Catching up on a few different items...
* First, with Thanksgiving fresh in the rearview mirror, I wanted to send out a big THANK YOU to everyone who has purchased a copy of the TwinsCentric 2010-11 Offseason GM Handbook. Sales for this year's version were absolutely excellent, shattering our expectations.
Of all the different types of products we've created under the TwinsCentric label, the Handbook is my personal favorite so I'm glad to see it has essentially become our flagship publication. I hope each person who picked up a copy this year has been enjoying it while continuing to use it as a reference as action ramps up this offseason and the Winter Meetings approach. If you don't have one, you can still order yours at the TwinsCentric home page.
* One of the few shortstops listed as a free agent option in the Handbook, Juan Uribe, came off the market today as the Dodgers signed him to a three-year, $21 million deal.
That's an astonishingly large contract, given that Uribe hit .248 in 2010 and two years ago was basically a replacement-level player. However, with Derek Jeter reportedly seeking $20 million a year and ultimately likely to stick with the Yankees, Uribe stood out as the top shortstop available through free agency and the Dodgers pounced with an aggressive offer.
The numbers posted last year by Uribe and Jeter may not seem particularly impressive, but both play a position without strong depth around the league, which inflates their value tremendously. This brings us to J.J. Hardy, who is looking like more and more of a bargain on a one-year contract at the $7 million or so he'd make through arbitration. It sounds like the Twins will tender him a contract, which is an absolute no-brainer, but still may seek to trade him. If so, hopefully they will recognize the very apparent league-wide demand for quality shortstops and command a fitting return. Incidentally, the Giants now have an opening at shortstop and could be a logical trading partner for the Twins.
* Tuesday night marks the deadline for free agents Carl Pavano, Orlando Hudson and Jesse Crain to accept or decline the Twins' arbitration offers. I guessed last week "that all three will opt for free agency, with Crain being the only one I could see going the other way." It seems clear that both and Pavano and Hudson will indeed decline, and with Crain already reportedly drawing interest from nine different teams, there's little doubt that he'll test the open market as well. If all three players sign elsewhere, the Twins would be rewarded with four additional high picks in next June's draft.
* All in all, it's been a pretty quiet offseason up to this point for Twins fans and while I'm sure things will heat up in the coming weeks, I'm always looking for new ways to keep things lively here at the blog over the winter. If there are any topics you'd like to see covered, please be sure to mention them in the comments section or via email. I've also considered setting up occasional live chats that would take place here on the site, in which we can discuss Twins-related topics of all sorts. Yes? No? If so, what time of day works best for people?
Monday, November 29, 2010
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47 comments:
I just mentioned this via twitter, but I suppose considering you're opening it up to topics of interest, I'll repost it here.
who are the teams likely looking at Pavano? And who would the Twins most like to see him picked up by considering draft slots?
Also, were the Twins to be logical trading partners with San Fran. Seth (I believe) mentioned the Twins might want to target Johnathon Sanchez. So the question there is would they just straight swap or would one team have to throw in something a little more?
Debunk some of the more popular myths and cliches that typical internet commenters make about the Twins front office, coaches, and players. The ones that are repeated so often that nobody really stops to think about them or actually check to see if they're fair criticisms. You could look at things/people that seem to get treated too harshly or seem to get a free pass. You could maybe make it a recurring post called Devil's Advocate or something.
I think a live chat would be fantastic. I'm sure evenings would work for most people. like 6 or 7 pm central time.
You've mentioned a few times that you were extremely curious why Orlando Hudson can't find an organization that wants to keep him around for more then a year. I'd love to see you dive in a little deeper there and try to tease out some answers. I am curious as well...
Congrats on the success of the Handbook. Speaking only for myself, I think it's a tremendous effort by you four, and one you should be proud of. For the rest of you, if you like following the Twins through the offseason, spend a few bucks, it's worth it.
