Archive for twins

Building an MLB roster is anything but simple, to say the least.

It would be very convenient if it was as easy as playing MLB: The Show, but as we are well aware of, there are many complexities to roster construction. Not only do organizations need to have high-end talent, but they also need to have 26 quality big-leaguers as well other players in the pipeline when adversity hits.

In a perfect world, teams would be able to have tons of star talent as well as intriguing depth. However, we do not live in a perfect world, and for that reason, teams need to adopt a specific strategy when it comes to building the best roster possible in the most efficient way imaginable.

Teams have generally two courses: will they prioritize star talent, or will they look to have as deep a team as possible? The first option is typically known as the “stars and scrubs” approach, and it is one that you see often see in basketball. Meanwhile, the latter approach is one that you’ll see with sports with deeper rosters, primarily football. Overall, both methods are used frequently by teams, but it is unclear which one is the more efficient when it comes to roster building.

What good is there to posing a problem if we aren’t going to find the answer for it? We need to dig deep into these two approaches! Should teams prioritize star talent even if it means their depth is lacking? Or is quantity more valuable than quality? Let us try to discover the answer to this critical question! Read the rest of this entry »

In a continuation of my article from yesterday, here is part two of the MLB Dream Team. This article will showcase spots six through nine in the batting order as well as the starting pitcher.

Enjoy!

Batting sixth and playing second base…

Robinson Cano

64.4 career WAR / 50.3 7yr-peak WAR / 57.4 JAWS

Average HOF 2B:

69.4 career WAR / 44.5 7yr-peak WAR / 56.9 JAWS

9th in JAWS out of 20 Hall of Fame Second basemen

Accolades: 8x All-Star, 2x Gold Glove, 5x Silver Slugger, World Series Champion (2009)

For many years, Robinson Cano has been in the conversation as the best second baseman in baseball.

He was an integral part of the New York Yankees 2009 championship squad, and he parlayed his five All-Star appearances with the Bronx Bombers into a 10-year, $240-million contract with the Mariners in 2014. Cano hasn’t lost his luster since leaving New York for Seattle, and he has made three All-Star Games (so far) with the Mariners.

Cano had to beat out Chase Utley and Dustin Pedroia — two likely Hall of Famers in their own right — to earn his position at the keystone sack in this lineup. Ultimately, Cano received the nod because of his sustained excellence. He has played at least 156 games every year since 2007, a level of health that neither Pedroia nor Utley can match.

Cano has also redefined the second-base position because of his ability to hit for average and power. Among Hall of Fame second basemen, Cano’s average of 25 home runs per season ranks second and his 296 career home runs ranks third. In a few years Cano should hold the record for career long balls by a second baseman, and he should be known as the greatest power hitting second baseman of all time.

Batting seventh and playing center field…

Carlos Beltran

70.3 career WAR / 44.3 7yr-peak WAR / 57.3 JAWS

Average HOF CF:

71.2 career WAR / 44.6 7yr-peak WAR / 57.9 JAWS

8th in JAWS out of 19 Hall of Fame Center Fielders

Accolades: Rookie of the Year (1999), 9x All-Star, 3x Gold Glove, 2x Silver Slugger

Carlos Beltran, always a reliable asset, is now in his 20th season. Beltran has been every archetype an athlete can be: young star (Royals); decisive deadline acquisition (Astros); hero (Mets); scapegoat (Mets again); veteran contributor (Giants, Cardinals, Yankees, Rangers); and experienced old-timer (Astros again). Beltran was the fifth-youngest in the majors when he debuted in 1998, and now he’s the third-oldest player in the league.

Beltran came into the majors as a 21-year-old kid for the Kansas City Royals, and immediately showcased his skills by taking home Rookie of the Year honors.

After seven years in Kansas City, Beltran signed with the New York Mets in 2005. It was in New York that Beltran would spend the prime of his career, making five All-Star appearances and taking home three Gold Gloves. Beltran proved to be one of the best players in the Major Leagues from 2006 to 2008, crushing 37 homers, driving in 124 runs, and scoring 123 (per 162 games).

