Jham

Hey, it's the good Gibson tonight!

I didn't say his growth would be luck related. I'm saying Sano projects to have some years where luck helps his overall number, and some years where luck goes against him. Same as any other player. You can tell me what I used MiLB numbers to show and you're still wrong. Sano never had any MiLB season like Bryant's. And though "perceived chance" may seem arbitrary to you, what's not arbitrary about predicting the future? We could use things that are less arbitrary like putting up actual money, but I sort of think "Wanna bet?" is a little childish. But essentially that's what we're doing. We're betting the future of the franchise on these prospects in "wait and see" fashion. That's part 1 of my question. Does this class project well enough to deserve the "wait and see" approach. To me, it's darn close. Perhaps it's good enough if we had any pitching at all. The 2nd part of my question is: Does Sano's realistic ceiling (he was just 1 example) warrant a "wait and see" approach while other teams may be offering pitching or attractive prospect packages now. Do we bet on Sano or on the prospect packages? I didn't even draw a conclusion. I just asked questions. But if you believe Sano and Bryant have the same chance at the same type of success, I dunno what to tell you. If you think Sano is going to get faster, more flexible, or stronger as he gets older, I don't know what to tell you. If you think Sano is ever going to reduce his K's down to 21%... My only point is that "elite" gets thrown around a lot. Bryant is elite. Trout is elite. Sano has flaws. Doesn't mean he's not a great player. But is he good enough? You could still answer the question. It's only meant for fun, and you can't be wrong unless you guess 100% or 0%.

So Sano and Buxton are like dry-aging to maximize flavor and tenderness? Can I at least get a quality Kentucky bourbon while i wait? Or was that Nunez... now I'm confused... as long as we're not dry aging ground chuck and just watching it spoil. Also, no one order the Kobe beef. Overrated, too expensive, and breaks its leg in its first game.

I think I'm the one doing the Bryant comparison. As Jimmer stated, you can be patient waiting for a first class 28 oz bone in cowboy ribeye or 12 oz fillet with truffles, but should you're probably not being as patient for 16oz T-bone at a Peoria truck stop. You could luck into a really really good steak there, but the odds are you'll be madder about the 90 minute wait than you are happy with the result. Which is my point: does the talent we have vs the talent they could return warrant the patience? Plus our roof is leaking (pitching) should we really be waiting patiently for steak dinners?

Could be, but if Sano had that sort of success in him, you think he'd have demonstrated it at some point. If he was going to take a major step forward, I think we'd have seen it by now. Bryant can actually regress from his MiLB season to be an MVP candidate. He's shown he can do it. Sano's played professionally for 6 years with a year rehabbing an elbow. Physically, he won't get more gifted as his career advances. We're not waiting for his body to fill out. There's a good chance that this is who he is. His approach should improve, and luck should ebb in his favor for a season or two where he might approach 40 or might approach .300. You can answer my question since we're on the subject of missing points. What % chance do you put on Sano reaching even Bryant's current level of production (Bryant has more room to improve relative to his MiLB #s).

So we have one 0% vote, and a 40% vote. My biggest issue with Sano is his swing plane which generates too much topspin and his K's which both bring down BA and OBP. Bryant has not demonstrated those issues, while Sano has never really shown an ability to hit for average and not strike out. Bryant hasn't really faced those struggles (30% last season down to 21% this year). So Sano has been known as a precocious type his whole career. I think it would be odd for him now to be a late bloomer, but I'm less optimistic. I'd still say he has a 10-20% chance of making some adjustments and getting to Kris Bryant's level. But I think there's at least that much of a chance that he's basically at his peak now. Right now, I think he's still got the reputation around the league. By the time we know he's a positionless .260 hitter with 30-35 HR and top 5 in K's, so will the rest of the league. That's pretty good, but not really a rare talent. I'd be completely in your boat of waiting and hoping for the best if we had any other way of obtaining pitching. I can just see all those failed rebuilds in Kansas City and Pitt and Houston having conversations about their guys for a decade straight before the right group finally came along and everyone says, "See, it's because the embraced the rebuild." Yankees signed Andrew Miller and Ardolis Chapman and turned them for big hauls. And they're still competing because they just accumulate talent. The Twins need to accumulate talent, not hoard it.

