceptable levels meaning he's likely destined for middle relief where he may rack up 0.5 WAR per season. It'll take a long time to make up the ground Cave put on him in WAR vs. WAR, let alone the net present value of that WAR.

The WNBA draw similar numbers to minor league baseball teams per game and they only have 30 games a year. Overall attendance and interest in the WNBA excludes it from being generally considered part of the major sports discussion. Essentially, nobody outside of Hennepin and Ramsey county cares about the Lynx enough to even know where they play so using a WNBA team as a source of state pride in a discussion will get you laughed at in 99% of cases. Even using a dramatically more popular MLS team will probably get an eye roll and chuckle. Conversely, a lot of people would recognize the name Floyd Mayweather and would be interested in watching a bout with him or some other boxer who isn't in the heavyweight division.

I'd rather steer clear of Pineda, but I think the Twins bring him back.

Ryan is pitching really well and I think he'll be a solid #4-5 starter with that excellent fastball. I don't think 2 starts is enough to decide pretty much every scout and the Tampa Bay Rays organization misjudged Ryan's stuff. Andrew Albers' first two starts back in 2013 8.1 innings, 4 hits, 0 runs, 2 Ks 9.0 innings, 2 hits, 0 runs, 2 Ks (a complete game shutout)

Berrios pitched another gem tonight against the Yankees helping Toronto move to 0.5 games back of the Wild Card spot. Even though Berrios had a couple rough starts in there, I doubt Blue Jays fans have any complaint should Toronto make the playoffs beyond the Wild Card game.

Couldn't agree more. Celestino becomes far more important if Buxton gets traded.

With the 2021 season just about wrapped up for the Minnesota Twins, here’s yet another article to talk about starting pitching and why dumpster diving or even mid-tier free agent starters are actually much riskier than the top free agent starters with those big contracts. Conventional Twins wisdom is that big name, free agent starters are simply too expensive and too risky. Jim Pohlad is very skittish when it comes to long contracts and big dollars. The idea of “crippling” a roster also sends some Twins fans into a panic. It makes sense, after all, the Twins free agent pitchers almost never actually pan out for more than a year. For this year, the Twins’ front office decided not to pursue an arm to replace Odorizzi, leaving a major hole in the middle of the rotation. Instead, Happ and Shoemaker were signed to contracts all too typical of the Twins’ front office. The cost? $10MM utterly wasted. That said, the Twins are absolutely spending ace starter money in free agency and acquisitions every single year and have been spending $30-43MM annually for those arms for 7 consecutive seasons coming into 2021. I even adjusted the salaries for players which were traded away… Read it and weep. Median WAR = middle bWAR season performance with 2020 being multiplied by 2.7 due to the shortened season. Total WAR = Total bWAR over the life of the entire contract, even if the player was traded away. $/WAR = Entire Contract Dollars, Adjusted for 2020 / Total bWAR, Not Adjusted for 2020. The salary figures shown are not adjusted for 2020 so they can be viewed in proper context. Med. Tot $ Player WAR WAR /WAR 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 Correia -1.1 -1.1 -5 6 Pelfrey 0.4 0.8 13.8 6 6 Hughes -0.1 5.5 11.9 8 9 9 13 8 7 Nolasco 0.5 2 24 12 12 8 4 Milone 0.8 0.9 8.1 3 5 Santana 0.5 9.8 5.6 14 14 14 14 1 Santiago 0.2 0.3 32.7 2 8 Odorizzi 1.2 4.4 6.1 6 10 18 Pineda 0.8 3.3 8 2 8 10 10 Lynn 0.4 0.4 25 10 Perez 0.1 0.1 40 4 Maeda 2.7 1.8 2.7 3 3 Bailey 0.5 0.2 22 7 Hill 2.1 0.8 2.4 3 Shoemaker -1.9 -1.9 -1.1 2 Happ -1.8 -1.8 -4.4 8 Season Total 31 43 37 38.7 39.8 29.5 40.8 23 In fact, almost none of the Twins signings and acquisitions were worth it, including the starters who were actually “worth the money” because they still weren’t worth starting. For example, Tommy Milone only cost $8.1MM / WAR. That’s an A grade signing. He was worth every bit of the money he was paid, on am average season. But he still wasn’t good enough to actually want him in the rotation. What about Ervin Santana? We all know what a huge asset he was over his first couple seasons and the Twins got one WAR for only $5.6MM which is an A+ kind of deal. The big issue is he was terrible over his last two years, dragging his median performance way down. Ace = 4.0 WAR+ #2 = 3.0-4.0 WAR #3 = 2.5-3.0 WAR #4 = 2.0-2.5 WAR #5 = 1.5-2.0 WAR I’ve also adjusted the median values for 2020’s short season. That’s the problem with dumpster dives and even mid-tier free agents. All it takes is a slight decline and poof, all the money is utterly wasted because you’re paying guaranteed money to a starter who isn’t worth playing. Well, everybody knows big free agent contracts never work out though, right? Wrong. Big name, free agent starters are almost always worth it. This is for two reasons. First, they often perform at ace levels even if they decline a bit, but if they take a major hit or injury, they almost always bounce back as a solid starter in the rotation. The money is virtually never totally wasted like it often is on mediocre or low cost starters. Of the 8 front line free agent starters signed since 2014, every single one of them has been worth a rotation spot in an average year. Most are even good deals. Don’t believe me again? Med. Tot $ Player WAR WAR /WAR Future? 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 Grade Lester 2.1 13.2 9.6 - 30 20 20 23 25 28 B Greinke 4.2 17.9 10.3 - 34 34 34 35 35 35 C Scherzer 5.5 41.4 4.1 - 17 22 22 22 37 36 35 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 A+ Price 1.8 11.1 13.9 F 30 30 30 31 32 32 32 F Darvish 5.6 7.6 9.9 A 25 20 22 22 19 18 B Corbin 4.1 5.4 8.6 F 15 19 24 23 24 35 A Cole 5.6 7.6 6.4 A 36 36 36 36 36 36 36 36 36 A Wheeler 6.8 7.6 3.45 A 22 23 26 25 24 A+ Strasburg 0 0 Inf F 24 24 24 24 24 24 24 27 27 F- *The summary is updated to reflect the addition of Strasburg to the chart. I decided against adding Bauer. Bauer doesn't have a long term contract, and part of the reason FA ace caliber pitchers are a low risk is a single lost season is easy to overcome. Among the 9 listed starters, only 3 have lost an entire season (Price x1.5, Darvish, Strasburg x2). Of the 38 seasons on the contracts from the 9 starters, 4.5 seasons have been lost. A risk of a starter losing a season is approximately 10% per contract season. Right now, Corbin and Strasburg both look like a bad deals, but it wouldn’t surprise me a bit if they rebounded. If you look at those contracts, something really stands out to me. Only Strasburg has played poorly enough so the team who signed them wouldn’t have wanted in the rotation and 6 of the 8 are bonefide ace level pitchers on their average season. Even David Price with all his injuries and down performance is worth trotting out there. Also, 7 of 8 of those front line starters have been absolutely C or better signings. Here’s how I’d arbitrarily grade signings based on the dollars spent per WAR. $16MM+ = F- $14-16MM = F $12-14MM = D $10-12MM = C $9-10MM = B $6-9MM = A 0-6MM = A+ To sum it up, the scary big contracts for front line starters almost always work out over the life of the contract, and even when they don’t work out exactly as intended, the pitchers are almost always worth running out there every 5 days as part of the rotation. However, the low end and middle of the rotation arms are almost never worth it based on nearly a decade of track record by the Twins and over a dozen such starting pitchers. Considering the Twins absolutely do not need any #4-5 starters, the front office also needs to stop wasting money with their annual dumpster dive, refocus and acquire top pitching talent. After all, it’d barely cost more on an annual basis to replace the typical free agent signings they’ve been wasting money on to sign two top of the rotation arms as they’re available.

