Twins 2019

Bass Thumb wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>hman wrote:</div>
Machado to Padres for 10 years, $300 million

Gross. “I’m not Johnny Hustle” has even less incentive to hustle now. You think 1b Mauer was an albatross, wait until you see this clown in 3 years. 29 year old Machado will be playing like the current 39-year-old version of the great Albert Pujols. It’s a shame because I have always liked and loosely followed the Padres because I grew up idolizing Tony Gwynn.

I was really hoping the White Sox would sign this guy.

I’d bet on Machado being a highly productive player for at least 6 of those years, but probably 8. Here’s BRs ‘most similar batters through age 25’ list:

Adrian Beltre
Ron Santo
Andruw Jones
Ruben Sierra
Ryan Zimmerman
Bryce Harper
Cal Ripken JR
Eric Chavez
Ken Griffey Jr
Cesar Cedeno

That’s a pretty good list of hitters.

I don’t think Pujols is a great comparison, mainly because of the age difference. Pujols didn’t hit Free Agency until he was like 32, Machado will be in year 6 of this deal before he hits 32.

Machado has a buy out after 5 years and will be somebody elses problem.

lindyrig79 wrote:

I used to be a die hard Twins fan and would listen to games on the radio in the boat or wherever. This year, we will still watch opening day and grill hot dogs as is our family tradition, but my interest will likely wane as the season progresses and they fall out of contention again.

As for the MLB in general… I’m glad they made some changes to speed up the game. But maybe they should limit the number of pitchers used in a game? That might make it more interesting instead of all these guys coming in to face one batter. I kinda feel like all the analytics is ruining the game for me also.

Analytics are not to blame for all the pitching changes. That started way before the analytics revolution. ‘Old School’ coaches like Tony La Russa doing a billion double switches because ‘matchups’ precluded analytics departments being built. La Russa would make pitching changes based on such small sample size ‘matchup’ data it would make most current coaching staffs blush.

The amount of data they are collecting on every pitch and batted ball is actually pretty incredible. The players have immediate access to look back at tape of every matchup they’ve had with pitcher x, or to look at how pitcher x handles every 3-0 count, what do they throw as their first pitch, how do they pitch with runners in scoring position, etc.

On the flip side, the pitchers can do the same.

Before the digital age, this was handled by looking through physical copies of game footage(like VHS tapes), so the possibilities were very limited. You can harp on ‘analytics’ ruining the game, but technology is what’s driving it.

I agree though, I’d love to see some changes to roster configuration or something that would make it more difficult for teams to throw a billion different pitchers out there a game. I don’t have a good rule in mind or anything, but there is probably some stuff they could do around minimum call-up/send down periods so they couldn’t swap bullpen guys from the minors to majors every day.

It’s a tough thing to fix, because any sort of rule to limit bullpen size or roster size is going to conflict heavily with the MLBPA. Less bullpen spots means less relief pitchers on rosters, which means less relief pitchers in the MLB. The players union will see that as another way for the owners to keep costs down and not pay the players.

philtickelson wrote:

I agree though, I’d love to see some changes to roster configuration or something that would make it more difficult for teams to throw a billion different pitchers out there a game. I don’t have a good rule in mind or anything, but there is probably some stuff they could do around minimum call-up/send down periods so they couldn’t swap bullpen guys from the minors to majors every day.

It’s a tough thing to fix, because any sort of rule to limit bullpen size or roster size is going to conflict heavily with the MLBPA. Less bullpen spots means less relief pitchers on rosters, which means less relief pitchers in the MLB. The players union will see that as another way for the owners to keep costs down and not pay the players.

Agree with everything you wrote. But that’s why I think simply limiting the number of pitcher changes, similar to the number of mound visits, would make things more interesting. Say, you are only allowed 5 pitcher changes per game (or whatever the number may be). It would give more strategy to the game and less obvious situations where changes might be made or not made. I understand there would be situations, like extra innings, where there would be an issue. But either so be it OR there could be a seperate rule for extra innings.

If baseball wanted things interesting and more strategy there would be no DH. The game will be fine, everything will work it’s self out. There will be a bunch of people no longer interested but the “clicks” will be up.

If we are getting into rule changes, I’d like to see the shift taken out by requiring 2 infielders on either side of second, and empowering the umps to call balls/strikes when a pitcher or batter is taking too long.

BigWerm wrote:

If we are getting into rule changes, I’d like to see the shift taken out by requiring 2 infielders on either side of second, and empowering the umps to call balls/strikes when a pitcher or batter is taking too long.

No need. Just start teaching batters how to hit again instead of preaching nothing but launch angle.

I could beat a shift when I was a sophomore in high school and did it all the way through college. If professional hitters can’t figure out how to beat a shift the game is doomed.

I know I can’t stand watching all those stupid shifts. But it won’t stop until they decide to hit the ball where they aren’t.

mahtofire14 wrote:

No need. Just start teaching batters how to hit again instead of preaching nothing but launch angle.

Well a lot of them can’t/won’t even bunt with half the infield open, so I’m not holding my breath on that…but somehow a walk is like gold…

BigWerm wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>mahtofire14 wrote:</div>
No need. Just start teaching batters how to hit again instead of preaching nothing but launch angle.

