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Cap'n Piranha

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Everything posted by Cap'n Piranha

  1. Cap'n Piranha
    I think whether or not there is a gap in the pitching staff depends largely on when the injury/underperformance occurs. The Twins are 10 deep in "respectable" starting options (Berrios, Odo, Bailey, Maeda, Pineda, Hill, Chacin, Dobnak, Smeltzer, and Thorpe) before accounting for any prospect breakthroughs. That seems better than the Yankees, who are already turning to a guy who pitched to a 4.95 FIP last year, with 4.5 bb/9, a 1.5 WHIP, and only induced 13% soft contact. It seems to me when Falvine realized top of the rotation help wasn't gettable, they shifted to depth of the rotation help, which leaves them in good position to absorb injuries.
  2. Cap'n Piranha
    Not quite true, I think the FO is ok with one of them in the rotation, but has no found ways to ensure Dobnak, Smeltzer, and Thorpe can be your shuttle depth/doubleheader extra guy. What they've done is gone from a rotation that had 6 guys (Berrios, Odo, Pineda, Dobnak, Smeltzer, Thorpe) to one that now has 10 guys (Bailey, Hill, Chacin, Maeda). This means we can now absorb 3 injuries to starters beyond the reduced availability of Pineda and Hill, and still "only" need to use Dobnak, Smeltzer, and Thorpe, instead of Balazovic, Duran, and whatever warm body they can snag off the waiver wire. This move is 100% about depth, not a lack of confidence in Dobnak, Smeltzer and Thorpe.
  3. Cap'n Piranha
    The issue in your article is that you state "what really makes the difference for them in their worse performance against left-handed hitters is that their best hitters are right-handed". Based on the OPS stats you provided, all four of the Twins best hitters not only in 2019, but for their entire careers have been better against righties than the Twins collectively were last year. The Twins were worse against righties because they gave 600 PA's against lefties to Gonzalez, Rosario, Polanco, and Arraez who all OPS'd below .800 against lefties, compared to 1,761 PA's against righties to Buxton, Cave, Adrianza, Schoop, Gonzalez, Astudillo, and Cron, all of whom OPS'd below .800 against righties. Having 4 guys who are merely very good against righties in contrast to being death against lefties isn't the problem--the problem is the bottom of the order needs to be better. A full season of Arraez and Kepler (.887 and .845 OPS against righties) will help, as might a late season call-up of Rooker (1.024 OPS against righties) or Kiriloff (.816 against righties in a lost season), or possibly even a trade for a left-handed corner outfielder, should injuries mount.
  4. Cap'n Piranha
    I had no idea, and neither did you. If you knew, you'd be setting lines in Vegas, not posting on a Twins message board. Was I optimistic the Twins would win? No, but the Twins defense giving up 2 unearned runs didn't help Berrios, nor did Kyle Gibson giving up 3 runs in his one inning, nor Zack Littell getting no one out in the 5th, and putting Duffey in a tough spot. The Twins were tied with the Yankees when Berrios left the game, and still only 1 run behind going to the bottom of the sixth when Stashak served up two homers. Berrios didn't lose to the Yankees in game 1, and while we all hoped for more, he remains far and away our best bet to start a potential game 1 in 2020, barring a huge trade between then and now. Pineda, Odo, or Hill will not be better options.
  5. Cap'n Piranha
    If all teams with good bullpens have good k/bb ratios and ERA estimators, doesn't it follow that those are therefore good indicators that a bullpen is good? After all, would we ever look at a bullpen with bad k/bb ratios or ERA estimators, and deem it a good bullpen? And if they are good indicators of a bullpen's quality, wouldn't it be reasonable to declare that a team which performs better in these metrics than another team who also performs well, but not as well, has a superior bullpen? I agree they don't tell the whole picture, but that being said, when one team is invariably first, at a certain point that starts to matter. Furthermore, I disagree that batting average against is a particularly useful standalone metric, as it cannot rule out the effects of defense, which the Twins were strongly below average at, particularly at 2nd, 3rd, and short; in the second half you can add center field to that list too. This story is told by the fact that the Twins had the 6th worst BAA in the second half, but the worst BAABIP. While you're correct that the Twins threw more strikes in the second half (44.1% zone percentage) than any other team, they actually had the 7th lowest zone contact percentage, because they had the 5th highest swinging strike rate--Twins relievers stayed in the zone because they could avoid contact and get swinging strikes. By-the-by, that swinging strike rate of 13.1% was better than either the Astros OR the Yankees. In short, as best as I can tell, the only statistical metric you actually want to use to gauge bullpens' relative value is batting average against, which, given the fielding dependent nature of that metric, seems at best flawed. Outside of that, your dismissal of the Twins bullpen as potentially being an advantage over Houston or New York seems to come from bias and assumption.
