September 13, 2010
Twins Notes: Fox, Young, Revere, Blackburn, Santana, and Batgirl
• Yesterday the Royals scored six runs in the top of the first inning against the White Sox and then lost 12-6. Despite that lack of help the Twins hold a six-game lead with 19 games left and this week's series is their final matchup with the White Sox, so most simulations put the Twins at 95-98 percent to win the AL Central. Basically, as long as they avoid being swept in Chicago the biggest question will be whether the Twins play the Yankees or the Rays in the first round.
• Matt Fox fared well in his last-minute spot start on September 3, holding one of the AL's top lineups to two runs in 5.2 innings, but the Twins designated him for assignment a couple days later to clear 40-man roster space for Ben Revere. Calling someone up, having them pitch well on short rest and little notice in their MLB debut, and then cutting them loose 72 hours later is obviously not an ideal scenario for anyone involved, but it's important to note Fox's situation.
He wasn't on the 40-man roster to begin with and was only added when a dreadful 13-inning game the previous night left the Twins' pitching staff extremely short-handed. Had that mess of a game never happened (or had the Twins better prepared for it by expanding the roster on September 1) he never would have been in the majors and could have left the organization as a 28-year-old minor-league free agent this offseason anyway.
So instead of remaining at Triple-A to finish the season and then having the right to leave as a free agent Fox got to make a completely unexpected major-league debut and collected an MLB paycheck for a few days. And, as it turned out, Fox impressed the Red Sox enough that they claimed him off waivers, used a 40-man roster spot on him, and now seem likely to keep him in the majors for at least the rest of the month. And all because of that stupid 13-inning game.
• Speaking of unexpected debuts, Revere was certainly surprised that the Twins called him up for the stretch run. Not only wasn't he on the 40-man roster, Revere was initially thought to be out for the year after being hit in the face by a pitch and suffering a fractured orbital bone on August 3. Instead he returned to the Double-A lineup three weeks later, went 13-for-34 (.382) in eight games, and is now in the majors wearing a protective face guard on his helmet.
• Albert Lyu of Think Blue Crew used swing zone charts to take an interesting look at Delmon Young, Vladimir Guerrero, and Jeff Francoeur, who are the only hitters in baseball to hack at 60 percent of the pitches thrown to them. Young's swing-at-everything approach was easy to overlook when he was crushing the ball early on this season, but that production has dried up and unfortunately now just the horrible plate discipline remains.
Young has hit .211/.242/.314 in 38 games since August 1, striking out 29 times while drawing just five walks in 158 plate appearances. His batting average is still around .300 and he'll drive in more than 100 runs, so I'm sure some people will call it a great season. However, his .805 OPS isn't very far above the .775 average for corner outfielders and once his terrible defense is factored in Young ranks just 33rd among AL outfielders at 13 runs above replacement level.
The clutch hitting has been very valuable and Young has obviously been much better than he was in 2008 and 2009, but a .328 on-base percentage and .477 slugging percentage from an awful defensive left fielder just isn't all that great. For some context, in his four seasons as a regular Jason Kubel has a .344 on-base percentage and a .477 slugging percentage, topping Young's current OPS by 15 points. And rarely does anyone make a big deal of his production.
• His overall numbers are still ugly and that's not going to change, but Nick Blackburn has a 1.71 ERA while allowing zero homers in four starts since returning from a month-long demotion to Triple-A. Prior to the demotion Blackburn induced 49 percent ground balls while striking out 7.4 percent of the batters he faced. Since the demotion he's at 58 percent grounders and 16.8 percent strikeouts. Also encouraging, he's more than doubled his rate of swinging strikes.
• As expected, Randy Flores has proven to be a horrendous "lefty specialist." He's faced eight left-handed batters since joining the Twins and has recorded one out, giving up six hits and a walk. Overall this season lefties are hitting .298/.385/.509 off Flores and he's apparently been shaking off Joe Mauer while refusing to throw off-speed pitches. Hopefully with Brian Fuentes available and Jose Mijares back after surgery Flores has seen his last high-leverage spot.
