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Willihammer

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Everything posted by Willihammer

  1. Willihammer
    There's only one way this team can return to contention
  2. Willihammer
    Dave Cameron wrote a piece on fangraphs about the Manfred comment that baseball needed more runs (tl;dr it doesn't). In the piece was a nice little graph showing the growth of 3 true outcomes in baseball over the last 115 years. The trend is clear. http://cdn.fangraphs.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/BBKHBP.png Therefore, with fewer balls in play, team fielding is a smaller component of run prevention than ever. Problem is, the Twins are behind the curve. Just 25.6% of opponent PAs ended with a TTO in 2014. That would have been average for a team way back in 1993 or so. Today, the mean is 30.3% (and growing). Until the Twins catch up, fielding defense is going to play a larger part in overall run prevention than it would on other teams.
  3. Willihammer
    I disagree. I love the change of pace that the bunt play and small ball in general brings to a game - IF it makes sense to put those plays on. There are fewer instances where it makes sense to do that in the AL whereas those first 3 PA's by a starting pitcher are frequently going to provide an opportunity. And when the bases are empty or it doesn't make sense to lay down a unt, I enjoy watching pitchers try to hit, although I do wish more pitchers took it seriously and weren't too cool for school about running hard to first base, that is annoying.
  4. Willihammer
    I think we got a winner!
  5. Willihammer
    Yep. I'm current on all the new Internet memes and stuff.
  6. Willihammer
    Or just straight up ice bucket challenge him while he's in town. That's still a thing right? Polar plunge maybe.
  7. Willihammer
    I'm less optimistic about the bullpen. Perkins' elbow injury wasn't nothing. Neither was Meyer's shoulder, or Graham's shoulder. Then Ryan gets Stauffer because he wants "experience." Experience is not something a modern bullpen needs very much of. Even the best relievers tend to have pretty short, hot-burning shelf lives. I would be more hopeful if Burdi, Jones, Cederoth, etc. had a realistic chance of breaking camp with the team. I think we're all pretty doubtful that will happen since there is such a long line of filler in front of them.
  8. Willihammer
    Vargas in 114 ABs 2nd in HR's (6) 1st in walks (33) 1st in OBP (.430) 3rd in OPS (.913) No wonder he doesn't want to leave.
  9. Willihammer
    Yeah I'm just eyeballing their system too. I'm looking at their 40 man. I'm throwing out names based more on that and less on calculating a perfect 1:1 swap of Steamer-projected surplus values. I think history shows that a win-now team will sometimes make trades that leave Steamer and the rest of us a little perplexed. Everyone on thish board has been assuming it would take Buxton or Sano just to get the conversation started, but what if this is another one of those cases?
  10. Willihammer
    The Nats have had some embarassing bullpen collapses in the playoffs. I could be mistaken but the obvious hole for them seems to be the back of the pen. According to Steamer, they would lose 2 wins by swapping Strasburg for Roark. Perkins alone would almost make that up.
  11. Willihammer
    You realize 2 years of Fister was traded last year for... wait for it... Robbie Ray, Ian Krol, and Steve Lombardozzi.
  12. Willihammer
    Strasburg is a stud, The Twins should definitely call. With the Nats' bullpen collapses in the playoffs, that is always a good way to put a GM on the hot seat. I wonder if something like Perkins - Reed - Cederoth could get it done? BTW Reusse has had a mancrush on Zimmerman since he watched his 8 2/3 inning start last fall (followed by a Nats bullpen collapse).
  13. Willihammer
    Yeah I was a little disappointed when Molitor said Santana would be the SS. To me this arrangement makes more sense. Good to hear that it's not set in stone yet.
  14. Willihammer
    From the MLBTR article linked above, "The Rockies haven’t made a significant pitching signing this offseason, and Morosi and Rosenthal write that the main reason is that they’re having trouble attracting pitching to Coors Field. The Rockies think they can deal Blackmon for a pitcher and then sign an outfielder, given that Denver would be an attractive destination for an outfielder for the same reason it’s a poor one for a pitcher." Coors Field is the reason the Rockies might trade Blackmon for mediocre pitchers like Logan Darnell. It limits their ability to acquire pitchers, and it inflated Blackmon's production. He's really not that good.
  15. Willihammer
    What's the backstory to the nickname?
  16. Willihammer
    There's a good documentary on Netflix called An Elephant in the Living Room about people owning exotic pets, their attachment to them, the culture, how they get them, the difficulties they present to authorities, etc. IMO it is sort of a self-correcting problem since most attacks are of the animal against its owner. However when you have a habitat that is ripe for a non-native species to become invasive were pets to escape, eg. the feral boas the have run wild in Florida. That is a real problem.
  17. Willihammer
    I was using Gunnar's list as an example, to make a point about who are the top young talent s in the entire system, including the MLB club. When you do that, I think you arrive at a different picture about where this club projects to be in the win curve the next few years because a good chunk of the talent has graduated.
  18. Willihammer
    Arcia, May, Santana, Hicks, Vargas. If you want to pick nits, the "rookie" cutoff for pitchers is 50 innings so May is technically going to have his rookie season in 2015; he logged 45.2 last year. The other 4 will be sophomores (Hicks who will be in his 3rd year.)
  19. Willihammer
    Right, many of the system's best talents are already graduated. Better yet, a few even look like players. If people want to talk about timing FA moves based around a window, then that target should account for these players too, not just the guys on the mlb.com top 100 list of minor leaguers. When you dtake the whole system into account, 2016 looks like a more reasonable target than 2017-2018 and therefore the wins we can expect from the Nolasco and Santana contracts project to be quite important and not just "extending mediocrity" or impeding the team in any way.
  20. Willihammer
    I'd argue the prospect label is arbitrary. If you exclude young players because they put their rookie season behind them, then the target is always going to be 2-3 years down the road, or longer. But that doesn't describe the shape the Twins are in. Of the top 10 talents you mentioned, half have already put their rookie season behind them. When you look at it that way, would you say the window is 2017-2018, or sooner?
  21. Willihammer
    Well you are going to see young players. With 6 or 7 exceptions everyone on the roster is going to be under 30. Thus the Twins standing at the bottom of the "lots of young talent" graph. A while back in one of the minor league threads, someone suggested that a better way to gauge an organization's young talent was to look at all under-25 players including those that have graduated to the major league level - names that would have been removed from the Baseball Prospectus, etc. organizational rankings. Here's a question for the timing crowd then. How would you rank the top 10 under-25 talents in the Twins system?
  22. Willihammer
    The Twins' success or failure in the coming years isn't totally dependent on Buxton and Sano. There are other talents in the system. You don't put an entire professional baseball team on hold for two lousy prospects.
  23. Willihammer
    How many K's?
  24. Willihammer
    I'd guess we're looking at a 60/40 target Hughes - Suzuki (this is a lock) Santana- Suzuki Gibson - Pinto Nolasco- Suzuki May/Milone/5th starter - Pinto
  25. Willihammer
    FWIW the Twins 2014 leaders by HBP rate Name PA/HBP Josh Willingham 39.7 Kurt Suzuki 55.9 Oswaldo Arcia* 68.3 Kennys Vargas# 78.0 Brian Dozier 78.6 Eric Fryer 81.0 Chris Parmelee* 135.0 Danny Santana# 143.3 Trevor Plouffe 145.5 Jason Kubel* 176.0 Josmil Pinto 197.0 Eduardo Nunez 213.0 Chris Colabello 220.0 Eduardo Escobar# 232.5 Joe Mauer* 518.0
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