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.

Instead of asking "In hindsight, would you have signed Carlos Silva to a 5 year contract after 2007 because he was 28?" (which he didn't sign), is, how have pitchers who commanded 5 year+ contracts in free agency at age 28 faired historically, and how can we use that sample, instead of this pretty random group of 28 year olds from 2007, to make some kind of prediction about how a 5 year commitment to Sanchez will eventually wind up looking? Obviously to do that you would have to go back through the years 2007 and earlier. Maybe I will blog about it myself one of these days if you don't want to.

Take the poster child for "classic bad pitching contract," Barry Zito. 7 years, 126 million. He's in the final year of it now, and earning less in terms of AAV than Buehrle and Santana. But he was signed a year earlier, and got locked into 2006 salaries and projections instead of 2008 or 2012 salaries and projections. It should go without sayin but those things tend to go up pretty fast in baseball. Which is why I think this aversion to long-term contracts is overblown. Even if your guy turns into a Zito, a team can still be a consistent contender as the Giants have shown. I like the longitudinal approach here but I think you should compare how much the guys who have been piecemealed onto contracts over that span have earned and produced, as compared to the guys who were locked up to big deals early. Carlos Silva earned 45 million between 2 separate 2-year contracts after leaving the Twins while posting a 6.77 ERA in under 200 innings. Nowhere near as bad as Zito's in retrospect. Heck, even Meche managed to post two 200+ inning seasons of sub-4 ERA ball in his 5-year, 55 million/deal. A bad contract but hardly an albatross in 2012 money, the final year of his deal. *edited for clarity

Aaron Hicks has struck out 22 times in his first 17 big league games. His K-rate currently sits at 31.4%, tied for 10th worst in baseball with jay Bruce. a career 23.7% k-rate batter. According to Charlie Adams at Beyond the Boxscore (courtesy of Pizza Cutter at StatSpeak.net) k-rates stabilize after about 150 PAs. But instead of waiting 20 more games for Hicks to reach that benchmark, I'm going to instead look at contact rate and guesstimate what Hicks' true k-rate might be based off that. Because as it turns out, contact rates stabilize before k-rates - right around 70 PAs, in fact. And contact rates correlate well with strikeout rates (somewhere between -.81 and -.91). Below are the current contact rates for Twins batters: [TABLE=width: 310] Name PA Contact% SwStr% Chris Parmelee 62 79.40% 7.80% Brian Dozier 63 86.50% 5.50% Josh Willingham 65 74.70% 8.80% Trevor Plouffe 68 83.20% 6.90% Ryan Doumit 68 73.30% 10.60% Aaron Hicks 70 73.80% 9.30% Justin Morneau 78 83.60% 8.20% Joe Mauer 84 81.50% 6.50% [/TABLE] To get an idea of how these rates compare, I pulled the sample of qualified batters dating back to 2010 (min 1000 PAs). Next are the 10 hitters whose contact rates most closely match Hicks' current 73.8% contact rate, and their k-rates over that period: [TABLE=width: 263] Name Contact% K% Tyler Colvin 73.20% 25.70% B.J. Upton 73.40% 26.40% Alfonso Soriano 73.50% 23.10% Kelly Johnson 73.60% 25.20% Jay Bruce 73.80% 24.40% John Buck 73.90% 23.80% Sean Rodriguez 73.90% 22.30% Mark Trumbo 74.00% 23.90% Nelson Cruz 74.20% 20.90% Geovany Soto 74.30% 23.40% [/TABLE] Sure enough, there is our man Jay Bruce again. So, is Hicks destined to strikeout in the 23-24% range for his career? I don't think so. Certainly Austin Jackson wouldn't think so. Guys do improve, but judging Hicks' early contact rates, I feel confident that we can pencil Hicks in for a 20%+ k-rate for the rest of 2013 at least. While still pretty lousy, that would technically be an improvement over Hicks' current k-rate of 31.4%.

