Luke in MN
Dec 10, 2009 Jun 01, 2012 66 4722
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K. Goldstein on M. Sano
Pay article, but a fun Miguel Sano writeup by Kevin Goldstein, who saw him on Monday when he hit two dingers:
"Miguel Sano was the main event….Having never seen Sano in person, I walked into the park with numerous expectations, and so many of them turned out to be wrong:
I expected him to be huge, but he’s simply big….I expected him to be a free swinging maniac, and he’s anything but….I expected him to have some power, and he has tons. ..Both [homers] were to the opposite field, and he really didn’t fully connect on either…already has the swing of a power hitter. …There are far more advanced hitters who don’t have the kind of loft and backspin Sano generates without incorporating an uppercut; it’s rare to see a teenager in Low-A who almost easily projects to have the power of a No. 4 hitter in a major league lineup, but Sano does….I expected him to be a laughably awful defensive player, but he was merely bad."
Since I’m cribbing the article a bit, I should mention that Kevin Goldstein is a lot of fun and generates tons of interesting prospect content at BP. And if you haven’t checked out his "Up and In" Podcast, but are looking for a couple 30-something hipster smartasses who talk about baseball and prospects for about 3 hours a week, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU THINKING?
Fangraphs ranks the Twins by position
by Luke in MN on Mar 9, 2012 10:31 PM EST
on Twinkie Town
Fangraphs ranked all teams in baseball by position. How did the Twins do? With surprising cromulence! (click links for the articles and full rankings)
2nd base: 29th (frown)
Starters: 11th!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Mauer money, Mauer problems
by Luke in MN on Jan 29, 2012 11:29 PM EST
on Twinkie Town
Year 1 of Joe Mauer’s big contract went badly. Mauer was paid to be one of the best players in the game, and last season he was something like the 163rd best player (by Fangraphs WAR, Mauer contributed about as much as did A.J. Pierzynski and Nick Punto—ouch-er-ooski). Worse than that, he missed half the season with precisely the sort of injuries that terrify fans of 6’5’’, 220-pound catchers.
But the upside is just as clear. Despite the 2011 debacle, since Mauer’s 2006 breakout the players who have produced more wins above replacement (averaging Fangraphs’ WAR and Rally WAR) are Albert Pujols, Chase Utley, and exactly nobody else. Mauer’s still only 28, and last year was the first year in history he wasn’t more or less awesome at baseball. If Twins games are going to be fun to watch in the next 7 years, about 50% of that fun is going to be hailing our immortal Chairman.
And he’s not the only massive contract out there with a massive question mark behind it. I did a comparison of Mauer’s peers, below. This lists every position player whose team still owes them more than $54 million (what remains owed to the corpse of Alfonso Soriano), along with some other Mauer contemporaries worth looking at. After the jump I list: age; 6-year average WAR, calculated by averaging fWAR and rWAR; 3-year average WAR; years remaining; money owed; and average money owed per year.
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Expect big things from Trevor Plouffe
by Luke in MN on Jul 17, 2011 10:37 PM EDT
on Twinkie Town
In between MLB stints, Trevor Plouffe has hit .313/.384/.635 over 220 plate appearances in the AAA International League this year. Reducing that offensive beat down to a single number, you get a wRC+ of 175, which more or less means that he’s produced 75% more runs per plate appearance—taking into account all aspects of offense—than the average hitter in AAA. For comparison, only Jose Bautista has a wRC+ above 164 in MLB this year (a wild 215). Albert Pujols has a lifetime wRC+ in MLB of 167. Barry Bonds was 175 over his career. It’s entirely appropriate to say that Plouffe, while he’s played, has been the Barry Bonds of the International League this year.
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Strib: Sid: Twins have no hope...of winning 100 games.
Under the headline, "Twins have no hope," Sid Hartman reasons that the Twins have to win at an .800 clip for the rest of the season to make the playoffs. Of course, winning 80% of their remaining games would leave the Twins with about 100 wins, which would have been more than enough to win the central basically every year the central has existed. Winning at a not-unthinkable .600 clip for the rest of the season would give us about 84 wins and an off-chance at winning what seems to be a very weak division.
