Alex

At the lake, avoiding this travesty.

Quiet night. These runs are on the ump, though Deduno could have made some better fielding plays prior to that.

@willihammer, Interesting. We should point out that correlation isn't cause. Could pitchers who are having more success just pitch faster because they want to stay in a rhythm while struggling pitchers wander behind the mound, etc...? i love the data, though and wouldn't have thought there be even that much of a correlation.

I'd hate to see him leave, and I think there is more that they could do around him. For starters, I think Morneau is the one to move if possible while swinging a hot bat. I'd also like to see them move the Hammer. This opens up 1B and LF, which gives you spots to keep Arcia and Parmelee regularly in the lineup. Then, save Joe's legs by having him catch a lot less (keep Parms in RF, where he's been decent and move Joe to 1B) so that when the wave hits in another year or two, he's still playing well. There's really no reason he should be catching. Heck, at this point, I'm all for having Ryan "Can't Frame" Doumit daily back there or calling up Butera (or someone else).

Obviously when a team has a 2-0 lead in the first they have a much better chance of winning a game, but what would be interesting to find out is if teams that have a 2-0 lead in the first win more games than a team that takes a 2-0 lead anywhere else in the game. By your, and apparently most people's, theories, it seems you'd say that a 2-0 lead in the first is far more likely to produce a win. My educated guess, simply because of the number of outs remaining for the opposing team come back is that is that any lead in the first is less likely to produce a win than the same lead at any other point in the game. Feel free to test it out: The Win Probability Inquirer I think you'll find that any lead gives you a significant win chance, but when comparing the timing of the same lead, later is better. So yes,any hole is a bad one, but first inning holes are actually better. The Twins are losing because they're bad and because they're giving up more runs than their opponent - it's not the timing of those first inning runs (as was shown last night - they came back from it and blew a three run lead).

So, all the Twins pitchers need to do is get rid of the ball quickly? Let's call it the hot potato strategy. It should force the entire team to react with catlike reflexes on every play and produce Gold Glove caliber play out of our slow footed outfielders Can someone get this information to Rick Anderson? It's impacting the whole team Seriously, this is a notion that I'd like to see data to support these claims, though I realize it is somehow baseball accepted knowledge. The hypothesis of which be something along the lines of pitchers who take more time between pitches don't get as good of defense behind them and get less run support (because major league professional baseball players are no different from 5 year-olds and would rather be picking dirt in the field).

Because position matters. If he's the 11th best hitting 1B in the league, that means he's easily replaceable (or should be) with the contract he has. On the other hand, if he keeps hitting as he has recently he'll move up in that ranking. However, his swing still looks pretty bad to me, even if it is better than it was a couple weeks ago.

Where does the quote from LEN3 come from?

Unreal. The team's second best hitter on the bench the day after he hits a pinch hit HR. Gardy needs to go if this is for real.

To add to your point, Tom Tango explains in the comments about why the study isn't really that useful. The notion that "it" has been solved is a bit overblown.

Remember when Phil Mackey blew his own horn about thinking he was right about the twins staff shaving off 100 runs in this article: Mackey: Twins GM used 'common sense' in assembling new rotation | 1500 ESPN Twin Cities ? Minnesota Sports News & Opinion (Twins, Vikings, Wolves, Wild, Gophers) | Sportswire: Minnesota Twins Good times...

To be fair, his numbers prior to surgery were decent, so many of us thought the same. He hasn't been able to reproduce them, though.

It's tough to have a team that consistently wins for 10 years regardless of how it's done, so the argument is a false one. Money isn't always the answer, but the Twins could certainly have more than they've been spending and can take multiple approaches. I just gave you concrete examples of how the Twins have acquired top young talent without needing to tank, and they're the team I care about. At this rate, they could be back to competitive before Buxton and their 2013 pick are a factor.

Yes I did. Turns out you get a first rounder regardless of if you are bad or good provided you avoid signing a compensation eligible FA.The post I was referring to implied that being bad, and thus high draft picks (not just first round) were needed. In particular, this quote: Back to my point.... Span and Revere we're 20th and 28th, respectively, and were used to acquire pitching prospects that people are now excited about (Meyer was a #23 pick, btw). Gibson was 22nd. Hicks was 14th. So you don't need a bunch of top 5 picks to get good young talent. The Twins would have a formidable rebuild underway even if they didn't have Buxton. He does make it all that much sweeter, but he's just the most recent (and maybe most distant) piece. I'm not saying it doesn't help to get early picks or that they're not valuable (that argument is from other posters), just that the argument that you need to be terrible to rebuild is false.

