Doomtints

Mauer's production (and in this case, I mean WAR) is predicted to dip 40% from 2016 levels in 2017. It is expected to dip 50% from 2016 levels in 2018. His 2019 numbers are then expected to rise a bit, but still predicted to be roughly 35% below 2016 levels. However, if the first two are true I would think that he would not be playing in 2019. He needs to have this bump a year earlier if he wants to keep playing. His 2020 prediction is not quite nil but very close, so he's not expected to be around for the most part.

If we're back on this again, I don't think any of the assets on the table have "no value." You could argue with a straight face that they have LESS value, but no value?

Good question. Keeping Dozier delays the long term plans, I should think.

You laid this out perfectly.

Impasse: When things are so hopeless, you have to start speaking in French.

The Twins have done more than turn to prospects. They also resumed signing geriatrics, or players past their prime if you want to be kind. It will be fun watching Santana, Hughes, Gibson, Vogelsong, and rotating green guy in 2017. I guess.

Well, I would say that even if Bautista's personality has some warts, Sano could still learn something from him. At times Sano seems more concerned with his entourage than baseball. If Sano shifts more of his focus to baseball he will be an MVP. Say what you want about Bautista, his focus is on baseball. Maybe all Sano needs is a buddy in the clubhouse, maybe if that buddy is a bit crazy too the bond might actually happen.

I disagree. When the Twins put out the survey a few years ago asking which type of car the Twins should be, the door was forever left open for this sort of thing. As for which Twins would most fit on the Trump cabinet, which of the players are against public service? Those would be the guys, but I don't think those players exist. The organization takes great pride in what it does for the community. Historically you could probably go with Jon Rauch, Kenny Rogers, or our favorite Delmon Young. Knoblauch too, but he might be too obvious, and I honestly don't think he was always a bad guy.

If De Leon has 10 wins in 6 months, and Dozier is hitting .210 as he is prone to do for long stretches, why not? Heck, just take a dollar to complete the trade.

Losing only 85 games with the worst pitching staff in the bigs would be a huge accomplishment. Realistically we are looking at upper 90s in the loss column again. Personally I'm perplexed that Twins are not doing whatever they can to improve the staff. Just take the current deal and add a PTBNL/Cash rider on it. Work out the marginal B.S. later on like other teams do. It seems incredibly unlikely that the Dodgers would balk at that, unless there really is no deal on the table.

Or position players for that matter. A cheaper, looser ball probably doesn't carry the same way. I would think that the economy of scale would render the "cheaper to buy" argument moot pretty fast. The MLB is already making the balls. If they use the same balls, they would become cheaper for everybody.

Between 7th street and 5th street = Between 7th street and 5th street.

Most likely Grossman is neither the bad defender he was in 2016 nor is he the great hitter he was in 2016. He is going to regress on both ends.

SDI is bunk, unfortunately. SDI adds the results from other defensive systems together -- heck just about every defensive system you can think of is taken and all added together to form SDI. Some systems count some things that others do not count, but there is considerable overlap. Any stat that has overlap (or is counted in multiple systems) will thus be counted multiple times by the SDI index. For example, with SDI, one error is suddenly counted several times inside of various algorithms that are trying to put forth a theory as to what an error is actually worth. So rather than SDI figuring out what an error is ACTUALLY worth (picking the best theory), SDI simply takes every definition of an error's worth and adds them all together. Suddenly an error's value is inflated into the stratosphere. So if a player happens to be outside the norm on some trait that is counted in multiple systems, SDI explodes that value out. But what if a great, important trait is only counted in one or two systems, and the player excels at it? It's buried in the mess. SDI might be the most comical baseball statistic ever and I'm a bit amazed that the SABR guys aren't embarrassed by its existence.

Q: What's Holding Up The Dozier Trade? A: Nothing is holding it up. It fell into the swamp a month ago.

More than that. If you remove Dozier's top and bottom HR totals over the past 4 years, you remove 60 of his home runs and are left with 51. There would be no quicker way to get a wrong answer in reality, even if your teacher might mark it as right. I agree that Dozier is probably good for a hair above 30 HR each year for the next couple of years.