  6. Cap'n Piranha
    That's fair, I included the note on babip to demonstrate that the Twin's bullpen was the best in baseball at controlling those things they could control. That being said, based on your dismissal of the stats I provided alongside your failure to provide any other stats upon which to gauge bullpens, I am at a loss as to how you specifically determine relative bullpen quality, other than gut feeling and bias. Stating that it's not that important for bullpens to have the best ratio of strikeouts to walks (which is what the Twins had) also befuddles me; it flies in the face of all modern thinking about baseball--avoid balls in play/homers/men on base, which can only be done via a strikeout. Your theory about the Twins and Yankees bullpen also doesn't hold water. When limited to relievers with more than 10 IP, the Twins had 8 relievers with a FIP- under 90 in the second half, the Yankees had 6. The Twins had 3 under 60, the Yankees only 2. The Twins had 9 relievers with a k/bb over 4, the Yankees only 3. The Twins outperform the Yankees in Siera as well--the only advanced metric they don't is xFIP, where the two bullpens line up pretty evenly. At least compared to the Yankees, it can be easily argued the Twins have both a more elite AND a deeper bullpen. If you'd like to make the argument that the Yankees are only one team, and your theory that the Twins bullpen is not better than other competitors holds true, then you'll need to provide the stats, otherwise I unequivocally dismiss your claim that the Twins bullpen is not better than other playoff caliber teams; "That which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence"
  7. Cap'n Piranha
    Berrios had a horrific August, true, but in 5 September starts averaged over 6 IP/Start, with a 3.79 FIP and 3.97 xFIP, which ranked 25th and 24th respectively in all of baseball. If you think a top 30 pitcher in baseball shouldn't crack the Twins 4-man postseason rotation, either you're much higher on the Twins rotation than anyone else on the planet, or you have an agenda against Berrios.
  8. Cap'n Piranha
    For the second half of 2019, the Twins bullpen was 1st in FIP-, xFIP-, SIERA, and k-bb%, despite having the highest babip and 9th lowest lob%. I think the Twins bullpen (if they can reproduce this performance) is much better than you're giving them credit for, and is very much a relative advantage.
  9. Cap'n Piranha
    Are you really saying that Berrios, who despite his August struggles the last 2 years is our clear cut number 1 starter, proven by the fact that he started game 1 last year, would be demoted to the bullpen for the playoffs?
  10. Cap'n Piranha
    Of the 8 prospects you named, its likely 3-4 of them won't ever be more than replacement level at the big league level. If the plan is to keep your elite offense humming by promoting from within, you probably need to keep all of them so you know which ones will actually translate. I am not opposed to trading prospects for immediate big league help, I'm just very wary of draining our system for a rental.
  11. Cap'n Piranha
    I think the bullpen needs to be considered when discussing chances of postseason success as well. I think there's every reason to think the Twins could trot out, at minimum, 6 quality arms (Rogers, Duffey, May, Romo, Clippard, Littell). While Rogers, and maybe Duffey, are the only ones that potentially qualify as elite, having that kind of depth, before even considering options like Stashak, Graterol, Duran, or Alcala means we should be able to shorten the game for our starters in the playoffs. Should the Twins attempt to add a game 1 starter? Absolutely. Do they need to add a game 1 starter? I don't think so.
  12. Cap'n Piranha
    Doesn't mean it can't still be addressed. Preventing a run through defense is just as good as preventing a run through pitching.
