There's a new dude at work who won't do anything but follow around the regulars. He's more puppy than man.
106 thoughts on “December 2, 2013: Shadow”
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WWWTW1P8rQ
I caught the last third of this on cable at the in-laws'. (From about this part on.) Now I gotta remember to reserve it at the library.
I loved the barbershop quartet of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" wherein Beaker had all the lines that could be child-inappropriate and Camilla's chicken revue of Cee-Lo's "F--- You". They weren't the wink-nod double-entendres of most "adult-friendly" children's fare, but jokes that adults and teens might get but weren't essential to the plot and weren't punctuated for effect so that kids know they're missing something. Well done, whomever.
We watch this one regularly with the kids. Highly recommend.
We didn't make it to this part before returning it...just couldn't suspend belief or somesuch.
Really? I loved the movie. I thought traveling by map was brilliant.
I'm looking forward to the next one. Tina Fey! And apparently Danny Trejo as a "triple threat"!
I was gonna go with "Puppies!"
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new Twins player autographed baseball card acquisitions Paul Molitor and Bert Blyleven
*double fistpump*
Those are biggies
So from what I saw, there wasn't a ton of discussion re: Hughes signing. Anyone?
I approve. Low risk, medium reward.
I thought the interesting thing was that it was 3 years, when lots of people (well, the one or two people I read, pre-signing) were saying he should be getting a 1 year deal. I figured that said a lot about the Twins' confidence in him going forward. Whether that confidence is justified, we'll see.
I wonder how much of that is compensation for coming to an out-of-the-way franchise with little apparent chance of competing for a title? It would seem to signal either that there was real competition or that Minnesota has issues that requires the Twins to "overpay" to get free agents.
I hope none of it is compensation for that. It always seems like that's more of a factor in basketball than other sports, though I suppose it does happen to some extent in baseball too.
Without knowing exactly what the next-best offer on the table was, I'd say that there was surely competition for Hughes. It's hard to find good starting pitching on the FA market, because most teams will just lock up their own pitchers if they are worth anything, and Hughes could be league-average or a little below that. Add to that, most every team could use depth in their rotation. He definitely figures to be above replacement level.
Looks like the contract money slotted right into where the experts predicted it would, just like Nolasco's did. I'm not sure it's good that the Twins are basically paying full market price, but I think Hughes is a decent bet to improve, if he can stay healthy. I don't feel good about that last part.
My brother-in-law raised the same point re: injury. I responded with "Yeah, but it's still not Nick Blackburn."
I forgot about the $5.5M they spent on Blackburn last year. I hate that he works slow, but I wouldn't be opposed to bringing back Pelfrey next year, too. In the second half of the year, he had 7.2 K/9 and ~3.7 BB/9. I think he'll be decent as he continues to come back from surgery.
IIRC, Pelfry's second half was markedly better than his first. But I might not RC.
September was a step back, but it would make sense that he'd lose it towards the end of the season. If I really wanted to cherry pick to make a case for Pelfrey, he had a 3.73 ERA for June-August, with 55 SO, 27 BB, 6 HR, and opponents hitting .267/.329/.357. I think he got a little lucky ERA-wise in that period, but a full season of that would be fine by me.
I sort of view it this way:
1) You start with a pile of money that you get to spend in 2014.
2) First, you lock up valuable team-controlled players for below-market deals. (Check? I can't think of anyone the Twins should be dying to extend at the moment.)
3) Next, lock up your own MVP-caliber free agent players (Mauer in this case) without getting totally fleeced. (I think Mauer could probably have gotten more from the Yankees, so the Twins likely have him on a bit of a discount.)
4) Look for undervalued players on the market. This is the sexy bit when you get it right, but there are only so many opportunities to find undervalued talent.
5) See how much money is left in your pile, use it to address team weaknesses by signing free agents without overpaying.
I see the Nolasco and Hughes deals falling in this last category. Willingham arguably fell under category 4. Hughes does have noteworthy home/road splits, which doesn't mean I think he'll be Cy Young for the Twins, but he could be a league average pitcher, and the Twins need more of those. Last year the Twins spent about $18.5M on Morneau and Correia, and I'd say that $20M on Nolasco and Hughes makes more sense. It also makes more sense than throwing $20M at one pitcher who is better than Nolasco or Hughes.
I like this analysis.
It also makes more sense than throwing $20M at one pitcher who is better than Nolasco or Hughes.
