bean5302

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.

Actually, I'd say the Yankees take the field expecting to win. I believe you've hit the heart of Minnesota team playoff futility, and I've mentioned this before. The scrappy, courteous nice guy of the sporting world not looking to offend anybody at any cost Minnesota team. Minnesota Team Playoff Quote - "We know not every team makes the playoffs so we're excited and grateful to be here after a long season where we really came together as a team and kept fighting. We know <opponent> has a really good team and they do a lot of things well, but we're going to go out there and put in a great effort and we believe if we play at our potential, we're a match for anybody out there." Opponent Team Playoff Quote - "Yeah, obviously, we're in the playoffs and we worked to get here, but we're not satisfied with just making the postseason. Our goal is to win a championship, like it is every year, and we know we have a team of guys here who can get it done. It doesn't really matter who we're up against because we feel like we've got the best club in baseball. All we need to do is go out there, play our game and it'll sort itself out." Minnesota = Playoffs are the ultimate goal, not championships. Give credit to the opposing team for being really good. Hope they play their absolute best so they have a chance at winning. Other team = Playoffs are just one step in the goal and we're still hungry. Give credit to their own team, not Minnesota. Expect to play normally and advance because they're better than Minnesota (and everybody else). The difference in confidence is astonishing. Minnesota plays scared, pressured and stressed. The opponent plays confident and relaxed. Who do you think is winning?

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.

I don't have a monopoly on the conversation, I just find your position to be totally unreasonable and unlikely for somebody who actually watches the games in person. I'm not sure how you can technically concede your point without noticing and continue arguing you're right at the same time? Commercials occur when there is no game play action on the field. Thus, MLB could totally and completely eliminate all commercials without seeing a significant decrease in game length, evidenced by your 5 minutes and 40 seconds of game time savings potentially up for grabs in a conversation where we're talking about 20+ minutes of shorter game times with no change to breaks in the game action. On top of it... you manage to accidentally concede your point on the fan experience while still maintaining your position. You're right, it is up to the fans to decide when they want to get up and use the bathroom or get a hot dog. As somebody who regularly attends the games, I know the vast majority do not wait for the 7th inning... when beer sales and food vendors start shutting down. The reason I question your in game attendance is not because I think I'm better than you. It's because I feel like you'd notice the time it takes to reposition players between innings, enjoy having a couple minutes to get up and use the bathroom and realize the breaks don't have a ton of filler if you were regularly attending the games.

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.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm assuming Kikuchi didn't tell Miranda what pitch was coming and where it was going to be located. Miranda (a rookie with 80 plate appearances and a reputation, historically, for being aggressive at the plate) first needs to make contact with the pitch to push it to the opposite field, and with Kikuchi averaging almost 10 K/9 and a career 15% swinging strike rate generated, he's been pretty successful at preventing contact. Furthermore, Miranda is a dead pull hitter and while it's easy for writers or commenters to say "just hit it the other way" as if players could just change their swing on the fly, in reality, MLB pitchers aren't throwing pitches with the intent of letting the batter dictate where the pitch goes. Want to complain about swinging wildly at a 3-0 pitch with runners on after the last two hitters walked? That's fair. Complaining the Twins hitters didn't hit balls to exactly the most opportune spot during all their at bats, not so fair.

Polanco's been beating the shift this year pretty handily as a LH hitter, but he's been eaten up by it as a RH hitter. 2021 - .267 xBA .488 xSLG .348 xwOBA 2021 - .269 AVG .503 SLG .349 wOBA 2022 - .272 xBA .426 xSLG, .369 xwOBA 2022 - .223 AVG .346 SLG, .300 wOBA Basically, Polanco has been super unlucky so far this year. Last year his xwOBA and wOBA were a dead match, and historically, they've generally been within 10-20 pts across his full season. He's 70pts under expected this year. He's walking far more than he ever has so his actual OBP is almost identical to last year, but the power numbers aren't there, largely out of sheer luck. For example, Polanco's 5 HRs this season would have been 12 HRs if he was playing in Cincinnati's park the entire time, though he'd only have 4 at Yankee Stadium or Kaufmann. At the average MLB stadium, Polanco would have 7 HRs. Aside from that, his exit velocities, barrel rates and hard hit rates are all right about the same as last year. What's wrong with Polanco? Nothing.

Berrios is a good pitcher and while he's been up and down this year (they discussed him having dead arm where his fastball was at 90mph against the Angels) he certainly wasn't pitching poorly today. Movement was awesome, location was great and velocity was there.

I don't think that's true. The front office does not like spending money on relief pitching and they were clearly very interested in moving him last year but he injury prevented it. The front office did make some efforts to sign Berrios, but I think Rogers was going to be shown the door no matter what.

