TheDean

The thing with WAR (fWAR or rWAR) is that the defensive component is still based on "runs" (either Ultimate Zone Runs or Defensive Runs Saved, respectively), so they accumulate with playing time. There's no need to "recalculate" because you're just summing totals just like career RBIs or HRs or HBPs or whatever. The only difference is that a below-average defensive year can result in a negative value, whereas traditional counting stats cannot (no such thing as a negative HBP... I think!). All the aforementioned flaws of UZR and DRS (and Total Zone) remain, but just wanted to make that point. Also, the position changes are already taken care of by assigning the bonus runs on a per-inning basis. Mauer earned a lot of "bonus" catching runs earlier in his career, but he no longer does. If you agree with the premise of WAR, you can still compare Biggio to Papi, understanding that Biggio offered value in being able to "run" faster than 2 MPH at an all out sprint and do things with baseballs in his hand or glove to prevent the other team from scoring, and that that component of his game should be included in his "value" as represented by WAR to his team(s). WAR has flaws like all stats, but the point of creating it was to give us a starting point for comparisons between players as different as Ortiz and Biggio. We all have our own opinions on whether we think it succeeds at its intentions!

Finally catching up on my adopted prospects. Since my last update, Peterson has pitched in 6 games. In none of his appearances did he notch fewer than 2 Ks. Yesterday, he made his first professional start, which I believe is also his first since pitching as a JuCo pitcher in DesMoines. He gave up two ERs on four hits with two walks and two strikeouts before being pulled after one out in the third inning. Until yesterday, he had not given up a run in over a month, since July 10. Over the last month, his role has varied from mop-up, to setup, and even to starter (just once!), but the numbers are very good. BbRef has batters compiling a .082/.211/.102 against him over the last 28 days, and .177/.249/.226 on the season (.295 BAbip). At Ft. Myers, he holds a 2.02 ERA and an even 1.000 WHIP. I deem the walk rate a "slight concern" but not a problem at 3.6 and SO/9 is strong at 12.6. Peterson holds second place for FIP (1.78) in the FSL, second in AVG against, and fifth in K% (or K/9) (30 IP min.). It's possible that he could be a candidate for a trip to the Northeast if an August/September chain reaction of promotions to the big leagues leaves vacancies on upper minors rosters.

Those are the magic words, after all. I said the same thing about Butera, Morales, Fuld, Correia, and Hammer. As fans, it seems we're disappointed about the returns on the former fan-favorites (Morneau, Liriano, et al.) but always surprised at the returns on the punching bags (Butera, Correia, et al.). Not sure if that's just an aspect of fandom, or if it's an attribute of TR's general management style.

An unfortunate 3 game hitless streak is the topic of today's update on Barrie in the GCL. That streak includes a GDP and an August 1st game in which Barrie recorded two errors at 1B. With only one XBH on the year, the OPS numbers are not kind to Barrie as his line sits at .228/.313/.246.

All of the Mauer memes that are perpetuated by columnists and forum posters alike had almost conditioned me to expect a SO last night. Luckily, the real world isn't governed by memes. Nearly 1500 career PAs w/ Men in Scoring position says: .929 OPS, 12th among active players. The names ahead of him include Pujols, Ortiz, Cabrera, so yeah, I agree - not too many that I'd pick before him.

If it were a video game, that's definitely how I would manage it, moving Mauer to a corner OF spot. A lineup that includes Vargas, Pinto, Suzuki, Mauer, Dozier, Santana, Arcia (when healthy), Plouffe, and Escobar. At the very least, I don't think opposing pitchers would want to groove a meatball to any of them. Reality is that I think Gardy would hesitate to have the perceived team cornerstone picking up a new position in the last few months. Maybe he'll prove me wrong though. Who knows, I remember seeing someone on TD mentioning that Vargas wanted OF time back in AA. I haven't seen many of his starts at 1B, but does he even move as well as Arcia/Hammer?

I've been away from internet for a while, so here's the overdue AaP post for Garver: Since his 3-HR night on the 21st of July, Garver has slugged 3 more homers bringing him to 4th place on the Twins organizational leaderboard with 15, behind Walker, Rodriguez, and Vargas. Teammates Haar and Murphy are close behind with 14 and 12 respectively (12 HRs already for a 2014 draftee!? Wow.). His slash line is holding a respectable .295/.387/.485 good for an OPS of .871 (for the math-challenged). That OPS easily leads all full-season Twins minor leaguers (> 300 PA). Garver has continued to alternate between catching and DHing at a roughly 50/50 split, and he hasn't played 1B since May - presumably the staff has decided to keep him focused on catching skills and hitting. With many big-name Twins position-player prospects injured or ineffective, Garver has shown some of the best all-around results for the Twins minor leagues, hitting for average, taking walks, and flashing power while playing a premium position.

Yeah, I have to applaud it all. I know some of the posters here are a bit uneasy about the Suzuki extension, but I was just happy to see one of the two palatable outcomes (trade or extension) rather than letting him leave for nothing. Overall, I don't have many complaints. Who knows, maybe a Hammer move coupled with a Meyer callup is in order soon.