This might not always be true, but it is absolutely the case given where the Twins were in 2013.
Right, for some teams, you want to add the jewel at the top of the rotation, but the Twins essentially need to build a rotation from scratch. For things to really go their way, they need the farm system to produce some Baker/Slowey/Garza-esque talent for the rotation, but there's no reason to wait around for that to happen before they add some arms from free agency. It's inevitable that some of their pitchers will get injured.
For the Twins, these are the jewels at the top of the rotation. When you sign pitchers that push all the others down in the rotation (and then push the two worst out) it really improves the rotation.
This makes the rotation (in whatever order) Correia, Deduno, Hughes, Nolasco, and Gibson/Pelfrey/Albers/whoever. That's not going to strike fear in anybody's heart, but it's four pitchers that at least look like they belong in the big leagues, and if one of the fifth starter candidates improves it could be five. There's always the chance that one or more could get hurt or just have a bad year, but it looks like the Twins could at least have a legitimate major league rotation.
Don't forget Diamond, Hendriks and Worley. Diamond and Worley have both had seasons better than any that Hughes and Correia have ever had as starters and Hendriks was once a pretty good prospect and has more upside than most of the 4/5 candidates.
Diamond and Worley have both had seasons better than any that Hughes and Correia have ever had as starters
(1) Huh.
(2) Is this a good thing, or a bad thing?
fwiw, Diamond had a 2.4 rWAR age-25 season in 2012. Worley had a 3.4 rWAR age-23 season in 2011. Correia's best was 2.3 rWAR at age-26 in 2007; Hughes' best was 2.6 rWAR at age-23 in 2009 (seven starts, 44 relief appearances).
It's debatable as to whether or not it even constitutes a real thing. Using fWAR, best major league season:
But I don't really see that as a meaningful point of information one way or another. If we use fWAR and weight the last three seasons 5/4/3, a simple projection would give us:
I'll pull up some minor league numbers on the less experienced pitchers, but if I had to make one swap on this list, I might swap Worley and Hendriks. I'm worried about Worley's health, and Hendriks has some pretty legit minor league numbers.
Even if you want to quibble a bit with that list, I think it says a lot about why the Twins signed Nolasco and Hughes and why it makes a fair bit of sense.
In terms of Twins pitchers with limited experience in the majors, here are some of their minor league career peripherals, with comparisons. Caveats apply, of course, different leagues, different ages, etc., I still think these tend to give a pretty good indication of how excited to get about certain pitchers:
I would downgrade Meyer a bit because 3.3 BB/9 isn't bad, but it's higher than, say, Perkins, who had a hard time translating his results in the majors. Hendriks seems to compare pretty closely to Slowey, Gibson to Baker, and Deduno to Perkins (I'd also imagine that Deduno could see a big improvement by moving to the bullpen.) Given last season, it wouldn't be hard to see Worley go the way of Blackburn, either.
So some reason to hope for in-house contributions, but I feel like they all have some kind of injury red flag in their past.
ubes - this is really informative stuff. Thanks for doing the legwork.
that Hughes and Correia have ever had as starters
B.I.L. conversation went over this too. We agreed that this moves the Twins from among the couple worst rotations in baseball to merely "bottom half." Where in that bottom half remains to be seen, but we're no longer a lock on the bottom couple spots.
Plus the bullpen is likely to be good.
Last year's overall pitching wasn't as bad as the year before, primarily because of the bullpen. In my mind, though, if you have the "quality" of starting pitching that the Twins had last year, it doesn't really matter how good your bullpen is: you are going to suck.
I'm pretty surprised that the Twins actually went out and signed two non-scrap heap starters. They might actually have a chance to contend. Okay, that might be a little too optimistic. At the very least, I don't think we'll be launching a race-to-the-bottom about September 1st.
I think I'm even more amazed that they did it pre-Winter Meetings.
I'd be pretty happy with a return to .500, even if they aren't really contending for anything.
I think .500, if you are around there in July or August, would be sort of contending with two wild-card spots.
It's not really so much that there's a chance that one or more could get hurt or be bad, it's really a matter of which of them get hurt, how badly they get hurt, and by how much one or more of them disappoints. And that's not really pessimism either, it's by far the exception that anyone makes it through the year with 5 starters. Last year there were 185 pitchers with 10+ starts and 233 pitchers with 5+ starts.
Very true. I probably should've worded that better.
6) Lottery tickets on minor-league contracts?
