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But, Mauer and Morneau are both better than anyone on the Red Sox. And no one completely sucks - with Liriano in the rotation, and especially with Cuddyer healthy, that's a perfectly reasonable 90-win team.
Also, they've lost their last two.
They also play in a significantly easier division. But their top talent is really outstanding.
I also doubt Morneau is a better player than Bay, Youkilis, and possibly Ortiz and Drew.
Sort of. I thought they should have kept Santana because I thought they had a better chance to contend than a lot of people seemed to and said so. OTOH, I made no firm predictions about it, particularly after they actually traded Santana. Any team with Morneau and Mauer has a good leg up.
I will be very surprised if the Red Sox miss the playoffs. They still have a well-balanced team. I think they will wind up 2-3 G ahead of Chi/Min.
Dude, Jason Bay is awesome. What the hell more does he have do?
Catch? Throw a complete game shutout? Heck, I'd settle for a competent set-up man.
He has to have played in Boston for 5 more years. Or, conversely, not in Pittsburgh.
On another note, BC has churned out some awesome big leaguers. It speaks to the talent coming from the Canadian West when we're simultaneously discussing both Bay and Morneau in the context of possibly being the best players on their teams.
And Ryan Dempster.
EDIT: ...it censors t.i.t...
That seems to happen a lot in Minnesota. I think it is time that the "stats" community admit there are things about the Twins style that have yet to be measured accurately just yet. It is no shame to admit that there is something there that has yet to be discovered that can better explain why some teams succeed by "doing it" another way. There have been several seasons, Angels, White Sox, Twins, where I was told it was a fluke. Yet....
What about the White Sox in 2005?
That certainly supports the idea that their overperformance of their component statistics was flukish.
Speaking of which, one of my favorite movie lines is from Rambling Rose, when Robert Duvall tells Laura Dern, "Put that t!t away!"
The White Sox won the series in 2005, FWIW.
The Angels missed in 2003, but then followed with 92-, 95-, 89-, and 94-win seasons, with three playoff appearances, and they're going to get another one this season. The White Sox followed their WS win with a 90-win season. Last year was bad, but they're on their way to another 90+ this year — three very fine seasons out of four. For both these teams, it was the bad seasons that were flukes, not the good ones.
The Twins have made the playoffs four of the last six seasons. "Fluke" is too strong a word for their success.
You've already admitted #16 wasn't your best work. So I'll move on.
But I've been saying for sometime now, there is a style of baseball that teams like the Twins, Angels, CWS etc...all play, that does not look particularly good to our modern analytical tools. These "fluke" seasons have now piled up at this point, it is time to say something's happening here that we have not yet been able to measure.
I will take "fluke" to mean, "we have not found an answer yet" to explain why certain teams have success (some over and over again) that we are unable to fully explain. Remember, it was only a few years ago that this community thought "good" defense was a joke, that it really didn't matter. How quickly that has changed.
Not even top 50.
Could you imagine the whining if the Home Run Hitting Contest guy got his name wrong, like they did for "Jason" Morneau?
"It's a pleasure to give you this oversized novelty check, Kelvim Youkilis."
This team, however, is substantially different from the 2004-06 Twins, moreso than any of those teams were distinguishable from each other.
Um, it's not as if the Republican Party exercised eminent domain or anything; Minneapolis chased the party for the opportuntiy to host their convention there. AND, it is not as if the Twins are now left with playing more games on the road than home; it is just a different distribution.
They just took 2 of 3 against a better than .500 in the toughest division in baseball Toronto. On the road. I know they didn't do so well last week in Fenway, nor for the year as a whole, but it's not like Toronto is a pushover.
They are now left with playing more games on the road than home. Their current record reflects a distribution of games that to this point has made the Twins appear better than they are, which has led to some of the verbal nail-biting in this thread. It seems fair, a couple dozen posts into a thread asking why the Twins aren't losing more, to point out that the Twins have had a favorable distribution of home games to this point.
Yes. The Twins amaze me, quite honestly. They always seem to be forced to part with their top-shelf talent when it gets too expensive, their manager's regarded as unexceptional (if not sort of a dimwit), and despite their having produced Mauer and Morneau a few years ago, it doesn't seem to me you hear about their having a particularly great farm system, like we have in recent years with, say, Milwaukee and Tampa. And yet, even in down years, they never really suck, and in most years, they're strong contenders if not division winners. They're obviously doing something right organizationally, and doing it consistently. Just the presence of Mauer and Morneau doesn't explain it.
Taking it one step further though... Who is the smart money on for winning the WS today, or at least entering the playoffs with the best hand? I think conventional wisdom favored BOS for much of the season, until the Angels became a hot item... But now is it fair to say the Cubbies and Tampa are rising past the early season favorites? What about the ChiSox?
