Oxtung

I'm all for trying to sign Buxton to an extension that buys out some FA years. I think he is going to be a good player for many years. However, the idea that the Twins need cost certainty because he could break the bank during his arbitration years is something I can't get behind. First, the chances he actually ends up as a Harper-esque player, who made $40 million in arbitration are incredibly small. Second, even if you sign him to the $30 million dollar "cost certainty" buyout you propose the savings are still only a couple of million dollars a year which would have virtually no impact on the Twins ability to sign free agents. If you're going to talk about his 100th percentile outcome then we should also talk about his baseline too. Billy Hamilton has now gone through two years of arbitration at $2.6 and $4.6 million dollars. I think his best comp might be Lorenzo Cain who started Arbitration 3 years ago. He played outstanding defense and had a .750 OPS in his last pre-arb year and even had questions at the plate with a .658 OPS in his second pre-arb year. He agreed to Arb awards of $2.7, $6.5 and $11 million. Three years ago AJ Pollock agreed to $3.5 and $6.8 million in his first two arbitration seasons. Now you can bump up those numbers slightly due to inflation but it doesn't change the arithmetic much. Given his likely arbitration trajectory it makes no sense to gain "cost certainty" without getting FA years, IMO.

Sure, that is true that I probably push myself harder than most others in my classes, but I also don't have an employer expecting to make millions of dollars off me providing huge amounts of resources to help me figure things out. I don't have a pitching coach that is looking over my shoulder explaining every minute detail, every step of the way, every day. Your original post doesn't read that way but sounds like we're on similar thought lines then. I think whether a player stays in MLB or returns to the minors depends on how much they're struggling but also on where they are at mentally. It is entirely a case by case basis and with many of the decision making factors we don't have access too as fans.

I think your whole premise is flawed from the get go. Right now I'm in a mid-life career change going from education to engineering. I am consistently one of the top students in my classes. What other students find challenging isn't always for me so I look for other ways to bench mark my performance. Did I finish that assignment as efficiently as I could have? Is there another way I could have solved the problem? What if I tweak the problem slightly, what would I do differently? Is there any deeper meaning I can glean from this problem? You are essentially asserting that players can't learn anything if they are dominating at a given level which is just false. Berrios knows whether he hit that glove or not. Buxton knew how many breaking balls he was chasing outside the zone. I think if a player is dominating AAA at a young age it is absolutely OK to give them a taste of MLB but if they start to struggle immensely, a la Buxton or Berrios, it is also OK to send them back to AAA where they can work on specific things. Given todays video and statcast tools there are other ways to evaluate players rather than just ERA/OPS/etc...

Several people have mentioned Morrison in the OF which I don't really understand. He hasn't spent more than a few token games in OF since 2012. If he gets any significant time in the OF for the Twins things have gone catastrophically wrong.

Actually the Rays OF was better than the Twins in 2017. As good as Buxton was Kiermaier is right there.

I just don't see Aybar being interested in going down to AAA at this point of his career. What would be the point? If he can't hack it at 34 he sure as hell isn't going to go down to AAA and turn it around for another run at the majors at 35.

Given the depth the Twins have currently at SP I'm less concerned about the number of starts a pitcher makes and more about the quality of the starts. Mejia making 15 starts with an ERA around 4 is better than 30 starts with an ERA closer to 5, IMO. The step down from Mejia is less than it would be in previous years.

Yup, the sample sizes are small enough in the post season that it is hard to accurately predict the outcomes. That doesn't change the fact that front of the rotation pitchers are more likely to do better than mid-rotation or back of the rotation pitchers. However, I'm not able to use my crystal ball to predict which pitcher will go on a hot streak during the playoffs. Instead I'm hoping the FO goes with the pitchers that give us the greatest chance. In this case E.Santana is the weak link.

Well a lot of that depends on how you define Ace; not everyone has your definition. If we instead say "front of the rotation pitcher" things start to look much clearer. Let's review the top pitcher on each team in the playoffs last year: AL Keuchel, Severino, Sale, Kluber, E. Santana NL Kershaw, Greinke, Strasburg/Scherzer, Gray, Arrieta Eight out of those eleven pitchers had sub-3 ERAs. Santana and Gray were both knocked out in the wild card games. While the Twins might be able to compete without a top of the rotation pitcher it clearly makes things much more difficult. There is no adjustment for difficulty in baseball; I hope the Twins make it easier on themselves and find that top of the rotation pitcher somewhere.

