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IndianaTwin

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  1. IndianaTwin
    Thanks. Separate from this particular discussion, I've been intrigued by WPA as a stat, but I hadn't thought about it being contextual based on a team's offense. The 1927 Yankees, for example, may well have had low WPA numbers for their pitching staff.
  2. IndianaTwin
    The Twins have to be leading the league in No. 8 guy in the bullpen performance. 😀 Dobnak, McCaughan and Blewett have combined for a 1.38 ERA and 0.846 WHIP in their 13 innings. And that doesn't even count the scoreless inning from Castro.
  3. IndianaTwin
    Actually, Gray was quoted several times as saying he would have been glad to come back. As others have noted, the Twins (wisely, as I would add to others) chose not to offer him three years at $20M+. He wisely took the offer he was able to get from the Cardinals. Other than a couple of out-of-context quotes, he seemed to have had a positive experience pitching for the Twins.
  4. IndianaTwin
    Oops. Didn't finish my comments. My response was mostly directed at people's comments, though I think there's plenty of it in the articles as well. Perhaps you were focusing on the articles themselves. Those are more certainly more balanced than the comments.
  5. IndianaTwin
    My statement was "Sometimes it seems like most articles on TD are devoted to the job Falvey has done in distributing the payroll dollars." I didn't put a value judgment on whether people think he's done a good or bad job. I was saying that it often feels like payroll distributions are overanalyzed to death. There's only so many ways one can dissect a trade/non-trade of Vazquez/Paddack/Castro in exchange for salary relief to sign XYZ. ------------- That said, I'm remembering things differently than you. I don't think that by and large Twins Daily has been "very supportive of this front office." Certainly not the resulting comments. By and large I'm remembering the signings of France, Bader, Coulombe (less so), Thielbar, Okert, Jackson, Staumont, Solano, Taylor, Santana and Gallo as being met mostly with disdain from the beginning. I'm remembering immediate panning of picking up the option on Farmer and to a lesser extent picking it up for both Kepler and Polanco and then trading Polanco for a deal that only netted Margot. And this offseason it was, "Gotta trade at least one of Vazquez, Paddack, Castro or even Lopez for salary relief." If I went back further, I'd pick up the grumbling about signing Bundy, Archer, Shoemaker. And all those don't count the angst of the front office not having done multiple signings by November or at least December and certainly by early January each year. --------------- In rereading the string, I'm wondering if we may have been talking about slightly different things.
  6. IndianaTwin
    Sometimes it seems like most articles on TD are devoted to the job Falvey has done in distributing the payroll dollars.
  7. IndianaTwin
    Crud -- I shouldn't have gone to the break room to heat my lunch. You beat me to saying essentially this statement. Based on usage to date, it would point to Gasper or Kiersey, but sending Kiersey down would be demoting someone who has a specific talent (speed and defense) and would likely require some outfield time for Castro. Thus, I think it's Gasper. What I think you're saying, and what I agree with, is that if Lee doesn't hit, it's still better to have his defense in the lineup than have Miranda or Julien not hitting and not helping the defense. And even on days when you want to start Miranda or Julien, Lee provides an opportunity for a late-inning defensive replacement that Gasper doesn't.
  8. IndianaTwin
    Yes, I think it’s much more about pitch count. I made reference to Raya’s usage above. Go back and look at his game logs and you’ll see some very clear trends. Every five or so games, they would bump up the trend line five or 10 pitches. If I’m remembering correctly, it even seemed like there were times they would make mid-inning pitching changes when they hit a certain mark. It reminded me of Little League days for my son, where there was a rule that you couldn’t start a new hitter if they were past 75 pitches. If the kid hit pitches, he would be allowed to finish that hitter. (So if the other team had a good pitcher who was at 73 pitches, the next batter had a guaranteed take sign so that the second pitch would be No. 75 and force the substitution.
  9. IndianaTwin
    I think they have general principles, though they’ll tweak them in certain contexts. Without digging in, I think your numbers are in the neighborhood. In the case of 80 pitches over four innings, that makes some sense in that by definition, at least one of the innings has been 20 pitches. And if he’s having the kind of night where he’s averaging 20 pitches per inning, another inning at that level gets him over 100, which they do tend to avoid. Another of their principles seems to be that they don’t tend to let a guy start an inning if they don’t think he can get through it. It would be interesting to know the numbers, but it seems like they have a lower than average number of mid-inning changes. And about 85 pitches through five seems about how they view that one. Again, even a more typical 15-pitch inning gets the guy to 100. But last night was a context where they did go against that. Not sure how they count the time clock violation, but it looks like SWR was at either 93 or 94 pitches through five. Similarly, I agree there are general principles for the relievers. I named the rarity of coming out a second inning, even if the previous was only a partial or very low-pitch. They’re generally averse to back-to-back days and very rarely even consider three straight. If a guy gets more than about 20 innings it’s almost a certainty he won’t go the next day. It’s not at all unusual that Rocco names a reliever as having been “unavailable” in postgame interviews. Often in game threads or postgame reviews, when someone questions why a given reliever wasn’t used or wasn’t used more, it can be explained by looking at the previous day’s pitch chart.
