Brad Swanson

You can view the page at http://twinsdaily.com/content.php?r=1440-Analyzing-the-2013-Twins-using-MLB-13-The-Show

I kid about De Vries. Really, I'm trying to motivate him, and I have to say, it's working.

This times ten. I always despised the "head case" label. Why were his mechanical issues automatically described as mental issues? I never understood that. To me, Liriano just wasn't the same after his major surgery and never adjusted to his diminished stuff. The way some talked about him, you'd have thought he was going to wander off the field if Drew Butera wasn't there to focus his attention. It's hard to remember, but he never had great command as a prospect.

Originally posted at Kevin Slowey was Framed! If you prefer real baseball news to tomfoolery, I analyzed the Kyle Lohse signing that hasn't happened yet. You can read it here: Kyle Lohse signs with [MLB Team]. If you like tomfoolery... I buy MLB the Show every single year. I always think that I won't and then I do. I buy it, play it a lot, then completely forget about it. In fact, here is an easy to use monthly breakdown of my MLB the Show usage: March - Buy the game, play it often April - Continue to play the game, less often, tell myself "I'll just play this one for the next two years and buy the newer version every other year" May-February - Completely forget about MLB the Show, place disk under a couch, in a cereal bowl or on a shelf Late February - See a commercial or read a review for the next MLB the Show, tell myself "eh, I don't really need to buy this" Early March - See some extremely minor change in the new game that makes me want to buy it March - Buy the game, play it often Using this information, you can logically conclude that I am in the "play it often" stage of my MLB the Show development cycle. In fact, I did buy the game. I stopped on my way home from work Wednesday and I bought it. I played it for a little bit that night, then really got into it on Friday, when I didn't have to work. It's fun. It always is. The minor change that convinced me to buy the game this year is about as minor as it gets. They finally decided to give players numerical ratings instead of vague bar graph ratings! Yeah! This is nice because it is now much easier to see which players are better than others. This is important to me for some reason. I'm 30. Anyway, I thought it would be fun to see what Sony thinks of the Twins. In looking at the player ratings, there are some questionable ratings, along with some downright comical ratings. All of the ratings are out of 99. Joe Mauer leads the way with an overall 93. He also has a clutch rating of 99, so take that, haterz1! Mauer also leads the way with a 90 contact rating, an 82 arm strength rating, a 90 fielding rating, and a 99 handsome rating. In short: Sony ♥ Joe Mauer The Twins best pitcher, according to Sony, is Glen Perkins, with an overall rating of 90. He has the best control on the team, at 90, and the highest K/9 rating with an 81. He also has a fielding rating of 6. Interestingly, whenever a ball is hit to Perkins in the game, he falls down and splits his pants. Nobody's perfect. The Twins best starter is Vance Worley, with his 84 rating. Their top Canadian player is Justin Morneau at an 86. The best bad player on the team is Esmerling Vasquez at a baffling 74 overall rating, the same overall rating as Trevor Plouffe, Brian Duensing and Kevin Correia. Are you still with me? Let's look some of the Twins' best ratings: Stamina - Scott Diamond - 90 Velocity - Mike Pelfrey - 82 Break - Casey Fien - 90 BB/9 - Scott Diamond - 87 Power - Josh Willingham - 78 ? Durability - 88-year-old Jamey Carroll - 84 Speed - Darin Mastroianni - 77 Horseplay - Anthony Swarzak - 99 (see below) http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-as8M6JW5Aok/UTvFX193jNI/AAAAAAAAARg/hw-dl-a66tk/s320/Swarzak_finished.png This opens itself to a debate. Is Anthony Swarzak good or bad at horseplay? He did crack ribs as a result of horseplay, but what is the true goal of horseplay? Perhaps we can come back to this, at another time. A few other things I learned from the game: Pedro Florimon and Brian Dozier are equally good fielders - 59 Kevin Correia is a better strikeout pitcher than Mike Pelfrey - 46 to 43 Jamey Carroll has "A" potential, and stands to get better as he gets older Now, not all Twins players are in the game. If a player wasn't in the MLB last season, they do not appear. So, Aaron Hicks, Joe Benson, Rich Harden, Kyle Gibson, and so forth, are all MIA. But, you can make players, which is a tedious chore. I made Aaron Hicks, based on his current Spring Training performance. Here is the result: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-YMNhE8FoW0c/UTvFw1F_BDI/AAAAAAAAARo/7pzuAWSuTYw/s320/photo+(19).JPG Not sure I captured his eyes perfectly, but everything else seems about right. If Sony has anything to say about it, here is the Opening Day lineup: [TABLE=width: 134] Mastroianni CF Carroll 2B Mauer C Willingham LF Morneau 1B Doumit DH Parmelee RF Plouffe 3B Florimon SS [/TD][TD] [/TABLE] Apparently, Ron Gardenhire works for Sony. Here is the rotation: Worley Diamond Correia Hendriks Pelfrey Looks to be fairly accurate actually. I might flip a few around, but those five seem pretty likely. Of course, if you take the five best starters by rating, it would look like this: Worley - 84 Pelfrey - 78 Diamond - 77 De Vries - 76 Correia - 74 Prior to a roster update, De Vries was an embarrassing 81 overall, and was the Twins' best starter. They addressed that issue within the first 24 hours of the game launch. His rating is still much too high. Apparently Sony loves players from Minnesota as much as we all do. You like former Twins? Here are some of the more notable ratings I found when looking around: Danny Valencia - Clutch - 71 - lol Tsuyoshi Nishioka - Fielding - 81 !!!! Yep, Nishi's in the game; get excited! Delmon Young - Speed - 36 - HA! Delmon Young - Clutch - 92 - Come on Delmon Young - Fielding - 58 - *spit-take, fall-over-in-chair, choke-on-gum, pants-fall-down, head explodes* Denard Span - Fielding - 53, worse than Delmon, but wait Carlos Gomez - Fielding - 46, so yeah Luke Hughes - Spring Training - 99 (see below) http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-peU0kD_jYFU/UTvGRpvy-iI/AAAAAAAAARw/iEsPUScnqzQ/s320/Hughes_finished.png I want that hat. The worst former Twin I could find is Eric Komatsu, at an emasculating 55 overall. Most of the computer generated minor leaguers are better than Eric Komatsu. Jeff Gray is nowhere to be found, but I am sure we can all agree that he would be a -84. But, my favorite part of this whole exercise was finding Nick Blackburn, pitching as the Ace of the New Britain Rock Cats. In fact, Sony didn't even put his picture in the game, opting to computer generate him. http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hiugLXh00TE/UTvGb2v5qqI/AAAAAAAAAR4/zKfwGk6n4Fo/s320/photo+(17).JPG Not terrible, but Blackburn's real face isn't that fat. His K/9 is worst on the team, but you already knew that.

