Willihammer

That would seem to describe the fatal flaw with scout-heavy analysis. You never get a true analysis. Just cut straight to the data and analyze that. I don't know how the figures line up, but at some point it would seem more cost effective to just carpet bomb baseball fields around the world with pitchf/x and fieldf/x cameras, and then sit back, collect and analyze the data remotely, rather than paying all these staff people for travel and whatnot to run around and make biased and subjective judgments.

The guys to target, in my opinion, were all of Baker, Villanueva, McCarthy and Liriano. They could have matched their current offers, thrown in four $5m signing bonuses to boot, and still barely cracked 90m payroll. If everything clicks, heck if 2/4 click, you have a pretty formidable rotation, and then you get to roll the dice again in a 2nd year for 1/2 price (except possibly with Baker).

Lohse is an interesting pitcher coming off two very solid years. The first thing that's helped him has been walking fewer guys. But his strikeout rate, batted ball-type rates, plate discipline, and even his pitch selection, movement and velocity have all stayed very close to career averages. The only thing that's changed has been the league and the park, and his BABIP, which has sunk to the .265 range the last two years. So his ERA has outperformed his FIP by about a full run each of the past two years. But, for his career, his FIP matches his ERA exactly. Add it all up, and I think he's a great candidate for regression.

Willingham only had 5 HR's where his actual distance was greater than his true distance. All the rest, his ball landed shorter than his true distance. For a net difference of 95 feet, or 2. 7 feet per home run. At Target Field, he underhit his true distance by 98 feet, or about 3 feet per HR. His HR/FB rate may still come down but I am skeptical that we can yet say how much outside factors are contributing to his luck, esp. least at Target Field. It is still new and the local 9 have only fielded 2 true power hitters in its existence. Maybe as the sample grows, we won't see such gaps between actual distance and true distance for players like him. Out of curiosity, I looked up at the weather on May 30, 2012 in Minneapolis. This was the date when Willihammer hit a HR with the greatest net outside impact - 9 due to wind, -3 due to temp, and 3 due to altimeter. As you can see, he hit the ball almost due north: ESPN Home Run Tracker :: Player and Field Detail Yet the weather on that day was this? History | Weather Underground

Great post but I'm struggling with this point. If you were a beat writer and witnessed cheating by a player 15-25 years ago, and said nothing at the time for reason of self-interest, wouldn't the responsible thing to do now, when said player shows up on your HoF ballot, be to recuse yourself from the vote?

If Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens aren't HoFers then I don't know who is.

What about Jhonny Peralta?

One might argue that that itself is worthy of complaint (the need vs. talent/ceiling debate). Buxton especially. He is so young and so raw, and Appel is so close to a sure thing and fills such a pressing need. For the Twins to pass on an asset like that, who could have been had for Feldman-money, might have been the start of the punting of 2013, now that I look back at it.

re: webb Souhan: Instead of force-feeding Webb's flavor to Packers, Musgrave chose vanilla | StarTribune.com

You compared Marcum to Correia based on WAR, in your defense of this notion that a team's success can't be greater than the sum of its parts. Obviously that's false, since teams overperform and underperform every year - the 2012 orioles outperformed their pythagorean record by 11 games, the Red Sox underperformed by 5 games -, and its especially ridiculous when you use WAR to valuate someone whose ERA has consistently outperformed his xFIP. And still, any projection you make for this team doesn't account for things that inevitably will go wrong elsewhere in the division and the league. Christ, Andrew Cashner cut himself cleaning a dear carcass and will start the year on the DL. Jaba Chaimberlain went on the DL last spring bouncing on a trampoline with his daughter. Scott Baker went in for a routine elbow cleanup and came out a Tommy John. A lot can, and will, happen before the end of the season.

I don't like Marcum because I don't like giving multi-year deals to guys with sore elbows. But, its awfully convenient to use FIP or FIP-derived WAR in your position. Parker has already wrote at length on this. Marcum is something of a special case in that a significant portion his value is in Fielding Dependent Pitching (6.5 FDP wins for his career). Twins Daily - Shawn Marcum could be a fit for the Twins

Revisiting ESPN?s preseason expert picks shows how unpredictable this MLB season has been Things change over the course of a season. No, 90m doesn't guarantee anything, but it does improve your odds. If you have the money, you spend it. A lot can happen.