  10. IndianaTwin
    Perhaps the best session at last year's SABR convention in the Twin Cities talked exactly about that. I forget which exec it was (maybe Falvey?) that talked about how (as I recall), they typically let the first year (or partial year) play out in a pattern the pitcher was used to in college (or high school).* That time is about getting to know the player and being able to do better analysis than is possible in draft prep. After that, they indeed develop an individualized development plan that matches their best understanding of the pitcher's potential and his ability to handle increased workload, etc. I gathered that the kind of progression you described is very much in tune with that. Obviously you are continually evaluating and modifying along the way as you gather more information and as things play out, but the concept is this. I wish I'd taken notes and written about it, because it was pretty enlightening. One thing that came through loud and clear is that there's not a single development pattern, so what they do with Raya may or may not look like what they do with Prielipp, which may or may not look like what they do with... It definitely refuted the "The Twins always do it this way" mentality that shows up a lot on TD. There's much more nuance at play than we are ever privy to. At risk of going on a tangent, the other thing I was struck by was Falvey's describing the amount of communication that goes on between him, Rocco and others. Multiple meetings a day. To use one example, they talk about lineup construction every day. Falvey and others will give their input, but ultimately it's Rocco's call, as are in-game decisions. Similarly, Rocco and others are going to give their input into roster construction daily, but ultimately those are Falvey's calls. There were other examples as well, but the idea that often comes through on TD that there are silos, with Falvey creating a roster and then shipping it off to Rocco for implementation, is not the case. Again, much more nuance. *Sometime I plan to go for a world record in the number of parenthetical phrases in a single sentence.
  11. IndianaTwin
    Or less, really. This is all dependent on continued success, of course, but if he throws another 30 innings this year in St. Paul (so 125-130), he could easily enter 2026 as the No. 6 or 7 guy on the list, ready to step into the rotation upon injury, a la what folks are clamoring for in Matthews/Festa. If he were to throw 155-160 innings in 2026, mostly or nearly all at the big league level, that would be a huge win and awfully close to a full season.
  12. IndianaTwin
    It seemed to work well to have Raya start 25 consecutive Fridays last year in building from 62.2 innings in 2023 to 97.2 in 2024. People bellyached about how few innings he threw, but if you look at his game logs, there was a pretty clear progression in number of pitches over the course of the season. One wonders if the plan is to start Prielipp for x number of consecutive Fridays and then eventually decide whether to continue in that direction for development vs. shift to the pen for a temporary MLB need if he's showing he can handle it.
  13. IndianaTwin
    Thanks. There wasn’t an explanation on the radio.
  14. IndianaTwin
    Had it hit Perez and then rebounded to hit Buxton?
  15. IndianaTwin
    It can still be a HBP if it bounces.
  16. IndianaTwin
    I am on the radio, but I wondered the same.
  17. IndianaTwin
    What's the saying? I was wrong once -- it was the time I thought I was wrong, but I wasn't. 😀
  18. IndianaTwin
    Thanks. I suspected that the was the case on DFAs for the reason you explained, but I didn't want to offer it as a declarative statement. And I've thought the same on the probability of Dobnak being claimed inching up, particularly if he continues to show something. Also add in that the remaining obligation is already under $4M in that the Twins have paid a portion of this year's salary. The remaining obligation will also be inching down. By mid-year for example, a claiming team will only be on the hook for $2.5M ($1.5 for the remainder of this year and $1M for the buyout). The nice thing, of course, is that if he pitches well enough for other teams to consider claiming him, he's likely pitched well enough that the Twins don't want to DFA him.
  19. IndianaTwin
    Not sure it's either. 😀 I suspect you are thinking about optioned players. For an optioned player, it's 10 days for a position player and 15 for a pitcher, unless they are replacing someone who goes on the IL, in which case it can happen immediately. In Dobnak's case, he was not optioned, but designated for assignment and put on waivers, where no one claimed him. Thus the Twins were able to outright assign him to St. Paul, which is different than optioning. I don't know what that means in terms of time to stay in St. Paul. Had he been picked up by another team, for example, they could have activated him immediately. Since no one claimed him, I don't know if that means they can call him up sooner than 15 days. In practical terms, he threw 75 pitches over five innings yesterday, so he's not available until at least Thursday, more likely Friday.
  20. IndianaTwin
    Also, I know we’re still in SSS territory, but the “best bullpen in baseball” has a 2.25 ERA at this point, so so far, so good.
  21. IndianaTwin
    Correct on the “most effective” consideration. In fact, it’s not just that they “often” do, but the rules require it in today’s situation. There’s judgment in that, but looking at the pitching lines, it’s pretty clearly Sands. He was the only reliever to go 1-2-3 and did it with two strikeouts. Varland and Alcala each put two runners on base and Topa and Duran one apiece. The scorekeepers guide says that if two pitchers are essentially equal, you go with the earlier one, but Varland didn’t have a line similar to Sands.
  22. IndianaTwin
    @Tyomoth, you may enjoy a blog I wrote several years ago.
  23. IndianaTwin
    I didn't want to like this, but I did. I can't watch it as often as MLB Network plays it every winter, but on occasion it's a nice mindless watch. When watching, I can't separate the Busfield character from the other one you reference. And my bit of trivia is having just discovered that he's married to Laura Ingalls Wilder.
  24. IndianaTwin
    Yes, many great scenes and lines, but none of them compares to the one on the mond. Incredible, and then he drops the, "Okay, let's get two." You know it's coming, and you can't keep from laughing.
  25. IndianaTwin
    Haven't seen it. Will need to track it down.
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