The thing is, the Twins future hope was mostly acquired through trading assets and international signings. The only player that they've drafted high is Buxton. While he's certainly a top prospect, even without him they could still have May, Meyer, Sano, Arcia, Rosario, Hicks, Gibson.....etc... The idea that you need to be terrible to acquire/draft young talent just isn't correct.

This discussion is almost a mirror to the Hicks discussion prior to spring training At this point, the only callup that's actually looked big league ready was Arcia, and that was due to injury otherwise, he'd still be in the minors, so you'll have to excuse me if I don't quote believe what the Twins say about players being ready.

Interestingly, using k%, the Twins starting pitchers look even worse (though it's tough to look much worse). In k/9 they hold spots 101 (Worley), 106 (Pelfrey), and 108 (Correia). In K% they hold 104 (Worley), 106 (Correia), and 107 (Pelfrey) (108 Qualified pitchers). If Diamond had the innings, he'd be 105th in K% and 109th in K/9. Pedro Hernandez would be 102nd (K/9) and 99th in K%. Wow.

Fair enough, but the next logical step in seeing how effective K's are is not to compare them to other stats, but to see their correlation to other stats above. Do pitchers that get more K's give up fewer homers and hits in general?

Agreed, so maybe I wasn't clear. I was pointing out what I think is a key flaw in the study in it's conclusion to discount strikeouts as a evaluative tool. In terms of single outcomes, that's a pretty significant correlation.

Let me first say that I appreciate any dive of this depth into statistics. It makes for an interesting read and an interesting discussion. I just read through both. However, there are many flaws in tying the correlations found in this study to value in players. First, it's evaluating multi-outcome measurements against single outcome results. The more outcomes you add to a statistic, the higher your correlation will be by default. OPS, for example, measures six possible outcomes (BB, 1B, 2B, 3B, HR and outs by omission - including strikeouts). Is it any surprise that it correlates better than any other statistic or outcome when it includes all of them? Hits/9 and average includes four-five outcomes (1B, 2B, 3B, HR, and the fifth again being outs) , which is pretty good, but people "savage" it (from your other response) because it does not include a key element that players can do to help their team win and add value. It's why WHIP works so well here because it essentially is a catch-all for everything -- of course would correlate. If you're giving up a ton of hits and walks per 3 outs, you're going to be in trouble. Contrast that with K, HR, and BB, which measure a single outcome each. Assigning value as you do here to a single outcome based solely on correlation is dangerous. Your placement of 3Bs proves that. Is a 3B really that worthless? Sure it doesn't correlate to a win, but to argue that it is less valuable an event than a 2B would be preposterous, right? (This is why Tom Tango's work is so valuable) So, in looking at evaluating a pitcher, we should be asking what tools we have, and which are predictive. Can we predict H/9 for pitchers? K's? Do K's correlate with H/9? If you're looking to criticize people for valuing strikeouts in pitchers because they don't correlate as well as you'd like to runs p/game, what other stats, along with HR and BB should we be using?

Your quote and response to my post is confusing. I was saying that Gardy may have been upset about more than just the flip for those that are saying he overreacted to that. -- What I find frustrating about all of this (his defense as a whole) as a fan of the Twins is that we were assured that Hick's was ready defensively even if he struggled at the plate. So far, that hasn't been the case via statistics or eye test.

C'mon, the guy is a pro athlete. He can at least jog back to his position, even Randy Moss does that on occasion. All I can tell you is that Gladden was pretty upset about that aspect of it, so there might have been something to it. I don't know for sure, I'm just pointing out that everyone is focusing on what they saw on TV when there might have been more to it.

As I said in the game thread, on the radio, Gladden added that even after the catch, Hicks stalled the game by walking out to CF and that everything was waiting on him. So, there might have been more to it than just the flip.

Gladden said that Hicks was also slow back to CF, walking back, and that everything had to wait for him. Gladden seemed pretty hot, too, more because of that than the catch.

I'm starting to wonder if he made a deal at the crossroads... Even if he ranks the rest of the season, I never thought we'd get five good games from him like this.