jorgenswest

Concur with paragraph 2.

He is worth a shot but you have to wonder why there were no takers at the deadline. It could be his significant drop in performance since return from his 80 day PED suspension. It could also be his frequent injuries with two stays in IL this year (groin, fractured hand).

If Funderburk averages 100 mph on his fastball combined with a plus second pitch like Bautista’s split finger they need to bring him up. I don’t have access to pitch level data and the relief pitcher data we can see isn’t helpful in knowing whether he will be successful in the majors. Those kind of numbers for relievers in the minors are not uncommon. The Twins have much better data besides working with him first hand.

WHIP and ERA are useless for prediction. So many other measures will tell the story long before they stabilize. The question is whether the time off to regain health and the time at driveline has helped him regain effectiveness. There might be some insight from yesterday’s game and his minor league stint to answer those questions. I don’t know where to see minor league pitch level data but the Twins have it. I suspect it was not that encouraging or they would have found a way to roster him without the Ryan injury. If we can see an answer with what is available to us I suspect we will see it with what the OP posted or maybe here first (perhaps in the pitch tracking section).

An ERA of 1.80 is very sustainable… and meaningless short of a full season. Hits also need a large sample so it will be a long time before a WHIP is meaningful. One games WHIP (or several games) is not predictive of the next game at all. Neither is one games ERA. Velocity and some other pitch level data can give some insight for the next game.

I don’t think his performance is that uncommon. Seems like they have a reliever like this every year in AAA. Last year it was Evan Sisk with virtually the same WHIP, good strikeout rate and poor walk rate. Ian Hamilton has had seasons like this as a minor league reliever. The small sample stat line for a minor league reliever isn’t very helpful in guiding roster decisions.

He has been hitting the ball harder most of the year but the hits didn’t come until July. He is pulling the ball more often again. I wonder if the shift caused him to try to hit the ball to the opposite field and instead of good contact to the opposite field he ended up with weak contact too often. He is best when he is pulling the ball and hitting it hard. On June 29 I wrote about the Twins and hard hits as a ratio of at bats. Jeffers was the Twins leader given Wallner’s small sample but Kepler wasn’t far behind. The three have done quite well since.

Their options were Keuchel and Varland. I am not sure which is the better choice but going with Keuchel gives them Varland in reserve should another starter go down in August. Keuchel was the way to go and as long as he keeps the ball on the ground I would stick with him until Ryan returns healthy.

Funderburk and Moran do have the walks in common but I hope that doesn’t put him in a good position to be called up. His 24 walks across 52.2 minor league innings this year should keep that door closed.

I have confidence when Kepler is batting again. I expected a good at bat leading off the ninth. Kepler is showing best average exit velocity, barrels and hard hit of his career. In 2019 he was a pull hitter. I wonder if he spent the last three years trying to hit the ball to the opposite field to avoid the shift. All it resulted in was weak contact. His pull percentage in July was nearly 50%. Make contact and hit it hard. Good stuff will happen. I had a lot of confidence with Wallner up also. That first called strike wasn’t close. Loved the reaction. A little smirk and back to work. He didn’t let a really bad call effect his mindset on the next pitch. That is two series in a row. Hope they make it three for the first time this year.

Yes

Yes

That can really vary in season and we need help against left handed pitching Someone probably wrote the same thing on a Braves site a few years back when they added Rosario (86 wRC+) and Soler (78 wRC+). They finished with 133 and 132.

Standard Gallo response… The bar is Joey Gallo. Why not give him Gallo’s spot and keep Luplow for now? When the next of Lewis or Buxton or Kirilloff is healthy they can pick between Luplow and Laureano. Meanwhile find someone to play 1B against right handed pitching. Wallner? Julien? Kepler? Jeffers on a off day from catching?

They needed a hitter. Hitters weren’t moved at the deadline. Pham was probably the best fit that actually moved. The cost was a top 50 player in this year’s international signing list. Maybe the Twins could have won the deal by sending either Hendry Chivilli or Carlos Silva but they would be pretty similar so the Mets may have preferred Rodriguez. Ariel Castro probably would have beat the offer. Should the Twins have offered Castro? I think it is more like the front office was unwilling to trade prospects rather than the budget. Too much was asked for the hitters on the market, In this case it is very unlikely that Castro will make it to the Twins while they are still in charge. I have to appreciate that they did what they felt was best for the organization.

I am taking both into spring training. There is space for both on their inexpensive contracts. If everyone is healthy and Brooks Lee has a great spring they can DFA one with little salary consideration. I would not take the 33 year old Farmer to arbitration. His salary will be harder for them to let go.

