John Bonnes

Did you mean to say "not only does one go up when the other goes UP..."? I did. Thanks for the catch. Fixed.

You can view the page at http://twinsdaily.com/content.php?1168-The-Twins-Binary-Hope

In the latest Gleeman and the Geek podcast, Aaron Gleeman and I argued, as we are apt to do. Among the questions raised was one that stuck with me: what is the goal of baseball’s regular season? Certainly, it is to make the playoffs, but beyond that, is there an advantage to posting a high win total? The answer to that question influences the path one thinks the Twins should travel this offseason. The AL Central champion had only 88 wins last year, the lowest amount for any division. It is not unlikely that could happen again next year. It is not unreasonable to suggest that even coming off of a 66 win season, by piecing together even a mediocre rotation, the Twins could improve to a mid-80s win team. But is that good enough? Or does a team need to win 90+ games to be taken seriously as a champion? To be honest, I have no idea. Aaron and I have gone back and forth on it throughout the year and again on Sunday night. On the one hand, it makes sense that a better team (one with more wins) would be favored versus a worse team. (Vegas certainly thinks so.) Furthermore, over several games, that advantage would could be more pronounced. On the other hand, it’s often said that playoffs are random. There are certainly enough counterexamples of underdogs who have held parades at the end of October, including this year. It occurred to me today that this is something we can test, and it may provide a pretty definitive answer. Best of all, it isn’t that difficult to do. Here’s how…. (Warning: high level stats discussion coming.) One sabrmetric tool used a LOT is called a correlation test. A correlation test compares two sequenced sets of data and sees what kind of relationships the two sets of data have. It is by using correlation tests that sabremetrics can definitively say that OBP or SLG is more important than BA, because it more closely correlates with the runs a team score. It is also by a correlation test the we know that xFIP is a slightly better predictor of future ERA than ERA is. We’re going to use it to compare wins in the regular season to series wins in the playoffs. I’ll link to the data once our web master posts it on our server. It’ll consist of all the playoff teams from 1996 through 2012, along with their playoff series wins and also their regular season wins.* We’ll run a correlation test on those two sets of numbers, and the test will return a value somewhere between -1 and 1: The closer to 1, the more regular season wins translates to playoffs success. For instance, comparing temperatures in Celsius to temperatures in Fahrenheit would have a correlation of 1. Not only does one go up when one goes down, but it goes up or down proportionally the same. The closer to -1, then regular season wins would have a negative correlation to playoff series wins. For instance, comparing how much I cumulatively spend to my checking balance would have a correlation of -1. The higher the amount I spend, the more my checking balance goes down. The closer to 0, the more regular season wins and playoff series wins just aren’t related. If I were to compare the total wins of a team to the numbers of migratory monarch butterflies for each city, I would expect the number to be close to 0. The two sets of data mean nothing to each other. So what do you think it will be? Take your guess, before I do the work. I’m guessing a fairly small correlation, somewhere around .25, which would be similar to the correlation that SABR folks use to conclude that pitchers can’t control if balls in play are hits. (Off to enter data and do the math….) Wow. The answer is actually quite a bit lower than that. The answer is just .07. Winning more games - being a 95 game winner versus an 85 game winner – affords a team almost no advantage in terms of advancing in the playoffs. If I wanted to drive home just how random this is (and I had a little more patience) I could compare the series wins to other ridiculous pieces of data for each team and find one that had a higher correlation. I’d venture to bet that one of these four items would have a higher correlation: team batting average, team errors, average height, or total letters in the names of all the players on 25-man roster. That’s how ridiculously low this correlation is. To me, that means that success in MLB isn’t qualitative - it’s binary. Either a team makes the playoffs, and thus has a pretty even chance to win a championship, or it doesn’t. To give extra credit for wins is akin to giving extra credit for something like team batting average or how many ex-Twins they have – you might find it interesting, but that doesn’t mean it is important. It also suggests that if you think the Twins can win the AL Central next year, then a complete overhaul might not be in order. A team does not need to be razed and rebuilt and win 95 games to position themselves to be a champion. Indeed, it earns them almost nothing at all. They just need to be good enough to get into the postseason, even if it’s in a poor division. ~~~ *(Three geek notes about the data I used. First, I did all the teams since the wild card began. Second, I skipped 1995 because they didn’t play 162 games, and since I was using win total instead of win percentage, that would have produced skewed data. And finally, for 2012, I only used the two wild card teams who won their playoff wild card game.)

