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ashbury

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Everything posted by ashbury

  1. ashbury
    Unless Henriquez can maintain the very low .238 BABIP that he's put up in those 8.1 innings, and few pitchers can, his gaudy ERA won't hold up when he hits the majors. The majors will hit back.
  2. ashbury
    With this monster game, I believe* Joey Gallo now leads the Twins in OPS. OPS, that is, for situations where his team is already in the lead. When the Twins are behind, his OPS of .574 is ahead of only Nick Gordon and (in very small sample) Jordan Luplow. In tie games, his OPS is an uninspiring .634. Don't get me wrong, because I like insurance runs. Every additional run has the probability of moving the team closer to a win. Also, it's not his "fault" that in tonight's game someone else pushed across the first run and the team never trailed. But I don't believe I've ever seen an aggregate OPS near .800 that was more misleading. And the seasonal trend has intensified. Perhaps it's is just a statistical blip, and not predictive of future performance. But I'm not so much interested in forecasting, as in looking back at the season so far and trying to understand the disappointment in the face of seemingly positive batting stats. * I haven't done the math and will wait to see the new totals when sites update tomorrow. / confirmed - his OPS when the team's ahead is now 1.041, passing Julien who dropped to .923 with last night's o-fer.
  3. ashbury
    "on the 40-man roster, giving him a chance to be a call-up" does not equate to "Players Who Can Still Help the 2023 Twins". It only means "can help the major league team not forfeit games due to not enough rostered players." 7 Major League Players Who Can Still Help the 2023 Twins Correa, Buxton, Vazquez, Polanco, Farmer, Winder, Floro. Come on, guys.
  4. ashbury
    Those are 3 good stats. My 3: .438 OPS with the bases loaded. This has been mentioned to death, and when you slice and dice data this way you end up with the dreaded Small Sample Size - and yet, bases loaded very often represents a key opportunity in the entire game, because if you're behind it's a chance to catch up in a hurry, if the game's close it can tip the scales your way, and if you're ahead it can ice the victory. They've had 97 such opportunities this year, so about once a game, about on a par with the league, and no team has a worse OPS than our Twins, nor fewer RBIs. If you want to define 2023, this stands out to me. Michael A Taylor leads the team with 100 game appearances, but is only 6th in Plate Appearances. This is mostly just a way of saying we miss a productive Byron Buxton in CF, but it also points up the gyrations the manager has to make with his lineup to hide MAT's bat as much as possible while trying to reap the benefit of his good glove. Byron, get well! Minnesota has 3 of the top 40 in terms of pitching starts across the majors, with 22 apiece. There are other teams with this distinction, and Washington and Toronto both have 4. But the 2023 Twins are defined by being founded on starting pitching, and for the most part the plan for the starting staff (and keeping them healthy) has proved sound. Joe Ryan going on the injured list is a potential crack in that foundation, however.
  5. ashbury
  6. ashbury
    We joke about them as "FalVine" but they are not conjoined Twins. Assuming this season ends without a playoff win to show for it, change at the top could be made without firing them both. Two scenarios: 1) Falvey fires Levine on the grounds of accountability for 3 consecutive seasons of subpar results. This outcome assumes that Levine has had more input to the overall "vision" than we know, and for instance was the architect of the major trades and signings of the past few seasons, with Falvey merely providing budgetary approval when they happened. 2) Joe Pohlad (or Dave St Peter acting with his approval) fires Falvey and elevates Levine to the big chair, perhaps with a title only of Executive VP of Baseball Operations rather than the redundant President. This is if Falvey has been completely hands-on with every important decision, and Levine has been in effect a glorified assistant GM who ownership feels is suited to the big job. (I want to stress, Levine is a decade older than Falvey.) In either scenario we have a new GM who comes in, and Rocco's job hangs in the balance depending on whom they hire and how much decision-making power the new GM is given. New GMs tend to like new managers. Of course, Rocco could be fired if FalVine both stay on, but this thread is about change at the top. I tend to think either of these scenarios is more likely than firing both Falvey and Levine. If it works, it has a ripple effect of accountability everywhere down the org chart, without throwing the organization into months of chaos from complete turnover. Firing both means Joe Pohlad is saying, "this is my baseball team now," and I just don't foresee that. But the guesswork involves our not knowing with real certainty what the working dynamics currently are at the top, Pohlad included, and how decision making is split. Anything could happen. If we win a playoff game, probably the FO maintains the status quo. Otherwise I might split the chances into: status quo - 35% Levine fired - 30% Falvey fired - 20% both fired - 15%
  7. ashbury
    Not good enough to invest further resources on. Not bad enough to sell off as spare parts. But don't worry. They "inquired" on any number of players. And pundits deemed them "good fits" for some others. Some serious tire-kicking must have occurred, too. Ladies and gentlemen, here is the poster franchise for sustainable, championship-caliber team-building, your 2023 Minnesota Twins! "The goal here is straight-forward and measurable," Falvey said on Monday. "It's to build a sustainable, championship-caliber team, an organization that Twins fans will be proud of." -- Derek Falvey, November 2016 https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/2016/11/07/new-twins-front-office-hits-the-ground-running/93452688/
  8. ashbury
    Sell.
