ashbury

So, since you like to continue poking at bears, let me just return to correct the record and point out that both of these players were purchased by the Twins - cash transactions, where neither player was exposed to waivers at the time the Twins acquired them. DFA and waivers are two separate things. Let's see how many thumbs-down I earn for statements of fact.

Arm angle is something I never would have guessed should be tinkered with during the season - except in extreme cases where performance has gone totally to pot. The comment about Abel doing it in spring would seem more expected. The risk that I can think of is a sudden loss of control, and there could be other bad outcomes too. And yet, here we are. They apparently raised Kremer's arm angle, and early returns are promising, not disaster. Shows what I know. Of course, this article just placed a massive jinx on the poor guy.

The two guys mentioned, Buxton and Correa, play two of the key positions on the field. Catcher being another. If they are lockdown there, it's true they won't be moved to lesser positions, even though they'd probably be lockdown there too. It's the skill, and the position, in combination. But there's another way a player might not get moved around, even if not lockdown. And it's basically the same example. If there's someone who's "good enough" at 2B, say, he may stay there because he's never going to be asked to play SS, and the starting SS isn't going to be asked to play 2B, if that SS is prime Correa. Roster dynamics can be complicated, but the addition of just one or two really good defenders could stabilize a chaotic situation almost instantly.

Old-timey scouts used to use "good face" in their reports on amateurs. Maybe being old-timey they should be ignored, or maybe they were onto something that was difficult to quantify.

There has to be some massive positive factor, counteracting this triple whammy, to allow them to maintain a won-loss record barely under .500 for the past 20 years . Must be the excellent managers they always hire.

Whatever, indeed. You seem to have a problem today with lighthearted posts.

The mathematician in me wants to threadjack this into a discussion of the Traveling Salesman Problem. 😁

I phrased it that way knowing and expecting some pushback. But the 1987 and 1991 champions would hold far less meaning if there wasn't KIRRRBEEE PUCKETT!!! during the down seasons.

I'm glad you pointed out Cincy. They're an important example and no theory is complete without taking it into account. (Whatever "theory" I have is half-formed and less than half-baked anyway.) I pulled up a table (shown below) comparing W-L rankings versus attendance rankings across the last 20 seasons. There is indeed a very strong correlation between winning and attendance. The Reds happen to fit exactly to that pattern - 21st in winning percentage, 21st in attendance. Statisticians always warn that correlation is not causation. You can say "build a winning team and the fans will come." I could be contrary, given a century-plus of baseball history to build on, and put it the other way around to say that if a city supports its team they'll be rewarded with winners. The truth? Possibly somewhere in between. What I don't like about "win and they will come" is that it's awfully transactional - "we give you this and you give this to us in return" - when pro sports are (or should be) about love and excitement instead. Also, attendance is not the only measure of fan engagement, and neither is equivalent to team profitability. I mention this just to keep clear the limitations of trying to do an amateur study. Anyhoo, the blue and red symbols in the table highlight the biggest outliers. Despite consistent winning teams the past two decades, Cleveland hasn't supported the Guardians. It's interesting if Cleveland fans will travel southwest to watch their team play an interleague game but not attend at home. (Yes, I know, Ohio is very regional so we're talking about Dayton and Columbus fans and so forth.) I'm sure MLB has been studying their situation for years, and would have a solution if there was one. FWIW that home-attendance history flies in the face of my one bit of anecdotal evidence - I went to a game in Cleveland late last month and the Friday night crowd (against the non-bitter-rival Diamondbacks) was large and enthusiastic - remaining so even in the final innings after an 8th inning bullpen meltdown. The Phillies and Rockies are the biggest ones in the other direction. Philadelphia is a large city and they're quirky so that one doesn't interest me too much as anything the Twins could learn from. But what eldritch magic does the Colorado FO have that pulls fans in to see the woeful product they put on the field? That needs to be bottled and shared. Have to mention the Brewers of course. They also demonstrate you don't have to win to draw. Back to Donaldson's point about the Minnesota Twins - the Twin Cities do not shine in this table. The team is 15th in wins, but only 18th in attendance. They are not as bad about this as the Athletics or Rays, but then again you don't want to be mentioned in the same breath with basket cases. No table is going to give a good picture of the atmosphere at the ballyard - in my experience Red Sox fans lean forward and shout "we're here to have fun," while Twins fans sit back and say "entertain me." I'm sure there is much more to be gleaned than I mentioned, but I don't plan to make this into a big undertaking for myself. Here is the table. Thanks for the nudge. attendance rank compared with the winning-percentage rank: Team W–L % rank Attendance rank Difference Attendance / win* Dodgers 1 1 0 ~38,500 Yankees 2 2 0 ~33,400 Red Sox 3 4 +1 ~32,900 Cardinals 4 3 −1 ~35,100 Braves 5 10 +5 ~28,700 Guardians 6 29 +23 🔴 ~20,100 Astros 7 13 +6 ~28,500 Rangers 8 12 +4 ~29,200 Giants 9 8 −1 ~31,600 Angels 10 9 −1 ~31,200 Cubs 11 6 −5 ~32,600 Mets 12 5 −7 ~33,500 Tigers 13 15 +2 ~28,900 Blue Jays 14 14 0 ~29,200 Twins 15 18 +3 ~27,600 Mariners 16 16 0 ~28,200 Athletics 17 25 +8 ~23,800 Padres 18 11 −7 ~30,500 Diamondbacks 19 22 +3 ~26,100 Phillies 20 7 −13 🔵 ~33,700 Reds 21 21 0 ~26,700 Nationals 22 24 +2 ~25,100 Brewers 23 17 −6 ~28,800 Rays 24 28 +4 ~22,500 Orioles 25 23 −2 ~26,500 White Sox 26 19 −7 ~28,700 Pirates 27 27 0 ~24,300 Marlins 28 30 +2 ~19,400 Royals 29 26 −3 ~25,000 Rockies 30 20 −10 🔵 ~29,000

FTFY.

