mattsaari

Watching fans rend their garments and tear at their hair over a free agent signing it's easy to remember that this is a children's game. What else could possibly turn a bunch of adults into tantrum throwers? I get it, baseball makes people impassioned. It also makes people act rash. Kevin Correia has not been a great pitcher, nobody will argue that. On the other hand, he has not since 2004 had RAR numbers comparable to what Blackburn, Dedudo, Walters and Marquis gave us last year. In fact, the numbers that got him tossed out of the Pirates rotation would have slotted him as the Twins #2. I know this is no ringing endorsement. It's not meant to be. It's simply the reality that our Twins are facing right now. They needed 3 whole big league pitchers to fill out the rotation for 2013, just to hope to compete. If Correia's acquisition does nothing more than prevent the continued misuse of Brian Duensing as a starter, it's a win. I'm not crackin' on Duens. He's one of my favorite players. Just that he's a below average starter, but a really good reliever. Heck, If we got an entire pitching staff staff of Corrieas career average (as a starter) production, the team would allow 745 earned runs. Not sexy, but 17 runs better than last year. Somewhere between 1 and 2 wins. Let's say we can expect the bully to produce the same rate as last year (3.77 ERA, .42 r/i). We slot in a whole staff of Correia career average (starts) pitchers. That gives them an avg start of 5 2/3 vs 5 1/3. 53 1/3 fewer innings to the bully first of all. That's a whole reliever worth of appearances (which would theoretically leave the pen more effective -- but we're not going to deal in that intangible right now). It reduces the team ERA to 4.29. Extrapolate that to the 1438.2 IP for 2k11 and the team surrenders 691 earned runs. That's still 100 behind Detroit, sure. But it's 71 better than last year. That's 7 Wins better, more or less. It's late and I can't sleep, so might be I've totally borked the math. I hope not, since that'd be too bad. Let's just slot 2k12 Correia into an avg non-Diamond 2k12 starter (5.86 ERA! More than a run every other inning!) from last year, and give him his 160.67 innings. That reduces the team's starting pitching run allowance from 528 earned runs to 498. That's 30 runs. 3 'wins'. That places Correia's value to the 2k12 Twins at $15 Mil. They're paying him a third of that per season. Regression risk is built in to the contract. While he's not the most exciting player on the block, he is a valuable pick up to the Twins. Considering they've also replaced another 5.86 ERA (The aggregate non-Diamond) starter with Worley (who produced at roughly the same rate last year, with injury) at the minimum, they've greatly improved the rotation. If we slap Worley's injured season into the matrix, we get at total of 474 starter runs. Meaning injured Worley is worth 2.4 'wins' to the 2k12 Twins as well. Obviously this only gets the team to 73 wins, but it's only cost 10.8 Mil of payroll over the next two seasons, with regression protection built in. If we want to protect against the whole AL/NL thing, we add 23 Runs to that, negating the gain of Injured Worley. This doesn't include the likelihood that Healthy Worley will out produce Injured Worley. Blah blah. Just adding the exact production that Correia gave the Pirates last year and even accounting for the AL/NL conversion: he would have been worth 17 Runs at a minimum to the Twins last year. Meaning his 5 Mil is actually less than his value would have been.

I meant that all the efforts of the combined team only gave them a net positive percentage of that much. Its silly because it's trying to assign probabilities to an action that essentially happens in a vacuum. The wpa should add up to 50%, since both teams start out 50/50 in any individual game.

Nishi is hitting 280 in the past 10 days. It would be kinda crazy to mess with an upswing right now. Let the fella get the hitting on, and see what another month can do for his confidence. A utility infielder who can play short and pinch run, probably off the waiver wire would make the most sense. OR a third catcher who can play other positions as well, and hit. I was gonna say buy low on Napoli in a trade, but he's heated up. ETA: They let Hughes go because he can't do what they need. And that's back up 2B and SS.

GDIP Twins / LG AVG (Runs per game for Twins) 2011 115/117 (3.82) 2010 159/124 (4.82) 2009 147/127 (5.01) 2008 142/129 (5.09) 2007 149/133 (4.43) 2006 163/132 (4.94) 2005 155/130 (4.25) 2004 130/126 (4.81) 2003 139/128 (4.94) 2002 121/128 (4.77) As you can see in the Gardy era, they have grounded into more than league average double plays. What you can also see is that's had basically no impact on their run production. The only year they hit into more DP than games played they averaged nearly 5 runs a game. The year they hit into the fewest? Also the lowest offensive number in Gardy-era Twins. Double plays are annoying, and impact the game, but they are not really an indicator of offensive futility. League leader in GDIP last year: Adrian Gonzalez, Miguel Cabrera and David Ortiz. (ETA: Torii was tied with Cabrera and Ortiz)

WPA is a silly stat. According to it, the Os were only .09 % likely to win the game where the starter took a no-hitter into the 8th based on their team's overall production.

