twins1095

Arraez with a cool 26 pitches seen in 4 plate appearances (6.5 pitches per plate appearance) in his first game as a leadoff hitter this season.

Regarding the bullpen... I think it's also important to put it in perspective that we're talking about the performances of guys who likely will not be regular factors during the playoffs. The Twins have Rogers, Duffey, May, Romo, & Clippard who will be leaned on heavily. Once Pineda & Odorizzi are healthy, during a playoff run, they will likely have Pineda & Maeda as well out of the pen even if they are quasi splitting starts with Odorizzi/Hill and asking each guy to go twice through the order. So, when you're talking about Thorpe, Littell, Smeltzer and even Stashak/Wisler/Dobnak... you're really talking about the Twins 8+ best reliever options on the team during the playoffs. This is coming from a person who is relatively high on Stashak, Littell, and even Dobnak/Thorpe... I think all of those players are major league bullpen arms. Regarding the infield defense... I definitely think at the corners, Donaldson/Sano have significantly more range than the Sano/Cron infield combo. You can tell this by how far the Twins are willing to shift Sano off the line and how well Donaldson moves to his left (that diving play that he missed but Polanco caught and threw out a runner at second is one good example). Polanco/Arraez have said that they are working on the reaction time and efficiency of their initial steps... which means that they are getting to balls more quickly and more in control leading to less awkward throws. From the eye-test, the whole thing appears to be working really well together.

At the same time, it’s almost 10% of the way throughout the season... if we’re looking for trends on how player performance will look over the next 2 months... it’s a reason optimistic!

Any news on Sano?

The season is still very early, but what has been of note to me during these initial 5 games is how good the Twins infield defense and bullpen has been. Last season, Sano/Polanco/Schoop/Cron we’re inconsistent on defense and prone to giving back 1 or 2 plays a game with mental mistakes or throwing errors. This season, the addition of Josh Donaldson (and subsequent move of Sano to first base) seems to have stabilized the infield defense by a huge margin. It appears that having two negative defenders on the left side had a cumulative effect. That is, Sano & Polanco’s combined lack of range and inconsistencies throwing the ball to first to some degree made both players look worse. Josh Donaldson is the best defending 3B in recent memory. He has solid range, but also great instincts, really soft hands, and is really accurate throwing the ball across the diamond. Polanco seems to be playing defense more smoothly, consistently, and confidently with Donaldson on his side. Lastly, early returns of Sano at first appear to be a pretty big success. Sano actually moves really well and has pretty soft hands. It seems to have generally helped him that he doesn’t have to think about making a throw in time when fielding the ball. Arraez may also not be spectacular, but he’s really heady and doesn’t make mistakes. I don’t think the Twins infield has made an error yet thus far and from my eye test they have sucked up ground balls more cleanly and more consistently than just about any infield that I’ve seen for the Twins. The other key factor is that the Twins bullpen, which has been theorized in the offseason, as a group that should be borderline elite if not elite—appears to be for real. The raw numbers just look okay: -21 innings -19 hits -8 walks (1.29 whip) -10 earned runs (4.29 ERA) -31 k’s (13.3 K/9) These raw numbers slightly obscure what has been a dominant start to the season due to the 2nd game against Chicago where Littel & Smeltzer got hammered to the tune of: 3 innings 10 hits 9 runs 5 home runs 6 strikeouts Wisler also pitched 1 scoreless inning with 2 base runners and 2 strikeouts This obviously cannot be discounted and any bullpen will blow up occasionally—especially the end of the bullpen. Outside of that outing, in the other 4 Twins games, here are the stats for the bullpen: 17 innings 8 hits 5 walks 1 earned run 23 strikeouts Further, the only run that has been scored on the Twins bullpen outside of that game is a ball that bounced out of Buxton’s glove for a HR that he could have caught. The bullpen in those games is essentially averaging just the following: -Just over 4 innings per game -2.65 BB/9 - 12.2 K/9 -0.53 ERA - 0.76 WHIP The two biggest weaknesses of the 2019 Twins club was the fact that their defense would, at inopportune times, create extra outs and those extra outs would be compounded by a pitching staff (bullpen especially) that could not afford to have to also get extra outs. I think a huge early story line is how promising the 2020 Twins look in these two key areas. What are your thoughts?

I will address your last line. I will say the following: I believe that the NBA & NHL will go on because they have effectively isolated themselves from society at great monetary cost, but also personal cost in terms of essentially removing themselves from broader society to play a game. With all of the measures in place it seems unlikely that an outbreak is likely to spread, even if there were to be a positive case somehow. It's even more unlikely as the pool of teams, individuals, and staff support for those individuals in that bubble decreasesIf you attempt to play sports and aren't inside of a bubble, it is non-nonsensical to think that there will not be cases. If we are going to define positive cases as our barrier of playing non-bubble sports, sports will not go on. If the standard is no longer positive or non-positive cases... non-bubble sports leagues will have to create protocols in place for isolating outbreaks when they happen and be comfortable with minor-league or back-up players playing large amounts of games.