Wouldn't mind some coverage on the rest of the central. Don't think the division's going to be the typical cakewalk next year. Detroit's throwing some cash around.
Here's a few things you could cover:
1. Looks like we may have some extra draft picks, how deep is the talent pool for this draft.
2. I like the idea of looking at the Central, maybe do some interviews with your fellow sweet spot bloggers like you did with the Yankees for the playoffs.
3. Bert and the HOF. Will the voters stop looking at won loss record or does that only apply for Cy Young voting.
Also, were the Twins to be logical trading partners with San Fran. Seth (I believe) mentioned the Twins might want to target Johnathon Sanchez. So the question there is would they just straight swap or would one team have to throw in something a little more?
It would definitely take more than Hardy to get Sanchez, but it might be fun to ponder what kind of packages the Twins could build around Hardy to make a run at Sanchez or Cain.
You've mentioned a few times that you were extremely curious why Orlando Hudson can't find an organization that wants to keep him around for more then a year. I'd love to see you dive in a little deeper there and try to tease out some answers. I am curious as well...
Certainly a topic worth digging into a little more. I did go into some depth on the subject here in September.
Congrats on the success of the Handbook. Speaking only for myself, I think it's a tremendous effort by you four, and one you should be proud of. For the rest of you, if you like following the Twins through the offseason, spend a few bucks, it's worth it.
Thanks, Chief. Your support is very much appreciated.
All the ideas suggested so far have been good ones, thanks folks. Definitely building up a backlog of potential fodder.
I agree with other who've said updates about other central teams would be interesting. During the off season I sometimes forget to click on the mlb link on espn and get a bit out of the loop on info outside of the Twins organization.
I agree with the other the AL Central news would be nice.. Maybe a short update every once in a while? Also, doing some lists could be fun.. How current players stack up historically (exp. Is Morneau one of our best 1st basemen ever?) .. Best/worst individual teams in Twins history..
Keep it fresh!
"If so, hopefully they will recognize the very apparent league-wide demand for quality shortstops and command a fitting return" If they understood this i dont think theyd be looking to get rid of hardy for an all around inferior player because hardys not fast. Im glad the twins pay roll is expanding. It would be hard to keep overpaying for homeruns, rbis, win-loss record and saves with a sub 100 million pay roll.
It would be hard to keep overpaying for homeruns, rbis, win-loss record and saves with a sub 100 million pay roll.
I don't think that's a fair statement. The Twins have $23M invested in a star player who's never posted amazing HR/RBI numbers, they spent a lot of money on strong defensive veteran middle infielders last offseason, and they just spent $5M on a Japanese player whose strengths are speed and on-base skills.
The saves thing I'll grant you. But the idea that the Twins have a tendency to overpay for HR/RBI numbers is quite unsupported.
Come on they paid a top-10 all time HR guy and their top HR hitter for '10 a whopping 1.5 mil. If that aint overpaying I don't know what is.
Just think, their top hr, rbi, and W-L guys made about as much combined as nathan will make in '11. Yah they overvalue saves, and also players that remind gardy of ol fashioned hardnosed ball guys of yesteryore (pinto, cuddly), but not power numbers.
"I don't think that's a fair statement. The Twins have $23M invested in a star player who's never posted amazing HR/RBI numbers, they spent a lot of money on strong defensive veteran middle infielders last offseason, and they just spent $5M on a Japanese player whose strengths are speed and on-base skills."
They overpaid mauer after he hit a career high and completely reproducible 28 hr and 98 rbi. The twins are paying mauer for a year hes not ever going to duplicate, and theyll be over paying him out of his prime and well into his 30's, hoping he can stay at catcher. If they had signed him the year before his mvp season, like they should have, they could have signed him long term deal for 16 mil/yr. But the twins decided to give him every opportunity to put together a huge year so they could badly over pay him.