• Joe Posnanski wrote a fun piece for SI.com ranking the majors' 30 managers by their playing careers and Ron Gardenhire fares a lot better than you'd probably expect from someone who hit .232/.277/.296 in 285 games for the Mets in the early 1980s. I won't spoil the whole article, because as usual with Posnanski it's really good and really lengthy, but fewer than one-third of current managers could reasonably be described as good major-league players.
• Gardenhire wasn't much of a player, but as a manager he's on an historic pace for ejections. During the aforementioned 13-inning nightmare Gardenhire was tossed for the 51st time in his nine seasons as Twins skipper, which works out to 3.6 percent of his career games managed. Bobby Cox is the all-time ejections leader and has been booted from 3.5 percent of his games.
• Johan Santana will miss the rest of this year and possibly much of 2011 following shoulder surgery. That doesn't make the Twins' haul from the Mets any better, but it does reinforce that handing out the long-term deal likely needed to keep Santana in Minnesota would have been a mistake. His performance hasn't been the problem, with a 2.85 ERA for the Mets after a 3.11 ERA in 175 starts for the Twins, but now his future is murky and he's still owed $77.5 million.
• Last year the Twins sent a fairly underwhelming set of prospects to the Arizona Fall League, but this year's group of seven players is pretty strong: Revere, David Bromberg, Joe Benson, Kyle Waldrop, Chris Parmelee, Carlos Gutierrez, and Tyler Robertson. In my annual ranking of the Twins' top 40 prospects six of those guys made the list (and cracked the top 20) coming into this season and all seven will definitely be among the top 40 for 2011.
• According to Jim Callis at Baseball America the Twins are one of nine teams to hand out less than the MLB-recommend "slot" signing bonus amounts to draft picks this year, spending the fifth-least money relative to the suggested numbers. While not uncommon for the Twins, that's a definite change from last year when they went over "slot" to sign Kyle Gibson after he fell to them with the No. 22 pick despite once being a consensus top-10 prospect.
• Something to think about next time an announcer claims "doing the little things" is the key to the Twins' success: Matt Klaassen of Fan Graphs points out that of the nearly 3,000 bunts and bunt attempts across MLB this year just 27 percent have actually increased the bunting team's Win Probability Added. Most of the time, giving up an out is just a bad idea.
• Random stat: Matt Capps has thrown 78.3 percent fastballs this season, which is the fourth-highest rate among all pitchers with at least 60 innings.
• Last week Wilson Ramos hit his first career homer off R.A. Dickey while behind the plate for a Livan Hernandez start. The game was played in some sort of Twins bizarro world.
• If you remain on the fence about joining Twitter despite my obsessive involvement, perhaps this will push you over the edge: Batgirl is now tweeting.
Wait a minute. You compare Young’s OPS being 30 points higher than the average corner outfielder which is marginal to you, then come back highlighting the significance of Kubel’s OPS being 15 points higher than Young? I know what you’re getting at, I’m just not seeing the significance of this particular argument.
Comment by TMW — September 12, 2010 @ 9:59 pm
The Matt Capps random stat is not good and definitely cause for concern. If that continues, he is very likely to blow a save in the post season. Predictable power fastball to good fastball hitters…. uh oh!
Comment by Kurt — September 12, 2010 @ 10:21 pm
You think Gardy will go ahead and put Fuentes in to close out games if its left handed hitters coming up? I’m thinking it should just be regardless of matchups, but you never know. Capps may have more saves in his career after all (sarcasm).
Comment by B — September 12, 2010 @ 10:48 pm
Recently in a poll of strib readers they awarded the team MVP to Young by a wide margin. I think Mauer was fourth. Can you spell RBI intoxication?
Comment by Chris — September 12, 2010 @ 10:49 pm
BATGIRL!!!!
Comment by Matt — September 12, 2010 @ 10:53 pm
I have to agree with TMW (kind of, as they apparently know what you’re getting at). I’m not sure what you’re getting at with the Delmon/Kubel comparison. Is a 15 point increase and almost no increase defensivly really that great? Or are you saying that we should be platooning Kubel and Young?
Comment by D-Luxxx — September 12, 2010 @ 11:44 pm
“You think Gardy will go ahead and put Fuentes in to close out games if its left handed hitters coming up?”
