bertrecords

The letter from Jim Pohlad certain sounds like the way Terry Ryan talked. Management of the Twins seems very much like the management of a grocery store or a bank. Policies. Procedures. One example is the DFA of Oswaldo Arcia, and the immediate landing point on the Rays starting lineup. It seemed from my perspective that Oswaldo was not following the rules when he joked after his very first homerun that people could learn Spanish if they wanted to understand him. He was never going to be head cashier with that attitude. He doesn't follow our policies and procedures. Let him work elsewhere. Another example is the laughable announcement that Eduardo Nunez was the Twins all-star. Seems like a nice guy. Had a great BA this year. Can't play SS. Follows policies and procedures. Our kind of guy. A third example is the yanking around of big time prospects like Buxton and Berrios. Judgements seem to be made on very little evidence. If you are going to call up Berrios, then don't yank the job at the first truly bad start. Likewise, a couple weeks batting .380 in AAA is not evidence of much of anything. Don't call up Buxton, if you are just going to send him back down after the next slump. The knowledge that every other team seems to have about what types of statistical baseball performance is meaningful seems to be lost or irrelevant to the Twins. The Twins operate as if the casual fan from 1970 who can relate to BA, HR and RBI is who you need to impress. The Twins fail to understand that even these people are more impressed by W and L. Assuming Jim Pohlad understands that running a baseball team is different from running a grocery store, then we have a chance to improve. It would be nice to have baseball operations that genuinely care about and understand baseball at a level beyond the manager of the grocery store or the bank. But, I am not confident that a knowledge of statistical significance in baseball performance is something that fits tidily into a process or procedure. Maybe, we want Jim to sell the team.

Arcia doesn't need to turn any corners. He is who he is-- the Twins best offensive player or something close to that. Granted, with Sano, Plouffe and Mauer, there isn't an obvious corner infield/DH spot to play him every day at this present moment. The Twins used to have this young, big tight pantsed guy at first in the 1990s. Didn't look good on the Metrodome field. The Twins had to dump him. He currently DHs for the Red Sox.

Oswaldo Arcia has hit 6 HRs in his last 35 minor league at bats. He has already demonstrated major league power to the tune of 25-30 HR per year pro-rated. He has terrible breath and the front office prefers a more svelte body shape. He requires days off more often than many players. Therefore, he is in the minors. He is not a top outfield defender. But, he may be the Twins best hitter. Nunez and Robinson are the players to demote, or Rosario or Santana. If Torii Hunter were to be injured and replaced by Oswaldo, projection systems like ZIPS predict OPS would improve. You could go into the corner infield/DH options and still most likely have an offensive upgrade with Arcia. Pre-season ZIPS had Arcia as the Twins best hitter, better than Mauer, Plouffe, Hunter, Dozier and Sano, in that order. Dozier and Sano have shown an uptick; you can make the case they might be better than you thought in the pre-season. Oswaldo Arcia has done nothing to change your opinion of him. The best Twins team still includes Oswaldo. The Twins have had a lot of luck to this point, and luck tends to balance out. If the Twins are pushing to make the playoffs, they need their best team in Minnesota.

I think the Twins will have a losing record and contend for last place. The talent is not there. The ML pitching staff, except for Hughes and May, totally lacks upside. Strikeout to walk ratios scream last place. Maybe, Ervin will have a good year; maybe a bad year. Let's say I'm right and the team finishes with 90 losses yet again. It could still be a more successful season than the last several if Hicks, Arcia, Pinto, Berrios, Sano, Buxton and the bullpen make progress toward establishing themselves as strong major league talent. If Santana and Vargas validate that they belong, then even better. The last four 90 loss seasons were hard to watch. Last place didn't feel nearly as terrible in 1982 when a plan for success was evident.

I notice that Pelfrey has his seasonal K rate (8) above his BB rate (7). Definitely an improvement over last year. Apparently, he believes he is accomplishing something. Very disheartening having these stats being touted as serviceable for a SP. That could only happen on a truly terrible team. Could Pelfrey be an above average RP? Maybe the velocity goes up with pitching one inning at a time instead of five innings at a time. (Pelfrey has 51 IP over his last ten starts, so yes, he has been a five inning pitcher.) Does Pelfrey want to continue a career? He should try to stick as a relief pitcher. Or, he could revamp his approach in the minor leagues to see if better results are possible. But, the strikeouts and the walks indicate that what he is doing currently is not major league quality. If he is too stubborn to understand this, Mike Pelfrey will soon find himself to be an ex-major leaguer. Teams that trot out terrible starting pitchers year after year do not sell tickets.

The Twins best option is Pelfrey and Hughes in the bullpen if it turns out they are not providing an upgrade and/or if there are young (high upside) starting pitchers who are ready for MLB innings.

Per Pitcher f/x (in Fangraphs, cited above), the slider was thrown 10.2% in 2013 and the cutter 8.6%. The slider was at 86.2 mph, the cutter at 75.7 mph. Pitch classification is tricky. I am not saying you should necessarily believe Pitcher f/x.

Your analysis and understanding of the statistics is solid. The slider is 2 mph faster than it used to be. Pelfrey was unlucky last year. Does that make the slider an out pitch? Throughout Pelfrey's entire career, enough innings such that BABIP has averaged out, Pelfrey's slider has never been an out pitch. Baseball is a wonderful game. The unlikely can happen. Thank you for making a case for it. But, I will believe in Pelfrey's slider only after it becomes an out pitch. Not before.

The problem with this analysis is that Mike Pelfrey does not have excellent stuff and has never had excellent stuff. Velocity does not equal stuff. Over his career, he has one pitch that nets a positive linear weight score. That pitch is his fastball even though it did not give good results in 2013. The slider, despite the velocity has been a below average major league pitch if you add up his entire career. In 2007, 2009 and 2012, it was slightly above average probably due to luck. Pelfrey has never been a good major league pitcher because he has no pitches that create wins for his team. The place to see the data is at Fan Graphs under Pitcher Fx Pitch Values. http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=5203&position=P Francisco Liriano is the pitcher with the great slider. Compare Liriano and Pelfrey's slider-- look at wSL/C -- and it is easy to see how Liriano was a winnel for the Pirates and how Pelfrey, unless he develops a pitch he has never had in his entire career, is destined to continue to be a loser for the Twins.

Why?