"Elite power for his position" isn't a value statement? What is it then? Also, the line you quoted was not what I was responding to. As for power, Dozier's SLG last year was .546. Very good, but not elite. There have been recent years where second basemen have had higher SLG percentages than that with a mere seven home runs. Last year he was outslugged by someone who hit 25. Knowing that, if you are the Dodgers do you still focus only on Dozier? If you are the Twins, how high to you set the bar for a trade?

It matters a lot in this discussion. One of those would be a future HOFer and would greatly affect what the Twins should get in a trade. If the "top HR hitter" is 2 home runs above the competition, could you save your prospects and trade instead trade for the #5 HR hitter, only sacrificing half a dozen HR in the process? Yes, that would be a smart move to keep your top prospects and keep your money. If the "top HR hitter" is 30 home runs above the competition, passing on him for the #5 HR hitter is suddenly becomes a real, actual drop in value. Thus, the fact that Dozier's HR lead is due to hitting 2x his career norm in one year is worth looking at for any team. Teams would be dumb not to do that. Also, if the Dodgers are looking for power, wouldn't they be chasing SLG instead of HR? Some players with half the HR as Dozier have similar or better SLGs. How much does HR even matter here? We could be getting deep into a discussion that is simply a red herring.

No one is arguing that if you take away Dozier's 42 that he isn't worth anything. The point is he isn't as far ahead as everyone else as is being suggested (at least until Dozier proves he can do it again). He isn't in that "super human" territory as is being suggested (at least not yet).

Entry level statistics teaches that you get rid of the highest and lowest numbers. But what if either of the highest or lowest numbers are within a standard deviation of the norm? You've started to remove valid data just to deal with some other number that is skewing things. And you're not *really* dealing with that outlier data by this process, you're just finding a way to feel more equitable about removing it. But getting the right story from data isn't about feeling fair about it. (And it's also not about removing data you don't like, it's about finding some other way to deal with it). Not looking at Dozier's competition, here are the various methods discussed for dealing with Dozier over the past four years: - Straight up HR/yr average: 27.75 (111 total) - Mean + Median HR/yr average: 26.63 (106 total) - Replacing highest and lowest with the average: 24.25 (97 total) - Replacing the outlier with the average: 23 (92 total) - Removing the outlier altogether: 23 (69 total) - Removing highest and lowest: 25.5 (51 total) If I were making a recommendation, I would use the 26/yr projection as it's the system that does not ignore his great year, it simply weighs it less. If 2016 becomes his norm, then that will work itself out over time in the calculation. With Dozier's small sample size the story is about the same regardless of the method you use -- 42 home runs is a hell of a lot more than anyone would have expected in 2016. It would thus be a gamble to expect it in 2017, but you can take ~25 home runs to the bank until he shows that 2016 is repeatable. You could also use regression analysis to deal with outliers, but I'll only get into what that indicates for Dozier if anyone is interested. (It's 23.39/yr.)

Yep, that exists. It's still not the right way to do it. The way I outlined is one of the many better ways to deal with outliers, but it takes more work than the elementary grade school level link that this is. Another way to deal with outliers is to take the mean average, take the median average, and then make a new average based on those results. This method smooths things out nicely without actually removing or changing any data (it simply reduces the weight of outliers) but works best with larger data sets.

Except that's not how you would do it. If you wanted to do this sort of analysis, this would be the process: 1) Remove the peak year's data for each player. 2) Determine the yearly average for each player using the data left in the data set. 3) Project that average onto the year you just removed. This would be a very circular process which would yield the same point I already raised. You don't account for "outliers" in data by removing them. You account for outliers by assuming the data would have been "normal" instead. In other words, you replace the outlier with the average. If you simply remove the data altogether, you create another outlier! Zero is an outlier too.

That's not how you would do it. If you were removing peak performances, you would then need to project the average over the remaining years in the data for that year you just removed. You would not simply just remove the data, you would replace the data with normalized data. So yes, I have a point....

The original statement was, "Dozier leads others at his by position by double digits at HR." My response was, "But that double digit lead is only due to one year of unusual production." After that we went a circular route back to my original statement due to someone misinterpreting my point. So why are we arguing? I have no idea. The point is, his HR lead is not head and shoulders above his comps due to being a future HOFer. The big lead is due to his career year. This is worth pointing out. The distinction here is huge.

I like your optimism. With me, I was sick of most of these names before the last offseason and I'm still sick of them. I still think the Twins should fire-sale half of the pitching staff now with the half that remains being on a 1 year probation. They need a full turnover.