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Willihammer

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Everything posted by Willihammer

  1. Willihammer
    Roberto Hernandez is worth a call IMO. Coming off a career low BB rate and career high K%. Over a run difference in xFIP to ERA, good candidate for regression.
  2. Willihammer
    Bump........
  3. Willihammer
    OK well, back to the original question then
  4. Willihammer
    Evidently OPSBI was created by Jim Bowden. Its OPS*1000 + RBI. I'm not sure why you'd use it instead of other stats but there it is. Basically the half breed bastard of an already half bread bastard.
  5. Willihammer
    This would be a good start to the offseason IMO. Nolasco's a soft tosser but he can throw the kitchen sink at you and has been durable.
  6. Willihammer
    Your title is "Manager, Major League Administration and Baseball Research," how big is the staff you manage? How much of your effort is dedicated to scouting, minor league development, research, mechanics, and whatever else we might associate with analytics, and how much is dedicated to Major League Administration?
  7. Willihammer
    I didn't read anyone ripping the coaches but the Rays, ironically, not the Twins, were the first to shift on Ortiz and didn't do it till around 2008 IIRC. edit: He also hurt his wrist in 2008
  8. Willihammer
    I'm not a fan of reserving rotation spots for minor leaguers. I'd let Gibson, Meyer, May, Worley (in that order) battle for bullpen spots first. If they can stick it there, then you give them a shot at the rotation after a guy inevitably gets injured or whatever. Look at the Cardinals - Rosenthal, Miller, Wainright all earned (or are currently earning) their way into the rotation. If you go this route then you can target the best arms available, pay the premium, and the team will have stronger pitching top to bottom and not just "innings eaters." They might even recoup some of the cost if they make it to arbitration - they won't be able to point to gaudy innings totals.
  9. Willihammer
    Were the Twins in on Chone Figgins? I think this is the crux of the frustration for a lot of fans. edit: at least as far as Free Agency goes.
  10. Willihammer
    I for one am not ready to crown the Correia signing better than the Anibal, Jackson, Lohse, Dempster, or even McCarthy signings quite yet. More importantly, most of the guys who "busted" still would have been better than what we trotted out there last year, eg. Diamond, whom plane jane public domain stats like xFIP pegged for regression. Also let's not forget the Revere trade. Still too early to call that either way, but if there's any meaning to the fact that Vance Worley was given the first start of the year, they may have been wrong about a player or two also.
  11. Willihammer
    Could you elaborate? If you're not using FIP or SIERA or some three true outcome based stat, then what have you found to be better predictors?
  12. Willihammer
    The Pythagoran formula is: FWIW both WS teams this year have 187 run differentials. I am all for scraping together runs with good defense and baserunning, framing, shifting, etc. but you can't defend and scamper your way to a 200 run differential. You're going to have to hit, with power, and on defense you're going to have to strikeout guys on swings and misses. edit: Correction, the Cards finished with a 187 run differential, the Sox with 197.
  13. Willihammer
    Jimenez has front of the rotation stuff and is exactly the sort the Twins should target IMHO, he just needs to command it.
  14. Willihammer
    Lullers no I'm pretty sure its just you Dave
  15. Willihammer
    Yes there is an 8m option on Blackie's contract for 2014 which would push the Twins projected payroll from the high 50s to around 67m.
  16. Willihammer
    When questioned about the 2014 budget, Terry Ryan said the sub-60m figure the Twins are projected to spend doesn't include Blackburn. Buckle in for some Blackie!
  17. Willihammer
    By all means, give me the shortcuts.
  18. Willihammer
    A lot of those guys fell off a cliff after age 30 with the bat too. Torre never OPSed above .800 after 30. Berra rattled off 9 consecutive .800+ OPS but after age 31 took a pretty good hit. Similar stories with Bench, Pudge, even Piazza to a large extent. I was going to blog about this actually after Matt Harvey elected to get TJ surgery, but abandoned it due to lack of evidence. But the career arcs of these guys seems to mirror Koufax, Drysdale, Marichal, Feller, Hunter, etc. The great pitchers who quit or became ineffective early in life due to fuzzy explanations like "sore arm" or "tired arm" which we now know to have been torn UCLs probably. Maybe a similar thing has been going on with catchers. Maybe their knees and noggins are wearing down worse than anyone realizes.
  19. Willihammer
    I finished reading the interview thinking what I always think when Ryan talks about payroll: If its not an excuse for winning, and its not an excuse for losing, then what did we finance a new ballpark for?
  20. Willihammer
    Mauer is solid with the run game and blocking pitches but you can wipe away some of that contribution with the reduction in PAs. And then if you want to get into framing - he isn't especially great at getting the low strike, which would seem to be pretty important to a staff that is constantly told to keep the ball down. Compounding the problem is that Doumit is notoriously lousy and what minor league data there is suggests Pinto was among the worst framers too. The answer then, IMO, is that none of these guys should be catching next year.
  21. Willihammer
    Or until he hits the DL, whichever comes first.
  22. Willihammer
    Infield positioning eh? Will be curious to see if they do more shifting.
  23. Willihammer
    I wouldn't get hung up on his walk rate at the WBC or anywhere really. His game is power and to that end his ISO has floated around .400 which is insane. If Cuba's league is comparable to High A, a .400 ISO would be .080 points better than Giancarlo Stanton or Miguel Sano - and Sano's ~.320 ISO is the best for a season in High A since fangraphs started tracking minor leaguers in 2006. Re: bat speed -its one part of the equation but not the be all end all. Just look at the various bat speeds from 2013: ESPN Home Run Tracker :: 92013 Top Home Runs, Speed Off Bat - Full List. There are good hitters all over that spectrum. Force is a product of velocity and mass. Maybe Abreu is swinging a 40 ounce bat in Cuba?
  24. Willihammer
    In a bigger sample of Serie Nacional games, Abreu compares favorably to some of the best players of this decade. For example, Puig posted a .330/.431/.581 line, to Cespedes' .333/.424/.667, to Abreu's .453/.597/.986 in 2009-2010 (the last year they all played together). That's better than a .400 lead in OPS over Cespedes, for anyone counting at home. Note: Cespedes and Abreu held or shared the lead in nearly every major hitting category that year. And Abreu hasn't let off the gas since. This guy just mashes.
  25. Willihammer
    Last night was a case in point. Kershaw lost some calls on good pitches. Whereas Wacha, with one or two exceptions, didn't. Wacha also appears to have gotten a couple extra out of zone strike calls. http://www.brooksbaseball.net/pfxVB/cache/location.php-pitchSel=477132&game=gid_2013_10_18_lanmlb_slnmlb_1&batterX=&innings=yyyyyyyyy&sp_type=1&s_type=&league=mlb.gif http://www.brooksbaseball.net/pfxVB/cache/location.php-pitchSel=608379&game=gid_2013_10_18_lanmlb_slnmlb_1&batterX=&innings=yyyyyyyyy&sp_type=1&s_type=&league=mlb.gif Could have been home field advantage, hitter bias, etc. If you looked closely though, you could see Ellis did the exact same head ducking as Doumit. Wouldn't surprise me to see Butters taking over next year.
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