ashbury

In either case, I'm not looking for exact parallels. I'm looking for principles behind what a successful organization has been doing.

When Bernier came into the game the score was already 10-3 and he came in to face a journeyman reliever having a bad season. Doug's going to play some innings, and these were not ones that would be terribly indicative of anything or particularly educational had Santana played them. Relative to the start Nunez is getting tonight, this one doesn't register, for me.

Are coaches ever called up for September? Because I'd like to see what Rochester's pitching coach could do.

You're asking the right questions and I don't know the answers. If you ever get a chance to interview Adam Wainright, you could ask him. 2006: 61 games 75 IP 2007: 32 games 202 IP Rigorous simulated innings between relief appearances his rookie year, is my guess, but purely that. Other Cardinal pitchers had less extreme situations. Lance Lynn in the bullpen for a while in 2011 and then a full SP load the next year, Shelby Miller in a short stint of relief in 2012 before full-time starting. But they don't always do it that way either, Michael Wacha started in his first 5 major league appearances. Unless the front office wants to divulge their secret sauce, you'd probably have to piece it together by interviewing pitchers one by one and see what emerged about their process and whether anything could be inferred as to the philosophy.

I like how St Louis sometimes gets prospective starters' feet wet with some time in their major league bullpen, as much as a full season, and I would like to see some of that here too.

You frequently find Runs/Game numbers for teams and leagues, but I don't remember ever seeing the next step taken and publish the standard deviation of runs scored by teams. With 20 runs against the Twins the other day, I would think sigma for the Twins would be a bit high, indicating an offense you can't rely on as much as the mean would suggest.

I don't care much one way or the other whether assessing Aaron Hicks in September is meaningful. I care more about giving him additional experience with major league competition - even with Sept callups it's more representative than AAA. Another month of experience can hardly be a bad thing, can it? What else is he to do with his September, play videogames in his mancave? / disclaimer - I know nothing about the gentleman's home situation or his recreational preferences, it's just a metaphor

I think the other managers will respect Gardenhire and/or Ryan (which to me is the main issue at stake) if every game they put together a representative lineup that includes sensible callups, e.g. when lefty-righty matchups call for it. It's not a winning team so having the nominal "starters" always in the lineup isn't necessarily better. I doubt some obvious metric like "3 callups" would improve anything; moreover the Twins aren't facing all the contenders in equal numbers of games so consistency in numbers won't matter with the teams not being played against.

FYI, if you want to use it, there is an Edit button on the same line under your post as "MultiQuote" and "Quote". You have to play a little hide-and-seek using your mouse to locate it, if your eyes are over 30 years old, but once the mouse/cursor is in the vicinity the options light up. Don't know why.

A product manager who influenced me many years ago assured me that successful business people do not use gambling metaphors for their decision making process.

I'm in the camp that views him as a utility player for a ceiling. More specifically, a good utility player for a contending team, or a starter for a bad team. Since I don't want the Twins to continue being bad, I don't focus on the latter. But what you said (ignoring names of other candidates) fits in with this general POV. He'll stop being a starter when the Twins reach the state where he shouldn't be their starter, IMO.

Moderator's note: Yep. I'd add that bashing, as such, usually violates respectful dialog, so that might be why you don't see much. Disrespect and trolling/threadjacking are the two most important taboos highlighted in the TD Comment Policy. OTOH intelligent and constructive criticism of the team, even when highly pointed, has never been grounds for moderator action. Any thread stands to be subjected to somebody wanting to look at things from a "higher level" or other forms of topic drift, and a certain amount of it makes for lively discussion. But a write-up of a day's minor league results doesn't need to become a referendum on the state of the Twins franchise, because that could be repeated every day. I think that point has been reached now; if someone wants to continue the high-level discussion of the Twins organization, please start a new thread.

Actually, your observational bias isn't as bad as that. It's true that a majority of Arcia's HR have not come with the game essentially out of reach. But that's because relatively few of his plate appearances come in such conditions. So the counting stats don't come out as extreme, but the rate stats do: From B-R.com, and not counting tonight's game: Lead within 4: 231 PA, .203 BA, 7 HR, .653 OPS Lead > 4: 37 PA, .351 BA, 4 HR, 1.130 If he could get a full season of PA at the rate of that second line, he'd hit 75 HR or so. Needless to say, the first line isn't a very big sample size, and the second line is woefully small. League-wide, the rates in such pairs of lines tend to be more close to each other, and likely with more chances Arcia's numbers would trend more like that too. But, if one is remembering very good performance from Arcia this season (and to a lesser degree last season) in blowout situations, it's not observational bias per se. Unless your observational bias is that the Twins are hopelessly behind in 50% of their plate appearances. Source: http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.cgi?id=arciaos01&year=2014&t=b

I could imagine moderators giving scrutiny to posts in this thread, yes.

