Though being one game over .500 isn't exactly blowing up the league, the Twins had extremely low expectations with a Vegas over/under of 70.5 wins, so being on pace to win something like 84 games represents a substantially better season than expected. One can't help but wonder how they got here, and if we can expect it to last and maybe see some semi-meaningful baseball in September again for the first time in what feels like forever.
The offense has been about what was expected: Team overall OPS is .675, last year it was .713. They're walking a little less and hitting with a little less power so far, but overall nothing out of the ordinary and they've averaged 4.56 runs per game this year compared to 4.41 last year so the offense is fine. It'd be nice for Kurt Suzuki and Kennys Vargas to start hitting, but the offense is fine. The defense has been atrocious as expected, so the improvement must have come from the pitching.
Sure enough, team ERA in 2015 is 4.07, down a half a run from 4.58 last year. Even better, starters' ERA is 4.38, which is 10th worst in the majors but a major upgrade from last year's 5.06 and 2013's 5.26, both dead last in the majors. Twins' relievers sport an ERA of 3.58, in line with 2014's 3.73 and 2013's 3.50, so any improvement has come from the starting pitching. Might as well look at all these guys and see who might actually be, like, good.
PHIL HUGHES: Hughes had a nearly impossible task trying to replicate both a career year and a historic walk/strikeout ratio, but he hasn't come close so far putting up numbers more in line with his Yankee days than last season. He's still controlling walks well and his strikeouts, though down a bit, are at a nice number, but he's getting killed by home runs, allowing 1.91 HRs per 9 innings after allowing just 0.69 last year. The good news is that he's allowing a home run on 15.1% of all his fly balls, which is likely an outlier since it would have been the second worst in the majors among starters with at least 150 innings pitched last season, and I'm pretty sure a Phil Hughes making about his half his starts at Target Field isn't going to end up at that number. He got really lucky about home runs last year (6.2% HR/FB), but his true ability probably lies somewhere in the middle. He probably won't be as good as last year, but he'll be better than he's been thus far.
KYLE GIBSON: Gibson's ERA is down almost a full run from last season, but there are some serious red flags here. His BABIP this year is just .267, below his career average and the league average, and his runners LOB% is 75.8%, which would be a top 30 mark most seasons - both significant indicators of luck. Alarmingly his K/9 has dropped to 2.79 (from 5.37 last year) which is dead last in the majors, and his walks have jumped by 1 per nine innings at the same time to 3.86, 14th worst in the league. He's also allowing a career worst 24% line drive rate and 83.6% contact rate. Seeing as he's shown nothing at all to support his ERA improvement from last season you're looking at a serious regression candidate unless he starts missing some bats.
MIKE PELFREY: The guy who nobody wanted in the rotation except for him and his family, and Pelfrey's put up a 2.63 ERA in five starts, but don't let that fool you - he's still terrible. BABIP is .259, LOB % is 83.3%, and HR/9 is just 0.66 - there's no way this keeps up. Those numbers last season would have ranked 18th, 1st, and 18th - does Pelfrey seem like a Top 20 pitcher to you? I will say this - his 56% ground ball rate is a very good thing and his hard hit ball percentage is just 18.1%, second in the league and probably fluky but not as definitely fluky as his other peripherals I'm not buying yet, but he's throwing a ton more split fingers and sliders and isn't relying as much on the fastball, and somehow he's managed to put more than 2 mph on his fast ball compared to last year. I don't believe in Pelfrey, but I expected this paragraph to be much worse. He may actually end up a decent number 4-5 starter.
TREVOR MAY: Probably the most important of these guys given his youth and potential, May's 4.15 ERA is decent but the good news is he's probably even better than that. His BABIP is high and his LOB % is low. He's putting up a respectable 6.9 K/9 and has reigned in his massive control problems from last year to average just 1.73 walks per nine. His HR numbers are a bit fluky and he should regress there a bit, but as long as he can control his walks he should be solid. We may have something here. Get it? Control his walks? May have something? That's high comedy right there.
TOMMY MILONE: You generally don't expect much from fifth pitchers, but Milone has been more like a seventh or eighth guy so far. Among Twins' pitchers with at least 20 innings pitched he ranks last in walk rate, homer rate, FIP, and xFIP, and his ERA is second worst at 4.76. Perhaps the worst part is that Milone's BABIP is a minuscule .243 and his LOB is over 80%, so he's actually been putting up these horrid stats while getting lucky. Yuck. His control is completely out of hand with 4.37 BB/9, nearly double his career average and he's just giving up a monstrous amount of home runs. Assuming he hasn't lost it he should be better than this but he's never going to be special. A guy with a 87 mph fastball has to be pretty sharp with control and pitch mix, so it certainly is possible he's lost it. Might even work better for the Twins if he has, so they can finally get Alex Meyer up here.
So, kind of a mixed bag. Some guys should be better than they've been, some worse. Probably the kind of thing you'd expect on a team that's right around .500. And hey, maybe they'll stay there. That'd be cool.
Showing posts with label Kyle Gibson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kyle Gibson. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 6, 2015
Thursday, April 2, 2015
Twins Preview - Throwers
I really don't want to do this. The Twins' pitching has been horrible for years, and even though it might be a little bit better it's still bad and it's also boring. I guess just dive right in? Yeah ok.
Opening day starter Phil Hughes should be the ace. The Twins signed him prior to last season on the cheap, hoping he'd be a better pitcher getting out of Yankee Stadium and boy did that pay off. He slashed his walks to an insane 0.69 per 9 innings which was the third lowest mark since 1920. 1920! And he somehow managed to do that while increasing his strikeouts and giving up half as many homers per fly ball. The homers number is maybe a little fluky, but moving from Yankee Stadium to Target Field can explain a lot of that too and it's balanced by a slightly higher than it should have been BABIP.
I mean Hughes was a really, really good pitcher last year. Imagine if the Twins weren't one of the two worst fielding teams in the league last year (I can't remember the other one). Hughes' FIP, which stands for Fielding Independent Pitching and attempts to measure a pitcher based solely on things he can control, was 2.65, almost a full run lower than his ERA (that means the Twins' fielding and Hughes' luck were both really, really bad). That number was fifth among qualified starters in all of baseball. He was fifth among starters in WAR. He won 16 games on a terrible team. He finished 7th in Cy Young voting. I mean geez. I didn't even realize just how good he was.
Honestly, and it scares me to say this a little, there's really no reason not to expect him to be the same pitcher this season. None of the improvements he made are unsustainable, even if a little regression should probably be expected because that's only natural after you set an all-time freaking record for K/Walk ratio, and there's actually some room for his luck to improve. Most of the projection systems like his walk rate to about double (to a still really good number in the low 1s) and his ERA/WHIP/FIP to go up accordingly, but what if he can come closer to replicating that 0.69? Man wow. I know his extension is a bit of a risk since it's pretty much based on one season, but if he can come close to that pitcher again it'll be an absolute bargain.
After Hughes come a couple vets in new Ervin Santana and last year's new Ricky Nolasco. The latter was an unmitigated disaster, as Nolasco cashed in $12 million to put up career worsts in nearly every category to the tune of a 5.38 ERA and 1.52 WHIP, all while failing to reach 200 innings pitched. Looking into the advanced stats there's not much of a reason for optimism, though he probably won't be worse. Even so, I took him with my first pick in a horrible players fantasy league, where you're rewarded for sucking. Santana is a good signing for a contending team who needs someone in the middle of their rotation, but he doesn't make much sense for a a team like the Twins, especially if it helped push Alex Meyer and Trevor May back down to AAA. I mean, he's been a pretty good pitcher in five of the last six seasons and he'll almost certainly help the team win more games this season, but he's pretty pointless unless he's still good when this team is contending. Which will be soon, right? Whatever. The team probably thought they were signing Johan Santana anyway.
Starter four is Kyle Gibson who has pretty much lost his top prospect shine but had a pretty successful second season. He improved from his (admittedly disastrous) rookie call-up two years ago by getting better in pretty much every metric you can find. His WAR was 2.1 last season, which puts him in line with guys like Chris Tillman and Henderson Alvarez in the pretty darn good pitcher area. I'd really like to see him up his K rate to somewhere closer to what he was putting up in the minors, but you can't really argue to much with a 2:1 ground ball to fly ball ratio. He's a solid #4 or a so-so #3 with potential for more if he can whiff more dudes. Keep an eye on that.
Winning the fifth starter competition over Meyer, May, and Mike Pelfrey (who is in the bullpen in a move I'm sure will work out) is your guy Tommy Milone, who came over in the Sam Fuld trade in what was a steal because Fuld is terrible. Not that Milone is anything particularly special, but he's made himself into a serviceable major league pitcher despite a fastball that doesn't break 87 miles per hour unless there's a stiff breeze behind him. But he mixes his pitches well and generally keeps the walks down, so he's not the worst option you could have as a fifth starter - though I promise you he'll have games where he's missing his spots where you'll believe he's pretty much the worst.
That's it for the starters, so now we're on to the bullpen which is going to be awful. Glen Perkins will close of course and he's pretty awesome. I have a tendency since he's a Minnesotan on a Minnesota team (and also I'm kind of a shithead sometimes) to assume he's being locally overrated but Perkins really is an elite closer. Since he took over the closer role permanently in 2013 he ranks 9th in saves (on a terrible team), 13th in K/9, 58th in ERA, and 22nd in FIP, and 25th in WHIP among all pitchers with at least 120 innings pitched - that's pretty damn good! And he has four more extremely affordable years on his contract (including this season). I kind of love the guy, but they should probably be listening at every trade deadline. Some team in win-now mode who is desperate for a closer might do something foolish, and he's a very valuable trade chip. For now, I'm just going to love watching him, and he's young enough he could be the closer when the team is in contention again (they will!), but you know, think about it.
I'm not saying shop him, not at all. I'm just saying if say, the Dodgers and their bottomless pit of money find themselves in a dogfight for the division they could come sniffing around. What if Kenley Jansen's injury festers and he's out all year, and terrible Brandon League and unproven Chris Hatcher aren't getting the job done? Between Perkins's skills, proven closer status, and super nice contract he'd be an attractive option. Maybe you can pry Kyle Seager or Julio Urias away. That would be pretty stupid on the Dodgers' end, but that doesn't mean it can't happen. They have a super deep farm system and they clearly want to win and they want to win now.
Casey Fien will be the main setup guy after another pretty good year even if he did slip a bit. It's a smidge disconcerting, however, that his K/9 dropped from 10.6 in 2013 to 7.3 in 2014. His velocity was actually up so there's a decent chance this was just a weird blip, but there was also a huge jump in contact rate. Keep an eye on this guy.
Brian Duensing was brought back for some reason and he'll be the sole non-Perkins lefty even though he's really quite terrible at pitching. He has been decent at getting lefties out in his career, but his inability to strike anyone out drives me crazy and he should never, ever pitch to right-handed batters. I really don't know why they tendered him other than continuity and familiarity which, as you know, the Twins value to an absurd degree. I'd rather just roll the dice on Caleb Thielbar. Granted in his two seasons he's shown reverse splits and if the Twins looked at that then bravo, but I guess I don't buy the front office is that sophisticated. There aren't really any other in house options for a lefty bullpen guy which is sad in and of itself, but there's always plenty of crappy lefty arms out there you could probably snag for a minor league deal. In the long run I suppose it doesn't matter, but giving $2.7 million to a terrible Duensing is kind of gross.
The rest of the bullpen is pretty much a mess. Tim Stauffer is a failed starter who's dealt with a couple of really significant injuries and he's probably the best of the group. Mike Pelfrey is absolutely terrible and should be released but instead the Twins are putting him in the pen which also pissed him off, so this is just a great situation all around. J.R. Graham pretty much made the team because he was a Rule 5 pick and has to be on the big league roster or be sent back to his original team, and I literally have no idea who Blaine Boyer is. This is not an impressive collection of arms, and to make it even worse the only guy in the entire bullpen who is under 30 is Graham. It's a group of old, failed pitchers. I prefer my bullpen made up of hard throwing young guys with at least one who isn't sure where the ball might be going all the time. That's fun. This is a garbage fire.
It's not like the team's going anywhere anyway. You could roll with 25-year old Michael Tonkin, 25-year old Stephen Pryor, 26-year old Lester Oliveros, 22-year old Nick Burdi, and 22-year old Jake Reed and be just as well off, if not better, and it would be a lot more fun. Or hell, throw Meyer and/or May into the pen to start like the way the Orioles have handled Kevin Gausman. I don't know. I'm not entirely certain this team has a coherent plan beyond "waiting for 2016 and hoping all the prospects are good" but whatever.
All in all, the starters could be decent this year, and will most likely be the best the Twins have had in a few years. The bullpen, however, is going to blow a lot of games.
Opening day starter Phil Hughes should be the ace. The Twins signed him prior to last season on the cheap, hoping he'd be a better pitcher getting out of Yankee Stadium and boy did that pay off. He slashed his walks to an insane 0.69 per 9 innings which was the third lowest mark since 1920. 1920! And he somehow managed to do that while increasing his strikeouts and giving up half as many homers per fly ball. The homers number is maybe a little fluky, but moving from Yankee Stadium to Target Field can explain a lot of that too and it's balanced by a slightly higher than it should have been BABIP.
I mean Hughes was a really, really good pitcher last year. Imagine if the Twins weren't one of the two worst fielding teams in the league last year (I can't remember the other one). Hughes' FIP, which stands for Fielding Independent Pitching and attempts to measure a pitcher based solely on things he can control, was 2.65, almost a full run lower than his ERA (that means the Twins' fielding and Hughes' luck were both really, really bad). That number was fifth among qualified starters in all of baseball. He was fifth among starters in WAR. He won 16 games on a terrible team. He finished 7th in Cy Young voting. I mean geez. I didn't even realize just how good he was.
Honestly, and it scares me to say this a little, there's really no reason not to expect him to be the same pitcher this season. None of the improvements he made are unsustainable, even if a little regression should probably be expected because that's only natural after you set an all-time freaking record for K/Walk ratio, and there's actually some room for his luck to improve. Most of the projection systems like his walk rate to about double (to a still really good number in the low 1s) and his ERA/WHIP/FIP to go up accordingly, but what if he can come closer to replicating that 0.69? Man wow. I know his extension is a bit of a risk since it's pretty much based on one season, but if he can come close to that pitcher again it'll be an absolute bargain.
