AlwaysinModeration

It is definitely not A Lovely Day. https://youtu.be/bEeaS6fuUoA

Just finished season 6. Very enjoyable. It's hard to tell which characters are redeeming and which ones are disasters, or neither, or both. I am hoping Joan Cusack make a reappearance.

Not one mention of Tiger King yet?

I’ve been regularly checking the Worldometer site. I’ve noted that the doubling rate is slowing for the United States, which is encouraging. What is not encouraging is the worldwide “outcomes” chart. If you manage to catch COVID-19, when you get out the other end, 80% of the time you recover, but 20% of the time, you are dead. How does this match with the reported CFR of 1%/2%/3%4%, if 20% of the people who contract this thing have died by the time it has run its course?

I predict he won’t be in the lineup in two weeks.

It’s Nick Punto!

He’s 22! And about to be become a major league ballplayer, I might add. Seems a bit young to be married and a dad.

We could dredge up the volumes of pages on the Santana trade debacle, though. I’m quite certain that Johan, Terry Ryan, among others wish for a mulligan on that one. I think he’d still be pitching, putting the final touches on his Hall of Fame resume, if he had stayed in Minnesota.

When did Carlos Correa start reading Twins Daily?

I was wondering the exact same thing. Same question for the Red Sox. They cheated and won in 2018, but then just stopped last year?

So let me get this straight. The Astros cheated in 2017, and won the World Series. The Red Sox cheated in 2018, and won the World Series. In 2019, the lesson that all teams, including both the Astros and the Red Sox, draw is “we are not going to cheat, or cheat anymore?” Does that seem remotely probable? There is more to come out on this story.

While I tend to agree with you, it seems pretty clear that the Twins staff was more interested in Homer Bailey and Jhoulys Chacin than Walker.

I’m just thankful you didn’t have Brusdar at 1 or 2.

What about Thielbar?

I think the real question is whether he hits 400 this year or next.

The White Sox are projected to have seven above average hitters.

Driveline baseball strikes again.

LaVelle’s post make it sound like the deal to the Dodgers would be Graterol plus another prospect, with LA throwing in someone minor. So don’t get your hopes up.

I am suspicious this cryptic message is accurate and Graterol isn’t going to pitch for the Twins again. Seems like it may be hard to keep him after “trading” him.

I’d rather have Graterol as a Twin, personally. Maeda could have been a slight upgrade to the rotation, I suppose. But I kind of liked the plan of going into the season with Berrios/Odorizzi/Bailey/Thorpe/Dobnak/Romero, see what you’ve got, and then upgrading to Pineda in 1.5 months, and Hill after the trade deadline. Chacin as a flyer. I hope it falls through.

Perhaps they have talked to him, and said they would add him once they are able to get Hill on the long-term IL. One would assume he would find the opportunity to play for the Twins appealing.

I just came across this today. Damn. The MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour was a staple in my household growing up. He was a remarkable journalist. Judy Woodruff has a great essay on him in today’s Washington Post op-ed page.

I think it sets up well. It’s always good to be getting stronger as the year goes on, and with Pineda and Hill coming on in staggered fashion, they will have that. In the meantime, they can see how Dobnak, Thorpe, Romero and Bailey do. I think they could actually be viable options for the team going forward. I also think that Berrios has yet to show what he is fully capable of. If he starts getting closer to his minor league stats, he is going to turn into a top-tier ace.

Nice work. I’ll take the over on 272 homers. Weren’t there posts about this time last year speculating on whether the Twins could hit 200 homers?

