chpettit19

This is what I've been saying the last couple years. Kepler and Sano get so much heat because they aren't top 5 hitters, but have been forced to hit in the top 5 spots for years. If they were in the 7-9 holes people wouldn't be so upset. I think a top 5 of Buxton, Arraez, Correa, Polanco, and Kirilloff is a great start. And I think Larnach and Miranda have the potential to fill that 6 hole. Kepler, Celestino, Sanchez, Jeffers, Urshela, Garlick, Gordon types are fine in that bottom 3rd, but they need those last couple bats to become the offense they should be.

OBP by order position: 1st: .336 2nd: .384 (Luis Arraez is good at what he does) 3rd: .374 4th: .335 5th: .277 6th: .263 7th: .289 8th: .328 9th: .319 The 8 and 9 hole hitters are actually doing ok at getting on base. .319 would be good for 10th in baseball in terms of team OBP (tied with Boston and San Diego). .328 is what the Dodgers have as the number 2 team in baseball. HRs by order position: 1st: 16 2nd: 10 3rd: 14 4th: 3 5th: 8 6th: 10 7th: 5 8th: 6 9th: 2 Buxton has 18 HRs, so if he was hitting in the 3 hole all year he'd only be adding 4 homeruns to the total. It'd give a little boost, but certainly nothing drastic. The 3 hole has also had 15 fewer PAs this year than the leadoff spot. 4 hole has 23 fewer. So there really isn't a great deal of improvement that would be gained by dropping him. The 4 hole having the lowest slugging percentage on the team is certainly not ideal, though.

Palacios will go back to St Paul to make room for Correa. Contreras will go back to St Paul and then the question is if they go 14 man staff or 13. If it's 14 they will replace him with a pen arm. If it's 13 I'd think they'd replace him with Kirilloff. If it were me making the decisions I'd bring up Kirilloff for Garlick, Miranda, or Gordon. Probably Miranda so he can get everyday ABs in St Paul. He looks like he's figuring things out at the ML level, but he's still a part time player so I'd put him in St Paul to get everyday ABs. Wouldn't mind Garlick either, but he'd be my second choice. He's not part of the future so I'm not worried about him getting ABs to develop, and he can clearly hit lefties. Gordon has no options left so he'd be my last choice since he does provide flexibility and some speed which I think is helpful for this team. But if Kirilloff is back to being Kirilloff (and looks like he may be) I get him back in Minneapolis as I think he's one of the top 6 or so bats in the org. Moving Sanchez to a more typical starting C role instead of DHing so much would get Jeffers bat out of the lineup and Kirilloff's in. There's a lot of names on the roster who feel like they're really good, but the offense has been bad more than it's been good this year so I don't think it's hard to find ABs for Kirilloff if he's back to being himself.

Yes, his bias is towards pulling pitchers before they see a good lineup a 3rd time through. That is the organizational philosophy and will not change with a new manager. 3rd time through the order is when the decisions start being made. It's not a set in stone, nobody ever sees a lineup 3 times situation. Each lineup is created different and each pitcher matches up differently against those lineups. The FO and manager gather data on the lineups and pitchers and come up with a general plan before the game starts. Then the manager decides exactly when to pull the plug in the game. There are 100% times when Rocco does something the FO would've done different, but overall they have a plan and Rocco follows it while deciding on precise moves in game based on the parameters set by the FO. There is nothing to debate here. If the FO didn't like how Rocco was doing things they'd fire him. Since they've done nothing but praise him for 3+ years and haven't fired him the only logical conclusion is that he manages the games the way the FO wants him to manage the games.

Exit velos given up by Smeltzer yesterday: 112.3 MPH (Springer HR), 100.4 Kirk GDP, 104.6 (Chapman groundout), 97 (Gurriel groundout), 106.1 (Bichette lineout), 100.4 (Vlad single), 108.9 (Kirk HR). He gave up an average exit velo of 93.3 yesterday in 4 innings. He faced 16 batters and gave up exit velos of 97 or higher to 7 of them. That's 44% of batters he'd faced that hit the ball incredibly hard. He also walked 2 guys. So 56% of guys he faced he walked or they tattooed the ball. I'd argue he wasn't "doing fine," and he was struggling, but getting lucky that they were hitting the ball at guys. Yes, they go into every game with a plan. Every team does. You guys seem to think they're just winging it and it's just up to Rocco and his "feel for the game" to make decisions. That's not accurate. Every major league organization has a plan going into every game and a big picture plan for managing their staff as a whole. Now there's some tweaks and differences in all of them, and they base them on different things, but they all have them. It's why many of us say managers aren't all that important in winning/losing games. A game here or there maybe, but nothing like some suggest. No FO is going to hire a manager who manages in a way they don't like or sees strategy drastically differently. So, again, firing Rocco wouldn't lead to drastically different pen management. At all.

