The Twins' "slide" is less about them blowing the lead than Cleveland giving them the lead and then taking it back. This was helped by the Twins being hot for two months and then performing as projected for two months. Their Pythag since June 2 is .526
Jaffe also arguably defends the Twins not acquiring more pitching but instead criticizes them for not upgrading at first. He noted multiple easily available improvements, including internally, the Twins passed on.
He noted multiple easily available improvements, including internally, the Twins passed on.
He noted Tyler White and Aguilar as potential upgrades. I'm not sure that either of these guys would've been any kind of upgrade. White, in particular, has been horrible this year. Much worse than Cron. Aguilar could've probably been traded for, but you'd need to platoon him, and do you really want to devote two roster spots to platoonable first basemen?
Aguilar has also been pretty terrible.
Cron hasn't been that great either after May. He missed about half of July so I don't know if he's still injured or not.
Split
PA
BA
OBP
SLG
OPS
April/March
88
.232
.284
.451
.735
May
123
.299
.374
.589
.963
June
105
.273
.314
.455
.769
July
34
.188
.235
.406
.642
August
31
.267
.290
.367
.657
Did you look at Tyler White's splits?
No, only that he's been the same as Cron and both have been bad.
Checking now and he's bad very bad against lefties this year but fine for his career.
I meant his month-by-month splits this season. I'm still waiting for you (or Jaffe) to try to make an argument that Tyler White would've been an actual improvement for two months of this season.
I wasn't advocating for anyone in particular and instead highlighting that Cron's numbers are held up by a hot start to the season. I didn't mention anyone but I was thinking of trading Cron for Sanó when I wrote that paragraph.
In general, there looks like a fair difference in Cron's fWAR (0.3) and rWAR (1.3), and of course, Jaffe is only going to look at the former and its inputs. The biggest difference I can see is that DRS has graded Cron's defense better than UZR has. The difference between Cron's bWAR and fWAR (1 whole win) is one of the biggest among the batters on the team, I think - Polanco's bWAR is 1.2 wins higher than his fWAR, everyone else has a difference of less than 1.
I think the best chance for a value improvement overall is, if Buxton comes back, play Sano at first against RHP and Gonzalez at third. Cron is still probably the best available option against LHP. But Jaffe throwing out names like Tyler White (who would've been DFAed today if the Dodgers hadn't ILed him instead with a "trap strain") as if they're an obvious "improvement" is pretty weak on his part.
Dyson comes back, Stashak departs.
Hopefully Dyson's second go round goes better than his first.
Pretty much has to, doesn't it?
I would hope so. Hopefully, we'll get the Sam Dyson the Giants had.
We're sure there's not another Sam Dyson pitching in the major leagues, right?
The 'ol hidden reliever trick. Dam Syson really tearing it up for the Giants since being called up...
Yankees within 10 homers
sano and garver.
Rosario.
Sano
All the starters with last initial in "tetanus", so I guess Arraez and Sano.
Slow news day today...
So, Twins / Brewers tomorrow will be broadcast on YouTube. I guess PewDiePie and Ze Frank in the booth?
I had to check to see whether you were joking about that second part...
Ex-Twins news: Charlie Manuel is now the batting coach for the Phillies.
At only 35 wins, the Fightin Gardenhire's are dead last in all of baseball, 4 wins behind the lowly O's
That pace would give them about 49 wins for the year, so not quite as bad as Alan Trammell's 2003 Tigers.
Jay Jaffe takes on the Twins dropping out of first place. One thing that popped out to me is how the Indians and Twins performed to June 2 and after while compared to their preseason projections.
The Twins' "slide" is less about them blowing the lead than Cleveland giving them the lead and then taking it back. This was helped by the Twins being hot for two months and then performing as projected for two months. Their Pythag since June 2 is .526
Jaffe also arguably defends the Twins not acquiring more pitching but instead criticizes them for not upgrading at first. He noted multiple easily available improvements, including internally, the Twins passed on.
He noted Tyler White and Aguilar as potential upgrades. I'm not sure that either of these guys would've been any kind of upgrade. White, in particular, has been horrible this year. Much worse than Cron. Aguilar could've probably been traded for, but you'd need to platoon him, and do you really want to devote two roster spots to platoonable first basemen?
Aguilar has also been pretty terrible.
Cron hasn't been that great either after May. He missed about half of July so I don't know if he's still injured or not.
Did you look at Tyler White's splits?
No, only that he's been the same as Cron and both have been bad.
Checking now and he's bad very bad against lefties this year but fine for his career.
I meant his month-by-month splits this season. I'm still waiting for you (or Jaffe) to try to make an argument that Tyler White would've been an actual improvement for two months of this season.
I wasn't advocating for anyone in particular and instead highlighting that Cron's numbers are held up by a hot start to the season. I didn't mention anyone but I was thinking of trading Cron for Sanó when I wrote that paragraph.
In general, there looks like a fair difference in Cron's fWAR (0.3) and rWAR (1.3), and of course, Jaffe is only going to look at the former and its inputs. The biggest difference I can see is that DRS has graded Cron's defense better than UZR has. The difference between Cron's bWAR and fWAR (1 whole win) is one of the biggest among the batters on the team, I think - Polanco's bWAR is 1.2 wins higher than his fWAR, everyone else has a difference of less than 1.
I think the best chance for a value improvement overall is, if Buxton comes back, play Sano at first against RHP and Gonzalez at third. Cron is still probably the best available option against LHP. But Jaffe throwing out names like Tyler White (who would've been DFAed today if the Dodgers hadn't ILed him instead with a "trap strain") as if they're an obvious "improvement" is pretty weak on his part.
Dyson comes back, Stashak departs.
Hopefully Dyson's second go round goes better than his first.
Pretty much has to, doesn't it?
I would hope so. Hopefully, we'll get the Sam Dyson the Giants had.
We're sure there's not another Sam Dyson pitching in the major leagues, right?
The 'ol hidden reliever trick. Dam Syson really tearing it up for the Giants since being called up...
Yankees within 10 homers
sano and garver.
Rosario.
Sano
All the starters with last initial in "tetanus", so I guess Arraez and Sano.
Polanco