I think everyone would agree that the Twins greatest need is starting pitching. In order to get major league starting pitching, the Twins probably need to offer starting pitching prospects. Look at all of the Oakland deals where they traded established pitching for pitching prospects. The Twins don't have starting pitching prospects to offer. Conversely, the most attractive way to get starting pitching prospects is to trade major league ready starting pitching. Twins certainly don't have st
One of the questions the Twins must be asking is whether Brian Dozier will retain his value. We have seen his streakiness in season, but season to season he has been pretty reliable. I do wonder if hitters with his characteristics (pull hitters, fly ball hitters, relatively high ISO, right handed) tend to be more streaky within season. On the other hand, slash stats don't stabilize short of a full season and really aren't very meaningful in splits. We shouldn't expect them to be reliable by th
The contrast in rebuild between the a White a Sox and Twins is shown in the acquisition of 27 and under players since last opening day. White Sox Adam Eaton Adrian Nieto Avisail Garcia Jose Abreau Leary Garcia Maikel Clato Conor Gilaspie almost makes the list. He was acquired last spring training. Twins Phil Hughes (actually it is his age 28 season and he is older than any of the White Sox 7) There has been an argument that the Twins can't go young because they don't gave any
The Twins have invested over 100 million dolars in their pitching rotation buying 8 seasons of starting pitching. What can they expect for their $100,000,000? I started with Ervin Santana looking for a similar group. From ages 27-31 he has performed at a 99 ERA+ with about 1000 innings pitched. I wondered how other groups of pitchers performed from ages 27-31. With the help of BR's play index, I searched for all pitchers since 1975 who have pitched at least 900 innings in their age 27 through
I thought and hoped this would be the year where the Twins would go with youth. I should have known better. The direction for the winter roster construction was made clear when they retained Josh Willingham last August. Earl Battey was the catcher when I first became a young Twin fan. I recall his western oil 8x10 card hanging my wall among other Twin heroes. Those years were great. I didn't know how lucky I was to follow a team that was competitive or at least entertaining every year. There h
In the spring of 2018 the Twins traded Luis Gil for Jake Cave. At the time of the trade Luis Gil had been in the Twin organization since 2015. He had thrown 65 innings over those three years with 73 strike outs and 46 walks. He did not pitch due to a shoulder injury in 2016 and had yet to pitch in rookie ball. He did not make Seth Stoh's 2018 prospect handbook. He did have a big fastball. In July of that season the Twins traded Fernando Rodney for Dakota Chalmers. Chalmers was injured at the t
This Twins team is not a playoff team. That shouldn't be a surprise. The over under 73 wins looks generous now. They are not 15 million dollars or a serviceable reliever away from 90 wins. At some point this season it will be time to invest playing time in the future in spite of the growing pains. As I chose a date to put in the headline, I tried to account for the "Super Two" arbitration deadline. There will be some players with 2+ years of service time that will be eligible for arbitration f
The Twins waited a few years before they made their first winter meeting trade. In December of 1964 they traded Gerry Arrigo to the Reds for minor league infielder Cesar Tovar. It was a trade of two 23 year olds. Arrigo made his debut in 1961 and played his first full season with the Twins in 1964. He was a left handed starter pitching in a "plug in starter/long relief" role that year. He finished the season 7-4 with a 3.84 ERA. He struck out 96 batters and walked 45 in 105 innings. He was a p
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 mi
I have a little different format for this one as much has been written about Perkins. Dave Schoenfield's article recommending the Twins trade Glen Perkins in "Another Reason Closers are Overated". As I read his article is whether he was asking the right questions. The question should really be what happens to closers the following year. It should be how many teams have the same closer. How effective can we expect Perkins to remain in the next 2-3 years? As the Twins consider trading Glenn P
The Twins signed to veteran back of the rotation starters last winter. Is it possible they might flip them in a midseason trade? Kevin Correia whose best skill might be his reliable health has performed at an ERA+ of 99 (essentially league average) this year. Mike Pelfrey is coming off injury and started poorly. He needs to put up a string of good starts in order to show that he is healthy. Neither player has a contract that is going to scare off a team. Earlier I look at previous LOOGY trad
One of the players this board has discussed trading is Brian Duensing. The thought is other teams might look to him as a left handed LOOGY. His line 5.06 ERA, 41g, 32in, 29k, 14bb (over his career left handed hitters have a .580 OPS) Why trade him? Brian is 30. He will be eligible for arbitration next year. He would likely be non-tendered. Caleb Thielbar appears to be the better option with Pedro Hernandez providing depth. Why keep him? He certainly isn’t at peak value now and has never b
Thinking back on the trade in the context of the market, I do think the new CBA played a part in depressing this year's trade market. An additional wild card team should have led to more buyers. I am not so certain it did. At the time Liriano as traded, I was interested to see what kinds of deals were made for starting pitchers on deadline day. After the Liriano deal, two starting pitchers were traded. That surprised me. I expected more. It leads me to wonder how many teams were so interested
In the current era of baseball it doesn't make sense to quantify pitchers as #X starter. It used to be that #1 or #2 starters would get more starts because they would skip over guys at the back end of the rotation. I think Verlander and the Tigers are the only team that did that with any consistency. Virtually all teams roll their starters so that all slots get about the same number of starts. Even when the opportunity at the all star break comes to skip some starts at the back end, those oppo
