MIN 8, KC 2: New Twins Ace Wins in Front of Old Twins Ace

Wow, I thought we had a weak hitting line-up. K.C had 4 guys hitting under .225 and 2 under .200.  To my surprise the Twins also had 4 and 2.   I'm still surprised Motter hasn't been called up yet to take Caves spot on the Roster (sarcasm).  Showing my age, I remember a time when if you hit under .225 you got replaced, rather you could hit HR's or not.  Maybe Dave Kingman was an exception? 

Spot on, BJames.  Hitting used to be about putting the ball in play.  Situational hitting, batting average, RBI and not striking out were of paramount importance.

Now it is all about exit velocity and launch angle.  The game has definitely changed and not for the better IMHO.

Spot on, BJames.  Hitting used to be about putting the ball in play.  Situational hitting, batting average, RBI and not striking out were of paramount importance.

 

Now it is all about exit velocity and launch angle.  The game has definitely changed and not for the better IMHO.

Don't forget OBPS - the only stat that anyone seems to care about these days.

Mauer was in the Top 20 in MLB last year in both on-base percentage and batting average, played great defense...but was considered a below-average player because of his OBPS. Just weird seeing guys who bat .300 get called out for not being good enough anymore.

Un not quite.  Santana was an Ace.  Berrios is the Twins best pitcher right now.  Bit different.  Calling him an Ace is almost as back when DickNBert called Scott Diamond that...

If you type "ace pitcher" into Google, the first definition you see is: "In baseball, an ace is the best starting pitcher on a team and nearly always the first pitcher in the team's starting rotation." Tom's headline is perfectly fine.

Does that mean the Astros and Indians only have one ace type pitcher? :-)

And if you continue reading the Wikipedia page* that it pulls this from, you see, "Modern baseball analysts and fans have started using the term ace to refer to the elite pitchers in the game, not necessarily to the best starting pitcher on each team.[5] For example, the April 27, 1981, Sports Illustrated cover was captioned "The Amazing A's and Their Five Aces" to describe the starting rotation of the 1981 Oakland Athletics."

 

So, enjoy your non-modern, pre-1981, terminology, Grandpa.

 

^{* _{Not that I'd really rely on Wikipedia on close decisions regarding baseball terminology.}}

The Sporting News does a good job covering that "controversy":

http://www.sportingnews.com/us/mlb/news/ace-pitcher-theory-number-one-starter-greinke-baseball-philsophy/rm2bq6eiz9y61m9v0lomz4ijt

But the point I'm making is that saying Berrios isn't the Twins' ace requires only allowing for one definition of the term. Tom was clearly going for the "staff ace" definition in the above headline, hence the headline is fine.

I'm sure the world is big enough to allow for more than one way to describe an ace pitcher.    

A balanced view like this, of an inherently fuzzy term, and I wouldn't have felt like piping up.

Oh, and The Sporting News is now apparently just Sporting News, so I really am non-modern as hell.