Willihammer

How can you say that? Are you just not buying these negative defensive takes on Doumit's defense, and neutral or positive takes on Butera's? I admit, I don't know how much confidence to put in a stat like CERA, but there is aalmost 1/2 run difference between Doumit's 4.91 and Butera's 4.50. That's 67 runs difference, over the course of a 1440 Inning season. Now, bring in the offense. Butera's career wRC is .040 runs / PA. Doumit's is .128 / PA. Assume there are about 700 PAs per 1440 innings caught. Multiply that out and you have for Butera wRC: 28.0 Doumit: 89.6 A difference of 61.6 A wash.

I would be open to that.

I don't know how they're arriving at a run value. All I'm looking at is simple: total inzone and out of zone plays over innings, and scaling to 1500 innings.

That's what I thought would be the case before I cracked into some numbers. You can look at the data for 2010-2012 players here (min 1000 Innings): https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B5pIzP28qdp-X21zdHI4cVgwY3c/edit?usp=sharing Although SS will have more balls hit to him, there is just as much variation from the mean in terms of balls fielded, as with LF. This is the case whether or not you include out of zone balls in your totals. (Previously I just looked at in-zone opps and plays made). For LFers: For SSs: When you think about it, its not surprising. IN today's game, Brett Gardner, Ben Revere and Juan Pierre are playing in the corners. Meanwhile Derek Jeter, Ricky Weeks, and Dan Uggla have MI jobs. Things have leveled out.

Yeah that was confusing. I meant, as I posted earlier in more detail, that the spread between the best-worst fielding LFers and SS is almost exactly the same. (Its actually greater for LFers). Ergo, you can afford to sacrifice leather at SS for power just as you would, conventionally, at the corners. Like with Hanley, who is probably the worst SS in baseball no matter what metric you like. And yet just by being a 6 hole type bat, he's a starter and a overall a pretty valuable one at that.

The bottom line is there's no excuse for trotting out a sub .600 OPS talent at any position. It would require an anomalously high number of fielding opportunities to make up for all the lost production at the plate, and that's assuming he's the best defender at his position in baseball. (I am open to the exception at catcher although I realize I'm on a limb with that one). The reality the Twins seem slow to grasp is that you can stick a DH like Hanley Ramirez at SS and he will still make most the plays. The best fielding SS's are no more valuable on defense than the best fielding left fielders, yet no FO would accept a sub .600 player in LF. Why should that be acceptable at SS? Besides, I'm not convinced Kelly Johnson's anything less than an average fielder. With the potential, unlike anyone else on this roster, to hit 20-30 bombs.

Here is my impression of how the Twins generally want to piece their teams together: you field a PTC pitching staff and defensively-skilled middle infielders to soak up the extra batted balls, since both of these groups historically are cheap, and since a high proportion of batted balls go through the middle infield. And then when you spend significant FA dollars, you spend them on sluggers in the corner positions where their defense is supposed to be less of a liability. One thing I know for sure, from hearing Jr and Gardy talk about their MIfers every year, is that "we want guys to make the routine play." I looked into this. There were 41 players who logged at least 1000 innings at SS since 2010. On average, those guys had 431.5 balls hit into their "zone" for every 1500 innings of work (ignoring balls out of the zone and any plays made on them). The average SS completed 350.3 plays on these in-zone balls in a season. The best SS was Brandon Crawford, with 402 in-zone plays made per 1500 Inn. And the worst was Elliot Johnson - although to be fair, the Rays use a lot of shifts and therefore move their guys around and out of their zones altogether, a lot. Just above EJ is Hanley, at 303 in-zone plays made per 1500 Inn. A spread of 99 plays over the course of a season. Compare this to say, LF, where the average defender had just 254 balls hit into his zone over the same period. But, at the bottom of the scale was JD Martinez, who was good for 178 plays per season, and at the top was Austin Kearns, good for 310 plays. The spread in defensive output, over the period 2010-2012, on "routine plays," was actually greater in LF than at SS, even though more total chances are available at SS. Carroll and Hardy are the only former or current Twins SS's who have played 1000 inn at SS the past 3 years. Both are above average in this regard, by 14 and 32 BIZ-plays per 1500/Inn, respectively. And in LF, Delmon is actually slighly above average, while Willingham is slightly below. In any case, there doesn't appear to be any greater benefit to having a good glove at SS, than there is at a "power" position like LF. Certainly not when it comes at the expense of hitting. Furthermore, what are the ramifications of a MIfer botching a routine play? Outfielder gets the ball and the hitter gets a single. What if a LFer botches a play? What about 1B or 3B? Guy gets to 2B, or if the ball gets through on the right side, it could be a triple. So if anything, if your resources are scarce, it might be more prudent to put above averge defenders at the corners, and your slow, poor defenders up the middle. Obviously the point with the Twins is that neither are their resources scarce, nor are they getting particularly fantastic defensive value out of their MI, just by having a contact-heavy pitching staff. At least, not in terms of measuring the "routine play." edit: The point being, that when a power guy like Kelly Johnson comes along for cheap, and he's not a particularly lousy defender either, you take him, regardless of his position.

