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gunnarthor

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Everything posted by gunnarthor

  1. gunnarthor
    Before you can grade how good/bad they are as our new FO. They've been given a golden opportunity here so the big question - at least to me - is if they can keep a window of opportunity open longer than others. One of the reasons I thought Ryan was very good was that he more or less kept a very low payroll team competitive for basically a decade. Levine has been gifted with an incredibly talented and young roster. The Twins are good. They're going to make the playoffs several times in the next few years. Can our new FO push them over the top? Can they keep that window open longer or are we going to fall back into a more traditional cycle of competitiveness? We won't know the answers for awhile. Their first draft was encouraging.
  2. gunnarthor
    Meh. Run differential, during the season, probably isn't all that predictive. We use it at the end of the season and it might be more useful but RD after 103 games? There's gotta be some room for error in that. We were 4.5 back of the Royals who we had a lot of games left against and who we were better than. They had a quick run in July that made them seem better than they were (9-0 run w/+ 40 run differential Det and Chicago). No one thought the Royals were all of a sudden a good team. But again, that misses two points. First, do we expect our FO to be smarter than fangraphs? Second, the question, as I understand it, was whether the FO helped the team this year. I think we can agree that by selling off Garcia and especially Kintzler, they hurt us by weakening two important parts of the team. Maybe it helps in the long run but it made this year harder.
  3. gunnarthor
    I think we pick up two pitchers this offsesaon. One in free agency for sure and maybe another in FA or through trade. So opening day it's something like - Darvish (sure) Santana Berrios Cole (yep, that'll happen) Gibson Realistically, it's probably something like Cobb/Lynn and Odrozzi.
  4. gunnarthor
    I'm really torn on Santana. I like a big hall. I like a lot of seasons. I don't love short peaks. But at the end of the day, you only need 10 MLB seasons to be considered for the hall. Not 15 or 18. So people with shorter careers should get in. I don't like that we've put short peak guys with long careers in (Tim Raines had a five year peak worth 32 WAR and then played from 88-02 and amassed 30 WAR). And Santana was undoubtedly considered the best pitcher in baseball for a number of years and won two Cy Young awards. I'd vote him in. I'm not sure how the actual voters will treat him. Raines is an interesting comparison. In 12 seasons, Santana topped 4 WAR 7x, 5 WAR 5x, 6 WAR 4x, 7 WAR 4x. Raines, in 21 seasons, topped 4 WAR 6x, 5 WAR 6x, 6 WAR 4x, 7 WAR 1x. If we decided that Raines short peak is hall worthy, shouldn't Santana's peak - which was longer in much fewer seasons, be a HOFer? I mean, no one put Raines in the hall because of how he played in the 90s. But voters sorta rejected that argument with Nomar. In 14 seasons, Nomar topped 4 WAR 6x, 5 WAR 6x, 6 WAR 6x, 7 WAR 2x but he wasn't in. So I think Santana should be in but, like Nomar, will be given short shrift.
  5. gunnarthor
    I disagree. I want our new FO to be smarter than fangraphs baseruns. I think the CYA approach a lot are giving them here is based on what we as fans without internal knowledge knew or should have known. We did lose the WC game so trading Kinztler didn't hurt us in that game. But I think that misses the point. We weakened our bullpen by trading him and got back a C prospect. Since we made the playoffs, what were our chances of winning a one gamer? 33%? 45%? And if we did, would having a stronger bullpen been something we would have wanted in the playoffs even if in that one game it didn't matter? The FO hurt us in 2017, full stop. How much they hurt us is open for debate and how much they helped improve future years is open to debate. I'm certainly willing to give them more time but at best you can only give them an incomplete.
  6. gunnarthor
    McKay, Ohtani and ?
  7. gunnarthor
    I think this is a pretty easy answer. He'll start the season as part of the rotation in AAA. Unless something goes horribly wrong, he'll be the first starter up when we need a new one. I think our AAA rotation will include Mejia, May, Gonsavles and Romero, which gives the team some depth.