Well a lot of them can’t/won’t even bunt with half the infield open, so I’m not holding my breath on that…but somehow a walk is like gold…

Exactly.

mahtofire14 wrote:

No need. Just start teaching batters how to hit again instead of preaching nothing but launch angle.

Nailed it. How frustrating is it to see a square mile of open field out there and rarely, if ever, does someone go opposite field. F’ing adapt. Not exactly a like-for-like comparison, but what do football teams do when the defense drops everyone into lockdown coverage? Run the ball! You’ve got to be able to take what the defense gives you. Like you said mahto we spent all kinds of time growing up working on going opposite field. I think the difference today is teams are just shooting for power. Strikeout numbers are up, guys can’t defeat a shift, but the power numbers are also up. If everyone is doing it they’re probably right but it’s frustrating to watch.

mahtofire14 wrote:

Rosario has had one SOLID year. Dozier hit home runs and did nothing else.

Rosarios splits from ’18 are pretty much identical to his splits in ’17. How can just one of them be considered “SOLID”? Trash defensively, don’t get me wrong, but the dude can mash- and that’s by anyones standards, not just MNs.

Couldn’t disagree more on your Dozier take. Had WARs of 4.5, 5.0, and 6.2 in a Twins uniform. In case some aren’t familiar, players with a WAR of 6.2 or less last year included: JD Martinez, Arenado, Goldschmidt, Altuve, and the guy who just signed a $300 million contract the other day. Oh, and Dozier won a gold glove too.

Twins fans are a tough crowd to please, sheesh.

tbro16 wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>mahtofire14 wrote:</div>
Rosario has had one SOLID year. Dozier hit home runs and did nothing else.

Rosarios splits from ’18 are pretty much identical to his splits in ’17. How can just one of them be considered “SOLID”? Trash defensively, don’t get me wrong, but the dude can mash- and that’s by anyones standards, not just MNs.

Couldn’t disagree more on your Dozier take. Had WARs of 4.5, 5.0, and 6.2 in a Twins uniform. In case some aren’t familiar, players with a WAR of 6.2 or less last year included: JD Martinez, Arenado, Goldschmidt, Altuve, and the guy who just signed a $300 million contract the other day. Oh, and Dozier won a gold glove too.

Twins fans are a tough crowd to please, sheesh.

See this is where WAR pisses me off. Clearly Rosario is not JD Martinez, Arenado, Goldschmidt or Altuve. Not on the same level, clearly. JD hit almost twice as many HR and RBI as Rosario. Oh and he hit .330. Same with Arenado, .310 38HR and 110 RBI.

WAR doesn’t show you that. I’ll say it again, Rosario is a good player in MN.

And you forgot to mention Dozier’s career .320 OBP……

Beating the shift is an interesting thought exercise, I’m not going to pretend to know enough to tell you that hitter ‘x’ could just decide one day ‘to go opposite field’ and be effective in doing so.

I DO know that opposite field power is not a common skillset in the majors now or ever.

Do you want your premier power hitter(the same guy you are harping on for not getting enough RBIs or HRs) to be slapping singles to the opposite field? Someone with more time could figure out the ‘value’ of that.

Slap singles / bunt at x% success rate vs. pull the ball with power at (x-y)% success rate.

There’s a very good chance that they still provide more value hitting into the shift than they do slapping the ball opposite field.

Again, this is assuming that ‘opposite field power’ isn’t just a light switch you can turn on for any given player.

mahtofire14 wrote:

See this is where WAR pisses me off. Clearly Rosario is not JD Martinez, Arenado, Goldschmidt or Altuve.

You are correct, he is not. Those are WARs of Dozier, and in 2016, Dozier was worth more than any of those players that I previously listed were last season.

mahtofire14 wrote:

And you forgot to mention Dozier’s career .320 OBP……

OBP of .320 is more than fine with the number of HRs and doubles he hit. His wOBA, WAR, and OPS+ prove that.

philtickelson wrote:

Beating the shift is an interesting thought exercise, I’m not going to pretend to know enough to tell you that hitter ‘x’ could just decide one day ‘to go opposite field’ and be effective in doing so.

I DO know that opposite field power is not a common skillset in the majors now or ever.

Do you want your premier power hitter(the same guy you are harping on for not getting enough RBIs or HRs) to be slapping singles to the opposite field? Someone with more time could figure out the ‘value’ of that.

Slap singles / bunt at x% success rate vs. pull the ball with power at (x-y)% success rate.

There’s a very good chance that they still provide more value hitting into the shift than they do slapping the ball opposite field.

Again, this is assuming that ‘opposite field power’ isn’t just a light switch you can turn on for any given player.

It has nothing to do with opposite field power. See here’s the problem with the game today. All anyone cares about now is power. That’s why averages are down and strikeouts are at an all time high. You don’t need power to beat a shift. You just have to be able to hit the ball to that side of the field. And I can tell you, as a guy that played D1 college ball, faced 95MPH pitching it is something that any COLLEGE player, let alone professional player should be able to do.

