Cap'n Piranha

Ummm, last year the Twins bullpen had only .2 WAR less than the Yankees, with a better FIP and essentially identical xFIP. The Twins bullpen had a better k-bb%, an identical WHIP, and a better SIERA. The only real advantage the Yankees pen had was in giving up less hard contact, and getting more soft contact. That being said, if you look at only the second half of the season (which more closely resembles what our current bullpen will hopefully look like), the Twins pen was better in WAR, FIP, xFip, k-bb%, WHIP, and SIERA, although the contact disparities remained. I think it cannot be said with any amount of certainty that the Yankees bullpen is better, much less a huge advantage. The pens seem likely to be a wash.

Since the schedule is not equal, it's entirely possible for an inferior team to win more games. Fangraphs projections show the Yankees to be in a division with 2 other teams essentially as good as the Twins (Rays at 90 wins, Twins at 88, Red Sox at 87). The Central is projected to have the worst champion, worst runner up, and worst 3rd place team, while the 4th and 5th place finishers are each 2nd out of the three divisions. Put more succinctly, the Twins are likely to play nearly half their games against a markedly easier schedule than either the Yankees or Astros.

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.

I feel like you missed what I posted. Twitter in no way prevented him from expounding on any of his views. Blaming twitter for Bauer not providing any rationale for his opinion is a nonsensical argument, as there are multiple ways to more elaborately discourse on a subject on the twitter platform. Bauer's failure to explain even a single reason why he dislikes this proposal is in no way a result of his desire to tweet. It is a result of Bauer either not having a reason to dislike the proposal but wanting to antagonize Mannfred, Bauer not having the ability to expound on his reasons but wanting to antagonize Mannfred, or Bauer not caring to take the time to explain his reasons but wanting to antagonize Mannfred. No matter which of the three cases it is, twitter is not to blame.

I'll admit I haven't read any of them, and don't have the time now--I'll attempt to get to them sometime. That being said, baseball is in danger of becoming hockey if it doesn't actively attempt to find ways to engage with more than just the die-hards. Is it better to change something to keep it, or preserve something to lose it?

I'm saying there were 10 teams that made the playoffs, all of whom had a chance to win. The last game of the year was Game 7 of the World Series, which obviously had immense meaning. Contrast that specifically to this year's EPL, where the last 13 matches of the season are in all likelihood a formality; if Liverpool wins their next 6 matches, it is mathematically a formality--the final 7 matches of the champion's season would be absolutely meaningless. Liverpool could, conceivably, play the last 6 matches of it's schedule with amputees selected from the stands 2 minutes before kickoff, and still be crowned champions. If Man City or Leicester City lose any of their next 7 matches, the picture is even worse. The equivalent in baseball would be if on August 1, the best team in the league had a record of 90-18, and no other team had a better record than 63-45. How boring would the rest of that season be, since the last 2 months are basically meaningless? I also disagree the new system would disincentivize teams to make the playoffs, particularly if incremental revenue is attached to making the playoffs. The public backlash to a team in the 6 or 7 spot sitting pat, or even worse, trading players away, will be quite large. As teams would also know there's an expanded field going into the season, there's more likely to be more competitive teams from the get-go, meaning less talent concentrated in 3-5 teams. This would make 95 wins a much bigger achievement, but also mean that raising your baseline from 75 to 80, from 80 to 85, and from 85 to 90 is much more enticing prospect. If you're an 85 win team, 2-4 moves that raise your baseline to 92 wins means you might be fighting for a top 4 seed, or at least a legitimate series, as opposed to maybe a one game coin toss that might be on the road.

I think in general, a 7 seed isn't necessarily as bad as some people think. In the AL in 2019, the 7 seed would be the 84 win but defending WS champion Red Sox. I also would be completely in favor of reducing the regular season to 154 games to support this, although that being said, an opening round consisting of 3 game series is only 2 more games maximum for that round. It can even be scheduled March Madness style where all 6 series kick off on the Tuesday after the regular season ends, with half of them playing Wednesday/Friday, and the other half Thursday/Friday. How fun would it be to have 10 hours of playoff baseball on the first Tuesday of October? With generally at least 2 games, and sometimes 3 going at a time? I'm also open to conferring more advantage on the teams with a superior record, but I want to do it in an interesting way; for example, allow a team to choose their opponent and 2 home games, or give up choosing their opponent, but get all 3 games at home. As an example, this is how it would work last year in the AL. Houston gets the 1 seed and the bye. New York gets the two seed, and probably chooses to play the Red Sox, and selects games 1 and 3 to be in the Bronx Minnesota gets the three seed, and probably chooses to play Cleveland, and selects games 1 and 2 to be in Minnesota Oakland gets the four seed, and gets to play Tampa Bay all 3 games in the Bay Area.

