With no reliable flow of baseball photos, and desirous of an easy done-in-advance post for Sunday to maintain my consecutive days streak, I hereby resume "The Sunday Funnies" -- quips and stories that may not be strictly true, but can provoke at least a smile.
Ben Oglivie, noted slugger for the "Harvey's Wallbangers" glory days of the Milwaukee Brewers, was a rarity in big league clubhouses -- a man given to heavy reading. He studied philosophy in college, and was given to quoting the likes of Thoreay and Rousseau.
During an interview, Oglivie said: "One of the best quotes I know comes from Augustine. He said: 'The body manifests what the mind harbors.'"
Ah yes, said the writer, St. Augustine.
"Actually, it was our relief pitcher, Jerry Augustine."
Sunday, November 15, 2015
Saturday, November 14, 2015
Thinking of France
I'm finding it a bit difficult this morning to think about baseball. I spent Friday night editing wire copy and photos on the Paris attack, and I was startled all evening when I checked my Twitter feed and saw people reacting to anything else. I don't say that to criticize anybody; I'm just explaining why I'm not posting something about the Twins today.
According to Baseball Reference, eight players in major league history were born in France. Probably the most prominent baseball figure born there is Bruce Bochy, the son of a serviceman who spent nine years as a backup catcher before going to win three World Series as manager of the San Francisco Giants. Charlie Lea finished his pitching career with the Twins; I remember watching him in the Dome in 1988.
I'm sure in a day or so I'll be ready again to distract myself with baseball. Today, not so much.
According to Baseball Reference, eight players in major league history were born in France. Probably the most prominent baseball figure born there is Bruce Bochy, the son of a serviceman who spent nine years as a backup catcher before going to win three World Series as manager of the San Francisco Giants. Charlie Lea finished his pitching career with the Twins; I remember watching him in the Dome in 1988.
I'm sure in a day or so I'll be ready again to distract myself with baseball. Today, not so much.
Friday, November 13, 2015
From the Handbook: Mauer's baserunning
Tradin' Terry Ryan had a quiet day Thursday -- his first without a transaction announcment this week -- so let's resume our glance through the Bill James Handbook 2016.
It has been a standard observation for years: Joe Mauer is not particularly fast, nor does he steal bases frequently, but he is an adept baserunner, often the best on the team. He reads balls well, he goes first to third, he is seldom caught taking the extra base or doubled off.
Until this year.
Baseball Info Systems, publisher of the Handbook, has been tracking baserunning since 2002, when Mauer was still a minor leaguer. By its calculations, Mauer is a +95 as a base runner for his career. (I wish I could say that that's 95 bases above average, or 95 runs, but BIS has a complex formula that doesn't lend its self to such a description. It's just +95.) Only 22 players, mostly obvious speesters such as Carl Crawford and Jose Reyes, scored better.
In 2013, Mauer was +13. In 2014, +16. In 2015, -2.
Over the time BIS has been tracking base running, runners have gone first-to-third on 28 percent of singles. Mauer in 2013 was 12-for-31, about 39 percent; in 2014, 13-for-38, 34 percent. Last year, he was just 6 for 20. Now, 30 percent is still a bit above average, but it isn't what we've seen from Mauer in the past.
Mauer had one baserunning out in 2014, none in 2013. Last year, he was doubled off on linedrives twice and thrown out trying for the extra base twice for four outs.
Maybe it's age -- Mauer is no longer a 20-something, and the years behind the plate have taken a toll. Maybe it's a general approach to baserunning under the new regime; I'll write about this in a future post, but despite Paul Molitor's baserunning skill as a player, the Twins in general ran the bases less effectively in his first year as manager than they did under Ron Gardenhire. Whatever the cause, Mauer went from a clear baserunning plus to a slight detraction last season.
It has been a standard observation for years: Joe Mauer is not particularly fast, nor does he steal bases frequently, but he is an adept baserunner, often the best on the team. He reads balls well, he goes first to third, he is seldom caught taking the extra base or doubled off.
Until this year.
Baseball Info Systems, publisher of the Handbook, has been tracking baserunning since 2002, when Mauer was still a minor leaguer. By its calculations, Mauer is a +95 as a base runner for his career. (I wish I could say that that's 95 bases above average, or 95 runs, but BIS has a complex formula that doesn't lend its self to such a description. It's just +95.) Only 22 players, mostly obvious speesters such as Carl Crawford and Jose Reyes, scored better.
