2013 Twins Spring Training Battle Dashboard 3.0: The final stretch edition

It is already almost a month into Spring Training games for the Twins, and it is time for the second version of the dashboards.   You can find all 2013 Spring Training dashboards here, for reference.
 
Again, you can find explanations of the measures and the colors of the dashboards to quantify Spring Training performance of the combatants in both the position player and pitching battles in these two links.   
 
The dashboard includes today's game against the Pirates.

I indicate the players who were cut in italics and the day they were cut by the MiLB indication.  This is the last time these dashboards will have dates, because they are getting too long.  Next edition will have them compressed and only the active combatants will be listed.  In addition, WBC game results are included for the relevent players (Beresford, Butera, Colabello, Deduno)

This is it.  The final 2.5 week of Spring Training where competition gets better and battles get fiercer.  I will be in Florida and Fort Myers for the largest part of the next two weeks, so expect some exclusive coverage on the Twins major and minor leaguers from the Spring Training site.
Here is the position player dashboard:

Few Observations:

• Aaron Hicks has won the CF starting job; whether the Twins' brass let him have it, is it still up for grabs
• Aaron Hicks has taken the lead for the Center Field starter position
• The other 2 OF positions (RF and bench) are still wide open, with Darin Mastroianni returning strong from his hamstring injury and Wilkin Ramirez performing consistently well and steadily leading Chris Parmelee who improved a bit but still trailing. 
• The infield battle and the bench battles are wide open.  Butera, Colabello and Olmedo have been sightly better than the rest and all three would be potentially battling for that last roster spot.

Here is the pitcher dashboard:

Few Observations:

• Cole DeVries , Samuel Dedouno, PJ. Walters and Pedro Hernandez are all making a case for the one or two starting positions open, while Liam Hendriks is trailing pretty badly.  Of these pitchers, the ones who do not make the rotation, still will have a chance for a long reliever position.
• Alex Burnett has not had a single good appearance this spring and I just cannot see how he can make the team if he does not change this pretty quickly.
• Tyler Robertson have turned it around this week with several good appearances and after the cuts is the only lefty reliever left (other than the locks Duensing and Perkins)
• Ryan Pressly and  Tim Wood (other than a single horrible game) have been good and I  think they have one foot in the opening day roster.
• Josh Roenicke, Luis Perdomo and Casey Fien had ups and downs,and all are probably fighting for the last bullpen spot. 

2013 Twins Spring Training Battle Dashboard 2.0, pre first cuts edition

It is already two weeks into Spring Training games for the Twins, so it is time for the second version of the dashboards.   You can find all 2013 Spring Training dashboards here, for reference.

Again, you can find explanations of the measures and the colors of the dashboards to quantify Spring Training performance of the combatants in both the position player and pitching battles in these two links.   

The dashboard includes last night's game.

Here is the position player dashboard:

Few Observations:

• Aaron Hicks and Eddie Rosario have been given many accolades, but for me the surprise of Spring Training for the Twins so far has been Danny Rohlfing, the Twins' 23 year old AA catcher who for all practical purposes has been regarded as organizational depth.  However, with his performance in front of the Twins' brass, added to his excellent defense at catcher and versatility (can play 1B and OF as well), he has to be into the conversation regarding Twins' Catcher prospects
• Aaron Hicks has taken the lead for the Center Field starter position
• The other 2 OF positions (RF and bench) are wide open, with Darin Mastroianni returning today from a hamstring injury-caused week's hiatus and Wilkin Ramirez performing consistently well and steadily leading Chris Parmelee who really has not found himself and is also ailing.   I would not be surprised if Parmelee started the season in AAA.
• The infield battle and the bench battles are wide open.  None of the infielders fighting for the 2 positions has been ahead of the pack at this time.