Originally posted at Kevin Slowey was Framed! If you prefer real baseball news to tomfoolery, I analyzed the Kyle Lohse signing that hasn't happened yet. You can read it here: Kyle Lohse signs with [MLB Team]. If you like tomfoolery... I buy MLB the Show every single year. I always think that I won't and then I do. I buy it, play it a lot, then completely forget about it. In fact, here is an easy to use monthly breakdown of my MLB the Show usage: March - Buy the game, play it often April - Continue to play the game, less often, tell myself "I'll just play this one for the next two years and buy the newer version every other year" May-February - Completely forget about MLB the Show, place disk under a couch, in a cereal bowl or on a shelf Late February - See a commercial or read a review for the next MLB the Show, tell myself "eh, I don't really need to buy this" Early March - See some extremely minor change in the new game that makes me want to buy it March - Buy the game, play it often Using this information, you can logically conclude that I am in the "play it often" stage of my MLB the Show development cycle. In fact, I did buy the game. I stopped on my way home from work Wednesday and I bought it. I played it for a little bit that night, then really got into it on Friday, when I didn't have to work. It's fun. It always is. The minor change that convinced me to buy the game this year is about as minor as it gets. They finally decided to give players numerical ratings instead of vague bar graph ratings! Yeah! This is nice because it is now much easier to see which players are better than others. This is important to me for some reason. I'm 30. Anyway, I thought it would be fun to see what Sony thinks of the Twins. In looking at the player ratings, there are some questionable ratings, along with some downright comical ratings. All of the ratings are out of 99. Joe Mauer leads the way with an overall 93. He also has a clutch rating of 99, so take that, haterz1! Mauer also leads the way with a 90 contact rating, an 82 arm strength rating, a 90 fielding rating, and a 99 handsome rating. In short: Sony ♥ Joe Mauer The Twins best pitcher, according to Sony, is Glen Perkins, with an overall rating of 90. He has the best control on the team, at 90, and the highest K/9 rating with an 81. He also has a fielding rating of 6. Interestingly, whenever a ball is hit to Perkins in the game, he falls down and splits his pants. Nobody's perfect. The Twins best starter is Vance Worley, with his 84 rating. Their top Canadian player is Justin Morneau at an 86. The best bad player on the team is Esmerling Vasquez at a baffling 74 overall rating, the same overall rating as Trevor Plouffe, Brian Duensing and Kevin Correia. Are you still with me? Let's look some of the Twins' best ratings: Stamina - Scott Diamond - 90 Velocity - Mike Pelfrey - 82 Break - Casey Fien - 90 BB/9 - Scott Diamond - 87 Power - Josh Willingham - 78 ? Durability - 88-year-old Jamey Carroll - 84 Speed - Darin Mastroianni - 77 Horseplay - Anthony Swarzak - 99 (see below) http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-as8M6JW5Aok/UTvFX193jNI/AAAAAAAAARg/hw-dl-a66tk/s320/Swarzak_finished.png This opens itself to a debate. Is Anthony Swarzak good or bad at horseplay? He did crack ribs as a result of horseplay, but what is the true goal of horseplay? Perhaps we can come back to this, at another time. A few other things I learned from the game: Pedro Florimon and Brian Dozier are equally good fielders - 59 Kevin Correia is a better strikeout pitcher than Mike Pelfrey - 46 to 43 Jamey Carroll has "A" potential, and stands to get better as he gets older Now, not all Twins players are in the game. If a player wasn't in the MLB last season, they do not appear. So, Aaron Hicks, Joe Benson, Rich Harden, Kyle Gibson, and so forth, are all MIA. But, you can make players, which is a tedious chore. I made Aaron Hicks, based on his current Spring Training performance. Here is the result: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-YMNhE8FoW0c/UTvFw1F_BDI/AAAAAAAAARo/7pzuAWSuTYw/s320/photo+(19).JPG Not sure I captured his eyes perfectly, but everything else seems about right. If Sony has anything to say about it, here is the Opening Day lineup: [TABLE=width: 134] Mastroianni CF Carroll 2B Mauer C Willingham LF Morneau 1B Doumit DH Parmelee RF Plouffe 3B Florimon SS [/TD][TD] [/TABLE] Apparently, Ron Gardenhire works for Sony. Here is the rotation: Worley Diamond Correia Hendriks Pelfrey Looks to be fairly accurate actually. I might flip a few around, but those five seem pretty likely. Of course, if you take the five best starters by rating, it would look like this: Worley - 84 Pelfrey - 78 Diamond - 77 De Vries - 76 Correia - 74 Prior to a roster update, De Vries was an embarrassing 81 overall, and was the Twins' best starter. They addressed that issue within the first 24 hours of the game launch. His rating is still much too high. Apparently Sony loves players from Minnesota as much as we all do. You like former Twins? Here are some of the more notable ratings I found when looking around: Danny Valencia - Clutch - 71 - lol Tsuyoshi Nishioka - Fielding - 81 !!!! Yep, Nishi's in the game; get excited! Delmon Young - Speed - 36 - HA! Delmon Young - Clutch - 92 - Come on Delmon Young - Fielding - 58 - *spit-take, fall-over-in-chair, choke-on-gum, pants-fall-down, head explodes* Denard Span - Fielding - 53, worse than Delmon, but wait Carlos Gomez - Fielding - 46, so yeah Luke Hughes - Spring Training - 99 (see below) http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-peU0kD_jYFU/UTvGRpvy-iI/AAAAAAAAARw/iEsPUScnqzQ/s320/Hughes_finished.png I want that hat. The worst former Twin I could find is Eric Komatsu, at an emasculating 55 overall. Most of the computer generated minor leaguers are better than Eric Komatsu. Jeff Gray is nowhere to be found, but I am sure we can all agree that he would be a -84. But, my favorite part of this whole exercise was finding Nick Blackburn, pitching as the Ace of the New Britain Rock Cats. In fact, Sony didn't even put his picture in the game, opting to computer generate him. http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hiugLXh00TE/UTvGb2v5qqI/AAAAAAAAAR4/zKfwGk6n4Fo/s320/photo+(17).JPG Not terrible, but Blackburn's real face isn't that fat. His K/9 is worst on the team, but you already knew that.

