frightwig

HR Park Factor, Target Field (via ESPN.com) 2016 - 0.986 (18th) 2015 - 1.058 (13th) 2014 - 1.022 (14th) 2013 - 0.845 (27th) 2012 - 1.031 (14th) 2011 - 0.913 (20th) 2010 - 0.641 (30th) It was a black hole for HR at first, but generally has become more HR-neutral in the last 5 years. Must have been the cement drying.

That's an important point. If we're talking about how the Twins power surge stacks up in team history, it should be noted that their current 193 HR ranks 9th in the AL this year. In fact, homers have jumped so much, the 2872 HR in the AL as of this morning has already smashed the league record. Do the Twins really have a great power-hitting lineup, now? Looking ahead, should we expect them to build on this HR total next year? I'd say, probably not.

Honestly, this is the sort of thinking that got the Twins in this mess. 'If the guys who had a big season can keep it up, and the guys who played poorly can at least be not-so-bad, and the young guys all step up and maybe even become stars, and this guy from the bargain bin turns out to be a gem, then next year should be fun....' There was a lot of that going around last off-season.

I think it would be a mistake to count on Dozier to provide 40/100/100 from here on out. He's never had anything like 41 HR or 141 wRC+ before, and there are reasons to expect that he won't age all that well, anyway. But even if he is truly a Superstar now, how much longer will the Twins be able to keep him? His current bargain deal runs through 2 more years. Are the Twins going to pay market rates to keep him into his late 30's? Should they even want to? Should Dozier want to stay, if a more successful club offers him big money? In the long run, I think the club will be better off if they sell high on Dozier, when he's not only coming off a career year but he should have added value because he's signed for 2yrs/$15M. Get some young pitching talent, move Polanco to 2B. The future will depend on Buxton/Sano/Kepler/Polanco, not the Dozier/Mauer/Plouffe nucleus, and whatever the new GM can do to improve the pitching. Hanging onto Dozier will just hold them back.

I don't think it's a fantasy scenario, but I don't understand how you think their "career norms" is likely to lead to a good team next year. Santana 4.10 ERA, 4.22 FIP, 4.18 xFIP Gibson 4.59 ERA, 4.23 FIP, 4.17 xFIP Santiago 3.86 ERA, 4.70 FIP, 4.89 xFIP These are their norms, or their career averages, anyway. This is what you want?

Career lines Santana 4.10 ERA, 4.22 FIP, 4.18 xFIP Gibson 4.59 ERA, 4.23 FIP, 4.17 xFIP Santiago 3.86 ERA, 4.70 FIP, 4.89 xFIP If you're building on that plus the hope that Berrios pitches "remotely well," and maybe Trevor May is decent or Phil Hughes is healthy enough to pitch to his career averages in the second half, what are the chances, really, that the Twins will be a good team in 2017? Keep in mind that the offense this year ranks 11th-AL in wRC+ or fWAR, even with Dozier hitting out of his shoes for three and a half months. And while they won 83 games last year, we also know that they had fantastic cluster luck that boosted them to 11 wins above their BaseRuns record. Below-average, but "decent" pitching (as last year, when the Twins were 10th-AL in ERA, 9th in FIP, 11th xFIP), with their team defense and level of offensive production, probably isn't going to put them in the playoffs, even if the breaks swing more their away again next season.

Numbers as starters this year: Santana 3.38 ERA, 3.80 FIP, 4.21 xFIP Gibson 5.10 ERA, 4.83 FIP, 4.49 xFIP Santiago 6.20 ERA, 5.71 FIP, 6.20 xFIP (4.82, 5.23, 5.45 all season) Berrios 8.88 ERA, 6.55 FIP, 5.48 xFIP It's pretty bad, regardless, and Santana's peripherals indicate a probable ERA regression for him next year, too. I can see the case for giving Gibson a chance to bounce back, but I wouldn't care to pin my plans on him if I could find better options. Santiago's career shows that he may do OK if you put a good defense behind him, particularly a good OF defense, but he's not really a good pitcher. You don't really want him back, unless you're just desperate for filler. If you're committing to a youth movement, then OK, pencil Berrios into the opening rotation; but if you're really trying to win next year, then no, making a spot for him shouldn't be a priority. It could be better for him and the club, anyway, if they send him back to AAA to start next season, let him work on whatever they think needs fixing and get his confidence back, and give him another shot when he's needed and seems ready.

Keep in mind, the starters only get 10-17 IP in spring training, often against minor league hitters. And Gibson had a 1.53 ERA, Milone had a 2.40 ERA, in spring training this year. So spring training isn't all that useful for evaluating who should win jobs for the season. I think the new GM will have to go bold, in one way or another: either commit entirely to a fresh rebuilding project or make a few big moves to overhaul the starting rotation with pitchers who can win next year. IMO, the pitching staff needs SO MUCH help that it's hard to imagine the team being legit contenders in the next 1-2 years, so I'd prefer to see the club sell high on Dozier and Santana and go with a youth movement. But if the new GM keeps 4/5 of the rotation and just hopes for better luck next year... damn, how depressing.

I suppose that they meant to groom him to take over for Dozier, who followed a poor second half of last season with a lousy start to this year. But since Dozier has caught fire, what do you do? You wouldn't really want to bench him or move him off 2B, and Molitor probably should plan as if Dozier will be his 2B next year, until told otherwise, anyway. Plouffe also complicates things, still. If you hold out hope of trading him this winter, you need him to play, particularly since he's been hitting lately--and moving him to 1B/DH doesn't entirely clear up the logjam, either. I guess you'd have Plouffe-Mauer at 1B/DH and Sano at 3B most days--if his elbow could handle it--and Polanco is your SS, and Escobar and Vargas mostly sit the rest of the way. So why not do that? I guess either Molitor doesn't like Sano at 3B right now (whether because of defense, his elbow, or his slump figures in), or he really wants to keep Polanco in the middle infield (especially since he may still be the 2B next year) but also would like to take care of Escobar, and occasionally let Beresford and Vargas play, too. Maybe all of the above.