The best was whenever Bill Tuttle got around to 3rd base after the 6th inning, he'd find his son Bill Jr in the bleachers and start cursing him from the basepath for arriving late to the game, and then Bill Jr would throw his hot dog onto the field and storm out of the park but come back after the game and hug Bill Sr on the field in a touching moment.

No it doesn't. What defines "replacement level" is an average across the entire league. The Twins could elavate the quality of their replacements by simply picking up guys on waivers and signing guys to minor league contracts for basically zero dollars. Would that be any better of a bargain than signing a 1 win player for $5m? You're right, I don't like WAR and I don't like constructing rosters based on past WAR but it happens to be more or less in line with how the market values free agents, that is roughly $5-7m for every Win.

The price of Wins isn't contingent on how good or bad the Twins pitching staff was last year. Whether Correia represents a 2 win or 20 win improvement over the likes of PJ Walters and Sam Deduno is irrelevant. He's a 1 win talent, at best. So the Twins aren't getting any particularly great value, certainly not much better than a 1-4 win talent like Sanchez at $15m, or even a 1-10 Win talent like Greinke at $25m.

A replacement level player is worth 0 WAR. The Twins had 80 starts last year by the 6 ERA guys which were good for something like -10 Wins. In other words, they weren't even replacement level. So your baseline is somewhat skewed in relation to the overall marketplace for Wins. But that is all really beside the point. Its not the value that is problem. This team has plenty of money. The problem is that Jr would rather get a good deal on a 1 Win player, than get a mediocre deal on a 3 or 4 win player. This team has 20 games or more to make up. And they can afford to overpay good players on contracts that are a mediocre value. Heck, Mauer is a mediocre value. But you fill your roster with Mauer's and you have a much better team than a roster full of Correias.

kccoleslawdedunburned

I'll do you one better. If Correia throws 180+ innings of 4.50 FIP, I'll frost tip my hair, spray on a skin tan, and don my Carl Pavano / Yankees jersey to Target Field when the Yanks are in town in 2014.

As long as he doesn't get the yips I think he'll be fine. Another sub 5% walk rate is key.

IP/GS for all qualified starters since 2010 in AL: 6.25 IP/GS for all qualified starters since 2010 in NL: 6.15 [TABLE=width: 64] [TD=width: 64, align: right][/TD] [/TABLE] edit: BTW that is a tenth of an inning, not a full out

What is it with these pharmacists and their sloppy handwriting

[TABLE=width: 310] 2002-2010 playoffs twins opponents Runs 75 124 [/TABLE] The Twins actual record under Gardy/Jr: 6-18 The Twins Pythagorean record under Gardy/Jr: 7-17 Its probably not Gardy's fault for the Twins playoff failure. Those teams Jr constructed just weren't good enough.

If thats how it works, then no, payroll isnt't the problem. The problem is the GM who looked at all the talent in this year's FA class and said "Jim, can I have Kevin Correia, Mike Pelfrey, Rich Harden, and Joe Saunders?"

Pavano!

I'm just glad he's feeling up to all that right now.

"Dollars and years." Straight from the horse's mouth.

I can't get over this timeline Pelfrey is purpotedly on. Ready to go in February? He had TJ 2 weeks after Gibson did. edit: Baker, not Gibson. Oops. FWIW he is hoping to be ready on opening day also.

Look at the 69 win Nats of 2010, compared to the 80 win 2011 team and the 96 win team last year. They had a couple impact farm guys in Strasburg and Harper, sure, but the core of those teams are the same. The biggest difference is that they upgraded their rotation with Gio and Edwin Jackson last year via free agency and mortgaging their farm. If you look at the Twins teams who were competitive in the 00s, the core of Cuddyer, Kubel, Mauer, Morneau, Span... the core today is not much different. Certainly Willingham and Doumit are strong substitutes for Cuddyer and Kubel. Plouffe could be our best 3b since Koskie. If those guys all stay healthy, and one or two farm guys are able to have an impact (Hicks, Benson, Mastro, Parmelee), this team is not that far away from contention. I think everyone wanting to kick the rock down the road needs to consider that the Twins window for contending may very well be closing in 2015 or 2016, not opening.

yeah, Boras clients. They're so fickle about non-monetary incentives. Give it a rest

I will lap up the Twins koolaid again too. Heck I am already on the hook for about 4 or 5 gallons of it. The only thing that gets me is, when he makes promises like this with one eye closed. Obviously its possible the Twins could win the World Series this year, if they play a perfect season, everything breaks right, and maybe JV goes down with TJ. And so technically, on the dotted line, you could justify this as not a rebuild year (again), just like you could every year. But as far as a plan goes, there's obviously not one for 2013. The best I can figure, at this point, is that the hope is one or two of the guys inked for 2013 play good enough to reject a qualifying offer next October, and the TWins come out with comp picks. Keep kicking that rock down the road, as per vintage Jr. That was not supposed to be how the Twins did things in the post-TF era.