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Paul Pleiss

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Everything posted by Paul Pleiss

  1. Paul Pleiss
    So when should you cut a player? After he's proven that he's slightly better than his worst outing and you've seemingly wasted another 10-20 innings on him out of the pen? I'm sure I'm just wasting my breath, and all of our time lamenting Jared Burton's continued existence on the roster, but it just boggles my mind that he keeps getting opportunities to pitch for Minnesota when there are guys in Rochester who should have already replaced him on the roster. He hasn't given up a run in 9 of his previous 11 outings, but one of those was against Toronto with a 6 run lead when he couldn't even get out of the inning before Gardy had to give him the hook to protect their lead. That guy can and WILL show up on the mound again and again if the Twins keep running him out there. The question is will it be with a 6-run lead next time, or will it be in the 8th of a tie ball game and cost the Twins a win?
  2. Paul Pleiss
    I would love to see May taking on Big Game James at Target Field, especially if Pino stayed with the ballclub to work out of the pen. Now we're talking baseball that I like!
  3. Paul Pleiss
    So I guess there are 5.5 million reasons to keep Burton, or whatever the pro-rated version of that is. But why you need to keep a guy on the wrong side of 30 with declining statistics whose upside is a 4ish ERA from here on out is beyond me. I cant' understand. Maybe I could, but I just wont. He could pitch 10 more scoreless outings on top of his last 5 and I'd still be calling for his roster spot to go to someone else.
  4. Paul Pleiss
    KV, should we then discount his first 28 outings of the season and assume the last 5 are the ones that matter? He's been a trainwreck this season. He can't get lefties out with consistency, and he's been putting way to many guys on base. Yes, his June numbers are improved, but what value does he provide even if he can pitch to a 4ish ERA for the rest of the season? There are half a dozen guys in the Rochester bullpen pitching better than that.
  5. Paul Pleiss
  6. Paul Pleiss
    Burton is not a guy who thrives under pressure. From my last article: "Even more unsettling is his work in high leverage situations. According to Fangraphs, he's pitching to the tune of .215/.329/.391 in low leverage situations, .250/.294/.500 in medium leverage situations and a disgusting .368/.429/.526 in high level situations. We see the same trend when we look at his numbers with men on base. With the bases empty he's a respectable .183/.300/.367, but with men on it's .321/.377/.527 and with men in scoring position a laughabale .342/.375/.622, that's a .410 wOBA! Yikes!"
  7. Paul Pleiss
    Let's not get carried away giving out multi year contracts just yet. He's on the wrong side of 30 and we've yet to see what happens once teams collect a better report card on him. I like what he's done this season in AAA, and he looked very capable in his debut, but let's hold off giving him a spot in the pen for the next few seasons. If you want to replace Jared Burton with the Yohan, I'm on board for that, effective immediately. Then call up Trevor May. Now we've got something to talk about!
  8. Paul Pleiss
    DILLY BAR!!!!! I suppose if the Twins could find a way to get me a frozen DQ treat I'd be willing to stop blasting Jared Burton for up to three outings. We need to find an insider at DQ to make this happen, and to find out about Mister Misty. Or the Twins can just DFA Burton and I'll be able to rest easy. No one has caused my heart rate to jump like Jared Burton since the days of Cardiac Capps.
