CDog

This topic is one that tends to get me fired up. So I took a moment before lashing out at some quotes and general ideas I hear a lot, and in the meantime Seth, shane, and Teflon managed to get at most of my points. And in ways that keep me from looking like a combative jerk. Yay! I especially agree with the sentiment of Teflon's post that the results are often the only difference between people perceiving grit vs gutless or whatever terms they want to use. And identical behavior can yield different results, so certainly can identical will and determination.

The different calculations almost always come up with the same result and especially the same rank ordering. Their differences are small and when they come up with different results it's almost always in cases of a small sample. Second, so 59% to (presumably) 41% is too small of a scale? Like say a super high batting average of 37% to a super low of 15%? Or a winning % that gives a 95-96 win season (59%)? Or any racing event where the differences are measured in tenths or hundreths of a second and yet the same people are always at the top? Like that? Third, Revere played 35 games (that's more than 1/5 of a season) more than Mauer last year and Mauer hit worse than he ever has. So that's not shocking at all. Fourth, Mauer was at 1.7 WAR last year and Butera at -1.2 (baseball reference). That's 2.9 games. Butera played in just over half the games and Mauer in almost exactly half. Five and a half games over a full season from one position is pretty big. So yeah, that checks out, too. What exactly on V-Mart's baseball reference page that you cited was the evidence of this "far superior" career? This is more pertinent to the thread than a debate on value of a particular statistic.

Quite a coincidence then that the all-time greats perform marvelously measured by WAR. I don't think it's my place to defend WAR. There are piles of information on it. I am fairly confident that it's better than "it seems like" that gets thrown around like gospel sometimes. Since you specifically object to the defensive component of catcher WAR, you'll be happy to know that it can be broken down into offensive and defensive pieces. And it is on baseball reference pages that were given as the place to see how "clearly" Martinez's career has been better than Mauer's. Mauer has gained less than 5 WAR from defense according to BR's calculation. Marntinez is just below 0. Stripping those out, it's 35.6 to 29.8 in Mauer's favor (in fewer seasons). And to remove WAR altogether for you, if you rank order all of Mauer's and Martinez's seasons by weighted runs created, Mauer has the top 4. His career average is 132 to V-Mart's 121. Using weighted on-base average .376 to .361 in Mauer's favor. Using OPS is .872 to .840 in Mauer's favor. Keep in mind those are comparing him to a very offensively successful catcher, not the average or some scrub.

Thanks. I missed that from Shipley and don't get to hear many games on the radio (especially in Spring Training when I only get a bit over lunch breaks since they mostly play in the day).

I'd also say 8ish. There are occasional head-scratchers, but I'm smart enough to know what I don't know. I don't question everything my doctor says even though I've seen a few episodes of "Scrubs," either. But there would be cases where I might look for a second opinion, too.

Pretty sure Nathan's recovery followed along right on schedule.

Those might be the two greatest posts ever from an irony standpoint.

By whom? I've only seen him play one game and don't recall reading this anywhere from anyone with the Twins.

I read a pretty fair amount on the Twins and I don't recall ever once seeing anybody expect or hope for him to improve into his 30's. I'm curious where you're getting "all we ever hear" is that. As for your baseball reference link to the supposedly "far superior" career, it's laughable. I actually laughed. The very site you reference gives WAR values for Mauer of 1.5 (partial season), 3.4, 7.0 (!!), 4.6, 8.7 (!!!), 7.5 (!!), 5.9, and 1.7 last year in half a season. The "one career year" in a contract season that won him the MVP wasn't even his best one from a WAR perspective! V-Mart's, for comparison, are 0.0 and 0.4 in partial seasons, 4.1, 4.6, 3.3, 5.1, 0.6, 2.5, 1.4, 2.8, and 2.9. It's not even close.

I'm sure you took the twelve seconds to look this up, but for the others that haven't... Mauer's first pitch strike % has never in his career NOT been well below league average and it's never been as high as even 56% in a season.

In what world outside "The Producers" or "Major League" have the wicked owners figured out that losing is the recipe for profits?

I'd say no. For one thing, he had a fantastic 2010 as well, especially looking at peripheral stats. For another, even in a terrible overall year like last year, you can see how good he was in starts like the no-hitter and more so the "near" perfecto. Watching how filthy he is when he's going well, seeing how bad he makes hitters look, and looking at things like contact rates and fielding-independent pitching, etc that back up those observations make it clear he CAN be that good. Now, if by a fluke you mean that he held it together for a full season without showing the wild inconsistency that has become his calling card of sorts, then maybe. Perhaps we would have seen it had he been able to finish the year. But he clearly CAN be that good. If only....he would be?