  8. gunnarthor
    I don't think we have to worry about Hughes. He'll show up for ST and if he's somehow hitting 92 again, great. If he's throwing mid 80s, I think they'll put him in the pen/DL or just release him. But the Twins shouldn't go into the season expecting anything from him and make him force their hand. If he's a pleasant surprise, great!
  9. gunnarthor
    The only thing surprising was that the Yankees were left out.
  10. gunnarthor
    I cannot for the life of me see why the Reds, an obvious rebuilding team, would take on Santana (and potentially 27m) for Stephenson. That's madness. Santana isn't a fit for a rebuilding team. He'd make sense for the Angels or Seattle or any other playoff contention team that wants to make their rotation deeper.
  11. gunnarthor
    For what it's worth - honest question, is it worth anything? - Steamer predicts Santana to throw 184 innings and be about 1.9 fWAR next year. Lynn they have at 150ip and 1.5 fWAR w/Santana having the slightly lower fip.
  12. gunnarthor
    I don't think Morris is a slam dunk guy. I think he's borderline but he is comparable to HOFers, his numbers when he retired were pretty good and he has his own unique story (as Poz would put it) that I would push him in. Stieb isn't anywhere close to that. I think Santana is a borderline candidate as well with a totally different story. They just don't seem comparable to me.
  13. gunnarthor
    I love in the post right before this you say "we can't look at what they did!" and immediately do that. If both were FA, Santana would be #3 behind Darvish and Arriata. Lynn would be looking for that 100m deal and would likely get 4/60m or so. Santana would end up getting 2/30 or so b/c of his age. Seems like some people might say a 31 year old coming off a near 5.00 fip after surgery with control problems might not be the safe bet. In any event, you keep making the same argument - Santana is a pumpkin. Fine, we get it. Then the Twins should sell him for peanuts. But it's possible that fip isn't the end-all, be-all stat. Or that a strong defense negates it. Or that his fip may go down. His fastball didn't decrease last year. He's remained very durable (oops, that's looking at past history, my bad). His k-rate and walk rates were essentially the same. The big change was more flyballs = more home runs this year, which is why fip and fWAR didn't like him as much. Looking at a batted ball profile a few things jump out - he gave up more flyballs and infield flys than he usually does while lowering the amount of line drive hits. Is that random? Is that how he and Castro decided to attack opposing players? More stuff up in the zone? I have no idea. But I think if you want to trade him and lose 200 innings you'd really want to know for sure.
  14. gunnarthor
    Oh, I dunno. Lot of people want Lance Lynn. Twins have been tied to Jake Odroizzi. There are legit question marks about Alex Cobb. I suspect Santana would the clear #3 on the FA market behind Darvish and Arrieta. And the Twins don't have to worry about Santana on a multi-year deal either. If he pitches enough to trigger his option then we're good. If he's a pumpkin, he won't trigger his option.
  15. gunnarthor
    I agree but even then his upside is still huge. He might be what we all wanted Burdi to be.
  16. gunnarthor
    Nice work, as always. I think we're underestimating Romero a lot. I'd probably have the top 5 go Gordon, Lewis, Romero, Gonsalves, Kiriloff but a bit of a gap between 3 and 4. Romero only threw 90 innings in 2016 so the Twins went slow with him. They put him in AA where he was amazing. Over his first 110 innings, he struck out 115 batters, put up a 2.60 era (despite a high babip) and got ground balls 54% of the time. He's a strike out pitcher and a worm killer. He got tired and his last three starts made his season look a bit worse but his upside is higher than any other pitcher for now and if he can't be a starter, he'll be a lock down closer. Gonsalves was good too but he only threw 110 innings all year and was repeating AA for a while and got knocked around in AAA. He doesn't have the upside of Romero. He'll probably make the majors faster but he's more of a 4/5 than a 3 (not a bad thing). We discussed Kiriloff a lot, I still like him and am ok with his current ranking. As to the two shortstops, I'd put Gordon ahead for now just because he's several levels closer to the majors. Lewis obviously has the bigger ceiling, Gordon the safer floor at this point. I like them both quite a bit.
  17. gunnarthor
    Huh. Outside of a comment I made about Yvonne Strahovski, this seems to be my most liked comment on TD. Nick, you're wrong!
  18. gunnarthor
    Can I go back to October 27, 1991?
