From the Handbook: Stolen base attempt times

The Handbook lists the average time recorded by every player with at least six attempts to steal second base. The fastest is Mallex Smith of Tampa Bay, 3.44 seconds. Byron Buxton is fourth at 3.52 seconds, one one-hundreth of a second slower than Bradley Zimmer of Cleveland. (Billy Hamilton of Cincinnati is wedged between Smith and Zimmer.)

Three other Twins are in the chart; Jorge Polanco is 63rd on the list at 3.69 seconds, Brian Dozier is No.72 (3.71) and Eddie Rosario is 74th, one of seven listed with 3.72. (Max Kepler, who had six steal and one caught stealing, doesn't appear to be on the list.)

For me, at least, there are a few surprises on this list. One is the notion that Polanco is faster than Dozier and Rosario. 

Then there's #OldFriend Aaron Hicks, darn near the caboose on this train. His name is 104th on the list of 106, tied with two others at 3.85, a third of a second slower than Buxton and more than 0.10 behind Polanco, Dozier and Rosario.

From the Handbook: Team baserunning

Strictly speaking, this is in the same section as the previous post, but I thought it worth its own post.

Baseball Info Systems' formula rates the 2017 Twins as the third best baserunning team in the majors, and just one base shy of second-place Cleveland. (Arizona was tops at + 103, then the Tribe with 83 and Minnesota at 82.)

This is a bit up from 2016, when BIS' data had the Twins a +61 and the sixth best baserunning team, and sharply up from 2015, when they lost 19 bases and were solidly in the bottom half.

Only one team (San Diego) grounded into fewer double plays than the Twins, and the Padres had more than 100 fewer chances to do so. As I said in the previous post, I don't know that I agree with working GIDP -- that's grounded into double plays, for yesterday's commenter -- into the baserunning formula, but it's there.

Twenty-two of the 30 teams were in positive territory as baserunners in 2017. And while the absolute worst baserunning teams (Detroit and Philadelphia) were bottom-dwellers in the standings, the Houston Astros -- who won 101 games and the World Series -- were -14 for the season, sixth worst.

From the Handbook: Baserunning

We all know Byron Buxton is fast. We also know that speed alone does not equal outstanding baserunning.

But as Baseball Info Systems figures such things, Buxton was the best baserunner in baseball in 2017, at +55 bases.

The essay that preceeds the numbers notes that Buxton gained at least 27 bases from both basestealing and from "bases gained" -- for example, going first to third on a single or advancing on a wild pitch -- making him "the most balanced of the leaders."

Plus he grounded into just one double play. I'm not completely sold on BIS' inclusion of GIDP in the baserunning metrics, but I don't make the rules for them.

Joe Mauer has long been viewed -- accurately for the most part -- as an outstanding baserunner without outstanding speed. He has become visibly slower in the past few years (he is 34, after all) and in 2017 he scored a -7 in BIS's metric. For his career -- the Handbook contains career baserunning totals for players with 1,000 career games started in 2002) Mauer is +86, which isn't close to being the active leader but is certainly no embarrassment.

The status of ByungHo Park

There were conflicting reports Sunday on ByungHo Park:

After short stint with #MNTwins, Korean DH/1B Byung-Ho Park has rejoined his former KBO club, Nexen Heroes. One year, 1.5 billion Korean won ($1.4 million).

— Jeeho Yoo (@Jeeho_1) November 27, 2017

Source confirms ByungHo Park release/return to KBO is in the works but "lots of details" remain in the complicated transaction. #mntwins https://t.co/kqt6tybJaS

— Mike Berardino (@MikeBerardino) November 27, 2017

The issue, I'm sure: Baseball's rules do not permit players to renounce their guaranteed money to get out of a contract. Park may want out of his remaining year with the Twins, and the Twins may want out of it too, but the contract is not so easily broken. 

Assuming that this gets resolved with Park returning to the Heroes, there is a lesson here -- and it's not the "stay away from Japansese/Korean players" moral some nitwits on Twitter have offered. It's that right-right first basemen -- throw right, hit right -- better take advantage of their opportunities when they come, because a second might never arrive. 

My sense all along has been that Park is better than Kennys Vargas. But Park didn't -- probably because of injury -- take advantage of his opportunity at the start of 2016, and even though he clearly outplayed Vargas in spring training last year, when the major league club needed a bat it brought up Vargas instead. 