In 2013, Mauer was +13. In 2014, +16. In 2015, -2.
Over the time BIS has been tracking base running, runners have gone first-to-third on 28 percent of singles. Mauer in 2013 was 12-for-31, about 39 percent; in 2014, 13-for-38, 34 percent. Last year, he was just 6 for 20. Now, 30 percent is still a bit above average, but it isn't what we've seen from Mauer in the past.
Mauer had one baserunning out in 2014, none in 2013. Last year, he was doubled off on linedrives twice and thrown out trying for the extra base twice for four outs.
Maybe it's age -- Mauer is no longer a 20-something, and the years behind the plate have taken a toll. Maybe it's a general approach to baserunning under the new regime; I'll write about this in a future post, but despite Paul Molitor's baserunning skill as a player, the Twins in general ran the bases less effectively in his first year as manager than they did under Ron Gardenhire. Whatever the cause, Mauer went from a clear baserunning plus to a slight detraction last season.
Thursday, November 12, 2015
Another trade: Hicks for Murphy
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| John Ryan Murphy homers in a September game against the Baltimore Orioles. |
I like this trade for both teams, and for both players. The Twins are spilling over with outfielders and lacked catching depth; the Yankees have an established (and highly paid) veteran catcher as a starter and a promising prospect pushing for the backup job, while their outfield core is aging and brittle.
Yankees-Twins trade: Hicks has more upside than Murphy, but Murphy is at harder position to find. A trade that makes sense.— JJ Cooper (@jjcoop36) November 11, 2015
Cooper, the managing editor of Baseball America, goes into a bit more detail on Murphy here.
I thought that Hicks was destined in Minnesota for a fourth-outfielder role, with Byron Buxton, Eddie Rosario and Max Kepler all higher-ceiling guys than him. I don't have to buy into the Miguel Sano as an outfielder notion to see little room for Hicks in the Minnesota outfield. I also think Yankee Stadium might help mask Hicks' flaws as a left-handed hitter by turning a handful of flyballs into homers.
And, to be blunt, the Twins really needed somebody who can be an alternative to Kurt Suzuki, who did not have a good 2015 and who is, as a catcher above the age of 30, has the arrow pointing down. Murphy isn't a budding star, but he might be a four-or-five year regular at a difficult position to fill. With Brian McCann ahead of him, he wasn't going to get that chance in New York.
Wednesday, November 11, 2015
A trade! A trade!
The Twins on Tuesday traded backup catcher Chris Herrmann to Arizona for minor-league outfielder-first baseman Daniel Palka.
Palka, a left-handed hitter, has hit 60 homers in the lower levels of the minors, including 29 last year for Visalia in the High-A California League. Power is an important tool, and he has it, but at 24 he's a bit old to be in A ball. Presumably he'll be at Double-A Chattanooga in 2016 to fill the Adam Brett Walker role of a right fielder who either hits home runs or whiffs.
More significant than the addition of a low-level outfield prospect is probably the deletion of Herrmann, who has spent parts of the past four seasons with the Twins but never got much playing time -- 389 plate appearances all told -- and didn't hit in what time he did get (.181 batting average). Herrmann was the primary backup to Kurt Suzuki last year, and now he's gone. The other catcher who spent some time with the Twins, Eric Fryer, took free agency after being outrighted last month.
I still suspect that if Herrmann were given regular at-bats in a platoon role he would hit a bit, but the Twins never saw fit to give him that chance. The Diamondbacks ran six guys behind the plate last season, and maybe Herrmann will get a shot there.
Meanwhile, the Twins have no obvious backup to Suzuki, much less somebody capable of pushing him for playing time. Josmil Pinto is the only other catcher on the 40-man roster. He missed much of 2015 with concussions and isn't a good receiver anyway, so the Twins can't count on him. Presumably there will be a more reliable option on hand when training camp opens, either via free agency (A.J. Pierzynski, perhaps) or by trade.
Baseball Amercia's analysis of the trade is here.
Palka, a left-handed hitter, has hit 60 homers in the lower levels of the minors, including 29 last year for Visalia in the High-A California League. Power is an important tool, and he has it, but at 24 he's a bit old to be in A ball. Presumably he'll be at Double-A Chattanooga in 2016 to fill the Adam Brett Walker role of a right fielder who either hits home runs or whiffs.