GW knocked off #20 Creighton last night in the third-place game of the Wooden Classic (and shut down the Dougie, college bball's number one scorer was completely dominated by Isaiah Armwood's defense). They had knocked off last year's #2-seed Miami in the first-round (but had an offensive clunker against Marquette in between). Best of all, I got to watch all three games on television (which is three more GW games than I usually get to watch in an entire season). Very exciting stuff.
I haven't looked at anything college basketball related this year at all, and won't for a while. Your team might be better than my team this year, for all I know.
I saw that one of your "team"'s top returning players was just kicked of the team. I'm sure the WaPost will ask all the hard-hitting questions like "what is the newest Maryland Twerp assistant coach's favorite pizza topping?" and b) "I wonder why all sorts of inner-city, Southeast DC AAU players like Michael Beasley randomly end up playing college basketball in Manhattan, Kansas?"
I'm pretty sure this is an annual event, right? And they somehow get better after-the-fact. What was the reason this time?
The district has changed.
Absolutely read Arm Side Run's take on the Twins' signings.
Matches up pretty well with my initial thoughts. Nice to see some more numbers thrown into the analysis.
Nolasco once threw consistently in the mid-90s, touching as high as 95 miles per hour.
If I'm 95 years old, I'm in my mid-90s. In baseball though, I'm in my mid-90s at 91*.
For the last three years, Mrs. Hayes and I have been getting together with another couple on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. We're really close to these friends, but don't see them as often as we'd like because we live in different states. We always go to the St. Charles Electric Parade together, and afterward we usually get a Chicago-style deep dish pie, make some drinks, and play cards late into the night. My buddy's big into beer & homebrewing, so this year I brought some beer to share:
They were all fantastic, but I think I liked the Black Albert the best, with the Sixth Glass as runner-up.
The local shop doesn't seem to carry The Sixth Glass anymore, which is a shame, since it is a truly great Quadrupel.
I don't know what The Sixth Glass really costs, but I scored two 750ml bottles of it at a Woodman's in Illinois for less than $7.50 each. I considered it a serious steal.
That's a little better than would I used to get it for. I think the local place used to get $8 - still worth it.
Considering some of the New Belgium stuff seems to pull more than $9 for a bomber, I figure Boulevard's probably leaving leaving some substantial coin on the table.
Hmm, I might have to get to the Rockford Woodman's and see what's there.
It's pretty darn tasty. You won't be disappointed.
Speaking of beer and homebrew, I finally put together my kit of Irish Red Ale having delayed it for nearly 7 months! Life sure gets in the way of things sometimes.
That it does.
I've had 2 & 4. I really liked 4. 2... I like sours and such, but this was not my favorite. I have some other stuff from the same place though because they always sound interesting as hell.
I was a bit floored to find out Olvalde was so close to my hometown. I like sours a fair bit, but it did take me a half a glass to get my head wrapped around the rhubarb. My friend's reaction was closer to yours - not his cup of beer. I'm curious to try their regular sour/Belgian strong pale, and I have a bottle of their Ode to a Russian Shipwright porter down in the cellar. I'll open that one when our friends come up to visit in January.
We've got a bottle of the Shipwright in our cellar as well.
We (and by "we" I mean "I") drank my Ode...just couldn't wait it out.
Our World: Veteran Baseball Player Enjoys Breakout Month
Mathematically Literate World: Veteran Baseball Player Enjoys Transient Good Fortune
If we're truly trying to speak mathematically, the headlines wouldn't describe results as luck or fortune but whether it is statistically significant or not.
The lead sentence is provocative: "In 2011, the Minnesota Twins had a larger payroll than the Los Angeles Dodgers."
And then there's this:
They're also interested in bringing A.J. Pierzynski back, which seems like a prophecy at the back of a human-skin-covered book someone found in a cave somewhere, but I'm not one to judge.
I like Grant Brisbee. Lookout Landing is great.
There were actually some decent comments on Brisbee's take. Even with Hughes, the Twins appear to only have committed about $66M to the 2014 team. That doesn't include the minimum salary guys (which say, 20 additional minimum salaries gets you another $8M), but if the Twins really wanted to go out and spend $113M, they have almost $40M more to spend. 2015 salary commitment is only up to about $47M, and a lot of their good prospects are so young that they won't be in line for meaningful raises until 2017 at the earliest. Sure, I don't really think they'll spend $113M on 2014 (I'm not even sure it would make sense to do that), but $90M could potentially be in the cards. It would give you room to add in the future when you are closer to knowing what you need to be competitive for a WS. The first step is to be competitive for .500.
