Week in Review: Rookies Pitching In

Lewis Thorpe on Wednesday? He gets a shot to show?

I have no faith in Sano. It's awfully hard to ignore he's going to finish this year as the 3rd in the last 4 where he produced 0.5 WAR or less. He's a pure DH at this point with a -42.50 UZR/150 at 1B and it's just bizzare the Twins could keep trotting him out there. He might actually have 1.0 WAR this year if he wasn't in the field booting half the balls that come his way.

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What more could you ask for at this stage of the season?

Could we start the season now?

"His <Rooker> power is not in doubt, but a .252 on-base percentage ain't gonna cut it, especially when you factor in the total absence of defensive value."

I do give him credit for that incredible diving catch on Saturday. I guess one can't really say total absence of defensive value.

I hope that is the last time Pineda takes the mound as a Twin. I don't wish him ill will, I just am tired of watching him pitch - the pace, the hat adjustments, and the homers. I am sure he will find another home, but probably not on a contender, and if we are a contender, it shouldn't be here, either. We have to look for better to be better. Pineda is filler, and always has been filler, in my book. 

And I am really tired of Thorpe and his lost velocity. I want to see Joe Ryan. I have seen Thorpe way too much already. 

Why is it that we always take all this time with the minor league pitchers that don't even have high ceilings? Over and over they are the next up it seems.

Guys like Canterino will never be able to field a hit ball they way he finishes. Why can't pitchers end their wind up like Jim Kaat and Greg Maddux did? 

8 hours ago, bean5302 said:

I have no faith in Sano. It's awfully hard to ignore he's going to finish this year as the 3rd in the last 4 where he produced 0.5 WAR or less. He's a pure DH at this point with a -42.50 UZR/150 at 1B and it's just bizzare the Twins could keep trotting him out there. He might actually have 1.0 WAR this year if he wasn't in the field booting half the balls that come his way.

 

Pop fly's mystify him.

I agree on Thrope and  Rooker, and feel much the same way about Barnes.  We need to add a lot of players this winter, so many of these players (maybe up to 10) will be let go after the season.  We already have 2 Pineda and Simmons and some others, though the jury it out on the newbies (E Garza, Minaya, etx.)

This is a really good summary of a crazy week. It shows the twins potential, but at the same time it reflects some of the same things we've seen in the past. Are bullpen is consistently pieced together with waiver wire pickups instead of working from within our system the way our starting pitchers have been finally promoted. We need a hitting coach who can work with these young players to get better production and help them make their adjustments. 

10 hours ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

That seems high but in today's game, it's really not. Sano will be a very productive hitter with a K rate around 30%. Here's hoping this latest trend continues through the end of the season.

Major league average is 23%. The closer to average Sano can get the more productive he will be. The point he would be considered very productive is subjective. When he is moved closer to the 3 spot in the lineup would be the indicator for very

I doubted Barnes from the start but how do you dump him when he has been quite effective.  Maybe crafty lefties will be more effective now that so many players have built swings to deal with 95+.  IDK but I would continue to test him at the MLB level.  

I should add that perhaps we should be a little more open minded to the rookies and waiver wire pick-ups that helped us go 7-3 against all the 3 division leaders in successive series.  Pretty good without having Buxton / Kirilloff and Rodgers.

2 hours ago, HojanSolo said:

This is awfully close to lying with statistics.

2017 - 2.4 WAR
2018 (71 games) - 0.1 WAR
2019 - 2.7 WAR
2020 (53 games) - 0.5 WAR
2021 - 0.0 WAR

By making your cut off "the last four, including this year" you cut off 2017 where he accrued 2.4 WAR (all WARs are from FanGraphs).  Also, in 2018 he played less than half a season, and 2020 was, of course, The Covid Season where everyone played half a season.  The 2020 AL leader in WAR was Jose Ramirez with "only" 3.4.  Compare that to 2019, where the AL leader was Alex Bregman with 8.5.  You can't hold 0.5 WAR in 53 out of 60 games against Sano.

Yes, I did cut off 2017. You cut off 2016 when he could actually play 3B and still only produced 1.2 WAR so I could accuse you of lying with statistics. Then you could argue I cut off 2015, when he looked like a future All Star 3B. It's called supporting an argument. There are endless ways I could choose to critque Sano which would be more damning of his play. WAR was just easy, low hanging fruit which compiles almost everything together.

In regard to your SSS arguments, Sano has never played more than 116 games in a season. Considering how much flak Buxton gets, it probably sounds surprising to people Sano has never been a qualified hitter for a normal season in his career. If we doubled his 2020 season, he'd still only have 1.0 WAR across a typical Sano full season and a wRC+ of 99 who is now a DH. He had 299 (300) plate appearances in 2018. That's not really small sample size. Values have already become pretty stable at that point.

