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chamoman

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Everything posted by chamoman

  1. chamoman
    Tyler Wells also turns 24 today (Sunday)! Happy birthday to him.
  2. chamoman
    Willians Astudillo (.290/.321/.489 with 9 Ks, 5 BBs, and 7 HRs at Rochester in 176 ABs), who is now on the 25-man and played yesterday for the Twins.
  3. chamoman
    I believe his last name should be spelled "Morán" as per this Puerto Rican newspaper article on him: https://www.elnuevodia.com/deportes/beisbol/nota/boricuascongrandesposibilidadesdeserescogidosenelsorteodenovatos-2057527/ That would make the pronunciation "mo-RAHN".
  4. chamoman
    Is everyone talking about the same Rudy Hernández? Seth says that he is Dominican, but I think he is this "Rudy Hernández" from the baseball hotbed of Maracay, Venezuela, where Eduardo Escobar is from, and near where Miguel Cabrera and others are from as well. Check out the link: http://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Rudy_Hernandez_(minors01) I could be wrong, but if not, then he is the ex-infielder rather than the ex-pitcher. And that means, yes, Thrylos, he has five years of MiLB experience.
  5. chamoman
    Thanks, Seth. Of course you are right that there is a high level of unpredictability at the lower levels, and that players like Buxton, Rosario, Kepler, Travis Harrison, and Daniel Ortiz are all legitimate candidates to make the big league roster in the near future. Still, there seems to be a greater dearth of minor league positional talent than in recent years, no doubt a function of the ascension of the aforementioned players through the minors' ranks, but especially the pitching-heaviness of the tops of the recent drafts. Seven of the first eight players taken in the 2014 Rule 4 draft were relievers, which certainly leaves an impressive relieving corps, but stretches the organization in other areas.
  6. chamoman
    Thanks for the link, Seth. C-? Like comparing managers or stars, fans' perception of their own team's draft success or lack thereof is interesting. Posters here seem to dwell on mistakes instead of an actual objective comparison. Look at Round 1 from that draft (http://www.baseballamerica.com/draftdb/2009xrnd.php?rnd=1); maybe 30% are average big leaguers? Yes, the Twins whiffed on Trout, but so did almost everyone else- but everyone else whiffed on Dozier (including the Twins seven times). Bashore was a bust, but Bullock netted Scott Diamond (1.4 bWAR with Minnesota), and the Twins have gotten 1.2 bWAR from Gibson and 8.6 from Dozier. It's not the best, but it certainly isn't the worst. As an aside: I can't wait to see how the 2012 draft class develops. The Twins seem to be heading toward an enormous amount of success there: Buxton, Berríos, Melotakis, Chargois, Walker, Z. Jones, Duffey, Taylor Rogers, J. Fernández, and even Zack Larson and DJ Baxendale. Maybe the reliever-heavy strategies in 2012 and 2014 weren't so bad after all. We'll see, of course.
  7. chamoman
    Great thread, and a relevant topic. I am fully on board with a full-time Latin-born, Spanish-speaking coach on the team. Patrick Reusse has advocated for this quite intelligently in the past. Thrylos, I'm pretty sure Doc Bauer had it right the first time with "Latin"; my Venezuelan wife bristles at incorrectly being deemed a "Latina". While identity politics and associated nomenclature for people of Iberian heritage are notoriously convoluted, I am pretty sure that most native Spanish-speaking Twins' players would consider themselves "Latin" or "Hispanic". There is a nice breakdown here: http://hispaniceconomics.com/overviewofushispanics/hispaniclatinolatin.html In short, "Latino: a U.S.-born Hispanic who is not fluent in Spanish and is engaged in social empowerment through Identity Politics." and "Latin: an abbreviation for “Latin American,” or “Latinoamericano” in Spanish (written as one word), a Latin is a person who was born in Latin America and migrated to the United States." This would make Bobby Cuellar a Latino who learned Spanish, and Oswaldo Arcia a Latin. The caveat is that identity politics is malleable and depends on personal interpretation. But Doc Bauer was not incorrect.
  8. chamoman
    Pretty sure you mean Hu was pitcher of the day, and not Tomshaw...
  9. chamoman
    Twins just signed undrafted 24-yo flamethrower Brandon Poulson from the Healdsburg Prune Packers of the collegiate Sacramento Rural League for $250,000. It is an awfully unique story -100 mph arm working for his father's excavation business gets tapped to sign a minor league deal with the Twins- and it seems that it was only possible due to the Twins' remaining draft money: From the Strib: "The San Francisco Giants wanted to sign Poulson, who also drew interest the Oakland Athletics, Seattle Mariners and Philadelphia Phillies. Those teams didn't have enough money remaining in their draft pool to match Minnesota." http://www.startribune.com/sports/twins/269141081.html If this is correct (and I may be mistaken) then all of the handwringing and gnashing of teeth about left over draft money may be for naught. In fact, the extra leverage this money gave the Twins compared to the hometown Giants and the other big league clubs actually makes this a market savvy move. In fact, think it is possible that the Twins just found a (weird and rare) market inefficiency AND JUST PLAYED MONEYBALL!