The Wolves have been playing a murderous schedule lately and it doesn't ease up with a "home game" in Mexico City against the Spurs, followed by an actual home game against the Heat. They are currently 9-10, good for 13th in the West. If they were in the East, they'd have the fourth best record in the conference.
Sheenie and I may have just stumbled onto two tickets in a suite for the game against the Heat.
Time Magazine is conducting a poll for person of the year and the leader is... wait for it...
I'm a big fan too. I won't say much more here, but some of us Catholics have always thought this was the stuff the Church was really about. It's nice to have the current guy saying it out loud.
I would like to see the Pope have equal discourse with the other Orthodox Patriarchs as well, considering they're colleagues of the Ecumenical Patriarch. Constantinople might be the first among equals, but several of the other patriarchs are in key areas of geopolitical instability, and it would be wonderful to see all of these patriarchs – Eastern and Western – working as brothers toward building a better world. Plus, it would be good diplomacy to acknowledge through actions that any work toward reunion (or something like it) will by necessity involve all these men working together as equals.
'I'm too lazy to think of something clever to write here'
I thought there had been some earlier communications during a visit to Russia? Or something... I'm apparently too lazy to look it up, too.
Curious about your ties to the Orthodox Church (if any)? Myself, I've got nothing too substantial, but I took a religion class in Athens and my best friend from law school is Greek Orthodox, so it kind of piques my interest.
Beyond a simple Google search for "pope francis patriarch moscow," I also haven't delved into the most recent relations between Rome and the Eastern churches. You're right about the current pontiff building on a foundation laid by his more recent predecessors.
I grew up in the Catholic Church, including all sacraments through confirmation. My drift away from Rome began during my deployment to Iraq and continued through most of the rest of my time in the Marines. When I met my wife, I also occasionally attended her Greek Orthodox church, including a funeral and subsequent memorials. (I find myself particularly attuned to how religions treat funeral rites.) We were married by two Greek Orthodox priests, though I did obtain a dispensation from my home Catholic diocese to satisfy my parents' request (at that time I was still nominally Catholic). I essentially have drifted entirely away from Rome and toward the East over the last seven years, the past five in particular. That said, I'm not an Orthodox communicant at this point, though I have participated in other Orthodox observances, including as the groom's sponsor for my best friend's Armenian Orthodox wedding. (He was our sponsor in our wedding.) I also studied Russian Orthodoxy as part of my major in Russian history & political thought, and have developed at least a moderate understanding of the theological differences between Eastern and Western Christianity.
Also, I don't even think it's really a first step. I think some predecessors (thankfully) made some gains to get us to this point. That's worth mentioning, just for demonstrating how far apart things were at one point...
As a Catholic, I've definitely followed this sort of thing more from that end. One of the things I've seen in recent years has also been a move towards unity with the Anglican Church. I wonder about the way working towards unity helps or hinders the other? Is there much dialogue between the Orthodox and Anglican Church?
* refering to whatever vote tampering is obviously causing this to happen. Moot was deemed "most influential" in 2009, is all I'm saying.
I think he should be the permanent winner. 4chan has rigged every vote so far to much (personal) amusement.
to much (personal) amusement
Dido here. Love every second of it.
I'm not giving up on this one. Stay classy, Bismarck!
httpv://youtu.be/2b5IhzGuMPg
I'll say this: Ron's co-anchor made it further into that newscast without laughing than Jimmy Fallon ever made it in an episode of SNL.
That was also the first local news broadcast I've watched in at least five years.
Yo Dpwy: who dat?
I'm pulling for Seadderall.
'Seadderall'.
well done
Yeah, I think that's a winner.
I can't claim it, but it is perfect. This game is going exactly as I would like.
How's your mom(inlaw)anthem? I'm guessing not pleased.
I'm not one to gloat, so I won't be checking in for a few days.
I'm going to say that I enjoy the city, and working in the French quarter, more when the saints win. I don't have many good things to say about the fans here, but they're more tolerable when the 'aints are winning.
Will - A. Jeffrey had a crazy game, but getting beat by Steven Hauschka because the 'aints can't get any offense going is just brutal.
Teehee.
If you think that's bad, I won in my work league by 0.05 when all I had left was Hartley and I was going against Graham.
That sounds like a colt sired between Seabiscuit and Chips Ahoy!
