Article: Examining The Shortstop Options

[jimmer]

 

No, you seem to be misunderstanding that I want to place Gibson at anywhere near the level of Tulowitski.  Tulowitski has been and is an elite player.  Gibson appears to be trending towards an above average starter.  (Minus his May he's a top 30 picher in all of baseball in xFIP, ERA, and a variety of other meaningful statistics.  And even with his bad May he's a in the top 50 in many of these - making him a solidly entrenched #2 starter by many measures)

 

I just believe it's fair that if you're going to evaluate Gibson's value now and in the future that it's worthwhile to note he's been a far better pitcher the last three months than his cumulative numbers would indicate.

 

Much like it's fair for you to point out that any trend downward by Tulo is largely just a one month blip rather than a substantive decline.

I am cautiously optimistic that Gibson has turned a corner, I certainly want that to be the case, but that doesn't mean based on everything I've written, that I feel compelled to discard any info in Gibson due to having so little to use to begin with.  What do we do with his last start?

[TheLeviathan]

 

I am cautiously optimistic that Gibson has turned a corner, I certainly want that to be the case, but that doesn't mean based on everything I've written, that I feel compelled to discard any info in Gibson due to having so little to use to begin with.  What do we do with his last start?

 

With any young player, isn't the most recent, consistent data the most relevant?  Do we hold 2012 against Dozier or worry more about the player he is today?

[jimmer]

 

1) He is currently above average by a decent margin.  So this is already wrong.

 

2) "most pitchers are who they are" is deliberately holding something against him that wasn't within his control.  It's far more relevant to analyze how he has developed since his debut.

He's above average by a decent margin based on what? Being tied for 57th out of 94 qualifying SPs in WAR? Being 59th out of 94 in FIP? 76th out of 94 in K/9?

[TheLeviathan]

 

He's above average by a decent margin based on what? Being tied for 57th out of 94 qualifying SPs in WAR? Being 59th out of 94 in FIP? 76th out of 94 in K/9?

 

43rd in xFIP, 27th in ERA, 35th in soft contact - and all of that is with his god awful April dragging him down.  Since May he's been well above average.

[jimmer]

 

With any young player, isn't the most recent, consistent data the most relevant?  Do we hold 2012 against Dozier or worry more about the player he is today?

Dozier's WAR his first year as a full time starter (2013) was a 2.6, then 4.8 and he's on pace for another high 4 WAR this year. I'm not sure Gibson and Dozier equate.  But I agree the last three years are the most prevalent for any player, assuming he has played that long. What have we seen in that time frame from Gibson?

Edited July 23, 2015 by jimmer

[TheLeviathan]

 

Dozier's WAR his first year as a full time starter (2013) was a 2.6, then 4.8 and he's on pace for another high 4 WAR this year. I'm not sure Gibson and Dozier equate.  But I agree the last three years are the most prevalent for any player, assuming he has played that long. What have we seen in that time frame from Gibson?

 

No equation was set up, please see the point for what it was, not what allows you to make a strawman.  Young players have to be watched in smaller samples by the nature of being new to the league.  We may be seeing the best we'll see from Gibson, but if he can maintain this it's an above average starting pitcher.  That's what I see the last three months and is the most relevant for evaluating his future.

[jimmer]

 

43rd in xFIP, 27th in ERA, 35th in soft contact - and all of that is with his god awful April dragging him down.  Since May he's been well above average.

If we are dissecting his months...His God awful April?  With his ERA of 4.84? Are we ignoring his June? ERA of 4.70?

 

Half his months this season, he's been at 4.70 ERA or higher.  Did his April and June drag him down or did his very good May and July pull him up?

Edited July 23, 2015 by jimmer

[TheLeviathan]

 

If we are dissecting his months...His God awful April?  With his ERA of 4.84? Are we ignoring his June? ERA of 4.70?

 

Half his months this season, he's been at 4.70 ERA or higher.  Did his April and June drag him down or did his very good May and July pull him up?

