twinsfan34

I could be walk-ing right into this one, but I think Prospect A has a shot. He improved YoY...and I think, if he's willing to make the adjustments, shorten his swing, etc (if that's what's needed)...he can still be a successful power hitter because he has so much power. Ironically, Jose Dariel Abreu has the same scouting report. Can't hit the inside fastball, destroys mistake pitches, tons of power. I don't know if he'd ever hit over .270 in the pros. Do the Twins have room for an average to above average OF...who hits .240-265...22-34 HR type of player. Maybe.

I like the move as well. Gets ride of Doumit and opens up a possible addition to the big club, if not Gilmartin.

He did concede that it would be easy to pick the Pirates, who had 2 picks in the top 14 choices. He thinks Ryan Eades could surprise, had great stuff for a top college team (LSU), but didn't quite produce. Stewart Turner, could be a great defensive catcher. Read elsewhere, he's one of the best receivers in MiLB, for all you pitch framing lovers. The guy I think could be special was also mentioned by Mayo, Brian Navaretto. a 6'4" 220 lb high school catcher with a big arm (1.80 pop time) and big power. Might take some time as he's pretty raw kid from Puerto Rico. Stephen Gonsalves, is a raw 6'5" left hander...shows some potential for plus offerings in his curve and change, although, he threw his fastball 86% of the time his SR year. I really liked Brian Gilbert and look for him to be a big move this year, possibly ending up at AA New Britain. Here's a rundown/recap of the top of 2013 Draft in case you needed a refresher. http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20130607&content_id=49913668&notebook_id=49139348&vkey=notebook_min&c_id=min Mayo's Article here: http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article/min/pipeline-perspectives-twins-had-best-draft-class?ymd=20131217&content_id=66028778&vkey=news_min Also note that Jim Callis says... "...Kohl Stewart, may have a higher ceiling than any 2013 draftee -- no team can match the Pirates. They got a pair of potential All-Stars at up-the-middle positions, and plenty of depth beyond them."

But yes, you're right - his BABIP and his AVG were definitely lower in 2012.

..."can" help...was the word I used. As opposed to someone else slower. We'd have to find something with balls hit in the IF and his AVG there versus the league average. Would be best weighted if we knew speed of each player relative to the average attained. if you're wanting something exact. His BABIP is definitely high, but it's not that high for someone with his K% and HR%. Mike Trout his .420 BABIP at A-ball. He's at .366 in MLB now. Paul Goldschmidt hit .385 in A+, he's a .340 guy in MLB. Add the HRs and his BABIP would be even higher.

Data sample was too small.

Sorry, that was more from the Phillies point of view. Have always liked Rollins as a player. His 2007 was magical. 20-20-20-20 season. 35 is probably too old to be relevant to the Twins window. My idea of thinking is if you're not able to compete or close to competing, try to figure out what the young guys can do - and if possible, get then as much game exposure as possible if they show growth. To make it a little bit of a discussion... If it was for one season only, I'd rather pay Rollins 11M than Stephen Drew 11M.

With the age of the players the Phillies have signed...may not want prospects. Seem more bent on 'win now'...probably because they're so old already and yet have so much money tied into it. It's almost like you're at the poker table...and you already got 80% of your chips in, and don't want to walk away without that 80% - so they'll risk the 20% remaining. Boston managed to reverse it though...so it can be done.

Can we send back Trevor May?

x<3.8 seconds to first base can definitely help one's BABIP.

Thorpe looks like he'll pitch this year at class A, Cedar Rapids. He'll be 18. So it's like his senior year of high school this coming spring. How many high school pitchers would begin in Class A or even make it to class A their first year? Not many, granted, some due to innings counts/fatigue worries. Thorpe could end up in Ft. Myers (A+) by the end of the year. It's impressive and hopeful for Twins fans. My guess is he'll just be one year behind Stewart...and perhaps a comparable level talent (Left handedness gives him a little bit of help). I could see Stewart tearing up Cedar Rapids and then ending up at Ft. Myers, but no higher. He'll get at most 120 IP. The Twins have a lot of pitchers at the same development level and it looks like at A and A+ they may even employ 6 man rotations. And in 2-4 years from now we should see them make it to the big leagues. Kind of exciting for 2015 (late), 2016, and 2017.

