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CCHOF5yearstoolate

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Everything posted by CCHOF5yearstoolate

  1. CCHOF5yearstoolate
    Julien has been a very good 2B this season, and is certainly better than Polanco at this point in their careers.
  2. CCHOF5yearstoolate
    DaShawn Keirsey is right there at AAA if they want to call up a good defensive CF. Just have to make room on the 40-man.
  3. CCHOF5yearstoolate
    The central division has 4 of the top 6 records in the AL, not too shabby for the worst division in the sport!
  4. CCHOF5yearstoolate
    Yup, those stats love grounders - just not as much as strikeouts. FIP only cares about HR/K/BB (GB can't be HR & GB pitchers generally have lower walk rates), xFIP corrects FIP to have a league average HR/FB%, xERA is just xwOBA scaled to ERA and the xwOBA of all grounders is .263 (2.66 xERA) while line drives are .712 (~40 xERA) and flyballs are .429 (8.13 xERA)
  5. CCHOF5yearstoolate
    Getting Duran back is going to have a hugely positive effect for an already very good bullpen. Now you have 3 guys who you trust to shut down the heart of the opposing lineup, and a strong medium leverage corps of Okert/Thielbar/Sands. Sending down Kody Funderburk seems like the right option when Topa is ready. He's had some really shaky outings in the last couple of weeks and it just seems like the control isn't there. I know Cole Sands only got one out and gave up hard contact last night, but overall I've been pleasantly surprised by his start to the season. He had a 7-appearance scoreless streak where he threw 9.2 innings with 14 strikeouts and only had 7 baserunners, which is not some easy feat. Maybe most surprising is a continued trend of developing velocity year-on-year. In 2022, his 4-seam fastball averaged 91.6 mph, and so far this season he's averaging 94.8 mph. And the fastball has been pretty dominant, too, with a .000 batting average, 41.6% K rate and the second best expected stats in the league. The cutter has been no slouch, either, with a miniscule 12.5% hard hit rate. However, if he's going to stay as a reliever, it might be time to trim down his arsenal. None of the splitter/curveball/sinker have been very good at all. He should just scrap the sinker (1.750 OPS against), and be a little more selective with how often he throws the splitter & curveball. Lean into your best pitches!
  6. CCHOF5yearstoolate
    Pablo should probably just scrap the sinker. A .420 batting average against with a 1,000 slugging pct is just not useable. Zero whiffs, 71.4% hard hit, 96.5 mph exit velocity all suggest that it's simply a bad pitch. Interestingly, while his best pitch (by far) has been the 4-seamer but it's also the pitch that is really tanking his hard hit rate. That pitch has a 64.5% hard hit rate, but he's getting away with all that hard contact (.125 BA, .333 SLG) because those batted balls are often either towering flyballs or grounders. 15 of the 31 batted balls on his 4-seam have a launch angle of over 40 degrees, and another 11 of those batted balls have a launch angle under 10 degrees (generally a groundball since they usually don't leave the infield). Batted ball metrics suggest he's gotten fairly unlucky results on the sweeper (.522 SLG vs .295 xSLG, .462 BABIP, 28.6% hard hit), and most of that damage came in his first two starts, including this "double" from Bobby Witt. However, as others have suggested he should probably stop throwing it in the middle of the zone so often.
  7. CCHOF5yearstoolate
    Advanced stats love groundballs because OPS is like .400 on grounders
  8. CCHOF5yearstoolate
    Certainly looking like a bad trade to add the RH OF they needed all offseason, but at least it's been a good prospect swap so far.
