jorgenswest

If the Twins devote any significant resources to acquiring a position player, I think catcher is the spot. Jeffers and Rortvedt can not be counted on to be ready at any time this season. It just takes longer to develop as a catcher. Telis has been playing AAA since 2014. His AAA numbers the last two seasons have been good but those come with lots of experience at the level. I wouldn’t count on him as a reliable in any long stretch in the majors. They need to focus on starting pitching but starting pitching plus Grandal would really help.

Without Cron they have a reasonably solid core of 13 position players. Garver, Sano, Gonzalez, Arraez, Polanco, Adrianza, Rosario, Buxton, Kepler, Cave, Cruz Astudillo, catcher If Astudillo is the back up catcher then they have a spot for Cron. Otherwise they might be better off adding a catcher. They also have enough minor league depth that is ready for an opportunity when needed. Wade, Kirilloff, Rooker, Larnach, Raley and Gordon (with Lewis a few hot months away from joining the list) The one position missing here is catcher. I am not sure I am confident in Telis at catcher. At 28 and in AAA since 2014 his numbers at that level might be skewed especially his recognition of AAA breaking balls. Cron is a good player but they might be better off using the roster and budget resources towards building depth at catcher

The Twins need to get this assessment right. If they are confident in Gordon they player to sell high is Arraez.

The Twins need to play someone at catcher where the risk of repeated concussions is significant. The logic here might be that Garver’s bat is not one that they should risk losing due to concussion. With that logic teams would never have a good bat at catcher. They absolutely should move Garver on the advice of the medical team. Until then Garver at catcher gives them the best chance to win games.

They have tremendous upside in their young starters. Giolito, Kopech, Lopez and Cease In the rotation. Rodon and Dunning returning during the season. The oldest of these Lopez is 26 (turns 27 in December). I think the Twins better be paying attention.

If the Twins are confident enough in Astudillo’s defense at catcher I would go with him. I would use him against those high strike out pitchers that don’t give up a lot of contact. That game changing pinch hit against Matt Barnes still sits with me. It didn’t make sense until I realized the one thing the Twins needed the most in that at bat was a ball in play. Stick with Astudillo and put the resources elsewhere.

As for his development they need to make sure his bat is an asset. It might be best to put the extra work at the plate than learning 3B or CF. I also think he has more value in trade as a starting SS prospect than a super utility with a mediocre glove at several positions. Develop the bat. Develop his glove at SS.

I don’t think Lewis was expected to stay at SS but with shifting some argue that the demands of the position are changing. That seems fine in theory but then I watch the good middle infields in the playoffs and wonder if the pairing of Arraez and Polanco will hold the Twins back at that level. It might serve the Twins to move everyone down the defensive spectrum with Arraez going to 3B and Polanco 2B. Move Sano to 1B but find a shortstop.

Is Wheeler better than Odorizzi? I wouldn’t put him in a tier above Odorizzi. Wheeler gets a huge benefit pitching in an NL pitcher friendly park. He had 28 strike outs to no walks against pitchers. Both the park and the NL helped to extend his innings and give the perception he would go deep in games. Take out pitchers and his OPS against (712) was 45 points higher than Odorizzi. In Citi Field Wheeler’s OPS against was 658 vs 727 away from home. Wheeler is better than Nolasco but the concerns should be the same. Nolasco came off a season pitching in the NL in a mix of neutral (Florida) and pitching friendly (LA) parks. He had about the same number of pitchers faced that included 23 of his strike outs. We found some hope in his FIPs that were better than his ERAs. His OPS against non pitchers that year was 706. I think there is a better chance that he will be Nolasco than be transformed into an ace. I expect somewhere in the middle getting between 5-6 innings per start of a little better than league average pitching and then declining some age 32 and 33.