After Hughes come a couple vets in new Ervin Santana and last year's new Ricky Nolasco. The latter was an unmitigated disaster, as Nolasco cashed in $12 million to put up career worsts in nearly every category to the tune of a 5.38 ERA and 1.52 WHIP, all while failing to reach 200 innings pitched. Looking into the advanced stats there's not much of a reason for optimism, though he probably won't be worse. Even so, I took him with my first pick in a horrible players fantasy league, where you're rewarded for sucking. Santana is a good signing for a contending team who needs someone in the middle of their rotation, but he doesn't make much sense for a a team like the Twins, especially if it helped push Alex Meyer and Trevor May back down to AAA. I mean, he's been a pretty good pitcher in five of the last six seasons and he'll almost certainly help the team win more games this season, but he's pretty pointless unless he's still good when this team is contending. Which will be soon, right? Whatever. The team probably thought they were signing Johan Santana anyway.
Starter four is Kyle Gibson who has pretty much lost his top prospect shine but had a pretty successful second season. He improved from his (admittedly disastrous) rookie call-up two years ago by getting better in pretty much every metric you can find. His WAR was 2.1 last season, which puts him in line with guys like Chris Tillman and Henderson Alvarez in the pretty darn good pitcher area. I'd really like to see him up his K rate to somewhere closer to what he was putting up in the minors, but you can't really argue to much with a 2:1 ground ball to fly ball ratio. He's a solid #4 or a so-so #3 with potential for more if he can whiff more dudes. Keep an eye on that.
Winning the fifth starter competition over Meyer, May, and Mike Pelfrey (who is in the bullpen in a move I'm sure will work out) is your guy Tommy Milone, who came over in the Sam Fuld trade in what was a steal because Fuld is terrible. Not that Milone is anything particularly special, but he's made himself into a serviceable major league pitcher despite a fastball that doesn't break 87 miles per hour unless there's a stiff breeze behind him. But he mixes his pitches well and generally keeps the walks down, so he's not the worst option you could have as a fifth starter - though I promise you he'll have games where he's missing his spots where you'll believe he's pretty much the worst.
That's it for the starters, so now we're on to the bullpen which is going to be awful. Glen Perkins will close of course and he's pretty awesome. I have a tendency since he's a Minnesotan on a Minnesota team (and also I'm kind of a shithead sometimes) to assume he's being locally overrated but Perkins really is an elite closer. Since he took over the closer role permanently in 2013 he ranks 9th in saves (on a terrible team), 13th in K/9, 58th in ERA, and 22nd in FIP, and 25th in WHIP among all pitchers with at least 120 innings pitched - that's pretty damn good! And he has four more extremely affordable years on his contract (including this season). I kind of love the guy, but they should probably be listening at every trade deadline. Some team in win-now mode who is desperate for a closer might do something foolish, and he's a very valuable trade chip. For now, I'm just going to love watching him, and he's young enough he could be the closer when the team is in contention again (they will!), but you know, think about it.
I'm not saying shop him, not at all. I'm just saying if say, the Dodgers and their bottomless pit of money find themselves in a dogfight for the division they could come sniffing around. What if Kenley Jansen's injury festers and he's out all year, and terrible Brandon League and unproven Chris Hatcher aren't getting the job done? Between Perkins's skills, proven closer status, and super nice contract he'd be an attractive option. Maybe you can pry Kyle Seager or Julio Urias away. That would be pretty stupid on the Dodgers' end, but that doesn't mean it can't happen. They have a super deep farm system and they clearly want to win and they want to win now.
Casey Fien will be the main setup guy after another pretty good year even if he did slip a bit. It's a smidge disconcerting, however, that his K/9 dropped from 10.6 in 2013 to 7.3 in 2014. His velocity was actually up so there's a decent chance this was just a weird blip, but there was also a huge jump in contact rate. Keep an eye on this guy.
Brian Duensing was brought back for some reason and he'll be the sole non-Perkins lefty even though he's really quite terrible at pitching. He has been decent at getting lefties out in his career, but his inability to strike anyone out drives me crazy and he should never, ever pitch to right-handed batters. I really don't know why they tendered him other than continuity and familiarity which, as you know, the Twins value to an absurd degree. I'd rather just roll the dice on Caleb Thielbar. Granted in his two seasons he's shown reverse splits and if the Twins looked at that then bravo, but I guess I don't buy the front office is that sophisticated. There aren't really any other in house options for a lefty bullpen guy which is sad in and of itself, but there's always plenty of crappy lefty arms out there you could probably snag for a minor league deal. In the long run I suppose it doesn't matter, but giving $2.7 million to a terrible Duensing is kind of gross.
The rest of the bullpen is pretty much a mess. Tim Stauffer is a failed starter who's dealt with a couple of really significant injuries and he's probably the best of the group. Mike Pelfrey is absolutely terrible and should be released but instead the Twins are putting him in the pen which also pissed him off, so this is just a great situation all around. J.R. Graham pretty much made the team because he was a Rule 5 pick and has to be on the big league roster or be sent back to his original team, and I literally have no idea who Blaine Boyer is. This is not an impressive collection of arms, and to make it even worse the only guy in the entire bullpen who is under 30 is Graham. It's a group of old, failed pitchers. I prefer my bullpen made up of hard throwing young guys with at least one who isn't sure where the ball might be going all the time. That's fun. This is a garbage fire.
It's not like the team's going anywhere anyway. You could roll with 25-year old Michael Tonkin, 25-year old Stephen Pryor, 26-year old Lester Oliveros, 22-year old Nick Burdi, and 22-year old Jake Reed and be just as well off, if not better, and it would be a lot more fun. Or hell, throw Meyer and/or May into the pen to start like the way the Orioles have handled Kevin Gausman. I don't know. I'm not entirely certain this team has a coherent plan beyond "waiting for 2016 and hoping all the prospects are good" but whatever.
All in all, the starters could be decent this year, and will most likely be the best the Twins have had in a few years. The bullpen, however, is going to blow a lot of games.
Thursday, May 1, 2014
Thursday Thoughts
- So the "big" news of the day in Gopher land is that the Big 10/ACC Challenge match-ups were announced and the Gophers got screwed. No, it's not Florida State for the 12th time, but they ended up getting slated to go on the road to Wake Forest. Despite finishing 7th in the league, the Gophers get last season's 11th place Demon Deacons who are probably going to be even worse. At the same time, the 6th place Hawkeyes get North Carolina, and Illinois and Indiana, who both finished below the Gophers, get much more favorable match-ups in Miami and Pitt, and last place Purdue got a fun match-up in NC State. This is horseshit.
There are 14 Big Ten teams. There are 15 ACC teams. Should be pretty straight forward, although with the realignment I suppose they had some leeway to play with things, but this is bullshit. No chance in hell Purdue, 12th in the Big Ten, should get NC State, who finished tied for 7th. If things were fair, horrible shit box Virginia Tech sits out (not Notre Dame) and based on records you get:
Virginia vs. Michigan
Louisville vs. Wisconsin
Syracuse vs. Michigan State
Duke vs. Nebraska
UNC vs. Ohio State
Pitt vs. Iowa
Clemson vs. Maryland
NC State vs. Minnesota
FSU vs. Illinois
Miami vs. Indiana
Wake vs. Penn State
Georgia Tech vs. Northwestern
Notre Dame vs. Purdue
BC vs. Rutgers
Way better and much more fair. Fucking NCAA Fascist bastards. Wake sucks, and they might even be worse next year. One of their top bench guys is transferring, and they're losing two starters. It's probably not all bad because their two leading scorers are back and they've got some decent young players, but I'm crabby so I'm bitching because the Gophers clearly got screwed because they're looked at as a bottom tier Big Ten program. Maybe they are but shit, you don't have to out of your way to fucking remind me. I need a drink.
- Going with Knob Creek.
- A little more news that might be of interest to Gopher fans is that Naadir Tharpe is transferring from Kansas. You may remember Tharpe from blogs such as this one because at one point he was ranked #90 overall and the #20 point guard in the country and all things pointed to him being a Gopher. If you don't feel like reading back, Tharpe had a two school list of Minnesota and Rutgers and then Rutgers signed Myles Mack so he canceled his official to Rutgers and the Gophers were in the driver's seat. Then Josiah Turner signed with Arizona (which did not work out well - DUI, kicked off team, transfer, reneg on transfer enter NBA draft, not drafted) which meant Kansas didn't have a point guard in their incoming class so they called Tharpe and about five minutes later, without even a visit, he was a Jayhawk. Once again, I don't need to be reminded constantly how the Gopher program ranks nationally. Thanks again, Tum Tum Nairn (who did almost the same thing).
Now, after 3 so so years in which he's made pretty good progress each year (1ppg/1apg to 6ppg/3apg to 9ppg/5apg) he's out. Kansas is fairly loaded at guard, and Tharpe actually lost his starting spot for a few games, but Tharpe is transferring to be closer to his daughter in Massachusetts (I think) who has been having some health issues. I would assume BC, UMass, and any of those Rhode Island schools are in play, and who knows, maybe UCONN. This is a pretty clear case of somebody who deserves a hardship waiver to be immediately eligible. So he's probably 50/50. The NCAA is neat.
- It's been awfully hard to keep up with the Twins this year considering they never seem to play, when they do it's almost always day games, my vpn trick to make mlb.com think I'm in California so I can watch their games on my computer has stopped working, and the pitching staff is once again horrible. Who could have possibly predicted that trying to upgrade the starters by signing two mediocre or worse starters and resigning a terrible one wouldn't have worked?
The team's starters post an ERA of 6.08, a WHIP of 1.64, a FIP of 4.74, and a xFIP of 4.95, numbers that are second worst, worst, second worst, and worst in the majors and this was coming into the day not even accounting for Pelfrey getting destroyed. Every single one of those numbers is worse than last year. Look at this rotation (ERA/FIP/xFIP/WHIP):
They're clawing around .500 thanks to an offense that has been putting up a shocking amount of runs ranking fifth in the majors, but man does that ever feel like fool's gold. Second in the majors in walks (after finishing 7th last season) should hold up and the team likely will keep putting runners on base, but there feels like to much fluky, timely hitting bringing in all those runs especially since they were a bottom six run scoring team last year. Sam Fuld (who I thought was brought in to be a fifth/sixth outfielder, not an every day starter), Trevor Plouffe, and Chris Colabello are all probably playing way over their heads, and I find it unlikely that Brian Dozier really has the kind of power he's showing so far. Now Joe Mauer and Aaron Hicks should probably be better than they're showing (can you believe Chris Herrmann pinch hit for Hicks today? Talk about a career low point) so it could kind of even out a bit, but if this team's going to do anything it's with pitching. And this pitching sucks. At least
- The Kentucky Derby is this weekend, and I'm always big fan and have given you jerks picks each of the last four years. Four years ago I hit Super Saver and two years ago my wife picked the winner with I'll Have Another, so you know what that means - I'm practically guaranteed to pick the winning horse.
My favorite bet is Intense Holiday at 16/1. He fits the profile of your typical derby winner - solid year at age 2 with improvement at age 3. He's also one of the best closers in the field. If he can stay middle of the pack for most of the race he should be able to make a late charge. Like this horse a lot. Also put down on Danza at 9/1 and Medal Count at 25/1. Danza is coming in hot and is a fast horse, but also has a lot of stamina in his pedigree, could very well be a wire to wire winner. Medal Count is similar to Danza in that he has a lot of stamina, but similar to Intense Holiday in that his best bet is to win with a late charge because he's not as fast as Danza. Long shot to win but I'll take a closer with stamina at 25/1. My kids chose Candy Boy (25/1) because hey, candy, and the wife went with Vicar's in Trouble because "he sounds British." So there you go. I'll probably do some kind of trifecta or exacta or something with my three horses and one of the front runners. Looking to win big this year.
BOATLOADS!
(ended up doing an trifecta box with Danza, Intense Holiday, California Chrome, Commanding Curve, and Wildcat Red)
There are 14 Big Ten teams. There are 15 ACC teams. Should be pretty straight forward, although with the realignment I suppose they had some leeway to play with things, but this is bullshit. No chance in hell Purdue, 12th in the Big Ten, should get NC State, who finished tied for 7th. If things were fair, horrible shit box Virginia Tech sits out (not Notre Dame) and based on records you get:
Virginia vs. Michigan
Louisville vs. Wisconsin
Syracuse vs. Michigan State
Duke vs. Nebraska
UNC vs. Ohio State
Pitt vs. Iowa
Clemson vs. Maryland
NC State vs. Minnesota
FSU vs. Illinois
Miami vs. Indiana
Wake vs. Penn State
Georgia Tech vs. Northwestern
Notre Dame vs. Purdue
BC vs. Rutgers
Way better and much more fair. Fucking NCAA Fascist bastards. Wake sucks, and they might even be worse next year. One of their top bench guys is transferring, and they're losing two starters. It's probably not all bad because their two leading scorers are back and they've got some decent young players, but I'm crabby so I'm bitching because the Gophers clearly got screwed because they're looked at as a bottom tier Big Ten program. Maybe they are but shit, you don't have to out of your way to fucking remind me. I need a drink.
- Going with Knob Creek.
- A little more news that might be of interest to Gopher fans is that Naadir Tharpe is transferring from Kansas. You may remember Tharpe from blogs such as this one because at one point he was ranked #90 overall and the #20 point guard in the country and all things pointed to him being a Gopher. If you don't feel like reading back, Tharpe had a two school list of Minnesota and Rutgers and then Rutgers signed Myles Mack so he canceled his official to Rutgers and the Gophers were in the driver's seat. Then Josiah Turner signed with Arizona (which did not work out well - DUI, kicked off team, transfer, reneg on transfer enter NBA draft, not drafted) which meant Kansas didn't have a point guard in their incoming class so they called Tharpe and about five minutes later, without even a visit, he was a Jayhawk. Once again, I don't need to be reminded constantly how the Gopher program ranks nationally. Thanks again, Tum Tum Nairn (who did almost the same thing).
Now, after 3 so so years in which he's made pretty good progress each year (1ppg/1apg to 6ppg/3apg to 9ppg/5apg) he's out. Kansas is fairly loaded at guard, and Tharpe actually lost his starting spot for a few games, but Tharpe is transferring to be closer to his daughter in Massachusetts (I think) who has been having some health issues. I would assume BC, UMass, and any of those Rhode Island schools are in play, and who knows, maybe UCONN. This is a pretty clear case of somebody who deserves a hardship waiver to be immediately eligible. So he's probably 50/50. The NCAA is neat.
- It's been awfully hard to keep up with the Twins this year considering they never seem to play, when they do it's almost always day games, my vpn trick to make mlb.com think I'm in California so I can watch their games on my computer has stopped working, and the pitching staff is once again horrible. Who could have possibly predicted that trying to upgrade the starters by signing two mediocre or worse starters and resigning a terrible one wouldn't have worked?
