Game Thread: Twins @ Tigers, 6/2/22, 12:10PM CDT (10:10AM PDT)

[cheeseheadgophfan]

THIS GAME IS ALL ON ROCCO........I can't even begin to type all of the stupid moves.  I'm done defending him:

1.  Your team is struggling to score runs BIG TIME----you tie the game up in the 3rd inning and have a guy on second with 0 outs.  Your batter is the #9 hitter (a career minor leaguer) and you don't but him over to get up one of the hottest hitters in baseball?  Absolutely ridiculous.

2.  Your in a stretch of games where you need some length from your starters....your starter goes 5 innings and has his cleanest inning in the 5th and you pull him..........with 57 pitches?   57 pitches?  Are you f'in me?  Is Archer in high school?  Is his shoulder attached by a rubber band?  I GUARANTEE Archer didn't want to come out.  It's the most Rocco move possible.

3.  You bring in your closer in the 6th inning.  You can debate how valuable a closer is all you want, but it's obvious if you watch baseball, some guys are meant for late innings, and some guys aren't.  If you give Archer the 6th (at least) you are MUCH better situated to end that game.  Instead you blow your wad in the 6th and 7th and somehow would still have to get 6 more outs......so stupid.

4.  Who was pitching the 9th if the Twins had the lead?    If you say Duffey, I might reach through the computer and grab you by the throat.  

There's a few other moves that blow my mind, but my fingers are tired and I need a drink.

I've defended Rocco since he was hired.  I'm done.

Fire Rocco.  That is all.

 

 

[Aggies7]

1 minute ago, chpettit19 said:

So you didn't want to trust Pagan to get the 7-9 hitters out (apparently just because it was the 8th inning), but you wanted to trust him to get the 1-3 hitters out? You then wanted to trust someone else not named Duran (since it'd only be the 7th and you need him for the 8th or 9th) to get the 4-6 hitters out. Now it's the 8th and your argument has been that only certain guys can be trusted there so I'm guessing you wanted Smith to get the 8th and pitch to the 7-9 hitters. Then have Duran around to get the 1-3 hitters in the 9th. That's the smart move. Having Pagan and other crappy reliever face 1-6 just cuz it's not the 8th or 9th, then use one of your 2 good relievers to get the bottom of the order and have the other get the top. Rocco wanted his bad reliever to face the bottom of the order while using his good relievers to both face the top. But Rocco is the crazy one. Got it. 

I don’t trust pagan to get anyone out. He’s not good, you even admitted so. And when I’m forced to put him in and he inevitably fails to hold the lead, I want my offense to have enough at bats to come back. 
 

your whole argument is use the worse relievers later in games. Bizarre but you’re determined to die on this hill so have at it

[chpettit19]

1 minute ago, Aggies7 said:

I don’t trust pagan to get anyone out. He’s not good, you even admitted so. And when I’m forced to put him in and he inevitably fails to hold the lead, I want my offense to have enough at bats to come back. 
 

your whole argument is use the worse relievers later in games. Bizarre but you’re determined to die on this hill so have at it

That's not my argument in the least. My argument is to use the best relievers against the best hitters. They have 2 good relievers. They had to get the best hitters out 2 more times. They used their best reliever to get the 6 best hitters out. 

[Cap'n Piranha]

10 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

Cuz my argument isn't about the inning, yours is. My argument is about the batters faced because I don't care about the inning. Throwing Duran in the 6th instead of 9th allowed him to face the 1-6 hitters instead of just the 1-3 (or whoever would've been up) because he could throw 2 innings.

Very bad logic here.  If Duran pitched the 8th and 9th today, he would have faced hitters 7-3; unless, in some unprecedented occurrence, the Twins relievers in innings 6 and 7 gave up a baserunner or two.  I would bet that had Duran pitched the 8th and 9th today, the most likely slate of hitters he would face is 9-5, followed by 1-6, and then 8-4.  So essentially no difference, other than the Twins would better know if they needed Duran or not, based on having 28% more information going into the 8th than going into the 6th.

[Aggies7]

6 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

That's not my argument in the least. My argument is to use the best relievers against the best hitters. They have 2 good relievers. They had to get the best hitters out 2 more times. They used their best reliever to get the 6 best hitters out. 

But again, lesser relievers were going to have to face the top of the order eventually. You keep glossing over that fact.