Not trying to beat up on an elder gentleman's off-the-cuff math, but just for the record, and contra our esteemed paper of record, there is still *some* hope.
Gibson, Swarzak, and home-grown Twins starters
by Luke in MN on Jun 12, 2011 1:21 PM EDT
on Twinkie Town
The Twins have a pretty impressive collection of currently active, home-grown MLB starters and former starters, all of whom have come up in the last decade (I’m leaving Santana out of this). Kyle Gibson and possibly Anthony Swarzak are about to join this crew, so I thought I’d compare the currently active group to the up-and-comers to see how we might expect Gibson and Swarzak to perform in MLB based on the records of those who have come before them.
The tables below are pretty self-explanatory, showing a variety of stats for Twins-developed pitchers in the low minor leagues (A+ and below), high minor leagues (AA and AAA), and MLB. All tables are sorted by the MLB leader in the respective statistic.
These Twins will hit (at least they should, darn it)
by Luke in MN on May 17, 2011 10:23 AM EDT
on Twinkie Town
We really, really, really shouldn't be hitting this badly. Really, darn it.
I'm just projecting
by Luke in MN on Mar 22, 2011 9:59 AM EDT
on Beyond the Box Score
(I originally posted this at Twinkietown, but I thought the subject matter would be interesting to all ya’ll here. Btw, I should give some props to my good friend Erik who helped me whenever the statistics was getting over my head. He also convinced me it was a good idea to be a big nerd about baseball stats, although I’m not sure I should thank him for that.)
So I did some pitcher projections (spreadsheet link here). A little project that turned into a little obsession.
I projected every pitcher with at least 50 IP in the last 3 years. Maybe I’ll get around to doing the rest, but so far I haven’t had the initiative to dig up minor league stats, and frankly, projecting those guys is a crap shoot anyway.
Actually, all pitcher projections are sort of a crap shoot. They’re probably worse than you think, as I try to show below. If you’re not interested in that, skip ahead to Part II where I get into the nuts and bolts of my projection system: YAPS!
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I'm just projecting
by Luke in MN on Mar 21, 2011 7:11 PM EDT
on Twinkie Town
So I did some pitcher projections (spreadsheet link here). A little project that turned into a little obsession.
I projected every pitcher with at least 50 IP in the last 3 years. Maybe I’ll get around to doing the rest, but so far I haven’t had the initiative to dig up minor league stats, and frankly, projecting those guys is a crap shoot anyway.
Actually, all pitcher projections are sort of a crap shoot. They’re probably worse than you think, as I try to show below. If you’re not interested in that, skip ahead to Part II where I get into the nuts and bolts of my projection system: YAPS!
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Twins camping trip!
It's new commercial time again. I thought this one was pretty great. Don't give up Danny!
LEN3 Spring Training Nuggets
Baker better after minor setback a month ago.
Nishioka funny, a grunter.
Kepler big, polished.
Is Joe Mauer a good defensive catcher?
by Luke in MN on Feb 6, 2011 2:28 PM EST
on Twinkie Town
When Mauer won the gold glove this year, I realized I had no idea whether he deserved it. I mean, my impression was that he’s not a defensive liability, but I didn’t really know if he was average, elite, or somewhere in between. I’m certainly no scout, so the fact that he seems pretty good when I watch TV doesn’t mean a whole lot. Judging by the awards, his reputation in the league is quite good, but Gold Gloves are often handed out to the less-than deserving and Mauer would certainly qualify as a player who might get collateral respect for his defense since his all-around game is so amazing—the dreaded "Jeter effect."
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Battle at third.
by Luke in MN on Jan 27, 2011 12:03 PM EST
on Twinkie Town
If there’s one thing White Sox fans hate, it’s a fair fight. (Although basic hygiene is pretty low on their list too...) But we just might have one on our hands at third base this year.
