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TheLeviathan

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Everything posted by TheLeviathan

  1. TheLeviathan
    Exactly, it's also about your extended fan base. I live about an hour and a half away from the stadium and there have been times that 4 hour, obnoxiously played games have turned the trip into a marathon. Baseball has seen a flattening attendance and risks that trend going south if the game experience continues to go downhill. It's also already struggling to attract talent to the game and it isn't helped when kids watch baseball on TV and watch a dude adjust his gloves for 6 minutes only to take ball 2 and repeat his glove adjusting and sign-taking. You don't have to have ADD to think some of this stuff can be cut out. I love 4 hours of good baseball, I don't like 2.5 hours of good baseball and an 1.5 of coaches kicking dirt, adjusting batting gloves, 17 pitcher changes, 460 throw overs to first, and The Pelfrey Effect. Getting rid of that stuff will only enhance the actual baseball.
  2. TheLeviathan
    His, of course, being extra mixy thanks to our "how many DHs can we put in the field" strategy of defense.
  3. TheLeviathan
    I endorse this thread as an attempt to hex Pelfrey's chances at the rotation. Let's reverse psychology the hell out of this thing and see if it works!
  4. TheLeviathan
    This would be a more relevant place to discuss the issues with WAR that seem to be derailing things. One thought I have is that Laroche is said to do very well cleaning up poor throws by his infielders. I could be wrong, but I'm not sure UZR captures that skill very well. The unfortunate reality of defense is that we don't yet have an unbias metric, but I do hope the tracking system installed at Target Field and a few other places last year is a step in the right direction. Until that becomes a bit more reliable I'm a pretty hardened skeptic.
  5. TheLeviathan
    Nick's point was only to demonstrate he wasn't "done". Mine was only to demonstrate he's not garbage. He's a pretty good player and precisely the kind of defender at 1B that the metrics are terrible at crediting for what he does well. He's a good addition for that lineup at a pretty reasonable price. He'll help them.
  6. TheLeviathan
    It doesn't need to be rehashed, go back and look at where you entered the Laroche discussion. It was after Nick pointed out that players that are "done" generally don't average 25+ HRs and an OPS over .800 for the last three years.
  7. TheLeviathan
    Chief, I think the plan is for Laroche to handle the bulk of the 1B duties so Abreu can go to DH. I stand corrected, Ventura says he wants to start him twice a week at 1B and the rest at DH. In any case, I've always heard the reputation on Laroche is average to above average.
  8. TheLeviathan
    Apparently a lot since you originally defended the idea from another poster that he was "done". Looks to me like a pretty good player that should help them.
  9. TheLeviathan
    He's a good player, not a great one. He's also a good fit for the White Sox and likely to see his power numbers improve in Chicago. I'm not hyping him, just trying to sober how much you're downplaying him. And rejecting using WAR to knock a player for his defense, of course. But I've been vocal about how overplayed that is in other places - suffice to say I'm not a fan.
  10. TheLeviathan
    You have a bizarre definition of "role player" if 146 XBHs, 254 RBI, and an OPS north of .800 over the last three years fits that.
  11. TheLeviathan
    Defense absolutely has value. WAR is just a poor tool for measuring it.
  12. TheLeviathan
    I would argue that is more indicative of the problems with WAR for the purposes you are employing it.
  13. TheLeviathan
    In the past I think he could get through the zone faster and was able to spray some hits around when he was behind in the count. But I really thought his bat speed looked slow last year and that was seriously hurting his ability to get around on pitches. So when you couple that with constantly working from behind in the count, I think you're talking about a recipe for disaster.
  14. TheLeviathan
    And yet despite having a consistently bottom tier farm they keep finding ways to make big trades. People make WAY too much of their bad farm. I expect that when the wheels come off in Detroit that it is going to be a disaster, but I'm hard pressed to see that happening yet. But it is likely to happen in the next three years.
