chpettit19

For sure. And sometimes Billy Hamilton comes up in game winning situations in extra innings. It doesn't mean Billy Hamilton is in some sort of high leverage role for the White Sox where he's consistently relied upon to win games with his bat. The argument against "low leverage" roles mostly just feels like saying "well technically they'll have to do it at some point." Of course every player on the roster is expected to play baseball. And they'll be put in big spots from time to time. But there's 8 guys in everyone's bullpen now. I'm just saying let's not act like you can't shield your 7th and 8th relievers from high leverage spots for much of the season pretty darn well. If you're frequently finding yourself being forced to use your worst players in the biggest spots you've got much bigger problems than the last guys in your pen, or on your bench.

Ok? If there's such thing as a "higher leverage role," then, by definition, there has to be such a thing as a "lower leverage role." I don't know if you're disagreeing with me or what. You're basically just saying what I did in the post chief quoted. You need Pagan types to fill low leverage roles throughout a 162 game season. He's been fine at that this year. But you have to move those guys out as the season progresses to get to at least 6 guys you can trust in playoff games. That's what my first post said. Chief argued there's no such thing as a low leverage role, and I provided some numbers to explain why I think he's wrong. Now I'm not sure if you're trying to disagree with me as you "liking" his comment suggests, or if you're agreeing with me as your explanation follows my stance from the comment he quoted. The Twins should be working towards having 5 aces, and 8 closers. If people think that's actually attainable, good for them. I'm a little more realistic, and would say no team has, or ever will, achieve that. If anyone believes there's teams out there without guys they don't want to use in high leverage situations in their pen I'll just agree to disagree with them. That doesn't mean I want Pagan on the team, it just means there are absolutely low leverage roles in modern day pens.

Do you feel there are a large number of teams in major league baseball that have no bullpen arms that are used almost entirely in low leverage spots? How many do you think there are? Almost every team carries 13 arms. That's 5 starters, and 8 pen arms. How many of those teams do you think have 8 guys they are happy to use in high leverage spots regularly? There's a difference between having to throw a high leverage inning here and there, and being a high leverage reliever. I'd venture to say that every single bullpen in major league baseball has at least 1 guy who they only want to throw in low leverage spots. Will the situation call for them to be used in high leverage spots here and there? For sure. Emilio Pagan has pitched in 2 truly high leverage spots this year. May 4th against Chicago when he got the win in the 11th, and last night. 2 out of 16 appearances through 44 team games being high leverage sure feels like it's a pretty low leverage role. He's on pace for a whopping 8 high leverage appearances this year. Of course they'll all be forced into a tight game here or there, and I said I don't want him on the team. But the idea that you can't hide a guy or 2 pretty darn well from high leverage spots seems like just arguing "well technically they'll all throw at least 1 high leverage inning." Yes, every team will lose a handful of games because they get into a stretch of games where their top guys are used too much and they have to lean on their mid and low leverage guys too much. But nobody is cycling through 8 high leverage arms and pretending they don't have guys they only use in low leverage spots until they're forced not to.

I expect them to fade. No offense to Taylor Walls, or Jose Siri, but those guys can't maintain their current paces. Walls is 1 off his career high in just 33 games played. Siri had a 24 HR season in low-A in 2017, but has never topped 16 in any other season. He's at 6 in 22 games played. Harold Ramirez hit 11 in 119 games his rookie year with Miami, and hasn't topped 7 since. He's at 6 in 32 games. It'd be more shocking than the Bomba Squad if this team breaks that record. Lot's of career months to start the year. Good for them, and I hope those guys all turn into good players over the long haul. But it's not likely.

Who are you planning to sit against lefties then? Lewis? Or putting Lewis or Farmer at 1B for Kirilloff? You're sitting Kirilloff or Lewis in favor of Taylor and his current .160/.276/.320/.596 quad-slash against lefties. Or do you put Lewis in CF then? At that point there's really no reason to not put him in there against righties if Farmer is still better than Taylor against them. If Farmer maintains his hitting, or even is anywhere close to maintaining it, for 10 more days what do you do then? Sit him and play Taylor? We're not talking months, we're not even talking 2 weeks before Lewis can come back. We may just have to agree to disagree here. I don't think it's even particularly close at this point in time, and likely won't be in 2 weeks, that the best overall team the Twins can put out there is with Farmer at 3B and Lewis in CF. And, just for the record, Lewis has 85 OF innings in his professional career. And he's looked really good out there. Some pretty impressive highlights.