Aaron Hicks has struck out 22 times in his first 17 big league games. His K-rate currently sits at 31.4%, tied for 10th worst in baseball with jay Bruce. a career 23.7% k-rate batter. According to Charlie Adams at Beyond the Boxscore (courtesy of Pizza Cutter at StatSpeak.net) k-rates stabilize after about 150 PAs. But instead of waiting 20 more games for Hicks to reach that benchmark, I'm going to instead look at contact rate and guesstimate what Hicks' true k-rate might be based off that. Because as it turns out, contact rates stabilize before k-rates - right around 70 PAs, in fact. And contact rates correlate well with strikeout rates (somewhere between -.81 and -.91). Below are the current contact rates for Twins batters: [TABLE=width: 310] Name PA Contact% SwStr% Chris Parmelee 62 79.40% 7.80% Brian Dozier 63 86.50% 5.50% Josh Willingham 65 74.70% 8.80% Trevor Plouffe 68 83.20% 6.90% Ryan Doumit 68 73.30% 10.60% Aaron Hicks 70 73.80% 9.30% Justin Morneau 78 83.60% 8.20% Joe Mauer 84 81.50% 6.50% [/TABLE] To get an idea of how these rates compare, I pulled the sample of qualified batters dating back to 2010 (min 1000 PAs). Next are the 10 hitters whose contact rates most closely match Hicks' current 73.8% contact rate, and their k-rates over that period: [TABLE=width: 263] Name Contact% K% Tyler Colvin 73.20% 25.70% B.J. Upton 73.40% 26.40% Alfonso Soriano 73.50% 23.10% Kelly Johnson 73.60% 25.20% Jay Bruce 73.80% 24.40% John Buck 73.90% 23.80% Sean Rodriguez 73.90% 22.30% Mark Trumbo 74.00% 23.90% Nelson Cruz 74.20% 20.90% Geovany Soto 74.30% 23.40% [/TABLE] Sure enough, there is our man Jay Bruce again. So, is Hicks destined to strikeout in the 23-24% range for his career? I don't think so. Certainly Austin Jackson wouldn't think so. Guys do improve, but judging Hicks' early contact rates, I feel confident that we can pencil Hicks in for a 20%+ k-rate for the rest of 2013 at least. While still pretty lousy, that would technically be an improvement over Hicks' current k-rate of 31.4%.

One thing that us skeptics have yet to hear from the pro-FO crowd, is exactly what KC might have changed that would give cause to expect KC's future results to be better than his past results. Maybe this is something Parker could look at, if he reads this. I for one would be very interested. Certainly in his first few starts, I've been impressed with his command. With the exception of a handful of cutters, its been impeccable. But he's historically pitched best in March and April. Maybe as the weather gets muggy, he gets fatigued and starts leaving balls up. Maybe he goes through a dead-arm period every August where he drops his arm slot and gets wild. I'm certainly rooting for continued success from him but until someone shares a concrete observation about a permanent change to his approach, I'm not going to hold my breath.

So... it sugarcoated it?

Maybe, Jim Pohlad's real passion is golf? Or RC flying, or dominatrix roleplay. Maybe its (gasp) not baseball, like it is for you and me. Maybe he leaves the office at 5 o'clock and tries to forget about what he did at the office that day just like every other schmuck.

Pass the hell this way so we can melt this god forsaken snow already

Dick Bremer said he talked to Torii after the opener. Evidently those 3-4 o'clock shadows were making Worley's cutter really hard to pickup.

I give Korea credit for throwing strikes. Limiting walks can get you a long way, esp. if your stuff is lackluster. There were some hard hit balls mixed in that found gloves too, Peralta creamed one right at Florimon. Avila blasted one on a line about 400 feet to center that Hicks caught. But he is paid to make use of the defense and he certainly did that I guess. I noticed Parmelee struggling with the inside comebacker against RHPs in spring training and he struck out on one again yesterday. That is a pitch a righthander should fear throwing to a lefthanded power guy, but guys are throwing him there with impunity. Sanchez looked good. Its easy to forget that he's got 95 mph gas in his back pocket, he doesn't always use it, except in critical situations. Pulled one out against Mauer, eventually putting him away with something off-speed. We didn't need him though. Tigers defense was not as sharp as the Twins all day. right up to Escobar's game winner which was Jackson's ball all the way. Slowey looked like Slowey. 88 mph meatballs, but somehow managed to limit the damage to 1 run over 5. Just another indication of how down the league is right now in scoring. Denard Span looks a little fat.

