Twins Game Recap (8/20): Cruz Leads Twins Offensive Explosion

Random observation. The Twins have 7 guys with OPS above .800. The next highest 3 guys Cron (.790), Schoop (.757) and Gonzalez (.752) have combined for 51 homers and 156 RBI. That is a deep lineup.

This post piqued my interest and I went searching. The Bash Brothers never clubbed 40 home runs in any one year that I could find. The Colorado Rockies in 1997 had three players reach 40 home runs in one season (the only time it's been done??).

 

Walker 49 (130 RBIs)

Galarraga 41 (140 RBIs)

Castilla 40 (113 RBIs)

 

Interestingly, that team also included Dante Bichette who hit only 26 home runs but drove in 118 runs as well as Ellis Burks who clubbed 32 (82 RBIs).

 

The other weird discovery was that in 1920 Babe Ruth hit 54 home runs, but his total was more than the total home runs for every other team in the league (maybe I rediscovered this...I think I had read it once before).

1973 Braves — Dave Johnson (43), Darrell Evans (41), Hank Aaron (40)

It's most valuable, not best player. Clearly Trout is the best player in the game, but is he the most valuable to his team? Morneau wasn't the best player in the league, nor was Mauer.

You may be right about Morneau, but I'll disagree about Mauer. He was the best baseball player in the world that year.

...and the Twins squirrel away another victory...

Polanco quietly coming out of his....well, I won't call it a "slump", but you know what I mean. Smalley remarked that he had shortened up his swing a bit over the past week. Looks very quick.

We are pretty spoiled seeing games like this frequently over the season. Just a drubbing, once again in double-digits. Absolutely need to take this series with a win today (Wednesday) and it was nice to see the bats warm up. Giolito has had a good year, should be an interesting game.

If you had told me Kep was going to hit 34HR this year I’d have shat myself.

If you’d have followed it up by saying “with 6 weeks left in the season” I would have flung my poo at you, figuring we were all just in the looney bin so might as well act the part.

Hey Scooter, that party at my house- we decided to move it.  I'll let you know where it's going to be, unless I lost your phone number.

Bravo. Trout is the best player most of us will EVER see. I live in LA and I go to the Angels 2-3 times a year just to see him play. I just hope the Angels someday build a real team around him. When the Twins are having a down year anyway, of course.

I think the voters get to put ten players on the ballot, right?  You can believe Mike Trout is the MVP and still give Cruz and eight other players some consideration.  

Um, no.

 

https://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=10155&position=OF

If he means he gets votes in the bottom half the of the top I could see that.

I’m really proud that our boys scored so many runs in the bottom of the eighth without swinging at any 3-0 pitches.

I came up with a potential long-term feature to add to these things, and the only way to find out if it works was to just start doing them. Here's a pitching-focused review of tonight's game. Still very much working on both the idea and execution.

I like what you’re doing. I’m interested in thinking about different ways to track, chart, and think about relief pitchers.

Sam Dyson, Sergio Romo, and Trevor May all have an ERA of between 3.40-3.42, but have seemingly had very different seasons. That is, due to relievers only pitching a few innings a season, and a few bad outings really skewing aggregate numbers... ERA is probably not the best way to think about how successful a reliever is. There definitely is a leverage component you’d have to build out and I think you’ve started it, but I was thinking about trying to track relievers in 2 ways:

1) Create a blow-up metric. My first thought was any outing where a reliever gives up 2 or more runs is a “blow-up”. Blow-ups are really bad for relievers and will more often not lead directly or almost directly to a loss. I don’t think the numbers in a blow-up matter as much as HOW OFTEN a blow-up happens (this especially rings true for high-leverage relievers who normally pitch late in the game and with small leads).

A successful reliever will be one who blows up the most infrequently i.e. if Dyson blows up 15% of the time and Romo blows up 10% of the time that means Dyson will lose you a game 3 out of every 20 outings versus 2 for Romo (hypothetical).

From there, after isolating the blow-up sample I’d like to take a look at reliever ERA/WHIP/K/BB/etc numbers from their non-blow-up sample. Basically, who is the best outside of the odd outing where they blow-up?

This would show you the true talent of a reliever over the majority of their games. Relievers who’s majority of good or non-blow up games are a really high percentage with better ERA/WHIP/etc numbers would be considered the best.

My hypothesis is that you’d see that most relievers have pretty good numbers but the key would be how reliable are they to not blow up? I think you’d see a difference between elite relievers and the Trevor May’s of the world in terms of blow up percentage. Thus, a Trevor May is harder to trust and should be a 6th/7th inning guy versus an 8th/9th inning guy.

Might put something together with Twins relievers if I get some free time.

I like what you’re doing. I’m interested in thinking about different ways to track, chart, and think about relief pitchers.

 

Sam Dyson, Sergio Romo, and Trevor May all have an ERA of between 3.40-3.42, but have seemingly had very different seasons. That is, due to relievers only pitching a few innings a season, and a few bad outings really skewing aggregate numbers... ERA is probably not the best way to think about how successful a reliever is. There definitely is a leverage component you’d have to build out and I think you’ve started it, but I was thinking about trying to track relievers in 2 ways:

 

1) Create a blow-up metric. My first thought was any outing where a reliever gives up 2 or more runs is a “blow-up”. Blow-ups are really bad for relievers and will more often not lead directly or almost directly to a loss. I don’t think the numbers in a blow-up matter as much as HOW OFTEN a blow-up happens (this especially rings true for high-leverage relievers who normally pitch late in the game and with small leads).