Reading the article on the first big Twin trade, helped me recall the first three Minnesota Twin trades that were minor on the field yet involving three legends. Ernie Oravetz was traded for Ed Palmquist and Joe Altobelli. All three were career minor leaguers and Palmquist and Altobelli did play some for the Twins after they acquired them. Altobelli managed in the major leagues for the Giants, Orioles and Cubs. He won a World Series for the Orioles. People in Rochester know him as Mr. Baseba
Everyone knows that pitchers have much more difficulty the third time through the lineup. Right? Isn't this established baseball knowledge? Data does back it up. Anecdotally we hear stats on almost every baseball broadcast about how much poorer a pitcher performs his third time through the order. League wide there is data to support this claim. According to OPS+ here is how starting pitchers have performed the first, second and third time through the order this season. PA#1: 91 OPS+ PA#2: 10
A common thought among baseball fans like... "Since there are a larger number of starting pitchers on the free agent market, it is good for my team because we need pitching" I would like to challenge that argument. I do believe a larger market can be an advantage for some teams. I don't believe that a larger market can be good for every team that needs pitching. Many teams need pitching. If the market is an advantage for some, doesn't it need to be a disadvantage for others? In a large mar
There are two teams with winning records the last three seasons in the Grapefruit League. The Twins and Tigers. In fact, the Twins have the longest string of winning records and haven't had a losing season since 2007 thanks to the performance of players like Aaron Hicks, Luke Hughes, Cole DeVries and Matt Maloney. ... and it means nothing. Spring training records and individual stat lines have no meaning. They shouldn't be used to argue that one player or another should make the roster.
Steamer projections are available for 2016. Steamer uses the last three seasons of data to project the 2016 season. It is easy to write projections off as "guesses" but they are based on a significant amount of historical data. If interested you can read more about the various projection systems and rankings for 2014 here. Projected Twin starters with games started, ERA and their rank (compared to the 169 pitchers with 20 projected starts). I use ERA because it is projected performance that is
Baker doesn't appear close to ready. Marquis is not in camp. Is it possible that both will not be in the rotation as the Twins break camp? Who is in line to get those starts? Any signs of the Twins stretching out some of the players pegged for a relief role? What is the succession order? Liam Hendriks Anthony Swarzak Brian Duensing Matt Maloney Jeff Manship Seth may be able to help with this... what is the projected starting rotation at Rochester? How close are PJ Walters and Luke French
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
Sample sizes for a few ratios are becoming large enough to consider. For pitchers, strike out rate stabilizes at 70 batters faced and ground ball and fly ball rate stabilizes at 70 balls in play. By stabilizing, that doesn’t necessarily mean it is the new expected rate. It does mean that any significant changes from previous year cannot be written off to small sample size. For minor leaguers a drop or change likely coincides with a step up in classification and the necessary adjustment. It is al
Another post suggested the Twins flip Diamond for Hendriks if he doesn't turn it around by the end of the month. It has been on my mind as I listened to the Gardenhire show yesterday morning and the post game conference following the game. If Diamond is to get a handful more starts before flipping him for Hendriks, can he at least have a different catcher. Doumit doesn't catch often but he has caught 11 of 16 Diamond starts. Gardy quoted ERA as a reason. Hopefully someone in the organizat
Brad Radke was drafted 25 years ago. He arrived in 1995 and averaged over 30 starts a year through 2006. The Twins haven't developed a pitcher of his quality since. I wondered about today's better pitchers. What were their numbers in the minors? In particular I wondered about strike outs and walks. Those numbers are relatively fielding independent. I went to fangraphs as teams were hitting the 81 game point in the season. Starting with 2013 through mid 2016, I sorted the pitchers by fWAR and p
There are all kinds of questions surrounding whether the Twins should trade Santana. The market is a huge factor. Is it better to keep him given the limited options in or outside the organization? Is it better to trade him given the demand and supply? Will the demand be greater in July? My interest is exploring the likelihood that he will continue to be a valuable pitcher for the next three seasons that the Twins can control. I looked for a similar group of pitchers with a healthy track rec
I really hold back what I would like to say about then payroll arguments here. The fact that people don't accept the amount taken in dictates the amount going out requires one of two things. Extreme financial ignorance or fanatical bias that prevents the acceptance of something some basic. I did not change the argument. It's the same idiocy over and over. Do you really want to be on the side that suggests revenues does not determine spending capacity?
At this point in the pre-season, I’m just so happy to be seeing games again, I don’t care about the Twins record in 2023. I think they’ll win it all, unrealistically speaking 🙂
I really hold back what I would like to say about then payroll arguments here. The fact that people don't accept the amount taken in dictates the amount going out requires one of two things. Extreme financial ignorance or fanatical bias that prevents the acceptance of something some basic. I did not change the argument. It's the same idiocy over and over. Do you really want to be on the side that suggests revenues does not determine spending capacity?· 0 replies
