The Bat Shatters

Josh Willingham: What's Not to Like?

2011-12-13T23:32:00.000-05:00

Depending on who you trust on Twitter, the Twins may or may not have agreed, in principle, to a deal with outfielder/DH free-agent Josh Willingham. Jerry Crasnick reported earlier this evening that a deal had been reached pending a physical - a report which was contradicted by Rhett Bollinger later in the evening saying that the two sides were close, but that they hadn't yet officially reached a deal...either way, I'm willing to bet that Willingham will become a Twin here within the next 12-24 hours so I thought I'd chime in. On an unrelated note, please forgive my scant postings over the last couple of weeks. I started a new job on Dec. 2nd and, well, it's been non-stop busy-ness since with no end in sight.

There's really not much to dislike about this deal from an outsiders perspective. Michael Cuddyer, whom Willingham is "replacing", is 32-years old, so is Willingham. Their hitting profiles are very similar in that they are both right-handed hitters with some power and good on-base percentages. In watching Cuddyer go to another team, the Twins get two draft picks in return and for a farm system that is somewhat depleted, the picks could not be coming at a better time. In addition, Willingham is likely to save the Twins a little bit of money. All of these things are positive. The only negative, in my opinion, is that you lose a guy in Cuddyer who has been a scrapper and a gamer for the last few seasons, who was clearly a good clubhouse guy and who was somewhat of a fan favorite. That said, none of those are reasons to keep a guy around.

Josh Willingham really didn't start to see regular big-league action until 2006 (age 27) but has been a pretty consistent big-league performer since, compiling a .262/.361/.475 triple-slash in 2,707 big-league at-bats. Since the beginning of the '06 season he has hit 131 homeruns (avg ~ 21/yr) and 155 doubles (avg ~ 26). Defense is where Willingham struggles a bit and where Cuddyer certainly has the upper hand when comparing the two players. Willingham will almost certainly be in left-field for the Twins - a position has spent the majority of his big-league career playing. He also gained some experience as a DH last year with Oakland so if the Twins get him, I would expect we'll see him used in that role as well from time to time.

I really hope the Twins do get Willingham. I was never bitten by the Cuddyer-bug, I respect him as a player and a hard-worker, but I think that the Twins benefit more in the long-run by letting him go. Willingham doesn't have quite the versatility that Cuddyer has defensively, but for a little less coin I'm willing to make the swap.

Remembering Brad Radke

2011-11-30T18:12:00.000-05:00

No, he didn't die. I thought about changing the title to make it seem less eulogy-like, but I couldn't think of anything. He didn't die; instead, I found out today that this is Radke's first year of eligibility for the Hall of Fame and given the other people on this year's ballot, he might actually have a shot...just kidding. I thought it would be fun to revisit Radke's career, first inning struggles and all.

Brad William Radke was drafted in the 8th round of the 1991 MLB Amateur Draft at the young age of 18. He was a product of Jesuit High School in Tampa, FL which also produced other Major Leaguers such as Lou Piniella, Al Lopez (HOF), Dave Madagan and Jason Michaels. Radke had early success in the Minors, throwing well in Rookie Ball and A-league ball before a promotion to AA towards the end of the '93 season. Radke spent all of the 1994 season at AA posting a very good 2.66 ERA in 186.1 innings - enough to turn some heads in the Twins front office.

Given that '94 was a strike-shortened season, the 1995 season started late and Radke was actually able to make the team out of Spring Training. He made his Major League debut on April 29th, a relief appearance in which he allowed 3 earned runs (4 runs overall) to the Baltimore Orioles in a game the Twins went on to lose 13-7. After that game, the rest of his appearances that year were as a starter and he managed to do OK considering he was on a team that lost 88 games that season (only 144 played that year). He won 11 games against 14 losses, gave up a league-high 32 homeruns, and threw 181 innings for the Twins...not bad for a 22-year-old rookie who's pro-career, to that point, had not extended past AA ball.

Even in that first year, Radke began to show a pattern which would plague him for his entire career - he had trouble getting out of the 1st and 2nd innings without giving up runs. In '95, his 1st inning ERA was 6.43, his 2nd inning ERA was 5.53 and after that, it settled in the low-4s. Though subsequent seasons were not nearly as terrible, the trend of early-inning struggles continued for most of Radke's career. He also gave up a TON of homeruns. He led the league in homeruns-allowed in both 1995 and 1996 and finished in the top 5 in that category 4 times during his career. For his career, he allowed 326 home-runs which ranks 35th all-time among MLB pitchers...this despite the fact that Radke had a relatively short 12-year career.

Brad Radke's career was not without highlights however. In 1997 he had a pretty lucky season that saw him win 20 games for the hometown club...especially impressive given the fact that the Twins lost almost 100 games that season. In that same year, he also won 12 consecutive games (consecutive starts), becoming only the 3rd pitcher since 1950 to do that (courtesy: wikipedia). Radke's career saddled the Twins transition from perennial loser to perennial contender perfectly; the team has 6 losing seasons and 6 winning seasons during his tenure as a Twin.

Radke was inducted into the Twins Hall of Fame in 2009, the team's last season in the Metrodome. He the poster child for the pitching "mold" that the Twins have become famous for...low strikeout rate, low walk rate. Radke ranks 32nd all-time in BB/9IP ratio (min 1,000 IP), ranking ahead of other famously walk-stingy pitchers like Roy Halladay and Greg Maddux. Radke will, I think, always be fondly remembered by Twins fans. He was quiet, he wasn't a distraction, he was a work-horse and he was reliable - that's about as much as you can ask of any player. In a way, he was kind of a paradox - he possessed pin-point control, yet gave up a lot of home-runs. My personal favorite memory of Radke isn't exactly a good one (if your name is Brad Radke). My favorite player growing up, aside from Kirby Puckett who was done playing by the time I was 12 years old, was Ken Griffey Jr. I begged my dad to take me to see him when the Mariners were in town during the '99 season and in the game we saw, Radke started and gave back-to-back home-runs to Griffey and A-Rod in the 1st inning. Classic.

What DO the Twins Have?

2011-11-28T22:24:00.000-05:00

With the baseball winter meetings coming up in a week or so - the baseball hot-stove fires are about to be stoked into a blazing inferno here in the next 1-2 weeks. Up to this point I've done my fair share of speculating about what the Twins will do and in looking around other Twins blogs, you'll find no shortage of others who tried their hand at the same thing. With this piece, I want to take a different tact...I want to take a look at the pieces the Twins have right now that we can be assured of seeing on Opening Day (barring pre-season injury of course). All of us have a pretty good idea of what the holes on this team are - but laying out what the team has right now may make it crystal clear where the team should start in addressing their weaknesses.

Infield (arbitration eligibles in red, backups in parentheses):

C - Joe Mauer (Ryan Doumit/Drew Butera)
1B - Justin Morneau
2B - OPEN (Alexi Casilla)
SS - Jamey Carroll (Tsuyoshi Nishioka)
3B - Danny Valencia
DH - Ryan Doumit/ ?

This infield situation is complicated by unknowns. In a perfect world, the Twins would bring in a Kelly Johnson or a Aaron Hill type to fill the hole at 2nd base and your infield would be set with Morneau & Valencia on the corners with Carroll and Johnson/Hill up the middle. Reality is far from that though as the Twins have still not addressed second base and only God knows what Justin Morneau's availability will be come Opening Day.

Outfield (arbitration eligibles in red, backups in parentheses):

RF - OPEN
CF - Denard Span (Ben Revere)
LF - Joe Benson? Trevor Plouffe?

To me, the outfield situation is just as dire as the bullpen situation. If the Twins do nothing to address the outfield situation, the Twins will have a couple of guys (Revere and Benson) with less than a full-year of Major League experience as your starting Right and Left fielders. Not only that, Denard Span is coming off a 2nd-half which saw him miss significant time due to a concussion. He has said on Twitter that he's been feeling good lately, but with Morneau's cautionary tale, I don't think there's any counting on Span. I would like to think they'll bring back Jason Kubel, though I view his role as more of a DH if he returns, filling the void left by Jim Thome's departure. Aaron Hicks stands to get a look in Spring Training, but as a 22-year-old who spent all of last year a Fort-Myers (A-ball), I don't know that his chances are all that good. The Twins have announced that they are going to make Trevor Plouffe an outfielder, but even if he makes the transition defensively, I don't know that he has much staying power in the lineup (.697 OPS in 286 PAs last season). In short, the Twins have a lot of outfield question marks and not a lot of answers, though I did discuss a few potential free-agent answers in my last post.

Starting Pitching (arbitration eligibles in red):

#1 Francisco Liriano
#2 Carl Pavano
#3 Scott Baker
#4 Nick Blackburn
#5 Kevin Slowey? Brian Duensing?

