jorgenswest

I hope the entire bullpen outside of Perkins are fighting for a job. I hope the Twins are willing to let Duensing and Stauffer go as soon as a younger player shows they are ready. If that is opening day, so much the better for the Twins.

Fien has a very high fly ball rate at 49%. He needs a strikeout rate closer to 30% or at least north of 25% to be effective with that fly ball rate. Unless he has a role where he comes in with no one on base, he is a disaster waiting to happen from the pen. His strikeout rate dropped from 29.9 to 19.6 last year and it wasn't just the end of the year. It was around 20 all year. He needs to be closer to his 2013 rate than his 2014 to be a useful reliever.

What are the odds someone who is very productive ages 26-27 will still be very productive at 32-33? That is the Twins gamble if they go 6 years. Going back to 2007-2008, I took the top 10 productive players ages 26-27 in those two years. That group of 10 players just finished their age 32-33 season. The players Rios, Granderson, Hamilton, Victorino, Phillips, Ross, Doumit, Morneau, Aviles, Swisher The 10 were credited with 72.8 rWAR from ages 26-27 and 26.6 rWAR from 32-33. They dropped 63%. All of the players dropped. Only one 10 retained more than half of their WAR value. Shane Victorino was the only player to average better than 2 WAR per season at age 32-33 with his great 2013 season. The Twins need to get this right. If cost certainty through arbitration is important, extend him through his arb years and age 31. A decision to go beyond that point will keep them in this cycle of mediocrity.

Framing would effect balls and strikes and therefore be considered defense independent. A pitcher's FIP and xFIP are based heavily on strike outs and walks so any change in those numbers due to framing would result in a pitcher's FIP or xFIP that didn't represent his true abilities. Framing has significant impact on those measures. Outfield defense would have no impact on xFIP and little on FIP unless there was some superman effort in stealing home runs therefore resulting in a lower than expected FIP.

There is little evidence the Twins value framing data or the skill and technique related to framing pitches. You only have to look at the signing of Doumit, the extending of Doumit, the signing of Suzuki and the extending of Suzuki as evidence. Pinto has been trained in the organization since 2006. Despite 9 years, he enters 2015 with very poor technique and skill particularly in the area of framing. He is still young enough to improve his skill, but it doesn't seem likely the Twins can help him. It is hard to have any confidence in the organization's ability to develop or even recognize a catcher's ability to frame pitches. Let's hope the other clubs are wrong and this skill has little effect on runs given up.

Lots of discussion about his WAR. His WAR last year needs to be seen in the context of 707 plate appearances. His health was valuable but not projectable. Projections have his WAR at 2.7 and 2.8 for next year. At ages 32-33 he will be in decline. Any contract that guarantees significant money those years will be very difficult to trade. The down side of giving him 6 years and having him decline is much worse than the downside of having to pay a great player in arbitration. They are not a small market team. They can afford to pay him when he performs.

I won't turn on Dozier. He should absolutely take advantage of mismanagement on the part of the Twins front office. I will express my frustration with the management and their lack of understanding aging curves. They should not extend him past 31. It is very likely that he will be a well below average defender at 2B past that age and he also should be expected to post a below league average OPS+. He will not be a starting 2B on a winning team. Extending turns a trade asset into a liability. They are not a small market team. Worst case is he takes a big step up to a 125 OPS+ player at ages 28-29 and becomes expensive. Sell high.

Milone's road ERA of 4.48 and k/w ratio of 3.0 through age 27 should be worthy of a good look this spring and a spot on the 40 in AAA if optioned. It would be a huge step up if the Twins got a 4.48 ERA from their fifth starter.

Spring training is meaningful. Jobs are won and lost as a result. They should be. Statistics from spring training exhibition games have no meaning. They should not be kept, reported or used in support of roster making decisions. I hope the Twins don't keep them or use them. Not only is the data in a sample too small to be meaningful but the level of competition varies. It is critical the Twins get the roster right though. They need to rely on the skill of the coaching staff and other staff in spring training to get the best 25. They need to be able to assess whether Milone, Pelfrey and Nolasco are healthy and throwing the ball like they did when they were more successful. Suzuki can help assess Milone also. They have to make the correct assessment on these three and have plenty of time and plenty of eyes to get it right. They need to assess whether Hicks has fundamentally changed his approach and possibly swing. They need to assess whether Schafer's numbers the last two months were result of a fundamental change or simply variation due to sample. Last year's staff should have seen a fundamental change in Kubel's bat speed. They should have seen Bartlett's inability to play outfield. They should have seen the need for Pinto to catch every day in the minors. They should have seen enough from Worley to retain him in AAA once he cleared waivers and was off the 40. The Twins can't afford to miss again this year. They need the skill to correctly assess the pitching and bring the best 12 north. They need to be right on Hicks and Pinto and put them in a role where they will best help the team win games. Spring training is critical to the Twins this year. Let's just hope they ignore the numbers and rely on their eyes. Let's hope the new Twins staff is more skilled than last year's staff. Spring training is meaningful. Spring training stats are not. Let's not use them.

