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Dantes929

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Everything posted by Dantes929

  1. Dantes929
    I wish he had swung at first pitches a little more often but two myths about Mauer abound. One is that he was a great two strike hitter. While its true he was better than most batters when behind in the count he only hit .226 with an 0-2 count and .215 with a 1-2 count. Even at 2-2 he only batted .251. The other perception is that he was always behind in the count. If that were in fact true then the stats listed above would prevent him from being anywhere near a .306 batter. His stats for all counts are similar to a lot of decent but not great hitters in that they do much better when ahead in the count so what separates Joe from decent hitters like Delmon Young and Mike Cuddyer is that Mauer was actually ahead in the count way more than the others. The only way to get ahead in the count is to not swing early in the count. I wish Joe had been a little more aggressive early in the counts but not a lot more because there is logic to his approach that worked for him.
  2. Dantes929
    I once watched a weekend series where the Twins scored 9 runs as a direct result of Joe getting on base or moving guys over and the net result statistically for him was 0 RBI and 1 run scored. The 4 and 5 baters (Morneau and I don't remember) got 8 RBI from a bunch of sac flies, ground outs and singles. That is why Mauer did pretty well with the runs created stat that the casual fan just doesn't recognize or appreciate much. Mauer is at #205 with lots of HOFers behind him and a lot of players ahead of him that only were ahead because they played longer. Piazza is the only catcher that was ahead of him for runs created/seasons played. I think Mauer's longevity actually hurts his case a bit. His average career stats have taken a big hit from the last 5 years.
  3. Dantes929
    Sadly, I think Mauer should have been lead off or 2nd for most of his career. Ask Morneau, Cuddyer, Young, Kubel and Thome if they appreciated Joe bating in from of them. A lot of ground out RBI and sac flies can be credited to Joe who would advance guys on the rare occasions that the guys ahead of him got on. We know he isn't a home run hitter so the low number of RBI with RISP is still indicative of guys not getting on base enough. Casilla, Punto, Everett, Hocking, Dozier are just some of the guys that Mauer batted after. Not exactly high OBP guys. As far as clutch the Twins had 3 of the closest pennant races in history and Mauer was fantastic in the last months of those seasons. Look at his last two months of the wild card race last year. Personally, I hope he comes back next year because even if he is not one of the best 1b batters, he is still one of the Twins best batters.
  4. Dantes929
    8 BB/9 Sandy Koufax couldn't overcome that stat. There is no way this is how he pitched in the minors. Good to get it out of the way now. I think there have been worse arms that have had good careers. There is no one that has had worse control that has had a good career. He needs to get that walk rate down to 3.
  5. Dantes929
    Hey. Good team on the road and if it were a 27 inning game we would have won 13-11
  6. Dantes929
    Two more walks scored. Just sayin.
  7. Dantes929
    Ok, the Twins are middle of the pack in strikeouts which is an improvement but they are 23rd in ERA. I know a lot of fans and advanced stats people love strikeouts. I like them but I HATE walks and judging by the games I watched and my review of MLB on games I missed every guy the Twins walked ended up scoring. Ok, big hyperbole there but middle of the pack in strikeouts and toward the bottom in run prevention is not a good trade off for me and I consider a main culprit to be that we are near the top in walks allowed. We are third in the AL behind Whites Sox and the Orioles. I don't think it is coincidence that those are two of the few teams that have a worse ERA and it is not the kind of company I would like to keep. Seriously, it seemed like walks were involved in nearly all the key rallies by the other team during the season. I was never a critic of the theory of pitch to contact just a critic of the Twins execution. I am not a critic of the miss the bat theory but I think the Twins are doing a poor job of that also. They are missing bats enough but missing the zone way too much.
  8. Dantes929
    If it meant a dozen fewer runs scored over the course of a season it might translate into an extra win statistically and possible two. If you knew it would be worth two extra wins over the course of a season would it help you get over the feel of the game issue. How about one game? Would be meaningless most seasons but every once in a great while it is the difference in making the playoffs or not. Would you sacrifice that possibility your traditional view of the game? Maybe you would and that is fine but maybe you would look at it differently. Of course the hard part is determining exactly how much it does impact the season. Didn't work well for a few games and has now worked well for a few. Those pluses and minuses should still result in fewer runs over the course of the season. Again we are talking not a lot of runs but if I thought it was worth a dozen runs over the course of the season I would be for it. Its not for your front line starters anyway.
