King

Happy Thanksgiving to all. I could go for a turkey dinner tomorrow, but I already had mine a month ago.

I would love to see this! Here are Mike Trouts career stats through each count. 238/280/423 when 0-2, and 408/823/732 when 3-0. That is one of the best hitters in the game who is significantly worse when down in the count when he is ahead. http://i.imgur.com/WL2FYKH.png And here is Jeff Mathis.. one of the worst hitters in baseball. http://i.imgur.com/coSq7L8.png On the contrary, Alfredo Simon (by all accounts, terrible pitcher) held hitters to 273/273/442 when he got ahead 0-2 in the count this past year. If you're facing an elite pitcher like Aroldis Chapman, Andrew Miller, Clayton Kershaw, etc. and fall behind in the count. It's pretty much game over. Here is how hitters have hit against Chapman through each count over his career. http://i.imgur.com/ohd177M.png The difference is truly remarkable.

There is game calling data in front offices, it's just not publicized. I assume it was considered by Falvey and Levine when they made the decision to sign Castro.

Yes. His bat isn't bad for a catcher and 8 mil. isn't all that much money these days. When the other options are in house (murphy, garver, centeno - not good), signing Wilson Ramos (ACL popped and looking for a short term deal to rebuild value, will need regular rest days at DH), re-signing Suzuki (no thank you) or trading assets for a catcher from another team, I would say that it is a good deal. By no means is Castro a star, this is not an earth breaking signing. But his addition to the team is an upgrade, and he will help significantly.

Here is a snippet of a 2014 article from Grantland on the value of pitch framing. I would recommend reading the entire thing and the hyperlinks to other articles inside. Sorry if this is a long post, but I think it is relevant to the discussion. http://grantland.com/features/studying-art-pitch-framing-catchers-such-francisco-cervelli-chris-stewart-jose-molina-others/ Fast found that Molina, the best receiver, was worth 35 runs above average per 120 games, and Doumit, the worst, was worth 26 runs below average. After Houston hired Fast, another analyst named Max Marchi succeeded him at Baseball Prospectus2 and brought with him a sophisticated model for framing that accounted for most of the potentially confounding factors: the umpire, the ballpark, the batter, the ball-strike count, and the pitch location and type. According to Marchi, who has consulted for a major league club and whose work has been mentioned by Rays manager Joe Maddon, Molina has saved his teams 111 runs — or, using the standard 10-runs-to-a-win conversion, about 11 wins — because of framing from 2008 to 2013. (The only other catcher with a higher run total over that same time period, Brian McCann at 122, has caught more than twice as many pitches.) Doumit, on the other end of the receiving spectrum, cost his teams 155 runs. That comes out to 0.50 runs added by Molina and 0.55 runs subtracted by Doumit per 100 pitches, an enormous difference.3 For comparative purposes, Barry Bonds’s bat during the 2001-2004 seasons, when he basically broke baseball, was worth about 0.78 runs above average per game. Granted, those run totals aren’t typical. Molina and Doumit are outliers; no one else comes close to costing his team as much per pitch as Doumit, and only Brewers catcher Jonathan Lucroy has approached Molina levels of framing effectiveness. (Lucroy has some advantages over Molina. He’s 11 years younger and has a better bat, which allows him to stay in the lineup. Since his debut in 2010, he’s saved almost twice as many runs due to framing as any other catcher, aside from Molina.) Still, consider the implications. Giancarlo Stanton, one of the most coveted young players in the game, was worth as much4 (in terms of Wins Above Replacement) over the past two seasons as Molina’s framing alone was worth in a part-time role over the past five-plus, yet Molina’s value, unlike Stanton’s, is largely overlooked. And that’s without factoring in any value Molina added by calling games, handling his pitching staff, and controlling the running game. Best of all, Molina’s done it all for an average of $1.5 million per season, in an era when a single win on the free-agent market usually runs teams around $5 million. It’s no surprise that Molina plays for the Rays, low-payroll competitors who’ve found ways to make a dollar go further than any other organization. Nor is it a coincidence that Molina, a career backup catcher whom standard sabermetric stats peg as a replacement-level player, became a first-time starter and appeared in a career-high 102 games in his age-37 season, barely six months after Fast’s study appeared on Baseball Prospectus. Eleven wins sounds like too much for a single part-time pitch receiver to add in just over five seasons, but think about how many opportunities to gain and lose strikes there are over a 162-game schedule. A durable catcher can catch around 10,000 called pitches in a single season. Many of those pitches are clear-cut calls. But that still leaves hundreds, maybe thousands, of pitches in the shadowy border region between ball and strike, where a good receiver can perform the catching equivalent of turning water into wine. Even if an extra strike doesn’t send the batter back to the dugout, it puts him in a less-favorable count and makes him less likely to do damage later in the at-bat. Dan Turkenkopf, another former Baseball Prospectus staffer who was recently hired by the Rays, put the average value of turning a single ball into a strike at 0.13 runs. If you do that a few times per game, as Molina does, the run total climbs quickly.

