chpettit19

I don't disagree with every move he makes and that gets me labeled a "Rocco defender." And since there's a general lack of ability to have a nuanced conversation (point being proven by you right here, so thank you) there's only the options of "Rocco hater" and "Rocco defender." I've been one of the 2 most vocal critics on this site of the platooning decisions for 2+ years. I have complained on numerous occasions when he's pulled pitchers when I did feel it was too early. I've complained when I felt he left them in too long. I didn't like Gasper leading off. I don't like when he sits all his best players on the same day. I don't like scheduled days off. There's a lot of things I complain about. I just have this crazy thing where I can take individual situations and judge them and agree with some and disagree with others. I don't hate his bullpen management and you do and you've decided that means I "spend hundreds--thousands of words daily defending Rocco." Some days I do defend him because I agree with him. Others I don't because I don't agree with him. It's crazy, I know. No, I don't care. Because, as we've discussed numerous times, I don't think firing him changes anything significantly because the front office is intimately involved in how the team is run and they aren't going to put somebody in charge who does things drastically differently. So, I don't care if they fire him or not because I don't think it will change anything in a meaningful way so it isn't worth my time or energy to care about. I don't care what you think is debatable. I'm debating it so I guess you're wrong. You being unable to see any other options than the one you've decided is correct doesn't mean there aren't other options. Also, BTW, we've discussed managers mattering many times and you've never come close to showing they do. But you'll keep saying they do and I'll keep saying they don't and being able to point to all kinds of win-loss records that show they don't. Crazy that Tom Kelly and Bruce Bochy have multiple WS rings and career losing records, huh? Almost like their teams win when they're talented and lose when they're not. But go on about these managers mattering "a lot." My goodness, how talented were the Twins the last 6 years if even the awful, no good, terrible Rocco Baldelli could screw up constantly and still come away with a .521 winning percentage? I mean, are we talking 90+ win teams for 6 years? That would've been fun. And everyone around here was definitely looking at these rosters and seeing that kind of talent. Definitely. No question about it. Or, and hear me out here, maybe most people were looking at these rosters and seeing talent that put them in the low- to mid-80s in wins and that's where his mostly healthy teams finished in 2 of the last 4 years (with a third year not being mostly healthy). Almost like they finished essentially exactly where we saw their talent saying they should finish. Crazy.

You have an example of something only one team is doing? Give me 1 example of 1 in game strategy that only 1 team is using. Just one. I'm not picky. Don't need a lot. Just 1. Every team has their own unique combination of the same strategies. The Twins went crazy heavy on the platooning the last couple years. Pretty much all of us hated it. They stopped doing it. So, they were pretty unique there and we all complained. So, it was bad when they were unique, but now you're mad that they aren't unique as well? They learned from the data and adapted. They adjusted. Like they should. This year they have a different formula and combination. But I'm super interested to hear your example of a team doing something completely unique that no other team in baseball is doing. I watch a lot of baseball so this will give me something to keep an eye on.

I think a lot of it is the lack of actual in-depth conversation about these things and our society's tendency to put things in 1 of 2 buckets instead of discussing matters in the nuanced way they should be discussed. For example: Anybody telling you that no pitcher should see the order 3 times through isn't paying attention. Because not even the Twins follow that "rule." I do see a lot of anti-analytics people claiming that's a rule, but the people who actually follow the analytics and what teams are actually doing will point out that the good pitchers who are successful do face the order 3+ times while it's the bad pitchers who are limited in the number of times they see the order a 3rd time. Ryan, Ober, and Lopez see the order 3 times through when they're on. SWR and Paddack don't get as much leash, but Paddack just faced 24 guys (nearly 3 times through) 2 starts ago. A certain level of strikeouts are acceptable for hitters if it comes with a certain level of slug. But there is a limit to it. There's a balance. Like I said, there's nuance to things. And because hitters are looking to do so much damage with their swings it is then naturally important for a pitcher to be able to miss bats. Louis Varland is a good example. When he misses bats he's very good. But when they hit it they tend to hit it extremely hard and it goes a long way. That's very bad. So strikeouts become very important to pitchers. And the Twins can be doing things the "right way" and still losing. Talent still matters. You can put me out there to do things the "right way" and I'm still not going to win you a lot of Major League baseball games. I think saying Falvey has never considered his process is flawed is unfair. They've changed things. They aren't platooning nearly as much this year. They've stopped drafting the slow sluggers early and gone more athletic. That doesn't mean he's great, but it's those extreme statements that lead to the lack of middle ground, nuanced conversation I'm talking about. I'd fire Falvey if I owned the team. He's had more than enough time and he's failed. I like what he's done with the pitching development side of things, but it isn't enough. So, I'd fire him. But he's still about an average MLB POBO. And every team is doing most of this stuff.

