singlesoverwalks

I 100% agree with everything here. But let's remember that the Twins could still go on a hot streak that lasts into the playoffs and makes us forget this Very Bad Month or So. The good news is that almost all of their best players are healthy and they're still in playoff position. As of today, they still have an excellent shot. Now, Rocco might have to learn from his mistakes and get a little more conventional, it's true - hey, it could happen.

This is correct. If you look at Bogaerts' total WAR as a shortstop, it's significantly lower than Correa. However, I'd rather have my star player in the lineup, even if at a different position.

When the Twins re-signed Carlos Correa in 2023, he was competing in the free agent market with three other marquee shortstops: Trea Turner, Xander Bogaerts, and Dansby Swanson (in that approximate order of hype). It's now been almost two full seasons, and it's natural to wonder how Correa has stacked up against those three peers. The results aren't looking spectacular for the Twins front office. We can use wins above replacement (WAR)--specifically, the Fangraphs variety, abbreviated as fWAR--as a quick measure of the players' overall performance, including batting, fielding, and base-running. It's important to note that WAR is a "counting stat," meaning that the player accumulates it throughout the season, so if he's injured, he'll tend to have less of it. And if we want to quantify how the player performed without thinking about how much time he was on the field, we can use WAR/162, which is how many WAR the player would have accumulated in a season if he had been on-field for all 162 games and performed at the same level as he did in the games he actually played. Here's how the four players stack up: Player Team Age (current) GP (2023-present) fWAR (2023-present) WAR/162 Dansby Swanson CHC 30 283 8.3 4.75 Trea Turner PHI 31 261 7.8 4.84 Xander Bogaerts SDP 31 253 6.5 4.16 Carlos Correa MIN 29 210 5.5 4.24 In total WAR, Correa ranks last on the list. Not coincidentally, he's been on the field far less than the other three players. If we want to cut him some slack for his injuries, he has accumulated WAR at a higher rate, when healthy, than Bogaerts, but still at a lower rate than Swanson or Turner. Swanson has the most total WAR and games played, and Turner has the highest WAR/162. From a "Moneyball" perspective, though, are the Twins getting good value for their money? Let's look at this in terms of dollars paid per WAR. And let's do it in two different formats: $/WAR, which is the dollars already paid to the player in 2023 and 2024* divided by the number of WAR, and $/WAR (total committed), looking at the total value of the contract over its entire span, divided by the number of WAR the player has accumulated. Player Team Age (current) fWAR (2023-present) Years signed Total amount $/WAR $/WAR (total committed) Dansby Swanson CHC 30 8.3 7 $ 177,000,000.00 $ 6,092,943 $ 21,325,301 Trea Turner PHI 31 7.8 11 $ 300,000,000.00 $ 6,993,007 $ 38,461,538 Xander Bogaerts SDP 31 6.5 11 $ 280,000,000.00 $ 7,832,168 $ 43,076,923 Carlos Correa MIN 29 5.5 6 $ 200,000,000.00 $ 12,121,212 $ 36,363,636 By $/WAR, the Twins are paying a lot for their shortstop WAR. Correa's WAR are costing almost twice as much as Swanson's, and with similar gaps to Turner and Bogaerts. If there's one stat here that's somewhat forgiving to the Twins, it's $/WAR (total committed). Correa signed a shorter contract with less total value than Turner's or Bogaert's 11-year mega-deals. The Phillies and Padres are on the hook for a full slate of late-30's years when those two players are unlikely to be that good, while the Twins can be out of the Carlos Correa business, if they so choose, by the time he's 34. So if you just look at big free agent contracts as a lump sum of money that buys out the player's (hopefully) prime years, just paid out over several seasons, then the Twins are doing relatively OK. Still, that doesn't change the basic message that Correa hasn't been as good as two of his premiere shortstop peers, and hasn't been on the field enough to be as good as a third. Correa's performance was down in 2023. In 2024, it's been very good on a per-game basis, but he has missed a big chunk of the season. A huge post-season this year would go a long way toward making up for the regular season disappointment this year. Beyond this year, he still has four years left on his contract - we can hope his heels feel better and he puts the 2024 performance and the 2023 time-on-field together in 2025-2028. * For simplicity, not accounting for deferred and up-front money, just acting as if the player gets paid the same amount each year of his contract.

I am...happy.

Seems kind of passive-aggressive of Rocco to put in Richard's there. Like "Look what you made me do." "Oh, why don't I put in the reliever you got us at the trade deadline--ope! Didn't see THAT coming."

I believe it, but they weren't going to offer too much because of the intra-division factor.

I agree with the first two sentences but not with the third sentence. This is about risking your future success to go for success this year. You lay it on the line when you think you have a great shot - as evidenced by that great record. When you do that, you're mortgaging your future to maximize your chances of winning a championship this year. The rest of the time, you figure baseball is a high variance game. You get into the playoffs and hope to get lucky.