There seems to be a general consensus that the Twins are in desperate need of at least one additional starting pitcher for their rotation. I think the options are familiar to most on this site. We know that they have Berrios and Odorizzi at the top of the rotation, and Michael Pineda will join them after 39 games. Beyond that, they have veteran Homer Bailey for the season, with Rich Hill hopefully coming back in the second half of the season from surgery. For the remainder of the rotation, the standard line is that the foursome of Dobnak, Smeltzer, Graterol and Thorpe will compete for innings. I'd thought I’d to take a look at the stats of these pitchers, going through a number of stats one by one, to see how these pitchers look. I'm going to add Fernando Romero into this analysis, as well. Here are the stats I will look at, and since these five haven’t gotten much exposure in the majors, I will be focusing primarily on their minor league numbers: IP and age, ERA, WHIP, H/9, HR/9, BB/9, SO/9, SO/BB. I’ll also look at stats for the other starters for a comparison, seeing how their minors numbers match up, and how their numbers evolved when they moved to the majors. To start with, IP and age: On opening day, Graterol will be 21 and has logged 214 IP in the minors, Thorpe will be 23 with 423IP, Smeltzer 24 with 351IP, Dobnak 25 with 297IP and Romero 25 with 450IP. In terms of “earning” their opportunity with a large volume of minors innings, Romero and Thorpe are in front here, while Graterol has half as many innings. For comparison sake, let’s look at Berrios, Odorizzi, Pineda, Hill, Bailey, and for kicks, Zack Wheeler and Taijuan Walker. Among these established big-leagers, the only player with fewer than 400IP in the minors is Wheeler. Berrios had nearly 600IP in the minors. From this view, it makes sense that Graterol actually log more time in the minors, rather than start the season with the Twins. ERA: Dobnak (2.57) and Graterol (2.48) were elite in the minors in this regard, both well below 3 for their minors career. Romero wasn’t far behind (3.20), while Thorpe was ok (3.50), but Smeltzer wasn't really good here (3.97.) In our comparison group, Berrios (2.77) and Pineda (2.55) were under 3 in the minors. On average, our seven veteran players have a 0.75 higher ERA in the majors compared to their minors numbers. If you add 0.75ERA to our contenders’ stats, Dobnak and Graterol’s ERAs would still look good, but Smeltzer’s would not. WHIP: Dobnak (1.10) and Graterol (1.07) were again elite in this category, the only two of the five contenders under 1.20 in their minors career. Thorpe (1.21) is close, with Smeltzer (1.24) and Romero (1.26) trailing. Among our veterans, again we see that Berrios (1.08) and Pineda (1.09) were both elite in the minors. Pineda is the only veteran who has excelled in this regard in the majors; under 1.20 in his majors career. The veterans on average see their WHIP go up 0.05 when moving from minors to the majors. H/9: Graterol (6.9) has been by far the best of the bunch in terms of limiting hits per nine. Romero (8.0) and Thorpe (8.0) have also been strong, with Dobnak (8.1) right there as well. Smeltzer (9.1) has been very hittable. Among the veterans in the minors, Hill (6.6) Berrios (7.2) and Wheeler (7.4) limited hits quite well, with Hill as the only vet to maintain an elite level (7.4) in the majors. The veterans saw a jump of 0.8 hits per nine when moving up to the majors. If this held true for the rookies, only Graterol would be strong in this category in the big leagues, with Smeltzer suffering to limit hits at an acceptable rate. HR/9: Romero, Dobnak and Graterol have done a good job of keeping the ball in the park, all under 0.5 homers per game. This has been a problem for Smeltzer (1.0) and Thorpe (0.9), which could bode ill for their majors careers in this regard. The veterans in general saw a pretty consistent jump of 0.5 homers per game when they got to the show. If Smeltzer and Thorpe give up homer rates of about 1.5/9, they are going to have a hard time being successful in the big leagues. BB/9: Smeltzer (2.0) and Dobnak (1.8) have been excellent at limiting free passes, Graterol middling (2.7), while Thorpe (2.9) and Romero (3.1) has been the worst at it. This is a tough category to judge what will happen with the jump to the majors, though, as there is a split in the veterans between those who have walked fewer batters in the majors (Bailey, Hill, Wheeler, Walker), while some have stayed the same or walked more (Odorizzi, Berrios, Pineda). This seems like a key for young pitchers as they move up to the big leagues – do they reduce their walks, or increase them? Will Berrios improve in this category going forward? K/9: Thorpe (10.9), Graterol (9.7) and Smeltzer (9.2) have done well in this category, while Dobnak (6.5) has really struggled to generate Ks. Five of the seven listed veterans had K/9s over 9 (including Hill at 11.6!) in the minors, with Pineda (8.8) and Bailey (8.7) also close. However, upon moving up to the majors, only Hill and Pineda have been able to maintain a rate of more than a K per 9 in the majors. So we’d expect the rookies to do worse in this regard. SO/BB: Lastly, in strikeout/walk ratio, Smeltzer really stands out, with the best K/BB (4.5) rate of any of the 12 pitchers in the minors. Only Pineda (4.5) or Hill (4.0) in the majors are at 4.0 or above. The next best is Thorpe in this category, while Romero (2.8) doesn’t fare that well. Of the veterans, some have gotten better and some have gotten worse. Berrios hasn’t been able to match his minors ratio (3.8) in the majors (3.0), but hopefully the best is yet to come with him as he works to reduce free passes. So, after going through all of these numbers, where does that leave us? I started this exercise thinking Thorpe would come out looking better than people have been giving him credit. I'm not sure that's the conclusion to draw, however. It really seem that Graterol is quite strong across the board, limiting hits, homers, while also generating elite K rates, too, leading to strong ERAs and WHIPs, despite too many walks. On balance, Dobnak is probably the second strongest contender here, strong in all categories except strikeouts. If he could increase his K-rate, he could turn into something special. Of the rest, it is mixed. Thorpe has great K rates and limits hits, but he gives up an alarming number of homers and to some extent, walks. Romero keeps the ball in the park and limits hits, which has yielded a low ERA, but walks too many guys and doesn’t generate elite strikeout rates. Smeltzer is strong in some categories, like BB/9, K/9 and K/BB, but he is hittable and quite homer-prone. Interestingly, there are some natural pairings when looking at the veterans and the rookies minor league careers. Graterol and Berrios have extremely similar minors numbers. Dobnak and Pineda have very similar minors numbers, with the exception of strikeouts (8.8 to 6.5/9 advantage to Pineda, although Dobnak walked fewer). Thorpe and Odorizzi have mirror-image minors numbers (Thorpe better Ks). And finally, Romero and Wheeler have pretty similar minors numbers. Bailey would be in a tier below all of them, as would Smeltzer. We now know that Graterol is destined for the bullpen. And we know that two of the four others will likely start the year in the rotation. Based on their numbers, I’d give Dobnak the inside track for a spot, and then Romero and Thorpe neck-and-neck for the other spot. I don’t think Smeltzer measures up. If I were going to rank these guys for the coming year, it would be: 1. [Graterol] 2. Dobnak 3. Romero 4. Thorpe 5. Smeltzer What do others think?