by jiminy

I expect the team to fail to win the world series, as 31 of 32 teams do each year. But I also expect them to win it all ...someday! Sure, their odds of going to the playoffs this year took a hit -- but far from a fatal one. Even in this season of woe, I am not convinced they are a bad team. Lynn and Lomo missed spring training; they'll be back. Buxton, Sano, Santana, and Polanco -- four key players from last year's surprise team -- will all be back. Hughes is out of the rotation, and Romero is in. Max Kepler is hitting left-handers. The Eds are hitting everything. Gonsalves is knocking at the door. The team is on a three-game winning streak. The Indians are losing. Things are looking up! (Cue wailing and teeth-gnashing next time they lose two games in a row...)

Thanks for focusing on a happy story! It's true, he's been a huge lift. I have a question about launch angles. I've always accepted the standard argument that increasing your launch angle by a few degrees increases doubles and homers. But that's not the only way to increase your average. If you hit 90 percent of balls exactly the same, but eliminated some grounders, it would look on paper like a slight increase in average launch angle. It's great to stop hitting nubbers, maybe even better than hitting more flies. Replacing some groundouts with line drives is wonderful. But it's not a whole new strategy. In Escobar's case, becoming a league leader in doubles, and all the homers he started hitting last year, implies he's launching more long flies. But in general, I wonder how often an uptick in average launch angle is really that, or something else?

I'm excited -- I just added him to my fantasy team. But I have one nagging worry. I read he's still working on his changeup. Right now it is 89 mph, and they need it to be slower to separate from his fastball. At 89, I'm worried people will just tee off on it like a weak fastball. But without it he is a two pitch pitcher. Given that the playoffs are looking doubtful, I might rather have him focus this year on improving his changeup than trying to get past major league batters with two pitches. Maybe it's almost there and he'll perfect it with the big league coaches between starts? If not, they can always use him in relief. But my ultimate goal is for him to perfect a changeup and become truly dominant.

Remember they're stretching out Duffey, too, so he's also on the list of potential AAA reinforcements.

"It's important to keep in mind that he was extremely limited in his ability to condition this past offseason. To pin the lack of weight loss on disinterest would be ignorant." So that's why Teddy Bridgewater and Adrian Peterson managed to stay in shape despite leg injuries -- they were ignorant? What does your shin have to do with how much you eat? Apparently I am ignorant too.

I recall a post showing that Dozier's home runs were the least productive of any player in the league. Hitting a home run with the bases empty will score 1 run. He had the highest percentage of solo homers in the league. Why would you do that? Why would you put your best home run hitter lead off? I also recall that Dozier's argument was he wouldn't hit as many homers if he didn't. Something about seeing more fastballs. Maybe it's true that you can't just decide to hit 40 homers in the 4 spot instead of the 1 spot because there are variables I don't understand. I don't buy it but who knows. If I was managing he would not be leading off, Mauer would. He takes a lot of pitches -- which everyone says is good in a lead off hitter because it lets his teammates time the pitcher -- and he has an unbelievable on-base percentage. I'm all for challenging orthodoxy with statistical evidence. But if someone has read a great rebuttal against the standard idea of putting your best OBP guy in front of your best SLG guy, I'd love to hear it. Why wouldn't you want to optimize the number of guys on base in front of your best sluggers? Mauer in front of Dozier will produce a lot more 2 run homers than Dozier in front of Mauer. Right?

