Other Baseball

http://deadspin.com/jonathan-papelbon-and-bryce-harper-brawl-in-nationals-d-1733270056 The gift that keeps on giving, gives some more. I guess this is the opposite side of the 'chemistry matters' coin. Papelbon apparently attacked Bryce Harper (the face of the freaking franchise) for not running out a pop up. It looks like a pretty good tussle, actually. When the Nats traded for Papelbon, the were 1 game ahead of the Mets. Since that trade, which angered their very good closer, Drew Storen who took the demotion very poorly, the Nats have gone 27-29 and fallen out of the playoff race. Nats fans are taking this well - http://www.federalbaseball.com/2015/9/27/940374…

Just a scant 25 years after the best World Series of my lifetime, if just for arguably the best game 7 of all time, the Twins and Braves will hook up again next season as the NL East and AL Central are interleague foes. The Twins are due to host the Braves, though it hasn't always worked that home sites rotate perfectly with the non-mirror divisions when they pop up every few years. In 2013, the Braves swept a 3-game series in Atlanta May 20-22, outscoring the Twins 18-8. In 2010, the Braves took 2 of 3 in Minnesota June 11-13, outscoring the Twins 11-7 over the three game set. In 2007, the Twins swept a 3-game series in Minnesota June 12-14, outscoring the Braves 1…

Apparently, ESPN isn't going to do chats anymore. That was one of the few reasons I kept going back to them. Nearly all the crap I want to read is on their insider now except for the sweetspot and Caple articles. Bummer.

1. The adjective "electric" as applied to pitcher's stuff. Hack announcers have now claimed so many pitchers to have "electric" stuff that bullpens need to be grounded and catchers mitts need to be UL tested. 2. Feigning indifference in dugouts after noteworthy hits. It was cute and funny the first time. Not so much the 600th time. Ditto the obligatory towel of shaving cream in the face during post-game interviews. 3. Managers and coaches still wearing uniforms. Most of them just pull smocks on over their uniforms anyway to cover up their beer guts. Gardy and Scioscia should have been allowed to wear bowling shirts if they wanted. Teams would then also have more pr…

was the epic final day of the 2011 MLB season. How history would have been changed under the current playoff format.

Saw this snippet on the web on how he has been torrid, not horrid of late: http://fantasynews.cbssports.com/fantasybaseball/update/25318534 Happy to hear he's playing again - hadn't heard.

Hey ya'll, As you know, I was a big fan of former Twins minor league infielder Steve Singleton. The #FreeSteveSingleton thing was always fun. He reached AAA before being let go by the Twins. He recently was named the hitting coach of a college in Ft. Myers. He and his wife have two boys (4 and 2). Recently, the two-year-old was diagnosed with Leukemia. He will be going through chemotherapy and more for quite some time. Friends of the family started a Go Fund Me page for Matt and the hashtag #TeamMattMan is out there. Read more about the family and if you have any interest, feel free to donate. Thanks for reading.

R.I.P. Yogi Berra, who passed away from natural causes today. Yogi was a legend on the field, and even more legendary with his quotes over his career. I wanted to create a forum so we could share our favorite Yogi-isms. "If I didn’t make it in baseball, I won’t have made it workin’. I didn’t like to work." - Yogi Berra

http://grantland.com/the-triangle/2015-mlb-statcast-baserunning-data-ichiro-suzuki/ Eddie Rosario appeared in the "top 10 average max speed" list, and Mauer made an appearance at the end. Mauer's not that much slower than Charlie Blackmon (who has 40 SB) but Mauer is one of the worst and getting leads and Blackmon is one of the best. Anyway, I thought that was interesting and in general it was a pretty interesting article

They have gone 29-16 since August 1st. When they traded for Hamels I thought the were crazy. He hasn't even been that good for them either. In the playoffs though, he could be a big factor.

1,000th topic in this thread, so I say we do a game. Each post in this thread names a Major League Baseball player. Let's see if we can get up to 1,000 with no duplicates. Can be current or past major leaguers, no minor leaguers. I will start: Julio Franco

Curious how everyone/anyone would rank the value of each of the stats below? It's given the list covers a broad range of categories and different types of players/contributions...that's the point...what advanced stats do you rank most helpful and ultimately give the most weight (regardless of specific context)? Are there traditional stats that are valuable enough to be ranked here too? Of Course, any additional favorite stats initially left out below are welcome as "write in votes" (eg. Adopt a Stat). Win Probability Added (WPA) Wins Above Replacement (WAR) Isolated Power (ISO) OPS+ Weighted On-Base Average (wOBA) Weighted Runs Created+ (wRC+) ERA+ K% and BB% Battin…

When major league baseball was first made in 1901 who were the teams in the league? Thanks.

If the Twins didn't let Ortiz walk over 1.5 million, how many more playoff series and World Series would they have won? I'm saying minimum of 4 more playoff series and at least one World Series title. Congrats on 500 HR big Papi!

I figured we needed a thread for all our in-season non-Twins related thoughts... I'll start everyone's year off right with a little piece of baseball porn that is known as Andrelton Simmons, or Simba: http://streamable.com/gcl5

I have to create a thread like this every year. Scully is losing his touch but I'll cut him some slack, as he's roughly 1,946 years old in dog years. But Jesus Christ, if you haven't listened to at least 20 Scully games in your life, you've missed out on one of the most beautiful things to ever happen to the sport of baseball. I listened to Buck (could catch Cards games over the radio) growing up and he was fantastic but for my (non) dollar, Vin Scully is the greatest announcer in the history of sports and it's not even close (I love you Costas but even you'd admit you're no Scully). I don't know when Scully might call his last season but doggonnit, it's basically S…

This week at the No Juice Podcast, MLB.com's Rhett Bollinger provided his Top 5 Ballpark in Major League Baseball. What are you top ballparks in MLB? Any parks that are no longer in existence?