Paddack was giving up rockets all over the field that night. Gave up 5 balls over 105 MPH off the bat. Last batter he faced was a 99.3 MPH ball he was lucky wasn't a HR. He gave up 16 balls in play from the 19 batters he faced, and 10 of them hit it over 90 MPH. 7 of them over 99. Maybe you don't believe in this stuff, but major league teams do. As a manager, when your starter goes 5 innings and gives up that kind of loud contact you thank the baseball gods you're still in the game and go to your fully rested pen. Almost half the batters he faced put the ball in play off him at nearly 100 MPH or better that night. He wasn't "cruising along." This is one of the many things major league teams are tracking during games to make decisions on when to pull starters. Arias was the next guy up. His last AB was a 106.7 single. Then it was Jose Ramirez who had a 99 MPH groundout his last AB. Followed by Manzardo who had a 106.2 MPH single in his last AB, followed by Santana, and then Noel who had a GIDP at 106.2 in his last AB after having had a 108.4 MPH single in his first AB. Those were the next 5 guys set to face Paddack. I'd say they were seeing him pretty well that night.

I'm not missing the point. You are. Rocco isn't the only one who uses these analytics, and he isn't doing anything that nobody else is doing (outside of the extreme platooning the last couple years). The Dodgers follow analytics, and it seems to work pretty well (they have 4 guys with saves this year, 2 with multiple saves). Tampa does. Cleveland does. Everybody's favorite manager Terry Francona does. The guy I see named around here frequently as the guy people hope would replace Rocco if he's fired, Joe Maddon, does. The White Sox do. The Giants do. The Rangers do. Pick a team, they all do. Bruce Bochy? Uses analytics. Dusty Baker? Go look at the Astros pen usage in the playoffs his last few years. Dusty Baker used analytics. The difference is talent. LaRussa relied on analytics to make those changes. Rocco, and the front office that helps drive these decisions (and that's the real point that you're missing), did stop some stuff. They stopped platooning so much this year. Like I said in that post, I don't care if they fire Rocco. It won't matter because the front office believes in this stuff. You're missing the point if you think firing Rocco leads to some manager who doesn't believe in any of this stuff. Falvey does and he isn't going to hire (promote, because that's what they'd most likely do) somebody who doesn't. "Stop relying on analytics" is a nonsense, ridiculous statement. Everybody uses analytics. Everybody. 100% of teams. And in game changes take place. They have with the pitching in the last week. It's not hard to see when Ryan and Ober go deep into games and Paddack went nearly 3 times through the order in his start before the one we're discussing in this thread. I'm not defending Rocco. I don't care if he's fired. I disagree with some of the things he does. I've been very outspoken on the extreme platoon usage the last few years. But they stopped that so far this year (weirdly, since this year's roster talent level makes more sense to me to try to squeeze every last drop out of through things like that). People just don't like that I don't shout "fire Rocco, that'll solve things!" I'm pushing back on this idea that analytics are the problem. Talent is the problem. The front office is the problem.

None of them do. None of them ever will. But that isn't people's argument, is it? The argument is "don't change. The old guys figured it out and did it all correctly so just keep doing what they were doing because it's the right way to do things." It's the argument to the point that they ignore the fact that the old guys changed the game multiple times. Tony LaRussa is even brought up by many as an example of an old school manager who wouldn't do these things while ignoring the fact that he was the "new guy" who changed how bull pens were used. He created the modern closer, but we should ignore that when discussing modern managers doing things differently because that's not how things were managed when people were growing up, and how things were done while I was growing up were automatically the right way to do things. He also was a pretty big fan of dudes who mash homeruns. And I already conceded the Gasper thing was nonsense. My argument has always been that managers make very little difference to wins and losses and are extremely overrated. Talent wins. The Twins scored 1 run in the game we're discussing, and people are upset that Rocco screwed things up with the pen and cost them the game. 1 run. 1 freaking run and Rocco's pitching decisions cost them the game? That's ridiculous and not a logical argument. It's an emotional one by people who dislike Rocco and the way the modern game is managed. I don't care about managers so I don't care if they fire Rocco. He's lived a charmed life and he'll be fine. I think people will be just as disappointed with the new manager because they won't manage things significantly differently and this lineup is not talented enough and no manager is winning games with a lineup that can't score more than 3 runs on a regular basis.

