jokin

When it's finally all said and done, I'll gladly settle for career numbers somewhere in-between Thome and Dunn.

This is one of the weirdest things that has been propagated about him and I do not know where it started... FACT 1: All power hitters strike out more than non-power hitters (ask Willie) FACT 2: Sano's BB:K ratio is better than Jim Thome's at the same age Enough Jim Thome at age 19 played in rookie ball and A+ Combined had an OPS 1.074 , struck out 44 times had a batting average of .340 and only 27 errors. while playing third. Sano OPS .894 SO 142 BA .235, and 42 errors. When you cal something weird, use a better example than comparing Sano to Thome at the same age. Fact, there are big holes in Sano's game that need to be fixed. Thrylos was probably quoting Sano's DR League BB:K ratio when he actually was 19 (when was that? 3 years ago?) For the record, Sano's BA is currently .260, not .235. But the point is well taken, Sano has quite a journey ahead of him to try to match Thome's game, Sano's projection partner is scary, his current rate of production bears a more current resemblance to Adam Dunn's.....(Dunn at 19 in the Midwest Leauge: OPS 885/SO 64/BB 46/BA 307)

I think the best-case scenario given their limited options and payroll restrictions is that the Twins envision: 1) 4 current cheap options clearly rise to the top here in September and through Spring Training (some combination of Diamond, Deduno, DeVries, Hendriks, Hermsen, Walters, Hernandez and Vasquez) 2) 1 mid-priced FA signing of an innings-eating-type 3) prayer and hope that the additional healthy availability of Baker and Gibson (no later than June) bolsters the SP staff, which then cull the arms that get hurt or struggle

Bert said it before I could type it

Make his hair and beard white and I'd swear this Collins guy is moonlighting as the spokesgnome for Travelocity.

The bunt by Doumit? That's the desperation of batting .176 (9/51) in last 11 games.

Could Hermsen and Boyd possibly become Dave Goltz/Rick Reuschel-types? Big guys that eat a lot of innings and battle without necessarily carrying a strike-out pitch.

8 of 10 on this Top Ten List are/project as, OF/DH types, I would argue that Chris Parmelee makes it 9 of 10 (or 11) as long as Morneau stays a Twin. For the Twins to get out of the mess that they've got themselves in- in the Farm System, as well as with the Big Club- they need to balance this list out with more live arms and one or two MIs. The Twins have drafted big numbers in the opening rounds for arms in both 2012 (10 of top 14 picks) and 2011 (8 of top 11). Clearly, this isn't offering intermediate-term help, with the exciting exception thus far from Berrios. (although there still may be a Top Ten List chance for Bard (any other I missed?) from 2012, and Wimmers, from the 2010 draft). The Twins are going to have to take the great risks necessary to acquire top-ten pitching talent and MIs by trading some of these top prospects and/or finding someone else young internationally and outbidding MLB competitors (as in the case of Miguel Sano).

Excellent post. BTW, I use stats all the time. I enjoy stats. What I object to is what Riverbrian pointed out--when people use stats as the gospel and don't take into account the nuances of the actual game play. That's what I was getting at (rather clumsily) in my post when I said that if you've got a good base stealer you almost always send them. Since I'm the guy that used the term 'stat-head' let me explain a bit further. And I can't believe everybody on this board that love the numbers of baseball didn't see it. "OK, what's wrong with this statement? Anyone? The problem is that no decent base stealer gets thrown out 25% of the time, much less 40% of the time. That's why I said if you have a good base runner you should almost always send them, if the situation warrants it. If you've got a guy with a success rate of 80% as a base stealer and you need to get that guy into scoring position, you send him. I'm sure someone can find the stats that show the likelihood of a base runner scoring from first base with 'x' number of outs vs. the chances of the runner scoring from second base. Heaven's sake, Ryan Braun is a career 79.5% success rate at SB's and we don't even think of him as being a base stealer. Furthermore the league average on CS% is around 27% FOR ALL BASERUNNERS." Well-pllayed, powrwrap, RE- your complete and total dismantling of the all-too-common Twins Daily counter-point tactics- Argumentus Extremis Finitis with special sub-fallacies given by way of Stramineus Hominem (Straw Man) and Ignoratio Elenchi (Ignorance of refutation).

