Francisco Liriano (11th Start, 54.7 IP, 4.96 xFIP) v. David Price (2nd Start, 3.3 IP, 5.44 xFIP)
It's the erstwhile phenom against the current phenom today. Liriano has been disappointing so far in 2009, for sure. In 2008 after a slow start and a trip to the minors, Liriano came back and acquitted himself quite well in the second half, giving hope that he'd take a step forward this year. So far, though, he's not pitched well and the results have been even worse. If Jim Souhan were the manager, he'd be pitching for his job today. I'm a little more sanguine about the prospect of Liriano improving as the season rolls along. Just don't take a lot more time putting it together, Francisco.
The Twins put Nicky Poo on the DL last night and called up Laddie. Lately, there's been a lot of teams putting guys on the DL because they sucked more than anything. I'm not sure if Punto is hurt, but it wouldn't surprise me if he's nursing a bad bat right now. A rehab trip to Rochester in the offing? Maybe, especially if Laddie comes up and proves that his head isn't jammed up his butt.
I'm not optimistic about today, primarily because the Twins are 5-15 on the road and 0-fer in AL East parks. Then again, maybe the clock has struck twelve in St. Petersburg and can have a reversal of fortune today.
Go Twins!
The Twins are also 3-11 in day games. And the Rays are starting a lefty. If ever there was a time to bet against the Twins ...
Programming note for those not in the regular FSN Twins viewing area. Today's game will be broadcast as Fox's GOTW.
Now back to regularly scheduling punning and snarking.
but only seen in 14%t of the country. basically, if you live in Minneapolis, Tampa, and Boston you get the Twins/Rays
My bad. I am in Montana it seems I'll be watching Twins/Rays today. I didn't realize they regionalized their GOTW.
yeah, FOX has 3 games on today. I suppose they do that just in case of a rainout somewhere, they can flip to another game
Not here it won't. We lucky ones get to watch the Dodgers game, because we never get to see them. Just every other day of the week.
Here in DC we're watching the Cubs/Dodgers. Which is great, since neither has anything to do with the area at all.
Randy Choate was the 7th Ray in 2009 to record a save last night. the Major League record is 12, set back in 1973.
Sunday's game will be the final of 20 games without a day off for the Twins. They are 9-9 so far. I believe the 20 straight days is the MLB maximum.
Sounds like a small strike zone today. Hopefully, the Twins can take advantage of it on offense against Price.
Yeah, Justin Morneau really thought "I have no chance against David Price."
on the plus side, Price threw a lot of pitches that inning
Nice quick inning for Liriano. I was actually hoping to see if Mauer could throw out Crawford on a steal attempt. Oh well, off to finish my lawn.
Good at bat for Crede
Less good at-bats for Harris and Young.
Kevin Slowey can do math!
I always envisioned K-Slow as one of those calculator watch kids.
He can probably multiply in his head faster than I can.
And a collective giggle falls through the Trop.
C'mon Laddie... show us a decent at bat
That might have been our only opportunity to score against Price..... which isn't as bad as you might think, since he'll have 120 pitches after 4 innings.
Sadly for us, the Rays' long reliever has been pretty good this year.
So when do we see that third True Outcome?
So, if Price believes in himself, he'll be able to walk through two of the best hitters in baseball like they were nothing? Did I miss the memo? Is David Price the best pitcher of all time or something?
He and Matt Wieters will make quite a Hall of Fame class.
I fully expect him to post a 0.00 ERA in a few years here - you know... once he starts believing in himself.
Since I am on the east coast, I can't watch the game. Is the strike zone really as completely random as it appears on gameday?
Geez. 2nd & 3rd, no outs and Mauer, Cuddyer, Crede up and we only get one? Terrible. Let's see if we can keep the lead through this inning, which has been a big problem on the road this year.
AUUUUUUGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH! Not even one f&*() batter!! Just kill me now!
This was a little StatFreaky.
Ouch
Drat...there's that third outcome.
Dillion
YAY! I love the "nationally televised" game that I can't watch. Yay Dodgers! Whoooo!
