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Willihammer

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Everything posted by Willihammer

  1. Willihammer
    or any other Pixies song really.
  2. Willihammer
    That, and crumple zones. Whatever plastics they're using today don't seem to give much. Maybe the old steel was better for that.
  3. Willihammer
    I like the Rays, I like Maddon, but I was smdh during the play-in game against Texas. Bottom of the 8th, Rays up 2. Peralta is warm and raring to go out of the pen. Price at 98 pitches. 1 lefty and 2 righties due up for Texas. Maddon leaves Price in there. OK, he's going to face the lefty then pull him. Nope, gets Martin out on some lifeless 92 mph fastballs. Now he's out of there right? Nope, stays in to face Kinsler a 4th time, gives up a double. Surely, the clock has run out for Price at this point. This was a play-in game so I think the Rays had 8 other relievers in the pen backing up Peralta. No reason to push your starter in that situation. But no, Price stayed in. Then for reasons I can't even imagine, Andrus drops a bunt. I don't know if it was Washington's call or Andrus trying to bunt-hit, but they moved Kinsler to third and trade an out. He wasn't even the tying run! They couldn't even sacrifice him home at that point! Anyway, price finished the game, one for the record books, yadda yadda Rays win.
  4. Willihammer
    If the Twins drafted well despite picking in the 20s all those years, and yet the well dried up, what more evidence do you need that the strategy is flawed? You need to keep acquiring impact players. Easier said than done, I realize. What is a near certainty is that if you rely on the draft for those talents when you're picking in the 20s for back to back years then you're setting yourself up for a long dry spell.
  5. Willihammer
    I don't expect the Twins to stay at the top all the time, but I don't accept that we have to dive into the cellar for years at a time. The Twins have the new park, and the money to make a better effort than they've made. The GM is just unwilling to make that effot because, I can only assume, he wants the top 10 picks.
  6. Willihammer
    If the Twins thought they could continue to draft Mike Cuddyers and Joe Mauers in the 20s than they weren't being realistic. As the facts earlier in this thread show, there are only a few of these sort of impact guys that slip through the top ten, the rest of the talent is very thinly spread out. It should have surprised no one that the Matt Moses's, Denard Spans, Trevor Plouffes, Glen Perkins,' Matt Garzas, Steven Waldrops, Matt Fox's, Jay Rainvilles, Chris Parmelees, etc. weren't going to sustain the momentum that Joe Mauer, Mike Cuddyer and Torii Hunter had built - despite the fact that a couple of them did hit pretty good. So the well dried up. Who was held accountable? Bill Smith, the first Twins GM to bring an impact international player into the Twins system, sign a Japanese superstar, and try to diversify the sources of the Twins talent. Stranger yet, the guy who started us down this cycle was brought back to start us down the same cycle again. It doesn't have to be this way.
  7. Willihammer
    And yet, here we are, 3 seasons of 90+ losses, talking about how to rebuild.
  8. Willihammer
    I agree. I only wonder if people realize how incredibly fruitful and easy it is to get talent in the top 10, and how incredibly hard and chancy it is to find talent later in the draft. That's why, if your entire rebuilding strategy is draft-centric, it seems to follow that you might intentionally tank the on-field product.
  9. Willihammer
    But as a rule, teams who draft in the top 10 are getting the choicest cuts and everyone after is fighting over scraps. You only need to get to the 2nd round before the odds of your pick even getting a cup of coffee begin to dip under 50%. If my math is right, each draft produces players who for their careers produce a total of 380 WAR (on average). About 100 of that will come from the top 10 picks. So there are 10 teams fighting over 100 WAR in the top 10, and 30 teams fighting over 280 WAR in picks 11-1200. That's an average of about 9.3 WAR per team per draft - again, for the players entire career(s), after you toss out the top 10. Get a top 10 pick however, and you are playing at much, much better odds and you stand to more than double your product
  10. Willihammer
    That's why, maybe its not so wise to be as reliant on the draft for talent as Ryan is. There is only one way to get those top picks.
