I dont the the Texas package would fit the Twins needs very well. Salty really isn't good enough to be an asset playing DH right now and they are pretty set at first and catcher and even Redmond is a pretty good backup catcher. Blalock isn't exactly inexpensive when you consider that he would be paid 6.2 million(if his option gets picked up) and just isn't very good. And Poveda and Andrus are pretty far from the majors.

I think that moving Roberts to SS could be a good idea if they could find a suitable second baseman much easier than a SS replacement.

3. The Angels release Gary Matthews Jr., and the Dodgers release Juan Pierre.

Would you really have to outright release these guys? Wouldn't they be tradeable if the Dodgers and Angels agreed to pay 1/2 to 3/4 of their salary?

Also free Jason Bulger.

The Rangers, in turn, add the young ace (under team control through ‘11) that they’ve lacked since, well, forever get to see the second coming of Justin Thompson as Liriano spends the next five years on the disabled list ...

The 2008-09 Orioles couldn't make a personnel decision that "sizzles" if they decided to coat the players' caps with bacon.

I don't think "radical" is supposed to be interchangeable with "mind blowingly stupid."

I wouldn't let Sheehan teach my kids P.E., let alone take advice from him about baseball.

He needs to go into government work and leave the real thinking alone.

More radical than a World Festival of Youth and Students potato sack race!

Yes, but they do have catchy slogans, who could forget the 2001 festival?
"Let’s Globalize the Struggle For Peace, Solidarity, Development, Against Imperialism"

OK, Baltimore "is closing in on respectability" so they need to go sign the 57 year old Durham and then monkey with Roberts to improve their shortstop play so that they can trade him and have their middle infield consist of the aging journeyman and whatever they picked up and then slide from respectability and, um, well no I guess I don't follow after all.

The suggestion that the Mets build a bullpen on the cheap, while good, isn't exactly a "sizzling" move. Another case of poor headline writing?

The Lowe thing is kind of an interesting thought, but the Liriano trade makes no sense for Minnesota, and I'd think that Pierre would be tradable at $3-4M per, so cutting him outright to make a dogmatic point isn't a very helpful suggestion.

I'm aware of the conventional wisdom that the 2008 Twins' offense was a fluke, but "anemic" still seems like a bit much to me.

Roberts, playing his walk year in 2009, was Baseball America’s National Defensive Player of the Year at shortstop in college.

Does Sheehan thinks this means anything, anything at all 10 years down the road!?

Moving Roberts is a terrible idea.

The 2008-09 Orioles couldn't make a personnel decision that "sizzles" if they decided to coat the players' caps with bacon.

Trading Bedard for Jones, Tillman, et al. was a "sizzling" move. MacPhail is capable of doing something similar this offseason (trading Roberts, signing Teixiera, etc.).

10. andrewreinsch Posted: November 01, 2008 at 01:31 PM (#3000985)
I'm aware of the conventional wisdom that the 2008 Twins' offense was a fluke, but "anemic" still seems like a bit much to me.

This is Joe Sheehan. What do you expect? The Twins are an "old school" "scouty" team, are perceived to value batting average, ergo, their offense is "anemic". Never mind that by BPro's own stats, the EQR / EQA based stats, which AFAIK do not take into account hitting with RISP, they are above average. Team EQA of 272 compared to MLB average of 260, 87 batting runs above average.

Cris E Posted: November 01, 2008 at 11:47 AM (#3000953)
OK, Baltimore "is closing in on respectability" so they need to go sign the 57 year old Durham and then monkey with Roberts to improve their shortstop play so that they can trade him and have their middle infield consist of the aging journeyman and whatever they picked up and then slide from respectability and, um, well no I guess I don't follow after all.

This is Joe Sheehan. Who cares about D? A team with an overall ERA+ of 86, should f*** with their infield D, and move their existing 2b to SS, and replace him with a going to be 37 year old bad defensive 2b. Never mind that by both BPro's own defensive efficiency and park adjusted D efficiency stats, their Orioles are already pretty mediocre defensively, 18th and 20th in MLB respectively. Also, never mind that by RZR their infield D was already below average, their RZR was the worst in MLB, though they did make more plays out of zone than average.

Though to be fair to Sheehan, he did suggest Durham or Grudzielanek.


Incidentally, why does Grudzielanek get so little attention? Seems like a decent averagish player.

How about a Free Agent prediction thread?

Incidentally, why does Grudzielanek get so little attention? Seems like a decent averagish player.

Spelling mostly. If he changed his name to something easier he'd be mentioned more often. I suggest Joe Grudzielanek...

Roberts was moved off shortstop in 2001 because he didn't have the arm for it.

.933 fielding percentage in 53 major league games at SS, and a .932 fielding percentage in 51 minor league games at SS.

why does Grudzielanek get so little attention?

There's a major-league team in Kansas City? How did I miss that? Was it posted here? And whose bright idea was it anyway -- have you seen how small that market is?

Oh yeah, the article. The only "sizzling" move here would be the Liriano trade ... and I'm clueless as to what the Twins would want with Salty unless they're moving Mauer. Blalock seems to have rediscovered his stroke just in time to become injury-prone and is FA after 2009. This is largely Liriano for Andrus (and whatever Poveda is) which doesn't seem that good of a deal from the Twins perspective.