Seriously, do these companies not see this pitfall? $110 a year. Give me every fucking game, alright?
Not sure you want to be watching this inning.
Heh. I'm listening, but that's a fair point.
Baby Jeebus gets a cup check.
Yeesh. Suddenly, I'm glad I don't get the video feed.
Got him!
The Twins seemingly pull off the impossible, catching Crawford. We stopped Oakland's 20-game winning streak. And hey, we stopped Cecil Fielder's no-stolen-bases-in-my-life streak, too!
Thou shalt not steal! Very nice!
first time Crawford has been thrown out stealing this year!
First time officially, but the second time, really. He was called safe yesterday even though Morneau tagged him on the hand before he got back to the bag.
Yesterday's would have officially been a pick-off, not a CS. The runner has to run down to 2B to get a CS.
Wow. No luck at all for the Twins right now in road games. It sounds like the only hard-hit ball this inning was the homer. Very frustrating.
that about sums it up
Mauer is getting abused behind the plate. First a foul tip off the cup, then one right into the mask.
who do he thinks he is...Mike Redmond!
Man, I don't get it. Liriano hasn't looked bad, but he's catching no breaks. It seems like that's the case like every time I've watched him pitch. God. We're completely fucking snakebitten on the road. Ugh.
I don't know that I've ever understood the extremity of home/road splits, although I've been watching professional sports for 25 years. I know the players love the jolt from the fans and that the ball hops differently from park to park (especially when your team plays half its games on turf), but the difference is always just so extreme. A 19-11 team at home shouldn't be half this bad on the road, right?
Nothing really surprises me too much after 1987. Two completely different teams home and away.
Zero luck
holy crap. a ball hit to the short stop cant even get an out
That's cause the shortstop is Dirty Harry.
What's the record for infield singles in an inning?
I bet the Twins have that record during that 'piranha' year
PRAISE JEEBUS!
that inning in over
This kind of inning is happening way too often when I start watching/listening to a game. It's almost frightening. It's sucking my will to live!
+ it certainly does suck
Now that we need to get Price out to get back in the game, I predict we'll go out in less than 10 pitches. Harris out on one pitch (a line drive out of course).
47 pitches in that inning for Liriano. An inning from hell.
And now he's back on the way to the mound already. Thanks, offense!
Oh great. Now Crede's out and Tolbert in to play short with Harris to third. That should improve the infield defense.
With the way the Rays have only been reaching on weak infield hits (well, not solely, but you feel me) that's an odd managerial move.
now its going to be 'past a diving Harris' at 3rd.
Leadoff walks == Not Good.
Seven hits and three walks through three. It's pretty rough all around.
The DP happened as I typed that. Well, there's a start.
You know it's funny. Once we were down by one run, since it's an away game, I pretty much figure "game over." This is so shitty.
This game has me thinking about dinner already.
steak tacos with a piece of "London Broil" that I'm gonna grill, sauteed swiss chard from the garden. And beer. Definitely beer.
Even if the Twins were up by 62, I'd be thinking about that dinner already.
im making chicken quesadillas right now. side of black bean and homemade nachos
Casilla on to lead off an inning. That's a good way to get a big inning going with the top of the order coming up.
I agree
A hit for Casilla definitely seems like a bonus. Nice to see. Well, to hear. Those seeing it: did he get good wood on it?
Solid hit up the middle
Just his third hit of the season vs. lefty.
Radio guys are talking about how the Rays are running concerts after certain games this summer. It seems like a pretty smart way to pull in fans when attendance is so low for your team in comparison to others; but it depresses me that a team as exciting as the Rays - and as successful as they were last year - has to resort to such a move.
Three Doors Down tonight!!!!!!
That might make me less inclined to buy a ticket, but you can't fight City Hall.
I go to the Austin City Limits music festival every year, and it's stunning how many people show up only for the final act of the night. It costs the same to go all day and see 10-15 bands (or more, if you just take in a little of everyone) or to go for just one show...a few years ago Coldplay was the headliner, and thousands of people who spent +$50 for the day only came to see them. Strange...you're basically handed an entire day to discover new, life-changing music, but you say "Meh, I've never heard of these people."