 

Except his peripherals in June were similar to May and July, his peripherals in April don't even look like the same player.  

[jimmer]

 

Except his peripherals in June were similar to May and July, his peripherals in April don't even look like the same player.  

except one of the three stats you JUST used to say he was above average was ERA. (while I used FIP, K/9 and WAR).  So we don;t use ERA on a month to month basis to evaluate? We toss out two months worth of ERA that drag him down and include the two months of ERA that don't and use the overall as a stat to point to as him being above average by a decent margin?

Edited July 23, 2015 by jimmer

[curt1965]

Santana is dead last among position players in WAR this year. Why is anyone comfortable with that?

Because, Mike, the Twins need to desperately find a SS, and Santana is their best option right now. Not Escobar, Nunez, or Polanco. I have to hand it to Mollie, he knows this and has given Danny about 40 chances so far this year. And EVERYONE is right: he hasn't done the job this year so far. But...... the Twins were 9 games over .500 at the break, and does anyone think they would be significantly better if someone else in the Twins system had played there?

Seth did a super job of explaining the options. The FA options next year are not exciting, to say the least.

So what are you going to do, Twins fans? My choice, while not being the popular one on TD, would be to give Santana the job until further notice.

[Brock Beauchamp]

except one of the three stats you JUST used to say he was above average was ERA. (while I used FIP, K/9 and WAR)

There is one month where every one of Gibson's stats is unlike the other months. That is April.

 

As I pointed out in another thread, it wasn't hard to spot the evolution of Kyle Gibson going back to last year if you were paying attention. In 75-80% of his starts, he was either stellar (4 ER). IIRC, he had about five "mediocre" starts. That's... Strange. When examining a player in his first full season, that's a very promising sign even if the aggregate stats completely miss those nuances by adding stellar and awful to equal mediocre.

 

Which is why you sometimes need to look past the aggregate stats when dealing with young players and why career stats are basically junk.

[TheLeviathan]

 

except one of the three stats you JUST used to say he was above average was ERA. (while I used FIP, K/9 and WAR).  So we don;t use ERA on a month to month basis to evaluate?

 

Yes, let's continue to use ERA.  I'm evaluating Gibson based on consistent peripherals since May and the results those have yielded: an above average major league starter.  And yes, that includes one month where his ERA wasn't sterling.  I cited ERA as a stat that helps show his success, but there are others.  In fact, I'd argue, many of the best pitching stats for evaluation would show that success if we omitted April.

 

Alas, Fangraphs doesn't allow me to go just from May until now.

Edited July 23, 2015 by TheLeviathan

[gil4]

 

It appears the Twins are viewing Eduardo Escobar's 2014 season as a fluke, and Danny Santana's 2014 season as not a fluke.

Or maybe Escobar gets bench because he misses a sign occasionally, or does some other little thing that the coaches don't appreciate, and Santana gets the start because he tries hard and needs the repetitions. Not sure what's going on.

 

It definitely is puzzling, I'm not sure what's going on either, but it sure seems like there must be something we can't see.  Right now I prefer Escobar to any of the other options, and Santana really needs to go down.  He has just been horrible all year.

[jimmer]

 

Yes, let's continue to use ERA.  I'm evaluating Gibson based on consistent peripherals since May and the results those have yielded: an above average major league starter.  And yes, that includes one month where his ERA wasn't sterling.  

Except it wasn't one month where his ERA wasn't stellar it was two.  Two out of four.  But hey, I'm not the one who even likes to point to ERA as an kind of telling stat anyway.  At least not on a year to year basis. I wasn't the one who pointed it out as a stat to consider to begin with. But if you are going to look at monthly ERAs and include or exclude as a basis of performance, look at them all individually. That would require looking at June's 4.70 ERA too.

 

And if we want to say April was an outlier for his ERA this year and discard it as more or less meaningless in regards to his current ability, why isn't the May ERA too? Because that was amazingly awesome, no?  But we have no problem including that in his actual performance evaluation? We think an ERA of 1.36 is closer to his true ERA, with those peripherals?  

