cHawk

Defensive WAR?

You’re joking, right?

Please no...

Exactly. That’s another reason we can’t fire him.

Here’s a problem I have with BABIP — BABIP doesn’t account for quality of contact on a ball in play. A .300 BABIP is considered to be league average. However, if the quality of contact is weak 80-90% of the time, you are not going to have a .300 BABIP. You can’t expect to have a .300 BABIP if you can’t actually hit the ball hard. Since 2015, I have organized the league average BABIP on the six levels of quality of contact (according to baseball savant): Poorly (Combines Topped/Under/Weak) - .132 Flare/Burner - .655 Solid Contact - .424 Barrel - .518 How well you hit the ball will clearly make a difference. Donaldson’s BABIP in 2021 is .240, which is well below league average. If you take number of BIP with the weight above: 67 Poorly 19 Flare/Burner 3 Solid Contact 16 Barrel (67*.132 + 19*.655 + 3*.424 + 16*.518)/(67 + 19 + 3 + 16) = .571. There is no way a .571 BABIP is sustainable, but I do think that his BABIP is low based on how he has been hitting the ball.

You didn’t; it’s fine. I wasn’t defending Baldelli, his decision making has been problematic this year, I was just shooting down the lazy arguments I see far too often.

A few days ago, I started a thread on why, in my opinion, the Twins coaching staff has been holding them back the most. And in the comments, I saw a few comments following a recurring theme. It’s no secret that Rocco Baldelli has made a lot of questionable in-game decisions this year, some of them directly CONTRIBUTING to losses. Notice I didn’t say LEADING to, because sometimes his decisions that “lose” the game are him making the right decision based on the situation and it still blowing up because, IDK, because he’s the Twins manager. If you’ve read the Twins Twitter/Facebook and have listened to the sports radio, or heck, read many comments on this site, tell me if you’ve heard some of these before: 1) Baldelli is stupid 2) Baldelli has no feel for the game 3) Baldelli doesn’t emphasize fundamentals, only analytics 4) Baldelli doesn’t hold players accountable 5) Baldelli has “no fire” and “no personality” Why are you writing this, cHawk? We’ve won 6 of 7, how about a positive topic? Because we still see it, even when the team is winning. We saw it during the 5-2 start. We saw it last year, particularly in game threads. And if I had a dollar for every time I’ve seen some variation of “Fire Baldelli” or some variation of one of the five sayings above, on this site, on Twitter/Facebook and whatnot, I could probably buy a giant 8K TV with that money. I’ll shoot these down one by one: 1) “Baldelli is stupid” This statement, aside from being offensive, is straight up false. This is probably the least common I see of the five, but it isn’t “nonexistent.” If Baldelli was stupid, he wouldn’t have been successful in 2019-2020. He wouldn’t have been hired in the first place. If he was stupid, it wouldn’t have taken until 3 years into his tenure for people to be saying this. If you think Rocco is stupid, imagine what it would be like if an actual stupid person was the manager. What if a Patrick Star was the manager? The team wouldn’t even show up for the games (not mentally, physically) half of the time. He would forget to attend the press conference, and even when he would show up he wouldn’t be able to provide an explanation for a win or loss. Not that Baldelli’s press conferences are good, but he at least can give an explanation of what went wrong. 2) “Baldelli has no feel for the game” This is a slightly tamer version of #1. Again, if he had “no feel for the game,” the team wouldn’t have won 100 games two years ago. You can call me a hack for this point all you want, but it is relevant: He played the game himself. And he was a good player before he got injured. Good players aren’t just the ones who have a lot of muscles, they are the ones who understand the game. People pretend like Baldelli only spent two weeks learning how to use a spreadsheet and reading a “basic” guide to baseball. That is false, he played the game himself. 3) “Baldelli doesn’t emphasize fundamentals, only analytics” This argument falls in the ballpark of “mere speculation at absolute best, rather than something you can even go off of.” Those who say this, how do you know this? One could argue that, for example, the catcher always being on two knees even with runners on, that Baldelli doesn’t emphasize that as a fundamental of the game. Problem is, that isn’t a “fundamental” or, when people refer to “fundamentals” in this context, they are talking about something completely different, with little to no connection whatsoever. That’s a way of playing the game. When we refer to this team’s “poor fundamentals,” it refers to the likes of: - Luis Arraez (who has shown he can make accurate throws from third to first) well...you already know - Josh Donaldson (who is a gold glove infielder) booting the routinist on ground balls, and dropping the routinist of throws that would’ve been an inning DP, and in the 9th inning too. - Ben Rortvedt (who is at the very least a MiLB caliber player, and MiLB caliber defensive catcher) botching a rundown that any HIGH SCHOOL catcher would get right - Andrelton Simmons (one of the greatest fielders ever) botching ground balls and dropping throws left and right And that’s just referring to the defense. How about scoring a grand total of TWO RUNS against Trevor Cahill and Wil Crowe? How about not being able to hit a damn thing in the 10th Inning against ANY reliever? Funny enough, all of this isn’t the point. What is the point of this: Do you have cold, hard evidence that Baldelli is “deemphasizing” the fundamentals of the game? Do you have access to the clubhouse, or do you have regular chats with Baldelli? Show of hands please. Because if you do, you should be writing front page articles for this site. You should be writing articles for the Athletic. I bet Aaron Gleeman would love to have you on his show. If you have no evidence for your claim, you shouldn’t make it, bottom line. And what exactly is the problem with his analytics? Yes, he pulls his starters almost entirely based on analytics. He chooses his bullpen matchups based on analytics. Problem is, with pulling the starters, seemingly every button is wired to implode. On April 15, Pineda is cruising through 7 scoreless against the Red-Hot Red Sox. Baldelli pulls Pineda for Hansel Robles. (Not a decision I would’ve made, but Robles had a 0.00 ERA and a <0.50 WHIP going into that, so I can’t blame Baldelli for trusting him) His control issues get the better of him and he walks the bases full. Taylor Rogers comes in and is About a month later...Pineda has been pitching well through 5 innings against the White-Hot White Sox at about 90 pitches. Baldelli lets Pineda continue. Since the yank logic didn’t work out the first time, go with the opposite, right? Well guess what. Pineda walks the first two batters of the inning. One of which scores. So what do y’all have to say about that? When seemingly every pitcher Baldelli puts in a big spot ****s himself, no matter what pitcher it is, why do you blame Baldelli? 4) “Baldelli doesn’t hold his players accountable” Anything that can be said about this was already said in #3. Unless you have regular chats with Baldelli, or have access to the clubhouse, you cannot use this point. If you want to see players demoted or cut when they’re performing badly, the problem is is that wouldn’t actually help the situation. Like when Donaldson boots a routine ground ball. Is Baldelli supposed to take him out of the game and put Arraez or Astudillo over there? Because certainly that would make sure that it doesn’t happen again. *NOT* Do you know what Baldelli says to a player that is playing badly in the clubhouse? I think not. 5) “Baldelli has no fire and no personality” Once again, you have no evidence of this. Those who want Rocco yelling at his players to get them going probably watch too many baseball movies. If your boss constantly yelled at you, would you work harder? Or would you go and find yourself a new job, with a boss that treats you with RESPECT? I don’t know about you, but I think I know my answer. You might say, “Baldelli is a lifeless robot, and we see it in press conferences.” Problem is, how else is he supposed to act in press conferences? You want him to absolutely lose his **** in front of the press when the team loses? Would that really make you think he’s a better manager? I hope not, because it’s a basic street smart that you don’t lose your **** in front of the press. ———— I am by no means letting Baldelli off the hook. You forget how many times you’ve visited a mound in one inning, like, seriously? WTF? Baldelli had a bad first few weeks. Thing is, even good coaches and managers have bad stretches. Baldelli never looked this bad in 2019-2020. When you say “Baldelli is an absolutely horrible manager, who needs to be fired,” and all you can come up with are reasons that you can’t even back up, it doesn’t work. That’s not how the insiders of the baseball realm think.