It would be worth it if the added rest improves the output in the other 135 starts commensurately. I ran some quick math on our likely front 5. Historically, they have all done a bit better on 5 days rest, although worse on 6+ days rest. It looks to me like there's not enough here to either support or not support the theory, just a little interesting. [TABLE=width: 615] [/TD] worley pelfrey correia diamond[TD=colspan: 2]blackburn total 4 days rest GS[TD=align: right]23.00[/TD] [TD=align: right]77.00[/TD] [TD=align: right]78.00[/TD] [TD=align: right]19.00[/TD] [TD=align: right]69.00[/TD] [/TD][TD=align: right]266.00 4 days rest IP[TD=align: right]136.33[/TD] [TD=align: right]459.00[/TD] [TD=align: right]433.66[/TD] [TD=align: right]114.66[/TD] [TD=align: right]393.33[/TD] [/TD][TD=align: right]1536.98 4 days rest IP/GS[TD=align: right]5.93[/TD] [TD=align: right]5.96[/TD] [TD=align: right]5.56[/TD] [TD=align: right]6.03[/TD] [TD=align: right]5.70[/TD] [/TD][TD=align: right]5.78 4 days rest ERA[TD=align: right]3.70[/TD] [TD=align: right]4.45[/TD] [TD=align: right]4.71[/TD] [TD=align: right]4.32[/TD] [TD=align: right]4.74[/TD] [/TD][TD=align: right]4.53 5 days rest GS[TD=align: right]12.00[/TD] [TD=align: right]44.00[/TD] [TD=align: right]50.00[/TD] [TD=align: right]7.00[/TD] [TD=align: right]43.00[/TD] [/TD][TD=align: right]156.00 5 days rest IP[TD=align: right]75.33[/TD] [TD=align: right]274.00[/TD] [TD=align: right]291.66[/TD] [TD=align: right]49.66[/TD] [TD=align: right]258.66[/TD] [/TD][TD=align: right]949.31 5 days rest IP/GS[TD=align: right]6.28[/TD] [TD=align: right]6.23[/TD] [TD=align: right]5.83[/TD] [TD=align: right]7.09[/TD] [TD=align: right]6.02[/TD] [/TD][TD=align: right]6.09 5 days rest ERA[TD=align: right]3.46[/TD] [TD=align: right]3.97[/TD] [TD=align: right]4.32[/TD] [TD=align: right]1.45[/TD] [TD=align: right]5.29[/TD] [/TD][TD=align: right]4.29 6+ days rest GS[TD=align: right]11.00[/TD] [TD=align: right]26.00[/TD] [TD=align: right]24.00[/TD] [TD=align: right]8.00[/TD] [TD=align: right]23.00[/TD] [/TD][TD=align: right]92.00 6+ days rest IP[TD=align: right]56.33[/TD] [TD=align: right]146.66[/TD] [TD=align: right]128.66[/TD] [TD=align: right]47.66[/TD] [TD=align: right]138.00[/TD] [/TD][TD=align: right]517.31 6+ dyas rest IP/GS[TD=align: right]5.12[/TD] [TD=align: right]5.64[/TD] [TD=align: right]5.36[/TD] [TD=align: right]5.96[/TD] [TD=align: right]6.00[/TD] [/TD][TD=align: right]5.62 6+ days rest ERA[TD=align: right]3.36[/TD] [TD=align: right]4.91[/TD] [TD=align: right]4.90[/TD] [TD=align: right]5.10[/TD] [TD=align: right]4.17[/TD] [/TD][TD=align: right]4.55 [/TABLE]

Five theories regarding the Minnesota Twins - Baseball Nation

Exactly, it is the outcomes. If pitching boils down to this: Then how do you explain Kevin Correia? Goin's remarks are evidence that there are very smart people in the organization with advanced ideas. Jr's actions evidence that Goin and his like are being, to some degree, ignored.

Its a little more than that. Here is the pitchf/x data for one pitcher for one game http://www.brooksbaseball.net/pfxVB/tabdel_expanded.php?pitchSel=434538&game=gid_2012_09_25_clemlb_chamlb_1/&s_type=&h_size=700&v_size=500 edit: and here is a key: http://webusers.npl.illinois.edu/~a-nathan/pob/tracking.htm

No, its not unlikely at all.

That Goin and his <strike>staff</strike> intern have to dumb down their analysis for the scouts and translate their findings into scoutting grades suggests that they are still relying primarily on the older model of evaluation. That they haven't invested in pitchf/x equipment in their affiliates suggests that implementing and expanding into new models isn't a priority. Heck, their recent history of pitching signings and extensions suggests at the very least that the decisionmakers don't value the same statistics that other front offices value, the Cardinals included.

This team is dead 1st in yards per rushing attempt and dead last in yards per passing attempt. And a substantial portion of its passing yards have come after the catch (see Harvin, Percy). It does not take a genius football mind to spot the weakness in this team.

Yeah don't forget that 20 yard floating jump ball that Wright somehow caught, in a sea of Packers. Or the falling down non-intentional grounding which on review was a sack (knee down) that never got credited to the Packers. Its plays like those that make the Vikings, and Ponder's successes look like smoke and mirrors. Then there are the third and 4 shotgun plays which I've been bitching about all year long. Why this team would ever take AP out of that situation still baffles me. They are averaging better yardage on running attempts than passing attempts. I think two things will need to happen for the Vikings to have a prayer: no turnovers, and the D-line will have to hit Rodgers more, or he will carve up that secondary all day. They had a lot of near-sacks that Rodgers managed to slip out of last week and turn into 20 yard gains.

How many other organizations have Pitchf/x in all their affiliate parks? It would seem something that owners, and players would agree on, to install Pitchf/x in as many minor league ballparks as possible and share all the data. That would allow orgs to cut down on scouting costs while allowing lesser known players to be more visible to other teams. Are the startup costs such a barrier, or what?

They could win in Atlanta and in NO if they are playing their best. I'm not so optimistic about their chances at Lambeau, or SF or SEA, they haven't been able to win on the road, on grass, since 2009. You need a QB for that.

I don't know what all this fuss is about. If you have the cunning, you can walk in the door with only 2000 and leave in a Ferrari. This has been filmed: Scent of A Woman - I'm a Gray Ghost Too - YouTube

Why anyone would elect to live in Detroit for half the year over Chicago, or any other town in America for that matter, is proof enough for me that it is all about the money for most people. And, the Tigers have landed at least one top flight free agent for 4 straight offseasons (Damon, Valverde, VMart, Benoit, Fielder, Hunter, Sanchez).

I think you are either onto something or yo u're on something, Thor. There isn't a lot of space to argue against Emmitt Smith in terms of greatness. He holds too many records and most of them handily. Who you like as a runner, is personal opinion. I like Barry Sanders.