Beltran has aged well, making All-Star teams as members of the Giants, Cardinals, and Yankees since leaving the Mets in 2011. However, the 40-year-old has shown signs of decline this year, and he may decide to hang up his spikes in the near future. Beltran left a lasting impression on the game of baseball, and his 20 years of service deserve a place in Cooperstown.

Batting eighth and catching…

Joe Mauer

51.4 career WAR / 38.5 7yr-peak WAR / 45.0 JAWS

Average HOF C:

53.4 career WAR / 34.4 7yr-peak WAR / 43.9 JAWS

8th in JAWS out of 15 Hall of Fame Catchers

Accolades: MVP (2009), 6x All-Star, 3x Gold Glove, 5x Silver Slugger

Even though Joe Mauer has not caught a game since 2013, he spent 10 seasons and 920 games behind the dish.

Mauer was truly one of the finest offensive backstops ever, and in 2009 he became only the second catcher since 1980 to win MVP (Ivan Rodriguez was the first in 1999). In Mauer’s MVP season, he led the majors in batting average (.365) and on-base percentage (.444), both of which were records for catchers. He also led the AL in slugging (.587), OPS (1.031) and Offensive WAR (7.6). In addition to his MVP, Mauer was the first AL catcher to win the batting title and he holds the record for most batting titles by a catcher, with three.

As well as being one of the league’s finest hitters, Mauer was a force to be reckoned with behind the plate. His great instincts and fielding prowess earned him three straight Gold Gloves from 2008 to 2010, and his 99.51% career fielding percentage ranks seventh all-time among catchers.

Although Mauer’s body has declined over the years, he has performed well since being moved to first base in 2014, and has not made an error this year in 69 games.

Mauer will leave a legacy as one of the greatest hitting catchers ever, and he has earned his place in the Hall of Fame.

Batting ninth at shortstop…

Troy Tulowitzki

44.0 career WAR / 40.0 7yr-peak WAR / 42.0 JAWS

Average HOF SS:

66.7 career WAR / 42.8 7yr-peak WAR / 54.8 JAWS

26th in JAWS out of 21 Hall of Fame Shortstops

Accolades: 5x All-Star, 2x Gold Glove, 2x Silver Slugger

This is the hardest decision on the roster, because in my opinion there aren’t any Hall-of-Fame-worthy shortstops in the majors right now. Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter, the two best shortstops of this generation, have retired in the past two years.

I ended up choosing Troy Tulowitzki because he has the best chance of any shortstop in the majors to make it to the Hall.

There were a few ways I could have gone with this pick. At first I considered moving Chase Utley to short, and then I looked at the plethora of up-and-coming shortstops (Carlos Correa, Corey Seager, Francisco Lindor; to name a few).

Ultimately, I chose Tulowitzki — but this would have been a much easier decision if Tulo had stayed healthy during his career. During his prime years with the Rockies between 2007 and 2014, Tulowitzki averaged a respectable 4.8 WAR per season. However, he missed an average of 45 games per year (!) during that period. If you extrapolate his numbers to 154 games (meaning he would miss 8 games per year), he would have recorded 6.7 WAR per season, boosting his JAWS from 42.0 to 50.0.

Although Tulowitzki didn’t stay healthy most of the time, his impact while he was on the field was undoubted, and he deserves Hall of Fame consideration.

And your starting pitcher for tonight…

Clayton Kershaw

58.8 career WAR / 48.7 7yr-peak WAR / 53.8 JAWS

Average HOF P:

73.9 career WAR / 50.3 7yr-peak WAR / 62.1 JAWS

60th in JAWS out of 62 Hall of Fame Pitchers

Accolades: Pitching Triple Crown (2011), MVP (2014), 3x Cy Young (2011, 2013, 2014), 7x All-Star, 1x Gold Glove

Clayton Kershaw, in my opinion, is the best pitcher in the game right now. He has been terrorizing opposing hitters since coming up as a 20-year-old with the Dodgers in 2008.

Kershaw achieved the Pitching Triple Crown in 2011, when he led the league in ERA, wins, and strikeouts. In 2014, Kershaw joined Roger Clemens and Sandy Koufax as just the third player in baseball history to win three Cy Young awards and an MVP.

Kershaw has finished as an All-Star and a top-five Cy Young award finisher in each of the past six seasons, a nearly unparalleled run of dominance, and he has already attained a career’s worth of honors at just 29 years old.