More significant than the addition of a low-level outfield prospect is probably the deletion of Herrmann, who has spent parts of the past four seasons with the Twins but never got much playing time -- 389 plate appearances all told -- and didn't hit in what time he did get (.181 batting average). Herrmann was the primary backup to Kurt Suzuki last year, and now he's gone. The other catcher who spent some time with the Twins, Eric Fryer, took free agency after being outrighted last month.
I still suspect that if Herrmann were given regular at-bats in a platoon role he would hit a bit, but the Twins never saw fit to give him that chance. The Diamondbacks ran six guys behind the plate last season, and maybe Herrmann will get a shot there.
Meanwhile, the Twins have no obvious backup to Suzuki, much less somebody capable of pushing him for playing time. Josmil Pinto is the only other catcher on the 40-man roster. He missed much of 2015 with concussions and isn't a good receiver anyway, so the Twins can't count on him. Presumably there will be a more reliable option on hand when training camp opens, either via free agency (A.J. Pierzynski, perhaps) or by trade.
Baseball Amercia's analysis of the trade is here.
Tuesday, November 10, 2015
Byung-ho Park effects
I didn't see this coming, but few if any outside the closed-mouth Twins organization did: The Twins on Monday landed the negotiation rights to Korean slugger Byung-ho Park.
In a nutshell: Park's Korean team, the Nexen Heroes, posted the 29-year-old first baseman. The Twins bid nearly $13 million for the right to sign Park. If they do sign him by the Dec. 8 deadline, the Twins owe the Heroes the $12.85 million; if they don't, they owe the Heroes nothing and Park plays in Korea next year.
It's rare, but not unprecedented, for a posting rights winner to fail to sign the player in question, so I expect the Twins and Park to strike a deal. Then what?
Park racked up big power numbers in the Korean league, bopping more than 50 homers each of the past two seasons. While there is no reason to expect him to hit 50 in the states, his Korean production was similar to that of Jung Ho Kang, who had a fine rookie season for Pittsburgh before suffering an injury on a take-out slide.
Park has flaws. He's limited to first base defensively, and he has, like Miguel Sano, a tendency to swing-and-miss. Inside fastballs are specifically said to be an issue for him. But if he hits as Kang did last year, there's certainly room for him in the Twins lineup.
But where? His likely addition opens a new window on the Sano-to-the-outfield chatter of last week. Pencil Park and Joe Mauer in to share DH and first base duties. If Trevor Plouffe remains at third base, the outfield is the only option to keep Sano in the lineup.
Which is, really, rather backwards thinking. Sano has to be in the lineup, and you work around that reality.
Can Sano play outfield? He hasn't in games, Even if he's passable in left or right, there's no way he's going to be as adept as Eddie Rosario or Aaron Hicks.
Which, as I see it, makes a trade of Plouffe likely. I'd rather have Sano at third than in the outfield, and it seems silly to stall Byron Buxton's emergence for anybody. I'm hoping that the Sano-as-an-outfielder notion is a smokescreen designed to bolster Plouffe's trade value by presenting the illusion that the Twins aren't trading him to make room for Park.
Even if they are.
In a nutshell: Park's Korean team, the Nexen Heroes, posted the 29-year-old first baseman. The Twins bid nearly $13 million for the right to sign Park. If they do sign him by the Dec. 8 deadline, the Twins owe the Heroes the $12.85 million; if they don't, they owe the Heroes nothing and Park plays in Korea next year.
It's rare, but not unprecedented, for a posting rights winner to fail to sign the player in question, so I expect the Twins and Park to strike a deal. Then what?
Park racked up big power numbers in the Korean league, bopping more than 50 homers each of the past two seasons. While there is no reason to expect him to hit 50 in the states, his Korean production was similar to that of Jung Ho Kang, who had a fine rookie season for Pittsburgh before suffering an injury on a take-out slide.
Jung Ho Kang, 2014: .356 AVG, .459 OBP, .739 SLG
Byung-ho Park, 2015: .343 AVG, .436 OBP, .714 SLG
Kang hit .287/.355/.461 as MLB rookie.
— Aaron Gleeman (@AaronGleeman) November 9, 2015
Park has flaws. He's limited to first base defensively, and he has, like Miguel Sano, a tendency to swing-and-miss. Inside fastballs are specifically said to be an issue for him. But if he hits as Kang did last year, there's certainly room for him in the Twins lineup.
But where? His likely addition opens a new window on the Sano-to-the-outfield chatter of last week. Pencil Park and Joe Mauer in to share DH and first base duties. If Trevor Plouffe remains at third base, the outfield is the only option to keep Sano in the lineup.