Everybody recognized Johnson's potential. It was freakish. I'm sure you're quite right that the Twins staff of today would probably try to get him to harness that with more control. Encourage him to walk fewer batters, even as drastically as cutting them in half. Maybe bringing him up slowly, even when fans knowing his extreme power were clamoring for him to be promoted from the minors. In related nws, Johnson didn't come up to the majors until a cup of coffee at 24 and then fully at age 25. He walked 5.4, 4.9, 6.8, and 6.2 batters/9 in his first four years (not counting that cup of coffee) and was a solid pitcher with WAR values averaging just over 2 per year. Then he found the control that the Twins would have been trying to get him to harness and walked 3.5 and 3.8 batters per nine the next two years and for the first time started getting Cy Young votes. He took the "Twins'" advice to heart from this success and lowered his walk rate even more to 2.7 the next year when he finally won a Cy Young award. He returned to that "getting votes" level of success with 3.7 and 3.3 walks/9 and then got back down to 2.3, 2.8, 2.6, and 2.5 the next four years when he happened to win 4 straight Cy Young awards. He was then approaching 40 and kept his walk rate down through the rest of his career. So the "Twins" would have, had the pitcher been willing AND able to heed their advice, created a 5-time Cy Young award winner who dominated for a decade and a half. I like what the "Twins Way" did there.

Watching the game, I didn't pay much/any attention to the radar readings, but through at least the first three innings I did find myself thinking how much extra movement Pavano's fastball seemed to have. That's based on perception, though, and not any actual data. And it's early in the year and there's other factors that could have my perception fooling me. I don't have the knowledge to know if the extra movement could be caused by the lower velocity, or the other way around, or neither, though. Anyone have enough experience and expertise to have a valid thought on that?

How much time have you spent in the clubhouse?

Agreed on the sentiment of this article, Nick. I don't know if I can ever remember there being absolutely loaded teams at the top of every division like this...and then to have to play basically five of the top six all in a row to start the year? Yikes. Not that three games to start off was going to be a great foothold even if they went well, but it sure would have been nice to get a couple wins there with the oncoming train behind the first series. At least it's baseball...weird things happen all the time.

I'll assume you know what the words "almost" and "always" mean, and I'll assume you're not a liar, so could you point me toward where you found this statistic? Congratulations on your role in the front office or on-field staff with the Saints, though. That's gotta be a pretty cool and fun job!

A few things that struck me reading this thread... 1) Not trying to strike everyone out is NOT the same as trying not to strike everyone out. I seriously think that should be read several times until it makes sense by some people. More so in the case of Liriano than anyone I can remember for the Twins, this is a key piece of what I see as the perception of people who I don't think necessarily even know what "pitch to contact" means. I think the phrase is a bit misleading, even. 2) Agree with Nick that I haven't seen much or any evidence that the Twins have tried to stop people from throwing hard. Also think they've clearly gone out of their way to acquire velocity on some occasions lately (Hoey, Oliveros are examples). And I know there was at least one time I saw Gardenhire quoted this off-season talking about trying to get more high-velocity pitchers (I believe he was specifically talking about the bullpen in the case quoted). It's possible that they thought Diamond was a better pitcher than Bullock in that particular case, isn't it? Shouldn't that be a more important factor than "one throws harder than the other so we have to keep that one?" 3) Rather a general comment on tone. There's been a few threads that have gotten derailed due to name-calling and people upset about someone having a different general philosophy. Hopefully this isn't taken that way, but instead as a legitimate attempt to make a point. I don't see how this pattern is "realist" more than "fantasy"... Observe success, conclude luck. Observe another success, conclude luck. Observe another success, conclude luck. Observe neutral outcome, conclude luck. Observe success, conclude luck. Observe neutral outcome, conclude luck. Observe three more successes in a row, conclude luck. Observe failure, AHA!!!!!!!! My premise is finally proven that they were terrible all along!

Revere's Infield Hit % is also on fangraphs. It's not the vast majority of them. Or a majority at all. Or a third of them. Or a quarter. Or a fifth. Or...

Perkins didn't pitch Opening Day. The end.

Vast majority? Really? If your argument relies on telling fibs, it's not likely a well-constructed one.

Over six years with time at the majors he'd accumulated fewer than 2.5 wins above replacement. Not to mention, his signing for $1.25M (as has already been pointed out) is an indication that not everyone else in the world knew all about this secret that he was going to be awesome.

When I read that Hendriks had food poisoning, I made a joke to myself that someone on an internet forum was going to be foolish enough to blame that on the Twins' front office. I enjoyed a good internal chuckle and the ridiculous nature of my joke. Naturally, it was such an absurd thought that it would never actually happen...

Still waiting for any evidence of anybody saying that Willingham was unwilling or unable to move.