25 April 2007

Side Note

Still moonlighting over at the site of my idol, Bat-Girl.

However, a RWD HOCKEY RELATED ARTICLE is coming soon.

6 comments:

Badger Backer said...

Have you given any thought to what you're going to moonlight over at BG next week, once Ponson is mercifully no longer on the team?

DC said...

Hush. Gardy has already stated he will be making his next start.

Anonymous said...

I find it odd regarding the whole Ponson situation.

He had an awesome spring training and now can't pitch for crap. Silva had a crap spring training and suddenly can pitch? WTF?

I guess I find myself rooting for Ponson to succeed and for Silva to fail. I can't stand Silva.

Badger Backer said...

Spring training is unreliable. First, it's a small sample size (if you're a pitcher, one inning can ruin your stats). Second, the level of competition is not very high. In Ponson's case, it was possible he put up the good numbers against pretty low level competition.

But I think also to some extent it's luck. Ponson hasn't pitched well by any means, but he's sort of hamstrung by the fact he's been giving up a lot of home runs. And, he's been giving up those home runs despite the fact that he's an extreme ground ball pitcher, which should keep the home run rate down. In fact, fully 1/4 of his outfield fly balls end up in the stands. So for Ponson, I think the Twins have better options in AAA, but he's been sort of unlucky and will probably improve.

Silva's been lucky the other direction. He's allowing tons of baserunners but is stranding 86.5% of them, which is an unsustainable level far above the league average rate. Plus, even though he's supposedly a "sinkerball" pitcher, which should induce ground balls, he's hasn't really been doing that and has allowed a ton of fly balls. However, unlike Ponson, despite the fact that Silva has let up a ton of fly balls, Silva's fly balls have ended up in the park, as he's got a really low home run rate this year.

So, long story short, spring training stats are unreliable and both these guys are kind of victims/beneficiaries of luck at this point. But, lets hope that Ponson can improve a bit once balls stop heading out of the park, and let's hope that Silva stays unsustainably good.

DC said...

It's not like the Twins pitching is overall dominant, and we have one weak link. Santana lost 2 starts in a row, Boof has had his issues, and Ponson and Silva have been erratic. Ramon Friggin Ortiz is our most reliable pitcher, it seems.

I want both Ponson and Silva to do well. I like Silva, and I like writing "Sidney Ponson's Diary."

Can't we trade Bartlett?

Anonymous said...

Well? When is soon?

:p