They wouldn't hire a manager who didn't think this way is the right way to do things. This is the way the FO wants a staff run. It's weird that you point out that Rocco has let people go deeper yet your most often used complaint on these threads is that Rocco never lets starters go deeper. The FO and Rocco meet daily. Every single day they talk about the strategy for that day and the games coming up. Rocco is the extension of the FO in the dugout. They hired him because he has the same thoughts on baseball strategy as them. They wouldn't go out and hire someone who thinks things should be done differently. They have a general range that they start looking to take a starter out in. It's then up to Rocco to make a decision on the exact moment based on the criteria range they've developed as an organization. The criteria includes the data points I already presented, plus whether or not they have an off day coming up, how the pitcher has been performing against the guys coming up, their desire to start guys in clean innings as often as possible, bullpen usage on previous dates, AAA pitcher usage from previous days, previous performance of certain pitchers vs certain hitters, the available bench players for the other team, and more that you'd never even think of. These things are all used in big picture pregame discussions before the general outline is given to the starter and pen arms so everybody knows the plan for the day. The pen arms are given a range of hitters that they'll be targeted for use against. The starter is given a general idea of how long their leash is that day. Then it's on Rocco during the game to make decisions on exactly when those changes happen based on a crazy number of factors.

No, I said you wouldn't be happy with the next manager either because this is the way the FO wants things run. And then I explained that there's a whole bunch of stats and data that are used in game to make decisions based on a set of parameters that the FO has put in place.

So your belief is that the FO doesn't believe in pulling starters as quickly as Rocco does (you're on these threads after almost every game complaining about this, so don't try to sell this as a 1 off thing), but they've let him do it for 3+ years? That's the stance you want to take, but you're concerned about my sourcing? At any job you've ever had were you allowed to go for 3+ years doing things in a way that your bosses disliked and they didn't fire you or make you change? Seriously, it's time to step back and take a look at the claim you're making. Yes, he's gone deeper when he was on, so has Ryan, it's almost like they change based on game situations and a whole bunch of factors you don't even know about to make different decisions based on certain overarching principles that are set by the FO as organizational norms. Did you know they measure their pitcher's release point on every pitch they throw in real time? Along with spin rate, velo, spin axis, and extension. Amongst other proprietary blends of stats along those lines that you'll literally never know about.

The front office is Rocco's boss and he's been running things this way for 3 years and they haven't fired him or forced him to change. That's a pretty good place to start.

You wouldn't be impressed with a new manager's usage of pitchers either. This is the organization's strategy, not just Rocco's. If they fire Rocco they'd bring in another guy who also won't let his starters go through the lineup a 3rd time. It's not Rocco's plans, it's the FO. At least complain about the right stuff.

If Kirilloff hits his peak he pushes Arraez, Miranda, Gordon, and Celestino all off their spots (other than Celestino and Gordon playing CF). The real question is if his body will ever allow him to hit that peak. Lewis, Larnach, and Kirilloff all hitting their peaks would make for one heck of a fun team to watch for the next 6 years. Buxton locked up already, and Arraez and Polanco in for many of those years as well. That could be a real fun top 6 with Kepler around for a couple more years as well, so fun top 7. Larnach looks so much more comfortable at the plate now. If he can continue to establish himself as an everyday bat that can play a solid corner outfield it gives the Twins some nice flexibility over the next couple months to try to make some moves to improve other parts of the roster. LF was the biggest ? in my mind (for positions players, obviously pitching was #1 overall) coming into the season and if he can establish himself as the everyday guy that'd be huge. A top 4 of Larnach-Buxton-Kepler with Celestino as the 4th would be huge. Hoping to see Larnach and Celestino continue to establish themselves as solid, or better, major league players.

Hard to argue with that. He has not been good at hitting baseballs for a while now.

The problem with Buxton's specific injury is that it's not just a "sit and rest and it'll heal" injury. Putting him on the IL means he's out for 6-8 weeks. The injury is healing through limited playing time and treatment. If you're ready to miss him for 2 months ok, but just be aware that's the timeline you're looking at.

