Alex

The throw in in the trade?

Very easy to say this now. Steer could be used now but he still would have been deep on the depth chart and would likely just be getting his chance with the major league team. Besides, that’s what competing teams do to try and get better. have you seen Polanco and arraez’s numbers this season?

I'm not sure of the numbers, but it tends to feel like umpires' missed calls favor the pitcher. They tend to call more pitches outside the zone strikes than pitches inside the zone balls. Even if it's 50/50, that still benefits the pitchers since a call that is mis-labeled a strike is more valuable than a call mis-labeled a ball. That said, I think with as hard as hitting has become, a more consistent strike zone would benefit the game for a lot of reasons, and I hope it would also benefit hitters to provide more action in the game, even a little bit.

Weird to say that Buck is overrated when he has had multiple seasons where he outproduces most of the league without playing more than half the games. Last season was doubtlessly awful for him but he also was dealing with a serious knee issue. Hopefully we'll see a much better player this year. Outside of yesterday's game, he has been one of the team's better hitters and a key to their comeback win against the Brewers. Small sample size, but the player who I'm concerned about and seems to look like he's back to his worst is Kep.

He was at spring training (non-roster invitee) but was moved down to minor league camp last week. I think he's 5th on the depth chart right now, but consensus is that not major league ready even at 26 (maybe not sure of the bat I think as he just started hitting last year) Remember, he was available in the Rule 5 draft but no one took him.

It's probably a bit dramatic to say the Twins will be "scrambling" if Buxton goes down. They picked Margot as a good second option, have a third (certainly more questionable) option in Castro on the roster, and two possible minor league options that could fill in in case of multiple injuries. It's worth noting that, in 2023, only 12 teams had CF that started 110 or more games (one of them was Taylor). 18 had CF that started 100 or more games. 16 CF played enough to be labeled as "qualified" for awards, etc...That means that unless a team is lucky or really wants to take a risk, they all need to have a capable 2nd option in CF. To say this has hampered the Twins or made roster construction difficult somehow just isn't accurate. The only season they made a significant move for that contingency (Taylor) was last season, but a case could be made that it was a good move even if Buxton had been healthy. Despite Taylor being needed, the Twins still had one of their best seasons in some time. It's unfortunate that Buxton has been injured as much as he has, but 5 of his seasons he's been worth more than $15M dollars (often significantly more than that) even playing incomplete seasons. He's already been worth more than 150M in his career, so to imply he somehow swindled the Twins, fooling them into paying more than he's worth is a bit silly. I'd take a bet that he'd get more than that 15M p/year on the FA market (though probably not as many years at least until he had another good season). I know it sounds like a lot, but $15M just isn't a lot in MLB money these days (Joey Gallo got $11M from the Twins after a bad season).

Because that group is just generally a better group of hitters? In order to really come to your conclusion, at least the one I was discussing, I think you'd have to look at more players altering their approach (as in the two examples of the OP). I would acknowledge there are players that strike out enough that they don't stay in the league if it isn't offset some other way with a bat or in the field, but even within major league players there is a spectrum. I agree with you on this because it's not about the striking out more or less, it's what it means in the tradeoff of the approach or player skillset. If the Twins were replacing Joey Gallo for Luis Arraez, it would have been a better offense and be striking out less. If the Guardians traded for Kyle Schwarber in place of Will Brennan, they'd have a better offense and striking out more.

Well, imo, that's not really the argument. No one is saying that teams that strikeout more hit for more power as a rule. Bad hitters strike out, too. Your data collection doesn't really provide enough data to say that power approaches do/don't lead to strike out since it lacks a control (it's significantly more muddy than the OP) What your data does show, as you mention and has been widely accepted, is that strikeouts, on their own, aren't an indicator of good or bad offense.

That depends on what you want. There's not a lot of specific "nuggets" about the upcoming season other than the headline above -- the idea that he thinks a significant trade/move will happen and that he seems genuinely ready for where Buxton is. The rest of it is a lot of talk about managing players and it's mostly really good insight into who he is and how he does things as a leader. Dan asks him a lot of questions about "the perception" of him and how he does things of fans and how it contrast with how he actually does things. Oh, and for those that care, he also talks about hating to pull pitchers.

Yes strikeouts are a bad result, for sure. But, an approach that leads to a high number of strikeouts isn't necessarily bad (which is the point of the OP's post). It's easy to think that changing an approach to one that leads to fewer strikeouts would mean more runs, but that's just not always going to be the case. That change approach may lead to fewer at bats that result in strikeouts, but it could also lead to fewer hard hit balls on those that they do connect with, which could mean fewer extra base hits and fewer hits overall (again, see the numbers in the OP). It's why, at least when considering approach, looking at overall results is important and not just the result of an AB. The Twins managed a top 10 offense despite striking out at record numbers. The Cleveland Guardians were one of the bottom three teams in the league in offense but struck out the least. The Nationals struck out just a bit more than Cleveland and were a bottom 10 offense. Gallo going elsewhere, as mentioned above, is definitely going to help the strikeout numbers, but it's interesting to consider that trading his ABs for Larnach (who would have been a reasonable replacement option and would have struck out less) might not actually have resulted in better offense. Obviously, not signing him and just plugging in Wallner would have been a significantly better option. That's not to say that things can't be tweaked, but focusing on one result of ABs (even if it's a historic one) doesn't tell the whole story.