Some people have seen a lot of question marks here too, but to me the starting rotation is pretty much set with the only question mark being who the Gardenhire and the Twins will decide to install as their 5th starter. As expected, Duensing's permanent move to the rotation last season exposed him and I wouldn't be surprised if they move him back to into the bullpen and give Slowey his old spot back. Then again, Slowey is (and has been) in the dreaded Gardenhire dog-house for awhile, so there are certainly no guarantees there. I would love to see the Twins go out and grab another starting pitcher, but those tend to be expensive, especially in a market like this year's when there are not many good ones available. As far as help from the farm goes, the Twins have nothing in the Minors that inspires much confidence in terms of starting pitching. There are a couple of arms (Hendriks, Salcedo), but they don't seem close.

Bullpen Pitching (arbitration eligibles in red):

Glen Perkins

Jose Mijares
? Jeff Manship ?
? OPEN
? OPEN

Ok, I take that back about the outfield rivaling the bullpen as the Twins most pressing issue. Holy smokes. The Twins have a bunch of garbage arms they could use including (but certainly not limited to): Alex Burnett, Scott Diamond, Jim Hoey, Jeff Gray, etc. With around $69.5M already committed to next year's payroll, and another $15M or so wrapped up in arbitration eligible players...the Twins have about $15M to spend to fill holes in the infield, outfield and bullpen. It's going to take every cent of that money, in addition to some GM wizardry, to field a competitive Twins team in 2012, but I feel that Terry Ryan is up to the task. Capable bullpen arms don't need to be expensive, and as Aaron Gleeman talked about in his most recent column, the Twins shouldn't feel the need to spend a lot of money on a closer either...a closer doesn't need to be "proven" in order to be dominant.

I think if I were Mr. Ryan, I would focus on the outfield first because useful outfielders are likely to be snapped up a lot more quickly than useful bullpen arms will be. Aside from that, I wouldn't overreact or overpay for marginal talent. The Twins have enough quality pieces (especially if Mauer and Morneau are healthy) that they can afford to have a few duds in the lineup). I would rather see good money spent in the bullpen than money needless thrown at replacement level infielders and outfielders.

Looking to the Outfield

2011-11-21T15:07:00.001-05:00

Hats-off to Terry Ryan. In his first couple of weeks back on the job he has already addressed two significant areas of weakness on the ballclub using minimal funds. I could take a few minutes and talk about the Ryan Doumit acquisition, but others have already done a good job of that, particularly Nick Nelson and Parker Hageman - both of them wrote excellent pieces about Doumit and his fit with the Twins, check out both pieces.

Because Terry Ryan has been so thrifty so far, he has left himself with a good chunk of funding left to fill other holes on the team, particularly in the outfield, starting rotation and bullpen. I want to look to the outfield to see what the Twins options are. I'm operating from the assumptions that the Twins lose either Cuddyer or Kubel, or they lose both of them. I don't see the Twins being able to keep both and I find a situation in which Kubel stays to be much more likely. If the Twins keep either Cuddyer or Kubel they will likely only "need" to add one outfielder to the mix because I'm also assuming that Ben Revere and/or Joe Benson will make the Major League club out of Spring Training. I put "need" in quotes because if they Twins keep Kubel, they could technically get away with not adding an OFer at all, but unless you're willing to make Kubel and Revere full-time outfielders, they're going to have to add someone. Moving along...

**By the way, it has been reported that the new collective bargaining agreement in Major League Baseball does away with compensation for Type-B free agents meaning the teams with Type-Bs will receive nothing if the player signs with another club. I haven't seen any sources confirming that this is set in stone so I'm leaving the designations there for now...just keep in mind that it may be utterly meaningless if it's true that MLB did away with "Type-B" designations.

Jason Kubel (Type-B) - 2011 Salary: $5,250,000
I've talked about Kubel before, particularly about how I think he has unique value. Kubel, like most other Twins' players, was injured for a large portion of the season, missing a total of 63 games. Through the first two months of last season he was pretty much the only bright spot in the lineup posting a .310/.355/.465 line through the end of May. He was looking like his 2009-self until being sidelined for all of June and most of July with a sprained foot. Anyway, we all know the story. Kubel is unique in the sense that he's a left-handed power hitter. Prior to the 2011 season, he had 3-straight 20+ HR seasons and during those three years he had a .821 OPS. His defense isn't great, but sans-Thome, the Twins could really use a competent hitter in the DH spot, a role Kubel would be able to fill quite competently. Kubel has been a consistent performer when healthy and at 29-years-old, extending him a 2-4 year deal makes sense.

Cody Ross (Type-B) - 2011 Salary: $6,300,000
Ross is an intriguing option from a few different angles. First, he can (and has) play all three outfield positions. Most of his playing time has been spent in centerfield, but he's also played appreciable time in right and left. With as many interchangeable parts as the Twins have (a catcher that needs frequent breaks from catching, no established DH, etc), having a versatile outfielder could be a major positive for a club that needs to move players around on a regular basis. In addition to that, Ross has some decent power (career .456 slugging %) from the right-side which is lacking in the current Twins lineup.
Ross has a couple of downsides as well. His ability to get on-base leaves something to be desired (career .323 OBP) and he doesn't really hit for average either. Fielding-wise he's very average though for the Twins, "average" is probably an upgrade, especially in right-field. There's also the fact that in each of the last 5 season, Ross' OPS has dropped...from 1.064 in 66 games in '07, to .730 in 121 games last season. At 30-years-old Ross definitely has something left in the tank, but unless Ross sits out there on the free-agent market for awhile, the price tag will likely be too high to make it worth the risk.

Ryan Ludwick (Type-B) - 2011 Salary: $6,775,000
It's scary when you look at how similar Ryan Ludwick and Cody Ross are offensively. Ross' career triple-slash is .261/.323/.456, Ludwick's career triple-slash is .261/.332/.455. Pluses for Ludwick are slightly better plate-discipline and slightly better defense, but other than that the two have very similar career stories. Ludwick, much like Ross, has even seen a decline over the last 4 seasons. After an All-Star season in '08 which saw him hit 37 HRs and drive in 113, his OPS and overall production have declined in each season since. Given his poor 2011 season, I'm guessing that Ludwick could probably be had for a discount and would definitely be an upgrade defensively - I think he's in line for a bounce-back of sorts.

Brad Hawpe (Outright FA) - 2011 Salary: $2,000,000
The Padres had a $6M option on Hawpe but after a dismal 2011 season, they understandably decided to opt for the $1M buyout making Hawpe an outright free agent. From 2006 to 2009 Hawpe was a very consistent hitter for the Colorado Rockies posting 4-straight 20+ HR seasons and a .902 OPS over that time. Ever since, he's looked nothing like that while splitting time between 3 different ballclubs. Defensively, Hawpe is nothing special at all with a career-.978 fielding% and a career -18.9 UZR/150 -- and my 'nothing special' I mean he's pretty terrible. Hawpe might be worth a flier - but if I were Terry Ryan I wouldn't offer anything more than a one-year "let's see" type deal.

Josh Willingham (Type-A) - 2011 Salary: $6,000,000
It's hard to say how realistic it is that the Twins could land Willingham. For one thing, he's certainly going to be making more than $6M per year with whomever he ends up signing. His OPS has been north of .800 for the past 6 seasons and at 32-years old, he has miles left on the tires. Offensively he's ~~probably~~ the best of the mid-tier options out there and defensively he sits somewhere between Cody Ross and Ryan Ludwick. I would be ecstatic if the Twins went out there and got him, but given their self-reported payroll goals, I find it improbable that he ends up in a Twins uniform. Michael Rand over at the Star Tribune wrote an interesting piece about Willingham and how the Twins fans might be focusing too much on him, can't say I disagree - check it out.

I think we'll continue to see the Twins regularly add pieces as we go through the next couple of months - not all of them are going to be household names, but I would be surprised to see one bigger name in there somewhere - I think it will most likely it will be a starting pitcher or reliever.

I haven't mentioned this in a post before (I don't think), but if you want, follow me on Twitter (@thebatshatters). I try to keep it almost 100% sports and Twins related - unlike some people who choose to share their political views on a regular basis. Also, on this Thanksgiving Week, I want to say a big THANK YOU to all of you who are regular readers of this blog, I really appreciate the time you take to read and comment.

If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It

2011-11-17T17:08:00.000-05:00

Leave it to the Astros to go and screw everything up. I'm not sure exactly HOW it happened, but the new owner of the Astros (Jim Crane) got Bud Selig and Major League baseball to sign-off on moving the team to the American League as part of his deal to buy the team. In addition to the Astros' move from the NL Central to the AL West, MLB will be adding a second wild-card team to each league and will, most likely, implement a one-game playoff between the two wild card teams in each league (a play-in game, if you will). Oh, and because each league now contains the same odd amount of teams (15), 'Inter-league Play' will now be a regular, every-day part of the baseball schedule.

