Not sure how I feel about all this smoke hanging around around here. Get it together, Canada...
37 thoughts on “June 28, 2023: NIMBY”
This is the French (Canadian) roast of air.
Air quality has dropped to 180 today after being 51 yesterday. Yuck.
Skim is with her boyfriend’s family at her cabin, ready for fun in the lake, and yesterday it was 151.
When I land in Nola it’ll be record setting highs. I almost, aalllmost bought a sweater in Ireland because Ireland. Good thing I saved the cash to spend on whisky.
Whisky will keep you warm, and it tastes better than a sweater.
Is she not still 5?
I read this is likely to happen all summer. The Canadian fires are expected to burn until put out from seasonal changes. They're isolated enough that letting them burn is the correct response.
It's a bit overcast here, but if your skies are clear and you have a solar viewer, sunspot AR3354 is a beaut and readily visible to naked eye
[Trump looking directly at the partial solar eclipse gif]
I just saw Brock Stewart is going to the IL, yikes. I'm sure he's talented enough to be a great set-up pitcher, but it doesn't seem like his arm can keep up with the stress. The healthy bullpen depth chart is probably something like this now?
Duran
Moran + Jax
Headrick?
Pagan + others?
sean, if it was you who moved the login form to the top of the sidebar, thank you for removing that minor scrolling annoyance from my life.
I noticed it was higher up in the sidebar today. I'm not sure why or when that happened. I generally had it at the bottom because logging in only happens every fortnight and the quick navigation in the menubar gets you close by in mobile.
Template update, maybe?
No, the order is controlled by widgets. I'm assuming I accidentally moved it when I edited the schedule several days ago.
Over the Atlantic now. I think I can see smoke from
Canada. No, just clouds. I’m going to finish the John wick quadruple before hanging out in Atlanta for at least a day. So there’s that.
And wonder of wonders I made it onto my Nola bound flight. One hour to the heat dome. Whisky will take the edge off.
I stand by my prediction that there will be big changes if the Twins don't win the division this year.
If you are a frustrated Twins fan turn on @CoryProvus and Dan Gladden on @wccoradio. Their candid assessments are refreshing and honest. Gladden’s frustration is palpable.
I had just been thinking about how Cory and Dazzle are not at all sugarcoating the poor Twins batting. Even Dick Bremer seems to be frustrated with it.
It's fine with me if there are big changes. I don't see it happening unless they collapse in the second half, but it's not like I have any inside information or anything.
I do think, if things continue on their present course, David Popkins will be gone. I just don't consider that "big changes".
I get the frustration on some level, but sometimes I think it’s easy to lose perspective when you’re just following one team. The Twins are 10th of 15 in the AL in R/G, just 0.28 R/G out of 6th place (currently held by the Mariners, whose fans hate that offense.)
The Twins are also 9th in OPS , ahead of the Yankees, the rest of the AL Central, and the A’s. But a 96 OPS also just isn’t really that far from average. Six teams get on base less frequently and five teams hit for a worse average. So they lead the league in strikeouts, would it really be better to lead the league in groundouts or GIDP or something?
The team overall is pretty decent. A nearly average offense paired with arguably the 2nd-best pitching staff in the AL, all for $154M.
Of the five teams that have really good run scoring, you have the Rays (notorious at this point for having a great FO), the Orioles (propped up by prospects from years of failure), and three teams spending $40M-50M more than the Twins.
If anything, the owners should fire themselves and find someone to spend more money if they want to really compete year in and year out. The FO could be better, but they aren’t really failing either.
They've just played so much bad baseball. I know they don't record anything as an error any more but they have so many misplays in the field. Also, some awful base running and at bats.
Would they be more successful if they put the ball in play more often? I'd say yes. Plus, the game is about entertainment. Watching a guy look utterly clueless at the plate is the furthest thing from entertainment.
I do hate sloppy playing, and you can put that on player acquisitions sometimes, but I still don’t know if firing the FO is the right move for that. When you’re a below-average budget, you’re making compromises, and the available player pool is always limited enough that they aren’t the compromises you want to be making. Getting Arraez off the field was supposed to help defensively (and his OAA was bad in Miami last I checked), and MAT was supposed to be solid defensively for the times when you can’t play Buxton in the field. Hard for me to say that the roster is destined to play sloppy defense.
But don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying the FO absolutely couldn’t do better, but I guess that I’m wary that the grass is probably not greener on the other side of the fence.
in 38 percent of their games, they've scored two or fewer runs. Maybe that's around the league average--I honesty don't know--but it seems like a lot of games in which they have very little chance to win.
