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Cap'n Piranha

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Everything posted by Cap'n Piranha

  1. Cap'n Piranha
    He's hit 6 homers in 18 games. That's 54 homers in a 162 game season; that's only happened 26 times in baseball history. His BABIP is .286 (well below his career average of .345), which is 105th in the league. His soft contact percentage is now under 5, at 4.9%. That is best among the 345 hitters with 80 or more PA's this year, by almost 2 percentage points (Tyler Austin is next at 6.8%). His hard contact percentage is at 51.2%, which is 11th among the 345 hitters with 80 or more PA's. This is what Miguel Sano is--a guy that will always strikeout a lot, but will be legitimately one of the very best power hitters in the league when he doesn't. There is immense value to that.
  2. Cap'n Piranha
    I have to throw some cold water on the Larnach love, as he has slowed down since May--his 1.040 OPS in June is down from 1.075 in May. In all seriousness, he's now up to an .873 OPS in the pitcher-friendly FSL as a 22 year old. I expect him to stay there through July so as not to risk a dip in his numbers at AA, leaving his trade value unaffected (unless of course Falvine thinks of him as untouchable). If Lewis doesn't string a couple of good months together, Larnach will be nipping at his heels in the prospect rankings.
  3. Cap'n Piranha
    Miguel Sano before tonight's (Wednesday) game; 1.009 OPS, .406 wOBA, 156 wRC+. Not only is his offense seen as above average thus far this season, so is his defense AND baserunning. He's accumulated 0.8 WAR in only 14 games--in a 154 game season, that's a 9 WAR season. Sure he strikes out a lot, but he also has nearly a 50% hard hit rate, and only a 6.5% soft hit rate--in other words, the 65% of the time he makes contact, it's medium contact or better 9 times out of 10. This piece smacks of something the writer threw together on the heels of Monday's 0-3 with a strikeout, without any manner of research whatsoever. I'm not sure how else a piece running Sano down could be posted.
  4. Cap'n Piranha
    I'm not too concerned with the pitching, this is a chance to see what our depth looks like should we need to use internal options to replace injured/ineffective starters. I'm not even concerned about the offense for the rest of the season. What I am concerned about with the offense is a potential vulnerability based on it's philosophy. The 2019 Twins are like a boxer who has a huge uppercut, and therefore becomes a knockout artist. If the punches are landing, and usually they are, you're going to be unbeatable. But if you face someone who never gives you that opening, what's the fall back? Last night, Bieber was at 36 pitches through 2 innings, and 67 through 4. He somehow pitched into the 8th. In the first game of a series, getting to the bullpen is a good thing. I would have liked to see a more patient approach in innings 5 and 6 on a guy who was at 60% strikes on the night
  5. Cap'n Piranha
    MLB Drafts are crapshoots, particularly when they're being mocked by non MLB FO types. Based on mocks, Mike Trout would have been a tremendous reach in 2011. Eddie Rosario and Justin Morneau are two more examples of guys who would have been reaches in the first round. Also, power can develop; witness one Brian Dozier. Not saying any of this will happen, just that being upset about the draft picks right now is like being upset about a team's offense after they go down 1-2-3 in the first inning of game 1 of the season.
  6. Cap'n Piranha
    I think in one game samples, run differential is an extremely important stat.
  7. Cap'n Piranha
    Not sure if you've heard or not, but apparently we haven't played in the Metrodome in a decade.
  8. Cap'n Piranha
    The starting pitching problem was at least somewhat fixable--go after Keuchel, or make a play for Corbin. As for catching a break, while it's certainly over the top to have 5 starters get injured, the Yankees have also had an insane run of bad injury luck, yet are 10 games over .500 and leading the AL East. Pujols hasn't been good for a couple of years now, so saying Pujols getting old and hurt is not catching a break is less bad fortune and more bad planning at this point. It seemed to me when Trout signed his extension this past offseason that the Angels were consigning themselves to 2-3 more years of mediocrity barring a run of good fortune. So far the Angels have been exceedingly mediocre.