The first two rounds during batting practice are always hitting to the opposite field. They work on it constantly in practice during live pitching/hitting drills and BP.

To your point of do you want your premier power hitter hitting the opposite way just to beat shifts….YES. How did trying to beat the shift work for Brian Dozier last season? He might be the all time worst offender of REFUSING to hit the opposite field. You don’t have to do it all the time but if you do it occasionally the shift would be used far less and be far less effective.

Twins reportedly have signed Marwin Gonzalez. Plays just about anywhere and is a very solid hitter. Actually a guy I was hoping they’d sign at the beginning of the offseason.

I still don’t understand why they aren’t signing pitchers though. At least the offense should be improved.

mahtofire14 wrote:

I still don’t understand why they aren’t signing pitchers though. At least the offense should be improved.

x2! Their lineup is actually looking pretty dang solid imo, add on Keuchel and Kimbrel and letsss go! At least if they intend on competing…

This team could be fun to watch this year solid signing today

Hate the Gonzales deal. Outside of one half season the guy is horribly replacement level. There are guys in the minors that can do what he will. That $10.5M would have been much better spent on a top reliever, or put toward a star, or burned…

I really like the Gonzales signing. 1b, 2b, SS, and LF. Decent pop. Advances runners. Good clubhouse guy and mentor, reportedly. Twins are building something. Cruz and Gonzales are the kind of guys you need with a team full of young Latino athletes, with more on the way.

You forgot to mention he can play 3rd for the fat kid.

EW6 wrote:

Hate the Gonzales deal. Outside of one half season the guy is horribly replacement level. There are guys in the minors that can do what he will. That $10.5M would have been much better spent on a top reliever, or put toward a star, or burned…

Hate might be strong, but way over spent. 145 games, .247 avg, 16 HRs, 68 rbi. For 12 million this year, 9 mill next. He made 3.7 last year. Why such a huge pay increase? He’s a utility player with so-so #s.
Does anyone have a list of Twins players salary #s for this year? I’m curious were he’ll rank.

Once the season is underway, hopefully I can make more meaningful contributions to this discussion.

Meanwhile, I’ll just leave this here for now…

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Pailofperch wrote:

way over spent. 145 games, .247 avg, 16 HRs, 68 rbi.

It’s 2019 and people are still concerned about batting average and RBIs He’s been an above average hitter from both sides of the plate in 4 of the last 5 seasons including a breakout 2017 year. He also plays 6 positions in the field well. Great insurance plan for both sano and Buxton. Hopefully boots Adrianza off the 25 man too.

People complain when the twins don’t spend money, then when they do they are upset that they spent too much lol. It’s a 2 year deal, it’ll be okay. And to answer your question- At 10.5 mil, Gonzalez is the 2nd highest paid player behind Cruz.

tbro16 wrote:

It’s 2019 and people are still concerned about batting average and RBIs

Ummmmmmm, it’s 2019 and hits and runs driven in still win baseball games. Or have they changed that?
Hopefully he pans out as well as Ricky Nolasco for the that kinda money.

I’m not against it really. He gives the Twins protection in case…………

2B Schoop is washed up.
SS Polanco gets caught cheating again.
3B Sano buys a Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise
CF He won’t ever play center but in case Buxton can’t play cuz……well he can’t hit.

If he knows how to frame maybe he can catch a day or two a week.

What all these moves mean is the Twins think Pinada is going to be back to throwing strikes, Gibson can win 14 games, Barrios really is a number 1. Add Odorizzi in the mix and maybe they can win 85 games.

Pailofperch wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>tbro16 wrote:</div>
It’s 2019 and people are still concerned about batting average and RBIs

Ummmmmmm, it’s 2019 and hits and runs driven in still win baseball games. Or have they changed that?
Hopefully he pans out as well as Ricky Nolasco for the that kinda money.

I’m just saying there are a lot of ways to judge a hitters performance- batting average and RBIs are two of the least telling stats out there. About as bad as W-L record for a pitcher

And yet it’s win loss records that decides who makes the play-offs. Go figure. I’ve heard ( I think ) that after 14 innings of a tie game they will give all players a participation ribbon and award each team a win!

tbro16 wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Pailofperch wrote:</div>

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>tbro16 wrote:</div>
It’s 2019 and people are still concerned about batting average and RBIs

Ummmmmmm, it’s 2019 and hits and runs driven in still win baseball games. Or have they changed that?
Hopefully he pans out as well as Ricky Nolasco for the that kinda money.

I’m just saying there are a lot of ways to judge a hitters performance- batting average and RBIs are two of the least telling stats out there. About as bad as W-L record for a pitcher

Agree, and to this I’ll say those other stats also point to a very mediocre hitter. Outside of one lucky half he’s had OPS under .750 and OPS+ at almost exactly 100… which means he is just a league average hitter. And already 30 yo which means there is little upside. It just seems like such a useless way to invest $10M a year. I thought the new GM was supposed to be smarter than this.

So his OPS+ of 129 in the 2nd half of last year doesn’t count? What about when it was 146 in 2017? Does that not count either? Must have just been lucky. He’s an above average (switch) hitter and plays 6 positions well in the field.