The team's starters post an ERA of 6.08, a WHIP of 1.64, a FIP of 4.74, and a xFIP of 4.95, numbers that are second worst, worst, second worst, and worst in the majors and this was coming into the day not even accounting for Pelfrey getting destroyed. Every single one of those numbers is worse than last year. Look at this rotation (ERA/FIP/xFIP/WHIP):
- Ricky Nolasco: 6.67/5.36/4.32/1.75
- Phil Hughes: 5.14/3.42/3.72/1.39
- Kevin Correia: 7.33/4.21/5.24/1.67
- Mike Pelfrey: 7.32/8.22/6.87/1.88
- Kyle Gibson: 4.34/3.55/4.79/1.55
As Ian Malcolm once said, "that is one big pile of shit." Gibson's the only one who has looked halfway decent but his last two outings have been pretty bad and I fear his hot start was mostly fluky. Hughes has been far and away the second best starter on this team so far. Phil Hughes! The good news is most of these guys aren't quite as bad as they've looked since with one exception their FIPs and xFIPS are lower than their ERA, which suggests that either luck or bad defense is making things worse and considering the team's horrendous corner outfielders it could be that, but they aren't suddenly going to get better. The bad news is that Mike Pelfrey might actually be worse than he's looked. Worse!
They're clawing around .500 thanks to an offense that has been putting up a shocking amount of runs ranking fifth in the majors, but man does that ever feel like fool's gold. Second in the majors in walks (after finishing 7th last season) should hold up and the team likely will keep putting runners on base, but there feels like to much fluky, timely hitting bringing in all those runs especially since they were a bottom six run scoring team last year. Sam Fuld (who I thought was brought in to be a fifth/sixth outfielder, not an every day starter), Trevor Plouffe, and Chris Colabello are all probably playing way over their heads, and I find it unlikely that Brian Dozier really has the kind of power he's showing so far. Now Joe Mauer and Aaron Hicks should probably be better than they're showing (can you believe Chris Herrmann pinch hit for Hicks today? Talk about a career low point) so it could kind of even out a bit, but if this team's going to do anything it's with pitching. And this pitching sucks. At least
- The Kentucky Derby is this weekend, and I'm always big fan and have given you jerks picks each of the last four years. Four years ago I hit Super Saver and two years ago my wife picked the winner with I'll Have Another, so you know what that means - I'm practically guaranteed to pick the winning horse.
My favorite bet is Intense Holiday at 16/1. He fits the profile of your typical derby winner - solid year at age 2 with improvement at age 3. He's also one of the best closers in the field. If he can stay middle of the pack for most of the race he should be able to make a late charge. Like this horse a lot. Also put down on Danza at 9/1 and Medal Count at 25/1. Danza is coming in hot and is a fast horse, but also has a lot of stamina in his pedigree, could very well be a wire to wire winner. Medal Count is similar to Danza in that he has a lot of stamina, but similar to Intense Holiday in that his best bet is to win with a late charge because he's not as fast as Danza. Long shot to win but I'll take a closer with stamina at 25/1. My kids chose Candy Boy (25/1) because hey, candy, and the wife went with Vicar's in Trouble because "he sounds British." So there you go. I'll probably do some kind of trifecta or exacta or something with my three horses and one of the front runners. Looking to win big this year.
BOATLOADS!
(ended up doing an trifecta box with Danza, Intense Holiday, California Chrome, Commanding Curve, and Wildcat Red)
Monday, April 21, 2014
Is Kyle Gibson like, good?
Kyle Gibson had the pedigree of a star after constantly making top prospect lists throughout his minor league career, and not just for the Twins, but for the entire league. He had the track record with some very good minor league seasons, including 2013 before he was called up. Then he finally made his debut last June and looked very good against Kansas City and suddenly the sky was the limit, but that was where the good feelings stopped. In ten starts he compiled a ghastly 6.53 ERA with a drastic drop in his K/9 and way too high of a line drive rate. There were positive signs - his xFIP was a run and a half better than his ERA, his BABIP was unsustainably high, and his HR/FB probably was too. But I was a little bit worried.
This season he's been dazzling, winning all three of his starts on his way to a sparkling 0.93 ERA and 1.09 WHIP. In those three games he's totaled 19.1 innings pitched and allowed a mere 12 hits, although just 10 strikeouts versus 9 walks is a bit troubling. Terrible last year, great this year, which begs the question, Is Kyle Gibson like, good?
The first place to look is always BABIP, and just as he was super lucky last year, he's been very lucky this year with his BABIP at .211 (it was .350 last season). He's also stranded 90.5% of his base runners, a completely ridiculous number, and given up 0 home runs despite 33% of his balls in play being hit in the air - another number that simply won't hold up. Perhaps the scariest part is his strikeouts and walks. After being a big-time strikeout pitcher throughout the minors, and even being respectable in that regard post his surgery, that part of his game has completely gone away in the majors. He was poor last year at just 5.12 K/9, and has taken that down another notch to 4.68 this season. Gross. His walks, never a problem in the minors, have also taken a turn for the worse, from 3.53 per 9 last year to a positively Bedard-ian 4.19 this season.
That makes his K/BB ratio 1.45 last year and 1.1 this season - both numbers would rank dead last in the majors last season. Worse than notorious soft-tossing nancies Scott Diamond, Barry Zito, Trevor Cahill, Joe Saunders, Jeremy Guthrie, Mike Pelfrey, and Jason Hammel - these are not guys you want to mentioned with in pretty much any scenario. I don't know if this is something physical still going on or if it's the "Twins Way" once again screwing up someone's natural talents, but his fastball has fallen from an average of 92.1mph last season to 90.8 mph this year, a fairly alarming drop. He's also not getting batters to chase balls out of the zone and not missing many bats when he does throw strikes. None of this is good.
That's not to say there aren't some positives here. Part of the reason he's had success this year is he's been able to drastically reduce his line drive rate. It was a slightly below average 21.3% last season, and it's been slashed all the way down to 10.5% this season, 4th in the majors (and a number that would easily have been #1 last season). The best part is those line drives from last year are becoming ground balls (+7.4%) and pop-ups (+9.0%), the easiest ways to get dudes out. Based on his batted ball percentage his ERA should be around 2.75, which shows that although Gibson has been extremely lucky this season that doesn't necessarily rule out that he could still be a very good pitcher.
Right now Gibson looks like yet another Twins' pitch-to-contact guy who has gotten extremely lucky this year. He's definitely taken some strides forward from last season, but he isn't really showing that high end ceiling he was projected to have. You simply cannot be a top line pitcher with those kind of K numbers. If he can rediscover his old ability to get whiffs to somewhere in the 6 per 9 inning area he could maybe be a #3 pitcher, but as it stands right now he's looking like no more than a 4-5. Dammit. This is really not how I was hoping this investigation would turn out.
This season he's been dazzling, winning all three of his starts on his way to a sparkling 0.93 ERA and 1.09 WHIP. In those three games he's totaled 19.1 innings pitched and allowed a mere 12 hits, although just 10 strikeouts versus 9 walks is a bit troubling. Terrible last year, great this year, which begs the question, Is Kyle Gibson like, good?
The first place to look is always BABIP, and just as he was super lucky last year, he's been very lucky this year with his BABIP at .211 (it was .350 last season). He's also stranded 90.5% of his base runners, a completely ridiculous number, and given up 0 home runs despite 33% of his balls in play being hit in the air - another number that simply won't hold up. Perhaps the scariest part is his strikeouts and walks. After being a big-time strikeout pitcher throughout the minors, and even being respectable in that regard post his surgery, that part of his game has completely gone away in the majors. He was poor last year at just 5.12 K/9, and has taken that down another notch to 4.68 this season. Gross. His walks, never a problem in the minors, have also taken a turn for the worse, from 3.53 per 9 last year to a positively Bedard-ian 4.19 this season.
That makes his K/BB ratio 1.45 last year and 1.1 this season - both numbers would rank dead last in the majors last season. Worse than notorious soft-tossing nancies Scott Diamond, Barry Zito, Trevor Cahill, Joe Saunders, Jeremy Guthrie, Mike Pelfrey, and Jason Hammel - these are not guys you want to mentioned with in pretty much any scenario. I don't know if this is something physical still going on or if it's the "Twins Way" once again screwing up someone's natural talents, but his fastball has fallen from an average of 92.1mph last season to 90.8 mph this year, a fairly alarming drop. He's also not getting batters to chase balls out of the zone and not missing many bats when he does throw strikes. None of this is good.
That's not to say there aren't some positives here. Part of the reason he's had success this year is he's been able to drastically reduce his line drive rate. It was a slightly below average 21.3% last season, and it's been slashed all the way down to 10.5% this season, 4th in the majors (and a number that would easily have been #1 last season). The best part is those line drives from last year are becoming ground balls (+7.4%) and pop-ups (+9.0%), the easiest ways to get dudes out. Based on his batted ball percentage his ERA should be around 2.75, which shows that although Gibson has been extremely lucky this season that doesn't necessarily rule out that he could still be a very good pitcher.
Right now Gibson looks like yet another Twins' pitch-to-contact guy who has gotten extremely lucky this year. He's definitely taken some strides forward from last season, but he isn't really showing that high end ceiling he was projected to have. You simply cannot be a top line pitcher with those kind of K numbers. If he can rediscover his old ability to get whiffs to somewhere in the 6 per 9 inning area he could maybe be a #3 pitcher, but as it stands right now he's looking like no more than a 4-5. Dammit. This is really not how I was hoping this investigation would turn out.
Monday, July 1, 2013
Twins/Gophers/Wolves Pre-July 4th Round-Up
Before the Super-long holiday weekend when everyone disappears for five days, I figured I should do a quick round-up of the three Minnesota sports teams I know about and touch on the biggest story right now. See, I know (and love) both Gopher Hoops and the Twins, and I'm pretty knowledgeable about the Wolves and the NBA. I watch the Vikings every Sunday and play fantasy football, but I don't really cover them because I don't consider myself an expert unlike the others I mentioned. See, unlike some local folks who actually get paid around here, I stick to what I know so I don't end up saying things like whenever Paul Allen and Paul Charchian get together to talk baseball. Actually that'd be a pretty sweet live blog each week. I might quit my job and do just that. Soon I'll be richer than astronauts.
- Most importantly, and keep in mind we're still very early in the rumor stage here, but Rich Pitino may already have the wheels turning in a big way on some very good recruits for 2014. First, there was this:
For those who don't know, the Tweeter is Isaiah Whitehead, a 6-4 shooting guard out of Brooklyn who ranks as the #10 SG and #35 overall player by ESPN. He has offers from Minnesota, Arizona, Kansas, Louisville, Maryland, St. John's, Syracuse, and UCLA. The re-Tweeter is Ja'Quan Newton, a 6-2 point guard from Philly who ranks as the #13 PG and #67 overall. He holds offers from Georgetown, Miami, Minnesota, Oregon State, Rutgers, St. Joe's, Syracuse, Temple, Xavier, and Villanova.
If you notice, the only two schools to have offered both are Minnesota and Syracuse. That would probably be enough to spazz everybody out (myself included), but next came this tweet:
From recruiting expert Jerry Meyer who has gotten 13 of 14 commits for 2014 correct, and if you click on the link you'd see he had updated his predictions page to forecast Whitehead and Newton heading to Minnesota.
To add a little more fuel to the fire, Newton and Gopher target Reid Travis were on the Celtics together at the NBPA Top 100 Camp (no, I have no idea what this is) this year, and Newton then sent Travis this tweet
Does this mean the Gophers should be expected a trio of big-time commits soon? Yes of course.
- In the most anticipated arrival of a Twins' pitcher since Les Straker, Kyle Gibson made his debut on Saturday and was inevitably called Gibby by Gardenhire. He was also pretty solid, going 6 innings and allowing 8 hits, no walks, 2 runs, and striking out 5 while picking up the win which we all know is the real key to evaluating a pitcher so way to go Gibby. It's super exciting for all us Twins fans because we've been hearing about Gibson forever, he truly has #1-#2 stuff which looks even more better when your team is full of #4 guys, and he struck out five which is actually more than any other Twin on the staff averages in nine innings so yeah and stuff.
Just remember, one start does not a career make. Using Game Score, Gibson's debut was on par with Liam Hendriks and Pat Mahomes when they made their first starts, and we know how that turned out (ok Hendriks isn't done yet, probably, but the train isn't currently pointed towards Cooperstown or even Decentville. Actually the best debut by a Twins pitcher since 1970 belongs to Anthony Swarzak in 2009 when he went seven innings and allowed just 5 hits and zero runs. Do I think Gibson will go the way of Hendriks or Mahomes or Swarzak? No, not at all. He put up a good game and has the pedigree and scouting reports behind him that none of those other guys did. Then again, so did Rick Ankiel, Ben McDonald, and a whole mess of Met's prospects. This year alone Cardinals stud prospect Michael Wacha pitched a gem his first time out, then got bombed the next time and is back in the minors. Dan Straily had an awesome debut for the A's last season, but has jumped back and forth from the rotation and AAA since.
Ok, now I'm just depressing myself and realizing I'm preparing myself for disappointment because being a fan of Minnesota sports means being disappointed. Let's just agree to stop now.
- When the T-Wolves chose Shabazz Muhammad I wrote on the Twitter, "Yes! Shabazz!" and I was immediately and almost completely savaged (JB of Late Night Hoops was one of the few who agreed with me). Frankly I was stunned people would hate the pick. Who else are you going to take at 14? The afro dude? There wasn't a single other player available who was remotely interesting. And looking at the draft there were only a handful of guys with the potential to be all-stars some day: Bennett, Oladipo, Porter, McLemore, Caldwell-Pope, Carter-Williams (if he learns to shoot), Shabazz (with the right coach), and maybe Shane Larkin. Once Pope went at 8 the entire draft was in shambles already, trading back and getting a possible future star in Muhammad and an immediate defensive presence in Dieng was a great move. Seriously, who would you have taken at 14? If it's anybody other than Shabazz you're really dumb, FYI.
Oh, I get it, you wanted them to keep Burke. I get it, I really do. I mean he's so smooth out there. He looks like he's moving at half speed but is just as fast as everybody else, and he's just got such a good head for the game he's mentally a step ahead. I know there are some questions about his athleticism and his jump shot, but he's battle tested in the best conference in the land, I'm sure he'll be fine in the NBA. That's what you're telling yourself, right? That's what you think? Well guess what? Guess who else that describes?
EVAN TURNER!
Hello exactly. You could have written the exact same thing about Turner before he was drafted #2 overall by the Sixers three years ago and he's been bust city. He's been so bad Philly tried to trade him to Phoenix before the draft for the Suns late 1st rounder AND THEY WERE DENIED even though the Suns wing players right now are Jared Dudley, Wes Johnson, P.J. Tucker, and Shannon Brown. Oh my! Burke is such a sure thing that a team in desperate need of a PG, the Pistons whose current PGs are Jose Calderon and Brandon Knight and Knight is so bad they're moving him to the 2 next year, who also had a significant home town angle with him chose a shooting guard over him instead.
