Article: Making Sense Of The Final Roster Decisions

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

  On 4/1/2016 at 9:24 PM, h2oface said:

"Crain in his worst year" means his career to you? I agree, the human memory is selective and often irrational.

Well, he never had a truly bad season unless you're counting the 16 innings during his injury-plagued 2007 season.

[sane16]

If Jesse Crain is a comparable measuring stick for a reliever, that reliever belongs on the Twins roster.

Crain may not have been the Twins closer, but he was seldom in danger of losing his job.

[h2oface]

 

  On 4/1/2016 at 9:28 PM, Brock Beauchamp said:

Well, he never had a truly bad season unless you're counting the 16 innings during his injury-plagued 2007 season.

 

If that was his worst year, thanks for confirming that, whatever year it was. It was the year his fastball totally flattened out, and he was even demoted to Rochester for a spell. It was only a descriptive phrase, not a debate on Crain. I think it was actually 2009, though, when he was healthy (and the look on his profusely sweating face for outing after outing was similar to Perkins in September last year), and again, it was just a descriptive phrase, and not an attempt to hijack the thread to start talking about Crain, nor make this a new discussion about advanced stats and whether I can like Tonkin or not and his straight but speedy fastball because I like the inherited runners scored stat.

Edited April 1, 2016 by h2oface

[Brock Beauchamp]

  On 4/1/2016 at 9:44 PM, h2oface said:

If that was his worst year, thanks for confirming that, whatever year it was. It was the year his fastball totally flattened out, and he was even demoted to Rochester for a spell. It was only a descriptive phrase, not a debate on Crain. I think it was actually 2009, though, and again, it was just a descriptive phrase, and not an attempt to hijack the thread to start talking about Crain.

Yep, no worries. We can drop it. Ancient history anyway.

[spinowner]

 

  On 4/1/2016 at 6:21 AM, h2oface said:

Inherited runners scored means a lot to me! It is not relief if the pitcher comes in and lets the runners on base score. If he needs a strikeout and a double play to get out of a bases loaded with no outs jam, that is relief. If the pitcher comes in and there is two outs and the bases loaded, and he gives up a bases clearing double and then gets a strikeout, his line looks pretty good while he lays three runs on the teammate he was supposed to offer relief to. I get FIP/xFIP, but inherited runners scored tells me a lot more about a pitchers moxy and guts and whether he can do his job as a relief pitcher, and that job is to shut the other team down, no matter what it takes. That is why they call it relief.

I agree with this. It's not just getting batters out it's when you get them out. It's very much analogous to BA with RISP.

Edited to add: I'm not a stat-head and I'm sure this can be modified to be more representative of a reliever's performance, for example using win-probs, but the concept remains the same. It's more important to get the more important outs and less important to get the less important outs.

Edited April 1, 2016 by spinowner

[USAFChief]

  On 4/1/2016 at 9:52 PM, spinowner said:

I agree with this. It's not just getting batters out it's when you get them out. It's very much analogous to BA with RISP.

Edited to add: I'm not a stat-head and I'm sure this can be modified to be more representative of a reliever's performance, for example using win-probs, but the concept remains the same. It's more important to get the more important outs and less important to get the less important outs.

True, except I sorta believe, over time, if you get the less important outs, you won't need to get the more important outs.

 

And if you can't do the former, I'm not going to give you many opportunities to do the latter.

[spinowner]

 

  On 4/2/2016 at 3:09 PM, USAFChief said:

True, except I sorta believe, over time, if you get the less important outs, you won't need to get the more important outs.

And if you can't do the former, I'm not going to give you many opportunities to do the latter.

Yep. The more less important outs you get, the fewer more important outs there are.

Edited April 2, 2016 by spinowner

[Twodogs]

 

  On 3/31/2016 at 12:42 PM, Brock Beauchamp said:

In theory, prospect trades are a great idea to shuffle around players based on team need.

 

In reality, they're hard to pull off for some reason. GMs simply don't do prospect swaps. Dunno why, exactly.

Probably the old adage a bird in the hand is worth 2 in the bush.  They have something that they know what they are capable of and they have a tough time trading it for something that they don't really know?  They do it in a heartbeat if they feel like they can get more back for the prospect, but even up trades are hard because they are probably just not familiar with the other guy in the deal.  So maybe they just go ahead and keep what they have?

 

I think back to the Restovich, Buchanon et al days.  I mean they had guys like Morneau, Hunter, all of those guys that you just knew were going to beat those other guys out.  So why didn't they trade those other guys when their value was high?  Most likely because they knew what they had, those other guys were capable, and if a couple of the dudes in front of them went down with injury or just didn't pan out they had someone else that could maybe produce.  So they held on to them.  Had they traded them they probably would have ended up with someone not quite as capable, but then again they may have found some diamond in the rough too?

 

JMO

[Twodogs]

 

  On 3/31/2016 at 3:22 PM, gocgo said:

I don't want to pee on anyone's parade here, but I posted on another link a quote in SI from a rival scout and as I remember it went something like this:

 

"If Nolasco is in the Twins rotation, then their rotation stinks"

 

That's pretty brutal.

 

It's also interesting that I see people wanting Plouffe traded and Sano moved to 3rd.  I get that, but the market for 3rd basemen wasn't high to begin with this offseason and Plouffe is not viewed outside of the Twins organization the way he is viewed by the Twins.  Outside of the Twins, he seems to be viewed as just OK.  Not an upgrade from what teams already have.  So, trading him isn't going to get much back.  I really thought they would move him to left field, put Sano at 3rd, and move Rosario to right, but I understand the reasons for not doing that too.

Well I wonder what that same scout thinks about Detroit's rotation??  Since Pelfrey is slated as their #4 starter??

[Brandon]

I like how our team has quality options all over the diamond throughout the season available if need be.

 

1B Mauer, Park, Sano, Kepler

2B Dozier, Polanco

SS Escobar (ok maybe not great options here) Santana and Polanco

3b Plouffe, Sano, Polanco

C  Suzuki, Murphy, Hicks (ok as a back up)

OF Buxton, Sano, Rosario,Arcia Kepler we even have solidback up options to be a 5th of in Mastoianni

DH Park, then just about anyone

 

SP Hughes, Santana, Nolasco, Millone, Gibson, then Berrios, Duffy, and May

 

RP we have a small army of relievers on the horizon almost ready. 

 

So we have flexibility and options and trade fuel should we need to exercise any of it over the next season.  after this season lots of decisions get made so we will likely loose some of our depth.  Also we have time.  What if Mauer struggles this year ....we can sign Plouffe to an extension and move Sano to 1rst.....If Nolasco is winning games we can keep him till July and trade or trade this next offseason for some value.  If that happens we still have Berrios and Duffy available to pitch in the rotation next year. 

[spinowner]

This is what the corner looks like. The one the team is turning.

[h2oface]

Somebody tell the pitchers that the season is starting now, please!

[jimmer]

 

  On 4/2/2016 at 9:18 PM, h2oface said:

Somebody tell the pitchers that the season is starting now, please!

They are pitching as if it was already 2 months in.