Maybe I just missed it somehow, but I didn't hear them talk about Mauer, and I've been curious about Barreiro's thoughts as one of his biggest critics from day 1. Otherwise, thought it was a good interview and don't know that I've heard Rocco talk that extensively with someone in one sitting.

Double post.

Ended up 4th in Manager of the Year voting. While that's far from winning the award, I got some flak from some folks here for even saying he would get "some" votes.

You're right, I was looking at the sort the wrong way (which is what I get for being in a rush). There are 10 and he is 7th. He and Gardenhire are the only ones since 1970. It sounds like we have a different definition of a lot of things, and I don't think it's worth getting too far into a semantical debate, but I think we don't have to go beyond this thread to see examples of it.

I think there's fair reason to be disenchanted with the Twins in the long term and frustrated, but the level of vitriol (and I don't just mean criticism) directed at the current front office and manager is really odd since they've put together the most sustained success this team has seen recently. The front office has taken more big swings than any the Twins have had both in FA and through trades to try to make this team better, and I think the Baldelli is the only Twins manager with a record above .500 (EDIT: One of 10 and only one besides Gardy since 1970).

FWIW I thought it was a terrible move when I saw it happen but I didn't know just how bad Julien was against LHP and adding in the fact that he's been injured, I was swayed.

You don't have to agree with either, but other than opinion it's hard to argue I would think. The Twins chances to win the division was over 99% at that point (and got better later that day). I don't know how much meaning you can ascribe to a game when it's the toughest game they will play the rest of the season and there is a 2 in 1,000 chance that they don't make the playoffs. If they somehow miss the playoffs it will be because they played horribly and lost to much worse teams (and there will be significantly more important games). The evidence, as mentioned, also points to Vasquez being the better option. It's fine if you don't agree with the move, but it's relatively minor (the Twins chances to win were slim no matter what -- what percentage would you ascribe that Julien gave over Vasquez in your opinion?). and it's amazing that people think they know these players better than a person who seems them a lot more than we do. We'll have to wait and see about the last one, of course.

It's weird to me that in a near-meaningless game, where the move actually gives the team a better chance to win is the breaking point for some. I generally think people focus too much on moves that don't go well. Meanwhile, in the last few series, he's had some moves that really paid off in the pinch-hitting and pinch-running department. Those mostly go un-noticed. There's not often posts where people say they are jumping on the Baldelli Bandwagon because he pinch ran Andrew Stevenson who forced the opposing team into errors to score a key run. If you'd have said that a manager's two best players are going to underperform for the season and that he's still going to lead that team to win the division, most of us would be praising that manager (and he is going to get votes for Manager of the Year). Sure, it's the weakest division in the league, but would you rather he not actually win it? If he'd had the roster that he has now for the whole season (and Kepler hadn't been a dead weight during the first half), this team would easily have won 90 games. I generally don't think that managers matter as much as people think, but I do think he's well liked by the players and so many of his moves were under a microscope early in the season because of all the close games and an underperforming offense.

I actually think it was a hit and run, and even if it wasn't, I disagree with the logic here. It evened up the count on Dozier, when it would have been 2-0 to a pitcher throwing poorly (horrible pitch). I also don't think you're looking at it quite the right way. Base stealing typically considered risky for little gain in general with a drastic cost if caught. This was even more risky. Look at the numbers. If he is safe, he doesn't gain much. However, being caught means he essentially loses the chance for a run. A basestealer needing to be successful 71% of the time for the steal to be worthwhile is a poor play.

I think its far more due to perception thanks to the way the team handled his press last year with his injuries. WPA is one single reference point and it's early in the season. There are players getting paid more and doing a lot less (Twins are playing one of those guys right now) who aren't getting the ire of their fans. It's ridiculous that he's getting this much ridicule when the Twins have to score more than four runs every night just to be in the ballgame.

Too high a GB percent to hit in the #2

Interesting perspective and a nice comparison in terms of the value the Twins may have been getting as compared to other teams and what we may have to consider with regard to the Twins in the future. A couple of thoughts, though: -It would even better to see numbers here, and especially important to see what other clubs were getting for the money with similar pitchers. -In terms of WAR, remember that zero is a replacement player and not "average." There's actually also a vast difference in the value of 1 point of WAR (and thus 2 and 4 are very different). A WAR 2 is really the minimum WAR you want/expect from a regular player in the MLB (everyday position player or regular part of the rotation). A 4 is considered a good player. As an example, I think we'd all agree that Pavano had one of his worse years as a Twin, and with an ERA of 4.3 but he still posted a WAR of 2.0. -Finally, I think that Thrylos lays out some additional things needed when you have pitch to contact pitchers, but I'd add that pitch-to-contact pitchers can do well over the course of the regular season (especially in the AL Central), but when it comes to playing against heavy hitting playoff teams, you need pitchers who can miss bats.