Now something like Liriano for Kinsler or Liriano for Hamilton would get some brain cells fired up.

The other moves are fairly blah. Cincy signing Lowe would be interesting but with Dunn gone, I'm not sure this team has that good of a chance of surprising. They've got holes at C, SS and two OF spots along with a weak bench -- a 93 OPS+ team that lost its best hitter. A rotation with Volquez, Harang, Lowe, Arroyo and Cueto would be pretty sweet but not enough to make up for that offense/defense.

If I were in charge of the Orioles I'd go after Adam Everett at short. Good field, no bat beats bad field, no bat, which is what they had last year. And gloves are cheaper than bats.

It's not that easy to build a bullpen. If it were, there wouldn't be so many teams with bullpen issues.

It's not that easy to build a bullpen. If it were, there wouldn't be so many teams with bullpen issues.

I think the point is that bullpens make up of castoffs and live arms from the minors outperform those with "established major league relievers" on a disturbingly frequent basis.

Spending $5M+ on a reliever guarantees you very little, so why bother.

Spelling mostly. If he changed his name to something easier he'd be mentioned more often. I suggest Joe Grudzielanek...

Joe the Second Baseman?

Now you see, that commie bastard Obama, he wants to tax Joe the Second Baseman at a 39% marginal rate. Socialism! His middle name isn't Hussein, it's Lenin!

God-fearing Palin, err I mean McCain, wants to tax Joe the Second Baseman at a 35% marginal rate. That's the sort of marginal tax rate the Founding Fathers of our great country had in mind. Country first!!

I'm of a mind that a trade like Liriano, Buscher, Young, and one of Gomez/Spahn/Revere/Poreda to the Brewers for Hardy and Fielder would work for both teams. The Brewers get a second starter to go with Gallardo, a 3rd baseman, and a young long term solution in center who should be ready by next year to replace Cameron. And Braun or Hardy can step in at first to replace Fielder. For the Twins, their outfield becomes Kubel, which CF they keep, Cuddyer, their DH becomes Fielder, and their SS becomes Hardy. Win/win for both teams. It won't happen because it would require the Twins to increase payroll, and it would see the Brewers trading to stars for mostly no names. Still, it just might work.

JJ Hardy is arguably the team's best all-around player.

And yet everyone at BBTF keeps suggesting Milwaukee should trade him.

This puzzles me......

Well, because:

1) Reporters have said he's on the block
2) He's about to get more expensive
3) MIL has A. Escobar to take over
4) The teams they root for need a SS ;-)

But:

He's not available
The Crew has cash from other guys leaving
AE needs to hit at Triple A and Melvin knows that

IF JJ is moved its to third or second.

IF JJ is moved its to third or second.

This is what I find strange about fans of other teams saying that Hardy needs to be traded to make way for Escobar. Rickie Weeks isn't exactly doing much at 2b. If Hardy ends up being moved, it can be to 2b.

Rfloh:

Precisely. If Durham is re-signed expect Weeks to be traded. And if Escobar hits at Triple A he will be in the lineup by June with JJ moved to the position of greater need.

if we're talking the Brewers, I'm curious to get people's insights/thoughts about Corey Hart. Does his late-season swoon suggest a bad 2009 in coming? I like his athleticism, but he looked absolutely lost in September. So much so that I'm wondering about his future.

4) The teams they root for need a SS ;-)

This is the most important point.

I'm of a mind that a trade like Liriano, Buscher, Young, and one of Gomez/Spahn/Revere/Poreda to the Brewers for Hardy and Fielder would work for both teams.

As a Twins fan, I would take this trade without even hesitating, which makes me think it might not be such a good deal for the Brewers. I guess if you think Liriano will establish himself as an ace, then it would be a good deal, otherwise I think the Brewers are accepting a lot of risk for two of their best players.

But hey, what else do we have to talk about until the season starts again.

I'm aware of the conventional wisdom that the 2008 Twins' offense was a fluke, but "anemic" still seems like a bit much to me.

This came up in a thread a few weeks back, and I have given it some thought.

The notion that the Twins were a fluke is based on the Twins' high BA with RISP. They had .305 with RISP, compared with .279 without RISP. Chalking this difference up to a fluke is incorrect, I think, because it ignores the effect of intentional walks on batting average with RISP. I will describe my logic below, but I estimate that based on my somewhat simpleminded analysis the Twin's BA with RISP should have been approximately .297.

The Twins had 48 IBB for the year, all with RISP. (I will round everything of to the nearest 1%.) With RISP the Twins had an unintentional walk in 9% of PA's, compared with 8% overall. The Twins had hits in 25% of PA's with RISP and 25% of PA's overall. If we treat IBB's as PA's that don't count (no opportunity for the Twins to hit), then we find that the Twins got a hit in 26% of all non-IBB PA's with RISP, and compared with 25% overall.

So, let's assume that the Twins only got hits in 25% of non-IBB PA's with RISP. That reduces their hit total from 455 hits with RISP to about 442, giving them a BA with RISP of .297. So we are starting to get pretty close to .305, only by considering the effects of the IBB.

In general, teams hit for a higher average with RISP than they do overall (go ahead and look it up). I think that this difference is often due to the effect of the IBB on the batting average statistic. It is not a fluke.