I will point out that Tampa is leading the league in HRs, by 12 over the 2nd place Braves, and have 26 more than the Twins. If they've "lucked" into 26 more homeruns without even trying the league is in trouble. And they're currently chasing pitches .1% more than the Twins. They do pull the ball less frequently, though. The Rays are absolutely on fire to start the year, and have been more successful at doing what the Twins try to do, take contact hitters and add power. Some Twins fans were mad the Twins tried to get more power out of Austin Martin, but that's the exact move that's lead the Rays to where they are. They took contact guys, like Franco and Diaz, and have gotten them to hit for power without losing much, if any, contact ability. It was what the Twins were doing with Steer before they traded him, but he's not as talented as Franco or Diaz so the results won't be as good.

It'd be better for our collective heart health if they moved on from him, even if the new guys are worse.

To me Julien and Miranda don't even play into the "right now" (end of May) move. It's Farmer he's replacing. And, assuming they're not going to put Buxton in CF anytime soon, it's Taylor he'd be replacing in CF. Both of those guys are good defenders, but Farmer is the better hitter. I'd rather have Lewis in CF and Farmer at 3B than Lewis at 3B and Taylor in CF in terms of getting the best possible team on the field.

I'm far more worried about losing Povich than Cano at this point. Povich is looking incredibly good, and he's got a chance to debut for the O's this year as a starter. That'd be a much bigger loss than Cano. The O's do seem to be putting themselves up there with the Rays, Guardians, Dodgers, and Astros in terms of pitcher development now, though. Let's not trade them anymore arms. Unless we get Adley or Matt's kid in return.

You rarely see baseball players wearing knee braces. I wonder if you couldn't throw one of the offensive lineman knee braces on him for some extra support and let him go run around in that. I don't know how restrictive they are, but I feel like if NFL players can do what they do in them Royce Lewis could track down fly balls in CF with one.

If they want to put the blame on me I'll be the one to make the call and put him back in CF! 😄

Don't disagree at all. The pen overall needs a lot of improvement. But if we're just looking at Pagan we have to acknowledge that he's filled his role well this year. It's not his fault (or Rocco's for that matter) that the FO have also planted numerous other guys in the pen that shouldn't be asked to do more than the role he's in. The pen is bad. They went in with 4 guys they "trusted" for high leverage work, and are hoping those 4 stay effective and healthy while they find 2 to 4 other guys who can be "trusted." So far 1 of their 4 is hurt, and another is having a weird season (Jax) where he hasn't pitched terribly, but also hasn't been effective, and they haven't found anyone else to step into a high leverage role. It's bad bullpen planning, even with the acknowledgement that relievers are fickle beings who are very hard to predict. I'm not suggesting they wait til the deadline to address Pagan, or the pen in general. But they're limited at this point of the season outside of cycling through AAA guys, which they're already doing. They can call the Royals about Chapman, but there aren't a lot of teams willing to make trades in May when it's really hard to build up a bidding war. At this point their main option is to keep throwing Stewart, etc. out there and see if any of them grab a job. I don't have super high hopes, but this is the bed they made. There was a reason almost all of us were confused by their stance all offseason of not needing to upgrade the pen.

Last I read they said he was going to start at only SS and 3B, but they'd take a look at it as the month went on. But that was when he first started his rehab assignment so I don't know if they've said different since.