And if you’re going to assume the twins would score MORE runs to make that fact irrelevant, I’m not sure if you’ve been watching lately but….

[chpettit19]

2 minutes ago, Aggies7 said:

But again, lesser relievers were going to have to face the top of the order eventually. You keep glossing over that fact

They have 2 good relievers and had to face the top of the order twice. So after Duran (1 of their good relievers) pitched they had 1 more good reliever left to pitch to the top of the order the second time. They used Duran first so he could go 2 innings and make it so a bad reliever had to only pitch 1 inning and face the bottom of the order while saving the other good reliever to then face the top of the order. I'm not glossing over anything.

[SwainZag]

2 minutes ago, Aggies7 said:

I don’t trust pagan to get anyone out. He’s not good, you even admitted so. And when I’m forced to put him in and he inevitably fails to hold the lead, I want my offense to have enough at bats to come back. 
 

your whole argument is use the worse relievers later in games. Bizarre but you’re determined to die on this hill so have at it

His argument isn't to use worse relievers later in games.  His argument is that Rocco used Duran in the 6th and 7th with the 1-6 hitters coming up in the Tigers lineup....and the hitters who have done most if not all the damage against the Twins this week.  The bottom 3 in the Tigers lineup are all hitting sub .200.  It was a 1 run game.  If a manager wants to assume his best arm can get through dangerous hitters in the lineup, it's giving the Twins offense multiple innings to add on to a 1 run lead.  

Yes, that means you are still going to face the lineup again, potentially with a 1 run lead.  Personally, I would rather see them keep the lead and try and add on rather to just wait and save your pitchers until the end.  

 

Really it's all moot because you can bitch about bullpen usage all you want, but scoring 2 runs in 3 games isn't going to lead to too many wins.  

[Cap'n Piranha]

4 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

That's not my argument in the least. My argument is to use the best relievers against the best hitters. They have 2 good relievers. They had to get the best hitters out 2 more times. They used their best reliever to get the 6 best hitters out. 

The hitters who appear in the 6th inning are guaranteed to appear in the 9th inning at the latest.  Most teams have OBPs of at least .250, and most pitchers have WHIPs above 1.  A two inning Duran outing in the 8th and 9th is almost guaranteed to include at least 4-5 of the hitters he faced in the 6th and 7th.  As such, saying Rocco used his best reliever against the Tigers best hitters is inaccurate by omission; Rocco used his best reliever against the Tiger's best hitters in a lower leverage situation than those same same hitters were almost guaranteed to appear in.  I do not understand why this concept is so hard for people to grasp. 

Your best reliever should never  be used in the 6th or earlier, because you will need him to shut down the other teams' hitters in the 8th or 9th.  The only exception is if you have a bullpen like the 2016 Indians, who could use Andrew Miller whenever because they had Allen and Shaw to lock down the 8th and 9th.  This just in; the 2022 Twins bullpen lacks and Allen and/or Shaw.

[Aggies7]

6 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

They have 2 good relievers and had to face the top of the order twice. So after Duran (1 of their good relievers) pitched they had 1 more good reliever left to pitch to the top of the order the second time. They used Duran first so he could go 2 innings and make it so a bad reliever had to only pitch 1 inning and face the bottom of the order while saving the other good reliever to then face the top of the order. I'm not glossing over anything.

dude I love Duran but no manager is going to ASSUME that there won’t be a base runner over two innings facing the “best Detroit hitters”. Even if he allowed one base runner an inning your whole plan is out of whack. Duran did it because he’s really good but any deviation from a perfect outing scenario destroys your plan and I’d bet most managers aren’t managing that way in the 6th inning 

[Cap'n Piranha]

5 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

They have 2 good relievers and had to face the top of the order twice. So after Duran (1 of their good relievers) pitched they had 1 more good reliever left to pitch to the top of the order the second time. They used Duran first so he could go 2 innings and make it so a bad reliever had to only pitch 1 inning and face the bottom of the order while saving the other good reliever to then face the top of the order. I'm not glossing over anything.

Joe Smith in May gave up a .344/.382/.563/.945 slash while inducing 0% soft contact.  The league in May had a .240/.311/.386/.697 slash; essentially, in May, Joe Smith faced nothing but Bryce Harper.  Are you sure you want to categorize Joe Smith a good reliever right now?

