twinstalker

I keep forgetting that Wimmers could have a future with the Twins. This gives us one more top prospect to follow. "Top" in the Adam Brett Walker sense, not in the Alex Meyer or Oswaldo Arcia sense.

Hey, saving $500k or whatever is $500k. It might be the difference between a Summit tap staying at $9 or going to $9.50.

Ditto.

I don't think there's even a spark of hope having anything to do with Blackburn (such as hoping he might have a good start and a team relieves them of his contract), so I think they're just doing him a favor and going through the motions with him until the contract is up, or they decline whatever option there is. Being good to a player they'd just as soon release will help their reputation.

Dude

Once again a commenter assumes Gardenhire would use a platoon. I love it.

Not to be glib, but you're taking one flawed, non-sensical measure, doing something non-sensical to it, creating another flawed, non-sensical measure, and comparing them. Ugh. Both are obviously non-sensical because they involve adding together two percentages that are based on different denominators. A measure that makes sense is one with one denominator, probably PAs. Then proper weights need to be assigned to each outcome of each PA. In the end, what you'll get is a percentage that is probably just a standardization of a runs created measure. For example, just intuitively I used to rate players (pre-card) to determine who would have the better strat-o-matic card for our drafts my league conducted (again, prior to the cards coming out). I assigned a value to a walk, hbp, single, double, triple, hr and used plate appearance as the denominator. In slg, you assign weights 1, 2, 3, and 4 with ABs as the denominator, so I had to determine what I thought everything was worth and usually did so with a combination of intuition and some simple regression. I gave singles a weight of 1 and changed or created new weights for the other outcomes. What was nice about my measure was that the distribution was relative close, pct-wise, to slug, so I inherently understood the numbers. I guarantee I drafted better than all the guys using OPS (a non-sensical measure I still am not comfortable understanding what's good what's not good--for good reason). FYI, for those who don't know, strato is a retrospective game, so this has nothing to predicting the future (nor does any of what Seth discusses).

There is no evidence that this is anything but a bad team. Gardenhire's probably totaled two losses by himself, though, so they could actually have a winning record at this point. Still, a bad team is one that on average would reasonably be 29-40, and for a team that is exactly that good (on average), 33 wins instead is probably just a product of noise or schedule. Chicago was a bad team last year, but hell, they actually were leading the division at this point, I think. That didn't change the fact they were a bad team.

It will be a good team in the Appy league for the simple reason that this is a high rookie league for the Twins, but a lot of other organizations use it as a low rookie league. That's why the E-Twins win it so often.

Gardenhire has no idea about platooning, so it's a moot point.

My guess is there is an inherent statistical bias in your numbers arising from your choice of starting point. That is, I'll wager you chose the best place to start for Gibson.

Terry Ryan and the Twins have done little right, so I don't know where this faith is coming from. They had an outstanding basis for a championship team and their way of doing business minimized the production over the course of the last twelve years with their personnel moves and their retention of a manager who needlessly loses them 5-8 games a year with his game strategy. Perhaps Terry Ryan and the Twins realize now that the goal is a championship not just winning a division, though that could just be because Detroit is for real and looks to stay that way. As with Joe Mauer, the Twins drafted the right guy in Buxton, and so kudos in both instances (and with signing Sano), but nothing about Twins operations should provide excess optimism vis a vis the current talent level.

I really think Buxton has a shot at getting to the show as fast now as Sano. Can you imagine all three of Buxton, Sano, and Rosario getting the call on June 20, 2014 (arbitrary date that should delay the financials)?

Two Charlottes? I believe this is Port Charlotte, near Fort Myers. Rangers use to (still do?) farm there.

Two relevant things that should have probably been included are that Pinto is on the 40 and that he's right-handed, which the Twins really need at catcher. I actually doubt Herrmann will be anything other than a AAAA player, not too different than Clete Thomas in that he'll get bits of MLB time but belongs in AAA. I'm actually shocked that Doumit isn't already a Yankee, given they have no starting catcher. Arcia is probably here to stay, and the Yankees might part with reliever Mark Montgomery in such a deal.

A major reason Rochester dumped Baltimore after decades was the poor quality of teams the Orioles were giving them in the late 90s and turning the decade. The Twins were consistent winners at the AAA level at the time.

Arcia is indeed a CF at some level. The question is how much it costs in the field compared to the improvement he brings at the plate. To me Delmon Young was almost absolutely worthless because he gave up doubles and singles in left field that would have been outs, and I don't think its magnitude was properly accounted for. Regardless, Arcia's been DHing at AAA, so I suspect that's his role here this week.

