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Cap'n Piranha

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Everything posted by Cap'n Piranha

  1. Cap'n Piranha
    Yes it would. Your point? I've always said durability is an asset. but assuming that because someone has been durable they will continue to be durable is a gamble--the Blue Jays are cleraly content to take that gamble. Johan Santana pitched 960 innings in his age 23-27 season, Berrios has pitched 850--both were extremely durable. But Santana only had one more great season left, 3 more very good, one ok, and then was out of baseball. Is it crazy to say that could also be Berrios' post-age 27 season path? fWAR does use FIP, but a modified version (see below). In essence, pitchers get credit for IF FB as K's in the WAR calculation, and the FIP constant is also changed. I used both FIP- and xFIP- as two metrics that are not reliant on innings pitched, and therefore strip quantity from quality. The point I'm making is that Berrios is the Bizarro Buxton--he's a good pitcher who posts great WAR because he doesn't get hurt (whereas Buxton is a great player who posts good WAR because he's constantly hurt). Therefore, if Berrios ceases being able to make 30+ starts a year, his value is dramatically impacted, as he's not a great pitcher, but rather a very good one. That said, there are worse things in baseball to spend $20M on than a very good pitcher.
  2. Cap'n Piranha
    My point is his value is based largely on durability, not top-level performance. The outcomes he has produced are somewhere between very good 2nd starter, and lower tier 2nd starter, borderline 3rd starter. If the price to secure that in FA is $20M/year, that is not something the Twins are currently capable of doing. As such, what makes sense is a pivot to offering young pitchers extensions much sooner (for example, assuming Ober and Ryan repeat/improve on their 2021 performance, giving them both an extension for 6-7 years and $50M-$60M).
  3. Cap'n Piranha
    Berrios is indeed 4th in the league in fWAR over the past 5 years--if the league in question is the AL. Expand it to MLB, and he drops to 14th. Berrios' durability also potentially works against him here--as fWAR is a counting stat, staying healthy can skew this number (much like RBI numbers can be skewed by batting cleanup for 150 games). Indeed, if you look at FIP- for the last 5 years, Berrios drops to 33rd in the league; by xFIP- it's 51st (not for nothing, his mark of 93 is identical to Joey Lucchesi, Micahel Pineda, and Kyle Gibson). Now durability is obviously an asset--you can argue it is better to have a starter who makes 30 starts with a 3 ERA than a starter who makes 10 starts with a 2 ERA. Jose Berrios is indeed durable--until he's not. Perhaps Berrios pitches 10 more years without a single major injury. Perhaps Berrios blows his arm out in his very first start of 2022. The Blue Jays are gambling $20M+ a year that a clear 2nd starter by quality can become a 1st starter through quantity. I'm not saying Berrios won't, but this is a gamble on Toronto's side.
  4. Cap'n Piranha
    I would be completely fine with trading Buxton, so long as the package is right. In my mind, that only happens if it's part of a bigger deal, with my pipe dream being the below; Padres get--Buxton, Rogers, Garver, Ober, and Barnes Twins get--Abrams, Hassell, Gore, and take back Wil Myer's salary The Padres manage to add some star power to their lineup and bullpen, without increasing their payroll (or if they do, barely), and add two backend options to their rotation, which is what let them down this year. The Twins add two premium position player prospects, which will allow them to turn around and use Lewis, Martin, Miranda, Arraez, Larnach et al for trade bait for pitching to further buttress a system which could be the best in baseball next year. While this would absolutely mean the Twins are punting on 2022, a lineup in 2023 with some combo of Abrams, Polanco, Martin, Miranda, Kiriloff, Jeffers, Arraez, Larnach, Celestino is intirguing, and would be cheap enough to allow the Twins to invest heavily in starting pitching on the FA market.