I'm performing much needed upgrades to the laptop this week. Just ordered are a new SSD HD and a replacement battery to extend my unplugged time beyond about 15 minutes. This thing should be pretty damn fast and portable come next week.
Finally got to watch a Wild game from start to finish and its a winner!
And that's the dagger for the who dat nation. Good night, crescent city.
I cant remember the last time I saw a guy the was out of bounds but came back it LEGALLY catch the ball (because of the deflection), and to top it off have it be a touchdown.
zany play!
I don't think he was ever out of bounds.
ESPN finally finally dialed up a good look of that play
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WWWTW1P8rQ
I caught the last third of this on cable at the in-laws'. (From about this part on.) Now I gotta remember to reserve it at the library.
I loved the barbershop quartet of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" wherein Beaker had all the lines that could be child-inappropriate and Camilla's chicken revue of Cee-Lo's "F--- You". They weren't the wink-nod double-entendres of most "adult-friendly" children's fare, but jokes that adults and teens might get but weren't essential to the plot and weren't punctuated for effect so that kids know they're missing something. Well done, whomever.
We watch this one regularly with the kids. Highly recommend.
We didn't make it to this part before returning it...just couldn't suspend belief or somesuch.
Really? I loved the movie. I thought traveling by map was brilliant.
I'm looking forward to the next one. Tina Fey! And apparently Danny Trejo as a "triple threat"!
I was gonna go with "Puppies!"
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new Twins player autographed baseball card acquisitions
Paul Molitor and Bert Blyleven
*double fistpump*
Those are biggies
So from what I saw, there wasn't a ton of discussion re: Hughes signing. Anyone?
I approve. Low risk, medium reward.
I thought the interesting thing was that it was 3 years, when lots of people (well, the one or two people I read, pre-signing) were saying he should be getting a 1 year deal. I figured that said a lot about the Twins' confidence in him going forward. Whether that confidence is justified, we'll see.
I wonder how much of that is compensation for coming to an out-of-the-way franchise with little apparent chance of competing for a title? It would seem to signal either that there was real competition or that Minnesota has issues that requires the Twins to "overpay" to get free agents.
I hope none of it is compensation for that. It always seems like that's more of a factor in basketball than other sports, though I suppose it does happen to some extent in baseball too.
Without knowing exactly what the next-best offer on the table was, I'd say that there was surely competition for Hughes. It's hard to find good starting pitching on the FA market, because most teams will just lock up their own pitchers if they are worth anything, and Hughes could be league-average or a little below that. Add to that, most every team could use depth in their rotation. He definitely figures to be above replacement level.
Looks like the contract money slotted right into where the experts predicted it would, just like Nolasco's did. I'm not sure it's good that the Twins are basically paying full market price, but I think Hughes is a decent bet to improve, if he can stay healthy. I don't feel good about that last part.
My brother-in-law raised the same point re: injury. I responded with "Yeah, but it's still not Nick Blackburn."
I forgot about the $5.5M they spent on Blackburn last year. I hate that he works slow, but I wouldn't be opposed to bringing back Pelfrey next year, too. In the second half of the year, he had 7.2 K/9 and ~3.7 BB/9. I think he'll be decent as he continues to come back from surgery.
IIRC, Pelfry's second half was markedly better than his first. But I might not RC.
September was a step back, but it would make sense that he'd lose it towards the end of the season. If I really wanted to cherry pick to make a case for Pelfrey, he had a 3.73 ERA for June-August, with 55 SO, 27 BB, 6 HR, and opponents hitting .267/.329/.357. I think he got a little lucky ERA-wise in that period, but a full season of that would be fine by me.
I sort of view it this way:
1) You start with a pile of money that you get to spend in 2014.
2) First, you lock up valuable team-controlled players for below-market deals. (Check? I can't think of anyone the Twins should be dying to extend at the moment.)
3) Next, lock up your own MVP-caliber free agent players (Mauer in this case) without getting totally fleeced. (I think Mauer could probably have gotten more from the Yankees, so the Twins likely have him on a bit of a discount.)
4) Look for undervalued players on the market. This is the sexy bit when you get it right, but there are only so many opportunities to find undervalued talent.
5) See how much money is left in your pile, use it to address team weaknesses by signing free agents without overpaying.