I didn't say anything about me trusting him. You claimed Rocco didn't trust him and would be using him "relatively early in games" and to face "the bottom of the lineup." I simply pointed out that yesterday he faced the 2-3-4 hitters in Cleveland's lineup in the 8th inning of a tie game. Oh, and he struck out 2. For the 5th game in a row, I'll add (1 of those games was 3 Ks even). I know those back-to-back blowup games were traumatizing, but Jax has 11 Ks in 5 innings since. He's struck out 61% of the batters he's faced since those blowup games. Just trying to provide some facts amongst the emotions.

2-2 game in the bottom of the 8th against the 2-3-4 hitters is Rocco not trusting Jax? Or is that Jax "against the bottom of the lineup, relatively early in the game?" Are his 5 straight appearances with 5 innings, 3 hits allowed and 11 Ks the part where he's "rightly" not trusted? Sure looks like Rocco trusted him last night by putting him into an awfully high leverage situation against the heart of their order with the game on the line. Seems he may have earned his opportunity back.

You do realize Tony LaRussa changed how bullpens were used, right? I mean they called it the "La Russaization" of baseball for goodness sake. He was known for bringing relievers in earlier in games than what the previous generation would have. He's literally the anti-example of what you're talking about. Rocco isn't the only one who plays matchups instead of innings. The game changes. Why do people act like this is the first time it's ever changed and it's just unthinkable that it's changing? ANALYTICS have been used forever. Batting average is an analytic. The analytics have just gotten better as our ability to measure things have improved. The old time guys used to use analytics that told them to hit Nick Punto and Alexi Casilla types in the two hole. Do we really think they had it all figured out? (Edited to add that I concede that the analytics telling Rocco to hit Gasper leadoff the other day were nonsense, too, no matter what the roster is looking like these days) That being said, with the depth we have at the back end of the pen I'd prefer that Rocco just puts Duran in a 9th inning role, Jax in the 8th, Sands in the 7th. But it's not outrageous to give them matchups. That is a defined role as well. Telling a guy he has a set chunk of the lineup to focus on and know the scouting report for is a role that allows them to prepare for the day and be ready to go for the game.

They wouldn't hire an outside manager; they'd just promote Tingler or Conger or someone else already on staff. Doesn't mean they're going to fire Rocco, but there's not a lot of managers just sitting around at home waiting for jobs even if they do. The point is that they wouldn't have to pay 2 managers, they'd just shift roles on the current staff. Much like they did with the front office this offseason with DSP leaving and Falvey taking over the business side, too.

"I think it is 1000% clear that Rocco manages to a plan and is not willing to go with what his eyes or gut are telling him." I wasn't looking for the argument from you, it was already made and you questioned why we'd question it. It was literally the first sentence of what you questioned us disagreeing with so I provided examples of Rocco going "with what his eyes or gut are telling him."

And the thumbs down and responses are fair rebuttals to the critique. I provided 3 examples from the last week as a rebuttal to the idea that Rocco sticks with his in game plans no matter what. You said it isn't even debatable. I gave you 3 examples out of 5 games. And a more than reasonable explanation for the decision last night. That's 4 of 6 games. The point is that larger issue is debatable and we can provide examples for why.

Every manager goes into every game with a general plan, yes. Do you think the plan on Monday was Ober for 7 2/3 with 102 pitches and facing 31 batters? Or do you think Rocco adjusted in game? What about Sunday? Was the plan Joe Ryan for 7 innings and 98 pitches with 25 batters faced or did he adjust the plan in game? I mean those are the 2 games before the one we're discussing so we don't even have to go deep into the past to find 2 games that we can make very reasonable arguments that the plan was adjusted mid-game. And if you want to look at Paddack's last start he threw 99 pitches and faced 24 hitters. So, he wasn't pulled after twice through in that outing. Do you think the last 10 balls put in play against Paddack including 6 over 90 MPH and 4 of them being over 105 played a role in the decision? The last hitter he faced hit it 99.3. Of the 19 batters he faced, 10 of them put in play over 90 MPH, 5 over 105, and 7 over 99. Do you think it's possible any of this factored into the decision and that's why people are disagreeing and things are getting downvoted? Because we can point to a lot of reasons why we disagree with those statements in this specific situation. I agree they are too stubborn on some big picture plans. But that doesn't mean we can't disagree with individual statements about individual games.

