IndianaTwin

Welcome to the Labor Day edition of the Game Thread, as our Twins head to Gotham to take on the Evil Empire. And given that it's Labor Day, I'm going to take a quick look at the career of Curt Flood. I grew up with St. Louis as my favorite NL team, thanks to an older brother who was a fan of the Redbirds. I remember Lou Brock and Bob Gibson, but I'm not quite old enough to remember Flood as a member of the team. Flood's Wikipedia page lists him as a "baseball player and activist." Folks may know him for the latter, but here's a few tidbits on the former. After all, it wouldn't have been as big a deal to threaten the reserve clause if he wasn't a good player. 1. Flood was part of a high school outfield that included Frank Robinson and Vada Pinson. I'm no high school sports junkie, but I can't imagine many teams that have ever had an outer garden that talented. All three eventually signed contracts with Cincinnati. 2. Flood got into a handful of games as an 18- and 19-year-old with the Redlegs, but with Pinson's emergence, was considered expendable and traded to St. Louis in December 1957. 3. He became a mainstay in St. Louis over the next 12 seasons, winning seven Gold Gloves in center and earning three All-Star appearance in helping St. Louis to three World Series appearances. In his final nine seasons there, he generated 39.2 bWAR, an average of 4.4 per season. His best year was 1963, when he posted 5.8. In a time of low batting averages, he hit .302 over the period, playing at least 150 games in seven of the nine seasons. 4. Defense was his calling card. In addition to the seven Gold Gloves, he played in 226 consecutive games without an error, including the entire 1966 season, accepting 568 total chances along the way. 5. Flood spent 15 years on the Hall of Fame ballot, topping out at 15.1 percent in 1996, his final year of eligibility. He ranks 46th among centerfielders in JAWS, calculated by averaging one's career WAR and the WAR of one's best seven seasons as a way of attempting to balance longevity and peak in quantifying excellence. Only 19 center fielders are in the Hall, so he's well below the cut line, but his JAWS score is ahead of a couple of them and is immediately behind Hack Wilson. It's well above Lloyd Waner, who largely got selected on the coattails of his brother Paul. Following the 1969 season, Flood was traded to the Phillies, along with Tim McCarver, Byron Browne and Joe Hoerner, for Dick Allen, Cookie Rojas and Jerry Johnson. Flood refused to report to Philadelphia, citing the team's poor play, crummy stadium and racist fans, who had also been a thorn in Allen's side. In a December 24, 1969, letter to Bowie Kuhn, Flood requested that the commissioner declare him a free agent, naming that he did not see himself a piece of property to be bought and sold irrespective of his wishes. Kuhn denied the request, citing the reserve clause. Flood filed a $1 million suit in January of 1970, likening the reserve clause to slavery. The case was argued in the Supreme Court in 1972, but Flood lost. By this time, he was out of baseball, having sat out the 1970 season while effectively being blackballed from the game. He was bombarded with death threats, with Bob Gibson estimating that Flood received four to five per day. After the 1971 season, the Phillies traded Flood to the Senators, but he played only 13 games in 1972 before retiring. Though Flood lost the Supreme Court case by a 5-3 decision, with one justice recusing himself because of owning stock in Anheuser-Busch, owners of the Cardinals, the case was a major factor in the onset of free agency. The players union continued to push against the reserve clause, and it was struck down in 1975. The following summer, players and owners agreed on a contract that opened the doors to free agency. Also implemented was the 10/5 rule, which gave players with 10 years of seniority, including five with their current club, the ability to veto a trade. In 1998, the "Curt Flood Act" revoked baseball's antitrust rule, with some exceptions. I personally think that he should get votes from the Veteran's Committee because of his overall impact on the game. It seems that every player who has cashed a check since about 1975 or so should be supporting his induction. And now, on to today's action, which will start with these lineups: Minnesota Twins 1. Luis Arraez (L), dh 2. Carlos Correa (R), ss 3. Max Kepler (L), rf 4. Jose Miranda (R), 1b 5. Nick Gordon (L), 2b 6. Gio Urshela (R), 3b 7. Jake Cave (L), lf 8. Gary Sanchez (R), c 9. Gilberto Celestino (R), cf -- Chris Archer (R), (and others) p The Evil Empire 1. Gleyber Torres (R), 2b 2. Aaron Judge (R), cf 3. Giancarlo Stanton (R), dh 4. Josh Donaldson (R), 3b 5. Jose Trevino (R), c 6. Oswaldo Cabreral (S), rf 7. Isiah Kiner-Falefa (R), ss 8. Tim Locastro (R), lf 9. Marwin Gonzalez (S), 1b -- Jameson Taillon (R), p

Here's a current snapshot of how things look going forward, with games remaining:

I thought there would be no math.

Winnah.