Exactly how they'd do it, I imagine. It's the kind of thing that makes it easier to sign quality minor leaguers and give your farm teams competitive seasons, and if it costs the team next to nothing then why not do it?

Harrisburg 5, New Britain 1?

Everything somewhat came together except for Morneau inexplicably being super logical and all. I decided that "oh, he's Canadian" was enough of a joke to carry his alien-ness. If not for that, coolly confident Mauer would be the better Spock, but then there is no captain of the team - Gardy? Nah. Ryan? Nah. Or I could have brought back college-boy Slowey as Spock, but I didn't think any special chemistry between him and Mauer would make sense. Gardy's a good sputtering humanist like McCoy, but he doesn't consider Morneau/Spock an annoyance. Ryan makes a passable "engineer" of the team as Scotty, but I doubt he's a heavy drinker. More work could make it better, but I liked the idea of making minimal edits (of a story nobody has ever heard of ), and hey, it's only a blog.

At the end of the day, the "number of World Series rings" is still the most telling statistic for starting pitchers. Phil Hughes has one, none of these other bums have any.

I appreciate the kind feedback; I had fun too. Just don't promote it to article-hood - it won't be to everyone's taste for one thing, and the derivative aspect of using someone else's writing quite so boldly is funny when it's just a guy's blog but problematic for a full website IMO. 99% of the creativity was from the original author. One prediction: you'll never look at the photo up at the top the same way again.

If you really want to combine deals, I think it's simpler to look at the earlier trade as Fuld for Milone+Schafer (via waiver pickup). The A's could probably have had Schafer but apparently preferred the trade, therefore I choose to connect those moves. Trading Correia then stands on its own, though we don't yet know the return.

"My mom has better sideburns than Joe Mauer." Your mom does have better sideburns. I'm not sure who's trolling whom on that one.

Great insights, as it's always useful to have a more detailed scouting report from another organization. I'll close by observing that if there really is a logjam of talent at one position in the Braves' organization, it's surprising a trade of some sort wasn't the solution instead of just a waiver.

