Cap'n Piranha

Covid-19 cannot affect you when seated at a baseball game. Just ask Dr Fauci.

I don't know how many people realize this (I certainly didn't until I looked it up), but going only by offense last year (using wRC+), Mike Trout in his prime season (he spent more of 2019 as a 27 year old than a 28 year old, birthday is 8/7) was only 10% better than Nelson Cruz in his age 38/39 season (almost an even split since his birthday is 7/1). That's almost impossible to put into context, other than to say, Nelson Cruz is really really good at hitting baseballs.

In 2010, there were approximately 5M people over the age of 85 in the US (according to the census)--we can safely assume that number is probably up, but lets say it's at least static. That means only about 1.5% to 2% of the population is 85 or over, and yet they represent almost 31% of deaths in the Feb 12 through May 18 time period, according to the CDC. Also according to the CDC, there's a 1 in 7 chance that someone 85 or older dies in a given year from any cause, which means we would expect almost 700k people over the age of 85 to die every year--in the 97 day period quoted above, that would become 186k deaths, which is about 11x as many as died from Covid-19 in that timeframe. Even Imperial College London, which in March suggested the insane 2.2M Covid-19 death number for the US (i.e. not a source attempting to downplay Covd-19), admits perhaps as many as 2/3 of the people who die of Covid-19 were likely to die soon anyways. Taken further, a full 80% of deaths have come from people over 65, while less than 3% have come from people 44 or under. in 2010, 60ish percent of the population was 44 or under--applied to the estimated population of 328M today, that means in this 3 month period, less than 1500 out of almost 200 MILLION died of Covid (assuming the numbers are correct, and don't include motorcycle deaths), which means if you're 44 or under, you had a 99.99925% chance of not dying from Covid-19. What is happening is that a group of people at almost no risk from Covid-19 are being forced to act as if they are at substantial risk, which makes no sense. Quarantines and lockdowns make sense if you, or someone you must come into contact with regularly, are elderly or have a known medical condition, but there are literally tens of millions of people who do not fall into either of those categories. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6928e1.htm https://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-09.pdf https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/data-analytics/florida-covid-19-fatalities-data-included-man-who-died-in-motorcycle-accident.html https://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-03.pdf https://www.bbc.com/news/health-51979654

I believe a closer needs to use "Blind" by Korn. The buildup is awesome, and you could exit the bullpen right when Jonathan Davis screams "Are You Ready?" Goosebumps. Chills. All the Feels.

In case you hadn't realized, the sole purpose of professional sports is to make as much money as possible. If you want money out of the sports you consume, you'll probably need to drop down to high school, if not further.

This format adds 3 games that take place over 5 days, with the opening round completed no later than October 2 (at least this year). How do you figure it will take baseball 35 days to play a maximum of 19 games? Even if it did, that's still November 6--I don't think you can call a date mid-month if it's within the first week of the month.

If given one chance, the Orioles could beat the Dodgers two games out of three and advance. The whole point of sports is you have to prove it on the field, and in a sport like baseball, where even in a normal year no team plays every other team, you have to have a tournament. Otherwise a great team from a lousy division could cruise to a regular season pennant over "superior" teams in tougher divisions. If you believe the regular season is an accurate barometer of relative team quality, then there's no need for any postseason. At all.

What if at one point during the game, they flashed a phone number and a fan ID number, and if it's your number and you call within 15 minutes, you win $10M dollars. Would you watch then?

This, I think, is the crux of the argument. The younger demographic that is indifferent to baseball; are they indifferent because they don't like the season length, or because they don't like the game. If the latter, no amount of schedule shenanigans is likely to change it.

Completely agree with this. Pointing out there are holes in Rosario's game is not hating him, it's acknowledging the reality that the Twins are not the Yankees, and can't throw $10M-$12M at a player who's only kind of performing. I also hope Eddie gets a big payday, and if it happens with the Twins, I'm ok with that. That's because I trust Falvine, so if they're giving Eddie 5 and $100M, it's because he probably OPS'd close to 1.000 while playing much improved defense. I just really doubt Eddie has that in him.