Yeah I'd expect the kid who'd been playing professionally since 16 to be better than the college kid. Are you saying that professional baseball is easier than college? What percentage chance do you believe Sano has of reaching or surpassing Bryant's current level of production?

Took the Royals 1/4 of a decade for that strategy to work. And it still appears they got a little lucky.

You're right. It is to early to REALLY know what we have. But it doesn't mean we shouldn't try to project. And no one in our system projects to be close to Kris Bryant at this point. You can keep your fingers crossed and hope for the best, or you can be proactive and try to get better prospects. Bryant's pedigree had a much better chance of success, and more importantly, his type of success than Sano, Buxton, or anyone. Bryant's slashes for 181 games: .327 .426 .667 1.092. Sano's: .277 .372 .562 .934 in 453 games. 55 HR in 181 games vs. 107 HR in 453. The Cubs may not have known that Bryant was a super star. But, I mean, you see the numbers.

True. I mean, hypothetically, the statement could have been more lip service for the decidedly anti-metric TR, as he was applying for a job at the time. I also think there's a difference between managing through analytics and developing a team through analytics. With the available metric data available, and most every team working off the same stats (or developing and hiding their own), there's a much more level playing field as players are reduced to numbers. If the metrics playing field is level, the teams to get an advantage will be the teams that best analyze the variables that metrics miss. Of things that can cause a player to exceed their sabremetric prediction of production, I think effort, concentration, and stamina over 162 games (along with health) are probably the biggest factors other than maybe lady luck.

Sorry if I was less than clear. I wasn't comparing their development. I'm comparing their overall talent. If you don't have guys like that, do you tear it down and try to get one, or just try to develop your in-house guys to their top talent level and hope it's good enough? Basically hope for some luck and career years. I'm just looking at our roster and suggesting that none of our guys look to be as good those guys. Rebuilding around a stud or trying to get a stud makes some sense. Rebuilding around a potentially solid core is risky, because eventually, you have to beat teams that have those generational talents. We thought we might have 2. In hindsight, that was foolish. There were signs and distinguishing factors between the extraordinary players mentioned, and our guys with only freak upside. So tough decision.

... but compare to playoff line-ups. Are any of these guys Chris Bryant, Bryce Harper, Edwin Encarnacion, or Xavier Bohgarts, etc? We have no one who projects to be better than these guys, except Dozier, and who knows how long he's around. We're either going to have put together an elite rotation, an elite bull pen, or hope for career years and luck. Or we can restart the rebuild, trade off Buxton and Sano for younger prospects and hope we follow the Astros timeline versus the Royals/Pirates of the 90s/00s. I think sometimes we overestimate how likely it is that an entire team of good players develops at once. It's worked for us in the past, but usually, looking back, our talent levels were better than we thought. Most of the time, rebuilds involve trying to get a couple transcendent talents to build around. Sacrificing whole seasons to build an average squad is pretty risky.

Molitor vs. Mientkiwicz 2.0 http://twinsdaily.com/articles.html/_/minnesota-twins-news/minnesota-twins/the-merits-of-mientkiewicz-and-molitor-r3116?st=50#commentsStart Seems that the main point favoring Molitor over Dougie, was Molitor's willingness to embrace the Metric game. He hasn't. Doug was seen as the type of fiery motivator who could get better effort from young players. (I believe the biggest benefit of effort in baseball is better mental focus, tough over 18 holes of golf, let alone 162 games in a summer, better focus = faster development/learning, etc.) Doug also never said he'd disregard metrics. Almost the opposite. He'd listen. This is probably a better route than blindly following metrics, to the point where you don't see the gaps, holes, and flaws in the stats. Keep in mind, Doug played when Moneyball came out and said defense didn't matter. He was a defensive specialist. (In actuality, defensive metrics just couldn't be calculated well yet/still). Also, metrics favor OBP, but perhaps still undervalue the metric as it is now perpetually lumped in with SLG as equals. Doug was .360 career OBP guy. He also measured 13 DRS in the first year bbref calculated it (2 years after his back to back GG awards). So you can see why he's leery about metrics. My biggest issue with metrics is that it disregards anything it can't measure. Ironically, it's metrics that now allow us to appreciate Doug more as a ballplayer than he may have been during his career. It's my hope that as metrics has shifted its view of Doug, Doug may shift his view for metrics.

