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Willihammer

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Everything posted by Willihammer

  1. Willihammer
    Interesting Q& A with Mark Reynolds in fangraphs yesterday. Sounds like Tito is basically telling him "youre in the lineup to do damage." I think some guys probably do benefit from having their managers back when they look to just unload on a guy. Not Gomez cca. 2008 necessarily. But, maybe Ortiz needed to hear that and probably did hear it from Tito in Boston.
  2. Willihammer
    I find his wheezing into the mic very compelling
  3. Willihammer
    Brewers lineup is downright scary. How are they so bad?
  4. Willihammer
    I suspect some of the disappointment is caused by TDers inflating their expectations of prospects all the time. From what I have read over the past year, Aaron Hicks was supposed to be the 2nd coming of Kirby Puckett. He could hardly live up to those expectations no matter what. As to the splits, its not entirely fair to say he's struggled in "only" 150 PAs. Among all the accolades in the minor league reports since I've visited this site have been muted cautions about this very thing - his weaker left side. Obviously he's nowhere near settling into a reliable triple slash or OPS for the season at the MLB level, much less his career. But the early returns raise the unsettling possibility that just maybe we were all understating just how weak his weak side might be. For 2013 though, its not too early to make some judgments based off 150 PAs about contact and batted ball tendencies. And obviously Hicks has been terrible so far in those respects. I'm actually going to blog about these early stats for the whole team, if Parmelee and Dozier ever get to 150 PAs. * Teaser: want to be depressed? Go to fangraphs batting leaderboards, click the batted ball tab. Sort by line drive rate (Ascending order).
  5. Willihammer
    A guy who can't hit 2/3 of all pitchers? He would have to either be platooned or hit lefties for a 1.200 to end up at .800 overall. Its still too early to conclude about his splits. They won't stabilize till 600 PAs at the earliest for his strong side and about 2000 for his weak side. But if the early returns are any indication, and this has been a known weakness for some time, that is not good.
  6. Willihammer
    We didn't need him.
  7. Willihammer
    A 1st round pick way too much compensation for Hawkins? Man I don't know. Hawkins had turned a corner by the end of 2003 and continued to be a very solid middle reliever to this day. And its not like his price ever really went up.
  8. Willihammer
    Not an easy choice but my favorite Bob Loblaw exchange would have to be:
  9. Willihammer
    KC did serve up 3 more taters today. All solos. 3 more double plays too. He's outperforming his peripherals by a half run or better due, in part I think, to the great timing of these dingers. 9/10 have been solo shots.
  10. Willihammer
    Peltrey
  11. Willihammer
    They better not have ditched all the old jokes, I love me some chicken dance.
  12. Willihammer
    First thing I noticed about Liriano this year is he's bringing his hands over his head in teh windup - a perfectly viable timing mechanism that a lot of guys use. I wouldn't necessarily say that that was the missing key to getting Liriano to hit the strike zone consistently, but , I don't believe there is a single pitcher on staff who does this. Which would either be a heck of a coincidence or its something being forbidden at a high level. I would be curious to know the reasoning for it, and what other blanket rules are being enforced on Twins pitchers. edit: Pelfrey does it too. Still, small wonder such a simple technique wasn't tried on Liriano at some point during his time as a Twin.
  13. Willihammer
    It would be a lot more intriguing if the fans had a reason to think that $23m saved per year would be re-invested in the payroll.
  14. Willihammer
    True. I am assuminig pitchers have a constant PACE which doesn't vary pitch to pitch but obviously it does, if only because of hitters sometimes. How often do you see a guy take a called borderline strike 2 then step out of the box, huff and puff shaking his head for 20 seconds. An interesting study might be to see if that helps him get the umpire on his side or maybe the exact opposite.
  15. Willihammer
    I queried the 266 Starting Pitcher seasons from 2010-2012 out of curiosity. There's no correlation between PACE and FDP-Wins, but there is a suggestion of a relationship between PACE and batted balls, which might be a little more pronounced at the extremes. And a suggestion of a relationship between PACE and strike%. https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B5pIzP28qdp-OVVLS0FUeXJxVk0/edit?usp=sharing I guess one theory would be that more than keeping defenders awake, fast pitchers are better at keeping home plate umpires awake. Or, maybe they get themselves into their good graces by working quickly.
  16. Willihammer
    ftfy
  17. Willihammer
    http://i740.photobucket.com/albums/xx48/cscboulder11/Reaction%20faces/picard.jpg
  18. Willihammer
    Should probably bench the Hammer in favor of someone who can cheat in a few steps. Benson maybe
  19. Willihammer
    I'd agree they don't have many rangy fielders on the team. Dozier is probably the rangiest, by my eye. But I don't think they're particularly bad at converting the "routine play" and stats like RZR concur.
  20. Willihammer
    Good defense is certainly preferable to bad defense but nobody here has proven their defense is especially bad. Certainly BABIP doesn't prove it. This has been a running line from the FO since 2011, "we got away from the fundamentals." Well no, not really. You stopped pitching and hitting, that's what happened.
  21. Willihammer
    Right, the inverse of BABIP, that's what DE is. And it suffers from the same flaws. Primarily not accounting for where/what angle/how hard balls are hit. But in general, the guys who miss more bats will miss more barrels, and get weaker contact. The Tigers seem to be bucking that trend somewhat (they also have Miguel Cabrera and Prince Fielder on defense). And the fact that the Tigers are perhaps lousy defensively while being the best team in teh AL is just fodder for my point. Its more important for a team to hit and pitch better than it is for them to cleanup a handful of runs on defense.
  22. Willihammer
    Which would be consistent with them being dead last in strikeouts. Naturally they will give up a more hits than other clubs, regardless of who is defending. Look at the formula: Defensive Efficiency = 1- (H-HR)/(AB-SO-HR+SH+SF)
  23. Willihammer
    Their defense isn't that bad. Its hitting and pitching that's the problem.
  24. Willihammer
    I'd guess that Sunday is Pelfrey's last shot.
  25. Willihammer
    One of the all-time greats:
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