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markos

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Everything posted by markos

  1. markos
    Great work Jay! Thanks for putting the time into this. A few thought... 1) A 1.70 WAR career is basically nothing. Based on this model, the Twins were expected to end up with a bunch of career minor-leaguers, bench players and bullpen arms, with a handful of average regulars to offset the players that didn't make it to the majors. As it turns out, that is basically exactly what they ended up drafting. 2) I think this also shows that the draft alone was highly unlikely to fill the gap in talent for 2011-2014. Some hand-wavy math: They were 60 games below .500 during those 4 years. Making up that deficit through the draft would require roughly 60 WAR in additional talent. In order to have that happen, the Twins would have had to have been the best drafting team by far. 3) This reiterates just how difficult it is to find elite talent when drafting in the 20s and 30s. Stuck drafting in that position for years, there are basically 3 areas where the Twins could have acquired the type of high-end young talent that is normally only available at the top of the draft: trades, international markets and overpaying HS players in the old slot system. As others have pointed out already, the Twins were late to establish an international presence in Latin America and they never payed overslot for a player late in the draft. And the one trade that actually acquired an elite talent (Gomez) blew up in their faces when they traded that player away before he blossomed into an MVP candidate.
  2. markos
    I did a quick analysis using the simplistic WAR estimator devised here: http://baseballanalysts.com/archives/2009/06/the_draft_and_w.php The 11 picks discussed in the article have an expected total value of ~19 WAR over their first 6 years of service time. The Hicks pick (#14) has an expected value of 2.5 WAR, while the Boyd pick (#55) has an expected value of 1.2 WAR. As of right now, these picks are ~13 WAR short. Considering that Gibson and Hicks each have 5 years left and Revere has 3 years left, it isn't completely out of the question that those 3 alone will do well enough for this group to hit their expected production. Throw in the fact that there are a handful of players that are still working their way through the system (Michael and Harrison in particular), it seems like this group of maligned draft picks are on track to meet their expectations.
  3. markos
    I'm a little confused by this. Didn't Polanco and May make their debuts as well? Or are you not counting them because they didn't exceed their rookie eligibility?
  4. markos
    I thought the same thing when I read that. Crossing my fingers for good health...
  5. markos
    I think Stuart had a better year hitting than his final stat line indicates. He had a terrible April (.452 OPS), and spent the rest of the year digging himself out of that hole. However, from May 1st on, he had a .759 OPS, which is solidly above-average in the Florida State League. He obviously won't be a Joe Mauer or Buster Posey at the plate, but I think the Drew Butera comparisons are premature.
  6. markos
    I think the best place to start is to look at the spray charts on Fangraphs. It displays the position of all the plays both made and missed. By comparing two players side-by-side, it is easy to get a quick sense of their relative ranges and abilities. It's not perfect, but perhaps the best place to start. Here is an example comparing 'Made Plays' by Torii Hunter and Jason Heyward: http://www.fangraphs.com/spraycharts.aspx?playerid=731&position=OF&type=fielding&pid2=4940&ss1=2014&se1=2014&ss2=2014&se2=2014&cht1=fielding_made&cht2=fielding_made&pos1=ALL&pos2=ALL The more sophisticated statistics (like UZR or DRS) are hard to analyze since the specifics and data are all proprietary, and outsiders like us only get the final calculation. But here are some good explanations for their methodologies: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-fangraphs-uzr-primer/ http://www.fangraphs.com/library/defense/drs/ Attempting to measure defensive ability and quantify its value is among the most (if not THE most) controversial topics in sabermetrics. You will find widely varying degrees faith in the metrics, both on this site and across the broader baseball community. That's why I think you should start with looking at spray charts. It isn't controversial to state that Heyward's dots cover a lot more area than Hunter's. It starts to get really hairy once someone tries to justify putting a value (5 runs! No, 15 runs! No, 40 runs!) on that difference.
  7. markos
    Nice! I really hope his 2014 was for real, at which point this deal will be a complete steal for the Twins. Even if he regresses, it should still be good. I'm shocked that Hughes signed such a reasonable extension. He signed for less AAV than Nolasco or Santana. He is young enough that if he had just played out the next two seasons (and pitched decent and stayed healthy) he would probably be in line for something closer to Anibal Sanchez money, if not Lester money if he had two more seasons like 2014.
  8. markos
    I am surprised that Nick has Vargas penciled in as the cleanup hitter. My personal thought is that Plouffe and Arcia will both out-hit Vargas next season. Plouffe batting 7th seems way too low for me. I'm not very bullish on Vargas right now. He had a good few weeks, but then struggled to end the season. Despite having several holes in his game, lots of people (front office included) seem to have his name carved in for the DH/clean-up position for 2015. He definitely has the potential to be a solid contributor, but right now his seems like the most likely player to struggle to start the season and get sent down to AAA for more work.
  9. markos
    As a counterpoint, name one contending team that would be excited about the prospect of having to depend on Nolasco, Gibson, Milone or Pelfrey to hold down one spot in the rotation (much less three spots!), with the playoffs riding on it. Given a choice between those six pitchers, I'm sure some contenders would pick Meyer or May.
  10. markos
    I wonder if the Twins will end up regreting hanging onto Duensing for another season over protecting Gilmartin.
  11. markos
    My nominee is Stuart Turner. He had a terrible April (.452 OPS) which depressed his stats for the entire season. But from May 1st until the end of the year, he had a OPS of .759, which would amount to a 109 OPS+. Not bad for a catcher in the Florida State League. His season kind of reminds me of Dozier's in 2010, when Dozier quietly had a solidly above-average season in the depressed run environment that is the FSL and nobody noticed. I wouldn't be surprised if Turner is promoted to AA and his bat picks up. If that happens, he is knocking on the door to the majors, especially if his defense is a good as everyone claims.
