ashbury

And a final blast of entertainment now, whichever way it comes out.

Badly played games (by one team) can be entertaining too.

I tuned in to watch a World Series, and a White Sox game broke out.

The headline is missing its question mark so that I can make fun of it.

While the term SABRmetrics kind of typecasts the organization as statistically oriented, the truth is that at heart it's a research organization, and the historical deep-dives from these experts will bring new insights to anyone with a love of the game. If you're quiet and just want to listen, that's fine. If you want to explore a facet of the presentation, there'll be time for Q&A. And you can also broach topics of your own interest, during the break times with folks who are both highly opinionated (in the good way) and knowledgeable. It's not a Twins Fan Club, per se, but there will be plenty of folks in attendance who root for the home time. (Also, one miscreant Yankee fan who will be in mourning.) The Twin Cities are fortunate to have one of the strongest local SABR chapters in the entire country. Take advantage of this semi-annual event in your own back yard.

A followup: This is what you used to get for your effort in getting to Phoenix.

Concur. One has to enjoy the trip to Phoenix on its own terms, and then time your trip to take in a baseball game or two, and perhaps see the Twins' utility infielder or 6th inning reliever of the future. 😀

Analytics should explain reality, not be mistaken for the reality. I'm not discussing it further. SB are SB.

I was responding to a view of "Controlling run game - Below average". Since the Twins as a whole are almost exactly average in the AL at controlling the running game*, and since Vazquez and Jeffers have highly comparable baserunner stats, I find it hard to call either of them below average. I like a deeper dive as well as the next math geek, but not when the pieces don't add up to the sum that we plainly see in the actual record. The purpose of analytics is to reconcile the record, not alter it. But now "below average" is yet another hill you want to die on for some reason. The Twins' control of the running game was not below average in 2024. If you say Vazquez was, then you're in the curious position of saying Jeffers was above average at it. * maybe even a little better than average - this is in comparison only to their AL peers, whereas across the majors they have fewer than average SB attempts against them, in large part because the 3 teams who try it the most are all in the NL. When in doubt I take a conservative view, but one could make a case for better than I said.

Failure Tax. (On my less charitable days, Stupidity Tax.)

I'm not a Vazquez woofer and I wish his contract weren't guaranteed another year. And it doesn't look like your view of this one aspect weighs terribly heavily in the overall scheme. Still, I note that opposing teams attempted fewer stolen bases against the Twins than average. Looking at Vazquez versus Jeffers seems pretty equal. So, somehow the running game is controlled enough to where it's not an issue. CS% by itself doesn't tell more than a small part of the story - Salvador Perez threw out only 23% of the attempts against him this year, but the stolen base totals were nevertheless tiny because hardly any runners even tried against him. Call Vazquez average to maybe a hair above average in this trait, and I don't think there's much else to quarrel with in your breakdown.

Oh no! He didn't have all four of these all-stars to plan his day around, every game of the season? How ever did he cope?

Go back for a visit and try it again. I'm sure they're just as mellow about it now. 😀

Wow! Very precocious. Really looking forward to how good your writing will be once you exit the womb!

I like this series as Caretaker extras. Keep 'em coming!

And now he is asking, "I got a bruised rib for THIS?"

No rooting interest either way, so that was entertaining.

Pretty good Game 1. What do they do for an encore?

No, that's not what is being said. You can trade prospects for the right reasons. I didn't like the trade at the time. I have a pretty strong principle that you don't give up young pitching except for pitching in return. It's the coin of the realm. I didn't especially like Chase Petty for Sonny Gray, but at least we got pitching in return. I did like Arraez for Lopez, and for the same logic. In reverse, I was bothered by getting only one arm in return for Berrios, plus a can't-miss hitter that I didn't especially care about unless he turned into a perennial all-star - it needed to be two good young arms. You trade pitching for pitching, and hope for occasionally also getting pitching in return for hitters. It's not like Gil has proven to be a staff ace. It's not like I *knew* Gil would pan out. It's because you need so many pitching prospects, in order for even one to pan out. Pitching is like gold in baseball. If you're willing to give up a legit young arm for a backup CF type, you'll find 29 other GM's lining up to make deals with you.

I did mention Singer's performance, but game three was less typical of the season as a whole in that Ober had a terrible game whereas usually he was pretty reliable. Game 2, even as a win, was more emblematic of the trouble lying just below the surface.

My two very favorite teams (besides the Twins of course), going head to head! Whoever is playing against the Dodgers Whoever is playing against the Yankees I hope they both win!

You don't understand. The Twins' talent evaluation is SOOOO bad, it caused two other teams to mis-evaluate him too.

Game 2 of the season. Yes, the Twins won that game 5-1. But if you look at the box score and the play by play, the seeds of the season failure were there. I chose this game because Game 1 was versus a left-handed starter. With the lefty-heavy batting roster, they were in Plan B mode at the beginning. Kyle Farmer batted seventh; their DH named Margot batted ninth. But Game 2 was versus a righty starter, and the season's plan was evident. (With the exception of Royce Lewis who had inexplicably already injured himself performing a basic baseball play, going first-to-third on a single to right.) Lugo had a good season in 2024. In that particular game, he totally shut down the Twins offense. This was not an isolated instance; Brady Singer, another good pitcher, did it again the next afternoon. These two did not go on to achieve 0.00 ERAs for the entire season, but against the Twins in that series they did. The reason the Twins won Game 2 was that they clobbered two of the Royals' bullpen members. Two who went on to have very subpar seasons, not just against the Twins. I don't know how to quantify this, but the impression I had all season long was of the Twins hitters fattening up on pitchers either having a bad day or who shouldn't be in the majors at all. Teams face pitchers like that all the time of course (which is why I haven't figured out how to quantify it), but as the season goes on the arms that aren't performing tend to be sent to the minors or released. And if you look at the top of that starting lineup, almost nothing went according to plan the rest of the season. Julien imploded at bat and his suspect defense actually took a step backwards, so that by season's end he was a basket case. Kirilloff was lost to injury for the umpteenth time. Buxton lost significant playing time due to injury. Correa lost significant playing time due to injury. Wallner started out badly and had to be sent down by mid-April; also in this game he was taken out in favor of right-handed players (a tactic that I don't think panned out as well as the team's analytics department probably can argue for). The bottom four of this game's batting order were placed correctly because their contributions over the full season were not the type that would lead a team to the postseason - the fact that three of them led the team in plate appearances speaks volumes. I don't see moments such as Alcala's meltdown being nearly as significant, as the overall failure for the plan going into the season to pan out. Game 2 is my moment.

I guess it's to make fun of front-runners. A worthy enough target.