  11. Willihammer
    This is a well thought out, well written and stimulating post. Thanks for it. Couple things. Smart baserunning isn't a secret anymore, if it ever was. We have stats which at least try to give a very specific run value to all the contributions a runner can make, including going first to third on a single, scoring from 1st on a gapper, etc. We can have a healthy debate about whether the run values these stats arrive at fit our real world perceptions but I seriously doubt the Twins or any other team have found some hidden value to baserunning that these metrics aren't already capturing just as well or even better. Secondly, the player who hits 20 hrs, is a great baserunner, and plays great defense is going to be at best marginally cheaper than a loaf who hits 40 HRs and runs like those guys typically run and plays defense like those guys typically play. Look at the contracts of Carl Crawford, BJ Upton, Dustin Pedroia, etc. These secondary skills don't go unnoticed anymore. Where the savings are had is in making an early and accurate evaluation of a player's "true" talent so that you can lock him into a team friendly contract, eg. Evan Longoria. This is where the sabermetric, predictive approach can be extremely useful, I suspect.
  12. Willihammer
    What about a best of 1 series?
  13. Willihammer
    Carnac: Shin-soo Choo Ed: Shih Tzu Choo Carnac: What do they call jerky in Korea?
  14. Willihammer
    Yep, just two starters on each roster I believe. GOing to be a lot of micromanaging from here on out.
  15. Willihammer
    1. Think about Johnny Cueto. He couln't quite put it together as a Twin and tonight, he still can't put it together.
  16. Willihammer
    What is this "fun" and how long do you have to cook it?
  17. Willihammer
    Oh that's right its the playoffs, when the national announcers come in and ruin perfectly watchable games
  18. Willihammer
    I'll be watching just for the Robbie Inkmikowski update - for old time's sake.
  19. Willihammer
    Radar gun and a stopwatch? I think he knows exactly how this sounds. Again, Terry Ryan: media troll.
  20. Willihammer
    Halloween costume idea: Slap on a name-tag, 10 different points of flair, carry a serving plate, say "Hello, welcome to Perkins" and go as Terry Ryan
  21. Willihammer
    I disagree. The piranha style of baseball might have been appropriate for a small budget team playing on astroturf, but the Twins aren't that team anymore. Moreover, piranha-ball was tested against the big AL-style DH brand of baseball over and over again, and it failed every time. The turf has changed, revenues have changed, the game has changed too. Runs are down across the board, and coincidentally, strikeouts are up. But the coaches and front office are the same people we had in the metrodome. Have they updated their thinking to keep pace? I don't see it. For starters, they're still last in strikeouts. They don't shift on anyone not named David Ortiz. They have two of the worst pitch framers in baseball. They won't pull a starter whose put up zeroes until his luck runs out, they won't use their best reliever in non-save situations, and they still won't make a splash in any form of domestic or international free agency. If they won't update their thinking, then they are the wrong men for the job.
  22. Willihammer
    Why didn't they just extend Gardy last offseason? Ryan was looking for improvement, and didn't get it. What does Gardy have to do to get himself fired, win the World Series?
