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drivlikejehu

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Everything posted by drivlikejehu

  1. drivlikejehu
    I don't think it's an overreaction. Hitters in A-ball really aren't that good for the most part. Someone of Stewart's ability should be able to handle them better than he has. There's nothing special about the fact that he's 20 or played football in high school... most top high school athletes play multiple sports, nor is 20 especially young for a top prospect to be in the FSL. The fact he can't stay healthy is another huge negative, not something that should comfort us with respect to his struggles. As markos laid out, it is exceedingly rare for a pitcher to start out like Stewart and amount to anything. Young as he is, a pitcher that can't strike anyone out or stay healthy at age 20 is a massive longshot to have any kind of success in the Majors... 5% might be generous at this point.
  2. drivlikejehu
    Stewart's health issues could be at least somewhat responsible for his struggles. But still, he's 63rd out of 66 FSL pitchers with 30 or more IP in K%. And he didn't strike anyone out last year either. At this point, the odds are overwhelmingly in favor of him being a bust. It is what it is.
  3. drivlikejehu
    College coaches can be weird. Illinois is 48-8-1, so their coach must have some idea what he's doing, but I don't think it means much in terms of Jay's potential. Dillon Tate wasn't in the rotation going into UC-Santa Barbara's season until one of their starters got hurt.
  4. drivlikejehu
    Tate might be a reliever too. I'm not real excited with any of the college pitchers.
  5. drivlikejehu
    Eades is benefiting from the pitcher-friendly FSL... his peripherals are atrocious. They weren't particularly good in college either, which confused me about the pick at the time.
  6. drivlikejehu
    Really? Parmelee, Gutierrez, Wimmers, Michael... not to mention Hicks, who is still a question mark.
  7. drivlikejehu
    Pelfrey has thrown a splitter for years - he used it with similar frequency way back in 2010. He throws it with less velocity now (despite his fastball velocity being the same), which may be helping it work better as a change-up. His swinging strike rate remains low, as it has been throughout his career. That limits his ability to consistently shut down opponents. One thing that might help him keep it up would be replacing Santana with Escobar. I remain in favor of trading him if possible when Santana is ready.
  8. drivlikejehu
    Though the Twins have continued their timely hitting, it's interesting that over the past 14 days their staff xFIP and ERA are basically the same. There also has been a huge split between starters and relievers - Rank: ERA, FIP, xFIP Starters: 5th, 2nd, 6th Relievers: 30th, 30th, 26th
  9. drivlikejehu
    The thing is that Ft. Myers is an easy place to pitch. Guys can hang a curve and not really pay the price for it a lot of times because of how hard it is to hit homers there. So they may as well promote Gonsalves to High-A, but he probably should spend the rest of the year there working on his breaking ball. Taking a step back... fastball command alone is enough to dominate A-ball, and even do pretty well in the high minors (e.g., Kevin Slowey). It's certainly crucial to starting in the Majors, but that also requires secondary stuff. The downside with Gonsalves is that most scouts think breaking balls are the hardest pitch to improve on, depending largely on natural feel for spinning the ball. The positive aspect is that he probably needs to only throw around 10 per start because he has a quality change-up.
  10. drivlikejehu
    Not really... the key to a minor league system is the elite talents, and the Twins' top two are position players. They do have some pitching depth, to be sure, but Meyer and Stewart have both slipped in terms of their prospect stock, so it's more quantity over quality at this point.
  11. drivlikejehu
    I wouldn't think the Twins would have a difficult decision on draft day - presumably they would have their board finalized at that point. I'm not a scout, so I've never been one to have strong opinions about particular amateurs. Bregman's defensive value is a little worrisome, based on what I've read, but offense is hard to find these days and it seems like he can hit. Jay is intriguing. It wouldn't surprise me if four or even all five of the first five picks were position players... all the pitching options have significant risk or upside concerns.
