Doomtints

All of that seems like fairly accurate things to say about Punto.

It is certainly your prerogative to write off Park if you want to. Personally, I was pleasantly surprised by what I saw. I was expecting him to fail immediately and he proved me wrong. In my opinion he deserves another chance to prove himself, though perhaps not in a Twins uniform.

Someone like Punto who could excel at defense at any position is something we will probably never see again. The point was more that when Punto was around, there were a lot of fans screaming that he was useless. Clearly he wasn't. The point is to be careful what you wish for. Santana's defense is terrible in LF and RF but at other positions he is at least close to league average. I don't know that many other team's utility guys are much better. I'm not a big Santana fan either, if he were cut I wouldn't lose sleep over it. I just think that the Twins probably have a decent understanding of Santana. Simply cutting players with no plan to replace them hasn't worked out well for the Twins. Others may hit better, others may do OF defense better, but can the potential replacements play all of the positions he can without embarrassing themselves? Jason Bartlett memories should still be reasonably fresh around here. Santana at least gives the Twins a chance to keep the game reasonably close, provided the Twins are hitting as they should be.

There were similar arguments around Nick Punto (and heck, Ryan Doumit) and losing both of them did not help things as people hoped they would. About the only thing I trust the Twins management on is their ability to have useful utility players. They may not have great stats, but losing them has never worked out the way fans expected. Unfortunately for the Twins, you only need one utility guy.

I would say Jeff Reardon is a good comp, though I would not expect Duffey to be quite as good as Reardon. I think Blyleven coached Reardon on how to throw his monster curve in 1987, as I have never seen any other pitchers other than those two throw curves like that.

Yes, there are some small sample sizes there for sure. Nevertheless, he has done well (so far) in those situations -- and for all practical purposes he has been universally bad in every other situation. What I saw was much worse than I expected to find when I looked it up!

Looking at his OPS numbers when sliced up by base runners, his numbers are bad in nearly every situation. His only good numbers are in the following situations: 0 out, baserunners at 1st and 2nd 1 out, bases empty 1 out, baserunner at 2nd 1 out, baserunner at 3rd 1 out, baserunners at 2nd and 3rd 1 out, bases loaded This goes against the hypothesis. If you look at OPS by inning, his best innings are the 1st and 2nd innings, exactly what you would expect from a 2-pitch pitcher. He's OK against the first half of the lineup, good against the 2nd half, and when facing hitters a 2nd time the hitters can simply wait for the pitch they want.

I don't see him ever being a starter. I can understand wanting to keep him around if you think he can be a starter. I disagree with that, however.

May's control has been terrible this year, almost as bad as what we saw with Meyer. If I were GM I instruct Molitor to use May conservatively next year with the hope of being able to sell high on him at the trade deadline.

Gotcha. It would be interesting to see numbers on that.

I would say let's avoid the inevitable and move him straight to the bullpen. There is no sense in jerking the guy around if we know the answer. Molitor himself said when Duffey first came up that he should be a reliever, but because he kept producing last year they kept starting him. Molitor already knows the answer, I'm not sure why he is suddenly being timid.

I don't understand your point. Can you explain further? I know what "pitching from the stretch" means, but I don't understand how that relates to your other points.

As others had mentioned, Park had a fast start. When he started slumping, Molitor spoke about how Park's timing seemed off, that he was a bit behind pitches. I think nagging hand and wrist injuries would explain it. Like Rosterman, I don't see how Park fits with the Twins plans, regardless of how good he ends up being. Sano needs to be the DH unless the Twins are OK with him having a short career due to his elbow problems. Mauer is at 1B. The OF is finally taking shape. There is just no room for him.

Don't demote Duffey. Move him to the bullpen. He has two pitches. Successful starting pitchers need more than that. He will be an elite bullpen arm once the Twins figure out how to properly staff a baseball team based on a player's abilities.

By the time Joe retires, he will have played more games at 1B and those catcher comparisons for JAWS will disappear from Baseball Reference. JAWS has some multi-positional comparisons available, but I'm guessing the website will display 1B numbers. We'll find out.