In the latest Gleeman and the Geek podcast, Aaron Gleeman and I argued, as we are apt to do. Among the questions raised was one that stuck with me: what is the goal of baseball’s regular season? Certainly, it is to make the playoffs, but beyond that, is there an advantage to posting a high win total? The answer to that question influences the path one thinks the Twins should travel this offseason. The AL Central champion had only 88 wins last year, the lowest amount for any division. It is not unlikely that could happen again next year. It is not unreasonable to suggest that even coming off of a 66 win season, by piecing together even a mediocre rotation, the Twins could improve to a mid-80s win team. But is that good enough? Or does a team need to win 90+ games to be taken seriously as a champion? To be honest, I have no idea. Aaron and I have gone back and forth on it throughout the year and again on Sunday night. On the one hand, it makes sense that a better team (one with more wins) would be favored versus a worse team. (Vegas certainly thinks so.) Furthermore, over several games, that advantage would could be more pronounced. On the other hand, it’s often said that playoffs are random. There are certainly enough counterexamples of underdogs who have held parades at the end of October, including this year. It occurred to me today that this is something we can test, and it may provide a pretty definitive answer. Best of all, it isn’t that difficult to do. Here’s how…. (Warning: high level stats discussion coming.) One sabrmetric tool used a LOT is called a correlation test. A correlation test compares two sequenced sets of data and sees what kind of relationships the two sets of data have. It is by using correlation tests that sabremetrics can definitively say that OBP or SLG is more important than BA, because it more closely correlates with the runs a team score. It is also by a correlation test the we know that xFIP is a slightly better predictor of future ERA than ERA is. We’re going to use it to compare wins in the regular season to series wins in the playoffs. I’ll link to the data once our web master posts it on our server. It’ll consist of all the playoff teams from 1996 through 2012, along with their playoff series wins and also their regular season wins.* We’ll run a correlation test on those two sets of numbers, and the test will return a value somewhere between -1 and 1: The closer to 1, the more regular season wins translates to playoffs success. For instance, comparing temperatures in Celsius to temperatures in Fahrenheit would have a correlation of 1. Not only does one go up when one goes down, but it goes up or down proportionally the same. The closer to -1, then regular season wins would have a negative correlation to playoff series wins. For instance, comparing how much I cumulatively spend to my checking balance would have a correlation of -1. The higher the amount I spend, the more my checking balance goes down. The closer to 0, the more regular season wins and playoff series wins just aren’t related. If I were to compare the total wins of a team to the numbers of migratory monarch butterflies for each city, I would expect the number to be close to 0. The two sets of data mean nothing to each other. So what do you think it will be? Take your guess, before I do the work. I’m guessing a fairly small correlation, somewhere around .25, which would be similar to the correlation that SABR folks use to conclude that pitchers can’t control if balls in play are hits. (Off to enter data and do the math….) Wow. The answer is actually quite a bit lower than that. The answer is just .07. Winning more games - being a 95 game winner versus an 85 game winner – affords a team almost no advantage in terms of advancing in the playoffs. If I wanted to drive home just how random this is (and I had a little more patience) I could compare the series wins to other ridiculous pieces of data for each team and find one that had a higher correlation. I’d venture to bet that one of these four items would have a higher correlation: team batting average, team errors, average height, or total letters in the names of all the players on 25-man roster. That’s how ridiculously low this correlation is. To me, that means that success in MLB isn’t qualitative - it’s binary. Either a team makes the playoffs, and thus has a pretty even chance to win a championship, or it doesn’t. To give extra credit for wins is akin to giving extra credit for something like team batting average or how many ex-Twins they have – you might find it interesting, but that doesn’t mean it is important. It also suggests that if you think the Twins can win the AL Central next year, then a complete overhaul might not be in order. A team does not need to be razed and rebuilt and win 95 games to position themselves to be a champion. Indeed, it earns them almost nothing at all. They just need to be good enough to get into the postseason, even if it’s in a poor division. ~~~ *(Three geek notes about the data I used. First, I did all the teams since the wild card began. Second, I skipped 1995 because they didn’t play 162 games, and since I was using win total instead of win percentage, that would have produced skewed data. And finally, for 2012, I only used the two wild card teams who won their playoff wild card game.)

