Otto von Ballpark

To be fair, Rosario hasn't hit 32 HR or driven in 100+ runs on a regular basis either -- 2019 was the only time he reached either, in a season of record-breaking HR totals all over. Although he would be on pace to do so again in 2020 but with a long way to go. His overall wRC+ from 2019-2020 is only 102, barely above the cumulative MLB LF performance during that time (~99). He has ranked top 10 in outfield assists 3 times in his 6 seasons, although again I'm not sure how to consider that relative to his overall performance. He's definitely not without value, but he definitely seems to be in the zone where you'd look for top prospects to either exceed his performance or at least equal it, overall, at a cheaper salary (thereby allowing the team to spend those resources elsewhere). Sure, as a rookie, that might be a fair median projection. Although HR and RBI are going to be playing-time (and batting-order) dependent. But the nice thing about rookies is that you don't have to promote them, or you can demote them, if they're not playing well. And if the Twins have 4 quality prospects they could try in this spot, they can probably get at least 1 out of the 4 to perform better than that median projection. You might lose a regular season win or two in Rosario's spot, but with the money you save, you may be able to make that up elsewhere on your roster. And of course, for a well-built and deep team like the Twins, regular season wins may not be quite as valuable anymore as postseason wins (especially if expanded playoffs are here to stay). Is Rosario an impact player in a short series?

Nitpic: you're both right! The Twins had 10 "team LOB" in the game, but adding up each batter's individual LOB equals 22. (As an example, if 3 guys in a row strand the bases loaded, your team LOB would be 3 for that inning, but adding up each batter's individual LOB would equal 9.)

If you lose a player from your 60 man pool (by trade, waivers, or release), you can replace them. https://m.startribune.com/alex-avila-goes-on-injured-list-as-twins-face-tigers-again/572329502/

It's not as if batters can only have one "goal" though. They have an approach that can produce a variety of outcomes, and you just pointed out his approach was almost certainly different here from a normal PA (emphasizing contact). Look at the PA -- Byron laid off the first two pitches completely. Does he do that in normal PA? Probably not. But here he's being more patient, more deliberate. By pitch #5 of the at-bat, he had two strikes on him, and it was a low pitch but not in the dirt, and he had seen low pitches twice already. In a normal PA, maybe Byron is still looking for something to drive there and is more willing to strike out, or forces himself to lay off that pitch. But not here. Morneau even mentioned it on the broadcast -- shorten up, put the bat on the ball, and take off running. And with a runner on third, the Tigers couldn't throw too much junk to him -- they had to make sure the pitch was catchable for the catcher, which also means fairly hittable for the batter. I'm not saying Buxton was 100% sure to beat out any grounder -- of course he wasn't. But from the Tigers perspective, if you just need an out, any out, and you can't just spike pitches in the dirt with the runner at third, I'd prefer to throw to Marwin with the bases loaded instead of Byron with second and third.

With 2 outs, there is nothing particularly special about a strikeout or pop-up in this situation. (Maybe if he had a meaningfully high rate of "first pitch pop ups" that would reduce the risk of a passed ball or wild pitch on subsequent pitches, but I'm guessing Cruz wasn't eager to dash home under those circumstances either.) You just need the out. If you pitch to Byron, there are only 3 realistic possibilities to record the out: 1. Strikeout 2. Ball in the air 3. Throw out Buxton at first on a grounder If you walk Buxton and pitch to Marwin, yes you lose the ability to walk him, but you expand that list of possibilities (and the grounder possibility becomes more realistic, IMO): 1. Strikeout 2. Ball in the air 3. Throw out Marwin at first on a grounder 4. Force play at any base BTW, Byron and Marwin have only slight differences in their overall BB%, K%, and BABIP since the beginning of 2019: https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=0&type=8&season=2020&month=0&season1=2019&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=14161,5497&startdate=&enddate=

The runner at second is a fringe benefit of my strategy, not the primary motivator. To get out of the 9th inning, 2 outs, runners on 2nd and 3rd, I want a force play at every base, and I don't want to get stuck in a footrace with Buxton. I also don't think you can look at how Buxton runs on normal ground balls to assess how it would play out here. I'm sure Buxton hustles normally, but I am also sure there is a special motivator for him on the play, knowing that if he beats it out we win the game -- he was going to put every ounce of his special ability to use on this play. Edit to add: for that matter, I'm not sure if ground ball rate is going to be accurate in this situation either. Buxton approaches a normal AB trying to drive a pitch to the outfield -- but when a ground ball to the left side could win the game, he's probably employing a different approach.