Dozier, in his time with the Twins, was the definition of a streaky hitter.

Let's talk about clutch hitting, but use career numbers to get a bigger sample size. I also restricted the PA/RBI number to only RISP situations; using it overall is misleading, as Cave only got 11.8% of his PA's hitting 5th or higher, while Rosario got 99.3% of his hitting 3rd or 4th. Rosario: RISP: .271/.306/.448 .754 OPS -- 239 RBI in 668 PA's, 2.8 PA's per RBI (Also, a 90 wRC+, and only 32.7% hard contact) Cave: RISP: .305/.379/.552 .931 OPS -- 49 RBI in 125 PA's, 2.6 PA's per RBI (wRC+ of 143, and 49.4% hard contact) Clearly, Rosario had a knack for hitting with RISP last year, that is not in keeping with his historical baseline. If you want to argue that Eddie's 173 PA's with RISP in 2019 is sufficient to change the narrative on him, keep in mind 173 is not that much more than 125 (Cave's career PA's with RISP), and Cave for his career has been better with RISP in almost every statistic than Eddie's outlier of 2019.

I expressly stated I didn't include any counting stats--it's literally in the first line of my post. You can't use counting stats to compare two different players with different amounts of playing time; if you could, it would mean Jake Cave is a far superior hitter than Giancarlo Stanton, since Cave had 8 homers, 21 XBH, and 28 RBI compared to Stanton's 3, 6, and 13. Your absolute refusal to see what Eddie Rosario is (a decent player who excels in traditional batting counting stats, but is sub-par in everything else) is mystifying to me. If Eddie does not have a bounce back year in 2020, he may very well not be a Twin in 2021.

Convincingly and thoroughly argued.

Front Offices tend not to give indications players are available--it weakens their bargaining position. The fact he hasn't been extended is a sign that either Rosario wants too much money, or the FO does not have interest in extending him. I don't necessarily think Eddie will be non-tendered, but the idea it can't possible happen is just silly. If there is not a drastic turnaround in Eddie's performance this year, he's far closer to being non-tendered than extended, and if the Twins really like what Larnach/Kiriloff/Rooker/Lewis are doing over at CHS this year, they may just decide to save the money and move forward.

Below are the 2019 stats for 2 Twins players; I excluded counting stats as those are a function of playing time, and one player had only about 40% of the PA's as the other. Based on the below, tell me which player you would prefer. Player A: .258/.351/.455/.806. .343 wOBA, 113 wRC+, 52.3% hard hit, 5.5% soft hit, 31.7% chase rate, 29.5 UZR/150 in LF Player B: .276/.300/.500/.800. .329 wOBA, 103 wRC+, 39% hard hit, 15.4% soft hit, 46.3% chase rate, -7.5 UZR/150 in LF As it turns out, Player A is Jake Cave, in his age 26 season (meaning this year is his peak season) compared to Eddie in his age 27 season (supposedly his peak, although it was worse than either of his two previous seasons in a year that was a much better offensive year across the league). I think Jake Cave, who posted 0.9 WAR in only 228 PA's, already more than fills the shoes of Rosario, who posted 1.2 WAR in 590 PA's. Other than hit homeruns and accumulate RBI's (both of which are functions of playing time), what did Eddie do better than Cave in 2019? Put it another way; would you rather pay $8M to $10M for a little more power, but overall worse offensive production and much worse defense, or $500k for slightly less power, but overall better offense and much better defense PLUS 2-3 more years of team control?

30 homers is still a significant number, but far less so than it used to be. 53 players hit 30 homers last year; in 2009 it was 30, in 1999 it was 42. Just look at 2014-2015 for comparison--less than 20 players hit 30+ homers in each of those years. RBI is also an extremely flawed stat--for his career, Mauer had 2,107 PA's with RISP across 1,314 games--that means Mauer had 26.5% of his total PA's with RISP, in 70.7% of his games, and created 765 RBI, or an RBI to RISP PA ratio of .363 Eddie on those same metrics has had 668 PA's with RISP across 444 games, and produced 239 RBI. So 25.7% of Eddie's PA's have come with RISP, in 69.4% of his games, but his RBI to RISP PA ratio is only .358.