He already has. Fuentes’ first game he earned the save before he got hurt.
Comment by SoCalTwinsfan — September 12, 2010 @ 11:50 pm
Never mind, I re-read it, and I have to disagree. You are the guy who was tooting the “Free Jason Kubel” horn last year, and he gets plenty of credit for his bat (even when he shouldn’t), yet a 15 point difference makes Delmon not worthy of praise? Something seems a little off here…
Comment by D-Luxxx — September 13, 2010 @ 12:34 am
The DY hatred continues. A hyper-cyclical sport such as baseball, Young goes in a slump, and it’s suddenly open season on trashing favorite targets. It is apparent that only cursory attention has been paid to comparative Twins stats regarding Young and his teammates. RBI(s) are what WIN GAMES in the end, and yes, winning games IS intoxicating, Chris. DY carried the team on his back in June and July, with a ridiculous RISP around .400 by the end of July and revved up his production as Morneau’s numbers actually faded throughout the same time period. Decrying DY’s OPS and free-swinging ways makes little sense, too. He leads the team in Sac Flies at 8 (best G/F rate in his career) and it is far preferable for him to strike out with men on base than do what Kubel, Mauer and Cuddy excel at, the dreaded GIDP (a stat that the Twins are way out in front in, 147, second are Baltimore/KC at 133!). Regardless, your DY strike-out stats don’t bear out under scrutiny, either. Going into this year, Delmon’s career K/AB ratio was .2, this year? .136! Speaking of Kubel, besides your poor defense using career OPS (ala TMW), you don’t mention that he is 4 years older than Young and at 28, we may have already seen his best. Young at only 24, IMPROVED his stat lines across the board (career highs in XBH, K/AB, HR/AB, BB/K, G/F, IsoP, SecA, 2B, HR, RBI, BA, Slugging, OPS). Batting in the 7 and even 8 spots for virtually all of the first four months of the year means he had very little quality bats behind him and wasn’t going to get much to hit, his free-swinging is an ASSET in the 7/8 spots, not something to harp on! Hardy was terrible into mid-July and the other 8/9 slot batters were even worse. It seems we should be celebrating what Young has accomplished instead of all this bashing. His career appears to have recovered its early promise and is clearly on the ascendancy. He looks like he’s finally having fun out there, too! If anything, Cuddy, Kubel and yes, Mauer have been big offensive disappointments. Mauer must have the most misleading Twins plate stats of all-time. As a difference-maker and team leader at the plate he has been very sorely lacking (Are we really gonig to be paying $23 MIl next year for a spray/slap-hitter who should be batting in the 2 spot advancing runners and playing hit-and-run?). I think all of these guys deserve scrutiny and criticism long before DY.
Love to hear your response.
Comment by jokin — September 13, 2010 @ 1:20 am
RBI’s don’t win games, runners getting on base wins games. RBIs reflect the context of the at-bat, not necessarily a quality at-bat. Young isn’t remotely as valuable as Morneau or Mauer or Thome.
Comment by Chris — September 13, 2010 @ 1:55 am
Even Gleeman is less annoying to me than the Delmon Defenders. Young was good in June and awesome in July. He’s been completely terrible since. That’s not a controversial statement.
I give Young credit for the work he’s put in to improve, but when it comes down to it, pitchers know they don’t have to throw him strikes, and Delmon ain’t no Vladdy Guerrero. Yes he’s only going on 25, but unless he starts laying off some pitches, he’s always going to be limited as a hitter.
What was interesting about his July is Young whiffed just seven times in 106 AB. But in 152 ABs since, he’s fanned 29 times — with a .239 OBP!
Young had three really good months from May to July, but his three full seasons here speaks for itself. See if you can spot the trend here…
Comment by Neil — September 13, 2010 @ 1:58 am
P.S. Runs scored are democratic, rbis are fascist.