You can view the page at http://twinsdaily.com/content.php?1167-Gleeman-and-the-Geek-Ep-67-Trade-Rumors-and-Claire-Forlani

Aaron and John talk about trade rumors, last week's aftermath and "the older gentleman" not paying his bar tab, terrible facial hair, local media moves, which starting pitchers Twins fans should dream about, having a Joe Maddon fetish, Claire Forlani and effective advertising, Denard Span versus James Shields, targeting Braves and Rays, and where to hide the dead prostitutes before next week's episode. Here are: the podcasts the rss feed if you want to subscribe and the podcast on iTunes.

Aaron and John talk about trade rumors, last week's aftermath and "the older gentleman" not paying his bar tab, terrible facial hair, local media moves, which starting pitchers Twins fans should dream about, having a Joe Maddon fetish, Claire Forlani and effective advertising, Denard Span versus James Shields, targeting Braves and Rays, and where to hide the dead prostitutes before next week's episode. Here are: the podcasts the rss feed if you want to subscribe and the podcast on iTunes.

Fryer's been old for every level where he has had success. The time he had success in AA was only about 130+ PAs, so even that should be taken with a grain of salt. The Butera comp isn't a bad one when you consider he's hit .204 in AAA. (Was he hurt or something? 319 PA in 1.5 years in AAA?) The one thing I noticed different about his stat line is that he doesn't strikeout too much, or at lease has a decent K/BB ratio. That seems odd for a .204 hitter. If the Twins signed him, it means they had someone on their scouting vouch for him. Maybe they see something the stats don't.

RE: Wood...what I've seen written up is that he has a big fastball (and seemingly decent control) but not a reliable breaking pitch. So maybe they're bringing him in with the theory that they can develop one. (Maybe Cuellar can team him the Santana changeup. )

I can understand the frustration - it seems like the big moves should happen first and the little moves later. If Ryan could choose, I'm sure that's what he would prefer. But that's not the way the timing of the offseason is. The big free agents get a sense of what their market is now. They don't sign unless they get an offer they can't refuse, or blows away their expectations. Meanwhile, there are a lot of minor league free agents who are antsy - they want a shot next year and preferably in an organization where they have a decent path to the majors. I'm guessing both Fryer and Wood fall into that category. Wood (or his agent) know that they Twins called up a bunch of relievers last year for a shot. Fryer looks at the depth chart and sees Drew Butera as his competition. Thus, quick signings.

TVOR and I had a few beers with Robby in Cincinnati and had a nice time talking to him. The one thing that becomes obvious is that he doesn't take his job (or people's reaction to him) too seriously. That can be good or bad. I will say this - I know the players and coaching staff liked him, and that's important in his job and not terrible easy and also probably leads to access and insights from which FSN benefited. Good luck to him in Pittsburgh.

What do you guys see in Gregorius that I don't? I see a guy whose sole statistical benefit is that he's young. He isn't fast. He doesn't have any power. He's not adept at getting on base. I think I'd rather have Brian Dozier than Gregorius - at least Dozier showed in the minors he can get on base. What am I missing? I'm not looking at Cozart as a star, but as a solid player for the next four years. Think Jason Bartlett but without the plate discipline, with more power and a more consistent glove.

