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jharaldson

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  1. jharaldson
    pitcher comp

    From the album: jharaldson

  2. jharaldson
    Just out of curiosity, do you have any comps to 2014 when he wasn't doing this pitch tipping? Any fancy gifs showing that this is a strictly 2015 problem? Thanks!
  3. jharaldson
    Hello Mr. Goin, Thanks for taking some time out of your day to participate on this forum. I have a question regarding Bastardo with an assumption that we do not sign him. How closely do you follow guys like him after missing out? I assume that each offseason you go into that you only have a small list of free agents that you have real interest in due to cost, need, ect.... After missing out on most of them do you follow them over the next few years to see if your analytics and scouting got it right or if you mis-valued the player? A classic example of this that I always wondered about happened in 2009, your first year on the job full time I think. The Twins made a hard stance on Casey Blake that they would give him 2 years but not 3 and lost him to the Dodgers. The Twins went on to sign Crede who had a very frustrating and injury filled year with the Twins while Blake went on to have 1 great, 1 good, and 1 mediocre year in LA. Did your team do retrospective analysis on your assessment of him and the offer the Twins made? If not, do you anticipate doing so with some of the relief free agents like Bastardo that the Twins have missed out on? Thank you for your time!
  4. jharaldson
    I have 2 quick questions about the event: 1. Will you be recording the interviews you have with the players? 2. Will you REALLY be recording the interview you have with the players?
  5. jharaldson
    I guess I object to these descriptions in a couple of ways. 1. Comp to MLB Hitters - The OPS you present is the league average hitter from Fangraphs. It includes pitchers and players from other light hitting positions. His peers are other 1B and the average OPS for 1B in 2015 was .780 so he was well below average. http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=1b&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=0&type=1&season=2015&month=0&season1=2015&ind=0&team=0,ss&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0 2. Projections - I just can't see how after 2 straight seasons of .732 and .718 OPS we can say a realistic season for Joe is a .825 OPS. IMO realistic is .730-.740 and optimistic is .770-.780.
  6. jharaldson
    pitcher comp

    From the album: jharaldson

  7. jharaldson
    I was doing some digging and here is a statistic I came up with on how out of place Mauer is in the 3rd spot in the lineup. I went to Fangraphs and found the player for each team that had the most plate appearances in the 3rd spot of the lineup and found their OPS while in that spot for their team. ex: http://www.fangraphs.com/statsplits.aspx?playerid=1857&position=C&season=0&split=11.3 I then ranked all of them by OPS descending and this is what I found: Mauer is by far the worst falling a full 42 points below the 29th ranked guy. My biggest disappointment is that Paul Molitor let the 3 hole in the lineup be filled with such low production.
  8. jharaldson
    3BattersRanked

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  9. jharaldson
    jheraldson