My first reaction to these changes is all negative. Wasn't this past season's September and October evidence enough that what baseball has/had is working? You had two teams make the playoffs on the very final day of the regular season, you had several compelling and interesting playoff series and you had a 7-game World Series for the 2nd consecutive year. I know it's not like this every year, but even in recent memory there has been plenty of similarly exciting stuff happening at the end of the season (back-to-back Game 163s in 2008 and 2009 for the Twins comes immediately to mind). I can't help but feel that one change in particular hasn't been purely media motivated, and the change I'm referring to is the addition of a second wild-card in each league.

For years now, the Eastcoast Sports Programming Network (ESPN) talking heads have been bitching about the fact that there are three playoff-worthy teams in the AL East and only two of them can make it into the post-season. Other lesser AL East teams like the Orioles and Jays have publicly stated that they don't feel they can realistically compete with the payrolls in their own division and thus cannot field teams that can compete for precious few playoff spots. In swoops Bud Selig to save the day! Make no mistake, these moves are motivated PURELY by revenue opportunities...not for the betterment of the game of baseball. The game is fine the way it is/was.

My second reaction to this news was more rational. It's going to happen, might as well accept it. I do like it in one aspect and one aspect alone. I feel as though the wild-card teams should have a disadvantage of some sort. They didn't win a division and not having home-field advantage is not disadvantage enough. If you have a one-game playoff between the two wild-card teams, then each wild-card team will likely (but not necessarily) be forced to use their respective aces...this will give them a distinct disadvantage, especially in the first round of the playoffs where the series' are only a maximum of 5 games in length. I actually like the change from that perspective, but from every other perspective I think it is a needless change.

I also an idea for one further change MLB might as well make to go along with all of the other changes they're talking about. Do away with the Designated Hitter OR do away with pitchers hitting in the National League. Now that you're going to have year-round Interleague Play, why play with two sets of rules? Year-round Interleague Play is already going to further disrupt the precious idea of a "balanced schedule" so why compound the problem by continuing to hold on to separate rules in each league? DH's are already worthless for 10 games of the season as things currently stand and now they're adding several Interleague games to every team's schedule...

Like I said earlier, all of these changes are motivated purely by revenue - I just wish that Bud Selig and MLB would come clean about it. To say that these changes will "improve the game of baseball" is like slapping every baseball fan in the face. We all know how great baseball has been over the past few months. Nobody even once broached the subject of adding extra wild-card teams to the mix until the Tampa Bay Rays started winning...and adding another wild doesn't even guarantee extra drama. As Bill from The Platoon Advantage pointed out on Twitter (@Bill_TPA), the two sudden-death wild-card teams in the American League in 2001 would have been the Oakland Athletics (102-60) and the Minnesota Twins (85-77) - hardly would have seemed fair to make the A's play a one-game playoff...

Crazy Thoughts: Twins Should Pursue Reyes

2011-11-10T14:00:00.001-05:00

I've been thinking a lot about the Twins lately, specifically what I think the expectations should be for this off-season and for the 2012 campaign. While I celebrated the re-installation of Terry Ryan as Twins GM, I was equally disappointed to hear that the team plans on dropping it's 2012 payroll to around $100M. Imagine my surprise when I saw many fellow Twins' bloggers support this decision; I figured the reaction would be the opposite. Here's my logic, and I'm going to present a case that the Twins should go after Jose Reyes.

Two Aprils ago, on a mild night in Minneapolis, the Twins played their first regular-season game in the new Target Field. That 2010 season was a dream of sorts with the squad tallying 94 wins and easily winning the AL Central crown. The playoffs left a poor taste in all of our mouths, but there was hope for 2011 because a majority of the team was returning...except for the middle-infield and half the bullpen. Things didn't work out the way most of us thought they would. In 2011, the Twins had their worst season in 12 years on their way to losing 99 games and finishing dead-last in the AL Central. Bill Smith was fired. Terry Ryan was re-crowned GM...and now the Twins want to reduce the payroll?? Only 2 seasons after opening their brand-new stadium...a large portion of which was paid for by taxpayers in Minnesota? This may seem crazy, but I think that rather than pulling back, this team should be doing all it can to put a competitive team back on the field next year. The holes are obvious and the potential fixes for those holes are out there in the form of free-agents.

In my opinion, when you fight for 10+ years to get a new stadium built and then it gets done, and then in only your 2nd year in said stadium the team has a bad season...you DON'T give up. I think the Twins owe it to the fans to put as good of a product as possible onto the field, even it is means raising the payroll to $120M or $130M. Here are some other reasons why now is a bad time to reduce payroll and "re-build" for a couple of years:

a) Joe Mauer isn't getting any younger, neither is Justin Morneau. I realize that both players have had their injuries and that neither is a "sure thing" for the 2012 season, especially Morneau. That said, Mauer is turning 29 shortly after the 2012 season starts and Morneau will turn 31 next May. If you doing the re-building thing for the next season or two, you may be missing out on the last couple of "prime" years from two of your current superstars. Say what you will about Mauer, I know there's a lot of question marks there, but he is going to have a few more great seasons during his career.

b) The Twins have nothing in the Minors that inspires much confidence, especially in terms of pitching. As this last season showed, the Twins farm depth is no where near what many of us thought it was. Many of the Triple-A players that were called-up as a result of injuries last year were over-matched or were just not very good. Of particular concern was the lack of middle-infield depth and the lack of capable bullpen arms in the farm system. Nothing has really changed on that front. The Twins have a few decent prospects (Hicks, Sano, etc), but NONE of them are pitchers...in fact the one elite pitching prospect they had (Kyle Gibson) will likely not even pitch in 2012 due to Tommy John surgery. Liam Hendriks, who was thought to be one of the Twins better Minor League arms, took a huge step back in 2011 and pitched to a 6.17 ERA in 4 September starts with the Major League club at the end of the year. According to Baseball Prospectus' new prospect rankings, the Twins have ZERO pitching prospects that even rise to the level of "3-stars". No matter how you look at it, the Twins are going to be getting much rotation help from the Minors any time soon and we've all seen what they have for potential bullpen arms and, well, it ain't good.

c) Re-building isn't going to put butts in the seats. The reason the Twins are talking about reducing payroll is because the team is anticipating a loss of revenue as a result of the team's poor play on the field in 2011. Less season-tickets have been sold, there was less revenue from vendors in the 2nd half of last season, and on and on. That said, spending less on the team and risking a couple more losing seasons isn't going to increase revenue. If anything, it will simply make the problem worse which will result in continued payroll reductions. This has been the Pohlad's M.O. all the way back to when Carl was owner of the team. The Pohlad's want the team to be profitable and they will reduce payroll to the point where, at the very minimum, the Twins are a break-ever proposition. To hear front-office people say, "oh, we might raise the payroll again in a few years" is insulting. The Twins increased their payroll number after every winning season during the 2000's and dropped it following the 2007 after the club had a sub-.500 record that season. The only reason the payroll went up in 2009 was in anticipation of the club's move to Target Field.

You always hear sports media people talk about "windows" for a given team winning a championship. Usually they are talking about how the "window is closing" on a team...and in the Twins case, the window is already closed or, at best, it's almost closed. This is why the Twins put a stopper on the window and try and get Jose Reyes. Landing Reyes would address a number of issues the Twins have.

a) Shortstop-play is perhaps the Twins most glaring weakness. The position has been a black-hole of offense for them for a majority of the past 20 years and though they have been able to put capable defenders there, they haven't been able to find the complete package (aside from the one season of JJ Hardy).
b) As was made obvious last season, middle infield defense can be directly correlated to the success of the pitching staff. There are a lot of factors at play here, but good middle infield defense can save A LOT of runs which translates directly to wins. Reyes is a very capable defender with a large range when healthy.
c) Ron Gardenhire wants speed? Reyes is speed. He stole 39 bases last season in only 126 games. When he has played full seasons, he's led the National League in steals 3 times (2005, 2006, 2007).
d) There has been talk of the Twins trading Denard Span, some say to the Nationals. If they managed to do that and picked up either Espinosa or Desmond, they could put either one at 2nd base, and by acquiring Reyes, you have a bonafide lead-off man to replace Span. Reyes has more pop, more speed, and a better eye than Span.

Reyes isn't going to be cheap. He made $11M this past season and projects to be making at least $15-$20M/yr depending on the length of the deal. That represents a SIGNIFICANT investment for the Twins, yes, but it also fills a hole that the organization clearly has right now and will probably have for awhile if it is not addressed soon. Reyes is 28-years-old, so he is by no means old, and if you could entice him with a short-term deal, like has been rumored to the be the case with the Marlins (reported that they offered him 3-years @ $20M per), you could hedge your bets a little with regard to age.