Beckmt - Thanks! I'll add age to my analysis of the 2B and SS that I am working on. That is an excellent addition, and I wish I had added it earlier. As for 'roids, if I could remove the players that I know took 'roids, I would. However, it's probably just best to assume the 1998-2002 numbers are a bit inflated, due to this issue. The year-by-year data would support that claim. Jim - I certainly cannot reconcile your (or my) issues with WAR. I completely agree that this "research" isn't breaking new ground. However, it does give me a new avenue to explore, which I think will be worth pursuing. As for the offensive part, your wish is my command. I added a part at the end, just for you!

Originally posted at Kevin Slowey was Framed! Last weekend, I introduced the Gagne Threshold. I used a variety of criteria to find good middle infielders over the past 30 seasons. I'm not going to go through everything again, but if you missed it and want to take a look, you can find it here. To summarize, I found 63 good players, 33 at second and 30 at short. I also found that there wasn't a specific team that was more or less adept at finding these players, as the sample is so small that no team really stands out. In the end, 30 shortstops in 30 years seemed like an impossibly low number. However, the number on its own isn't all that useful, unless it can be compared to other positions. Therefore, I decided to investigate if the middle infield positions have been harder to fill with good players over the past 30 years. Career numbers aren't as important to me, so I focused on seasonal data. If a team has five or six good, young middle infielders that they rotate through, they may not produce good career players, but would still get good value at those positions on a relatively regular basis. I looked at each offensive position, year-by-year, over the past 30 seasons. I wanted to know how many players would be considered "good" in each year and how "good" the best players were during those 30 seasons. I decided to use WAR again. Terrible toothbrush analogies aside, I do think WAR is the best available measure that we can use to compare players from 2012 to 1983. It isn't perfect, but it gives us some information, which is better than just throwing our hands up in the air and crying under the bed. FanGraphs.com has an excellent explanation of how they calculate WAR. You can start here, and choose to read as much as you'd like. I read through the all the pages, and I feel that I understand their methods very well. FanGraphs outlines a player with a 2+ WAR as being a solid starter or better, which is a number I will be using as the basis of this analysis. Here are the two factors I investigated: How many players provided a 2+ WAR at each position, in each season? This was an easy way to look at how many good players each position supplied. What was the cumulative WAR for the top ten players at each position? This allowed me to compare the actual value given at each position. Here is my resulting chart: [TABLE=class: grid, width: 500] Year # of 2+ WAR 2+ WAR/ Season Top 10 Total WAR Top 10 Avg WAR Top 10 Player Avg WAR C 417 13.90 1131.8 37.73 3.77 1B 564 18.80 1512.1 50.40 5.04 2B 487 16.23 1307.6 43.59 4.36 3B 569 18.97 1472.8 49.09 4.91 SS 442 14.73 1308.6 43.62 4.36 LF 592 19.73 1475.2 49.17 4.92 CF 617 20.57 1541.9 51.40 5.14 RF 624 20.80 1427 47.57 4.76 OF 1625 18.06 4389.8 48.78 4.88 [/TABLE] I am terrible at labeling fields, so let me just clarify: # of 2+ WAR = Number of players with 2+ WAR in the last 30 seasons # of 2+ WAR/Season = Average number of players with 2+ WAR, over 30 seasons Top 10 Total WAR = Total WAR from all top ten players, added together from the last 30 seasons Top 10 Avg WAR = Seasonal average for the top ten players (as a whole), by WAR Top 10 Player Avg WAR = Average WAR for a top ten player, over the past 30 seasons I broke down outfielders by individual position, but also by all outfielders. I did this because many outfielders played multiple outfield positions. The OF value is most accurate, but the LF, CF and RF values are still interesting to look at. The results show that the two middle infield positions are pretty hard to find, compared with all other positions other than catcher. Catcher is the hardest position to fill, according to these findings. The number of 2+ WAR second basemen was higher, but the overall WAR value was almost identical. So, it seems to be easier to find second basemen, but good shortstops provide more value. In short, the average top ten middle infielder between 1983 and 2012 provided 4.36 WAR. Teams get roughly 10-15% less value from the middle infield, compared with corner infield and outfield. Of course, teams get even less value from catcher. Having Joe Mauer on the team over the last 9 seasons has been a really big boost for the Twins. Just finding a good catcher is hard to do, but having a consistently good catcher is extremely hard to pull off. Of course, that is a separate topic. The average top ten middle infielder provides about .5 WAR less than the average top ten player at nearly every other position. This shows that teams are often playing middle infielders that are both below average and below the quality of players at other positions. Something to keep in mind about WAR is that the stat already gives players credit for playing these difficult positions, so some of their value actually comes from simply playing the position, saying nothing about how well they play it. Basically, if two players are completely equal in all ways - batting, slugging, baserunning, defense, etc, the shortstop will have a higher WAR than the first baseman, simply for playing the more difficult position; shortstop more than second base, but still. So, the actual production of these players might even be worse than would be indicated in my chart. By giving these middle infielders an automatic bump, their WARs are artificially inflated (on purpose). In addition, the first basemen and corner outfielders are actually penalized in WAR, ever widening the gap. There is logic in the positional adjustments made in calculating WAR. However, these adjustments show that if the sample of shortstops and first basemen are about .5 WAR apart, their production might actually be much farther off than one might think, just looking at WAR. Finding a good shortstop or second baseman is clearly hard to find, and that is why these players get a boost in their value. The actual production is important though. We can see that over the past 30 seasons, the middle infield has provided less value than most of the other positions and that good middle infielders are clearly rarer than good players at most of the other positions. While this may seem like an obvious conclusion, having the research and data to support the conclusion is very important. The next step is to investigate the samples of good second basemen and shortstops. Where does their value come from? Why are they more rare than players at other positions? I'm working on analyzing some data and I hope to share it with you very soon. Stay tuned! Here is a link to the spreadsheet I created while doing this research. It breaks down most of this data by year, and it is pretty interesting to look at: Raw data For Jim: wRC+ is my metric of choice. wRC+ is slick because all the factors that create runs are put together and then the values are normalized and adjusted for park factors and era. Thus, you can compare Greg Gagne to Brendan Ryan, to see who was the better hitter. The metric is based off of the number 100, where 100 is average and each corresponding number is a percentage above or below. So, Gagne's career wRC+ is 82, meaning he was 18% below league average for his career. I decided to look by position, to see if good, offensive shortstops are particularly rare. I decided I had no use for players with fewer than 500 games played. Roughly three seasons worth of games seems like a decent sample size. Here is my resulting chart: [TABLE=class: grid, width: 500] [/TD] # of Players Good Offense Good % C 238 46 19.33% 1B 230 137 59.57% 2B 284 52 18.31% 3B 249 84 33.73% SS 239 24 10.04% LF 341 150 43.99% CF 269 76 28.25% RF 296 143 48.31% 500 games min [TD] [/TABLE] n is the number of players, "good" refers to players with above average offensive production (wRC+ > 100) and "good %" shows what percentage of each sample met that criteria. As you can see, the further down the defensive spectrum you go, the harder it is to find a good offensive player at that position. This is hardly breaking news. The part that surprised me was just how small the sample was at short. There were only 24 players from the past 30 seasons who posted a career wRC+ over 100.