I've always wanted to go to the ACL Fest, I've just never had the money or a car to get down there.
I can't give a stronger recommendation to anything music-related. Austin is an awesome city, the bars and grills are plentiful near the festival, and a lot of the bands play those bars and grills after the day is officially over, just for the sake of playing another gig in Austin. I would never advocate ruining your own life or anything, but it's worth blowing off the next year to get a three-day pass to one festival.
David Price can leave the game anytime now
Lord, please help me forget that I saw this. And overlook the fact that I laughed a bit.
Twins now 0-for-5 with RISP and three strikeouts. Price at 96 pitches. He was held to 75 pitches or so in the minors per start and was pulled after 100 pitches in the fourth inning in his last start, so I would be surprised if he goes back out there.
Oh great. Dickey is in. How many stolen bases are the Rays going to get now?
They want to get Price a "Quality Start".
Dirty Harry felt a little lucky there
Uh-oh, we're incorporating sayings from the movie now. That makes the name a standard, I think.
Delmon's average is down to .240. yeesh
you know, I'm starting to think he's not very good at baseball
I could've told you that in November 2007.
That pretty much robs the Delmon apologists of their firepower. He's a disaster right now. If he doesn't start brining something to the plate, forget trade value...this guy could end up out of baseball altogether.
Price fanned eleven, going 6-for-6 against Delmon and Cuddyer. Yikes.
The supposed right-handed power hitters. Good grief.
I figured Cuddy against Price would of been a good matchup for us since Cuddy is the best fastball hitter on the team (or so says The Dazzleman)
Between that and his past month, I figured him for one of the bright spots today, too. I certainly would've had him in my own lineup. Hopefully this doesn't mean a return to early-season form.
nice stop harris!
Play Span in left all the time please.
It really is amazing that Gardy hasn't made that commitment by now, considering both his performance and _elm_n's.
Its not Span vs. Delmon, its Gomez vs. Delmon, and both really suck right now, its just that Gardy doesn't see the advantage of Gomez's defense.
RA with the BOSO?
blarg
I think its time to string some hits together
or not
Balfour had walked 14 batters in 20 1/3 innings coming into this game and the umpire today has a tiny strike zone resulting in a ton of pitches by both starting pitchers, so of course Balfour comes in and gets ahead of every batter and retires them all on 15 pitches, throwing 12 strikes.
Then Crawford goes deep for the second time in two games after having one home run on the season coming into this series. Can the Twins' luck get any worse?
Is it Interleague time yet?
Hey a slow roller for the Twins that results in.... JUST BARELY AN OUT. Good god, this team is cursed. I really hope we can win tomorrow, but afternoon road game against Garza...
I'm probably not going to bother tuning in.
(In other words, I'll cave, see you all around tomorrow afternoon)
I love watching Balfour. He never stops talking to himself.
RA Dickey...innings eater
if the Twins lose today, they will be 5-16 against AL East teams
Bad winning percentage, but the good news is they have played far more games against the East than the rest of the division, save the Indians. The Tigers are 2-7 against the East and the Royals are 6-5, and the White Sox are 5-9. The Twins only have one more road series vs. the East, a four-gamer at Toronto in September.
I was thinking the Twins had sure played a lot of games with that wretched division. Good to see how far ahead we are in games with the East.
Also, interesting to see the .500 Royals playing over .500 with the East. I wonder if their fans are already talking about the team playing to the ability of its opponent.
Then again, it could be that Mr. Greinke has pitched six times against the East...hence six wins. What a beast.
Well that was fun!
:|
blah.
burnt to a crisp
maybe tomorrow
On the bright side, Dickey pitched pretty well, and he kept the Twins from having to blow out the bullpen today.
Sometimes it's hard to find a bright side.
Truly, though, that is pretty bright. This game could've been the loss that kept on giving.
