Doomtints

Seems like Lavigne was one of the last MTV darlings before MTV decided to give up on music altogether. Probably a good idea on their part.

Yes. Let's mess with the timing of the guy on the roster that they need to be hitting dingers.

What bothers me is that when Berrios was brought up this time (and the time before), what were the Twins expecting to see that was any different? It really seemed to me that he was the same pitcher he was before ... BEFORE they called him up. Not sure what they are doing. From an outsider it really looks like they are bouncing him around without a plan.

Blyleven says he can't teach what he did. Either a guy gets it, or he doesn't. But by my measure this puts him a step above the Twins coaches, who won't admit that they can't teach.

Looks like someone here called for the Duffey thing right on schedule. Good job, Gagne Fan.

Beresford's numbers look an awful lot like Santana's and he probably can't back up CF. The rest of those guys can't start in the middle infield. So to solve one problem you just created additional problems. This may be the Twins Way since 2011 but, come on. Let's do better.

Santana has a "fragile psyche"? Where are you getting that? My beef with this whole thing is that people think of it as a Santana v. Escobar thing. But let's face it -- the Twins are going to be roughly the same if they keep either of them in this role. They should cut both of them loose. BUT they should only make a change if they have a plan to replace them. This has been my point. Lately the Twins have been making moves without signing a better player to improve. Cutting without replacing. It hasn't worked. This thread is full of people calling for Santana's head but there are no options provided to replace him, viable options or not.

I added to that later on. Read further.

Holy taken out of context. What you quoted was me talking about Nunez! I give up. Moving on.

What's his ranking in 2016? I'm not interested in his 2015 numbers, which are probably as much of a fluke as his 2014 numbers were. Throwing in 2015 serves only to make him look worse. You may notice I am not throwing in his 2014 numbers to make him look better.

No, I used that as an argument for him not being an "embarrassment."

Santana has neither a one nor a three year sample size for CF fielding. He has 112 games total. I think you are simply proving that you are biased.

Of course it is. I used the same advanced metrics in both instances.

Not sure why you would assume that since I have been talking about defense for a full hour now. As for baserunning, this team is full of players who aren't good at it. I'm not seeing how it matters. If the dude were a high OBP base stealer this would be a conversation about him being the leadoff hitter, not the #10 guy.

True. I wouldn't call that "embarrassing." How many Twins are below him?

This falls in line nicely with what I said earlier, in that people are always negative about Twins utility players. People were down on Nunez until quite recently as well. I always contended that he never had enough plate appearances to know for sure how good he was. I think he performed above sustainable levels in 2016 but nevertheless he proved he can be a good player. And if I recall correctly, Santana started the season on the DL. Nunez may have not gotten the chance to bloom if not for that injury.

The glossary that says this you mean? "The other thing to remember is that DRS isn’t going to work well in small sample sizes, especially a couple of months or less. Once you get to one and three-year samples, it’s a relatively solid metric but defensive itself is quite variable so you need a good amount of data for the metrics to become particularly useful. There’s plenty more to say about this issue, but that’s for another entry." Sure, I'll go ahead and read that. Thanks!

Embarrassing. Hm. He is ranked 499 out of 727 players in the MLB for OPS. He has not played enough to qualify for most stats. Among people who have played enough to qualify, he is ahead of half a dozen players. This supports my premise. He's not good enough to be an every day player, but he is good enough to be a backup utility guy. Are we done going around and around yet? You guys are arguing like I love Santana, but I don't! I simply think you all are showing biases, and without a trusted better option on the table the Twins would be dumb to cut him loose. If he were better than a C- player he would be a full time starter. No one is arguing that he should replace anybody as a starter.

But not in 2016, which I would hope is the year the Twins currently care about.

Two things: By Fangraph's measure, -8 is "below average" and not "bad" or "horrible." Secondly, DRS needs three years of data. Using DRS for 38 game this year is a mistake. Heck, it's not even good to use for Santana's career of 112 games in CF. I'm not saying that given a big enough sample he will turn into a star defender, I'm saying you're putting too much stock into that number being the golden measure of his defense. You are going to have to look at raw data and make your own evaluation, as I have done, and not use a simplified rollup stat.

He is serviceable in CF. If Buxton could hit, Santana wouldn't be starting out there either. Heck, he wouldn't be starting in the corner OF slots if Buxton were ready since the starting CFer would be sliding to a corner. Here are his F2O% numbers by position compared to the rest of baseball for 2016. (And before anyone responds, F2O% is NOT fielding percentage): CF - Santana 49%, league average 53%. RF - Santana 41%, league average 50%. LF - Santana 40%, league average 46%. SS - Santana 100%, league average 89%. 3B - Santana 83%, league average 87% 2B - Santana null%, league average 92% (1 game, 0 balls hit to his zone) Based on this, as a manager I would be comfortable with him being the backup/utility/emergency player from a defensive standpoint, but putting him in LF/RF is clearly a mistake/last option.

Fun times. Go Twins!@

Close to average. Not average. If he were average, he would be the starter.

Of course there could be worse ones. They tried it with Bartlett who had the range of a sloth. You could throw a dart at the current Twins roster and you would more likely than not hit a player who could not field outside of his own position. Santana should not be a corner outfielder but at other positions he is at least close to average as a defender. And all he has to do when he is in a game is hold down the fort until someone comes off the DL and get a hit once in a while. He does these things. He is no star, but utility players rarely are.

My point is ... who? Cutting players with no replacement plans, and inserting random players into random places to plug the holes caused by doing that simply has not worked for this team. Just saying "Escobar could do it" doesn't mean Escobar would be an upgrade. Every time the Twins cut a utility guy they end up with a worse one. They should think about it before they do it. And fans should not be so quick to hate on utility guys -- history suggests the fans are wrong.