Why didn't he do it in Paddack's last start then? You know, the game where he threw 99 pitches and faced 24 batters (that's nearly 3 full times through the order if you don't want to do the math)? I don't think it's "a pretty clear yes." I think Paddack giving up a lot of very loud contact was very much a factor in the decision. I think Paddack is a bottom of the rotation starter who doesn't get the benefit of the doubt and when he's giving up rockets all over the field the first 2 times through the order through 5 innings and you have a fully rested pen you thank the baseball gods you're still in the game and turn it over to the pen. I think that's a very reasonable choice. You can discuss the manager all you want, but you're doing what you claim to dislike, just bringing THE factor to the table and making a decision on that. The starter was pulled before the third time through so it's automatically wrong. You don't care about why the decision was made. You don't even care about being open to the idea that there may be other factors as to why the decision was made. You don't even care that a different decision was made the very last time that particular pitcher pitched. You just have a set criteria you want to complain about and it presented itself so you complained. Don't act like you're here to have some deep conversation about any of this. You saw an opportunity to complain about Rocco and you took it. Your complaint has zero to do with the actual circumstances of last night's game, or for that matter the manager's actual performance, short or long term. Hi pot, I'm kettle, nice to meet you.

The "should've kept the starter in and things would've ended up great" discussions are always fascinating to me. Weird that the assumption tends to always be that the results would've been positive if they just would've left them in. It's always "Jack Morris in Game 7 of the '91 WS" and never "Matt Harvey in Game 5 of the '15 WS" or "Pedro Martinez in Game 7 of the '03 ALCS." We're Twins fans so I get why we lean towards Morris. They scored 1 run. That's why they lost. The rest is just coping and the weird human need to place blame on somebody.

10 man pen and enough guys to platoon 6 lineup spots?! That is stuff of nightmares.

McCaughan does not have any options left or they would have used it. Canterino hasn't thrown a pitch in a regular season game in 3 years. And Bride doesn't have any options left so he won't be sent back to AAA unless he makes it through waivers after being DFA'd. Couldn't one make the argument that the fact that they used 55 players last year mean that the 40-man isn't holding guys back? That means the Twins gave 55 guys time in the majors and also gave numerous guys an opportunity to be picked up by other teams and be given more opportunities to play in the majors. Isn't that the best of both worlds for players? They're still getting to the majors and the 40-man rule is forcing teams to give them the chance to be picked up by other teams before they can send them back to the minors. Isn't that what the players should want? Expanding it to 42 just means you're making it easier for teams to stash 2 more of those players without forcing teams to expose them to other teams first.

Scott Blewett isn't being DFA'd because of lack of 40-man space, he's being DFA'd because he's out of options. You could make it an 80-man roster and he'd still have to be DFA'd to send him to AAA. And adding more spots to the 40-man doesn't necessarily help players. The 40-man is paired with DFA, option, and Rule 5 draft type rules to stop teams from hoarding players in the minors. The more spots you add to the roster the more players the teams can stash and the fewer guys available for other teams to "steal" and add to their roster. It limits the number of opportunities a player has to get to the majors. And that's all of their ultimate goal. It's not about getting there with the team that drafted or signed you originally, it's about getting there at all. If you expand the roster to 42 or 44 there would be essentially nobody taken in the Rule 5 draft because everybody would be able to be protected. Now you've taken a dozen or so opportunities a year away from guys. If you make it a 44-man roster I can add 4 more players to my roster that I can sit on for 3 years without ever having to give a shot in the majors before I DFA them. It makes it harder for guys to get their shot. Players, generally speaking, want more opportunity to move between teams so they can find a path to the majors, not less. The more spots on 40-man rosters where teams can stash them the harder it is for them to earn service time or burn options and earn their freedom to move about the league.