Comment by Chris — September 13, 2010 @ 2:04 am
Hardly a Delmon defender, just pointing out that comparing Delmon and Kubel’s OPS in the article is kind of silly. And although the RBI argument is a pretty poor one, I’d have to say “RBI’s don’t win games, runners getting on base wins games” is just plain silly. Yes, runners have to be on base to be batted in, however, if they aren’t batted in, then you don’t score (unless your name is Chris Nelson). Kind of a chicken and egg thing. Just because you can get on base doesn’t mean you’ll score. Nobody is saying DY is as good as Mauer or Morneau (or I’m not anyway), but he doesn’t deserve the vitriol he’s getting.
Comment by D-Luxxx — September 13, 2010 @ 2:41 am
I beg to differ. Getting on base is the single most important talent in the game of baseball. Delmon Young has peaked unless he learns the strike zone.
Comment by Chris — September 13, 2010 @ 3:53 am
Aaron…can you just let that 13-inning game go? Yes, it was a mess, but every team–even the greatest in history–has those every so often. The fact that the Twins came right back and swept Texas speaks volumes about the true mettle of this team and its manager and FO. Next time you’re tempted to bring it up again…just say no.
Comment by David — September 13, 2010 @ 6:04 am
Gleeman we get it, you don’t like Delmon. You think he is a lousy baseball player. Noted. Move on. They cannot retract the Garza trade, Barlett is not coming back. We have Delmon now, and will for a while, its time to get over it.
Complaining about him endlessly is as obnoxious as complaining about sportswriters love affair with RBI. It will change over time, but so long as dopes like Top Jimmy get HOF votes and MVP votes, RBI will be the driving force behind a players perceived value. Come up with something new to complain about because these topics are lame!
Comment by Brent — September 13, 2010 @ 8:38 am
The sportswriters can write whatever they want about Delmon Young. Unfortunately for the Twins, the arbitrator will have something important to say and .300 with 100 RBIs will probably have more weight than WAR.
On the other hand, Twins’ management has done a lot right and so you find your way back into the playoffs again. As a Torontonian, I am jealous.
Comment by Mike Green — September 13, 2010 @ 8:49 am
“I’d have to say “RBI’s don’t win games, runners getting on base wins games” is just plain silly. Yes, runners have to be on base to be batted in, however, if they aren’t batted in, then you don’t score (unless your name is Chris Nelson). Kind of a chicken and egg thing.”
Actually it isn’t. Hits can come at anytime regardless of what talking heads say about a ‘clutch’ or ‘timely’ factor. When those hits come with runners on base, the likelihood of a team scoring runs increases.
This is not chicken or egg, this is just basic baseball game theory.
Comment by TMW — September 13, 2010 @ 8:58 am
So what’s the % of non-bunting AB that increase WPA? Seems like it is probably above 27%, but just saying that only 27% of bunts increase WPA doesn’t convey any information at all without the other number.
And what’s the AVERAGE WPA of bunts versus non-bunts? Since some non-bunts can lead to double plays (and some teams hit into more double plays than HR…), the average would also be interesting.
Comment by Gooseman — September 13, 2010 @ 9:23 am
Whoa, back the truck up! Aaron’s point about Kubel was that he’s got an OPS that’s 15 pts higher than where Young’s is right now over the past 4 years and nobody makes that big a fuss about his production. Why? because it’s not that outstanding. Young’s performance this season has been a significant upgrade over last year, but by MLB standards he’s still hardly an elite player. When he’s on a hot streak this year, he’s been ripping the cover off the ball, but that’s been followed by poor hitting that’s well below average. That’s why we have a RF who’s a bit better than average as a hitter and poor-to-fair defender. It’s better than what we’ve had, but hardly something to get too crazy about.
The added bonus with Delmon is he’s a righty, and we’ve had a shortage of respectable RH bats in the lineup. Of course, some of this benefit is removed by Gardenhire’s inexplicable lineups. Instead of splitting up the R & L bats, he’s been stacking them together (L-L-R-R, instead of L-R-L-R) which seems like a poor choice considering how many teams design their bullpens.
Blackburn continues to make me wonder what we have with him. Since being back up, he’s been great…but is it sustainable, or will he revert to his mid-season form?
Comment by Josh — September 13, 2010 @ 10:42 am
The Twins need the July version of Delmon in order to win in the playoffs. Here’s hoping he comes back.
