55 thoughts on “September 25, 2019: Officially 2”

  1. Salt River defeated Hermosillo 4-1 last night. There are apparently some Mexican League teams participating in the AFL this year. The Rafters are now 3-3, as are the other two teams in their division.

    Luke Raley was 0-for-3 and is batting .150 (3-for-20).
    Ben Rortvedt was 0-for-4 and is 0-for-7 on the season.
    Zach Neff struck out three in two shutout innings, giving up one hit. His ERA remains zero with five strikeouts in 3.1 innings.

  2. I like Kyle Gibson. I think he's a good candidate for a QO, but i wouldn't be opposed to him coming back on a shortish contract, anyway.

    1. He would not be the first mediocre starter to become a successful bullpen guy.

      Deserves got nothing to do with it, but I'd love for him to get and succeed in some meaningful playoff innings.

      1. There's zero chance Gibson moving to the bullpen is permanent in terms of his future career beyond this season's postseason. He will definitely get a contract to be a starter next season, from the Twins or from somebody else. Even with being sick all year this year, he's put up two seasons of 2.6 fWAR each and has a 4.18 ERA/4.19 FIP over 61 starts those two years, which in the current offensive environment is solidly above average (106 ERA+).

          1. I like him too but disagree. Last season sticks out like a sore thumb in terms of performance (in a good way). And he is on the wrong side of 30. Three of his last four seasons have delivered rWARs of less than 1.0.

            At best, he looks like a 4th starter on a good team.

            1. If you go free agency to fill the starting pitching holes next season, you're going to be getting a guy or guys on the "wrong side of 30" no matter what.

              1. I was looking at the MLBTR list of 2020 SP free agents and I can find 8 guys who are the same age or younger and have a better two-year ERA+ than 106 (Bumgarner, Cole, Keuchel, Odorizzi, Pineda in one season, Strasburg if he opts out, Teheran if he's bought out, Wheeler). There's also a few guys who have been better but are older and/or hurt more (e.g. Hamels, Hill, Ryu) so they're certainly not any less on "the wrong side of 30".

                1. Some things I could see them doing if it helps afford to give Odorizzi the contract he's going to get from someone - maybe trade for a one-more-year arb guy like DeSclafani, or sign a guy like Roark instead of Gibson. Those guys don't have better track records but they'll probably be cheaper.

              2. I guess I misread the comment as saying he deserved or would get a raise.

                I see him as a comp to Martin Perez, who signed a make-good FA contract with the Twins and can expect to be bought out. He is unlikely to get his $7.5 million next year.

                Gibson is three years older. While he is better, he is not worth the $8.125m they paid him this year or the $7.5m option they will surely decline on Perez.

                If he were to sign a backloaded deal with a friendly option out, I would be cool with that.

                1. Hard to say. He pitched through illness for a long stretch. If they feel he can be healthy going into 2020 I could see them (or someone) paying him $8+ million. I also wouldn't be surprised if the Twins keep Perez if they feel they can "change" his pitching approach. Looking at DK's list above, I am unsure if we will get much off the free agent market this offseason. I am crossing my fingers they can pull off a trade for a decent starter somehow, someway.

                  1. They could also cut Perez loose and pick up another "maybe we can fix him" guy like Wacha or (ugh) Shelby Miller.

                2. he is not worth the $8.125m they paid him this year

                  rWAR agrees but fWAR strongly disagrees. His 2019 salary as a free agent expects him to be worth about one win. If you think he's done that, then it's the right salary.

                  1. Wow. What explains the huge divergence between fWAR and rWAR for Gibson this year? 2.6 vs 0.1 begs for an explanation. I assume it is driven by FIP? His RA9 is bad (0.8 higher than his opponents' RA9opp, indicating that his outcomes were substantially worse than expected against those opponents.)

                3. I look at what a guy like Eovaldi got before this year - 4 years, $17 mil per - and he had put up 4 seasons of 2.5, 1.3, zero, and 1.5 bWAR from 2015-18. That means Eovaldi averaged a little over 1.3 bWAR per year. Gibson has averaged a little under 1.3 bWAR over 2016-19. Gibson's also older, but I find it hard to expect he can't get at least 2 years for at least $10 mil per from someone if Eovaldi could get what he got.

                  1. Fangraphs thinks Eovaldi was worth about $73 million over the 4 years preceding 2019 (about $18m per). It thinks Gibson has been worth about $60 million the last four ($15m per). Eovaldi was just through his age-28 season when he signed the deal with Boston, 3 years younger than a Gibson with health concerns.

                    A reasonable, but problematic comp, I think.

                    1. Eovaldi had and has plenty of health concerns, too (starting with two previous TJs). He got 4/$68. I'm suggesting a baseline of 2/$20 for Gibson (frankly, I think he'll get more than that, but he should have no problem getting that at the very least). That's less than a third of the overall outlay for a guy who you just said has been worth about 80% of the FG value of the other guy for the last 4 years. What exactly is problematic about that?

  6. So we could have the Twins clinch the Central Division crown today. Below are the predictions for today.

    Runner -- 9/25/2019 -- W/W
    Zee German 9/25/2019 -- W/W
    Algonad 9/25/2019 -- L/L
    Nibs 9/25/2019 -- W/W

    So funny, the only way for the Twins to clinch is a Twins win and Cleveland loss, which no one had as their tiebreaker. So if the Twins clinch, I guess it's a four-way tie.

  7. Now I'm not Barry Zuckercorn so I'm no expert on light treason, but that memo is really, really bad.

            1. Wear it proudly my friend! You should get T-Shirts made. Can you imagine people googling it and seeing their reactions?

  11. Had a near instant pot emergency tonight. Got the pressure up on the chicken chili Verde and got a big poof out the side of the lid. Fortunately, it was just a blown gasket and I had a couple extras.

  12. So with the temps coming down, have been doing more yardwork/repairs, etc. Embarked on painting the shutters - 5 down, 15 to go.
    Being in the garage I noticed a lot of noise by the edge of the roof and come to see 3 little squirrels sitting on the edge of the eaves. You can see a hole in the edge of the roof.
    I tried to scare them away with noise and even sprayed water into the hole in the eaves. Next day they were still there...

    We have a pull-down ladder in the back of the stand-alone garage that leads to the attic. I went up, and heard rustling, and saw a tail. Confirmed - Nest In The Attic.

    I went on the Internet which said to be careful as Mother Squirrel could be quite nasty. I found a pest control place - called them. Dude said a week of trapping, hole repair + cleanup would be $800. Me: "I'll get back to you."

    I saw these Infrasound devices on the Web for $30 to scare animals away, but we share a driveway with neighbors with dogs - that would probably freak them out.

    So today I went to Home Depot and got 4 large rat-traps at 4.99/each, loaded them up with peanut butter and left them on the floor in the attic by the ladder opening.

  13. So, speaking of TVs (we were, right?), who has experience with Uverse wireless access points and whatchamacallits?

    Our new house appears to have only one location with coax and it is not near where we would want the TVs.

    I suppose this also would mean I lose everything on my DVR...☹️

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