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Dodecahedron

Twins Daily Jail
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  1. https://deadspin.com/twins-josh-donaldson-says-pitchers-are-cheating-and-1847009296 My first thought about this is what type of retaliation will Josh face from pitchers and umpires for speaking up? If people think he is not hitting well enough now, darker days are coming.
  2. Kudos to the Orioles for snapping that bummer of a losing streak. Golf clap to Sano and Polanco. Way to show up or whatever.
  3. He doesn't look cooked to me, but he has some interesting splits. In 2021 so far, he played better when the Twins lost. The Twins have lost just a little more than they have won, so overall he is doing well. Yes, he is down in May, but Who the heck wouldn't be down in May on this team? It's not like the bottom fell out and he's hitting like he is in one of Sano's dry spells or something. He is still producing. He had just as many multi-hit games in May as he had in April. Cruz's May looks like a standard, uninteresting slump. Let me know if it lasts another six weeks.
  4. It's hard to vote against six home runs.
  5. Like much of Stu's work, it's almost like this was written about me.
  6. That's not at all what I'm saying. The "extra year of Berrios" means two things, not one thing, as you believe. 1. He gets to pitch for the team for a longer period of time, if they want him to. But remember, the goal would be, unequivocally, for him to help them make the playoffs this year. 2. The team gets to trade him before he hits free agency. This is great, too, especially if they traded for him in the first place. The team could trade him at the end of the season, or the team could trade him at next year's trade deadline. But make no bones about it, he is very likely to be traded again. Get it now? Berrios's "extra value to trade this year" is because the acquiring team can trade him again, and thus the second team can come out ahead. With Berrios's production just below that of ace, he will always get a good return on the market. This is a bad idea, and hopefully the Twins are not entertaining it. Let the fans and the bloggers think about it all they want. The universe has tons of space with which to fill up chatter, after all, and there are worse options of things to talk about.
  7. I crossed out the unnecessary part so that I could respond respectfully. Teams who buy at the trade deadline are buying for a playoff push for that year. Teams looking to build for multiple years make deals during the offseason. There is a 50% chance that any team who trades for Berrios today trades him again before he hits free agency. I am being very generous with this percentage. You are speaking in the theoretical, I'm speaking as a businessman. Any team who acquires Berrios will be facing the exact same dilemma the Twins are facing today: He will be a free agent. Unless they want to sign him, they will trade him. And next year, there will be other teams having their own playoff pushes because their windows are closing. This market will be there every year. Any team who picks up Berrios this year and flips him next year is going to be the team who wins the trade, no question about it. The best way for the Twins to win this trade is to not do it.
  8. I agree. And we can't lose sight of the fact that the Orioles are incredibly bad right now. I'm happy the Twins have something they can build off of, but they still have to step into it and do it.
  9. I thought this was a good game to watch. Reminded me of baseball games from the 80s. Every at-bat was a chess match and the game result came down to just a couple of plays. Maybe everyone who thinks it was so terrible are judging it by 2019 standards.
  10. Just for giggles, I looked at Mauer's swing motion after I posted that. He did the same thing on his front foot. Either it's not as unusual as I thought it was, or it explains Mauer's constant issues with his leg/knee/calf/ankle/etc.
  11. Honestly, I don't see a difference between his swing with the Rangers and with the Twins. His footwork is identical. It's a ridiculous swing when you get right down to it, and the truth is his swing is probably what kept him in the minors in spite of his high level of production there. If his nonsensical foot motion is the only real problem left after his years of professional baseball, he might just pan out as a good player in the medium term. There is no law that says you can't hit a baseball if you tilt your foot 90 degrees every time you swing. No one likes a leg kick, but if the images in this post are truly representative of his usual swing, he has at least gotten better with it. I would worry about his body breaking down over the course of a full season. It would be interesting to ask him where he gets sore after playing for a month. Mauer would turn his front leg upon occasion too, and we all know about his persistent leg/calf/ankle/foot soreness.