  9. Paul Pleiss
    It seems anytime I start reading a thread about the Twins pitching, somehow I end up ranting about Jared Burton. There also seems to be a never-ending stream of Jared Burton supporters. I don't understand this. I've decided to take a look at the numbers and see what I can find. Jared Burton started out the year with a couple clunkers and ended April with an ERA of 9.00 and hitters had a .286/.419/.543 line agaisnt him, good for a wOBA of .317. Ouch! He surrended three home runs, and 9 runs total in his 9 innings of work while striking out only five of the 43 batters he faced and walking eight (8.97 FIP, 6.51 xFIP). May was by far the better month for Burton. In 12.2 innings of work he posted a 4.26 ERA, and held batters to .245/.275/.396 for a .283 wOBA. He struck out ten of 51 batters and gave up only two walks and a single home run. He went 1-1 with three holds for the month and lowered his ERA to 6.23 (3.00 FIP, 4.12 xFIP). June has been hit or miss for Burton but Gardenhire and company continue to run him out to pitch. He recorded a save on Sunday, in an outing, had I been managing, he would never have made. So far in June Burton has a 3.86 ERA in 9.1 innings pitched, but with a 1.29 WHIP for the month. He has surrendered four runs, five walks and a HR to go with eight K's. Unfortunately, things look a less rosy when you look deeper at the numbers. He's held hitters to .200 BA, but has allowed them on base at a .324 clip and allowed a slugging average of .406, yielding a a .327 wOBA. His ERA for the year is down to 5.52. What's the upside to keeping this guy? A reliever with a 4-ish ERA, who has looked overmatched for most of the season, especially against opposite-handed batters, doesn't belong in the bullpen for a team hoping to contend as the summer progresses. For those who say he's been good lately, there's some truth here as June has been good for him, despite giving up multiple runs in 2 of his 10 outings. But if we look at the last 30 days of work from Burton things are not so good, as then his ERA balloons to 5.68. Even more unsettling is his work in high leverage situations. According to Fangraphs, he's pitching to the tune of .215/.329/.391 in low leverage situations, .250/.294/.500 in medium leverage situations and an alarming .368/.429/.526 in high leverage situations. We see the same trend when we look at his numbers with men on base. With the bases empty he's a respectable .183/.300/.367. With men on base it's .321/.377/.527 and with men in scoring position his line becomes a laughabale .342/.375/.622, for a .410 wOBA! Yikes! If you're clamoring to keep Jared Burton because he's been able to put up essentially a 4.0 ERA for his last 10 outings, I think you're trying to hold on to memories of Jared Burton from two years ago. This season, lefties are killing him (.283/.411/.413, .374wOBA). Help me understand what he's doing so well that the Twins should continue to rely on him to pitch meaningfull innings. Heck, I'd be happy if you can convice me he's worth a 25-man roster spot. What's your case to keep Burton?
  10. Paul Pleiss
    I didn't want to steal the attention away from Achter here by lamenting Jared Burton, so I turned my response into a blog entry. http://twinsdaily.com/entry.php/5402-Jared-Burton-the-case-for-dismissal Tell me why he should stay on the roster.
  11. Paul Pleiss
    I can't stand watching Jared Burton pitch for the Twins any longer. I got so steamed up I wrote an article about it. I don't understand why Gardenhire and the gang keep giving him high leverage opportunities, or any opportunities at all. Yuck. http://twinsdaily.com/entry.php/5402-Jared-Burton-the-case-for-dismissal
  12. Paul Pleiss
  13. Paul Pleiss
    With so much pitching seemingly coming through the Twins system, it just doesn't make sense to hold onto a guy like Burton who "has been ok since [the first month of the season]." Okay isn't enough for a team that's bordering on contention and hoping to build for the future. Burton just doesn't make sense to me, while Achter seems like a step in the right direction.
  14. Paul Pleiss
    A releiver with an ERA north of 5.50 doesn't have much cause to be a releiver in MLB. When he gives up runs, he tends to do so in bunches. That's not someone I want in my bullpen. Maybe TR and the FO have different thoughts, but having faith in Burton at this point seems like pissing into the wind.
  15. Paul Pleiss
    This was fun. Thank you Chairman Mauer.
  16. Paul Pleiss
    I think it's easy to imagine Escobar sticking around for a few years. With Sano's expected arrival next season sometime, it will be interesting to see what the Twins do with Plouffe. Does he become a bench bat, 3B, corner OF guy? I think Danny Santana will be a key player to watch when thinking about the long term viability of a guy like Escobar. At this point, he's played well enough defensively, has positional versatility and has been hitting great. If he keeps hitting, the Twins will keep playing him everyday. If not, I think he still has value as a utility guy. Maybe could even handle some OF duties with some work int he off-season or spring training. Ben Zobrist type?
  17. Paul Pleiss
    More interesting to me is trying to figure out when we will see Trevor May in Minnesota. Will he be up by the mid-summer classic? Can the Twins keep him down much longer? Even if they bring him up to be an arm out of the pen, I have to believe he has done everything he needs to do at AAA. Just waiting for that phone call...