It works better when players have space for decline. Those guys cost a lot more money than Nolasco. Tthey would need to take the Nolasco, Santana and Pelfrey money and sign one guy with space to decline. Fill the other spots with younger upside players.

They need to roll with him as long as he shows he is the hitter he was down the stretch. If he is playing close to his career numbers on June 1, release him and hand it over to Rosario or Buxton. Let's hope at least one of those is dominating in the minors.

If healthy, I would give him 10 starts to show he is a league average pitcher. If he has an ERA close to 5, release him and invest the starts in arms with upside. It could be an expensive lesson that signing a decline phase pitcher to a long term contract can have disastrous results. It is particularly risky when that pitcher was below league average throug his prime and has no room for decline. Santana doesn't have much room for decline either.

Agree with everything above from Thrylos. I would add that while Stauffer may be an upgrade over Swarzak, that isn't a high leverage roster spot. It isn't a roster spot that will have a significant impact on the record. It might be better to develop a younger player with upside in that role even if the performance drops. A drop in performance might simply mean turning a few losses into bigger losses.

Rosario has 649 plate appearances in AA in which he performed basically at league average. His slugging is slightly better and on base slightly worse. He did this while being much younger than the league. Combine that sample with a good AFL performance and it isn't stretching him to place him in AAA. He needs to be in AAA and if he dominates over 50 games, he needs to be in the Twins OF. Best case, he pushes Hunter to the bench because of his play combined with the emergence of Hicks and Arcia.

I can think of three reasons why his strikeout rate might drop. Petco Park is number 2 in park factor for strikeouts at 1.08. As for Stauffer over his career his strike out is more than 20% better at Petco. Two years ago as a reliever it was 20% greater and last year 14% greater. Target Field depresses strikeouts by about 3%. At his age, strike out rates are in decline. Since he was in mostly low leverage situations last year, he did get to face 11 pitchers. He was perfect against them. He struck out three and accounted for 3.2 innings. Without those pitcher innings his ERA changes from 3.50 to 3.72.

Stauffer is 33. He is not in his prime. He worked low leverage situations at Petco Park. Away from Petco, he is not a good pitcher. If the Twins see him as a given to make the roster, they are fools. The contract itself should be a sign that the league outside of Minnesota does not see Stauffer as a good late inning option. The going rate for a good set up man is multiple years at more than 5 million per. If they believe Graham has upside and they see the velocity, releasing Stauffer must be an option.

Harrison does need to be in AA. There don't need to be blocks at any position. Rosario and Sano need to be in AAA. At 25, Hicks is an organizational player. He can be 1B at any level that needs him. If 1B is Harrison's spot, put Hicks in A+ or AAA.

You have to at least wonder why the defense was consistently really bad for just Nolasco. While the Marlin team ERAs were always greater than the team FIPs they were much much closer than the Nolasco difference and a good portion of that difference is due to Nolasco's numbers.

Defensive stats as well many pitching and batting stats need three years for projection. Strikeout rate, walk rate home run rate, groundball/fly ball rate are examples of measures that work well in one full season sample. Most of the rest, like defensive stats, need a bigger sample for projection. That shouldn't stop us from using OPS or FIP in discussions, when we see it in a single year or even a partial year or split we need to understand the variability due to sample. We need to do the same for defensive stats. As for Santana, we can look at his 2013 season with Royals and see the difference between his ERA and FIP and at least suspect that the Royal defense contributed some towards his low ERA for that season. We can also suspect, based on the current Twin outfielder's data over the last three years, that he won't get the same ERA boost from the Twins defense this year.

It will be a positive sign for the future when someone with range forces their way into Hunter's spot in the line up. If on August 1 Buxton, Rosario, Arcia and Hicks are on the roster, the poor defense in the outfield will soon be forgotten.