I'm sorry, but when Caldwell-Pope was taken (over Burke) by the Pistons the Wolves' draft was all fucked up. Literally the only acceptable answer to the question, "what could have better than what the Wolves did" was "draft C.J. McCollum." I don't like him as an NBAer and Flip has come out and said that he and the team viewed McCollum as a point guard so they weren't all that interested but I can see where somebody would think he could be a Steph Curry type with less gay. That's your only answer. If you have a different one feel free to leave it in the comments but just know that chances are you're a pretty big moron.
- Lastly, Joe Coleman announced he's transferring to St. Mary's. Other than the Gaels total reliance on the three and commitment to defense it's a perfect marriage.
- Most importantly, and keep in mind we're still very early in the rumor stage here, but Rich Pitino may already have the wheels turning in a big way on some very good recruits for 2014. First, there was this:
Me & My Bro @J_Newton20 Thinking Of A Master Plan All Imma Say Is #StayTuned 👌😎
— Isaiah Whitehead (@Isaiah_W15) June 28, 2013
For those who don't know, the Tweeter is Isaiah Whitehead, a 6-4 shooting guard out of Brooklyn who ranks as the #10 SG and #35 overall player by ESPN. He has offers from Minnesota, Arizona, Kansas, Louisville, Maryland, St. John's, Syracuse, and UCLA. The re-Tweeter is Ja'Quan Newton, a 6-2 point guard from Philly who ranks as the #13 PG and #67 overall. He holds offers from Georgetown, Miami, Minnesota, Oregon State, Rutgers, St. Joe's, Syracuse, Temple, Xavier, and Villanova.
If you notice, the only two schools to have offered both are Minnesota and Syracuse. That would probably be enough to spazz everybody out (myself included), but next came this tweet:
Based on a tweet, a hunch and a little more, changed Crystal Ball picks for JaQuan Newton & Isaiah Whitehead. http://t.co/9AYj29zATo
— Jerry Meyer (@jerrymeyer247) June 28, 2013
From recruiting expert Jerry Meyer who has gotten 13 of 14 commits for 2014 correct, and if you click on the link you'd see he had updated his predictions page to forecast Whitehead and Newton heading to Minnesota.
To add a little more fuel to the fire, Newton and Gopher target Reid Travis were on the Celtics together at the NBPA Top 100 Camp (no, I have no idea what this is) this year, and Newton then sent Travis this tweet
@Reid_Travis_22 follow back Bro
— Ja'Quan Newton (@J_Newton20) June 29, 2013
Does this mean the Gophers should be expected a trio of big-time commits soon? Yes of course.
- In the most anticipated arrival of a Twins' pitcher since Les Straker, Kyle Gibson made his debut on Saturday and was inevitably called Gibby by Gardenhire. He was also pretty solid, going 6 innings and allowing 8 hits, no walks, 2 runs, and striking out 5 while picking up the win which we all know is the real key to evaluating a pitcher so way to go Gibby. It's super exciting for all us Twins fans because we've been hearing about Gibson forever, he truly has #1-#2 stuff which looks even more better when your team is full of #4 guys, and he struck out five which is actually more than any other Twin on the staff averages in nine innings so yeah and stuff.
Just remember, one start does not a career make. Using Game Score, Gibson's debut was on par with Liam Hendriks and Pat Mahomes when they made their first starts, and we know how that turned out (ok Hendriks isn't done yet, probably, but the train isn't currently pointed towards Cooperstown or even Decentville. Actually the best debut by a Twins pitcher since 1970 belongs to Anthony Swarzak in 2009 when he went seven innings and allowed just 5 hits and zero runs. Do I think Gibson will go the way of Hendriks or Mahomes or Swarzak? No, not at all. He put up a good game and has the pedigree and scouting reports behind him that none of those other guys did. Then again, so did Rick Ankiel, Ben McDonald, and a whole mess of Met's prospects. This year alone Cardinals stud prospect Michael Wacha pitched a gem his first time out, then got bombed the next time and is back in the minors. Dan Straily had an awesome debut for the A's last season, but has jumped back and forth from the rotation and AAA since.
Ok, now I'm just depressing myself and realizing I'm preparing myself for disappointment because being a fan of Minnesota sports means being disappointed. Let's just agree to stop now.
- When the T-Wolves chose Shabazz Muhammad I wrote on the Twitter, "Yes! Shabazz!" and I was immediately and almost completely savaged (JB of Late Night Hoops was one of the few who agreed with me). Frankly I was stunned people would hate the pick. Who else are you going to take at 14? The afro dude? There wasn't a single other player available who was remotely interesting. And looking at the draft there were only a handful of guys with the potential to be all-stars some day: Bennett, Oladipo, Porter, McLemore, Caldwell-Pope, Carter-Williams (if he learns to shoot), Shabazz (with the right coach), and maybe Shane Larkin. Once Pope went at 8 the entire draft was in shambles already, trading back and getting a possible future star in Muhammad and an immediate defensive presence in Dieng was a great move. Seriously, who would you have taken at 14? If it's anybody other than Shabazz you're really dumb, FYI.
Oh, I get it, you wanted them to keep Burke. I get it, I really do. I mean he's so smooth out there. He looks like he's moving at half speed but is just as fast as everybody else, and he's just got such a good head for the game he's mentally a step ahead. I know there are some questions about his athleticism and his jump shot, but he's battle tested in the best conference in the land, I'm sure he'll be fine in the NBA. That's what you're telling yourself, right? That's what you think? Well guess what? Guess who else that describes?
EVAN TURNER!
Hello exactly. You could have written the exact same thing about Turner before he was drafted #2 overall by the Sixers three years ago and he's been bust city. He's been so bad Philly tried to trade him to Phoenix before the draft for the Suns late 1st rounder AND THEY WERE DENIED even though the Suns wing players right now are Jared Dudley, Wes Johnson, P.J. Tucker, and Shannon Brown. Oh my! Burke is such a sure thing that a team in desperate need of a PG, the Pistons whose current PGs are Jose Calderon and Brandon Knight and Knight is so bad they're moving him to the 2 next year, who also had a significant home town angle with him chose a shooting guard over him instead.
I'm sorry, but when Caldwell-Pope was taken (over Burke) by the Pistons the Wolves' draft was all fucked up. Literally the only acceptable answer to the question, "what could have better than what the Wolves did" was "draft C.J. McCollum." I don't like him as an NBAer and Flip has come out and said that he and the team viewed McCollum as a point guard so they weren't all that interested but I can see where somebody would think he could be a Steph Curry type with less gay. That's your only answer. If you have a different one feel free to leave it in the comments but just know that chances are you're a pretty big moron.
- Lastly, Joe Coleman announced he's transferring to St. Mary's. Other than the Gaels total reliance on the three and commitment to defense it's a perfect marriage.
Monday, June 24, 2013
Welcome to the Bigs, Kyle Gibson
Well it's finally happened. The day we've all been waiting for - Kyle Gibson is coming to Minneapolis with his debut scheduled for Saturday against the Royals and James Shields. By all accounts Gibson's fastball is back to the lower mid-90s where it was before he had Tommy John surgery, and with his plus slider and change I think it's been clear it's time to get Gibson to Target Field. He's put up an ERA of 3.11 this year (FIP 2.96) and has struck out 7.67 batters per nine while walking 2.72 - all numbers in line with where he was prior to his injury. Since the Super 2 deadline has passed and at this point the Twins' will control Gibson until 2019 no matter when they call him up now, the time is right.
It will be interesting - and exciting - to watch a pitcher who can actually strike out somewhere in the neighborhood of a batter per inning, but there is a big part of me that worries the Twins will try to turn him into their preferred (for some reason) mold of a strike thrower pitch to contact type, although it does look like they're actually putting their money where their mouth is when they talk about being ok with walks in exchange for more power pitching. Since 2008, only two Twins pitchers threw at least 150 innings in a season and finished with 2.5 or more walks per nine (Francisco Liriano in 2010 and Brian Duensing in 2011). This season, the Twins look like they'll have at least one if not more with Mike Pelfrey at 2.7, Vance Worley at 2.8, Sam Deduno at 3.2, and Scott Diamond not too far off the pace at 2.0. Gibson's walk numbers should fit right in, although he should strike out significantly more batters.
Since Gibson is coming up, it's worth checking in on a couple other "power pitcher" prospects the Twins acquired - Trevor May (in the Ben Revere trade) and Alex Meyer (in the Denard Span trade). May was always the kind of guy you think about when somebody uses the phrase "he's a thrower not a pitcher" and as such could actually use a little tweak towards striking out fewer in order to walk fewer if you want him to end up a starter, as long as it didn't go too far. He seems to have made some strides from earlier in his minor league career and although his Ks are down a bit from last year his walks are down as well, although at 4.2 BB/9 that's still awfully high but manageable if he can keep his strikeouts high (see: Gio Gonzalez, Matt Moore, and Ryan Dempster). With an ERA of 3.68 and WHIP of 1.43 I don't see May advancing past AA this year, and that's fine. There's nothing here that is concerning to me and I'd say he's doing what you'd expect.
Meyer, with May at New Britain, is working his way back from a shoulder injury, which frankly terrifies me because of the Twins' history with arm injuries. Prior to that, however, he was having a similar year to May with high strikeout totals (10.8 per 9) balanced by high walk totals (4.0 per 9) resulting in a decent ERA (3.68) and WHIP (1.31), all of which looking pretty solid for a 23-year old in AA for the first time. Like May, I don't see him advancing a level at any point this year, particularly with the injury, but he seems to be progressing fine through the system and will hopefully close strongly enough to start the year at AAA next year. Neither Meyer or May has been spectacular this year, but they haven't done anything to discourage Twins' fans either.
One last pitcher worth mentioning is Jose "J.O." Berrios, the dude the Twins drafted at the end of teh first round in 2012 out of a Puerto Rican High School. He put up outstanding numbers last year at both Rookie Clubs (combined ERA of 1.17 and K/BB of 49/4) earning himself a promotion to low-A Cedar Rapids this year where he made the league's all-star team. In nine starts this year he has notched an ERA of 3.17 with 56 Ks vs. 15 walks, outstanding numbers for a 19 year old. Although he's young, it wouldn't surprise me to see him at high A or even AA to start next season.
Now, potential is one thing and results another, just ask the Kansas City Royals, but the Twins' seem well positioned with these four prospects going forward. Berrios is the only one who hasn't been on a Top 100 Prospect List, but with only one year under his belt if he finishes this year strong he'll have a shot. Add in Kohl Stewart and suddenly a major weakness - starting pitching prospects - has become a strength. The future is bright, but let's hope we're looking at a Tampa kid of future rather than a Kansas City one.
Stupid Royals.
It will be interesting - and exciting - to watch a pitcher who can actually strike out somewhere in the neighborhood of a batter per inning, but there is a big part of me that worries the Twins will try to turn him into their preferred (for some reason) mold of a strike thrower pitch to contact type, although it does look like they're actually putting their money where their mouth is when they talk about being ok with walks in exchange for more power pitching. Since 2008, only two Twins pitchers threw at least 150 innings in a season and finished with 2.5 or more walks per nine (Francisco Liriano in 2010 and Brian Duensing in 2011). This season, the Twins look like they'll have at least one if not more with Mike Pelfrey at 2.7, Vance Worley at 2.8, Sam Deduno at 3.2, and Scott Diamond not too far off the pace at 2.0. Gibson's walk numbers should fit right in, although he should strike out significantly more batters.
Since Gibson is coming up, it's worth checking in on a couple other "power pitcher" prospects the Twins acquired - Trevor May (in the Ben Revere trade) and Alex Meyer (in the Denard Span trade). May was always the kind of guy you think about when somebody uses the phrase "he's a thrower not a pitcher" and as such could actually use a little tweak towards striking out fewer in order to walk fewer if you want him to end up a starter, as long as it didn't go too far. He seems to have made some strides from earlier in his minor league career and although his Ks are down a bit from last year his walks are down as well, although at 4.2 BB/9 that's still awfully high but manageable if he can keep his strikeouts high (see: Gio Gonzalez, Matt Moore, and Ryan Dempster). With an ERA of 3.68 and WHIP of 1.43 I don't see May advancing past AA this year, and that's fine. There's nothing here that is concerning to me and I'd say he's doing what you'd expect.
Meyer, with May at New Britain, is working his way back from a shoulder injury, which frankly terrifies me because of the Twins' history with arm injuries. Prior to that, however, he was having a similar year to May with high strikeout totals (10.8 per 9) balanced by high walk totals (4.0 per 9) resulting in a decent ERA (3.68) and WHIP (1.31), all of which looking pretty solid for a 23-year old in AA for the first time. Like May, I don't see him advancing a level at any point this year, particularly with the injury, but he seems to be progressing fine through the system and will hopefully close strongly enough to start the year at AAA next year. Neither Meyer or May has been spectacular this year, but they haven't done anything to discourage Twins' fans either.
One last pitcher worth mentioning is Jose "J.O." Berrios, the dude the Twins drafted at the end of teh first round in 2012 out of a Puerto Rican High School. He put up outstanding numbers last year at both Rookie Clubs (combined ERA of 1.17 and K/BB of 49/4) earning himself a promotion to low-A Cedar Rapids this year where he made the league's all-star team. In nine starts this year he has notched an ERA of 3.17 with 56 Ks vs. 15 walks, outstanding numbers for a 19 year old. Although he's young, it wouldn't surprise me to see him at high A or even AA to start next season.
Now, potential is one thing and results another, just ask the Kansas City Royals, but the Twins' seem well positioned with these four prospects going forward. Berrios is the only one who hasn't been on a Top 100 Prospect List, but with only one year under his belt if he finishes this year strong he'll have a shot. Add in Kohl Stewart and suddenly a major weakness - starting pitching prospects - has become a strength. The future is bright, but let's hope we're looking at a Tampa kid of future rather than a Kansas City one.
Stupid Royals.
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Thoughts before Canada
I leave for the big Canada trip Thursday morning with Bogart, Dawger, and Bear so I won't get a chance to talk at you for quite a while. I'll leave a few parting thoughts here and then hopefully TRE can put up a couple of posts while I'm gone.
- At one point it seemed like the Gophers had a strong shot at landing Memphis transfer Tarik Black, but once again when the big boys come calling the Gophers have little shot as Black has decided to enroll at Kansas, who also just signed the #1 player in the class of 2013 in Andrew Wiggins, called the best pro prospect since LeBron, and have gone from lots of question marks to a pretty loaded squad. There are still a handful of interesting big man options out there (Juco and/or transfers) with the most likely to become a Gopher still Rakeem Buckles (no clue what exactly the hold up on this one seems to be) and man somebody better be coming. Not that anybody is a difference maker at this point, but of the four big guys (yes, only four) the only one you can relatively sure you can rely on is Eliason. I personally think Oto will have a big year and a definite Buggs fan, but so many question marks. Might as well make the lane at Williams look like the Riddler's suit at this point.