Dickey has been pitching well in these long relief stints lately. His ERA (I know not the best measurement of pitchers) is down to a respectable 3.26
ERA for pitchers is far more useful than AVG for hitters. It's not as strong of a predictive stat as others, but as far as the "classic" stats go, it's comparatively solid.
I disagree. ERA is a supremely flaky stat (especially over a few weeks) and should be taken with at least as much caution as batting average for hitters.
I think ERA is better a suited stat for starting pitchers than it is for relievers because starters pitch more innings..you know if you want a quick glance at the newspaper or whatnot. A reliever could have a bad night, give up 3 runs in a 1/3 of an inning and his ERA will jump 6 runs, and it takes weeks or months to get it back to respectable
*better being a loose term, I guess.
ERA is definitely better suited for starting pitchers than it is for relievers, but it's still highly flawed even then.
Really, ERA was designed in an era when baseball was much different than it is now. Pitchers pitched entire games and fielders committed a lot more errors (so errors were a somewhat more useful way of measuring the defense's contributions.) Under those circumstances, ERA kind of made sense, but today it is pretty archaic.
It's not completely useless, and I'm not saying that anyone should totally stop using it, I just wanted to point out that using ERA to judge a pitcher has drawbacks that are just as severe as using AVG to judge a hitter.
xFIP vs ERA question: Obviously its been proven that xFIP is a WAY better predictor of future success thatn ERA, but is it really that much better to measure how a pitcher has pitched going backward? For example if someone like Scott Baker has had a high percentage of his fly balls go over the fence for homeruns won't his xFIP look quite a bit better than his ERA and I'd argue that while it may have been unlucky that a large percentage of his fly balls left the yard, they still left the yard leaving to a lot of runs given up? Or am I totally misuunderstanding how xFIP is calculated? Or if a pitcher is given up a high percentage of line drives on batted balls wouldn't that lead to a higher ERA than xFIP and again, its part unlucky that a lot of hit balls are line drives, that's part of the game?
In short, I guess I would say that the more advanced stats do a better job at separating the pitcher's contributions from the fielder's contributions and (to a certain degree) the hitter's contributions. To fully answer your question, I think I'd need to do a little more research. But I think that in general the advanced stats are still a little bit better at measuring the pitcher's historical contributions because ERA needs to be adjusted for defense a lot more than FIP, etc., if you are really interested in the pitcher's contribution as opposed to the run prevention unit's contribution.
Or if a pitcher is given up a high percentage of line drives on batted balls wouldn't that lead to a higher ERA than xFIP and again, its part unlucky that a lot of hit balls are line drives, that's part of the game?
One thing on this point specifically is that hitters have a large degree of control over their BABIP and line drive rates, so if a pitcher has a high BABIP or a high LD rate, it could just mean that he faced difficult competition more than it means he pitched poorly. Also, there's the very significant impact of team defense on a pitcher's BABIP, which a pitcher is largely helpless to control.
ERA is a supremely flaky stat (especially over a few weeks)
Is it really any flakier than any of its close competitors (FIP, xFIP, tRA)?? Small sample is small sample, right? So unless these other measures have some magical way to weight new observations that differ from the central tendency in the previous observations, why wouldn't they be just as flaky?
Not intended to be a flame, btw. I'm looking for the story.
The basic notion is that you want a statistic that correlates closely with ("measures") the player's "true" performance or "true" ability type (depending on your goal).
ERA is criticized on both counts. One, it's an imperfect measure of true performance because the pitcher gets credit/blame for all sorts of exogenous stuff (e.g., park effects, weather effects, a defense with below- or above-average range) and good/bad luck (bloop hits and funky bounces; balls that are nailed right at a defender, etc.).
And two, its an (allegedly) imperfect measure of true ability because ERA measured over some past period is (allegedly) a weak predictor of ERA over some subsequent period.
so, how strong is the correlation between pitcher ERA in, say, the first half of a season and the second half? How does that correlation compare to FIP, xFIP, DIPS and/or tRA? How strongly does ERA correlate with each of these other measures (the pairwise correlations, evaluated over MLB, for example)?