And they definitely did upgrade their middle infield this last year. And after they had a very good season and scored a ton of runs as a team it seems they cant shed hardy and hudson fast enough. And all indications are that they will replace the strong defensive, solid offensive, reasonably priced middle infielders with poor defensive, quick, slap hitters who i believe have no chance of being better than hardy and hudson and likely a lot worse.
As for nishioka, ive read his speed is good not great. Hes not a great base stealer. Either way id prefer he not steal bases because its such a low upside play. As for his onbase skills, hes got a japanese isoD of .070, hes certainly not an elite walk taker. His great onbase skills appear to be predicated on a very high babip which i believe could drop pretty sharply in the US. The fact that the twins seem willing to give him a 3-4 year deal but unwilling to bring back hardy is an indictment on the management in my book. I think nishi could be the japanese nick punto.
I'm certain the twins put more stock in hr, rbi, risp, etc than they should (the right amount of stock to put in these stats is none). Delmon young is certainly a twin because he had 94 rbi for the rays his rookie year. That was a terrible deal. Michael Cuddyer, joe mauer, nick blackburn, joe nathan, matt capps, denard span, scott baker all have bad contracts right now because the management of the twins never make shrewd contract decisions and do a bad job at future projection of their players.
"the right amount of stock to put in these stats is none."
Hilarious. So what stats should they dish out contracts on? If you want to go the advances stat route, Fangraphs puts the "value" of the 2010 Twins at around $120 mil. Actual payroll was, what, $105? Seems like they actually got good value for their club at least according to sabermetrics. So we can't use basic stats or sabermetrics to prove the Twins have a bunch of bad contracts. How do you support your theory?
Lets not just casually lump all advanced statistics together, and call it sabermetrics. Fangraphs theoretical worth numbers are based on WAR and redistributes all the money. So you get a lot of overpaid bad producers like carlos lee jacking up the total money pool. If youd really like to use that metric francisco liriano was "worth" 24 mil last year and was not a player the twins gave a muliyear contract to. Danny valencia was worth 11 million dollars and made 500k. So those 2 were worth 35 million and made 2. Brian duensing was worth 7 mil on a rookie contract, delmon young was worth 8 and made 2. Cuddy made 10 was worth 1.8. I think this statistic is pretty stupid because is says an average player is worth 10 million and i believe you can get average players cheaper if you are smart about it, but even still you made it worse because you used it pretty poorly.
The twins for atleast the past decade have been giving contracts to players right after they have career years and refusing to give contracts to players coming off down years instead choosing a wait and see attitude, and it has undoubtedly cost them money. They would much rather forfeit all their leverage and give an upsideless loser like nick blackburn a deal to eat his arbitration even though there is no upside or nessecity to the contract than they would like to give liriano a contract before last season on the cheap. If they would have looked at lirianos 2009 peripherals and ignored his era they might have seen an opportunity to sign a high upside player for very little money. I dont blame the twins for not giving liriano a deal because there were real concerns hed never pitch well again, but to then go out and give blackburn and span completely unnecessary contracts shows to me that they arent doing their jobs very well. More recently ive be super frustrated with everything theyve done involving matt capps. Its like they have no idea that what their doing is a huge waste of resources.
If they had signed him the year before his mvp season, like they should have, they could have signed him long term deal for 16 mil/yr.
Give me a break. No one anticipated Mauer having such an incredible season in '09; at that point the Twins had to give him a contract and what they gave him was fair. It had nothing to do with the Twins overvaluing his '09 season, they obviously had to lock him up and other teams would have paid him plenty more than that if he were a free agent.
And after they had a very good season and scored a ton of runs as a team it seems they cant shed hardy and hudson fast enough.
Why don't you wait until these things actually happen before criticizing the organization for moves they haven't even made yet? Just FYI, media reports do not always accurately depict what the front office is thinking.
His great onbase skills appear to be predicated on a very high babip which i believe could drop pretty sharply in the US.