- Sometimes I'm wrong about things. Not often, but sometimes. Roy Hibbert is one of those times. You know how completely worthless Hasheem Thabeet has been, even getting bounced down to the D-League? I figured Hibbert would be right there with him. I should have known better with him coming out of Georgetown who, outside of Ruben Boumtje-Boumtje, never miss on centers, but I thought he was doomed to failure. This year he nearly averaged a double-double while finishing fourth in blocked shots (also Tim Duncan finished third. Guy's immortal. Immortally boring, but immortal). So Roy, and Georgetown, I'm sorry for doubting. And now that I've apologized and admitted my error, it's clear I am the better man here.
- Sam Deduno is back. Again. After an outstanding World Baseball Classic (3 starts, 0.69 ERA, 1.23 WHIP, 17 K vs. 5 BB, team won the whole thing) some Deduno related buzz was generated that maybe he had figured things out. Unfortunately fans would have to wait as Deduno didn't make his minor league debut until early May thanks to an injury suffered at the WBC. So who is Deduno this year? The 28 year old rookie of last year with the 57/55 K-to-Walk ratio? Or the WBC hero?
It's really tough to tell so far with just 3 minor league starts under his belt. Deduno has made the K/BB ratio a bit more manageable at 17/10 with his last start the best going 6 innings and striking out 8 while walking just two. Of course, he also gave four earned runs in that one compared to just one earned in his prior to starts which encompassed eleven innings, when, of course, he struck out 9 while walking 8. He's almost impossible to figure out. I think it boils down to a guy who has decent stuff but little command. He'll have games where he'll shut teams down like he did last year, and he'll have games where he doesn't get out of the third inning like he did last year. Is he worth more of a shot than P.J. Walters or Cole DeVries in this spot? I don't know, but the correct answer is Kyle Gibson, who, in case you missed it, has thrown complete game shutouts with 8 Ks and 2 walks in two of his last three outings for the Rochester Red Wings. He's coming. I don't know when the arbitration clock kicks on or kicks off or whatever it is, but he better be up the day after it happens.
- Lastly, for those knocking the Pitino hire because he's only had one year of head coaching experience and is now in a major conference:
- And with that, I'm out for a while. Wish me luck - mostly that I catch a lot of big fish, but also that I don't die in the wilderness.
- At one point it seemed like the Gophers had a strong shot at landing Memphis transfer Tarik Black, but once again when the big boys come calling the Gophers have little shot as Black has decided to enroll at Kansas, who also just signed the #1 player in the class of 2013 in Andrew Wiggins, called the best pro prospect since LeBron, and have gone from lots of question marks to a pretty loaded squad. There are still a handful of interesting big man options out there (Juco and/or transfers) with the most likely to become a Gopher still Rakeem Buckles (no clue what exactly the hold up on this one seems to be) and man somebody better be coming. Not that anybody is a difference maker at this point, but of the four big guys (yes, only four) the only one you can relatively sure you can rely on is Eliason. I personally think Oto will have a big year and a definite Buggs fan, but so many question marks. Might as well make the lane at Williams look like the Riddler's suit at this point.
- Sometimes I'm wrong about things. Not often, but sometimes. Roy Hibbert is one of those times. You know how completely worthless Hasheem Thabeet has been, even getting bounced down to the D-League? I figured Hibbert would be right there with him. I should have known better with him coming out of Georgetown who, outside of Ruben Boumtje-Boumtje, never miss on centers, but I thought he was doomed to failure. This year he nearly averaged a double-double while finishing fourth in blocked shots (also Tim Duncan finished third. Guy's immortal. Immortally boring, but immortal). So Roy, and Georgetown, I'm sorry for doubting. And now that I've apologized and admitted my error, it's clear I am the better man here.
- Sam Deduno is back. Again. After an outstanding World Baseball Classic (3 starts, 0.69 ERA, 1.23 WHIP, 17 K vs. 5 BB, team won the whole thing) some Deduno related buzz was generated that maybe he had figured things out. Unfortunately fans would have to wait as Deduno didn't make his minor league debut until early May thanks to an injury suffered at the WBC. So who is Deduno this year? The 28 year old rookie of last year with the 57/55 K-to-Walk ratio? Or the WBC hero?
It's really tough to tell so far with just 3 minor league starts under his belt. Deduno has made the K/BB ratio a bit more manageable at 17/10 with his last start the best going 6 innings and striking out 8 while walking just two. Of course, he also gave four earned runs in that one compared to just one earned in his prior to starts which encompassed eleven innings, when, of course, he struck out 9 while walking 8. He's almost impossible to figure out. I think it boils down to a guy who has decent stuff but little command. He'll have games where he'll shut teams down like he did last year, and he'll have games where he doesn't get out of the third inning like he did last year. Is he worth more of a shot than P.J. Walters or Cole DeVries in this spot? I don't know, but the correct answer is Kyle Gibson, who, in case you missed it, has thrown complete game shutouts with 8 Ks and 2 walks in two of his last three outings for the Rochester Red Wings. He's coming. I don't know when the arbitration clock kicks on or kicks off or whatever it is, but he better be up the day after it happens.
- Lastly, for those knocking the Pitino hire because he's only had one year of head coaching experience and is now in a major conference:
- Billy Donovan: previous head coaching experience before Florida - 2 years at Marshall
- Jim Boeheim: previous head coaching experience before Syracuse - NONE
- Roy Williams: previous head coaching experience before Kansas - NONE
- Tom Izzo: previous head coaching experience before Michigan State - NONE
- Brad Stevens: previous head coaching experience before Butler - NONE
- And with that, I'm out for a while. Wish me luck - mostly that I catch a lot of big fish, but also that I don't die in the wilderness.
Monday, April 15, 2013
Monday Musings
- Even though the Twins are terrible this year this still could end up being a pretty fun season. If nothing else, they're at least finally agreeing with everyone else and realizing they're terrible so they're going to see what they have for the future. So we're going to get full seasons of Chris Parmelee and Brian Dozier to see what they can offer in the future. We're going to see extended tryouts for Aaron Hicks and Oswaldo Arcia (who got his first career hit tonight in his first career at-bat which is probably like, the first time that's ever happened in MLB history) and get a chance to find out if Darin Mastroianni or Joe Benson can be a fourth outfielder someday.
It sucks that the pitching rotation is basically made up of crappy guys who are crappy, but you're going to watch 30 starts out of Vance Worley and Scott Diamond so we can see where they could slot in the future rotation. Liam Hendriks and Cole Devries should get 20+ starts each so we can figure out if they have a future. Sam Deduno should get a decent shot to see if he can carry over any of his WBC success. Kyle Gibson should hit the bigs at some point this year, and with a little luck maybe we'll see at least one of Alex Meyer and Trevor May as well.
Yes they'll be terrible, but at least they'll be terrible with young guys who are fun. Even Pedro Florimon is a little bit fun, what with all the bunting for hits.
- That Masters was pretty effing awesome, no? I won't rehash everything since you've either watched it, read about it, or don't care but I love it when somebody like Adam Scott, who is dealing with that "great player who hasn't won a major" pressure wins one, especially Augusta, because their reactions are like watching the One Shining Moment of golf. I have no problem with Tiger, I don't hate him or anything but I don't really want to make love to him either, but watching him win is fun too because of the "greatest of all-time" thing, but I'd much rather somebody like Scott win.
That majors pressure just fascinates me with how it affects everyone a little differently. It was really weighing down on Phil but he managed to get passed it, but Sergio Garcia has let it beat him so far down he's reached the point where he says himself that he doesn't think he's good enough to win a major, while despite 10 career top 10s in majors Steve Stricker doesn't seem to be bothered at all. Similarly, the two younger guys you heard this about - Luke Donald and Adam Scott - seemed to be on opposite ends of the spectrum as well with Donald seeming to be more relaxed about it and Scott feeling some pressure, and if you want to throw Ian Poulter in that mix I can almost feel the steam coming off of him when it comes to majors. For some reason I dig Poulter so I hope he's next, but Lee Westwood better hurry up to before his window closes. Actually I'm calling my shot right now - it's between Westwood and Poulter for the British Open. Book it.
- Have you seen what's going down with Purdue's hoops team right now? Guard Anthony Johnson announced he's transferring, making the third player (Sandi Marcius and Jacob Lawson were the other two) who has bounced from the Boilers this offseason. Losing these three isn't a killer or anything as all averaged less than 20 minutes and 5 points per game and Purdue has three Rivals Top 150 guys coming in next season, but losing three of your rotation guys is still a bit alarming. Also keep in mind that Johnson already redshirted, which means that if he transfers to a D-I school he loses an entire year of eligibility when he sits out so you know he really, really wanted out.
I'm sure Painter has everything under control (like I mentioned, great class coming in) it's just odd to see this kind of mass exodus when a coach is already entrenched for eight years and when added to the Kelsey Barlow thing last year it kind of makes you scratch your head. It's probably nothing, but if it's something, remember how smart I am. Otherwise forget it.
- The Seahawks signed Antoine Winfield? Sweet jesus do they just follow the Vikings around waiting to see what they've dropped? In the last three years 46% of Viking players they got rid off ended up on Seattle according to these numbers I just made up. How's Sidney Rice, who I believe is behind Doug Baldwin on the depth chart these days, working out? Maybe the Vikings can use this infatuation to their advantage. You know, they could be all like, "Hey, if Russell Wilson gets hurt you guys really need somebody with a similar skill set. How about Joe Webb" and then they'd trade a 5th round pick for him. I'm a genius.
- Lastly, Ramon Ortiz is back in the majors. Yes, that one. This disturbs me greatly. Although I did learn his middle name is Diogenes, which I kind of like, so I guess I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Next Year's Twins' rotation = yucky
With another failed Twins' season nearly, mercifully, behind us it's time to look at next season and speculate on how the Twins' will suck next year. Actually it's pretty obvious, and it's once again starting pitching. A remarkable twelve pitchers made starts for the Twins this season, and with Pavano hopefully gone via free agency, Nick Blackburn and Jason Marquis thankfully let go, and Francisco Liriano traded it's mostly a murky future. Scott Diamond is the only Twin right now who is assured a place in the starting rotation next year, so I figured why not look at this other dorks and try to speculate on next season's horrid rotation?
I'm going to leave aside a few candidates, like Scott Baker (who, if he resigns here is certainly going to be the #1 guy), Anthony Swarzak (only made a handful of starts and is pretty clearly a bullpen arm at this point), the guys who pitched this year out of the pen but have some starting experience in their past (Jeff Manship, etc.), the minor league guys (Kyle Gibson, etc.), free agents (Derek Lowe, who is practically destined to become a Twin, etc.) and the guy I've never even heard of (Esmerling Valdez) and instead concentrate on the five guys who have already been given an extended audition this season (Sam Deduno, P.J. Walters, Cole Devries, Liam Hendriks, and Brian Duensing). A quick primer on some stats I'll be referencing:
ERA - duh
WHIP - also duh
FIP - Fielding Independent Pitching. Stat which measures a pitcher's effectiveness based on the things he can control (strikeouts, walks, home runs). Think of it as what a pitcher's ERA should be if all things (fielding, luck, ballpark) were equal across the league.
xFIP - Expected Fielding Independent Pitching - Same thing, but if you assume home runs are out of the pitcher's control and looks at it as if all pitchers allowed the same number of home runs per fly ball hit off them.
BABIP - Batting Average on Balls in Play. Exactly what it sounds like. An attempt to quantify a pitcher's bad luck. League average is around .300, so anything substantially higher or lower than that is usually an indicator of some good or bad luck for the pitcher.
xBABIP - Expected BABIP. Based off of line drives, ground balls, fly balls, and pop-ups allowed. Used to compare to BABIP because let's face it, a high BABIP could be because of bad luck or it could be because the pitcher is just throwing meat balls and getting laced all over the yard (*cough* Nick Blackburn *cough). If xBABIP and BABIP differ significantly it's a better indicator of luck than straight BABIP.
Got it, nerds? And we're off (stats as of 9/12 when I started this post).
BRIAN DUENSING (5.03 ERA, 1.43 WHIP, 4.05 FIP, 4.51 xFIP, .319 BABIP, xBABIP .315)
Duensing's the guy we're most familiar with given that he's appeared in (158) and started (61) more games than the other guys on this list combined (note: I didn't actually add this up, I'm assuming), and what you see is what you get: a soft-tossing lefty who supplements that by not being particularly crafty. He's been an effective reliever in his career (ERA 3.19) and pretty bad as a starter (ERA 4.57). This, in large part, is due to his complete ineptitude against right-handed batters. He has actually been very good against lefties in his career, and would be most effectively used as a late inning lefty-specialist guy and that's where he belongs. If Duensing is in the rotation for any significant length of time in 2013 the season is probably already a failure.
SAMUEL DEDUNO (3.55 ERA, 1.44 WHIP, 5.06 FIP, 4.65 xFIP, .257 BABIP, xBABIP .326)
An interesting case since he's a 28-year old rookie who never really flashed any significant potential until putting up a 2.14 ERA in 9 starts at Rochester this year, Deduno has shown some signs of brilliance but balanced it out by getting destroyed at times as well. I like the kid because he actually has shown some ability to strike people out, as evidenced by his putting up better than a K and inning in four different minor league stints throughout his career and in his six prior career major league appearances (all in relief). Of course, he balances that out by not being able to consistently throw strikes with a ridiculous 5.5 BB/9 and the fewest percentage of thrown strikes of any Twin still in the rotation (with the exception of this Esmerling guy) - although he also generates the most swings and misses. And it's not as if his control issues are anything new, he's struggled with them throughout his minor league career. Still, he shows some promise and if he can get the walks at least a little bit under or control (or get his K rate back up to his minor league numbers) he could end up being a passable #4 starter. Cautiously optimistic, but he has gotten significantly lucky on balls hit this year, so he has some serious potential to put up a +6 ERA.
P.J. WALTERS (6.05 ERA, 1.54 WHIP, 5.98 FIP, 4.62 xFIP, .302 BABIP, xBABIP .352)
Plenty of warning flags with Walters, starting with the fact that he's a 27-year old on his third team who has only once posted a sub-4.00 ERA above A ball in at least 7 starts. That's a really oddly written sentence but the point is he was traded after 5 years in the minors with the Cardinals and then the Blue Jays just plain old let him go before the Twins grabbed him off the trash heap and none of that speaks well for his future. He doesn't strike anybody out and walks too many guys to balance that out, and his best seasons in the minors were in A ball when he was pitching out of the pen. In retrospect, maybe the most amazing feat of the season was when he pitched that complete game 5-hitter against the White Sox all the way back in May in his third start making everyone think "Hey, maybe we have something here." Sadly, we do not. That was Walters season high in innings (9) and strikeouts (8), and only once would he allow fewer than five hits again and that was the game where he didn't get out of the first against Philly. If you can't tell, I am not a fan of him or his stupid name.
