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drivlikejehu

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Everything posted by drivlikejehu

  1. 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.
  2. 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?
  3. drivlikejehu
    I also think Hicks is worth some additional patience. The big thing for me is that I don't see any real physical weakness at the plate that will prevent him from improving. He has a good batting eye, bat speed, and raw power (albeit in all respects more so from the right side). Not that his struggles should be discounted, but league-wide offense has declined to the point where he doesn't need to put up huge numbers to have value.
  4. 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.
  5. drivlikejehu
    A team only gets pool dollars for picks they actually have. So any flexibility depends on going under cap at #6.
  6. drivlikejehu
    Agreed, that would really be the empirical test (it would still suffer from a small sample size). I'm skeptical that there's anything to this.
  7. drivlikejehu
    Gibson had the same pitch mix that he's had in the past. He executed his pitches better than usual, but there's no reason to think he can do that every time out. If he does this for an extended period, that would be different.
  8. drivlikejehu
    No one is going to overpay for Milone.
  9. drivlikejehu
    Plouffe is a 3rd baseman, end of story. He will play there for the Twins or for another club.
  10. drivlikejehu
    1. "Neither Revere or [sic] Howard are replacement level" Ryan Howard WAR, 2012 - present: 0.0 Revere is slightly above replacement level, true enough. 2. "Neither block top prospects" I guess we will just have to disagree regarding the prospect status of players such as Byron Buxton and Miguel Sano. 3. "you are overrating Reed and Hu (and Vargas)" I'm not sold on Vargas either. We will just have to disagree on whether Reed and Hu are less valuable than one replacement level player and one 4th outfielder.
  11. drivlikejehu
    It is hard to put into words how awful and horrifying that thought is. Giving away quality pitchers for replacement level position players that cost more and block top prospects... it's as if, acting on a dare, a GM were to propose the most ludicrous possible trade that would be approved by MLB.
  12. drivlikejehu
    That would be a horrible move. Howard's recent hot streak doesn't change the fact that he has been mediocre for years. His plate discipline numbers are atrocious, so there is every reason to think he will regress back to his below-replacement level production of 2012 and 2014. It would be especially incomprehensible for the Twins, who have multiple young DH types already. But nothing would make the Phillies happier than finding a sucker to take some of the ~$50 million remaining on his idiotic contract.
  13. drivlikejehu
    I'm not sure there was ever a real transition. The Twins have more hard throwers now than in the past, but so does every other club. The Twins are still dead last in strikeouts. I certainly don't see a difference with respect to draft philosophy. The Twins have long taken actual or projected power pitchers high in the draft... Ryan Mills, Adam Johnson, Scott Tyler, Jesse Crain, JD Durbin, Jay Rainville, Shooter Hunt, Billy Bullock... Scott Baker and Matt Fox were seen as having a mix of stuff and command... the Twins have very rarely drafted finesse pitchers in the first two rounds, going back 20 years. Of course, their drafted power pitchers rarely have worked out, but that's not a matter of philosophy. The organization has just been horrible at acquiring and developing good pitchers.
  14. drivlikejehu
    They are organizational players... most guys in the minor leagues aren't MLB prospects.
  15. 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.
  16. 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.
  17. 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.
  18. 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.
  19. drivlikejehu
    I was in the tiny minority around here who wasn't crazy about the return for Span. He's a valuable player and the Twins got back one pitcher who can't throw strikes.
  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
    Maybe I'm missing something, but don't his comments support the fact that his defense was, in fact, bad last year? And contradict Terry Ryan's claim that Torii was fine defensively in 2014? Even able to fill in at CF?
  24. 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.
  25. 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.
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