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Cap'n Piranha

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Everything posted by Cap'n Piranha

  1. Cap'n Piranha
    Would Lopez and Duran have appeared last night if the Twins were losing 9-1 in the fifth inning? If Rocco was deadset on using them, why not use one as an opener then instead?
  2. Cap'n Piranha
    They didn't know when they removed Duran or Jax that the offense would fail to close the gap for 3 innings. It should have been pretty foreseeable that the offense not closing the gap was a real possibility, given that the Twins were slated to send hitters 4-6 to the plate in the 6th. Seeing as how it was also guaranteed that the Astros 1-5 hitters would appear at least once more, and in all probability twice more after the 5th inning, you could easily save Duran/Jax/Lopez for the Astros' best hitters. The decision was non-sensical when it was made, it (predictably) did not work, and it increased the chances that the Twins losing streak will grow to 7/8 games, since the 3 best bullpen arms will be either unavailable or at an increased likelihood of performing poorly until at least Sunday.
  3. Cap'n Piranha
    Sure, they are available, in that they are both physically able to pitch. But they will likely be diminished versions of themselves, given that they will be pitching on no rest. Here are the numbers for Duran and Jax when they pitch on rest against no rest (warning, extremely SSS on the no rest side, as it's 4 appearances for 3.2 IP for Duran and 6/4.1 for Jax) Duran with rest--51 IP, 0.98 WHIP, 1.76 ERA, 11.6 k/9, 0.7 HR/9, 2.3 bb/9 Duran on no rest--3.2 IP, 1.09 WHIP, 4.90 ERA, 9.8 k/9, 4.9 HR/9, 0 bb/9 Jax with rest--37.1 IP, 1.15 WHIP, 3.86 ERA, 11.8 k/9, 1.2 hr/9, 2.9 bb/9 Jax on no rest--4.1 IP, 1.90 WHIP, 10.71 ERA, 6.4 k/9, 0 hr/9, 4.3 bb/9 Hard to draw conclusions given the paucity of data, but some clear deltas in performance that echo those seen in other relief pitchers I've looked at (such as 2018-2020 Taylor Rogers). Lopez has more data, and for him the differences are pronounced; With rest--30 IP, 0.90 WHIP, 1.20 ERA, 10.8 k/9, 0.6 hr/9, 1.8 bb/9 On no rest--15.1 IP, 1.50 WHIP, 3.53 ERA, 7.1 k/9, 0.6 hr/9, 5.9 bb/9 I don't think it's unreasonable to anticipate an increased likelihood of poor performance from those 3 should they be used tonight, meaning if the three of them are tasked to hold a one-run lead in innings 7-9, they're more likely to blow that lead, and potentially the game. If any of the three are used tonight, I think we can all agree they are unavailable tomorrow. So it's a distinct possibility that by chasing an unlikely win, Rocco will leave himself with a much worse bullpen for the first game or two of the SF series. Poor managing that should have been very easy to identify as poor managing; unless you are feeling desperate to get a win, and that desperation leads you into making low-probability-of-success choices.
  4. Cap'n Piranha
    Down two, Twins have 12 outs left and the 4th batter next up. Houston has 15 outs left, and the third batter next up. This suggests the Twins would be lucky to have their 1-3 hitters bat twice, while Houston was almost assured to have their 1-3 hitters bat twice. Given that, it was patently insane to use Duran, Jax, and Lopez to chase a lead when you would still need at least 6 outs from, let’s say unsteady, options. Now, at least 2 of those 3 are unavailable Friday night in a close game; not exactly unlikely given the Twins recent offensive struggles. Rocco seems like the guy who calls a raise with a pair of sixes because he’s pot committed. In the real world, this move betrays what most be near desperation in the clubhouse. To use assets so foolishly, in a scenario so unlikely to break in one’s favor, indicates panic-induced poor decision making.
  5. Cap'n Piranha
    It's only relevant in determining if the Twins overpaid on the already inflated cost. As it turns out, unless Correa makes it to 4.4ish WAR, the Twins will have overpaid twice. There are a handful of teams that can afford to do that: the Twins cannot. Of course no roster is filled out with guys whose rank by salary and rank by WAR are identical. But that's not the point that I, or anyone else saying similar things, is making. The point we are making is that when you are the Twins, and you start handing out late-stage arbitration or FA deals/extensions, the production from rookie-scale or early-stage arbitration players is going to have to increase. Correa, Sanchez, and Kepler are making $51.1M this year; they've accounted for 5.1 WAR (on pace for about 7), leaving the rest of the roster to make $92M while needing to produce 35 WAR. That puts a lot of pressure on 23 players to either produce like all-stars, or be (relatively) low paid. Do you see the problem here?