COLE DEVRIES (4.11 ERA, 1.22 WHIP, 4.90 FIP, 4.73 xFIP, .262 BABIP, xBABIP .330)
Devries has been fortunate to find a lot of the same good luck Deduno has (which is sad really considering both of their mediocre numbers), but a lot of nerd stats also say he's been the best starter other than Diamond (which is also kind of sad). I put Devries a step above Walters because he's at least actually shown some flashes of ability here and there and his K/BB ratio is a bit more palatable. Of course he doesn't actually strike many people out, but he doesn't walk many either which, combined with being from Minnesota, means the Twins are going to give him more chances than Blackburn to win a spot in the rotation. He's a soft-tosser for sure, but he does at least have four pitches, and one (slider) actually rates as statistically quite good (second best pitch of all the starters listed here on the team behind Deduno's slider which I'm pretty sure is actually a curve). His fastball is so-so and his curve and change get ripped pretty good, but it's his first season in the big league's so let's see. He also misses more bats than anybody other than Deduno, so that's promising. I'm not particularly encouraged that it took him to 27 to actually reach the majors, but I guess out of this group he's actually one of the better options. Yuck.
LIAM HENDRIKS (6.20 ERA, 1.69 WHIP, 5.49 FIP, 4.70 xFIP, .344 BABIP, xBABIP .354)
Hendriks' traditional numbers look far worse than the other guys, but he hasn't had the good luck Deduno, Walters, and Devries have and his advanced metrics put him right in line with everybody else here. That being said, I don't really hold out much hope for Hendriks unless he can figure out a breaking pitch. His fastball and change are right around league average, but both his curve and slider get absolutely pounded to the point where are those are the two of the three worst pitches on the team (along with Duensing's fastball). However, unlike guys like Devries and Walters, Hendriks is only 23 and as such is likely not a finished product. Where the older guys are likely locked in to "what you see is what you get" mode, Hendriks still has time to develop one of those breaking pitches (or something else). The complete game 3-hitter he tossed against Seattle flashed some of his potential and his minor league numbers have been outstanding (2.65 ERA and 1.06 WHIP in 5 seasons) so with Hendriks patience is probably the key. Hopefully he wins a spot in the rotation coming out of training camp next year which would be a clear sign he's continuing to improve. If he starts the season at AAA next year it's probably a sign we can give up on him as a starter. Although with the Twins' management in charge, maybe we actually can't get any useful info out of that.
So, to sum up:
Duensing: left-handed bullpen option
Deduno: could be a back of the rotation starter if he gets his walks under control
Walters: totally sucks
Devries: back of the rotation starter
Hendriks: most potential of the group, could develop into a middle of the rotation guy
Man. It's very possible the Twins' break camp with this rotation: Diamond, Devries, Deduno, Hendriks, and Walters. How many games would that team win in a season? 40? 50? I have no idea how they managed to paint themselves into this corner.
Help us, Kyle Gibson. You're our only hope.
I'm going to leave aside a few candidates, like Scott Baker (who, if he resigns here is certainly going to be the #1 guy), Anthony Swarzak (only made a handful of starts and is pretty clearly a bullpen arm at this point), the guys who pitched this year out of the pen but have some starting experience in their past (Jeff Manship, etc.), the minor league guys (Kyle Gibson, etc.), free agents (Derek Lowe, who is practically destined to become a Twin, etc.) and the guy I've never even heard of (Esmerling Valdez) and instead concentrate on the five guys who have already been given an extended audition this season (Sam Deduno, P.J. Walters, Cole Devries, Liam Hendriks, and Brian Duensing). A quick primer on some stats I'll be referencing:
ERA - duh
WHIP - also duh
FIP - Fielding Independent Pitching. Stat which measures a pitcher's effectiveness based on the things he can control (strikeouts, walks, home runs). Think of it as what a pitcher's ERA should be if all things (fielding, luck, ballpark) were equal across the league.
xFIP - Expected Fielding Independent Pitching - Same thing, but if you assume home runs are out of the pitcher's control and looks at it as if all pitchers allowed the same number of home runs per fly ball hit off them.
BABIP - Batting Average on Balls in Play. Exactly what it sounds like. An attempt to quantify a pitcher's bad luck. League average is around .300, so anything substantially higher or lower than that is usually an indicator of some good or bad luck for the pitcher.
xBABIP - Expected BABIP. Based off of line drives, ground balls, fly balls, and pop-ups allowed. Used to compare to BABIP because let's face it, a high BABIP could be because of bad luck or it could be because the pitcher is just throwing meat balls and getting laced all over the yard (*cough* Nick Blackburn *cough). If xBABIP and BABIP differ significantly it's a better indicator of luck than straight BABIP.
Got it, nerds? And we're off (stats as of 9/12 when I started this post).
BRIAN DUENSING (5.03 ERA, 1.43 WHIP, 4.05 FIP, 4.51 xFIP, .319 BABIP, xBABIP .315)
Duensing's the guy we're most familiar with given that he's appeared in (158) and started (61) more games than the other guys on this list combined (note: I didn't actually add this up, I'm assuming), and what you see is what you get: a soft-tossing lefty who supplements that by not being particularly crafty. He's been an effective reliever in his career (ERA 3.19) and pretty bad as a starter (ERA 4.57). This, in large part, is due to his complete ineptitude against right-handed batters. He has actually been very good against lefties in his career, and would be most effectively used as a late inning lefty-specialist guy and that's where he belongs. If Duensing is in the rotation for any significant length of time in 2013 the season is probably already a failure.
SAMUEL DEDUNO (3.55 ERA, 1.44 WHIP, 5.06 FIP, 4.65 xFIP, .257 BABIP, xBABIP .326)
An interesting case since he's a 28-year old rookie who never really flashed any significant potential until putting up a 2.14 ERA in 9 starts at Rochester this year, Deduno has shown some signs of brilliance but balanced it out by getting destroyed at times as well. I like the kid because he actually has shown some ability to strike people out, as evidenced by his putting up better than a K and inning in four different minor league stints throughout his career and in his six prior career major league appearances (all in relief). Of course, he balances that out by not being able to consistently throw strikes with a ridiculous 5.5 BB/9 and the fewest percentage of thrown strikes of any Twin still in the rotation (with the exception of this Esmerling guy) - although he also generates the most swings and misses. And it's not as if his control issues are anything new, he's struggled with them throughout his minor league career. Still, he shows some promise and if he can get the walks at least a little bit under or control (or get his K rate back up to his minor league numbers) he could end up being a passable #4 starter. Cautiously optimistic, but he has gotten significantly lucky on balls hit this year, so he has some serious potential to put up a +6 ERA.
P.J. WALTERS (6.05 ERA, 1.54 WHIP, 5.98 FIP, 4.62 xFIP, .302 BABIP, xBABIP .352)
Plenty of warning flags with Walters, starting with the fact that he's a 27-year old on his third team who has only once posted a sub-4.00 ERA above A ball in at least 7 starts. That's a really oddly written sentence but the point is he was traded after 5 years in the minors with the Cardinals and then the Blue Jays just plain old let him go before the Twins grabbed him off the trash heap and none of that speaks well for his future. He doesn't strike anybody out and walks too many guys to balance that out, and his best seasons in the minors were in A ball when he was pitching out of the pen. In retrospect, maybe the most amazing feat of the season was when he pitched that complete game 5-hitter against the White Sox all the way back in May in his third start making everyone think "Hey, maybe we have something here." Sadly, we do not. That was Walters season high in innings (9) and strikeouts (8), and only once would he allow fewer than five hits again and that was the game where he didn't get out of the first against Philly. If you can't tell, I am not a fan of him or his stupid name.
COLE DEVRIES (4.11 ERA, 1.22 WHIP, 4.90 FIP, 4.73 xFIP, .262 BABIP, xBABIP .330)
Devries has been fortunate to find a lot of the same good luck Deduno has (which is sad really considering both of their mediocre numbers), but a lot of nerd stats also say he's been the best starter other than Diamond (which is also kind of sad). I put Devries a step above Walters because he's at least actually shown some flashes of ability here and there and his K/BB ratio is a bit more palatable. Of course he doesn't actually strike many people out, but he doesn't walk many either which, combined with being from Minnesota, means the Twins are going to give him more chances than Blackburn to win a spot in the rotation. He's a soft-tosser for sure, but he does at least have four pitches, and one (slider) actually rates as statistically quite good (second best pitch of all the starters listed here on the team behind Deduno's slider which I'm pretty sure is actually a curve). His fastball is so-so and his curve and change get ripped pretty good, but it's his first season in the big league's so let's see. He also misses more bats than anybody other than Deduno, so that's promising. I'm not particularly encouraged that it took him to 27 to actually reach the majors, but I guess out of this group he's actually one of the better options. Yuck.
LIAM HENDRIKS (6.20 ERA, 1.69 WHIP, 5.49 FIP, 4.70 xFIP, .344 BABIP, xBABIP .354)
Hendriks' traditional numbers look far worse than the other guys, but he hasn't had the good luck Deduno, Walters, and Devries have and his advanced metrics put him right in line with everybody else here. That being said, I don't really hold out much hope for Hendriks unless he can figure out a breaking pitch. His fastball and change are right around league average, but both his curve and slider get absolutely pounded to the point where are those are the two of the three worst pitches on the team (along with Duensing's fastball). However, unlike guys like Devries and Walters, Hendriks is only 23 and as such is likely not a finished product. Where the older guys are likely locked in to "what you see is what you get" mode, Hendriks still has time to develop one of those breaking pitches (or something else). The complete game 3-hitter he tossed against Seattle flashed some of his potential and his minor league numbers have been outstanding (2.65 ERA and 1.06 WHIP in 5 seasons) so with Hendriks patience is probably the key. Hopefully he wins a spot in the rotation coming out of training camp next year which would be a clear sign he's continuing to improve. If he starts the season at AAA next year it's probably a sign we can give up on him as a starter. Although with the Twins' management in charge, maybe we actually can't get any useful info out of that.
So, to sum up:
Duensing: left-handed bullpen option
Deduno: could be a back of the rotation starter if he gets his walks under control
Walters: totally sucks
Devries: back of the rotation starter
Hendriks: most potential of the group, could develop into a middle of the rotation guy
Man. It's very possible the Twins' break camp with this rotation: Diamond, Devries, Deduno, Hendriks, and Walters. How many games would that team win in a season? 40? 50? I have no idea how they managed to paint themselves into this corner.
Help us, Kyle Gibson. You're our only hope.
Sunday, August 19, 2012
Twins Prospect Update
With the Twins having been completely out of it since the second week of the season your thoughts end up turning to the future. Then, when you realize all those guys suck too, you dig a little deeper into the younger prospects. With that in mind, here are the first 10 guys I thought of to check on in the Twins' system. They might not be the top 10 guys, but they're all definitely guys who, at one point or another, were well thought of in the system and most still all are. I didn't look up Alex Wimmers because he blew out his arm and is thus dead to me because, much like the Twins' brass, I don't believe in that sissy shit like surgery. If it can't be fixed with spit, dirt, or leeches then I'm not interested.
1. Miguel Sano, 3B, Beloit (A). You probably know who this guy is because he's universally hailed as the Twins top prospect with Baseball America ranking him #18 in all of baseball and ESPN slotting him at #28. And in a season full of disappointment, Sano has delivered once again with a .262/.382/.526 line with 25 dingers in single-A. His average and power have dipped a bit from previous years and the .262 might not look that impressive, but considering he's only 19 (or so they say) it's nothing to get too worked up about especially considering his incredible power and plate discipline for that age. He may end up out-growing 3B and end up at 1B or OF, but wherever he plays he can hit. Plus he's built like an absolute monster. I seriously can't wait for this guy to get to the bigs. I might just get a Beloit jersey. Also this,
3. Byron Buxton, OF, Elizabethton (Rookie). Buxton is the guy the Twins took #2 overall in this year's draft, and I'm interested to see what the early scouting on him is. He hasn't exactly set the world on fire, hitting just .211 between two rookies leagues this year, but his OBP is impressive for such a low average and the biggest question on his was his power and he knocked out 4 homers in 102 plate appearances in the Gulf Coast League. His production won't matter for a couple of years - he'll continue to be highly rated based on potential and "toolsy-ness" - and he's just 18 and right out of high school afterall, but keep an eye on how he does repeating rookie ball next year. My biggest fear is we have another Ndudi Ebi here. And sure, I could have gone with Brien Taylor or Adam Johnson (go Twins) but come on, how many chances to you get bring up Ndudi Ebi in a conversation?
4. Aaron Hicks, OF, New Britain (AA). Buxton before Buxton was Buxton, Hicks was picked fourteenth by the Twins out of high school in 2008 as a toolsy guy and found himself ranked in the top 45 prospects by Baseball America each of the next three years, before being unranked this season due to diminishing returns. Not that it's time to give up on him. Athleticism doesn't just disappear unless you're Shawn Kemp or Willie Mays Hayes and there's no indication anything has happened to Hicks, he's just seen his numbers dip but this year has been a nice rebound in AA with basically his entire slash line going up (from .242/.354/.368 to .281/.381/.453) and a career high in homers with 12. He's still just 22 and he's made a steady progression from Rookie ball to AA in his career thus far so there's no need to panic just yet, but next year is a big one for Hicks.
5. Kyle Gibson, P, Fort Myers (A+). If you're like me Gibson is one of the guys you care about the most, simply because he's a power pitcher with filthy stuff who struck guys out like it was his job (which it is) before getting hurt and needing Tommy John surgery (which I assume made the Twins' upper management happy since they'd probably hope he'd stop striking people out all the time). He had made it all the way to AAA before he blew out the arm and although his numbers weren't great at Rochester they'd been stellar all the way through the system prior to that. In his rehab so far this year (through 10 games between Rookie and A ball) he's put up an ERA of 2.55 with a 0.96 WHIP and 17 Ks in 17.2 innings vs. just 5 walks. Good stuff. Here's to hoping Gibson is in the rotation next season. No, seriously, here's to hoping. I have a vodka & tonic in my hand right now and I'm totally drinking it.
