Brandon

The national media likes to highlight a specific player. so when a player stands out offensively you see the adulation of the media. When Mauer and Morneau were hitting they would talk about them. not like Jeter but still. The current Twins offense is build on a team effort with the team third in the American League in runs while having their best RBI guy with 47 (24th in the AL) compared with Judges 83. on HRs the Twins are 4th in the league with their best HR hitter at 14 (25th in the AL) compared with Judges 32. You can insert over 20 players in place of Judge before you get to our top ranked hitter.

Relievers are a different then starters so judging a reliever by just his ERA doesn’t tell the whole story. So lets look at Theilbar and see if he has been successful for the season or not so far. We are going to start by going through game logs and comparing to a reliever with a similar ERA and another who is getting the job done and make notes. As of the All-Star break Theilbar has pitched in 31 games with 22.1 innings and given up 14 earned runs for a 5.64 ERA. In his 31 games he has 8 games where he has given up runs. Or just in 25.8% of his games. He has the following breakdown of Earned Runs given up in his appearances. 1 game with 4 earned runs 1 game with 3 earned runs 1 game with 2 earned runs 5 games with 1 earned run I wanted to point out that half of his earned runs came in two appearances spanning 1/3 of an inning. He gave up 3 runs in his first game of the season coming off of the disabled list. And 4 runs in another appearance. Without those two appearances his ERA is under 3.00 which is almost in half. Lets compare with Funderburk who has appeared in 26 games with 33.2 innings and a 5.61 ERA. Funderburk has given up runs in 13 or half of his appearances. Now to be fair he is averaging over 40% more innings per appearance than Theilbar. But at the end of the day. Theilbar has a significantly better rate of pitching a scoreless appearance. Funderburk has the following distribution of runs given up. 1 game of 4 earned runs 1 game of 3 earned runs 3 games of 2 earned runs 8 games of 1 earned run for comparisons sake, if you take out Funderburk's two worst appearances his ERA is still over 4. which is a reduction in ERA of around 1.5 ERA vs Theilbar's almost 3 ERA improvement from taking out his 2 worst appearances. Now lets look at a reliever who is deemed to be having a great year in Jax. Jax has pitched in 44 games and given up earned runs in 8 of them. 18.2% of his appearances he has given up earned runs. His distribution is 1 game with 2 earned runs 7 games with 1 earned run. The difference between these two is 2 appearances with an earned run by Theilbar more that Jax and that two of his appearances he was blown out with 3 and 4 runs during his appearance. So that is those 2 appearances with 7 combined earned runs out of his 31 appearances makeup the difference between Theilbar and Jax level effectiveness in terms of % of appearances without giving up an Earned Run. also pointing out that taking out Jax's 2 worst appearances amounts to 3 earned runs in 1 inning, so his ERA drops from 1.91 to 1.31 which is only .6 earned runs per 9 innings compared to the almost 3.ERA drop from Theilbar's two worst appearances. Thus, making Theilbar's 2 worst appearances more costly to his overall numbers. And lastly let's look at Theilbar vs previous Theilbar and see how he fares against last year's record. Last year Theilbar gave up earned runs in 8 of his 36 appearances or in 22.2% of his appearances. He had the distribution of 3 games with 2 earned runs 5 games with 1 earned run The difference between this year's Theilbar and last year's Theilbar is 5 more scoreless appearances, and in two of them he gave up more runs. With a few more scoreless appearances he could be just as successful at run prevention per appearance as last year. Why then do we feel like Theilbar should be on the chopping block. Here is an observation. By June 12th he had 3 out of 6 appearances where he gave up runs including one where he gave up 4 earned runs in an appearance. At that point he had given up runs in 8 of his 23 appearances, which is in 34.8% of them. He was looking like a candidate to be reassigned. He only had 3 more appearances in June. And he has 5 more in July where he has not given up an earned run. Also, his two worst appearances skew his ERA more than the other 2 examples by a long shot which also makes it seem his season is worse than it is. It seems like he has turned a corner and being more effective overall. I think it says that Thielbar is having more of an OK season that a bad one. He was having a borderline bad one and then it seems he has turned a corner. I do not think this method of evaluation is the only way to look at a reliever’s success, but it does help to remove or minimize the view of the damage 2 bad appearances do for a reliever. How does this view affect your view of his season so far? Is his season more just OK then awful?

Even Farmer was surprised he was kept. So he will pocket that money and try to keep going. I am surprised he hasn't hit a homerun yet. I think the biggest negative while he hasn't hit was to also be the backup SS which he is not anymore. He has hit ok since his season opening slump. That slump was so bad though that his overall numbers have not rebounded and may not. Taylor was the OF they wanted. but Taylor overplayed his hand. I am sure he would have hit a little better here and been a better defender. Margot is an ok backup. but the main goal of a backup OF is defense and Margot being unable to play solid Defense in CF would have been a huge problem had it not been for Castro and Buxton being more available. But the Twins could have done worse with this pick for sure. Santana was the ideal signing. He is a Twins type of hitter. One that is good for 80 RBI's as those hitters are much cheaper than the 100 RBI guys. The Twins go with 8 out of 9 hitters who could knock in 60-80 runs a year any given night. That is the key to their success. You will not see any Twin in the top 10 or probably top 20 in RBI but they are the 3rd highest scoring team in the league. as far as the bullpen goes. Staumont hit. Keeping Alcala is a hit, Trading for Okert is a hit, even minor league signings Bowman, Castillo and Duarte were psuedo hits in that they were good when up. Topa is an incomplete at this point. and DeSclafani was a miss due to injury. That is a pretty good record based on the budget they had.

