RealTwinsFan357

It may mean a bunch of losses in 2015, but the Twins need to use their next season to evaluate what they have. Next off-season, they can look at the trade and free agent market and search for a way to supplement their 25-man roster, but for now, they need to commit to the youth movement. I'll take a look at the players who deserve an extended look in each area of the Twins roster.
 
Starting Rotation: Obviously, Hughes and Nolasco are not going anywhere. I think Gibson is a breakout candidate and could prove to be something special. On top of those three, I would choose May and Meyer to fill out my rotation. If the Twins are ever going to compete, they need to know if either of those pitchers will ever become a front-of-the-rotation arm. This doesn't leave room for a free-agent acquisition. I agree the Twins would probably win an additional handful of games if they signed Justin Masterson to a 1-year deal, but then either May or Meyer ends up in AAA. That's not how a youth movement is supposed to go. The Twins will still have Milone and Darnell who could fill in if injury arises. If Meyer doesn't have what it takes to succeed, I'd rather know that after a poor 2015 then part way into 2016.
 
Bullpen: The bullpen needs to have some turn-over this year. I would have no problem with the Twins trading/non-tendering Swarzak and Duensing and I believe Burton will be gone once the Twins buy out his contract. I would formulate a bullpen with Perkins, Fien, Darnell, Pressly, Pryor, Pelfrey, Tonkin and Theilbar. I would also make sure Achter and Oliveros get an extended look at some point. This will not be the best bullpen in baseball, but Jake Reed, Nick Burdi, and Zack Jones will be here by season's end. Even if they don't all pan out, I expect at least two of them to show immediate success. The Twins would then need to know who stays and who goes amongst the others. 2015 is the year to figure that out.
 
Infield: Santana needs to be the shortstop. If that's actually going to be his position, the Twins need to see how he handles it full time. Dozier and Plouffe could end up becoming two of Minnesota's best trade candidates, especially if Sano and Polanco both show major league success toward the end of 2015. Of course, Mauer isn't going anywhere and Vargas will get the majority of DH at bats. This year is also Pinto's change to show whether he can be the catcher of the future; I think we'll know by season's end. There are not as many questions about the infield as other aspects of the team.
 
Outfield: I don't understand the idea that the Twins should trade Arcia. I agree he isn't the best outfielder in the world, but I would argue he's the only outfielder that isn't a total question mark going into 2015. CF and LF are sort of a mess, so why trade Arcia and make RF a mess, too? For CF and LF, I think the Twins can patch together enough success to survive 2015. Schafer should be retained for another season, as he plays pretty good defense and runs well. Other than that, I would give Hicks, Rosario, Danny Ortiz, and eventually Buxton opportunities this year. I could even see Rosario being the Twins opening day CF this season. If Hicks, Rosario, and Ortiz fail and Buxton isn't ready, the Twins can ride with Parmelee in LF until someone hits the waver wire without it being the end of the world.
 
Overall, 2015 might be a struggle, like Terry Ryan suggested, but it could help the team in the long run to just play the group they already have. Once the Twins know what they have in their top prospects, they will be in a better position to pursue talent on the free agent and trade markets to supplement what they already have.

It may mean a bunch of losses in 2015, but the Twins need to use their next season to evaluate what they have. Next off-season, they can look at the trade and free agent market and search for a way to supplement their 25-man roster, but for now, they need to commit to the youth movement. I'll take a look at the players who deserve an extended look in each area of the Twins roster.
 
Starting Rotation: Obviously, Hughes and Nolasco are not going anywhere. I think Gibson is a breakout candidate and could prove to be something special. On top of those three, I would choose May and Meyer to fill out my rotation. If the Twins are ever going to compete, they need to know if either of those pitchers will ever become a front-of-the-rotation arm. This doesn't leave room for a free-agent acquisition. I agree the Twins would probably win an additional handful of games if they signed Justin Masterson to a 1-year deal, but then either May or Meyer ends up in AAA. That's not how a youth movement is supposed to go. The Twins will still have Milone and Darnell who could fill in if injury arises. If Meyer doesn't have what it takes to succeed, I'd rather know that after a poor 2015 then part way into 2016.
 
Bullpen: The bullpen needs to have some turn-over this year. I would have no problem with the Twins trading/non-tendering Swarzak and Duensing and I believe Burton will be gone once the Twins buy out his contract. I would formulate a bullpen with Perkins, Fien, Darnell, Pressly, Pryor, Pelfrey, Tonkin and Theilbar. I would also make sure Achter and Oliveros get an extended look at some point. This will not be the best bullpen in baseball, but Jake Reed, Nick Burdi, and Zack Jones will be here by season's end. Even if they don't all pan out, I expect at least two of them to show immediate success. The Twins would then need to know who stays and who goes amongst the others. 2015 is the year to figure that out.
 