The opinion position players are signed for "x" part of the game isn't accurate. They're signed because they excel at "x" part of the game. They're always signed as part of an overall package. The Twins could just have their pitchers hit instead of Simmons has an OPS of .561 and pitchers have an OPS of about .250. Through July and mid-August, his OPS was .393. You're starting to get pretty close to using the DH to cover him instead of the pitcher... Simmons has been worth -0.5 fWAR and 1.3 bWAR because Baseball Reference WAR defensive value is broken as it doesn't take into consideration shifts. Simmons has actually been a below average fielder this year according to Fangraphs UZR because of his higher than average error rate.

RE: Strasburg - I missed Strasburg, too. He's a good case of when it all goes wrong due to injury. I was thinking the Nationals locked him up prior to hitting free agency. In reality, Strasburg opted out of the 4 years remaining on his deal from 2016 on November 2nd and was signed by the Nationals again on December 9th, though the Nationals and Strasburg were already in discussions prior to the opt out date. He needs to be added to the list so I will edit the article to bring him in, along with Bauer noted above as I think that's fair. Strasburg's contract is interesting as there's some speculation the Nationals outbid everybody else by miles and Nationals' offer is filled with deferrals, as is typical of their complicated mess. Boras started the negotiations at 6 yrs $180-204MM as an ask. RE: Twins payroll. The Twins are spending $20-30MM less than reasonable for their market size. I haven't advocated for the Twins signing 3 top starters, either. That would be unreasonable. I'm just saying the Twins are already spending the same amount of money on an annual basis as signing 2 top starters. If they get absolutely nothing (0.0 WAR) from a starter (say like Strasburg), they're in exactly the same boat as if they sign Pelfrey, Correia, Hughes and Milone for about the same money. RE: Goal is to making the playoffs. Analytics has no goal. Analytics is just methodology for evaluating players. The Twins' goal, I believe, is to play .500 or better and have a chance at winning the division (potentially make the playoffs). The goal of almost every other team in baseball, I believe, is to win the World Series. Winning the World Series vs. making the playoffs are two entirely different goals because playoff baseball pitching bears little in common with regular season baseball pitching. RE: Ace on the Rays and A's? When those teams are making playoff runs, they do typically have pitchers performing at ace caliber levels who are also often later traded away for talent because the Rays (Price, Archer, Shields, Snell, Cobb, Kazmir) and Athletics (Gray) can't afford to keep it. Oakland doesn't have the kind of identifiable ace pitchers they've developed, but they've also not been to a World Series since 1990 and haven't won a playoff series since 2006 (they won a Wild Card game in 2020). A team full of #3-4 starters can get you to the playoffs... they just usually don't advance you in the playoffs. The two Twins teams that went to the WS? They both had ace pitchers (Viola, Tapani). It wasn't a coincidence.

