snepp

I thought low-70's was a pretty common win estimate among the TD masses?

I didn't cherry pick anything. It is simply a fact that those four guys have allowed zero home runs thus far when you would have expected quite a few more. It is 70 innings, my maths fail me. I blame Bert. I would still expect ~9 home runs or so, despite my maths, they've allowed in the neighborhood of 90 flyballs between them this year. (this is more a quibble than anything, anywhere from 6-9 would be pretty typical). The Swarzak point is a fair one, but not every one of his innings come in a mop-up role. It's inevitable that he allows a few when they still matter.

Yup, the relief corp is due to start giving up a bunch of homers. Swarzak, Burton, Duensing, and Pressley have combined to give up *zero* in their 80 innings, roughly 9 fewer than you would normally expect given the number of flyballs allowed.

That's Delmonatello.

Many are convinced that the 80's never actually happened, so I have to go with none.

Mustache rides aren't allowed on TD, think of the children.

The starting staff ranks 15th in GB%, while the relievers rank 29th.

You won't get any arguments from me, things certainly are more engaging when the ball is in play and the parts are actually moving. This is why I enjoy watching some of the local amateur teams, with the more liberal strikezones at work they're looking to get the ball in play early and often.

The strikeout rate of the Twins starters makes me want to vomit. An entire starting five with a sub-5 k/9 rate. That's 1950's-esque.

+1 like for the use of 'smarmy.'

Concur to the fullest.

Plouffe has been a tiny bit better than a league average bat, and just a hair worse than a league average third baseman offensively. I think you need to ease up your "sad and bad" hyperbole a bit.

Keppinger article on Fangraphs. How Close Jeff Keppinger Has Come | FanGraphs Baseball

There's no feeling better* in the world than trouncing the White Sox. *PG-13 anyway

I think just about every dribbler could probably go for a home run at this point.

I missed the Hicks show, we had a barn-burner of a t-ball game. I think we won.....23-22.

Mauersie isn't exactly middle infield material either, but he does alright.

More musing/spitballing....a 6-man rotation makes sense (at least in theory) when you've got a bunch of good, but not great starters and want to get another one in. Like... 3 WAR Baker 3 WAR Liriano 3 WAR Pavano 2 WAR Slowey 2 WAR Blackburn 2 WAR Joe Schmoe Maybe something like this allows you to push each individual starter a little deeper into each start, shifting some of those bullpen innings from a lesser reliever to that decent 6th starter. I don't see something like this working all that well though. While the idea of "more rest between starts = allow more pitches thrown = deeper into game" sounds good, in practice it likely falls apart in a hurry. A (too) strict adherence to pitch counts and the specialization of bullpens all but guarantees they would still get pulled early, often before they ever get tired. I do think the 4-man would be a viable option for a team with a lousy rotation, maybe 4 + a spot starter to give the "ace" an extra day of rest occasionally. Say we've got.... 3 WAR "ace" 1 WAR Eh 0.5 WAR Ugh 0 WAR Blech -1 WAR *sigh* Dump that last starter entirely, make him a mop-up/spot-starter and give those innings to someone else. Most of those other guys likely aren't good enough to throw more than 80-90 pitches per start anyway, they should be able to start a little more often given their lighter workload. If your "ace" goes out and throws a 110 pitch, 8-inning gem, then give your spot starter a game if you need to provide for a little extra rest. Or just stick to the fixed 5-man rotation with no start skipping, we wouldn't want to create too much work for the manager.

If I still had my B-ref subscription I'd run one of their super-awesome season-finder queries to see what the highest amount of PA's were to achieve that, but I'm a cheap bastard and quit renewing it.

Keppinger is having a fascinating season. He's walked to the plate 125 times now, and hasn't drawn a single walk. That's amazing.

Here, let me fetch that for you....

I think a 4-man rotation would make more sense than a 6-man if all you've got are a bunch of lousy starters making short starts.

Knoblauch's '94 is easily tops in my book.

I'm going to guess no.

Hopefully when his BABIP drops he cuts his strikeout rate at the same time, putting more balls into play to make up for it.