TheLeviathan

See I took player analysis as also including analysis of their tendencies. I doubt there are many multi-variable regressions in which RBIs are valuable, but I wouldn't exclude the stat completely. It may be a quick and dirty window into a deeper issue in some situations. But neither of us know what the Twins are or are not doing in order to analyze their players, I just hope they aren't artificially restricting their analysis because something is seen as antiquated. (Or, worse yet, not antiquated enough)

"Inexcusable to include" seems a lot like "dismissed" to me. It also seems strange to me to suggest that there is no conceivable type of player analysis in which RBIs might factor in as a relevant variable to consider for pattern or relationship analysis. Perhaps all you meant was that a player's RBI total isn't a very fair or conclusive way to judge a player. I agree. It also seems to me that your initial statement was stronger than that.

Well, I'll just let it go since you prefer to be condescending, even after you mistakenly accused me of misunderstanding statistical analysis. I hope the Twins are willing to use RBI if it is relevant to the analysis of a player and it most certainly can be, but need not be for all.

RBI as a statistic certainly has a great many weaknesses, but you could use the statistic as a window into other ones to examine why a player has had such success (or lack thereof) in driving runners. Perhaps it's your team's lineup construction or other issues, but I don't feel the need to dismiss the statistic entirely. Even if better alternatives exist. Sometimes the surface level questions "why is this guy struggling to post RBI?" can lead to deeper questions that require better measures to answer. Ultimately, it comes down to what questions you're asking and the best stat to find the answer.

RBI shouldn't be a go-to, but inexcusable to even consider? Going a bit far and a pet peeve of mine with talking baseball stats. No metric or stat is inexcusable or worthless. In fact, the more of them we consider and overlap only enrich the context of the evaluation....not diminish it.

Pfft, little did he expect we always had home runs in our back pocket if we needed it.

The high leverage component and the men on base component of that are completely independent of him. We need Mauer himself being more productive.

While it is great he is being extra RISPy this year and true that he doesn't HAVE to hit HR to be productive.... it's still very much true that his production is not what we need from him.

If you want to liken the Plouffe emergence to anyone on this roster - Perkins is the best comp. Two guys the organization and the fan base had all but drummed out of town that totally changed their own career arc with some changes in their approach. Think where we'd be today without them and breathe a sigh of relief they pulled themselves up and made themselves into true contributors.

Not to mention the "just move him somewhere else!" isn't exactly a great strategy in its own right for a host of reasons.

It's also possible Tom Bernard was just speaking out of his backside and hasn't "eyed" anything about Plouffe. I would probably put those odds at more than just "possible" and much closer to "certain"....

The push to move Sano off of third is just totally inexplicable to me. Keep him there until you have to move him and stop freaking out about MiLB errors and how big he is. The Twins should hold on to Plouffe until Sano forces the issue coming north and with the DH spot in the air there is plenty of reason to believe the two can co-exist. But the Twins would be foolish not to listen to offers on Trevor, they just have to be very selective in what they accept for him.

Always been a believer this kid is going to contribute for us some day, excited to see that steam building.

I would suggest there is this other element of the roster dealing Plouffe could also help with - SP. Sometimes it's just finding the right match - a team with a need and an excess. I'm not saying that exists, but sometimes that partner comes out of nowhere and a player like Plouffe is exactly the type to make that happen.

I think there is a lot of muddling that distinction from both ends of the issue.

Plouffe is closing in on 29, I wouldn't call that young. He's in the heart of his prime right now, but that's the peak of the hill. Not the upslope. Personally I don't WANT to deal Plouffe. But I strongly believe that any player approaching 30 that you don't have a long-term commitment already in place with....should be on the trade block. Not that you have to deal him, but you damn sure shouldn't be shutting the door without listening either.

He was ok for about 100 starts in a ballpark that very much favored him. (To the tune of about .75 of a run better for his career) Do some lefty junkballers find a way to have long and productive careers? Sure, but not nearly as many as flame out after brief moments in the sun. Working against Milone also is that his career numbers don't show him to be all that great against LHB either, which even makes the bullpen a dicey alternative. He's nice depth to have, but I think we're making too much out of what he's doing in AAA. Not that Rochester is complaining I'm sure.

For me a AAAA player is one that demonstrably dominates AAA but can never capture anything approaching the same level of success in the majors. Not a non-factor or a do nothing, but a roleplayer rather than a starter. I don't see Tommy Milone being able to hold down even a back-end rotation job with his stuff. A transition to the bullpen might be a far better use of his skill set.

I think the statement is that he is a AAAA starter.

I believe you may still be confused about how you misused WAR. In any case, yeah, I'm not seeing anything thus far to see this as sustainable. The lack of strikeouts will catch up to them and I still feel like this bullpen is an implosion waiting to happen. That could seriously mess with the pitching staff if/when it occurs.

Oliveros?

So, Molly....you dodged the Boyer bullet twice. Can we stop playing with fire now?

I'll be really curious to see the leg kick in action. As a fan I have two things I want to see from Hicks early and often - the ball getting actually driven and his play in CF looking less like it deserves a Benny Hill soundtrack. Do that and I'll be very excited about his prospects for contributing.

You're right, they may once again have it screwed up. But at least it's a different kind of screw-up I guess if that's the case. But neither of us know that. My bigger issue is that you are basing far too much of your argument on Schaefer and not Hicks. Schaefer is irrelevant. His play is irrelevant to what is right for Hicks. If Plouffe gets hurt tomorrow and Sano isn't ready, you want them calling him up too? I would hope not. Prospect development should be independent of major league roster developments. (Good and bad) I just cannot disagree more strongly with the logic that a bungling of the current CF situation requires us to bypass what is right for Hicks in order to fix it. That's compounding the problem if Hicks isn't ready. They can get a long look at him if he comes up in June too. The problem is if this is "too soon" then it's over for Hicks. I'm just not ready to give up on him yet and I don't think he's sufficiently worked on what they want from him or he'd be up already. So good for the Twins being patient and finally putting his development in front of their MLB needs. At least that's how I see it.

They should be. They royally messed up the development process not once but twice, I think they are trying to right that wrong. We need to let go of all these PAs in the big leagues and consider them what they were: the mistakes of a poor plan. The risk in bringing him up is that if he fails he's a 4th OF and possibly a DFA before September. Keeping him down and making sure he's ready to step in and claim RF/LF or CF until Buxton comes up makes him a legitimate contributor to the future. 4th OF? Meaningless. After thought. I consider that to be a wide gulf in upside and certainly one worthy of considering a high risk. The time to field a competent CF was back in December. Or, hell, two years ago. Those mistakes aren't undone by calling up a non-ready Hicks. Considering they just bypassed him for Rosario tells me that they don't think that his game is ready. Nothing has changed that drastically in the last few days, which reinforces the point many are making here: this is about his approach as a professional. That might include his maturity and his approach at the plate, but we need to stop using 19 box scores to proclaim readiness. Hicks is not at that stage in his career and until the Twins feel like he's ready as a professional, he should stay down there - box scores be damned. If you want to bemoan the crappy CF situation - blame the GM for that. Not on when Hicks gets called up.