Infield: Santana needs to be the shortstop. If that's actually going to be his position, the Twins need to see how he handles it full time. Dozier and Plouffe could end up becoming two of Minnesota's best trade candidates, especially if Sano and Polanco both show major league success toward the end of 2015. Of course, Mauer isn't going anywhere and Vargas will get the majority of DH at bats. This year is also Pinto's change to show whether he can be the catcher of the future; I think we'll know by season's end. There are not as many questions about the infield as other aspects of the team.
 
Outfield: I don't understand the idea that the Twins should trade Arcia. I agree he isn't the best outfielder in the world, but I would argue he's the only outfielder that isn't a total question mark going into 2015. CF and LF are sort of a mess, so why trade Arcia and make RF a mess, too? For CF and LF, I think the Twins can patch together enough success to survive 2015. Schafer should be retained for another season, as he plays pretty good defense and runs well. Other than that, I would give Hicks, Rosario, Danny Ortiz, and eventually Buxton opportunities this year. I could even see Rosario being the Twins opening day CF this season. If Hicks, Rosario, and Ortiz fail and Buxton isn't ready, the Twins can ride with Parmelee in LF until someone hits the waver wire without it being the end of the world.
 
Overall, 2015 might be a struggle, like Terry Ryan suggested, but it could help the team in the long run to just play the group they already have. Once the Twins know what they have in their top prospects, they will be in a better position to pursue talent on the free agent and trade markets to supplement what they already have.

The other day, I was watching Moneyball, one of my favorite films. My favorite scene is when Billy Beane is in the room with a bunch of scouts saying the team should sign a bunch of questionable players. His response, as I'm sure most of you know, to all the criticisms he receives is "He gets on base." This got me thinking, how important is it to get on base?
 
Using Fangraphs, I collected a bunch of data from last season, focusing on the team as a whole rather than individual stats. My goal was to see which aspects of hitting (OBP, OPS, wOBA, etc) had the largest impact on the number of runs the team scored. Some of the stuff I found seemed obvious, other stuff was quite surprising.
 
For each statistic I ran a linear regression between total runs(y) and that statistic(x). I have reported the slope and correlation coefficient for each one:
AVG: slope=4.76(r=0.81)
OBP: slope=4.96 (r=0.89)
SLG: slope=2.91(r=0.90)
OPS: slope=2.04(r=0.94)
wOBA: slope=5.00(r=0.94)
BB%: slope=4.18(r=0.48)
ISO: slope=2.87(r=0.60)
HR: slope=1.47(r=0.53)
SB: slope=-0.08(r=-0.03)

It comes as no surprise that wOBA has both the strongest correlation and the most runs per percentage point of all the statistics I looked at. If anything, all this means is that wOBA truely is a great way to measure offensive value. In addition, the fact that OBP has a slightly larger impact than AVG indicates that getting on base via BB, HBP, Error, FC, etc. does create more run-scoring opportunities. However, the correlation between BB% and total runs was quite weak. Now that I think about it, this may be because a team can walk less and hit more and still recover their OBP, so this is really no different than AVG having a lower r-value than OBP. I'm surprised that SLG and OPS have a smaller impact than AVG and OBP, but I think this just exposes the weakness of those stats compared to wOBA. The fact that ISO has such a weak correlation with total runs further emphasizes that hitting for extra bases does not tell you as much as simply getting on base. I figured ahead of time that using HR and SB would provide weak correlations since they are counting stats, but it was interesting to see there is no correlation whatsoever between stolen bases and total runs scored.
 
I guess I didn't really learn all that much from doing this, but I can say the simple act of getting on base is more important to scoring runs than the business of how one gets on base (OBP vs AVG or BB%), and that wOBA is an awesome and useful statistic. So I guess Billy Beane was right, if a player gets on base, he's worth having on your team.
 
I'm new to Twins Daily and this is my first blog post! I love numbers but I also love the other aspects of the game, so as I continue to publish I promise not everything will be quite this dry
 
Thanks for reading and feel free to share your own thoughts and analysis!

The other day, I was watching Moneyball, one of my favorite films. My favorite scene is when Billy Beane is in the room with a bunch of scouts saying the team should sign a bunch of questionable players. His response, as I'm sure most of you know, to all the criticisms he receives is "He gets on base." This got me thinking, how important is it to get on base?
 
Using Fangraphs, I collected a bunch of data from last season, focusing on the team as a whole rather than individual stats. My goal was to see which aspects of hitting (OBP, OPS, wOBA, etc) had the largest impact on the number of runs the team scored. Some of the stuff I found seemed obvious, other stuff was quite surprising.
 
