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Sssuperdave

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Everything posted by Sssuperdave

  1. Sssuperdave
    Fair points. I was wrong about Tampa Bay. That said, here's a really interesting map showing favorite mlb team by county: https://www.vividseats.com/blog/most-popular-mlb-teams-by-state-county/map To me it really shows that market size is about a lot more than population. There are things teams can do to build fan bases that reach further. I think it's most interesting that in the 3 markets with 2 teams, one of the 2 teams is clearly the bigger dog. The Angels have a very small smattering of counties where the Dodgers have a bunch. The Mets have basically long island while the Yankees have the rest of the state, and the White Sox don't even show up on the map.
  2. Sssuperdave
    Frank Viola and Johan Santana stand out pretty strongly in my memory. Maybe two isn't "many" but they were both pretty painful at the time. Ironically the Viola trade actually turned out pretty good for the Twins - Aguilera & Tapani were core pieces of the '91 team. But I sure hated to see Viola go.
  3. Sssuperdave
    Sooooo many thoughts!!! First instinct - this is wonderful news. Yes, there are all kinds of ways it might go bad, and there are way worse owners than the Pohlads (more on that below), but seriously... I'm just more hopeful about the Twins today than I have been on any day in years, and it's not blind or unwarranted hope. Yes, the new owner could be worse, even a lot worse, but he/she/they could also be a whole lot better. Where the Pohlads stand is complicated. There have been some absolutely terrible, embarrassingly terrible, pro sports team owners. Think Donald Sterling, Marge Schott, Dan Snyder, and at least a dozen more. But still, the Pohlads volunteered to contract the team. I mean, they don't spew racist vitriol and they've never tanked like the A's or Marlins, but still, volunteering to contract the team? Even if the Twins didn't have a lease until 2040, I just don't see them moving. I mean, anything can happen (North Stars anyone?), but it just doesn't make logical sense. MSP is the 16th largest metro area, and I would guess the Twins Market is even bigger than 16th when you consider all of MN and the Dakotas. MSP is not a small market for MLB, it is a mid-sized market. We aren't NY, Chicago, or LA, but we aren't Kansas City or Tampa Bay either.
  4. Sssuperdave
    Man, this is a rough situation. I wholeheartedly believe in 2nd chances, and recognize areas in my life where I have been given 3rd, 4th, and 5th chances. That said, the thing I really struggle with in this situation is the thousands of talented young men who never even get first chances to play pro baseball. Obviously we will never know the whole story. If Bender was in the midst of a mental health crisis, hopefully he will get the help he needs and can work his way back. But if it is more a matter of him lacking the emotional intelligence to handle adversity better than this - and this is an incredibly low bar I am talking about - then his roster spot should being given to someone else.
  5. Sssuperdave
    I don't think I'd include Donaldson on this list. For me, the best part of the Donaldson signing was that it showed the Twins were willing to spend real money on a free agent from outside the organization. Big contracts like that rarely provide as much value per $ as smaller contracts, but they are necessary sometimes for a team to compete with the big spenders. He was hurt for most of 2020 but had a pretty good year stats-wise in 2021. Certainly not worth the $40M they paid him over those two years, but it's not like he was 2017 -2021 Albert Pujols. I think the flip side to my argument is that Donaldson's attitude/approach may have had a negative impact on the rest of the team. Probably don't want to open that can of worms again though. Well, maybe I just did. 🤭
  6. Sssuperdave
    I once chipped a tooth eating at a restaurant, not sure what the food was. It wasn't the food I chipped my tooth on though, it was the fork - I somehow had the fork tilted in an awkward way in my mouth and chomped down on it.
  7. Sssuperdave
    Soapbox time... I like to divide stats into "predictive" stats and "descriptive" stats. Descriptive stats tell the story of what happened... RBI is a great example. It's pretty clear what an RBI represents, and the stat itself tells a bit of a story. If someone has 6 RBI in one game, they may or may not have been in the right place at the right time, but six of their teammates scored as part of their at-bats, and I hope I was watching! Descriptive stats may or may not be predictive of future performance. RBI is not all that predictive, although it also depends what you are trying to predict. I guess "valuable" is a descriptor I should apply as well. RBI may do an ok job of predicting the next year's RBI, but they are so situation dependent that they don't necessarily say all that much about a players future value. OPS, wOBA, xFIP for pitchers...those are more predictive stats, especially when the sample size is large enough. In that paradigm, WAR has always been a bit of an enigma for me, and I think using this paradigm is helpful for thinking about how the different sites calculate it. It is a counting stat, and most counting stats are more descriptive than predictive. However, fangraphs in particular makes lots of adjustments to WAR that make it more predictive. Baseball References WAR is more descriptive. Personally, I prefer to have WAR be descriptive, so for me controlling for aberrant elements is indeed a bug. I do wish bWAR and fWAR weren't both called "WAR"... I wish they were completely separate statistics, one descriptive and one predictive.