I think Flores will never throw another pitch for the Twins. With Mijares, Fuentes, and Perkins all pitching well in relief, Flores is no longer needed.
I was not impressed with Matt Fox’s emergency start. He got hit pretty hard. Fortunately, the Twins brought their “A” defense to that game and bailed him out.
Comment by Dave T — September 13, 2010 @ 10:57 am
‘Blackburn continues to make me wonder what we have with him. Since being back up, he’s been great…but is it sustainable, or will he revert to his mid-season form?’
I think we know exactly what we have with him. He’s a poor man’s Mark Buehrle. When you have a guy like this, there are going to be stretches when he’s getting 3 pitch or less outs, and stretches where everyone hits line drives off of him. 08 and 09 were identical numberswise, but his numbers have a mean to get back to for 2010. FIPwise for his career he’s not by any means a bad back of the rotation starter because he’s not horrible and he gets quick outs, which leads to 7+ IP starts.
But face the variance that he’s going to bring to eventually get to the predictable numbers he’ll probably get to. And so far, he tends to pitch well in October. So there’s that.
Comment by TMW — September 13, 2010 @ 11:16 am
Sick of you trashing Young. He just had another outstanding assist a couple days ago. I take it you don’t want to resign him the way you constantly trash him. Geesh. Glad you’re not the Twins GM.
Comment by Mike — September 13, 2010 @ 11:39 am
Basically, as long as they avoid being swept in Chicago the biggest question will be whether the Twins play the Yankees or the Rays in the first round.
Wrong, the biggest question is whether the Twins gain overall homefield advantage throughout the playoffs (Twins 2 games behind NY) against the Yankees and/or Rays in both rounds.
Comment by jokin — September 13, 2010 @ 11:40 am
For those of you who (laughably) think getting on base is more important than RBIs, ask someone on the Indians what they think about that. Runs win games, RBIs produce runs.
TMW I know it’s really comforting to think that baseball exists in this statistcal Utopia, where there aren’t such things as context, clutch hitting, etc., and everything can be explained by a calculator but unfortunately baseball is a game, not a computer program, so that’s just not the case. Clutch hitting exists (see Young, Delmon) just as choking in clutch situations exists (see Cuddyer, Michael).
Comment by Arnold4321 — September 13, 2010 @ 12:25 pm
BatGirl!!! is right
Comment by RRR — September 13, 2010 @ 12:37 pm
Random question that is unrelated: Is Ron Mahay really earning 4 million this year? I know that was his salary last year, but this season we signed him to a minor league deal and he’s not making that this year is he? A co-worker and I were discussing this and on Yahoo it says that his salary was 4 million for this year too. Is this true????
Comment by B — September 13, 2010 @ 12:39 pm
Just to further this argument: getting on base produces RBIs, because nobody’s getting an RBI unless they get on base (of which homeruns are getting on and off the base in one swing).
Comment by Jeremy — September 13, 2010 @ 1:17 pm
“TMW I know it’s really comforting to think that baseball exists in this statistcal Utopia, where there aren’t such things as context, clutch hitting, etc., and everything can be explained by a calculator but unfortunately baseball is a game, not a computer program, so that’s just not the case. Clutch hitting exists (see Young, Delmon) just as choking in clutch situations exists (see Cuddyer, Michael).”
I never said anything of the sort. Baseball is a beautiful game of psychology, skill, execution, and strategy.
But the thing is that successful hitters choke 7 out of 10 times. Those 7 out of 10 times don’t often happen in perfect mathematical succession. They happen in clusters of random outcomes.
When it happens creates an illusion of a pattern that doesn’t actually exist. In this case it’s clutch hitters and choke artists. A run of no-hitters happened this year so the illusion of a pattern says ‘Drug Testing Works!’ Remember when everyone assumed that A-Rod just couldn’t get it done in October? He just happened to be in slump coincidentally in October. Then the regression to the mean happened in 2009 and he was absolutely on fire.
Comment by TMW — September 13, 2010 @ 1:20 pm
P.S. Runs scored are democratic, rbis are fascist.
