chpettit19

.262 and .765 is not worse than we're getting, but that's 2 levels down for a guy with 83 career professional games under his belt. He wouldn't hit .262 and .765 in the majors. Nobody said anything about waiting for him to be 24 or 25, but there's more to development than being the #8 pick, and being a guy who's "supposed to be good." He hasn't even mastered AA, but you want him in the majors. There's an awful lot of area between waiting for him to be 24 or 25 and just blindly calling him up now because we hope he's a good player. Jordan Walker has a .892 OPS in the minors over 230 games. Yes, he was called up, and started the year with the Cards, where he wasn't good enough and they sent him back down. Francisco Alvarez has a .913 OPS over 257 minor league games. Including 49 AAA games. Brooks Lee has a .793 OPS over 83 minor league games. Those are not good comps. The comp you may want to go with would be Zach Neto, the 13th pick in last year's draft. But he put up a .968 OPS in AA this year before he got called up. Spencer Torkleson is supposed to be good, too. In fact, he's supposed to be better than Lee. He hasn't been good. "Supposed to be good" is not a reason for promoting a young player. They've already shown they'll be aggressive with him as he earns promotions. Let him actually earn it. Calling up a kid who's shown no indication he's ready and crossing your fingers isn't good asset management. And it can set his development back. He's not ready. Let him develop and get ready.

He feels like a AAAA player to me. That doesn't mean I wouldn't take his athleticism, and upside, in the Twins system, but he's always mashed in the minors, and been sliced up by big league pitching. There's a hole in his swing somewhere, and I wouldn't want to bet anything big in a trade that we could be the ones to close that hole.

And that's why they're a crap shoot still. There's too many variables to have it be anywhere near as reliable as offensive stats. You asked for reasons why defensive stats can swing so much, and I was just giving you reasons why. I'm not defending defensive stats, just explaining why they can vary so much. WAR is attempting to show an individual player's impact on a season. Cuddyer playing shallower doesn't make him a worse fielder in terms of reads, range, etc., but it did effect the impact he had on plays. It makes sense that that's what WAR cares about. That doesn't make the defensive metric super reliable, but WAR doesn't care that Cuddyer had the same range in RF in 2010 as he did in 2011, it cares what he actually did on the field. In 2010 he played too shallow so he wasn't able to make the plays he was in 2011 when he played deeper. When judging his impact on the game it makes sense for that to be reflected in his WAR numbers.

Lee is not at all ready for the majors. He's hitting .262 with a .765 OPS in AA. Calling him up to the bigs is not an option.

Paddack may never pitch again? You better let him know that seeing how he's on pace to rejoin the team in 2 months, and has already been pitching off a mound for 2 weeks.

Opportunities. There's a counting component to the defensive metrics. Michael Cuddyer was involved in over 1000 defensive plays in 2010. He was involved in about 700 in 2011. And 500 in 2012. And the difference in positions played. He played 1B, RF, 3B, CF, and 2B in 2010. He played RF, 1B, 2B in 2011. And he played RF and 1B in 2012. Defensive stats are still largely a crap shoot. Based on too many things, and shouldn't be taken as gospel by any means. But the variance does make sense when you look at the differences in opportunities to make plays, and the positions at which you're making those plays.

I'd argue Kepler's decision should've been made at the end of last season, but Pagan's should've been made in the middle of last season. I'd love to know what the internal conversations are like on those 2.

2 things come to mind here: 1- The Twins do not have a very impressive list of "All Time Great Outfielders." Which really shouldn't be that surprising. 2- Longevity mixed with unrealistic expectations really defines Max's career here. He's been around a long time, playing really good defense, so he's amassed some WAR. The Twins kept hitting him in the top 5 of the lineup despite him not being a very good hitter, so fans got upset that he wasn't better offensively like you'd want out of a top 5 hitter. Max has been a solid major league baseball player for a while. He doesn't belong on a list of greats for a competitive team, but he was good enough for many years to have been a 7-9 hole hitter on a really good team. Unfortunately, he didn't play on really good teams so he was miscast as a top of the order hitter. Interesting article, though.

I just want some real sample size before I start making major moves. And the expectation is that you come into the season with very few holes to start with. That's a different problem that can't be fixed now. They shouldn't have come into the season with Pagan and Kepler sized holes in the roster to start with, which makes it even more frustrating that they're still sitting here in the middle of June with the same holes in the roster. If the Twins come into the year with those holes already filled the situation is far less dire than it is right now, and the 2nd 3rd of the season is spent fixing smaller holes on the margins, instead of major ones. Teams like the Rays, Braves, Dodgers, Astros, etc. aren't working on plugging as many holes as the Twins. It all ties together. If you build your team better to start with the 3rds plan works much better. The Rockies, As, and Royals should be following a much different plan right now. The problem with the Twins is they set themselves up with holes that should've been very obvious, and thus filled, in the offseason. Now they've put a lot more pressure on themselves to fix it midseason.

Being in the AL Central gives them a real shot at the playoffs. But it also seems to give the FO the idea that they can sit back and just wait for the players to suddenly morph into who they want them to be, instead of who they are. It'd be a relatively comfortable pick for me to say playoffs (it's what I voted for) if they would start cutting dead weight now, and not wait until August. Pagan is who he is. Kepler is who he is. Garlick is who he is. None of them should wear a Twins uniform ever again. Stop crossing your fingers, and start making moves (not trades, just call up guys with actual chances to be good). What to do with Solano and Gallo are the only "hard decisions" I see. Solano has been their most consistent hitter all year so it's tough for me to say he should go when this lineup is in desperate need of all the consistency it can get. Was Gallo's slump due to his hamstring, or is he going to hit .160 the rest of the way? I don't know what the FO is waiting for with Pagan, Kepler, and Garlick, but them slow playing those moves makes me think they won't make any decisions on Solano and Gallo at all. They simply have no ability to shift off their plan coming into a season, and it's threatening to blow this one up, too.