  9. CCHOF5yearstoolate
    Nice article! I did a bit of a dive yesterday on what the Twins have been doing in the last couple of weeks to improve so drastically on offense, and by the stats it really seems like that answer is as simple as "make better contact." There's very little data to back up a change in hitting philosophy, which as you noted is a strategy that's been around baseball for a very long time - hit hard line drives. Since the Tigers series on 4/19 the biggest differences I see in batted balls are: +7.4 contact % (29th to 6th best) -3.0 whiff % (29th to 17th) +2.8 hard hit % (23rd to 15th) -4.0 ground ball % (26th to 14th) +4.6 fly ball % (18th to 6th) Approach-related changes over that timeframe include: +0.1 swing % -0.8 called strike % -4.4 pull % (OPS is up by 0.412 on pulled hits, +2.6 mph exit velocity & +8.3% hard hit) +2.9 straightaway % (OPS is up by 0.295, +1.6 mph & +6.6% hard hit) +1.5 oppo % (OPS is up by 0.170, but with softer hits by 2.7 mph & 12.5% hard hit -> mostly luck variance) Additionally, they've actually been seeing more offspeed and fewer fastballs over this timeframe: +0.6 zone % -3.9 fastball % (4-seam, sinker, cutter) +1.5 slider % +2.2 changeup % Interesting to see an attempt at equally sized bins for batted balls, and also that the upper bound of your line drive bin matches Statcast's definition on the nose. They go from 10-25 degrees, sweet spot is 8-32 degrees. For reference,
  10. CCHOF5yearstoolate
    I'm 90% sure even leverage index doesn't take into account who is batting. You're right in that we know it's more valuable to shutdown the heart of a lineup in the 8th than it is to pitch against 7-8-9 in the 9th, but I don't know if any of these kinds of metrics have caught up to that yet. Yeah WPA in my opinion is an OK estimator for pitcher performance in the aggregate but it breaks down quickly under any scrutiny. Similar to how ERA can be deceptive depending on the quality of the defense, it's a descriptive of strictly what happened but it's not all that helpful when you want to evaluate an individual player's performance.
  11. CCHOF5yearstoolate
    He's faced what, like 15 right handed batters this year? Not saying there's definitely no trend, but year-to-year numbers are very volatile for relievers - much less year-to-year splits. Quickly glancing at his expected stats, 2022 looks like an outlier good year vs RHB.
  12. CCHOF5yearstoolate
    WPA is a summation of the change in win probability after each plate appearance that player is involved in. So, Joe Ryan doesn't get any credit or blame for changes in win probability when the Twins are at bat. That's not to say Joe Ryan's WPA is independent of what happens when the Twins are at bat, though. For instance, on Saturday both Cole Irvin and Charlie Morton pitched 7 shutout innings. However, because the Orioles put up 3 runs in the 4th and 2 in the 5th Cole Irvin actually has a substantially lower WPA (0.292) than Charlie Morton (0.456) did because the Braves game was tied the entire time Morton was pitching - win probability swings bigger when the game is close. Leverage index isn't a factor in WPA. It's analogous to the concept that the change in win probability gets larger and larger towards the end of games in that it tries to quantify those swings, but it's a separate metric. Also there's a typo in the article, Thielbar actually had a 0.206 WPA per Fangraphs. When Thielbar entered the game, the Twins had a 79.4% Win Probability. When he exited the game, the Twins had a 100% win probability. Joe Ryan's WPA by inning: 1st: -0.149 2nd: +0.052 3rd: +0.055 4th: +0.061 5th: +0.067 6th: +0.077 For a total of 0.163 (rounding error, 0.164 is the correct number from Fangraphs) I see I'm a little late to the WPA discussion party, gotta remember to refresh the comments....
  13. CCHOF5yearstoolate
    Your analysis on Polanco is purely vibes based, and this proves it. Saying "I'm less biased than most" when I can read your comments and constant patting yourself on the back is a lot like saying "I'm more humble than you are." Your examples about Lewis and Martin are relevant, why exactly? "Many people are saying" is such a tired trope I can't believe people are still using it. I would challenge you to find any kind of large-scale writing off of Royce Lewis. Just because you remember a few comments does not make it a majority opinion - anecdotes are not factual. And on Martin, yes he's had a nice start to his MLB career but if your argument is that it is too early to judge the Polanco trade how is it logical to pat yourself on the back after 68 major league plate appearances? What was I wrong about regarding DeSclafani? Do you have a specific claim of mine or are you just assuming that I said all those things you previously commented when I did no such thing?