It goes both ways. The Twins don't want to give the Tigers a prospect who's going to beat them up for five years.

I'm not applying for those jobs, just typing in the comments box here. But, yeah, I think that's the playbook for teams like the Twins, pretty clearly. Most of the time they should be trading away established players for prospects. Why? Because they usually can't or won't pay the freight for good players in free agency. To have a shot at contending, they have to have a steady flow of good pre-free-agency players. If you deviate too much from this playbook and you aren't a high-budget team, you end up looking like the Rockies or the Royals. The well runs dry for years at a time. I'm not an absolutist. Sometimes the market is different and there are opportunities. This year, some of the best available pitchers were on the Tigers and White Sox. Those trades are more difficult to pull off in both directions. Kikuchi cost the Astros a really high price in prospects. I am glad the Twins didn't match that offer. KC traded a low-grade relief prospect for Michael Lorenzen. That sounds good until you look at his recent performance. But that's probably the trade that has the best chance to look like one the Twins should have made. In conclusion: no I'm not saying you never trade away any prospects, but I think you've got to be way more cautious about it than the Yankees or Dodgers are.

Did you follow the Twins-Yankees and Twins-Orioles series? We're a dangerous enough team, but we usually can't hang with them. I think if you're the Twins, given the (perhaps self-imposed by the Pohlads) resource constraints, you hold your prospects close until you can see the whites of their eyes. OK, horrible mixed metaphor. I mean, you don't trade prospects away until the year where you have the best record in the league. Then you go for it. The rest of the time, you're trying to be good enough to make the playoffs and hope lightning strikes.

On the one hand, as someone reading this site you are likely a committed fan of the Pohlads' family bizniz here and this is more or less how it almost always is. It's infuriating, but if you expected otherwise, you are Charlie Brown and you haven't figured out that Lucy pulls the football out every single time. On the other hand, I'm not sure there was anything on offer that was worth the asking price to the Twins. We're not the Orioles where it looks like we have a great chance to win the 2024 World Series. We actually do have a chance, but it's not a great bet. I actually don't think this was the year to roll the dice and trade away a lot of prospect value.

It would be cool if Randy got a chance to start, became the team's ace in September and won three games in the World Series. Not saying that's going to happen, just that it would be cool.

I've gotta think this is the high grocery bills hitting the Pohlads in the pocketbook.

I would say they really value fielding. He's also getting a boost for baserunning. And it's a cumulative stat, so having more time with the team than (say) Carlos Correa explains a lot of it. it is striking that he's almost equal to Michael Cuddyer, who spent a lot more time with the team and was thought of as a real standout.

I was looking at Fangraphs' ranking of Twins position players by career WAR as a Twin and... I'm just the messenger.

I think the problem is the branding. WAR stands for wins above replacement. It claims to quantify how many wins the player would add to your team's record. But I don't see how you can ignore game situations in a statistic that makes that claim. If it were just branded as a composite of different averages - like Ultimate Player Rater or something like that - it would be easier to stomach. I don't buy the claim that it actually tells me how many wins a player would add at all. (As for WPA, I don't think it does that either. It's too situational and luck-based. It also ignores fielding. There should be a compromise between the two statistics.)

One of the critiques of WAR is that it doesn't take the game situation into account. That is, Vásquez's home run last night was worth just as much as if he'd hit it while losing 10-0. This critique comes from none other than Bill James. WAR is hegemonic right now - people on online message boards will attack you if you question it. But you do should question that part.

I mean, Vásquez must go up several notches in the estimate of Twinsdaily.com commentators. That home run at that moment means a LOT.

(whispers) we could call up rAnDy DoBnAk

Well I, for one, appreciate the A's. It's going to be a rude awakening playing an average MLB team in the D-backs.

Santana Is a pro.

These uniforms are some doofy Mariners ****.

It's a good question. Who knows. The patience question seems a lot like asking whether a investor should hold an under-performing stock or sell. You can come up with all kinds of fancy ways of answering that question, but in truth the stock could go either way, and you just don't know. But some investors are better at holding the stock for the right amount of time than others. Flourishing in a different system: I think that's definitely a thing. Prospects are people, and a new employer can make a big difference.

I used to think the Twins were bad at developing prospects. However, this recent Fangraphs article has a reasonable methodology, and their model shows that the Twins are pretty good - especially with hitting prospects. I'm not sure I 100% buy the model, but it's tempered my scorn for the Twins' prospect development a bit. I think it's just that young players are hard to develop, and there's a high failure rate. Also - has anyone checked out Brent Rooker's stats lately? The guy has an 868 OPS this year. Sometimes it just takes them a while.

You have to either laugh or cry.