Here is the pitcher dashboard:

Few Observations:

• He is starting today again, but Cole DeVries has been pretty consistent and effective as a starter so far,  and I think that he is on his way to earn either a starter or the long reliever position, depending on other pitcher's health
• Speaking of health, despite what it has been reported, I will be surprised if Anthony Swarzak, Rafael Perez and Scott Diamond start the season in Minnesota on April fools'
• PJ Walters' performance has been pretty steady as well, but unlike DeVries, he has been used as a reliever and been facing lesser competition.  He still has possibilities for a pen or even a starting role, based on health
• Kyle Gibson has had ups and one horrible game.  The jury is still out.
• Alex Burnett and Tyler Robertson have been as disappointing on the pitching side as Chris Parmelee on the position player side.  I would not be surprised if they started the season in AAA.
• Ryan Pressly, the Twins' Rule 5 pick has been the most consistent reliever; other than a horrid game, Tim Wood has been great; Mike Tonkin has been surprising good and Josh Roenicke had ups and downs, but he has been trending up.  Could these four pitchers win the four bullpen spots?  Time will tell, but it will be a huge surprise if Tonkin does, since the highest level of play he saw has been a half season at Fort Myers with the Miracle.

The next version will be after the cuts.  Speaking of the cuts, I think that:  Bryan Augenstein, BJ Hermsen, Trevor May and Alex Meyer from the pitchers and Kyle Knudson and maybe James Beresford might be it for position players.   The World Baseball Classic has decimated the numbers of the Twins position players available,make it hard to field 2 teams in split squad games, so I do not foresee many position player cuts before other Twins return from the WBC.

2013 Twins Spring Training Battle Dashboard: Version 1

With the Twins' Spring Training about half a month old and eight official games in the books, it is about time that I start posting these dashboards again keeping track of how the players who are batting for positions are doing.   It might seem that Spring Training has been going on for a while, and it has because of the World Baseball Classic.  For comparison, last year the first Twins' game of Spring Training was March 3rd.   

I have previously outlined the potential battles for position players as:

• 3 outfield positions, including a back up
• 2 infield positions, including a back up 
• 1 additional bench bat that would be a third Catcher (Mr Butera for example) or a bat off the bench/DH (like Chris Colabello) or an additional infielder or outfielder.

Also indicated that I consider the following players as locks (so I am not tracking them) :

Jamey Carroll
Ryan Doumit
Joe Mauer
Justin Morneau
Trevor Plouffe and
Josh Willingham

and in the same piece, I indicated that the battles for pitchers were for one to three starting positions (depending on Scott Diamond's and Mike Pelfrey's health) and at least four bullpen spots; I consider as locks here (thus not tracked), in addition to the 2 aforementioned if healthy:

Kevin Correia
Vance Worley

Jared Burton
Brian Duensing
Glen Perkins

The ideas behind the mechanics of the dashboards to quantify Spring Training performance of the combatants in both the position player and pitching battles is explained in these two links.

For the pitchers, I quantify using  a measurement created by Bill James more than a decade ago called "Game Score".  It is calculated as follows:

You start with 50 points for each pitcher.
Add 1 point for each out.
Add 1 point for each strikeout.
Subtract 2 points for each hit.
Subtract 4 points for each earned run.
Subtract 2 points for each unearned run.
Subtract 1 point for each walk.
There is a point bonus for pitching more than 4 innings as well, adding 2 points for each IP after the 4th, but this is not too applicable here.

Game Scored of 49-51 are "average" (yellow),
everything higher than 51 "above average" (green),
and everything below 49 "below average" (red).

The pitchers are broken down as "starters" and "relievers" but it is understandable that starters are candidates to make the teams as relievers.

For position players, I devised a similar metric that goes like this:

Start with 0 points (unlike the pitching Game Score that starts with 50)
Add 1 point for each Run, RBI, 2B, SB, BB, and HBP recorded.
Add 2.5 for each hit, 3 for each 3B and 4 for each HR.
Subtract 1 for each CS and GIDP,
subtract 1 for each error,
for catchers add 1 for each CS
Subtract 0.2 for each SO and 0.5 for each AB.

Again, as in the Pitching Battle Dashboard, the Position Player Battle Dashboard is color-coded based on average, above average and below average performances, where:

Average is Batting Game Score between 0 and 2
Above average is Batting Game Score higher than 2
Below average is Batting Game Score less than 0

Without further ado (and no comments)  here is the Dashboard for the Twins' position players:

and here for the pitchers:

There is still many games to be played and these will be changing in pretty much daily basis.   I will publish the next installment in few days.