James Rowson left after 2019. Rudy Hernandez, David Popkins, and Derek Shoman were all coaches together. They weren't replacing each other. And, actually, Rudy Hernandez overlapped between Rowson and Popkins/Shoman. Rudy Hernandez was on the Twins major league coaching staff since 2015. He overlapped multiple managers and hitting coaches. If that's not continuity in a major league staff, I don't know what is.

His changeup heat map is pretty fascinating. A lot of red down, out of the zone and then a nice red dot right in the middle of the zone. 100-120 exit velos aren't surprising on changeups middle-middle. That's always been his problem. Too many pitches left middle-middle that get absolutely destroyed. Slider has a lot of red right down the middle of the plate this year, too. Not surprising at all to see the numbers against those 2 pitches be really high (slugging at or over 1.000 for both). I think he has good enough stuff to be an effective reliever if he can just keep it out of the middle of the plate more frequently.

Like everything to this point of the season, way too small of a sample size to make any declarations. As @bean5302 points out, Louis continues to give up a lot of hard contact. That's a dangerous game to play. His profile is actually pretty similar to a guy named Pagan from 2022. Throws hard. Strikes a lot of people out. Gets people to chase at a really nice clip. Gets swings and misses. But when they hit it, they hit it. Louis is giving up harder contact than Pagan did that year. Nearly twice the barrel rate. A higher hard-hit%. And getting fewer swing and misses. But it's a small sample size. He's always given up hard contact so it's a concern and what we should be keeping our eyes on. I don't know where he goes from here, and he's gotten good results to this point of the season. But declaring Louis some locked-in, back-end bullpen piece at this point feels premature to me. There are some red flags still.

$4,691.36 to be a little more exact.

You absolutely don't want a cap on the number of times a guy can be claimed during a season. Unless you want that guy to stop making MLB teams that season. Because it won't stop a team from DFAing him and now all you've done is stop him from having any chance of getting claimed and making the majors. You haven't helped him you've completely destroyed his chances of making the majors. This rule would not go the way you're picturing it. It would go the other way. You wouldn't be forcing teams to keep Blewett in the majors, you'd be forcing them to keep him in AAA. Raising the stipend from roughly 2k to 10k? So, is it about their family and mental health, etc. or money? Because they're already getting more money simply by getting claimed and getting that shot with the next MLB team instead of being sent to the minors. As @bean5302 points out, the difference between being DFA'd and sent to the minors and claimed and bouncing between MLB clubs is hundreds of thousands of dollars. Does that extra 8k really make up for the extra stress of being bounced around away from their family? Is a 10-day window really that impactful? Maybe. I don't know. But it may be even more frustrating. Now I have to spend a week and a half here and be used twice and then be shipped out instead of being used twice in 3 days and being shipped out? Now I'm actually starting to feel a little settled and you're pulling the rug out from under me again? I don't think an extra week in the city is really making any kind of difference. And it's probably making it harder for some guys to get shots in MLB as teams are less likely to take chances on guys they aren't sure on if they have to carry them for 10 days. You may cut down on the DFAs, but you're also cutting down on the number of guys who get shots because teams won't risk carrying guys they can't use for a week and a half. Is the DFA game ideal? No. But would Scott Blewett rather be bouncing between multiple MLB teams the rest of the season than sitting on 1 AAA team? Probably. Would he rather be bouncing between multiple MLB teams than sitting in a cube somewhere "working for the man?" I'd bet a "yes" to that one. This is part of the deal. It's not perfect, but this is what these guys sign up for. He's fighting for his dream and he knows it's not all rainbows and puppies. And his family knows it, too. He makes a prorated $760,000 salary for his time in the Majors to throw a baseball. He gets to stay in the best hotels, eat the best food, watch baseball every day, and live a pretty darn awesome life. It's stressful and not perfect. But he can quit if he doesn't like it. I'm pretty sure there's a town ball team out there somewhere that would take him and he can sell insurance or real estate like AK sadly has to do now. Anybody on here not willing to bounce between a few different MLB teams for 760k a year?

Yeah, you'd think they'd have to have at least have him out there before games taking some ground balls. Maybe they hit him some balls on back fields during spring and it was unimaginably bad? He's an athletic dude so you'd think he could be serviceable somewhere.

I assume Castro will be back before Lewis. Or at least at essentially the same time. And since we're talking about what to do when Lewis is back it feels like mentioning Castro is pretty relevant. Unless somebody has reliable information that suggests Castro will be out for a significant amount of time.