  6. Cap'n Piranha
    It always makes me laugh when people talk about how a player produces enough WAR for their salary because they're at a 1 WAR per $8M ratio. That is only accurate when obtaining talent on the FA market, which is the absolute worst way to acquire talent. If the Twins wanted to win 90 games, and needed to spend $8M/WAR to do so, their payroll would have to be $336M. Putting it another way, if Correa is "worth" his contract, and puts up 4 WAR a year, and the Twins have a $140M payroll, that means the Twins need to get 38 WAR out of $105M, or $2.76M/WAR. That's going to be very difficult to do.
  7. Cap'n Piranha
    I would assume it's for the same reason you already mentioned; roster shenanigans. There has to be a max roster size, else what would keep the Dodgers/Yankees/Mets having way more prospects than the rest of the league?
  8. Cap'n Piranha
    Minor point, to be sure, but Sands last pitched on Tuesday the 16th, so 4 days, not a week.
  9. Cap'n Piranha
    Edgar Varela was reassigned to be an MiLB instructor this year; I find it unlikely he is the reason for the MLB club's struggles. Rowson has for the past 3 years been with a Miami organization that finished with a wRC+ of 94 (19th) in 2020, 83 (28th) in 2021, and 89 (25th) so far in 2022. While that is an improvement for Miami (79 and 29th in 2019), it's not so massive that Rowson returning fixes everything.
  10. Cap'n Piranha
    Perhaps Rocco made Pagan finish the game today as a message to Falvine? That message being, “please DFA this guy, and give me anyone else”
  11. Cap'n Piranha
    This makes no sense. Sure he was warmed up; he could just as easily have been sat back down. I didn't see the game, but did Fulmer continue to warm while the Twins scored each of their runs? He assuredly threw more pitches from the mound in between half innings. All of that is unnecessary strain on his arm.
  12. Cap'n Piranha
    I think you'll find very few Pagan supporters on this site. So long as your criticism of him is respectful and not excessive, you'll be totally fine.
  13. Cap'n Piranha
    Taken to an extreme yes, it can end up there. It's why I specifically pointed out that I had no problem with Rocco using Jax, Duran, and Lopez last night; it was a two-run game, and you needed a win. However, when Rocco used both Duran AND Lopez with a 4-run lead last Friday, that's where I have an issue. Both of them were pretty shaky on Saturday (they combined for a 2.5 WHIP and 13.50 ERA on Saturday, and were then unavailable Sunday), and I think you have to attribute at least some of that to pitching on back to back days. I would have much preferred Rocco used only one of Duran or Lopez, and had either Jax, Theilbar, or even Megill get the other 3 outs (if you can't rely on a guy to keep his ERA under 18 in 95% of their appearances, they should not be on the roster). If your relievers' effectiveness is diminished when they don't get rest, you have to get them at least 1 days rest. That means if you're going to empty the bullpen on a Monday, the options will be limited on a Tuesday, so Rocco needs to be very sure he is thinking that through. Last night made sense to empty the pen. Last Friday? Not so much in my opinion.
  14. Cap'n Piranha
    That's where you and I differ; I would much prefer the pitching chart with Pagan not on it.
  15. Cap'n Piranha
    Available and effective are not necessarily the same thing. I haven't crunched the numbers on specifically Duran or Lopez, but when I did that in the past for Taylor Rogers, it was clear as day that pitching on 0 days rest resulted in Rogers being pretty bad. Anecdotally, that holds for Lopez this past weekend.
  16. Cap'n Piranha
    Yet again Rocco has to use essentially every good bullpen option to nail down the win (not blaming him for that in this particular instance, just observing). It bit the Twins hard on Saturday and Sunday last; here's hoping the Twins bats can make the unavailability of the bullpen aces irrelevant tomorrow.
  17. Cap'n Piranha
    I think it should be pretty easy to find the 2023 version of Dylan Bundy, and pay him less than $10M. Given that, I don’t think it makes sense to pay $11M to actual Dylan Bundy.
  18. Cap'n Piranha
    This is what happens when you have a use all the ammo strategy; the Twins used all three of their best relievers Friday, some of them while up by 3 or 4 runs, and predictably, saw those relievers perform worse when asked to go back-to-back. Rocco has to figure out a way to keep more options available on a day-to-day basis, and Falvine has to figure out a way to get more quality options, or more multi-inning options.
  19. Cap'n Piranha
    Can a team be honestly characterized as a playoff contender when they use Emilio Pagan and Tyler Duffey in close games? I vote no. I have no idea why the Twins didn’t try and cover the 6th through 8th with a combo of Megill and Jax, then turn it over to Lopez in the 9th.
