Doomtints

If you are bringing in a pitcher who is wild and can touch 100 mph, is Castro the guy you want back there?

Meh, if they don't matter then don't do it. Rule 5 picks matter more than other minor league pick-ups because they gobble up roster spots.

Isn't it usually the Vikings that do a winter meltdown?

Escobar stepped up ... up to average. The Twins have him under contract for 3 more years. Let it roll.

I don't want to digress this too far, but to answer your last question, we are American citizens, and we have a say in taxation and spending. If a "millionaire" chooses to contribute to infrastructure (roads, bridges, etc.,), they will be toll roads/toll bridges. If a "millionaire" chooses to contribute to education, it will be to higher education or private education. Sure, there are exceptions, but not many. I see where your proclivities are (and I know changing your view would be impossible), but if you ever find yourself in Chicago I can take you to some parties with this privileged class and you will learn quickly that they are not interested in helping people outside of their class -- and they have learned how to determine if someone is in their class within 2 minutes of talking to them. Unless you can work your way through their coded language, you will have a lot of people walk away from you in mid-sentence, sometimes calling you stupid to your face before doing so!

I feel like the Vikings are about to go on a 1970s-like run where they dominate the league for a few years. (But, bear in mind, they never won a championship in that era....) They look a hell of a lot like the 2000 Ravens right now, and I think they can beat anybody in the NFC. What worries me is Pittsburgh, I think they could beat the Patriots too. I don't follow the Wolves or the Wild.

Except I don't live in Minnesota. Look at Darvish's history. He has played one full season, every other year has seen him riding the pine due to injury.

I'm not as high on Darvish as everyone else. He is a guy I can see getting injured and sitting out much of his contract. I won't be upset if the Twins land him, but I caution everybody to temper their enthusiasm.

Just curious, how long do you think WAA has been around? As Adam Darowski of SABR (an early proponent of WAA) wrote, "62% of WAR is just showing up." WAA separates the wheat from the chaff. Look, if you want to compare major league veteran players career AAA players, go for it. At some point you gotta pump the brakes and start comparing veteran players to other MLB players. WAR is a tool that teams need to use to build rosters, but so is WAA, and yes if you never look at WAA you are missing too much of the story to make a good decision.

You misunderstand then. It's not about .500 teams. WAR -> Comparison to top level AAA players. "Replacement level." WAA -> Comparison to major league players. "Good players." Since most teams have around half of their players with a flatline or negative WAA, the actual metric for a .500 team is somewhere between the WAR and WAA. Thus, a .500 team should have a negative WAA, albeit small. To test this let's look at the data. There were no .500 teams this year. Here are the closest: Royals (80-82) -6.5. Rays (80-82) 1.9 Angels (80-82) -2.5 Average: -3.63 Seems legit, but the Rays under-performed and the Royals over-performed (but this sample size is far too small). The Twins WAA was 0.4 (This tells us what we already know -- the Twins were a hair better than the competition). The Astros? 17.8. But this isn't even the point. The point is comparing players. If you are looking at a 1.3 WAR dude and thinking happy thoughts but WAA at the position was 2.4 in that year, well, you're actually getting a bad player. I understand there's a ton of information about WAR and none at all about WAA, so many of us are going to be unable to think about WAA at all, though. I completely get the "does not compute" responses.

I have strong biases against FIP. I have never liked it. But that's a big rabbit hole of a discussion that we have already had around here a few times. I just have to accept that FIP is valuable to some people and work with it.

Pineda signing: "Love it. What's the big deal? 1 year deals never hurt. Even if he is terrible this is OK." ($10M / 2 yrs / currently injured) Rodney signing: "Hate it. Terrible deal. We need young guys, not vets." ($4.5M / 1 yr; $6M if he pitches well / currently healthy)

If he is worse than the competition he is a negative. #4 and #5 starters are negatives on most teams, but teams can only afford so many #1s and #2s. If your first move in free agency is to add a #4/#5, you're doing something wrong. This is the same trap Ryan kept falling into.