I don't expect the Twins to be players in the Reyes sweepstakes, especially considering their recent announcement about payroll, but it's fun to dream. I really don't understand the reduction in payroll and I don't understand the support for it either. This team has set of circumstances RIGHT NOW (in terms of the age of certain star players) that it will not have 2 or 3 years from now. I think the Twins should either try like hell right now to win, or it's going to be awhile before we see a truly competitive team on the field.

Some Thoughts on Bill Smith

2011-11-07T18:01:00.000-05:00

It was one of those rare moments where I was actually on Twitter when some big Twins story broke and I was so surprised I had to read it twice. Bill Smith has been fired as GM by the Twins and has been offered another position within the organization...which I'm guessing is one he will likely turn down. His replacement, at least on an interim basis, is former Twins' GM Terry Ryan who was captain of the Twins ship from 1994 to 2007.

This is some pretty exciting news. Calls for Bill Smith's head have been going around the Twins blogosphere for awhile now and he has been rightfully (IMO anyway) blamed for the current state of the team and for a dreadful 2011 season. Terry Ryan certainly has quite a big job ahead of his for this off-season, but my level of trust in his decision-making abilities is far-higher. When Terry Ryan was the Twins GM, he consistently made good trades and good free-agent pickups using a limited payroll AND he also helped build a powerhouse farm-system that churned out many of the starters on the current Twins roster (Mauer, Morneau, Kubel, Cuddyer, Span, Valencia, etc). He also executed several trades, some of which are among the best in recent memory (Liriano and Nathan for Pierzynski and he acquired Johan Santana in the Rule 5 draft). He wasn't immune to bad deals (brought Drew Butera to the team in 2007) but more times than not he made good decisions that brought quality players to the Twins organization and ultimately turned the team back into a winner in 2001.

As a fan of the team, this is a great way to start the off-season in my opinion. I feel comfortable knowing that it is Terry Ryan rather than Bill Smith who has $20-$30M to spend this off-season and I think Ryan will make deals that will benefit the Twins both in the short-term and the long-term.

That said....

Terry Ryan is by no means a savior. Let's not forget that Terry Ryan was a Sr. Advisor with the Twins during the entire time that Bill Smith has been the GM. I don't know to what degree he was involved in making decisions, but he was definitely involved and yet the Twins made bad move after bad move during that time. Additionally, the Twins have a number of holes they need to address this off-season and even with $20-$30M to spend, any Twins GM is going to need to be extremely savvy to fill those holes. On top of that are the health concerns with Mauer, Morneau, Liriano, etc that are mostly out of Ryan's hands, but will ultimately go a long way in determining the outcome of the 2012 season and beyond. Oh, and the farm-system is mostly depleted of near-Major-League-ready talent. Make no mistake, it's a big job. Like I said though, I feel better knowing that Terry Ryan is making the final decisions, here's hoping for a good off-season.

The SS/2B Dilemma

2011-11-02T17:58:00.000-04:00

Tonight is the night (any Dexter fans out there?). As the clock strikes midnight, MLB free-agents everywhere will be eligible to sign a contract with any club that makes them an offer. Some are Type-A free-agents, others Type-B, but all of them free to go to any team that will have them. If I'm Bill Smith and the Twins, I have a lot of work to do this off-season. I need half of a bullpen, I need a couple of middle-infielders, I might even need a starter...I've gotta get going. Earlier this week I talked about the Twins bullpen needs and now I want to focus on another somewhat pressing need of theirs and that's the middle infield.

Tsuyoshi Nishioka was a disaster last year. Alexi Casilla was pretty much who we thought he would be. The others were just minor-league fill-ins in what was a dismal season up the middle. Last year's experiments highlighted just how much of a mistake it was to let JJ Hardy and Orlando Hudson go without having a whole lot to fall back on. 5 players saw 15 or more starts at 2nd base. 4 players saw more than 30 starts at SS. 44 errors we committed between the two positions and an overall .970 fielding percentage (league average for the positions combined was .979)...and that's not even counting the 20 errors at 3B. Last year's Twins team was essentially a real-life example of how much of a difference a good (or bad) defensive middle-infield makes.

Given that free-agency is literally right around the corner, here are a couple of free-agents that would be a good fit for the Twins. Some of them are more expensive, others not so much - though for a lower salary you often have to compromise on offensive production.

#1 Candidate: Kelly Johnson (2B) - Type-A
MLBTR thinks that Johnson is headed to the Dodgers, but there's no reason to think that the Twins couldn't get in on this free-agent. I've talked about Johnson here before on this site, but in my opinion he really is the cream of the crop when it comes to free-agent 2nd basemen. Johnson is 29-years-old, he has a career .260/.343/.441 triple-slash, and he's a good 2nd baseman (.981 career fielding % and career 10.9 UZR). While Johnson is perhaps one of the more expensive middle-infield candidates out there, he also is probably looking for a long-term contract which the Twins would be smart to offer him given the lack of middle-infield depth within the organization. Johnson made $5.85M last season and could probably be had for a 3-5 year deal worth about $7-9M per year (worth the picks you'd have to give up due to Johnson's Type-A FA status). Johnson would be an instant upgrade on Alexi Casilla and would allow the Twins to either move Casilla to SS or find someone else to play shortstop and make Casilla a utility option.

#2 Candidate: Clint Barmes (SS or 2B) - Type-B
I actually wouldn't mind seeing the Twins pursue both of these guys, but my gut tells me that's unrealistic. Barmes in not much to look at offensively, but he is intriguing from a defensive standpoint. Barmes has played more SS in his career than 2B, but has a solid (not spectacular) glove and a little pop in his bat. He made $3.92M last year and if offered some sort of multi-year deal, would probably only command a salary in the $4M-$5M per year range, maybe even less. At 32 years old Barmes is probably only to get slower from here, but as a short-term fix, he's worth a look.

#3 Candidate: Aaron Hill (2B best, can play SS) - Type-B
Hill would most likely be a 2B candidate only, but again, it's a need the Twins have so he's worth a look. After being traded to the Arizona Diamondbacks last season, Hill showed that he's still got it carrying a .315/.386/.492 line in 33 games to end the season. Hill has a career 21.7 UZR score at 2B to go along with his .987 fielding %. Hill and Johnson are very similar...both are solid defenders who bring a bat with them to the plate. Within the spacious confines of Target Field, Hill is likely to be more of a doubles hitter than Johnson but either of them would be a vast upgrade offensively from what the Twins have in-house. Aaron Hill made $5M last year and would be the "middle-of-the-road" option between these three, likely commanding a $5-7M salary over a 2-3 year deal.

There are other options out there, Furcal, Betancourt, etc., but these are the three options I like best based on price, age and ability. I would love to have Kelly Johnson, I think he would make a great fit for the Twins, but my gut tells me I'm dreaming which is really too bad.

WS Thoughts & The Off-Season

2011-10-31T12:49:00.000-04:00

I went to bed in the 8th inning of Game 6, my birthday was on Friday and I was out and missed Game 7...that said, I still caught the excitement of it and and my thoughts about this year's World Series can be summed up in one word: WOW. I love how a number of 'sportswriters' out there are all, "oh my gawd, this World Series SAVED baseball..." Um...no it didn't, it simply reminded everyone of how great of a sport baseball is and how exciting it can be. This whole season was great (home-town team aside) and the St. Louis Cardinals are an incredible story of how anything can happen if you just keep playing hard every day.

On the flip-side, my heart aches for the Texas Rangers and their fans. Back-to-back Game 7 losses in the World Series?? And I thought missing the playoffs for the first time in 2 years hurt. I just think of all the work that is takes to get to the World Series, then to do it in consecutive seasons and have nothing to show for it...it's heart-breaking. Overall, I thought it was a great series, it was quite compelling, I loved seeing Pujols make some history and I was really glad that there wasn't a "goat" or some extraneous circumstance that would ultimately distract from what a hard-fought series this was.

As we all bask in the glow of a great end to the 2011 MLB season, it's time to start talking Twins again - more specifically, it's time to start brain-storming ways that this team can attempt to field a much more competitive team in 2012. As has been reported on a number of blogs, the Twins look to have about $30M to spend this off-season and with the number of issues they have to address...figuring out how to spend $30M will not be a problem. For my money, the Twins need to address the bullpen first and as things are shaping up, there should be a number of intriguing options. The bullpen was clearly one of the Twins' greatest weaknesses this past season and as far as fixing things go, the bullpen is probably one of the cheaper fixes.