    From the album: jharaldson

  10. jharaldson
    Gardenhire hired an agent on April 24th this year and was quoted "willing to consider virtually any position" which would mean that for certain all positions filled since then rejected an interested Gardenhire. Dodgers – TBD Marlins – Don Mattingly Marlins – Dan Jennings Brewers – Craig Counsell Phillies – Pete Mackanin Padres – Andy Green Nationals – Dusty Baker Mariners – Scott Servais http://mlb.nbcsports.com/2015/04/24/ron-gardenhire-has-hired-an-agent-to-find-him-another-managing-gig/ I would also say that I am not aware of any quote where he said he would turn down a managerial position if offered last offseason. I can only find quotes where he rejected working for the Twins in 2015 in any capacity. http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2015/02/23/ryan-says-gardenhire-welcome-to-work-for-twins/
  11. jharaldson
    I think that the number of teams that have passed on Gardy speaks volumes about what MLB opinion on him is: Diamondback – Chip Hale Cubs – Joe Maddon Dodgers – TBD Marlins – Don Mattingly Marlins – Dan Jennings Brewers – Craig Counsell Phillies – Pete Mackanin Padres – Andy Green Nationals – Dusty Baker Astros – AJ Hinch Mariners – Scott Servais Rays – Kevin Cash Rangers – Jeff Banister That is 13 times by 12 separate organizations that teams have looked at Gardy and said no. So no, I would not hire him and that opinion seems to be shared by MLB management other than Terry Ryan.
  12. jharaldson
    Typically you guys have an in depth interview with Terry Ryan in these handbooks but I don't see it mentioned here. Will you be having a signature interview with someone in Twins leadership? Thanks!
  13. jharaldson
    If I average the WAR of the top 10 guys in velocity I get 4.2. If I start with Felix, #40 in velocity, and get the next 9 guys the average WAR is 3.1. Velocity is not the only thing but I would rank it in my top 5 things to look for regarding effectiveness. http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=pit&lg=all&qual=y&type=c,76,4,5,6,36,37,45,59&season=2015&month=0&season1=2015&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&sort=3,d&page=2_30
  14. jharaldson
    I think something that is not used as frequently as it could be is a signing bonus. We gave $6 million to Morneau as a signing bonus. I think Sano would have to think long an hard about Seth's proposal if it also included a $10 million signing bonus. That kind of big money upfront could push him to sign.
  15. jharaldson
    No problem, my biggest beef with the whole conversation is that the concussion gets blamed for everything. I agree that Joe would have been in the .770 range in 2014 without the concussion which means to me that the majority of his OPS reduction (880 -> 770) from 2013 to 2014 was caused by pre-concussion factors and the remaining minority was concussion related (770 -> 730).
  16. jharaldson
    I would agree that his BABIP had almost no impact on his slugging which went down dramatically from 2013 (ISO .153) to 2014 (ISO .095). A good case could be made there for the concussion impacting that. I would also include offseason training issues due to concussion and increase in defensive shifts in that reduction but would have no problem conceding that the power reduction was a result of the concussion. Just to make the math work, if Joe had a SLG% of .450 like you suggested that would mean his ISO for last year would have been .170. As a comparison he has only ever reached .170 in 1 year and that is his outlier year of 2009 so I think that is a little aggressive. A better comp would have been to say if Joe had his career ISO of .139 last year he would have had a SLG% of .410-415 and an OPS of .770.
  17. jharaldson
    If you look at the 2013 pre-concussion numbers there are signs that a decline was coming. Listening to Gleeman and looking at his article you would assume that K% went up after the concussion but his K% in 2013 was 17.5%. It maxed out the next year after the concussion at 18.5% but the majority of growth in K% happened prior to the concussion. Also, it was repeated frequently in the latest podcast that in 2013 Joe was having a regular Joe year with a .325 AVG and a .400 OBP. Neither Gleeman nor John mentioned his career high BABIP in 2013 of .383, almost 40 points higher than his career average. In 2014 his BABIP went down to his career average of .342 which saw a similar reduction in AVG and OBP. Disregarding the concussion these reductions were predictable because a BABIP of near .400 is unsustainable as Danny Santana has shown.
  18. jharaldson
    If you exclude the last 10 games Mauer has a .705 OPS, which I would still qualify as bad for a 1B. http://www.fangraphs.com/statsd.aspx?playerid=1857&position=C&type=2&gds=2015-04-06&gde=2015-05-24&season= That would rank 24th our of 27 qualified 1B this year: http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=1b&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=y&type=1&season=2015&month=0&season1=2015&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&sort=10,d
  19. jharaldson