If they refuse to cut the dead weight? No. If they start doing their jobs and making some moves? Sure, this division is trash, and it won't take much to win it. But I wasn't speaking in specifics about the playoffs for this team this year. Just speaking in a general team management sense. I go by the idea that you break the season into 3rds. 1st 3rd you find out what you have. 2nd 3rd you work to fill your needs, and improve your team. 3rd 3rd you play your best players, and do everything you can to win your division/make the playoffs. My concern with this front office has always been that they're slow to react. We're past the 1/3rd mark of the season. They know who these players are (they knew who Pagan and Kepler were before the year). They need to stop sitting around and hoping Pagan will suddenly be a high leverage arm, or Kepler will hit (I "joked" with my friends the other day that that HR bought Kepler 3 more months with this FO). In speaking about the late season/playoffs I was simply saying you need to get rid of the Pagan's of the world, because you can't hide low leverage arms in August, September, and October. Since that's all he is you need to spend the middle 3rd of the season finding his replacement. That starts by cutting him. Today. You need to find 26 playoff worthy players, and that work starts now, not at the deadline.

Julien looks like he can be a really nice hitter in the bigs, but he's a shining example of why defense matters. So many plays that he just can't make, and when you can't make the plays it makes your pitcher throw more, and leads to the BP having to come in earlier than it should. Correa still should've made the throw on the double play, but if Julien can field it and get it to him smoother, and quicker, Correa has time to set himself a little as he throws. The play up the middle on Vlad with Bichette at first where Julien tried to back hand it wasn't the easiest play in the world, but when you're shifted up the middle, and the ball is 10 feet to your right, and not particularly well hit, you need to turn that into an out. Lewis' throw on Vlads grounder to 3rd needs to be an out (lots of free trips to 1B for Vlad today). Defense matters, and today was a great example of it. And Pagan still needs to go. 3 high leverage appearances in 66 games isn't a lot, but he's blown all 3, and as the season gets deeper, and you get into the postseason, you can't keep playing with a short pen every night because you have a guy who can only pitch low leverage spots. They need to upgrade the pen. And DFA Kepler. There's no reason those 2 are on the team anymore. Time for the FO to step up and do their jobs.

I assume Mr. Park is demanding a spot back on the squad if that's to happen, and his agent is probably playing hardball in negotiations.

I've been calling for them to be contracted, and the Rays to be moved to Target Field for months. Still waiting to hear back from Manfred. I'm sure he's just running it past legal.

You're kidding, right? Go find me the last time a closer threw 38 pitches over 2 innings, and then threw again within the next 2 days. Just 1 example. That's all I want. If you're going to make big claims you better have some data close at hand to back it up. Prove your point with 1 single example.

Pagan was also fresh. Hadn't thrown since Tuesday. If being fresh is a point for Winder it's a point for Pagan. Winder coming into the 8th in that game would've given me the exact same feeling of impending doom Pagan did. It's a tough loss, no doubt. But they happen. We all want Pagan gone because you can't shield anyone from high leverage spots all year. Same reason I want someone better than Winder in the pen. But Pagan has been in 3 high leverage spots in 66 games. If it happens once every 22 games we should be able to handle it better than this.

I'm all in. Little did I know, the human arm doesn't need time to recover from throwing a baseball 100+ MPH 2 dozen times. Ice pack, a couple ibuprofens, and get back out there, big boy! Imagine how good this team could be with Gray, Ryan, Ober as their rotation, and Lopez (Pablo), Duran, Varland as their pen. They could platoon all 9 spots in the batting order, and carry a 3rd catcher and pinch runner still. We may be onto something. I'll email Falvey.

Yeah, it's truly terrible to be realistic about things. Why not throw Duran every game? Really they should only need like a 5 man staff. Quit coddling guys. They don't need rest. Just let them play. A sweep of this series is definitely more important than winning any games in the next series. Definitely. No need to worry about that.

Well shoot, Ryan only threw 84 pitches yesterday so let's start him Wednesday. I'm going to that game so I'd like to see him. He's one of their top 2 pitchers so just throw him. Worry about Thursday on Thursday, just play to win Wednesday.

But suggesting there's literally nobody who's a worse option isn't really logical either, is it? Josh Winder hasn't been good at any level this year. I understand Pagan's struggles with high leverage spots. But suggesting that Winder is just going to magically be good for an inning because he isn't Pagan isn't logical either.

It's a horrible strategy. You do realize that what you do today effects what you can do tomorrow, right? How'd it work out when they overworked the back of their pen last year? I assume you were good with it then, right? Nothing bad happened from that, right? Pretending tomorrow doesn't matter is an absolutely awful strategy, and no MLB team does it.

Are you a better option? Am I? I mean come on. I don't want Pagan on the team. But let's be realistic about things here. He's thrown 3 high leverage innings in 66 games. They were short handed for 1 game. Why does every loss have to be some big thing? Can't we just say "dang, it sucks they were short handed today, and it's never ideal to have Pagan in a high leverage spot, just have to flush this L and go get'em Tuesday?"

Great way to get through 162 game season. No way that goes poorly at all.

It was 1 game. It's the 3rd truly high leverage inning he's thrown in the team's first 66 games. Let's have a little perspective.

But does that make him a better option? Cuz that's what was needed. Not just another option, but a better one. I don't think Winder is a better option at all.