  13. Cap'n Piranha
    First part true, second part unquestionably false. It is well within the realm of possibility that Kiriloff, Lewis, or Larnach play a similar role to Arraez in 2019. It's also certainly possible that the known commodity one trades for completely craters, like when the Reds acquired Ken Griffey Jr., and proceeded to pay him almost $100M for barely 10 WAR across 7+ seasons. Some other really fun times teams traded unproven prospects for known commodities; 2004--Edwin Jackson for Scherzer 2003--Pierzynski for Liriano and Nathan 2012--Vernon Wells for Napoli 2012--R.A. Dickey for Syndergaard 2013--Scott Feldman for Arrieta There's obviously many, many more examples that aren't quite as notable. But just because someone has played to a certain level doesn't mean they will continue to. Also, I'm not opposed to trading prospects at all; I would have been ecstatic if the Twins had sent Lewis, Larnach, AND Kiriloff, plus more to the Nats in the early stages of last season for Rendon and Scherzer; I just think "always trade prospects for established players" is a foolish mantra; if we had done that in 2015, we wouldn't have Polanco, Kepler, Garver, or Berrios on this team
  14. Cap'n Piranha
    You can actually take the opposing view here, which is that since you don't know if an individual prospect is going to pan out, you should hoard as many as you can, as that increases the chances at least one works out, and if more than one does, you have the best of all problems on your hands. For example, let's say Lewis, Kiriloff, and Larnach are all 30% to be successful in the majors (just a random number, no idea if it's accurate). Below is the probability at least one hits depending on how many of them you have; Keep only one--30% chance Keep only two--51% chance Keep all three--66% chance By keeping all 3 of these prospects, you actually more than double your chances of getting a player that hits, for which the worst case scenario is, essentially, a 6 year $50M-ish deal.
  15. Cap'n Piranha
    Your first paragraph is just flat out wrong. There are myriad instances in major league history where the team trading for a "known commodity" regretted what they gave up, and there's a simple reason; every known commodity in the major leagues was, once upon a time, an unsure minor league option. While it's true the Twins have a good core of young hitters with Kepler, Polanco, Sano, Garver, and Arraez under team control for the next 4 years, Buxton can be gone in three, Rosario in two, and we currently don't have a long term DH or 1B (switch to 3B if Sano shifts across the diamond, as I think he should). Wouldn't it be nice to replace Buxton with Lewis, Rosario with Larnach, and slot Kiriloff into 1st/DH, all for $1.5M a year, rather than sign middling veterans for 10 times that much? I don't think any fan thinks our prospects are worth 10x what they are, but nor should we think they're worth 10% of what they are. My suspicion is that Falvine, once they realized they wouldn't be able to sign impact FA pitching, understood they now have until August 1 to improve the roster. I think they will swing midseason deals to improve the team, and this team will be better when the season ends than when it begins.
  16. Cap'n Piranha
    Or the players highballed it. Because arbitration is a binary win/lose system, where the arbiter either chooses the team's number, or the player's number, and nothing in between, it is patently NOT in a team's interest to make a lowball offer, as that will make it more likely the arbiter rules for the player, and the team ends up overpaying. Both sides are attempting to make an offer that is slightly closer to a fair number than the other.
  17. Cap'n Piranha
    It could be argued Polanco would actually be more valuable at second than at short. Last year 15 players qualified at short with a wRC+ of 100 or more, compared to only 10 at second (which is somewhat misleading as both Torres and LeMahieu appear on that list). Polanco's 4 WAR is more likely to be an upgrade/bigger upgrade at second than at short. Unfortunately, the Twins can't take advantage of this, due to not having an in-house option at short, and the need to keep Arraez at second.
  18. Cap'n Piranha
    Last year 87 hitters had a better wRC+ than Rosario, including such luminaries as Domingo Santana, Kole Calhoun, Brian Anderson, and Danny Santana. The 3 year stats you shared above show an erosion in his production, which would be even more pronounced were it not for last year's power explosion (61 players had a SLG of .500 or better in 2019, compared to 26 in 2018 and 41 in 2017); in fact, Eddie's gone from 34th in SLG in 2017 to 41st in 2018, and finally, 61st in 2019. As you also showed in your 3 year rundown, Eddie's OBP is rapidly approaching hazmat levels--only 7 qualified players had a worse OBP than Eddie last year; even the hollow shell of Albert Pujols had a better OBP. Even in Eddie's good years of 2017 and 2018, he was 88th and 96th respectively in OBP. This is directly related to Eddie's insistence on swinging more often (swing rate of 59.1% in 2019, up from 54.9% in 2017), especially at pitches out of the zone; Eddie swung at 46.3% of pitches out of the zone in 2019 (compared to 37.6% in 2017), which was 4th worst in baseball. So what we have is a player who is shedding power (relative to the league), getting on base at replecement player levels, demonstrating nearly league-worst discipline, and becoming a defensive liability at the same time he approaches 30 and becomes vastly more expensive, all while playing in the Twins' position of greatest organizational strength. As this series (somewhat) approximates a trade value ranking, I would not be shocked at all to find that other MLB organizations view Rosario as at best the 5th most attractive outfielder in the Twins system, and quite possibly as low as 7.