Not possible at all.

Concur. His BABIP was .179 to start the year and throughout his career in majors and minors it had been above .300. That .179 had a huge impact on his stats. His strike out rate was good at 11.8%. His expected batting average and slugging were both above league average at .247/.428. He will absolutely find a home. Stretches of 100 or so plate appearances with a very uncharacteristic BABIP happen all of the time. Sometimes we get excited about a great stretch when we shouldn’t. Sometimes we give up on a player when we shouldn’t. It gets magnified when that stretch is to start the year. The player also starts to qorry and maybe starts making adjustments they don’t need to make compounding the struggle.

It would have helped if Ryan had disclosed his injury to the team. Let’s hope the recovery is a short one.

He has had a great two months but the year is pretty ordinary. His OPS for the year is .831. That sounds really good until you realize the run scoring context in the IL is really high this year. The average OPS in the IL is .802. That really gives us distorted perception of both hitters and pitchers. Combining both his performance in the AAA and AA he is about 8% better than league average by OPS. For comparison the league ERA is the IL in about 23% greater than Randy Dobnak. Relative to league Dobnak is performing better than Chris Williams by a little and the full season of Prato by more. I would no be advocating for Dobnak’s return though relative to league he is doing better than Williams and Prato over the season. What if we ignore the abysmal performance in AA across 129 at bats? Prato’s BABIP in AA was .217 after all. Maybe it was just bad luck. That leave us with the outstanding OPS in AAA across 124 at bats. If we want to ignore the AA due to BABIP should we also ignore his AAA performance due to a BABIP of .382? As a whole, Prato’s season follows his career of a better than league average batter at the minor league level. I don’t think it would be wise to cut a partial sample in half and then throw out the bad part due to a low BABIP but make decisions based on the other part in spite of the high BABIP. I would hope the Twins aren’t looking at numbers like OPS at all. They need such a large sample to stabilize. The pitch level data and statcast data I can’t see has to tell a better story for the whole season. The Twins must have seen something encouraging in that AA data in spite of his abysmal OPS start to the year in AA. They could have brought someone else up. Prato has given them further reasons to be encouraged and worthy of consideration of an addition to the 40 man roster in the off season.

The run was scored as a result of… a 10 hopper just out of the reach of the second baseman a ground ball out and choice by Correa to get the sure out at first though it looked like he could have got the lead runner if that mattered a wild pitch advancing the runner to third another ground ball out an infield hit deflected off Duran a strike out with tying run at the plate He kept the ball on the ground. He didn’t walk anyone. Last night’s outing did not leave me with any wonderings.

I don’t disagree on “No to Dobnak”. For context though the International League ERA (5.26) is 23% greater than Dobnak’s ERA of 4.26. Relative to league that is slightly better than Chris Williams wRC+ that is 20% greater than the league. The run scoring context of the IL can give us a very different perception of the performance of Dobnak and Williams relative to the league.

I would suggest that it is not worth the time wondering. It doesn’t matter. Let’s hope he comes back strong.

It is easy to get for me to be encouraged by the performance of the Twins minor leaguers in the the July edition of minor league hitter of the month and sometimes less encouraged by the pitcher of the month. I looked for some context to go with that performance particularly with levels close to the major leagues. The run scoring context in AAA this year really distorts our perception of performance particularly if we are looking at OPS. There are more than 11 runs scored per game in the IL this year. The Saints are scoring over 6 runs a game giving them a rank of third in the league. They are 0.41 runs a game behind Louisville. Is it a surprise to know that relative to league the Saints pitchers rank better than their hitters? Pitching ranks second in runs per game at 5.07. I don’t think that rank of second fits with our perception of the Saints pitching this year. In this run scoring context it is probably gives even more weight to looking at contact rate and strike outs and walks rather than the triple slash stats that are so distorted. Wichita in the Texas League is also in a higher scoring run environment but not quite as high as St. Paul. Those numbers can give a distorted impression of performance also. The data we have available to look at from AAA and it’s run scoring context really isn’t very helpful in projecting performance in the majors. I would guess that the pitch level data the Twins must see is much more helpful.

The home run context in this era is a little higher but in 1987 Bert Blyleven had a similar two month stretch. He gave up 22 home runs across 12 starts in a stretch where he gave up a home run in 14 straight appearances to start the season, Ryan is at 21 in last 12 giving up home runs in the last 9. Frank Viola in 1986 had 10 starts where he gave up multiple home runs. Joe is at 7 this year. Home runs are more frequent in this era. In 1986 the AL home run rate was 2.1%. It has increased by almost 50% to 3.1% of plate appearances in 2023.