Dayn Perry is a moron

by cmathewson on Jul 3, 2008 11:25 PM EDT Comment 11 comments

This is not the first time I've written that. And I'm sure it won't be the last. But a recent column by Fox Sports' village idiot hit close enough to home for me to write it again. Dayn Perry is a moron. Feels good, doesn't it? One more time, Dayn Perry is a moron. Ah, I feel better already.

I feel good enough to put down the put downs and pick up some reasoning. So here goes. Perry uses a clever combination of talent evaluation and stats to demonstrate that the Twins have been extraordinarily lucky this year. Let's start with talent evaluation. The Twins won 79 games last year with largely the same talent, except that team had Torii Hunter in center field and both Johan Santana and Carlos Silva in the rotation. He says, truthfully, that the only one of those three to return anything in trade was Santana, and that that return was widely panned. He also points out that Francisco Liriano was returned to the minors after three disastrous starts. And he notices truthfully that Pat Neshek is lost for the season with an elbow injury. So it is almost beyond belief that the team is on a pace to win 90 games, 12 more than it won with its now-departed best player and best pitcher.

So how is it that everything he says is true, yet the Twins appear to be more talented than they were last year? As usual for Perry, he only presents the side of the argument that supports his opinion. He doesn't say anything about the talent the Twins added since last year. He says nothing about Nick Blackburn, Kevin Slowey, Glen Perkins, Carlos Gomez, Alexi Casilla, Delmon Young, Brian Buscher, Brendan Harris or any of the other additions to the team.

When you only present facts that support your side of the argument and you don't even consider facts that run contrary to it, you run the risk of making yourself look like a fool. Perry surely did that with his talent evaluation.

Just as he only presents one side of the argument in his talent evaluation, he also ignores crucial facts when delving into a numerical analysis. His main argument seems to be that the Twins' record is three games below their Pythagorean. Therefore, the Twins are due for a regression. It is true that teams statistically tend towards their Pythagorean.

But any evaluation of the team's Pythagorean must take into account trends, not mere year-long averages. Since the team added Alexi Casilla, it has been playing at or above its Pythagorean, and that trend is accelerating as the team adds other pieces such as Buscher and as both Gomez and Young develop at the major league level. In short, arguing that a team will regress to its Pythagorean only works with stable rosters and teams that have not shown significant improvement month to month in the ratio of its record to its Pythagorean. But this team is outscoring its opponents well above its record, particularly during this streak. There is no statistical reason to think that the trend will not continue.

The upshot is, you guessed it, Dayn Perry is a moron. But not from lack of trying and not from writing anything false. His fallacy is to stack the deck in the favor of his arguments without any consideration for facts that dispute his argument. A more reasonable position is to consider all the facts before jumping to conclusions. It's just too much work for some of these writers to actually do the research and find out why a team appears to be playing above its head. It's far easier just to spout the same old tired facts you gathered in the off season, toss in a collection of stats and call it a day. That's a recipe for making yourself into a moron.

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Well, I haven't read the piece

But it seems to me that the Twins have been lucky; or if you don’t like that word, then they have had preternaturally good timing.

The basis of my argument is that they have scored more runs than their run elements would suggest. They have done so because they have hit unusually well with runners on base and in scoring position. It COULD be that this is a matter of skill, but it seems to me more likely to be luck. I hope it continues.

As for Perry, I think his name is Dayn (no “e” at thte end).

by Eric in Madison on Jul 4, 2008 10:57 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

I don't like the word lucky...

but I’ll take it as long as the Twins are only 2 games back in the AL Central and in the Wildcard race.

The only issue with the Twins being called “lucky” is when does that word no longer apply and when does the team start to get some credit? Is it still only luck when half the season has been played? Is it still only luck when the Twins take 2 of 3 from the Tigers who have been playing much better lately? How about all the series wins in a row? All the games won in a row? Is all that just being “lucky”?

Have the Twins been lucky? Sure they have but I think most would agree that you need a little bit of luck to be good. In my opinion the Twins have been both.

WIN TWINS!

by caluofmn on Jul 4, 2008 11:29 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

AVG with RISP

For me, it all comes down to whether our VERY high AVG with RISP is due to luck, good timing, or a team-wide approach that will last through the end of the season.

One thing that has not been luck has been the performance of our pitching staff, especially the rotation (even though the bullpen may have better numbers lately, I think). We basically replaced 15 starts from Boof and a not-ready Cisco (76.2 IP, 6.69) ERA with MUCH better performances from Baker, Slowey and Perkins.

Month by month:
April: 99 RF / 120 RA, -21 net runs, 12-14 W-L
May: 154 RF / 146 RA +8 net runs, 15-13 W-L
June: 142 RF / 122 RA +20 net runs, 17-11 W-L

by Adam Peterson on Jul 4, 2008 11:46 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Kurkjian

Tim Kurkjian was saying a week ago on Baseball Tonight that it’s very possible for the Twins to sustain their high avg with RISP because they’re the only organization that practices situational hitting in BP. He says many minor league clubs do it but the fact that they don’t practice it in the major league level leaves a weakness that the Twins have been exploiting.