I see the Nolasco and Hughes deals falling in this last category. Willingham arguably fell under category 4. Hughes does have noteworthy home/road splits, which doesn't mean I think he'll be Cy Young for the Twins, but he could be a league average pitcher, and the Twins need more of those. Last year the Twins spent about $18.5M on Morneau and Correia, and I'd say that $20M on Nolasco and Hughes makes more sense. It also makes more sense than throwing $20M at one pitcher who is better than Nolasco or Hughes.
I like this analysis.
It also makes more sense than throwing $20M at one pitcher who is better than Nolasco or Hughes.
This might not always be true, but it is absolutely the case given where the Twins were in 2013.
Right, for some teams, you want to add the jewel at the top of the rotation, but the Twins essentially need to build a rotation from scratch. For things to really go their way, they need the farm system to produce some Baker/Slowey/Garza-esque talent for the rotation, but there's no reason to wait around for that to happen before they add some arms from free agency. It's inevitable that some of their pitchers will get injured.
For the Twins, these are the jewels at the top of the rotation. When you sign pitchers that push all the others down in the rotation (and then push the two worst out) it really improves the rotation.
This makes the rotation (in whatever order) Correia, Deduno, Hughes, Nolasco, and Gibson/Pelfrey/Albers/whoever. That's not going to strike fear in anybody's heart, but it's four pitchers that at least look like they belong in the big leagues, and if one of the fifth starter candidates improves it could be five. There's always the chance that one or more could get hurt or just have a bad year, but it looks like the Twins could at least have a legitimate major league rotation.
Don't forget Diamond, Hendriks and Worley. Diamond and Worley have both had seasons better than any that Hughes and Correia have ever had as starters and Hendriks was once a pretty good prospect and has more upside than most of the 4/5 candidates.
(1) Huh.
(2) Is this a good thing, or a bad thing?
fwiw, Diamond had a 2.4 rWAR age-25 season in 2012. Worley had a 3.4 rWAR age-23 season in 2011. Correia's best was 2.3 rWAR at age-26 in 2007; Hughes' best was 2.6 rWAR at age-23 in 2009 (seven starts, 44 relief appearances).
It's debatable as to whether or not it even constitutes a real thing. Using fWAR, best major league season:
2.5 fWAR -- Hughes
2.3 fWAR -- Correia
2.3 fWAR -- Diamond
2.3 fWAR -- Worley
But I don't really see that as a meaningful point of information one way or another. If we use fWAR and weight the last three seasons 5/4/3, a simple projection would give us:
Proj fWAR - Pitcher
2.9 - Nolasco
1.5 - Hughes
1.2 - Pelfrey* *Free Agent
1.1 - Worley
0.8 - Diamond
0.7 - Correia
0.4 - Deduno
-0.1 - Hendriks
I'll pull up some minor league numbers on the less experienced pitchers, but if I had to make one swap on this list, I might swap Worley and Hendriks. I'm worried about Worley's health, and Hendriks has some pretty legit minor league numbers.
Even if you want to quibble a bit with that list, I think it says a lot about why the Twins signed Nolasco and Hughes and why it makes a fair bit of sense.
In terms of Twins pitchers with limited experience in the majors, here are some of their minor league career peripherals, with comparisons. Caveats apply, of course, different leagues, different ages, etc., I still think these tend to give a pretty good indication of how excited to get about certain pitchers:
Pitcher - stats
Meyer - 10.4 K/9, 3.3 BB/9, 0.4 HR/9, 2.37 "FIP"
Hendriks - 7.6 K/9, 1.6 BB/9, 0.4 HR/9, 2.42 "FIP"
Slowey - 8.4 K/9, 1.4 BB/9, 0.6 HR/9, 2.47 "FIP"
Gibson - 8.0 K/9, 2.5 BB/9, 0.6 HR/9, 2.92 "FIP"
Baker - 7.4 K/9, 1.9 BB/9, 0.7 HR/9, 3.00 "FIP"
Deduno - 9.6 K/9, 5.1 BB/9, 0.5 HR/9, 3.29 "FIP"
Perkins - 8.7 K/9, 3.2 BB/9, 0.8 HR/9, 3.29 "FIP"
Worley - 6.7 K/9, 2.4 BB/9, 0.8 HR/9, 3.47 "FIP"
Blackburn - 5.4 K/9, 2.0 BB/9, 0.7 HR/9, 3.48 "FIP"
I would downgrade Meyer a bit because 3.3 BB/9 isn't bad, but it's higher than, say, Perkins, who had a hard time translating his results in the majors. Hendriks seems to compare pretty closely to Slowey, Gibson to Baker, and Deduno to Perkins (I'd also imagine that Deduno could see a big improvement by moving to the bullpen.) Given last season, it wouldn't be hard to see Worley go the way of Blackburn, either.