6. Levi Michael, SS, Fort Myers (A+). You probably remember Michael because he was the Twins' first round pick last season at #30, the 21-year old shortstop from North Carolina who everyone said like hurry up and get up to the majors because this SS situation blows. Well don't hold your breath. Despite Brian Dozier getting booted back to Rochester for some weird reason with two weeks left in the minor league season I don't think Michael will be there next year unless he gets some of those sweet Melky Cabrera roids. He hit just .236/.327/.299 this year, and although the walk rate is nice pretty much everything else is awful, particularly he's Punto-ian lack of power. Since he's a shortstop I'd make a comment on his fielding here, but I have to admit I have no idea what a .962 fielding percentage or 4.33 range factor mean, so instead look boobs:
7. Oswaldo Arcia, OF, New Britain (AA). Arcia is an interesting case because he may have the best numbers of anybody on this list (possibly outside Sano) but he's never appeared on Baseball America's top prospects lists. He hit .375 at Elizabethton in 2010, is hitting .315 this year between Fort Myers and New Britian, and has never hit below .290 once in five minor league seasons (.275 in 2009). And he's done it the whole way with good power (more gap power, but he's still hit double-digits homers three times) and the last two seasons he's even learned to mix in some walks. He's been so steady throughout his career I kind of think he's probably the most sure thing in the system. He's still just 21 but in five seasons his career line between rookie ball and AA is .315/.371/.533. Dude's a pure pimp, and he's finally starting to get recognized-getting a spot in the futures game this year (and going 1-2 with a double). I'd bet he shows up on some lists somewhere this year. CALLED IT.
8. Jose Berrios, P, Elizabethton (Rookie). This is the guy the Twins took at #32 this year with the draft pick they were awarded for losing husky camera whore Mike Cuddyer as an 18-year old out of Puerto Rico and he has been flat-out unhittable in rookie ball. Between Elizabethton and the Gulf Coast League Berrios has thrown 25.2 innings with a combined ERA of 0.70 and WHIP of 0.55, striking out a staggering 43 while walking just 4. Guys. That's a 10-1 K-to-BB ratio. Since hitting E-Town he's made two starts, going a total of 9 innings and allowing 3 hits, 1 walk, 0 runs, and striking out 16. I mean holy F. Small sample size and all yes, but, like the Shermanator, confidence is high.
9. Joe Benson, OF, New Britian (AA). Benson's the one guy on this list we've already seen in the majors, putting up a .239/.270/.352 line in 21 games last season which was apparently enough to get Baseball America to name him the #99 prospect in baseball and for the Twins to assign him to AAA to start this year even though he'd never played there before. And it was a disaster. Benson hit just .179 in 28 games at Rochester before getting busted back to AA and then injured his wrist, required surgery. The good news is that he completely tore up Rookie and A ball pitching upon his return. The bad news is he's failed to break a .190 average at either AAA or AA this year with a Revere-esque slugging percentage and he's struck out nearly 30% of his at-bats through his minor league career. I don't want to say he's a lost cause just yet, but at 24 it's time to shit or get off the pot. Definitely the most disappointing guy on this list. Like Cooper Manning. Also this:
10. Deolis Guerra, P, Rochester (AAA). Although everyone on the list is more important to the future of the Twins, Guerra is someone I keep following because he's important to the past - the last link to the Johan Santana trade. Humber is gone and threw a perfect game, Mulvey is dead or something I don't know, and Carlos Gomez was traded for J.J. Hardy (GOOD!) who was then traded for two shithead relievers (BAD!). So Guerra is it. There's good news and bad news here. GOOD: Dominated AA this year. BAD: Sucked at AAA, career ERA of 6 with a 5.55 this year. BAD: Basically has been given up on as a starter, not starting a game in 2012 and only 10 of 37 in 2011. GOOD: Has struck out more than a batter per inning since being turned into a full time reliever. BAD: Sucks. GOOD: Could maybe be a decent reliever.
So yeah. The entire haul for Johan Santana has been 20 relief innings out of Humber where he got completely rocked, one+ inning out of Kevin Mulvey (that's it, really?) where he gave up 6 hits and 4 runs, two shitty fucking years of Jon Rauch who would later go on to fuck me over, two sometimes exciting but ultimately frustrating years of Carlos Gomez, an injury-plagued and mediocre year from J.J. Hardy (who would go on to become one of the best shortstops in the league the year after they traded him), and 24 absolutely crappy innings from one of the relievers they traded Hardy for, releasing the other one (or whatever) without getting a single major league inning out of him. So yeah, you could say Guerra is pretty important even if his absolute upside is a decent set-up man. Let's get 2-3 years out of him and call it a day. Yes? We all agree? Sweet. Time for some punch and pie.
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| Twins training staff in action |
1. Miguel Sano, 3B, Beloit (A). You probably know who this guy is because he's universally hailed as the Twins top prospect with Baseball America ranking him #18 in all of baseball and ESPN slotting him at #28. And in a season full of disappointment, Sano has delivered once again with a .262/.382/.526 line with 25 dingers in single-A. His average and power have dipped a bit from previous years and the .262 might not look that impressive, but considering he's only 19 (or so they say) it's nothing to get too worked up about especially considering his incredible power and plate discipline for that age. He may end up out-growing 3B and end up at 1B or OF, but wherever he plays he can hit. Plus he's built like an absolute monster. I seriously can't wait for this guy to get to the bigs. I might just get a Beloit jersey. Also this,
2. Eddie Rosario, 2B/OF, Beloit (A). Sano's teammate with the Snappers, Rosario also saw his numbers dip a bit with the promotion to A ball but also like Sano he's young (20) and the change isn't so drastic there's need to worry. He's still hitting over .300 this year and although his slugging has dropped from high .600s to around .500 this season that's from a drop in homers as his doubles remain around the same. Additionally, the move this year to second base means his offense is less important as long as he can field his position, so keep an eye on that. Rosario was ranked #50 in the majors by ESPN and with the slight drop in production canceled out by the move to middle infield I'd expect him in about the same range next year.Sano stood in the batter's box awhile to watch his homer against relief pitcher Carmine Giardiana. He trotted the bases, but virtually stopped a few feet before touching the plate, taking off his batting helmet as Kernels catcher Abel Baker barked at him.
Sano glared at the Kernels dugout after finally touching the plate, with Kernels players continuing to give him significant grief. He took a step toward Baker, and the dugouts began to empty, with umpires Fernando Rodriguez and Paul Clemons, as well as both teams' coaching staffs, doing a good job of squelching what could have been an ugly scene.
3. Byron Buxton, OF, Elizabethton (Rookie). Buxton is the guy the Twins took #2 overall in this year's draft, and I'm interested to see what the early scouting on him is. He hasn't exactly set the world on fire, hitting just .211 between two rookies leagues this year, but his OBP is impressive for such a low average and the biggest question on his was his power and he knocked out 4 homers in 102 plate appearances in the Gulf Coast League. His production won't matter for a couple of years - he'll continue to be highly rated based on potential and "toolsy-ness" - and he's just 18 and right out of high school afterall, but keep an eye on how he does repeating rookie ball next year. My biggest fear is we have another Ndudi Ebi here. And sure, I could have gone with Brien Taylor or Adam Johnson (go Twins) but come on, how many chances to you get bring up Ndudi Ebi in a conversation?
4. Aaron Hicks, OF, New Britain (AA). Buxton before Buxton was Buxton, Hicks was picked fourteenth by the Twins out of high school in 2008 as a toolsy guy and found himself ranked in the top 45 prospects by Baseball America each of the next three years, before being unranked this season due to diminishing returns. Not that it's time to give up on him. Athleticism doesn't just disappear unless you're Shawn Kemp or Willie Mays Hayes and there's no indication anything has happened to Hicks, he's just seen his numbers dip but this year has been a nice rebound in AA with basically his entire slash line going up (from .242/.354/.368 to .281/.381/.453) and a career high in homers with 12. He's still just 22 and he's made a steady progression from Rookie ball to AA in his career thus far so there's no need to panic just yet, but next year is a big one for Hicks.
5. Kyle Gibson, P, Fort Myers (A+). If you're like me Gibson is one of the guys you care about the most, simply because he's a power pitcher with filthy stuff who struck guys out like it was his job (which it is) before getting hurt and needing Tommy John surgery (which I assume made the Twins' upper management happy since they'd probably hope he'd stop striking people out all the time). He had made it all the way to AAA before he blew out the arm and although his numbers weren't great at Rochester they'd been stellar all the way through the system prior to that. In his rehab so far this year (through 10 games between Rookie and A ball) he's put up an ERA of 2.55 with a 0.96 WHIP and 17 Ks in 17.2 innings vs. just 5 walks. Good stuff. Here's to hoping Gibson is in the rotation next season. No, seriously, here's to hoping. I have a vodka & tonic in my hand right now and I'm totally drinking it.
6. Levi Michael, SS, Fort Myers (A+). You probably remember Michael because he was the Twins' first round pick last season at #30, the 21-year old shortstop from North Carolina who everyone said like hurry up and get up to the majors because this SS situation blows. Well don't hold your breath. Despite Brian Dozier getting booted back to Rochester for some weird reason with two weeks left in the minor league season I don't think Michael will be there next year unless he gets some of those sweet Melky Cabrera roids. He hit just .236/.327/.299 this year, and although the walk rate is nice pretty much everything else is awful, particularly he's Punto-ian lack of power. Since he's a shortstop I'd make a comment on his fielding here, but I have to admit I have no idea what a .962 fielding percentage or 4.33 range factor mean, so instead look boobs:
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| Classic distraction technique |
8. Jose Berrios, P, Elizabethton (Rookie). This is the guy the Twins took at #32 this year with the draft pick they were awarded for losing husky camera whore Mike Cuddyer as an 18-year old out of Puerto Rico and he has been flat-out unhittable in rookie ball. Between Elizabethton and the Gulf Coast League Berrios has thrown 25.2 innings with a combined ERA of 0.70 and WHIP of 0.55, striking out a staggering 43 while walking just 4. Guys. That's a 10-1 K-to-BB ratio. Since hitting E-Town he's made two starts, going a total of 9 innings and allowing 3 hits, 1 walk, 0 runs, and striking out 16. I mean holy F. Small sample size and all yes, but, like the Shermanator, confidence is high.
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| Don't act like you didn't know exactly what I was talking about. |
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| Look at this hair. LOOK AT IT! |
So yeah. The entire haul for Johan Santana has been 20 relief innings out of Humber where he got completely rocked, one+ inning out of Kevin Mulvey (that's it, really?) where he gave up 6 hits and 4 runs, two shitty fucking years of Jon Rauch who would later go on to fuck me over, two sometimes exciting but ultimately frustrating years of Carlos Gomez, an injury-plagued and mediocre year from J.J. Hardy (who would go on to become one of the best shortstops in the league the year after they traded him), and 24 absolutely crappy innings from one of the relievers they traded Hardy for, releasing the other one (or whatever) without getting a single major league inning out of him. So yeah, you could say Guerra is pretty important even if his absolute upside is a decent set-up man. Let's get 2-3 years out of him and call it a day. Yes? We all agree? Sweet. Time for some punch and pie.
Thursday, August 16, 2012
I'm Back Now
What's up, nerds? I've been in Denver this past week to visit Snacks, Mrs. Snacks, and new Baby Snacks and as such kept getting too drunk to post at night. But now I'm back. First, a few things about Denver:
1. We went to a Rockies' game at Coors Field and I was impressed. Very nice stadium, especially considering how old it is (relatively). It reminded me quite a bit of the newer stadiums I've been too, including Target Field, but considering the Rockies' came into existence in 1993 and it went up a few years later, I was impressed. Even more impressive was the security. We had two tickets in their club level and two normal poor people tickets, so the plan was for me and the Mrs. to go into the club, then I'd go out with both tickets and get Snacks, then Mrs. W would go out and get Mrs. Snacks and everybody wins except for the Rockies. The same scam Dawger used to get us into the Legends' Club at Target Field that worked flawlessly. One problem - at Coors they're on the lookout for it.
When you go into the Club area they stamp the back of your ticket, and when you leave they stamp your hand. Then when you try to get back in you can either show your stamp or you need an unstamped ticket. If you have a stamped ticket but no stamp on your hand they won't let you back in. Actually, Snacks managed to sweet talk his way in, but Mrs. Snacks was unable too. So we all just went and sat somewhere else because nobody was there anyway because the Rockies totally blow. Also Cuddyer didn't play that night which sucked because I wanted to be able to say I've booed him at two different parks for two different teams. Ah well.
The other problem with Coors, besides the fun-hating, is that if you want to get a Rockies' shirt with one of their guy's names on the back you have almost zero options. The only guys they had were Carlos Gonzalez, Tulowitzki, the manager, the mascot, or Giambi who I'm not even sure is on the team anymore. I realize they're pretty faceless as a team and all, but when you can get an Alexei Casilla shirt at Target Field you'd think the Rocks would be a little more generous with the choices.
2. Denver is right up there with Portland when it comes to homeless people, to the point where we could play the classic game, "Hippie or homeless" that we invented last time we were in Portland. I'd give Denver the edge with the homeless dudes, but Portland wins for most hippies. In both cities they're littered around the place to the point where you have to be careful you don't trip over anybody who is either passed our or sleeping on the ground. Common denominators? Horrid college basketball programs and a massive love of weed. Drugs ruin lives, kids. You'll either end up drunk under a bridge with a sign begging for money and claiming you're a veteran of some war or sleeping on the sidewalk with those weird holes in your ears wearing a knitted poncho and carrying around a skateboard. Choose wisely.
3. Denver was seemingly constructed by someone playing Sim City, and not just anyone but a child with severe ADD. You can drive down a street and have some really nice bars next to some scary bars where you'd get murdered if you looked at them for too long. Pretty much the same thing with houses - mansions next to houses that might actually currently be on fire. Nothing makes sense. A "long-term stay" business hotel a block from a Walgreen's in a neighborhood so bad the hotel clerk tells you "I wouldn't walk there." A knock-off of Grand Avenue, but without any bars. It was just weird and never made sense. The only area I saw that made sense was the "Bail Bonds District", which was an intersection with seven different bail bonds places (no joke, seven.) Normally you might feel a bit uneasy in that kind of neighborhood, but never fear because less than a block down was a restaurant that served things like duck liver mousse and escargot. Bizarre. Decent town, I had a lot of fun, but really kind of just ok.