Which is, really, rather backwards thinking. Sano has to be in the lineup, and you work around that reality.
Can Sano play outfield? He hasn't in games, Even if he's passable in left or right, there's no way he's going to be as adept as Eddie Rosario or Aaron Hicks.
Which, as I see it, makes a trade of Plouffe likely. I'd rather have Sano at third than in the outfield, and it seems silly to stall Byron Buxton's emergence for anybody. I'm hoping that the Sano-as-an-outfielder notion is a smokescreen designed to bolster Plouffe's trade value by presenting the illusion that the Twins aren't trading him to make room for Park.
Even if they are.
Monday, November 9, 2015
From the Handbook: Defensive shifts
There are, I suspect, two types of sophisticated defensive metrics: the publicly available ones, and the proprietary ones designed by individual teams' analytics departments.
Baseball Info Systems, which generates the numbers in the annual Bill James Handbook, is prominent in the world of public defensive metrics. Its work has, among other things, laid out for public viewing the rationale behind the current trend toward infield shifts,
In his essay accompanying the shift stats in the 2016 Handbook, John Dewan says that major league teams shifted 13,298 times in 2014 and 17,733 times in 2015. (Those numbers represent balls put in play when the defense is in a shift, so at-bats in which the defense is in a shift early and out of it later aren't counted, and neither shifts in which the batter strikes out, walks, etc.) That's a 33 percent increase last year.
The shifts, by BIS' calculations, prevented 266 runs over all. That's a 36 percent increase over 2014's 196, and suggests that teams are becoming more efficient at shifting.
One other general point: BIS believes that the optimal number of shifts is more than double last year's total, that the upper limit is probably around 40,000 shifts. MLB isn't there yet, but if shifting continues to increase, 40,000 is possible in a few years.
OK, that;s the general stuff. On to the Twins specific shift data:
In 2014 -- with Ron Gardenhire as manager and Paul Molitor assigned to handle shifts (an assignment widely viewed as being an override of Gardenhire's preferences) -- the Twins deployed 478 shifts. Only three teams in the American League used fewer shifts.
In 2015 -- with Molitor now the manager -- the Twins used 724 shifts, sixth most in the AL. That's an increase of 246, That's a 34 percent increase.
The Handbook does not provide a team-by-team breakdown of runs saved by shifts, so I don't have a precise number for the Twins. Across the majors, teams saved 1.5 runs per 100 shifts, so if the Twins shifted at average efficiency they saved roughly 10 runs with the shifts. Ten runs sabermetrically equates to a win, so that's hardly an insignificant matter.
Baseball Info Systems, which generates the numbers in the annual Bill James Handbook, is prominent in the world of public defensive metrics. Its work has, among other things, laid out for public viewing the rationale behind the current trend toward infield shifts,
In his essay accompanying the shift stats in the 2016 Handbook, John Dewan says that major league teams shifted 13,298 times in 2014 and 17,733 times in 2015. (Those numbers represent balls put in play when the defense is in a shift, so at-bats in which the defense is in a shift early and out of it later aren't counted, and neither shifts in which the batter strikes out, walks, etc.) That's a 33 percent increase last year.
The shifts, by BIS' calculations, prevented 266 runs over all. That's a 36 percent increase over 2014's 196, and suggests that teams are becoming more efficient at shifting.
One other general point: BIS believes that the optimal number of shifts is more than double last year's total, that the upper limit is probably around 40,000 shifts. MLB isn't there yet, but if shifting continues to increase, 40,000 is possible in a few years.
OK, that;s the general stuff. On to the Twins specific shift data:
In 2014 -- with Ron Gardenhire as manager and Paul Molitor assigned to handle shifts (an assignment widely viewed as being an override of Gardenhire's preferences) -- the Twins deployed 478 shifts. Only three teams in the American League used fewer shifts.
In 2015 -- with Molitor now the manager -- the Twins used 724 shifts, sixth most in the AL. That's an increase of 246, That's a 34 percent increase.
The Handbook does not provide a team-by-team breakdown of runs saved by shifts, so I don't have a precise number for the Twins. Across the majors, teams saved 1.5 runs per 100 shifts, so if the Twins shifted at average efficiency they saved roughly 10 runs with the shifts. Ten runs sabermetrically equates to a win, so that's hardly an insignificant matter.
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