Probably — but like I said, even punching him out there, the Tigers are still favored to lose with Buxton at 2B to begin the 10th. And as we saw, if the Tigers pitcher fails to strike him out or pop him up, it’s game over. I mean, there is no easy path to victory when the other team has runners at second and third in the final inning of a tie game, but I’d rather ask my pitcher to throw strikes to Marwin than to do what they did.

Gonzalez is quite slow though: https://twitter.com/NickNelsonMN/status/1300228057664491524?s=20 Buxton not only scores on more grounders / flies, but he also is more likely to advance from second to third on those grounders or flies (or passed balls, wild pitches). More likely to score directly from 2nd on a single or an error too. Especially if balls in play are scarce as you say, Buxton’s increased ability to advance on those scarce BIPs is magnified.

It appears the Tigers made a major blunder by not simply waking Buxton in that spot. Yeah, it would have loaded the bases and reduced the pitcher’s margin for error in terms of walking the next batter (Marwin), but it would have: 1. Restored the force play at every base 2. Largely taken Buxton’s legs out of the situation 3. In the event the game remained tied and gone to extra innings, it would have put Marwin at 2B to start the 10th rather than Buxton. As it was, pitching to Buxton there meant the Tigers were pretty much destined to lose, if not in that plate appearance then likely in the next inning or two.

And if we don’t call up Rooker for that role, the real Brian Buchanan is only 47 years old!

Mod note: let’s keep this discussion to on-field baseball. There are still other threads if you feel the need to expand about off-field, non-baseball topics.

But by the time they get a museum, it is usually too late to acquire them affordably! I haven’t seen any trade chatter about Kikuchi, but maybe it’s just assumed that every Mariners player is available all the time. On the other hand, the Mariners payroll is already pretty low, so they may not feel as much pressure to dump salary anymore. Here is a Rays blogger who was targeting him, at least, with some info on his pitch usage and results in 2019-2020: https://www.draysbay.com/2020/8/28/21404691/rays-pitcher-trade-targets-seattle-arizona-cincinnati-detroit

First of all, Duran is in the 60 player pool; Balazovic isn’t. Secondly, players not in the pool can be traded — they just can’t be officially named until after the season. There have been a few PTBNL trades around the league already — probably none so far will be at the level of Balazovic, but it is technically possible to move him.

I was just looking at the playoff question from a technical perspective. Yes, we should strive for better than backing into the playoffs, and absolutely we should aim for advancement.

Cruz willingly played 4 years in Seattle. His coping mechanisms are probably even better than his bat!

Obviously getting swept at home and running the losing streak to 8 would be very, very bad, but to miss the playoffs it looks like we’d have to finish behind Detroit and despite the last two days results, that is still hard to imagine — they’ve still got a negative run differential and hardly seem ready to make that leap. We’re still 3.5 ahead of Detroit too so we can’t fall behind them in the next 3 days. We’re also getting Pineda and could still swing a trade, while I don’t see the Tigers getting any reinforcements.

Meh. I bet our attendance will be unchanged when we return home tomorrow!

How confident are you in Kikuchi going forward? He's set to make $17 mil next year, plus a $13 mil player option for 2022.

If you go year-to-year with him, that's essentially what he'll get -- his arbitration salaries will take into account his past missed time.

Sorry, the trade deadline is Monday. The league office won't be able to approve any of these trades.

The Tigers voted not to play Thursday too. Countless other baseball teams, even good ones, have also had occasional days of poor performance over the last ~150 years — it is inherent in a sport where the best teams still lose 40% of their games. There is zero evidence that Thursday’s protest affected Saturday’s results on the field. If you want to continue discussing the protests, please post in the protest thread.

It was actually a 3-run deficit, bases loaded and 1 out for the other team so quite likely a 4-run deficit soon even with effective pitching, and only 6 outs left for us to come back. With a second game later in the same day. You really want to use your best relievers there?

The Phillies are currently in a playoff spot and just traded to upgrade their pen. I’m not sure it will be that easy to acquire one of their better-performing relievers right now.

It got people talking, that's for sure. I read somewhere the sentiment from someone in the game that if it got one kid to ask their parents why there was no game yesterday, which led to a bigger conversation, that's a good effect. Very few protests or statements throughout history can be measured by new laws or opinion polls the day after. It's not a reasonable standard for judging their efficacy or necessity.