Ok, so that's a bad analogy for you personally then. My larger point is that yes, it's unlikely the 82 win Sox take 2 of 3 from the 110 win Yankees. But if the Sox steal Game 1, and get Game 3 at home, I can't think of many things more compelling than a winner-take-all game between the plucky upstart and the suddenly vulnerable behemoth. But then again, I'm not a Philistine.

Not quite. The teams in the EPL, LA Liga, Serie A, and the Budesliga all have academies that sign teen and pre-teen players, who then graduate to the parent team if and when they are ready. A relegation system as proposed here would still keep 30 major league teams, but would result in the end of MiLB as we know it. Instead, teams would have junior academies in the Latin countires, and a senior academy in the states (maybe two). These would in all likelihood be clustered in Florida and Arizona, and in addition to doing drills and off-field work, would involve games against other team's academies. Maybe these would be open to the public, maybe they wouldn't. What this wouldn't do is end tanking, as there would only be two ways forward for relegated teams. Hoard prospects, hope a wave hits that is both deep enough and close enough together that a successful team emerges, or sell promising players (either on the parent team, or in the academies) to the bigger teams for cash, which is used to sign the next wave of 18 year old Americans, and 16 year old non-Americans; rinse and repeat. The big teams would be straining to the max to keep their teams together to compete, and wouldn't have the money to compete for unproven talent, hence it would go to the 2nd and 3rd division teams.

I wasn't asking about the probability of it happening. I was saying, if it does, is that honestly not compelling to you? There's 13 minutes left to go in the second half, and UMBC is tied with Virginia--you're not switching over to watch?

Which in no way imparts incremental value to his statement. It would be quite easy for Bauer to write a blog post and tweet a link to it. Any number of baseball themed publications would be only too happy to publish the entirety of his rationale if he sent it to them. The lack of specificity in Bauer's message is not because he is constrained from sharing it in any way; until he does share specifics, I remain convinced that he is being petulant and childish, and his opinion carries absolutely no weight whatsoever with me.

I'd guess something along the lines of 20% availability of payroll, 20% ability to develop prospects, and 60% luck.

When someone says something is absurd for too many reasons, what they really mean is "I don't like this for reasons I can't explain, but I still want to say something, so I'll just go all hyperbolic, and include an insult for good measure". This is the verbal equivalent of throwing a ball over the center field wall when your manager comes to remove you from the game. Trevor Bauer was, and is, an immature person who throws tantrums when something he disagrees with happens; those people should be politely ignored, not heeded.

I agree with this. To my mind, the NCAA tournament is the single best sporting event of the year. Why? Everyone gets a shot, and the amazing unpredictability makes for massively compelling storylines. Are you telling me it wouldn't be fascinating to watch an 82 win White Sox team go into the Bronx, and take game 1 from a 109 win Yankees team? What happens next? Especially if you make a rule that in the best of three series, the higher seed gets to pick the one game they play on the road. In this scenario, if the Yankees opted for games 1 and 2 at home, they now know they'll have to go to the South Side, and face 40,000 maniacally loud Chicagoans who want to see their plucky team topple the Empire. Are you really telling me any true fan of baseball wouldn't find that compelling beyond measure?