Hilarious!! *Dumpster Diving*

That same article had some interesting things to say about those guys who ended up with great SIERRA...indirectly of course...as the xFIP directly relates to SIERRA. [h=4]Expected Fielder-Independent Pitching (xFIP)[/h] [h=6]xFIP = [13(.106*Fly Balls) + 3*BB - 2*K] / IP + 3.20[/h] Developed by Dave Studeman at The Hardball Times, xFIP keeps homeruns constant at a league average rate (10.6% HR/FB) for every pitcher. The result is a more stable statistic and a more accurate predictor of future ERA in the short and long term than FIP– particularly for pitchers who change teams and leagues more than others. xFIP is on a slightly higher scale than ERA and FIP. Therefore, a xFIP of 3.20 is more impressive than a FIP or ERA of 3.20. Groundball pitchers, like Brandon Webb and Rick Porcello, have higher HR/FB rates than fly-ball and strikeout pitchers, and therefore xFIP is a less accurate predictor of their future performance. For pitchers who consistently outperform (or underperform) league-average HR/FB rates, like Tim Lincecum for instance (8.8% career, above 9% in 1 season), xFIP is a less accurate predictor of their future performance. xFIP has the highest correlation (determined by root means square error) with future ERA of all pitching metrics. Which category does Kershaw fall into? And then...what should the modification be for him - as seen for the misses on Webb, Porcello, and Lincecum.

Yeah, a biiiiiiiiiiig W-L guy But really, Kershaw...the 38th best season out of the past 11 years? and Rick Porcello is on the same breath as Kershaw? Ok, lets go with the BABIP. Analyzing if the.251 BABIP is luck.... Let's look at his body of work the last 5 years (since he became a full time starter). .269 .275 .269 .262 .251 Those totals give a standard error (95% confidence) that will have Kershaw having a BABIP between .247 to .284...every year. If he plays 20 years, he'd likely only have ONE season outside of that range. BABIP .286, boom. If going by 2013 pitchers, his 'worst' year is Homer Baily, Patrick Corbin, Jose Quintana level. Worst year... .251 is a little outside of his mean, sure, but it's 95% predictable. It's not a surprise. Now look at this, he just turned 25. Most pitcher's best years are 27-29. He's not even there yet. He's more likely than not to post better numbers even next year and through age 29 than his career average. http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=2036&position=P Lucky...well, let Wade Boggs eat his fried chicken, I'll take the .330 to .360 batting average. It's probably the just the chicken, er I mean luck But really, there's a reason Tony Gwynn had a high BABIP every year and Rob Deer did not - it's not luck - unless your definition of luck includes skill or some sort of personal attribute. I believe luck comes into play when you see a season way out of the norm, Paul O'Neill's .359 season (1994). Brady Anderson's 50 HR (1996). Darin Erstad's .355 (2000). Let's see..pitching...umm, John Tudor's 1985, .193 ERA, .0938 WHIP, .209 BA - all so far out of the normal distribution range. When Babe Ruth hit 40+ HR [the other end of HR/FB%] every year, was he just lucky? When Babe played over 135 games, there was a 95% confidence rate he'd hit between 44-52 HR. Here's a view that says HR/FB is not tied to skill, though. Maybe for pitchers only. http://baseballnewshound.com/?page_id=1436 As I have this hunch...what if you increased Joe Mauer's FB rate...when he was near 30%, up about 3-5%, and he hit his high of 28 HR. The guy smacks the ball pretty hard...given 450 ABs...a 3-5% increase in FB would give him 13-23 more shots at a HR. He normally hits 9...so about 80% of those extra FBs made it over the fence. I think, as a former pitcher, there were certain guys I was willing to let them try to 'groove' one. I wouldn't waste my pitches so much on certain hitters I felt I could get a fly ball out of that I was pretty certain couldn't leave the park. So my HR/FB rate was probably very low, but it was on purpose. When I had a few guys who were 6'3" 230-260 types, I pitched low, low, low...ground balls, ground balls, ground balls - was I successful all the time? Absolutely not, but I know I pitched certain guys into certain balls. In softball, I pitch quite a bit. When we have a few guys out and our defense isn't as strong I'll make a few shifts and put my strongest defenders at 3B/SS and pitch inner have of the plate. Whereas maybe 30-40% of balls go the opposite way on a normal game, I'd say maybe 10-15% make it to the right side of the field when I pitch to that. I have higher walk rates too though, instead of 0-2, I might walk 2-5. So that's another factor that's influenced. My SIERRA would probably not do as well if I had to pitch a lot of games that way. But we'd win those games. I'm sorry if I blasted your reasoning at all - thanks for sharing metrics you look at. I thought it's important (and still do) that it works for many different eras of play. Instead of hyperanalyzing a bunch of other people's stuff, maybe I should spend more energy on putting together a better one.