I'm not sure what elite means to you. For the 163 relievers with 150+ innings in the past 5 years, Rogers ranks pretty highly. 4th (tied with Pressly in fWAR with 6.6 and only 0.3 behind 3rd) 4th in FIP (2.56) 8th in WPA (5.59) 11th in ERA (2.95) 30th in Innings (219.2) Rogers is indisputably one of the top 10 relief pitchers in MLB and it would be hard to argue he's not top 5.

Taylor Rogers is a great closer and relief pitcher. He wasn't going to be sub 0.50 ERA all year, though. Rogers had an overdue correction and I expect him to get right back to pitching excellent as he has now for the past 6 years. It was clear the Falvey was going to push him out as soon as possible as we approached the trade deadline last year. I didn't like the trade when we made it and I still don't.

I have a very strong opinion "younger than his competition" is a carryover from failed farm systems of the Twins' past. If a player is going to be valuable at the MLB level, they're generally going to move through the minors quickly and easily. It's expected players are younger than their competition. In most cases, several years younger. Martin is not young for AA. If anything he's average age or even a year older for a high caliber prospect at that level as he's now 23. The article also overlooks just how absolutely embarrassing Martin's defense has been at SS not only this year, but in Toronto as well. It's hard to imagine he could have had a start to the season which would have damaged his stock more. Woods-Richardson's 2021 was a catastrophe during his time with the Twins, but there was every reason to suspect he'd turn everything around this season. Woods-Richardson started the season great, but 4 of his last 5 starts have seen him get hammered with a 5.91 ERA and control issues. Now nearing age 22 and also in his second year of AA, he really needs to turn things around this season or see his stock fall as well.

Desperation is a stinky cologne...

Regarding Duran, he's pitched 16 innings in the past 2 years due to the 2020 lost MiLB season and being shut down almost all of last year with a UCL sprain treated with rest and rehab. He was probably destined for the bullpen this year regardless of whether or not he was going to be pitching at the MLB level. On top of that, Duran wasn't successful as a starter in 2019 at AA (4.86 ERA) or 2021 at AAA (5.06 ERA). I can't explain Baldelli's thoughts on where he pulls or places pitchers.

I'm in agreement with some other comments. Archer was pitching well. Throwing strikes and moving through the batters very efficiently with only 57 pitches. He's gone to 80 pitches with regularity this season so yanking him after 5 innings doesn't seem reasonable, especially when the last 2 innings went 1-2-3 (base running error in the 4th).

FIP isn't his friend huh? Well, if you're going to take your stance negatively on Archer in an post where the subject is wondering if he's becoming a liability based on FIP, here are Archer's last 3 starts 5/28 - FIP = 2.64 5/23 - FIP = 3.39 5/16 - FIP = 3.64 Archer has pitched 34 innings this year across 9 starts. Archer has been limited due to the fact he missed most of Spring Training as he wasn't signed until the 29th. Of the 9 starts, 5 have been at 4.50 ERA or lower and 4 have been FIP 3.64 or lower. Lance Lynn missed most of Spring Training a couple years ago when the Twins signed him and he looked pretty good once he was able to stretch out and get into a rhythm. I'm not a huge Archer fan. I didn't expect he had anything left in the tank when the Twins signed him, but he's allowed more than 2 earned runs only twice in 9 games started, but this post feels a lot more like frustration than facts.

How did you manage to miss every single scouting report ever written about Larnach?

Larnach's ceiling is bat first, above average value (3 WAR-ish) starting corner outfielder. wRC+ 120-ish territory. He's been stunningly better against breaking balls this year than last year and he's continued to mash fastballs. Perhaps equally as surprising, Larnach's sprint speed has improved. His acceleration is still excellent for his top speed, but he's definitely gained a step over last year and you can see it in his splits, but he's still not "fast" he's just not among the slowest outfielders in the game. All that said, we're talking a very small sample size this year as evidenced by the fact his numbers didn't look nearly so good until just recently, and last year's sample size was pretty big.

Greg Maddux had great stuff, great delivery deception and impeccable control. It's such a huge disservice to Maddux to insinuate he did everything on precision and ball placement. He touched mid 90s with his fastball early in his career during a different era of velocity and the guy had 190+ strikeouts in 5 seasons, hovering around 7K/9 during his peak, even hitting nearly 8K/9 in 1995. Maddux threw strikes, the batters knew the pitches were all going to be strikes and batters still missed his pitches in the zone. You need movement or big velocity changes to make that happen. MLB hitters cover the strike zone pretty well so you need more than just placement to be one of the greatest pitchers in MLB history.

Archer was a late signing (March 29th) and was not stretched out. The Twins obviously have him on a pitch (80) or inning cap (4.0). Considering fans were fawning over Ober and Ryan last year when their ERAs were right about what Archer's is today, it seems a little out of touch to decide Archer is worthless. He's had 3 good starts in a row based on FIP. 4 of his last 6 starts have been solid enough based on ERA. I'd think he was stretched out enough at this point where he should be able to pitch normally so I'd like to see him be given the opportunity to pitch deeper.