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cmathewson

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Everything posted by cmathewson

  1. cmathewson
    Here's a funny one: ERA+ and CYA voting for each pitcher in 91 Tapani 143 (7) Morris 123 (4) Erickson 135 (2)
  2. cmathewson
    I think the gentleman's agreement is in place for both Bartlett ans Kubel. They still have to prove it in Spring Training. But if healthy, they are odds-on favorites to make the team. Bartlett was pretty good until he got hurt. Can he come back? Sure. Can he beat out Pedro? Not likely. But it will be fun to see him beat the odds on that one.
  3. cmathewson
    No, it's based on the reality that 700+ OPS guys who play above average defense are hard to acquire and develop. So, many teams settle. I'm pretty sure everybody wants a better shortstop. The options are limited. The biggest barrier to acquiring one right now is Scott Boras.
  4. cmathewson
    HOF for position players is historically about two things: having a long career of greatness and being considered the best player at your position during much of that stretch. Boyer had a great prime, but his career was relatively short for his era. So he was almost by definition not a HOFer. I thought the Rat was the best player at his position in his prime. He didn't get past the first vote. Robinson is perhaps a bad example for your point. He's almost the quintessential HOFer by those two criteria. Morris was never the top of his profession during his era, nor did he have the longest career in his era. Now, perhaps pitchers should be given a little leeway. Nolan Ryan and Greg Maddux are two of the best pitchers of all time. Both pitched during Morris' era. You shouldn't be the best of all time to make the Hall. But I can think of about five guys in any year in which Morris pitched who were better. And so it went for his whole career. As some have pointed out, he wasn't even the best pitcher on his team some of the time. Even in '91, he was the best pitcher on the staff for one month during the year and the postseason. Besides Morris, three other guys were AL pitchers of the month that year. You all know Erickson and Tapani. Trivia: who was the other one? And so Morris belongs in the second tier, with guys like Suttcliff and Langston.
  5. cmathewson
    I would say an OPS of 1000 or higher in AA, and Willingham or Presley injured in August, and Buxton is the guy.
  6. cmathewson
    So is scouting baseball players, and a thousand other disciplines that rely on experts. In all these disciplines, we're finding that the wisdom of experts is full of biases and an over-reliance on gut instincts and intuition over data-driven reasoning. This is where the Internet, and the machines that can make sense of the data therein, is a huge benefit to society. Sabermetrics may not benefit society, but it has changed the way we understand the game. It no longer suffices to rely on gut instinct alone. At the very least, we need to check these intuitions against data. We have similar data science in medicine. Watson is a computer that is better than any human medical diagnostician because he can use the massive data stores on the Internet and superhuman reasoning power to more accurately diagnose patients, and provide treatment recommendations. We are not Watson. But we can recognize patterns of faulty diagnoses and treatment. Perhaps ligament injuries are just difficult to diagnose and treat. But it sure seems like this org has struggled where other orgs have not as much. It deserves more study. I am writing this comment because I object to rejecting this study out of hand.
  7. cmathewson
    Good players. Killer played third because the Twins of that era had guys like Vic Power and no DH. Killer is my favorite Twin ever. But to call his defense at third "adequate" is a stretch.
  8. cmathewson
    I would not assume they had no solid evidence. Because they were being challenged legally, they could not release the evidence they had. Arbiters are like judges. The parties agree to accept their judgements to avoid court. A-Roid's lawyers accepted arbitration because they didn't like their chances in court. Without solid evidence, this thing would have been thrown out of court on Day 1. Ergo, the MLB had solid evidence.
  9. cmathewson
    I think he has failed drug tests. He was on the lists that the Mitchell committee forced the MLB to release, which the MLBPA wanted suppressed. In this case, he was pulling a Lance Armstrong: Trying to build a program that uses doping in ways that are largely undetected by the current approved testing procedure. He actively recruited players into the program, similar to what Bonds did with BALCO. These are not conjectures. Several players took their 50 game suspensions and gave detailed depositions on how A-Roid was trying to build a side business of undetectable doping, in open defiance of the spirit of the law, if not its letter. After seeing the Armstrong saga play out in all its gory detail, I'm surprised there is not more outrage towards A-Roid. Armstrong's big defense was "I've never failed a drug test." Yeah, but you doped every day for 10 years. IMHO, this is the kind of thing that should get him banned for life and stripped of his trophies, as Armstrong was. I don't understand the resistance to anti-doping in Baseball, when every other sport on the planet is more strict towards doping.