  18. Paul Pleiss
    All-Star game voting is a joke. I don't know how to fix it, but I'd start by getting rid of on-line voting, or at least allowing people NOT to vote a million trillion times each day. Let's get back to voting at the ball park, punching out the holes by the fans who are at the games. The fans will elect Derek Jeter to the All-Star Game. Right or wrong, good or bad, Jeter will be an all-star. It's the big names that get votes, and I think Dozier will continue to generate name recognition and praise as long as his level of play continues. Next season we could very well see Dozier getting the cred he deserves in terms of ASG votes.
  19. Paul Pleiss
    I hope you're wrong about this being Dozier's only chance to make an All-Star game. I think if he continues to do what he's been doing he will generate more name recognition and that is the most important part of ASG voting. Hard to argue against Dozier for this season, and I hope that bodes well for future seasons as well.
  20. Paul Pleiss
    I hope people really understand that, batting average is overrated. It's always been a measure of a godo hitter, but batting is also about not making outs, which is why I think OBP and OPS are more important than BA. I know OPS is a bit simple, and that OPS+ is a better stat, but OPS is pretty simple and quick to calculate. The overratedness of BA is one of the reasons I think fans have been so hard on Aaron Hicks. I don't want to jump this thread to me waxing poetic about Hicks, but get past the BA. Dozier is doing everything well. Maybe a guy with a low BA will eventually fall off and fall off fast, but he's doing everything so well right now that it's hard to find something he's doing poorly when you look at his numbers outside of BA. I liked hearing about the clicks. Great article, and not just the part about Dozier.
  21. Paul Pleiss
    I'm with Drivlikejehu, Burton is done as an effective MLB releiver. There are not many things I despise in pitcher analysis than taking about a guy's stats when you take out the bad outings. You can't do that. Even if he started terrible and is now just merely ineffective, it's all part of who he has become. he's been trending downward the last couple seasons, and I think we're seeing natural regression to the point that he's no longer a viable option, not for late in the game, and not to be stopper. Walks, hits, HR's, that's not what you need from a bullpen arm. I'd like to see Burton gone and one of the guys from AAA, AJ Achter, for example, up to replace him in the pen. Lots of good things happening in AAA that the front office does not need to stick with the talent at the MLB level. There is ripe fruit ready to be picked!
  22. Paul Pleiss
    I really hope that Aaron Hicks figures it out, at least as far as hitting goes. Personally I don't mind having Hicks up at MLB getting on base around a .330 clip. You put him at the bottom of the order and let him be a 2nd leadoff type guy. He gets on base, the bats bring him around. BA is not everything, and I know he's been awful from the left, but a guy who gets on base at the bottom of the lineup seems like a useful player to me. Do I have high hopes that he'll figure it out and be a .260/.360/.440 type guy? absolutely. But even if he just keeps getting on base and playing passable defense in CF I'll be happy to watch him in a Twins uniform until Buxton or Rosario come along. Maybe Rosario is ready for that responsibility already. This whole going back to switch-hitting thing seemed odd to me, and I think it signals a longer stay down in the minors, which I think is unfortunate. Santana has been great for the Twins, and if he keeps hitting he can get days at SS and CF until someone comes along to take the CF job. I can't see the Twins continuing to run Fuld out there everyday. Aaron Hicks can do better than that.
  23. Paul Pleiss
    Ever since the Twins were struck with bi-lateral leg syndrome and Michael Cuddyer missed time at spring training because of a wart on his foot I've started falling in love with the Houston Astros. Jose Altuve is very nearly my favorite player in baseball, and the Astros are just fun to watch with so many young talented players. I hope Correa recovers quickly; I'd look forward to watching him at the AFL, at either short or third. I'm going to have to find some footage of the injury to see if it was a funny slide or just some bum luck. Cheers Carlos!
  24. Paul Pleiss
    I would love to see Achter up with the Twins instead of Jared Burton. I feel like TD readers are split when it comes to supporting Just Bombs Burton or calling for his outright release. I'm in the latter camp. And Achter isn't the only guy down in AAA who would be an improvement over Burton.
  25. Paul Pleiss
    I'm with Pierre, how much longer will Diamond continue to get starts? Seems like it's time to move on. Tough luck for a guy who spent the better part of a season as the Twins best pitcher (on a terrible staff).
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