twinbythebay

Ugly game, but those will happen from time to time. Cruz had about as bad of a game as a hitter can have, but it's tough to complain too much about a guy who's having the season that he's having. I think Rogers built a lot of trust over the past couple of seasons with how he's handled high leverage situations, and in a normal year I think you keep putting him out there to hopefully work through this rough patch, but this is very bad timing for that... I think this bad streak started with some bad luck, but now it seems to have gotten in his head. He was just plain bad tonight. He hardly ever gives up walks, and he was throwing far too many non-competitive pitches. The good news is that there's still two weeks to get him right before the playoffs, but time is running out quickly.

Yuck. It's hard to downgrade from Gonzalez this season, but Adrianza has definitely been worse. Especially since it looks like Gonzalez may be on the verge of one of his patented hot streaks. Looks like Rocco isn't putting much stock into winning the division this season, which, if I'm being honest, I don't really have a problem with.

Sano, Rosario, and Jeffers all out of the lineup tonight. Given the mismatch in starting pitchers tonight, I'd still give the Twins the edge. Sad fact of the day: even after his big weekend, Marwin Gonzalez has the exact same slugging percentage this season as Lamonte Wade

I think the FCC may have something to say about this...

How about we wait at least until he's OPSing over .600 before we make any declarations of Marwin's greatness.

Like many Twins fans, this year's results have certainly led me to have far less confidence in Rogers than I had last year. That being said, I think he still has the best overall "stuff" in the bullpen, and I don't see any obviously better options to replace him as closer. At one point this season, I may have suggested Duffey, but he has been knocked around quite a bit lately as well (his hard hit rate this season is 50%! That's bad). May gives up far too many home runs, and I think it's very likely the Twins let him walk after this season. Romo and Wisler have been effective this season, but they just aren't the type of pitchers I'd be comfortable trusting to close games on a regular basis. I know people are sick of hearing this, but Rogers really is being stung by quite a bit of bad luck this season. His BABIP is .413, his walk rate is lower than last year, his K rate is only down slightly, his FIP and xFIP are about 1.5 runs lower than his ERA, and according to Statcast, his expected ERA is almost a full run lower than his actual ERA. His hard hit % and barrel % are definitely way up from last season, but his hard hit % is still much lower than Duffey's. Given that he's only pitched 15 innings this season and none of his underlying numbers are raising any obvious red flags, I still think his stellar performance since 2018 has earned him the benefit of the doubt. I guess this is just part of life with relievers. They're going to have their ups and downs, especially when you're only looking at 15 inning samples. I would hope that the Twins aren't as reactionary as many of their fans in this regard and are basing their decisions on solid evidence instead of the somewhat random results of a small sample. Edit: One possible theory that just occurred to me is that maybe he's being hurt by pitching almost exclusively to AL Central teams this season, who have all seen a lot of him over the past couple of years? If this is part of why he's having issues, he may be much more effective in the playoffs against teams that haven't seen him nearly as much.

Spoken like a true MN sports fan As punchless as the Twins' offense has looked for much of the season, Cleveland's bats have been so, so much worse. If they could cobble together even a league average offense, look out.

Details, details... Can't we just take some time to irrationally point and laugh at the big bully who just fell and skinned his knee, even though we know we are likely in store for a beatdown from said bully in the near future?

Who's ready to laugh even harder?? Gerrit Cole in 2020: $13.3 million adjusted salary / 0.6 fWAR = $22.22 million per fWAR Kenta Maeda in 2020: ~$3.1 million adjusted salary (including incentives) / 1.6 fWAR = $1.97 milion per fWAR BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Are we watching the same team? Since the beginning of 2019, Kepler has gotten on base at a higher rate than Rosario and hit for more power than Rosario. I think it's more likely the next few seasons will look much closer to 2019-2020 in terms of their offensive production rather than 2017-2018, when Kepler was still figuring things out at the plate and Rosario outperformed him. And that's not even taking into consideration that Kepler consistently grades as one of the best defensive corner outfielders in the game, while Rosario grades as well below average defensively. There's a good reason why Falvine prioritized locking up Kepler long-term instead of Rosario, and I'm very glad that they did.

You may very well be right. Bust as the Al Davis mantra goes... "Just Win Baby!" If the Twins make the right moves that lead to a culture of winning and competing for championships (NOT just division titles) consistently, then I don't think they'll have any issues attracting and retaining talent. In my personal opinion, I would put much higher priority on locking up Buxton and Berrios in the next year rather than Rosario.

