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ashbury

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Everything posted by ashbury

  1. ashbury
    Teams usually hit more solo shots than with anyone on. But the Twins do seem to be extreme. Across the majors in 2020, 57.5% of home runs were with the bases empty; the Twins, as you say, were 68%. I don't know how to get a ranked list in b-r.com and I'm not going to invest the time to look at 29 more pages, just to confirm my guess that they're not simply bottom-10 but dead worst. An additional 9 dingers with someone on wouldn't all be grand slams; and not all those 9 would have been in situations where 1-3 additional runs would have made a difference. Still, it's been something I've worried about. Opposing pitchers are allowed to vary their strategy based on situations. When Brian Dozier hit 42, it bothered me that 30 of those were good for only 1 run (that's a marginally even more extreme 71%) - seemed clear to me that pitchers became less likely to make a mistake high and inside with him when the game really was on the line.
  2. ashbury
    Yes. Both have chronic conditions that flare up without warning - migraines (over-simplifying a bit) and calf tightness. I suppose the guaranteed contract for Donaldson is the deciding factor. But both players are concerning in roughly similar ways.
  3. ashbury
    I wrote the above before learning that Perranoski had passed away. Bad timing. Rest in peace, Ron - you had a lot more good days than the bad one I teased about - a LOT more.
  4. ashbury
    Renée Zellweger, who played such a pivotal role in this already-forgotten film, was born on April 25, 1969. Do you know what happened on that date in Twins history? Tom Hall, a 21-year old phenom working as a swingman in the pitching staff, absolutely stunk it up, coughing up a 1-0 lead with 4 earned runs in the bottom of the first against Chicago, capped by a home run by the illustrious Buddy Bradford. Billy Martin pitch hit for him in the top of the second, and they went on to lose 6-5, wasting a fine comeback when Ron Perranoski couldn't retire any of the four batters he faced in the ninth and got walked off. That's what this film means to me. Avoid.
  5. ashbury
    Satire is a dangerous art in this medium and I indulge in it much too frequently for my own good.
  6. ashbury
    If such information became publicly known, our post-season opponent might be able to use it against us, to sweep us.
  7. ashbury
    I am lukewarm about Donaldson's ability to contribute, but I've always been a big Buxton fan. Still I am starting to want our front office to explore trading away our stellar center fielder. We would have been better had Josh and Byron been available. That is a bit like the old joke, "if I had some eggs, I could eat ham and eggs, if I had some ham." We keep not having the ingredients we thought we got at the store just the other day.
  8. ashbury
    Braves have Darren O'Day, who they trotted out in a tie game as their fourth reliever today, followed by 3 others who apparently they thought less of. Granted extra innings may be a slightly different situation, but they went to him when it mattered and had other options. Can't really find another, though - so, point well taken.
  9. ashbury
    Alternate phrasing, "seeing cross-eyed from the migraines." He's always been vulnerable to pitch-recognition issues, but yesterday's game (after an early good PA) suggested he might have been becoming an actual danger to himself standing in at the plate. I am rarely one to challenge a player's courage, and today is not such a day.
  10. ashbury
    Unless it's a concussion issue, if benching Buxton in a must-win playoff game is a solution worth trying, the problem is pretty close to intractable for anyone to solve.
  11. ashbury
    I don't buy the premise that the bullpen is overworked. And bringing in Odo would have been playing a bigger hunch than pinch-hitting the Turtle - Jake's not been right all season, so hoping for multiple innings of shutdown ball out of the blue like that would be odds-against.
  12. ashbury
  13. ashbury
    I like those numbers, but take a look at their batting average on balls-in-play before deciding whether this is sustainable.
  14. ashbury
    The Yankees seem heavy with right handed batters. Even though in this short season they've hit right handed pitchers better, last year for them was more normal in that regard. For the rotation I'm inclined to skip the tactical approach and go with who I think has better stuff and hits his spots and is physically closer to 100%. For me that's Pineda over Hill. Hill could be the hero who rides in during an emergency in the third inning in any of the games and saves the day with multiple innings of opposite-handed relief. He could also be an Extreme LOOGY - one crucial opposing batter, the entire 3-game series.
