jokin

I'm not sure where you're going here. We agree that Correia is what he is, as evidenced in the stats that have been presented. In the meantime, many on this site and in the media (including Mackey) have reiterated over and over that Correia has been a "pleasant surprise", some have said they were wrong about him being a bad signing and some have said that Correia's proven himself to be far better than what was expected at the time the deal was signed (when it turns out, in fact, that they were closer to the truth with their preseason assessments). Now that nearly 4 months of data have come in, Mackey can return to his original premise from the article you cited last winter. By contrast, myself and some others on TD have been noting Correia's performance data semi-frequently since May and noted the disturbing developing trends, trends ignored by people, who instead continued to conform to early-formed, and ultimately inaccurate meme's about Correia's "pleasant surprise", why Pelfrey should be run out of town for general ineffective suckiness, and why Hicks is the worst player in major league baseball.

The point of the article was the fact that Mackey and others have been operating under the illusion that Correia was a "pleasant surprise" and has generally been pitching well for the Twins. And just as Pelfrey's and Hicks's statistical seasons have largely been colored by how they performed in April (and in Pelfrey's case, the level of competition faced), so too has Correia's early dominance, easier overall schedule and unsustainable April ERA masked how he has actually done in the whole. Many have also speculated that Correia was a potential trading chip due to his allefged "effectiveness". The negative trend since May 1 and the facts surrounding his season suggest that he offers little value. You mention Worley and Diamond. These really shouldn't be a surprise, should they. Besides the fact that Diamond was due a regression, that most were in general agreement on, both pitchers are coming off of offseason surgery, a major warning sign that should have demanded that the Twins take out more "pitching insurance." You interjected this here, and I'm scratching my head to understand how you came to that conclusion. Yes, the last few days have generally been better, but the month of July has pretty much been just as disastrous in terms of SP ERA and FIP as any other month for Twins pitchers. Twins July SP ERA: 4.86 SP FIP: 5.20 Twins season SP ERA: 5.13 SP FIP: 4.75 On the premise of pitching largely to expectations, we agree, but the running meme in Twinsland was that he has been pitching more than a little above expectations and that was my reasoning for underscoring that Correia is just being Correia, ie, a 5th starter/replacement level, depth chart starter (depending on each team's individual situation). Twing management promised more than that during the FA signing process. Again, the average AL SP has an ERA of 4.20 with a FIP of 4.15. Correia, with April numbers has an ERA of 4.56 with a FIP of 4.79, but most disturbingly, as stated before, the trends are going against him, with an ERA of 5.60 since May 1. This is a point that one sides finds as justification, while the other side finds as rationalization. There was more than enough payroll flexibility to do much better in the offseason, and with the major question marks surrounding Diamond, Worley and Pelfrey's health concerns, there was a clear and pressing need to have a pitcher with more to offer than Correia as your offseason "showcase" signing (and public promise from the organization to the fans they would definitely sign "a pretty darn good pitcher").

Has anybody said that his behavior is OK? The big issues I've seen are that cultural and language differences, coupled with a problematic brew of Sano's uber-talent and ego in a 20 year old immature body- can easily lead to inevitably predictable problems. Any AA prospect, no matter the age or talent level, is ever going to win a test of wills with management, especially with the apparent insubordinate behavior being indefensible. The onus is still on the adults in the room to defuse and resolve the current situation, obviate future potential situations and come to solutions that ends up making Sano a better man for it- on and off the field, and helping to make him a better asset to future Twins success. It appears that, hopefully, Ryan has provided strong Tough Love, yet let Sano be fully aware of the team's Unconditional Love in the immediate situation, and can put in a better system and more diverse personnel to anticipate future insubordination and team rule violation problems that might arise from some youth/cultural/language barriers.

Did the Twins have anything close to resembling a Jack Morris, Kirby Puckett or Dan Gladden in any of the playoff series in the 00s?