  12. markos
    The hope with Masterson is that the velocity decline is a direct result of a sore knee that he dealt with all season. If he knee heals this offseason, he may be back to normal.
  13. markos
    I'm very bullish on Turner as well. I think he had a really good season that was masked by a combination of a bad April and the crappy run-scoring environment that is the Florida State league. I know it gets a little dangerous arbitrarily throwing out bad data, but if you take away his April, he had a .770 OPS which would have had him as one of the top-20 hitters in the FSL. Additionally, if he had switched his April and August around, the narrative would have been a lot different. I think everyone would be a lot more excited about him, he might have been promoted to AA, and his bad month would be easily excused by "tiring at the end of the season." As it was, his slow start sank his stat line for the entire season, and I wouldn't be surprised if some people have Garver ahead of him on their prospect rankings.
  14. markos
    To the best of my knowledge, it is considered a hitters league because 1) its location and weather, and 2) most of the best pitchers are shut down by this part of the season. The latter varies year to year, and this year the pitchers are particularly strong because several big names (Appel, Walker and Bradley) were all injured this season and need the extra innings. But I would still guess that it favors the hitters.
  15. markos
    Seth, do you have any sense whether Goodrum will be added to the 40-man roster this offseason or not? My initial thought is that he wouldn't be drafted if left unprotected - he's too raw and only at high-A - but last year I thought the same about Kepler who was added.
  16. markos
    I agree. The 2013 bullpen was above-average, with the peripherals to back it up (roughly average strikeout rate and HR rate, above average walk rate). In 2014, the bullpen was last in baseball in strikeout rate. They were able to overcome this problem in the first half of the season because they were among the best at preventing home runs. However, the HR rate regressed in the second half of the season, and the above-average walk rate wasn't able to counterbalance the dismal strikeout rate. Even in the first half of 2014, the strikeout rate dropped from 21% to 17%. It wasn't an issue of overexposure.
  17. markos
    I'm curious how your top-6 list of Twins outfield prospects shakes out. My list is something like the following... 1) Buxton <large gap> 2) Rosario <smaller gap> 3a) Walker 3b) Kepler 3c) Harrison (I guess this would be different if you are considering Sano in the outfield. For the time being I still think of him at 3B) I think that Walker, Kepler and Harrison are all about equal. They all ended up with nearly identical wRC+ this past season. Harrison and Kepler controlled the strike zone well but had little power; Walker was the exact opposite. Some power guys eventually develop decent plate discipline. Many don't. Some plate discipline guys eventually develop power. Many don't. My guess is that one of those three will make it to the big leagues as something like an average regular; the other two won't. But I have know idea which one to pick.
  18. markos
    I was going to make the exact same point. Moustakas was drafted 7 years ago. Hosmer 6 years ago. Perez and Herrera were signed 8 years ago. 4 years ago they had the top-ranked farm system in baseball and arguably one of the best of all time (5 players in BA top 20). If Buxton/Sano are the Twins' equivalent prospects, and if 2013 was their "best farm system" season, then it could take until 2017 or longer before the Twins return to the playoffs. This rebuild will take patience.
  19. markos
    I definitely agree that attendance should not validate a baseball strategy. However, I was referring more to the business side, and how that interacts with the baseball side. In order to execute a full teardown like the Astros, there has to be buy in from ownership. Four years of intentional losing have hurt attendance and revenues from TV and sponsorship deals, though this has been offset in part by lower payrolls. If Houston returns to winning but ownership is unable to monetize those wins because fan interest fails to bounce back, then it seems unlikely that other owners will support this strategy. Anyway, I understand this is totally off topic, but to me this is one of the most interesting questions about the Astros strategy.
  20. markos
    For what its worth, this season's attendance for the Royals is the highest since 1991, and 80% of their attendance peak in the 1980s. I'm interested to see how the attendance bounces back in Houston. Despite a slight uptick this year, they are only at 55% of of their MinuteMaid Park peak. To put that in perspective, the Twins would need to lose 20% of their attendance this year to match that level (though it could very well happen). I wonder how long it will take for the Astros to rehabilitate their market.
  21. markos
    It is way too early to think about making a blockbuster trade using prospects. To mimic the Royal's situation with the Myers-Shields trade, the Twins need to wait until the following happens: Buxton and Sano are called up and both disappoint for a couple seasons. One is barely above replacement level and the other is only league-average. However, Arcia blossoms late and becomes a borderline MVP candidate. Most of the lineup is in an okay place, and they really just need the young guys to continue to take steps forward. On the pitching side, basically every starter fails - Meyer (control), May (just bad), Berrios (TJ) and Stewart (shoulder) all fail as starters, and the rotation is Nolasco, Hughes, Gibson and two questions marks. However, the bullpen is top-notch with 3-4 pitchers regularly hitting 100. If something like that plays out, THEN they could consider trading Nick Gordon for the last two years of Jose Fernandez.
  22. markos
    I did some rather crude back-of-the-envelope calculations to try to determine how effective the improvements would be if the Twins could improve to league average Defensive Efficiency (.705). It turns out it would prevent roughly 80 hits. Similarly, improving the strikeout rate to league average (20%) would prevent roughly 65 hits. Given the crude nature of my method, I'm going to assume that the difference between the two is essentially a wash. If we all agree that the main culprit for the poor defense has been the outfielders, it is probably true that acquiring two above-average outfield defenders to improve defense is easier and cheaper (either in trades or via free agency) than acquiring two (or more) starting pitchers with above-average strikeout rates. I hope they attempt to improve in both areas of run prevention, but I also hope that they recognize that improving the defense (especially in the outfield) is probably lower hanging fruit right now.
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