I broke down the career numbers for Doumit, Mauer, Morneau, and Willingham by when they played as a position player, and when they DH-ed (throwing out Pinch Hitting appearances). There's a pretty significant DH penalty for all of them. Might be Wililngham (or someone else) could 'grow' into a full-time DH role though. edit: Just realized I didn't copy in the names. They are in alphabetical order

280 nice little AAA PAs, after 2700 PAs of mediocrity. Chris Parmelee is not Jose Bautista. He had a hot streak. That is all.

Bauer reminded me of Oswalt a little bit. Not as fast, but just as flat edit: Ok looking at his velo charts he might be as fast. I don't know, maybe I'm wrong about him.

I can't recall anyone pitching with earrings on. I doubt any team, or umpire, allows it. What was the other rule Hernandez broke?

For as much as we like to complain about the Twins MI, the White Sox should have cut the cord on Beckam after the last two seasons, in my opinion. And they brought in Keppinger for 3b, that will be... interesting, at best. But, I like their bullpen and starting 5. Their lineup is spotty but everyone's is in this division. KC still doesn't have enough starting pitching to do anything, I think. What a waste of a really strong bullpen. I don't like anything Cleveland's done this offseason. Bauer did nothing for me, in what little I saw of him last year. Tigers are still topheavy, short an arm or two in the bullpen. The divisions up for grabs again, I think. edit: also, with Scherzer's wild fluctuation in velocity last year, he looks like a possible TJ-type candidate

Haha, great post.

No, its not unlikely at all.

Riberbrian is like the Joe Posnanski of Twinsdaily bloggers. Curiously long posts

Yeah its normal for a pitcher who moves from the rotation to the pen to experience velocity gain and also to throw the fastball with greater frequency. +0.8 mph is somewhat unimpressive but for whatever reason, that gain plus better movement maybe, the whiffs went up. I would consider these starters who are aging and experiencing velocity decline to be a subset of the relief pitching dumpster, even if they don't always like to think of themselves as relievers (yet). Brett Myers may be another guy, although it looks like the Twins would stick him back into a starting role. I got the data from brooksbaseball via Oswalt's game log page on baseball-reference. The "Pitches" Column is linked to the pitcher/date page at brooksbaseball

It was pretty obvious that Oswalt struggled as a starter down in Texas last year, earning him a couple different assignments to the bullpen. I went through his pitchf/x data for the season to differentiate Oswalt's effectiveness in the two roles and found some evidence that he could still be a valuable piece coming out of the pen in 2013. In a small sample, Oswalt's fastballs missed bats about twice as often when he was coming out of relief (15.93% versus 8.39%). I believe this is a good sign for Oswalt, because he's relied heavily on his fastballs for success over his career (64.2% frequency, +132.5 runs). https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B5pIzP28qdp-YWc5dVZJRXVrX00 http://i.imgur.com/DYFzm.png?1 Would Oswalt be worth pursuing? What should the Twins be willing to pay?

It was pretty obvious that Oswalt struggled as a starter down in Texas last year, earning him a couple different assignments to the bullpen. I went through his pitchf/x data for the season to differentiate Oswalt's effectiveness in the two roles and found some evidence that he could still be a valuable piece coming out of the pen in 2013. In a small sample, Oswalt's fastballs missed bats about twice as often when he was coming out of relief (15.93% versus 8.39%). I believe this is a good sign for Oswalt, because he's relied heavily on his fastballs for success over his career (64.2% frequency, +132.5 runs). https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B5pIzP28qdp-YWc5dVZJRXVrX00 http://i.imgur.com/DYFzm.png?1 Would Oswalt be worth pursuing? What should the Twins be willing to pay?

