Is Gibson back?

[rujellis]

 

Twins do not have any aces, so the place to make up ground is at the tailend of the rotation.  Would be nice to have a #3/#4 type there to face the oppositions #5, with a decent chance to win 60 - 65% of these games. 

 

Now in fairness, i am absolutely just picking random pitchers that fit my arguments  ...but 60-65% for a #3/#4 seems a bit high.  Now as I said, I have not done any in depth research, but top 50 pitchers in career win% is between 63-79%.  Next 50 is between 60-63%.  

 

This group between 60-63% includes Greg Maddux, Sale, Arrieta, Grienke, Jimmy Key, Roy Oswalt, Sabathia, Verlander, Cy Young, Feller, Newcombe, Marichal, etc.

 

No real point other than,  I would be ecstatic if a #3/4 could win 60-65% of their games.  The above can certainly be dismissed as evidence of how little value we should put in 'Wins', but for some teams a pitcher that wins 60% of their games is likely considered their ace.

 

 

[Thrylos]

 

I'm not sure why the words "dominant ace" were used, but there's really nothing physically that separates him from Rick Porcello.

 

Who said that Porcello was ever an Ace? 

 

R.A. Dickey, Bartolo Colón, Pat Hentgen, Mark Davis, Brandon Webb, and Twins' very own Steve Bedrosian won a Cy Young award and they have never been "Aces".

 

About that word, Ace.   It means different things to different people.   I use it to mean a top 5% pitcher who will be the best pitcher in his team in almost any team.  

 

People use it sometimes to describe the best pitcher of a particular team, and usually modify the word, by indicating the team.  As in DickNBert's: "Scott Diamond is the Twins' Ace".

 

So:  Gibson is not an Ace and is not close of being the "Twins' Ace".   Same with Porcello and Boston.

 

 

[beckmt]

 

Now in fairness, i am absolutely just picking random pitchers that fit my arguments  ...but 60-65% for a #3/#4 seems a bit high.  Now as I said, I have not done any in depth research, but top 50 pitchers in career win% is between 63-79%.  Next 50 is between 60-63%.  

 

This group between 60-63% includes Greg Maddux, Sale, Arrieta, Grienke, Jimmy Key, Roy Oswalt, Sabathia, Verlander, Cy Young, Feller, Newcombe, Marichal, etc.

 

No real point other than,  I would be ecstatic if a #3/4 could win 60-65% of their games.  The above can certainly be dismissed as evidence of how little value we should put in 'Wins', but for some teams a pitcher that wins 60% of their games is likely considered their ace.

You seemed to have missed my point.  I am talking not about winning percentage, but winning percentage against a mismatch opponent.  Given most #5 starters are not that good a better pitcher in that position should be able to take advantage of the matchup.  Twins should do enough damage against the #5 starter for other teams, that a quality start(ERA 4.5) should be able to win a number of those games.

[Loosey]

 

   I use it to mean a top 5% pitcher who will be the best pitcher in his team in almost any team.  

 

 

I like 5% as the official ACE metric.

 

Using a blanket assumption that at any given point in time there are 5 starters in a rotation and 30 teams.  Top 5% gives you 7.5 Aces.  

 

That's my new metric.

 

Using that Metric My Aces are:

 

Kershaw

Sale

Scherzer

Greinke

Kluber

Strasburg

Archer

Darvish

Ervin Santana (Just kidding)

 

 

[yarnivek1972]

 

I like 5% as the official ACE metric.

 

Using a blanket assumption that at any given point in time there are 5 starters in a rotation and 30 teams.  Top 5% gives you 7.5 Aces.  

 

That's my new metric.

 

Using that Metric My Aces are:

 

Kershaw

Sale

Scherzer

Greinke

Kluber

Strasburg

Archer

Darvish

Ervin Santana (Just kidding)

 

 

IMO, you have a very narrow view of what an "ace" is.  7 of the 8 names you list are in the top 10 for strikeouts.  Kluber is the one who isn't and he likely would be if he hadn't missed 3-4 starts on the DL.

 

There's more to being an ace than striking hitters out.  If Dallas Keuchel wasn't on the DL, he'd likely be starting the All Star game.  Not sure how he isn't an ace.  Pitching as well as he has for the last 4 years in THAT ballpark.  

 

Tom Glavine and Roy Halladay were hardly strikeout guys but I don't think anyone would call them anything but aces in their prime years. There's something to be said about a guy who simply knows how to pitch. 

[gocgo]

Signed - Bert Blyleven...the writer forgot that part.

[DocBauer]

The Twins have two options to improve their rotation. And they still need to.

 

1] Sign a quality FA next off season to join Berrios and Santana, along with Mejia. Gonsalves, Jorge, Romero, Slegers maybe, a rehashed and recovered May maybe, a year further along Hughes maybe, and possibly Haley or Duffey, if the former is around and the latter could move due to a resurgence in the pen. Realistically, I don't see Haley or Duffey. So maybe you also take a low risk, low cost flier on someone to increase depth and depth of competition.

 

2] You offer up 4-5 quality prospects/players in a trade for a high quality ML arm that is available for multiple years. This would involve guys like Rosario, Polanco-Gordon-Polacios, one of Gonsalves-Romero, and at least one more quality prospect. Just to throw out some reasonable names. And Dozier could be hsed in this scenario as well, not necessarily directly, but to bring in prospects to trade in a 3 way trade, or to replace traded prospects. This works as long as yoh hold on to Gordon, at least, and possiblg him AND Polanco. And yet again, you may look at a low cost flier for competition depth.

 

Now, I absolutely vote for option #1 AS the Twins have the financial flexibility to make it work, and you get to keep your prospects for depth, competition, and future trades. But either way, taking that flier makes sense. But im starting to wonder about that flier being filled internally by Gibson. Now he's got to show more, pound the zone and believe in himself and his defense. But he has shown some renewed ability to do that since he came back. And if Molitor and Allen will stay on his butt, maybe it's better to stick with him than look elsewhere.