  9. Cap'n Piranha
    My two cents; I'm a big fan of Arraez, and have been for a couple of years, but he should be sent back to AAA when Cruz is ready to return. Keeping Adrianza in order to ensure maximum depth and flexibility is important. At some point, one of the infielders will get hurt again, and then you can call Arraez right back up. The 2019 projection for the Twins on fangraphs is now just under 95 wins, with a 72.5% chance to win the division. Interestingly, fangraphs, based on their projections, thinks the Indians are exactly as good as the Twins, as they expect them to lose the division by 5 games. Some teams are described as being greater than the sum of their parts. This Angels team seems to be lesser than the sum of their parts; they have 11 players with a wRC+ over 100, and yet are 3 games below .500 and in 4th place in an aggressively mediocre AL West. They are 6-9 against teams with winning records, which means they're exactly .500 in the 32 games they've played against sub-.500 teams. As I predicted before the season started, the Angels seem set and content to waste yet another year of Mike Trout's prime. If Ohtani and Simmons are both out these next two games, the Twins should get the sweep.
  10. Cap'n Piranha
    I think an underrated aspect has also been the ability to go out every day and play. Reps mean improvement, more reps means more improvement. He's still better against lefties (1.026 OPS) than righties, but his .808 OPS against righties is quite good. He's doing very well when pulling the ball (1.362 OPS), and has actually thrived in high leverage situations (1.681 OPS)
  11. Cap'n Piranha
    Why do the Blue Wahoos wear red jerseys?
  12. Cap'n Piranha
    Do you remember the times not shifting has hurt us badly? The totality of the logic behind shifting is to place more defenders in areas to which each individual batter is more likely to hit the ball. Smart teams move their defenders to maximize the odds of success--that doesn't mean it can't look really bad. Just like how in blackjack smart betters double down on ten when the dealer is showing six. That doesn't mean you won't get a 2, and the dealer won't flip a five and then get a face card.
  13. Cap'n Piranha
    I gotta keep giving love to Arraez too. He just turned 22 in April, is at AA, and is hitting .342 with a .415 OBP. Almost no power to speak of (no homers, and only one triple), but that makes the fact that he has more walks than strikeouts even more impressive. He's played games at second, third, short and even left field. He has a real shot to make this team straight out of spring training next year.
  14. Cap'n Piranha
    IN this series, Twins pitching gave up 13 runs in 36 innings--3.25 ERA. Hildenberger gave up 4 in 2 innings for an 18 ERA, meaning all other pitchers had a 2.38 ERA. All that is to say--what injury do we think Hildenberger will be diagnosed with today?
  15. Cap'n Piranha
    Imagine if the Twins had taken Nola, Conforto, Turner, or Chapman in 2014 instead of Gordon, and Benintendi or Buehler in 2015 instead of Jay
  16. Cap'n Piranha
    Particularly for a college reliever with speculation around being able to help the Twin's bullpen the year he was drafted.
  17. Cap'n Piranha
    This is interesting, I did not realize Reed had been throwing that many pitches consistently. That being said, 40 days is about 22% of the major league season, so throwing 270 pitches in the first 40 days puts you on pace for about 1,230 over the course of a full year. Over the past 5 years, that number would be in the top 20 for most pitches thrown by a reliever every year. A reliever who did that every year for the past 5 years would actually be 2nd in number of pitches thrown over that timeframe. To me, this suggests overwork, and perhaps Reed was able to get away with it in 2016 and 2017 when he was 27 and 28. Perhaps last year, after having thrown the 11th most pitches of any reliever from 2014 to 2017, he just wasn't able to handle that workload any more, which would mean 270 pitches in 40 days was, for Addison Reed, being overworked.
