LJHoes

And over the past 9 years, they have a .495 winning percentage, with 1 post season appearence (thanks to a Jim Thome homer). The same period of time shows the Twins to have a .485 WP, and 3 post season entries. Since 2006, the Sox have yet to post consecutive winning seasons. I don't think the Twins want to go about emulating that.

If that's the paper thin calculation of WAR, then it's absolutely useless.

This is the article most directly about Torii's defense, so I guess this is the place to talk about it. The only actually reliable numbers we have to go on are the video scouts. They say that Torii converted an out on Converted outs at an 88% clip. The average fielder is not listed, since I'm guessing it probably undermines the intended point. Let's be charitable and say that the average fielder converts 93% of all chances. (The video scouts include impossible chances in their measure so nobody is going to be too close to 100%) Now, let's also say that every single ball put in play this year is going to go to right field. That means 100% would be 4374 outs over 162 games. The average right fielder is going to put 329 baserunners on due to fielding mistakes and general bad luck. Torii is going to put 596 baserunners on a game. 267 more baserunners allowed over the whole season. That's 1.6 baserunners a game if every single ball is hit to right field. It's barely enough to guarantee an extra run per game in that insane situation. This isn't to suggest that Hunter is the best or even a good fielder. It's to suggest that outfield defense is not worth the stress so many of you are putting yourselves through. Considering that Hunter has been at least 10% better than average on offense for the past 8 years, he's clearly a net positive, since he's guaranteed 3 chances a game to play offense. There's no guarantee that he'll get even that many chances on defense in any given game. Even if they have a recent history high 37% fly ball and 22% line drive, that still only gives Hunter a Maximum of 16 chances, with only 12 of those being realistic catches, thus a maximum of 1 or 2 that will fall in extra. Again, that's assuming that every line drive and fly ball is hit to right, and there are no strike outs. It's not so bleak, ya'll.