AlwaysinModeration

What about when they face the Pigseye Beer pig that delivered the balls to the home plate Ump at the Saints games all those years? He’s formidable.

Two months in, the verdict from the masses is in—unmitigated disaster of a trade. I’ll wait awhile before I decide, I’m not so sure.

The AL Central is on track to play more games out of their division than any AL Central in history!

Ryan 7Ks through 5 shutout….

This is great - thank you for putting it together. Skenes #4….need him to have a few bad starts down the stretch maybe for him to fall to the Twins?

I would love to see this play out, but I doubt it will. Someone will grab Richardson sooner than 23. Daunte Culpepper 2.0?

You are right, the Twins haven’t gotten any return out of the Berrios trade as of yet. A couple of points, though. First, the trade was on July 30 of 2021, so it’s really only been 2 months in 2021, 6 months in 2022, and 1 month in 2023, so 1.5 years since the trade, not almost two. Second, as a point of comparison, the Twins have also gotten basically zero return (0.3 WAR) out of their first overall pick from the 2017 draft, Royce Lewis. Lewis happens to be more than a year older than SWR. Does it matter? What matters in my view is whether the players are developing in a way that means they will contribute to the Twins for the six years of their service time (and hopefully more). I think SWR is on track to provide a lot of return for the Twins from age 23-29, just as Royce Lewis is on track to produce even more value for the Twins from age 24-30. Austin Martin is already 24 and older than both. It’s harder to see how much value he will provide from, say age 25-31 for the Twins, but there is certainly a plausible scenario where he does provide a decent amount of value over that timeframe. It was disappointing to see Berrios get traded, but I think it will prove to have been well worth it over the long run.

Twins are batting .234 overall as a team, good for 21st place in all of baseball…and first in the AL Central! White Sox .232 Guardians .228 Tigers .222 Royals .216 By the way, the Rays….282, the Dodgers .230, and the Yankees, courtesy in no small part to Twins pitching, are batting .225.

But it was a pretty good inning!

Fun with numbers! And more fun with numbers!

Obviously, ERA is very flawed. But it’s not going away. And it’s still used more than any other stat. Just trying to improve it.

I posted this at the end of a different forum and got a lot of positive reactions, so starting a new forum on it specifically. My proposal, it it’s simplest form: divvy up any runs that are allowed by relievers between the pitcher who left the runner on base and the reliever, in a proportional fashion. It would be called Proportioning Inherited, or PI for short. Who doesn’t like PI? No one, that’s who! Here’s how it would work: If an inherited runner on third base scores, the earned run would be given as follows: 0.75 to the starter*, 0.25 to the reliever. If an inherited runner on second base scores, the earned run would be given as follows: 0.5 to the starter, 0.5 to the reliever. If an inherited runner on first base scores, the earned run would be given as follows: 0.25 to the starter, 0.75 to the reliever. *starter, or reliever who gets pulled from the game Here is an example of how it would work. In Wednesday’s game vs the White Sox, Aaron Bummer came in to the game in the 8th, gave up a single and a double and left the game with a run in, two outs and a runner on third. Gregory Soto came in to the game and gave up an RBI single and then recorded the third out. Traditional line: Bummer: 0.2IP, 2ER Soto: 0.1IP, 0ER PI line: Bummer: 0.2IP, 1.75ER Soto: 0.1IP, 0.25ER Of course, this formula doesn’t account for # of outs; it would have been much harder for Soto to prevent the run if he came in with zero outs. So it’s not perfect. But this formula is pretty simple to implement, it’s fairly intuitive, it involves some fairly simple and elegant math, it’s way more fair to pitchers’ ERA then the current system, and it has a cool All-American name like PI. Again, who doesn’t like pie? Who’s with me? Who wants to jump on the PI bandwagon? Of course, once this takes off, we are going to need some interns to go through all of the old boxscores and start giving Ron Davis all of the extra earned runs that he deserved….

That way if you leave the game with the bases loaded, you’re only on the hook for a max of 1.5 more runs, not 3 (which is brutal—you could pitch 8.2 shutout innings, leave with the bases loaded, and Ron Davis could give up a homer and cost you 3ER.)

I think ERA would be improved if inherited runners scored were divided between the pitcher leaving the game and the reliever. If a runner on first scores: Starter gets 0.25R, reliever gets 0.75R If a runner on second scores, Starter gets 0.5R, reliever gets 0.5R If a runner on third scores, Starter gets 0.75R, reliever gets 0.25R. This doesn’t factor in the number of outs, of course. But it’s better than the current system.

I will continue to believe that if Johan had not been traded, he’s sailing in to the Hall of Fame as a Twin (maybe going in alongside Joe.)

I feel like the Twins should bring in Ichiro to work with Buxton on gaining flexibility so he might be a bit less injury-prone. And maybe some stuntmen from the movies to help him improve his landings, rolls, and slides so he is a little less awkward on impact. As for the plan to keep DHing him for another month until his knee is back to normal, I’m fine with it. The season is long. As Billy Beane said (paraphrasing), you spend two months seeing what you have and what you need, two months getting what you need, and two months playing with the team you wanted. This season seems like it can fit that blueprint pretty well, Buxton included. (Although most of the “getting what you need” may entail getting the Polancos, Kiriloffs, Lewis, Juliens…and Buxtons on the field.)

My pure speculation is that it will result in increased walks. I think there are a lot more balls that are called strikes than strikes that are called balls.

Automated strike zones will be more consistent than human strike zones, so I am in favor of them.

This game thread took a weird turn near its conclusion. I’d let the horses out of the barn, please keep focusing on getting the chickens home to roost. Or roast. For dinner.

Or the chatbot will, that is…

Isn’t it obligatory to start the game-thread with “your first-place Minnesota Twins”? By the way Dave, I can tell you over-hyphenated this morning.

I may be looking in the wrong places, but I don’t see this forum up yet for this year, which just doesn’t see right. So many numbers to have fun with, so little time! Twins on pace for 162 shutout wins. Twins on pace to outscore their opponents by (checks math) 324 runs. Luiz Arraez on pace for 378 hits. Pablo Lopez averaging 13.5 strikeouts per 9 innings. Christian Vazquez on pace to hit over .500. Mitch Garver on pace for I don’t know, 162 home runs? Byron Buxton on pace for 81 triples, 81 doubles, and 162 awkward slides. BUT, only half of those involving his face! Any other fun numbers out there?

Hip hip Jorge!

On Buxton scoring from third on that flare to deep second, he did two things—first, non-chalanted it back to third, so the CF assumed he wouldn’t dare try, and second, watched the CF catch and throw the ball. If Isbell catches it and puts his all into the throw, Buxton stops. But instead he read that it wasn’t a great catch and throw, and went for it. Combined with the fact it was off line, easy run. But it wasn’t just his speed that did it.

Honestly didn’t seem like a fair fight.