Mike Pelfrey's year, month-by-month: April: ERA 7.66/ 5 starts- 2 against winning teams May: ERA 5.90/ 5 starts- 4 against winning teams June: ERA 4.66/ 3 starts- 0 against winning teams July: ERA 2.28/ 4 starts- 3 against winning teams So 18 starts for Pelfrey, 20 starts for Correia. 4 of Pelfrey's 7 QS are against winning teams, while only 3 of Correia's 10 QS are against winning teams. The trends are even more telling. Since May 1, Pelfrey has made 7 of his 13 starts against winning teams. His ERA since May is 4.37 Since May 1, Correia has made only 5 of 15 starts against winning teams. His ERA since May 1 is 5.60. It's again no wonder that based on established trends, Pelfrey is not only obviously pitching better, he's doing better against a higher caliber of opponents, clearly, he should be considered for an in-season extension by the Twins and as a possible trade acquisition by contending teams, whereas, it can be asserted that Correia has little to no value built up as trade bait and is likely dead weight sunk cost for the remainder of his Twins contract.

I have been arguing just this point since late May. I previously have posted his comparative 2013 stats relative to his career stats and they have shown that the Twins got pretty much exactly what was to be expected from Correia. His numbers after close to 4 months show him to predictably be pretty much across the board to be worse than his NL numbers and within the ballpark of lower statistical expectations we had for him as an AL pitcher. Mackey and many others have been a little off-track early-on and been misled by his great start in April that the Twins had received a pleasant surprise in how much better Correia was than first anticipated in the offseason. In fact, you have now joined me in complete agreement, Correia is what his statistics suggested he would be, a 5th/replacement depth starter. To have been signed as such, probably wouldn't have been a problem for 99% of Twins fans. The problem lay in the fact that Ryan didn't go farther and get an additional arm that projected to be better- and he had the funds to do so.

I was admittedly being faster and looser in using the QS- which is a flawed, but still quick and easy acid test to measure relative success. But, the underlying Correia ERA month-by-month results don't lie, nor does the information concerning the actual teams with whom he's had generally better success against. Certainly in a pennant race, prospective suitors want to know how a potential SP might stack up against quality opponents with a pennant on the line. In the recent past, in other threads, I have also pointed out that a large, and out-of-proportion chunk, of Correia's games have come against the bottom quartile of MLB teams in terms of offensive statistics. When I have time, I will update them into the thread.

I haven't seen you comment or supply any factual basis for your charge for questioning the integrity and accuracy of certain posters in the TD community. This is very largely a fact-driven blog and is what makes this site such a wonderful resource (and a refuge from more shrill and emotion-based forums).......so.....presenting posts filled with facts is critical in championing one's position. While there certainly is a human element where typo mistakes or incorrect interpretations of data are possible, I have yet to see folks on this forum who fail to offer mea culpas when mistakes have been made. To the facts presented in my OP, these are all easily obtainable by going to ESPN and consulting Kevin Correia's game log: Kevin Correia Game By Game Stats and Performance - Minnesota Twins - ESPN

Did you miss the part of my post that said: "Kudos to TR for acting aggressively and doing what had to be done to change the direction of the club back in the right direction"?

Not disingenuous at all. In the world of International bonus money, #388K is hardly a "crumb". Had the Cubs stopped their flurry of multiple international signings before their recent signing of Tseng, these additional acquired monies would have kept the Cubs from going over thresholds levels for maximum overage signing penalties. This "crumb" would have kept the Cubs in the game for signing international players in both 2014 and 2015 for more than $250K. That strategy changed in the last few days, as apparently Tseng's potential availability became more possible (and simultaneous apparent unwillingness by the Twins to outbid the Cubs), and changed the Cubs initial strategy at the time of the Feldman trade to only sign players within the spending limits, and accept the penalties for the $1.059M overage of their pool limit as an acceptable tradeoff for acquiring Tseng's potential talents.

1) What was creative in doing a deal with a club that had been pining for Denard Span for the last 3 years? 2) What was creative in doing a deal with a club that called out of the blue and made TR an offer he couldn't refuse? Kudos to TR for acting aggressively with these 2 deals and doing what had to be done to change the direction of the club back in the right direction, but I see no creativity on his part in the process. And thie Twins situation required, and had the room available in financial terms to be even more aggressive. The Cubs are being far more creative and aggressive in digging out of a much deeper hole- and admitting publicly that they are in full-rebuild.

