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Dodecahedron

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Everything posted by Dodecahedron

  1. Dodecahedron
    Knowing many are skeptical of Dobnak, I was surprised when I came here this morning and saw all positive vibes in this thread. Turns out, I just had to wait a while for the negativity to start. Some things to keep in perspective: 1. This is a team-friendly contract. Dobnak will be very tradeable if things do not work out. 2. Being a bullpen arm is not out of the question. 3. Good knuckleballers get better as they age. If he doesn't get better (heh, as if he has not been good), see above.
  2. Dodecahedron
    Shoemaker is ancient history. Having him start any games, barring someone else being injured, is a waste of time. He is a solid backstop, a solid contingency plan. That's it.
  3. Dodecahedron
    I have an uncontrollable urge to type something like, "Buxton? Injury risk? Fake news! He has never ONCE been injured!" However, I will resist that temptation. I think the question with Buxton is not "Will he be injured" but "How many times will he be injured" and "How many days will he miss due to his injuries?" He is amazing when he is on the field, and the Twins are rather mediocre when he's not out there. When 85 games of Buxton gets you in the playoffs with 100 wins, I'm wondering what 160 games of Buxton would produce. The team was 62-25 in games he played in 2019, a pace of 121 wins. But this doesn't fix the usual problem: 121 wins does not equate to a single win the playoffs.
  4. Dodecahedron
    Smeltzer can pitch, but he was always the #6/#7 in training camp this year. It's on him to change the script for next year. Having a terrible spring did not help.
  5. Dodecahedron
    Root Beer is not great, but it can be a good choice when you order a Coke and hear the dreaded, "Is Pepsi OK?" response. Sometimes a Sierra Mist isn't what you are in the mood for, and I am on record as once describing Dr. Pepper as "Dogs--- in a can." Glad to hear that Fox Sports North was renamed. The Chicago area also calls their version Fox Sports North, which caused me more headaches trying to find the right channel than I would be comfortable admitting.
  6. Dodecahedron
    Because we know the MLB is deadening the ball this year, we really have no idea what to expect from any "power" hitters. We can safely predict that many hitters in the MLB will go from studs to duds. Whether or not this includes Cruz, no one knows. Since Sano can hit it into the next county, I'm not too worried about him in this regard. Sano's issue will continue to be making good contact in the first place.
  7. Dodecahedron
    The problem is analyzing bunts in their own bubble. Bunts are almost never designed to produce a run on their own; bunts are a supplementary tool to get more leverage on the bases so that future hitting events have a higher probability of scoring a run. A bunt on its own is useless for increasing the score. But what about a bunt and a single? What about a bunt and a double? Well, you'd have to look at the "Single with a player on 2nd" or "a double with a player on second" charts to know the answer. However, how the baserunner got on second in the first place matters.
  8. Dodecahedron
    A certain east coast team fielded playoff teams in the last two full seasons ('18 and '19) without having a starting pitching staff that performed any better than the Twins will this year. (Not counting '20, SSS). We are too worried about the starting pitching. We should be worried about the bullpen.
  9. Dodecahedron
    A low BABIP suggests he could be a better hitter. As someone else said, his numbers are where they are because he swings for the fences. What will happen to Kepler when the ball is deadened, as will be the case this year? Can a player ever be "clutch" if he can't control where he hits the ball? Some players had poor BABIPs and productive careers, true. If I were running a team, I'm not sure I would be too comfortable about betting on someone being one of those exceptions, especially not if the player's performance is so close to the median anyway. Billy Beane had some success scrounging around for cheap, high-BABIP and high-OBP players back in the day. Sure, the game has changed since, but this will become important again when the balls stop being juiced.
  10. Dodecahedron
    If Kepler were as good as those other players, I imagine you would worry about him too.
  11. Dodecahedron
    I was surprised the Twins did not make this move when Dozier left. Heck, they should have moved Sano to first at that time too. Both Cron and Schoop were only "Good enough", just delayed the inevitable, and were ultimately just a waste of $. Imagine that 101-win season with a better infield defense.
  12. Dodecahedron
    Judging by the sources you listed, I think you probably agree and are not criticizing.