Hitters with over 100 PA at Rochester in 2014, ranked by OPS: Parmelee Herrmann Pinto Colabello Romero Bernier After Bernier, the list is all <.700 led by ... Florimon No one on that list screams "I should get ABs instead of CC or Parms" to me, with the exception of Pinto. Heck, there really aren't any new faces at AAA to begin with. A little depressing.

Looks very straightforward. Everyone in that August rotation is already on the 40, and Meyer's addition to the 40 in September would be compensated for by the removal of Burton/KC/Hammer. In September, there is no limit on the active roster of course (aside from the 40-man limit), so no issues there.

I agree with the others here. He fills a useful spot on the roster for now with Plouffe at 3B, Santana in CF, and Eddie E at SS, but once that situation changes, he could be gone. He could stick if some of the bottom-order bats get traded in the offseason. Not sure if he, Plouffe, Eddie E, Parms, Colabello, et al. could really fetch much, but I can see at least a few getting moved/DFA'd if Hicks, Ortiz, and/or Polanco make the team next year (I'm assuming Sano and Buxton will get more time in the EL). Really, I'm happy with Nunez so far. I haven't facepalmed as much with him in field as Yankees fans promised me I would, and 84 wRC+ isn't great, but he's a bench utility guy that replaced Butera on the roster, so what do you expect?

I'm confused by the deal. I don't know much about Franklin, except that he's a solid MI. Smyly has a 3.92 ERA in 35 G as a starter. Milone has a 3.85 ERA in 72 G. We got Milone for Fuld. TB got Smyly (and Franklin) for one of the top SP of this era? There's more to this, but I wouldn't be happy as a Rays fan.

Meh, how far could Molina move the needle on these guys? Pelfrey, Darnell, Johnson, Pino, Deduno, Swarzak, KC are all low-ceiling guys at the ML-level. No catcher will ever put them in the middle of MLB pitching categories, ever. Gibson is still figuring things out. Hughes is pitching above career norms. The only guy there's a case for Suzuki proving that his reputable game calling is actually false is Nolasco because he's so far away from career norms.

I don't like using AdBlocker...after all, only ad-based website revenue streams will be able to destroy satellite/cable tv once and for all, I hope. However, the autoplay ads got annoying to the point that I disabled plugins on TD a couple weeks back. For what it's worth, about 75% of ad space on the page is still utilized by legitimate ads, and the other 25% shows Chrome's puzzle piece symbol indicating that it's a video ad. I guess I'm saying all of this because I wonder to what extent advertising servers require TD to host ads that require plugins (in this case they're all using Adobe flash player). If all the ads were just static images, I'd be a happy camper!

Another 10 days, another pair of appearances for Peterson. Against the Cubs, Peterson came into the game in the 12th inning, hoping to give the offense another chance to bail out the pitching after a number of runs were given up by the bullpen earlier in the game to force extras. Peterson was the sixth reliever to see action during the game, relieving Wimmers who had pitched scoreless 10th and 11th innings. Peterson was dominant. He got his outs in the 12th, only to be called back for the 13th and the 14th. The Miracle had obviously run out of relief options, and Peterson was able to get 6 strikeouts and only allow 2 baserunners (walks) in his late 3 innings of relief. Unfortunately, the offense wasn't able to pick up Peterson to give him the win, and after his longest outing of the season (in terms of both IP and BF), the Miracle had to go to the pen twice more, eventually losing in the 17th. Against the Manatees, Peterson had some control problems, walking two, but struck one out, benefited from a runner caught stealing, and got a fly ball out to escape unscathed. On the season, his ERA is down to 2.17, and his peripherals almost perfectly match his Cedar Rapids numbers (K/9 up to 13.3) with the exception of walk rate.

Barrie hasn't quite been playing every day for the GCL Twins. His recent numbers don't exactly jump off the page, and recently he has struggled to find a walk or anything more than the occasional single. As a result, his season slash has fallen to .263/.364/.289. Most noticeable is the lack of power generated from a guy built like an ox out of HS (6'5", 250 lbs.). I'm sure he is still raw and working with the hitting coaches, so hopefully those singles can start turning into doubles and home runs.

Kubel had a brief hot-streak, but I can't abide the number of PAs he was given. His spring training was terrible, he got a bit lucky to start the year, and then proceeded to tank to a sub-Hicks wRC+. SUB-HICKS! His lack of defensive value was so great that he managed -1.1 rWAR in his time here. At least Presley has been exactly replacement-level in nearly all aspects of his game for Houston. Guerrier's results were fine, but it was an unnecessary luck-based solution that only served to block other pitchers. Wasted an option on Pressly for no reason. Bartlett...well I'm going to admit that I thought it was nbd when it happened. 25th man, right? Well, I'm here to owe up to my misjudgment. My bad, folks. If you believe in WAR, his rate of -0.2 rWAR in 4 PAs is kind of impressive in its smallest sample size of terribleness.