Did Ichiro's sky-high BABIP drop sharply in the US? Extreme example I know, but again -- why not wait for these things to actually happen before complaining about them? You have no idea how Nishioka's skills will transfer over. He's a 26-year-old coming off a breakout season, it's not like he can't keep getting better.
Delmon young is certainly a twin because he had 94 rbi for the rays his rookie year.
You're right. He wasn't highly regarded at all at that point.
I'm sorry, but it seems like you're making an awful lot of assumptions and hindsight judgments to further your negative viewpoints. I'm not really interested in any of that. This organization has experienced a great deal of success over the past decade in spite of being so inept by your standards.
If they would have looked at lirianos 2009 peripherals and ignored his era they might have seen an opportunity to sign a high upside player for very little money.
Which peripherals would you suggest they should have looked at? His 1.55 WHIP? 9.7 H/9? 1.4 HR/9? 4.3 BB/9? 1.88 K/BB? 4.87 FIP? 4.55 xFIP? 1.1 WAR?
Please, tell us what peripherals the Twins missed in not offering Liriano a long term deal after 2009.
"Which peripherals would you suggest they should have looked at? His 1.55 WHIP? 9.7 H/9? 1.4 HR/9? 4.3 BB/9? 1.88 K/BB? 4.87 FIP? 4.55 xFIP? 1.1 WAR? "
None of those, look at the good ones. I do appreciate that you left k/9 out of the stats to look at. I think you know what peripheral i was talking about. But we can review. The only peripherals that matter are k rate, bb rate, ld rate, gb rate and fb rate. Thats it. 2009 liriano was not great at inducing ground balls and had bad command and control, but still had an elite k rate. The rest of his number were pretty fluky. The gamble by the twins would have been that he could improve is command enough to become a solid backend starter vs being able to same some money if he never regained his form. Im not upset the twins didnt make this move but id rather see them take a calculated risk on a high upside pitcher coming off a fluky high era season than see them throw money away giving a medium risk no reward contract to nick blackburn.
"Give me a break. No one anticipated Mauer having such an incredible season in '09" You've missed my point. The twins signed him to a deal through he arb and 2 FA years. Why not sign him to a longer deal into his early 30's. Why not give him the ryan braun 8yr/64 or evan longoria 8 years/44. Did they think they were going to want to cut ties with him when his contract expired while he was 27? They knew they wanted to sign him long term, they had reasonable opportunities to accept the risk of a long term contract in exchange for a potential discount. What were the odds mauer was going to get cheaper as he got closer to FA even if he hadn't have had the mvp season?
"Did Ichiro's sky-high BABIP drop sharply in the US?" This is a great point. There are a lot of examples of japanese player that come over and dont miss a beat, way more than japanese player that have seen significant drop off in their performance. I think ishi's long one year track record of sustaining a 390 babip combined the the long history of successful japanese middle infield transplant makes ishi just about destined for stardom.
"You're right. He wasn't highly regarded at all at that point."
Ok, fine. He had 94 rbi and was formerly the number overall pick. He still had never demonstrated any plate discipline, he was an abomination defensively in a corner outfield spot and he was on year 3 of mediocre power, extreme ground ball, opposite field tendencies. There were a ton of red flags, and if the twins truly had a great evaluation system this is a trade the could have avoided. But i suspect the rbi thing is more important than you do.
I dont think its just hindsight thats allowed me to criticize the way the twins give out contracts. When the extended cuddy he was the same average offensive corner OF that play terrible defense that he is today. What he is capable of isnt worth what hes paid. Paying joe nathan 13 million to pitch 55 innings a year when the team payroll was 70 mil was an absurd allocation of money. The 2 year 9 mil nick punto deal i never cared for, and my dislike of nick blackburn has been unwavering before and after he got his contract. And hopefully im wrong about the twins off season plans, but i have no confidence in their decision making.
"The only peripherals that matter are k rate, bb rate, ld rate, gb rate and fb rate."
All right, any credibility you may have had goes right out the window.