    I would have a hard time thinking anyone saw how bad Mauer is this year coming. I was down on Mauer this year but saw a .730-.790 OPS as likely, certainly not in the .600's. http://twinsdaily.com/topic/16186-the-elephant-in-the-room-joe-mauer/?p=297530 I think it is important to acknowledge that he is bad now. There was a lot of hope that with an easier position he might keep his strong 2013 going and maybe improve. Aaron Gleeman even went so far as to declare this: http://aarongleeman.com/2013/11/12/concussion-forces-joe-mauer-to-switch-from-catcher-to-first-base/ Let's accept this is becoming less likely to happen and emphasize what he can do. Many posters have pointed out that while not at levels he has put up in the past his OBP is still one of the better on the team so move him to the 2 hole like many have suggested. When some of our young guys come up (Sano, Vargas, ect....) and if they perform we should consider putting in a 1B platoon so Mauer can avoid tough lefties. Just some thoughts.
  20. jharaldson
    I saw this thread and looked up Joe's numbers and I had no idea how bad he was doing compared to the league. He is currently ranked 25th out of 27 in OPS by a 1B with guys like Howard and Pujols ahead of him. Somehow Joe is always given a pass in the albatross contract lists but those guys get called out and they are outperforming him this year. If you go back to his position of catcher his .683 OPS would rank him 17th among catchers making him average to below average at his original position: http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=c&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=100&type=1&season=2015&month=0&season1=2015&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&sort=10,d
  21. jharaldson
    I would also say it is his size. According to bbref he is 6'5/230. This thread is comparing him to guys smaller than him. Gwynn was 5'11/185, Rod Carew was 6'0/170, Wade Boggs was 6'2/190. I had a disagreement recently with Gleeman on Twitter on this because he frequently presents posts that he calls "without bias" but they are always comparing Joe to smaller individuals like the ones above and others like Molitor, Jeter, ect..... and I think that true comps are guys about his size. Looking at the HOF the past 30 years I found only 2 guys who are 6'4 or 6'5 and they are Cal Ripken (6'4/200) and Frank Thomas (6'5/240) and both used their size for more power than Mauer did. In my opinion if Mauer were 5 inches shorter and 60 pounds lighter the power discussions would not be as frequent.
  22. jharaldson
    You are better at spotting these types of things than most or all of the rest of the board. Has Joe ever gone through a similar swing modification? My recollection is he looks pretty much the same now as he did when he came up. Any fancy gifs that can be produced to prove or disprove that perception ;-)
  23. jharaldson
    I want the Twins to do option B - start Schafer in CF and have Hicks be the backup and play 3 times a week giving each guy a day off. I actually think Hicks doesn't have more to learn in the minors. He has played in almost 600 minor league games and has almost 2600 AB in the minors. I think a role in the majors where he doesn't have the immediate pressure of being a starter but still has somewhat regular AB (3 games, 15 AB a week) is the best route for him to get comfortable and grow. I think the Twins will start the year with Option A again (for the 3rd time) with the same results.
  24. jharaldson
    Some questions for Jacque: You were part of some great defensive outfields with the Twins, in particular the “Soul Patrol” with Hunter, Lawton, and yourself. There have been some recent discussion questioning if OF defense has any impact on pitching. Do you think your great OF defense helped the pitching staff of your teams or do you think it is minimal and pitchers just have to pitch?As a player you had dramatic splits with an OPS of .819 against RHP and an OPS of .649 against LHP. Looking back on your career do you think it would have been better to have platooned with someone an minimized your AB against LHP or do you agree with your opportunities against LHP?What was it like during the contraction year playing for an owner that wanted to shut down your team? I always imagined it was like the movie “Major League” where the manager united the locker room by showing how ownership was against them.http://cdn.bleacherreport.net/images_root/article/media_slots/photos/001/318/844/majorleagueoriginal_original.jpg?1389973873
  25. jharaldson
    1. We have heard over the past season or 2 a lot of talk from the Twins about Josmil Pinto needing to improve as a catcher. I can look at his numbers and see he has thrown out 5 of 26 runners in his career which isn’t great but isn’t awful. Can you point out some other things he needs to improve on that the average fan can watch for during a game? 2. There has been a recent advancement in baseball statistics where analysts are measuring the number of balls called strikes and the number of strikes called balls and attributing that to the catcher. A number of questions on this: Do you think that the catcher has an impact on the umpire’s call of ball or strike?Do you think that impact can be measured?What are your thoughts on the fact that Kurt Suzuki is measured very poorly in this stat over a number of years and teams?3. I grew up watching the Twins starting in ’85 and loved how much fun it looked like that group had playing baseball. I have always been curious about how the Gaetti conversion went over with that team as I heard a number of rumors that it created a rift in the team. A couple of questions on this: Did his conversion have an impact on the team or was that overblown by media and fans?Have you ever seen anything like that on other teams you have covered or been around?
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