Hall, Borland, Hernandez, Atwell, Lyons.

Of course, maybe if it wasn’t Vaughn in left, he would have.

I was kinda hoping things would turn over so Billy would get to hit that inning, but I’ll still take two.

On Hamilton, in discussing whether or not there’s a length limitation on the oven mitt he wears, Steve Stone suggests he switch to a foam finger.

Small. ?

Steve Stone the first “expert” who thinks Correa WON’T opt out.

I figured I’d do it for you, so you didn’t have to.

Benetti does college football, so Len Kasper is covering for him on their broadcast. After making the obligatory “Jose Miranda is a cousin of Lin Manuel” comment, Kasper noted that as a result, the Twins have been adding Hamiltons to their roster with Caleb and Billy.

Here's the stats since June 13 for the four primary starters. By both ERA and FIP, Bundy and Gray have been the most effective during that time, though Ryan has gone a little longer. Chris Archer (4,28 innings per start) (Also, of note, during the 13 game "transition" period I describe in the GT intro, Archer's starts were both 5 innings. It looks like the goal is to get to 5 innings, but pitch count and game situation determines what happens in the fifth inning. He's made it through 5 five times, been pulled during the fifth on four occasions, and pulled after 4 in 11 games, almost always with pitch counts in the 60s and 70s. The one time he went 90 pitches was immediately followed by an IL stint, so I'm guessing that contributed to their backing down on his innings.) Dylan Bundy (now 5.18 innings per start): Sonny Gray (5.07 innings per start) Joe Ryan (5.36 innings per start)