1. To Sign or not to Sign: Joe Nathan.
Those who say that the Twins should not re-sign Joe Nathan are the ones who point to his overall 2011 numbers, which are pretty ordinary. 4.84 ERA, 43/14 K/BB ratio, 1.16 WHIP - not closer-type numbers. That said, the last couple of months were much more Nathan-esque. Between July and the end of the season, Nathan threw 27.1 innings, striking out 27 and only walking 5 while saving 11 games. Considering the Twins only won 22 games in the second-half of the season, 11 saves isn't bad. Velocity-wise, Nathan only improved as the season went on which bodes well for his success next season and beyond. Ultimately, the question will most likely be cost - it wasn't a surprise at all that the Twins declined Nathan's $12.5M option. I think if they could sign the 36-year-old right-hander to a 2-year deal worth around $10-14M, I feel that they would end up getting their money's worth. In reading around other Twins blogs, it would seem I'm not alone in wanting Nathan back next year.

2. Identify your core bullpen pitchers and build around them.
Among the remaining in-house bullpen options (the obvious ones anyway), all of the main guys are arbitration eligible. Jose Mijaries, Glen Perkins and Kevin Slowey are all up for arbitration and the Twins could easily offer arbitration to all of them and not spend much cash. The most expensive of the three, Kevin Slowey, is worth the extra money because of versatility as a spot-starter. The total cost for all three would likely between somewhere in the $4.5 - $5.5M range and all three have been effective in the past. Around these 4 arms (Mijares, Perkins, Slowey and Nathan) - sign 2-3 additional bullpen pitchers. Options are plenty; here's a list compiled last year. There are a number of intriguing names on that list and it should not be any much trouble to land a couple of them on relatively cheap contracts. Some of the names that interest me are: Scott Linebrink, Jason Frasor (if the White Sox don't pick up his option), George Sherrill (left-handed, would be a nice set-up man for Nathan), and Michael Wuertz (could be a cheap option with good potential).

3. Don't sign any relievers to 3-year contracts.
Last year, it seemed like a number of teams lost their heads signing relievers to three-year deals. Of note in the AL Central were Jesse Crain (signed by the White Sox) and Joaquin Benoit (signed by the Detroit Tigers). Both pitchers end up having very good seasons, but one season does not a 3-year contract make. On top of that, for every example of a 3-year reliever deal that started well, you have an equally good example of one that did not (see: Rafael Soriano, NYY). With so many good names out on the market this year, there's no reason to be desperate. If you can't get Player X without a 3-year deal, move on and find someone else.

I know how this all plays out is much more complicated than I make it seem, but I really do feel that a re-vamped bullpen could add 15-20 wins to the season total next year. Twins relievers had 20 blown saves last year against 32 saves and 29% of the runners that Twins relievers inherited last year scored, which was right about average for the American League. If the Twins could reduce that blown-saves number from 20 to 10, that alone would be worth a $10-$15M investment in the bullpen. As was highlighted during the recently concluded post-season, bullpen pitching is critical to a team's success and if a team has a good bullpen, the confidence of the rest of the team increases accordingly.

Some Awards Banter

2011-10-10T15:59:00.000-04:00

As much as I was looking forward to the end of the regular season this year I have to admit, I've actually kinda missed being able to check up on the Twins everyday. I don't miss the feeling of loss after loss, but I miss the day-to-day. Fortunately, this year's MLB playoffs have been REALLY good and have been filled with major market schadenfreude which has been medicine for my weary baseball soul. I'm very pleased with the 4 teams that remain and I was really happy for Milwaukee fans who saw their baseball team snatch a Game 5 victory from the clutches of defeat in winning their first playoff series since 1982. I was born in 1983 so to think that in my entire lifetime, the Brew Crew hadn't won a playoff series...wow, this is big. I really like their team too, the combination of power and hustle, scrap and confidence,...and their swagger is undeniable. I like their rotation, I like their bullpen and if they go on to win the World Series, I think I might even have a smile on my face.

Anyway, I didn't put my pen to paper to write about the post-season, plenty of others are writing much more meaningful pieces. The purpose of my piece today is more obligation, but calling it 'obligation' gives it the wrong connotation. As a part of the Baseball Bloggers Alliance (BBA) we are asked to cast our votes every year for various awards and then those votes are compiled amongst all the blogs in the network and the network as a whole comes out with it's winners. This has already been done for manager of the year (Connie Mack Award) which you can check out here. For my part, I'd like to take on a couple of Awards, notable the "Walter Johnson" Award (honoring the best SPs) and the "Stan Musial" (honoring the MVPs). Since we are a Minnesota Twins blog, we vote for the American League winners of these awards.

Walter Johnson Award - Best Starting Pitcher (AL)

The Walter Johnson Award uses a 5-3-1 point system so we are supposed to vote for our 1st, 2nd and 3rd place vote getters which makes this whole process a little more interesting if you ask me.

1st Place: Justin Verlander (5 points)
I've trolled my Yankee followers on Twitter a little bit lately suggesting that Verlander was a 'no doubt' winner of this Award despite the fantastic, but under appreciated season that Yankee ace CC Sabathia had. That said, Verlander had a super-human season and I don't see you could give the award to anyone else. First, the vitals:

24 Wins (not really important, but hey, it's a lot of wins for a single-season)
2.40 ERA - Lead the AL
0.920 WHIP - Lead the Majors
2.99 FIP - 4nd in the AL
3.12 xFIP - 2nd in the AL
251.0 IP - Lead the Majors
250 Ks - Lead the Majors

4.39 K/BB ratio - 2nd in the AL
2.84 SIERA - Lead the AL
5.14 WPA - Lead the Majors
7.0 WAR - 2nd in the AL

The argument for Verlander is pretty convincing. He helped his team run away with the AL Central crown, he was dominant from start to finish, and he lead the Majors in a few of the more important measures of pitching success.

2nd Place: CC Sabathia (3 points)
I already alluded to it earlier but this should come as no surprise. CC actually was worth 7.1 WAR this season which was. 0.1 more than Verlander and also out-pitched Verlander in FIP (2.88) and xFIP (3.02). Pro-CC people will argue that it should be taken into consideration that CC also pitches in the AL East and is therefore facing tougher opponents on a more regular basis. I would say that's a legitimate point, but who a pitcher faces is nothing that the pitcher can determine so what division a given pitcher is in cannot be used as criteria for an award. CCs reward for a great season will be either a) 5 more seasons at $23M per in New York or b) a HUGE free-agent deal somewhere else.

3rd Place: James Shields (1 point)
I'm going out on a limb a little for my 3rd place selection. What I am most impressed with about Shields season was all of the complete games...11 of them to be precise, which led all of Major League Baseball. For a guy who had never been a dominant pitcher, Shields had a breakout year of sorts winning a career-high 16 games with career bests in ERA (2.82), IP (249.1), WHIP (1.04), Ks (225), and WAR (4.9). I will say that Shields had an awfully "lucky" season considering his BABIP was .258 while his career average for that category sits at (.299). That will occasionally happen with ground-ball heavy pitchers though and for this season, it no-doubt worked in Shields' favor.

Stan Musial Award - AL MVP

Here is my list of my top 10 with a general discussion at the end.

1. Curtis Granderson (13 points)
2. Jacoby Ellsbury (9 points)
3. Miguel Cabrera (8 points)
4. Ian Kinsler (7 points)
5. Dustin Pedroia (6 points)
6. Jose Bautista (5 points)
7. Justin Verlander (4 points)
8. CC Sabathia (3 points)
9. Alex Gordon (2 points)
10. Ben Zobrist (1 point)

If I'm going strictly off of WAR (Wins Above Replacement) values, then Ellsbury wins this award running away...but in considering "valuable-ness", Granderson gets my nod. The Red Sox were/are absolutely loaded with talent. Among the WAR leaders, the Red Sox have 3 of the top 9 players (Ellsbury, Pedroia, A. Gonzalez). The Yankees are also loaded with talent, but not to that degree having only 2 players in the top 13 (Granderson & Cano). In a year in which A-Rod was not himself and Teixeira was streaky, Granderson was the constant producer setting career highs in Runs, RBIs, HRs, BBs and OPS all while committing only 3 errors in the field all year next to a dozen highlight-reel catches. Granderson's 7.0 WAR pales in comparison to Ellsbury's 9.4, but to me Granderson was more valuable in the sense that his team really needed his production to win.

I had a couple pitchers on my MVP ballot, though to be clear I would not have put them anywhere near the top. I've talked about this before (mostly on Twitter) but I feel that the MVP award name should be changed to Best Offensive Player. Keep the Cy Young Award as "the best pitcher" and make MVP the best hitter award. "Value" is to subjective and I don't think great offensive seasons should be ignored, much like Alex Gordon's was, simply because the player is stuck on a bad team. In the same way that the team a given pitcher plays for should not factor into the discussion for the Cy Young Award, the team a hitter plays for and whether or not that team makes the playoffs should not factor into their selection as the best hitter.

Anyway, that's enough pontificating for now. I hope to post more regularly here this off-season. My job has changed a bit in the sense that I have less and less time to blog about the Twins, but I am going to try my hardest to keep the discussion going here. It should be an exciting off-season!