[Aggies7]

10 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

They have 2 good relievers and had to face the top of the order twice. So after Duran (1 of their good relievers) pitched they had 1 more good reliever left to pitch to the top of the order the second time. They used Duran first so he could go 2 innings and make it so a bad reliever had to only pitch 1 inning and face the bottom of the order while saving the other good reliever to then face the top of the order. I'm not glossing over anything.

and by the way, Joe smith has had a good year but has been shaky lately

[Aggies7]

9 minutes ago, Cap'n Piranha said:

The hitters who appear in the 6th inning are guaranteed to appear in the 9th inning at the latest.  Most teams have OBPs of at least .250, and most pitchers have WHIPs above 1.  A two inning Duran outing in the 8th and 9th is almost guaranteed to include at least 4-5 of the hitters he faced in the 6th and 7th.  As such, saying Rocco used his best reliever against the Tigers best hitters is inaccurate by omission; Rocco used his best reliever against the Tiger's best hitters in a lower leverage situation than those same same hitters were almost guaranteed to appear in.  I do not understand why this concept is so hard for people to grasp. 

Your best reliever should never  be used in the 6th or earlier, because you will need him to shut down the other teams' hitters in the 8th or 9th.  The only exception is if you have a bullpen like the 2016 Indians, who could use Andrew Miller whenever because they had Allen and Shaw to lock down the 8th and 9th.  This just in; the 2022 Twins bullpen lacks and Allen and/or Shaw.

Exactly. The closer is “overrated” on teams that have plenty of reliable relievers. We don’t have that 

[KirbyDome89]

1 hour ago, Cap'n Piranha said:

Since Duran is the only reliable option right now, I'd rather see him not pitch in games the Twins lose, so he can be saved for games the Twins win (in large part because he shut the door in the 8th/9th inning).  That did not happen today.

So you want them to use their best arm less often. That's the argument you're making. Throw out less competitive arms and if they don't implide let Duran close the door. Pass.

[chpettit19]

1 minute ago, Aggies7 said:

and by the way, Joe smith has had a good year but has been shaky lately

 

3 minutes ago, Cap'n Piranha said:

Joe Smith in May gave up a .344/.382/.563/.945 slash while inducing 0% soft contact.  The league in May had a .240/.311/.386/.697 slash; essentially, in May, Joe Smith faced nothing but Bryce Harper.  Are you sure you want to categorize Joe Smith a good reliever right now?

 

1 minute ago, Aggies7 said:

Exactly. The closer is “overrated” on teams that have plenty of reliable relievers. We don’t have that 

Ok, so they have 1 good reliever. Now your arguments have become "nobody in the pen outside of Duran can hold a lead, but they need to save Duran until the 9th inning with a lead that nobody is capable of holding." You realize you're arguing to never use Duran, right? You can't have it both ways. Either other guys are capable of holding leads or they aren't. If they are then the innings don't matter and you use Duran to face as many of the good hitters as he can. So when the leadoff hitter is scheduled to leadoff a middle inning of a 2-1 game (which is high leverage, by the way) and you know you have Duran for 2 innings you use him when you know he will face the top of the order. Not when you hope to still have a lead and he may be facing the 5-8 hitters.

[weitz41]

cheeseheadgophfan nailed it imo

[Aggies7]

4 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

 

 

Ok, so they have 1 good reliever. Now your arguments have become "nobody in the pen outside of Duran can hold a lead, but they need to save Duran until the 9th inning with a lead that nobody is capable of holding." You realize you're arguing to never use Duran, right? You can't have it both ways. Either other guys are capable of holding leads or they aren't. If they are then the innings don't matter and you use Duran to face as many of the good hitters as he can. So when the leadoff hitter is scheduled to leadoff a middle inning of a 2-1 game (which is high leverage, by the way) and you know you have Duran for 2 innings you use him when you know he will face the top of the order. Not when you hope to still have a lead and he may be facing the 5-8 hitters.

Did I say no one is capable of holding a lead? That’s an awfully big leap you’ve made.  Pagan is CAPABLE of holding a lead, he’s just more likely to NOT hold one

[Cap'n Piranha]

2 minutes ago, Aggies7 said:

dude I love Duran but no manager is going to ASSUME that there won’t be a base runner over two innings facing the “best Detroit hitters”. Even if he allowed one base runner an inning your whole plan is out of whack. Duran did it because he’s really good but any deviation from a perfect outing scenario destroys your plan and I’d bet most managers aren’t managing that way in the 6th inning 

It baffles me that this keeps getting missed.  Assuming one baserunner an inning (by the way, we would all be THRILLED if the Twins bullpen had a WHIP of one), the 9th inning would have featured the 4-7 hitters, meaning Pagan would get 9-3 in his inning.  Essentially Rocco's plan today was to have Pagan face the top of the order in the 8th, unless things went perfectly.  Much more logical to let Duran start his day in the 8th.