(This is an entry in the Blogging For Pizza contest.) April, 2010... "I don't want to be the catcher on the Twins anymore," Joe Mauer said. He looked around the table at the others inquiringly. "Like that?" Gardy beamed. "Exactly like that." The manager picked up his glass and made a vague toasting motion with it, in acknowledgement of the catcher's quick comprehension. Morneau's eyebrow inched up. "And the purpose of this rather esoteric activity is...?" Gardy sighed. "It's a game," he informed Morneau with exaggerated patience. "And a sort of a psychological exercise, too." He scowled slightly at the Canadian, who still looked unconvinced. "Look, we four think we know each other pretty well, right?" Morneau regarded Ryan, Mauer and Gardy gravely before he answered. "Yes," he said cautiously. "Well, this'll show how well we know each other. You and Terry and Joe, for instance, will all come up with a sentence that you think is exactly the opposite of what I would normally say. And then, I'll try to top it with something even more opposite." Morneau tilted his head and regarded the manager solemnly. "It is not possible," he told Gardy pedantically, "to be 'more opposite.' It is like saying that a thing is 'very unique.' It is either unique or it is not: there is no matter of degree in an absolute." Gardy rolled his eyes. "Yeah, whatever. All right, then, let me put it this way: I'll try to come up with something even more outrageous than the three of you have said. It'll show whether I know myself the best, or whether one of you does." He shot a challenging look at Morneau. "So what do you think?" "I think," Morneau replied slowly, "that if the object of the game is to generate an outrageous statement, you will most likely be declared the winner almost instantly." Ryan snickered and Mauer threw his head back and gave a hoot of laughter. "He got you again, Skip," Joe told the manager. Gardy shot a disgusted look at the Canadian, but decided not to waste time with a response. "O.K.," he said to Ryan, in a businesslike tone. "Let's start with you. We'll all come up with something Terry Ryan would never say. And then Terry will try to top it. Let's see..." He thought for a moment, shrewd eyes narrowed, and then suddenly brightened. "I've got one. Ryan would never in a million years say, 'I've been kidding you all this time--I've really got a full head of hair.'" Morneau's eyebrow shot up, but he remained silent. Mauer chuckled appreciatively. "Not bad, but I think I can top it." He leaned back in his chair and studied the general manager with a playful smile. "You can have all the ace caliber pitching you want, Catcher," Mauer said, in a fair imitation of the general manager’s earnest demeanor. "Don't worry about there being any baserunners to throw out, one wee bit." Ryan looked a bit abashed, but had to laugh. There was an expectant silence as the three Americans turned to look at Morneau. "Well?" Gardy finally demanded. "This is most illogical." "C'mon, give it a try," Gardy goaded. "What are you afraid of?" Morneau regarded the manager with thinly disguised exasperation. "Very well," he conceded reluctantly. He turned to Ryan. "The farm system of the Brewers," he intoned, "is vastly superior to that of the Twins." "What?" demanded Ryan, instantly incensed, and then settled back in his chair with a somewhat stunned expression. "There’s no doubt," he growled finally, and lifted his nearly empty glass to take a sip. "That was a good one," he admitted to the Canadian, "a very good one." Mauer chuckled and laid his hand on Morneau's shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze. "Good job," he murmured to his first baseman. "You've got him pegged, all right." Morneau looked away, both embarrassed and pleased by the catcher's praise. "I don't think I'll have another drink tonight," Ryan said slowly. "Really?" Gardy asked, surprised. "Why not? It's still early." Ryan flashed a triumphant grin. "It's what I'd never say." He picked up his glass, displaying its emptiness to the manager. "Ohhhh," the skipper said, light dawning. He craned around and hailed the clubhouse guy. "Another round," he told the lowly employee. "None for me," Mauer said quickly. "I've got batting practice." "I too must decline," Morneau said. "Yeah," Gardy said dryly. "Wouldn't want to get too much of that tea, would you? Next thing you know, you'd be swinging from the chandelier nude while belting out a couple of choruses of 'Sweet Adeline.'" He turned back to the clubbie. "Just him and me, then," he said, and laid a couple of bucks upon the desk as a tip. Morneau stiffened. "As you are well aware," he informed the manager coldly, "the tea of which I have partaken tonight is completely devoid of intoxicating ingredients. Therefore, the chances of my, as you say, swinging unclothed from the chandelier are..." "...Slim to none," Gardy interrupted him. "I know, I know. And let me just tell you that I think it's a goddamn shame." Morneau opened his mouth to reply, but Mauer broke in. "Gentlemen," he chided. "Aren't we forgetting our game?" "Yeah," Gardy said, willingly dropping an argument for once. He studied Mauer. "I've gotta admit, I think you've won your part of it already. I honestly can't think of anything you'd be less likely to say than that you didn't want to be catcher for the Twins anymore." He raised his eyebrows. "Terry?" The general manager shook his head. "There’s no doubt. The day I heard that from our pretty darn good catcher, I'd know the whole universe had been turned inside out." "Indeed," Morneau acknowledged hastily, privately relieved that he would not have to come up with an outrageous statement for Mauer. "Well, why don't we do mine, then?" Gardy said. "Terry--you know me pretty well. You go first." "There’s no doubt," the general manager said speculatively, and studied his friend for a moment. "Hey, let's give the rookies a chance," he finally offered, "and don’t worry about how many games might be lost." Mauer nodded. "Well done," he told the general manager. "I can't imagine Skip ever saying that, under any circumstances." He thought for a moment. "How about this one?" He grinned at the manager mischievously. "I don't really have an opinion either way about college types." Ryan snorted, and even Morneau gave a tiny almost-smile. "Highly unlikely," the Canadian said dryly. Gardy shook his head ruefully. "And I just can't wait to hear what you have to offer," he told Morneau, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "I've got the feeling, though, I'm gonna be sorry I ever started this thing." He picked up his fresh drink and took a slug of it in an effort to brace himself. "Well, go ahead—might as well get it over with." Morneau regarded him impassively. "Bill Smith is always correct," he said blandly. All three Americans hooted and pounded the