You're doing the classic "Sabermetric Shuffle": picking advanced stats that support your claim and completely ignoring those that don't. Instead of objectively using advanced metrics to get a better understanding of player valuation, you go in with a preconceived notion and find the stats, no matter how obscure or incomplete, that support it, and call it a day.
There's a baseball statistic out there that can prove or disprove anything you want it to. Unfortunately for you, you have to look beyond a mere handful of stats to fully evaluate players.
"All right, any credibility you may have had goes right out the window."
Oh no!! To be fair I've believed for quite some time that GB, K's and BB's are by far the best tools for pitcher evaluation and ive dispensed that viewpoint pretty frequently on this blog's comment board. I think i've actually be remarkably consistent trying to take every debate about pitching back to k's, bb's and gb's. I chose not to use other peripherals not because they dont support my point but because i dont think they are particularly worthwhile in general. If you look at something like WHIP, the statistic houses a lot of non pitcher controlled variables. As a result a pitchers whip isnt necessarily a good indication of his future whip so why even bother with it? I would say my approach to pitcher evaluation is the opposite of stat cherry picking. I use the same criteria all the time. I've thought about the criteria i use and dont use and have chosen the stats i believe most represent pitcher skill.
You look at 09 Liriano and say he's got an elite K rate but the rest of his numbers were "fluky". You disregard some of your own go-to numbers, and try to suggest with the benefit of a year's hindsight that the Twins would have been smart to lock him up back then, again based solely on an "elite K rate" and ignoring the fact that he was absolutely terrible that year coming off a serious surgery. This is the opposite of "remarkable consistency".
Here's a little game for you. Look at these 5 stats and the respective 2010 top 5 pitchers for each stat. Some are Anon's go-to stats, some aren't. Tell me which stat(s) best represents pitching skill:
Stat A: lincecum, lester, gallardo, sanchez, liriano.
Stat B: lee, halliday, pavano, fister, marcum.
Stat C: lee, oswalt, halliday, wainwright, hernandez.
Stat D: hudson, masterson, lowe, westbrook, cahill.
Stat E: hernandez, johnson, buchholz, wainwright, halladay.
Come on everyone, play along, and I'll reveal which stat is which.
^^ i say c,e,a,b,d best to worse of course.
this is fun.
"You disregard some of your own go-to numbers, and try to suggest with the benefit of a year's hindsight that the Twins would have been smart to lock him up back then"
I believe i said he didnt do a great job at inducing ground balls and had bad command and control to go along with his k rate. Those are the exact statistics i said id use. If you could give me a compelling reason to consider a stat like whip or era i definitely would, but i dont think you can.
I also said i didnt blame the twins for not signing liriano after the 09 season. That being said, without hindsight, i was pretty confident liriano had pitched a lot better than he era after the season. My point is that the twins as evaluators arent capable of realizing that liriano was better than his era, likely to be very cheap because of his era, and potential high reward player because of his potential upside. I would have given them a ton of credit if they had bought lirianos arb despite his poor era, but they didnt and never will. And while i dont really blame them for risking money on high risk high reward players, the fact that they never do it even when its a bargain and are willing to guarantee money to a no reward guy like nick blackburn drive me nuts. Im not sure how you are misinterpreting the things i write as bad as you are Ed. Ill say something and youll claim ive said the exact opposite thing.
As for polishs game. Ill guess A is strike outs/9, D is ground ball rate, E is era, B is bb/9 and C is WHIP maybe. Im guess whip for C because im pretty sure your take home is going to be something stupid like "see whip is an awesome measure". Obvious problems with you game are; since no one that reads this blog has seen most of these pitcher pitch their opinion of these pitchers is going to be heavily influenced by nation media. Also, my claim was that gb, k, bb use in conjunction with each other was the best way to evaluate pitchers so the individual stats alone arent going to tell you the whole story. If you have an elite k rate and high bb rate you are likely not an elite pitcher for example. I also never said WHIP was unimportant to how many runs a pitcher allowed in the past year or that whip wasnt largely influence by pitcher skill. What i said was that whip is heavily influenced by babip, and babip is affected by team defense, ball park, hitting environment and a whole list of this a pitcher has no control over. Theres no reason to not try to remove these no pitcher skill elements for the evaluation equation.