  12. This is what we are talking about here. The Twins trade Berrios now, because he will eventually be a free agent*, gets 2 or 3 prospects. Another team gets him and is thrilled about getting a year of his production at his salary. That team then trades him before he becomes a free agent, gets 2 or 3 prospects. These prospects will be at least as good as the prospects they gave the Twins. The smart team is the second team in this transaction. This is not a smart move by the Twins. Berrios currently does not have an expensive contract, so he's not going to the high-power teams who can afford him. His most likely landing spot would be a smart team who would in turn flip him again. Berrios's value is not going down. Fringe competitors, which is a group the Twins are part of, will take Berrios any day of the week. Stop the madness before it starts. *This is never a good reason to trade someone. Every player will eventually be a free agent. Break the Terry Ryan cycle.
  13. Your impression differs from reality. Pull up his stats and take a look.
  14. Meh. The Twins got essentially nothing out of trading someone named Johan Santana, so what would they get for Berrios? If the Twins can turn this into the Frank Viola Trade Mk. 2, go for it, but that's not going to happen. Berrios's absence would be noticeable and not in a good way. Berrios is cheap now, so trade him now so someone else can get his production on the cheap instead of the Twins because he will be more pricey in two years? Doesn't thinking like that give you a headache?
  15. We have seen this before with countless other players. Refsnyder may end up being hot all year, leaving the Twins to make a hard decision for next year. Or, he could fall off the map in the blink of an eye. We will see!
  16. Hm. Another bad managerial decision that no one else would have made. Oh well, the players took care of it this time.
  17. Isn't the pitcher a part of the team? This is why you analyze further. How much of the measurement was due to this particular individual on the team? You want this to be a black and white issue. It's just not.
  18. I can't quantify how important wins are. I can't quantify how important any stat is. Honestly, it varies by player. Not every player is on the same team, plays in the same situations, or even has the same skills. Data Analysis 101: Look for outliers and use them as signposts for further analysis. If a pitcher started 33 games and won 20 of them, that sticks out and you should be using that knowledge to look deeper. If a pitcher started 33 games and won 5 of them, that's another signpost. If a pitcher won 10-12 games, that's normal and you can toss the wins stat out the window for that guy, the stat won't help you. This is true for any metric. When analyzing data, the more metrics you have the better. Nothing is noise. Start with the outlier stats and work your way in, not vice-versa.
  19. Two issues: 1) I don't recall saying "wins are important." If I did say that, I misspoke. The point I have been making is that wins are not "useless information" -- wins mean something, even if that "something" is just a small part of the story. Just pulling out a number, but if a stat tells 5%-10% of the story about a player, that's meaningful. That's not "useless information." 2) As you say, you outlined premises to prove your case. To me, those same premises prove that wins are good information to have to understand a pitcher. There's no need to repeat yourself, I understand what you are saying. I disagree. Like most of the people on this website, I have thought about this issue for years and I came to my own conclusion. Redact data on your player stat sheets at your own peril.
  20. This is a good teaching moment. There is no single uberstat in baseball. Every metric is useless on its own. Complicating matter is, as you are learning, no one has the same opinion on each metric. You are not arguing anything unexpected, it's normal for people to argue wins for pitchers and RBIs for hitters are useless information because others in the press have argued as such. The truth remains that wins are still a part of telling the story about a pitcher, or learning about a pitcher. A pitcher with wins or losses outside of the norm means something. What that "something" is needs more analysis on a case-by-case basis.
  21. Even if this were all it signifies, this is an important part of the story.
  22. PItcher wins is not a useless stat, it's just a stat that doesn't tell the whole story. Baseball is full of stats that don't tell the whole story.
  23. Part of umpires being "human" is them being biased. I don't think umpires are "corrupt" -- a scandal like that would be just as bad for the game as another long labor strike -- but yes like most people who have 100% of the power in a situation, there are issues around that. If the game went to an electronic strike zone, the umpire would still need to be back there, so don't worry about anybody losing their job or the game losing any of its theater.
  24. No idea. They flirted with signing Darvish after signing others in the same year. Their offer wasn't a serious one in the opinion of anyone except themselves, mind you.
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