table, even Gardy, who was hard pressed not to spew his mouthful of drink. "Morneau wins again," Mauer told the others, when he could finally talk. "There is no doubt," Ryan agreed. "Hmmph," Gardy said gruffly. Mauer smiled at him. "Admit it," he coaxed. "Even you can't come up with anything less likely than that." Gardy bit his lip and stared down at the table, torn between laughter and a scowl. Finally, he looked up, with a dangerous glint in his eye. "You know," he said slowly, "I can't. I honestly can't think of anything more outrageous than saying that Bill Smith is always right." Morneau's left eyebrow disappeared beneath his cap; Ryan and Mauer dissolved into laughter again. After the chaos subsided, Ryan asked, "And what about Mr. Morneau? What would he never say?" The three Americans turned to regard the Canadian speculatively. Morneau found that he suddenly had to fight an illogical urge to squirm; he stared back at them stonily in an effort to hide his discomfiture. "That's easy enough," the manager said. "Gardy is always right." Mauer laughed softly. "Copycat," he gently accused. "How about you, Ryan?" Terry Ryan regarded the Canadian with a twinkle in his eye. "This is too easy," he boasted. "It'd have to be something like, 'I don’t give a rat's ass about hockey--let's just watch some porn.’" Mauer burst out in laughter, and instantly fell under the quietly reproachful gaze of Morneau. "Sorry," he murmured, shrugging apologetically. "There's just something about the idea of you using the term 'rat's ass' that I find a little hard to take." He smiled at the Canadian fondly, his eyes still twinkling in amusement. "What do you think, Joe?" Gardy asked. "What would Morneau never say?" Mauer studied the manager for a moment, and then looked at Morneau, who sat as still as if carved out of marble. "There are lots of things Morneau would never say," he told the others quietly, while staring at the Canadian intently. "He'd never say anything vindictive or dishonest, for instance." He pursed his lips thoughtfully. "It's funny," he finally told Morneau slowly. "I think I know you very well. But it's hard to nail down just one sentence I'd never expect to hear from you." Mauer lowered his gaze to the table and fiddled idly with his empty glass. "I guess," he said slowly, not looking at Morneau again, "it would be something like, 'I refuse to give you my all.'" He studied his glass as if looking for an answer at the bottom of it, and then finally nodded. "Yeah. That I think I'd never hear from you." He looked up and smiled a little sheepishly at the others. "That's my entry in the Morneau category." There was a long silence, during which Gardy and Ryan, abashed at the suddenly serious tone the conversation had taken, found renewed interest in staring at their drinks. Mauer and Morneau, meanwhile, subsided into conducting a thorough study of the top of the table. Gardy finally broke the silence by clearing his throat. "What about you, Morneau?" he asked. "Tell us what you'd never say." Morneau hesitated, his brow slightly furrowed. He still appeared to be unduly fascinated by the pitted surface of the table; he traced his slender fingers over it for a few seconds before he replied. At last, he lifted his dark gaze to the manager's face. "I would never say," he told Gardy, "that this activity serves any useful purpose, or that it should be prolonged any further." He rose from his chair decisively. "If you will excuse me, I have several scouting reports to review tonight." "What?" Gardy sputtered. "You can't leave now! You haven't held up your end of the deal." Morneau regarded him calmly. "But I have," he said stubbornly. The manager glared, ready to erupt in indignant protest, but Mauer broke in. "You know," he said easily, "he's right. We shouldn't prolong this any longer--not if Morneau's going to get his game prep done, and not if I'm going to get my beauty sleep before BP." He stood up and stretched elaborately, and then smiled down at Gardy and Ryan. "It's been fun," he told them. "I needed to unwind a little." He clapped Morneau on the back. "C'mon--let's head on home." They made for the the clubhouse door and waved good night to their companions. "You were a good sport tonight," Mauer told his first baseman as they made their way through the tunnels en route toward the parking lot. He cast a sidelong glance at the Canadian, who matched his catcher stride for stride with a contemplative look upon his chiseled features. "And you really skewered Gardy. What you came up with for his outrageous statement was absolutely inspired." He chuckled a little at the memory. "Indeed," Morneau replied quietly. They walked the rest of the way in silence until they came to the catcher's car. Mauer hesitated at the door, and then flashed a somewhat wistful smile at his first baseman. "You know," he said impulsively over his shoulder as the door opened and he sat down. "Someday I wish you'd tell me." Morneau regarded him gravely, his hands clasped behind his back. "Tell you, Joe?" "What you'd really never say." The catcher opened his mouth as if intending to speak more, and then shrugged, dismissing the thought. "Well... Good night, Justin." The door shut before the Canadian had a chance to reply. He stood alone in the deserted parking lot. For a few seconds he contemplated the car solemnly, thinking about the man who was inside. Finally, he reached out and touched the shut door lightly with his fingertips, just before the car began to move. "I do not love you," he whispered. Stolen shamelessly from this Kirk/Spock fan-fiction story, and edited only a little: http://www.thyla.com/jes-game.html "The Game", K/S by Jesmihr, theargentian @ mfire.com

Very good point, and yesterday I was inclined to just leave it at that, but I thought some more and the lack of options attached to a player reduces his value, both to his current team and to any teams thinking about acquiring him. He might have been one of the 40 "best" players the Bravos had, maybe around #37 or lower, and they just couldn't keep him. If he was #35 or above I would expect they'd find some other roster move to make. But from a dollars and sense point of view he almost by definition was deemed by their front office to be #41 to keep. We're both looking at it from a very fine-grain point of view. And my main POV continues to be that I look forward to the day when acquiring even some good team's 26th best player doesn't improve our 25-man roster enough to justify the paperwork to acquire him. We're not close to that yet, even if we see help coming on the horizon.

People had kidded me about the low post count after the rollout, and I didn't bother complaining about it as it seemed amusing to be a rookie again - I guess I am insufficiently "invested" in TD to let it affect my self-esteem, but now I see I should have.