Originally posted at Kevin Slowey was Framed! Last weekend, I introduced the Gagne Threshold. I used a variety of criteria to find good middle infielders over the past 30 seasons. I'm not going to go through everything again, but if you missed it and want to take a look, you can find it here. To summarize, I found 63 good players, 33 at second and 30 at short. I also found that there wasn't a specific team that was more or less adept at finding these players, as the sample is so small that no team really stands out. In the end, 30 shortstops in 30 years seemed like an impossibly low number. However, the number on its own isn't all that useful, unless it can be compared to other positions. Therefore, I decided to investigate if the middle infield positions have been harder to fill with good players over the past 30 years. Career numbers aren't as important to me, so I focused on seasonal data. If a team has five or six good, young middle infielders that they rotate through, they may not produce good career players, but would still get good value at those positions on a relatively regular basis. I looked at each offensive position, year-by-year, over the past 30 seasons. I wanted to know how many players would be considered "good" in each year and how "good" the best players were during those 30 seasons. I decided to use WAR again. Terrible toothbrush analogies aside, I do think WAR is the best available measure that we can use to compare players from 2012 to 1983. It isn't perfect, but it gives us some information, which is better than just throwing our hands up in the air and crying under the bed. FanGraphs.com has an excellent explanation of how they calculate WAR. You can start here, and choose to read as much as you'd like. I read through the all the pages, and I feel that I understand their methods very well. FanGraphs outlines a player with a 2+ WAR as being a solid starter or better, which is a number I will be using as the basis of this analysis. Here are the two factors I investigated: How many players provided a 2+ WAR at each position, in each season? This was an easy way to look at how many good players each position supplied. What was the cumulative WAR for the top ten players at each position? This allowed me to compare the actual value given at each position. Here is my resulting chart: [TABLE=class: grid, width: 500] Year # of 2+ WAR 2+ WAR/ Season Top 10 Total WAR Top 10 Avg WAR Top 10 Player Avg WAR C 417 13.90 1131.8 37.73 3.77 1B 564 18.80 1512.1 50.40 5.04 2B 487 16.23 1307.6 43.59 4.36 3B 569 18.97 1472.8 49.09 4.91 SS 442 14.73 1308.6 43.62 4.36 LF 592 19.73 1475.2 49.17 4.92 CF 617 20.57 1541.9 51.40 5.14 RF 624 20.80 1427 47.57 4.76 OF 1625 18.06 4389.8 48.78 4.88 [/TABLE] I am terrible at labeling fields, so let me just clarify: # of 2+ WAR = Number of players with 2+ WAR in the last 30 seasons # of 2+ WAR/Season = Average number of players with 2+ WAR, over 30 seasons Top 10 Total WAR = Total WAR from all top ten players, added together from the last 30 seasons Top 10 Avg WAR = Seasonal average for the top ten players (as a whole), by WAR Top 10 Player Avg WAR = Average WAR for a top ten player, over the past 30 seasons I broke down outfielders by individual position, but also by all outfielders. I did this because many outfielders played multiple outfield positions. The OF value is most accurate, but the LF, CF and RF values are still interesting to look at. The results show that the two middle infield positions are pretty hard to find, compared with all other positions other than catcher. Catcher is the hardest position to fill, according to these findings. The number of 2+ WAR second basemen was higher, but the overall WAR value was almost identical. So, it seems to be easier to find second basemen, but good shortstops provide more value. In short, the average top ten middle infielder between 1983 and 2012 provided 4.36 WAR. Teams get roughly 10-15% less value from the middle infield, compared with corner infield and outfield. Of course, teams get even less value from catcher. Having Joe Mauer on the team over the last 9 seasons has been a really big boost for the Twins. Just finding a good catcher is hard to do, but having a consistently good catcher is extremely hard to pull off. Of course, that is a separate topic. The average top ten middle infielder provides about .5 WAR less than the average top ten player at nearly every other position. This shows that teams are often playing middle infielders that are both below average and below the quality of players at other positions. Something to keep in mind about WAR is that