ashbury

Kinda nice to come to the box score late in the game and find this kind of pitching gem in progress. Get the RISP numbers a little higher on offense and this could have been a laugher.

The Twins have a decision to make after the end of the World Series. Buy out his 2023 contract for $2.75M, or let the $14M contract vest and thus bank on a comeback season. My guess is the former. I don't see him as a net $11.25M gamble.

They aren't releasing Kepler. Doesn't matter what I "think", bounce backs or whatever. Cut bait, eat the salary? They aren't.

It needs to. High end pitching needs to bring back high end prospect arms. I've always viewed the trade as Berrios for SWR, with Martin as a very good sweetener. I would have preferred one or two additional arms instead of Martin.

Sano's contract next year is a team option, which the Twins will surely decline and buy out, whereas Kepler's 2023 money is guaranteed. Not a similar situation.

Jay Leno may have a world class collection of cars, but if I have a $28M Rolls Royce Boat Tail* parked in my garage next to my 2010 Subaru Forester, I might have the Most Valuable Car regardless of whether people scoff at my bizarre overall roster of rolling iron. PS: I don't. *Or, if you prefer, the DeLorean from Back To The Future that really could time-travel - what would someone pay for THAT?

And just who was responsible for the empty cupboard? I realize that your article wasn't meant to be Yet Another Referendum on the FO. But turns of phrase in the article itself, and then in comments, go ahead and invite exactly that. It comes across as a apology for the FO, and begs rebuttal.

Is he any improvement over Celestino? I'm thinking no.

This is a knotty problem for our, or any, FO to solve. They need someone on the roster who is good enough to step in as a CFer for long stretches of time, and those don't grow on trees, moreover someone that good is probably good enough to be a starter in a corner outfield spot though probably with not enough bat to be more than an average asset when playing there. So then (looking ahead to 2023) that cuts down on available playing time for the Larnachs and Wallners and perhaps Kirilloff (if 1B is needed for Arraez/Miranda due to their defensive shortcomings). Decisions become interlocked in a hurry. In years past that CF backup had been Kepler. I think for a time our buddy Jake Cave was viewed in that light as well. Kep's still good in RF but has probably lost a step, and Cave is barely major league level by now. For 2022 perhaps they thought Gilberto Celestino (the first to start in CF when Buxton DH'ed this April,I believe) was ready, but he wasn't and wound up barely replacement level, and while I'm not down on the kid yet because at age 23 there is still room for growth, in retrospect we can see this roster choice was more wishful thinking than accurate evaluation. A stud like Buxton is a rich team's luxury. A team in the top revenue echelon can construct whatever competitive roster they want, and then "oh one more thing" add a Byron Buxton for $15M a year and if he's injured come playoff time they really haven't lost anything but if he's healthy then he might put a team over the top and he's worth whatever incentive salary he earns. I don't begrudge the Twins extending his contract as they did, though. It would have been a marketing black eye to have not done it.

The fascination with Trevor Megill's stuff needs to be OVER so badly!

It's arguably not even an improvement. Counting up the complete games in CF according to b-r.com: 2022: 43 2021: 53 2020: 34 (10/27 of a season) 2019: 73 Partial games in CF represent some type of disruption that day, for a talent like his. Games spent batting as DH do not represent some kind of success for a plan, when there's no one else you'd rather see out there on defense and it isn't turning out to aid his injury resistance anyway. He's going backward in terms of the kind of durability a team with championship aspirations needs. I'm not questioning Buxton's heart, by any means. But the facts have to be faced.

If Judge wins Triple Crown, despite the trivial difference of finishing first or a close third in BA, I give it to him, because MVP is more about sentiment than analytic value anyway. If he doesn't, I think I still give it to him but could be persuaded either way. If only Ohtani could spend his non-pitching days fielding a position, even first base, that could be enough to tip my choice his way. He's a fine DH but not other-worldly at that specific job, where the bar for hitting performance is very high. Yordan Alvarez is a better DH, for instance. Ohtani's a unique combination of talents, but Judge's monster year is hard for me to snub. Said another way, using the analytic approach, looking at aggregate WAR they are extremely close, but using the higher bar of Wins Above Average, Judge noses ahead.

There is no reason to release Dobber. He's got a guaranteed contract, and he's off the 40-man, so the Twins may as well pay the man, and if by some chance he returns to form, they can benefit. If they release him and he bounces back, they're paying for some other team to reap the benefit. (Other teams had the opportunity to assume the remainder of his multi-year contract, when he passed through waivers a week or so ago.)

Last year we were assured that the fall from two consecutive division titles was just some bad luck. Another season later, and now we're being told, give 'em time. Personally, I've seen enough to want to shop around for other eager and talented underlings from some other FO to guide the team if we're talking rebuild. Although, in fairness, if I don't care for this FO, it is how we got them 6 years ago.

Just some data from Buxton's b-r.com game log this year, Twins W-L record respectively: Buxton did not appear: 26-34 Buxton had 3 or fewer PA: 3-10 Buxton had 4 or more PA: 45-34 The "3 or fewer" instances involve something presumably weird regarding Buxton, either not starting the game or else not finishing. So, I'd say, the strong correlation of winning has continued in this season.