2009 liriano was not great at inducing ground balls and had bad command and control, but still had an elite k rate. The rest of his number were pretty fluky.
So you're claiming that the Twins should have looked at Liriano's terrible walk rate, terrible ground ball rate and "elite" strikeout rate (which would have ranked 23rd in the majors if he qualified, just below another world-beater in Carlos Zambrano), and elected to hand him a long-term contract? You can't even use your own preferred stats to craft a logical argument on this one.
After seeing the season Liriano just had, yes, his 2009 numbers look fluky. And I myself have always had a lot of faith in him. But to sit here and criticize the Twins for not handing Liriano a contract extension after that disastrous 2009 campaign is beyond silly. He was not an extension candidate, he was a non-tender candidate, and pretty much any team in the league would have viewed him the same way.
They knew they wanted to sign him long term, they had reasonable opportunities to accept the risk of a long term contract in exchange for a potential discount.
Has it struck you that perhaps Mauer wasn't ready to sign such a long-term deal at that point in time? When you don't have all the facts, why sit there and cast accusations of incompetence? They have him signed long-term now and they're still adding talent around him, so your complaints ring hollow.
Extending his own players under contract has been a weakness for Bill Smith. I've written about that before. But every organization hands out contracts you would disagree with; rather than constantly dwelling on those that the Twins have given (which to this point have still not had any real negative effects on the team's ability to contend) why not exercise some positive thinking?
He still had never demonstrated any plate discipline, he was an abomination defensively in a corner outfield spot and he was on year 3 of mediocre power, extreme ground ball, opposite field tendencies.
He was widely viewed as the best prospect in baseball one year prior and had just put together a solid rookie season at the age of 21. I disagree wholeheartedly with your assertion that his RBI total was the key reason in the decision to bring him in. I suspect it had much more to do with his age, pedigree and perceived upside.
Alright anon since apparently halladay, hernandez, lee et. al are media fabrications, who do you consider the 5 best pitchers in baseball?
First and most importantly, prior to last year carlos zambrano was a perfectly capable pitcher. And for like the 10th time, i dont think the twins made a mistake not signing liriano after his 09 season. He's an example of the type of player i wish the twins could evaluate better. Very cheap, undervalued by traditional statistics and high upside. I didnt suggest the twins sign him long term either, perhaps buying his arb years. And i dont think this because he had a great year last year. It was very reasonable to believe after his 09 season that if he could improve his control he could become a 8/3 k/bb guy and a solid back end starter. Not great but possibly worth taking an educated risk. I dont think my argument here is illogical, i think you are misrepresenting my argument. And for the record, i think liriano is still undervalued because he had a lot of fluky numbers last year too. If i was the twins id try to sign him long term this winter because i think hes a candidate to get better and more expensive next year.
It is speculation that they could have signed joe mauer long term before his mvp season just like its speculation they couldn't. I dont think the twins tried. You dont think he would have signed a 6-8 year 16 mil/yr contract? I think he would have looked at that as a lot of guaranteed money at a reasonable yearly rate. But i agree that speculating about past scenarios that didnt happen is pointless. I hate to be that guy making accusations of incompetence but i guess its just a part of being incompetent.
"He was widely viewed as the best prospect in baseball one year prior and had just put together a solid rookie season at the age of 21." He posted a 725 ops from a premium offensive position while playing terrible defense as a rookie. The people who viewed him as an elite prospect were looking more at where he was drafted than his actual performance.