Btw, I'd also like to note that on May 6, after the first game of a series in Chicago, Arcia was hitting .281/.359/.491. He played the next two against the Sox, going 1-6 with 2 walks. He then played just one game against the Orioles (0-4), two games in Cleveland (0-8), then for some reason appeared only once--a pinch-hitting spot--in Detroit. Coming home, he played twice in four games against the Jays (1-7), then just once against the Royals (2-3), then played twice in Oakland (0-6 with a walk). That brought him to the end of May, where after a 3-week slump in spotty playing time (8 starts and one PH app after Chicago), his line had fallen to .217/.301/.370. And that's where the Twins apparently gave up on him. After not playing at all in the first week of June, he had two starts in the Marlins series (2-6), made a pinch-hit app in the Red Sox series, and finally had a start in Anaheim on June 14 (0-4). Really, they gave up on him because of a 3-week slump covering 8-10 starts in May. One of their better prospects of recent years, and WHY? To make room for Danny Santana. Because Terry Ryan said, "We need him. It's as simple as that." FFS.

Note that these were some of the knocks against Ortiz when the Twins let him go, too. He was an oft-injured, lumbering DH who couldn't hit lefties. I'm not a huge Arcia believer, but he does have an impressive track record at the plate, prior to last year. Even this season, he has a respectable walk rate and ISO. Given that the Twins have had no shot at the playoffs since April, their only priority should be giving playing time to younger players who may help the team win in 2017 and beyond. That probably doesn't include Danny Santana. (Given Rosario's walk rates and spotty record above High A, I doubt that he'll be a big part of the Twins future, either, but I can understand if he gets another shot later this season.) Before cutting bait on Arcia, you'd think that they would give him at least a few months of everyday action. Platoon him with Park, let Arcia play corner OF on some days when facing a lefty starter (for now, his defense doesn't really matter), and tap him to pinch-hit regularly. They could have done this. They don't really need Santana, despite Terry Ryan's ridiculous claim to the contrary, especially if Kepler remains on the team. They don't need an 8th reliever. Terry Ryan could send down Park, if that helped clear playing time while allowing Park to work out some problems, or he could get to work on unloading Plouffe, already. (Yeah, Plouffe's value is low, but the ship has sailed on selling high there--Ryan will just have to unload him, now.) Cutting Arcia because of some roster crunch is just front office B.S. They didn't have to cut him loose. They just lost interest in developing him. Considering the state of the club, that's a real shame.

His contract runs through next season, at $6.5M, with a club buyout option for $700K in 2018. If he's already talking about quitting to be with his family, I'd guess that he'll just delay an official retirement so he can collect the $7.2M. Maybe he'll try to pitch again in 2018 (although Pineda missed 2 full seasons), and maybe the Twins will make him some nominal offer to come back in a Twins uniform, but, as you say, if his heart isn't really in it beyond 2018, why bother?

One problem with banking on Hughes to be a mid-rotation mainstay is that he hadn't really been even that good in New York. His yearly FIP since 2010, when he became a regular starter: 2010 - 4.25 2011 - 4.58 2012 - 4.56 2013 - 4.50 2014 - 2.65 2015 - 4.70 2016 - 4.83 Terry Ryan and certain bloggers (ahem) were really feeling themselves after 2014 because they thought Hughes had validated something they saw in his K/BB rates, but now it seems pretty clear that his first year with the Twins was an outlier. I couldn't see why the Twins gave him 3 years in the first place. He was a 5th starter in New York, and now, with more wear on his arm, he's a marginal 5th starter locking down a spot in the Twins rotation. Maybe it's time to move Hughes to the bullpen, particularly if his arm can't handle more than 70-some pitches at a time now. Back in 2009, the Yankees gave him 7 starts where he didn't do well (5.45 ERA, 868 OPS against), but he flourished in 44 appearances in relief (1.40 ERA, 456 OPS against). That's probably where he should've been all along.

So far Pythag has their expected record at 1-6 (.197), and BaseRuns has it at 2-5 (.310). Last year they had incredible "clutchness," or cluster luck. So far this year, they've been slightly unlucky, but the team really has been bad--just as it was fundamentally poor last season, if you look at the underlying numbers. BaseRuns pegged the 2015 Twins as a 73-win (.451) team; if they play the rest of this year at that level, they'll finish with 70 wins. FanGraphs is currently projecting 74 wins for this season. Barring another year of terrific cluster luck, I expect the team will wind up somewhere in that neighborhood. I'm just hoping that some of the younger players will grow, and Terry Ryan will make some deals for the future that he should've done last winter.

Under Last year the Twins had a 73-89 BaseRuns record, and the lineup ranked 14th-AL in WAR and wRC+. Terry Ryan didn't do much to upgrade the lineup, some of the most promising young talent is still in AAA (and I think Rosario will be spending more time there this season), and the Sano move to RF just seems bizarre. It wouldn't surprise me if Dozier and Plouffe decline a bit, too. Even if Buxton, Sano, and Kepler step up, I don't think it will completely overcome cluster luck regression, and the rotation could look ugly for stretches of the season, too. I'm looking for a 77-85 record this year.