the stat already gives players credit for playing these difficult positions, so some of their value actually comes from simply playing the position, saying nothing about how well they play it. Basically, if two players are completely equal in all ways - batting, slugging, baserunning, defense, etc, the shortstop will have a higher WAR than the first baseman, simply for playing the more difficult position; shortstop more than second base, but still. So, the actual production of these players might even be worse than would be indicated in my chart. By giving these middle infielders an automatic bump, their WARs are artificially inflated (on purpose). In addition, the first basemen and corner outfielders are actually penalized in WAR, ever widening the gap. There is logic in the positional adjustments made in calculating WAR. However, these adjustments show that if the sample of shortstops and first basemen are about .5 WAR apart, their production might actually be much farther off than one might think, just looking at WAR. Finding a good shortstop or second baseman is clearly hard to find, and that is why these players get a boost in their value. The actual production is important though. We can see that over the past 30 seasons, the middle infield has provided less value than most of the other positions and that good middle infielders are clearly rarer than good players at most of the other positions. While this may seem like an obvious conclusion, having the research and data to support the conclusion is very important. The next step is to investigate the samples of good second basemen and shortstops. Where does their value come from? Why are they more rare than players at other positions? I'm working on analyzing some data and I hope to share it with you very soon. Stay tuned! Here is a link to the spreadsheet I created while doing this research. It breaks down most of this data by year, and it is pretty interesting to look at: Raw data For Jim: wRC+ is my metric of choice. wRC+ is slick because all the factors that create runs are put together and then the values are normalized and adjusted for park factors and era. Thus, you can compare Greg Gagne to Brendan Ryan, to see who was the better hitter. The metric is based off of the number 100, where 100 is average and each corresponding number is a percentage above or below. So, Gagne's career wRC+ is 82, meaning he was 18% below league average for his career. I decided to look by position, to see if good, offensive shortstops are particularly rare. I decided I had no use for players with fewer than 500 games played. Roughly three seasons worth of games seems like a decent sample size. Here is my resulting chart: [TABLE=class: grid, width: 500] [/TD] # of Players Good Offense Good % C 238 46 19.33% 1B 230 137 59.57% 2B 284 52 18.31% 3B 249 84 33.73% SS 239 24 10.04% LF 341 150 43.99% CF 269 76 28.25% RF 296 143 48.31% 500 games min [TD] [/TABLE] n is the number of players, "good" refers to players with above average offensive production (wRC+ > 100) and "good %" shows what percentage of each sample met that criteria. As you can see, the further down the defensive spectrum you go, the harder it is to find a good offensive player at that position. This is hardly breaking news. The part that surprised me was just how small the sample was at short. There were only 24 players from the past 30 seasons who posted a career wRC+ over 100.

Stubbs is a solid comp for Benson, but Benson might be better defender. As for the number 2 hitter, if the Twins really believe in Chris Parmelee, he should hit 2nd. He'd get far more at bats batting 2nd, compared with 7th or 8th. If they like him enough to basically hand him a job in right field, why not hand him the second spot in the order as well? Benson definitely has at least one option left.

I would fully agree. The total zone rating that is used for WAR prior to 2002 really likes Gagne's defense. I think he was 6th in that span, behind guys like Ozzie Smith, Cal Ripken and Omar Vizquel. Of course, the way TZ is calculated is not perfect. It does seem to confirm some form of the eye-test though.

I was at that show too. I am still annoyed with Tom Petty for headlining and thus cutting PJ's set short. To this day, I do not understand how Light Years wasn't a massive hit. It's so poppy and so beautiful. It's a personal favorite. Riot Act is so great. 1/2 Full and Help, Help are such underrated songs.

Yep, Bartlett was the third Twins player. He actually had a really nice 5-year peak. And thank you, glunn. I appreciate the kind words and I am glad you enjoyed the post!