So some reason to hope for in-house contributions, but I feel like they all have some kind of injury red flag in their past.
ubes - this is really informative stuff. Thanks for doing the legwork.
B.I.L. conversation went over this too. We agreed that this moves the Twins from among the couple worst rotations in baseball to merely "bottom half." Where in that bottom half remains to be seen, but we're no longer a lock on the bottom couple spots.
Plus the bullpen is likely to be good.
Last year's overall pitching wasn't as bad as the year before, primarily because of the bullpen. In my mind, though, if you have the "quality" of starting pitching that the Twins had last year, it doesn't really matter how good your bullpen is: you are going to suck.
I'm pretty surprised that the Twins actually went out and signed two non-scrap heap starters. They might actually have a chance to contend. Okay, that might be a little too optimistic. At the very least, I don't think we'll be launching a race-to-the-bottom about September 1st.
I think I'm even more amazed that they did it pre-Winter Meetings.
I'd be pretty happy with a return to .500, even if they aren't really contending for anything.
I think .500, if you are around there in July or August, would be sort of contending with two wild-card spots.
It's not really so much that there's a chance that one or more could get hurt or be bad, it's really a matter of which of them get hurt, how badly they get hurt, and by how much one or more of them disappoints. And that's not really pessimism either, it's by far the exception that anyone makes it through the year with 5 starters. Last year there were 185 pitchers with 10+ starts and 233 pitchers with 5+ starts.
Very true. I probably should've worded that better.
6) Lottery tickets on minor-league contracts?
GW knocked off #20 Creighton last night in the third-place game of the Wooden Classic (and shut down the Dougie, college bball's number one scorer was completely dominated by Isaiah Armwood's defense). They had knocked off last year's #2-seed Miami in the first-round (but had an offensive clunker against Marquette in between). Best of all, I got to watch all three games on television (which is three more GW games than I usually get to watch in an entire season). Very exciting stuff.
I saw that one of your "team"'s top returning players was just kicked of the team. I'm sure the WaPost will ask all the hard-hitting questions like "what is the newest Maryland Twerp assistant coach's favorite pizza topping?" and b) "I wonder why all sorts of inner-city, Southeast DC AAU players like Michael Beasley randomly end up playing college basketball in Manhattan, Kansas?"
I'm pretty sure this is an annual event, right? And they somehow get better after-the-fact. What was the reason this time?
The district has changed.
Absolutely read Arm Side Run's take on the Twins' signings.
Matches up pretty well with my initial thoughts. Nice to see some more numbers thrown into the analysis.
If I'm 95 years old, I'm in my mid-90s. In baseball though, I'm in my mid-90s at 91*.
* Nolasco's highest fastball average is 91.5 mph.
For the last three years, Mrs. Hayes and I have been getting together with another couple on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. We're really close to these friends, but don't see them as often as we'd like because we live in different states. We always go to the St. Charles Electric Parade together, and afterward we usually get a Chicago-style deep dish pie, make some drinks, and play cards late into the night. My buddy's big into beer & homebrewing, so this year I brought some beer to share:
- De Struise Brouwers Black Albert Royal Belgian Stout
- Olvalde Farm & Brewing The Auroch's Horn Aged On Rhubarb
- Boulevard Brewing The Sixth Glass
- Boom Island Lomomo Palooza
They were all fantastic, but I think I liked the Black Albert the best, with the Sixth Glass as runner-up.
The local shop doesn't seem to carry The Sixth Glass anymore, which is a shame, since it is a truly great Quadrupel.
I don't know what The Sixth Glass really costs, but I scored two 750ml bottles of it at a Woodman's in Illinois for less than $7.50 each. I considered it a serious steal.
That's a little better than would I used to get it for. I think the local place used to get $8 - still worth it.
Considering some of the New Belgium stuff seems to pull more than $9 for a bomber, I figure Boulevard's probably leaving leaving some substantial coin on the table.
Hmm, I might have to get to the Rockford Woodman's and see what's there.
It's pretty darn tasty. You won't be disappointed.
Speaking of beer and homebrew, I finally put together my kit of Irish Red Ale having delayed it for nearly 7 months! Life sure gets in the way of things sometimes.
That it does.