 

A successful reliever will be one who blows up the most infrequently i.e. if Dyson blows up 15% of the time and Romo blows up 10% of the time that means Dyson will lose you a game 3 out of every 20 outings versus 2 for Romo (hypothetical).

 

From there, after isolating the blow-up sample I’d like to take a look at reliever ERA/WHIP/K/BB/etc numbers from their non-blow-up sample. Basically, who is the best outside of the odd outing where they blow-up?

 

This would show you the true talent of a reliever over the majority of their games. Relievers who’s majority of good or non-blow up games are a really high percentage with better ERA/WHIP/etc numbers would be considered the best.

 

My hypothesis is that you’d see that most relievers have pretty good numbers but the key would be how reliable are they to not blow up? I think you’d see a difference between elite relievers and the Trevor May’s of the world in terms of blow up percentage. Thus, a Trevor May is harder to trust and should be a 6th/7th inning guy versus an 8th/9th inning guy.

 

Might put something together with Twins relievers if I get some free time.

I would guess that the pitchers worth lower whip/bb/oslg higher ks, would also blow up less and not have to deal with inherited runners coming into middle off innings, etc. I guess you don't know unless you calculate it out.

This post piqued my interest and I went searching. The Bash Brothers never clubbed 40 home runs in any one year that I could find. The Colorado Rockies in 1997 had three players reach 40 home runs in one season (the only time it's been done??).

 

Walker 49 (130 RBIs)

Galarraga 41 (140 RBIs)

Castilla 40 (113 RBIs)

 

Interestingly, that team also included Dante Bichette who hit only 26 home runs but drove in 118 runs as well as Ellis Burks who clubbed 32 (82 RBIs).

 

The other weird discovery was that in 1920 Babe Ruth hit 54 home runs, but his total was more than the total home runs for every other team in the league (maybe I rediscovered this...I think I had read it once before).

The 1973 Braves had Hank Aaron, Darrell Evans and Davey Johnson at 40, 41, and 43 homers respectfully. They also finished 5th at 76-85. Homers good, pitching not so much.

You may be right about Morneau, but I'll disagree about Mauer. He was the best baseball player in the world that year.

.321 avg.  34 homers and 130 RBI.     Morneau was the best player in the league that year.

Making an argument for anyone but Trout is like giving MVP awards to anyone but Jordan in his prime.    Was Malone best player or most valuable?  No, regardless of which team he was on.  

Oy. Mauer was close to the leader in WAR that season and probably got a bump because he's a catcher and catchers aren't supposed to do what he did that season. Joe was within a single win of being the league leader, while also catching most of his games (pretty hard to complain about a catcher worth eight wins taking the MVP award).

 

Meanwhile, Trout is on his merry way to a 10 win season (again) and we're talking about Cruz maybe crossing four wins.

 

Totally the same argument.

 

I do not understand why people refuse to accept that Mike Trout should win every MVP award until he stops being Mike Trout at the plate and on the field. He's literally the best baseball player that has ever stepped onto a diamond.

 

Appreciate greatness when you see it, folks. It doesn't come along that often.

To be honest? Kind of sick of hearing about him. Year after year. 

Trout is a great player. But I'd still go with Willie Mays in his prime. Power and average to compare with Trout, but with more speed, defense, and throwing arm.

Conversations about "best baseball player of all time" begin and end with Babe Ruth.

And it's not even close.

So is this the beginning or the end of the conversation?

Edit: Obvious Chief setup.

Chief, as you are the only one on the forum likely to have watched him play I will concede.

The 1973 Braves had Hank Aaron, Darrell Evans and Davey Johnson at 40, 41, and 43 homers respectfully. They also finished 5th at 76-85. Homers good, pitching not so much.

Oddly, I remember that team well because that is the year I asked for the APBA Baseball game for Christmas and received it (I'm curious if anyone remembers that game.) They could hit home runs right and left, but they hit a ton of solo shots because no one was on base (at least in my game). They also couldn't pitch and were the slowest team on the planet, except for one their outfielders who was super fast but not a very good hitter (the name slips my mind,)

All of this adds up to what suddenly looks like a career-best season for Cruz at the plate, which is an absurd thing to say about a 39-year-old who’s already put together a long list of impressive seasons, the majority of which have come in the second half of his career. His wRC+ is 10 points better than any other season he’s ever put up, but he’s also tying his career-high in walk rate while blowing past his career-high ISO by nearly 100 points. 

Cruz is looking very much like David Ortiz did at age 39, let's hope he follows through with a similar age-40 season!

Ortiz put up .273/.360/.913 as a 39 year old with 37 doubles and 37 HR, and he followed that up with .315/.401/1.021 with a league-leading 48 doubles and 38 HR at age 40!

Cruz is currently at .296/.385/1.031 with 19 doubles and 32 HR...