Woof Bronzer

Ok, I get what you are saying. I think we are saying the same thing. I definitely don't think there was a staff wide yank point all year - I mean, I sure hope not :) But I still don't like the approach of saying "X starter is going 5 today" or "2 times through the order only" before the game starts. Let the game play out, and react accordingly. I didn't think this would be so controversial, sorry I wasn't more clear and thanks for the conversation!

But the sample size for those ERAs is also small. Why count a small sample size when it supports your agenda and disregard it when it doesn't? And it's going to be skewed when you are only going partially through the lineup the 3rd time - you don't have 7/8/9 patsies to pad your ERA. If Gray hits the 3rd time through the order and he's cruising with a decent pitch count, he should absolutely keep pitching! This is what drives me nuts about the rigid kind of analytics being advocated here. Cherrypick stats that fit the narrative, discard those that don't, and - yes, the dreaded "manage by spreadsheet" approach where it's predetermined to yank a pitcher after 2 times through the order, regardless of performance or game context.

I mean, you said everybody knows this and the numbers show it...maybe it's not as simple and obvious as you stated? And yes, when pitchers aren't allowed to pitch 3rd time through the order much, the sample size is going to be small.

Do we know this for sure though? Forgive the vague numbers, but last season the Twins had 6 or 7 starts where the starter was pulled in the 5th or earlier with 75 or less pitches after giving up 0 or 1 hit. If there wasn't a predetermined yank point, with all due respect, the manager should have joined the trainer in the bread line!

My ask for this year is that there is no predetermined "yank point", the Twins go in to starts expecting long starts out of their starters, and the manager evaluates if/when to pull starters based on a combination of how the pitcher is doing, the game situation, the opponents, the status of the bullpen, and finally data on both the starter and the potential reliever that would have to replace the starter.

Thank you so much for putting these numbers together. I owe you one! I think a deeper dive would be required to really come to a definitive conclusion, but my takeaway is that if you're going to use short starts as a proactive strategy, a very strong bullpen is necessary. The other thing I would really like to see is a more balanced evaluation between "Should we pull the starter?" and "Who are we going to replace the starter with?". Even if a starter is tiring somewhat or facing the dreaded 3rd time thru, he may still be the best option on that day, for that inning/at bat, etc. Thanks again, I really appreciate the discussion!

Thanks so much for the explanation. I better understand now where you were going with this. Personally, I was talking about specific outcomes. I.e., how did X reliever do on X date after Gray was pulled in X inning. I tried looking and it doesn't appear there is an intuitive way to gather this data, so maybe this is a moot point. But to look at it from your perspective I think you'd need to include the entire bullpen right? Not just the best relievers. Because part of my theory is that pulling starters early taxes the bullpen unnecessarily. In other words it forces you down the road to use lesser quality relievers because the better ones are overworked. But of course, this is hard to quantify too.

They did the trash can thing in like 120 games - from May onwards in that season.. It wasn't a one time thing. For 5 months Correa woke up every day and decided yep, I'm going to cheat today. And I respectfully disagree on the notion that Correa was too young to know right from wrong. But the OP makes a great point, there are different types of leadership. And like you say, people do make mistakes - I try not to judge people on their worst moments, since I certainly wouldn't want people to judge me based on my worst. So I'm probably being too rigid here, and am open to seeing how this year goes because I do think Correa's in more of a position of leadership now that he's here long term. But I also think the cheating thing is a much bigger deal than you are suggesting and needs to be part of the Correa story.

Looking forward to it! I think you're right, there are different ways/types of leadership.

Well, not really. If we wanted to guess what would happen in the future if we were to make a change, we might use FIP. But after the fact we don't need to guess, since we now know what happened - that's ERA. You are using FIP to predict something that already happened. It's like saying 538's March Madness matchup predictor is a more accurate predictor of a game's outcome than the actual outcome of the game. "Yes, Alabama lost, but 538 had them as the favorite to win it all so they're still the favorites in my book." Let me ask, is there a reason you are looking for a certain narrative here? It just seems like you are trying to make the numbers fit a story, rather than let the numbers tell the story. I don't really have a horse in the race, and part of the reason I started posting here is to learn if the data supports some of the things that have concerned me about the organization's direction under this leadership team. Honestly I wanted to be proven wrong - it would make me more opmistic about the future of my favorite club :)

Respectfully, leaders are paid to lead by example and not make the mistakes. And it's not like we are talking about a one time thing. He cheated over and over again. His reaction to the mistake was to keep making more mistakes until he got caught. This is the opposite of leadership in my opinion.

Oh I was with you, hotheads gonna hothead and look how it turned out. We were definitely in the minority though.