It's definitely one of my favorites too. It's the album I cite when people claim that all their songs sound the same. I also think most of the songs on the album are excellent live.

Jim - I apologize for the insinuation that you had attacked me personally. I responded to two thoughts at the same time, which was lazy and irresponsible. I think your original argument and subsequent follow-ups are logical and well-reasoned. I completely understand why you do not like WAR and I can fully appreciate that. You make some great points about the fielding component and that is definitely where WAR can get a bit fuzzy. I would agree with your point about positioning as well. I can't say for sure that UZR is accurate. For me, WAR is the best measure that we have to compare a player like Greg Gagne to someone like say, Rafael Furcal. If something better comes along, I'll gladly use that instead. Wise One - Fair enough. I thought this through carefully and thought it made sense. Obviously, my work is always going to make the most sense to me. If I failed here, then I failed. I can accept that.

A couple things. I do know how WAR is calculated and I do understand how it works. I said I couldn't explain it, but maybe I should have simply written that I won't explain it. I chose not to explain WAR because it would have doubled the length of this post. I did want to address the concept of WAR and explain why I use it. I find issues with the stat, and I was very up front about that. However, I stand by its use and I think it is a good tool to evaluate players. I can understand why some would prefer to use a stat without fully understanding how it works, especially a stat as complicated as WAR. Thus, my toothbrush example. Also, I think this measure makes good sense and I apologize if I did not explain it better. Basically, I wanted to find players who had careers similar to Gagne's or peaks similar to Gagne's or who seemed to be on an equal or better career path to Gagne. In this way, I was able to discover just how few players actually reach the level of a player that I don't think many realized was as special as he was. Finally, when we get to a point in society where we can seek to understand things better rather than attack other people for their ideas, we will have a much better Twins site and a much better society. I can handle criticism and I am happy to respond to it. I know there are flaws in my logic at times and I am working to be a better communicator. However, there are good and bad ways to frame an argument. If you find something you don't like about my information, please tell me. It isn't just about me either. I see plenty of people on this site who get major criticism for their ideas or ideals. Maybe that is just the way the internet works, and there is nothing that can be done about it. I will say, no one wants to feel personally attacked and no one should be personally attacked on a baseball website.