Darn, second duplicate thread I've started today. They're combined now....

Jon Paul Morosi reports that Cincinnati Red GM Walt Jocketty is open to trading away one of his shortstops - Zack Cozart or Didi Gregorious - for a closer or center field/lead off hitter. The Twins are specifically mentioned by Morosi as one of the options for a trade. Cozart is a guy I wrote up in the Handbook. He's interesting, not spectacular. He's 27 and has some power - he hit 15 HR with the Reds and has a career slugging percentage of .421 in the minors. (His AAA numbers: .275/.327/.432 with 158K and 63 BB in 960 AB.) He's right handed, though I don't know if he's a pull hitter. Best of all, he graded out very well defensively (+9 UZR/150). IN the Handbook, I suggested trading Span for Cozart, and I don't think that's a terrible idea. But a better idea might be to float Revere. He's young, he's cheap, he's good defensively, he's a lead off guy that steals bases. (Think of him and Hamilton at the top of that lineup in a few years.) That would probably mean hanging onto Span for this offseason, but he could be moved at the deadline when Hicks is hopefully ready to be called up. Plus, the Twins have their shortstop for the next few years.

I feel a little bad about our estimate in the Handbook right now, which is quite a bit lower. But the reason it was lower is interesting, especially given this report... It's because the initial writeup of him was done at the end of August. And at that point, his time with the Tigers was a big question mark. He really struggled early with them, his numbers were down, and initially we wondered if he wouldn't need to sign a "make good" deal to show he was healthy or could pitch in the AL. Then he finished strong, seemingly answered those questions and became everyone's darling. We revised our estimate when the season was over, but it still weighed down the number a little bit. I just think it's interesting that a small number of starts - just eight - can change the paradigm or story, and suddenly the guy is guaranteed tens of millions of more dollars. Teams really are fishing in the dark on a lot of this stuff.

I wonder if the answer isn't a little more nebulous and based on supply and demand. This year, it seems like there are a few teams that are losing their center fielders and looking for a cheap replacement (Braves, Rays, Mets? Phillies?), so there is a good demand and a short supply. (Is there really anyone besided Span and maybe Victorino that fit that bill?) When it comes to power corner guys, there are more guys than Willingham on the list right now - Choo and Hunter certainly spring to mind. So maybe for now, Span is more valuable, but later, when some teams miss out on the other big names, Willingham looks more appealing. Kind of a half-baked analysis, but it does seem like the aggressive teams are chasing CFers now.

Sorry Dave. I missed it. I've merged the threads. (Hope I did it right.) I find it interesting that people are interested in Dickey but not interested in Dempster.

Damn my imagination. The Mets are suddenly a team strapped for cash, looking for outfielders and open to trading RA Dickey. While Dickey is 38 years old, he's also a decent bet to age well, struck out 9 per 9 last year and has thrown 440 innings over the last two years with a 2.99 ERA. So here are the questions that spring to mind.... 1. Who would you trade for him? Span? Willingham? Hicks? Arcia? 2. Would it require him aggreeing to a contract extenstion to complete the deal? (He's a free agent next year) 3. This forum seems to be opposed to acquiring anyone who is, well, about the age of a lot of guys on this forum. But is Dickey the exception?

So this year, about where will these guys on the Mariners be ranked in national prospect lists? ARe any top 20? Top 50? Top 100?

Not a bad honor for Mr. Willingham. It's certainly not bad compensation for having missed out on an All-Star game appearance. If he has a similar year next year, I have to think he'll get that first All-Star game call.

You can view the page at http://twinsdaily.com/content.php?1160-Blogger-Rhythm-On-Ex-Twins-and-Fast-Movers

One way I could see Hunter returning...if they trade away Willingham.