This is the single most BS, yet extremely popular, Twins fan defeatest and apologist excuse in existence. There isn't any evidence to support the argument. The Twins just do not make competitive offers. That's a fact. They make lowball offers and the citations of agents telling the Twins to essentially stick it, are after the Twins make essentially the same lowball offer over and over again when there are already higher bids. It's exactly what they were doing with Yu Darvish and Josh Wheeler. The Twins had already been outbid, yet kept making offers which were lower than what was on the table or essentially the same as their previous offer. Kinda like Rick Spielman trying to trade up with lowball offer after lowball offer in the 2021 draft. The Carolina Panthers owner told them to stop calling "with negative value" offers. The Panthers didn't say "stop calling" period. Why did Josh Donaldson land with the Twins? Why did Kirk Cousins come to the Vikings? Why did Zach Parise and Ryan Suter come to the Wild? Don't they hate Minnesota? Oh... they came here because they were paid the most to come here. If you pay them... they will come. Yes, Ray, players will most definitely come.

The article suggests that's a perceived vs. actual risk. It was once considered terribly dangerous to eat a tomato.

I did miss Bauer at the $100MM price point. Otherwise, I attempted to list every single starter who signed a $100MM+ contract in the past 8 years? I suppose there aren't a ton of aces who are allowed to hit free agency so they are rare; however, signing isn't the only way to acquire elite rotation arms. Darvish, Bauer, Greinke and Price were all traded. Also, as the article states "as they become available." A lost season isn't a problem because the pitchers almost always make up for it across the entire contract. There's a big gap between winning the World Series every single year and not going to a World Series for more than 30 years.

Nishioka gets such a bad wrap for being such a cheap signing, but yeah, he was pretty awful. He wasn't expensive, though. For the 2 years he was under contract, the Twins paid $5MM in salary and a $7MM posting fee to negotiate. Nishioka forefitted the 3rd year and option year to return to Japan. It was pretty clear Nishioka's swing was not going to play at the MLB level, and it was also pretty clear he wasn't one of Gardy's Guys so he was also going to be thrown under the bus and backed over a couple times for good measure. Bleacher Report did an article on the worst FA signings for each team. Twins? Ricky Nolasco and I can't really argue with that.

I don't think there's a doubt he's shut down for the season at this point. I had read a blurb somewhere last month that was going to be the case, but I hadn't been able to find it anywhere again so I was just going with what I could find. The blurb just said he had dead arm so even after the shutdown for soreness, he wasn't going to be started back up again.

I'm liking Celestino showing his bat may well be able to stick. Seeing his OPS climb up to a level which could project into starter caliber play for the Twins is encouraging. It'd be nice to give Celestino a few at bats at the MLB level again. It's not like releasing Cave or Refsnyder would hurt anybody. Palacios has just absolutely cratered over the past few weeks. Part of me wonders whether or not the mental side of being one of the best shortstops in MiLB and still not getting a promotion or call up has him down... or maybe being relegated to a utility guy who isn't a starting every game? It was a lot of fun to root for him across the season and a real bummer to see him slump so hard to end the year.

It might be possible Encarnacion-Strand is just that much better than the competition at Low-A, but his BABIP is .556 suggesting many of his hits are just pure luck. His BB to K rate also looks pretty rough, but at Low-A, he could just be aggressive at the plate and feasting on mistake pitches. The scouting report on him basically states he's a DH with a cannon arm but his run tool is ranked lower than any I've ever seen at 30 and a crude, upper-cut swing that generates home runs, but too many Ks. A standard Falvey pick. Can't be effective in the field because he's too slow to cover any position, hits home runs, strikes out a lot. I do feel the linked scouting report seems to strike a bit of an unnecessarily pessimistic tone, but it provides some insight. https://primetimesportstalk.com/2021/06/28/mlb-draft-profile-christian-encarnacion-strand/