IndianaTwin

Even with Molitor in the radio booth, we still have a Gladden sighting.

Putting out the welcome MAT!

Who are they trailing in strikeout percentage? Because if it's Houston, recognize that an advantage they have over the Twins is that they just got to pitch to Twins hitters.

When people ask where I'm from, I say, "I'm from Iowa, but I live in Indiana." I see the occasional Twins garb around here, but aside from a guy in town that I used to be in a fantasy league with and who is from South Dakota, I'm mostly shut out as well. Agreed on the thanks to the TD community. Glad you've joined.

Yeah, bench him. 😄

Molitor on the radio: "Am I going to get in trouble if I say that the 'C.B.' in Bucknor means 'consistently bad'?"

A la Maeda a year ago, I'm guessing the Twins presence (or lack thereof) in the pennant race will be a key determinant (along with his actual progress, of course).

Go. That's my suggestion. But to (perhaps) be more helpful... I've been there four times, twice on induction weekend (Puckett and Oliva) and twice at other times. If you are specifically wanting to see the induction, go then. It will be packed, and you'll likely need to get lodging some distance from Cooperstown. The most enjoyable part of the weekend was actually the Saturday evening parade, when all the living HOFers in attendance ride down Main Street on the back of a pickup. If you're wanting to go on an induction weekend, I could give you some other suggestions. However, if your biggest interest is in visiting the museum, go at another time. The crowd will be much more manageable and you will be able to visit it in a more leisurely fashion. As Seth notes, you can fly through it in a couple hours, but I've spent as much as six hours or more there and didn't feel like I did it justice. I like to stop and read every display, however. I don't remember if they have a two-day pass, but if you are into history, it would be well worth considering. By the end of six hours, my brain was no longer absorbing it all. (Some would suggest I reach that point much earlier.) If you go at a time reasonably near the induction ceremony, there will be special exhibits related to the current year's inductees. I don't know when those go up and come down. I will also add that my wife doesn't enjoy baseball, but she's been hanging out with me for almost 40 years. As such, she actually found it enjoyable (okay, tolerable), since it really is a way of telling a story. That was more in the several-hour visit, however. Six hours would have moved it down the toleration scale a great deal. There are other things to do in the area as well. Cooperstown itself has a couple other museums. The Women's Rights National Historical Park is in Seneca Falls, and we enjoyed that. We also enjoyed the Harriet Tubman National Historic Park in Auburn. Those two are near each other, but about two hours west of Cooperstown. If you've got 30 minutes to waste, here's a YouTube video I put together from Oliva's induction weekend, though to call it a "video" is overselling, since it's really a PowerPoint with commentary:

.Ow. Sorry to hear this. To echo LDT, hopefully hanging out in this community brings a bit of respite (and maybe some levity) at a time when those may well be in short supply. Thanks for feeling comfortable sharing.

I could see him going Sunday. He threw a lot of pitches tonight, but he's had a lot of time off before that. They've already got at least a split, so winning another is big in order to gain at least two games over the course of the series (four if they win tomorrow). They also have an off day on Monday. Better would be to score a couple touchdowns early and make it moot.

To get sparklies for @Squirrel

Yes.

I assume we just saw a little of this?

Want me to bring over some of my Bedazzler supplies?

Sat down at the computer, just in time for... Gladden: "Ground ball to third. Caught!"

If we’re not careful, Mrs. IT is going to have a woman crush on Royce. And I’m okay with that.

Give us a break, @TwinsDr2021. We know we're not doctors. We're much smarter than that. We're all pitching coaches! 🤣

We'll see Sunday and next Thursday.

That's a valid critique of the six-man rotation. I assume that going that route also includes Toby Gardenhire having several St. Paul Shuttle tickets on hand and clear instructions on which relievers to not be using. And as I just mentioned in a previous comment, the reality is that a six-man rotation depends on health (and performance), and they really only need to do it twice to get the benefit. After that, with off days, a six-man rotation is pitching once a week. so I assume they don't want to do that long-term. More importantly, I assume they won't need to, because someone will get hurt. For the reason you note, I don't think a six-man rotation is viable for the long term, but in this case, I think it merits consideration. For those keeping score at home, if they want to use the June 12 off day to give everyone five days off heading into that 16-game stretch, Maeda gets activated on the 18th.

And the reality is that they only use Maeda twice in the 16 game stretch. If he doesn't throw well, it's an easy demotion to the pen. If a starter (including him) gets injured, it's an easy shift back to a five-man rotation. If all stay healthy and none get hurt, awesome! That's a good problem to have.

I don't think anyone has mentioned this, but I'm guessing a factor in the decision to pull Varland is that his last four starts had 95, 97, 92 and (last Friday) 100 pitches. Thus, I don't think the "Let's see if he can handle another inning" holds much weight -- he's already shown he can. So, the choices were essentially, "He can handle it, so let's let him go another inning" or "He's thrown a lot of pitches lately, so let's give him a blow." They chose the latter. I agree with that approach, particularly given that he gets Tampa Bay next.

