Too much station-to-station baseball. Not enough speed and athleticism on the roster. Only way they can score is on homers. Can't manufacture runs.
MLB: ***2024 Minnesota Twins***
- Thread starter Marcelason78
- Start date
From the Athletic:
The Twins are one of just two teams in the league who have yet to reach double-digit stolen bases, along with the Rockies. A couple of clod-footed clubs. The Twins, though, are unique. They’re getting on base three times out of 10, ranking 27th in OBP. But they’ve been among the top half of the league in runs scored.
That's not exactly a recipe for long term success unless the pitching staff handles the burden.
The Twins are one of just two teams in the league who have yet to reach double-digit stolen bases, along with the Rockies. A couple of clod-footed clubs. The Twins, though, are unique. They’re getting on base three times out of 10, ranking 27th in OBP. But they’ve been among the top half of the league in runs scored.
That's not exactly a recipe for long term success unless the pitching staff handles the burden.
The Twins have two of the fastest guys in the league and Rocco doesn’t run either one.
The starting pitching has been great, but take out the games against the Royals and all of a sudden the record doesn't look so good.
I really don't like Rocco. I swear he would pinch hit Homer Simpson for Daryl Strawberry for the righty lefty advantage.
I'm fed up. Let's just move on from Rocco before too much more damage is done. The season is still quite salvageable but they need to act quickly.
The sad thing is the Twins are anything but a clod-footed club. They are a team with some good speed but a manager that apparently thinks he’s got a team full of Kyle Schwarbers.
Can Buxton truly run though? Or will it just speed his inevitable season ending trip to the IL?
Have actually watched about an inning an a half this year thanks to the blackout rules, but it seems like from what I read on Twitter he's constantly grimacing and laboring every time he legs an XB hit out.
I’ve seen about ten games thus far and Buxton looks healthy to me. They probably don’t run him because the Twins are paranoid about injury. Why Rocco doesn’t run anybody else is a question.
Outside of Buxton there there's not much for options. Pretty much Taylor, who has 5 fwiw, and Gordon who would actually have to make it on base to steal one.
Buxton is healthy by all accounts. Looks pretty good running so far from what I have seen.
I get it, he’s super valuable in the lineup. But at the same time his value and what it does to their roster if he’s going to be a DH that doesn’t run is drastically different. As a CF with that offensive production he’s a top 5 player in the league. As a DH he’s still a very good player, but the result is the Twins have to sacrifice hitting or defense elsewhere.
They don’t have a ton of choice. He just has never stayed healthy, and so far so good. But the shot the Twins have at doing anything in the post season would probably hinge on great offensive production from two premium defensive positions. With Buxton at DH and Correa struggling, they are going to be just a decent team lucky to stay above .500 in a dogcrap division.
One reason the Twins don't attempt many stolen bases is that there is only a small plus in analytics between running and scoring runs. In fact, the Twins main problem is not getting runners into scoring position. They are trying to focus on the issue of getting hits at key moments in the game. They believe that their struggles in these situations is due to poor strike zone management. There is no quick fix to hitting issues, but getting 3 or 4 guys back on track can be contagious and do wonders for the offense.
That is true from the past, but analytics with the new rules don't really exist yet. Larger bases, limits on pitchers step off, even the pitch clock will all change those analytics.
The bigger issue is the timely hitting, but I'm guessing there is a much bugger plus in the stolen base analytics now.
Yeah, I wonder if/when he'll show up in CF. Just seems to have been persistent chatter from some of the Twins Daily crew that he looks...odd...when he dials it up on the basepaths. But I can't watch, so I can't vouch.
And what people seem to always miss is that even before the rule changes analytics is more about guiding roster-building. It readjusted values of different skills. One of those was devaluing base stealers vs strikeout-prone guys that hit homers and walk.
Analytics never suggested that if you ended up with fast guys that can’t get on base or hit for power that they should play station to station. It’s like analytics in basketball that emphasize the three. That means go get shooters. It doesn’t mean have your bad shooters Jack up a bunch of threes.
The other major thing people miss with analytics is those changes in valuation of skills pertains to getting into the playoffs over 162 games where you are facing #4-5 starters, bad staffs and bullpen days. In the playoffs that gets flipped on its head and it becomes all about contact rate. Building a team with a bunch of fat ass mistake-crushing foot in the bucket DH pull hitters batting .210 doesn’t work when the rotations go to three guys from good teams and the bullpens are the top of the league.
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So far, but he’ll come around.
Key will be if they can minimize Gordon in the box and Pagone on the mound because other guys are producing.