Edited July 23, 2015 by jimmer

[TheLeviathan]

 

 But if you are going to look at monthly ERAs and include or exclude as a basis of performance, look at them all individually. That would require looking at June's 4.70 ERA too.

 

And if we want to say April was an outlier for his ERA this year and discard it as more or less meaningless in regards to his current ability, why isn't the May ERA too? Because that was amazingly awesome, no?  But we have no problem including that in his actual performance evaluation? We think an ERA of 1.36 is closer to his true ERA, with those peripherals?  

 

 I don't know how you keep going off the rails here, but I never excluded his June ERA.  I didn't look at monthly ERAs - I looked at monthly peripherals.  I excluded April on the basis of those, not his ERA.  

 

Even with that poor ERA in June, he's still been above average - as have many of his key peripherals.  The only one that isn't is K/9 but that just isn't ever going to be his style.   Everything else has trended very well the last three months.

 

Edited July 23, 2015 by TheLeviathan

[Brock Beauchamp]

While you two can go around about Gibson all night, there's one very revealing stat:

 

For the past 80-90 innings, Kyle has approached one strikeout per inning (somewhere around 8 per 9).

 

Strikeouts, unlike ERA or almost any other stat, are generally not prone to wild fluctuation with moderate sample sizes. This turn in Gibson's career arc is likely not anomalous because pitchers rarely get lucky by missing bats en masse.

 

Add in Gibson's continued ground ball dominance and you have a pitcher that looks to sustain some level of above average performance.

[jimmer]

Let's hope those Ks continue as well as the other peripherals trending so well the last select months.

[Brock Beauchamp]

Let's hope those Ks continue as well as the other peripherals trending so well the last select months.

Well, what's important is the groundball rate (highly repeatable) and the K rate (a new addition but likely repeatable). If those two things are in place, Gibson is an above average pitcher. He's never had a real issue with walks so that's not a concern.

 

Im bullish on the K rate staying high because he has carried it over a dozen starts. Striking out 2-3 more batters per game means he's getting 5-10 more swings and misses per outing. That's up to 10% of his total pitches per start. It's highly unlikely that's luck. Maybe over 2-3 starts but not a dozen. That's the equivalent of getting 100 lucky pitches where the batter simply missed the ball. It doesn't add up.

[Mike Sixel]

 

Because, Mike, the Twins need to desperately find a SS, and Santana is their best option right now. Not Escobar, Nunez, or Polanco. I have to hand it to Mollie, he knows this and has given Danny about 40 chances so far this year. And EVERYONE is right: he hasn't done the job this year so far. But...... the Twins were 9 games over .500 at the break, and does anyone think they would be significantly better if someone else in the Twins system had played there?
Seth did a super job of explaining the options. The FA options next year are not exciting, to say the least.
So what are you going to do, Twins fans? My choice, while not being the popular one on TD, would be to give Santana the job until further notice.

 

It's a fair stance to take, if you think Santana is a prospect to be a legit MLB SS. I don't share that belief, but if that is their belief, I am glad that they are sticking with it.

 

My choice would be to go with Escobar, who is about the same level prospect in my mind.

[Brock Beauchamp]

Whether Santana is the best prospect at short is irrelevant because in the here and now, he's one of the worst position players in baseball.

Should Aaron Hicks have spent all of 2013 on the Twins because he was their "best" prospect? Of course not, that's ridiculous. Hicks wasn't learning in 2013. He was getting the **** kicked out of him on a nightly basis. That's not productive for the team and it's not productive for the player.

2015 Danny Santana is 2013 Aaron Hicks. They were/are "learning" at the MLB level the same way I'd "learn" how to box by getting in the ring with Floyd Mayweather.

[Brock Beauchamp]

Actually, scratch one part of that post.

 

2013 Aaron Hicks was better than 2015 Danny Santana by pretty much every standard you can grade a player (OPS, defense, WAR, whatever).