For each statistic I ran a linear regression between total runs(y) and that statistic(x). I have reported the slope and correlation coefficient for each one:
AVG: slope=4.76(r=0.81)
OBP: slope=4.96 (r=0.89)
SLG: slope=2.91(r=0.90)
OPS: slope=2.04(r=0.94)
wOBA: slope=5.00(r=0.94)
BB%: slope=4.18(r=0.48)
ISO: slope=2.87(r=0.60)
HR: slope=1.47(r=0.53)
SB: slope=-0.08(r=-0.03)

It comes as no surprise that wOBA has both the strongest correlation and the most runs per percentage point of all the statistics I looked at. If anything, all this means is that wOBA truely is a great way to measure offensive value. In addition, the fact that OBP has a slightly larger impact than AVG indicates that getting on base via BB, HBP, Error, FC, etc. does create more run-scoring opportunities. However, the correlation between BB% and total runs was quite weak. Now that I think about it, this may be because a team can walk less and hit more and still recover their OBP, so this is really no different than AVG having a lower r-value than OBP. I'm surprised that SLG and OPS have a smaller impact than AVG and OBP, but I think this just exposes the weakness of those stats compared to wOBA. The fact that ISO has such a weak correlation with total runs further emphasizes that hitting for extra bases does not tell you as much as simply getting on base. I figured ahead of time that using HR and SB would provide weak correlations since they are counting stats, but it was interesting to see there is no correlation whatsoever between stolen bases and total runs scored.
 
I guess I didn't really learn all that much from doing this, but I can say the simple act of getting on base is more important to scoring runs than the business of how one gets on base (OBP vs AVG or BB%), and that wOBA is an awesome and useful statistic. So I guess Billy Beane was right, if a player gets on base, he's worth having on your team.
 
I'm new to Twins Daily and this is my first blog post! I love numbers but I also love the other aspects of the game, so as I continue to publish I promise not everything will be quite this dry
 
Thanks for reading and feel free to share your own thoughts and analysis!

The other day, I was watching Moneyball, one of my favorite films. My favorite scene is when Billy Beane is in the room with a bunch of scouts saying the team should sign a bunch of questionable players. His response, as I'm sure most of you know, to all the criticisms he receives is "He gets on base." This got me thinking, how important is it to get on base?
 
Using Fangraphs, I collected a bunch of data from last season, focusing on the team as a whole rather than individual stats. My goal was to see which aspects of hitting (OBP, OPS, wOBA, etc) had the largest impact on the number of runs the team scored. Some of the stuff I found seemed obvious, other stuff was quite surprising.
 
For each statistic I ran a linear regression between total runs(y) and that statistic(x). I have reported the slope and correlation coefficient for each one:
AVG: slope=4.76(r=0.81)
OBP: slope=4.96 (r=0.89)
SLG: slope=2.91(r=0.90)
OPS: slope=2.04(r=0.94)
wOBA: slope=5.00(r=0.94)
BB%: slope=4.18(r=0.48)
ISO: slope=2.87(r=0.60)
HR: slope=1.47(r=0.53)
SB: slope=-0.08(r=-0.03)

It comes as no surprise that wOBA has both the strongest correlation and the most runs per percentage point of all the statistics I looked at. If anything, all this means is that wOBA truely is a great way to measure offensive value. In addition, the fact that OBP has a slightly larger impact than AVG indicates that getting on base via BB, HBP, Error, FC, etc. does create more run-scoring opportunities. However, the correlation between BB% and total runs was quite weak. Now that I think about it, this may be because a team can walk less and hit more and still recover their OBP, so this is really no different than AVG having a lower r-value than OBP. I'm surprised that SLG and OPS have a smaller impact than AVG and OBP, but I think this just exposes the weakness of those stats compared to wOBA. The fact that ISO has such a weak correlation with total runs further emphasizes that hitting for extra bases does not tell you as much as simply getting on base. I figured ahead of time that using HR and SB would provide weak correlations since they are counting stats, but it was interesting to see there is no correlation whatsoever between stolen bases and total runs scored.
 
I guess I didn't really learn all that much from doing this, but I can say the simple act of getting on base is more important to scoring runs than the business of how one gets on base (OBP vs AVG or BB%), and that wOBA is an awesome and useful statistic. So I guess Billy Beane was right, if a player gets on base, he's worth having on your team.
 
I'm new to Twins Daily and this is my first blog post! I love numbers but I also love the other aspects of the game, so as I continue to publish I promise not everything will be quite this dry
 
Thanks for reading and feel free to share your own thoughts and analysis!

The other day, I was watching Moneyball, one of my favorite films. My favorite scene is when Billy Beane is in the room with a bunch of scouts saying the team should sign a bunch of questionable players. His response, as I'm sure most of you know, to all the criticisms he receives is "He gets on base." This got me thinking, how important is it to get on base?
 
