Doomtints

I agree. Would yesterday's loss had been as bad if Buxton had been out there? Could the Twins have won? I'm perplexed as to why Molitor would have anyone other than Buxton out there behind the Twins #3-#5 starters! This isn't the first time.

The Braves brass were crystal clear when they said publicly that they did not think Colon would work in the bullpen and that was never an option. The Braves had to cut a pitcher. They felt they have 5 starters better than Colon and they have a very good bullpen. Not sure what "private" thing you read, but I would be skeptical because what you are suggesting was the discussion makes no sense. This would be like the Twins moving Buxton to catcher.

That's not the story I read at all.

Colon is probably a waste of time as a pitcher, but the Braves could not say enough good things about his ability to mentor.

Who else was available for them to pick up? This was a panic move.

Considering they picked up Sogard, yes.

Now that I look more closely at the Brewers, their pitching has improved greatly over the past six weeks. They are a good pitching team too. I'm a little surprised.

Hader has debuted with them but is still considered a prospect, and they have a couple of others in the near pipeline. The Brewers have two weaknesses, pitching and 2B. They could fix one of them with a trade if they are willing to give up a prospect. They won't find a better 2B on the market.

Even after coming back down to earth, Duffey's numbers as a reliever are still better than his numbers as a starter. One should also consider that at the end of the day, he is still only credited with two losses, his ERA+ and WAA show him as average, and his FIP looks rather shiny. He is also the most used -- and thus most trusted-- reliever on the team. Not sure why we'd blow that up to make him a starter with the the plan to trade him away.

Brewers.

All attempts at uberstats have been failures. FIP variants are fine to get a complete picture of a pitcher, but they are not replacements for looking at everything else. Unfortunately, FIP variants tend to get thrown around in a vacuum without any consideration for other stats, excepting of course a comparison to the pitcher's ERA. Having said that, I would love to see an attempt at an uberstat based purely on pitchf/x data.

Everyone who looks at stat sheets are aware of his power. Statcast in particular loves Sano. Even with hitting 42 home runs last year, Dozier is still very much in the Twins sphere only, fans in other markets don't think about him. The same cannot be said of Sano. He may not be a superstar (yet), but people know who he is and know he is in the league to hit dingers.

This is just my perception of the Twins hitting behavior in particular. It could be wrong, and it almost certainly does not apply to the MLB as a whole.

I'm not convinced that the problems are mechanical flaws over simply being green. There are really no true red flags around Buxton. He is already providing value to the team, even with his weak bat. Tell me, what would the Twins W-L record be right now without Buxton?

Always skeptical of wins where all of the scoring is in one inning. This is usually a sign that the bats are about to go silent for a couple of games. But a win is a win!

I don't know if I would call him a sleeper. People know who he is. No smart person would bet against him.

Since they were once Piranhas, shouldn't they be Cucarachas?

Management should absolutely focus on problems. Managers should then work together to propose solutions. Once a solution is agreed upon, communication with the team should only be about the solutions. The players should, then, only be hearing about how to improve (the "solutions.") One can't pick one or the other when it comes to problems v. solutions, but every person has a different role in the workflow. Note that every worker/player is different. Some people respond well to having problems called out so they know exactly what they are trying to fix. Molitor's job is to figure out which approach works. For most of the young guys, the solution approach is probably better. It's certainly what should be tried first.

Twins clearly never practiced or discussed how to handle a double steal. The idea was to cause confusion and that's exactly what happened. You can bet the team will be working on it now.

So we had no data on Santiago before 2017? Weird, I thought we did.

Why limit this to just who qualified? Nowhere does this definition mention starters. How many closers have a sub-4.00 ERA but don't qualify? How many starters don't qualify due to being rookies or due to an injury? Does being "new" make a pitcher not good? Does being a reliever make a pitcher not good? By using "Qualified" pitchers only, you are arguing that only starters who pitch entire seasons can be good pitchers. Now that we have qualification out of the way, 75 pitchers have a sub 4.00 ERA with 40+ IP. 40 IP is something probably 5% of relievers have hit by now, so we are still mostly talking about starters. If you lower the IP to 20 to catch the bulk of relievers, it's 190 pitchers. Would you say there are more than 190 good pitchers in the league today?

I have gone back and forth a bit over this. Around the ASG the Twins have a tough stretch of schedule, so we will know by the trade deadline if they should buy or if they should sell. Right now, it looks like the Twins are an admirable team, but they won't make the playoffs.

Average doesn't matter for this discussion as it includes the pitchers that Gladden would be saying are crappy. Eyeballing the numbers you threw out, I can buy his premise that he believes that a 4.00 ERA pitcher isn't good. Back to the point, what has Gladden been saying about 1/2 to 3/4 of the staff having 5.50+ ERAs for the past 1.5 years?

I am. Granted, I should not have been, considering he was traded for Nolasco. I see Alex Meyer has finally settled down and found the strike zone.

Back in 2009 or 2010, I recall Gordon and Gladden talking about how a pitcher with a 4.00 ERA is not a good pitcher. What has Gladden been saying over the past year and a half with so many 5.50+ ERA pitchers on the team? It has to be aggravating.