By "any definition"? Is Billy Beane a stat-head or not? I am in complete agreement with your middle sentence, but can't a stat-head do the same? Finally, in response to your third sentence, your efforts on that thread with regards to WAR were admirable and did not go unnoticed by me. Usage of the "Some of my best friends" arguments aren't overly persuasive. Having said that- If you look at the coke-bottle-lens-eyeware-, pocket protector-, White and unmarried single 20- & 30-Something bloggers-, indices in aggregate, I'd say the stat-heads make up a larger population of statistical-based analysts than the ex-jocks. (Let me be the first to say that Twins Daily is a refreshing excepton!-- although one of your brethren readily embraces the genre- with his self-titled, "Gleeman and the Geek" podcasts.

I don't really consider myself a "stat-head" by any definition of the term. I use stats to support my opinions, not as the basis for them. (I mean, come on, I was railing against WAR on another thread just yesterday.) I simply take exception to the whole "looks at box scores, doesn't watch the games, has never played baseball" mantra. I know plenty of fellow analysts who would be deemed "stat-heads" and the majority of them have played baseball before, watch tons of games and understand the intangible nuances of the sport. It's a vastly inaccurate stereotype. Very well said... I would add that not only are there "stat-heads" who have played or coached, there are also some passionate baseball fans who don't follow stat sheets very closely AND have never coached or played. I hereby nominate the http://twinsdaily.com/member.php?182-The-Dread-Pirate to develop a Venn Diagram to put proper quantification and illustration of the intersection of the various subsets- with respect to 'stat-respect'- of the Twins fans in aggregation. Perhaps Pirate (who himself, said he occasionally has some available down-time) can go so far as to develop a questionnaire for each willing poster on Twins Daily so they can be identified and labeled by levels of stat-headedness, so the various camps and factions can determine if said poster is friend, foe or part-time intersecting ally.

I would call it an uninformed generalization, but either way. Stereotypes exist because of the abstract halo of truth around the concrete reality, ofttimes the abstract shoes fit perfectly- at the other end is Billy Beane- I'd suggest you're somewhere inbetween.

From baseball-reference.com: To compute a player's Positional adjustment Runs, we add together for each non-pitching position: Position multiplier (from above) × innings played at position / 1,350 Innings. For players who are only pitchers this is Pitcher Positional Adjustment (from below) × (PA/4) / 150. It looks to me like the positional adjustments are proportional to the amount of time played at each position. Baseball Reference has his WAR at 2.6, not 3.8. FanGraphs does a similar apportionment: The position adjustments are then scaled to match the games played at each position for a particular player. This way, players that spend time at multiple positions get a hybrid adjustment based on their playing time at the respective spots. Except that Fangraphs ranks Mauer #13 in American League WAR rankings, while Baseball Reference rates him as #34 overall. Mauer's slash numbers are very, very pedestrian-to-mediocre as a non-catcher (DH/1B/PH): 268/356/364, which lends one to think that FG overweights his C positional adjustment in their valuation model.

How much is it really going to matter in the long run? Parmelee is going to get plenty of at-bats here in the final weeks and he'll be ready to go at the outset of the 2013 season. The Twins' medical staff has had some annoying moments, but I think this situation is being overblown. We're talking about the 25th roster spot on a last-place team. "Some annoying moments"? They were apparently quite comfortable with the FO going public with a "diagnosis" to one of the highest-paid players in the history of baseball with a non-existent medical term? Given all the former players who went public about the situation here, I'd say the union and the agents are more than annoyed- and likely consider the Twins the laughingstock of baseball when it comes to handling medical and training concerns. 25th roster spot? Besides the pitching situation, the filling of this spot is one of the critical in-season decision-making tools on how the team moves forward, ie, a 2013 team with or without Parmele, and where.

From baseball-reference.com: To compute a player's Positional adjustment Runs, we add together for each non-pitching position: Position multiplier (from above) × innings played at position / 1,350 Innings. For players who are only pitchers this is Pitcher Positional Adjustment (from below) × (PA/4) / 150. It looks to me like the positional adjustments are proportional to the amount of time played at each position. Baseball Reference has his WAR at 2.6, not 3.8.

I don't see why not; since apparently franchise relationships trump everything else, there isn't exactly a huge Snapper fan base- or- extra needed consideration for an upset ownership/front office in Beloit that could be too shook up by the move.

Shocker, the Twins certainly executed their backup plan flawlessly by getting Parmelee plenty of reps in Roc. More importantly, how did Span's MRI go this morning? Is he still listed day to day, a DL candidate, or shut down for the year? Originally Posted by SweetOne69 @ Jokin, No point in DL him when you can expand rosters in 3 days. You're right, I just wanted to illustrate the continued Twins flailing. When it comes to the Twins Org....You just can't make up the comedic relief throw-away lines or-out-theatre-of-the-absurd the absurdists in residence.

