Keith Law with some interesting thoughts on Buxton's development with the Twins.
also this:
Reeve: Heard any updates on the Twins GM search?
Klaw: That’s not going to go anywhere till September. Anything you hear before then – oh, this guy’s high on their list – is BS.
just to clarify, I've made no predictions whatsoever about the Twins GM.
and this:
Lou: Does Hicks have anything left? Coming into the season I had high hopes. His swing just looks all over the place.
Klaw: I did too. Wouldn’t give up on him but his year is inexcusable – he didn’t hit when he was playing irregularly, then he started playing more and didn’t hit then either. The weird thing is that he’s making plenty of contact, it’s just weak contact, which wasn’t really a thing with him before.
and the last comment:
Byron: I’m back in Rochester cuz I stink. Everybody else has given me advice so what say you?
Klaw: Stay there and hope either Molitor & staff are replaced or that you’re traded to an organization better equipped to develop you as a hitter.
That was one of the more damning quotes I have seen.
sorry. I deleted it when I realized (??) that it was the only Buxton comment. Restored when I saw that you'd commented.
I just hope whoever they hire as GM isn't going to be a fool and sell low on Buxton. Ugh.
So the Twins can't develop Buxton as a hitter, yet Hicks gets demonstrably worse after he leaves. Everyone sucks!
I trust Keith Law more than any internet commenter (me included), but I wonder who actually has a clue who's good at player development. Koskie, Mientkiewicz, Hunter, Mauer, Morneau all developed into wonderful hitters for the Twins. Sano has been fantastic.
I do not enjoy nature/nurture arguments very much.
Plouffe & Kepler jump to mind too.
Maybe the Twins are too rigid in their development style. Maybe Buxton just needs more time. Maybe Buxton needs a different coach. Maybe, etc.
We can't expect a system - any system - to work equally well or equally poorly for all people.
like your former employers, for instance 😉
Calling that a "system" is overly generous.
We can't expect a system - any system - to work equally well or equally poorly for all people.
sure we can (conditional on confounds). 🙂
But really. Drawing strong inferences (either way) from a handful of data points drawn from different time periods is ... not very sound methodology. One might want to at least try to specify the data generating process first, and choose some outcome metrics.
Dozier and Span as well. Twins develop hitters. Pitchers, not so much.
I rarely stick up for the front office, but the Twins seem to have a pretty decent track record of developing hitters.
Plouffe and Dozier are two guys that took some development time and alterations to become big league hitters. Kepler has a ton of talent, but his swing took a lot of molding to get to where it is today.
I do think the team does a bad job of handling struggling prospects, maybe Molitor is part of the problem there, I don't know.
And then there's Ortiz.
It's no different than parenting: some kids would thrive under a certain type of parenting and not others. It's up to the grandparents to recognize this and step in to help the kids get help when needed, though.*
*no, that analogy got stretched too far
More ice cream?
yes please!
I really, really hate the Ortiz example. First of all, it wasn't like he was a bad hitter with the Twins. He had an .809 OPS with them. The Twins were just too cheap to keep him. Second of all, he complained about TK wanting him to hit to left field, but then goes to Fenway and discovers he can hit fly balls to left field for doubles off the Monster and suddenly becomes a HOF hitter. His career OPS at the Metrodome with the short porch in RF which was supposed to be tailored for LH hitters was .781. At Fenway, it was .996. Too bad the Twins couldn't bring him back late in his career. He loves Target Field: 1.292 (Yikes!)
No ice cream for you
and yet the Twins released him when he made $950K in 2002, and he made only $1.25M in 2003. He didn't get released because the Twins were "cheap." He got released because the Twins didn't think he was good enough for what they wanted from the position.
Sure, in retrospect it was a terrible decision. Hindsight is 20/20.
At the time, it was a mediocre decision, which can be blamed on TK and TR. In 2002, Ortiz hit 272/339/500 for a 120 OPS+. In 2003, he hit 256/335/541 away from Fenway. And 315 /399/635 at Fenway (compared to 0-11 with 8 Ks at Fenway in 2002!).
I do not enjoy nature/nurture arguments very much.
You were probably born that way.
BS = Billy Smith
Funny that what I took from that article was that he went to Gen Con for the first time!
Kepler growing facial hair is my favorite thing this week.
I did a double-take for sure.
this quiz on sci fi authors. I was 28 of 30 because I went too fast on one question and mixed up Verne and Wells (the other I just didn't know). Oy.
I scored 21 out of 30 and I think I only knew like 7 for sure. Part of it was process of elimination (e.g. I'm pretty sure Voltaire didn't write that), and part of it was blind luck. I was waiting for "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream"
25 for me; I'd argue that many of those are Fantasy and not Sci-Fi
as if there's really a difference. /ducks/
I assumed Verne and Wells was one person.
He used to play for the Blue Jays.
I have a great-uncle Vern Wells, so I did a double-take for a different reason.