  20. Cap'n Piranha
    I tend to agree with this. I would be ecstatic is two years from now we had Arraez and Martin as .320 AVG/.400 OBP guys batting 9/1 or 1/2 in front of Buxton, Miranda, Kiriloff, Wallner, etc. I have no idea if the Twins pushing him to hit for power is the issue; if it is, knock it off, and let it develop (as it seems to be doing for Arraez), or not. In that scenario, the worst case scenario is that Martin is "just" an elite OBP/speed tablesetter. That's worth 3-4 WAR a year easy.
  21. Cap'n Piranha
    Increasingly, he doesn't even look like a slap hitter, as his plate value derives from his OBP which is being held up by his walks. For a guy with supposedly the best bat in the 2020 draft, he is conspicuously not particularly good at actually hitting.
  22. Cap'n Piranha
    I've lost all confidence in Austin Martin at this point in time. I'd have him below Lewis, Lee, Prielipp, Rodriguez, Steer, Wallner, CES, and Julien for sure; CES and Julien are controversial to some, but they are both younger than Martin (CES by about 8 months, Julien by a few weeks), and performing notably better than Martin at the same level. CES has a very small sample size at AA, but his A+ numbers this year were so far superior to Martin's that I'm inclined that way. I'd be open to hearing arguments on SWR, Varland, Raya, and Hajjar as well. I just can't call a 23 year old who is not performing in AA (in his second year at AA to boot) a top prospect. For Martin to regain his prospect status in my eyes, he needs to get massively better, jump up to the MLB level while maintaining his production, or get younger. I'm not confident in any of those things happening (some more so than others), so I put Martin outside the top 10, and if there is a team at the deadline who still values him as the 5th overall pick in 2020, I trade him in a heartbeat.
  23. Cap'n Piranha
    Definitely would not do that trade for Montas. Berrios had a much longer track record than Montas at this time last year, with the same amount of remaining control, and did not require that level of package to get from a team that ostensibly was going to try and compete the following year. 18 seasons of team control in exchange for 1.5 seasons seems like not a great deal, especially considering the bullpen is much more of an issue than the rotation.
  24. Cap'n Piranha
    1--Get rid of the every team gets a rep requirement. No one is watching to see if the guy from their team pinch hits in the 8th inning, or throws one inning in the 5th. 2--Rosters are selected by a panel of national writers. Each writer is required to submit their slate before the panel convenes to select the roster. Concurrently, the BBWA membership submits their slate (writers will not be allowed to include players on the team they primarily cover); writers on the panel who fall below a certain threshold in terms of agreement with the BBWA roster are removed from the panel to ensure legitimacy 3--All players selected give up 5 game checks to a pool, which is matched by MLB. The winning team splits 75% of the pot, the losing team 25%. All players with less than 4 years of service team get 1 extra year if service time for being on the winning team, and half a year for being on the losing team (to compensate them for the fact that 5 game checks is a bigger deal to them. To prevent teams from keeping players down so they won't be on the all-star team, for every player with less than 4 years of service time who makes the All-Star roster, the team he plays for gets a comp round A pick in the next year's draft). Players who are selected for the game, but opt out must surrender 8 game checks or be on the IL for at least the first 5 games after the All-Star game. 4--Starting pitchers go for 2 innings--after that, each pitcher goes one inning, and is selected by fans for innings 3-7 (a vote is held during each team's half inning in the field, with the vote ending with the third out. The winner of that vote will be the next pitcher, and will come out exactly one inning later (example, the AL is in the field for the bottom of the 2nd; fans will vote on which NL pitcher they want to see next. The pitcher with the most votes when the bottom of the second ends will appear in the top of the 4th, giving that pitcher a full inning to get warmed up). 5--Position players are eligible to re-enter the game starting in the 8th inning for one at bat. This way the best players in the game will be hitting when the game matters. 6--Starting in the 11th inning, if the game is tied at the end of a half inning, the team that just finished batting loses. This means the away team must score in the top of the 11th, or they lose. If the away team does score, the home team must outscore them in the bottom of the 11th, or they lose.
  25. Cap'n Piranha
    While Wallner definitely has reduced his k rate since April (he was at about 50% in April), he has settled in at right around 33% in May, June, and MTD July. That's certainly better, but he is definitely still strikeout-prone, and that doesn't seem likely to reduce as he advances levels. That said, I agree that strikeouts are not terrible (within reason). As another poster pointed out, in most cases a strikeout is no worse than a weak grounder or pop out, and in many cases, might actually be preferable to putting a ball in play (no groundball double plays, no lead runners getting thrown out, no tagging runners being gunned down at the plate). I'd prefer he strike out less, but I'll gladly take a 33% strikeout rate if it's accompanied by a .900-1.000 OPS.
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