0-23 RISP in this series kinda sums it up
The Guardians have the fewest strikeouts in the league by a lot, and their batting average is .246 -- 6% better than the Twins -- and they have scored two or fewer runs in 35% of their games. The Astros have the second-fewest strikeouts in the league and a slightly better offense overall than the Twins (by OPS), and they have 2 or fewer runs in 33% of their games. The Twins have maybe had 2-3 games more than you'd expect in that 2-or-fewer category, but it's not some huge deviation from a team that averages 4.25 or so runs per game. It's a pretty low-scoring run environment these days, to be honest. Not the dead-ball era, but it's not like the Twins are playing at Coors in the late-'90s.
Thanks for the info. Now I know!
My current hypothesis is the strikeouts are a big issue because they aren't also paired with the power and usually OBP increased strikeouts brings. They easily lead MLB in strikeouts but their SLG is slightly below average (.409 MLB vs .401 Twins) and OBP also below average (.319 vs .310). They're at least no longer dead last in stolen bases.
Their OPS is 2% below league average and their R/G is 5-6% below league average. The White Sox, TIgers, Guardians, Royals, and A's are all worse at converting their team OPS into runs than the Twins are, despite having so many fewer strikeouts.
The Guardians, for instance, are 5% below league average in OPS, but 13% below league average in R/G, and they have the fewest strikeouts of any team in the league (tied second for sac flies, too).
On the flip side, the Mariners are 3% below league average in OPS, but 1% above league average in runs/game, despite having the second-most strikeouts in the league and a worse AVG, worse OBP, and worse SLG than the Twins.
The underlying problem is still primarily that the Twins are making outs more than the kind of outs that they are making.
Unfortunately, "slightly below average" is not the Droid offense we were looking for this season.
Team OPS was .718 last year, .710 this year. What did they do to make us expect a big step forward? I’ll defend Arraez for Lopez, but it wasn’t supposed to improve the offense. Gallo was a reclamation project, maybe Vasquez would be an improvement, but it’s not like they went out and got 2-3 big hitters.
Seems like Correa and Buxton and Kepler all sucking balls and Miranda going poof and Polanco missing so much time all adds up to maybe there "should have been" a pretty big step forward.
Maybe. Let's take a look at the Steamer projections vs. actuals for wOBA (in order of decreasing actual PA this season):
.299 vs. .352 expected -- Correa (yikes)
.315 vs. .342 -- Buxton (also yikes)
.288 vs. .290 -- MAT
.344 vs. .309 -- Solano (yay)
.334 vs. .320 -- Gallo (slight yay)
.305 vs. .295 -- Castro
.293 vs. .326 -- Kepler (bad, but expected was pretty low)
.270 vs. .298 -- Vazquez (almost the same underperformance as Kepler)
.305 vs. .303 -- Larnach
.343 vs. .321 -- Kirilloff
.299 vs. .301 -- Farmer
.264 vs. .329 -- Miranda (awful, but somewhat mitigated by limited PA)
.357 vs. .294 -- Jeffers
.345 vs. .307 -- Julien
.318 vs. .335 -- Polanco (limited PA)
.214 vs. .300 -- Gordon
.374 vs. .336 -- Lewis
In a weird alignment of the stars, with Miranda and Jeffers each at 141-142 PA, Jeffers' overperformance more or less exactly offsets Miranda's underperformance. (In a way -- I know we were expecting Miranda to get more PA, but some of Solano's playing time has been replaced by Solano, who is also overperforming so far.)
Overall, you're not wrong about Correa, Buxton, Miranda, Kepler, and Polanco, but we have above-projected performances from Solano, Gallo, Kirilloff, Jeffers, Julien, and Lewis. They haven't been regular starters, but combined they account for 956 PA. Correa, Buxton, Kepler, Miranda, and Polanco account for 1,018 PA.
I mean, it definitely could have been better, but it's kind of a weird scenario where they are getting unexpected value from a lot of part-time players that is replacing a lot of what we would have expected from the headliners. In an alternate reality, Correa and Buxton are exceeding expectations but we're asking why the Twins can't give them any help because the part-time players are all way below expectations. And the optimistic way to look at the current situation is that it's possible for Correa and Buxton to bounce back, and maybe we'll see big contributions from, say, Julien and Lewis going forward.
My Lyft driver to the airport this morning was a Cuban expat whose son played baseball with Twins great Liván Hernández. He was gifted tickets to the World Series when Liván was with the Giants. We had a very animated conversation about baseball & rum.
Baseball and rum you say!?! Two of this sailor’s favorite things!
Went to the doctor (a real MD, not my played-on-tv kind) yesterday about my ailing hip. X-rays indicate "mild arthritis" in both hips.