Using Fangraphs, I collected a bunch of data from last season, focusing on the team as a whole rather than individual stats. My goal was to see which aspects of hitting (OBP, OPS, wOBA, etc) had the largest impact on the number of runs the team scored. Some of the stuff I found seemed obvious, other stuff was quite surprising.
 
For each statistic I ran a linear regression between total runs(y) and that statistic(x). I have reported the slope and correlation coefficient for each one:
AVG: slope=4.76(r=0.81)
OBP: slope=4.96 (r=0.89)
SLG: slope=2.91(r=0.90)
OPS: slope=2.04(r=0.94)
wOBA: slope=5.00(r=0.94)
BB%: slope=4.18(r=0.48)
ISO: slope=2.87(r=0.60)
HR: slope=1.47(r=0.53)
SB: slope=-0.08(r=-0.03)

It comes as no surprise that wOBA has both the strongest correlation and the most runs per percentage point of all the statistics I looked at. If anything, all this means is that wOBA truely is a great way to measure offensive value. In addition, the fact that OBP has a slightly larger impact than AVG indicates that getting on base via BB, HBP, Error, FC, etc. does create more run-scoring opportunities. However, the correlation between BB% and total runs was quite weak. Now that I think about it, this may be because a team can walk less and hit more and still recover their OBP, so this is really no different than AVG having a lower r-value than OBP. I'm surprised that SLG and OPS have a smaller impact than AVG and OBP, but I think this just exposes the weakness of those stats compared to wOBA. The fact that ISO has such a weak correlation with total runs further emphasizes that hitting for extra bases does not tell you as much as simply getting on base. I figured ahead of time that using HR and SB would provide weak correlations since they are counting stats, but it was interesting to see there is no correlation whatsoever between stolen bases and total runs scored.
 
I guess I didn't really learn all that much from doing this, but I can say the simple act of getting on base is more important to scoring runs than the business of how one gets on base (OBP vs AVG or BB%), and that wOBA is an awesome and useful statistic. So I guess Billy Beane was right, if a player gets on base, he's worth having on your team.
 
I'm new to Twins Daily and this is my first blog post! I love numbers but I also love the other aspects of the game, so as I continue to publish I promise not everything will be quite this dry
 
Thanks for reading and feel free to share your own thoughts and analysis!

The other day, I was watching Moneyball, one of my favorite films. My favorite scene is when Billy Beane is in the room with a bunch of scouts saying the team should sign a bunch of questionable players. His response, as I'm sure most of you know, to all the criticisms he receives is "He gets on base." This got me thinking, how important is it to get on base?
 
Using Fangraphs, I collected a bunch of data from last season, focusing on the team as a whole rather than individual stats. My goal was to see which aspects of hitting (OBP, OPS, wOBA, etc) had the largest impact on the number of runs the team scored. Some of the stuff I found seemed obvious, other stuff was quite surprising.
 
For each statistic I ran a linear regression between total runs(y) and that statistic(x). I have reported the slope and correlation coefficient for each one:
AVG: slope=4.76(r=0.81)
OBP: slope=4.96 (r=0.89)
SLG: slope=2.91(r=0.90)
OPS: slope=2.04(r=0.94)
wOBA: slope=5.00(r=0.94)
BB%: slope=4.18(r=0.48)
ISO: slope=2.87(r=0.60)
HR: slope=1.47(r=0.53)
SB: slope=-0.08(r=-0.03)

It comes as no surprise that wOBA has both the strongest correlation and the most runs per percentage point of all the statistics I looked at. If anything, all this means is that wOBA truely is a great way to measure offensive value. In addition, the fact that OBP has a slightly larger impact than AVG indicates that getting on base via BB, HBP, Error, FC, etc. does create more run-scoring opportunities. However, the correlation between BB% and total runs was quite weak. Now that I think about it, this may be because a team can walk less and hit more and still recover their OBP, so this is really no different than AVG having a lower r-value than OBP. I'm surprised that SLG and OPS have a smaller impact than AVG and OBP, but I think this just exposes the weakness of those stats compared to wOBA. The fact that ISO has such a weak correlation with total runs further emphasizes that hitting for extra bases does not tell you as much as simply getting on base. I figured ahead of time that using HR and SB would provide weak correlations since they are counting stats, but it was interesting to see there is no correlation whatsoever between stolen bases and total runs scored.
 
I guess I didn't really learn all that much from doing this, but I can say the simple act of getting on base is more important to scoring runs than the business of how one gets on base (OBP vs AVG or BB%), and that wOBA is an awesome and useful statistic. So I guess Billy Beane was right, if a player gets on base, he's worth having on your team.
 
I'm new to Twins Daily and this is my first blog post! I love numbers but I also love the other aspects of the game, so as I continue to publish I promise not everything will be quite this dry
 
Thanks for reading and feel free to share your own thoughts and analysis!