Was Kiermaier designated for assignment or placed on waivers so a team could claim him and his salary for nothing and take his salary? I think he is still with the Blue Jays.

You have to root for the guy who played for the Twins at the age of 6, I am looking forward to seeing him in Minnesota some day starting games.

We also have that LH starting pitcher we took with the 69th pick in the draft from Grapevine Texas or Dallas Baptist ..... I forget. but he is a good LH SP prospect.

What are we trading for? I still do not see a need outside of maybe a reliever. and I think that is pushing it. We have 5 solid starters and 2 prospects ready in AAA with Zebby almost the third prospect ready to go. If not for Wallner and Larnarch maybe a LF. if not for Lee, Farmer, and Castro and Julien in AAA we could get a 2B like Polanco. or a DH like JD Martinez but I doubt the Mets are sellers and we still have Miranda and Lewis and Buxton needing to rotate through DH and probably Correa with the foot issue popping back up again too. so I don't see where else we would trade for someone and I am reaching with what I proposed above.

What your missing is the Twins have so many hitters who can go on hit streaks more so then Cleveland who has basically 3 really good hitters. If any of this three slump Cleveland is in trouble. If Correa slumps Buxton or Jeffers or Santana or Kepler or Miranda or ….. could get hot.

Cleveland offense is spearheaded by three key. Players. on base machine Kwan and RBI guys Naylor and Ramirez. If any of these three goes into a prolonged slump their offense is going to struggle. Someone already pointed out the key to their success is their bullpen. Not saying Cleveland can’t pull it off but it is more of an uphill battle for them to keep their offense going. I suspect they can find help for their pen if needed. The Twins however have the deepest lineup and deepest bench. They are designed to score runs. I’m surprised they are not hitting more home runs as a team. But their offense doesn’t center around a few players the same way as Cleveland so anyone can step up at anytime and lead the offense for a while.

I don’t think the Twins will add at the deadline because any upgrades available over what we already have are going to be expensive. We have a high floor across the board on the team. I can’t think of a spot on the team that I would consider a weakness. So to upgrade we are essentially going from a 6 to an 8 or 9 on a 10 point scale at a high cost. Why do that or pay it? Also 21 million is coming off the books with Kepler, Farmer, and Santana. 3 million more if you want to count Theilbar too.

Someone should do an article on last year’s draft for Minnesota 1 year later. Who signed and how are they doing so far. Who advanced the most. Who was hurt the most, and who is off to a good start in their careers.

I wonder if any of these guys end up in the OF. That 2nd pick is like an Eckstein / Castro pick in that he can stay MI but he also seems like the super utility type. I t like the Amick pick where we got him. It seems like we did pretty good for drafting 21rst. I don’t know the players or have anything to compare to. But it does seem like there is a high floor with our picks. High floor meaning making it to AAA or atleast getting some time in the bigs.

Will he wind up at 2B like so many prospects we already have? Is he the son of El?

The Twins are really good at manufacturing 2B. Why not add another to our huge list of 2B in the system. I definitely see lots of trades in our future.

My other thought is we have a core that is establishing itself right now (Larnarch, Julien, Walner, Miranda, Lee, Lewis, Killeroff , Jeffers is now established, Martin, Woods-Richardson, Varland, Cole, Funderbur, and Alcalá, with Durán and Jax and Ober, and Ryan as established) several others expected up in the next few years E Rod, Lewis the pitcher in AA, Mathew’s, and more… Going high school now so we can go college in a few years should get us a new group of players ready to come up at the same time as our roster starts to turn over again.

I’m looking forward to the write ups on today’s picks. I don’t follow the pre draft so much. I like to start following them when they enter our system. someone need to que a predraft remember the Berrios pick? Complete with draft day video of joy and jubilation and his journey through the minors ……. I think we all started following him that day….. I still check in on Petty from time to time because of the initial write up.

The Twins are manufacturing 2B for our competition. We get to pick the one we want to keep and trade for pitchers. Let’s see we developed Steer, Polanco, Austin Martin, Julien, Keaschal, Lee, Miranda can play 2B as can Lewis. Schoebel is also on his way up. Am I missing anyone?

This article applies to more than just baseball.

I don’t really care if we sign him or not. I was just amused that this wasn’t stated earlier. It’s been sign him or not but why not option c?

Nelson Cruz says hi

We could meet in the middle and sign him to a minors deal and send him to AA .or AAA If he is a good teammate and pitches well, he could earn a promotion to the show. ST Paul Saints used to be the place for big leaguers to resurrect their careers.

If Pittsburgh sells, we should go after Chapman and if Texas sells Yates. I'd agree that if we go after a reliever, we need to go after a top tier one. we do have 7 competent or better relievers without considering Topa or Varland or any other starting pitcher or all of the depth options in AAA.

the last comment is the best. "a team source is surprised so many fans found the game on tv". That is funny.

So did Castro play 3B, SS, LF, CF, and 2B with 20 games each this year or last year? We are at game 93 so how did he play 20 games at 5 positions? He is still a deserving all star. He also pitched in 2 games as well. Does Detroit feel stupid for letting him leave. Kindof like we do with David Ortiz? Castro is an allstar after Altuve had to bow out after getting a HBP playing against the Twins.......

This or we stand pat. Maybe get a reliever. I don’t see too many needs for our team.