  23. Willihammer
    You can view the page at http://twinsdaily.com/content.php?r=2371-Acquiring-talent-the-Twins-Way-pitchers-(part-2-of-3)
  24. Willihammer
    We're taking a look at how the Twins acquired their talent using the 6 methods of talent acquisition. In Part 1 we looked at Twins position players. In Part 2, we looked at the pitchers. Today, we'll compare the Twins' successes in the 6 methods of talent acquisition versus the rest of the American League. 1. Amateur Draft We already know the Twins have acquired the most positional talent and the 2nd most pitching talent from the Amateur draft, as measured by WAR. But roster space is limited. How does the average Amateur Draftee stack up against the rest of the AL? [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK] http://i.imgur.com/qLqHjp0.png The big outlier here is the Red Sox, whose draftees have been a half-win better than average. The rest of the AL is grouped fairly closely, with the Twins very much in the middle. Their positional draftees have been .02 WAR worse than average, while their pitchers have been .09 WAR better. Overall, they're slightly (.07 WAR) better than average at drafting amateur talent under Terry Ryan. 2. Amateur Free Agency Overall, the average Amateur Drafted-pitcher is worth .78 WAR. The average Amateur Free Agent pitcher? .80 WAR. For position players - 1.25 WAR for the average Draftee, and 1.10 for the average Amateur FA. However the distribution of Amateur FA talent has been very uneven. http://i.imgur.com/i8CHiMM.png The Twins are 2nd to last in average WAR, but its not really for a lack of trying. For example, the Twins and White Sox have both signed 16 Amateur FAs. The Twins have gotten just 11 WARs to the White Sox's 61.2. What gives? http://i.imgur.com/CsRPX8u.png Couple of things. First, the Twins didn't dip their toes in the Amateur FA water till 2000 when they acquired Luis Rivas - one year after the Sox acquired Carlos Lee, and three years after they got Magglio Ordonez. Culprit no. 1 is late timing. Culprit 2, it appears, is the Twins' reluctance to hand out signing bonuses and multiyear contracts, combined possibly with poor scouting. After the Twins became active in Amateur Free Agency, talents like Alexei Ramirez, Fernando Rodney, Joaquin Benoit, Felix Hernandez, Roberto Hernandez, Rafael Soriano, Omar Infante, and Victor Martinez managed to fall into the competition's hands. Some signed contracts with half-million or greater bonuses, others signed for much less. In general, the pricier contracts went to better players. 3. Rule 5 Draft The results of the Rule 5 Draft are curious. They ought to be skewed by a self-selecting sample. Players who are able to stick on their team's 40 man roster for an entire year should be pretty good right? Wrong. Only 3 of the 67 players who "stuck" on the drafting team's rosters have posted cumulative WARs of 5 or more - a rate of 4.4%. A worse rate than the Amateur Draft (16%), Trades (15%), Amateur Free Agency (14%), and Free Agency (9.1%). Only Waiver pickups produce 5+ WARs at a worse rate (3.4%). 4. Trades Total player-seasons from trades outnumber all other avanues of talent acquisition except the Draft (3094 to 3274). Unlike the Draft, however, there is not a lot of variance in the output from tradees: http://i.imgur.com/6mFJJKG.png The Twins average exactly 1 WAR per season from players returned in trade. This puts them 0.07 WAR above average in the AL, boosted again by the acquisition of Johan Santana. In fact, only 3 trades have worked out better: Pedro Martinez for Carl Pavano and Tony Armas in 1997 in a deal between the Expos and Red Sox; ARod to the Yankees for Alfonso Soriano and Joaquin Arias; and Miguel Cabrera (and Dontrelle Willis) from the Marlins to the Tigers in exchange for Dallas Trahern (minors), Burke Badenhop, Frankie De La Cruz, Cameron Maybin, Andrew Miller and Mike Rabelo in 2007. 5. Waivers The Twins have relied on waivers for 35 player-seasons since 1995, third most in the American League. They have not, however, gotten as much production from those players as other teams. http://i.imgur.com/btG8Vuw.png The White Sox have only taken 10 waiver pickups since 1995, but gotten some decent production out of 4 of them - De Aza (4.5 WAR), Rios (6.1), Bobby Jenks (8.7) and Phil Humber (2.3). For the rest of the AL, waivers are the least reliable method for acquiring talent, and the Twins are no exception. Of the 20 waiver claims the Twins have made since 1995, 10 have produced negative WAR. At 7.5 WAR, Matt Guerrier is by far the best of the 20 waiver pickups since 1995. 6. Free Agency The Twins have signed 104 Free Agents since 1995. On average, the FA player-season has been worth just .42 WAR, last among AL teams (excluding the Astros). http://i.imgur.com/BVJ7w3K.png As with Amateur Free Agency, the production from Free Agents has mirrored prices. http://i.imgur.com/ChaTiAd.png The Yankees have proven that with enough money, you can build a roster from free agency. Since 1995, their FAs have produced at a clip of 1.1 WAR player season - identical to the Twins average Amateur Draftee - and it only cost them $981 million to get it. On the other hand, the Red Sox, Angels, Athletics, Rangers, and White Sox have gotten tremendous value through the Draft and Amateur Free Agency whereas the Twins have gotten average talent out of the Draft and almost no talent out of Amateur Free Agency. What are Red Sox scouts doing that the Twins' aren't? Does Terry Ryan know? Is he willing to change? Is he the guy to diversify and uncover new pockets of talent before others get to them, or will he keep on the boom and bust cycle with each crop of Amateur Draftees?