[chpettit19]

Just now, Aggies7 said:

Did I say no one is capable of holding a lead? That’s an awfully big leap you’ve made. 

So, wait, other guys are capable of that? So what's the concern then? If other guys can get those outs why are you made about when they used Duran?

[Aggies7]

Just now, chpettit19 said:

So, wait, other guys are capable of that? So what's the concern then? If other guys can get those outs why are you made about when they used Duran?

Because there’s a thing called playing the percentages which you apparently don’t believe in because “closets are overrated”. 

[glunn]

I hate slumps.

[chpettit19]

Just now, Aggies7 said:

Because there’s a thing called playing the percentages which you apparently don’t believe in because “closets are overrated”. 

What are the percentages we're playing? You have some stats for me? I love stats.

[Aggies7]

1 minute ago, chpettit19 said:

What are the percentages we're playing? You have some stats for me? I love stats.

Yes we know, especially when you can pick ‘em to suit your narrative 

[Cap'n Piranha]

8 minutes ago, KirbyDome89 said:

So you want them to use their best arm less often. That's the argument you're making. Throw out less competitive arms and if they don't implide let Duran close the door. Pass.

I want him to use our best arm when using our best arm most advances our prospects for securing wins.  Think of it this way--Duran can only appear so many times this year (especially if you want him to be effective in a potential postseason run).  As such, every loss he appears in is a waste, and reduces the number of wins he can help you secure.  If Duran hadn't pitched for two days, but the Twins were losing 9-1 in the 6th, would you bring Duran in, because after all, we want to use our best arms?

To make a comparison, look no further than Buxton.  Buxton this year has a 179 wRC+ against lefties, and 98 against righties--since you need to rest him, rest him against righties; use Buxton where using him does the team the most good.  Using Duran early in a game against the same hitters he would have faced later in the game does not do the team the most good.

Since there's a risk the less competitive arms will implode, find that out first, then use your best arms (since you have to use your less competitive arms).  That is the entire crux of what I'm saying--since the non-Duran options in the pen needed to get 6 outs at minimum, whether you used Duran or not, find out first what's going to happen in those 6 outs, before you use your best guy in what might be a losing effort.

[chpettit19]

Just now, Aggies7 said:

Yes we know, especially when you can pick ‘em to suit your narrative 

The 8th and 9th inning stats of 2 players that you compared based on 8th and 9th inning stats is picking to suit my narrative? You made claims about their abilities to hold 8th and 9th inning leads. Don't be mad at me that the stats didn't match your narrative. I didn't leave anything out of those stats. Those were the stats of every 8th and 9th inning they'd pitched this year.

So, do you have stats or no? What are the percentages that should be played?

[Cap'n Piranha]

7 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

So, wait, other guys are capable of that? So what's the concern then? If other guys can get those outs why are you made about when they used Duran?

Is this a genuine wondering, or are you just being argumentative for the sake of being argumentative?  Other guys can of course get outs, they're just less likely to do it without giving up runs.  So since you have to pitch them anyways, pitch them first to find out how they perform.  If they don't give up runs, fantastic, you have Duran available to nail down the 8th and 9th, and secure the win.  If they do give up runs, you don't need to waste a Duran outing in a loss.  If the Twins offense puts up runs, you don't need to waste a Duran outing in a not-close game.  The entire strategy is to only use Duran when using him goes the furthest to guaranteeing you a win.  When the 6th inning started, Rocco should have assumed he'd be looking at batters 8-6 or 9-7 in the 8th and 9th, and rather than waiting to see if a Duran outing was necessary (will still using him against the Tiger's best hitters), he used him against what he had to assume was 1-7 or 8, leaving not great options to handle the assumed 8-6 or 9-7 slate of hitters.  Rocco wasted one of the 50-60 outings Duran can make this year, because the Twins did not get the win, an outcome that should have been easy to predict as eminently possible.

