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ashbury

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Everything posted by ashbury

  1. ashbury
    I can just see Chief wringing his hands and saying "pleasepleasepleaseplease let me play these guys here for MONEY."
  2. ashbury
    Argh, in poker you don't pay to try to obtain better cards, you pay to go to the next reveal. Not to mention that all players' cards are more or less face up in baseball - no one is wondering "maybe the Twins have Mike Trout". So it's not a good analogy, and I give up on that. But the point is the improved information at each reveal and a revised estimate of your chances - that's where there's a similarity, and where there can be a sudden turn for the worse in your calculation of your chances that (later on with hindsight) turns out not to be decisive after all. You still have to make your decision at the time, with much still uncertain. And if the decision at one stage is close, the next card will easily reverse that decision.
  3. ashbury
    Also, the term "contention" is a fuzzy one. A great many arguments arise from people assigning different meanings to words. Maybe Falvey and Levine had in mind some threshold, like 10% odds of reaching the post-season, and decided to make a middling move such as for Garcia. A mere 6 days later, the same calculation looked more like 4% to them, and they went with their convictions. Chief likes Texas Hold 'Em. I'm sure he's had plenty of hands where his first two cards were worth betting but then he rightly folded when the flop came down, and then (against the odds) exactly the right turn card came which would have made the hand worth seeing through after all. Unlike poker, baseball doesn't require (or allow) you to completely fold, on the other hand after a certain point not very near the end you can't make meaningful additional bets. But under baseball-like rules, maybe you'd like to re-open that folded poker hand and pay to see the river card. I don't know poker well enough to construct a very good analogy, but that's how I see it. Each card that gets played gives you new information and new odds. That one week in July, five very poor "cards" were revealed to the Twins and they took a little bit out of the pot. It happened that the remaining cards for the rest of the season were a lot better. That's cards; that's baseball.
  4. ashbury
    FWIW, Nate Silver went through about exactly the same political calculus that we've been doing. "In other words, I thought the Democrats had an opportunity to maintain the moral high ground without having to pay a political price for it." He even totted up the numbers of male Democrats and Republicans in Congress. Of course, real high ground would be if there were a significant price, and not seen as merely trying to put pressure on "the other side". In any case I still think Franken should recognize he's not indispensable, and resign.
  5. ashbury
    39-0. The way you're carrying on, I was thinking it was a rout or something.
  6. ashbury
    I think I get where you're coming from. Vacillation will blow leadership credibility in a hurry. That's important in any organization, and I suppose especially so in a sports org. Even though I just got done explaining why I was OK with the trading deadline about-face, as an interesting case-study in Analytics, I recognize you can't do that very many times.
  7. ashbury
    Whew, for a moment there I was worried this story wasn't leading anywhere.
  8. ashbury
    It depends on how they use the international bonus slot money that was part of the deal. It's the new PTBNL.
  9. ashbury
    Mauer is indeed the analogy for the Twins, and my point is that one or more of these opportunities comes along every year or two, really top notch guys at absolute top dollar (meaning, high yearly value at very great length). We just got done lamenting that we didn't open the purse strings for Verlander for example (even assuming the Tigers would have answered the phone, and granting that the time-risk is lower for him). Each time, "this is THE guy!" The fact this discussion is even possible is due to not having landed the most recent "THE guy". Back to the topic, I'd love to have a guy of that caliber, but not if it's at top dollar *plus* having to give up significant prospects. Big money does need to be allocated, though, as the contention window is now open and I don't want to see our team keep its powder dry indefinitely.
  10. ashbury
    He tried, IMO, to raise the point that nuance is possible in this national conversation. And, he did it so ineptly, revealing a huge blind spot, that the point is beyond lost and now likely results in even more polarization.
  11. ashbury
    The reason you're able to say that is because the FO in prior years paid attention to future team payroll.
  12. ashbury
    You in the meantime condensed my argument to its pith and essence.