And that's that. Now for a couple real quick sports things because man am I tired:
1. I kind of understand why the Nationals are planning on shutting Strasburg down when he hits 180 innings. I completely disagree with it, however. You're taking a positive (having Strasburg all year and for the playoffs) and eliminating it based on the fear of a negative (future arm issues for Strasburg). I'm not 100% sure but I'm fairly certain there is no correlation between Tommy John surgery and future injuries, and Strasburg's surgery was basically two full years ago at this point, and it's generally said it takes 1 year to get back to normal. His velocity is pretty close to what it was pre-surgery (pre = 97.3, current = 95.8) and although he's throwing his curve less it's been more effective - so yes, he's pretty much the same pitcher. Smarter people and better writers than me (which is pretty much everybody) have tackled this already so I won't dwell on it, but it seems to me he's just as likely to get injured in his first Spring Training start next year, a random start in Mid-July next season, or at some point this year. This is the opposite of taking a gamble - it's playing it safe to the extreme. It's like having a 3-to-1 chip lead in a poker tournament and offering a 50/50 chop. It's like getting 11 against a 6 in blackjack and not doubling down. Horrid.
And if you're dead set on limiting him to 180 innings, why not skip a start earlier in the season here and there? If you'd skipped a random start here or there vs. the Padres or Rockies or other shitty team he might still have 60-70 innings left instead of 40. Or use him out of the bullpen. Or do something. By any metric you look at he and Gio Gonzalez have been the two most valuable players for the Nats this year, and Gio's probably been a little bit lucky while Stras is Stras. I just don't get it. How many shots do you really get at the playoffs? Even if the future looks bright there's a billion things that could go wrong and this could be Washington's one and only shot. And they're going to go into it without their best weapon. Sad. I almost hope Strasburg gets hurt early next year, but then I wouldn't get to watch him so I really don't. Just almost.
- I don't really want to talk Twins, so I won't much, but even if the lineup looks pretty much set already for next year (barring a trade of Morneau or Span) I'm very curious to see how the rotation turns out. I mean, from 2-9 you have Mauer, Morneau, Carroll, Plouffe, Dozier, Willingham, Span, and Revere with Doumit your likely DH (along with M&M). For better of for worse, that's probably what we're seeing next season. They may sign a cheap free agent to help the middle infield like Jeff Keppinger (I would approve of this) or Maicer Izturis (I would not) or maybe some hitting type depth like Ty Wigginton (pass) or Ryan Spilborghs (omg gross) but basically that's your lineup. The pitching though?
Lots of candidates. Scott Baker will get a hell of a lot less interest as a free agent than he would have if he had, you know, pitched this year. I can't see the Twins picking up his option at $9 million, but I can see them trying to resign him on the cheap so he could be back. Pavano will hopefully not be around unless they can get him for super cheap, which again, may be possible since he's been injured nearly all year. Nick Blackburn sucks donkey balls, but seeing as the Twins' are on the hook for $5.5m next year he's going to get every opportunity to be in the rotation. Then you've got the young guys: Scott Diamond (best pitcher on the team this and should be in the rotation next year for sure), Sam Deduno (his numbers mask how shitty he's actually been, but there is some potential here), P.J. Walters (remember when he had those couple good starts?), Cole DeVries (perfectly fits the teams no-walks no-Ks mandate), and Liam Hendriks (please god no). Not to mention guys who have mainly been in the bullpen with starting experience in their past (Swarzak, Manship, Waldrop) and hopeful prospects (Gibson), guys picked up in trades (Pedro Hernandez), retreads (Luke French who the Twins apparently have), and guys I've never heard of (everyone at New Britain right now).
Let's be clear - it's a platter full of crap no doubt, but other than Scott Diamond nobody is guaranteed to be in the rotation next year. You have four other spots and 13 possibilities (Baker, Pavano, Blackburn, Deduno, Walters, DeVries, Hendriks, Swarzak, Manship, Waldrop, Gibson, Hernandez, and French) not to mention a bunch of question marks at AA and the possibility the Twins sign a shitty free agent as per usual (Derek Lowe? Joe Saunders? - both fit their shitty philosophy perfectly). Free Agent wise your best (realistic) scenario is they find a way to sign Brandon McCarthy to a team friendly contract. Worst case they sign one of the above dudes. Actually worst case is they sign Dice-K, but I can't imagine even this team is that misguided. It's a mess, but at least it's an interesting mess. Or that's what I'm telling myself. You have to be able to get a couple good pitchers out of 13 candidates, right? Please?
- Lastly, can somebody help me out with the Luck vs. Robert Griffin III debate? Luck started for three very productive years setting the single season and all-time records in the Pac-10 for completion percentage winning a dickload of awards (including two Hesiman runner-ups) and basically setting every Stanford record ever for a QB. He also did it while running a pro-style offense under the tutelage of a former NFL QB, already known as a cerebral player, who then came in and made Alex Smith suddenly understand how to be an NFL QB, and did it while (in his senior season at least) basically calling all his own plays at the line like a second Peyton Manning.
Griffin won Big 12 freshman of the year in 2008 before missing 2009 with an injury, then had two awesome years culminating in a Heisman winning season in 2011 running the same offense under the same coach NFL superstars Case Keenum and Kevin Kolb ran in putting up insane numbers in college. I get why Griffin is so tempting, particularly after Cam Newton's early season success, but if Newton doesn't get out to that hot start is Griffin even considered a rival to Luck at #1? Everyone seems to point to his athleticism and runnability as to why he's so fascinating as a franchise player and granted his 4.41 forty-yard dash is a record for QBs and the 39 inch vertical is impressive, but he's not that far ahead of Luck, who ran a 4.67, had a 36 inch vertical, and actually beat RG3 in the broadjump at 10-4 vs. 10-0. Actually Luck's measurables were very similar to Newtons (4.67 vs. 4.59, 36 inch vert vs. 35, and 10-4 vs. 10-6) and Luck's said to be a far better passer and the kind of guy who already understands the game at a veteran type level.
I'm not saying Griffin will be a bust, I'm just saying anyone comparing him to Luck is delusional at best. And no I'm not just saying this as a fantasy smokescreen. I'm taking Luck, assuming he's there for me.
1. We went to a Rockies' game at Coors Field and I was impressed. Very nice stadium, especially considering how old it is (relatively). It reminded me quite a bit of the newer stadiums I've been too, including Target Field, but considering the Rockies' came into existence in 1993 and it went up a few years later, I was impressed. Even more impressive was the security. We had two tickets in their club level and two normal poor people tickets, so the plan was for me and the Mrs. to go into the club, then I'd go out with both tickets and get Snacks, then Mrs. W would go out and get Mrs. Snacks and everybody wins except for the Rockies. The same scam Dawger used to get us into the Legends' Club at Target Field that worked flawlessly. One problem - at Coors they're on the lookout for it.
When you go into the Club area they stamp the back of your ticket, and when you leave they stamp your hand. Then when you try to get back in you can either show your stamp or you need an unstamped ticket. If you have a stamped ticket but no stamp on your hand they won't let you back in. Actually, Snacks managed to sweet talk his way in, but Mrs. Snacks was unable too. So we all just went and sat somewhere else because nobody was there anyway because the Rockies totally blow. Also Cuddyer didn't play that night which sucked because I wanted to be able to say I've booed him at two different parks for two different teams. Ah well.
The other problem with Coors, besides the fun-hating, is that if you want to get a Rockies' shirt with one of their guy's names on the back you have almost zero options. The only guys they had were Carlos Gonzalez, Tulowitzki, the manager, the mascot, or Giambi who I'm not even sure is on the team anymore. I realize they're pretty faceless as a team and all, but when you can get an Alexei Casilla shirt at Target Field you'd think the Rocks would be a little more generous with the choices.
2. Denver is right up there with Portland when it comes to homeless people, to the point where we could play the classic game, "Hippie or homeless" that we invented last time we were in Portland. I'd give Denver the edge with the homeless dudes, but Portland wins for most hippies. In both cities they're littered around the place to the point where you have to be careful you don't trip over anybody who is either passed our or sleeping on the ground. Common denominators? Horrid college basketball programs and a massive love of weed. Drugs ruin lives, kids. You'll either end up drunk under a bridge with a sign begging for money and claiming you're a veteran of some war or sleeping on the sidewalk with those weird holes in your ears wearing a knitted poncho and carrying around a skateboard. Choose wisely.
3. Denver was seemingly constructed by someone playing Sim City, and not just anyone but a child with severe ADD. You can drive down a street and have some really nice bars next to some scary bars where you'd get murdered if you looked at them for too long. Pretty much the same thing with houses - mansions next to houses that might actually currently be on fire. Nothing makes sense. A "long-term stay" business hotel a block from a Walgreen's in a neighborhood so bad the hotel clerk tells you "I wouldn't walk there." A knock-off of Grand Avenue, but without any bars. It was just weird and never made sense. The only area I saw that made sense was the "Bail Bonds District", which was an intersection with seven different bail bonds places (no joke, seven.) Normally you might feel a bit uneasy in that kind of neighborhood, but never fear because less than a block down was a restaurant that served things like duck liver mousse and escargot. Bizarre. Decent town, I had a lot of fun, but really kind of just ok.
And that's that. Now for a couple real quick sports things because man am I tired:
1. I kind of understand why the Nationals are planning on shutting Strasburg down when he hits 180 innings. I completely disagree with it, however. You're taking a positive (having Strasburg all year and for the playoffs) and eliminating it based on the fear of a negative (future arm issues for Strasburg). I'm not 100% sure but I'm fairly certain there is no correlation between Tommy John surgery and future injuries, and Strasburg's surgery was basically two full years ago at this point, and it's generally said it takes 1 year to get back to normal. His velocity is pretty close to what it was pre-surgery (pre = 97.3, current = 95.8) and although he's throwing his curve less it's been more effective - so yes, he's pretty much the same pitcher. Smarter people and better writers than me (which is pretty much everybody) have tackled this already so I won't dwell on it, but it seems to me he's just as likely to get injured in his first Spring Training start next year, a random start in Mid-July next season, or at some point this year. This is the opposite of taking a gamble - it's playing it safe to the extreme. It's like having a 3-to-1 chip lead in a poker tournament and offering a 50/50 chop. It's like getting 11 against a 6 in blackjack and not doubling down. Horrid.
And if you're dead set on limiting him to 180 innings, why not skip a start earlier in the season here and there? If you'd skipped a random start here or there vs. the Padres or Rockies or other shitty team he might still have 60-70 innings left instead of 40. Or use him out of the bullpen. Or do something. By any metric you look at he and Gio Gonzalez have been the two most valuable players for the Nats this year, and Gio's probably been a little bit lucky while Stras is Stras. I just don't get it. How many shots do you really get at the playoffs? Even if the future looks bright there's a billion things that could go wrong and this could be Washington's one and only shot. And they're going to go into it without their best weapon. Sad. I almost hope Strasburg gets hurt early next year, but then I wouldn't get to watch him so I really don't. Just almost.
- I don't really want to talk Twins, so I won't much, but even if the lineup looks pretty much set already for next year (barring a trade of Morneau or Span) I'm very curious to see how the rotation turns out. I mean, from 2-9 you have Mauer, Morneau, Carroll, Plouffe, Dozier, Willingham, Span, and Revere with Doumit your likely DH (along with M&M). For better of for worse, that's probably what we're seeing next season. They may sign a cheap free agent to help the middle infield like Jeff Keppinger (I would approve of this) or Maicer Izturis (I would not) or maybe some hitting type depth like Ty Wigginton (pass) or Ryan Spilborghs (omg gross) but basically that's your lineup. The pitching though?
Lots of candidates. Scott Baker will get a hell of a lot less interest as a free agent than he would have if he had, you know, pitched this year. I can't see the Twins picking up his option at $9 million, but I can see them trying to resign him on the cheap so he could be back. Pavano will hopefully not be around unless they can get him for super cheap, which again, may be possible since he's been injured nearly all year. Nick Blackburn sucks donkey balls, but seeing as the Twins' are on the hook for $5.5m next year he's going to get every opportunity to be in the rotation. Then you've got the young guys: Scott Diamond (best pitcher on the team this and should be in the rotation next year for sure), Sam Deduno (his numbers mask how shitty he's actually been, but there is some potential here), P.J. Walters (remember when he had those couple good starts?), Cole DeVries (perfectly fits the teams no-walks no-Ks mandate), and Liam Hendriks (please god no). Not to mention guys who have mainly been in the bullpen with starting experience in their past (Swarzak, Manship, Waldrop) and hopeful prospects (Gibson), guys picked up in trades (Pedro Hernandez), retreads (Luke French who the Twins apparently have), and guys I've never heard of (everyone at New Britain right now).
Let's be clear - it's a platter full of crap no doubt, but other than Scott Diamond nobody is guaranteed to be in the rotation next year. You have four other spots and 13 possibilities (Baker, Pavano, Blackburn, Deduno, Walters, DeVries, Hendriks, Swarzak, Manship, Waldrop, Gibson, Hernandez, and French) not to mention a bunch of question marks at AA and the possibility the Twins sign a shitty free agent as per usual (Derek Lowe? Joe Saunders? - both fit their shitty philosophy perfectly). Free Agent wise your best (realistic) scenario is they find a way to sign Brandon McCarthy to a team friendly contract. Worst case they sign one of the above dudes. Actually worst case is they sign Dice-K, but I can't imagine even this team is that misguided. It's a mess, but at least it's an interesting mess. Or that's what I'm telling myself. You have to be able to get a couple good pitchers out of 13 candidates, right? Please?
- Lastly, can somebody help me out with the Luck vs. Robert Griffin III debate? Luck started for three very productive years setting the single season and all-time records in the Pac-10 for completion percentage winning a dickload of awards (including two Hesiman runner-ups) and basically setting every Stanford record ever for a QB. He also did it while running a pro-style offense under the tutelage of a former NFL QB, already known as a cerebral player, who then came in and made Alex Smith suddenly understand how to be an NFL QB, and did it while (in his senior season at least) basically calling all his own plays at the line like a second Peyton Manning.
Griffin won Big 12 freshman of the year in 2008 before missing 2009 with an injury, then had two awesome years culminating in a Heisman winning season in 2011 running the same offense under the same coach NFL superstars Case Keenum and Kevin Kolb ran in putting up insane numbers in college. I get why Griffin is so tempting, particularly after Cam Newton's early season success, but if Newton doesn't get out to that hot start is Griffin even considered a rival to Luck at #1? Everyone seems to point to his athleticism and runnability as to why he's so fascinating as a franchise player and granted his 4.41 forty-yard dash is a record for QBs and the 39 inch vertical is impressive, but he's not that far ahead of Luck, who ran a 4.67, had a 36 inch vertical, and actually beat RG3 in the broadjump at 10-4 vs. 10-0. Actually Luck's measurables were very similar to Newtons (4.67 vs. 4.59, 36 inch vert vs. 35, and 10-4 vs. 10-6) and Luck's said to be a far better passer and the kind of guy who already understands the game at a veteran type level.
I'm not saying Griffin will be a bust, I'm just saying anyone comparing him to Luck is delusional at best. And no I'm not just saying this as a fantasy smokescreen. I'm taking Luck, assuming he's there for me.
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