So I got that going for me. Which is nice.
oh shit, there was already a twins game? results seem to be about as expected...
You could probably watch a replay on BSN. I can't give you a good reason to, but you probably could.
This is the French (Canadian) roast of air.
Air quality has dropped to 180 today after being 51 yesterday. Yuck.
Skim is with her boyfriend’s family at her cabin, ready for fun in the lake, and yesterday it was 151.
When I land in Nola it’ll be record setting highs. I almost, aalllmost bought a sweater in Ireland because Ireland. Good thing I saved the cash to spend on whisky.
Whisky will keep you warm, and it tastes better than a sweater.
Is she not still 5?
I read this is likely to happen all summer. The Canadian fires are expected to burn until put out from seasonal changes. They're isolated enough that letting them burn is the correct response.
It's a bit overcast here, but if your skies are clear and you have a solar viewer, sunspot AR3354 is a beaut and readily visible to naked eye
[Trump looking directly at the partial solar eclipse gif]
I just saw Brock Stewart is going to the IL, yikes. I'm sure he's talented enough to be a great set-up pitcher, but it doesn't seem like his arm can keep up with the stress. The healthy bullpen depth chart is probably something like this now?
Duran
Moran + Jax
Headrick?
Pagan + others?
sean, if it was you who moved the login form to the top of the sidebar, thank you for removing that minor scrolling annoyance from my life.
I noticed it was higher up in the sidebar today. I'm not sure why or when that happened. I generally had it at the bottom because logging in only happens every fortnight and the quick navigation in the menubar gets you close by in mobile.
Template update, maybe?
No, the order is controlled by widgets. I'm assuming I accidentally moved it when I edited the schedule several days ago.
Over the Atlantic now. I think I can see smoke from
Canada. No, just clouds. I’m going to finish the John wick quadruple before hanging out in Atlanta for at least a day. So there’s that.
And wonder of wonders I made it onto my Nola bound flight. One hour to the heat dome. Whisky will take the edge off.
I stand by my prediction that there will be big changes if the Twins don't win the division this year.
I had just been thinking about how Cory and Dazzle are not at all sugarcoating the poor Twins batting. Even Dick Bremer seems to be frustrated with it.
It's fine with me if there are big changes. I don't see it happening unless they collapse in the second half, but it's not like I have any inside information or anything.
I do think, if things continue on their present course, David Popkins will be gone. I just don't consider that "big changes".
I get the frustration on some level, but sometimes I think it’s easy to lose perspective when you’re just following one team. The Twins are 10th of 15 in the AL in R/G, just 0.28 R/G out of 6th place (currently held by the Mariners, whose fans hate that offense.)
The Twins are also 9th in OPS , ahead of the Yankees, the rest of the AL Central, and the A’s. But a 96 OPS also just isn’t really that far from average. Six teams get on base less frequently and five teams hit for a worse average. So they lead the league in strikeouts, would it really be better to lead the league in groundouts or GIDP or something?
The team overall is pretty decent. A nearly average offense paired with arguably the 2nd-best pitching staff in the AL, all for $154M.
Of the five teams that have really good run scoring, you have the Rays (notorious at this point for having a great FO), the Orioles (propped up by prospects from years of failure), and three teams spending $40M-50M more than the Twins.
If anything, the owners should fire themselves and find someone to spend more money if they want to really compete year in and year out. The FO could be better, but they aren’t really failing either.
They've just played so much bad baseball. I know they don't record anything as an error any more but they have so many misplays in the field. Also, some awful base running and at bats.
Would they be more successful if they put the ball in play more often? I'd say yes. Plus, the game is about entertainment. Watching a guy look utterly clueless at the plate is the furthest thing from entertainment.
I do hate sloppy playing, and you can put that on player acquisitions sometimes, but I still don’t know if firing the FO is the right move for that. When you’re a below-average budget, you’re making compromises, and the available player pool is always limited enough that they aren’t the compromises you want to be making. Getting Arraez off the field was supposed to help defensively (and his OAA was bad in Miami last I checked), and MAT was supposed to be solid defensively for the times when you can’t play Buxton in the field. Hard for me to say that the roster is destined to play sloppy defense.
But don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying the FO absolutely couldn’t do better, but I guess that I’m wary that the grass is probably not greener on the other side of the fence.
in 38 percent of their games, they've scored two or fewer runs. Maybe that's around the league average--I honesty don't know--but it seems like a lot of games in which they have very little chance to win.
