ashbury
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Everything posted by ashbury
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Oh? I hadn't heard. -
Hadn't paid much attention yet to the Dominican Summer League this season, since it's just underway, but in the early going, the batters throughout the league are way ahead of the pitchers. Average run scoring is 6.19 right now. So while the Twins ERA in the 8s is pretty bad, there are 4 other teams doing even worse! Anyone like me who likes to play around with scouting players from their stats had better be aware of just how much of a hitter's league this is. (I also read almost nothing into a player's stats until he's age 20 or so, and a 20-year old in DSL is automatically a bit suspect, thus the DSL is more or less "oh, look at the ugly/pretty numbers.") Hope a few gems emerge from this mass of young talent.
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- dameury pena
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Great. Now what's a Domestic Reserve List? / never mind - looked it up, 180 players per franchise to cover their entire minor league system. There's also a 70-player International Reserve List. https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/33291388/mlb-seeks-ability-reduce-size-domestic-reserve-list-latest-labor-offer-players-union-sources-say
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Slumping Tigers? They've won 2 games in a row. One more and it's a winning streak. It has happened before. You're welcome, Detroit.
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Runners? After the second inning, they got 4 more hits and one walk, in 26 PA, give or take (just doing simple math from the box score). That's a .160 batting average. Yes, they didn't literally get no-hit the rest of the way, runners were produced, plural. But the bats went to sleep, just as they so often do. Putrid game. Glad I missed it. I was at a memorial service for an acquaintance, and had arguably a better time. / edit - oops, didn't take into account double plays. 4-for-24, .167 BA. Much better.
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Send him to AA Wichita and then bench him once he's there. Nah, he's fine where he is. At least until Nick Gordon is ready to play again.
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After tonight's game, I fall back on my two philosophies of life: So far, so bad Live and don't learn Hope AK does better next time he faces a lefthander. Wonder how long it will be until then.
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Rocco, or Pete Maki? Of course Rocco makes the decision, but if Maki's input is always different regarding Gray than for the other starters ....
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Gray had more self-criticism than critique for the decision to take him out. I might be unaware of some nuance in his words, either to the manager's ears or to the rest of the clubhouse, but to me Sonny Gray showed class in his interview (soliloquy, more like).
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The odds do go up.
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He was supported by more than 3 runs only once, and he was done in by bullpen hilarity at least a couple of times. He did no worse than keep his team in the game, each outing, and four times was pitcher of record had there been a win instead of a blown save. Of course one tried and true way to reduce the bullpen's role in your own fate is to pitch deeper into the game. Come on, Sonny, we're pulling for you!
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There are 3 corollaries for handedness and which side of the ball you are on, that I would also print up in quantity.
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"Oh, the pressure! Under the microscope every time I face a lefty!" Have I mentioned I don't care too much about pressure now and then, given how pro sports work? And I always fall back on the bottom-line: "I don't want right handed batters. I want batters who can hit lefties." Yes, let's find out. I think the results will be good with AK.
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Puckett was among the three with highest regret. Again, I used Wins Above Average since we're honing in on "greatest" kinds of discussions rather than simply contributions over and above some AAA scrub. And I used career as a Twin, rather than one single peak season, just because. The costs you assigned were often at variance with WAA - so be it, another poster may pick a different metric than I chose, including of course no numerical metric at all. Mauer actually had the highest regret (22 wins), Puckett and Carew were tied (18 wins), and Killebrew was also strong (12 wins). WAA isn't very kind to Hunter, so the gap between him and Kirby is larger than some might expect. Among the starting pitching, the top 3 were very close to each other and there was a steep dropoff to #4, making Santana the "value play" as others phrased it. And so on - the other positions just were not high enough WAAs to make much difference by comparison.
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Everyday players are extremely valuable, and the "sample size" for Kirilloff this year is still pretty small, so I like the idea of giving him a chance to establish himself as a better option against lefties than other alternatives who bat from either side. Injuries have made his raw stats pretty chancy to interpret, but back when he was a hot young prospect in the minors his L/R splits weren't alarming at all. Then again the lefties he faced in the minors could have been sprinkled with "prospect" pitchers whose best credential was merely throwing left-handed, and in the majors those types are (mostly) weeded out.
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https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/majors/2023-pitches-batting.shtml The Twins lead the majors in swinging strikes. They are 0.1% away from lowest in putting the ball in play, and last in making contact (in-play plus fouls). They are equal opportunity striker-outers. They lead the majors in swinging at strike three, and are second in looking at strike three.
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Every game counts, but for forecasting purposes you can throw out the first two games and see a really good pitcher going forward.
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Opportunity Awaits Edouard Julien
ashbury replied to Cody Pirkl's topic in Twins Daily Front Page News
Did a couple of threads get merged, to the detriment of both? -
jmlease1 already echoed my reasoning, but just to elaborate, for me it was a principle of greatest-regret, and/or a greedy heuristic. Of course the "value" of each player is left up to individual posters, but the prices are set by your article. For each of the 11 positions, decide a numerical amount of "regret" from having to go with the best choice versus having to settle for the value of someone else. Among these 11, start by picking the positions you would regret the most, lather, rinse, repeat. For me, those were CF, 1B and C. I used Wins Above Average for their Twins career; some other metric for value, where the differences at the top would not be so large, say a numerical value for how much you love each player, would result in very different choices. Anyway, to answer the specific question about relievers, the WAA for Joe Nathan was not enough higher than the others to exceed the regret for losing, say, Puckett, and the regret going further down the reliever list became even smaller. Davis would have been the logical choice, but as I said before, I had some fun with it. This greedy heuristic was key to success in one of the first analytics projects in my career, a military logistics problem, and so naturally I remember it well, and use it any chance I get. How a baseball all-star team relates to moving military units is probably best left for another time...
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Unintended Consequences dominate my life.
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Leaving out the math introduces a slight element of this.
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Small sample but since he's been back from St Paul his OPS has been .561. Maybe they have some specific things they want him to work on, out of the limelight. We read posters begging for "accountability" and, while maybe you aren't one of them, this move could be viewed in that light. Produce, or face replacement. Too much pressure, and only 7 games? Post-season play, should the team reach that point, is all about produce or go home. He'll be back, hopefully more productive.
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- carlos correa
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So if the season were to end today, there'd be no improvement. What more evidence do we need, to fire this FO?
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10th rounder from 2019 who's 25 now and mowing 'em down in high-A. Oh joy.
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- carlos correa
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