Unfortunately JAWS is adjusted by position and you are looking at catcher numbers. It's going to be a hard sell to get him in based on that.

Generally, I see a lot of people bemoan that others dislike Mauer. But I don't see people ragging on him. Maybe some of you frequent other, darker parts of the internet. Maybe some of you remember criticisms of him from long ago. As the OP said, Mauer will be in the Twins HOF. None of us know if he will be in Cooperstown. One would think that voters will still be trying to figure out what to do with steroids-era players by the time the conversation comes up, which may help his chances as being the Golden Boy. But this is too far away to really be guessing at in any serious way.

The 78 signifies balls he could touch. The number of balls hit his direction was 147. At first glance this looks terrible, 75 putouts out of 147? Terrible! This is 51% balls fielded! But let's look deeper. For comparison, the average number of balls fielded by a player in RF was 50%. Taken strictly, Sano was a slightly above average right fielder. Considering a reasonable margin of error, he was an average right fielder. The "eyeball test" Twins fans used was biased. Basically, people who thought it was a bad idea for him to be in the OF saw enough to confirm their biases. And he was far from perfect out there. However, he was average, because the average right fielder lets HALF the balls hit their direction to drop. And that's what Sano did. To throw in his numbers at 3B, he has fielded 81% of the balls hit his direction. League average is 87%.

Good article. 2B is currently the "average" position with a wRC+ of ~100, leapfrogging LF and CF. Throw in the good defense required to be a 2B and you have some very valuable players there at the moment.

75 putouts in 78 chances is about all you can ask for out of a guy learning the position, especially for a power hitter. He can overcome those three miscues with his bat. It is the 87 putouts in 99 chances at 3rd that is unacceptable.

The middle infield are the toughest positions other than catcher. There's a reason those guys tend to be light hitting defensive specialists. If anyone could do it, there would be more power hitters at those positions.

I think they let Mauer make the choice, but I would imagine he consulted doctors first. Don't forget what Bill James wrote. He wrote that frequently players can move to "easier" positions (and, contrary to what Twins fans seem to believe this past year and even in this thread, it happens all the time), but moving to "harder" positions almost never works out. Bill James created a defensive spectrum. Here it is. Easier positions are on the left, getting harder as it goes to the right. 1B - LF - RF - 3B - CF - 2B - SS - C The premise is that players can move to the left on the scale. It almost always works out if given enough time. Moving the other direction almost never works. With Mauer being at first all these years, it's doubtful he could handle moving elsewhere. Sano should have also been able to handle the outfield, and I think he did according to defensive metrics. People are overly upset about the Sano move to the OF, I'm guessing because they did not see him play at 3rd first and did not fathom how bad at 3rd he was going to be (in spite of many of us providing his defensive metrics from the minors). This is all a bit moot right now anyway. For the first time in a long time the Twins have a decent hitting outfield. Move Mauer to the OF to block a better hitter from being able to play? No thanks. Same with Sano. If the Twins get rid of Plouffe, do they really want Sano at third with his touchy elbow and terrible fielding at the position? Sano should be the DH. This then blocks Park and Vargas. Trade one of them. If Plouffe goes, move Dozier over there. Then the last holes are 2B and C, which are not uncommon last holes to fill.

Plus, there are more concussion risks at 3rd, or in the OF for that matter. Mauer went all the way to first base for a reason (from the hardest position to field all the way to the easiest). It's not that Mauer was physically unable to learn 3B or RF/LF. It's really not very likely that Mauer moves to a new position.

Some hitters are pull hitters, some are opposite field hitters. The biggest factors are timing and strength. Do you really think that messing with Dozier's timing will help him?

I really don't understand the idea that fans get that about showcasing somebody. Everything a baseball player does is measured. Every player has a dozen scouting reports written by them every year. When a team is interested in someone they can send a scout out to watch them play any time they want. The fact is that every baseball player is being 'showcased' every time they step on the field.