  18. Cap'n Piranha
    I enjoy that you say you're not the one tossing out chunks of time, and then immediately proceed to toss out a chunk of time in your restatement. Unless of course you don't consider the time from the beginning of the 2018 season through Reed's injury to actually be time. You initially made, and in the above post re-made, an argument that Reed/Reed's numbers before his injury last year were not good. You've yet to provide any supporting evidence whatsoever for this, and when I provided evidence that contradicted your assertion, you segued into a tangent demanding I provide evidence for my claims, which again, you've yet to do yourself. As you yourself admit, you don't know the health level of players--therefore isn't it reasonable to suggest it's possible some players, including potentially Addison Reed, were playing not at full health, especially since I provided you with two examples of players who were known to have played at less than full health just last year? And if we can't quantify if a player is fully healthy, shouldn't we perhaps consider that a player was hurt before he was injured, and that could be a contributing factor in his decline before a trip to the IL? Finally, I'm not saying players should play while hurt, I'm saying that they do, in the past, the present, and the future. That will never change. If you only wanted to play players who were 100% healthy, you would have to forfeit every game due to not having anyone available to play. Teams need to learn to manage the difference between hurt and injured, and ensure the former doesn't become the latter. With that, unless you want to provide some actual hard evidence to suggest that pitching hurt did not play a role in Reed's decline prior to his IL trip last year, I'm going to move on from this discussion, with a full rejection of your subjective assertion.
  19. Cap'n Piranha
    I want Arraez to be the bridge at second base between Schoop and Polanco (assuming Lewis in 2021 or 2022 pushes Polanco to second). Bat him ninth; a really good hit guy with good plate discipline to turn the lineup over, and give Byron plenty of opportunities to steal bases. After that, he can become the next Marwin/Ehire, and spell everyone in the infield. And even better, he's still only 22, and will be this entire year.
  20. Cap'n Piranha
    I'm cautiously optimistic that Odorizzi, Perez, and Gibson are all going to be good options going forward. That being said, they probably are not all going to spend the rest of the year pitching like all-stars. For me, the bullpen issue is less about Gibson "only" throwing 88 pitches and 6 innings (keeping starters rested is a good idea too), but rather the use of 3 pitchers to do the final 3 innings in an 8 run game. I'd rather in situations like that Baldelli only use 1-2 pitchers, and keep more of the pen rested. It's very easy to have a guy who "needs work" throw a bullpen session before or after a game. For me, the rule of bullpens is always assume you'll need them in the future. After all, it only takes an early injury to a starter, and a bit of ineffectiveness for this bullpen to go from well-rested to in need of rest.
  21. Cap'n Piranha
    Ryan Mason is intriguing, hopefully he gets pushed to AAA this summer, and perhaps a look in September. I still think Gordon is more likely to be trade bait than a significant player for the Twins, especially if he restores some prospect luster this summer. Arraez has a 145 wRC+, and has never been below 100, at any level, in his entire career. He's also 18 months younger, and has nice positional flexibility, having played 14 games at second, 12 at third, and 5 at short so far this year. Add in Lewis at A+, and hopefully Javier at A-, and Gordon seems to be easily replaceable on the organizational MI depth chart.
  22. Cap'n Piranha
    Using the assumption that every player on the field is healthy is severely flawed in my opinion. Just last year, we saw Byron Buxton pressed into service when he was not healthy. If I remember correctly, Logan Morrison also played much of the year not truly healthy. Is it really so hard to believe that Reed either didn't disclose being hurt (not necessarily injured), or he was simply going out at 80-90% (which I'm sure many players do on a regular basis), and that simply erased his margin for error? Or do you have explicit evidence that the team, the medical staff, and himself all did NOT allow him to pitch while injured?
  23. Cap'n Piranha
    I have no idea on what date he was injured, although I think we should also clarify that injured and hurt are not necessarily mutually inclusive. I'm not assuming an injury or hurt is the sole cause of a decline in Reed's 2018 performance, but nor do I think, based on his March/April stats, which he then repeated in September, that an injury or hurt can be ruled out so casually and completely as you did when you stated in blanket terms, "Reed was not good before his injury". I was simply debating your original, sweeping assertion, which was easy to at least partially refute.
  24. Cap'n Piranha
    35% more pitches feels pretty egregious to me. It seems reasonable to assert that the more pitches you throw, the longer it takes your arm to fully recover (after all, starters go at minimum 3 days in between appearances, and that's almost exclusively reserved for extraordinary circumstances). Therefore, I think we can safely say a pitcher being used more often, and for longer stretches, is being more "worked", so while think Rogers, until recently, was being borderline overworked, it seems pretty clear that both Reed and Pressly were definitely overworked at this point last year.
  25. Cap'n Piranha
    Totally fair. I forgot we're in an era where half of the league isn't really competing.
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