It’s simple. Make Rogers the closer. Robles, Duffey, Alcala, and Colome the setup guys. Call up Johan Duran sooner rather than later, and add more starter help. Acquire 3 (quality) bullpen arms in July, one of them being a fireball closer. Then, you can release one or two of the original guys who are sucking. How are we going to acquire three arms at the deadline? I mean, I don’t think it’s against the trade rules. Let’s see here... *typing typing typing click* and here we go. Teams are permitted to trade for three bullpen arms at the deadline. Shouldn’t be a problem.

It would probably be 4 or 5 wins better, IMO. And that’s quite a bit, given the Sample Size (~50 games). The lost games we would’ve won had we had Cleveland’s pen: - 4/1 vs MIL - 4/11 vs SEA - 4/21 vs OAK - 5/4 vs TEX - 5/22 vs CLE Of course those aren’t all of the games that the BULLPEN was associated with, but the others, I figured the Twins wouldn’t have won anyway due to their offensive ineptitude, or the infield defense was particularly abysmal. As I illustrated in my thread, I believe the inability to score runs late in games and inept fielding is hurting this team more than the incompetence of the pen, but it’s pretty close. Neither of those problems deserves significantly more emphasis than the other, and neither are acceptable.

You are looking it the inner game of baseball, and you make a great point. It could be a lack of leadership on the team. Now, I don’t believe that losing Eddie wrecked this team’s chemistry. They still guys like Arraez and Astudillo who play hard, and veteran leaders like JD and Nellie. And I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again — Eddie isn’t worth $10M, or anywhere close to it. But these aren’t robots, after all. They’re humans with emotions. About the FO, regarding the pen. I see your point that many of the big name relievers either didn’t work out for their respective teams or got hurt. For example, Trevor Rosenthal and Kirby Yates got hurt. If one thinks the Twins should’ve coughed up $20M/year for 3 years of Liam Hendricks, who knows what they’re smoking. I think the problem is: a) They weren’t aggressive enough, going after too few arms; or b) They didn’t bud high enough. That said, I can’t say I know how many bullpen arms they went after. But in any case, underperformance cannot be tolerated. Looking this bad at fundamental baseball cannot be tolerated. Someone will need to pay. And I don’t see how you make the players pay without completely burning down this roster.