They didn't swing and miss. They stuck out their bat to bunt, then pulled it back. Darvish actually signed for a little less than what everyone expected. They offered significantly less. That's not a swing. You can either try to sign a free agent, or offer a reasonable contract, but you can't do both. The way free agency works is the "winning" offer is one that EVERY TEAM IN THE LEAGUE EXCEPT ONE thinks is too high. You have to, by definition, overpay. Every free agent signing was voted an overpay, 31-1. So why does anyone ever sign free agents? Because they want to win. And they're willing to overpay a key player who will put them over the top. The Twins weren't willing to do that. You can have reasonable opinions either way about that. But you can't honestly say they "tried" to sign him. The only way to sign a free agent is to offer more money than any other team. Trying to sign him would mean, offering more than the Cubs offered. But any GM who says he'll make a reasonable offer but won't overspend has no intention of winning a bidding war. Trying means you are willing to pay more money than the Cubs. That's the definition of free agency. Realistically, this was probably their last chance at signing a top free agent. This year, guaranteeing the full $150 million probably would have done it. Next year, forget it. It was a fluke that the Yankees, Dodgers and Red Sox all sat on the sidelines this year to get under the luxury tax. They will be back next year with a vengeance. So will the Mets, someday, and the Angels, the Cardinals -- all of the 22 teams that are willing to spend more than the Twins. If they went through all those years of 90 loss teams, all those years of not spending their full budget because they were not good enough to invest in, all those years of waiting for the young stars to mature, all those years of waiting for a new stadium to supply enough revenue to compete, and it finally, finally, finally all falls into place, and they are one star pitcher away from having a realistic chance, and they still won't do it, why would they ever do it? Their plan is to build around young players, invest in some 2nd and 3rd tier free agents like Fernando Rodney, buy some lottery tickets on long shots like Pineda, and hope to get lucky, like they did 28 years ago with Jack Morris. Good luck with that.

I remember when he was drafted that some scouts were worried he had a long swing, or slow bat speed, which would limit his upside. Their take on his extremely well-coached approach was that he might already be maxing out his upside and have little room for improvement. I haven't heard any discussion about this since. Has anyone heard anything since then about whether his bat is quick enough to hit major league pitching?

Wow, what a great idea -- and much more impressive, you actually did it! I loved hearing all the little details about the stadium, the food, the entertainment, and those oh so enviable prices! A dollar beer and a dollar hot dog, while watching from the equivalent of box seats, sounds fantastic. Keep these coming. I'd love to hear about anyone you saw that seems especially promising. And any local foods for say that you can't get here! thanks!

My favorite thing is reading comment after comment, each of them convincing, and having my mind changed, or at least opened a little, to new points of view, in such a collegial and friendly manner. I love that differing opinions are not an occasion to bluster and get huffy, but are mutually considered the very thing we come here to seek out. That open-minded curiosity creates a sense of community, intellectual stimulation, and shared fun. It feels like a warm hearth to gather around and chat, in what can be a cold, cruel world. So, thanks to literally everyone! But especially to the moderators, who make it all happen so seamlessly you don't even know they're there. Well done indeed.

Bard and Reed were names I've looked forward to seeing in the majors a long time -- high draft picks with mid-90s fastballs. I guess this means they didn't pan out. Not protecting them means you either don't think they're good enough to get selected, or you don't care if they do. Fortunately less famous names like Busenitz and Curtiss came through instead. But I still had hopes for a deep bullpen populated by Bard, Reed, Burdi, Melotakis, Chargois and Jay, based purely on what I've read. Not second-guessing Falvine; they're not going by words on a page like I am. Just disappointed those guys didn't work out.

In an average payroll Mauer's salary would only be a sixth of the total. If we had an average payroll we could be competitive. Until we do, we won't be. The problem is not Mauer, it's the missing pitchers.

I just saw him sac bunt in the second inning or son. That's just wrong, wrong, wrong. If you're tied in the 9th, sure, sacrifice. You only need one run. If it's the second, you need more than one. Sacrifices kill big innings.

