IndianaTwin

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.

This seems like a premature conversation. Come October, the front office will know more about… 1. Whether Buxton’s knee held up at DH. 2. Whether there’s any likelihood of his returning to CF. 3. Whether/how Lewis has handled several months of full-time play. And whether they want to consider him in CF. 4. Where Miranda’s bat (and defense) have gone, and whether they are ready to plan on him as a full-timer. 5. Whether Lee has pushed himself into needing to find playing time in the infield. 6. The progress of Celestino. 7. How they like Taylor, though it seems really unlikely they’d resign him. And a bunch of things I haven’t thought of, but this is at least a starting point. Until October, these discussions feel like vanity, a chasing after the wind,

My bad. Perhaps a little brain fog from feeling a bit dehydrated.

I generally think you’re right, and yes, it would be a temporary thing (hopefully, which means assuming no other injuries), if for no other reason than that they will soon want to get back to 13 pitchers. I also offer this suggestion not knowing the situation on Pagan after getting hit. They may already feel they will be playing a day or two with a 12-man staff. I’m not overly concerned on the part about Sands staying down, in that they have a workaround if the transaction involves putting someone on the IL. Alternatively, I’m already suspecting that if Sands gets a long relief outing, they’d put him on the St. Paul Shuffle, so there may already be someone else who could take the 13th slot if needed.

I give Kepler credit for being more than “proven mediocrity.” To me, league average hitter with excellent defense and excellent baserunning is more than “mediocre,” but I recognize that we’ll get about as much agreement on TD about the definition of “mediocre” as we do “ace.” :-) But overall, I agree with your point. And as others have stated or implied, if Wallner (or Larnach) push their way in the door when they have opportunities (and they will, that’s life in a 162-game season), they will gradually take Kepler’s playing time.

Actually, with an off day coming on Thursday and a bullpen that is not overtaxed at the moment, I wondered about sending down Sands and going with a 12-man staff for a few days.

I’m not suggesting that Garlick would have gotten all (or even most) of Kepler’s at bats. And in a sense, I’m using Garlick metaphorically. My point is that they have already have had enough injuries that they needed to call up Garlick for a spell. Without Kepler, he gets called up one injury sooner. Taken a step further, if Garlick was called up an injury sooner, that means someone else had to be called up when Garlick got the call. Who is your preference, Mark Contreras or Ryan LaMarre? A lot of us have named that the strength of this roster is its depth, even if not everyone has played up to expectations. I just think the “problem” of having to send Wallner down for a time is better than the “problem” of having to call up AAAA players. I’ll say the same thing if Julien is the one sent down to make room for Polanco.

Let me phrase it another way. Kyle Garlick has had 19 plate appearances. Max Kepler has had 119 plate appearances. Without Max Kepler in the picture, Kyle Garlick would have some number more than 19 plate appearances. Having too much talent is not a problem.

To summarize -- what we are saying is that we have too much talent available?

I got the screen door taken care of this morning.

Royce looks very stylish in a vest.

Could be worse. You should hear the images of me they have on White Sox Daily.

I’ll go ahead and start the Lewis Lovefest. Summer of 2018, I was on a work trip to Iowa and decided to catch Cedar Rapids’ game at Clinton. (As an aside, the Clinton ballpark was like a scene from out of a movie. Unfortunately, it was “A League of Their Own.” It didn’t surprise me that they got the axe when MLB eliminated minor league teams because of their facilities, but it really was a cool place to catch a game. In a different way, I’d say the same about Burlington, where the handicap accessible seats meant that my elderly parents and I were sitting on top of the dugout!) Small crowd, so I sat immediately behind the Twins dugouts. All the players were cordial to the bat boys, including the one with Down Syndrome. The batboys switched teams midway through the game, so I think there were four of them throughout the evening. Except for Lewis. First time he was on deck, he asked each batboy their name and had ongoing conversation as he got ready to hit. Next time up, he greeted them by name. His interaction and engagement appeared to be very genuine. You got the sense that he felt like, just like he was working hard to do his job well, so were they. I was impressed with the way he treated these kids with dignity, rather than taking them for granted.

I think you’re going to need a large. Maybe ask for extra candy in it.

I did not know that the difference between Romano and Parmesan is the source of their milk.

This reliever grates me. Sorry, I feel a little sheepish for saying that.

Complete with including your middle name, right?

Apparently the third time is indeed a charm for Varsho.

Me too. And ewww. Wikipedia says that song was inspired by Debbie Harry getting trailed by a stalker.

To every thing (turn, turn, turn) there is a season (turn, turn, turn), and a time for every purpose under heaven. —Solomon (disputed), Pete Seeger* *Not sure how the record royalties are divided between the two.

And that’s another reason why I skip Twitter. This also provides another opportunity to say thanks to our moderators for working hard to keep TD a civil place. Thanks, moderators.