Welcome to the Stopper Edition of the Twins Daily Game Thread series, as Dylan Bundy takes to the hill to face Lucas Giolito in a game the Twins badly need. After a truly masterful performance (and it pains me to say this about any Team That Shall Not Be Named player, but it truly was masterful) by Dylan Cease, the afore-referenced-but-not-named team has climbed within a game of our Twins, who trail a recently renamed, but still disliked, team by a single game. Should all things turn out well today, our Twins will exit the weekend tied for first and three games up on the third-place team. Usually when I write a Game Thread edition, I try to come up with a witty theme. I'm not feeling it today, however. I even skipped church to go on a long bike ride, hoping for inspiration. As it turns out, the only thing on the bike ride that made me think of today's game was a few fresh steaming hot road apples left behind as I rode through the local Amish country. Said road apples reminded me both of my dislike for today's opponents and of the way the Twins have played in the most recent 11 innings. With Bundy on the hill, I can already hear the "oh, no, here comes another short start" comments. I'm going to try to nip this in the bud by offering a different perspective. I don't think short starts was the plan for this year. First, a few weeks ago, I went back to some prior year stats to see how Rocco has handled pitchers. What I found was this: So yes, in four of the past five years, Twins starters have gone shorter than the major league average, but in three of those years it was negligible. For context, each 0.1 essentially means that they have to get 16 2/10 more innings out of their bullpen over the course of the year, compared to the average team. Digging deeper, the 2019 season deserves as asterisk. If you remember, that was the year the Twins flirted with using openers. Without digging deeply, I found eight games where they used an opener. Take out those, and their average start was 5.3 innings, again a negligible difference. And in 2019, buoyed by healthy veterans Berrios, Odorizzi, Perez, Pineda and Gibson, they averaged 0.3 innings per start more than the league average. In total, over those five years have seen the Twins average 0.5 fewer innings per start than their opponents, which works out to about 8 innings over the course of a season. To me, this suggests that "shorter starts" is not a longstanding strategy for the Twins. But this year has seemed different. In fact, during last night's game, they showed a graphic noting that the Twins rank 27th in MLB in innings per start, getting just 4.8 innings per start compared to the league average of 5.2. Should that continue, it would be the biggest difference they've had in the six years since Falvey and Levine have been on board. But here's where I'm going to suggest that that wasn't the plan. Let's separate the season into three chunks. The first will be April 8-May 30. The Twins started the season with starters Ryan, Gray, Ober, Bundy, Archer and Paddack, four veterans and two relievers. Though not in the original rotation, Smeltzer and Winder would get starts in that period. During that period, it appears that Rocco (I'm going to use "Rocco" as a catchall term for management, since we really don't know who all plays into these decisions) tried to use the starters in a conventional way. For example: In Ryan's first eight starts, he went about 5.4 innings per start, with four of them going at least 6 innings. Gray got a late start, but in his last three starts in that stretch, went 6, 7 and 6 innings. Ober ended up with only six starts in that period, but his first three were 5, 6 and 5, before getting shelled and pulled after 3.2, sent to the minors as the Twins went with other veterans, and then returning with a 5 inning start. Bundy went an average of 5.0 innings in his first eight starts, but that counts getting pulled at 3.2 in a game he got shelled and then at 3 innings after a short IL stint. He had two games of 6.0 innings in that mix. Winder went 6 and 6 innings in his first two starts, but then 3.1 and 3.2 in games he got shelled. Smeltzer only had four starts, and they were mixed in with some relief appearances, so it's hard to see a pattern. Coming off injury, Paddack pitched 20 innings in his first four starts, going 4, 5, 5.2 and 5.1 before getting hurt. It looks like an effort to longer ("normal") starts was developing. Archer was the exception, averaging just under 4 innings per start, but it's worth noting that he was the only pitcher to not miss a start in that time period. When one considers the short spring training, the beginning of the season (when starts are shorter across the board as guys continue to get lengthened) and the expanded bullpen, I think Rocco was planning to use his starters in a "normal" pattern. But guess what, guys got hurt. As noted, only Archer avoided a stint on the IL, and on May 30, a bunch of those guys were there. That leads to the next window of time, from May 31-June 12. In those 13 games, our starters included Smeltzer (3 times), Sands (3), Archer (2), Chi Chi Gonzalez (2), Bundy (2) and Ober (1). I don't think that's what Rocco was planning for as his rotation. To summarize, that's a starter coming off a crappy season (Bundy), a guy coming off several years of injury (Archer), a minor league signing (Gonzalez), an unproven young guy (Smeltzer) and two guys (Ober and Sands) with only a handful of career starts each. I think it was during that time that Rocco pivoted, making the decision to shorten up the starts a bit as an attempt to keep guys healthy. And has it worked? Well, from June 13, here are the number of starts the rotation guys have had in the 69 games of that stretch: Ryan 14 Bundy 13 Gray 15 Archer 12 (Note: Archer hasn't "missed" starts, And a fifth spot shared by Smeltzer (6), Mahle (4), Winder (3) and Sanchez (3). I think the strategy has worked, at least in terms of health. We might argue about effectiveness, but the reality is that during most of that time, the guys we had in the minors were hardly being lights out, so it's been important to keep these guys healthy. I'm sure there were times along the way when Rocco would have liked to try nudging another inning or two out of people, but it's been clear to me that he always has taken the long view, making sure that long IL stints are avoided. (And I'd add that in my mind, "taking the long view" really encapsulates most of the decisions the front office has made. That gets irritating on a day-to-day basis, but it fits with the notion of "sustainability." But that's another discussion.) As to starts per inning, and this is where I'm going to circle back to Bundy in particular. I'd done some totaling a week or so ago when I was starting to develop this thesis, so these are a few days out of date. Perhaps during today's game, I'll take the time to update, but from June 13 to a week or so ago, Gray averaged 5.1 innings and Ryan and Bundy have each averaged 5.24, so Bundy has been going as long as anyone (and matching the league average). In the interest of beating starting time, I'm going to post this now, but I'll add some updated data in the comments. And now, back to today's regularly scheduled game. Here's the lineups: Minnesota Twins 1. Luis Arraez (L), 1b 2. Carlos Correa (R), ss 3. Jose Miranda (R), DH 4. Max Kepler (L), RF 5. Gio Urshela (R), 3b 6. Kyle Garlick (R), lf 7. Nick Gordon (L), 2b 8. Gary Sanchez (R), c 9. Gilberto Celestino (R), cf -- Dylan Bundy (R), p The Other Team 1. Elvis Andrus (R), ss 2. Andrew Vaughn (R), lf 3. Jose Abreu (R), 1b 4. Eloy Jimenez (R), dh 5. Gavin Sheets (L), rf 6. Yasmani Grandal (S), C 7. A.J. Pollock (R), cf 8. Leury Garcia (S), 3b 9. Romy Gonzalez (R), 2b -- Lucas Giolito (R), p

To clarify, are you saying you enjoyed last August and September more than this?

Did we get the older Billy Hamilton?

Provus is on college football tomorrow. To which I say, get your priorities straight, young man.

He’s been gone five years, and I still can’t shake the feeling.

Without question.

Wow. Just wow. That’s the first time I’ve watched an entire tennis match in a long time. Serena Williams just put on an incredible show. On a list of the best athletes of all time, she has to be included.

I’ll join y’all later. Serena is sensational.

“One of the best…” leaves things open for interpretation. Technically, Eddie Bane was “one of the best,” if we’re talking about, say, the 500 best. ?

Unless they genuinely see something in him, Davis has the makings of a two-day signing, with another DFA coming on Saturday when Mahle is activated.

I hear Kevin Correia and Mike Pelfrey yelling from the TD archives, begging for their voice to be heard. ?

Say more -- I don't have TV access. I get the impression you're saying Baldelli handled it well. That's not surprising to me, given that interpersonal relationships seems to be a strength for him.