What are we all on here for, if not to complain about the team? I understand, the negativity can be a bit much sometimes, but I, for one, really enjoy discussing and debating what the Twins could/should do to improve and win another g*damn World Series. I think this site would be incredibly boring if everyone was just a Twins cheerleader and never questioned what the team was doing or offered suggestions for improvement.

A lot of the focus on Rosario has to do with his contract situation. He was set to make $7.75 million this season (before the adjustment for the shortened season), and next year is his last year of arbitration, where he will likely be owed $8 million or more. Mitch Garver was only due $620,000 this season, and will enter arbitration for the first time next season. I don't know all that much about how arbitration works, but I don't think he'll be owed nearly as much as Eddie. Berrios was set to make just over $4 million this season, which was his first year of arbitration, and Sano is locked up under contract through 2023. Like it or not, this stuff is a part of the equation around whether or not a player should be kept around or sent packing. He is most likely a better player than Rooker, Kiriloff, or Larnach right now, but he's also making over 10 times what those guys would be making next season. If the Twins decide that really like Rosario and want to keep him around, then they'll pay him that money, but you have to weigh the cost against his benefits and decide whether or not that money would be better spent making upgrades elsewhere on the roster. Like I said before, I don't hate Rosario, and he can be fun to watch. But I want the Twins to spend wisely (since we've seen that they don't always spend as much as they should), and if the team would be improved by spending that money elsewhere, then I hope that's what they do.

Yeah, Aaron Gleeman has said that it's the type of injury that will probably require some sort of surgical cleanup in the offseason, but since there's not a lot of risk of him injuring it further, it's something he can play through until then. It's just a matter of how painful it is for him and whether or not it affects how he plays. Although his average and OBP are still pretty good this year, it seems like the injury has sapped most of his power, and it looks like it has hurt his range at 2B as well. I'm looking forward to a (hopefully) fully healthy Arraez returning next season and competing for a batting title.

It's not Eddie Rosario. He's in a six-way tie for 4th place in outfield assists in 2020 with 4 (Alex Verdugo leads MLB with 7). In 2019, he was in a seven-way tie for 12th place in MLB with 8. In terms of UZR/150, which is a (admittedly imperfect) stat that uses data related to a fielder's range and arm, adjusted for external factors, Rosario graded out as the 7th worst outfielder in MLB in 2019 and 13th worst so far in 2020. This stat doesn't necessarily tell the whole story, as defensive ability is notoriously difficult to quantify, but it provides a more complete picture than simply looking at assists. The "eye test" of Rosario as a fielder differs wildly depending on who you ask, but by the numbers, Rosario has been well below average defensively for the past two seasons. I don't think most Twins fans "hate" Rosario, I certainly don't. He's incredibly fun to watch, but he's just as often incredibly frustrating. Setting all emotions aside, the statistics say that he's around a league average hitter, and below average defender, and guys like that just aren't that hard to replace at a much lower cost than what Rosario will be making next year.

Thanks for this Matt, reading it transported my mind to the ballpark for at least a few fleeting minutes, which is what good writing should do. Now if you'll excuse me, I have the sudden urge to go pick up some brats and onions and throw them on the grill for lunch...

I really wish Rocco had a quicker hook when Dobnak was melting down in the third inning, especially since he was pitching on three days of rest. They have two days off after today, so there was no reason for him not to use all of his best bullpen arms. After Pineda's great start yesterday and Dobnak's dud today, I don't think there's any question that the playoff rotation will be Maeda, Pineda, and Berrios (not necessarily in that order).

You can use the Fangraphs Splits Leaderboard. It's incredibly useful, and you can slice and dice the stats in pretty much any way you could think of. You can look at it at an individual player level, team level, or league level. Here's a link that shows the performance of Twins hitters in 2020 with runners on base: https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders/splits-leaderboards?splitArr=203,58&splitArrPitch=&position=B&autoPt=false&splitTeams=false&statType=player&statgroup=2&startDate=2020-03-01&endDate=2020-11-01&players=&filter=&groupBy=season&sort=10,1 The only player who has had more plate appearances than Rosario with runners on base this season is Polanco, and to Rosario's credit, he has performed pretty well in those situations. He also has the most plate appearances on the team with runners in scoring position, and he led the team plate appearances in both of those categories in 2019 as well. This goes a long way in explaining how he has more RBI than guys like Cruz, Sano, or Kepler, who are indisputably better hitters.