  13. Dodecahedron
    I will repeat what I said elsewhere. This starting rotation has the potential to be the best rotation the Twins had since the early 90s. Have we been so conditioned by seeing mediocre starters that we don't recognize a good staff when it finally surfaces? Defense matters. If Buxton stays healthy*, with the other defensive upgrades the team made, the Twins pitchers will look a hell of a lot better from top to bottom. *I just won the prize for having typed this phrase the 1,000,000th time on social media.
  14. Dodecahedron
    When it ices in Texas, bad things happen.
  15. Dodecahedron
    I also talked about how those teams had great set-up men and a great closer. Rincon and Romero, who I consider the best of those set-up men, were both using PEDs. PEDs helped pitchers too.
  16. Dodecahedron
    I read a lot about how the question mark this year is the starting pitching staff. I did an exercise recently where I pulled up baseball-reference and looked at the pitching staffs, year-to-year, going back until I found a Twins pitching staff that performed at the level this group of starting pitchers is capable of. I went all the way back to 1992 before I found the team. I expected to find a similar staff in the early 00s, at the latest. This should be exciting. We know the hitters have been there, now the team will have good starting pitching. Of course, it will need a good bullpen as well. I invite anyone else to do the same exercise. The Twins won the division many times with a bunch of 4.00+ ERA yobs. (Granted, they had a 1-2 punch of Joe Nathan plus a couple of elite set-up men to shut teams down on the back end -- if we want to talk about this team having a hole, it's this).
  17. Dodecahedron
    The AL Central is unique. The Twins can keep the playoff window open indefinitely unless something changes and the division sprouts mass competence. Winning a playoff game and advancing in the playoffs is another story....
  18. Dodecahedron
    I agree that Garver had a very poor 2020 and an unsustainable 2019. I feel like he will still do some good things, but time will tell.
  19. Dodecahedron
    Ah, I answered my own question. Those metrics tie at-bat events to this table: http://www.tangotiger.net/customlwts.html Thus, it's not measuring actual runs or actual events that happen in at-bats. Personally, I don't find these approaches reliable predictors, but they are fine for looking backward. What we really need is: - How many hits did Garver have off of fastballs - How many hits did Garver have off of other pitches v. previous year(s) And - How many strikes did Garver have off of fastballs - How many strikes did Garver have off of other pitch types v. previous years(s) Then we can verify your statement. Does anyone have this?
  20. Dodecahedron
    Yes, I saw that, but those are weighted runs and not hits. I'm also unsure of those are actual runs or a "runs generated" type of uberstat. Is there something quantitative that shows that he can't hit fastballs anymore?
  21. Dodecahedron
    I have not been able to find data to back this up. Can you point me in the right direction? For the data I can see, there are two things that stand out: - He was hitting the ball just as hard as before, but his launch angle increased 3 degrees. He was not getting good contact. - He was swinging and missing on more pitches, both inside and outside of the strike zone. Everything I can see suggests this was a standard, boring, run-of-the-mill hitter's slump which he was probably trying to overcompensate for, amplified by a shortened season.
  22. Dodecahedron
    There was a 123 OPS+, good season in there which is pushing the numbers up. If you think that season is the norm, sure, he is underrated (but still not a star). His statistical mean is lower than his peak season, of course, so if you believe in regression, he is still an important piece of the team, but still not a star.
  23. Dodecahedron
    LF was Arraez's primary position in 2019. Metrics suggest he isn't very good out there, but it's a small sample size.
  24. Dodecahedron
    Good write up. My opinion since Sano moved to first base: He is a pricier version of Kennys Vargas. We never saw a full season of Vargas, but if we had his floor would probably be higher than Sano's floor, both offensively and defensively. Remember when the fanbase had visceral reactions to putting a poor defender like Vargas at first? Now the team has a worse defender at first. Of course, if Sano ever fires on all cylinders, great things can happen when he hits the ball. Hopefully no one is holding their breath on that occurring for a full year on a regular basis, since it has yet to happen once.
  25. Dodecahedron
    Yes, I was being snarky.
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