Oops, at first I read this as the Nick Gordon school and was about to offer a rebuttal. 🙃

I see that Alex Jackson is on waivers right now. Maybe they should grab him.

Just put a stake through the heart of [insert your least favorite player] and move on.

In particular, the bat has to play. Mookie Betts has, until recently, never has to justify his bat, and then his relative skills at a given position become secondary to who else is on the roster. A quick and dirty approach to lineups is to take the 9 best hitters at your disposal (subject to handedness of the opposing pitcher and possibly other considerations) and then ask "who's the best SS among these?" then "who's the best CF?" then "who's the best 2B?" and on down the defensive spectrum. After that, decide which position represents the biggest compromise on defense, probably shortstop, check the 4 remaining bats not in this lineup, see if one of them improves things enough to make up for the worse bat or if it's best to leave the lineup as it is. But this simplistic method only works if *somebody* with a decent bat can play the skill positions. If one guy is the only answer at SS, CF, and maybe 2B, the supposed versatility of that player doesn't get the job done. That's what we've seen on the Opening Day roster, and it still haunts us to a lesser degree.

This question is quite a bit at odds with the headline which at first I came here to rebut: Too low a threshold for what is considered acceptable, combined with a conviction the player will improve that proves to be incorrect. There's the problem. Tristan Gray is an example of the former, Brooks Lee at SS is the latter. True versatility is valuable. Half-assing it? Not so much.

You were kind enough, then, to not lay this one on me:

It was Ozzie Guillén who turned a cliche on its head by saying of A. J. Pierzynski, "if you play against him, you hate him. If you play with him, you hate him a little less." I nevertheless can't help thinking of Donaldson in that light too.

I saw there was a 50-minute podcast and didn't look past it, life being short, and didn't realize you had a much shorter excerpt to discuss. Marshall McLuhan described the difference between movies and TV as one being a "hot" medium and the other a "cool" medium. I think of this when considering what Donaldson had to say about Baldelli. Among the possibly dozens of axes along which you can compare people, the visible emotion Donaldson and his manager display could hardly be more opposite. I don't believe for one minute that Rocco didn't want, deep down in his soul, to win - but he seemed to have a conviction that it's a long season and the risk is a player burning himself out in too short a time and not being ready when the real crunch time comes. (I barely see a dime's worth of difference between Rocco's post-game press conference and Derek's - neither man will rant or throw a player under the bus for a mistake.) Donaldson seems to believe in all-out, all the time - except of course when he himself is injured or playing through a nagging injury and then his skin could be thin. I tend to side more with Rocco, but mostly I just see it as a massive gap in their respective perspectives that neither man found a way to bridge - and honestly in a hierarchy like a baseball team, to me it's more up to the player to adjust to one manager than for the manager to adjust (too much) to 26 members of the roster. As for Donaldson's comments about analytics, I haven't been in love with what I've seen of the group Falvey assembled, even if it's a leap in terms of resources compared to the Terry Ryan era. But Rocco and (I think it may have been) Mike Bell during Donaldson's time were supposedly meeting with some of the analytics squad after each game to discuss what went right and what had to be adjusted in-game, so it's on them, or the coaches they delegate, to express to the players in terms they can use. To find the ideal analytics job candidate who knows the best MBA-level quant methods, PLUS have relevant ballplaying experience they can use to help express their insights, may be just too rare a combination to find readily. So, I hear what Josh is trying to say, and some small amount of use could come of it - but IMO not a whole lot.

Same qualitative result would be true in the places people consider "good baseball towns" as well. Either-or isn't particularly enlightening*. I live in earthquake country; tomorrow we'll either have a quake or we won't. It's also wildfire country; tomorrow we'll either be engulfed in one or we won't. That kind of analysis doesn't do me much good in assessing the relative risks or the steps we should take. * I think you could call that the source of the humor in Chief's "Yes" response to this-or-that questions. True, but not useful.

If you've ever lived in a "good baseball town" you'll at least understand where he's coming from. And still, a player just doesn't, doesn't, doesn't, doesn't, doesn't say the quiet part out loud. It serves no purpose. Typical Josh Donaldson pot-stirring.

Let us know when you see one.

Mrs Ash has a PhD in an area of mathematics, so you might be surprised at the dinner table conversations at our house. Assumptions are rarely allowed to ride unquestioned.

Many people's prayers have just been answered. Alex Jackson DFA, and presumably on waivers, this evening.

Many people's prayers have just been answered. Alex Jackson DFA, and presumably on waivers, this evening.