I think Souhan is a guy that people in the Twins organization go to to leak out a whisper campaign against a player. If they don't like someone's attitude or work ethic, they badmouth him anonymously, through Souhan. It's not so much that he's lazy or a poor reporter for not doing research and not getting a quote. It's that he's a tool. He cozies up to the Twins and does their bidding. In return he gets "access" and "inside information." When he says, "people in the Twins organization think..." I believe him. It's not factual information about Sano, but it's an announcement that someone wants to embarrass him. Getting a quote from Sano would be useful if the point was to get at the truth. But it's not. It's to fire a warning shot at Sano, from someone who wants to stay hidden. The person who mentioned Slowey above nailed it. He got constantly slagged by Souhan, on behalf of the Twins. They didn't like him, and they wanted to make sure the fans didn't like him. So he danced to their tune. But it wasn't just him. Remember, Perkins was in the doghouse for a while, for disputing how an injury of his was handled. So he got slagged on anonymously for his attitude and work ethic. Garza too, to a lesser extent. The Twins way was always to be a hustling veteran, not an uppity youngster. Remember all those guys Gardy would only bench if they couldn't walk? I will say that in this case, though, I happen to agree with the anonymous critics, and with Souhan. Not defending his process. But if you have that much talent, and that much potential, and have that much money at stake, and so much of your team's future and your fans' hopes ride on whether you get the most out of your ability and become a transcendent superstar, or are content to just be a pretty good slugger, you really should do your best. Even if you don't care about all the people who care what you do, you should care about the hundred million dollars difference in salary you could make. Refusing to eat a healthy diet and play at a healthy weight shows a lack of commitment. Is it hard to lose weight? Sure. So hire a full-time dietician, cook, personal coach, assistant, whatever, to help you keep on track and achieve your goals. With that much money at stake, you can afford to; it would pay for itself a thousand times. But just commit, and people will help you. If you'd rather indulge and eat whatever what you want, fine. But you can't say you're doing your best. You're just not. Linking it to this injury is probably a cheap shot. But what about last year? Did you think he was doing everything he could to achieve his potential? He blew off his off-season training program and his diet, came in overweight, and his production plummeted, for basically the entire year. That finally woke him up, and he committed to doing better this year, and he did. But it looked like it took a full year of failure to motivate him, from the outside anyway. Is he doing everything he could now? I don't know. How would I? I don't work there. So if people in the Twins organization think he's not, I want to know that. I don't take Souhan's article as fact based on research or honest reporting. I take it as a whisper campaign by the organization. That probably reveals more about them than him, of course. But Souhan was quite open that he had no real information, he was just passing on gossip some people in the organization wanted to get out. So I'll read it with interest, if only as a view into their thinking. Not Falvey and Levine's, probably, but somebody's. It's like reading a press release from a communist country. It's not fact, but it reveals something else. And my gut feeling about Sano, after last year, was to worry a little. He seemed content to just do the things he was good at, not be the best he could be. The organization stood by him, he responded amazingly, proving me wrong. He is working on his weaknesses, instead of just focusing on his strengths. He is working on his fielding. He's changed my mind. So it's interesting this latest attack, coming after a prolonged slump. Did he slip a little in his dedication? Is his recent slump because he's not working on the little things, and going back to old ways? Is his weight gain indicative of flagging interest? Someone seems to think so. But there are no facts, nothing to convince me one way or another. And I'm not even sure this is one of those state sanctioned whisper campaigns. It being Souhan, he could be just going rogue and making it up on his own, just to piss people off and get page views. He does have a nasty habit of taking provocative stances occasionally just to stir up a response, like mini-Reusse. The BS he says about Mauer, it's hard to believe come from inside the organization. It's so dumb you have to think he's just trolling. So maybe that's all he's doing here. Who knows. Of course I wouldn't mind a real reporter looking into it -- asking Sano, asking the coaches, trying to find out what's really happening. But that's not what this is about. It's just an amusing column of words. He's a stylist, not a content guy. You can't criticize Carlie Rae Jepsen for not being Bruce Springsteen.

One puzzling thing about last off-season was that in a market flooded with good relievers the Twins stood pat. I interpreted this to mean that, one, they didn't expect to contend this year, and two, they had a lot of confidence in the relievers in the low minors. Both of which made sense. I mean, I think the budget and future roster could have accommodated one good reliever! But it wasn't crazy to wait on the young guys. Given the early success, that logic changes. If their current record isn't a mirage, the question for 2017 becomes, is there anyone in the minors who can contribute? And if not now, soon -- like in a few months? Because if they're in this, they need help. And they may have it. The list of genuine prospects in the minor leagues is impressive: Chargois, Burdi, Melotakis, Jay, Hildenberger, and more. Is it unrealistic to think that two of those might be ready to contribute to a winning team? And soon enough to save them a costly trade? That will be a fascinating story to watch unfold.

I agree, I'd much prefer the money go to the players than to the owners. Of course I'd prefer even more to have lower ticket prices, lower parking rates, cheaper beer, and NO STADIUM SUBSIDIES. Once you've been fleeced, who the money goes to is a minor concern.