If Rodney's arm hasn't fallen off yet, it never will. And this is cheap. A dependable closer makes a huge difference. Rodney isn't "lights out" (he never has been) but he is dependable when it matters. Much better than a Ron Davis type who is the opposite. Lots to like here.

Disapprove? No. Agree? No. Understand? I think so, I've seen these hurrahs every time Ryan did something bizarre too. It's fans being literally fanatical. It's OK to be critical. I would call it essential. As I said, for this to be the first move makes no sense. If this had been the last move, sure, why not. Seems to me the Twins front office still overvalues pitchers who dominate them, regardless of how the pitchers pitch against everybody else.

*shrug* I honestly couldn't say if any of these guys will eventually provide value. The Twins need more than just arms, they need dependable arms / good arms. Just having pitchers with a pulse hasn't worked out for them. I couldn't say if losing Burdi will ultimately matter....

The sheer size of SABR can be daunting, and as John said, advanced metrics are but a small part of it (and the people involved with stats are probably the least accessible, btw, so don't join just for that ... reach out to people on Fangraphs if your only concern is nerding out on stats). If you love baseball, and love meeting others who love baseball, and especially if you have an esoteric interest in some small part of baseball that no one else seems to have ... join SABR and you will find people to converse with. The meetings are great and the publications are great. A membership gets you access to the publications for free, and these are real books, such as: https://www.amazon.com/Pennant-Twin-Cities-Minnesota-Digital-ebook/dp/B0163TRTHS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1513201641&sr=8-1&keywords=minnesota+twins+1965

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/n/nolasri01.shtml Like Nolasco, Pineda has some fangraphs pundits scratching their heads. "His FIP looks nice, why does he suck? We just can't figure it out." https://www.google.com/search?q=michael+pineda+fangraphs Sometimes (always?) you have to use actual metrics instead of algorithms.

Except I'm talking about WAA and not WAR. WAR = the baseline, you never want a player below 0 WAR, but a player with positive WAR can still be a below average player. WAA = the average player. Good players have a positive WAA. ****ty players can still have a positive WAR but will have a negative WAA. Here is his WAA by year: 2011 - 0.6 2012-2013 - Minors 2014 - 2.0 (in a small sample size) 2015 - 0.2 2016 - -0.4 2017 - -0.1 From 2015 on, he has a WAA of -0.3. That's a below average (minus) player. "Replacement level" means nothing, you want to field a team that is better than your competition (WAA) -- not better than the minors (WAR).

Of course. You are probably familiar with ERA+, OPS+, wRC+, etc., where values under 100 are below average (negative value) players. For a team to make the playoffs, teams want as many above average players as possible. Replacement value (WAR) is worthless. Look at WAA instead.

If you look at his stat sheet, the likelihood of a breakout year is low. He's a #3/#4 guy at best. If he pitches well in 2019, no one is going to be paying big money for a guy with one good year by age 31/32. Best case (for him) is he has a #3-level year and the Twins extend him, or he becomes a good bullpen arm and the Twins extend him. Worst case is he turns into Scott Baker and the recovery from TJ is long. He may never actually play for the Twins before his contract runs out. This has all the red flags of the bad signings Ryan made post 2011. Let's hope this one works out. We're again talking about the $ involved, which doesn't matter. This team isn't going bankrupt and they have yet to make an investment in a top or even mid-level player that doesn't have an asterisk. If the Minnesota Twins ever reach a point where they can't pay their bills, then let's talk about $!

He has been a negative value pitcher for the past two years, and past 3 years as a whole, when compared to league average pitchers. Those are the numbers, there's nothing disingenuous there. In fact, it's disingenuous to have a narrative that is the opposite of the numbers, no?

Pineda has a negative WAA since 2014. When the Yankees acquired him, they stashed him in the minors which seems strange. He will be 30 years old before he plays a game for the Twins. I'm betting there were no other suitors for this player who was going to sit out a year. Overall this seems pretty daft as the first move the team makes. I could see this being the last move after the pressing issues are addressed, but not the first.

Bleh. This is a move to help 2019, and as such this signing could have been done two months from now if there were still a need. Let's see something done to help 2018, which would essentially help 2019 too.

*popularity, not tenure.