What the playoffs does do, however, is keep the drama going essentially until the final 2-3 games of the season, at worst. Oftentimes, the drama goes into the final game, and sometimes even the final inning or final pitch. This is something that is never guaranteed with leagues that crown a winner without playoffs--look at this year's EPL for example. With 13 matches left, Liverpool has a 22 point lead (the equivalent of 7 matches). That season is all but over--the only drama left is who will get relegated, and whether or not Liverpool can finish without a loss. This new proposal does a few positive things; 1--It makes races at the top of each league hugely intense. There is now a gigantic advantage to climbing up each rung of the ladder--1st seed gets a bye, 2nd seed gets their pick of any opponent, 3rd seed gets to choose an opponent, and 4th seed gets home-field advantage. 2--It incentivizes more teams in the 75-80 win range to try to get to the 80-85 win range, particularly if you re-wrote the rules to make playoff revenue shareable only amongst teams who make the playoffs. If 14 teams make the playoffs, and split lets say a couple of hundred million dollars, making the playoffs or not is now worth an extra $10-$15M for a team 3--It keeps more fans interested. From a national perspective, not many fans might have cared if the White Sox or the Angels could chase down the Rangers for the 7th spot last year. Were I a White Sox or Angels fan, I may have wanted them to NOT chase down the Rangers. But a lot of other people would, and they would buy a lot more tickets, concessions, and merch than I would. Increased bottom lines for more teams is theoretically, a good thing. 4--It should help hasten rebuilds. With more teams trying to improve before the trade deadline, and therefore fewer teams with players on the market, the price goes up, meaning tanking teams can more quickly accumulate assets, and resume competing for the playoffs. Unless an organization is just terribly run, decade-long rebuilds will be a thing of the past. One of the problems that baseball has right now is that too many teams have figured out that winning is not the best way To Win. This, at least in my opinion, reduces the population of that lower class. The Royals, Orioles, and Tigers will all still tank, but every other team will want a playoff spot, and the millions of extra revenue that come with it.

Agreed--whether it's can't or won't, Gerrit Cole still pitches for the Yankees, not the Twins. The distinction matters only on an online forum when the question centers around if Falvine is doing a good job improving the team/organization. I will fault people for not doing what they can, but I will not fault people for not doing what they can't.

I assume this is in reference to Ryu v Donaldson WAR--in the 2013-2014 seasons (Ryu missed all of 2015) Ryu had 7.8 WAR, Donlaldson in those two years had 13. If the question was why Falvine didn't sign expensive FA starters in the offseasons prior to 2017, 2018, and 2019 it's because the Twins didn't have any expectations to compete in 2 of those 3 seasons. In the one they did (going into the 2018 season on the heels of a surprise 2017 wild card appearance), the Twins attempted to sign Yu Darvish, and missed out--that's going to happen from time to time, and as best I'm aware, the Twins interest was sincere. That being said, it's not like any of that pitching has been terribly effective over the past 2 years. Below are MLBTR's starters, ranked, from that offseason, and their WAR over the past two years. Darvish--2.9 WAR Arrieta--3.0 WAR Tanaka--5.7 WAR Lynn--They did sign him Cobb--0.9 WAR Minor--6.7 WAR Sabathia--2.6 WAR Cashner--2.5 WAR Chatwood--0.2 WAR Garcia--0.0 WAR Chacin--2.3 WAR Vargas--2.0 WAR Tillman--(0.4) WAR Pineda--They did sign him Other than Minor (who had scant little in his track record to suggest his success), and maybe Tanaka, would we really be happy if the Twins had agreed to sign starting pitching?

It's not that they won't sign the expensive FA starters, it's that in many cases they're never even given the option to seriously negotiate. Wheeler and Bumgarner wouldn't even listen to offers. From what I understand, Strasburg wanted to stay with the Nats, and was only a free agent because he had an opt out, and was reasonably certain Washington would give him a better deal if they were forced to. Cole brought a sign to his press conference that pretty much confirmed where he wanted to sign (pun intended), aside from which the Twins were never going to offer 9 and $324M, nor were any other teams. That leaves Ryu as the only "expensive FA starter" left, and had we signed him, we surely wouldn't have signed Donaldson. Ryu has 7.3 WAR since 2015, Donaldson has 26.7.

I would imagine the Dodgers made the Maeda for Graterol trade conditional on the Red Sox accepting Graterol along with Verdugo for Betts and Price, therefore you can't have one without the other. If the Dodgers did not do that, then you are correct that Graterol is now property of the Dodgers, and Maeda of the Twins. That being said, my guess is that the Red Sox didn't want a starter in return, they wanted talent ready to contribute at the big league level no later than next year, with price tag after this year a minor concern, since they will have reset their luxury tax level, and won't have to pay Betts $35M a year. The Red Sox could quite easily sign almost any starter they want on next year's free agent market, and still come out with a lower payroll than had they re-signed Betts. It's also entirely possible that the Red Sox were internally pessimistic about being able to re-sign Betts; perhaps he has informed Boston he prefers to play on the West Coast, or maybe they just don't want to get into a bidding war. Speculation of course, but possible.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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"

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.