Our guy—Danny “Hide Your Daughters” Valencia:
6’2’’, 210. Career minor-league numbers: .298/.353/.469
Their guy—Brent “Don’t Call Me Brett!” Morel
6’2’’, 220. Career minor-league numbers: .305/.354/.464
Twins starters on the DL in 2011
by Luke in MN on Jan 20, 2011 9:55 PM EST
on Twinkie Town
More warm, cozy projections to fill these bitter January days.
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Carl Pavano and the Twins are expected to have a two-year deal by the middle of this week. It could be delayed a day or two by the team's arbitration distraction (Tuesday is the day figures are exchanged by all teams and players), but baseball people read no negative inference into the fact the talks have taken awhile. The Pirates in particular have made a run at Pavano, but the Twins' advantage is that they are a contending team where Pavano could be the ace and they are also the team that provided a comfortable environment for the pitcher to thrive in the last two seasons.
Twins #9 farm by Sickels rankings
Believe it or not, there are still some people out there using the Internet for the forces of good. One of them is this dougdirt, who posted on Minor League Ball a valuation of each team's minor league system based on the letter grades given by Sickels. So just to be clear, this is not Sickels's personal rankings of the systems, but some other guy's ranking based on the letter grades Sickels dished out.
The Twins are #9. Not too shabby.
Best 200 Twins of All Time!
by Luke in MN on Jan 5, 2011 8:00 PM EST
on Twinkie Town
The Top 200 Twins of All Time are back...Betta. Than. Eva.
I did this last year and it was really awesome. The internets literally got all tingly about it for months. And I mean literally both in the sense that it actually happened and literally in the sense that it’s like, you know, similar to literature. (Moby Dick and whatnot.) It was epic.
But now it’s even epiccer. Not only did I add the freshest 2010 data I could find, but I also totally recombobulated the scoring system!
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"I'm not exactly sure what direction they're going," Crain said. "They like to build from within, but with that said, I don't know what they will do. There are a couple of prospects coming up, but they don't have a lot of experience. It will definitely be interesting to see how it will play out. Losing me and (set-up reliever Matt Guerrier to the Dodgers as a free agent) will hurt them. The Twins were never really in the running—surprisingly or unsurprisingly. They weren't looking to sign a guy for more than $3.5 million a year. They were out from the beginning, and we didn't even negotiate with them. They have been smart with the way they do things, but we'll see."
Jesse Crain, reported by John Perrotto at Baseball Prospectus. (not pay article)
Heyman "No" on Bert...again.
I actually like Heyman's old-school defense of his "no" vote. If you accept wins above replacement or something similar as a pretty good measure of overall value, Bert's a slam dunk. If you don't (Heyman doesn't), it's a harder case in large part because Bert simply was not revered as one of the giants of the game when he played. (Although I suspect that if Bert had been a Yankee his whole career, Heyman and others like him would have remembered him much differently.) I've heard Bert say that he himself was essentially convinced of his hall worthiness after he stopped playing.
I think he'll get in, and I certainly think he should, but Heyman does a good job putting out the nay side of a very interesting argument.
Pirates kicking tires on Hardy
Haven't convinced the Twins yet. Pretty brilliant be trying to trade the only decent shortstop in the organization...amiright?
K. Theiser on Pavano, Thome
Interesting tidbits in that both the Twins & Thome and the Twins & Pavano have mutual interest in teaming up for 2011. According to Theiser, with Pavano the issue is whether the Twins will meet his price. With Thome, the issue is whether he will return instead of retiring.
Top 10 Twins prospects by Baseball America
1. Kyle Gibson, rhp
2. Aaron Hicks, of
3. Miguel Sano, 3b/ss
4. Joe Benson, of
5. Ben Revere, of
6. Liam Hendriks, rhp
7. Alex Wimmers, rhp
8. Adrian Salcedo, rhp
9. Oswaldo Arcia, of
10. Carlos Gutierrez, rhp
There is other juicy content there too, but I don't have the subscription:(
BEWARE the Royals
by Luke in MN on Nov 19, 2010 10:47 AM EST
on Twinkie Town
"one of the most dangerous 3-4 combinations in the game by the second half of the decade"
"not just the best minor-league system in baseball, it's the best by a wide margin"
"I had [trouble] figuring out any way for things to go wrong"
This all from Kevin Goldstein's write-up of the Royals farm system at Baseball Prospectus (pay article).