For the record, I'm looking at the trend and Sano's trend has been obvious. I typically look at the last 3-4 years for players because it removes luck or a season of playing hurt (like Polanco), etc. I don't look further back than that because it's not relevant. Players change over time and looking at what they did 5 years ago isn't relevant to the player's expected value today.

1 hour ago, Dodecahedron said:

Those short seasons still count.  Now pull up what Buxton does in his partial seasons.

So Buxton is better than Sano? Got it.

Buxton is more valuable than Sano. Between the two of them, Buxton is probably more productive at the plate, but Buxton also provides enormous defensive value when he plays.

Sano is a boat anchor on the team in the field and should really be relegated to DH where his league average bat doesn't produce more than scrub value. Non relief pitcher players producing less 2.0 WAR hurt a team's chances at the playoffs and arguing Sano is a 2.0 WAR player as a DH at this point in his career is dubious. That said, I pointed out I have no "faith" in Sano. I didn't say Sano has no talent or that it's impossible for Sano to succeed. I just don't think he will.

I believe Sano has the talent to be much better than he is, but the Twins are overloaded at 3B/1B/DH players as it is giving him few ironclad paths to production. If Sano were to drop to 225-230lbs, I fully expect he could still be an All Star caliber third baseman, but that is pure fantasy. At least I actually think Sano is trying hard right now to improve his game due to a wake up call when he essentially lost his starting spot, but the idea of Sano sustaining the effort just doesn't seem realistic to me.

Griffin Jax pitched in today's St. Paul Saints game, so we must have a different starter tonight.  He didn't make it out of the 3rd inning. 3 ER, 3H, 5BB and 2K.  Playing mind games with the rookies?

Also, Brent Rooker is DH'ing for the Saints.  So far, 2-2 with a HR.  Must be a couple of transactions that haven't been announced yet.

1 minute ago, Bill Tanner said:

Griffin Jax pitched in today's St. Paul Saints game, so we must have a different starter tonight.  He didn't make it out of the 3rd inning. 3 ER, 3H, 5BB and 2K.  Playing mind games with the rookies?

Also, Brent Rooker is DH'ing for the Saints.  So far, 2-2 with a HR.  Must be a couple of transactions that haven't been announced yet.

Sorry to sound a false alarm.  I didn't see that the Saints are playing the back half of a postponed game (from June 20) where Jax and Rooker played...

Four games in the Bronx with Maeda, Barnes, Jax and Ober on the mound for the Twins.  That could be interesting, or not.

Go TWINS!!!

5 hours ago, Nick Nelson said:

He was remarkably consistent (when on the field) up until these last couple months, where he clearly hasn't been at full health/strength. That's why I like the idea of bringing him back on a favorable deal. The pitcher he was in his first ~40 starts as a Twin is a huge asset (literally and figuratively) for the middle or back of a rotation. Even the diminished version has been a mostly serviceable strike-thrower.

Middle or back of rotation. Serviceable strike-thrower. Add innings eater. Crafty. Etc. Etc. I get all that. And those terms always make me cringe. Especially if it is what one choses to fill their rotation with instead of young pitchers from the farm that could be so much better with time instead of just the same consistent innings eater, a term that one in baseball uses when they can't come up with anything better to say and want to be nice. I just want the Twins to shoot higher than to consistantly be all that. And I don't believe that inspiration comes from out of shape vets with a record that includes PED suspension.

1 hour ago, Nick Nelson said:

Not unless he can hit enough to offset it, like a Cruz or Schwarber. That's an incredibly high bar, but Rooker's raw power is so amazing it's really hard to just give up. 

Then again, there's an opportunity cost to chasing that perceived power potential. I think of someone like Kennys Vargas, who got wayyy more chances than he should have -- at the expense of other possible assets -- because he could mash in BP and looked good during a brief MLB debut. (Actually, that example makes me a little apprehensive about Rooker going on a tear in September...) 

I'm not sure I agree about Kennys Vargas getting too many chances and his numbers look surprisingly close to Sano's at the MLB level, but with way fewer games and opportunities. Vargas did have an awful age 24 season with 184 plate appearances, but he played better the next two seasons. The Twins cut bait on Vargas after a wRC+ 119 and 99 at ages 25 and 26 letting him spend an unimpressive year in Rochester at age 27 before he went to Japan. Ultimately, Vargas never really showed much potential after the MLB seasons with the Twins, but his raw power was absolutely on par with Rookers and better than Sano's IMHO.

Interestingly enough, he's in the Mexican League this year .310/.418/.603 OPS 1.020, but while the Mexican League is listed as AAA level, I think most comparisons actually show it's A+ or something, I read somewhere... There's also another player in the Mexican League who may be a dark horse to get a MiLB contract as depth with the slight potential of returning to MLB. Addison Russell is hanging out down there. .319/.405/.494 OPS 900. Russell was never a good bat at SS, but he did play good defense.