Supposing Kershaw retires at age 37, he has eight years remaining in his career. If we extrapolate his season average of 5.7 WAR to seven more years, then his current WAR of 57.0 jumps to 102.6, which places him as the ninth best pitcher of all time, a very fair assessment.

Kershaw has the lowest career ERA of any starter since 1920* (2.35), and he deserves a plaque in Cooperstown.

*Baseball-Reference defines a starting pitcher as a player whose starts make up 60% of their appearances. Minimum of 50 Innings Pitched.

Special thanks to baseball-reference.com for all of these helpful stats. I could not have written this article without them.

Imagine for a second that MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred has gone senile. I know that’s a ridiculous premise, and this is sure to be a ridiculous post, but bear with me. Commissioner Manfred, perhaps after a long night of choice MLB-sponsored adult beverages, has placed the Minnesota Twins in the playoffs. Yes, the same Twins of the .364 win percentage and facial hair promotional days. What is the probability that they make or win the World Series? For simplicity, let’s say they take the place of both AL Wild Card teams and are just inserted into the divisional playoffs.

We are going to look at a bunch of ways of estimating the probability the Twins win a five-game series or a seven-game series, then multiply our results accordingly to find an estimate for the team reaching each round. We’ll start simply, and gradually progress to more complicated methods of estimation. Let’s start as simply as possible, then, and use the Twins’ .364 win percentage.  The probability of the Twins winning a five-game series (at least three out of five games) is 25.7%. The same process gives them a 22.4% chance of winning a seven-game series. Multiplying these out gives the Twins a 5.8% chance of reaching the World Series (roughly 1 in 17) and a 1.3% chance of winning it. For reference, those are nearly the same odds FanGraphs gave the Mets of reaching/winning the World Series on October 2nd. Of course, those Mets also had to get through the Wild Card round (and the greatest frat boy to ever pitch a playoff game), but failed to do so.

Okay, so maybe you didn’t like that method because we included the Twins’ entire regular season, instead of just including games against playoff teams. Noted, but just understand that the Twins had basically the same win percentage against playoff teams (.365) as their overall percentage. Just to note, I defined playoff teams as the six division winners plus the four wild card teams. Using the Twins’ percentage against playoff teams yields identical probabilities as above.

How else can we attack this problem? Well, the Twins played 162 games this year, which means they have 158 different five-game stretches and 156 seven-game stretches. Over all those five-game rolling “series”, the Twins won at least three games 24.1% of the time, and they won at least four games in 25% of their seven-game tilts. Multiplying those figures out gives them a 6% chance of reaching the World Series and a 1.5% chance of becoming world champs.

Again, those numbers are unsatisfying because they include all teams, not just the playoff teams. However, removing the non-playoff teams leaves us with a bit of a sample issue because they played 52 games against playoff teams. So, let’s change the problem slightly: what is the probability that a last-place team can reach, and win, the World Series? The teams I’ll be considering all finished in last in their respective divisions: Twins, Athletics, Rays, Braves, Reds, and Padres. Cumulatively, these teams had a win percentage of .412, won 37.4% of their games against playoff teams, won at least three games in 30.6% of their five-game stretches, and won at least four out of seven 29.9% of the time. You can multiply these percentages out and get some answers.

I’m still not satisfied, so there is one more tool I’m gonna break out: a bootstrap simulation. Bootstrapping basically means sampling with replacement, which means every time I randomly choose a game from the sample, that game is thrown back in and has the same exact chance of getting picked again. This resampling with replacement process gives the bootstrap some pretty useful properties that I won’t get into here, but you can check here for more info.

I’m going to put all the games the last-place teams played against playoff teams into a pile. I’m going to randomly sample five games from that pile, with replacement, and count how many games were wins. I’m going to do this 100,000 times. I will then divide the number of samples that included at least three wins by the total number of samples, giving me an estimated probability of these last-place teams winning a five-game series against a playoff team. I will repeat this process for a seven-game series.

The bootstrap probability of a last-place team winning a five-game series against a playoff team was 27%. The probability of them winning a seven-game series was 24%. They have a 6.5% chance of reaching the World Series and 1.6% chance of winning it.