Is it really any flakier than any of its close competitors (FIP, xFIP, tRA)?
Yes. ERA is a per-inning stat. All of the others are based on per-PA stats. So the sample size is larger for those and the variance is smaller. That's why after the first two weeks of the season, it's really easy to say "hey, despite his nice ERA, Ramon Ortiz still sucks." Obviously an even bigger sample size of games is nice, but doing things on a per-PA basis makes things even out much more quickly. (One way of looking at this is that 2-3 run-scoring hits can make a huge dent in a player's ERA but won't really change his FIP, etc. significantly. In the really, really, really, really long term, pitchers might have some control over in which situations they allow hits (compared to the average situational ability for pitchers), but for the most part that's going to give you a lot of useless noise in ERA.
so, how strong is the correlation between pitcher ERA in, say, the first half of a season and the second half? How does that correlation compare to FIP, xFIP, DIPS and/or tRA? How strongly does ERA correlate with each of these other measures (the pairwise correlations, evaluated over MLB, for example)?
I'm pretty sure all of that stuff is out there. Check the google. Every time I've seen anything, FIP, etc., beat ERA. This is not to say that those stats are perfect, but ERA is highly flawed and really sets a low standard for success.
ERA is probably about as bad as batting average, but for different reasons. Batting average is bad because it is incomplete compared to more comprehensive measures of hitting ability (whether you want to quick-and-dirtily mash OBP and SLG into OPS or go for singular measurements like EqA or wOBA). ERA is bad because it purports to measure an individual's performance but is actually drastically affected by the whole team's performance in ways that the good defense-independent stats (i.e. xFIP or tRA) aren't.
Yes.
His FIP is up to around 5.62 after this game, I believe, but if he pitches solely as a long reliever like this it doesn't matter as much.
it is mildly interesting to note that today's two starters, Blackburn and Garza, had tRA* values of 4.99 and 4.98, respectively. Blackburn was ahead noticeably on tRA (4.28 vs. 4.84).
I was not a fan of the _elm_n trade at the time, and I'm still not. But the data certainly suggest that Garza's little more than an average ML starter (his tRA+ for the last three seasons 2007-09 have been 114, 111 and now 104). Blackie was an even 100 last season and is at 115 currently.
Blackburn vs. Garza isn't really the relevant comparison, though, right? I would have felt a lot more comfortable with the trade if we'd sent Perkins instead of Garza. Delmon wasn't really worth a league average starter.
I don't disagree. As I've said many times, I thought from the start that the trade was a mistake. (although my complaint at the time really was about giving up Garza AND our starting SS for _elm_n and what appeared to be junk). I meant merely to point out that there does indeed appear (or rather, did appear at the time of the trade) to be a wealth of league-average starter talent available in the Twins' system.
The blogger community has been campaigning for years for the Twins to spend some of their pitching depth from the system to acquire some right-handed hitting. The principles behind the _elm_n trade were roughly correct, even if the execution sucked.
The blogger community has been campaigning for years for the Twins to spend some of their pitching depth from the system to acquire some right-handed hitting. The principles behind the _elm_n trade were roughly correct, even if the execution sucked.
I don't even think that the idea behind the trade was legit. Trading two up-the-middle players for two corner players is generally going to be a losing proposition.
And while in the past maybe (maybe) it would have made sense for the Twins to trade a starting pitcher for a hitter (maybe), I really don't think you can make that argument for that offseason. We were losing 33-35 starts a year out of Santana and we absolutely can't replace starting pitching effectively by using the free agent market. Even had we kept Garza last year, it's not like we would have had a surplus of starting pitchers. Not signing Livan would've opened up a spot in the rotation for Garza, or we could've moved Boof to the 'pen earlier in the season.