  8. Sssuperdave
    I'm sure there are a bunch of reasons why the powers that be aren't doing what I'm about to suggest, but it sure seems like there would be a good market for individual channels. My family already has Netflix and Disney+, and the only other thing I want to watch is Twins games. I was thinking to myself "how much would I be willing to pay to watch Twins games?", and I settled on $20/month. I'm not willing to pay $55, so I won't be getting any of the packages mentioned in this thread... so I'm a net loss for the providers. I would think this doesn't just go for FSN. I bet there are people willing to pay $20 for individual channels like the Food Network, ESPN, History, etc., but not willing to pay $55 for a package. Maybe not though... maybe I'm part of a pretty unique group.
  9. Sssuperdave
    I think having one's statue removed is a fair consequence for making drunken, racist comments. How many statues are there outside of Target Field? Maybe 6? It's not that hard to find six people who made enormous contributions to the Twins who were able to avoid making drunken, racist comments.
  10. Sssuperdave
    This is not true. The flu has a death rate of 0.1%, and Covid-19 has a death rate of between 2% and 3%, that's 20 to 30 times the flu. Right now in the US the Covid-19 mortality rate is 2.84%, compared to 3.63% worldwide. You can find these stats at https://coronavirus.thebaselab.com/ Here's a helpful article with more stats and comparisons between Covid-19 and the flu: https://www.livescience.com/new-coronavirus-compare-with-flu.html
  11. Sssuperdave
    Several thoughts on this: Bonilla is still being paid $1.2M per year by the Mets, but that is not included in the dead money above (rightfully in my opinion). The Mets total is $9M, which is entirely David Wright. Those details are included in the article linked in the original post.Bonilla's amount is deferred compensation, which I do not think should be included as dead money, because deferred compensation is determined in advance and can be directly planned for.Again, in my opinion, dead money is not something that should be avoided at all costs. Once signed, player contracts are sunk costs, and management should do all they can to not include future amounts owed as a factor when determining roster composition.
  12. Sssuperdave
    Wow, I don't actually get to watch very many games so I hadn't seen any of the three Polanco plays shared in that article. Those were brutal.
  13. Sssuperdave
    I've never like Trevor Bauer but I have to admit that I agree with pretty much everything he said, especially how MLB makes their content too hard to access, that the rule changes are kind of dumb, and that he cleat policy is dumb. The only area where I disagree with Trevor is on the game length. I think length of game is a real problem the league needs to keep working to address. I agree with him that there are other, bigger reasons MLB isn't connecting with younger fans, lack of social media engagement being a big one. I guess I'd say shortening the games is a necessary but not sufficient step towards winning back fans. Trevor seems to be saying it's not even necessary.
  14. Sssuperdave
    Color me surprised. When was the last time the Twins went all the way to a hearing? I vaguely remember a story about Torri Hunter signing a contract literally outside the courtroom door. Maybe Garza? Or Perkins? Doesn't look good for Berrios staying with the Twins past the arbitration years.
  15. Sssuperdave
    I haven't been following the Dodgers or Maeda, but looking at his games logs for the pat couple of years shows usage that initially strikes me as strange. In each of 2018 and 2019 I didn't see any injuries, and he had a regular starters workload through July, and then sometime in August was moved to the bullpen. It looks a little sketchy, like the Dodgers were purposely avoiding giving him starts and innings. Can anyone that follows the NL more closely contradict this? I'm all for incentive laden deals, but this level of incentives, and structured this way, strikes me as problematic. $6.5M in incentives is tied up in number of starts. What if team uses an opener in all of Maeda's games? A totally valid managerial strategy would become a scandal.