I don’t think we need defensive metrics (which have a stronger year to year correlation than batting average and ERA) to know that the Twins defense was below average to well below average all around the infield. They might address this by finding a plus defensive shortstop and moving Polanco to 2B and Sano to 1B. Arraez will still likely be below average at 3B but it shouldn’t be much different than Sano at 3B. Better defense will not only prevent runs but also reduce high pitch count innings. Reducing those innings leads to longer starts and less wear on the bullpen.

http://twinsdaily.com/_/minnesota-twins-news/minnesota-twins/finer-points-options-part-two-the-fourth-option-r7741 Romero and 4th option year

The innings are not a concern to me. Odorizzi battles every at bat and every pitch. Berrios had 100 1-pitch plate appearances from batters and was crushed for an OPS of 1321. Odorizzi only had 61 1-pitch plate appearances with an OPS of .839. When the count fell 1-0 batters attacked Berrios again more often than Odorizzi. Berrios gets more outs early in the count but it isn’t all good news. It might be better to throw fewer innings and battle every pitch.

All games are still winnable. This one had the Yankees at 93.7% win expectancy at the time Gibson entered. If today was an off day I am taking my chances on the Twins side of that percent. There is a game today and relievers in general do not do as well on 0 days rest. That certainly is true for the Twins relievers and their 5.38 ERA on no rest.

I think you manage the first two games like you manage a double header particularly to start the series when winning one game on the road is huge. Rogers, May and Romo have a better chance of being at the top of their game today. We can’t beat the Yankees if they are not at the top of their games. Everything resets with the day off so burn the bullpen today.

The Twins have a better chance to win today with a rested May, Romo and Rogers and I would argue a better chance of winning one of two in New York. Rocco needs to manage for the series and not the moment.

Every game is going to be a bullpen game in this series. The Yankees bats are too good and too disciplined. Add in below to well below average defenders at every position around the infield and pitch counts exceed 20 per inning.

Would we roster Arraez if it looks like he is ready for game 3? I would if I were confident in the health of Gonzalez. The challenge is having so many other position players with questionable health in Kepler, Gonzalez, Cron and Adrianza. How many roster spots can be devoted to those question marks?

Four and 50 should do it. Power at 1B/DH has been pretty inexpensive the last few years. That trend will continue with the explosion of home runs this year. To really get paid players are going to need to bring something else to the table. It could be positional flexibility or defense or speed or leadership or even a record of good health. What else will Sano offer to get that elite contract?

I think it could be argued that Fernando Romero’s first 5 starts with an ERA below 2 and 29 Ks in 28 2/3 innings were even more encouraging in that moment. We love this moment of Dobnak’s first 28 1/3 major league innings but I am not sure I would bet on Dobnak having a better career than Romero.

The Twins should be guaranteeing any money to a 30s reliever coming off shoulder surgery.

I should have looked at that and now that I did I was surprised by the data. Smeltzer has faced right handed batters in over 75% of the plate appearances against him. That is much higher than the team split of 59% right handed batters. I guess it isn't that surprising since most of the plate appearances against him have come in starts where the other team stacked the line up with right handed batters. I was surprised that he has been much more effective against right handed batters this year who have posted a .721 OPS against him. Lefties have hit him much harder at an .869 OPS.

I think Littell is a lock. He has been used against more difficult batters and has been better than the league against those opposing batters.

