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Dodecahedron

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Everything posted by Dodecahedron

  1. Dodecahedron
    The Twins obstinately stick to their method. If a player sticks out for being well or for being terrible, they stick with their method rather than make a change. Imagine if Kent Hrbek or Bert Blyleven had been forced to spend the obligatory years in AAA. Imagine if Viola had been forced to start in A (or lower) or Puckett had been forced to toil through AA. Not all players are the same. Look at how many years Kepler spent in the minors, in spite of dominating there. The Twins did not call him up to the majors until they had no other option, all during years where the team was starving for outfield defense. And once Kepler was up, the Twins dug their claws into him and gave him a long contract even though he is no superstar. Kepler illustrates the Twins method perfectly.
  2. Dodecahedron
    No disagreement there. 7-3 would be the minimum, but the Twins need more than the minimum. It may be true that they would be 7.5 games back, and would have many games to pick that up. But they would be 7.5 games back on that day only. If the Sox or Indians are better than .500 the rest of the season, the Twins will have to make those games up too. Plus, the Twins would also still be competing with themselves, as any game they lose they would also have to make up.
  3. Dodecahedron
    Without going too long into it.... 7-3 moves each team 2-games toward the median. 7-3 - 2 games moving toward or away from the median. Normal baseball, within a standard deviation for a ten game stretch. 8-2 - 3 games moving toward or away from the median. Good for one team, not good for another. 9-1 - 4 games moving toward or away from the median. Very good for one team, terrible for another. 10-0 - 10 games moving toward or away from the median. Eye opening, season-defining. Look at that jump in value. 10-0 is 2.5 times more valuable than 9-1. It takes 50 games of winning at a 7-3 pace to be as valuable as going 10-0 in ten. It's not as simple as "Beating the Sox" for the Twins. The Twins have to surpass Winning % X to get into the playoffs. "Beating the Sox" has the additional benefit of lowering X, but that won't be lowered by 10 games even if the Twins win them all. Right now, the Sox are 3 games over the Indians, so "Beating the Sox" becomes less useful should the Twins go as low as 8-2 against them, assuming the Indians go 5-5. If the Twins go 7-3, it would take luck for the Twins to gain ground if the goal is to make the playoffs. 7-3 might replace the antagonist for a moment, with bad luck because it means the Indians played well, but that is all.
  4. Dodecahedron
    Yes, but let's full picture this. 4 games with each team moving 2 games closer to .500. The Twins moving up merely 2 games does nothing for the Twins prospect of coming back. Going 7-3 is nice, but it does little to change the trajectory of either team. If the Twins are going to take any real ground, they have to sweep.
  5. Dodecahedron
    The Hicks contract is unusual by baseball standards. One could argue it's hard to compare Buxton to that, but on the other hand Buxton is an unusual player. The truth is, a team who has $$$ and is "one player away from dominance" signs Buxton without hesitation. The Twins are not in this position.
  6. Dodecahedron
    Winning 7 out of 10 sounds nice, but they really need to sweep. Winning 7 would only move them up 2 games from splitting the series.
  7. Dodecahedron
    It seems strange to be "sick of" talking about a baseball topic when it's fairly simple to not talk about it. It seems doubly strange to be unable to respond in a civil manner. Angry over people saying Rosario doesn't suck? Alright. Thank the administrators for enabling the ignore user function in the portal.
  8. Dodecahedron
    That sounds like a Bill James quote right there. Take a look at the 76 Yankees team. They were solid, especially for a year that was down offensively. James pointed out there were at least half a dozen players who were more deserving of the MVP that year. A straight up sort by bWAR identifies ten. Munson wasn't even the best player on that squad. Of course, it could be that baseball writers fell in love with Munson's personality.
  9. Dodecahedron
    Maybe. I admit I have a Rosario bias. I would have kept him for another year, if possible, but even I admit his time left in a Twins uniform was running out. People keep throwing around that he is not worth $10M. Fine, but he's not making $10M. We may as well say he's not worth $100M, which would be correct too. Some fans decided over the offseason that $10M is what he would cost and did not let later facts budge them from that narrative.
  10. Dodecahedron
    Would you? Neither of them were on the opening day roster. Rosario was replaced by Cave and/or Garlick. Arraez was already here.
  11. Dodecahedron
    Bill James first offered up the idea that RBIs are pointless, which caused quite an uproar at the time. However, James frequently cited RBIs then and he continues to cite them now. I would say RBIs are a big part of his thinking, actually. Even if that's not true, to say James does not consider RBIs is just not true. As always, context is important. James was pointing out that someone won the MVP award who should not have, apparently based on RBIs alone. I believe this was Thurman Munson in 1976. In any case, as sabermetrics took off decades later, James's essay on RBIs was taken out of context. James was right. In Munson's case, if you are batting 3rd on a team that has a team OPS+ of 111, you're going to get 100 RBIs. RBIs are meaningless in this case. There were 4 or 5 other players on that team who would have achieved this milestone had they been in the right place in the batting order.
  12. Dodecahedron
    The Twins did not call him up one September so they could get an extra year of control. Buxton was very clear he was not happy about that, and for good reason, he was playing well at the time and he heard about this through a press release. For a short while it seemed like they were not even on speaking terms. If it's true that Buxton is laughing off the Twins offers, one has to wonder if the Twins burned this bridge before they built it.