BP on Twins offseason
This series is much better done than most national media looks at offseason planning (although unfortunately it's a pay article). Heck, it almost could have been written by someone here at Twinkie Town!
It suggests the Twins already have a "true ace"--Liriano--and as far as the need for a "second ace" to back him up:
"Greinke’s 3.70 SIERA, as well as his walk and strikeout rates, were a dead ringer for another pitcher the Twins already have: Scott Baker. Sure, Greinke is probably a better pitcher than Baker, but given the $6.5 million difference in their salaries I wouldn’t trade Baker for him straight up, let alone put together a package of Delmon Young (of whom I’m no fan), Kevin Slowey, and top prospect Aaron Hicks, the rumored starting point for negotiations regarding Greinke."
Instead, the article suggests targeting an undervalued mid-rotation type like James Shields to instead bump Blackburn off the back of the rotation.
I also liked this part:
"Mission Statement: Win enough games to make the playoffs, then bring along enough talent to beat the Yankees, Red Sox, Angels, or whatever other expensive coastal show pony we meet there, and in doing so play deep enough into October to distract the honest, hard-working citizens of Minnesota from their cringe-inducing local football teams."
Home runs at Target Field, pt. 2
by Luke in MN on Nov 12, 2010 5:53 PM EST
on Twinkie Town
With Justin Morneau's comments on the Target Field fences, I thought it would be a good time to update this , which I wrote after looking at the early-season Hit Tracker data on homers at Target Field. It suggested a couple things, none of which are too mind-blowing at this point:
1. In general, home runs are hard to hit at Target Field.
2. There is nothing especially peculiar about wind or temperature effects.
3. It's a pull-hitters' park. Home runs were very bunched toward the foul lines and away from the center of the field.
These all basically hold up with a full season worth of data, although the pull-hitter factor moderated somewhat.
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Bill James projections for the Twins
by Luke in MN on Nov 9, 2010 7:25 PM EST
on Twinkie Town
Bill James is the first major prognosticator to release 2011 forecasts. I don't know much about the details of the Bill James method or how it has stacked up against other systems over the years, but as always with this sort of projection, the analysis is systematic, quantitative, and unbiased and therefore serves as a nice way to compare players in the offseason as we debate which players will figure prominently in the Twins's glorious future.
The numbers for Twins who played in 2010 are after the jump. Those without stats didn't get projected by the system.
The "Do Nothing" Plan
by Luke in MN on Nov 4, 2010 1:21 PM EDT
on Twinkie Town
Thing is, our team won 94 games last year. We added a trio of players last offseason that either plugged gaping holes (Hardy & Hudson) or proved highly useful in an unusual role (Thome). Now that the bleeding has stopped, why rip off the scab?
Position players
I hate to spoil the ending, but you just aren't going to come up with two lineups within the $115 million limit that are gnarlier than these:
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Twins pick up Kubel's option, not Punto's
Kubel will make $5.25 million in 2011. Punto gets a $500,000 buyout instead of his $5 million option, but could return to the team at a vastly reduced price.
"Ben Revere, OF, Twins (AFL: Saguaros): 2-for-3, 2 R, RBI, 2 SB. Hitting .413 while 7-for-7 in the stolen base department; could be due for longer big league look next year."
Kevin Goldstein, Baseball Prospectus: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=12330
Phillies vs. Reds Game Thread: NLDS Game #1
by Luke in MN on Oct 6, 2010 4:55 PM EDT
on Twinkie Town
No one gives the Reds a chance, so I'm inclined to pull for the underdog here. I guess you wanted Halladay to get his chance with a contender after being burried for so long in Toronto, but hell, now that he's with the Phillies and in the playoffs I feel no need to root for him (not that he needs my help). I like Scott Rolen and I'm looking forward to seeing Votto.
A downside to this series: I don't like it when two teams whose colors are both some shade of red play each other. Not enough visual contrast for my tastes. So it goes.
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