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Oxtung

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Everything posted by Oxtung

  1. The Liriano trade is the same now as it was last year. A wash. Chicago took a chance on a pitcher with the potential to go on a 8 game run of absolute dominance. It was a great chance to add potentially ace level pitching but having to give up almost nothing in return. The Twins on the other hand weren't going to resign Liriano or extend an qualifying offer so they got back what they could. A couple of guys who could help the team for a few years was a fair return. So in the end it was a wash.
  2. That is an interesting article and helps add to the overall WAR dialogue however, it has no bearing on the original question of Marte vs. Harper or more specifically how defensive metrics should be considered at the player WAR level. To put this in simpler terms think about this example: I want some scrubway but realize I'm short a dollar so I look around my house. I find 27 cents on my night stand, 72 cents on under my couch cushions and 13 cents in my car. By adding all these up I know I have $1.12. Or in other words we can use the individual stacks of money to determine a total. However, when I get to scrubway to meet my buddy and I showed him that $1.12 he would have no idea how the money was distributed throughout my night stand, couch and car. You can't use a sum to determine how the individual addends were originally divided. Likewise in Cameron's piece he shows that full team WAR (the sum) with the defensive metrics added is highly correlated to team winning percentages however, that says nothing about individual player WAR (the addends). Of course there are other problems too with Cameron's analysis vis a vis Marte v. Harper. The biggest being that by adding all the player's WAR to create team war he significantly increased the amount of defensive data being processed.
  3. I think these quotes highlight the difference between those OK with the KC signing and those left wanting more. Some just see it as an upgrade to last year (which in my mind is/was no sure thing) while others look at what could have been. When I go to Murray's steakhouse the chicken might be better than I can make at home but it's the New York Strip steak that get's my mouth watering.
  4. Agreed and Ryan said as much this off season both with his words and with his actions. I'm not sure it's as black and white as that. There have been a ton of bad hitter contracts too. Going forward I wouldn't be surprised if there as many bad hitter contracts as pitcher contracts. This was really my larger point before I got bogged down with Kab21. I'm not sure anyone is asking for an ace but in the last 5 years (cumulative) we haven't even had an above average pitcher in the starting rotation and for the most part they aren't even close.
  5. If we can't use stats from previous seasons to determine how a pitcher might perform in the future then what are we doing discussing anything on this board? I have shown that the Twins over the last 5 years have both had poor individual performances and team performances by their starting pitchers. Yet the FO has chosen to do nothing about it.
  6. Twins starting pitching ranks in the AL sorted by ERA: 2008: 8 2009: 12 2010: 5 2011: 12 2012: 14 Looks to me like every year except 2011 we should have expected to need better pitching. Just because the Twins had 5 average to below average pitchers they could run out there doesn't mean they should run them out there. The Twins clearly weren't going to win any championships with the motley crew they assembled the last 5 seasons.
  7. I was just looking at the box score/play-by-play recap. I take back what I previously said. That should stand as a walkoff GS regardless of what it was officially ruled! He sure smacked that ball. GJ Harrison!
  8. You mean average to below average pitchers? Sure. In the 5 seasons since Santana left the Twins have had 3 pitchers with a seasons of >110 ERA+. 2012 Diamond, 2008 & 2011 Baker, 2010 Liriano. On the flip side we have had 6 pitchers with a season <90 ERA+. 2008 Hernandez, 2009 Perkins, 2009, 2011 & 2012 Liriano, 2010 & 2012 Blackburn, 2011 Duensing and 2012 Hendricks. For the record that is 9 seasons bad to 4 seasons good. We certainly could have used upgrades. The fact that the organization chose not to spend money that way is kind of the point. It was shown once again this season that the Twins won't spend big money, no matter how badly the rotation needs to be upgraded, because they, or at least Ryan, is philosophically opposed to it.
  9. I don't get why people think the Twins need to move prospects really fast through the minors. It doesn't matter how fast a prospect moves through the system; it matters what they do once they get to the Twins. According to Baseball Prospectus | Overthinking It: Promoting Prospects the Twins have been pretty good at getting production from their young players.
  10. Interesting...can't wait to see the game film.
  11. There's been a lot of good pitchers they could have gone out and gotten over the years but they were automatically ruled out because they weren't already Twins pitchers. Why the Twins are only willing to pay big money to players that came up through the system versus FA's is beyond my comprehension skills.