Taps

2011-09-26T10:18:00.000-04:00

Taps could probably have been played on a number of occasions this season in reference to the Twins, but as we enter the final week of this, the "summer of our discontent", we can finally plays Taps on one of the worst seasons in franchise history and, hopefully, move on. With three games remaining, the Twins have 98 losses, needing to win 2 out of 3 from Kansas City to avoid the 2nd 100-loss season in team history. Here are some of the low-lights:

**In their last 52 games, the Twins are 10-42 (.192) which would translate to about a 32-win (130 loss) season if they played that way over the course of a full year. This stretch has included 3 losing streaks of at least 6 games and was punctuated franchise worst 11-game losing streak against mostly divisional opponents.

**For this entire season, the Twins have never been at or above .500 since before they started playing on April 1st (0-0).

**They've been shutout 13 times.

**Despite 98 losses, the Twins actually own an 8-7 record against Kansas City, a 9-9 record vs. the White Sox, a 5-1 record against Texas and a 4-4 record against Oakland. Against every other American League opponent, they have a losing record this year including a 4-14 record against Detroit.

**The Twins have played in 45 games this year that are considered blowouts (wins by either team of 5+ runs), the Twins record in those games is 15-30...in other words, they've lost 30 games this season by 5 or more runs.

**Despite not having the worst record in baseball (a distinction owned by the lowly Houston Astros), the Twins do have the worst run differential in all of baseball at -185. By comparison, they run differential last year was +110. Yes Bill, good bullpen arms make a HUGE difference.

Alright that's enough. I've been eagerly reading some of the other Twins blogs with their suggestions and analysis of what the Twins might do in the off-season to start turning this thing around. I saw on Twitter the other day that the Twins drew over 3 million fans this year and I guess my message to the organization would be this: without some serious planning and a few savvy moves to improve this club for next year, you will have a brand-new, but half-empty stadium on your hands because I can promise you that the "new stadium smell" is going to wear off pretty quick if you keep carting a .384 team out there.

Hard to Believe

2011-09-21T12:48:00.001-04:00

One year ago today, the Twins beat the Cleveland Indians 6-4 and clinched the AL Central crown for the 2nd year in a row. One year ago today we were all talking about how nice it was to clinch the division with 11 games left to go in the season. One year ago today we were talking about how the Twins would set up their rotation for the playoffs.

Today I read an article that the Twins need to win tonight to avoid their longest losing streak since 1982. Today I read an article that the Twins need to win 4 out of their final 9 games in order to avoid only the 2nd 100-loss season in team history. Today the Twins are 59-94, 29.5 games out of first place and have the 2nd worst record in Major League Baseball...

My-oh-my how much can change in one year's time.

Much has been written about the reasons for the Twins' struggles this year and I'm not here to shed anymore light on it, I think we're all had enough hand-wringing and head-scratching for one season. It's amazing that a 94-win team with essentially the same group of core players could end up a near 100-loss team the very next season, but I suppose it's not without precedent. The 1990 Twins finished in last place and won only 74 games before winning 95 games in 1991 and going on to win the World Series. Since 1991, only 5 teams have gone from last place to first place and all of them were National League teams (source), two teams have gone from last place to make the playoffs via the Wildcard. To quote the movie, "Dumb and Dumber"..."so you're saying there's a chance!"

If the Twins can get Mauer, Morneau and a host of other injured players healthy over the off-season, they should have no problem out-performing this year's injury-riddled Triple-A team. It will be interesting to see what kind of fall-out there will be with regard to personnel changes within the Twins organization this off-season. If I had my vote I would probably find a new GM and a new training/medical staff. Bill Smith has proven to be mediocre at best and the with the number of injury debacles the Twins have had over the last few years, I think the Twins need to take a long, hard look at their training staff to see where some changes might be made. Getting healthy will be Goal #1 for the Twins this off-season and they will need to make a few savvy moves to shore up the many holes that this season has made obvious. Here's to next year.

Twins Should Rest Mauer, Morneau, Span, etc...

2011-08-24T17:10:00.001-04:00

It's over. It's been over for awhile now - and as of today it looks like Detroit might run away with the division. I suppose that's ok, seems like every 3 years or so they ride Justin Verlander/Miguel Cabrera to a division crown. The Twins can't win the division every year, right? Now that everyone's on the same page about "it" being over, the Twins should be shifting their attention to the off-season and, ultimately, to next season. There isn't much they can do right now to change up their personnel besides throwing people on waivers and hoping that someone bites. That said, they can take steps right now to make next year's team better and I think that starts with giving banged up guys like Mauer, Morneau and Co. some major rest during the last painful month of the regular season.

After spending 2 months on the DL to start the season, Joe Mauer hasn't looked his old self this season and coming into tonight, Mauer has a .287/.347/.349 hitting line through 285 PAs with only 14 of his 74 total hits going for extra bases (13 doubles, 1HR). One possible reason for his poor hitting could be that he has been playing a couple of different field positions than he's used to - but that's unlikely to account for much of it - especially for a guy who came into this year with a career .888 OPS. The more likely culprit for Mauer's poor season at the plate is that he isn't fully healed yet and though Mauer has made a valiant effort up until now to "grind it out" (his words), there isn't much point to it now so why not give the guy an extra month to heal up.

As for Justin Morneau, call it rust if you must but he's looked pretty terrible as well since coming back from the DL on August 12th. In the 9 games since then, he has only 5 hits in 37 PAs and he's walked 2 times against 7 strikeouts. Morneau has been belabored by injuries for well over a year now, why make the guy grind it out during a lost season when you can give him ample time off down the stretch and have him back next year closer to 100%.

It hardly stops with Mauer and Morneau. Just having both of those guys back near 100% would make a huge difference next year, no doubt about it. If I'm the Twins front office, I think about shutting down Denard Span and Scott Baker (and Blackburn) for the rest of the season as well. There is simply no point in trying to get these guys back because at this point, it is more beneficial for this team to lose games than it is for them to win games...

I'm not suggesting that this team purposely tank games, but why rush your star players back just so you can win a couple more games than you otherwise would have? I'm suggesting that the Twins should rest their ailing stars, maybe this team loses a bunch of games, but hey, they get a better draft pick next season. If that player ends up being important to this ballclub down the line, wouldn't it have been worth it? It's a convoluted way of looking at things I know, but it's a reality the Twins might as well embrace. At this point, there is no benefit to having Mauer, Morneau, D-Span, or Bake out on the field. Obviously the Twins aren't going to come out and say, "hey, we're gonna give the M&M boys 2-3 days off per week in September", but if they just did it, I would understand and even be in support of it. I want this team to be a contender in 2012 and I don't think I'm alone there and I think resting these semi-injured players gives them the best shot at that.

Concert Review: Incubus

2011-08-23T11:50:00.001-04:00

I have racked my brain trying to come up with something to talk about regarding the Twins and every single one of my ideas is either negative, or it's been talked about a billion times around the Twins blogosphere. So rather than rehash an old issue or needlessly bleat about one of the myriad of problems this team has had this year, I'm going to do something I've never done in the space before and review a concert. If you don't like Incubus, that's ok, there are a bunch of other good pieces about the Twins out there and I promise I'll have another Twins-related post up here soon.

On Sunday night had the the true pleasure of attending the Incubus concert at the Charter Pavillion at Northerly Island here in downtown Chicago. I've been a fan of Incubus for many years - I honestly don't know most of the lyrics to their songs, I'm just in love with their chord progressions and melodies...and Brandon Boyd's voice. My wife and I are celebrating our 3rd anniversary this coming week and she actually surprised me with these tickets (great gift) and one thought I had on the way there was, "will they sound as good in-person as they do on their CDs?" I think that's a legit question of any band these days, especially in an age where even a crappy singer can be made to sound good with studio magic. No need to fear with Incubus, Boyd's voice is just dynamic and pitch-perfect in-person which really made the whole concert for me.

As you can see, we were sitting a little off to the left side of the stage, but that's one of the great things about the Charter Pavillion - no matter where you're sitting/standing, you're not that far away and you have a good view of the stage. The opener for Incubus was 'The Nightwatchman' which is Tom Morello's (RATM fame) "political folk alter ego" band. Let me say this: Morello is known for his electric guitar talents and not his voice and there's a reason for that; his voice is not good. In fact, he doesn't really have a voice, he just talks the lyrics to his songs loudly into the microphone. Morello still worked in a number of bombastic guitar solos into his songs, but whenever he was "singing", it wasn't that enjoyable. That said, they did a good job of firing up the crowd and I guess that's all that's expected of an opener...and it was cool to see Morello play even if we did have to listen to the singing as well.