0-23 RISP in this series kinda sums it up
The Guardians have the fewest strikeouts in the league by a lot, and their batting average is .246 -- 6% better than the Twins -- and they have scored two or fewer runs in 35% of their games. The Astros have the second-fewest strikeouts in the league and a slightly better offense overall than the Twins (by OPS), and they have 2 or fewer runs in 33% of their games. The Twins have maybe had 2-3 games more than you'd expect in that 2-or-fewer category, but it's not some huge deviation from a team that averages 4.25 or so runs per game. It's a pretty low-scoring run environment these days, to be honest. Not the dead-ball era, but it's not like the Twins are playing at Coors in the late-'90s.
Thanks for the info. Now I know!
My current hypothesis is the strikeouts are a big issue because they aren't also paired with the power and usually OBP increased strikeouts brings. They easily lead MLB in strikeouts but their SLG is slightly below average (.409 MLB vs .401 Twins) and OBP also below average (.319 vs .310). They're at least no longer dead last in stolen bases.
Their OPS is 2% below league average and their R/G is 5-6% below league average. The White Sox, TIgers, Guardians, Royals, and A's are all worse at converting their team OPS into runs than the Twins are, despite having so many fewer strikeouts.
The Guardians, for instance, are 5% below league average in OPS, but 13% below league average in R/G, and they have the fewest strikeouts of any team in the league (tied second for sac flies, too).
On the flip side, the Mariners are 3% below league average in OPS, but 1% above league average in runs/game, despite having the second-most strikeouts in the league and a worse AVG, worse OBP, and worse SLG than the Twins.
The underlying problem is still primarily that the Twins are making outs more than the kind of outs that they are making.
Unfortunately, "slightly below average" is not the
Droidoffense we were looking for this season.Team OPS was .718 last year, .710 this year. What did they do to make us expect a big step forward? I’ll defend Arraez for Lopez, but it wasn’t supposed to improve the offense. Gallo was a reclamation project, maybe Vasquez would be an improvement, but it’s not like they went out and got 2-3 big hitters.
Seems like Correa and Buxton and Kepler all sucking balls and Miranda going poof and Polanco missing so much time all adds up to maybe there "should have been" a pretty big step forward.
Maybe. Let's take a look at the Steamer projections vs. actuals for wOBA (in order of decreasing actual PA this season):
.299 vs. .352 expected -- Correa (yikes)
.315 vs. .342 -- Buxton (also yikes)
.288 vs. .290 -- MAT
.344 vs. .309 -- Solano (yay)
.334 vs. .320 -- Gallo (slight yay)
.305 vs. .295 -- Castro
.293 vs. .326 -- Kepler (bad, but expected was pretty low)
.270 vs. .298 -- Vazquez (almost the same underperformance as Kepler)
.305 vs. .303 -- Larnach
.343 vs. .321 -- Kirilloff
.299 vs. .301 -- Farmer
.264 vs. .329 -- Miranda (awful, but somewhat mitigated by limited PA)
.357 vs. .294 -- Jeffers
.345 vs. .307 -- Julien
.318 vs. .335 -- Polanco (limited PA)
.214 vs. .300 -- Gordon
.374 vs. .336 -- Lewis
In a weird alignment of the stars, with Miranda and Jeffers each at 141-142 PA, Jeffers' overperformance more or less exactly offsets Miranda's underperformance. (In a way -- I know we were expecting Miranda to get more PA, but some of Solano's playing time has been replaced by Solano, who is also overperforming so far.)
Overall, you're not wrong about Correa, Buxton, Miranda, Kepler, and Polanco, but we have above-projected performances from Solano, Gallo, Kirilloff, Jeffers, Julien, and Lewis. They haven't been regular starters, but combined they account for 956 PA. Correa, Buxton, Kepler, Miranda, and Polanco account for 1,018 PA.
I mean, it definitely could have been better, but it's kind of a weird scenario where they are getting unexpected value from a lot of part-time players that is replacing a lot of what we would have expected from the headliners. In an alternate reality, Correa and Buxton are exceeding expectations but we're asking why the Twins can't give them any help because the part-time players are all way below expectations. And the optimistic way to look at the current situation is that it's possible for Correa and Buxton to bounce back, and maybe we'll see big contributions from, say, Julien and Lewis going forward.
My Lyft driver to the airport this morning was a Cuban expat whose son played baseball with Twins great Liván Hernández. He was gifted tickets to the World Series when Liván was with the Giants. We had a very animated conversation about baseball & rum.
Baseball and rum you say!?! Two of this sailor’s favorite things!
Went to the doctor (a real MD, not my played-on-tv kind) yesterday about my ailing hip. X-rays indicate "mild arthritis" in both hips.
So I got that going for me. Which is nice.
oh shit, there was already a twins game? results seem to be about as expected...
You could probably watch a replay on BSN. I can't give you a good reason to, but you probably could.