Notice any interaction with coaching staff, Manager Smith and Miguel? The New Britain club is certainly reeling right now. Morales also seems to be riding pine (pulled after 1 PA yesterday?), with only Pinto and Rosario seemingly the only bats keeping their heads above water in the box score amidst this whole off-field drama. There must be better starting options for the club than Kyle Davies?

...but still acceptable information from Phil Mackey Mackey: While Correia crashes back to earth, Pelfrey is building value - Minnesota Twins news | 1500 ESPN Twin Cities ? Minnesota Sports News & Opinion (Twins, Vikings, Wolves, Wild, Gophers) | Sportswire: Minnesota Twins, who has now put his impramatur on the disturbing trend for one Twins FA SP and the encouraging trend for the other Twins FA SP. Many TD contributors have noted that Kevin Correia's terrific April, much like Aaron Hicks's and Mike Pelfrey's awful Aprils, have left misleading perceptions of what the true level of contributions that they've each brought to the Twins since then. The one area that Mackey failed to do in-depth analysis was analyze which teams Correia has started against. Of his 20 starts this year, only 7 have come against winning teams. Of his 10 Quality Starts this season, 5 of those 10 occured during April, when he was 5 for 5 in QS. 3 of his Quality Starts came in June- where Correia made 6 starts in all- and all 6 starts in that month were against teams with losing records. Overall, 7 of his 10 Quality Starts were against losing teams. Here's his month-to-month breakdown: April: ERA 2.23/ 5 starts- 2 against winning teams. May: ERA 6.26/ 5 starts- 3 against winning teams. June: ERA 4.29/ 6 starts- 0 against winning teams. July: ERA 7.11/ 4 starts- 2 against winning teams. It's no wonder that there probably is a very limited market for Correia's services as the deadline approaches.

The Twins gave up a lot more to get those assets than the Cubs did to get their assets.

Good comparative breakdown. But....... The Cubs also got two slots for the International Draft from these moves, that helped them in locking up the #1, #3 and #22 rated players. If Strop continues pitching anywhere close to his current lights out level, he too is a very cheaply acquired asset and cheap forward- cost asset, either to the Cubs team or as a trading chip down the road. And Arrieta is basically a much cheaper costing repeat-version of the bet they made on Feldman. And they stand a much better chance of gaining value in a trade for Villenueva than the Twins do in trading Correia.

One of the worst teams, sure, but their starting pitching is in the top 30% in baseball and their relief pitching is tied for 15th in terms of ERA. Major League Team Stats » 2013 » Starters » Dashboard | FanGraphs Baseball The Marlins rank 9th out of 30 teams for SP ERA @ 3.77 (3.94 FIP) The Twins rank 30th out of 30 teams for SP ERA @ 5.16 (4.71 FIP). As a starter, Slowey has a 4.11 ERA (3.81 FIP). That would rank Slowey as 2nd among Twins starters in ERA and 1st in FIP. Minnesota Twins Leaderboards » 2013 » Starters » Dashboard | FanGraphs Baseball

So that's what Drayton looks like?

1 more than Ben Revere.

Maybe not halfway between, perhaps just out at the exurban end of the F/M megalopolis urban sprawl.

Other non-stops include Vegas, LA, DFW, Orlando and Atlanta and PHX. Current listing of the airlines operating from Fargo

These teams aren't traveling OUT of Fargo on a Saturday, anyway. What, as for the fans you say? Fly out of Fargo and miss all the Saturday night nightlife opportunities?

7 arrivals today into Hector International. From MSP, DEN, ORD and SLC. You can pretty much connect to anywhere from those 4 can't you? Current Flight Information, Saturday, July 27.

Latent internecine ND/ND State rivalry rearing its ugly head yet again. Who do you GF guys get to kick around when size matters, Pembina?

I am enjoying these Mariner radio announcers and the camera work is first rate. Very professional and still have some fun without going over the top.

They were both even better on MLB.