 

All of you Santana supporters, let that sink in for a moment. 

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

But...... the Twins were 9 games over .500 at the break, and does anyone think they would be significantly better if someone else in the Twins system had played there?

Eduardo Escobar posted a 2.5 WAR in just over 400 PAs last season with the vast majority of his innings coming at short.

 

It's not only possible the Twins would be a few games better than they are now with a different player at short, it'd be hard not to be a few games better. Santana is one of, if not the, worst position player in baseball this season. At that point, it's hard not to improve.

[RedBull34]

Situation to think about.

 

Dozier to SS (I know).

Polanco to 2B.

 

Probably more of an Offseason move.

Edited July 23, 2015 by RedBull34

[John Kelsey]

I can't believe anyone is ok with Santana still starting at short; he's a trainwreck. 

 

Stick Escobar there and be done with it. 

[nicksaviking]

 

So you take the best defensive 2B in the league and put him at a position he's not used to anymore, then take a minor leaguer that's not quite an mlb ready SS and put him at 2B, where he hasn't been playing. Or Rosario, who also didn't show much at 2B.

 

Going for a high 1st round pick in 2016?

 

No, I just care that much less about defense than I do offense. 

 

Besides, Dozier wouldn't be half as helpless as you'd imply.  Santana's UZR is -9.7 and the guy that's splitting the site in half, Troy Tulowitzky is at -7.7.  Dozier is a better defensive 2B than Stephen Drew and Chris Owings who both player SS last year.

[nicksaviking]

 

WAR is a counting stat....accumulated by the time on the field. He's been so good, that even playing limited time, he's helped his team win as many games as Dozier does in 158 games a year or so.....So, his WAR takes into account the time missed.

 

Yes, but then if we are using WAR when considering how helpful he is to the team we can't simply give him an N/A for the times he sits on the bench, we would need to be subtracting Santana's negative WAR from his total.  It wouldn't take much of a decline from Tulowitzki for that number to become a Push.

[Mike Sixel]

 

Yes, but then if we are using WAR when considering how helpful he is to the team we can't simply give him an N/A for the times he sits on the bench, we would need to be subtracting Santana's negative WAR from his total.  It wouldn't take much of a decline from Tulowitzki for that number to become a Push.

 

But I'd have Esco there.....so the negative WAR is zero

 

 

nana nana, boo boo, I win!

 

Sorry, on an awful work call, really needed to be silly for a second.....

[jimbo92107]

 

No, I just care that much less about defense than I do offense. 

 

Besides, Dozier wouldn't be half as helpless as you'd imply.  Santana's UZR is -9.7 and the guy that's splitting the site in half, Troy Tulowitzky is at -7.7.  Dozier is a better defensive 2B than Stephen Drew and Chris Owings who both player SS last year.

Two good points.

Still easier to just play Escobar at SS, or (my rec) bring up Polanco and leave Dozier be. This team does need to try several things if they want to compete with the big boys, including bringing up some boppers like Arcia, Vargas, and Kepler. This should be a year of free-wheeling tryouts for lots of prospects.

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

Two good points.

Still easier to just play Escobar at SS, or (my rec) bring up Polanco and leave Dozier be. This team does need to try several things if they want to compete with the big boys, including bringing up some boppers like Arcia, Vargas, and Kepler. This should be a year of free-wheeling tryouts for lots of prospects.

I'd play fast and loose with Arcia and Vargas but Kepler is just getting his feet under him. Due to growing up in Germany and getting injured, I think slow and steady is the right path for Max.

[jimmer]

 

Two good points.

Still easier to just play Escobar at SS, or (my rec) bring up Polanco and leave Dozier be. This team does need to try several things if they want to compete with the big boys, including bringing up some boppers like Arcia, Vargas, and Kepler. This should be a year of free-wheeling tryouts for lots of prospects.

Twins would deserve a beating if they moved Dozier off 2B.