"I know a lot of people hate the idea of having three catchers, but Castro is so vulnerable against lefties (career .192/.254/.289 hitter off southpaws) that having the ability to pinch hit for him late in games could be a big asset. You’re never going to see Paul Molitor do that when he’s only got two catchers on the roster because the very last thing he ever wants to do is put his emergency catcher, Escobar, behind the dish." Man, I really hope this is still not an issue! As an actual risk, the numbers are so far from adding up to a legitimate concern that I would assume Falvey and Levine are way past this kind of Gardenhire era paranoia. If you pinch hit for Castro in the 7th with Vargas and play Gimenez for two innings, what's the downside? The extremely low probability that Gimenze will get injured? And that Escobar -- or Mauer for that matter -- would catch a few innings? That seems so far from catastrophic as a worst case scenario, and so unlikely to occur anyway, that it pales in comparison to the very high odds of losing a game by letting Castro bat with men on base. Shouldn't you be more worried about losing a game by a needless but oh so predictable out? And it's not like letting Mauer or Escobar catch two innings automatically loses you the game, either. The odds of a catcher injury in any particular inning are pretty small. The odds of Castro or Gimenez stranding the potential winning run on base are close to 80%. It's like Gardenhire's phobia of losing the DH. So what? On a team that regularly started Jason Tyner at DH, you're worried about the tiny, tiny chance a pitcher might have to bat, due to a very unlikely freak injury? Even though it it's a big at-bat you can just pinch hit anyway and replace the pitcher? There's a statistical term called Loss Aversion that refers to exaggerated worries about a potential loss blinding you to the opportunity of a potential gain. If there are two men on base, you're down by a run, and you bat Gimenez instead of pinch-hitting, because you're afraid that if you put Castro in the following inning he might get hurt, that's a text book example. It's like refusing to go outside because you don't want to get hit by a meteorite. The loss aversion you should feel is to losing the game, by leaving the winning run on second base when you had Vargas or Grossman on the bench! And that's true even if you only had Escobar as a third catcher. But you also have Mauer. I'm all for moving Mauer out from behind the plate because of his concussion history. But to me that doesn't mean he's not available as an emergency fill in. The risk of catching for a year is too high to consider. But the rosk of taking a ball to the mask in any given inning are very small -- probably about the same as getting a concussion diving for a grounder, like Morneau did. A couple innings are no big deal. Especially if the only scenario in which you play Mauer is that both Gimenez AND Escobar got injured in the same few innings! Anyway if you're worried about concussions, the real ticking bomb is letting Buxton keep smashing into walls. That's a huge, huge fear of mine. It's not much of an exaggeration to say that any hopes of a future Twins' dynasty rest on Buxton and Sano. As it stands, I can't see Buxton surviving, the way he plays. I love his attitude but to me it seems like a matter of time before he goes the way of Koskie, Morneau, and Mauer. And for what? If you look at the cost-benefit ratio of running full speed into a wall, it's not pretty. On the one hand. you're adding a tiny increase to the chance of getting an out that has a tiny chance of affecting a game that has a tiny chance of affecting the season standings. On the other, you're running a major risk of torpedoing the team's chances of ever making the World Series in the next ten years. We take out pitchers based solely on pitch counts to reduce the chance of injury. And we should. Injuries are bad! Yet we don't tell players not to concuss themselves against walls, or tear up their hands sliding head first. In a truly analytically based franchise, these things would all be subject to rigorous cost-benefit analyses. Pointless, major risks would not be tolerated. And tiny risks with potentially large payoffs, like pinch-hitting for your catcher with men on base, would.

One interesting stat: Chapman's strikeouts well outnumbered his innings pitched at every stop in the minors. Every single one. Cumulatively he had 441 strikeouts in 352 innings, with 185 walks. That surprised me. His major league numbers are a mess, and make him look like a soft tosser with poor control. I know, anyone can strike people out in the low minors. But I had assumed he was utterly worthless. His team had to have totally given up on him, to swap him for someone whose team had totally given up on him, too. But the fact is people kept giving him shots in the majors. So they thought he had potential once. Do I expect anything? Of course not. The goal was to vacate a roster spot on the 40 man, and this guy doesn't need one, so that's his main value. And I'm fine with that. But I just had a tiny little glimmer of interest, reading those stats. And who knows. Sometimes a coach sees something other guys missed, and something clicks. Santana never had good plate discipline even when he was hitting, and those things rarely click later. I don't think he'll improve. But you never know with pitchers. As long as he doesn't block a real prospect, what have you got to lose? So, better than I expected!

