IndianaTwin

(Oops, posted the comment on the wrong thread and don't know to delete.)

Varland started 2022 as a 24-year-old in Wichita, made 20 starts with a 3.34 ERA, was called up to St. Paul and even ended up making five late-seasons starts for the Twins as a result of injuries. Enlow started 2023 as a 24-year-old in Wichita and has made eight starts with a 3.02 ERA. That's overly simplistic, but without obvious folks standing in his way, if injuries build up at the MLB level, it's not hard to imagine him even sniffing the majors yet this year. I'm not saying that's the ideal -- just noting that we can probably assume that a number of additional starters will be needed at some point, and he's likely approaching the availability list, if he's not already on it.

Do you realize what you did here? You typed this entire message and didn't mention Buxton. Yeah, we wish he was playing center, but he's stayed in the lineup and is on pace for nearly 4.0 bWAR as a DH. I'm with you, and I'd certainly rather be two games over .500 while not meeting expectations than, say, 10 games under.

I prefer Player 8675309.

Since many TD discussions lead back to Pagan, I could use some help understanding Win Probability Added, which people reference on a regular basis. And these are honest questions -- I'm not trying to be snarky. His total WPA for the season is -0.207. Am I correct that that's bad, that in total he's cost us .207 wins? Given that the league will finish .500, is the total WPA of all players in a game going to be 0.000? If so, is that suggesting that any player with a positive WPA has increased his team's chances of winning a game and any with a negative has decreased the chances of winning game. In Pagan's case, the cumulative number is driven by 0.611 of the negative came from the debacle in LA last week, and another .299 comes from the early entry in Boston in the game where Maeda got hurt and someone needed to pick up innings. In 14 of his 18 games, he has a positive WPA. Is that suggesting that in 14 of 18 games, his pitching improved his team's chance to win? Maybe I'm not understanding how this works, but it seems pretty good to say that in 78 percent of games, you helped your team win. Since every game has a winner and a loser, would the league average be 50 percent positive? What is meaningful? As in, in three of the positive games, his score is 0.001 or 0.002. I assume that means he had negligible effect on the win or loss, which is reflective of his pitching late in games that ended with an average margin of nearly eight runs. Even if those are treated as a "tie," his "record is 11-4-3, which would be a pretty good "winning percentage" Ultimately, what is more important in determining whether Pagan has been effective -- is it the net of -0.207, or is it the reality that in 14 of 18 games he helped the team? Intuitively, since a win is a win is a win, it seems like the latter (a .778 "winning percentage") is more noteworthy.

Regretfully, I don't think Chicago can be considered out of it, being down only 5.5. Much of their early season struggles were when Tim Anderson was on the shelf, and Liam Hendricks is likely to return in the next week or so. I agree with Dxpavelka in that the Twins biggest opponent is themselves. They are in a scuffling spot with losses in five of their last six, but they have the ability to run off a couple of strings with five out of six wins as well.

Welcome MAT!

If we were making observations about an individual on 43 at bats, we'd say "small sample size." Seems to me that 43 at bats spread over an entire roster, meaning that hardly anyone has more than four or five at bats, makes for a really small sample size. It's frustrating (very frustrating!), but it's hard not to see it as being anything but incredibly unlucky.

2-3, actually.

Hopefully it's just tightness and not weakness. And monolateral, not bilateral.

I wasn't suggesting that they COULDN'T offer more for the relievers the Mets signed. Rather, I'm saying that it would have likely cost more than the Mets paid and the Twins CHOSE not to go there.

If you look back to the offseason, you'd find that I was an advocate for signing multiple relief arms. My approach is that the more darts you throw against the wall, the more likelihood for bullseyes. But I don't think it's accurate to associate a lack of MLB signings with "ignoring the pen." As analytical as the front office is, it's hard for me to imagine them ignoring anything. For what it's worth, the FO may have... Looked at Duran and thought they had a closer. For the most part, they've been right. Looked at Lopez and thought they had their backup closer/8th inning guy. For the most part, they've been right. Looked at Jax and thought they had a high leverage righty. For the most part, they've been wrong. Looked at Thielbar and thought they had a high leverage lefty. He's been hurt, so in that sense they've been wrong. Looked at Pagan and thought he was worth $3.5 million, based on how he pitched the last part of last season and thinking they could fix other issues. For the most part, they've been right, with a couple notable blowups. Looked at Alcala and thought that with health, he would develop into a contributor. Not so much. And Moran. Not so much. Looked at the starters and their plan for improving the rotation and determined they'd need about 20 percent fewer innings from the bullpen. For the most part, they've been right. The cumulative of those may have led to not pursuing any MLB pitchers, but those are all "decisions," not a case of "ignoring" the bullpen. Similarly, for all we know they made an offer to Robertson that wasn't acceptable. And to Ottavino. And to Fulmer. And to whoever your favorites were. Again, we don't know if any of those happened, but if so, those are decisions on the max they want to give a reliever, not a case of "ignoring" the bullpen. If you want to say it was a mistake to not offer one or two guys more, enough to sign them, I'm fine with that. I might even agree with you, though I don't remember many, if any, signings where I thought, "Wow, I wish the Twins would have offered more than that." That speaks to the volatility of relievers that others have referenced. What we know is that they didn't sign any MLB relievers (other than tendering Pagan). What we don't know is the decision-making process. As is generally the case with the front office, we just don't know enough of what happened, so it seems overly simplistic to equate a lack of MLB signings with "ignoring."

I'm sensing we've got the AARP crowd here again tonight.

It's rarely going to be at the top or bottom of the hour, since broadcasters need time to sign on. It would be convenient for all of them to be 5 or 10 minutes after the top or bottom, however.

We see statements like, "They chose not to sign a single reliever on a major league contract," on TD on a pretty regular basis. There's a couple of problems with that, however. First, just because they didn't sign a reliever doesn't mean they "chose" not to. We've seen that they are pretty willing to sign players (I'm including both pitchers and hitters) at different price points, but it seems clear that they have rarely chosen to go beyond their perceived value on a player. I applaud that. For all we know, they may have made offers to every one of those players. They just didn't value players at a higher price point than at least one other team did. I mean, sure, they could have "chosen" to commit to getting at least one player, at whatever price they needed to pay, but you'd better guess right. So far at least, the Mets did on a couple guys I most liked (Robertson). The Cubs didn't on a guy I also liked (Fulmer). A second problem is that it doesn't take into account what the Twins would have needed to pay to outbid the team that got someone. By definition, they would have needed to pay more than $7.25M (plus a player option) for Ottavino and more than $10M for Robertson, for example, since that's what the Mets offered. And based on the way the Mets spent money this offseason, they may well have been willing to go well beyond that.

I just looked at the baseball-reference page. Who had the top six in bWAR being four starters, the backup closer and the DH?

Per Corey, that's the seventh straight quality start for Ryan. Longest Twin streak since Berrios had seven in 2019. All nine starts have gone at least six. Doesn't seem like I've heard as many "Rocco never lets his starters in" comments recently.

Was that catch as good as it sounded on the radio?

I thought it was math I had to avoid. I guess the yolk's on me. (You guys know I grew up on a dairy farm, right?)

Option him.

Just another Dad joke that I tried to milk for a laugh.

Gladden on Renfroe's single: "He well-placed that." I hate it when people verb words.

Farmer is outstanding in his field.

Third time through means nothing. Leave him in.

Atlanta. He even did an all-baseball album, "Sermon on the Mound."