LoganJones

Move those fans to foul territory!

I expect that eventually there will be some people who are wiling to discuss other aspects of this guy than just his de facto status as pariah.

If You think that 8% in a rate stat like ERA+ is 'slightly less', then I wonder if you really have been thinking about it in terms of baseball. Imagine if the Tigers had received that slight of a difference in their run differential last year? They got the 88 wins they were expected to have based on surrendering 670 runs. Instead they surrender 723. A measly 8% more runs, right? Well that pushes their win expectancy to 81 wins, assuming their offense stays the same. Their Team ERA+ was 112. So we'll be charitable and say that the crazy high number of unerned runs doesn't increase with that worse pitching, and only increase the number of earned runs allowed 8 percent. 718 runs. Tigers are now 82 and 80. Obviously the Os can talk about beating Pythagorean records, but it's right a lot more than it's not. Let's be crazy and give the Twins an 8% reduction in earned runs last year. The win total isn't awe inspiring, but it is 73. Obviously, Correia's contribution to that would be 1/5 and you'd like to shoot for more, but just holding your breath and saying it not any good at all, is just not correct. It's been established that he wasn't a super desirable signing. Making that point a month ago is not irrational, still banging on about it day after day like it will do any good is plain insanity. They needed stability, their scouting department looked at the things they look at and valued the guy at 5 mil. He obviously had other offers and they felt that going 2 years wasn't crazy or a huge waste of cash. His signing did not preclude the signing of actual better players. They still have plenty of flexibility to add other people. They acquired Worley, they signed Pelfrey. They didn't sign Jackson, Marcum or Baker. These are all guys who various people had hoped they would. There is no chance they signing of Correia is the reason they didn't move on any of the other guys. Focusing on him like he's the reason they're not going to win next year is, yes, totally irrational.

Fair enough. My point is merely that a person like Seth who's been proven to have access and insight to baseball that most of these forum posters suggested that perhaps enough e-ink had been spilled in the name of bemoaning the Correia signing over the past month. The response to that was throwing hands in the air about free speech and censorship. There's no need for it. We're here to talk about baseball, a game, a fun pastime. If that level of ire is fun for you have at it. Also, go to my ignore list, that's all.

Wow is a word I use to describe grown men whining like little children over a baseball team day in and day out without the slightest bit of self awareness. But, thanks to the kind work of people who showed me how to manage the ignore feature, I don't need to bother with it.

OK. Feel free to keep banging your stick on the ground. I'm sure you'll eventually get your point across.

Do you think WAR is a real thing? I doubt you do. It's just a way of quickly outlining how much runs are worth on average. That varies from year to year, team to team. It's just a basic idea that helps shape what you feel paying any player is appropriate. They're paying 5 Mil per year to Correia to as you say, give them at best 1 win for next year. I'm sure the Team thinks he's got the potential to be worth more than 1 win, but let's just say they expect him to be worth 1. It still seems they have paid him appropriately, since nobody signs someone they expect to fail.

More like a Julio Iglesias CD. Nobody wants Swarzak for anything other than a waiver claim.

Posting angry missives over and over in a message board is not going to spread dissatisfaction. It's just going to make people ignore your nonsense.

No, it doesn't. I've never once suggested guys like Sanchez or Grienke wouldn't have been even better for the rotation. I'm not arguing that Correia is the best possible choice for the Team. I'm saying he's not really being overpaid based on ways to evaluate his value to the team. I'm also arguing that getting multiple guys in Correia's price range on short deals is a better way to recover from a truly shambled rotation than paying one guy 5/88 when he's showing signs of getting worse.

That's exactly my point with the last line. I have no issue with Correia, Pelfrey, Worley. I want more. There weren't any opportunities for aces this year, so I prefer the blue collar approach. Joe Saunders would be perfect for this.

You have to evaluate who the player would have been replacing. And in Correia's case, it's a bunch of really bad players. Hell, the guy was worth .9 WAR last year even though he was tossed out of the rotation for a couple weeks. No. At this point all you're doing is whining. You aren't in a postion to hold the team to anything. You're angry because you don't like the direction and there's nothing you can do about it. You're certain you have better plans than the Twins, but for a cruel twist of fate you are working at an insurance company rather than the Twins front office. It's stupid to keep carrying on day after day about the same thing. Kevin Correia is going to pitch for the Twins. If he sucks he'll get cut. If he pitches like he has, he'll win some games for them. It's just that simple.

And fans are irrational when they ignore the fact that players like Correia do have value. He's being paid less for two years of service to the Twins than Anibel Sanchez is getting for one year with the Tigers. Using a bunch of boring calculations, we see that Sanchez projects to be worth 4-6 More wins over that 2 year period than Correia. He's also getting paid 35 Million to Correia's 10. We also see that Sanchez is contracted for an additional 3 years where his downward trends are more likely to be catching up with him. He's a much bigger risk, and that's where guys like Correia have their value. They're not as flashy effective, but they do help good teams win. If the team has a functioning offense that can put up similar numbers to last year, Correia will put the team in a postion to win a very similar percentage of games Sanchez will for the Tigers, at much less cost. The annoying part of Correia's contract shouldn't be that he signed it, but that the flexibility it provided hasn't resulted in more signings.

