Thrylos

Moyer won almost twice as many games as Santana (269 vs 139) and is 35th all time in that category They are not comparable, Santana was the better pitcher, but neither is on the top 10-15 of candidates in that ballot. Thus the same percentage of votes

The fact that he struck out more than 209 hitters for 3 seasons, might make it a bit easier to swallow BTW, he was hurt for 2 seasons and part of a third, so the 200 IP/season a pretty bad measuring stick. IP/season matter less than IP/start and his career average is 6.53 IP/S so when given as many starts as Ervin Santana last season, this averages to 209-2/3 innings per season. So that's that.

Cobb/Lynn sounds a bit too much like Hughes/Nolasco for me to be comfortable with that. The Twins do have mid rotation starters. They need a clear top of the rotation starter and neither Cobb nor Lynn is that...

Nishioka and Park did. They walked out of guaranteed $ because they were honorable.

Just a difference in opinion, and I know I am the minority here No big deal, I can take it...

That's the other side of that thing: As a professional player who made multi millions of dollars out of sports and has an agent, there is no way he should be allowed to play in the NCAA, like the other College players.

Agreed. Legally, he can take off any time he wants to without owing the Twins a dime... A decent person who was paid $4.5 M to stay for up to 11 years IMHO would not do that, though. That's my point.

I'd wait until the MLB investigation is over, before try to beat that dead horse yet once again...

Technically, correct. However, the Twins paid him $4.5 million bonus with the impression that they will have up to 11 years of team control. It is not a legal matter, it is a matter of decency, as I said...

Other than the fact that he still is under 6 years control for a club, now the Twins. Like it or not, a draft pick is controlled for 11 years or so... He is half way there.

If he does that, I hope he has the decency to return some of his signing bonus...

Glad to see that about Gordon. Now he can be the centerpiece for an Archer trade...

Good luck to his future endeavors.

This is good stuff, other than the last sentence Got to scrutinize Hildenberger's performance, just a tad more, esp. against AL Central opponents before naming him a set up guy... Reed can be the Twins MIller for sure, and let Rodney close this season. And that's that.

Career Data: Nolasco: 4.56 ERA, 3.97 FIP, 18.8 K%, 13.1 K-BB%, 1.33 WHIP , 9.6 SwStr%, Archer: 3.63 ERA, 3.46 FIP, 25.9 K%, 18.0 K-BB%, 1.21 WHIP , 11.5 SwStr%, Darvish: 3.42 ERA, 3.30 FIP, 29.7 K%, 20.7 K-BB%, 1.18 WHIP , 12.2 SwStr%, Does Archer look more similar to Nolasco or to Darvish? And, unlike the other two, Nolasco has played many games in the NL pitching to pitchers.

Sure. Where do you see Nick Gordon and Stephen Gonsalves play the next 3 seasons?

And that win-loss record is horrible as well /sarcasm

And let the prospects go away in a Rule 5 draft or as minor league free agents...

Why is Puckett still there then?

Congrats to Johan and well deserved. Not having Knoblauch in the Twins' HOF is a travesty.

I'd wait to do such a comparison until, say, March 15th. This is a different off-season and lots of FAs are unsigned, and the Marlins wholesale is not over yet. I suspect that the Twins might have some opportunities to add where they did not expect to add. For example if they can sign either Carlos Gomez or Carlos Gonzales to an one year contract late in the off-season, all bets are off. There are more than 100 FAs out there for the taking...

They should have at least 2 on the SS list

I am happy that Eades was not picked in the Rule 5 draft. Last spring he developed a pretty nasty two-seamer that in relief the threw at 94-95. Give him a couple of ticks during the season, and he can be nasty. If they quit starting him (which I think is a problem) he can be a top reliever... Let him focus in one thing.

Originally published at The Tenth Inning Stretch ----- With the recent slew of raw data we have about hitters, based on Statcast, new metrics based on that raw data have been developed to predict hitter performance, based on objective measurements, such as bat exit speed and launch angle. One of these metrics is the expected weighted on base average, or xwOBA. It is meant to compare directly to wOBA, in a manner similar to that of xFIP to FIP comparison's for pitchers. And in the same manner if xFIP-FIP is a positive number for a player, as a baseline, you expect a player to improve next season, and the opposite if it is a negative numbers. Of course, this is one factor, and additional factors, like training, mechanics change, adding muscle etc, will affect future performance; however, unlike xwOBA-xOBA, they are hard to measure. wOBA tries to measure a player's total offensive performance based on a series of weighted operations on offensive events on a players. The link will give you some basic information on the metric. xwOBA is a similar formula based on Statcast exit speed and launch angle. The link explains in detail the metric. Here are the xwOBA for the 2017 Twins' batters in two groups: The ones expected to improve in 2018: The ones expected to decline in 2018: As indicated only Joe Mauer, and in a lesser degree, Jason Castro are projected to improve, as far as the 2018 startling 9 of the Twins go. Pretty much everyone else is projected to decline. If one looks at several projections about what the 2018 will do, which are based on xwOBA, expect them to show an overall decline in wins. There is a silver lining: Other than Brian Dozier (and free agent Chris Gimenez,) most of the Twins' hitters expected to decline based on this formula are young, and the other factors like development, changes in mechanics, could easily trump these projections. If the 2017 Twins' hitters were an older bunch, things would have been different.

To have a root cause there needs to be a problem. There is a good number of fans out there who think that there is no problem in the pace of game or the duration of games (Two different things btw). What is next? 7 inning games at double headers? Extra innings up to 10 and then either have a tie or have 5 HR derby shots (think penalty shots in soccer)? If it ain't broken...