I suppose I'd go Angels/Rays/Cubs in no particular order if forced to guess now, but that's purely a function of their higher probability of making the playoffs than anyone else. I think the Red Sox, Twins, Chi Sox, Mets, Phillies, Brewers, D-Backs - any of them can win, and no one is a significant favorite.
I'm not sure the WS are in the same category though. They aren't outperforming their peripherals. They are outperforming (incorrect) projections. The things they're doing well, at least on the field, are the things "statheads" like. It's just that, for whatever reason, statheads didn't believe that they could do those things well.
I don't know if I'd trade him for Morneau in a second. That said...
HitTracker gives you a little backup here. Morneau's HR's have traveled an average of nearly additional 6 "true" feet. That isn't much, but it is something. (It is more than 10 measured feet.) Also, 70% of Morneau's HRs are classified as "no doubt" or "plenty". Meanwhile, only 58.3% of Youkilis's HRs fit those categories, while 42% have been "just enough" or "lucky".
I don't know how much value this types of analysis should be given, as we don't really know the reliability of the underlying data. But, fwiw.
April: 15 home games, 12 road games
August: 11 home games, 16 road games
One of the few concessions to Boston in the schedule is that they play at home on Patriots Day (3rd Monday in April) every year, at 11 AM. The result of that, and some effort to get everyone's home opener within the first two weeks of the season, is a somewhat extended April homestand for the Red Sox every now and then.
Agreed on Youkilis - I could see a small chunk of the increased power sticking, though - something like .290/.390/.475 going forward. I'd take Morneau, but it's not a huge difference.
If Curry's analysis is true, I'm surprised and a little disappointed in the characterization. I had assumed Matsuzaka had a more robust rapport with his teammates, but maybe that isn't realistic. He gets and receives high-fives in the dugout regularly, but perhaps there isn't much more to it than that. Coco just shouting out "Dice-K!" to get his attention particularly points to an empty and undeveloped relationship. Hopefully professionalism, which Dice-K appears to have plenty of, will win out - but I hope he isn't too lonely and bored in Boston as his contract wears on.
On Youk vs. Morneau, I'm a little confused. Are we talking about for the rest of the year, which would seem most relevant to the discussion? If so, I don't see a lot of difference. If we're talking career, I'd have to admit that Morneau has better prospects.
He's got a .750 RZR at 3B, which is only bettered by two full-time players at third base (Rolen and Lowell) along with 12 OOZ plays in only 172 innings. A relatively SSS, but it's ridiculous to say that he isn't playing well over there.
When Youkilis was walking two times a game for Portland and getting compared to Steve Balboni, who who would've thought he'd put up a borderline MVP season built on defense and bopping extra base hits with a below average walkrate?
Nobody, but it shouldn't come as a surprise if a defensively adequate 3B moves across the diamond and becomes a good 1B. The real surprise is that Youkilis has hit well enough even to play 1B every day in the majors.
Drew has been out for six games with back pain and a herniated disk, and Jacoby Ellsbury has moved over to right in his absence. The Sox have also reportedly been pursuing Atlanta's Mark Kotsay. For now, the team will recall infielder Joe Thurston from Pawtucket to take his roster spot.
Joe Thurston? Seriously? Just kill me now.
Aside from the fact that I have misgivings about your idea, I think the answer is "no". You'd get very significant resistance from both Tornto and Seattle, and since placing a team in Portland is probably part of that scenario, I don't think they'd take two bites out of Seattle's ancillary markets at one go. One of the reasons the Mariners are one of the richest teams in baseball is that they have two nearly-major-league quality markets in their backyard, and you'd immediately turn them into a small market team by doing this. It would be fairer to add another team in New Jersey or the Inland Empire.
Why is that? Divisions too small? I like balance and order and the 14-16 team league split frustrates me.
Seattle is a decent sized metropolitan area on its own according to the census, bigger than SD, STL, TB. Looking at Vancouver, though, it appears too small.
Boston: 8-3
Chicago: 5-7
Minnesota: 3-9
Been nice while I been out of town, indeed.
Meanwhile., the Twins went to the ninth down two, and just now loaded the bases with no outs (Edit, one out) for Mauer, and then Morneau ...
Edit: Mauer K'ed by Fernando Rodney.
Morneau lined out to second. Game.
FWIW though, evan when the three teams were essentially tied in the standings, PECOTA had the Sox at around 90% to make the playoffs...
Without three teams in NY and LA, or doing something wacky like sticking a team in the Carribean or Mexico City, I'm just not sure there are 32 major league markets in North America at the moment. I realize that it's supposed to wreak havoc for the schedule-maker, but I still think two 15-team leagues with three divisions of five teams is the most workable solution. I also hate unbalanced schedules, wild card or no.
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