  9. Dantes929
    Over the years I have seen Joe swing hard plenty of times where he fouls the ball straight back. It seems like when he tries to hit for power his swing goes on a different plane and he just doesn't square it up. In this case when he says he was just trying to hit a fly ball to score the run I believe him. In this case it was 97 mph that he hit on the screws. Carew used to say he could hit 20 homers a year but he would bat .270 instead of .330. I have always appreciated Joe for who he is rather than get down on him for who he is not.
  10. Dantes929
    Pitchers give up runs. 1 run in two innings to the Yankees is below average especially, according to advanced stats, in the first two innings. Also, to be fair to Duffey, Cave misplayed that ball in the 2nd inning turning a double into a triple and thus a run vs a runner stranded on 3rd. Not advocating the Opener but I thought Duffey pitched pretty well.
  11. Dantes929
    Which is why you don't use Rogers as an Opener. If there is one guy aside from Berrios that you would choose to pitch one inning with confidence it is probably May. The fact that he failed is on May, not the theory. If all the things the advanced metrics show created a difference of two wins over the traditional way of doing things it would be silly not to do it. The problem is two wins difference over the course of a season means many games were lost by not doing it the traditional way and many games plus 2 were gained by doing it the new way. Many would be won or lost using either method. There is no way to know which is which. In this case, May failed but I am not going to just assume that Stewart would have thrown 5 scoreless innings if he had started the game.
  12. Dantes929
    I am not a huge fan of the move but I think you are missing the point. The egg heads as they are called show that a higher percentage of runs are scored in the 1st inning because the other team's best hitters are lined up to hit that inning. The 6th, 7th, or 8th best pitchers are not the ones that should be opening. Its the one's that have the best ERA for one or two innings. In this case they had May who had an 1.88 ERA coming in as their Opener. He arguably was the best pitcher on the team for a one inning stint. Its a lot like those that argue that your closer shouldn't just automatically come in in the 9th inning when there are higher leverage situations in the 7th or 8th innings. It makes sense. Rather than compare this strategy to the A's small ball it should be compared to KC's championship run when they used relievers earlier than ever before or Cleveland who brings in their best pitchers at various stages of a game. There is no way a sample of 2 games or even 50 games would be conclusive one way or the other. "Meanwhile, it does no good to reduce the number of runs surrendered in the second and third innings (or sixth), if you give up even more in the first." Goes back to my earlier post. The strategy is to increase your odds to give up the fewest number of runs in the first inning. The execution was poor. Not necessarily the strategy.
  13. Dantes929
    Small ball, Power ball, Closer, Opener, Pitch to miss bats, Pitch to contact. Take nearly any approach you want and if you do it well you will likely succeed. In this case, May did not do his part and it failed. If he throws a good 1st inning maybe we win 2-1. Its like being green side in golf. You can putt it, you can chip it, you can pitch it, you can flop it but if you choose any of those options and chunk it or shank it you fail. Now I know odds are involved in all of it but the execution is still the key.
  14. Dantes929
    I think that is some of it. I think it is more pressure and nerves and adrenaline and some wrong thinking involved. I don't think a .320 hitter in the minors becomes a .230 batter in the majors (Buxton) because of the better pitching. The change is in the batter himself. Yes, the pitching is better but its not 90 BA points better. Likewise with pitching. I haven't seen Buesenitz pitch that much but I saw it in May and Berrios when they first came up. They didn't become 6 ERA pitchers in the majors because they were facing better hitters. It was because they weren't throwing the same way. They would throw a strike or two and then overthrow breaking balls that were truly waste pitches since they didn't even tempt the batter and now ahead in the count becomes behind in the count. Yes, major league batters are better but I am guessing the minor league batters were chasing breaking balls much closer to the zone. Its more Buesenitz changing than level of competition changing. How often do you hear "trust your stuff"?
  15. Dantes929
    Right now Mauer is 2nd on the team in batting and #1 on OBP. Pretty sure by the end of the year he will be the top in both. His BA is 33 points higher than the team average and his OBP is 40 points higher and 23 points higher than the next guy. (Garver). Forget how he rates with other 1st basemen. This lineup just isn't the same without him in there. He is a rock amid a team of streaky guys. I want him back and not just as sentiment. I don't think he has had such a bad year and I like him in the #1 or two spots. Fans don't seem to like table setters anymore. I still do.