Top 38 SIERRA seasons since 2002 (all the farther Fangraphs goes back). Top 38 you ask, because Kershaw's 2013 was the 38th best season since 2002. [ATTACH=CONFIG]6171[/ATTACH] SIERA = 6.145 – 16.986*(SO/PA) + 11.434*(BB/PA) – 1.858*((GB-FB-PU)/PA) + 7.653*((SO/PA)^2) +/– 6.664*(((GB-FB-PU)/PA)^2) + 10.130*(SO/PA)*((GB-FB-PU)/PA) – 5.195*(BB/PA)*((GB-FB-PU)/PA) At this point not sure I could give any validation to SIERRA. I could acknowledge it as a work in progress, but you can't 'miss' on an all-time historic season by that much.

According to SIERRA, Clayton Kershaw was the 8th best pitcher in MLB last year... http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=pit&lg=all&qual=y&type=1&season=2013&month=0&season1=2013&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&sort=21,a I would have said it was one of the top 5 single seasons of the past 25 years! Batters his .195 off of him. His WHIP was 0.915. His ERA was 1.83. These are retarded numbers. It also says Rick Porcello was the 13th best pitcher in MLB, despite a 4.32 ERA and batters hitting .270 against him (the MLB average was .253) so anyone who hit against him did better than average? And yet according to SIERRA, he's the 13th best pitcher in MLB? Using a line of regression...the league average ought to be about .320 if he's the 13th best. Madison Bumgarner and David Price were 17th and 18th respectively. That's pretty tough to stomach. I'll search out more seasons though. http://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/MLB/2013-standard-batting.shtml http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.cgi?id=porceri01&year=2013&t=p

I wanted to know if it works across seasons...not so much for fantasy but for validity. If it shows that Boof Bonser was the best pitcher one year due to the formula or that George Cobb now is better than Cy Young in 1892. For it to be a legitimate formula, advanced metric, it must hold for all seasons. Even when guys pitch 400 innings. The difference between linear and exponential or logarithmic function.

Also, does SIERRA then correctly hand Johan the 2005 CY Young?

Thrylos, Have you done any SIERA applications to past seasons? Or is this metric anywhere? e.g. I could look at say the top 10 Cy Young Candidates over the years and was Bob Gibson's 1968 much better than the pitchers that year to even Nolan Ryan's 1981 (it was a shortened season) to Cy Young's seasons...the 'dead-ball era'...if you will. How would it fare for a guy with similar ERA...but 500 IP....100 BB 130 K. I admit...pitching is tough to evaluate, I believe much harder to evaluate than hitting. I'd be curious if there was a poll of hitters each year - to see how they ranked pitchers. Although they'd likely rank on 'difficulty' versus 'success' they had. John Kruk against Randy Johnson type of thing..."Well, I came out alive and he didn't hit me, so I'm thankful..." and maybe somehow he walked (success Kruk, but was extremely difficult AB). Whereas next at bat he strikes out against Jose Canseco pitching during junk innings (unsuccessful, but difficulty was easy).

as amjgt said...no risk. Minor league deal. If he hits great. If he doesn't, no real loss. Nice to see players come back and have good things to say about the organization.

