Jham

Does Gibson tip his pitches? His slider has a ton of table-top break to it, and his fastball has run, yet the K's never came to the extent projected as a prospect.

Plouffe should have turned and ran after that ball instead of backpedaling...

Wait, were the Twins wrong about Slowey? He ended up being pretty terrible after that breakout season right? Just because a starter had immediate success doesn't mean they'll have sustainable success. Slowey wasn't better than pavano or duensing or Blackburn despite having 1 good year. May should start, but i think we need to be realistic about our expectations regarding his results and health.

Sano or Kepler for the right ace might make sense, but unlikely to happen. Getting rid of Plouffe to get Sano in makes sense. Getting rid of Plouffe just to keep say Vargas or Palka makes no sense. I'd rather spend the little bit extra for the better player and insurance in case Sano can't field.

You can open up Roster space without dumping plouffe. You unnecessarily limit your options falling into that mentality. If there's no market for Trevor, why not explore a trade for...

I think Polanco's extreme arm angle makes his arm strength look weaker than it is. I'd like to see him keep that elbow a little higher, but other than plays in the hole, his quick release likely makes up for arm strength on most plays.

I was thinking grizzly bear slips on a banana peel and slides down the mountain head first... then gets picked off 2nd.

Come on TD! I need some analogies for what we just saw! Never mind.

I dunno... are you still considered on the roster if your bag is packed and waiting for you on the stairs of the dugout?

I remember Gardy saying Delmon wasn't that bad a fielder, that he just looked awkward. He was half right!

Santana cementing his position as 25.5th man...

Santana making a run for 24th man!

Wow, Gomez... Thanks! Still one of my favorites from that era...

You went to highschool with Jason Pierre Paul?

Like a profit...

Is anyone else getting suspicious that the Twins are considering Centeno for the full time starting gig next year? Not sure that's even a horrible idea, but the thought made me pretty nervous for a second....

I noticed the arm angle too. Wondering if it's an adjustment to get more sink on the change or if he's been tipping pitches or something... So far so good.

Duffy featuring a change up today? Or are those curves that aren't biting?

Is it safe to say that Kohl Stewart's stuff will never translate into strike out ability? He showed a little glimpse, the way Gibson showed a glimpse last year, but really, he seems pretty highly ranked in prospect lists but the lack of K's would indicate a fairly low ceiling as he gets closer to the big leagues, I would think.

Reported by Fangraphs in 2014 Fastball: 50 / 55 Slider: 40 / 45+ Changeup: 50 / 55 Command: 40 / 50 Future Value: 40 I would think his results would indicate a step up in some of these ratings or development of another pitch. I remember reading his fastball had hit 97. That would indicate he's already met or surpassed his projected fastball rating. It would be interesting to see if the numbers have been retooled at all, particularly that Future Value. He's got a big 6-5 frame. I have no idea what his delivery is like.

That's why you don't just throw guys in to the League and let them struggle their way through UNLESS you're convinced they can make it (hopefully Buxton). If Meyer was fully exposed as a flawed MLBer, we may still have Nolasco, and no chance to assess Santiago. I think we traded Meyer just in time.

Interesting. It appears his BABIP is fueled by his rather extreme FB tendencies: 47% this year compared to 34% league average. He's also been above average at getting infield fly balls (5% better this year). He's right at average for HR/FB, meaning the difference probably isn't his ability to stay in the ballpark in general. In fact, due to his FB tendencies, we'd expect greater than average HR allowed, a bad combination when combined with high BB's. You would think the walks and HR's would more than compensate for the fact that fly balls turn into outs at the highest rate (Low BABIP). Something other than pop ups and K's are keeping those walks from scoring apparently. New hypothesis: Santiago gives up a disproportionate amount of solo home runs, attacking hitters with no one on base. Santiago then picks when a runner gets on, looking for the pop up or strike out. He's good at getting both. His high pitch counts and short outings indicate picking. Basically, he'd rather walk in a run than give up a grand slam. Which is fine as long as he doesn't walk in a run then give up a grand slam. So you would look at total baserunners/9ip and multiply by HR/9ip, and that would be the expected amount of runs plated HR's. Then compare with the actual number of runs plated by the HR to remove even more luck out of the equation (premise whether a ball is caught or HR is somewhat luck). Then look for trends to see if a pitcher has a skill of avoiding more damaging HR or is more or less lucky. I get most of this would be within expected ranges for normal calculation of FIP, but for situations where you're looking at potential outliers, figuring out where the missing runs have gone (or in Nolasco's case, where extra runs came from) could be a useful tool .

Here's the Angel's forum's reaction: http://www.halosheaven.com/2016/8/1/12348720/breaking-down-the-hector-santiago-trade Interesting takeaways: 1) Halos fans think they won, or at least tied in this trade. 2) Angels fans are more frustrated than Twins fans somehow. 3) They hate Santiago, his walks, and his pitch count. 4) They love Meyer's upside, 1 poster even suggesting that Antony got fleeced and taken advantage of. 5) The Angels have one of the worst ranked farm systems in the game, Busentiz was unranked, and despite their lack of prospect talent, Meyer ranks only 12 in their system. They make a good point about our salary dump. If we arbitrate with Santiago and pay him $8-$10 mil next year, along with $4mil of Nolasco, we didn't really shed any salary at all. They speculate that our intention is to non-tender Santiago after the season. Basically both sides got rid of frustrating players and are snickering waiting for the other to realize their mistake. Sort of funny actually. From a homer standpoint, I think they don't know how well they had it with Hector.

Per the fangraphs xFIP explanation page: http://www.fangraphs.com/library/pitching/xfip/ Most often a pitcher's ability to outperform xFIP exists because they can limit HR. Particularly HR/FB%. Additionally, some pitchers tend to give up solo blasts while cruising with a 3-5 run lead (common for aces) which obviously hurt less than 3 run blasts. Those pitchers would be expected to have low walks. To me, this explained a lot of Trevor May's under-performance last year. He limited walks and HR to a degree he never had before, but still gave up big innings and 3 run HR at a larger than expected rate for his walk and HR totals. Nolasco seems to fall into the big inning trap as well. Anecdotaly, he is pitching somewhat deep into games but is giving up a lot of runs. He may be sacrificing hits for walks which will look darn nice in FIP or xFIP terms, but as the few remaining BA fans out there will tell you, a single produces a much better outcome than a walk. Without reviewing the stats, my hypothesis is that Santiago is really good at limiting HR or giving up solo HR, a skill that Fangraphs acknowledge exists that throws off xFIP. It also appears Santiago walks a lot of guys. But the walks must hurt him at a less than expected rate which could mean he doesn't give in to guys, has a knack of following up with a K, or has above average ability to convert 1 base walks into double plays. Now I need a team of interns to check the stats.

The moves aren't supposed to make us competitors next season. Buxton, Sano, Kepler, and Berrios are.