For those curious, yes even after over half a season of baseball, you can drastically raise your OPS overnight. Garver went from .849 before yesterday's game to .886 today. The wonders of 5 PAs at a 3.000 OPS clip Until yesterday's game I was going to say that Garver had been putting in work but hadn't been hitting the lights out over the last week or two. A 3 HR night certainly changes how you look at recent performances, and I think Garver clearly has the tools to put the MWL past him whenever an opportunity opens up in the FSL. Garver has retaken his position atop the Twins organization OPS leaderboard (>150 PAs) from Reynaldo Rodriguez. Other contenders include Vargas, Romero, and Kanzler. With more PAs, the Rookie-league guys, Buxton, Hicks, and Herrmann would be up there too. [TABLE] Age AgeDif Tm G PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS GDP HBP 23 1.5 CedarRapids 85 355 307 50 93 20 1 12 61 5 4 38 50 .303 .394 .492 .886 6 9 [/TABLE] Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table Generated 7/22/2014.

I agree in that I'm not sure whether everything is measurable (especially when it comes to catchers), but, for what it's worth, DRS has Suzuki pegged for 3 defensive runs saved above average for pitch calling (3rd best in the MLB). From what I understand, that considers how much effect the catcher has on improving the pitchers' ERAs from what they would have been. I take this to mean that his pitch calling more than balances out his (apparently) league-renowned poor framing skills. On the other hand, he loses two runs for stolen bases...and I think it's well established that he has a relatively short and weak arm for a catcher. Too address jorgenswest, there are too many variables in pitcher results to use them as a judge of catcher performance. What if one catcher happened to catch more than their share of the #4 - #7 starters for a team? What if those games came against very talented offensive teams? When it comes to catchers, I believe that you need to either use an eye-test (best used by experienced fans/coaches/trainers/players i.e. not me) or advanced statistics. For example, Pinto might have a lot of pb and wp credited, but we know he was catching Deduno in most of his starts. However, I agree that maybe it's not something to worry about that much because ultimately pitchers are responsible for their performance. We could pull a MiLB catcher of your choosing and put him on the A's and I think the pitcher stats to his name would look quite good, but that's an inevitability when you're catching Samardzija, Gray, et al.

I think it's interesting to reflect on how the season progresses and doesn't necessarily change opinions on TD, but brings different voices to the forefront. Going into the season, I think it was a somewhat widely held belief that Pinto needed to play and Suzuki needed to backup. Personally, at that time, I would have thought extension talk would be slim-to-none at this point in the season, just because I think TD generally believed Pinto was the future and Suzuki was a stop-gap. Here we are in late July and Suzuki is getting quite a bit of extension talk and Pinto is in AAA with doubts about his ability to be a ML catcher. A lot can change in a few months of baseball...but that's why I enjoy watching it.

Report from the farm is that Garver smashed 3 long ones today vs. Ft. Wayne for 5 RBI. Going into the game, he had 4 HR in the last 90 days, so he was due for a power surge, but I'm not sure anyone expected it to all come in one game (except for perhaps Mr. Nygaard who is taking all the credit on Twitter)!

Seeing that 5-RBI night for Ortiz, I wouldn't mind him putting on a Twins uniform and covering LF when (not if) Hammer gets traded. Seeing the young guys get playing time is quickly looking like the only redeeming quality of the second half, even if we suffer through a few "Ozzie/Danny/Danny 9K nights" .

I think I just saw a few tumbleweeds roll through here.

Exactly. I know that people on TD are dedicated to following the Twins, but if you've been watching them the last few years, then you begin to appreciate how hard it is to find average starting ML-caliber players. That's distinctly different from replacement-level. That's even different from just generally average players. We're talking average ML-starters. All it takes is a look at the wRC+ (or OPS+) of players fielded for significant PAs recently. If you're looking at >100 PAs, Plouffe is 8th on the team. Ahead of him are question marks about sustainability (Santana/Fuld/Nunez), trade-candidates (Zukes/Hammer), and real parts of a future Twins team (Dozier/Pinto). Looking ahead to 2015, Plouffe could be the #3-#5 bat on the Twins depending on projection of Mauer and Arcia. I see him as a solid defensive and offensive cornerstone, and that has value in future Twins teams or in trades.

Peterson has only pitched twice in the last 10 days. In a game against the Palm Beach Cardinals he relieved Steve Gruver who had one runner on base with one out in the eighth. He allowed a double and a single, scoring the inherited runner and giving up an earned run of his own. He got out of the inning two strikeouts later. Against Dunedin, he struckout two, allowed a walk, got a popout to complete the eighth inning. [TABLE] AgeDif Tm W L ERA G GF SV IP H R ER HR BB SO BF WHIP H9 HR9 BB9 SO9 SO/W -0.8 2 Teams 2 1 1.91 28 15 4 37.2 29 9 8 0 10 55 151 1.035 6.9 0.0 2.4 13.1 5.50 0.0 CedarRapids 1 0 0.71 9 7 3 12.2 9 1 1 0 2 19 48 0.868 6.4 0.0 1.4 13.5 9.50 -1.2 FortMyers 1 1 2.52 19 8 1 25.0 20 8 7 0 8 36 103 1.120 7.2 0.0 2.9 13.0 4.50 [/TABLE] Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table Generated 7/16/2014.