  16. Dantes929
    I'm with you in everything you said but maybe you can clarify. I have understood that if any part of the ball touches any part of the zone it is a strike. In that case the chart above shows either 7 or 8 strikes that were called balls and maybe one ball that was called a strike. If the majority of the ball has to be in the zone he was then on the bad side of 7 strikes that were called balls and 5 balls that were called strikes. Either way he wasn't in the 95% area. I counted less than fifty pitches.
  17. Dantes929
    I agree with both of you. I only saw a little bit of the game but while I was watching it sure seemed like Gibson was not getting calls on really good pitches. Ball 1 instead of strike 1 so often leads to guy on first and no one out rather than no one on and 1 out. HUGE difference. Not the difference in this game but usually when I notice a pitcher on our side getting squeezed it is Gibson. Ask him if it evens out. It doesn't. I'm not completely sold on the catcher framing thing but in Garver's case I agree. He must know what pitch is coming since he is calling it but sometimes appears not to know with the way he catches it.
  18. Dantes929
    I think you are wrong but I am not sure. Batters have been consistently unable or unwilling to adjust their approach and go the other way figuring the occasional single isn't worth giving up home runs for. Sano and Dozier like the ball middle in but even if I put the shift on I am not going to pitch them middle in because history shows if I throw them outside breaking balls they will still try to pull the ball. If they happen to hit a single now and then the other way I am not going to change that approach. If they do it constantly I will.
  19. Dantes929
    Not shabby at all. Pre concussion it was about .320. As far as HOF goes it might be one of those rare cases where longevity hurts his chances.
  20. Dantes929
    100% on Garver for not throwing to 2nd. I still put a good chunk on Sano for a lousy throw and for backing up for the return throw rather than getting out of the way. Maybe he was wondering if he had backup. The run down is ideally between home and third. Yes, Garver should have checked home and then thrown to 2nd. I understand hesitating and then freezing. Anyone else ever make a bone headed play?
  21. Dantes929
    I get the confusion a little. Usually when two guys are on the same base they just stay there accepting that one will be out. I am guessing that Garver didn't want to compound the error by throwing to second and letting the run score because as you suggest he wasn't sure home was covered. The run down you want is the one they had which is the one between home and third. I'm sure when he saw them both on the base he thought he had an automatic out and just relaxed. Bone headed but I will cut him some slack. Sano definitely did not play it well either. He should have waited a little longer to throw the ball and the throw was high and soft. Then he should get out of the way and circle back to back up third rather than back up to get the return throw. I hold him just as responsible. I don't think Garver has great baseball instincts. My memory is that he cost us a game back when it really mattered when bases were loaded and there was a ball barely hit down the line. Garver should have just jumped on it and tagged the guy coming down the line but instead kind of hesitated to see if it went foul and when the opportunity to actually get an out passed, grabbed the ball when it might have still gone foul. Just bad baseball all around. That one I was more annoyed about.
  22. Dantes929
    Stewart 4. Odorizzi 4. Gonsalves 5.2. Over. Its a fair over/under. I would probably put $10 on the over in Vegas. Oakland has a pretty good offense even though they don't have anyone challenging .300 either. Not even close.
  23. Dantes929
    This doesn't really mean that much. Yankees, Red Sox, Astros, Indians and A's don't win 60% of their games because they have winning records against each other. Twins are 3-4 against Boston, 8-8 against the Indians, 2-1 against the Astros and 3-1 against St. Louis. IMO, the Twins started the year with way more talent than they had last year. They still have to perform. Maybe next year they put it together. Maybe the year after that. Some fans say wait til next year as some kind of dismal and futile battle cry. (cry being the key word). I say wait til next year and look forward to it. Yeah, I'm a homer. Doesn't mean I am unrealistic. I consider myself an optimistic realist. This team could have been way better if the players had played better. I don't think the talent was so low that they were incapable of playing better. Hrbek, Gaetti, Puckett and Gagne went through some pretty rotten years.
  24. Dantes929
    I think it was Bert Blyleven. Just kidding. How about Fernando Romero this year? 5.667 innings of shutout ball. I'm sure there are others.
  25. Dantes929
    Just trying to put lipstick on the pig. While I was watching it looked like his fastball, slider and changeup were all high and only his curveball was kept low. I would hope that as he gets his adrenaline under control the changeup and slider will be brought down a bit.
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