  13. Dodecahedron
    ^^^ Yes. The Twins teams in the 00s were great at squeezing out extra bases. It is hard to argue against the results. The leaguewide caught stealing percentage this year is 24%. Players at 2nd and beyond are much more likely to score. Seems to me that a bunch of analytics guys would be able to string these numbers together and encourage people to run. Once a hitter is on base, the strategy should be to make that baserunner as annoying as possible to the other team. Same with when the ball is hit. Even when the Twins do not intend to take an extra base, they should make it look like they are.
  14. Dodecahedron
    This article is irresponsible fake news. It is actually a meteoroid that will hit him.
  15. Dodecahedron
    Yes, yes. No one here could have predicted that doing an intentional walk so that you can face Rosario would not work out well. Nope. No one. Total surprise. If only we had a scouting report on the guy. It's not like he's on a 12-game hitting streak with a .333 average during that time. Can anyone pull up his hitting numbers for the past few years, especially late in games where the score is close? I can't find them. Analytics is hard, and this guy is very mysterious. Ah well, sometimes baseball just gets ya! In totally shocking ways of course. If only we had a crystal ball or some dang documentation on this hitter. Bad luck strikes again, I totally side with Baldelli on this one because this Rosario guy just came out of nowhere. Rosario who? No one in Twins territory has ever heard of this guy. I can't find anything about him at all. We'll get 'em next time!
  16. Dodecahedron
    It would not surprise me at all if another team takes the Buxton Plunge. If your org has tons of cash and you just need a handful more wins to be utterly dominant, Buxton is the guy. Buxton could lead an already good team to 120, 125 wins, maybe more, utterly insane numbers, even if he is in a full body cast for half the year.
  17. Dodecahedron
    I'm not the one confusing anything, nor am I getting bent out of shape about anything. Let's just move on.
  18. Dodecahedron
    You don't understand. I'm talking about federal tax liability, not payroll taxes. Payroll taxes are paid by companies, but those funds are pulled directly from paid wages.
  19. Dodecahedron
    The 50% thing was said over a decade ago, when the elder Pohlad said he would raise the spending to that level. This was before TF was built. The promise was once TF was built, they would spend more even more. Note that wages paid out in the US are 100% tax deductible. If the Twins pay any amount of federal tax, they could be paying players and staff more without affecting their profits. (Note that I doubt the org is paying any federal tax.)
  20. Dodecahedron
    Durability can be addressed, for most people. Having more muscle mass can protect the body from injuries. However, I suspect if Buxton's body allowed him to build up muscle easily, he would have done so. This is the main reason I suspect he has a connective tissue disease. People who have these diseases have great trouble building muscle mass. I'm not saying Buxton isn't strong -- he is -- I'm saying he probably puts in a ton of work just to get to where he is now. We can assume Buxton puts as much into keeping his body in tune as he puts into his play on the field, yet he is still very skinny. This would have been understandable as a rookie, but he has now been around for a long time. On another note ... for a bit of fun, take a look at how skinny Gardenhire was when he was playing.
  21. Dodecahedron
    Buxton is great, Berrios is very good. Regarding which is worth a $100M deal, well, who knows? There are 100 million ways to slice up a $100M deal. Are we talking $20M a year for 5 years? $10M a year for 10? $33M for 3? In baseball, for some reason we talk about total contract value, but that could mean almost anything to a team's budget. In any case.... Brad Radke made $61M and he finished his career 15 years ago. Berrios and Radke are very good comps. Is $61M in early 2000s money equal to $100M now? Probably. Radke played for 12 years, Berrios for 6. So is Berrios worth $16.6M per year for the next 6 years? Probably. Will this seem low to him? Probably. There are no comps for Buxton, but someone will pay him. Buxton knows it. I don't think the Twins have a chance unless they overpay. While overpaying was acceptable for Mauer, it's really not acceptable for Buxton. For Buxton, just enjoy him while we can.
  22. Dodecahedron
    Extending Rogers needs to be a priority. It is utter nonsense that Rogers did not start the year as the closer, and heck they're still using him in the middle innings over half the time and letting worse pitchers close out games. If I were Rogers, I would hold off on signing a deal until after the season, just to see if the Twins make a change at manager. If there are no changes, if I were in his shoes I would bolt. This isn't coming from an anti-Baldelli angle, it's coming from an I'm-Taylor-Rogers angle. Rogers is better than the typical "We need a lefty here" pitcher. Using him that way is insane. If I were the Twins, I would do everything I can to extend his contract as soon as possible and I would stop treating him as a LTOGY.
  23. Dodecahedron
    Poor guy. I would expect someone who is sick to be pitching as he was. I'm amazed he was still getting that much velocity, which no doubt made him sicker faster. His numbers in recent years are not great, so I don't think this is why he was cut. The only justification for cutting him after being sick on the mound would be if he was drunk or something. With all that coughing he was doing, I doubt that's the case. The Twins might be bad, but they're not marching people out there who should be in bed.
  24. Dodecahedron
    Like it or not, some people are wired in a way that stuff like this aggravates them. I'm not sure that's "pedantic."
  25. Dodecahedron
    Twins ERA+ 84 Tigers ERA+ 96 Why not? Beau's 3.16 FIP is made the algorithms go off everywhere in the league when he hit waivers. He would have been claimed by someone, so kudos to the Twins for being terrible so they get first dibs. Strange to cut a guy after 1 appearance. Maybe he pooped in Robbie Grossman's shoe or something, but to that end, who hasn't done that or at least thought about doing that?
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