I've had 2 & 4. I really liked 4. 2... I like sours and such, but this was not my favorite. I have some other stuff from the same place though because they always sound interesting as hell.
I was a bit floored to find out Olvalde was so close to my hometown. I like sours a fair bit, but it did take me a half a glass to get my head wrapped around the rhubarb. My friend's reaction was closer to yours - not his cup of beer. I'm curious to try their regular sour/Belgian strong pale, and I have a bottle of their Ode to a Russian Shipwright porter down in the cellar. I'll open that one when our friends come up to visit in January.
We've got a bottle of the Shipwright in our cellar as well.
We (and by "we" I mean "I") drank my Ode...just couldn't wait it out.
Headlines from a Mathematically Literate World
If we're truly trying to speak mathematically, the headlines wouldn't describe results as luck or fortune but whether it is statistically significant or not.
Minnesota Twins: New Offseason Approach Brings Renewed Hope
some other guy takes a swing as well on SBNation.
The lead sentence is provocative: "In 2011, the Minnesota Twins had a larger payroll than the Los Angeles Dodgers."
And then there's this:
I like Grant Brisbee. Lookout Landing is great.
There were actually some decent comments on Brisbee's take. Even with Hughes, the Twins appear to only have committed about $66M to the 2014 team. That doesn't include the minimum salary guys (which say, 20 additional minimum salaries gets you another $8M), but if the Twins really wanted to go out and spend $113M, they have almost $40M more to spend. 2015 salary commitment is only up to about $47M, and a lot of their good prospects are so young that they won't be in line for meaningful raises until 2017 at the earliest. Sure, I don't really think they'll spend $113M on 2014 (I'm not even sure it would make sense to do that), but $90M could potentially be in the cards. It would give you room to add in the future when you are closer to knowing what you need to be competitive for a WS. The first step is to be competitive for .500.
The Wolves have been playing a murderous schedule lately and it doesn't ease up with a "home game" in Mexico City against the Spurs, followed by an actual home game against the Heat. They are currently 9-10, good for 13th in the West. If they were in the East, they'd have the fourth best record in the conference.
Sheenie and I may have just stumbled onto two tickets in a suite for the game against the Heat.
Time Magazine is conducting a poll for person of the year and the leader is... wait for it...
Seconded.
Agreed.
Like this?
That's a good first step.
Also, I don't even think it's really a first step. I think some predecessors (thankfully) made some gains to get us to this point. That's worth mentioning, just for demonstrating how far apart things were at one point...
Obvious troll is obvious*.
* refering to whatever vote tampering is obviously causing this to happen. Moot was deemed "most influential" in 2009, is all I'm saying.
I think he should be the permanent winner. 4chan has rigged every vote so far to much (personal) amusement.
Dido here. Love every second of it.
I'm not giving up on this one. Stay classy, Bismarck!
httpv://youtu.be/2b5IhzGuMPg
I'll say this: Ron's co-anchor made it further into that newscast without laughing than Jimmy Fallon ever made it in an episode of SNL.
That was also the first local news broadcast I've watched in at least five years.
Yo Dpwy: who dat?
I'm pulling for Seadderall.
'Seadderall'.
well done
Yeah, I think that's a winner.
I can't claim it, but it is perfect. This game is going exactly as I would like.
How's your mom(inlaw)anthem? I'm guessing not pleased.
I'm not one to gloat, so I won't be checking in for a few days.
I'm going to say that I enjoy the city, and working in the French quarter, more when the saints win. I don't have many good things to say about the fans here, but they're more tolerable when the 'aints are winning.
Will - A. Jeffrey had a crazy game, but getting beat by Steven Hauschka because the 'aints can't get any offense going is just brutal.
Teehee.
If you think that's bad, I won in my work league by 0.05 when all I had left was Hartley and I was going against Graham.
That sounds like a colt sired between Seabiscuit and Chips Ahoy!
I'm performing much needed upgrades to the laptop this week. Just ordered are a new SSD HD and a replacement battery to extend my unplugged time beyond about 15 minutes. This thing should be pretty damn fast and portable come next week.
Finally got to watch a Wild game from start to finish and its a winner!
And that's the dagger for the who dat nation. Good night, crescent city.
I cant remember the last time I saw a guy the was out of bounds but came back it LEGALLY catch the ball (because of the deflection), and to top it off have it be a touchdown.
zany play!
I don't think he was ever out of bounds.
ESPN finally finally dialed up a good look of that play