[Aggies7]

2 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

The 8th and 9th inning stats of 2 players that you compared based on 8th and 9th inning stats is picking to suit my narrative? You made claims about their abilities to hold 8th and 9th inning leads. Don't be mad at me that the stats didn't match your narrative. I didn't leave anything out of those stats. Those were the stats of every 8th and 9th inning they'd pitched this year.

So, do you have stats or no? What are the percentages that should be played?

Yes you did leave something out, context. Allowing runs in a blowout game is less meaningless than having three blown saves in the 8th inning alone as pagan does (plus a loss). Duran has one. 
 

now you’re trying to present stats to make an argument that contradicts your statement that Duran is better than pagan. Weird

[Aggies7]

2 minutes ago, Cap'n Piranha said:

Is this a genuine wondering, or are you just being argumentative for the sake of being argumentative?  Other guys can of course get outs, they're just less likely to do it without giving up runs.  So since you have to pitch them anyways, pitch them first to find out how they perform.  If they don't give up runs, fantastic, you have Duran available to nail down the 8th and 9th, and secure the win.  If they do give up runs, you don't need to waste a Duran outing in a loss.  If the Twins offense puts up runs, you don't need to waste a Duran outing in a not-close game.  The entire strategy is to only use Duran when using him goes the furthest to guaranteeing you a win.  When the 6th inning started, Rocco should have assumed he'd be looking at batters 8-6 or 9-7 in the 8th and 9th, and rather than waiting to see if a Duran outing was necessary (will still using him against the Tiger's best hitters), he used him against what he had to assume was 1-7 or 8, leaving not great options to handle the assumed 8-6 or 9-7 slate of hitters.  Rocco wasted one of the 50-60 outings Duran can make this year, because the Twins did not get the win, an outcome that should have been easy to predict as eminently possible.

This is all that needs to be said right here

[chpettit19]

2 minutes ago, Cap'n Piranha said:

Is this a genuine wondering, or are you just being argumentative for the sake of being argumentative?  Other guys can of course get outs, they're just less likely to do it without giving up runs.  So since you have to pitch them anyways, pitch them first to find out how they perform.  If they don't give up runs, fantastic, you have Duran available to nail down the 8th and 9th, and secure the win.  If they do give up runs, you don't need to waste a Duran outing in a loss.  If the Twins offense puts up runs, you don't need to waste a Duran outing in a not-close game.  The entire strategy is to only use Duran when using him goes the furthest to guaranteeing you a win.  When the 6th inning started, Rocco should have assumed he'd be looking at batters 8-6 or 9-7 in the 8th and 9th, and rather than waiting to see if a Duran outing was necessary (will still using him against the Tiger's best hitters), he used him against what he had to assume was 1-7 or 8, leaving not great options to handle the assumed 8-6 or 9-7 slate of hitters.  Rocco wasted one of the 50-60 outings Duran can make this year, because the Twins did not get the win, an outcome that should have been easy to predict as eminently possible.

I get that and don't think it's a crazy argument. But Duran is 4th amongst relievers in all of baseball in WPA with Rocco using him the way he has. I think that's a sign that he's using Duran pretty well. I don't think it would've been unreasonable to save him til later, but the idea that it was inconceivable to use him there is ridiculous. Using him to face the top of the other lineup in a 1 run game is never inconceivable. The real problem is that they need a ton more bullpen help before Duran usage really even matters.

[Aggies7]

2 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

I get that and don't think it's a crazy argument. But Duran is 4th amongst relievers in all of baseball in WPA with Rocco using him the way he has. I think that's a sign that he's using Duran pretty well. I don't think it would've been unreasonable to save him til later, but the idea that it was inconceivable to use him there is ridiculous. Using him to face the top of the other lineup in a 1 run game is never inconceivable. The real problem is that they need a ton more bullpen help before Duran usage really even matters.

No one said it was inconceivable, just dumb

[chpettit19]

4 minutes ago, Aggies7 said:

Yes you did leave something out, context. Allowing runs in a blowout game is less meaningless than having three blown saves in the 8th inning alone as pagan does (plus a loss). Duran has one. 
 

now you’re trying to present stats to make an argument that contradicts your statement that Duran is better than pagan. Weird

The argument has never been Duran being better or worse than Pagan. Duran is better than Pagan, but that doesn't mean you can never use Pagan. 

But I'm off to dinner and the theater so I must bid you farewell. Thanks for the debate. Was enjoyable. Have a wonderful night.