Texas has closed to one game behind the Astros and the two teams are tied in the loss column. It looks to me like the Rangers have a real good chance to overtake Houston and claim the AL West crown. It means that the Twins would have to catch the Astros for the final playoff position (second Wild Card). Houston and Texas play each seven times the rest of the way and the good news is that someone will lose each one of those games. I have a playoff related question as well: if Houston, Texas and Minnesota all finish the regular season with the same record, do the Twins automatically get the second Wild Card? My thought is that is the case because Texas and Houston would p…

Another GM bites the dust. Quite the fall from the heady "#6 org" days. The asst GM he brought with him didnt even last this long...Blengino writes for Fangraphs these days.

Okay, so this has been driving me nuts for a long time. The ~$26m owed to Ricky Nolasco is not a sunk cost. Nor is the Ervin Santana or Joe Mauer money. Why? Because the money has not been spent. It has been committed but not spent. Unspent - but committed - money can sometimes be offloaded, thereby removing the burden. A sunk cost cannot be recovered or refunded. Period. Full stop. https://www.boundless.com/finance/textbooks/boundless-finance-textbook/capital-budgeting-11/cash-flow-analysis-and-other-factors-95/sunk-costs-415-7248/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_costs The Twins have fixed costs, not sunk costs. Please stop using this phrase. It's …

How sad and depressing is it to watch the Twins playing in such a crappy stadium. I am still in disbelief how bad the turf looks in the outfield and how empty the place is. MLB do the Rays a favor and get the ball rolling and have them in Montreal ASAP. Pray for 2016 or 2017 Rays fans.

A pretty fun read from grantland.

The Washington Post this morning has an interesting article on the analytics of keeping players healthy... This will be an interesting trend. The article speaks to more than just baseball, but it will be interesting to see where this goes. IT's really still in its infancy.

Does this make anyone else who follows the drafts feel a little queasy? I'm not typically one for petty grumbles here. Just makes me sick knowing how much better I'd sleep at night if we could pencil in Turner for at least adequate SS play for the next few years. And I'm relatively high on Gordon; I just don't expect any realistic contributions for at least 3+ years. Turner was thought of as a top 5 pick heading into draft season, but had some leg injuries (one of his best tools is speed) and an up and down draft year. I still was pulling for him and was quite surprised when he fell to 13.

http://static01.mediaite.com/med/wp-content/uploads/gallery/republican-sports-stars/cal-ripken-jr.png On the occasion of Cal Ripken Jr’s 55th birthday, I looked back at his playing record and was struck by the fact that Cal, who played 21 seasons with the Baltimore Orioles, won the AL MVP award and played in his only World Series in his second full season (defeating the Phillies) never made it back. In the 18 seasons that followed for Cal, the closest the Baltimore Orioles got was losing in the ALCS to the Yankees in 1996 and the Indians in 1997. As deservedly recognized and revered as Ripken was, (Rookie of the Year, 2 MVPs, 2 Gold Gloves, 8 Silver Sluggers, 19 All-…

Everyone loves a good milestone chase, and everyone should love Ichiro Suzuki too. For several years now we've been able to speculate on the rest of Ichiro's career and project him somewhere very close to 3000 hits. It's never seemed clear cut either way which is fun. At the end of July, however, it was not looking good. He was sitting at 2901 hits, but was batting under .250 with only 57 hits on the year. It seemed probable that it would take him another 2 seasons to reach 3000, and his performance didn't make it likely that many teams would be interested in having him on their roster next year. But August has been different. August has been vintage Ichiro. He'…

Greetings, I am 1490, I am a four-year lurker for Twins Daily, and this is my first post. Why now? Well, frankly, I feel like I can actually contribute with a valuable discussion that I don’t think has really ever been had since I’ve been lurking (perhaps it has and I missed it, but I digress), and as I was browsing B-Ref the other day, I stumbled across something that perturbed me quite a bit about WAR. I like advanced metrics. I like them a lot. I believe they have had a fantastic impact on the sport and is beginning to force the average fan to consider baseball matters more thoroughly in order to keep up (in other words, it forces people to use their brain more, wh…

One of my favorite and in my opinion one of baseball's most unheralded players ever made two fantastic plays at third base last night. 404 career HRs (a rare club at 3rd base), closing in on 2,700 hits, and an elite defender. Does he make it to the HOF? Or does he need either those 300 more hits or 96 more taters?

So the A's are calling up the first (that I know of) ambidextrous pitcher Pat Venditte. He was in the majors briefly earlier this year. Venditte isn' exactly a prospect at 30 years old, but it's an interesting story. He's got pretty decent career minor league numbers for a relief pitcher as his career WHIP is 1.07. He strikes out a batter per inning, and he has a pretty respectable walk rate. Because of his unique ability to throw with both hands, MLB added a rule basically saying that the pitcher has to declare which arm he's using so that the batter can change if needed, so in a switch hitting scenario, the batter had the advantage. The other big thing is that he …

The two cleanup hitters are Valencia and Colabello.