Nobody has ever said you should never, ever use small ball tactics. Don't claim selective reading on my part when you're putting words in my mouth. Fast guys should steal! Actually, anyone who can do it at better than an 80% success rate should. You should surprise someone with a bunt every now and then, as long as your guy can bunt, and your base runners are heads up. But you shouldn't build a team around that, or use them frequently. Because if you're not meeting a certain threshold of success you're hurting yourself and costing your team runs in the name of "action." Playing to let guys go sit on base and wait for someone to homer inning after inning is terribly boring baseball. I get that you were told growing up that "small ball" and "manufacturing runs" was the "right way" to play the game. But it's not the smart way if it's a bigger part of your strategy than hitting for power. Hit and runs are not easy to find stats on so they're not included here. But I combined SB, sac bunts, and sac flies together to create your desired small ball totals. Here's the top 10 scoring teams and where they rank in HRs hit vs small ball totals: Rays- HRs- 1st, Small Ball- 4th Rangers- 8th, 7th Red Sox- 10th, 19th Dodgers- 3rd, 15th Braves- 2nd, 23rd DBacks- 16th, 6th Angels- 9th, 24th Orioles- 13th, 2nd Cards- 7th, 18th Twins- 6th, 30th Of top 10 run scoring teams the average rank for HRs is 7.5, and only 2 aren't in the top 10. For small ball moves the average rank is 14.8, and only 4 are in the top 10. The top 10 slugging teams rank 1, 5, 3, 4, 2, 6, 9, 11, 8, and 23rd in runs scored. Average rank of 7.2, 8 in top 10. The top 10 stolen base teams rank 21, 1, 29, 25, 8, 11, 12, 28, and 6th in runs scored. Average rank of 14.1, 3 in top 10. The top 10 teams in sac bunts, steals, and sac flies combined rank 21, 8, 29, 1, 25, 6, 2, 11, 19, and 12th in runs scored. Average rank of 13.4, 4 in the top 10. This isn't hard. Nobody is saying to completely take tools out of your tool box. But some tools are better than others. And it's not close. Power is by far the best tool for an offense when it comes to scoring runs. Extra movement on the base paths may make you feel like they're doing things, and improving their run scoring, but it isn't. Small ball is significantly less effective at scoring runs no matter how you feel about it. It's not an opinion, it's a provable fact.

Their voiced plan coming out of ST was to reassess Buxton in CF in mid-May. It's felt like they've been trying to back off that plan slowly, but surely, the last month. I hope they're at least discussing it. I'm not a medical professional, and know nothing about his specific health concerns, but I hope they don't talk themselves into anything close to a full season DH role for him simply because he hasn't been hurt yet. Can he at least do a few days a week until Lewis is up? Where are they at with allowing Lewis to play CF? That seems like the bigger opening for him come May 30th than 3B at this point. 2 of their 4 best players could be great fits for CF, but they may not be willing to play either of them there. That'd be such a gigantic competitive advantage to take away. I've supported the "Buxton as DH to start the year" plan because at this point you can't just throw him in CF everyday and expect him to be healthy all season. They had to do something to take away some of the wear and tear on his body since it clearly wears him down, and leads to an acute situation ending his season. But if you can't use him in CF at all this team looks drastically different.

Playing catch/long-toss, but not on a mound yet last I saw. If I remember correctly he's planning to get on a mound this weekend.

Pagan has only given up an earned run in 4 of 16 appearances this year. That's not bad. We have to separate last year from this year a little bit. He hasn't been blowing lead after lead this year. He's only blown 1. But that's because he hasn't been given leads to hold. This is not a "save Pagan!" post, but I want to be realistic about who he's been this year, and who he's most likely to be moving forward. Pagan is perfectly fine as a low-leverage, only used when trailing, or crushing, in games reliever (and you need those guys for a 162 game season). He's absolutely not someone the team should ever trust in a high-leverage situation, and should only be used there in emergencies. I can understand why they went with him only needing to get 1 out last night, and not wanting to use Lopez or Duran for 1 out, then a down and up for a second inning after they'd both thrown rather significant amounts recently. Yesterday was a perfect storm of an overused pen mixed with the offense going completely dead with the bases loaded again mixed with Sonny being incredibly wild and inefficient. That lead to them needing to use DeLeon (who I thought actually looked nasty and he may be an interesting guy to give a shot to as a lightning in a bottle reliever for 2023) more than they'd like to have, and Pagan at all. All this being said, Pagan absolutely can't be on a playoff roster. There's some blowouts in the playoffs, and you really don't want to use your studs in those games, but you can't waste a roster spot on a guy you'd absolutely never want to put into a close playoff game. I'm not going to freak out if they don't DFA Pagan today (and I've been calling for them to DFA him since last season), but as they approach the ASB, and trade deadline, they absolutely need to fill his spot with someone better. I'm ok with Pagan holding down his multi-inning, mop up role for another month or 2 as long as he continues to be successful in those situations. They need to be using that time to find 6-8 other guys they'd trust in a playoff game, though. They need to be working to improve upon him, and be looking for his replacement. The 2nd half of the season needs to be played without Pagan, or anyone, on the roster (outside of injury needs) that they wouldn't play in a 1 run playoff game. The next 2 months is all about finding your best 26 guys, maintaining reasonable depth behind them, and making sure those 26 guys are playoff worthy. Pagan doesn't have to go today, but he has to go before August.