Originally posted at Kevin Slowey was Framed! The most recent episode of Gleeman and the Geek touched on a familiar topic for Twins fans. The middle infield has been a consistent area of need for the Minnesota Twins, since the days of Greg Gagne and Chuck Knoblauch. It was discussion of Gagne that specifically interested me. I remember Gagne as a kid. He was a player that I never really thought a whole lot about. Now that I am older, I understand his value. The Twins haven't had a consistent shortstop since the days of Gagne. In the coming weeks, I want to investigate just how rare good middle infielders are. Are the Twins in a unique situation, or are most teams in consistent need for quality middle infielders? I want to focus on this quandary from a few different angles. This week, Greg Gagne is my muse. How rare is a player like Greg Gagne? I intend to find out. We need to start with some GAGNE FACTS! Greg Gagne debuted in 1983. Gagne played 1765 games at shortstop. In his 15 season career, Gagne accumulated an fWAR of 26.1 At his peak, defined as his best 5-year stretch, Gagne had an fWAR of 15.0. Gagne posted three seasons with an fWAR greater than 3.0. Let's talk WAR for a bit. WAR is not a perfect stat. WAR has major limitations. The fact that three different sites have their own version of WAR and they do not match up is troubling. All that being said, I like WAR. In my opinion, WAR is the best way to look at the overall value of a player and compare that value to other players. In addition, the comparisons translate to past eras, which is very useful when looking at players from the 80s and today, like I did here. WAR includes offense, defense and baserunning. Many do not trust the defensive metrics, but I don't trust your eyes. I couldn't tell you how WAR is calculated. Think about all the things you use on a daily basis that you would have no idea how to construct, create or compute. I use an electric toothbrush a few times a day and I have no clue how to put one of those together. Does that mean I shouldn't use it? I don't think so. I trust people who put more time into innovation to create things that I do not need to understand or create on my own, but still plan to use. WAR is one of those things for me. I chose to use FanGraphs' version of WAR for this study. Back to the research. I used GAGNE FACTS! to define some research terms. I wanted to find how many middle infielders were Gagne or better. FanGraphs.com helped me create a custom spreadsheet for middle infielders who debuted in 1983 or later. I defined a middle infielder as a player who played more games in the middle infield than any other position. I made one exception (Alfonso Soriano) because he provided so much value at second base early in his career. From there, I included only players who could match or exceed Gagne's career fWAR, his 5-year-peak fWAR, or are active players with three seasons greater than 3.0 fWAR (pro-rated based on how many seasons the player has actually played). I call this the Gagne Threshold. The result is this spreadsheet. I included wOBA, Fld, and BsR. wOBA is a great measure of offensive production. It is much better than OPS because the importance of each type of hitting result is weighted properly in line with their actual run value. Fld is the fielding component that FanGraphs uses for WAR and BsR is their baserunning component. You can see just how good each player is in each area, with these segmented numbers. I found 63 players who met the Gagne Threshold. 33 primarily played second and 30 primarily played short. Basically, there have been 62 players as good or better than Greg Gagne (Gagne makes 63) who have debuted since 1983. Perhaps Greg Gagne is even more special than I thought. I wanted to look at some data related to these players, so I looked up whether they had been drafted or signed internationally. Here are a couple of facts: 42 of these players were drafted and 21 were signed internationally Of the 42 drafted, 29 were drafted out of college and 13 were drafted out of high school 18 of those players drafted were selected in the first round 12 players were selected in rounds 2-5 Out of curiosity, I looked to where these players were from. Here are the most common results: [TABLE=class: grid, width: 500] California DominicanRepublic Florida Venezuela New York Puerto Rico North Carolina 13 11 5 5 4 4 3 [/TABLE] Back to the original premise. 63 players in 30 seasons is roughly 2 new players per season. If only two middle infielders are added to the quality player pool each year, it would stand to reason that many teams are looking for middle infielders. 35 players are active, which might indicate an uptick in the talent pool, but many of these players have not reached any sort of career Gagne Threshold, but simply have a few good seasons early in their careers. They may never have another good season, then drop out of this pool. Regardless, there aren't many quality middle infielders to choose from. Here are debuts by year: [TABLE=class: grid, width: 500] [TD=colspan: 6]Number of Debuts by Year (* not possible based on Threshold)[/TD] 1983 3 1993 0 2003 3 1984 0 1994 1 2004 1 1985 0 1995 4 2005 5 1986 4 1996 3 2006 6 1987 0 1997 3 2007 2 1988 2 1998 2 2008 2 1989 1 1999 1 2009 2 1990 2 2000 3 2010 2 1991 1 2001 2 2011 * 1992 5 2002 3 2012 * [/TABLE] There isn't a pattern, but the 80s certainly look leaner than the 90s and 00s. It does appear that there are more quality middle infielders entering the pool in recent years. Add in young, promising players who have not qualified or have large chunks of their careers remaining, and you could see this pool expanding in the coming years. The question remains, is this a Twins issue, or a league issue? Here is a team chart: [TABLE=class: grid, width: 500] Team Signed/Drafted Peaked With Arizona 1 0 Atlanta 5 4 Baltimore 1 2 Boston 4 3 Chicago C 1 1 Chicago W 2 2 Cincinnati 1 2 Cleveland 1 4 Colorado 1 1 Detroit 0 2 Houston 3 1 Kansas City 1 0 Los Angeles A 3 2 Los Angeles D 0 1 Miami 2 3 Milwaukee 2 2 Minnesota 2 3 New York M 1 1 New York Y 4 3 Oakland 1 1 Philadelphia 2 3 Pittsburgh 2 2 San Diego 4 1 San Francisco 1 4 Seattle 5 2 St. Louis 1 1 Tampa Bay 0 1 Texas 2 4 Toronto 4 3 Washington/Montreal 6 4 [/TABLE] The Nationals franchise leads the way with 6 players, while Detroit, the L.A. Dodgers and Tampa Bay have zero. From there, I looked at when these players reached their peak. I didn't necessarily mean their best season, but more or less when they became a notable player. Atlanta, Cleveland, San Francisco, Texas and Washington/Montreal had 4 each, while Arizona and Kansas City had zero. Basically, the Twins do struggle to find quality middle infielders, but this seems to be more of a talent pool issue, rather than a Twins ineptitude issue. At least, that is how I see it, as no team is miles ahead of the Twins. Interestingly enough, many of these players who were traded while very young, netted big name players in return. Here are just a few players that these middle infielders helped bring back in trades: Bert Blyleven, Randy Johnson, Fred McGriff, Josh Beckett, Mark Teixeira, and Scott Rolen. Not bad. There is much more to this story. The Twins are in a 20 year Gagne Threshold drought, but does that mean the middle infield has been a constant gaping hole? In the near future, I want to look at each individual season from 1983 to 2012. How many good middle infielders were there in each season? Who were these players and why didn't they all reach the Gagne Threshold? I'm already working on another spreadsheet, and I am excited to share it with all of you.