  9. ashbury
    Donaldson could be out for the rest of the year. 60 days for certain, as he's on that IL. Farmer's a placeholder on a contending team. Rendon is underperforming by a lot, a below average player over the last three years as a whole, and his whopping contract is locked in for 3 years still to go. The Yankees can afford anything they want - do they want this, though? I don't see this trade happening on the part of either of the other teams.
  10. ashbury
    The Twins have their own analytics team, but we can play along at home. Florio has a below-average OPS-against this season, with a BABIP that suggests either his "luck" will improve, or batters are tattooing the ball for high-percentage opportunities. Lopez has an even worse OPS-against, and a BABIP suggesting he's actually been a bit fortunate, at that. Of course one partial year's numbers on any reliever qualify as Small Sample Size, so who knows what our FO's analysis ultimately was. It's a "challenge trade," involving two players with similar roles. A low-stakes challenge, but still, one that can be directly compared from this point forward. I don't rule out that Lopez could have requested a trade.
  11. ashbury
    Yep. If there aren't two teams with even this minimal level of interest, to play one off the other, just cut him and move on. Time spent negotiating a trade for rather low return probably could be more productively used in other ways.
  12. ashbury
    Quite possibly not. He can be DFA'ed to open a roster spot, assuming the FO sees it that way. In that case, they are on the hook for his remaining salary anyway. And so, it is no cost to them to instead offer to cover his salary if there are multiple candidate teams who would sign him for major league minimum after he's a free agent. So any possible trade value IMO will come from this approach, via a very, very minor bidding war while he can still be traded.
  13. ashbury
    Long shot. Very long. Wil Myers in 2013 had a similar candidacy and won, but in a year with weak competition. So, not impossible. A couple of other rookies would need to take a nose dive. And our guy mustn't do that. It all can happen. Two months to go. I'm not pulling out the ironic "so you're telling me there's a chance" meme at this point. It's better than one in a million.
  14. ashbury
    See earlier guidance regarding dysentery.
  15. ashbury
  16. ashbury
    Tonight's game should impress on the FO that they don't have the horses in the bullpen for a serious post-season run. Fortunately that is one of the most correctable flaws at any deadline.
  17. ashbury
  18. ashbury
    Wanna read the most annoying comment in the world?
  19. ashbury
    Not sure the June '23 Twins win this game. Maybe the August '23 Twins won't either. But right now I'm enjoying these July '23 Twins.
  20. ashbury
    We'll find out I guess Folks here like to accuse the front office of believing they're the smartest people in the room. But trading away Gray? That's a smartest guy in the room kind of stunt to try, and it could completely blow up in their faces. I don't see it.
  21. ashbury
    I had the pleasure of watching the Cards against these selfsame White Sox a week or three ago. The "pleasure" came from watching two weak teams play an evenly matched game with the home team coming out on top in late innings. As a purist I wasn't too impressed with the bullpen arms each team brought out, purely judging by results. But there was a lot of action.
  22. ashbury
    Even the best teams find themselves in that situation now and then, but if that's your role on the roster, probably not the best time to be contacting a real estate agent about setting down roots locally.
  23. ashbury
    "Worst loss yet": the imagined refrain tonight on While Sox Daily. Hey, a Twins fan can dream, right?
  24. ashbury
    David Popkins plus Jake Rucker to the Rangers for their hitting coach?
  25. ashbury
    Guess he doesn't know that Ortiz was not drafted by the Twins (or anybody, but he was a Mariners signing), but he gets an E for Effort.
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