  14. CCHOF5yearstoolate
    Here's the thing - you are biased. You cannot possibly "know who they are as a player and as a person" or all of the "underlying conditions that affect the results" (more word salad). You believe you know those things but the reality is that you do not have the resources to truly know them. Look at how much you've waffled on the strength of Ricardo Olivar's arm, and it's still unclear how good his arm is you're just going with the latest report you read on him. The comment I initially responded to argues that now you can't be held to your predictions on Jorge Polanco performing well in Seattle because he's sad about being traded. Nothing objective about how he's still the same player but he's been unlucky, or any specifics about why you believe he'll rebound, just vibes. I have a hard time taking that kind of analysis seriously. Assuming that I don't do any of my own analysis and just get my opinions spoon-fed from the owners and their mouthpieces simply because I don't agree with you reflects more on you than it does on me.
  15. CCHOF5yearstoolate
    Even so, Julien has the most plate appearances on the team. Edit - nevermind I see this point has been made!
  16. CCHOF5yearstoolate
    That's not objectivity, that's favoritism. What in the world do you mean by "social media hype filter"? That's nonsensical. I have replied to your comments because they are presented as fact when it is clearly your opinion with very little basis other than your feelings. You also love to give yourself credit for previous predictions or comments in bashing the front office, which comes off as a person who only ever brings up when they were right (or just says they were right after the fact). You seem to have a great memory for when you were right, and essentially no memory for when you were wrong. I have no problems admitting when I was wrong - I recently did so regarding Justin Topa's injury and my prediction on Varland's start to the season. When was the last time you admitted you were wrong? Has it ever happened?
  17. CCHOF5yearstoolate
    I'd ask you about your reading skills and your ability to do something other than strawman, but that really seemed to get you into a bad headspace last time you tried this.
  18. CCHOF5yearstoolate
    Some of the least objective baseball analysis I've ever read. How's your guy Noah Miller doing, btw? Do you think you're ever going to retract your statements on Gabriel Gonzales or Rayne Doncon?
  19. CCHOF5yearstoolate
    Not sure what I was smoking yesterday.... Either way it's his first outing of a rehab, nothing to lose sleep over.
  20. CCHOF5yearstoolate
    Ron Washington is, by all accounts, an incredible baseball personality and a great player manager. He's not a magician. Don't fall for small sample sizes.
  21. CCHOF5yearstoolate
    Guys coming off of an oblique injury generally aren't totally maxing out, and for good reason. Look no further than Duran topping out at 99 so far.
  22. CCHOF5yearstoolate
    It's April. Acting like Ron Washington has somehow turned him around in a month and his .441 BABIP is all of the sudden something sustainable for him is just silliness. And his strikeout rate is 36.2% this year, 5 of his 7 seasons as a Twin were at or below that number.
  23. CCHOF5yearstoolate
    Which projections, specifically? Nothing on Fangraphs supports what you are saying. Besides, touting a .267 OBP is pretty silly.
  24. CCHOF5yearstoolate
    Not understanding something doesn't make it "made up". Here's what is happening on the field, Vazquez is: 7th among all catchers in line drive rate by BIS (4th per MLB %) In the 64th percentile in all MLB for average exit velocity (tied with Julio Rodriguez and Brent Rooker) 97th percentile in all MLB for barrel rate (barrels have resulted in a .708/.697/2.350 slash line in 2024) In the bottom 10th percentile of MLB in BABIP with a .154 - even last year's objectively awful contact produced a .264 BABIP What has been taught in baseball for over a century? Hit hard line drives. It's really that simple, none of this is new or contrary to old school baseball thought - it's just putting numbers to the old teaching. He's hitting the ball hard, it's just going right at the fielders right now. Hard to fault a guy for that.
  25. CCHOF5yearstoolate
    I'm no expert, but I also think there is a difference in spin/movement from LHP. Think of the big breaking pitches, Rich Hill's curveball or Chris Sale's back foot slider - what RHP throws a pitch like that? You could maybe say Jose Berrios throws a similar curveball - but that's been defined as a slurve. And even though MLB has done reclassification of many sliders to be sweepers, Chris Sale still throws a slider by their classification. You can also look at the spin profiles of a lefty vs a righty. I'll note here that I didn't do any kind of deep dive or compare their mechanics so this could just be confirmation bias after finding the first 2 pitchers with similar offerings. Look at the difference in the movement of each of Max Fried's pitches compared to Pablo's. Even if you mirror these graphics there's a few 'hours' of movement difference between both.
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