  13. ashbury
    The Twins were 49-49 the day they acquired Garcia. That's not a good enough pace to make the playoffs, but the FO bet on their players by providing an additional resource. A few days later, the team had gone the wrong direction, now standing at 50-53. Not only the wrong direction, but now that many fewer games to make up the difference for making the postseason. It tipped the scales on how to approach the remainder of the season. To everyone's delight, the team went ahead and finished at a healthy 35-24 (.593) clip anyway. Even that brought them to only 85 wins. I don't remember the last time an 85-win team made it to the postseason. Certainly not in the two-wildcard-team era. Even if Garcia provided a couple of wins more than whoever soaked up his starts, that's still not enough to make it, most seasons. If any other rivals had gotten hot, the Twins would have been on the outside. I think our front office looked at that particular situation very reasonably, concluding that two unlikely things both had to happen, and came away arguably ahead on the transactions. I particularly applaud using cash during a season the major league payroll isn't very high. If FalVine took the wrong side of a 4% proposition (guessing one in five teams below .500 finishes that strongly, at best one in five years 87 wins earns you more than heartbreak), that's a bad beat. And it's hard to demonstrate Garcia would have changed our postseason results any.
  14. ashbury
    In case it's a serious question, the DH rule as written pertains only to the pitcher. Otherwise, good one.
  15. ashbury
    If the DH takes the field, you lose the use of the DH for the rest of the game and the pitchers take their place in the lineup. They tried "hiding" Sam McDowell for a batter by putting him at first/second base, back in the day. I think some other pitcher(s) likewise roamed right field while a LOOGY or ROOGY came in. Never caught on as a thing.
  16. ashbury
    There is no disabled list in the off-season. Anyone with a guaranteed major league contract must be on the 40-man (looking at you, Phil Hughes); apart from that, it's up to the team to decide whom to protect from the upcoming draft. According to this site, the 60-day DL starts up again well before Opening Day: "9. A player cannot be placed on the MLB Emergency Disabled List (60-day DL) after the conclusion of the MLB regular season, and during the post-season and off-season, up until the start of Spring Training (beginning on the date that pitchers & catchers are scheduled to report)."
  17. ashbury
    Good read. This snippet from Radcliff answers my question in another thread about Palacios: "[He] continues to show that he'll be able to stay at short, which was our concern."
  18. ashbury
    http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/483/894/463.jpg
  19. ashbury
    His 2017 numbers in AAA look pretty similar to me to his 2014 numbers at Cedar Rapids. K/9, BB/9, WHIP. Except he's not pitching in Cedar Rapids anymore. The caliber of opposition is much tougher.* Ergo, improved. I see steady progress. And I don't know a reason to think he won't continue to progress in his age-25 season too. Lots of guys hit a wall along the way. Aaron's knocking on the door. Maybe he'll not walk through - I've already acknowledged that. I haven't closed the book on him. You have. Fine. We'll see. * His 2015 and 2016 moving up the organization weren't wildly out of line either. FSL can be a bit of a pitcher's league, the SA tilts a little the other way as I recall it.
  20. ashbury
    He may turn out that way. OTOH he has improved every season thus far. 2018 is the season he stops?
  21. ashbury
    All is right with the world again.
  22. ashbury
    Interesting. I gave up on it, early on. It came across to me as CBS saying, "make one of those ABC comedies for us, kthanx."
  23. ashbury
    I was referring to things I've said in the past, not specifically to anyone today. In partisan terms, I'm content to let the chips fall where they may. Male Republican senators are 47 in number, if I counted correctly, while Dem males number only 32. Assuming the males are the risky ones for having to resign suddenly, I like our odds. Maybe we should have a 10-year moratorium on all male senators, come to think of it.
  24. ashbury
    Since the Fox article closed with "Any step forward the franchise takes this year will be thanks to healthy, productive seasons from outfielders Byron Buxton and Max Kepler, infielder Jorge Polanco, third baseman Miguel Sano and pitcher Jose Berrios.", it seems like they had an understanding of one sort or another.
  25. ashbury
    I feel like I'm a broken record when cautioning folks not to gloat too much when a political opponent gets caught in something like this. This is widespread.
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