  19. gunnarthor
    I think Tom covered it pretty well. He's a good prospect but he's not top 5. He might slip into a back end top 100 somewhere (Sickels). He wasn't a top of the draft pick. He's just a good pick playing well with one really good tool and some evidence, so far, that he might be able to hit at higher levels. That's all very encouraging. You should look at how he's doing vs. other college bats taken in similar spots in recent drafts. Rooker looks very good.
  20. gunnarthor
    This article made me chuckle. https://splinternews.com/hey-idiots-youre-gonna-lose-all-your-money-on-bitcoin-1820805131
  21. gunnarthor
    Steib is the most overrated underrated player going right now. In his career he threw 2900 or so innings and 44 WAR. From 80-91, Morris threw 2900 innnings and 44 WAR. In 5 more seasons he tacked on another 11 WAR. While you noted their bWAR you didn't note their fWAR Morris (55.8) Palmer (56.6) and Hubbel (56.5). I suspect the difference between those has to do with the defense - Palmer's babip for his career is .249. Of pitchers with 3000ip or more, only Catfish Hunter is better and third best is sitting at .258. Hubbel (.267) and Morris (.270) aren't close to that. Brooks Robinson was really, really good. Again, if you like WAR, he's comparable to Palmer and Hubbel.
  22. gunnarthor
    Some of that is true but it's also a little out of context. Morris had more seasons in the top 10 of k/9 than Johan and more seasons in the top 10 in strikeouts as well. When he retired, he was 19th all time in strikeouts. The massive change in the game the last twenty years has changed our perception of strike outs. (Blyleven's k/9 was less than Scott Baker's). And he certainly has a pretty strong claim to the Cy Young in 83 when Hoyt's 24 wins got him the award. While Morris didn't lead in ERA part of the reason is probably due do too many innings, which can water down rate stats. If he threw 50 less innings each year, would his ERA have improved? Probably. But again, they are both borderline candidates but for completely different reasons. Santana, at his best, was inner circle HOF. Very few pitchers could touch that. Morris had longevity. His career is comparable to HOFers like Carl Hubbell and Jim Palmer while Santana relies more on Koufax. They don't compare to each other very well. I'd love to see both in the HOF. Because I prefer longevity and his post season success, I'd probably put Morris in first but you can certainly argue that short high peaks should be HOF worthy as well. (And I think guys like Santana and Nomar Garciaparra should be strongly considered).
  23. gunnarthor
    The idea of trading off Santana doesn't make sense unless you think he'll turn into a pumpkin - in which case you should also think he has no trade value, esp to rebuilding teams that should horde younger players. If you think Santana can pitch about 190 innings next year with a ERA+ of around 100 then you should keep him because we don't have five pitchers that will beat that. He's not blocking anyone and the Twins window is currently open. They shouldn't worry about 2019 when they should be worrying about 2018. And if you think ownership is worried about paying a 36 year old pitcher 14m then how are you going to convince the same owner to pay Darvish 25m per year for his 35-37 years?
  24. gunnarthor
    Not sure why you decided to slam Morris. I assume it's because WAR. Yeah, his rate stats weren't as nice but he threw a lot more innings. Santana threw just about 2000 innings in his career, Saberhagan about 500 more. From 80-87, Jack Morris threw 2038ip (more than Santana's career). From 78-88 he threw 2577 innings (more than Saberhagen's career). He amassed more career WAR than both of them. His peak was never as good but he had more 4+ WAR seasons than both. And he probably should have won the Cy Young in 83 over Hoyt. His case for the Hall is based on longevity and innings. (And Morris' totals look a lot better if you consider WARs margin of error). It's just a weird comparison. Saberhagen, Santana and Morris are all better pitchers than Goose Gossage and Mariano Rivera. Doesn't really affect their HOF claim. And at the end of the day, Morris' had a lot of post season success, including 3 CG wins in the World Series and a WS MVP. Santana and Saberhagen both had worse post-season numbers (although Saberhagen has a WS MVP too).
  25. gunnarthor
    Saberhagen 85-91 won two Cy Youngs and had a third year worth 8 WAR and didn't even receive a vote.
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