Jocko87

Hey everyone, I'm not a moderator but there are a couple of threads for this discussion. What I want to point out is that in this mess there is also a huge opportunity for the community at Twins Daily. This and further game threads have the chance to be the eyes of the fanbase. It's easy to bitch but this thread might be the only way some fans can "see" the game right now. Staying disciplined and talking ball only here will help the community in the long run.

Short answer, yes. Longer answer, also yes, very much please. He is worth his contract just on defense, as Willi Castro will attest and the bat will be fine. As long as he's healthy, we will be ultimately be pleased with the results.

This is basically the problem. I haven't looked recently but league wide payroll was trending to be down overall. Lotta people been sounding an alarm.

I was an advocate for them bringing everything in house but we really don't know why some thing are options and others are not. It could be as simple as not having the money to spend. If I don't have the money, I don't have an option. But we don't know.

I mean, that's probably close to the most they can do.

Agree on the cable cutters part but I'm not sure they had any other choice than whatever Ballys could do. If we don't know they made this choice we certainly can't claim to know what they cared about. The unfortunate reality of this situation is that you and I don't have much less power than they do.

I don't think it's a technical issue. The music industry had a path to get paid that baseball doesn't yet have. Without a pay path, all the tech in the world doesn't matter. I worked at a small town country radio station in North Dakota in the 90s. If I so much as played a snippet of a song, I had to log it so it could be sent to the clearing house so the artist, label etc could be paid. The GM would mail in a big envelope every week, honestly it was probably his most important job. When they added tech to that mix it was sorted rather easily because it became easier to track once they settled the Napster type issues. I think tech in sports broadcasting is pushing the other way, making it harder.

The infrastructure that was in place for tracking plays for royalties gave the music industry a huge head start. It's also a much smaller community, similar money but many less cooks in the kitchen.

It's the same ship that took them 98% of the way to the moon. The didn't tie themselves to it when it was sinking. The preseason deal was more like climbing on the door in Titanic.

Yup, ESPN was never really "earning" their $9 per cable subscription fee as many business sins can be hidden in the bundle. They earned with their negotiating skills rather than product. Less reported here but very related, ESPN trying to get out of the MLB baseball marketplace is very ominous. Far more ominous than today's news. The money isn't there and the Twins are in the rip tide.

I think it would almost have to be a St Peter / Owner board of directors level thing. What do we know about $47m? I hadn't heard that number.

While I like the idea of a David and Goliath type movie script ending with Liam saving the day many seem to have somehow miscast the Twins as the Goliath in their fantasy. They have always needed one lucky rock. Their one billion dollars organization is a literal Dr Evil joke in this game. And at the risk of being that guy, "I told you so." Many, many times. It was always going to get worse before it got better and it still might get worse yet. And golden handcuffs? WTAF? This is the editorial bent we are discussing in that other forum. This ain't a baseball discussion, never has been. It would do a lot of you well to start listening to the people on this forum who have been in rooms like these.

It just wouldn't be right for all that consternation about bringing Duran back without him getting to play too.

Mike Trout knee surgery, torn meniscus apparently. 😔

I used to be able to run a bit in short spurts. Was playing softball in North Carolina and hit one off the centerfield wall. I saw it hit the metal fence pole and bounce hard the opposite way of the centerfielders momentum as I was about three strides from 2nd. The ball beat me to third by 5 strides. I never did get the guys name but apparently he was in AA a couple years prior. I wish I'da seen the throw but hearing it go past my head was enough. I recalibrated my capabilities to adjust for my late 30s.

Guys that steal home are always thinking at least two.

Prolly easier if he just catches the flyball. Saves the next run. Fantastic play by Correa and Jeffers though.

Corey-Michael Soroyka hasn't had a swing and miss since the Clinton administration. AK-hold my bat.

I saw someone call a charcuterie board Adult Lunchables the other day and I have retired the word charcuterie from my vocabulary. Mostly.

True, example A here. However, if you make the tier mean something those that can afford it will. That revenue can offset some ad revenue which should allow the main product to be better which should drive overall revenue. The ad free experience is a baseline expectation. That is, unless ownership won't come off their Scrooge Mcduck mountain with 30m out of their own pocket to hire Jason Kurkjian Stark (who probably isn't actually available) to shore up the big game writing rotation. Or something like that, I can't keep up. Odd parallels though, using pre-arb writers and all. If it's quality, I will pay for it.

If I had to pick one thing it would be this. The mentioned article was ran with a less flattering picture of Falvey. It's an editorial choice to run that in that manner, everyone involved with that choice had to know exactly what was going to happen. The forcing of narratives is coming from inside the house. The panic at 7-13 was eye rolling. Also agree with the clickbaity feel of a lot of the articles. There are several topics that do require an article daily, especially in season, but we really need a focus on quality over quantity. Much of the reason discussion is repeated over and over is that there are ten new articles that don't add much but move the same conversation into a new less related topic. It's a long form game, we shouldn't be trying to have serious discussions in a snapshot short form. I do also appreciate that you are giving a forum to aspiring writers. Most of their stuff should be blogs, to be blunt. Two hands while we're learning. These folks need the most editorial support but here they are, on the front page pushing a good article down into oblivion. Some of our most prolific authors are in this category for me. I imagine a new visitor sees some of these and says meh, I'll just stay on reddit. While I'm at it, I'm only a caretaker to avoid the ad load, which is absolutely insane. I can't express in words acceptable to this forum how angry I am that we are now getting ads inserted into game wraps. There are better ways to make money online than the AOL ad model. Meanwhile, I can't even have a long form discussion on a caretaker article without someone who can't read the content chiming in with something unrelated. Better content produces better opportunities to monetize, including caretakers who are invested in your success. (Don't get me wrong, I enjoy supporting as a caretaker but I don't know that I would be here if I didn't have an option to avoid the ad load.) Unfortunately the ad model drives the clickbait model which drives the bad discussion model. Tough cycle to be in.

This was the easy call I guess, it gets interesting when Topa is ready. I am a bit surprised they didn't use an option but that may speak to their view on him passing waivers.

Not looking forward to using them all in the same inning. That seems bad.

Good call out on leverage index, I was assuming on that one before I dug into the math. I was assuming because it should obviously be part of the equation, how else would they know what the big moment is? Just later in the game isn't congruent with sending the closer out against the heart of the order in the 7-8 inning, also a darling (and correct) move of the nerds and seamheads alike. It's the correct high leverage moment. Why would Thielbar get all 20.6% of the WPA? One of his outs had a .630 xBa and it was one of two good plays Kepler made in the inning. Because he gets credit for whatever his defense does, which ruins the stat for pitchers, IMO. Lord help the Angels pitchers going to arb if they want to talk WPA. If roughly 20% is available for a one run lead a good closer should run away with the title, but they don't. From Fangraphs-"A fun way to think of WPA is as a storytelling statistic." If your story doesn't include defense it's going to have a large blindspot when Buxton robs a homerun for Duran.

I'm not sure, I'm going to dig into the math tomorrow. Walking a guy and giving up a hit increased the leverage index which is part of the equation. Seems like a closer that's always a wild ride would be off the charts WPA.