  15. ashbury
    Tuned into the game just in time to see Bailey trudge off the mound with the bases loaded in the fourth. Welp.
  16. ashbury
    Do you expect he gets a guaranteed major-league contract this coming off-season? It doesn't matter how he was acquired this past off-season, now. I think it's fair if the playoff roster decisions mirror approximately the same logic as what comes a few weeks after. Based on the performance he has shown so far, chronic-sounding injury plus one so-so game, he's down in that waiver-fodder category. He's now been given the professional courtesy of one game to turn that around. Too much pressure? The playoffs are all about "one game" and pressure. Let's roll, Bailey. If Rocco's giving you that chance, I'm rooting for you.
  17. ashbury
    A lot of pitching is the same regardless of the opponent. Movement, disguise, and hitting your spots. You'll get away with more, in terms of results, against a bad team than a good one. But if the evaluators are watching the fundamentals, and not just where the ball ends up, they should be able to draw useful conclusions even if it's the Tiggers.
  18. ashbury
    I see plenty of borderline calls going to yankers. I think the key is more to be consistent - bring the glove toward the center on any pitch, not just the borderline calls you want.
  19. ashbury
    You're right. So that's why my attempt to locate a controversy turned up empty! Didn't stop me from posting something unsubstantiated though. I just wanted to find out if the site software would let me type a perfectly good bit of baseball jargon. Red-ass, red-ass, red-ass!
  20. ashbury
    Thanks for the useful enhancement. Another thing to like: the pitchers at the very bottom of such rankings have a tendency to magically no longer be on the active roster, or are up and down to St Paul (Littell, Gearrin, Coulombe, Thorpe, Smelzer, Poppen). Provides a little additional validation about how the team's evaluators are thinking. It doesn't tell you about in-game success - it tells you about the role.
  21. ashbury
    Didn't McCann get into some controversy a few seasons back, regarding unwritten rules or the game being played the "right way"? Or was that someone else? If he's a known red-ass, kudos to his manager if he bore the brunt instead of letting his player get ejected. I know Donaldson has a reputation as fiery. I hope he's not past that line into red-ass territory too.
  22. ashbury
    Good point. This is somewhat chicken-and-egg, but definitely you try out the young guy in carefully selected situations first. So we just don't know yet. Baseball-reference.com keeps a stat called leverage index. It's an attempt to apply an analytic structure to a very fuzzy concept. This year's stats are here: https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/MIN/2020-pitching.shtml#all_players_win_probability_pitching If you sort on the aLI column, you'll see the confidence Rocco has placed in the arms at his disposal. Rogers has been first over the course of the abbreviated season, but of course we can guess that this might be under reevaluation among the braintrust. Romo's second. Duffey, May next. Clippard a little farther down. Alcala is well down the ranking, by this particular measure. Only guy lower seems to be Stashak, in terms of being treated with kid gloves. It's fine to construct one's own ranking - and the b-r.com ranking is a blend over the entire time so it may not reflect Rocco's current thinking or plan. But IMO it's fair to expect the veterans to play the key roles, and also Duffey/May, based on the patterns established. The others could be one-out guys, or mop-up.
  23. ashbury
    I meant also Game 1 as the alternate scenario.
  24. ashbury
    I could at least appreciate the logic of having your best pitcher start Game 2: "if we win Game 1, then he's there to go for the throat; if we lose Game 2 then he's there to stop the damage." But this still feels like over-thinking it. If you hope to go deep into the post-season, whoever pitches Game 1 is best rested to pitch more frequently than whoever goes next. That's Maeda, so out there he goes, for the first pitch of the post-season. Try to fire each of your best weapons as often as possible. Your lesser weapons can be tactical; your best should be strategic.
  25. ashbury
    By every measure I rely on, Maeda has been our best and most consistent pitcher. To risk losing a best-of-3 series without having your best pitcher appear, seems like the proverbial "bold strategy" that I would not adopt.
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