Honestly, these probabilities are lower than I expected. I have believed in and learned to embrace the randomness of the MLB postseason. I went into this post expecting the outcome to highlight just how random the postseason really is, even absurdly so. However, the randomness of the postseason really depends on the extremely small differences between all the teams at the top, so inserting teams from the very bottom of the league introduces a level of certainty that would be new to the playoffs. However, imagine repeating a similar exercise for the NFL or NBA. The 27% or so chance I’d give the Twins of advancing seems much higher than the probability of, say, the Cleveland Browns winning a playoff game if inserted into the postseason.

My methodology was clearly very simple, but intentionally so. I gave no acknowledgement to a home-field advantage adjustment, and I looked only at the team’s W-L record. A more complex method could have taken into consideration Pythagorean Expectation or BaseRuns.

This was a ridiculous post and ultimately a meaningless exercise. The Twins probably couldn’t reach the World Series if they were placed in the playoffs, but I’ll point out that as of this writing (October 10th during Game 3 of Nationals-Dodgers) the Cubs also probably won’t reach the World Series. Baseball is a weird and wonderful sport, and the postseason is the weirdest and most wonderful time of the year. If the Twins could conceivably reach the World Series as currently constructed, don’t think too hard about what’s happening and just enjoy.

Dynasty leagues test the deepest mettle of a fantasy baseball owner. Most good dynasty leagues have a lot of strong owners who have a pretty good view of ballplayers. The key to being a successful dynasty owner is to find players who are undervalued by others. If you can add players to your roster at a relatively cheap cost who have positive net returns for you, you are ahead of everyone else who was unwilling to roster that player.

The American League Central has many up-and-coming, talented players with names like Lindor, Buxton, Kepler, Rodon, Sano, and more. However, one player whose stardust has worn off is Oswaldo Arcia. This stocky Twins outfielder is still only 24 years of age, but with lots of youth coming up in Minnesota he has been surpassed in GM Terry Ryan’s eyes. This does not mean that you, as a dynasty league GM, should be overlooking him. Arcia’s calling card has always been his power, coming from a smooth lefty swing and a strong lower half. 2013 saw him hit 14 homers in a debut effort with the Twins, and 2014 saw 20 more homers at the big-league level. It was not to be in 2015, however, as he struggled mightily with injuries and strikeouts. Strikeouts will be an issue for most power hitters, and Arcia is no exception. However, it is tantalizing power that should draw you as a dynasty owner in. There are two scenarios here: One, Arcia is owned by an owner disgusted by his recent performance and selling low, or two, he is available on the waiver wire. Either way, he is a guy to go get right away, and with a further look, it should be obvious why you need to go out and acquire him.

The Twins have a crowded outfield; they had a crowded outfield last year, and it is not getting any better with Max Kepler coming into the picture. DH is going to be held down with some combination of Miguel Sano and Joe Mauer, and Arcia is going to have to have a monster spring to find playing time. Weird, I’m telling you to go get him, yet I’m telling you that he won’t play?? Think about it: This is an opportunity to buy dirt-cheap low on a player. There were reports out of Rochester, the Twins’ AAA affiliate, of him hitting 450 foot homers. I saw one of them myself. The talent is certainly there.

At this point, I should warn that some wonder about an attitude problem. This can be chalked up to early big-league success followed by struggles. All this kid needs is a change of scenery. He plays an only slightly below-average left field, although he is more comfortable in right, and has an accurate throwing arm from the outfield. His defense isn’t bad enough to keep him out of lineups, and even if it becomes so, he can still DH. A trade to any other team in the American League would give this powerful 24-year-old a chance at reaching his potential. He has been in the Twins organization since he was 16. He was a top-100 prospect prior to 2013 according to BA, BP, and MLB.com. He has been around so long that his younger brother Orlando, a shortstop prospect for the Brewers, has taken the entire spotlight. Don’t let the younger bro overshadow the older — Oswaldo is a power bat who can hit 30 homers in a season given 145 games. He will have to sit against the toughest lefties, the Chris Sales of the world, but what lefty finds guys like that easy? It is a tremendous buy-low opportunity for any dynasty team looking for upside; it is not often you find a guy with 70+ raw power that has shown it in games just lying around on the cheap. Go get him now, and you won’t regret it!