Originally posted at Kevin Slowey was Framed! The most recent episode of Gleeman and the Geek touched on a familiar topic for Twins fans. The middle infield has been a consistent area of need for the Minnesota Twins, since the days of Greg Gagne and Chuck Knoblauch. It was discussion of Gagne that specifically interested me. I remember Gagne as a kid. He was a player that I never really thought a whole lot about. Now that I am older, I understand his value. The Twins haven't had a consistent shortstop since the days of Gagne. In the coming weeks, I want to investigate just how rare good middle infielders are. Are the Twins in a unique situation, or are most teams in consistent need for quality middle infielders? I want to focus on this quandary from a few different angles. This week, Greg Gagne is my muse. How rare is a player like Greg Gagne? I intend to find out. We need to start with some GAGNE FACTS! Greg Gagne debuted in 1983. Gagne played 1765 games at shortstop. In his 15 season career, Gagne accumulated an fWAR of 26.1 At his peak, defined as his best 5-year stretch, Gagne had an fWAR of 15.0. Gagne posted three seasons with an fWAR greater than 3.0. Let's talk WAR for a bit. WAR is not a perfect stat. WAR has major limitations. The fact that three different sites have their own version of WAR and they do not match up is troubling. All that being said, I like WAR. In my opinion, WAR is the best way to look at the overall value of a player and compare that value to other players. In addition, the comparisons translate to past eras, which is very useful when looking at players from the 80s and today, like I did here. WAR includes offense, defense and baserunning. Many do not trust the defensive metrics, but I don't trust your eyes. I couldn't tell you how WAR is calculated. Think about all the things you use on a daily basis that you would have no idea how to construct, create or compute. I use an electric toothbrush a few times a day and I have no clue how to put one of those together. Does that mean I shouldn't use it? I don't think so. I trust people who put more time into innovation to create things that I do not need to understand or create on my own, but still plan to use. WAR is one of those things for me. I chose to use FanGraphs' version of WAR for this study. Back to the research. I used GAGNE FACTS! to define some research terms. I wanted to find how many middle infielders were Gagne or better. FanGraphs.com helped me create a custom spreadsheet for middle infielders who debuted in 1983 or later. I defined a middle infielder as a player who played more games in the middle infield than any other position. I made one exception (Alfonso Soriano) because he provided so much value at second base early in his career. From there, I included only players who could match or exceed Gagne's career fWAR, his 5-year-peak fWAR, or are active players with three seasons greater than 3.0 fWAR (pro-rated based on how many seasons the player has actually played). I call this the Gagne Threshold. The result is this spreadsheet. I included wOBA, Fld, and BsR. wOBA is a great measure of offensive production. It is much better than OPS because the importance of each type of hitting result is weighted properly in line with their actual run value. Fld is the fielding component that FanGraphs uses for WAR and BsR is their baserunning component. You can see just how good each player is in each area, with these segmented numbers. I found 63 players who met the Gagne Threshold. 33 primarily played second and 30 primarily played short. Basically, there have been 62 players as good or better than Greg Gagne (Gagne makes 63) who have debuted since 1983. Perhaps Greg Gagne is even more special than I thought. I wanted to look at some data related to these players, so I looked up whether they had been drafted or signed internationally. Here are a couple of facts: 42 of these players were drafted and 21 were signed internationally Of the 42 drafted, 29 were drafted out of college and 13 were drafted out of high school 18 of those players drafted were selected in the first round 12 players were selected in rounds 2-5 Out of curiosity, I looked to where these players were from. Here are the most common results: [TABLE=class: grid, width: 500] California DominicanRepublic Florida Venezuela New York Puerto Rico North Carolina 13 11 5 5 4 4 3 [/TABLE] Back to the original premise. 63 players in 30 seasons is roughly 2 new players per season. If only two middle infielders are added to the quality player pool each year, it would stand to reason that many teams are looking for middle infielders. 35 players are active, which might indicate an uptick in the talent pool, but many of these players have not reached any sort of career Gagne Threshold, but simply have a few good seasons early in their careers. They may never have another good season, then drop out of this pool. Regardless, there aren't many quality middle infielders to choose from. Here are debuts by year: [TABLE=class: grid, width: 500] [TD=colspan: 6]Number of Debuts by Year (* not possible based on Threshold)[/TD] 1983 3 1993 0 2003 3 1984 0 1994 1 2004 1 1985 0 1995 4 2005 5 1986 4 1996 3 2006 6 1987 0 1997 3 2007 2 1988 2 1998 2 2008 2 1989 1 1999 1 2009 2 1990 2 2000 3 2010 2 1991 1 2001 2 2011 * 1992 5 2002 3 2012 * [/TABLE] There isn't a pattern, but the 80s certainly look leaner than the 90s and 00s. It does appear that there are more quality middle infielders entering the pool in recent years. Add in young, promising players who have not qualified or have large chunks of their careers remaining, and you could see this pool expanding in the coming years. The question remains, is this a Twins issue, or a league issue? Here is a team chart: [TABLE=class: grid, width: 500] Team Signed/Drafted Peaked With Arizona 1 0 Atlanta 5 4 Baltimore 1 2 Boston 4 3 Chicago C 1 1 Chicago W 2 2 Cincinnati 1 2 Cleveland 1 4 Colorado 1 1 Detroit 0 2 Houston 3 1 Kansas City 1 0 Los Angeles A 3 2 Los Angeles D 0 1 Miami 2 3 Milwaukee 2 2 Minnesota 2 3 New York M 1 1 New York Y 4 3 Oakland 1 1 Philadelphia 2 3 Pittsburgh 2 2 San Diego 4 1 San Francisco 1 4 Seattle 5 2 St. Louis 1 1 Tampa Bay 0 1 Texas 2 4 Toronto 4 3 Washington/Montreal 6 4 [/TABLE] The Nationals franchise leads the way with 6 players, while Detroit, the L.A. Dodgers and Tampa Bay have zero. From there, I looked at when these players reached their peak. I didn't necessarily mean their best season, but more or less when they became a notable player. Atlanta, Cleveland, San Francisco, Texas and Washington/Montreal had 4 each, while Arizona and Kansas City had zero. Basically, the Twins do struggle to find quality middle infielders, but this seems to be more of a talent pool issue, rather than a Twins ineptitude issue. At least, that is how I see it, as no team is miles ahead of the Twins. Interestingly enough, many of these players who were traded while very young, netted big name players in return. Here are just a few players that these middle infielders helped bring back in trades: Bert Blyleven, Randy Johnson, Fred McGriff, Josh Beckett, Mark Teixeira, and Scott Rolen. Not bad. There is much more to this story. The Twins are in a 20 year Gagne Threshold drought, but does that mean the middle infield has been a constant gaping hole? In the near future, I want to look at each individual season from 1983 to 2012. How many good middle infielders were there in each season? Who were these players and why didn't they all reach the Gagne Threshold? I'm already working on another spreadsheet, and I am excited to share it with all of you.

I'm pretty sure that until the MLB draft, he costs a team their pick.

This is a really cool trip down memory lane. I always liked Luis Rodriguez for some reason. The Phillies acquired one of the best humans to play for the Twins and one of the worst. Not bad.

Yes, very good point. Are you into the Afghan Whigs at all? I like how they use non-traditional rock instruments.

More food for all of us too.

Sorry, IFFB% is actually a percentage of a percentage. So Mauer's 2% is 2% of his fly ball rate, not 2% of his batted balls. So, if he had 100 batted balls and 25 were fly balls, and 1 of those was an infield fly, his FB% would be 25% and his IFFB% would be 4%.