Just to clarify, that Baseball Savant screenshot indicates that Rosario strikes out much less than the average MLBer. He's actually very good at making contact, whether the ball is in the zone or not, it's just that he swings at so much crap out of the zone and it often results in weak contact, as indicated by his terrible Hard Hit Rate. It's fun when Eddie hits home runs off of pitches up at his chin level, but those swings much more often result in weak pop-ups.

WAR is a comprehensive calculation that attempts to take a bunch of different statistics and combine them into one number to show a player's overall worth. It was developed by people much smarter than you or me, and it's pretty silly to just wave it away without knowing anything about it. Using batting average, home runs, and RBI as your primary evaluation of a player was outdated as of like 20 years ago. And it looks like you just made up a bunch of numbers to try to prove your point? If you're interested, you can read about fWAR here: https://library.fangraphs.com/misc/war/

If you're going to insinuate what you're trying to insinuate, you should at least get your facts straight. The author of the game wrap said that he made a "stupid mistake", which I think is totally accurate. This is the second game in a row where he partially stunted a rally with his bad baserunning. Do you understand the point of the advanced statistics that a lot of us have cited? Have you ever tried digging just a bit deeper than batting average, home runs, and RBI. It's been decades since most MLB teams have relied primarily on those stats, and for good reason. You're using cherry-picked, circumstantial evidence to insinuate that the reason a lot of us want to move on from Rosario is because of his race. I find that insinuation incredibly disgusting. Either provide some actual, solid evidence or stop trotting out this BS.

That's pretty easy to explain actually... He consistently hits in the middle of the order, behind Cruz, who has an absolutely elite on-base percentage (his OBP is over 100 points higher than Rosario's). Sure, he sometimes comes through in the clutch, but he just as often kills rallies by swinging at pitches early in the count, way outside of the strike zone, and hitting a weak pop-up or ground ball. Rosario's Win Probability Added this season is just barely positive, and he trails Kepler, Cruz, Sano, Polanco, and Donaldson in that category, which is indicative of "clutch performance". He was only 8th place among Twins hitters in that category last season as well. Sure, he makes a lot of exciting plays, and I love it when he guns runners down on the basepaths. But along with those exciting plays comes many awful decisions to throw home when he has no chance at the runner, allowing other runners to advance and likely costing the Twins as many (or more) runs than he prevents. These are lessons that Major League outfielders are supposed to learn throughout their careers, and it doesn't seem like Rosario ever learns these lessons. There is no doubt that he's an exciting player who is capable of making big plays, but he also leads the team in dumb plays. I'll take consistent productivity over excitement any day.

That's why the runner is supposed to pick up the ball when he's rounding second and watch where the throw is going instead of making an assumption...

I see what you're alleging here, but if you're going to make that point, you had better come with some better receipts than that. You accuse people of cherry picking stats, to make Rosario look bad, but then you use a 6 game sample to back up your point? Also, let's go ahead and compare him to Kepler: Kepler doesn't run himself into outs on the basepaths consistently like Rosario does, he doesn't throw to the wrong base nearly as often as Rosario does, and he has much better range (when healthy) than Rosario does. And Kepler's fWAR in 2019 was more than three times higher than Rosario's! Sure, Rosario had more RBI than Kepler, but that's very much a function of Rosario always hitting in the heart of a great lineup where he had a ton of RBI opportunities vs. Kepler most often hitting leadoff. That's precisely why we tend to look at things like WAR instead of RBI when we're trying to predict future performance. I can understand the argument that he's a "glue guy" in the clubhouse, but it seems to me that the author provided plenty of solid numbers to show why the Twins should part with Eddie, and you're the one that's basing your argument on emotion.

If almost any other Twins player had gotten thrown out the way that Rosario did today, we probably wouldn't be discussing it at all. The problem is that this has become a pattern for him throughout his career, and he doesn't seem to have gotten any smarter about baserunning than when he was a rookie. I'm not sure if there are any stats for this, but Rosie has got to be near the top of the league in getting thrown out on the bases. It's great when he gets clutch hits and makes exciting plays, but he just can't help himself when it comes to taking stupid risks. Like him or not, there's no arguing that this kind of stuff takes away from his overall value as a ballplayer.