So the former player who "has stayed close to the game" is right, but the current, active players on the Twins roster that you're complaining about not playing enough who have actively said they're on board with the playing time situation are wrong? And my point is lost? Come on. The players themselves aren't complaining. Again, is the picture in your head that the players are upset with playing time and how they're being used, but Rocco is simply ignoring them? Is that what you think is happening? Buxton and Correa are going into Rocco's office throwing a fit and Rocco tells them to shut up and sit down? Then Correa turns around and tells the press that anyone complaining about the situation doesn't know **** about baseball, but he thinks he's being misused? They stick to the same top of the order against righties when they're all healthy and the same top of the lineup against lefties when they're healthy. The Twins don't have a ton of guys that are drastically better than the other players on the roster. Buxton, Correa, and Polanco need to play everyday. And they do when they're right. Kepler, Arraez, and Larnach need to start against every righty. And they do when they're right. Garlick and Sanchez need to start against every lefty. And they do when they're right. Jeffers needs to spell Sanchez. And he does when he's right. Gordon needs to spell everyone in the OF and an IF spot or 2 here and there. And he does when he's healthy. You're misrepresenting the situation. Kepler has earned everyday player status this year and he plays everyday when he's healthy. So the Twins have 4 guys who deserve to play everyday and Sanchez who's close. Those guys play everyday. Larnach is sneaking up on that status, but due to injuries he's getting it even if he hasn't fully earned it yet. The rest of the roster need to be used in the situations that allow them to thrive the most. And they are. Until injuries force Garlick to start against righties, Miranda to play at all, Gordon to play nearly everyday, or Jeffers to DH. When everyone is healthy they're all used in the roles that they fill best. I don't care if literally every player from the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and 00s are saying the exact same thing. The players in 2022 are not. Not every pitcher is on the same pitch count (but literally every pitcher does need a pitch count and they did when Kaat was playing, too, the counts are just different). Not every player gets as many "days off." You're the one trying to lump them all together. Kepler and Polanco have been used very differently since '19 than Buxton and Sano and Arraez. Ryan has been used very differently this year than Archer. Berrios has been at the top of innings pitched lists every season. He was used much different than Ober last year. The Twins adjust based on the player and their needs and the situations that they perform best in. That currently means Buxton needs more rest than him or the team would like, but that's the nature of the beast. Same with Kepler and Polanco right now.

Players have a routine and know if they're playing ahead of time. Us not knowing doesn't mean Rocco sits in his office, hotel room, house, whatever and schemes up plans to keep things hidden from his players. Arraez knows he doesn't start against lefties. Correa and Buxton know when their scheduled days off are (I hate them being on the same day and they should adjust the plan when that happens). Garlick knows he doesn't start against righties. The pen guys know which days they'll be likely to be called on and in what situations. The players know. Their routines are daily routines no matter what their role in the lineup is. They go out there everyday (outside of starting pitchers who have their own routine) and go through the same stretching, hitting, fielding, running, trainers room, weight room, etc. routine every single day. They have their routine. Back when Kaat was playing they didn't even have half the stuff the players do now. I just don't get what people think the Twins are doing. The players already know if they're starting today or not. You and I not knowing doesn't mean the team doesn't know. Kaat not being privy doesn't mean the team isn't. As for playing through injuries/while hurt, there's different levels to it. Buxton's specific knee injury isn't healed by rest. Putting him on the IL to rest until he's near 100% puts him out until after the All Star break probably. He's improving with rest days and treatment while also being able to play (although he's terrible so maybe they should sit him just to get his timing back). Kepler doesn't need 10 days to get over his injury so just needed a DH day and a rest day here and their. Why have him miss an extra week? Correa is on the covid list. No options there. Polanco has been dealing with the same ankle problems for most of his career. The answer is surgery which would take him off the team the majority of the year or play through it since he knows he can since he's been doing it most of his career. Replacing those guys with healthy minor leaguers is very much worse. The team is decimated by covid and injury list guys right now. It happens. They're still leading the division. There's still 110 games left. Let's all just relax a little instead of freaking out over 2 games without almost all of the 5 best players on the team.