I think Santana could be a valuable role player, if his role is pinch runner. And emergency injury replacement.

Why not Dozier? You say it would cause problems with lineup construction. I say, it would kill two birds with one stone. You'd stop wasting rbi opportunities by leading off with your top slugger (excuse me, second best slugger!) while protecting Sano at the same time. Preserving the opportunity to hit solo homers, and bat in the bottom of the order, are not things to construct your lineup around!

They used to call ace relievers firemen, not closers. That made sense. Everyone understood that the time you needed your best reliever was when there were men on base, a dangerous hitter was up, and the next at bats could decide the game. I.e., high leverage situations. Rolaids even sponsored a fireman of the year award. It made intuitive sense; they put out fires. Anyone can lead off an inning with the bases empty. Big deal. And as many have pointed out above, if the ninth is the bottom of the order, it's even more irrelevant. This fetishising of the ninth is so mindless. I know, I know, this has all been said before, sorry. But imagine you were a bartender or waiter who had to scramble like crazy during the busy time, and when it slowed down, someone came in during the quiet time just before closing, and got paid three times as much as you. Would it not drive you crazy?

The outfield defense is great but their hitting is terrible. Yes there is the potential for them to be a good-hitting group as well, and one advantage of not being in the playoff hunt is you can give them time to develop. But if you're going to say they have the potential to be the best-fielding outfield in baseball, you have to acknowledge they also have the potential to be the worst hitting outfield in baseball. At least this year. They could become a good hitting group; the tools are there. But the is a real question whether they can even remain a group. How long a leash do you give them? My hope is a long, long leash, as they are young and talented and still on the up swing, and they really help the pitchers. I'm bullish, too. With one caveat. How many people really develop plate discipline late in their career? If Rosario were ever going to stop swinging at bad balls, wouldn't it have happened by now? Can anyone name one player who had such a consistently terrible K/BB ratio, and then changed? I can't think of any. He's like the mythical QB with a cannon fot an arm, who if he only could learn to throw more accurately... Never happens. I think all three of these guys were promoted too​ soon. If they do figure it out, it will be just in time to get really expensive. And Rosario should have had to earn his way up by working on his plate discipline. He's not going to tinker up here, he's going to stick with what he does best. Sorry to be so negative, and I know the thread was specifically about defense. But it's kind of the elephant in the room.

I don't think these first six games have much predictive value, but what I like is, you can't take away those wins. They could lose four series on a row to games to one and still be .500. And if they only lose two out of three series they would still be .500, 36 games from now! Wins are nice things.

Sorry for typos and double post, I'd delete or edit of I could!

He doesn't expect 2014 production either. He just said, at least he's not just trying to do the same old things that didn't work. He is trying different pitches. No one knows if they will work. But in his case, unknown results are a step up. No one would be shocked if he flopped. But I think it's totally fair to say we can't judge his results from a spring in which he told everyone including the hurts that he was mostly going to throw his worst pitch, the changeup. Any pitcher who asked he was going to throw half changeups and did so is going to get hammered. The question is whether it will get hammered once it's a rare surprise. Unfortunately that won't matter if everyone is teeing off on his 87 mph fastball. So it is a long shot, yes. No one expects 2014 Hughes. But 2016 Sabathia would be great, at this point. On a good team he shoudn't start till he's actually doing that. I guess the thinking is, the 2017 Twins are a minor league team. They are all just auditioning for 2018, so whether they are here or Rochester doesn't matter. Park, hughes, berrios, chargois -- does it really matter where they play? Maybe it doesn't. I would go by who is more fun to watch, personally. But it doesn't really matter for next year. Unless guys like duffey, berrios and Mejia rot on the bench. That's the only real mistake.