Nine of twelve

Edited for accuracy.

I totally agree about the balk play. It required perfect timing and execution and only someone with top-flight baseball instincts could pull it off. It was something Paul Molitor would have done.

In 2009 he was the best baseball player in the world, and it wasn't a fluke. And in 2010 he would have been on a World Championship team if not for injuries to Joe Nathan's right ulnar collateral ligament and to Justin Morneau's brain.

Well, yes. Putting a player on the roster should be based 100% on how the front office thinks the player will perform and 0% on how the player has performed in the past.

I agree, but the same should have been true for Blyleven. HOF voters don't always get it right.

I would like to comment on Dick Bremer. It's a very difficult line to walk to be a home-team-friendly voice without being an overt homer. As for me, I like having a Minnesotan who is a Twins fan covering the games and I think Bremer walks that line about as well as anyone can be expected to.

As has been said in another recent thread and other past threads, A and AA teams travel by bus. That means that there has to be a minimum of 8 teams within a reasonable bus ride of each other. An affiliated AA league will never, ever be located in an area that includes Fargo (or Lincoln) because the three current AA leagues are well-established and fulfill that requirement. Even the A Midwest League would have other options farther south. You can add to all this the fact that MiLB is undergoing contraction. I'm afraid having an affiliated team in Fargo is a pipe dream at best and delusional at worst.

This is exactly what makes his value as a Twin as high or higher than ever. As Richard posted earlier this morning, no player is off the table. I would trade him and anyone else on the roster if the value of the return was greater than the value of the giveaway. I doubt Falvine are going to get an offer that good because other GM's are very unlikely to offer value higher than Buxton's value to us.

In most cases I don't mind if a thread goes off on a bit of a tangent. This is not one of those cases. I don't like it when someone makes me think of this broadcaster.

I don't have anywhere close to the amount of time and energy this would require, but it would be interesting to see the results of an evaluation of every trade tree in Twins history.

You forgot to mention that Connie Mack was an icon in terms of in-game apparel.

I'll respectfully disagree with most of this post. The geography is a very minor issue. St. Paul would not be a major problem geographically for MiLB. Not at all. Look at a map of AAA franchises. St. Paul would be no more inconvenient, and probably less so, than Tacoma or Salt Lake City, not to mention the fact that Memphis and Nashville are in the PCL. And, as others have pointed out, MiLB can realign the leagues if they wish. And to call the American Association quality independent ball is inaccurate, IMHO. Keep in mind that there is a good reason that the players in that league do not have contracts with MLB franchises. The vast, vast majority of players are simply not good enough. And that in turn is why the marketing of these teams emphasizes gimmickry rather than the quality of play. There's nothing wrong with being entertained by that, but don't try to pretend that the baseball is good. As for me, I'd much rather watch talented players learning the game and improving their skills at low-A than the has-beens, never-wases, and never-will-be's in the American Association.

This is a good point. I don't know the details of the parameters used to calculate SDI but I would think it could be configured to account for changes in win probability, unearned runs, or even pitches thrown. There are probably other relevant parameters as well. And for all I know it may already do that.

I only regret that I have but one like to give for this post.

There's no fight against analytics. It's a fight against the other team. And what you call anti-analytics is just analytics.

Who is "we" that hears this? From whom does "we" hear this? Does that source know this first hand? And if so, how?

It's become a pejorative term but... The only thing that has changed is that over the years we have greatly improved the depth and quality of the data. That and the term "analytics" has supplanted the term "statistics". All managers have used analytics for decades. I think modern-day managers use analytics more than in the past simply because there is more information that is useful but no manager makes decisions based only on the numbers.

Yep. With the exception of a bases-empty single a hit is almost always more costly than a walk. So increasing the likelihood of a ball being put into play will increase the incentive to settle for a walk.

I'll expand a bit on what you say in your first sentence. I think the game would be improved with more batted balls put in play, fewer walks, fewer home runs, and fewer strikeouts. The two changes mentioned here would most likely accomplish three of those four objectives, but IMHO the walk rate may actually rise. A pitch delivered from a lower mound will be easier to hit so I think pitchers will be more likely to nibble, especially with runners on base, and give up more walks as a result. I think the solution would be to increase the size of the strike zone along with the two changes you mention. Implementing this would be a tricky process that may require a few years to fine tune. At the risk of appearing to channel Bert Blyleven, we would have to find the balance point of the three variables. The strike zone has to be enlarged enough to keep the number of walks in check, but not by so much that the number of strikeouts gets too high. The mound has to be lowered enough to control the number of strikeouts, but not by so much that the number of batted balls gets too high. The ball has to be deadened enough to control the number of home runs, but not by so much that it causes a new dead ball era. And by the way, fewer walks and fewer strikeouts means fewer pitches and a faster pace of play. I also want to say that I apologize for contributing to the divergence of this tangent from the narrow topic of the thread, but in baseball it all ties together. The changes discussed here would affect how batters approach pitchers and defenses, which in turn affects how pitchers and defenses approach batters. Edit: I see ash replied to my post as originally posted. This version was being edited while he replied.

Yep. I don't think anyone believes that Romo will pitch better next year than this year. I think that whoever takes his roster spot in the bullpen will do better than he would have.

I think it's very, very likely that this is the right move because I think it's very, very likely that his effectiveness will continue to fade, and probably quite rapidly.

Same as the in the regular season, although pitching is even more important in the postseason than in the regular season.

This is it. And as many have said before, scouting and player development are the keys to doing so. And it's necessary to have a manager who knows how to make good guesses regarding who plays where and when.

Yep. We would need to know the OPS against the second time through for ONLY those pitchers who pitched the third time through.

The majority of the time. And similarly if a baseball strategy works the majority of the time then it makes sense to employ it.