You're more than welcome to create your own stat with whatever inputs you desire and if it leads to an improvement in our current understanding of the game, awesome! BABIP is used to understand how lucky/unlucky a player was based on the balls that landed in the field of play. Since there is no fielder that can affect home runs it isn't included (the minute number of Torii Hunter-like catches withstanding). In the case of Odorizzi, his very low BABIP suggests he got pretty lucky last year and we should expect more hits to fall in 2018, regardless of how many home runs he gives up.

You're conflating objective stats with subjective projections. "Regression" is not a stat. It is applied to statistics to create a forward looking prediction. That is entirely subjective. Stats, by definition, are objective. Rosario hit 27 HR's last year. His BA was .290. He had a .312 BABIP. These things are indisputable.

Homers have no effect on BABIP. They are entirely removed from the equation because they are not a "ball in play".

Do you have any evidence to support that claim?

The game is rapidly changing and this doesn't appear to be true any more. Last year Odorizzi's 143 IP was the 86 most in baseball. So he was exactly a #3 from an IP perspective.

Again, it's not a projection. There are systems that do project, like Steamer, ZIPS, PECOTA, but this isn't one of them. Humans also project. I think there are some very valid arguments about whether people are accurately projecting future BABIP. But that is a human projection not the stats.

All stats are objective. By definition. You might disagree with what components the creator chose to include but it is still objectively measuring what it was intended to.

Again......what? I'm not even sure how to respond to this post. BABIP is about as benign a stat that exists. It simply measures how many balls that are put into play actually drop for hits. There is no weighting. No cherry picking some hits but not others; all hits are equal before the stat. BABIP does not project anything. It is measuring what did happen not what will.

John I don't understand what you're digging at here. Nothing I've stated has been in any way controversial.

There are metrics that pick only certain portions of a players performance to focus on. FIP, xFIP, SIERA, ERA all cherry pick their data sources (potentially with good reason). All of them believe only certain parts of a performance are controlled by the pitcher. BABIP isn't one of those.

I've had this thought as well. I actually think he could turn into a very good reliever too.

What? BABIP doesn't assume anything, it simply measures how many batted balls dropped in for hits. There is no math involved really; no manipulation of the data.

Felix Jorge and Aaron Slegers are the two most ready to start the year. They each got a cup of coffee last year but should start in AAA again this year. They are mostly seen as back of the rotation "innings eaters". Fernando Romero and Stephen Gonsalves should also start the year at AAA but are seen as having much higher ceilings. Gonsalves has always had great results but his scouting reports aren't stellar. Romero has always had fantastic scouting reports and results but has been hurt a bunch. It will be interesting to see who gets called up 1st amongst these two. That should give us some insight into the Twins outlooks for them.

There's an awful lot of enthusiasm for a guy who has home run problems and is moving from a ballpark that suppresses home runs to one that struggles to contain them. I see more Ricky Nolasco than Ervin Santana. I sure hope I'm wrong. Maybe the FO sees something they can tweak or maybe it was injury related.

League averages 2017: FB - 35.3% LD - 20.7% GB - 44.0% Odorizzi 2017: FB - 47.3% LD - 22.1% GB - 30.6% Clearly he is an extreme flyball pitcher (and while that is up from previous seasons they were in the low to mid 40% range). That is going to be a big problem because Target field was actually an extreme HR park last year and has been above average the last three. Last year Target Field allowed 28% more HR's than Tropicana Field.

Thing is, Sanchez has the most upside of all our current options. Sure, he might not be likely to reach it but he has been a very good pitcher in the past. Of the Kinley, Slegers, Jorge, Enns, Dietrich what exactly do you think their upside is? They all look like they top out at back of the rotation starters at best. Losing one of those makes no difference in the grand scheme of things. Even Terry Ryan had no problems finding those and getting them to come to Minnesota.