  16. Sssuperdave
    So, I'm sure I'll be in the minority here, but these videos make me more concerned than excited. I can understand altercations over HBP, because that can cause injury, but only one of these involves an HBP. The ones with Kela and Perkins in particular are over nothing but words. I'm sure Kela and Perkins bear some responsibility, but the common denominator here is Donaldson. You don't see other players losing their cool over nothing but words over and over again. Where most of you see competitive fire and passion, I see behavior that is thin-skinned and immature. When I combine these videos with the fact that this is already Donaldson's fifth team, it causes concern for me. I hear so much about chemistry and clubhouse leadership... is Donaldson going to be a positive influence or a negative one?
  17. Sssuperdave
    I think Buxton should be in consideration for leadoff. I know there is some speculation that he is most comfortable lower in the lineup, but if he can keep his OPS over .800 like it was in 2019 then it would be great to see his speed leading off. He's not an OBP guy but if he starts to live up to his potential then you'd have great speed and slugging at the top of the lineup. Buxton ( R ) Polanco ( S ) Donaldson ( R ) Cruz ( R ) Kepler ( L ) Sano ( R ) Rosario ( L ) Garver ( R ) Arraez ( L )
  18. Sssuperdave
    I'd pass on all of these free agents. The Twins have plenty of internal options that are cheaper and possibly better than almost all of the arms on this list. Thorpe, Smeltzer, Dobnak, Poppen, Duran, and Alcala are all on the 40 man, and you've got Griffin Jax and Adam Bray in Rochester that I'd rather add to the 40 man than any of these free agents. I mean, I'm not hoping for significant innings from guys like Poppen, Duran, Jax, etc., but they are cheaper and more interesting plans B and C than any of these free agents, except maybe Walker. If they are going to add pitching, which I still think they should, they should aim higher via trade.
  19. Sssuperdave
    Twinkie Town says it's 1 year, $2.75 Million. A solid but uninspiring move. He improves the bullpen.
  20. Sssuperdave
    I think there's a good chance Odo and the Twins work out a multi-year deal. Giving him the QO makes the Twins the only team that can sign him without losing a draft pick, so they should be willing to give him just a little bit more than other teams.
  21. Sssuperdave
    I think Kepler's contract puts him over the top as a more valuable trade asset. Which would I want to hang on to? Both! If forced to choose I guess I would choose Kepler due to Buxton's injury history, but Buxton has the higher ceiling.
  22. Sssuperdave
    So here's my thought process on Pineda: 1. Was he getting any actual on-field benefit from whatever banned substances he was taking? If he was, you've got to assume some performance regression next year. 2. What's the temperature in the clubhouse towards him? Are players bitter towards him or are they forgiving? Next year, would he be a good or a bad clubhouse influence? Assuming the answer to #1 is that he wasn't getting any on-field benefit from the substances and assuming the answer to #2 is that the player are forgiving an he's a good clubhouse influence, then I think he is worth the QO. He's had enough flashes of effectiveness in his career that I think there's a good chance everything comes together for him and he posts an ERA in the low-to-mid 3's next year. If the answer to those two questions I posed goes the other way, I don't give him the QO.
  23. Sssuperdave
    So I'll add another subjective thought to the mix. An earlier poster mentioned commentators talking about golfers being tired playing 36 holes, and I think it's actually a good parallel to my thoughts on baseball. Hitting a golf ball and hitting a baseball at the highest levels are both highly technical, refined motions. 1 cm difference in bat/club path is literally the difference between a pop up and a home run in baseball, or between a solid drive and slice off the fairway in golf. I don't think any of the proponents for rest are suggesting that players "can't handle" playing every day. It's not like Kepler can no longer forcefully swing a bat on his 20th straight day playing. The question is, at what point do a players muscles start responding differently such that the bat/club path yields desired results less frequently? It has nothing to do with toughness, heart, grit, or anything like that, and everything to do with physics and anatomy, which probably varies by person.
  24. Sssuperdave
    I know there's a lot of pessimism right now, but I'm optimistic the Twins could take 2 of 3. The high leverage guys in the bullpen are well rested, so all you need today is 5 good innings from Odorizzi then parade in Duffey, May, Romo, and Rogers. Rest those 4 relievers tomorrow and then do the same thing on Sunday - 5 good innings from Berrios followed by the reliever train. Yes the lineup is rough right now but just between Cruz and Garver you could get a couple of dingers.
  25. Sssuperdave
    Actually, I remember reading in Kirby Puckett's autobiography something to the effect of "there's nothing as nice as a scheduled day off".
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