It seems pretty likely to be Gray who goes out, released, replaced by Butera, so Doumit can become more regular in RF. I'd like to say Towles, but he has 3 hits in 24 PA. 1 Walk and one Sac. His 3 hits have all been doubles, so there's that. Rivera has two dingers, but he's only 5 for 27. Drew's defense is a known quantity, and he's on the 40 man. I imagine the move will happen in 10 days if Hughes clears waivers and they assign him to AAA. But if Luke gets claimed / traded then the clock might tick longer.

Emotional times when a favorite player gets let go. I really want success for Luke, but as it stands right now, he's an easy out for MLB pitching. He was swinging and missing by multiple feet on fastballs. I hope he does catch on and have a good solid career, but to put him in the same conversation as Big Papi is a bit premature. To call Hughes a middle infielder is generous. He's a corner guy who's prospects are shortened by the fact that he hasn't done much but smoke a few mistakes. I wouldn't be surprised at all to see him clear waivers and head back to Rochester. There really don't appear to be many teams hurting for a 1st-3rd player with a bit of pop. I think Terry knew this and was willing to risk it. As to the constant drone of how Gardy just don't like guys and needs the media to help him sabotage players, come on. It's as though people think they want to win more than Gardy does. The implication is Gardy has winning second to making sure 'his guys' are the guys winning. It's silly.

The interesting thing so far is that they're hitting with one runner on. 1st: .278/.309/.444 2nd: .406/.486/.750 3rd: .455 /.538/.455 The trouble so far has come with multiple runners on. 0 For 7 With bases loaded, 1 run has scored. 2nd & 3rd: 9 Plate appearances, 2 runs scored, 1 hit (probably both runs on it). So on, etc. Unsustainably low is right.

I'll do it one further and say the team should go down one infielder, and bring up Towles, making Doumit the regular right fielder, and "third" catcher. He's got a quick bat, with obvious power. I'm not sure what Burroughs really brings to this team. You'd never actually pinch hit him for anyone but Carroll or Casilla, and then you'd have to use Plouffe or Hughes in the field, anyhow. He just feels extraneous. Really, who feels extraneous is Alex Burnett. The heck with that extra pitcher. Get off my lawn.

No. Borjous' ball was not catchable. Willingham's mistake was in trying to catch it at all. If he just recognized it was over his head and played it off the wall, Borjous would have been held to a double, and the game only tied. If we want to point at bad outfield play last night, we need to look at DSpan playing two Torii singles into doubles. And when he had a chance to rid the bases of Torii both times, he made poor, rushed throws. It's clear that Willingham was never taught how to fundamentally play the outfield, and has bad habits, like drifting on the ball, and taking slow runups on charging grounders, for fear of letting them by him. I'm certain that Jerry can work with him to clean those up. He has a strong, accurate arm. He get's pretty decent jumps on flyballs, now he just needs to refine his technique.

John Shipley also text-rolled his eyes at the Gardy quote saying Florimon was the best defender. I'm not sure that cat has real big league eye for defense. Dozier has to keep it up until the cutoff point for the super two. They don't want to sacrifice a whole year of service time. And you'll probably see Parmelee sent down at the same time, if his boot-shaking in big spots doesn't die down. They'll give him some time to be nervous, I'm sure, but right now he looks freaked at the bat.

I think the twins should send him to the minors for 10 Days. He can fly in and pitch his starts, and spend the rest of the time with his family. Win-win. I'm sure the only reason Marquis would refuse to accept the option is if he was afraid the Twins wouldn't bring him back at the agreed time. And if he thinks that's likely to happen, why did he sign with the Twins? If he refused the option, would he forfeit his contract?

It's gotta be Doumit, otherwise they're not using their roster to the best possible offensive output. Plouffe and Hughes have the potential to be big league bats, but Doumit is proven. He'll be out there when Mauer starts, unless there is a tough lefty the night before a day game, since he'll be catching tomorrow. Mauer will probably get the start at first on day games after night, and Parmelee will probably be in right those days.

Yo CJ! I didn't say the bloggers only distilled info. Their blogs often do just that, essentially meaning that you are getting the mainstream coverage secondhand by coming here, in addition to the blogger input. Here's an example: http://twinsdaily.com/content.php?380-Twins-Set-Rotation. John took JoeC's info and expounded on it. Lucky: Mackey is no fun to listen to or follow on Twitter, agreed. I like his articles, but man, the Brotastic radio persona has got to go.

But you do consume the media secondhand. The bloggers distill it for you.