ashbury

The Glendale Desert Dogs had several representatives from the Twins' farm system. Denny Bentley, Francis Peguero, Jon Olsen and Ryan Shreve were the pitchers, and the position players were Alex Isola, Austin Martin and Edouard Julien. Here's a few photos from my trip in late October. For two of the three games I was joined by the illustrious USAFChief. Driving there meant going through some dusty desert miles. Here is one of the denizens of the town of Beatty NV where I quartered for the night at the picturesque Atomic Inn. I arrived in time for the evening game on the 27th. Unfortunately the game itself wasn't much, from a Twins fan's point of view. Austin Martin played CF and led off, but his 0-4 ledger was redeemed only by a walk. I don't recall him really being tested on defense, but he handled the routine plays (which mainly involved picking up the ball after base hits). Denny Bentley and Francis Peguero both appeared and neither one really shone - Bentley went 2 hitless innings while walking 4 and striking out 4, while Peguero gave up 3 unearned runs in his inning of work, striking out 2 but also surrendering 3 hits that "didn't count" for earned runs in light of the third baseman's error. I didn't take any photos of that 9-6 loss to the hated Salt River Rafters. Probably just as well. Friday's game was more entertaining, and I devoted myself to snapping some shots. Jon Olsen had a very fine afternoon on the mound, going 4 innings against the hated Surprise Saguaros and giving up only 1 hit while striking out 4 and walking nobody. Olsen's had some bad luck with injuries after his college career and thus is a bit of a late bloomer as a 25-year old at high-A Cedar Rapids, but hopefully may have opened some eyes with his AFL showing. Here he is in a couple of shots. Edouard Julien batted leadoff and played second base. He got a hit and scored, and also later drove in a run. I don't recall any particular plays of note in the field for him. Here's a pretty representative example of his swing. While Austin Martin was not in the lineup, he did coach at first base some of the time. Here he is with his ubiquitous head scarf underneath the helmet. Alex Isola was catcher in this game. He had an annoying habit of lobbing the ball back to the pitcher. I would love to know the details on that, such as whether it was just a temporary expedient for some reason. He did throw out a runner at second base during the game. Here's a shot of his leg kick when at bat. On to Saturday's game, which was an 11 am affair to allow AFL fans to move from ballpark to ballpark and see a triple-header. The hated Mesa Solar Sox won this one 10-3. In this game Martin and Julien hit leadoff and second, and were the double play combo. So I was very interested in watching them interact. Here they are getting ready for their turns at bat. Here they are in the field getting ready for a play. Unfortunately the only interesting play was a routine double-play ball. Martin bollixed up the throw so that Julien was pulled off the bag and did well to get even the single out at second base. No photo of that. Back to the hitting. Here's Julien taking a cut. Were any batters hit by a pitch in this game, you ask? Why yes. Here is one. No damage done, though. Peguero got another inning of work in this game. I neglected to get any photos of him this time either. Unfortunately, he gave up another run on a walk and a hit. So not a good showing by him. Ryan Shreve did not appear while I was there. Well, that was my weekend. A nice excuse for 3 days of great weather instead of the colder snowier conditions in northern Nevada.

Year 6 of this FO's tenure, and "poor mechanics" is still in our vocabulary? Quick, better hire an Assistant Director of Elbow Flexion!

Joe seems to be 40 years old. I wouldn't rule out that the round-number age explains the move and that the move has been planned for some time. The "effective immediately" part would be to avoid undercutting any decisions made before or after. Business-as-usual and continuity.

If Abreu had been on the 2022 Twins with those stats, he'd be just another guy we'd be complaining about not coming through. And rightly so. The Twins for the season got 83 RBI from the #3 spot in the batting order. The vaunted Abreu got 75, in almost as many chances; his RBI rate was lower. (The Dodgers, if you want to aim high, set the 2022 benchmark at 110, while the average team got just shy of 90.) He's the wrong guy to be making a righteous stand about.

The projections at FG and b-r.com are for 20-22 HR this coming season, with of course no defense to sweeten the package. I don't think I spend 8 figures a year on that.

As of now, not on the roster. https://www.mlb.com/twins/roster/40-man

Cleveland barely had anybody digging anything, with total attendance of 1,295,870. ?

Beware of the "buy 2, get 1 free" offer on Jaime Garcia game-used Twins jerseys, whatever the bargain price you see in the ad.

I want instant gratification and I want it NOW!

Free shipping, I trust? I'm not inking one of these deals, only to get socked with priority shipping charges.

Up the middle talent is always expensive. Multiple bidders competing. I don't expect a bargain to be obtained. Jansen looks like could be the sweet spot for the Twins, value versus what they are willing to give up.

That's what the Report button is for, my friend. :)

It's possible for up the middle talent to be "superfluous", but the Twins aren't there yet. I see this as an evolutionary move, certainly not revolutionary.