  10. cmathewson
    Yes, and as I have said, his '91 postseason ERA could have been much higher if Lonnie Smith had not been deeked by Chuck Knoblauch and Greg Gagne. He is in the HOF now in part because of luck, which is one of the things the HOF celebrates. The story of that game is complex and wonderful. The HOF is a hall of great stories.
  11. cmathewson
    Since he is widely considered the best player ever at his position, finding comparable third basemen in his era should be doubly challenging. I would say Mike Schmidt is comparable offensively, but an era later. And he was no Brooks Robinson with the glove. In his era, players had good years over there. Pete Rose played there some, for example. But no one played there consistently with the kind of excellence that Robinson did. I would say the 78 WAR is actually low, because it does not take into account plays he made that have never been made in the history of the game.
  12. cmathewson
    Just going on the Mike Trout timeline. If Buxton starts in AA, he could easily get called up in August. I would put the odds closer to 25%.
  13. cmathewson
    That was the 10th time. The other 9: Mays, Milton, Liriano, Neshek, Blackburn, Slowey, Gibson, Wimmers, Deduno Milton was a knee and Deduno was a shoulder. But the other seven were UCLs.
  14. cmathewson
    If you wanted to contrast two players from the same era, you would be hard pressed to pick two more different players. In particular, Kirby was a 90 on a scale of 100 in intangibles. Morris was a 40. He had all the competitiveness of Puck, with none of the charm. (Now, Puck was voted in before all his off-field stuff came to light. I'm not sure he would have made the Veteran's Committee vote if he hadn't been voted in.)
  15. cmathewson
    Right. He never won a Cy Young award, for example.
  16. cmathewson
    Thing A has happened 9 out of 10 times. Ergo, thing A is going to happen this time. Faulty logic.
  17. cmathewson
    If anything, looking past the numbers reveals an ugly picture. Jack was widely known as a dick for most of his career. Even in '91, he had his clubhouse issues, which was one of the reasons MacPhail got him so cheap. I have a hard time understanding why people in this area are so fond of him for his intangibles. When he pitched for Detroit, he was known for plunking our best hitter routinely, just for the fun of it. Then, when he had a chance to do right by us, he opted out of his contract to get like $1 M more per year to pitch for Toronto. He showed zero loyalty to his hometown team. The only thing I can think of is selective memory. In the anals of the Twins, he is not even in the top 10 in any category but one--World Series wins. And don't get me started on "the greatest WS game of all time." He pitched great. But he also had a lot of luck, including two 3-2-3 double plays and the biggest base running blunder in WS history. Any of those remarkable plays don't happen, and he is the Game 7 loser.
  18. cmathewson
    Of course we all want our hometown hero in the Hall. But there are a lot of guys who never made it and deserve it more, imho. Jim Kaat, for example. Statistically, Morris was helped by pitching for a team consistently in the top of its division for most of his career. Even then, when you compare his stats to Kaat's, I think you'll agree that Kaat deserves it more. In the end, the Veterans Committee might reward both of them. But then what do you do about the legion of 220-win guys who have never been considered?
  19. cmathewson
    This is great. My only question is about left field. I wouldn't be surprised to see a Hicks/Buxton/Arcia outfield as early as August.
  20. cmathewson
    My projected line-up: 1. Dozier 4 2. Mauer 3 3. Willingham 7 4. Arcia 9 5. Plouffe 5 6. Kubel 10 7. Pressly 8 8. Suzuki 2 9. Florimon 6 Not a lot of runs in that line-up, but it's what they have right now.
  21. cmathewson
    Sizemore? Really. He hasn't played regularly since 2009. He hasn't played at all since 2011.
  22. cmathewson
    Sano is no ordinary prospect. For the vast majority of prospects, I can see your point. But some prospects are as close to sure things as you can get, barring carreer-ending injuries. Sano is one of those. Put it this way, would you have said the same thing about Mauer12 years ago, siply because the law of averages says he had a chance to be a bust?
  23. cmathewson
    The reason Bartlett has been out of sight is injuries. He is said to be healthy for the first time in 18 months. If so, he could give Florimon a run for his money. I still think Miller is reaching when he says they expect him to beat out Florimon. But I would not be shocked if he did. Surprised? Yes, Shocked? no.
  24. cmathewson
    I'd say, Meyer is closer to Smoltz than Glavin.
  25. cmathewson
    I doubt Kepler starts at Cedar Rapids, but, if he does, he'll end up at Fort Myers sooner rather than later this year. You don't send a guy to the AFL and watch him languish behind a 17th rounder.
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