Is it to participate? Are trophies given to every player who gets in a game? To full teams? I watch the Twins, and I have a real hard time figuring it out. Now, I was really tired this afternoon and kept dozing off, but I could swear the Twins were fully participating in a game today, and I'm pretty sure they once again had no ulterior motives. At least I didn't see any. Now I could be wrong, it might have been my sleep daze, but I may have actually seen the Twins try to lose, but I'm sure that wasn't a conscious decision. I've seen this before. Ron Gardenhire actually gives away outs so that he can limit his team's scoring, and he's done that many times. I've often wondered why he would lessen the Twins' chances of scoring runs, but he does it. Recklessly, from what I can tell. No factual information behind him, it's like he subscribes to a religion where only faith is required. Friday was another example, a different example. Mr. Gardenhire had many options for whom to pitch in a certain special situation. The bases were loaded, there was one out in the 8th inning, up by 1. One of the options he had was his best pitcher: Glen Perkins. Another was one of his worst pitchers: Tyler Robertson. The former was well-rested, the latter had pitched the day before and had just gotten off a spring where he'd given up nearly two hits and walks per inning. Gardenhire chose the worse pitcher in the most critical of situations. Why did he do this? I have wracked my tiny brain, and all I can come up with is that he wanted his best pitcher to get a "Save." What is a Save? A Save is an artifact of games that are won. They themselves do not cause a game to be won, but when a win is awarded, frequently a Save is award as well. There is nothing special about a Save. One doesn't push you ahead in the standings, such as an overtime loss does in the NHL. I have done extensive research, and all I can find is that a Save confers special acknowledgement on the pitcher it is awarded to. In contrast, an Out gotten by a pitcher actually is something that will yield a higher probability of a win (and a Save, coincidentally). One might say that the decision on which pitcher to choose can really come down to this: Is your goal to try to get a critical out that would more likely result in winning the game at hand, or is your goal to increase the probability that an arbitrary acknowledgement is conferred upon one of your options? I dug through the archive for seconds upon seconds to take another look at the situation Mr. Gardenhire had in front of him. He had five outs to guarantee a win, and among other constraints, two of those out most likely had to come before two of the runners currently on base scored. His best pitcher might not have the easiest time getting all five outs, and possibly it might be decided to have another pitcher face the first righthanded bat of the 9th inning, thereby negating the awarding of the arbitrary acknowledgement on his best pitcher. So it wasn't as if he only had to think about getting one out. Clearly, though, the highest leverage situation for this game was at this critical decision point: bases juiced with one out in the 8th inning, up by one run. The game most likely was going to be won or lost there, depending on whether the Twins gave up 0, 1, or 2 runs. If the goal of the Twins in playing this MLB game is to win it, the decision of which pitcher to use would seem obvious. If the goal of playing the game is to decrease the chance your best reliever pitches in a game where he doesn't get award the arbitrary acknowledgement, the choice is also obvious. While not mathematically correct in every situation, in most cases, including this one, the choice of pitchers identifies the goal of the one making the decision. (i.e. Simpson's Paradox is unlikely to apply, stat geeks) There's a leap there, and I'm hand-waving to get to my conclusion, but I'm pretty confident it's correct. I don't think Gardenhire is purposely trying to lose games, but I'm pretty sure he's ignorant when it comes to understanding what to do to win games. Many, many, many times over the course of a season, including Friday in the 8th inning.

Heh, normally I'd say wtf, it's three games (now). But his PAs aren't Parmelee PAs, he's completely overwhelmed at the plate, as evidenced by consistently letting third strikes be thrown down the middle of the plate. Absolutely sure it's mental and a confidence thing this moment, so much so that something similar to the original post crossed my mind. The thing is, you hardly notice when something like this happens for three games in the middle of the season, but it's been pretty bad. My first year in little league I had no clue. I either struck out or walked in every PA. That's what Parmelee seems like right now. Here's hoping his smash off Fielder turns him around and restores his confidence. For me to even comment on such a small sample means I see something that's not right and not likely attributable to noise. He looked that bad.

Heh, yeah, "Gardenhire's always looked to..." is not a good way to start a point. He's never platooned. Between Ryan and Gardenhire, do not expect anything that makes sense or optimizes wins or spares outs.

Did someone expect or hope for 1.5 years from a guy on a one-year contract?

Ramirez, Deduno, Walters all present the same problem. Which other bad guy who's actually on the 40 that we're overrating because so many are so bad that we're scared to lose him can we take off the 40? I'd say Burnett is the most likely candidate. At least with Thielbar, you have no real proof he's bad at the MLB level. Roenicke probably doesn't get much rope. Knowing the Twins, though, they'll decide Ryan Pressly has to go back to Boston so as not to hurt anyone's feelings.

Being worried about the Twins having too much middle infield talent the next couple years is an indicator that we should take nothing else you say seriously. As Kwak says, Dozier won't be blocking anybody (I'm sure he means anybody good). Right now the only player in the system who is in danger of being both good and in the MI is Rosario. The rest are mediocre or utility, with fingers crossed for Jorge Polanco.

Who would you rather have pitching for the Twins, Kevin Correia or Sam Deduno? My money's on the dizzy-eyed one.

Awesome. This rivals the Marquis signing. I can't think of any move that would be quite as stupid as this one. Congrats, Terry Ryan. For a moment there, I thought you had finally clued in. I now know you traded Ben Revere because you actually do think Aaron Hicks is ready, not because it was the right thing to do.