Not sure if I buy it, but I’m having fun in the meantime. I really only expected a .500 team and I do agree that they’re playing over their heads and don’t expect much in terms of October. The big problem is that the Sox have the dominant bullpen I wish the Twins had. The Twins bullpen has been merely pretty good. It’s mainly because the Neshek injury leaves the Twins with only one dominant reliever. I think lineups are a wash in terms of strength. And I think once the league becomes more familiar with Slowey, Perkins, and Blackburn, numbers will adjust. However I think the same is true of Floyd and Danks. I still slightly favor the Sox, but they’re merely a small favorite.

I love that no one seems to acknowledge that Scott Baker isn’t an elite pitcher yet. Besides the starts surrounding his groin injury, he is a QS machine. No one seems to notice unless you play fantasy baseball. As long as he’s underestimated the Twins will be underestimated.

We’re in for a fun 3 months of baseball and to me it’s all gravy because for all intents and purposes this is a rebuilding year for 2010 to get our youth experience on the offensive and pitching sides of the ball.

by TMW on Jul 4, 2008 9:46 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Re:

Also, if you’re going to cherry pick team ERA as a stat against any team while they have Livan Hernandez in their rotation is pretty silly.

by TMW on Jul 4, 2008 9:50 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Of course --

Hernandez has thrown about one of every seven innings on a 13-man Twins’ staff this year. Without that work the Twins’ ERA would probably be higher. The innings he has spared the rest of this staff have paid off, and should pay off more down the road. (Gardenhire and Anderson would not have sent any other starter out for 7 innings and 115 pitches against Milwaukee a week ago, but down 5-1 in the third, they could confidently send Livan back out there, and he threw four shutout innings.)

When Baker was hurt (he’s pitched about twice as many innings this season as Joe Nathan, and that’s not going to get people applying the adjective “workhorse” to him) and Perkins was averaging 4 innings an outing for a while, Anderson could put the baseball in Hernandez clubhouse cubicle every 5 days and know he would answer the bell.

And if everyone on the staff hasn’t picked up at least one good lesson from a guy who is still getting people out with an 82 mph fastball, then they aren’t thinking down the road to the days their own velocity drops.

by Johnny Safron on Jul 5, 2008 11:12 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Joe C

Joe Christensen had a good quote from Livan on his blog this morning

Then, in the second inning Friday, Choo crushed a ball that Carlos Gomez caught with his back crashing into the center-field fence. So, with first base open in the sixth, Hernandez put Choo aboard with a five-pitch walk.
"It’s something I do on the mound," Hernandez said. "You know, maybe a lot of people don’t do it. When I’m on the mound, I concentrate on something. I don’t want somebody to beat me. I want to walk the guy, with first base open. I think that was the ballgame right there."

You can read the whole story here. From what I took away from that post, is that is the ‘veteran leadership’ the Twins say Livan has. And hopefully that sort of stuff gets passed down to the youngsters

by DedicatedFollowerOfFashion on Jul 5, 2008 1:29 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Gut Check

I agree that Perry writes a lot of garbage, but this is an opinion piece, and everything he brings up is correct and reasonable. He isn’t going to write a 10,000 word thesis discussing the arguments for and against the Twins winning the division.

And, this is a good time for us to have that discussion. How will the Twins do this season?

I think that the Twins have a shot, because I don’t think the White Sox are as good as their record indicates. Even so, we have some serious cause for concern.
1. Casilla, Span and Buscher are unlikely to continue to play as well as they have. They have been great, but they are playing above their career minor league numbers.
2. Our rotation is really young. Baker, Slowey, Blackburn and Perkins are all looking to hit innings pitched territory that is unfamiliar to them. Remember the great Detroit breakdown of two years ago? That’s what happens when you entire rotation tries to go for 200 IP for the first time.
3. Bullpen – while we are usually confident in our bullpen, it is the weakest it has been in a while. Nathan is a rock, and Guerrier/Crain are reliable. After that, you have to be a bit nervous with everyone else.

There are a couple of things that bring me optimism, hoewever:
1. Young and Kubel – While I expect Casilla, Buscher and Span to fall back to Earth, Young and Kubel are showing real improvement. To the extent that this continues, they can easily make up for losing OBP from the rookies, by landing some big flies at opportune times.
2. Harris – I think Harris is the best candidate for a much improved second half. He has played below his career averages, and is finally showing stability, and getting votes of confidence, in his fielding, which should reduce his stress a bit. If he can show some .350 OBP, with 5-10 home runs in the second half, He could really shore up our lineup, which would become more consistent top to bottom.
3. Gomez – He really hasn’t been playing that well. I don’t expect much improvement from him this year, but if he stops striking out so much, he could create a good number more opportunites with RISP than our big bats are seeing right now.

Anyway, I just think we need to be realistic and recognize that we’ve had some things go our way. Still, there are reasons that it could continue. What do other people think? (please try to be realistic…. we all WANT the twins to win, the question is will they)

by snolls on Jul 5, 2008 8:53 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Looks like Perry achieved his goal

The point of someone with a column is to get people to read the work, not to get people to agree with it. There must be some reason you keep coming back, and getting people to come back is one of his objectives.

by Sev on Jul 5, 2008 6:10 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs