Jham

To me, this all boils down to reduced bat speed with perhaps some lingering concussion issue. Mauer's approach has always been to let the ball get deep then use his exceptional hands and compact swing to make perfect contact. Seeing the ball longer allowed better pitch selectivity. As his bat speed has declined, he's had to start his swing earlier to catch up, and he's not able to be as selective. He's beaten by fastballs and off speed pitches. He's guessed more and more. There are a lot of good hitters who guess a lot, start their swings early, and strike out. Mauer has only barely adjusted his approach and swing. It may make sense for him to experiment with a leg kick and a power stroke since he has to start his swing earlier anyway. Might as well start it much earlier. But yeah, my prediction is continued decline.

I mean, they did what they set out to do back then. That's not luck. i was just pointing out the irony of the fact that they were unwittingly playing moneyball while they were (rightly) critical of the early metrics. The reason I said it was lucky, is because the team never changed its philosophy even as the metrics improved (in some cases vindicating the front office's initial skepticism). As the metrics improved, the guys that slipped through to the Twins started getting paid more and by better teams. The Twins then seemingly desperately tried to switch horses and go to power arms and bats with disastrous results. The idea of stocking up on huge major league ready bullpen arms was actually super-savvy and ended up being the model that won a WS for the Royals, almost won it for the Indians, and attempted by the Yankees. The problem is those big college arms weren't as big league ready as we thought. The evolution of metrics is fascinating to follow. The Twins seemingly beat the metrics by focusing on the areas where metrics initially missed (defense and ground balls), but there are fewer and fewer gaps between the stats now. As such, I wonder how relevant Moneyball is in today's game. The metrics are now commonly available to fans, let alone analytics staffs. Are there traits that are still currently undervalued in the market? Enough to make a difference in roster construction? The gap in analytics might be foreign markets where stats aren't available, and player development which still seems totally unpredictable. The Twins have been hit and miss in the first, and pretty poor in the latter.

I haven't seen many people say the Twins did a bad job drafting. I've seen some criticism of maximizing and developing talent, of holding on to and supplementing talent, and hitting on impact players. Hard to dispute a ton of that. Regarding the draft, the Twins were vocal with their organizational strategy of taking safe college arms and toolsy high school athletes early. Basically, they took safe (and cheaper) approaches than riskier high-upside arms or more expensive position players with more highly advanced skills. This strategy did not seem to change regardless of the available talent pool, or how drafting and scouting changed with analytics. The strategy worked better when analytics were limited. As teams pushed all in on Moneyball strategies that emphasized OBP and HR, the Twins continued to emphasize limiting walks and playing defense. The metrics scoffed at this approach and the Twins kept winning. The metrics caught up, and pitching and defense became coveted across the league. The Twins had actually taken advantage of a market weakness, the infancy of defensive and pitching metrics, by shear luck. Guys we used to be able to add and use are now pricing us out. Basically, like many of our prospects, we failed to develop. Let's also keep in mind, the available path to the League should be a lot easier on this team. We should have more picks making the show, at least for an audition. With that in mind, it's no wonder it seems we've got loads of fringe 40 man players being protected or cut with little relevance outside of TD forum fodder.

Is Pat Light developing a knuckle ball or something? Or does he not qualify because his 98 was actually 93.

I agree 100%. That is the question I was raising. If Dozier can't bring back a franchise changing pitching package, what are our options? Here's how I see them: 1. Take the best package we can get even if it's not a perfect exchange of value. 2. Accept a package that includes riskier prospects that are further away (not likely to help in the next 2 years) 3. Stand pat and hope the market for pitching and trading improves by next season. 4. Try to acquire pitching through trades of prospects or current players more coveted than Dozier. I think we cheer for Cubs and hope the Dodgers end up a right handed bat short of the Series. But I don't want to give away Dozier the way we gave away Span (even though that was probably a necessary risk). If we trade Dozier, I'd prefer there not be much risk involved.

I wouldn't be surprised if Dozier was shopped at the deadline without much interest. He's cheap, he's really really good, and he's worthy of a trade package involving an MLB ready blue chip pitching prospect. If that's not being offered, then what's the point in trading him. Keep in mind, the idea is that we're trying to make our team better not just younger. Also, Buxton, Sano, Kepler, Rosario and Berrios are already up. Arcia is gone, DanSan is practically gone. Gibson is a non-tender candidate. Exactly what stage of the rebuild are we in? Are we at the end of a failed rebuild, the beginning of a new rebuild, or the middle of a new new rebuild? I mean, if Buxton, Sano, Kepler, Berrios et al are our core, exactly how many seasons do we expect to be able to keep them all? Are we willing to waste half of them chasing some future alignment of planets? Try to win with these kids once or twice, then rebuild. And if this isn't a good enough core anyway, Sano would bring back better pitching than Dozier.

Yuck. Depressing.

Also, the problem with waiting for your team to all develop at the same time, say 2019 is that those magical teams only happen every 20 years or so in baseball. Smart and continuous acquisition of talent is a far faster and more sustainable model. If you try to bring up a core and 3 of your 7 big prospects turn out to be really good, and the other 4 are decent role guys (probably best case scenario) you still might not be good enough to win. Then you wasted 3 years developing players, probably trading the 4 average players you have for nothing since by that time they're blocking your next wave, likely trading the few good players you have since your rebuild is now put out another 3-5 years. That model can work BUT you have to be absolutely sure that your core is going to be successful. What have we seen in the last year that leads you to believe the current young core is good enough to warrant punting 2 more seasons in order to let them develop? Conversely, if our kids are so good that they warrant that level of patience, how are they not talented enough to compete now? Good enough to give up on 2 seasons to develop, but not talented enough to compete now... That's a very small window. My thought is that if they're not good enough to compete entering their primes, they won't be able to compete when they hit their primes. If the talent's there, supplement it and try to win. If not, and that's a hard truth to consider, our young guys are our most trade-able assets. If you don't know, and I'm going to suggest that none of us know, then simply trying to acquire as much talent as you can for as much value as you can probably covers both bases better than guessing.

Well is the inverse true then? You'd trade maybe any pitcher for a good up-the-middle-prospect? If not, we just need to find a GM that thinks like you. Offer Gordon, receive Bob Gibson. I think all trades are about value. No absolutes.

My only take from these discussions is that the debates highlight the need for obtaining more pitching. Kohl Stewart appears to be a slightly worse Kyle Gibson. Jay has some upside. Gonsalves looks like a spitting image of Andrew Miller. The remaining possibilities including May are likely rotational filler. Improvement of this year seems unlikely, save Berrios, but that would probably be offset by a return to norm for Erv. Duffey and May both learned on the job. Hadn't really helped either of them. I think it can make guys gun shy, and fail to refine auxillary pitches.

Do you think this is what happened with Sano this year? I've been a little disheartened thinking that this season may be close to who he is as a player. He never hit for average, he struck out a bunch, despite elite power, he didn't necessarily put up elite HR totals. Then when he arrived, he showed a fairly quiet swing, good command of the zone, but a bit of a loopy upper cut swing. The result is a lot of top spin, and less barrel-time in the hit zone. Dozier retooling his swing to generate an even swing plane gives me hope that Sano can do the same thing but with the raw power to hit 50+. But where Dozer was too choppy and quick to the ball, Sano is too loopy and slow to the ball. Logically, getting the bat on plane would be easier if your swing started too high rather than too low since gravity is on your side. Thoughts on Sano leveling his swing, getting to the ball, and generating back spin?

If Murphy holds on to the ball, the runner runs straight into the tag, and the game ends. At that point, KC says the 3rd base coach made a horrendous play in sending the runner. Point is, there's a fine line. 1 out ends the game. If they're giving us an out with dumb base running, take it. I would say it was stupid if there was no outs or 1 out, but with 2, it's closer. He may have seen the runner as a dead duck cinch. Then he got excited and airmailed it slightly. Ball still beat the runner, catcher still easily tags him out if he catches it. (closer if the runner slides). Let's say the throw gets the out 80% of the time. The win expectancy calculator shows us to still have a 91% chance of winning those 20% of games we haven't already won. By adding the values, we have a 98% chance of winning if Rosario makes the throw. Let's say he doesn't make the throw, and the speedy Dyson stays at first. They still have to score with 2 outs in that situation. Win Expectancy calculator shows the Twins to have only a 93% chance of winning. The "horrendous" play actually gave us a better 5% better chance of winning. Now maybe you say Rosario only makes a good enough throw 50% of the time. Winning 91% of the remaining 50% puts us at 95.5%. A 1/3 chance at the out gives us a 94% chance of winning. Basically, the throw needs to be successful less than a third of the time to be the right play. The throw to the plate was probably actually the smart play. *Most interesting stat: the runner being at first vs second only changed the odds of winning by 2%! https://gregstoll.dyndns.org/~gregstoll/baseball/stats.html#V.1.9.2.2 (calculator used) I'll trade the chance to win the game on a throw to the plate from one of the best arms in the game for a 2% drop in win expectancy any day. Molly owes the kid an appologie.

I think too much is made of that throw to the plate. He took a risk. A good throw nails him he's out and the game ends if Murphy just hold on to the ball. Royals were giving us an out if you can execute the throw and catch. Dyson could have easily stolen and scored and we let a gettable out walk home. To me, it's similar to his getting thrown out stealing third to end the inning. If you're gonna try it, you better make it. I think he saw it as an easy out and a throw he can make 8/10 times. The risk probably outweighed the reward in that case, but probably not by as much as people are making it out to be. I think they didn't like the result. I mean, again, if murphy catches the ball, even with a fast from perfect throw, the runners out, game over.

Yeah, but wouldn't some of the suckiness be a sucking in a deficit that also doesn't decide games? I mean, if you go 4 for 5 in a game you likely won, and other guys probably also had good games. So I agree in the very short term, sort of. (Statistics would actually support the opposite notion, that 4/5 days have stronger correlation with winning than 0-5 days do for losing, but you're also more than 200% more likely to make an out than hit, so...) But if you go 40 for 115 and have faced an array of pitchers, I would guess your winning percentage is similar over that stretch regardless of how you got there. On the other hand, the idea that the same hits have different values depending on sequencing and clustering sort of turns our understanding of metrics on it's side. I like that. On the other hand, you could calculate something like team OPS on a per game basis. Then scatter plot the OPSs. Then calculate standard deviations for that team to come up with a consistency rating. Then compare consistency ratings between teams. Then see if OPS consistency has a positive correlation with team winning relative to their expected winning percentage vis a vis the team's OPS and pitching. If there is, calculate consistency ratings for individual players. If not, no sense calculating it, no one ever hears about it, and threads like these continue debating it.

I would be very puzzled if it made a difference when a player hit. Does it make a difference when a team wins? Other than the playoffs of course!

My point is, having another 2nd baseman on the team wouldn't prevent someone from grabbing Dozier's now 39 HR. No one's adding Dozier for his glove! Dozier can play 3rd or 1st, maybe even OF, or if you like him better, move your 2B over or into the OF. Whether he's traded depends a lot on the new regime, and teams' need to add offense in general. There shouldn't be a more "gettable" slugger this off season.

Maybe I am. Still think you're wrong. Span brought back Alex Meyer who projected as a 1-3 type. Revere brought May who was projected as a 2-4. Yoenis Cespedes netted Michael Fulmer. Corey Kluber was had for Jake Westbrook (similar to big Erv). You stated that Dozier couldn't be the centerpiece of an impact trade. That there was no way we could get close to what we consider fair return. I think most of us would be happy turning Dozier over for a good 2. Which for us would be an ace. Not to mention the fact that we have quite a few prospects to sweeten the pot. Duffey, May, Stewart, Jay, and numerous others further away are arms we probably aren't married to if the deal was right. Bottom line, Dozier is movable, and we don't need another team to add prospects.

Referring only to age, not effectiveness!!

I disagree. 38 HR can play at every single position on the diamond including DH. Not only could Dozier potentially move to first or third, but certainly many of the others you mentioned could also move first or third. How long will Cano and Kisler stay up the middle in your eyes?

Innings pitched seems like an archaic and arbitrary way of factoring usage. I mean, assuming most pitchers are on some sort of pitch count these days, a pitcher with fewer innings is probably throwing the same amount of pitches, but with fewer breaks. I would NOT send Gonsalves to the Fall League, and I can't imagine any good coming from it. Not every pitcher fully recovers given a full off season. I'd suggest that a pitcher's arm only has so many bullets. I'd rather he save them for the big leagues.

No comments about Dick's claim that Dozier is a plus defender? Is he?

K, yeah, Dozier's value will never be higher... He deserves some MVP consideration on an historically bad club. What a year.

Easy, Gophers are losing at home to Oregon State.

Which part... Mostly I was wondering aloud. I did presume to say Sano's swing was not going to change. I've mostly never seen anyone retool their swing. Dozier's actually 1, Bautista another. I'm not even sure Dozier's swing changed as much as his approach. I didn't follow Dozier's swing when he was hitting .300 with little power in the minors. But you'd assume his swing changed. I would guess the team has tried to get Sano to level out his swing so that he can catch up to high heat, cut k's, and generate more back spin, but from what I've heard, he's pretty reluctant. On a complete aside, I wish I knew why lefties can get away with that swing, but righties tend to need more straight to the ball swings...

Yeah Santana is a tough call. Unless we get a really nice return I keep him. We had a framework in place at the deadline. So we sort of know the market. Have to look up the deal. I mean, there's risks with golding or trading guys. Santana is a really close call. Hopefully it would be a win either way. We went young and left Kenny Rogers out and he made like 3 more all star games. We held on to Blackburn and he turned into a pumpkin. We traded Silva and that didn't work out either way. I'm thinking keep him since our pitching is so thin. Make your moves with Dozier, Polanco, Sano, our Buxton. I would also require controllable upside pitching in return, not necessarily a mlb ready pitcher. IE continue getting younger. I was against a tear down rebuild. And asked to keep the core a month ago. Now I think we probably saw the market for esan and doz and it didn't bring back the necessary return. I think we flip Sano or Buxton for legit pitching prospects, look for progress next year, and make a 2018 push. Santana makes more sense to deal after next season or at the next deadline.