I never said he IS bad. He’s not bad. *ducks* I’m saying he could’ve been doing something wrong these first seven weeks. Competent managers and coaches can have down years. I believe Doug Pederson is a good coach, who had a bad year in 2020 (Like, seriously, it doesn’t get much worse than being accused of blatant tanking). Likewise, I think Baldelli is a good manager who has had a down start to the season. He also had lost some competent personnel around him (Mike Bell) whose replacement or said replacement’s competence level is unknown.

82-80 would be a total disaster of a season for what expectations were going in. If he’s making chicken**** decisions in game throughout those 113 games, then no. That’s really the main indicator of how he’s doing things. If the players still suck at fundamentals, that’s an indictment of a problem with the coaching staff as a whole, not just Rocco.

Often times we’re up like 1-0 or 2-0 early. Then, we don’t do **** on offense the rest of the game, requiring the pitching to be absolutely perfect. The pitching hasn’t been good, I agree. Too often our pitchers get ahead 0-2, and then start dinking around the zone, leading to longer counts, leading to more pitches thrown, leading to the starters leaving early, leading to bullpen overusage, leading to, well...what we’ve seen.

You can’t win in the playoffs with a ****ty offense, scoring one or two runs a game. You will not beat the any team, under any circumstance, when you score one or two runs a game. You will not beat any team when you suck comedically at the fundamentals (like the Twins have these past two postseason appearances).

I wasn’t trying to drive the narratives about Baldelli, I was just questioning if he was the “right fit” for this team. When a team with championship aspirations is vastly underperforming, that does need to be a question. I said nothing about analytics. I was suggesting that these fundamental problems that we’re seeing in 2021 may be the product of the coaches. We saw success in 2019 for sure, and in 2020. And we do have a veteran left side that should be rock solid and it hasn’t. I just don’t know how you hold Simmons and Donaldson accountable other than cutting them or demoting them or benching them, none of which fixes the problem. I don’t think Rocco is dumb, or doesn’t put enough emphasis on fundamentals, or too much on analytics. I’m speculating that something about his coaching may be off this year, that goes beyond his main decisions. And this isn’t at all a Rocco centered-criticism, it’s the coaching staff as a whole. For example, Edgar Varela. While SSS, the offense hasn’t been successful under him. That said, I don’t really know much about him.

You are right, it probably deserves a question. What he’s beating down is those who pretend they have access to the clubhouse and have regular chats with Baldelli. I don’t think he was directly beating OP. Rather, he’s indirectly beating the numerous hacks on this site that I described in the paragraph above.

The Tigers are vastly different from the Twins. The Tigers are simply a bad team. They have little to no major league talent, or at least their major league players aren’t developed yet. The Twins have a ton of talent, expected to at least make the playoffs, and expected to actually win for once when they get there. If a team like that has a similar record to the Tigers, someone needs blame.

So...is Tyler Duffey just a horrible pitcher that got lucky the last two years? “The hitters will eventually hit,” I mean hopefully they do. Will this team quit constantly ignoring fundamentals and playing awful defense? We’ve seen the infield defense cost us multiple games thus far.

No, he did his job the last two years. This year, he hasn’t done his job well. I’m not saying that he just forgot, or he isn’t trying. What I’m trying to say is this team’s poor performance is a result of coaching. The coaching did well in 2019, so-so IMO in 2020, and has been problematic this year. If this team ends up flopping this year like they have so far, I think the coaches deserve some of the blame.

That was kind of what I was highlighting. That has been a bigger problem then the competence level of the bullpen. Overall, it doesn’t matter what the coach is doing wrong. We have no evidence that they’re doing Thing X or Thing Y wrong. Players constantly failing at fundamentals is unacceptable and cannot not be tolerated on a championship team. There needs to be a change, and, historically, coaches and managers usually get fired. Infact, that’s the reason this team sucks so bad in the postseason. It’s not because they lack an “ace” (although that’s part of it). They fail at basic fundamentals. Teams like the Yankees are well coached and don’t make many mistakes. Smart teams beat the dumb ones, not just in the playoffs, but all the time. Likewise, NFL Teams that get the most deadball 15-yarders (Unnecessary Roughness and Unsportsmanlike Conduct) aren’t the ones who win Playoff Games, let alone Super Bowls

I stand corrected. His plan was not sound, not his effort. Error on my part.

Exactly. That’s what I was referring to with the coaching staff. Even if we got Hendricks and Snell in the offseason, we still wouldn’t go anywhere past the first round, because Hendricks and Snell wouldn’t fix the constant awful execution of this whole team.

STRIKE HIM OUT ALREADY

At least they actually did something to address the O-Line this time

Fair enough