Using a Marxist political class struggle argument has to be the last refuge of a baseball scoundrel. There are many “fascists” on the all-time runs-scored leader boards (Aaron, Ruth, Mays, Robinson), but how would the “proles” (Henderson, Rose, Cobb, Biggio, Molitor) attain that same elite membership status on the list without timely, cooperative, “democratic” hitting help from the teammates that advance them through the bunt, hit & run or swinging strikes on steal attempts, and ultimately, the “fascist” bat-on-ball contact that allows them to score? These are all functions within the same closed system. Obviously RBI theoretically could go up when OBP goes up, but when guys like Punto, Butera, Repko and Tolbert are at bat, OBP could rise to 1.000 and there is little evidence that players of this ilk would appreciably increase their RBI production in the succeeding ABs. A further illustration with the Twins money players in the “fascist” batting slots, I think it’s obvious that Cuddyer and Kubel have largely failed in their “Mussolini” opportunities (both of their BAs are lower with runners on) following lofty OBPers Mauer and Morneau (even include Hudson at a above-average .348 OBP in the 2-slot), all season long. Even Henderson, Cobb, et al, would have had sub-season run-scoring production numbers batting in front of these two guys.
Comment by jokin — September 13, 2010 @ 1:20 pm
I simply do not understand Nick Blackburn. I realize that pitchers have slumps and hot streaks, but how does a guy go through such extremes? Its like its not the same pitcher.
Thank you for addresing Flores, Aaron. I doubt, however, that Gardy is done with him in tight spots. After all, he didn’t give up any runs the other night.
Comment by Pedro Munoz — September 13, 2010 @ 1:37 pm
This:
And so far, (Blackburn) tends to pitch well in October. So there’s that.
doesn’t square with this:
Remember when everyone assumed that A-Rod just couldn’t get it done in October? He just happened to be in slump coincidentally in October. Then the regression to the mean happened in 2009 and he was absolutely on fire.
Can’t have it both ways. Young has career-long evidence of clutch-hitting, Cuddyer, not so much. How is this the “illusion of a pattern that doesn’t actually exist”, even though it actually does exist? In the case of regressing to the mean, Young will tend to regress to his own mean- as a subset of “all hitters” batting data with its own mean- which should be established after the peak in his production numbers, which is theoretically still years off, Cuddyer at age 31, likely is already on the downward regression to his career mean.
Comment by jokin — September 13, 2010 @ 1:52 pm
“But the thing is that successful hitters choke 7 out of 10 times. Those 7 out of 10 times don’t often happen in perfect mathematical succession. They happen in clusters of random outcomes”…
Dude, we’re talking about baseball. Phrases like “perfect mathematical succession”, “clusters”, “random outcomes”, “regression to the mean” belong on an actuary exam, not a discussion about America’s past time.
Baseball is a sport, not a series of formulas. Expect the unexpected. Have fun.
Comment by Arnold4321 — September 13, 2010 @ 1:54 pm
Wow. This thread is near the AG tops in arguing about nothing.
on base vs. rbi
clutch or no clutch
stats or no stats
etc.
It probably got off on the wrong foot when AG made a rare unartful comparison of Kubel and Young. I think it just goes to show it’s that time of year, and a testament to AG.com. We’re hanging on every word.
ps. An unusual thing: Gardy calling out Flores to the press. He’s probably got one last chance to throw breaking balls and be successful, but probably only in a lop-sided game.
Comment by brian — September 13, 2010 @ 3:32 pm
I’m not sure why every time Gleeman even questions the irrational exuberance of some of the Delmon love, all people do is rip him for being a hater. I think AG’s noted several times he holds no personal animosity toward Delmon, and I think he’s enough of a grownup to be over the Garza trade by this point. Wasn’t there an article here just two months ago wherein Gleeman noted that, while some of the tendencies remained, Young had turned a lot of things around and was deserving of praise? I mean, here’s a quote from above: “The clutch hitting has been very valuable and Young has obviously been much better than he was in 2008 and 2009…” Yes, that’s followed by “but…” – can’t a guy be even a little bit objective about DY? You all seem to think Gleeman was sitting around stewing every time Delmon got a big hit in July, thinking “Oh, what am I supposed to do? The Twins won but I can’t admit Delmon Young was a part of it! Regress to the mean so I can be vindicated!” I’m sure he cheered just like we all did.