It took awhile to switch sets, but it was worth the wait. Incubus opened up with 'Pardon Me' and overall, the concert was a good mix of old and new. My personal favorites were "The Warmth", "Anna Molly", and "If Not Now, When?", "In the Company of Wolves" and "Megalomaniac". "The Warmth", in particular, was fantastic...that song was an introduction of sorts between Incubus and I and I love the message of the song, "don't let the world bring you down."

As for Incubus' new stuff, I've read a number of reviews (mostly negative) and I'd like to add my own 'two cents'. A number of reviews I read said that they feel as though Incubus has lost their way with their new album "If Not Now, When?" I have to disagree. Firstly, Incubus took their longest career hiatus after their last album "Light Grenades" in 2006. Their stated reason for taking that break was essentially to re-charge their creative energy after years of constant touring and music-making. As lead-singer Brandon Boyd put it, "I think that we, collectively, were feeling like if we didn't step away from this monster that we created then it would begin to consume us. [...] We had to plant some roots, lest we start to write songs about living on a tour bus. So we had to fall in love, we had to fall out of love, we had to make homes." My point is, an extended hiatus is going to change the music a bit because the people have changed. Secondly, Incubus has been around now for nearly 20 years and while some bands essentially maintain one kind of sound throughout their lifetimes, some bands evolve and change their sound...you simply have to learn to appreciate their different styles.

Another review I read said, "Instead of tremendous riffs and melodies, this album comes off as the Brandon Boyd show, volume II. Sure, his vocals and lyrics continue to prove amicable, but the rest of the band is almost non-existent." Um, hello, Incubus is Brandon Boyd...more precisely, Incubus is Boyd's vocal - so what if it's the "Brandon Boyd" show...that's who I want to hear! I get it, if you like the grunge-rock sound of their early albums or the up-tempo melodies of their early-to-mid 2000's album, then this album would be kinda disappointing. But hey, you've got 6 other albums to listen to that will fulfill your desires. I think it's interesting to hear another side of them, and I like the more soft-rock feel of this album. I think some of the lyrics are pretty juvenile at times, but that's par for the course with Incubus, Boyd has always been a somewhat sub-par lyricist.

The bottom-line is that I had a great time at this show and it was well worth the money. Incubus has just started their tour so if you like their music and you're interested in seeing them, I highly recommend it. The only song that they didn't play that I wished they would have was "Dig" from their "Light Grenades" album - my wife and I both love that song. It was a great night, beautiful weather, a great venue and two days later I still have the "concert buzz".

Contest Winners

2011-08-18T14:59:00.004-04:00

Thank you to all of those who participated in the contest for the World Series DVD Collector's Set. Here are the winners...

To the winners: please send me your address at thebatshatters@gmail.com - thank you and congratulations!!

Grand Prize Winner (Collector's Edition DVD Set):
Maija Varda

Winner of the "Magic in Minnesota" DVD:
Commenter "A Little Bit Urban"

Thome Hits 600!

2011-08-16T00:54:00.001-04:00

I'll be the first to admit I've done a really terrible job of contributing to this blog. There hasn't been a whole lot of posting around here lately on my part; it's been a crazy summer (as it is for many people) but as Adam has mentioned here previously, we're expecting our first child in January, so I'm in the process of figuring out what it's going to mean to be a future dad (to a future Twins fan, obviously) while taking the best care I can of my beautiful wife. Add to that the fact that the Twins season is essentially over for all intensive purposes and the motivation for blogging falls lower on the priority list.

But tonight, there's a big reason for Twins Territory to rejoice, and that reason is Jim Thome. The night was momentarily derailed by Delmon Young hitting a home run for the Tigers in his first Comerica at-bat (seriously?) but it soon got back on track with three runs in the third followed by Mr. Thome giving the Twins the lead for good with home run number 599 in the sixth. The Tigers added two more in the bottom of that inning, but Thome put the game out of reach in the seventh with a blast to the opposite field that brought him into an elite baseball fraternity.

Like the man whose number 3 adorns the sleeves of Twins jerseys for the rest of this season, Thome has always been regarding as one of the nicest guys in baseball off the field. And I don't think there could have been any doubt before, but he most definitely punched his ticket to Cooperstown tonight. Unlike other members of the 600 home run club, there's never really been a question with him of improper aids to his prodigious power. I'm not going to touch the steroids debate with a ten-foot pole here, and if I'm totally honest I'm probably more in line with the view that it's going to be very hard to keep the so-called "juicers" out, but I can't imagine there's a single baseball writer in this country that's going to keep Thome out on his first ballot.

It's unfortunate that he couldn't have reached the milestone at Target Field, but kudos to the Detroit fans for showing Big Jim the recognition he deserves. Before he joined the Twins, I'll admit that my blind hatred of anything related to the White Sox may have prejudiced me against Thome. I didn't really care about his nice-guy reputation, I only cared that he played his home games at US Cellular Field (which is, frankly, a pretty awful place to watch a game as a Twins fan, but I digress). In my younger years, had Thome done that in a White Sox jersey against the Twins in Minnesota, especially to extend a lead in the late innings, every fiber of my being probably would have fought a standing ovation. But Detroit fans were mostly gracious to their credit, including the kid waving a "Thome is my Homie" sign behind the dugout. I'd like to think that I've come far enough in my older age that I'm willing to recognize the game's historical accomplishments wherever and to whomever they occur (although cheering A-Rod would certainly test that assumption).

In the midst of this, there's plenty of other things to be worried about as a Twins fan. Did they just sell low on a once-promising talent that never really seemed to pan out in Minnesota but might benefit from a change of scenery? Do they have enough payroll flexibility to afford the bullpen and middle-infield help they so desperately need? Will the injuries that have and seem to continue to plague this team become a recurring theme that haunts us for seasons to come? Are the Twins stuck in the dreaded Twilight Zone of not being good enough to really justify taking big steps to bolster the roster but not being bad enough to gut the team and start over? I think these are all probably valid questions, and we'll do our best to address them in the coming days and months. But for tonight, all that really matters to me is that one of the game's great ambassadors has taken his place alongside Ruth, Mays, Aaron, and yes, Bonds. Congratulations Jim Thome, and if this is your last season in a Twins (or any) uniform, it's certainly been a memorable one.

Links & A GIVEAWAY

2011-08-15T12:00:00.000-04:00

Ugh. What a poor showing for the hometown club over the weekend. I think if you're an avid reader of Twins-related blogs, you already know the sentiment that has been flying around today...the Twins are done, stick a fork in 'em, DONE. I thought rather than rehashing some disappointing aspect of the team this year, I would shine the spotlight on some fellow bloggers who have done some outstanding work covering the Twins this year. Here are a few of the more insightful posts of the past week or so.

Seth Stohs is a titan amongst Twins bloggers and though I can't link directly to this post about Kyle Gibson and possible Tommy John Surgery, I can recommend that you check him out and make him a daily stop. When I have a question about the Twins' minor league system, I go to his blog to find answers.

This is a little self-serving since I'm a writer over there as well, but there some other good writers over there as well and I enjoy reading their stuff. Nate Gilmore had an interesting piece earlier last week about how the Twins seem to have better luck in even years. Even if it is coincidental, it does make you think...

Nick Nelson is one of my favorite Twins bloggers and I think that's because he and I seem to be similarly realistic about this team. Some blogs tend to be overly positive, which is fine, but sometimes things aren't positive and I appreciate people who can tell it like it is. Last Monday Nick wrote a good post about the value of Cuddyer and Kubel and what the Twins might try to do in the off-season and then today he wrote about Liriano's struggles this season and how they are linked to his inability to get the ball over the plate.

Parker Hageman is another blogger who I read regularly and one thing he does that few other bloggers do is provide illustrations to back up the point he is trying to make. He did that today in talking about Nishioka's poor defense. Great read, check it out.

Ben Collin is one of my favorite follows on Twitter (@bennyc50) and he has a blog as well. Just this year he's pretty much invented such things as "Target Field Trail" and "Return of the Swing". His blog is more comedy oriented, but definitely worth a read...especially when the Twins suck as hard as they have this year.

TCHuddle had a sobering piece about Minnesota sports mediocrity and how the Twins have simply added to the pile this year.

Aaron Gleeman published a solid summary of Twins news from the past week including an interesting tidbit about an out-of-shape Chuck Knoblauch...

Fanatic Jack provided a nice summary of Terry Ryan's trades compared to Bill Smith's trades. After reading through the two lists, I can't say I disagree with Jack's conclusion...Smith has got to go.

John Bonnes took a shot at estimating the Twins 2012 payroll. That couples nicely with my post over at Puckett's Pond from last week talking about who the Twins might target in free-agency this off-season.

GIVEAWAY DETAILS!!