Glad you specified median. Had you said mean, USAFChief would drag us up above 100. As it is, I'm still one of the young guys. Yippee!

If the boss has given you P&L authority, you can decide for yourself. The boss then saying he's on board means the signing falls within the limits of authority he's given you.

She has an EXCELLENT Wikipedia page. ? The old man was 78 when he married her mom.

Just curious. When adding Runs and RBIs together to compute how many runs a player accounted for during a season, do you advocate adjusting by subtracting the number of homers, as some people do?

Not a pressing need. We already have Alec Kirralaff.

Thanks for the link. Nice to see several Tier 1 players. But all of those are hitters. Three Tier 2 pitchers and a Tier 3 peeking into the Top Ten (guess I wanna see their Top 25 or so). Doesn't look like these evaluators are all-in on the Twins' vaunted Pitching Pipeline™.

Kyle, to be specific?

Now do Colome. ? I agree Zeroes Hung is a good metric. Yes, no, thumbs up, thumbs down, often gives useful guidance, especially when bringing a guy into a one-run game. You counted up the Ups and Downs of the long season. Another I also like goes even farther: Clean Innings. A clean inning goes above-and-beyond the call of duty, as far as winning that particular game goes. But when a guy demonstrates the repeated capability of throwing a clean inning, he goes up in my estimation, as a guy who is much less likely to be struck by Gosh Darn Bad Luck. "Oh, that dribbler that went through, Gosh Darn..." - "Yeah, but what about the guy on third that scored on the dribbler because you gave up the leadoff double, huh? Clean Inning Gene would have emerged unscathed from that particular bad luck." I'm not gonna put on my green eyeshade and perform the necessary accounting to look at Pagan against his bullpen peers on that, because I'm pretty sure how it's going to come out. OPS-against is another number that I think tells me what I want to know about a pitcher. If OPS is useful for looking at batters, why wouldn't you look at the same number for the guys trying to thwart those batters? I wouldn't completely discard ERA for relievers who come in to start the inning. But love ERA or detest it, I played the hand that the OP dealt. ? I suspect that the cherry-picked readings given in the article would succumb to the same analytic assault no matter which metric had been used, within reason. The issue is throwing out data, which must be done more carefully than shown this time. "Other than that one data-point, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?"

Any pro athlete has to put yesterday aside and go out and ply his trade today. I prefer the cocky attitude to what Ron Davis brought. Probably there's a happy medium between them that can still succeed. ? (I had the pleasure of meeting Marshall in a small informal group, when he was trying (for some unfathomable reason) to enlist SABR's endorsement for his training methods. He wanted something from us so he was at his most personable. But it was evident that there was a good measure of "banty rooster" in him, to a greater degree than other players I've met. I could see enjoying working with him on the right project - and also parting company quickly if the project wasn't just right. The Can-Do attitude works great, until it suddenly doesn't. But at 6'1" I had a greater respect for his accomplishments in baseball just by standing next to him, because I was nearly a head higher than him. And I don't think "pedantic" comes close to fully explaining Doctor Iron Mike Marshall. He's complex.) This thread is about Pagan. Here endeth the rambling old-man story about another old man.

Approves:

This is the kind of statistical analysis that just drives me bonkers. It's a long season full of ups and downs. If you cherry pick away a portion of the season that was bad, then I want to see a remaining ERA down in the 2's for a reliever. There was still a lot of baseball for Colomé after April 2021, still with ups and downs, so a 3.51 ERA is going to contain a lot of downs mixed with the ups. And was there any useful predictive power from that 3.51 ERA to finish 2021? Not really. Colomé's ERA this past season was in the high 5's. "Ah, but he pitched for the Rockies." Yes, but his ERA on the road was worse than at Coors. So, please don't show me a 3.67 ERA for a cherry picked portion of the season for Emilio, and expect me to buy in. That 3.67 contains some ups and downs (otherwise it would be 0.00), after a bunch of the egregious downs are already removed. If you can't make a better case for him than that, there isn't a case to be made, statistically. Except, roster filler, and we shouldn't pay millions for that. The rest of the article? The nuts and bolts of his game? It's interesting to know that he's working on something - better results will have to come from some kind of change, after all. Baseball played at a high level is a cat-and-mouse game, between pitchers adjusting to what batters do, and batters adjusting to what pitchers do. Baseball's also a game of mistakes - you try to make fewer than your adversary - and a small sample may not show that the mistakes are gone, merely in hiding. A few games with a new toy in Emilio's arsenal are all well and good, but the batters get to adjust. Surely this isn't the first time he's tinkered. I don't see him turning some corner, at age 32 next May. Anything's possible though and if he's still with the team I'll be rooting for him when he's out there, in whatever role. I'd love to eat crow.

Almost everything about this site is wonderful, but my hatred for losing the ability to delete one's own reply posts is on a par with the heat of a thousand fiery suns.