I just have no confidence the twins are managed well. They do things i really like like signing the Odawg and thome, but they back that up by misguidedly trading for matt capps and paying him twice what hes worth because of the save statistic. They sign someone named eric hacker and add him to the 40 man because? The only thing i can figure is because of his win total at AAA as a 27 year old and that upsets me. But ultimately i must be wrong because im incompetent and incapable of a logical argument.
"Alright anon since apparently halladay, hernandez, lee " These are good pitchers and all of these guys have really good k, bb and gb rates (lees gb rate isnt very good). But 09 scott baker was 3 in the league in whip and you wouldnt consider him the 3rd best pitcher in baseball largely because his extreme fly ball tendencies led to a lot of extra base hits and more runs. Then in 2010 bakers babip spike and his typically elite whip spiked too. Whip correlated pretty well to runs allowed typically, but its not consistent year to year and adds unnecessary bias' to the evaluation equation.
I repeat, who do you consider the 5 best pitchers in baseball?
I'd need some time to look at the numbers. Id probably have liriano in the top 5 though, despite his whip.
And for the record, i think liriano is still undervalued because he had a lot of fluky numbers last year too. If i was the twins id try to sign him long term this winter because i think hes a candidate to get better and more expensive next year.
So would I. But why wait to see whether or not they'll do it when you can criticize them in advance based on your presumptions??
But ultimately i must be wrong because im incompetent and incapable of a logical argument.
No one thinks that. But when you take a stance where you are criticizing almost every move made by the front office of one of baseball's most successful teams, and ripping them for moves that you speculate they are going to make, you are setting yourself up to take some heat. We get it, you don't like the way the Twins operate. Fact is, every team makes bad decisions and this one is able to succeed in spite of theirs.
Fair enough.
In defense of Anon, I think its fair to criticize and expect the worst of the Twins front office. They have admitted to using RBI's to evaluate players and admitted to have no Idea what FIP was. Like it or not an FO has a responsibility to at least know what it is so they can determine whether or not they like it. They also say they want to add speed so they can steal more bases and that the middle infield is the obvious place to add it, which is both a terrible reason and a false statement. The obvious place to add speed is in the outfield so we could improve the awful defense out there, obviously we cant do that this year because our hands are tied so why are the Twins still so hung up on adding speed just for the sake of adding speed. Adding speed in the outfield would make Scott Baker and Kevin Slowey eternally grateful and I believe would do a lot to change the perceptions people have of them. Lastly the Nick Blackburn contract really was mind boggling. It was all risk and no upside because the stats suggested it was unlikely he'd even be able to maintain his level of performance much less improve on it and even if he did maintain would have probably made about the same amount of money.
I hope Nishioka succeeds here but Japanese players don't have a great track record and I would rather that money have been spent on the cheap International players like Sano, or on high upside draft picks.
Hey, if you guys read this blog often then you know that I'm in complete agreement about the Span and Blackburn contracts. The timing of contract extensions has been a persistent weakness from this front office. My issue with the arguments from Anon is that they're so exhaustively negative and they make the team out to be incompetent. The success they've achieved over the past decade suggests that they are quite obviously doing a lot of things right, even if they're not necessarily doing them exactly as we would.
Wow, the moral of this thread is get a handle if you don't want to look like a jackass.
I take issue with people that believe a baseball team's front office should rely on sabrmetrics. Now I would definately have a stats guy around, but there is no way that I rely on them primarily. You see, baseball teams aren't like you and me. They have these guys called scouts. Scouts are people specifically trained to observe the most basic aspects of player success, that being their specific abilities.
Stats always have certain inconsistancies. GB rate? What if a pitcher pitches in Petco and doesn't want tons of GB's? What if they play the white sox a ton of times, or any other fly ball hitting team? You say that GB, K, and BB rate all happen in a vacuum, where BABIP affects everything else. That is plain ignorant.
You know what does happen in a vacuum? Thousands of reps in bullpen sessions. Hundreds of batting practices. Measurements of how much and where each of your pitches break. Your acceleration to top speed going to first. These are the things that scouts look at. These are the things I want to evaluate when signing contracts and picking up talent.
damn, hit enter before typing my sig. That last post was me!!!