Have you spoken to a lot of teams and agents about this? Almost no team or agent is going to publicly rip another organization, so I am wondering how anyone would know this with any certainty. This just sounds like something Minnesotans love to hear because it makes us feel better about the losing - but I'm guessing most fans would trade niceness for a World Series in a mankato minute :)

I don't know, Correa was knee deep in the cheating scandal. Cheaters aren't leaders. Just my 2 cents.

To be fair, while he was here the vast majority of fans praised him for his "fire" and "passion." It wasn't until he was gone until this negative narrative emerged.

Thanks for the numbers! I have to say, though, the response is part of what frustrates me about analytics. let me be clear that I don't mean this personally, more of just a general comment on analytics. Here 2 numbers were presented and the the one that better supported your thesis was chosen, in lieu of the (more accurate) one that goes against your priors. The bigger issue though is the idea that FIP is more meaningful than ERA when looking at last year. This is fundamentally misunderstanding statistics. FIP is a predicitve analytic. It MAY predict NEXT YEAR's ERA better than this current year's ERA, but FIP measures what may have happened if baseball was played in a vacuum while ERA measures what actually happened. FIP cannot predict last year's ERA better than ERA because we actually have last year's ERA - no predictions necessary. So the numbers presented absolutely point to the Twins replacing a better pitcher (Gray) with worse ones, on average (the bullpen). Maybe this doesn't conform to the analytics bible, but analytics is supposed to be about digging deeper to find the cold truth, and not being slavish to conventional wisdom. That said, I am most interested in what happened specifically in the games that Gray pitched, and even more specifically with the pichetrs that replaced him. One thing I've noticed is the stats crowd always focuses on when to pull the starter, and almost never on who they plan to replace him with. Yes, third time through the order may result in a higher ERA for the starter, but it still might be better than the guy they are bringing in, and it is almost certainly better than the guy they are bringing it + the domino effect of wearing out your bullpen earlier. And this is magnified when you have a starter who is dealing. You KNOW how that guy is pitching, you don't need numbers to predict if he's pitching well. But when you yank him you are taking a risk that the next guy maybe just doesn't have it today, or the next guy, or the next guy. It just seems counterproductive to me. But, again, maybe I'm happy to be proven wrong with the data. I'll see if I can gather any numbers on this.

But aren't all last years ptichers back except for 2? So he'd be insulting this year's pitchers too. Plus as Yawn said Bundy had the longest 2 starts last year and Archer was pulled several times when he was cruising with low pitch counts. I read Gray's comments as a shot at the manager. Based on Baldelli's response I'd say rocco agrees with my interpretation :)

Maybe, but you can't say the Twins managed Gray's innings pretty well without a corresponding analysis of the pitchers who the Twins brought in to replace Gray when he got pulled. If those cumulitive numbers are worse than Gray's I don't think you can say the innings were managed properly. I'm not smart enough to do this, but I'd be very interested to see the results. I have a gut feeling, but I'm always open to being wrong :)

Yeah you're right, few FOs are going to be critical, but I do get a "smartest guys in the room" vibe from this one. 2 straight years of sub-80 wins and the only change is the trainer? That doesn't sound like a lot of honest self-reflection to me but that's just me and also, the important thing would be to learn from failures and their roster construction this year indicates that they actually do acknowledge some of their mistakes from the last 2 years, just not publicly. Hey I wouldn't want to talk about my mistakes either! Sorry I know this isn't the place to be critical, I'm really not trying to upset you, I promise. Thanks for the conversation and I'll try to be more uncritical in the future :)

Great to be here, thanks! Yeah I'm not saying Bundy and Archer were good, yeesh. I don't think it's accurate to say he was terrible when they let him, as the OP showed they didn't let him go longer in several starts where he was cruising. It's possible that both things can be true - Bundy and Archer aren't good pitchers, and the Twins FO & manager implemented a failed strategy on managing the pitching staff last year. The funny thing is, even the FO is acknowledging both points - not explicity, of course, this FO isn't one for self-criticism - but not going into a 3rd straight season with Bundy, Archer, Shoemaker, Happ types in the rotation says all you need to know! Yet some folks just need to defend the indefensible I guess. Oh well. Go Twins!

You should read the OP's comment. Plenty of data and stats cited. Sorry if they don't fit your narrative.

This is absolutely brilliant and shocking to me becasue it runs counter to all the spin I hear. So I predict this will just be ignored by all the stat guys and true believers here because it doesn't fit the preferred narrative, But facts matter! Thanks for not accepting the conventional wisdom and daring to actually do research and come to your own conclusions.