  12. drivlikejehu
    The Twins aren't getting production from LF, CF, SS, 1B, DH, and C. The favorable sequencing that has carried the offense won't last forever. There are reasons to think production will improve from some of those, or at least that the Twins have options that may improve them, but it is an issue. The bullpen is another weakness that hasn't been exposed; again, the Twins have some options that could improve it (e.g., let Stauffer go), but will they be proactive or wait for it to implode?
  13. drivlikejehu
    Gordon's RC+ of 64 is pretty much being overwhelmed as a hitter. He is young, etc., but there's no way to construe it as a good performance.
  14. drivlikejehu
    A team only gets pool dollars for picks they actually have. So any flexibility depends on going under cap at #6.
  15. drivlikejehu
    They are organizational players... most guys in the minor leagues aren't MLB prospects.
  16. drivlikejehu
    Well, coming full circle, I meant looking at RBI just as part of a general evaluation, not within some kind of real statistical analysis. I doubt the Twins would do that, but they do make strange public comments at times to explain their moves, so its hard to be sure. We know that the Twins still are behind most clubs in terms of analytical personnel, and a lot of what Goin has talked about relates to scouting enhancements more than statistical analysis.
  17. drivlikejehu
    By player evaluation, I meant determining the talent level of a player. RBI does not contribute to that analysis... I believe that to be an uncontroversial view, that you at least seem to mostly agree with. Beyond that, it's probably more of a semantic distinction than anything else. Is an analysis of batting with RISP an analysis of RBI? I would say no, the former being a more granular level of examination, but I suppose you could say that it is. Either way, an MLB organization should be operating at a level of sophistication such that basic counting stats don't add anything to the evaluation.
  18. drivlikejehu
    I was not condescending. Plenty of fans and commentators put more value on RBI than you yourself do. My point was that RBI itself is not problematic in any way - not something to be 'dismissed,' as you had suggested I was wont to do. It just doesn't work for player evaluation because practically all the relevant aspects of RBI are represented more accurately in linear weights, and the latter doesn't have the same problems with timing and context.
  19. drivlikejehu
    RBI doesn't really have weaknesses; it is what it is. It counts when a particular game event occurs (a run is batted in). The only thing that can go wrong is for the counting of those events to be misapplied, e.g., by mistakenly believing it should be part of an evaluation of a player's ability. Evaluating the value of a player's offensive output is pretty easy - early versions of linear weights existed a century ago. Computers allowed for much more accuracy, of course, but that was a data issue rather than a statistics challenge. The more complicated statistics aim to infer measurements that can't be made directly - defense, for example. How to approach player contracts can be quite complicated, for another.
  20. drivlikejehu
    This is not a correct understanding of statistical analysis. Adding in lots of overlap and noise is actually a bad thing. RBI does not tell you anything new - it's just a noisy, variable combination of other data points. If my only other alternative to evaluate a player was, say, HBP, then I would definitely use RBI, but there is zero reason to use it in the real world for player evaluation.
  21. drivlikejehu
    The Twins clearly use statistics, no one has ever questioned that. The issue has been how they use them and to what end(s). For instance, RBI is a statistic, but it would be inexcusable to include it as part of a player evaluation. The thing is - a lot of the Twins' strange moves would confuse the oldest of the old school just as much as a statistician. If you went back in time to meet with team executives from the 1950s or even 1920s, they wouldn't understand calling up Stauffer either. I'm not sure that things like that, or Jason Bartlett, etc., are about statistics at all. Do you really need wOBA to know that Danny Santana shouldn't be a DH?
  22. drivlikejehu
    It's insane to suggest Ryan has a right to be smug about his performance as GM.
  23. drivlikejehu
    I'd be quite please if Kepler magically turned into Mickey Mantle sometime during April, but it will take a little more than a batting average driven hot streak to eliminate concerns over his struggles in A-ball.
  24. drivlikejehu
    Kepler and Morneau are very different as players... I partially remember BP's commentary on Morneau after his 2001 minor league season in A-ball - 'a championship-caliber first baseman... spreading the forbidden gospel of walks and power.' Kepler's upside is to play good corner OF defense and hit for enough average to contribute offensively.
  25. drivlikejehu
    I think it's by far the weakest position in the organization.
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