As you say, Nick, it's easier to be an armchair GM than an actual one.
Yes, they've failed in the playoffs, but at least they've made it.
Now that payroll is increased, I think it's reasonable to expect them to win the WS at some point in the near future. Critisizing moves that haven't been made yet doesn't make any sense; let's wait until Spring Training starts before we critisize the off season as a whole.
I do agree, Anon, that GMs don't generally make good enough use of advanced statistics yet, though. Maybe some do but I don't know who they are.
Welcome back, Ed!
"Wow, the moral of this thread is get a handle if you don't want to look like a jackass. " I may be a jackass but im also right. Ive heard zero compelling arguments against anything ive said. Just people shouting about how i like sabermetrics too much or how i dont understand how baseball works followed by some blurb about my lack of intelligence or incompetence.
"What if a pitcher pitches in Petco and doesn't want tons of GB's?" It doesnt matter where you play gbs are better than flyballs. Flyballs turn into xbh a lot more often than groundballs do everywhere.
"You say that GB, K, and BB rate all happen in a vacuum, where BABIP affects everything else. That is plain ignorant." As per usual, i never said k, bb, gb happened in a vacuum or were completely devoid of non pitcher bias. This is why im a big believer in large sample sizes to squash the game to game sample noise you believe to be a large weakness of these statistics. Scouts are limited by sample size too. A single scout isnt seeing every game any one player plays. A scouts sample size is without a doubt smaller than a 3 year sample of a players compiled statistics.
If the twins decided they were only going to evaluate using scouting i wouldnt have a huge problem with it provided 1. they did a very good job evaluating the talent and future potential of players inside and out side their organization, and 2. didnt denounce advanced statistics only to use very bad more traditional statistics instead. I dont think the twins meet either of these criteria. The deals theyve made have proven that they consider stats like save totals, w-l record and batting average. Matt capps was traded for and will be signed not because a scout told the twins he was super talented and an opportunity to acquire an undervalued commodity. Hes a twin because of his saves. If you look at the returns on the santana and garza trades youd have to question their scouts ability to identify other organization talent.
What about the Pierzynski trade?
Back to my game, Anon you're right, C is WHIP and E is ERA. I'm not anti-saber, but for you to completely disregard the above stats is a little silly. Unless you don't believe lee, halladay, hernandez, wainwright, johnson, buccholz, oswalt, et al are among the game's best pitchers. they're not perfect stats but just look at what they spit out. they do a pretty good job identifying the best pitchers. you cant possibly deny that.
ERA is going to be heavily influenced by pitcher skill no doubt. But there are better more consistent ways of predicting future results than era. I think people get way too locked into era and think of it was the bench mark for pitchers and dont look at its long list of weaknesses. And what id like the twins to do more is find players who are undervalued because of a high era but out performed that era and spend money on them instead of paying guys whose era is better than their peripherals and arent likely to reproduce past success.
And what id like the twins to do more is find players who are undervalued because of a high era but out performed that era and spend money on them
You mean like Carl Pavano? Oh, sorry... don't want to trample on your pessimism.
Pavano must make Anon's head explode. Top 5 in the league in bb/9 but bottom 5 in k/9. This must make him...terribly elite?
I was actually going to use 09 pavano and liriano as examples of undervalued players based on era. I personally believe that the twins were less concerned with the fact he was better than his 5 era and more excited about something stupid like him beating the tigers in big games or club house leadership. I never said the twins never make good moves, but i think a lot of those moves fall into their laps or perhaps are accidental.
Now 2010 pavano is a different story. I think hes pretty overvalued because of his era. Hes a good candidate to be a fairly big mistake for which ever team decides they are going to mindlessly chase era. Now if you are looking for undervalued, look no further than Scott 'peripheral monster' Baker.
ugh.
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