I explored some more with BP's statistics. This time I looked at the quality of batters each pitcher has faced. The pitcher who has faced the highest quality of opposing batter is Devin Smeltzer. I found it interesting that opposing batters have fared worse by OPS against Smeltzer(.756) than the rest of the pitchers they have faced (.780). Tyler Duffey has dominated this year. He hasn't faced near the quality of batter (.731) but with a .582 OPS against he has the biggest differential on the team. I don't know what to make of slash stat data at this sample. The opposing batter data set would be huge but the data set for the individual player maybe small. While I am very certain that Smeltzer overall has faced a more difficult set of hitters than Duffey I don't know what to make of their individual opposing OPS number. In any case I find it encouraging to be on the positive side. Of the pitchers that could be eligible for post season there are 11 who have a better OPS against than the opposing pitchers of their batter set. This set is order from biggest positive differential to least. Tyler Duffey Trevor May Sergio Romo Taylor Rogers Jake Odorizzi Randy Dobnak Ryne Harper Jose Berrios Zack Littell Devin Smeltzer Brusdar Graterol Harper has performed much worse recently. I don't think I would have him on my playoff roster. The other 10 would be on my roster. The remainder needs to come from pitchers who have performed worse by OPS than the other pitchers that have faced the same batters. Stashak, Perez and Gibson are close to even but Perez and Gibson have not performed well recently either. The only other pitcher in consideration is Thorpe who has been hit hard by opposing batters. I guess I would go with Perez and Stashak but treat Perez as more of an opener with a really short leash second time through the line up. Two other Twin pitchers posted a positive this season. Mike Morin and Michael Pineda. Pineda really let us down.

While we don’t have enough information the Twins have plenty of information. The major league ball spins the same as the AAA ball. They have all kinds of data about which pitches will be effective against the Astros or Yankees. They have all kinds of data on how well the pitcher has executed the pitches they were supposed to throw. They probably did not know the whether the IL stay may have helped Gibson recover. We know now. He hasn’t recovered. As for the plan I would be surprised if games 2 and 4 were not bullpen games. We have seen plenty in preparation this month including three in huge games. Dobnak is truly an amazing story. Few players from his draft class of 2017 have arrived in the majors. Keston Hiura is the only one that stands out in my mind as making a better first major league impression than Dobnak. Dobnak wasn’t even drafted. I am not sure if anyone in his college has ever played in the minors. If he adds playoff success somebody needs to write a book and make a movie.

I became interested in the Astudillo discussion in the resting players topic and wondered about Astudillo's use. I have been thinking about this since his critical hit against Matt Barnes in the Red Sox series. Matt Barnes is a right handed pitcher with the highest k/9 rate in the AL and nearly the highest AL k-rate at 38%. The Twins are tied with the Red Sox 1-1 in the 7th inning. Miguel Sano is in scoring position with two outs. The Twins have 1 hit through 6 2/3. Jonathan Schoop is coming to the plate and in comes Matt Barnes. It is time to pinch hit with a left handed batter or so I thought. They have Polanco and Wade on the bench. They also have Astudillo. Astudillo? Why Astudillo? Kepler is up next. Let's get someone on base. Polanco or Wade must be a better choice. I was certain. Astudillo slaps a single to right field for the Twins second and last hit of the game. The Twins hold on to win 2-1. Lucky decision on Baldelli's part I muttered. The moment stuck with me though. I wondered... "When does Baldelli choose to use Astudillo?" With the help of Baseball Prospectus I looked to the quality of opposing pitcher for each Twin hitter with over 100 PAs. We have heard that the line ups are well thought out and planned. Maybe some hitters have faced a more difficult set of pitchers by design. Not surprisingly the typical pitcher faced profile for a Twin hitter is Polanco. He plays the most. The opposing pitchers he has faced have allowed a .770 OPS resulting in a 105 oppRPA+. More than half of the Twin hitters bunch in the interquartile range of 104-106. Only one Twin batter has faced better than league average opposing pitching this year with a 99 oppRPA+. Willians Astudillo. Astudillo's 746 oppOPS is two standard deviations away from the typical opposing pitcher faced. I don't think this happens by accident or randomly. Baldelli must either be choosing to play Astudillo against more difficult pitching or at least choosing to rest players against a more difficult pitcher. If you are still reading and curious the Twin closest to Astudillo is Arraez at .751 and the only other Twin more than a standard deviation away in this direction. There are two Twins on the opposite end though not near as far from center as Astudillo. Marwin Gonzalez (.779) and Byron Buxton (.781) have seen the pitchers who have given up the highest OPS to the hitters they have faced. Does this or should this give us a different impression on Astudillo's performance at the plate this year?