Comment by MCA — September 13, 2010 @ 4:17 pm
‘Can’t have it both ways.’
True. But I wasn’t putting any stock into Blackburn in October, just taking note. He’s pitched twice in big October games and done well both times. Small sample? Absolutely. I have no clue what’s going to happen next time. You literally have no idea what his cut-fastball is going to do on any given night.
‘How is this the “illusion of a pattern that doesn’t actually exist”, even though it actually does exist?’
Because it doesn’t it exist. That’s how illusions do.
‘Dude, we’re talking about baseball. Phrases like “perfect mathematical succession”, “clusters”, “random outcomes”, “regression to the mean” belong on an actuary exam, not a discussion about America’s past time.
Baseball is a sport, not a series of formulas. Expect the unexpected. Have fun.’
Yeah, I’m not a jock but I love baseball. The math and existential randomness element of the game just makes it all the better for me. You’re free to ignore me.
‘Wow. This thread is near the AG tops in arguing about nothing.’
I know, right? It’s just too much fun though.
Comment by TMW — September 13, 2010 @ 4:20 pm
After reading all the discussion I came to a conclusion: We have a heck of a team this year. And we can argue to death, but with this players (with the A-team line up) even if you build the batting order by random drawing, you still have a heck of a line up.
Comment by adjacent — September 13, 2010 @ 4:45 pm
Good work adjacent. Now, not to duplicate posts but because its been so great of conversation today my post surely got lost in the shuffle. There’s no way we signed Mahay to a 4 million contract this season is there?
Comment by B — September 13, 2010 @ 6:34 pm
Batgirl!!!!
Comment by Brooklynegg — September 13, 2010 @ 7:19 pm
Mahay made $4 million in 09. He signed a minor league deal this year which was purchased in April. So I think he’s a serf again.
Did you know that he was a replacement player in 94. And because of this, Mahay is the only active player that is not in the MLBPA because he was a scab?
Comment by TMW — September 13, 2010 @ 8:07 pm
How is this the “illusion of a pattern that doesn’t actually exist”, even though it actually does exist?’
Because it doesn’t it exist. That’s how illusions do.
I think it has been demonstrated statistically that Delmon is a good clutch hitter with statistical significance over the course of his career, whereas the converse is true for Cuddy. They both have had a year (in Cuddy’s case, two, bigger sample) that went against the trend. No misperception, deception, musings or misinterpretation of things illusory(ie “no more steroids theory”), just facts and long-term trends over large sample sizes.
‘Wow. This thread is near the AG tops in arguing about nothing.
I’m not sure why every time Gleeman even questions the irrational exuberance of some of the Delmon love, all people do is rip him for being a hater.
Each of us has own definition of what is “important”. I am a Twins fan who doesn’t mind debating and analyzing a little more in-depth into a subject that someone else considers “nothing”. No love affair with Delmon or “irrational exuberance”, my post was 100% statistical fact. I just think DY is a great story about a guy that just about everyone was ready to jettison last year and has made a tremendous turn-around.
David Ortiz was the local Twins punching-bag who rose to super-stardom when he finally figured out what he could do with his potential (unfortunately on the Red Sox). I think these cheap-shot attacks with reed-thin factual support and that then ignore critical facts that point to the opposite conclusion- all in an effort to prove they were “right” about a trade from three years ago- has to be addressed factually (and in this case, devestatingly unrefuted as yet, by the other side of the discussion).
Someone commented that DY is no Guerrero. I say it’s way too soon to tell (ie, Ortiz was definitely a “late bloomer” and the three month stretch by DY this year demonstrates that he has the potential to be very Guerrero-like). The Twins have a glaring need for right-hand power and a young stud who is potentially trending in an upward trajectory and who has plenty of time to improve on his deficiencies at the plate and in the field deserves more than recycled trashing based on possibly soon-to-be obsolete bad habits of 08 and 09.
Comment by jokin — September 13, 2010 @ 8:08 pm
Thanks, Aaron!
Comment by Batgirl — September 14, 2010 @ 9:26 am