Ok, tru. Probably can't fire the Pohlads, and wouldn't necessarily expect the family to have more sports or baseball intellect than this forum. So I'm going to stick with Molitor running a flawed system, incomplete system, or no system at all. It seems like we generically try to develop players, then he just gets them and doesn't know them, trust them, or correctly play them. Hunter came back last year and said the whole culture had changed from hard-nosed competitive winners to a bunch of guys collecting checks (paraphrasing). Losing sucks. At some point it's easier not to be frustrated all the time, to just accept losing, to not care. That's my biggest fear. Molly's lost the team.

Molitor is the alpha in this organization. We chose him over Mientkiwicz who was more popular with the kids we were looking to develop. He had successful managerial experience in the minors. Understood the Twins way, but also had success with a more progressive organization. We selected Molitor again over his boss, Terry Ryan. In most cases, the manager develops the system, the minor leagues implement the system. GM finds pieces for the system, or the system finds ways to utilize the players. Our problem is systemic. If our call-ups can't contribute, that's on Molitor. It's clearer now than ever that this is his system, and this is his mess. On the aside, I hated the Molitor decision from the beginning. I think Dougie can coach. But I mostly couldn't see a manager with no experience leading a group of inexperienced players. He has not gotten any better with in-game decisions over 3 years. None. He still allows Zuke to hit when we need a HR and have power bats available, he still gives to long a leash to vets and stubbornly benches younger players who eventually prove him wrong again and again. Meanwhile, when a young player struggles, they are consistently run out there game after game until they're sent down. He has shown no ability to manage a rotation or a bull pen. He overworks his pen and doesn't alter usage once guys start burning out (seeing it now with Press and Kintz). He bunts too often. He plays for ties too often. And he's reluctant to make a mistake. Almost all of his moves are reactionary rather than anticipatory. I posted in the Rosario thread that he benched Eddie the Stick for a throw that was probably the right play, and at worst, at worst, cost the team 2% chance of winning. That's poor managing, but also shows Molitor's utter inability to play the modern game, understand percentages, and learn from mistakes. He actually compounded the mistake by making the right play (throwing home with 2 outs) a teachable moment for Eddie and the rest of the team. I'm usually not so negative, but it's been 3 years. I expected mistakes 3 years ago. I can't abide his "playing the right way" attitude when it so often flies in the face of what the actual right play is. These little calls might only change your chances of winning a couple percent, but they add up over a 162 games. So a 2% shift is actually pretty significant. Rosario throwing home probably actually improved our chances of winning (before he threw) by 4-5% (although it didn't work out and cost us only 2%). But if that situation came up every game, that's 8 wins by the end of the season. Obviously, the chances to swing things that much don't come up all that often, but the small percentages still add up. Consistently making moves that hurt your chances of winning, and calling guys out and benching them for making the right play is unacceptable. And I know a lot of TD posters thought that was a dumb play by Rosario last night because we were taught that. That was my initial reaction, til I saw how close the play was and realized that the game ends if he makes it. Regardless, Twins Daily isn't paid to make baseball decisions, teach young players, or win games. Took me 5 minutes to check and see if Rosario's throw was a smart risk or stupid risk. A manager in today's game should know. Or at least check and learn. Molitor is not a manager in "today's game" but somehow, he's still our manager.

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.

What are a few September AB's gonna tell us that we don't already know? He's not going to suddenly be able to make contact and cut K's or stop flashing potential power. His latest half season showed his K rate to be down somewhat. A cup of coffee for the efforts would have been nice. But Beresford has repeated AAA for how many years? It would be fun watching him take batting practice, but live pitching would be rough. He already received 1 reward last season when we added him to the 40 man. All he had to do was cut the K's and he probably gets an in-season look. He'll have another chance next year, at which point I think he'll get the appreciation look if he doesn't improve. What's the average adjustment from AAA OPS and K rate to MLB?

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.

Dozier easily scores from first on that (if everything else happened the same) and he easily could have been thrown out... smh.

Why play for a tie in the 7th at home again? Stupid bunt. Stupid steal. We need at least 2 runs to win no matter what. Stupid.

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!

ABW3 to get called up after all?

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.