I agree. It won't be reasonable to be upset with Santana who if performs as expected will have an ERA significantly above league average. Numbers like that still may help the team get below the 90 loss bar. It might be reasonable to be upset with management committing a great deal of resources over 4 years to a pitcher whose 50th percentile projection starts his Twin career as a number 4 starter at age 32 and will likely decline in the seasons following.

I am confident that Santana won't have anynwhere near the same defense from his catcher and outfield that he enjoyed in Kansas City or Anaheim. As for Suzuki, he had two season that were split between Washington and Oakland. It was a rare opportunity to compare his performance against several other catchers receiving the same pitchers. I didn't compare framimg stats, I compared the two things catchers might be able to assist with either the framing or whispering skills. Strike outs and walks. It is mostly unreadable now with the change in blogging software and lack of tables http://twinsdaily.com/blog/36/entry-4580-kurt-suzuki-signed-to-be-the-starter/ I wrote this in summary "Over three years, the other 12 catchers have a 23% better strikeout walk ratio, a strikeout rate that is 9% better and a walk rate that is 11% lower. Every year over the last three and on every team, pitchers who happen to be throwing to Suzuki strike out fewer batters and walk more batters. Small sample size? It is over 12000 batters. Maybe he has had teammates that are very good catchers. It was 12 different guys on two different teams." Suzuki does one thing well. He blocks pitches. If he is good at managing a pitcher, the other 12 guys must have been very good or those skills didn't matter as much and his poor framing numbers drove the strikeouts down and walks up. Santana performed at an ERA+ of 92 last year. He can't afford any decline in that result whether it is due to aging or defense or pitch framing or bad luck. That is number 4 starter territory and it isn't going to cause a great change in the Twins quest for a contending team.

The frustration should be with the Twin management. Through his prime 5 years of 26-30 he had an ERA+ of 90 in around 1000 innings. That is number 4 starter territory. Very few guys keep getting an opportunity to pitch when their adjusted ERA is 10% worse than league average through their primes. You don't give these guys four year contracts. There were some signs that pointed up for him before he signed. He always had a much better FIP. He did well with the Dodgers. There were reports that the improvement came with a change in pitch mix and pitching backwards. A single season FIP is a better predictor for the next season than ERA. 1000 innings of FIP that is far below ERA and teams should wonder what in his skill set causes the discrepancy. Reality hit when he came to Minnesota. The FIP was still a lot better than the ERA but neither was acceptable. With the Twins, he went back to fastball first and he wasn't able to establish his fastball that had always been mediocre through his career. At 32 the likelihood that he will perform close to a league average pitcher is very slim. The only hope I have is that Allen and Guardado will see something in his time with the Dodgers that they can bring back this year. They need to help him find his slider that was dominant in 2013. He needs to find it and use it often. If he can't find that slider, he isn't a major league pitcher. Last year's plan of first establishing the fast ball was never going to work.

It really only matters what is the consensus in the a Twins management. Even if we did have consensus on pitch framing, it wouldn't mean we were correct. It is clear that some teams think pitch framing data is significant and others like the Twins don't give it the same weight in their roster construction. I am certain that the Twins have given up far too many runs in the last four years, In those years they go have had some very poor pitching, a very poor infield defense with Nishioka that shifted to a very poor outfield defense with a Willingham and a few of the lowest ranked pitch framers in Suzuki, Doumit and Pinto. I am confident they would have prevented more runs had they had better pitchers, better defenders and catchers better at receiving strikes.

There were six 31 year old pitchers in 2010 with ERA+ ranging 99-133. They are all better than and mostly significantly better than Santana's ERA+ of 92 last year. Cliff Lee had plenty of room for decline and has put up four good seasons. Johan Santana matched Lee at 31 and hasn't pitched well since. Wandy Rodriguez had two seasons of slight decline and two seasons injured. He had more space for decline starting at 110. Jeremy Guthrie was healthy four seasons. His ERA+ was 108 and he has had one season of better than league average (102) ERA+ in the last 4. The others were OK Performing as number 4 or 5. Mark Buerhle has been healthy 4 seasons and continued to pitch league average or better than his 31 year old season. John Lackey was awful for a season. Missed a season. The last two seasons he has been league average or better. The problem for Santana is that he doesn't have space to decline. He can't take a decline like Guthrie and be anything more than a number 5 pitcher. Lackey, Santana and Rodriguez lost two or three seasons to injury. Lee and Buerhle are very different pitchers. Expecting one very good year and two average to above average years is very optimistic for a guy who through his prime seasons was just league average and enters his age 32 season having been below league average at 31. It doesn't fit very well with how other pitchers have aged after 31.