  5. Cap'n Piranha
    We need to move beyond the idea that there will be set starters at every position. Polanco at 2B, Buxton (if not traded) in CF, and a FA at SS should be the only starters that play at the same spot every time they play. The Twins should bring 13 players north next year, and most of them should play multiple positions, and allow Rocco to create lineups based on matchups. Here's the 13 players I would choose; Garver Jeffers Kiriloff Sano Polanco Arraez FA SS Donaldson Miranda Larnach Buxton Kepler Celestino Your DH will differ on a daily basis, dependent on matchups and health, and I also wouldn't be opposed to trading either Jeffers or Garver, and getting a better left-handed catcher than Rortvedt. The other option is to trade Sano, and turn Garver into a 1B/DH who can catch a handful of times a year, and make Rortvedt your second catcher. Lewis and Martin can be trade bait for starting pitching, or can take the place of Arraez/Donaldson/Kepler when they're ready. Every team will have around 6k PAs in a year, so with 13 guys, you can average about 450 PAs per player.
  6. Cap'n Piranha
    Celestino was bad this year. He was also a 22 year old with 24 total games above High A being told to play center field in the majors. Look at what he's done in AAA since he's been there (where he should be at this point in his career)--.909 OPS, 144 wRC+. For what it's worth, that's not too far off of Jose Miranda, who is the no-doubt MiLB player of the year for the Twins. Larnach, despite all his struggles, still put up an 89 wRC+ in the bigs as a 24 year old who hadn't played ball in 18 months. His wRC+ has been above 139 at every stop in the minors before this year, which is better than Nelson Cruz' career wRC+. His slump is concerning, but to write off either of these guys, much less both, as career bad 4th outfielders before they turn 25, and after a combined 360 MLB PAs is just ridiculous.
  7. Cap'n Piranha
    Cave wishes.
  8. Cap'n Piranha
    I think he is healthy now (after he missed two months), but he is also not getting consistent playing time (66 PA's since his return on July 25 in 45 games). It's hard to get a rhythm when you're essentially a pinch hitter, or you only play once every 3 days. Before this is construed as a defense of Cave, I agree that he should not be on this team next year. Kiriloff, Larnach, and Celestino should all be ahead of him in the pecking order, to say nothing of Buxton, Arraez moonlighting in left, or Lewis (if he has to get moved to the outfield). My initial post simply was musing about a potential reason that an above average player in 2018/2019 would all of the sudden become a useless one.
  9. Cap'n Piranha
    Cave has done himself no favors this year by trying to play hurt (if indeed that has been the issue--given the vast difference between his stats in 2019/2020 and this year, I am inclined to believe that). When healthy, I think Jake Cave is a very good 4th outfielder. That said, I don't think 4th outfielders are something a team should have to resort to trades in order to acquire, and they certainly shouldn't give up pitching prospects to do it.
  10. Cap'n Piranha
    I never said anyone else said 10 years. I said 10 years because I'm trying to make the point that we shouldn't just assume Joe Ryan can be etched in stone into the rotation for the foreseeable future, based on his first 2 starts. Nothing more, nothing less.
  11. Cap'n Piranha
    Not skeptical at all that he can pitch--as I pointed out, I would have put him above SWR in Twins prospect rankings, i.e. a Top 5 prospect. I'm skeptical that a guy with two career starts (one of which was mediocre) and a massively unsustainable babip is going to pitch in the majors for the next 10 years. If you're not skeptical of the certainty of Joe Ryan's 10 year career in the bigs right now, then you're drinking some real strong kool-aid. I hope Ryan builds on this. I hope he is a cornerstone of the Twins rotation for the next decade. Even bound that, I would love it if someday his number was retired. But if Joe Ryan continues to induce little soft contact (he's at 6%, the league is 16%) and lots of hard contact (he's at 41%, the league is at 32%), he will be out of the league in the next 2-4 years. I believe he can improve on that, which is why I am optimistic about him in the rotation next year. That said, assuming he pitches every 5 days, his next 3 starts will be @NYY, @TOR, TOR. If he's still performing after those 3, I'll be MUCH less skeptical.
