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Dodecahedron

Twins Daily Jail
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Everything posted by Dodecahedron

  1. I think you know that I am one of the most skeptical people around, but I think it is worth paying Buxton near his peak market value. The Twins were 62-25 with Buxton in 2019, and 39-36 without him. That's insane. There is every possibility that the 2019 team, record home runs and all, gets ten to twelve fewer wins without Buxton. Record home runs -> 90 wins? Wow, that's a flawed team (but also another discussion). The idea with WAR, and this is what most people believe, is that players only affect a handful of wins every year. I truly believe that Buxton is a WARbuster, and this is primarily due to his defense. When he can hit too, which yes isn't always, what he will do during those weeks on the field are unmatchable. Buxton can provide an incredible amount of value in that half season he is on the field. More than what nearly every other player can provide given the whole year. If a team is a mere 5-6 games from sheer dominance, that team should grab Buxton and pay him fairly. He will help them accomplish their goals. Teams further back, teams that need more, should not grab Buxton. Now of course it's a fair point that long-term contracts are risky. I hate long term contracts for all players, really, so that seems pretty normal.
  2. No one in baseball could have paid that contract at that time, and no one else would have offered him that contract. This is why the Rangers had to eat half of it after trading him off, and it's also why they had to trade him off. Even the Yankees, notorious spenders, could not afford that contract at that time. To top it all off, this was the steroid era and he was later caught. Worth it? I don't know. By today's standards, sure. By the standards of the time, it was a massive overpay and it had most people shaking their heads. I don't recall if the Rangers declared bankruptcy later or if they narrowly avoided it.
  3. Ah well. The Rangers ended up paying the beyond-reasonable portion A-Rod's salary forever once they traded him off. The Twins can probably figure out that number for Sano and let him go. It won't hurt as much as that A-Rod thing hurt the Rangers.
  4. Now let's trade Sano to the Pirates for a lightly-used jar of mayonnaise and a coupon for a free entrée at the Pannekoeken Huis.
  5. I'm not sure the Pohlads were not ready to pay players. Some Twins player (Hrbek?) was the highest paid player in the league for a few weeks. I believe he was the first million-dollar player. But the Pohlads were in no way prepared for the salary inflation that started in the 90s, that's for sure. (Or, if they were, Terry Ryan wasn't.) At the end of the day, it's hard to forgive anyone in the front office in that era after they tried to fold the team.
  6. As Vincent Vega said to Jules Winnfield: "If you give these nimrods Taylor Rogers, I'll shoot them myself." No more giving our best pitchers to Houston, please. If this is the only option the Twins have, just fold the team. We'll understand.
  7. The Twins spent a lot more than I was expecting this year. When I thought they were done, they spent another $20-$30M. It seems that extra $20-$30M was wasted, as in the players they added late have not been helpful or necessary. I guess it's sort of like a painting or recording a song. You have to know when to stop. There is a point where adding more starts to make things worse.
  8. Kepler isn't a balanced hitter. Most of his production comes from bombas, and he hits just enough of those to appear to be of average value. Historically, players with this profile hit a wall and their production eventually evaporates. Kepler's contract is structured in the usual way, where he gets a nice raise every year. Anyone who takes him on will be taking on more risk for more money.
  9. You seem to be changing the subject from what you posted originally, which was a rant about the ugliness of everyone around you and not at all about this particular game.
  10. It is possible to leave Berrios in at the start of the inning and then pull him after it's apparent he is out of gas. "Keep him in to start the inning if he is doing well" does not mean the same thing as "never a pull a guy who is clearly struggling." Frankly it's mildly offensive that people would suggest that this is what people mean when they say Baldelli pulls people too early.
  11. Kirilloff looks very good at first, but I'm guessing the gold glove almost never goes to a rookie.
  12. The SDI algorithm is on the sillier side of things. Knowing that all common defensive metric systems are wonky, the SABR folks assigned to this project simply added the numbers together from several existing systems. That's why this is called an "Index" -- like the Dow Jones Industrials Index, it's just a bunch of numbers added together. The problem is, being an index of algorithms, some events are double, triple, or quadruple counted. This would be like saying, "WAR is several algorithms, but none of them are perfect. So let's create a new WAR system by adding bWAR, fWAR, and WARP together...." In any case, if Simmons is very good at the types of events that get counted multiple times, he will look very good in the eyes of SDI. If someone measures all of the features of your face, but the measurements for your nose are doubled or tripled, suddenly that computer rendering of your face is distorted/wrong.
  13. LEN3 isn't always right, so I hope we don't take those tweets as gospel. The future for Berrios and Buxton has always been murky, at least when it comes to keeping them in a Twins uniform. The best way to keep them was probably to field a team that could dominate the division and win in the playoffs. This year's shellacking probably closed the book.
  14. This would be fun to say to Tom Kelly to watch his head explode. If Tom Kelly isn't around, you can probably throw this gem out there at nearly any multiple world series-winning manager with similar results. Be sure to film it as I would love to see the reaction.
  15. The fundamentals don't impress the writers posing as scouts, apparently.
  16. Anything is possible, but I would say probably not since the criticism around Baldelli is that he doesn't seem to be doing much of anything. In any case, people are allowed to talk to each other and really that's the only way to solve problems. There was no pushing or shoving, so there is just nothing here to get involved with. However, one could argue that Baldelli should have been the one getting on Arraez for not paying attention, not a player.
  17. His OPS in June was .787, his OPS in May was ,737. One has to cherry-pick and cut out half of May in order to say he had an .800 OPS for "half of May and all of June." What we are really saying with that .800 OPS line is Sano was excellent for 2 weeks at the end of May and OK in June. As I said elsewhere, Sano has not been good in July. In any case, how much Sano makes is not our concern. Nor is it Baldelli's. It is my personal hope that Sano is not playing because the Twins are in trade talks with someone, and they don't want him to get injured. But even if that's not the case, Kirilloff brings consistency to the table, and the Twins are struggling with consistency this year. Let Kirilloff play.
  18. Sano had more than enough at-bats this year to get out of his slump. There are only four players on the team who appeared in more games than Sano. I'm guessing Sano was in the top 3 in games played until the Twins started benching him recently. Sano needs to get the message that Kirilloff can take his spot in the lineup if he does not perform.
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