It's not true in general that you can never have enough pitching, but I don't think that the Twins have ever had so much pitching that trading away a league average starter wouldn't hurt them at all in their rotation. It clearly hurt their rotation last year and Garza would have the best xFIP in our rotation this year. Giving up pitchers is going to hurt your run prevention and if you can out-scout the other team and get more overall talent in return by trading a pitcher for a position player, then go right ahead, but it's not like we had so much pitching depth that losing a starter wasn't going to hurt us.
The only thing that makes this trade not spectacularly dumb is that at the time you couldn't say for sure that Delmon would hit as poorly as he has so far. While I didn't buy into the idea that Delmon had worlds of unquestionable talent, he shouldn't have been this bad either. (I mean, if he was average defensively this year and hit as well as he did in 2006, he'd be pretty close to Garza (if he's a league average starter) in value.)
And I don't think anyone thought Delmon would be this thoroughly bad, so I'm willing to give the Twins a bit of a pass on that. On the other hand, corner players (especially undeveloped ones) are riskier assets than up-the-middle players, and I didn't like the risk that they took in the trade at the time, and it's not looking any better right now.
I don't want to get into the business of defending that trade. But at the end of the 2007 season, we had Baker, Bonser and Blackburn (all 25), Perkins (24), Garza and Slowey (both 23), all with significant ML experience, and a hoped-for return from the F-Bomb (23). Brian Duensing (24) performed pretty well after being promoted to Rochester. Ryan Mullins and Yohan Pino (both 23) and kiddies Swarzak, Sosa and Waldrop (all 21) were at New Britain.
I recognize that none of those guys in the minors were necessarily viewed as future stars. But certainly compared to the stock of credible near-term corner OFers or 3bs, it seemed like an embarrassment of riches.
The only thing that makes this trade not spectacularly dumb is that at the time you couldn't say for sure that Delmon would hit as poorly as he has so far. Tru dat.
Frankly, when it comes to pitching, I don't think that ought to be viewed as an embarrassment of riches. The only guys in that group who could be viewed as league average or better starters were Baker, Garza, Slowey, Liriano, and Blackburn. And at the time, it was much less certain that Blackburn would be as good as he is now (this has pretty much been an absolute best-case scenario for him.) Perkins has always had control problems and I don't think he's going to be a league average starter. I'm a Bonser apologist, but he's a below average starting pitcher. Duensing will be replacement-level at best. Yohan Pino might make a decent relief pitcher some day, but I don't see him making it as a major league starter. Swarzak's FIP is 5.62 right now, and his minor league track record doesn't support him pitching much better than that going forward. Oswaldo Sosa has significant walk problems and probably won't make it as a starter. Mullins hasn't ever really done anything to deserve the hype he gets in some corners. He'll be lucky to have Boof Bonser's career.
While I'm willing to admit that I might be slightly pessimistic about Perkins (though deep down, I don't really think so), none of our pitchers after Baker, Garza, Slowey, Liriano, and Blackburn projected to be anything better than replacement level in the majors. They were non-prospects. (And it's not like some of us didn't expect the pitching depth to thin out. At the time that Santana was being shopped, I was in favor of seeking deals that included at least one stud pitching prospect.)
So you're looking at a group of 5, maybe 6, decent major league pitchers, and pitchers get injured a lot. You usually need at least 5-10 starts each from a 6th and 7th pitcher to make it through the season, and sometimes pitchers are catastrophically injured. (Remember around 2001 when Mays and Milton were supposed to be anchoring our rotation with Radke for many seasons to come?)
Even just separate from the trade itself, I think that people really overestimate how much pitching we have at any given point in time. A lot of names down on the farm sound good while they are down on the farm, but when it comes down to it, only the very, very, very best prospects even turn out to be mediocre starting pitchers. It's really difficult to develop one of those and we gave one away in Garza, which is much different than giving away someone like Bonser or Perkins or whoever.
There was very good reason at the time of the trade to believe that trading Garza would significantly hurt our rotation. Those who thought we would be able to magically replace his contributions were drastically overestimating the talent we had in the minors. And people complain about third base and corner outfield positions a lot, but it's a lot easier to find credible free agents like Crede on the free agent market than it is to find a comparably valuable starting pitcher.