  12. Cap'n Piranha
    The fact there is little to go on is exactly why we should be skeptical. On a completely different subject, I have this really awesome stock tip. The company was just founded last year, and grew 1,000% this year! If you send me some money, I'll invest it for you--I know that's only a little to go on, but that obviously means there's no good reason to be skeptical!
  13. Cap'n Piranha
    The skepticism comes from his .100 babip despite only inducing 6% soft contact, but giving up 41% hard contact; it is impossible for those 3 numbers to coexist for any sustained period. The number most likely to change out of those, by far, is the babip, and when it does, he won't be throwing 7 inning one-hitters. This doesn't mean Ryan's about to turn into Happ or anything, but it also means he's not mutant deGrom either. I like Joe Ryan, and I'm very optimistic about him--I thought he should have been ranked higher on the Twins prospect list than SWR--but we shouldn't assume that he's ready to be a 10 year starter in the bigs based off of two starts, one of which was mediocre.
  14. Cap'n Piranha
    Precisely. The Twins had just won 103 games, but had started Randy Dobnak in a playoff game--they needed frontline starting pitching, but couldn't get it in FA. They went out to get a guy to improve their rotation, and he did just that. If the offense doesn't fall completely asleep at the wheel against Houston, who knows what might have happened?
  15. Cap'n Piranha
    This is correct. Any time you can get 3 years of control on a #2/#3 starter for 6 years of a reliever, you do it.
  16. Cap'n Piranha
    $183M for 16 WAR is $11.4M/WAR. In a market where the going rate is $8M-$10M/WAR, that's not great, but it's also not bad. Throw Cruz back in, with his $34ish million and 7.5ish WAR, and now they're at $207M for 23.5 WAR, or $8.8M/WAR. If anything, this shows why spending big in FA should be viewed as a last resort.
  17. Cap'n Piranha
    I don't need to imagine, I know! Infinite! But I'll also get to experience infinite playoff wins!
  18. Cap'n Piranha
    One of the teams claiming Blankenhorn was, IIRC, the World Series favorite LA Dodgers.
  19. Cap'n Piranha
    Or Santana, Johan.
  20. Cap'n Piranha
    Burrows, Colome, Coulombe, Farrell, and Minaya all seem like guys that could be released pretty easily. Also, as Garcia is currently having success at AAA, and has pitched part of 3 seasons in MLB, all before the age of 25, he is massively more likely to succeed than a player in A ball, or any of Brandon Lopez/Sean Miller/Randy Leblanc/CK Irby (the Twins 10th round picks from 2013-2016)
  21. Cap'n Piranha
    Ummm, the 2022 Twins going deep into the playoffs is not a serious response. It seems ridiculous to say the roster is the same, except the pitching's worse. That's like saying (had he not come back) that the Packers roster is the same, but the quarterbacking is worse. There is no straightforward path to improve the pitching sufficiently in 2022 to seriously compete for a World Series. Alternatively, if Falvine is able to work their magic, and turn Duran, Balazovic, Ryan, Winder, Strotman, etc. into quality big league options, than Berrios is hardly a must, and trading him for additional players and $10M to $12M to put towards another starter is a win.
  22. Cap'n Piranha
    I'm quite excited about this! Worth noting he is now rule 5 eligible, so there's a non-zero chance we see him at Target Field before the year is over.
  23. Cap'n Piranha
    And my best case scenario is that Jeff Bezos bequeaths his fortune to me, and then I discover a formula for immaculate immortality.
  24. Cap'n Piranha
    This would be the Eddie Rosario with a sub-.700 OPS, an 84 wRC+, and whose new team traded him away in 4 months? That Eddie? The hurry in trading Berrios is that if you wait to trade him until next year, your best case scenario is 1 top 100 prospect, and your worst case scenario is he needs Tommy John, and you can't even QO him for a comp pick, meaning you get literally nothing.
  25. Cap'n Piranha
    1,000,000 fans a year in 81 games is an average of 12,345 a game. From 1971-1984 the average attendance for ALL of MLB was 18,144 a game, or less than 1.5M. Fans go to the games of teams who win games (assuming they're interested in going), rather than teams who lose games but have stars.
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