  12. Harrison's game winning hit was only a single not a grand slam.
  13. Well then. Please keep posting these. These are great reads.
  14. What humor? This isn't 2 buddies joking around at a bar. This is a boss and his employee at a table with a bunch of journalists. Or in the case of Gardy it sounds like Goin wasn't even there to defend himself if he wanted to. That is just really poor behavior by two upper level Twins employees. Perhaps there are extenuating circumstances that we don't know about but those two anecdotes do not suggest an inclusive atmosphere.
  15. If the Twins want to flip Pelfrey then "patience" can't be part of the equation. If the Twins want to trade him he needs to turn things around within the next month or so allowing him to build a track record of success that other teams would find desirable. While it is possible Pelfrey is a part of the rotation next season I think the Twins are hoping that he isn't. Diamond, Worley, Correia seem to be locks. I would guess the Twins are hoping Gibson and or Hendricks show they are a piece of the future at some point this year and that May or Meyer are ready to go at the beginning of next season much like they thought Hicks was this season. So unless Pelfrey really improves quickly, negating the needed patience, I don't think there will be a payoff.
  16. There are 2 particular items in the Berardino article that left me with an uneasy feeling. Putting an employee into a position to fail then poking fun at him when it happens is poor managerial skills. Again we see a high level Twins employee mocking Goin for some eccentricities. To me these quotes making me uncomfortable as both are very close, if not crossing the line, into bullying territory. When you are making fun of a coworker you clearly no longer respect that person and ultimately their work, even if it is at a subconscious level. Together these quotes give the impression that there is a clique within the Twins organization that Mr. Goin is on the outside of.
  17. Parker, I'd like to chime in just to let you know that Brock is green with envy.
  18. Man....so what do the Twins do now? They have a starting CF who is so bad offensively he is basically at record setting futility levels. Now you also have no one else on the 40 man roster that has experience or is capable of playing CF on a consistent basis. It seems clear to me that Hicks will basically be forced into continuing on as the every day CF because there is nobody to replace him. Do the Twins add Clete Thomas to the 40 man so they can have some depth at the CF position? Do they experiment with Arcia at CF? Start Escobar down the super utility path? What do people think?
  19. Boggs has played all of 6 games at CF the last 2 years and hasn't been a primary CF since AA in 2007. Joe Benson hit .202 last year with a .624 OPS and missed a large portion of the second half. Clete Thomas posted a .686 OPS at AAA and a .458 OPS in the majors last year. Aaron Hicks had a nice 2012 at AA but was going to be jumping up 2 levels to get his first taste of MLB. How is it surprising that these guys are struggling? That pretty much left Mastroianni as the only legitimate MLB ready player. Which is pretty much what we've seen except that Mastro has also been hurt. Who is talking about being 3 deep at CF? I'd like it if we weren't forced to play our historically bad 23 year old CF because we literally have no other options for the next 2 weeks and even then we won't have a legitimate back up for Mastroianni unless Hicks or Benson can some how miraculously turn things around. It didn't take a rocket scientist to see the Twins were taking a big gamble and essentially forcing Hicks (or less likely Benson) into the starting role no matter if he was ready to go or not. There were no alternatives. Now we are reaping what the FO sowed.
  20. In most sports I do but not so much in baseball. But you are asking an opinion. I have no problems with people stating opinions. In fact my perception of team chemistry could very well be wrong. However, RB stated it as fact that catcher defense is very very important. So the question that nobody has been able to answer is how do you know it is fact if there is no objective evidence to support it? Doesn't that just make it opinion too? In retrospect I should have dropped out of this conversation long ago. Nothing has been gained by hammering this point. RB still feels his statement is factual and I still contend there is no way to know and he trying to pass opinion off as fact.
  21. I actually said there weren't good ways to quantify many aspects of catching. So do I want to have good defensive catcher metrics? Yes. Am I claiming good defensive catcher metrics exist? No. That's the difference here. I recognize that I don't know how important those "very very important" attributes are. I may have an opinion on those things but that's all it is, an opinion, until there is a good way to quantify defensive catching. On the other hand Riverbrian is making a definitive claim that defensive catching is knowable and that it is "very very important".
  22. Clearly you don't understand my point. I asked you how you knew, since that is a definitive term, that all the things you listed were "very very important." So far your answers have been: I played the game so I know. It's common knowledge. Other people believe it, so it's true. And defensive metrics are "sub-par." (Of course I have never mentioned them so congrats on that giant strawman.)
  23. What does this have to do with my point? He stated a bunch of things were "very very important." I asked him how he knew that. If there is no objective way to measure the effects of a task how do you know said task is important?
  24. Perhaps they should have included a link to this article. Twice.
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