#earlweavercursingoutumpire.mp4

Across the majors, batters strike out more than 1 time in 5. With runners in scoring position, our Twins have a 20.9% K rate this year, and the major league average is 21.3%. I don't believe that's specifically where the problem lies. It's also not that they are taking bases on balls, cravenly deferring the RBI opportunity to the next guy. 9.4% walks versus 10.0% league wide. Indeed it looks like the problem is in the remaining 70% of RISPy plate appearances. When they put the ball in play, it doesn't go anywhere. Not, at least, often enough. Two years in a row, now. 2019-20, it was fine. One difference is Nelson Cruz, but one player can't account for more than a fraction of the disparity, and Cruz was with us for most of 2021 yet any magical leadership powers rubbing off on teammates must have evaporated. Usually when questions of clutch hitting are raised, it doesn't stand up to scrutiny with the actual numbers. Clutchiness is one of those will o' the wisps, almost every time - you think you see something, and then going forward the numbers revert to normal - just a fluke, a non-repeatable event. This is the first time I remember seeing stats and thinking, there's something wrong with these guys in the clutch; it's been happening all season, and not getting better. If I'm firing the manager, this is one of the reasons - it may boil down to change for the sake of change, but I'm looking for a change that lights a fire some way, somehow. And yes, this does tie, absolutely, to the OP asking about "heart."

Those who can, do. Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach, umpire. I was a much worse slow-pitch player than you, I am confident, but it was still fun to compete, as long as it was against similarly untalented competition - or, necessarily, with such teammates for that matter. That one year when I played CF, because nobody else on the team would, hoo boy.... Ford should keep doing it as long as he wants, and people should cheer for him when he does.

"We're bugging out!"

Even though the score at the time wasn't outrageous, it seemed like "garbage time" for a pitcher, given what we expect from our offense the rest of the game. Caused me to wonder if there was a trend, of Pagan pitching his best when the pressure was off. So I went to b-r.com and took a look at his pitching log. I looked for instances of clean innings, or the multi-inning stints where he gave up fewer base runners than innings. Guess what? Contrary to my expectation, most of his best performances in 2022 have been in wins, and not simply blowout wins at that. Of course his bad performances correlate pretty directly to losses. Bad, gut wrenching losses. I'm not papering over that. But, fair's fair. He's had good days when it counts. I can sort of see why the manager and coaches may find him an enigma and keep trying to unlock something. He's no Tyler Duffey, who's lost his stuff. Pagan can pitch. He just... sometimes... often... too often... doesn't.

"Baffling" might not pertain strictly to that one decision.

The failure to pinch hit Correa in the sixth, down a run and with the bases loaded, is baffling.

For me, the clincher is that they profess to be guided by analytics, yet the analytics appear to be poor. Exhibit A: calling up Tim Beckham, who has no discernible defensive skills remaining and whose gaudy batting stats at AAA were bolstered by an unearthly .500 batting average on balls in play. Even an armchair analytics guy like me spotted the potential for massive regression. What were they possibly seeing in his numbers? Exhibit B: trading for two pitchers who the general public had information to indicate injury risk. You're telling me there are no analytic models for pitcher injury forecasts? What tools were they using? Exhibit C : resting guys like crazy, yet the injuries mount anyway. Are the results matching up with what their forecasts were telling them? Are they looking at additional tools to figure out why not? Those are three that come to mind at the moment. But more generally, any FO makes a lot of moves over the course of a season, and too many of theirs don't work out. Bad luck? If that's the excuse, then I want a luckier FO to replace them. I'm not bothered by individual moves that don't work out, but it looks like systematic flaws in their process behind the moves. Analytics, expertly done, isn't nearly as rigid as they make it look. Indeed, in the business world, the term "brittle" is used to describe a system that is over optimized and under stress-tested. Look at airline cancellations for an example. I know lots of folks here aren't sold on analytics as a way to run a team. But I don't want analytics to be judged as a concept, by how these guys seem to be doing it.

Who had that on their Bingo card? Buxton, knee surgery... Wait... am I hearing, "everybody"?

I give full marks to Baldelli for 2019. It's always dangerous to try to guess what's in other people's minds, but I think there's a good argument that the prior edition of the team had been playing "tight" under the supervision of a hall of famer, and an innovation or two like a "nap room", fewer drills, plus letting Nelson Cruz exert a veteran presence, was just the tonic needed. But I also believe that average managers have a short shelf life, and their approach can't be static. Baldelli retains the "even keel" approach even when it could be that the players, a few of them anyway, need the proverbial kick in the pants rather than the pat on the back. If Baldelli doesn't have it in him to tell players that if performance doesn't pick up quickly, changes are coming, then maybe a tough-guy needs to be brought in. Who, in turn, will wear out his welcome in a season or three, but maybe that's how to get something out of 2023, and let 2024-5 take care of themselves. Or, preferably, find someone who knows how to play Good Cop / Bad Cop on the appropriate day of the week, and proves to be better than average.