  10. chamoman
    He control has been spotty (10.5 BB/9), but 19.5 K/9… *emits a guttural sound*
  11. chamoman
    I agree with 2wins87 that there is no sample size to judge Romero or Thorpe yet. C'mon! What is more, these are minor leaguers working on pitches, approaches, and mechanics, not just going for numbers. That is why evaluating prospects is not just a question of spreadsheets. As any Twins fan, I am also excited to watch Berríos excel this year. As JimCrikket mentioned re: stamina, the good news is that he's already at 70 innings, 30 shy of the 100 he ended up at last year, and there are no signs of slowing down (knock on wood). My only nagging doubt has to do with him being flyball prone in the pitcher-friendly FSL. This factor is always listed as a caveat when judging hitters' performances. So, how much might the size of stadiums be helping José Orlando keep the ball in the park? Any idea from people who have seen him recently? His HR/9 rate is down from 0.5 to 0.4 from 2013 to 2014, but that may be a park-independent improvement, like his improved H/9, BB/9, and strikeout rate. The homerun rate should be something to watch for in New Britain, whenever he makes it there.
  12. chamoman
    Remember following minor league pitching two years ago? No Meyer, no May, no Lew Thorpe, no Kohl Stewart, no Gonçalves, Kyle Gibson was out, Berrios wasn't drafted until June, Felix Jorge, Landa, and Rosario were in the GCL, and Fernando Romero was in the DSL. BJ Hermsen was minor league pitcher of the year. Now, Berrios--9.3 K/9 at A+ at age 19--strikes out 10 in a game in the FSL and is pitcher of the day runner-up to someone with a 9.8 K/9 at AAA, the second-lowest BB/9 of his minor league career, lowest WHIP of his minor league career, and the lowest hits/9 of his minor league career. And these are arguably the third-/fourth- and fifth-/sixth-highest rated pitching prospects in the Twins' minor leagues. I know this has been said in the past, but it bears repeating: TR and Co. make some puzzling roster decisions and player moves, but credit where credit is due for recognizing the organization's biggest weakness and addressing it head on.
  13. chamoman
    Great thread starter, Parker, and nice reference back to the Sam Miller article. Research into quantifying "chemistry", like any social science research, will have to spend a fair amount of time figuring out how to operationalize the term. It sounds like the Rutgers' profs have found that "cross-cutting cleavages"--which sounds like a single sub-type of the concept of "chemistry"--is a way to do this. Two things: 1) this does not preclude *other* operationalizations of the concept from potentially playing a role (e.g. aggregate overlapped time spent in the minors by MLBers, etc.); and 2) this does not mean that greater "chemistry" leads to more wins; only an increase in overlapping cleavages. From a team's perspective, this represents a gain or loss at the margins; obviously having good talent is the baseline. With specific regards to the Twins, it sure sounds like the next two waves of prospects to come up have personality and come from multiple countries--and most importantly, they are talented.
  14. chamoman
    Also: Puerto Rican Spanish definitely never wins elocution contests.
  15. chamoman
    Great find, Seth! Thanks. His trainer is saying that J.O. gives 110% during his workouts and that he looks and trains like an athlete and not just a pitcher. J.O. says that he is working hard so he doesn't wear down mid-season like he did last year, and he ends by expressing his desire to be chosen to play in the All Star Futures Game this year. Great stuff. Whether or not pushing cars and stuff actually works is debatable, I suppose, but it definitely shows that Berrios is dedicated to his craft, unlike, say Jesús Montero.
  16. chamoman
    What a bummer.<br><br>I am not a professional translator, but perhaps this is a little more accurate than Google Translator:<br><br> <br>
  17. chamoman
    Hi John, great idea and legwork looking up the data and running the correlations!! Although I have read Twins Daily since you all set it up, this is the first post that has caused me to actually register in order to post. You seem to be showing what baseball pundits and statisticians alike believe. However, I think the correlations may be limiting because it merely shows, well, correlation, and not causation. And since in this case, you clearly have a testable hypothesis (more regular season wins causes greater postseason success) with a clear causal arrow and no chance of reverse causality (e.g. postseason success causing more regular season wins), wouldn't it make more sense to run a regression? That way you could determine the precise statistical significance as well as the substantive significance of the effect (iff statistically significant, of course). You could begin by running a bivariate regression with the two variables you just used, and then could *really* play around to see what factors increase/decrease postseason success--or if it is indeed a crapshoot. You could add pitching, hitting , and fielding numbers and basically play with the specification ad nauseum. Something interesting it bound to pop up, right? Maybe fielding is more important, or player age, or postseason experience, or whatever. But this is a pretty simple model that savvy front offices must be familiar with. Of course, this may all be for naught, seeing as your correlation coefficient is so small! But with extra time, it might be a fun game.
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