You're just ignoring my entire first paragraph here. The Twins best players are hurt. So, no, I didn't defeat my own point. The point is that every team's lineup changes constantly. Due to injuries sometimes. Due to guys with massive platoon splits. Due to guys going through slumps. Due to bench guys needing to get some ABs or regulars just needing a breather. When healthy the Twins went Buxton-Arraez-Correa-Polanco against righties basically everyday. They mixed and matched on the back end some based on who was catching or who was playing LF or who was hitting well, etc. But they had a regular lineup base that they built off of. But now 2 of those top 4 are hurt and 1 is out with covid and people are mad the Twins are adjusting. The point is to make up for not having the same talent level as the Dodgers the Twins, and most other teams, have to find ways to make up the gap. They do that by using a variety of relievers while not letting the big time lineups see their starter more than twice (fire Rocco!) and by finding any platoon split advantage they can throughout the game, starting from inning 1 (fire Rocco!). Teams without All Stars 1-9 in their lineup need to switch guys in and out to find slight advantages where they can. The Twins need to switch their lineup up more than the Dodgers to find the advantage. The Dodgers having superior players means they can just plug in their top 9 and go while the Twins need to have more strategy. But, again, when healthy, the Twins have a top of the lineup that they stick with pretty darn consistently. One of my favorite things in the world are everyday Joes like us on the internet claiming we're so much smarter than the entire professional baseball industry. Its fascinating that people think they're so much smarter than the Twins and Rocco. Like we have even 1/10th of the data they do or have spoken to the players in the clubhouse. So fascinating.

Be mad at Buxton and Correa. They've openly spoken about how this is the strategy they want to follow. Buxton is hurt right now. I don't know how anyone could watch him run and not know he's hurt. That knee isn't right. He wants to have rest days while getting treatment and playing through it. Kepler is hurt right now. Don't know how anyone can watch him run and not know he's hurt. He's also playing through it so needed a rest day. Correa has covid so the league won't let him play. Polanco missed multiple games cuz his ankle is acting up. Don't know how anyone could watch him swing and not know he's hurt. Those are the 4 best hitters on the team. 1 is completely out (after having been injured earlier in the year on a HBP, can't really blame Rocco for that), and the other 3 are all trying to play through injury. Not sure how that's Rocco's fault. (I do hate resting Correa and Buxton on the same day, though) Do people really think the players are sitting around enraged that they have no idea when they're going to play or what spot in the order they'll hit in and Rocco is telling them to f off? Is that the situation people are picturing in their head? Do they think professional athletes in 2022 are afraid to speak up when they don't like something? So I am saying Kaat doesn't know what he's talking about. It's not the 60s-80s anymore. Anyone think the Dodgers aren't the best team in baseball? Over the last 7 days they've used 7 different lineups. 7 days. 7 different lineups. Yankees a pretty good offense? Last 7 days, 7 different lineups. This is how baseball is played now. Or should those teams fire their managers, too? Can we please, please, please, please, please, please, please quit blaming Rocco Baldelli for how baseball is played in 2022? And for the record, I wouldn't care if they fired Rocco tomorrow cuz I don't think he's anything special. But this is how basically every major league team is run now. It's time to accept it.

No problem! Needed a distraction from work for a bit so figured I'd look some stuff up.

Certainly plays a role. It's all very small sample sizes, but yeah, leadoff hitters have killed him.

From what I've seen out of him it looks to me like he loses steam pretty quick. His 1st time through an order vs 2nd is also not pretty. It's part of why I think a move to the pen could answer a couple problems at once. 1st time through the order he's given up a .203/.259/.405/.665 slash line. 2nd time through his line is .283/.377/.500/.877. Now we're talking small sample sizes with 81 PAs first time through and 69 2nd time through (has 4 3rd time through PAs over 2 games and he's walked 2 and given up a double in those 4 PAs). He's also been much better with more rest. He's made 4 starts on regular 4 days rest and they've been bad. 2 starts on 5 days rest have been not great. 3 starts on 6+ days have been by far his best. Interesting thing with his pitch count performance as he's been bad pitches 1-25, really good pitches 26-50, and brutal pitches 51+. Looking at all these kinds of things together and he feels like a reliever to me right now. Maybe he can be a 2 inning guy. Give him a clean inning and let him rip once through a lineup. Maybe he can turn into a reliable pen weapon for the second half of the year. The question is how willing he would be to make that switch and if they have enough healthy arms to allow for it. But his numbers certainly don't look like pitches 80-100 would be pretty.

