jorgenswest

That's too bad. A lot of lost content. I think content trumps looks and ease of use, but probably not the revenue. Doesn't matter for those who want to banter endlessly in the forums though. Perhaps that is where you need to focus and get the most ad revenue.

Download attachment: Sano_Miguel_Landscape.jpg The Yankees gamed the international signing system this year. With a limit of $2.2 million to spend, they poured over $13M at top signees - on the first day. In doing so they gave up the right to sign players to more than $300,000 over the next two years and must pay a 100% tax. This is in stark contrast to the Twins strategy. The Twins top signee is pitcher Huascar Ynoa, who they signed for $800,000. Is the Yankees strategy worth it? How easy is it to determine the best players to have signed at age 16? Should the Twins look at something similar? In order to help answer that question I went to look at the top signings of the 2007 and 2006 seasons. Players signed in those seasons have now had 7 or 8 years to develop. They needed to be put on 40 man rosters or exposed to the Rule 5 draft by 2011. They have used some of their options. This is a list from Baseball America of the top 20 signings in 2007. [TABLE] PLAYER, POS. ORGANIZATION AGE COUNTRY SIGNING BONUS Michael Almanzar, 3b Red Sox 16 DR $1.5 million Kelvin De Leon, of Yankees 16 DR $1.1 million Jharmidy DeJesus, ss Mariners 16 DR $1 million Julio Teheran, rhp Braves 16 Colombia $850,000 Gabriel Noriega, ss Mariners 16 Venezuela $800,000 Arodys Vizcaino, rhp Yankees 16 DR $800,000 Elio De La Rosa, 3b Yankees 16 DR $750,000 Jonathan Spraut (Galvez), ss Padres 16 DR $750,000 Wilmer Flores, ss Mets 16 Venezuela $700,000 Henry Pena, of Yankees 16 DR $600,000 Martin Perez. lhp Rangers 16 Venezuela $580,000 Wilson Suero, ss Rangers 16 DR $558,000 Jefry Marte, 3b Mets 16 DR $550,000 Eduardo Sosa, of Yankees 16 Venezuela $500,000 Ryde Rodriguez, of Cardinals 19 Cuba $460,000 Hitaniel Arias, of Brewers 16 DR $450,000 Efrain Nunez, of Mariners 16 DR $450,000 Cesar Puello, of Mets 16 DR $400,000 Angel Joseph, of Giants 16 DR $350,000 Kevin Moscatel, c Cardinals 16 Venezuela $350,000 [/TABLE] It would be great to have Julio Teheran.Martin Perez has started 34 games in the majors and has a pitch to contact profile. He is out with Tommy John surgey.Arodys Vizcaino has been traded twice and missed two seasons due to serious injury. He is now a reliever in the Cubs system.The Mets put Wilmer Flores and Cesar Puello on the 40 man roster in 2011. Flores may make it as a SS, but he may never hit. Puello is struggling mightily to hit as a corner OF in the PCL. Those are the success stories. They are the players that made it to the 40 man roster. Some of the rest are still playing ball, but they have become available in the Rule 5 draft. There were two players that I was not able to find any record of having played any baseball. One is Wilson Suero who probably really wasn’t Wilson Suero. The other was Angel Joseph. Go to Baseball Reference and do a search for Angel Joseph. You won’t find him either. They do lead you to another player. You probably noticed that there were no Twins on the list. Jeremy and Seth can correct me but I believe that Oswaldo Arcia, Danny Santana and Liam Hendriks were international signings in 2007. How about 2006? These players are at least 24 years old now. [TABLE] Player, Pos. Organization Country Signing Bonus Angel Villalona, 3b Giants DR $2.1 million Jesus Montero, c Yankees Venezuela $1.65 million Esmailyn Gonzalez, ss Nationals DR $1.4 million Carlos Truinfel, ss Mariners DR $1.3 million Young Il-Jung, rhp Angels South Korea $1 million Larry Suarez, rhp Cubs Venezuela $850,000 Francisco Pena, c Mets DR $750,000 Balbino Fuenmayor, 3b Blue Jays Venezuela $725,000 Mario Martinez, of Mariners Venezuela $600,000 Engel Beltre, of Red Sox DR $600,000 Oscar Tejada, ss Red Sox DR $525,000 Manuel Solis, 3b Rangers DR $525,000 [/TABLE] A few of these guys have played in the majors. Jesus Montero is looking for a position and trying to figure out how to hit major league pitching well enough to be a DH.Carlos Triunfel has played in the majors. He was DFA’d when he ran out of options this years and is now in the Dodger organizationFrancisco Pena has played a game in the majors. The Royals acquired him as a minor league free agent.Engel Beltre is on the 40 man roster with the Rangers and played a few games last year. He is currently on 60 day DL.A few other notes… Angel Villalona was arrested on suspicion of murder and lost two years due to visa restrictions. He is on the 40 for the Giants and playing AA.Esmailyn Gonzalez is really Carlos Alvarez and made it to rookie ball as a 27 year old in 2013. How about the Twins? Josmil Pinto was a 2006 signing. Any others make it? Two years of top signings and so far only Julio Teheran stands out. Were the Yankees correct in their strategy? Volume gives them a chance. It is hard to tell which 16 year old is going to be Julio Teheran so they threw their money at a lot of 16 year olds. Will they be lucky enough that some of their money landed on a Teheran? http://www.baseballa...007/264683.html http://www.baseballa...006/262506.html [/hr]Twins beat up Seattle last night, so on Thursday you can get a half price large or extra-large pizza from PapaJohns.com by using the promo code 'TWINSWIN'. Click here to view the article