You can slice and dice it just about any way you can think of on fangraphs splits leaderboard. It's a fun little tool.

I certainly wouldn't have guessed it. I look it up pretty frequently to keep myself from riding the game to game rollercoaster too much.

The Twins are 5th in baseball in BAwRISP this season. Hitting .277.

I wouldn't think they have a very solid plan at all at this point. Buxton's future in CF, Polanco's future with the team, who of the young guys perform, and how long Correa can stick at SS all play differing roles in what 3B ends of looking like. Could go a lot of different ways. Just nice to finally have a few decent options on how to mix and match if multiple of the kids work out.

4/24-4/30- 7 games vs NYY and KC - 43 total runs scored - 13 HRs, 3 SBs 5/2-5/7- 6 games against CHW and CLE - 18 total runs scored - 7 HRs, 5 SBs 5/9-5/16- 8 games against SD, CHC, and LAD- 52 total runs scored - 13 HRs, 6 SBs See any pattern in there between when they were averaging 3 runs a game vs when they were averaging 6+? I don't disagree that base hits, steals, etc. is more exciting. I've never said anything different. In fact I just made a post yesterday in a thread about batting average as a stat that guys who get hits are more entertaining, but power scores more runs. I prefer the Twins score, and, most importantly, win games over having more movement on the field. Power scores. It sucks it's not as entertaining since there's less frequent action. But hitting HRs remains the way this team is breaking out of funks. And, as for the "we're not fast enough/don't have that kind of personnel" stuff goes I'd suggest you take a look at who's stealing bases for the Twins. MAT (6), Buxton (4), Castro (4), and Polanco (1). It's almost like it's our fast guys stealing bases like many of us have said was the only way to do it. They're not just blindly stealing everyone. I'm glad you're enjoying the games lately. I'm sure you enjoyed those Chicago and Cleveland games the most since that's when they were stealing the most bases per game.

In what inning? What's the game situation? Are you down by 2 in the bottom of the 9th? Who's the hitter on deck? There's way too much context in a baseball game for that to mean anything. Tie game, bottom 9? Absolutely. Down 4 in the 6th? I'm not sure playing for 1 run is the way to go. Way too much context missing.

The problem for baseball is that the high average guys are more entertaining, but they don't score as many runs. Power is the best way to score, and win games. There are 9 teams with 200+ runs scored so far this season. Including the top 8 teams in slugging. "Only" 6 of them are in the top 10 in BA. 80% vs 60% is rather significant. The Dodgers are 25th in BA, 2nd in HR, 3rd in slug, and 3rd in runs. The Twins are 26th in BA, 6th in HR, 15th in slug, and 10th in runs. The Nationals are 9th in BA, 29th in HR, 28th in slug, and 25th in runs. Philly is 8th in BA, 20th in HR, 11th in slug, 20th in runs. Hitting homeruns and slugging make up for a significant amount of batting average when it comes to scoring runs, because it's really hard to string multiple singles together to score chunks of runs. Last year there were 14 teams to score 700+ runs. 7 of them were in the top 10 in BA. 9 in the top 10 of HR. 10 in the top 10 in slug. The title is a little aggressive calling BA the worst offensive stat, but it's correct in that BA is a severely lacking stat, and power is how teams win. Luis Arraez is far more entertaining to watch than a low BA power bat, but his lack of power makes him need to be all-time great to be an impact back. He's got 101 more points of BA than Taylor Walls, but his being 112 points worse in slugging means he's 15 points of wRC+ worse. He's a 15% worse hitter despite being 100 points better with BA because singles simply aren't as valuable as extra base hits.

Looks like he's DH'd in 5 of 27 games according to baseball reference.