Pitch Framing is definitely a skill (otherwise called receiving). That has been 100% established. Umpires play a factor as well as a few other things but for the most part those are accounted for in the numbers. Throwing out baserunners relies a lot on the pitcher, and there are some smart organizations like the Rays who very well ignore it by employing a catcher like Hank Conger, who can't throw out a runner to save his life (http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/hank-congers-jon-lester-season-behind-the-plate/) I don't think Castros offense is declining more than he has settled into what his true talent level is, ~85 wRC+ bat who hits for a low average with a good walk rate and has a decent amount of pop. The only thing I see to be concerned about is the rising strikeout rate, but his swinging strike% has been fairly steady aside from a spike in 2015 so it might just be nothing.

Over Murphy/Garver/Centeno, a big one! He's the better player. But it's really hard to say. MLBTR Free Agent Predictions had Ramos getting 4yr/50mil. He hit well in 2016 supported by a high BABIP, and was utterly terrible at the plate in 2015. Likely he is somewhere in the middle of those two peaks. On top of this his ACL popped at the end of the season. And we don't know other factors, like if he didn't want to sign here.

Pitch framing is a skill. Castro has the ability to turn close pitches that are balls into strikes. Suzuki did not have this ability (in fact, he was so bad that he turned close strikes into balls). I'm certain it will have a positive effect on the Twins pitching staff. It won't turn them into Houstons pitching staff magically (obviously), but it will have a positive effect.

The way you word this makes it seem like the Twins pitchers don't throw close pitches.. ever. A pitch on the outside corner, is a pitch on the outside corner. You keep stating his WAR without factoring in his pitch framing is factually incorrect, yes.

And again.

You're ignoring pitch framing in your WAR calculations, for whatever reason.

I don't think his bat is as bad as people are making it out to be. Yeah, he hits for a low average, but comes with a decent amount of pop and he walks at a good rate. He can't hit lefties but is an above average hitter vs RHP on his career (247/328/424, 108 wRC+). Not something I am worrying about at this point. His defense and contributions with our young pitching staff, and the upgrade he represents over Murphy/Garver/Centeno etc. are more than enough to make up for any warts he has with his bat. For added reference. Catchers as a whole hit 242/310/391, 87 wRC+ in the MLB last year. 230/297/387 in the AL. He'll be fine.

That's the point. Castro is a big upgrade over the previous in house options. Good job by the FO to pinpoint a need and address it in a cost efficient manner.

Pitch framing puts him well over 2 wins per season, maybe upwards of 3. 3rd best framer in the MLB in 2016. This is a great deal and he is very big upgrade over J.R. Murphy, Juan Centeno and Mitch Garver. http://www.baseballprospectus.com/sortable/index.php?cid=1899425

This is fantastic.

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2016/11/twins-to-sign-jason-castro.html Aye!

You still get gems every once in awhile. Odubel Herrera comes to mind. Joe Biagini is another.. Luis Perdomo was raw last year but held his own. If the talk of rosters being expanded to 26 players, we could see even more players taken than recent years.

http://m.mlb.com/video/topic/7617858/v1211132683/live-afl-championship-game

Good luck to him.

Good post, sir. I agree.

He has a chance to be a special player right now due to his defense and baserunning. In all likelyhood he will never be the player people thought he would be when he was a top MLB prospect. Not many are. But they key to that will be improving his plate discipline. His contact rates right now suck, to be frank, and his swinging strike % is absurdly high. He might improve a little bit, but the chances are against him that his plate discipline will never be that good. If he can even be a league average hitter (100 wRC+ or better) with his speed and baserunning. That would be a great outcome, and a great baseball player. Here's hoping!

That's interesting if true. If they don't count short season teams toward the active list rule because it's less than 90 days. From 2009-2012 he never cracked the 90 day mark for being on an active list. Then 2013-2016 he did (4 years). So that would qualify for the rule. Good to know! But why wouldn't Polanco qualify then? Would it be because his 2010 season started on or a few days before May 29th and went to August 28th or a few days after? edit: I found the full article Old Nurse posted above. http://www.baseballamerica.com/majors/major-league-players-who-qualify-for-a-fourth-option-in-2013/#P3gSAdC3J6WQc1w1.97 Players who spend multiple seasons in short-season leagues, where they don’t accrue 90 days on an active roster because the season doesn’t last that long. This is particularly true for international players who sign at age 16 and require an acclimation period before embarking on a full-season league assignment. For example, an international teen might spend a summer in the Dominican Summer League, one in the Arizona League and one in the Northwest League before he’s ready for full-season ball in Year Four. Only when he completes 90 days in low Class A will he receive credit for a season. Players who have a season wiped out by injury do not receive credit for a “professional season” so long as they spend 30 or fewer days on the active roster. So in a case where a player spends May through August on the DL, his injury-wracked season does not count against his limit of five professional season, effectively extending the fourth-option window by a year. This happens only in rare cases.

What's considered an active list? Short season teams only officially operate from the middle of June to the beginning of September. (About ~75 days?) Looking at the game logs from back then, he was on the roster throughout the entire short season length.

The power is intriguing but the 38% strikeout rates in AAA are gross.

I wonder what the reason is, as to why he gets an extra option year?