  25. Willihammer
    In Part 1, we looked at the Twins history of acquiring positional talent via the Amateur Draft, Amateur Free Agency, the Rule 5 Draft, Trades, Waivers, and Free Agency, during the Terry Ryan era (1995-2013). Here we will do the same for pitchers. PITCHERS 1. Amateur Draft Since 1995, the Twins trail only the Toronto Blue Jays in their reliance on the Amateur Draft for pitching talent, getting 136 player-seasons from 39 pitchers, good for 120 WAR. Notably, Brad Radke owns a full third (45.5 WAR) of that total. Overall, the average Twins Amateur Draftee has pitched to a .88 WAR season. But take Radke out of the equation, and the average drops to .60 WAR. http://i.imgur.com/MG4siqR.png 2. Amateur Free Agency The Twins have given 24 player-seasons to Amateur FA pitchers since 1995. Juan Rincon and Jose Mijares share the top 7 highest WAR seasons. Others in this category include Liam Hendriks, Grant Balfour, Michael Nakamura, Rob Delaney, and Cole DeVries. Together they average a 0.29 WAR season. http://i.imgur.com/73gC0Tm.png 3. Rule 5 Draft The five Rule 5 Twins player-seasons since 1995 are owned by Scott Diamond (3), Ryan Pressly (1) and Travis Baptist (1). Together they have pitched 432.1 innings for a WAR of 1.9. http://i.imgur.com/9ni3gmd.png 4. Trades Trades account for 90 (pitcher) player-seasons since 1995. Of all other AL teams to have existed for the period 1995-2013, only the Angels have been less-reliant on trades to fill their pitching staffs. But, the Twins own the best WAR-average at 1.36, boosted by the acquisitions of Johan Santana (35.4 WAR over 8 seasons), Eric Milton (14.7/6), Joe Nathan (18.3/7), Joe Mays (10.6/6) and Francisco Liriano (9.9/6). http://i.imgur.com/uVp33wI.png 5. Waivers Jeremy Guthrie owns the distinction of most productive pitcher acquired by Waivers since 1995. He was worth 16.5 WARs for the Orioles from 2007-2011. The next closest is Darren O'Day at under 10 WAR. For the Twins, 13 waiver-wire pitchers have been worth 7.6 WAR over 25 player-seasons. Matt Guerrier (7.5 WAR) has been the most productive pickup, with the other 12 players producing just 0.1 WAR. http://i.imgur.com/2CN4lbQ.png 6. Free Agency Bob Tewksbury remains the best free agent pickup for the Twins. He produced 6.5 WAR at a price of 3.75 million over the 1997-1998 seasons. Overall, Twins FA pitchers average .47 WAR per season, good for 8th in the AL http://i.imgur.com/VmwNq1Y.png So, in order of average WAR, the Twins most successful means of acquiring pitching talent since 1995 are: 1. Trades (1.36) 2. The Amateur Draft (.88) 3. Free Agency (.47) 4. The Rule 5 Draft (.38) 5. Waivers (.30) 6. Amateur Free Agency (.29)
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