I'm reasonably certain Cruz is the team leader; I'm also reasonably certain Cruz didn't come up through the minors with Eddie. I will also miss Eddie if he goes--I've followed him since he battled Miguel for the Appy League homer crown way back in 2010 or 2011. I'm sure he'd be missed in the clubhouse as well, he does seem to be well liked. But guys who are well liked leave clubhouses every year, it's part of the game. And Eddie's on-field production can probably be largely, if not entirely replaced at only 10-20% of the cost. For a team that needs to figure out how to pay Berrios and Buxton, as well as give significant raises in the next year or two to Garver and Arraez, Eddie is just not a luxury the Twins can afford.

My guess is that if a team is struggling to find 5 competent starters, they'd also struggle to find 2-4 MORE guys who can throw 2-4 innings every 5 days. The Twins probably have the most rotation depth of any MLB team, or at least top 3.

If the Twins are going with 10 "starters", that implies they'll carry 17-18 pitchers to start the season, which is interesting.

So, Eddie is far better than the outfield prospects, yet those prospects are much better trade chips? The only way that's true is if a bunch of other teams are not just not as smart as Falvine, but are actually way dumber. If Eddie can turn it around, display even a modicum of patience, and stay relatively healthy, then I support keeping him. Otherwise, I'd rather use his $8-$10M a year on an extension for Berrios, or keeping Odorizzi.

Eddie played a total of 14 games, for 98 innings, in a position other than left field; let's not pretend he's a poor man's Marwin all of the sudden. The throw in Fenway was great, but if we're going to start picking individual plays, you have to mention all the times he chased pitches and made outs in key situations as well. If he was playing on a sprained ankle, then that would explain his reduced mobility on defense, but it would not explain his complete lack of plate discipline. Further, if that injury was so debilitating, it would have been better for him to sit--after all, in the second half of last season, Eddie was 106th out of 140 players in OPS at .750, which is only .007 ahead of Pujols, and behind players like Kevin Newman and Anthony Santander. His wRC+ in the second half was 89, which means he was 11% WORSE than the average player. Not for nothing, but Jake Cave had a .964 OPS in the second half and a 150 wRC+, while playing more innings in right and center than Eddie; if those trends continue, it's Eddie that can't hold Cave's jockstrap, not the other way around.

I would agree that Harry Chandler is Landis' contemporary, but being as Harry Chandler is only one person, he is not Landis' contemporaries. I imagine that no matter how heinous a person's worldview is, there is at least one other person in agreement; therefore, one person believing a certain ethos is not an accurate representation of zeitgeist. Chandler's admirable views on integration are less an indictment of Landis than an approbation of Chandler. Now, if contemporary polling exists that demonstrates a majority of Americans in the 1920's to 1940's shared Chandler's views, that would change my thinking. Without any knowledge, and having done no investigation, I am doubtful that a majority of first-half-of-the-20th-century Americans held current-ish views on race, given that this time period predates the Civil Rights Movement. If so many people held favorable views on racial equality, why was a years-long effort needed to enshrine those views in law?

It does sound like Landis held what are, by 2020 standards, racist views. Yet he should be judged by his contemporaries and the time in which he lived--my guess is that Landis was barely more racist, if at all, than the average person in the 1920's to 1940's. We could also easily state that with a different commish, integration could have come in the 1950's or 1960's. If the motivation for removing Landis' name is that he no longer represents baseball based solely on one aspect of his life, then we need to be ready to remove anyone else's name on the same flimsy threshold. If the award is named the Jackie Robinson awar, and it turns out Jackie Robinson didn't like gay people very much, we'll have to get rid of his name. Historical figures must not be judged by non-historical standards.