I wonder if they'll have a talk with him about a role in the pen. Could he gain a tick of velo on the fastball in an inning or 2 instead of 4? Could he use his slider 65% of the time for an inning or 2 and get outs? I'm not worried about him being able to handle the pressure of late inning work so it'd come down to being able to control his pitches for an inning or 2 and use his slider a ton. I think it'd be worth a conversation as arms come back healthy.

Love seeing Noah Miller on these kinds of lists. I think he's the SS of the future for the Twins as he'll push Lewis off since he'll be (already is?) a better defender there. Maybe Lewis slides over to 2B when Polanco's deal is up and Miller takes over SS? Whatever the situation is I think Miller pushes Lewis somewhere else in a few years. Spencer Steer seems to just be doing whatever he has to do to get to Minneapolis. And by the looks of it he's going to make it there relatively soon. He has some obstacles in his way to get onto the 40-man and finding a spot to play with the big boys, but with the way the injuries are going these days he may be needed next week. Or he may be a trade piece come July. Will be interesting to continue to follow his journey this year.

He's not an everyday starter so @ashbury suggested taking out the other team's non-everyday starter to compare things. That's how you'd compare things. A comparison of the Twins' less than best lineup vs the other team's best lineups isn't a great measure of anything at all. For your own peace of mind I'll let you know the Twins have 565 total PAs against left handed pitchers this year. Kyle Garlick has 32 of them. That's 5.66% of their ABs. He's got 3 HRs in those 32 ABs so he's certainly helped. I'm not going to take the time to run the numbers without his 32 PAs, but I'm quite certain his whopping 5.66% of PAs isn't going to significantly change the overall stats. Oh, and as for Rocco and the overall results of his career to this point, the Twins are top 10 in baseball in both pitching (8th) and hitting (4th) fWAR since he took over. 2019 must've been crazy good to still be carrying them to top 10 rankings in both pitching and hitting 3 years later. He has a 240-195 W-L record. That's good for a 55.2% winning percentage. That's good for a 89/90 win season on average. 2019 really propping that up, too. He has seasons of 62.3% and 60% winning percentages and is at 58.8% this year. So if you're taking the entirety of his time here into consideration you must be looking at different results than me. And I don't even like Rocco that much. Think he's just another guy as a manager. But the stats show his results have been pretty darn impressive. Even with 2021 being a complete disaster.

What is our definition of imminent here? From what I've been reading Alcala should be pretty close to ready to go when his 60-day sentence runs out in 10 days or so. That's not today or tomorrow, but if he's back in 2 weeks I think that's a huge boost to the pen. I spent much of the weekend enjoying adult beverages so it's quite possible I've missed some reports since Saturday, but isn't his return pretty imminent? I think a trade or 2 will definitely be needed, but I'm not expecting those anytime soon. Teams simply don't trade good trade pieces before July. The selling teams need bidding wars for their veteran pieces and you can't drive the cost up in early June like you can at the end of July. The FO may want to make moves now, but they very likely don't have the option, unless they're willing to trade much better prospects than they should for relievers. So the question to me is more about how quickly they turn to starting pitching prospects as major league relievers, or turn to a piggy back situation to save bullpen arms an extra day. Canterino being the most likely "starter debuts as reliever" candidate to me while Bundy and Archer seem to be perfectly suited to piggy back each other for all 9 innings of a game.

I used Merrifield's season stats and you told me he wasn't a .220 hitter even though he was hitting .220. You said he's better than that because he had a good month of May. Then you say I can't use Duffey's month of May to show he's been good of late and say I'm cherry picking. You see why that's a little confusing to me? Merrifield's month of May is proof he's not a .220 hitter, but Duffey's month of May is cherry picking and shouldn't be used. Interesting logic there. I agree he has subpar stuff as his breaking ball has declined over the years. Not sure why relying on breaking balls is a problem, though, considering many pitchers do it. In non 3-0 hitters counts pitchers league wide throw fastballs just 55% of the time. Last year Houston, Seattle, and Minnesota all used fastballs less than 50% of the time. Reliance on breaking balls and off speed pitches is pretty standard across the league at this point. I'm not a huge Duffey fan. I've said it time and time again in this thread. But he's blown 3 leads in 19 appearances this year. That's not "about once every third outing," it's 15.7% which is way less than 33%. They need better arms to push him down the line and get him out of 8th inning appearances and into 5th and 6th inning appearances. But he hasn't been the disaster you've suggest he's been. As demonstrated by statistics.