  19. Cap'n Piranha
    Anything to not have to give credit to Falvine, I suppose. Let's just ignore the Houston Astros purportedly being in pursuit.
  20. Cap'n Piranha
    No, you didn't miss it, you just made an uninformed conjecture, rather than attempting to clarify.
  21. Cap'n Piranha
    He is a reporter. He reports for the Athletic, specifically on the topic of the Twins, but given that he spent the last 14 years involved with writing/editing about baseball in general, I feel comfortable that he is more plugged into the league than any poster on this site--after all, anyone who has more contacts than Gleeman league-wide is in all likelihood employed by some aspect of the baseball industry, and is probably not spending a ton of time posting anonymously on a message board. It's certainly possible Hosken Bombo Disco is a ghost account used by the Twins front office, but somehow I doubt it. I also don't assume everything Gleeman says is inside info, but when he prefaces something by saying something to the effect of "people within the Twins I've talked to," or "Ken Rosenthal answered my text by telling me his sources told him," I take it as pretty solid information.
  22. Cap'n Piranha
    I think Cave and Wade would both individually go for more than Rosario in a trade, based on my summation in my post above. When you combine the fact that they're younger, cheaper, and more controllable, all while being reasonably comparable in on-field production (unless, as I said, Rosario was injured for most of last year), the only team I can see preferring Rosario would be Gardy and the Tigers.
  23. Cap'n Piranha
    100%. See below for a comparison; Player A--.276/.300/.500, 103 wRC+, 38.8% hard hit, 15.4% soft hit, 1.2 WAR. Player B--.251/.351/.455, 113 wRC+, 52.3% hard hit, 5.5% soft hit, 0.9 WAR. Player C--.196/.348/.375, 98 wRC+, 38.3% hard hit, 14.9% soft hit, -0.2 WAR. Player A, is Rosario, B is Cave, and C is Wade. Cave put up 75% of the WAR Rosario did, but needed only 39% of the plate appearances to do so, meaning he's a much more efficient player. While Cave's babip and hr/fb rate both seem high (particularly the hr/fb rate), at least some of that can be contributed to Cave's ability to make a lot of medium to hard contact. Wade was victimzed by an insanely low babip of .200, which is not sustainable, and clearly based on SSS (he only had 69 PA's). Wade is far better than Rosario at controlling the zone (17.5% out of zone swing rate, compared to Rosario's 46.3%--this leads to Wade getting more pitches to hit; 44.4% zone rate compared to Rosario's 37.6%) and making contact (Wade had a 5.8% swinging strike rate and 92.5% zone contact rate; Rosario was 11.6% and 85.1%) Both Cave and Wade are also better OBP options than Rosario, which is where this team could use some help. Further, they are both, younger, far cheaper, and have much more team control than Rosario, all while being, if not better, really not that much worse. So to sum up, unless Eddie was playing the last 2/3rds of the season hurt (from June 1 on, he OPS'd .766 with a 94 wRC+, with under 38% hard contact and over 16% soft contact, with a 12.3% swinging strike rate, all while swinging at almost half the pitches outside of the zone), it makes way more sense to roster both Cave and Wade for 10% of what it would cost to roster Rosario.
  24. Cap'n Piranha
    Um, because none of them were desirable enough to be able to set their own terms? My information came from Gleeman, and was stated on the Gleeman and the Geek podcast. I know for a fact that Gleeman is far more plugged into the league, and the Twins specifically, than I am, so when he says something, I take it as truth. I don't personally know you, so it's possible you're even more plugged into things than Gleeman, but I doubt that.
  25. Cap'n Piranha
    Call me crazy, but I'd rather have Cave or Wade as my full-time left fielder over Rosario this year.
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