Is this actually true? I was under the impression that WAR calculations are scaled based on the percentage of a players' appearances at that position - for example, if Mauer gets 200 PA as a catcher, 200 PA at first, and 200 PA at DH, he'd then get 200 PA worth of the positional adjustment for each position when calculating his WAR. As thorough as FanGraphs and the like are in their calculations, that seems like a pretty obvious one - it's not like Mauer's the first guy to play more than one position in a season. Repost for you: Baseball Reference has Mauer's WAR computed at 2.6, ranking him 34th overall in the AL, slightly behind Mike Moustakis (2.7) and Shin-Soo Choo (2.8) and virtually tied with Michael Brantley and Kyle Seager. Over a full season, a WAR of 8+ is MVP caliber, a WAR of 5+ is All Star caliber, a WAR of 2+ is Starter caliber, a WAR of 0-2 is Reserve level. Joe has a good shot at ~3.0 for a full season. http://www.baseball-reference.com/le...-batting.shtml

A completely sane and reasonable expectation. I was surprised that it took this long to get Pavano outside of the organization for review. After Baker, you'd think that's something they would have done in June. A failing on the part of the front office? Possibly, maybe even likely. Excellent proposal employing the common sense I advocated, which is why your previous abolutist argument against the critics held no water. I was not advocating firing everyone within shouting distance, just holding Ryan accountable to the words he himself used to address the situation. I'm sure most thoughtful outside critics were of the same mind. Ryan's opening statements upon becoming GM last year concerning the medical/training issues were in direct response to the disaster that the 2011 season became and which ultimately threatened to make the once-justly-proud Twins organization a laughingstock (how soon did we forget "bilateral leg weakness"?)-- starting with delayed but necessary surgeries shortly after the 2010 season completed, up to, and including the gaffe-tastic Public Relations debacle concerning health, season-readiness and injury issues. Given the unfolding events during the 2012 season, Ryan's failure to make a public effort to get out in front of this issue (as in the above proposal from powrwrap) is coming back to bite the Twins yet again. Coomer might have jeopardized his job, but right after Gardy made the announcement about Span, Ron went way out on a limb and promised that the Twins will most assuredly take a long look at taking great efforts to insure that this type of DL-Dance situation doesn't happen again next year. You just can't make the goofy stuff this team says and does up.

Baseball Reference has Mauer's WAR computed at 2.6, ranking him 34th overall in the AL, slightly behind Mike Moustakis (2.7) and Shin-Soo Choo (2.8) and virtually tied with Michael Brantley and Kyle Seager. Over a full season, a WAR of 8+ is MVP caliber, a WAR of 5+ is All Star caliber, a WAR of 2+ is Starter caliber, a WAR of 0-2 is Reserve level. Joe has a good shot at ~3.0 for a full season. http://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/AL/2012-value-batting.shtml

Do the folks who created WAR know about this? They seem to be a pretty detail-oriented bunch. It amazes me that something like this should slip by them. The positional adjustments are: +1.0 wins C +0.5 SS/CF +0.0 2B/3B -0.5 LF/RF/PH -1.0 1B -1.5 DH

Mauer's WAR is overinflated as its computation is derived from a positional adjustment as a C, which he currently plays at only about a 47% rate. How many teams do you define as "plenty"?, you mentioned 3 teams that are in a position that- force them- and/or are readily willing- to assume substantial risk. There really aren't that many teams ready to do that. And as you said, the Twins gain little, more likely nothing, with an "average return". You are right, again, that Mauer would play more catcher if the games were consequential, but you can't criticize the effort that Ryan made to ensure at keeping Mauer on the field as much as possible and fully healthy. There's also the proviso that playing more C now puts too much tire-wear on the career-productivity-tread in the last 4 out-years of the contract.

It will be interesting to see whether the Twins offer him arbitration in the off-season or let him walk. With Nishi back in the doghouse and Escobar not showing much yet they might choose to keep him, for depth. A month ago I'd have been sure he was history after this year. Don't put it past him, he has made a living being the odd man in, and then out, and then back in again.

He has made some nice improvements at every phase of the game this year, even throwing out a baserunner or two, no reason he can't emulate Kirby's career just a wee little bit and add a modicum of power to his toolkit. He starts hitting more gaps on the fly and he creates even more defensive nightmares for the opposition.

Yes, debating points are made, arguments are won, when the facts presented on the table are valued as just merely "a few grains of credibility in there somewhere" and then are summarily thrown away as merely "jibberish" and "wildly disotorted descriptions of ineptitude" that "ring hollow". It's no wonder your melliflous and excessively flowery use of non-substantive perjorative adjectives sounds and smells like "crap". All right, then. You've convinced me.