The 2015 MLB season has been filled with plenty of surprises thus far. The Twins have maintained their hot start, and currently hold the first wildcard spot in the AL. The NL Central has been highly competitive, with three teams in position to make the playoffs should the season end today. The Padres have been a huge disappointment (although I never fully bought into them), and may be sellers at the deadline just seven months after making the biggest splashes of the winter. Sleeper picks Cleveland and Seattle might as well have been asleep the first half of the year, both putting together extremely underwhelming performances and effectively ending their postseason hopes.

But no over- or under-achieving organization quite took the league by storm like the Houston Astros. They began the year hotter than any team in baseball besides St. Louis, finishing May with a record of 32-20 and a four-game lead over the second-place Angels. In their last 43 games, however, it has been a much different story. They have gone 20-23, enduring one seven-game losing streak in June, and they began the second half on a six-game losing streak (also losers of 8 of their last 9). Back in mid May, amidst all the frenzy over the already anointed playoff bound Astros, I began to wonder what was propelling this team to victory. It was clear that although their starting pitching doesn’t blow anyone away with immense velocity or stuff, they had a set of guys who were displaying that they knew how to pitch and could hold their own in a MLB rotation. Here are the splits on the Astros’ starting pitching, using May 31^st as the divider.

I made sure that only active players on the Astros’ roster were included due to the fact that there are many insignificant players whose numbers would have been included in the splits because of spring training. The ERA and FIP numbers are very similar, as are the BABIP and LOB% stats. The two interesting changes are the increase in strikeouts and the simultaneous increase in walks. Walks lead to runs, and since the Astros have not been great offensively, the more free passes given out the more likely they will be playing from behind in games. While Dallas Keuchel has been extraordinary, and Lance McCullers has been solid as a rookie, their rotation doesn’t seem to have enough to strike fear into opposing team’s hearts (see 1990’s Atlanta Braves).

They do however appear to have a solid bullpen, possessing the 4^th best ERA at 2.67 and the 4^th best LOB% at 80%. Their recent scuffles have them at an overall record of 49-42, currently a half game back of the Angels. According to the computers, they have a 55.3% chance of making the playoffs in some capacity this year, and are expected to finish with a record of 84-78 — good enough to win a wild card spot. The computer’s calculations aren’t always perfect, so it is safe to say that there is definitely a margin of error here, although I cannot say for certain what that number might be (probably ±3-4 wins). Regardless of what the analysts are saying, I believe they WILL NOT make the postseason. Why? Because history is not on their side.

After a lot of hard work entering in all of the numbers by hand, I finally have created a table that houses several statistics from all playoff teams starting in 1995 when the wild card was introduced. Take a look at these numbers:

If the season were to end today, and the Astros made the playoffs, they would have some heavy outliers among the last 20 years worth of playoff teams. They would have the second lowest batting average, the highest K%, and the lowest OBP. Their ISO is well above average, but the fact that they run such a low OBP means that those extra base hits won’t increase their expected run totals very much; you need guys on base to score runs. Their average walk rate is to be expected based on the lineup they have assembled. They have a lot of what I would call “hackers,” guys who go up and take massive cuts trying to crush the ball — Chris Carter, Evan Gattis, Luis Valbuena, and Colby Rasmus to name a few. The only way this lineup gets worse in the ‘K’ department is if you bring Adam Dunn back from the dead and trade for Mark Reynolds. My point is simple: there has never been such a boom or bust type of team to make the playoffs, at least not one this extreme. Even if they were to acquire a frontline starting pitcher like Johnny Cueto or Cole Hamels, I do not believe that their lineup would be able to support the pitching staff enough to catapult them into the postseason.

Only time will tell what happens with the darlings of the MLB this season. They have a strong core, and a bright future, with many top prospects making their debut this season and even more right on the doorstep. Jeff Luhnow has done an incredible job building this team, and there is no doubt that they will be contenders in the AL West for many years to come. Yet, while they are not the same Astros of recent memory, they are not quite ready to make the postseason. This may not be a bad thing, though. As Yogi Berra once said, “You can observe a lot by watching.”