Trading Sano now...wouldn't make sense. You have to let that one play out. There's multiple scouts who've scouted the Dominican for over 25 years, who said he's the best player they've ever seen come out of there. He did only hit .236, as a 20 year old, at AA. True, but he slugged .571 SLG and .915 OPS despite that. And he had a 13% BB%. At age 20. He struggles with fielding at 3B. He's got the strongest arm in MiLB according to many reports. If 3B doesn't work out he takes his 6'4" 243 lb frame to RF and has the best RF arm. He's ahead of Wil Myers development cycle at the same stage AA and age. Look at Giancarlo Stanton's 19 year old season. Earily similar. Age 19, finishing in AA. But lower numbers. http://www.baseball-reference.com/minors/player.cgi?id=stanto003mic Again, scouts (plural) for 25 years in the Domincan, say he's the best prospect they've ever seen. I figure his floor is Mark Trumbo, who just got 2 starting pitching prospects. His ceiling is a more powerful Miggy but hitting .280 to .300.

I like Garza...but a little worried he'll require 4 years. How many pitchers are good for 4 years in a row? Or have any sort of consistency? It's just hard to be a pitcher. I don't like Stephen Drew...$10-$12M for...maybe 1-1.5 more WAR? He's better than Florimon offensively (defensively, SABR says he's better, BaseballProjection says he's better, Fangraphs says Drew is better). Either way, for that kind of money I think we can see better upgrades at CF, RF, DH, #4 Starter, #5 Starter, & Setup RP. We have some real duds there and the WAR ROI is probably much better. e.g. Pelfrey's $5M + that $10M for Garza. Granted Garza has only averaged 2.32 WAR the past 6 seasons. Pelfrey has averaged 1.25 over that same 6 year span. So maybe it's not that much better of an option. Arroyo is slightly better than Garza, but older. I almost feel as though to be careful not to get caught up in the vice novelty this year. Sure, so and so is comparatively 'better' than what we have, but in even an average year, he's a below average player. I'd be curious the average WAR per position and the average salary per position. And then look at what players are getting offered per their positional average value ($). I think Tanaka is going to be good, btw. I think his sinker will play well in MLB. Maybe even Roy Halladay well. At age 25. I think he'll be comparable to Zach Greinke. The other influx of Japanese pitchers have done quite well in MLB. Ryu, Iwakuma, Kuroda, and even some of them for their first 2-3 years...Nomo, Matsuzaka. (I apologize if I butchered those names) Matsuzaka, 4.1 and 5.3 WAR Nomo, 4.7 and 4.6 WAR Kuroda, 3.4, 3.1, 5.5, and 4.1 WAR in his full seasons Iawakuma, 2.0 and 7.0 WAR Ryu, 3.3 WAR There's probably a few flops the past few years I don't know of. But maybe more success rate than the American FA crop...

I'll take a look into this. I know it's different, but haven't looked into how exactly. I know BR's as well as SABR's work more than I do Fangraphs. (only so much information a guy can take it)

That's just how the MLB Playoffs roll. It's not a big sample size. But, you have to perform in small sample sizes. The Twins made the playoffs 6 years from 2002-2010. But couldn't do much during that small sample size. It matters. I'd sign Mark Lemke the day I made the playoffs. Guy was just money. Drew will cost $10M more than Florimon, he, like most free agents, are not a good return on investment. Yeah, I know about the differences in WAR. SABR > BR & Fangraphs. BR agrees more with SABR. SABR suggests Florimon is a better defender than Drew. And, from the eye test, I'd have to agree with SABR. Florimon had better HR numbers in the minors than Dozier's best MiLB season, Dozier, who hit 18 HR last year. 9 HR in 120 games...he's still got some season left. 26...he should get better. No advanced metrics on this one. Eh, I don't think one use Drew's career line, much of those better numbers was when he was a totally different player. Ankle/foot injuries you don't recover like you do from a knee. Totals were post injury. Which is who he is now, thus the 2 years.

Danny Duffy will win more games than Ervin Santana in 2013. Mark it down. http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/d/duffyda01.shtml