Heads-up, it's the trade deadline this weekend in the Fantasy League. We've had a grand total of one trade this year.
Wooo! High five, trade partner!
This hasn't been a great year for me to follow my team because the site is blocked at work at my new job. It is a lot harder to look for players and such on a phone.
also, this picture deserves viewing. It's touching.
Poor Beltre
At least both Twins losses yesterday were by more than the 5 run difference that they put up in the aborted Wednesday game.
Did anybody see this? http://meadowparty.com/blog/2016/08/11/klawchat-81116/
Keith Law with some interesting thoughts on Buxton's development with the Twins.
also this:
just to clarify, I've made no predictions whatsoever about the Twins GM.
and this:
and the last comment:
That was one of the more damning quotes I have seen.
sorry. I deleted it when I realized (??) that it was the only Buxton comment. Restored when I saw that you'd commented.
I just hope whoever they hire as GM isn't going to be a fool and sell low on Buxton. Ugh.
So the Twins can't develop Buxton as a hitter, yet Hicks gets demonstrably worse after he leaves. Everyone sucks!
I trust Keith Law more than any internet commenter (me included), but I wonder who actually has a clue who's good at player development. Koskie, Mientkiewicz, Hunter, Mauer, Morneau all developed into wonderful hitters for the Twins. Sano has been fantastic.
I do not enjoy nature/nurture arguments very much.
Plouffe & Kepler jump to mind too.
Maybe the Twins are too rigid in their development style. Maybe Buxton just needs more time. Maybe Buxton needs a different coach. Maybe, etc.
We can't expect a system - any system - to work equally well or equally poorly for all people.
like your former employers, for instance 😉
Calling that a "system" is overly generous.
sure we can (conditional on confounds). 🙂
But really. Drawing strong inferences (either way) from a handful of data points drawn from different time periods is ... not very sound methodology. One might want to at least try to specify the data generating process first, and choose some outcome metrics.
Dozier and Span as well. Twins develop hitters. Pitchers, not so much.
I rarely stick up for the front office, but the Twins seem to have a pretty decent track record of developing hitters.
Plouffe and Dozier are two guys that took some development time and alterations to become big league hitters. Kepler has a ton of talent, but his swing took a lot of molding to get to where it is today.
I do think the team does a bad job of handling struggling prospects, maybe Molitor is part of the problem there, I don't know.
And then there's Ortiz.
It's no different than parenting: some kids would thrive under a certain type of parenting and not others. It's up to the grandparents to recognize this and step in to help the kids get help when needed, though.*
*no, that analogy got stretched too far
More ice cream?
yes please!
I really, really hate the Ortiz example. First of all, it wasn't like he was a bad hitter with the Twins. He had an .809 OPS with them. The Twins were just too cheap to keep him. Second of all, he complained about TK wanting him to hit to left field, but then goes to Fenway and discovers he can hit fly balls to left field for doubles off the Monster and suddenly becomes a HOF hitter. His career OPS at the Metrodome with the short porch in RF which was supposed to be tailored for LH hitters was .781. At Fenway, it was .996. Too bad the Twins couldn't bring him back late in his career. He loves Target Field: 1.292 (Yikes!)
No ice cream for you
and yet the Twins released him when he made $950K in 2002, and he made only $1.25M in 2003. He didn't get released because the Twins were "cheap." He got released because the Twins didn't think he was good enough for what they wanted from the position.
Sure, in retrospect it was a terrible decision. Hindsight is 20/20.
At the time, it was a mediocre decision, which can be blamed on TK and TR. In 2002, Ortiz hit 272/339/500 for a 120 OPS+. In 2003, he hit 256/335/541 away from Fenway. And 315 /399/635 at Fenway (compared to 0-11 with 8 Ks at Fenway in 2002!).
You were probably born that way.
BS = Billy Smith
Funny that what I took from that article was that he went to Gen Con for the first time!
Kepler growing facial hair is my favorite thing this week.
I did a double-take for sure.
this quiz on sci fi authors. I was 28 of 30 because I went too fast on one question and mixed up Verne and Wells (the other I just didn't know). Oy.
I scored 21 out of 30 and I think I only knew like 7 for sure. Part of it was process of elimination (e.g. I'm pretty sure Voltaire didn't write that), and part of it was blind luck. I was waiting for "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream"
25 for me; I'd argue that many of those are Fantasy and not Sci-Fi
as if there's really a difference.
/ducks/
I assumed Verne and Wells was one person.
He used to play for the Blue Jays.
I have a great-uncle Vern Wells, so I did a double-take for a different reason.
Heads-up, it's the trade deadline this weekend in the Fantasy League. We've had a grand total of one trade this year.
Wooo! High five, trade partner!
This hasn't been a great year for me to follow my team because the site is blocked at work at my new job. It is a lot harder to look for players and such on a phone.
Dido.