USAFChief

We are rapidly approaching opening day and still looking for volunteers...any takers?

It's always a pleasant surprise though, ain't it?

Didnt the Dodgers give McCarthy 4/$48 this winter? Are we sure they would view Milone as an upgrade?

The Marlins last were above .500 in 2009. 2010: 80-82 2011: 72-90 2012: 69-93 2013: 62-100 2014: 77-85 The Marlins may indeed be a playoff team this year, but I will wait for it to happen before I give them credit for it, and agree they've "rebuilt" in two years. Regardless, the point is still valid, IMO. It's difficult to rebuild and it often fails. It took Pittsburgh and KC 20 years, if we're going to point to individual examples. It took the Twins pretty much the entire 1990's.

This doesn't necessarily mean he's out of the organization, right? Just off the 40 man.

I don't know about the rest of the "out West," Mike, but here in Arizona we have the interwebs. At least in my part. Can't speak for Phoenix, as I try very hard to avoid it.

His quotes before post season Yankee series always irked me, too. I'm too lazy to look them up, but they were always something along the lines of having to "play perfect" to win, or something similar that let everyone know, including his team, that he thought the team in the other dugout was much better than his.

Precisely. Also, "rebuilds" are hard and often don't work. People just assume Sano, Buxton et al will not only be good major leaguers, but it's a guarantee that when they are, the Twins will win. The first part of that equation isn't even assured, much less the second.

It's baseball, anything can happen, but I think it's a fair conclusion to draw that the Twins are most likely going to finish at the bottom of the ALC.

Perhaps. If so, then perhaps it also shows why some of us think Mauer is too passive. He had a 1.000 OPS on 3-0 counts: .000/1.000/.000 a 1.000 OPS is below league average, according to the article. He should swing more 3-0, right?

Agreed. If it was written purely for entertainment, I've overreacted. If that's why it was posted here in this thread--purely for entertainment--great. Is that the case, y'think?

I agree with the bolded, and it might eventually drive him from the big leagues. But I don't think this article does anything to shed light on that.

It might be very entertaining. It's not analysis, and the "stats" certainly don't back up any conclusions. One might even say it's written in a way that cleverly abuses "stats" to make a point seem stronger: notice how he takes out the intentional walks from Arcia's OBP to make it look worse compared to league average, but doesn't take intentional walks out of league average before comparing it. It's 10 swings. 10. If it wasn't on Fangraphs, analysis based on 10 swings would be ridiculed by the folks who write articles for Fangraphs.

IMO this article is less an indictment of Arcia than an example of why it's often hard to takr Fangraphs seriously. It's 10 swings, for one thing. Over the course of a season. Had it been seven, the article doesn't get written. Had Arcia gotten two hits on 10 swings instead of none, the article doesn't get written. For another, the author seems to lack any sense of when, or why, a managers would give a player a green light. The very first GIF shows Arcia hitting in the 7th, his team down a run, two outs, runner on second. Pitcher struggling, so you can bet the house on a fastball, and he gets one, a little up and in, perfect to turn on. Arcia has good power. If Im managing, he gets fined if he DOESN'T take a good hack at that pitch. It was going to be a called strike anyway, so letting it go puts him in the exact spot he ends up in, and likely doesn't change the results of the AB. I have 7 outs left, and there is a very good chance that pitch represents by far the best opportunity left for the team to tie or take the lead. A walk there simply leaves it to the next hitter to bring in that runner from second, only he starts all over at 0-0, and most likely doesn't get the advantage of a very predictable pitch and might not have the platoon advantage either. And taking the pitch doesn't guarantee a walk anyway. A couple of those 10 pitches Arcia shouldn't have swung at, I agree. Over the course of a season, every hitter in baseball will swing at some balls. Focusing on a couple for one hitter tells you very little about that hitter. It might tell you a lot about the author, though.

Wouldn't "future liabilities" also include contracts signed with players? For example, the money owed Mauer, Santana, Nolasco, etc?

I'd be pretty surprised if Arcia isn't in LF for the Twins opening day.

Pretty sure the only run scored by Toronto whie Hunter was in the game came on a HR off Noasco. Pretty sure that wasn't Hunter's fault.

Maybe Big Pelf has trouble remembering the signs, and has to think about which pitch he's being asked to throw.

concur

I would imagine if he needs money the Clinton campaign would give him whatever he asks for.

What's the correlation between pitcher W's and team wins? I kid, I kid.

I'm still holding out hope Hicks turns into a decent solution. With value post-Buxton. Admittedly, that flame of hope is flickering badly, but it's still there. At the very least if the season is wasted I'd rather it be wasted on Hicks than other current Twins options.

Stengel and Hodges weren't carrying twelve or thirteen pitchers.

I can make up examples, too. Guy gets on first. Next guy gets a single, first and third. Next guy can't get the ball out of the infield. No run scores. Next guy strikes out. Next guy lines a two run double into the gap, driving in two runs. It would be my opinion his contribution was the most valuable of the inning. The object isn't to get to first base,it's to safely reach home. BTW, the first two guys DO get credit in the traditional box score, whether they score or not. First guy gets credit for a walk, second guy for a single.

Or, a guy can go out and throw 10 shutout innings in the 7th game of the World Series, and get the W. Extreme examples aside, the single biggest factor in winning and losing a big league game is the performance of the starting pitcher. Crediting him, or debiting him, for that performance, despite all the noise, seems entirely reasonable to me.