All Things 2022-2023 Minnesota Twins Off-Season Thread

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Gophers1992 said:
Scoring runs and driving in runs obviously are helpful in winning games (duh), but evaluating a player's ability by looking at his RBI total is highly flawed, because it is determined by so many external factors like how often guys are on base in front of you, where you hit in the order, etc.

If a guy over the course of a season has 300 guys on base in his at bats, and drives in 100 runs, and another guy only has 200 on base but drives in 85, it would be unfair to give player #1 more credit.

Long story short, runs matter, but RBI is a bad comparative statistic.
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I don't disagree for the most part on what you're saying. I do think it needs to be considered simply due to the fact that hitters are approached, and pitched to entirely different depending on if there are runners on base and where those runners might be. How you hit in those situations does matter. It is, arguably, harder to hit when runners are on base. By the way, I think this is one of the top reasons that baseball is enjoyable to watch. When you know more about what is going on behind the curtain, it is a better watch. Baseball has a lot of chess going on throughout a game. All my opinion.
 

GopherPoke said:
For the sake of off-season talk, can you please explain why RBI should not be a measure in evaluating a hitter? Not The measure, but A measure. I think in the age of shifting, especially, how a hitter does with runners on, RBI do matter. I know it's not a new argument, but it has always puzzled me.
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The puzzlement is because it is idiotic. Everything matters and should be used to evaluate players in any sport. It's like the dummies that say free throws don't matter. Everything matters. Some more than others of course but being able to knock runners in is an obvious plus.
 

tikited said:
The puzzlement is because it is idiotic. Everything matters and should be used to evaluate players in any sport. It's like the dummies that say free throws don't matter. Everything matters. Some more than others of course but being able to knock runners in is an obvious plus.
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You are confusing the concepts of whether runs matter or not (of course they do), with the idea that RBI is a good determining factor of whether a player is a great player or not.
 

GopherPoke said:
I don't disagree for the most part on what you're saying. I do think it needs to be considered simply due to the fact that hitters are approached, and pitched to entirely different depending on if there are runners on base and where those runners might be. How you hit in those situations does matter. It is, arguably, harder to hit when runners are on base. By the way, I think this is one of the top reasons that baseball is enjoyable to watch. When you know more about what is going on behind the curtain, it is a better watch. Baseball has a lot of chess going on throughout a game. All my opinion.
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How a guy hits with runners on base and/or in scoring position definitely matters, and there are much better statistics to evaluate that rather than RBI.
 




Gophers1992 said:
You are confusing the concepts of whether runs matter or not (of course they do), with the idea that RBI is a good determining factor of whether a player is a great player or not.
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I'm not though. Everything matters. Wins and losses for pitchers isn't the end all stat but it shows a lot. Same with HR's. Same with free throws taken and made, etc.. Guys who consistently get 100+ rbi are good hitters right off the bat (pun intended).
 

tikited said:
I'm not though. Everything matters. Wins and losses for pitchers isn't the end all stat but it shows a lot. Same with HR's. Same with free throws taken and made, etc.. Guys who consistently get 100+ rbi are good hitters right off the bat (pun intended).
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Everyone who confuses correlation with causation ends up dead.
 







Usually the best hitters have high RBI numbers. Partly because they're the best hitters and partly because they usually hit in a spot in the lineup that gives them the most chances to drive in runs.
 




Gophers1992 said:
I'm no doctor but it's hard to not be skeptical after two teams turned him away.
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Reports have been both teams were no longer happy with the 12 and 13 year lengths of the offers. Supposedly the Mets still offered him a 6 year deal. And that the concern is more into the future.

I like the Twins contract. If he ends up being injury prone, you're done in 6 years. If he ends up still playing well, they you potentially have him for 10.
 

On RBI's. I'm an old-school guy. I can understand some of the analytical arguments, but part of me is still a 9-year-old kid who loves baseball - and the traditional 'counting' stats still mean something to me.

they still give an award to the player with the highest batting average - one of the counting stats. the player who hits the most HR's still gets a lot of attention. so it seems odd to me that, of the traditional counting stats, RBI seems to fallen out of favor with the analytics crowd.

in the simplest terms - if there is a runner on base, and you drive him in with a hit or a sac fly, you have produced a run for your team. that is still a good thing, right? the team with the most runs still wins.

if you say RBI's have no meaning, the ghost of Hack Wilson is going to hit you over the head with a keg of beer.
 









GopherVotary said:
Tell that to Ted Williams after they thaw out his head.
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www.todayifoundout.com

The Strange Fate of Ted's Head

The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Ted Williams’s lifelong dream was to be known as “the greatest hitter who ever lived.” It’s sad, then, that today many people know him as “that baseball player who got cryonically frozen.” HEADING FOR HOME In the summer of 2001, some...
www.todayifoundout.com www.todayifoundout.com
 

#2Gopher said:
www.todayifoundout.com

The Strange Fate of Ted's Head

The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Ted Williams’s lifelong dream was to be known as “the greatest hitter who ever lived.” It’s sad, then, that today many people know him as “that baseball player who got cryonically frozen.” HEADING FOR HOME In the summer of 2001, some...
www.todayifoundout.com www.todayifoundout.com
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Alcor’s home office gives new meaning to the term “headquarters.”
 

howeda7 said:
God Bless Judge Harry Crump.

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Reusse on a podcast last week told a story about how Bud Selig confided in him that the whole contraction threat was nothing more than a smoke & mirrors threat to spur this market into building a stadium.

Apparently very little chance it was going to come to fruition.
 

Ope3 said:
Reusse on a podcast last week told a story about how Bud Selig confided in him that the whole contraction threat was nothing more than a smoke & mirrors threat to spur this market into building a stadium.

Apparently very little chance it was going to come to fruition.
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Does Selig have a habit of going to cities and finding loud mouthed slobs to confide his secrets?
 

Ope3 said:
Reusse on a podcast last week told a story about how Bud Selig confided in him that the whole contraction threat was nothing more than a smoke & mirrors threat to spur this market into building a stadium.

Apparently very little chance it was going to come to fruition.
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Not sure I buy that. Easy to say 20 years after the fact.
 

howeda7 said:
Not sure I buy that. Easy to say 20 years after the fact.
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FWIW, the story that Reusse was telling was from when he met with Selig in is office for when Milwaukee hosted the All Star Game so that would have been in 2002. I don't think he's making it up. He's been on good terms with Selig going back to the early 70s.

Personally, I do not think Contraction was ever going to happen. Too complicated of a thing to work out with the Players Union. They had just expanded 3 years earlier. I have trouble picturing the Owners giving all that dough back and then some to buy out the Twins & Expos and just ending them.

Relocation on the other hand was certainly a possibility, as the Expos moved to Washington, ironically where the Twins had bailed from in 1961. I do think it would have been tough to move from as big of a market as the Twin Cities, but it just would have taken 1 city to step up with a stadium solution.

Looking forward, I hope Montreal get's a team back in the next round of expansion, though they probably rank behind Las Vegas (angling for the A's) & Nashville. Could come down to Montreal vs Portland.
 

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