I'm revisiting this topic after the Case for Trading Span thread discussion. I believe that Revere's extreme contact proficiency is causing him to prematurely terminate at-bats to the detriment of his OBP. Here I want to estimate what Revere's OBP would be if he never swung at another 2-0, 3-0, or 3-1 pitch again by looking at the probabilities of outcomes based on Revere's first 1068 PAs. For data, I'm using fangraphs' PITCHf/x Plate Discipline, and Baseball-Reference's Pitch Summary -- Batting pages. I will assume that pitchers throw Revere strikes at a constant rate, regardless of count. I admit that in terms of a game scenario where there' s a man, and not pitchFX calling balls and strikes, that this is a bit of a reach owing to things like the Compassionate Umpire effect, although there is a more or less equivalent counter effect in the Merciless Umpire. For my calculations, I will not account for human error in calling balls and strikes. For Revere, the rate at which pitchers throw him pitches that fall within PITCHf/x's strike zone is 53.4%. This is before Revere swings or doesn't swing. Of Pitches, inside the zone, Revere swings at 51.4%, making contact 96.7% of the time and whiffing 3.3%. Contact is defined as balls put in play or fouled off. Unfortunately, I'm unable to assign different foul ball swing%'s to balls in or out of the zone, so I will assume it is the same for both. That rate (called F/Str on baseball-reference) is 21% of all strikes seen. 64% of pitches are either a swinging or non-swinging strike. And Revere's Z-swing% is 51.4%. So of all strikes thrown to Revere, 39.3% are swung on and put into play, 10.4% are swung on and fouled off, 1.7% are swung on and missed, and the rest, 48.6%, are taken. Revere's O-Swing% (Swings at pitches out of the zone / Pitches out of the zone) is 26.2%, and his contact rate is 82.1%. so of all pitches thrown outside the zone (46.6%), 16.9% are swung on and put into play, 4.5% are fouled off, 4.0% are swung on and missed, and the rest, 74.6%, are taken. in 1068 PAs so far, Revere's seen 122 2-0 counts and swung 41 times. We can assume 5.0 of those were balls (26.2% O-swing% / ball rate of 46.6% x 41). Of the 36.0 strikes swung on, 27.3 were put in play, 7.3 were fouled off, 1.4 were whiffed.

I'm revisiting this topic after the Case for Trading Span thread discussion. I believe that Revere's extreme contact proficiency is causing him to prematurely terminate at-bats to the detriment of his OBP. Here I want to estimate what Revere's OBP would be if he never swung at another 2-0, 3-0, or 3-1 pitch again by looking at the probabilities of outcomes based on Revere's first 1068 PAs. For data, I'm using fangraphs' PITCHf/x Plate Discipline, and Baseball-Reference's Pitch Summary -- Batting pages. I will assume that pitchers throw Revere strikes at a constant rate, regardless of count. I admit that in terms of a game scenario where there' s a man, and not pitchFX calling balls and strikes, that this is a bit of a reach owing to things like the Compassionate Umpire effect, although there is a more or less equivalent counter effect in the Merciless Umpire. For my calculations, I will not account for human error in calling balls and strikes. For Revere, the rate at which pitchers throw him pitches that fall within PITCHf/x's strike zone is 53.4%. This is before Revere swings or doesn't swing. Of Pitches, inside the zone, Revere swings at 51.4%, making contact 96.7% of the time and whiffing 3.3%. Contact is defined as balls put in play or fouled off. Unfortunately, I'm unable to assign different foul ball swing%'s to balls in or out of the zone, so I will assume it is the same for both. That rate (called F/Str on baseball-reference) is 21% of all strikes seen. 64% of pitches are either a swinging or non-swinging strike. And Revere's Z-swing% is 51.4%. So of all strikes thrown to Revere, 39.3% are swung on and put into play, 10.4% are swung on and fouled off, 1.7% are swung on and missed, and the rest, 48.6%, are taken. Revere's O-Swing% (Swings at pitches out of the zone / Pitches out of the zone) is 26.2%, and his contact rate is 82.1%. so of all pitches thrown outside the zone (46.6%), 16.9% are swung on and put into play, 4.5% are fouled off, 4.0% are swung on and missed, and the rest, 74.6%, are taken. in 1068 PAs so far, Revere's seen 122 2-0 counts and swung 41 times. We can assume 5.0 of those were balls (26.2% O-swing% / ball rate of 46.6% x 41). Of the 36.0 strikes swung on, 27.3 were put in play, 7.3 were fouled off, 1.4 were whiffed.

I believe the Rays proprietary defensive scheme has allowed them to "artificially" inflate the market value of their pitchers. While the rest of baseball lags behind, someone will overpay for their pitching talent. Since 2011, only the Nats and A's have outperformed their xFIPs better (xFIP minus ERA). And no one has been more reliant on that defensive scheme than Hellickson (7.3 FDP wins in the last two years). I will be watching this closely, whoever trades for Hellickson, unless they plan on warping into the Rays defensively, is going to get fleeced.