I think that this is the right direction. Most outbreaks, even the Marlins, should be caught relatively early. That is, I think it's 11 Marlins players that have been infected. This seems like relative worst case for catching a spreading outbreak. It seems like you could remove the positive guys for 15 days, monitor the non-positives for ~3/4/5 days, and call up the B squad. Cancel that days game and make it a double header and cancel the game before the non-positives come back and make that a double header. You could probably get by with the non-positives only missing ~2 games and then effectively having the non-positive guys out for 2 weeks or so. It seems like that could work and still have some semblance of competitive baseball.

I don’t understand that opinion. That doesn’t seem like a meaningful change in any sort of incentives. Sounds like simply re-arranging deck chairs.

I personally agree about the season length. I enjoy the marathon, but when speaking about what would be most enjoyable en masse...that may not be the case.

We all have seen the data on how baseball is trending in terms of viewership especially as we trend younger by demographics. One of the biggest problems baseball faces is the perception that in an 162 game season... an individual game in the middle of June or July doesn't matter. The excitement of each game doesn't compare to the excitement down the stretch or in the playoffs when every out matters and managers and teams maximize every pitch and every scenario to win now and figure the rest out later. In baseball, it goes so far that there are throwaway lineups on Sundays and managers in most regular season games a lot of the time will manage for the 160 game season... not to win an individual game. Baldelli specifically found great success in managing an 160 game season by resting players. But, by the nature of those choices, baseball teams aren't maximizing their product on a game by game basis and instead trying to maximize the product of an overall 160 games. There are many games, especially on worse teams, where many innings in the major leagues are pitched by either horrible back of the rotation starters (think of the years the Twins had a revolving door of AAAA guys) and long relievers who are borderline major league caliber. The best way to fix all of these things is to shorten the season. With a 60 game season, you will see team's play to maximize every out and every game--as a few losses could be the difference between the playoffs or not. You will see managers rely on their best pitchers and best players more consistently in more games and for more innings because they don't have to rest them for a full 162 games. I think there is a case to be made that in terms of pure excitement, a 60 game season could be a blessing in disguise for baseball. While I don't think that baseball will ever implement a meaningfully shorter season, it will be interesting to see what a baseball regular season looks like in a world where every win or loss is worth almost 3 wins or losses in a regular baseball season (and further every out is worth 3x as much) and how that change of incentives impacts the way that baseball teams approach individual games and the way that change of product impacts the viewer's perspective of the game. What do you think? Do you think a 60 game season is, while not normal, potentially a way to meaningfully change the game and the incentives in the game that could lead to a different product--both for players and for viewers? How will the changes to the product driven by the incentive changes positively or negative impact the product of the game--both in on field performance and viewership? The 2020 season will feature a product in which every scenario that happens is worth almost 3x the magnitude of a scenario in a previous season. I think this increase in the meaningfulness of each scenario will result in the a product that is a much more intense viewing experience leading to a more captive and interested audience that actually results in fixing a lot of the issues that are actually at the core of conversations when people talk about issues like pace of play or other issues with the product of baseball. The real problem with baseball is that because of the length of the season, baseball team's aren't incentived to maximize each scenario and in fact aren't able to structurally optimize each scenario in order to optimize their play over 162 games. Baseball is a marathon and not a sprint. If you start a marathon sprinting, you will quickly tire and lose the race. From a viewership standpoint, a marathon is not nearly as exciting as watching a sprint. The 2020 season is baseball's chance to innovatively test a drastically different product model with drastically different incentives. It will be a great live experiment on both of the known and unknown impacts of this change of product incentives.

Any update on Arraez's availability or potential availability? Still holding out hope he can figure out a way to play with a grade 1 sprain.

Jorge Polanco gets a lot of player comparisons to Jose Ramirez IF Lewis is truly an elite defender at SS, I would fully count out the idea of Polanco shifting to 3rd ala Ramirez either. I know Polanco's arm strength would be suspect there, but hopefully the extra range would make him passable.

He could be and I have advocated for that in the past as well. In all likelihood Buxton will still be part of the mix even if injuries keep him from consistently being part of the mix—which then leaves the scenario the same for Lewis.

Yeah I would put Kirilloff and Larnach ahead of Lewis in the OF pecking order assuming no Buxton. Basically, you have 2 OF spots, 1B, and 3B to divide between Kirilloff, Larnach, Lewis, Rosario, and Sano. That said, I would not mind Lewis in a Marwin Gonzalez role in that scenario with the ability to play any OF spot and 2B, SS, and 3B.

I may have missed this, I thought Kirilloff was playing in the fall league? Is he dealing with an injury?

I'll go with Smeltzer/Dobnak/Graterol combo. I like the idea of matching up them against the other teams ace and then hoping Berrios/Odorizzi match up solidly with a teams #2/#3. I feel like that puts you hopefully at an advantage or even in 2/3's of the games rather than a disadvantage for 3. Although, against the Astros--that might not really matter.

12!

Thorpe's K/9 is 15. Neat.

Looks like Thorpe is going out for the 3rd. Baserunners and balls =/= runs. Not worried.

Why is Clevinger pitching for the second time today?

Take him out

Leave him in

Counter point - Take him out

Counterpoint - Send him back in Rocco