A 30% Improvement is a great improvement. It might still be failing, but it is improvement. Your make-believe poor parenting is not really germane to the discussion, though. The Twins signed a player who based on the concepts of Wins over Replacement has more value than they are paying for him. Thus it's potentially a good move.

his ERA+ for the past 3 years is 78. The 104 starts in question gave us an ERA+ of 69. 8.8% better in that regard, too.

Fan bases always have their irrational focal points for their ire. Correia is one of them, clearly. Last season, the Twins received 58 starts from pitchers who provided them with an ERA less than Correia's career number, half being Diamond. Of the remaining 104, They got 542.1 Innings of 6.34 ERA, 1.8 runs per 9 higher than KC's career average of 4.54. Even if we just say we only get the 161 IP (that's avg per year including the developmental and injury years) His career average saves the 2012 team 32 runs. 10 runs per win, right? Average Correia is worth 15 Million to the team. His 10/2 not a ridiculous amount of money. Even if you consider the .41 bump that people cite for going from NL to AL, C.A.KC Still saves the team 24 runs. So 10 Million? Just about right. That's just how dire the pitching got last year, folks. When you're making massive changes/upgrades you have to evaluate based on your own situation, not the ideal. Sure, we'd all have loved to grab some of the higher priced free agents, as well, but it's not healthy to continue to focus negative energy on things that while not massive, actually are improvements.

Of the 38 'fly ball' hits Diamond surrendered, 31 of them were XBH, 16 Homers and 4 Triples. Fair to guess they were mostly well hit balls that caught fence or one hopped into the stands. I assume some of the 'bloopers' (fair to call flyball singles likely bloopers and some of the doubles as well) could have been cut down by better outfield play, but how many? How many of the Scott Diamond line drives did Ben Revere turn into outs last year that a lesser (Parm) right fielder wouldn't have? It would be interesting to check. You'd have to go through all the plays when Diamond was pitching. You obviously can't compare their sample sizes, since Ben logged 708 Innings (roughly half of the total innings last year) in RF to Parm's 132. That being said, Parm converted 21 of 22 balls in zone and 5 out of it. Ben had 128 BIZ and converted 122. He also snagged 50(!) out of zone balls. That would be where the difference lies, I suppose. It's fair to say that RF will not be as well protected as it was, but how much worse will it really be? Parm has proven in limited duty to be able to cover the balls hit his way and even get to some out of his reach. Also worth considering that out of 714 plate appearances, 103 resulted in balls headed to RF. 48 pulled by LHB, 53 RHB oppos. A much greated number headed toward LF and up the middle, where things are going to be the same (LF) or potentially better (CF - Let's go Hicks) as last year. Blah blah: Diamond's success rests mostly on his own ability to stay ahead of the hitters, not the OF.

Struggling outfield defenses don't turn fly balls into hits. They allow more line drives to be hits than they should. Fly balls turn into home runs in certain parks, but that's it. Only 21% of Diamond's batted balls were 'line drives' last year. One interesting tidbit was 14% of the batted balls against Diamond last year were bunted. That will probably go down, so it could see an increase in line drives from there, but more likely, the other percentages will stay the same, with a slight tendency for ground balls to go up. Edit- but not really, since bunts are considered ground balls.

Did he actually say settled in in reference to the physical space? Or was he saying the park factors haven't really settled in, to give them a good idea what kind of ballpark it really is?

And a not even veiled one. Usually, when the 'mystery team' shows up this late in the offseason, there is only one offer left. I'm guessing the only team still offering him a big league contract and sure rotation spot is the Twins.

The AL Central is one Tommy John surgery from being a free-for-all. Not that I hope for that, I prefer the idea of the Twins triumphing over Verlander and the Tigers

And who should they have signed? Cliff Lee? (5 Years 120M, took less to return to Philly) Ted Lilly? (3 Years 33M at age 35.) The Twins signed the 4th largest contract for pitching to Pavano (2/16.5 also at age 35). They weren't exactly cheap, there just wasn't anyone gettable & worthwhile to get. Here's the complete List. 2011 Major League Baseball Free Agents - Starting Pitchers On The MLB Free Agent Market Chris Capuano would have made sense, in hindsight, but that's not fair.

With all the guys who are on the recovery trail this year, why not investigate a 6-man rotation, at least for the first half? It works out to 27 starts for each slot. And, not surprisingly if each guy pitches 6 innings per start, 162 Innings from each starter. You could let guys without health concerns like Diamond and Correia go an extra inning when they're pitching well, and they'll easily get right up to near 200 innings.

This site is seriously in need of an ignore feature. What on earth is gained by having some anonymous person sitting at their PC in the middle of nowhere slinging insults at Terry Ryan's intelligence? He makes different choices than you would as a GM, doesn't mean the man is stupid. In fact, it's very likely that Terry is much smarter than you or I are, Mr Top Gun.

What Ryan means is there's no external reason where Blackburn couldn't show up healthy and motivated and impress everyone enough to grab a spot. If its more of the same nibbling and fidgeting with his hat, Rochester awaits.