Thanks, Ash. This is helpful. It both helped confirm that my understandings weren’t all wet and also added some good nuance for my understanding of WPA. And I’m glad to join rabbit holes. My son just told me that his high school English teacher suggested that the title of my son’s autobiography would likely be, “But I Digress…” Said son gets that honestly, from his father. With that in mind, here’s my summary of Pagan’s season. Consider it my contribution to the rabbit hole, but if you find it helpful, I might turn it into its own thread. Let me know if you think it deserves further conversation. A.. The debacle in L.A. B. The game in Boston where Maeda got hurt, and Pagan came in early, down 1-0, and gave up six. As I remember, he had some bad luck, with some soft contact turning into hits. It can’t be argued that he pitched well, but it can be argued that he contributed in that he bought some outs in a game that was going to be tough to win, given the circumstances. C. A total of 15 games where his WPA was between 0.056 and -0.041. Here’s a breakdown of these games. C1. In nine of them, he came in in the seventh, with six of them starting the inning and the Twins down one or two and one starting the inning up six. In the other two seventh-inning appearances, he came in with a runner on first, once with one out and up six and once with two outs and down one. In the former, he faced four batters, giving up two hits, getting two outs and letting the inherited run score. In the latter, he also pitched the eighth, giving up a single hit. In those nine games, he pitched 9.0 innings, giving up six hits, a walk and a HBP. He gave up an earned run and an unearned run and struck out 10, This subset of nine games includes Sunday, where he came in, hit a batter, and was pulled because of injury. In two of these nine games, the Twins rallied, and Pagan got the win. C2. In three of the category C games, he pitched the ninth, coming in down six, down one ahead four. In the first two, he went 1-2-3. In the latter, he gave up a run on two hits. He struck out three in the 3.0 innings. C3. He came in in the eighth twice, once opening the inning down two, where he gave up a walk and a strikeout in completing the inning, and once with two outs and two on, down three, where he gave up a double to let one score, followed by a groundout and a one-hit ninth. C4. In the other, he started the sixth down four and walked two and struck out two, allowing no runs. D. A game with a WPA of .105. He entered a tie game in the fifth with two outs and a runner on first. He got the out and then pitched a one-hit sixth. E. A game with a WPA of .120. With the Twins down 1-0, Maeda gave a lead off single in the sixth. Pagan gave up a walk, got a fly ball and a double play. He then pitched the seventh, with a fly ball and two strikeouts. F. A game with a WPA of .304. That was the one where he pitched the bottom of the 11th in Chicago after the Twins hadn’t scored in the top. He got a strikeout, gave up a fly ball, intentionally walked Benintendi and struck out Hamilton. The Twins scored four in the 12th and Pagan got the win. So as I look at this, the dominant thing I see is that that Rocco’s preferred usage is to bring him in in the seventh, with the team still in the game (C1). He doesn’t like to use Lopez or Jax without them being tied or ahead, so he goes to Pagan, and Pagan has done his job. He’s also used when down in the eighth and in blowouts in the ninth. In summary, I see 15 games in the WPA middle. Of those, 12 have a positive WPA and three have a negative. In two of the negatives, he did his job, in that the job was “don’t screw this up.” The third was Sunday, which doesn’t really count, so I’d suggest that in 14 of 14 games, he did his job, often times perfectly, other times very well, and a couple times so-so. And on five occasions, he’s been used in higher-leverage situations, generally out of necessity because other options had been used or were otherwise unavailability. In one (A) he had a major fail, in three (D-F), he was successful, and in one (B), he was in-between, not pitching well, but given the context, playing a needed role. I’d call that one a tie and say he was 3-1-1, but I’m fine calling it a loss as well. So in total, that means that in 17 or 18 out of 19 games, he’s done his job. But because of one game in LA and the memory of last year, most on TD are not ready (or more accurately, willing) to give him his due.

Starting on Tuesday, they have a stretch of 28 games in 30 days, including a stretch with 16 straight. If everyone remains healthy, I suspect we’ll see a couple trips through a six-man rotation when Maeda is healthy enough to join it. With the All-Star Break soon after, I could see that as a time to skip Ober and Varland to save a few innings.

I was busy tonight, so unable to follow along. Apparently the sky didn’t fall. I can’t wait to skim through the Game Thread for the several pages of grumbling about the getaway day lineup.

I was looking at WPA the other day and realized that I probably need a primer on how it operates. I get the whole, “check the win probability before and after each at bat and add them up” thing. But what do they mean? On the surface, I’ve been assuming that a positive WPA in a game means that the player gave his team a better chance to win and a negative means that he gave his team a lesser chance to win. Is that a correct interpretation? Secondly, the participants in a given game always total 0.00, does there tend to be a similar number of guys with positives and guys with negatives? Or does it often skew to have a bunch of guys with positive and a comparably few guys with big negative values? I’m asking because I look at Pagan and see what looks like a bad season, because he’s got a total of -0.173 (though I don’t know enough to know whether that’s bad or REALLY bad). But, as you note, if you look at him on a game-by-game basis, he’s only been negative in 5 of his 20 games. That includes the debacle in L.A. and the game in Boston when he was left out to dry. Take out those two, and his season total is easily positive. Another of the negatives was Sunday, when he hit a batter and was pulled because of injury. It seems hard to count that one, but technically, he did lessen the team’s chance to win with the one batter he faced. They’ve generally been careful on how they’ve used him — I get that — but it seems like a “won-loss record” of 15-5 (i.e. positive vs. negative) is actually pretty good. (And I do recognize that a number of the positives were very small, but that seems to be greatly affected by the situations they’ve put him in.) I guess my main point is to say that I agree with Wizard11. It sometimes (often?) feels like he could be pitching like the second coming of Mariano Rivera and folks on TD would still be calling for his DFA. ——————— And to clarify, Ash, though I used quoting you as my starting point, I’m not pointing at you in particular with my last paragraph. I honestly don’t know what your comments about Pagan have been. That paragraph is about TD in general. And if you or others show me a better understanding of WPA that helps me understand that I’m using it wrong, I’m fine with that learning.