  15. TheLeviathan
    We disagree and that's fine and it's a fair point that their bullpen was so good that they look like regression candidates, but their key offensive players also are highly unlikely to be that awful for the first four months too. The Shields loss and how the rest of their staff cover for that could be the biggest swing. Either way, what tends to bug me in an analysis like this is when people apply a different standard to the opposition than they would the Twins. If we were Royals fans you wouldn't hear many of the arguments in this thread and I think it's important to try and keep some balance in evaluating them.
  16. TheLeviathan
    Your argument isn't fair because it assumes they have to make up 9 wins. If their skillset already puts them ahead of their pyth...then they aren't looking for 9 wins, but probably more like 6 or 7. Then you have to factor in what they did that will likely replace Shields. (Volsquez is probably another 1 off that) And then they are counting on progress of young players - the same kind you and others assume the Twins can count on for a win or two as well I'm guessing. So is 9 really a fair characterization? It seems to me 4-5 games on pessimistic side or roughly treading water with 89 wins on the optimistic side is more fair to say. To me, their biggest threat to their competitiveness isn't losing Shields but the typically erratic play of bullpens. If that group isn't elite, then they quickly shift to more pessimistic projections.
  17. TheLeviathan
    Sure, they were five better than their pyathgorean record - you think that was purely luck and not the margin of error I'm talking about? Good defense and a great bullpen shortens games. I'd argue that's a classic example of making your own luck.
  18. TheLeviathan
    Very good information, it basically backs up everything Parker said.
  19. TheLeviathan
    You think everything went great for them last year? They had a hell of a late run that fueled them, but this is a team that also had awful campaigns from virtually every key offensive player on their roster for most of the season. As soon as a few of them started to put things together they took off. Losing Shields hurts and their offseason was less than impressive, but they walk in with some serious strengths that are still amongst the best in all of baseball. That gives them more margin for error than many others.
  20. TheLeviathan
    Eric summarized it nicely, but when one of your team's strengths is defense that shelters you considerably from regression. Shouldn't we, as Twins fans, know that as well as any? The Royals also field a defense far better than any we did in the 2000s, that's going to insulate them from sliding too far off what they did last year. The real question for the Royals is how do the complement their defense? Barring major injuries they are pretty much a .500 team just with how well they play D and shut teams down with their bullpen. I think the real keys are their young offensive players. Hosmer was a much better hitter the second half of last year. Moustakas had some flashes of what he is capable of and they still have some solid players in Perez, Gordon, and others. If that offense can pull itself out of being in the "dreadful" category, they may actually get better. Cleveland, in my eyes, is the team to watch out for.
  21. TheLeviathan
    Right, but as Parker said - the Twins could have taken anyone still on the board after them so whether you pick 5 or 10 after is really irrelevant. Given the choice the Twins made, relative to their options, they have underwhelmed. You'll note in his initial post that Parker said that the Red Sox were one of the teams we have done better than so far.
  22. TheLeviathan
    Right, but that's why Parker's analysis is helpful. It eliminates the limitations and lets us look at our choices relative to others. What you're doing by going back 5 choices, Parker already did embedded in his comparison.
  23. TheLeviathan
    There was talent further down from 5 behind us though. It's not like right at our pick the well ran completely dry. I found more than a few guys 10-20 picks later that look to be very good players. I agree that adding in Garza or Plouffe would have likely shifted things, but I'm not sure why that matters. A team that puts this much emphasis on the draft can't afford a stretch of drafting like this no matter when you want to pull the years. That's the problem, now we have to speculate why. Part of that answer could be thin talent in those drafts, but that alone isn't explanation enough.
  24. TheLeviathan
    I read through these options again and I just can't help but think this position is going to implode this team's chances. I hope I'm wrong, but it's such a critical spot for this team as it is composed and the options are just dreadful.
  25. TheLeviathan
    Exactly. If you're going to put all your eggs in that basket....you better have a damn fine bunch of eggs or you're going to quickly cause problems for your ability to stay competitive.
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