I do appreciate they effort. I wonder it there is still things to work out. I chose to put my blog articles here and it would be nice if they remained. Maybe no one else would go back and look, but I look to see how my thoughts may have changed. One thing that distinguishes for me whether it is a forum entry or a bog entry is whether I would go back and look at it. John always talks about writing stuff he would want to read. I looked at the two July blog entries I wrote in July. The first is unreadable due to missing tables. The second is missing with the exception of the comments. Perhaps this isn't the kind of thing you want to read after weeks of hard work and I do appreciate the effort it must take to manage a site.

It is a brain injury. If the Twins were to go that direction with a player, no one would sign a contract to play here. They wouldn't be able to spend the recovered money in the free agent market.

It is something that could be studied. The data has been shown to be consistent year to year for catchers. It is also easy for catchers to gather a large sample in a short time. How consistent is the data for individual for pitchers? To get a better sample size pitching roles could be compared. Do mop up men do better since they are in low leverage situations? Is it more difficult for closers? Of all the Twins Burton has lost the greatest percentage of strikes this year so I am not sure how that fits. Max Marchi, Dan Turkenkopf and Mike Fast are the pioneers in this area. All of them have been hired by major league clubs. Perhaps this is the kind of detail they are doing for their organizations.

Good work. I appreciate the look from a different lens.

I don't think it is set to 0. It happens to be close. The median team is slightly negative, but the 6 top teams weigh the data towards the positive side. team data Pinto isn't a good pitch framer. Suzuki isn't either. Both are better than Doumit. The Twins rank 30th again.

Dan Turkenkopf's work that showed the run value of turning a strike into a ball. I think the change referred to was from the original .16 to .14 due to count. We haven't heard from him in a while because he was hired by the Rays two seasons ago. It is his manager with the famous quote about Molina saving 50 runs. It is his organization that employs Molina in spite of a slash line of 195/239/201.

Baseball Prospectus has pitch framing data organized by battery. Framing data by battery The data looks at pitches where the umpire needs to make the call and compares actual strikes with predicted strikes. While looking at splits creates small sample sizes, I wondered if it would be clear that Josmil Pinto's framing skills are significantly worse than Kurt Suzuki. The natural place to start is Glenn Perkins. Chances Predicted Actual +/- Josmil Pinto 73 24.3 22 -9.5% Kurt Suzuki 200 73.9 67 -9.3% Glenn Perkins has lost strikes to each catcher. Pinto cost him 2.3 strikes and Suzuki cost him 7.9. By percent Suzuki has a slight edge. How about Sam Deduno? Chances Predicted Actual +/- Josmil Pinto 369 125.9 106 -15.8% Kurt Suzuki 257 98.3 88 -10.5% Josmil Pinto had a much more difficult time with Sam Deduno. That isn't surprising. A young catcher matched with a very difficult pitcher to catch. Deduno is also prone to wild pitches. The Twins have one of the better catchers in the league at preventing wild pitches. It is surprising they didn't use him more often with their wild pitch prone starter. Listed below are the other starters and relievers where there were at least 100 chances. Ricky Nolasco is not listed. Suzuki has been his catcher for every pitch thrown. Kevin Correia Chances Predicted Actual +/- Josmil Pinto 240 75.1 69 -8.1% Kurt Suzuki 569 182.7 173 -5.3% Phil Hughes Chances Predicted Actual +/- Josmil Pinto 87 33.6 34 1.2% Kurt Suzuki 698 265.7 249 -6.3% Kyle Gibson Chances Predicted Actual +/- Josmil Pinto 60 17.6 16 -9.1% Kurt Suzuki 709 223.8 195 -12.9% Mike Pelfrey Chances Predicted Actual +/- Josmil Pinto 184 60.4 51 -15.6% Kurt Suzuki 96 27 25 -7.4% Anthony Swarzak Chances Predicted Actual +/- Josmil Pinto 118 26.3 29 10.3% Kurt Suzuki 230 83.1 83 -0.1% Casey Fien Chances Predicted Actual +/- Josmil Pinto 63 19.9 22 10.6% Kurt Suzuki 192 84.5 81 -4.1% Brian Duensing Chances Predicted Actual +/- Josmil Pinto 114 34.6 31 -10.4% Kurt Suzuki 152 48.5 42 -13.4% In the small samples of a split, Pinto had more difficulty with Pelfrey and Correia and fared better with Duensing, Fien, Swarzak, Gibson and Hughes. Faring better is relative. It is relative to Suzuki. I am not suggesting Pinto is a good pitch framer. He isn't. Neither is Suzuki. I don't think there is anything in the data to suggest that Pinto's pitch framing is so poor that he shouldn't be a major league catcher. He just turned 25. He will get better. The numbers will improve. When he returns, the Twins might consider matching him up with pitchers who have better command than Deduno. He needs to refine his skill with better confidence that the pitch will end up somewhere near his target.