They had reasons: Vargas was on the 40 and Park was not, and Park never really got going in Triple A. But Vargas hasn't exactly torn apart the International League either, and he's had repeated chances in the majors. What separates him from Park is being a switch-hitter. 

The Sunday Funnies

Zach Greinke has earned a reputation as a baseball savant, a guy who sees things that others miss and exploits that knowledge.

So when he approached his struggling young teammate in Kansas City, Alex Gordon, and asked the slumping rookie to accompany him to the video room, Gordon figured that Greinke had spotted something, a flaw in Gordon's swing that he could fix and turn his season around.

Greinke turned on the monitor and played -- a clip of Greinke hitting a home run. Greinke watched the video admiringly, then turned to Gordon.

"Do more of that," Greinkke instructed.

Notes, quotes and comment

It's been a quiet offseason so far, not just for the Twins but all over. There's been little movement among the prominent free agents and a scarcity of trades.

Part of the slow pace regarding free agents may be Scott Boras, who reps a number of the big names on the market: first baseman Eric Hosmer, third baseman Mike Moustakas and starter Jake Arrieta. Boras is big on a slow process.

Personally, however, if I were buying a first baseman on this market I'd rather go for Carlos Santana than Hosmer, there is reason to be wary of Arrieta and Moustakas is not exactly the definition of consistent production.

The current whispers about the Twins have them more active in trade talks than free agents. Now that we've gotten past Thanksgiving, and with the winter meetings looming early next month, things might start to happen.

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MLB dropped a heavy hammer on the Atlanta Braves for circumventing the rules for signing foreign free agents. Twelve Braves farm hands, some quite prominent on prospect lists, were declared free agents this week, and John Coppollela, the general manager fired a few weeks ago as the investigation came to light, has been banned permanently. And it's worth noting that John Hart, the veteran GM who was Coppollela's superior, has left the organization "to pursue other opportunities." Sure he is.

I tried to make sense of the rules for signing the newly freed players and gave up. I'll trust Falvine to know (a) which guys they want to pursue and (b) the limitations on that pursuit.

The commissioner certainly came down harder on the Braves than he did on the Cardinals (hacking), the Red Sox (signing violations) or Padres (hiding medical information in trades) -- hard enough that the general belief is that the rest of the teams are stepping back from the anything goes mentality.

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The Hall of Fame ballot was released this week. Among the newcomers are a handful of former Twins, including Johan Santana. Santana hasn't offiically given up his hopes of pitching again, but it's been five years since he threw a major league pitch. He certainly had a Hall-of-Fame peak, but the longevity was lacking.

Other ex-Twins fresh to the ballot: Jim Thome, who will get in, and Livan Hernandez, who won't.

And a day or so after the ballot was released Joe Morgan, the vice chairman of the Hall of Fame's board of directors, fired off a letter to the electorate urging them to reject steroid users. While he didn't explictly say that he was speaking on behalf of the board, he did mention his position and used the Hall's email account.

Morgan drew some pushback from voters. But this is seen as the first time that the people who run the Hall have put their finger on the scale, and Joe Posnanski, for one, thinks the Morgan letter dooms the rising candidacies of Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, each of whom topped 50 percent last year.

From the Handbook: Defensive Statistics

This section of the Bill James Handbook has changed considerably over the years as defensive metrics have been devised, tested and improved.

The Twins player I was most interested in checking out here is Jorge Polanco, the regular shortstop who I believe is stretched at the position.

What these stats say is: He's not great, but he gets the job done.

He's at zero in "bases saved" and -1 in "runs saved," which adds up, essentially, to: He's an average shortstop. Which, if he's capable of being a productive middle-of-the-order bat -- and he hit third regularly down the stretch -- is quite acceptable.

It's worth noting, however, that 14 of the 24 shortstops listed as "regulars" at the position were better in the metrics. He's average compared to the entire set of shortstop innings, but less adept than most the guys who play most of the innings. As one might imagine for a key defensive position, the scrubs bring the average down -- and Polanco is good enough to be better than them.

Eduardo Escobar, in about an eighth of Polancos innings at short, is -2 in runs saved, and Ehrie Adrianza is +1 in about a quarter of Polanco's innings at short. That Adrianza is the best of the trio with the glove sounds right. I'm not convinced that Polanco's better than Escobar, but I'm not sure the difference matters much in either direction.