Thanks for the good work. I hoping the a Twins stay away from decline phase pitchers until they have a foundation. There aren't many guys like a Hughes that hit free agency so young, but having the upside of age is critical to a team that needs to tear down and rebuild.

He Gone!

Ozzie Guillen would provide the most entertaining post game press conferences. I wouldn't turn off the game until I heard what he had to say.

Thanks for the article. I would be happy with a couple of C prospects with the upside of youth on their side similar to the return for Liriano.

It probably should be added that Dan Turkenkopf has worked in the office of a major league team for the last two seasons. He and Mike Fast were significant contributors to the study. The Tampa Bay Rays hired him. I don't think there is any disagreement on which side of the argument the Rays have taken in this debate.

Glen Perkins talked about Josmil Pinto and his ability to frame pitches. He didn't mention Kurt Suzuki. I guess he wasn't asked. Nor was he asked about Ryan Doumit in previous years. Since 2011 it has been debated about the Twins decision making on catcher and defense. At best, they are waiting to see if the data that has been available for many season has validity. At worst, they are ignorant and that ignorance shows in their roster decisions as well as their development of catchers in the minors. Other teams make it a priority on selecting catchers. In fact, several of the catchers that formerly appeared at the bottom of the lists are no longer catching regularly. Kurt Suzuki still has a regular job. Ben Lindbergh wrote weekly last year. He has done monthly reports this year. Below are a link to his recent report and quotes relevant to the Twins. May's catcher report from Baseball Prospectus http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=23780 Thoughts from April's catcher report I am certain there will be discussion of not trusting metrics. Clearly the Twins don't trust this data. Glen Perkins might. The data has now several years behind it and catchers are very consistent in their rankings even after changing teams.

With Santana at SS, a healthy Aaron Hicks is the best option to start in CF today. He will be back.

We have your breakdown of each pick and your thoughts on the Twins. Thank you. What is your draft board 1-5?

At this number of plate appearances, strike out rate, walk rate and possibly ISO have passed the small sample threshold. Those numbers are encouraging given the jump to AA. 2014 15.1%, 11.3%, .190 2013 20.2%, 9.6%, .201 In the last two years, the Twins have moved up some prospects in the second half of a June. It makes sense as it coincides with the A-Ball all star games and signing of some draft picks. The AA all star game is July 16 if they wait that long.

Some of the data is beyond the small sample threshold and has been for a while. Strike out rate walk rate groundball rate fly ball rate The drops in strike out rate and groundball rate is not a good combination. The drop is enough that it can not be explained by league change. The sample is large enough that it can't be explained by bad luck. I hope it is the pitch mix and increased use of his fastball. His slider has always been his most effective pitch. He needs to find that pitch and use it often.

The Twins can afford to pay his arbitration costs. They don't need to buy his decline phase. Go year to year and plan trade high in his free agent year. Let some one else buy the decline.

FIP in particular requires a pretty large sample size to be meaningful as it is homeruns based and home rate needs a large sample size. It probably is not particularly helpful during the season but might give information over a full season when there is a significant difference in ERA. I would think the same about fielding metrics. It certainly is true about any split that is reported. Strike out rate and walk rates don't require large samples. They could be meaningful. I really think we are better off having broadcasters with a skilled eye sharing what they see happening on the field. Leave the stats and the analysis out of the broadcast. They are so easy to misuse due to sample.

Signing decline phase players in hope that they will return to former success keeps the Twins from seeking other options. All of the successful signings listed above were younger than the trio signed this winter. They all came with multiple years of team control. They didn't come with opt out dates that forced the Twins hand with roster decisions. Those signings can not be compared to the signings of the former Twins trio in terms of risk or upside.