We're going to be having a GIVEAWAY of sorts here at TBS. You may have seen this around a few of the other blogs but we're getting in on the action too. A&E Home Entertainment recently released a 1991 Minnesota Twins World Series Collector's Edition 7-DVD set featuring every game of the '91 series in it's entirety and we've been given a copy to give away to our readers. Here is some more information on the set itself, don't forget you can buy Twins tickets and merchandise at www.twinsbaseball.com - including fan apparel, Twins jerseys, memorabilia and more.

MINNESOTA TWINS 1991 WORLD SERIES COLLECTOR'S EDITION DVD SET: http://shop.history.com/detail.php?p=302520&v=aetv

MAGIC IN MINNESOTA: REMEMBERING THE 1991 WORLD SERIES CHAMPIONSHIP DVD: http://shop.history.com/detail.php?p=302519&v=aetv

TO ENTER THE CONTEST:
Here's how we're gonna do this....I don't think we have enough regular readers to make a contest all that interesting. I'm going to giveaway the 1991 World Series Collector's Set and the Magic in Minnesota DVD separately. To enter the contest, simply drop a comment on this post (no anonymous posts obvs), or email me at thebatshatters@gmail.com. The contest will run until Thursday at 12:00pm CDT, at that point I will put all entries received into a hat and draw two names (winners). If you have any questions, please email me at the gmail address above or send me a tweet @thebatshatters.

Oh What a Difference an Infield Can Make

2011-08-12T14:42:00.000-04:00

With the hometown team having fallen on hard times (again) of late, we need something else to look at and today I'm here to provide that. There's been some talk around the Twins blogosphere lately about J.J. Hardy and how he's having a monster season for the Orioles...basically revisiting what a mistake it was for the Twins to trade him away for practically nothing. I am, of course, in wholehearted agreement with these sentiments, but I want to look at things from a slightly different angle. It's been no secret that for the majority of the season the Twins starting rotation (and bullpen) have struggled and though the rotation is pretty much composed of the exact same pieces, the results have been vastly different. I want to try and see what role infield defense has played in that difference and see if we can draw any conclusions.

First, some numbers.

Here are the ERAs, FIPs and xFIPs for the starting 5 from last year. I've also included their groundball-to-flyball ratio and their HR/FB%. For those not familiar with these metrics, FIP and xFIP attempt to remove variables from the equation that the pitcher cannot control with the goal of giving you an ERA-type number than more accurately states how a given pitcher performed. For example, though Francisco Liriano had a 3.62 ERA last year, his FIP was 2.66 and his xFIP was 2.95, good for 3rd and 2nd in all of baseball respectively. In other words, Liriano's pitching performance as a whole last year was much better than his ERA suggested. For more on FIP and xFIP, click the links.

2010 Pitching Numbers for Twins Starters: (ERA/FIP/xFIP), GB/FB ratio, HR/FB%, BABIP

Francisco Liriano (3.62/2.66/2.95), 1.96 GB/FB, 6.3%, .331
Carl Pavano (3.75/4.02/3.86), 1.66 GB/FB, 10.6%, .281
Scott Baker (4.49/3.96/3.82), 0.85 GB/FB,10.2%, .323
Kevin Slowey (4.45/3.98/4.24), 0.56 GB/FB, 8.2%, .307
Nick Blackburn (5.42/5.07/4.46), 1.57 GB/FB, 13.5%, .305

Numbers for the Twins starting staff in 2010: (4.17/3.91/3.84), 1.28 GB/FB, 9.9%, .299, 3.91 SIERA

2011 Pitching Numbers for Twins Starters: (ERA/FIP/xFIP), GB/FB ratio, HR/FB%, BABIP

Francisco Liriano (5.00/4.53/4.41), 1.45 GB/FB, 10.2%, .286
Carl Pavano (4.71/4.08/4.30), 1.48 GB/FB, 7.8%, .302
Scott Baker (3.21/3.49/3.55) 0.77 GB/FB, 8.9%, .299
Brian Duensing (4.56/4.05/4.00), 1.16 GB/FB, 9.6%, .317
Nick Blackburn (4.36/4.76/4.17), 1.98 GB/FB, 14.3%, .310

Numbers for the Twins starting staff in 2011: (4.30/4.18/4.10), 1.30 GB/FB, 9.7%, .296, 4.14 SIERA

Quick Discussion:
The first thing that jumps out at me with these numbers is just how poorly the starting rotation has pitched in 2011 when compared to the 2010 numbers. Even though the HR/FB% is down this year and the GB/FB ratio is up slightly, all three pitching metrics (ERA, FIP, xFIP) are worse for the staff this year. The second thing that pops out to me is that the staff BABIP (batting average on balls in play) is actually better this year than last. This is probably due to the fact that 4 of the Twins starters this year are ground-ball-heavy pitchers compared to only 3 of the 5 in 2010. More ground-balls equals more outs. The main culprits for these year's poor pitching results are Liriano and Pavano, that much is fairly obvious. Both are having terrible seasons compared to 2010 while the bottom 3/5ths of the rotation is actually performing a little better than last year's 3, 4 and 5 starters.

Now, the fielding numbers.

Quick caveat here, I obviously don't have a complete season's worth of number for this year. As a work around to that I calculated how much of this season has been played so far (72.2%) and for the counting stats, I just made the statistical assumption that the Twins will continue at the pace they've been on.

The Whole Team 2010:
78 errors
.987 Fielding%
+54 DRS (Defensive Runs Saved)
30.7 UZR (Ultimate Zone Rating)
3.2 URZ/150

Middle Infield 2010:
34 errors
.979 Fielding%
+27 DRS
11.1/9.9 UZR/UZR150 for 2B
14.0/13.2 UZR/UZR150 for SS

The Whole Team 2011:
116 errors
.981 Fielding%
-19 DRS
3.1 UZR
-0.4 UZR/150

Middle Infield 2011:
40 errors
.975 Fielding%
-18 DRS
-0.8/-0.5 UZR/UZR150 for 2B so far in 2011
-9.4/-12.0 UZR/UZR150 for SS so far in 2011

The numbers really do speak for themselves. Of particular note is the "Defensive Runs Saved" stat. This stat is like WAR (Wins Above Replacement) for defenders. 0 is "average", anything above is good and a getting better, anything below is bad and getting worse. Last year's middle infield for the Twins had a +27 DRS mark which was Top 5 in MLB, this year's team is pretty much the complete opposite story, not only playing to a negative DRS number, but also playing to negative UZR numbers as well. For a team with so many ground-ball-heavy starting pitchers (4 of 5 starters have a GB/FB ratio north of 1.00)...a strong defensive middle-infield is a must and sadly, we've gotten to see first hand how much of a difference it can make.

To my original premise, as I've gone through this I've come to realize how difficult it would be to isolate the effect of poor middle-infield defense on pitching results. It's easy to see that this year's middle infield has been much worse than last year's, but how that ends up affecting the pitching?...well, that's hard to say. I feel confident in saying the two are correlated, of that I have no doubt, especially when the starting staff is as adept at inducing the ground-ball as this one has been. This is my plea to Bill Smith and the Twins...PLEASE get some middle-infield help this off-season...if you're going to keep the same pitchers, improving the middle-infield defense on this team should be, far and away, priority #1 this off-season.

Hospitals Suck

2011-08-05T09:45:00.000-04:00

A couple of weeks back, I was in the car for a longer trip and got to thinking about how quickly life can change from being great, to being in turmoil. It was kind of a random thought path, but it stuck with me for a little bit...and then life decided to give me a real-life example. Last Sunday, my wife was feeling fine, we were enjoying some time with her brother and sister-in-law in Wrigleyville, walked around Wrigley Field during the Paul McCartney concert (a cool experience in and of itself), and returned home, went to bed, everything was good. On Monday morning she started feeling pain in her back and it got worse and worse, spreading to her shoulders and chest as well. Leslie has a pretty high pain tolerance and she was reduced to tears on Monday night by this mysterious pain. Monday night was a sleepless night for her and on Tuesday morning, we decided it was time to head to Urgent Care.

You would think that Urgent Care would be open 24 hours...this one was not, so while we got there at 7:20am, they didn't open 'till 8:00am and so we waited. They checked her out, ran some tests and came to the conclusion that they could not make a diagnosis there and sent us off to the ER. Upon arrival we were quickly situated (amazing for the ER) and more tests were done, plus a few hours of waiting in between. Then the heart doctor came in,...then the internal medicine doctor...more questions, more tests, more questions. After 4 hours in the ER (plus an hour an a half at Urgent Care), the heart doc finally felt that he had a lead on the cause of all this pain...pericarditis. Pericarditis is caused by a virus or bacteria that inflames the sac that contains the heart itself (the pericardium). Anyway, longish story shorter, my wife ended up spending two nights in the hospital for observation which wasn't pleasant in the least. Besides the circumstances of needing a hospital stay, being in the hospital sucks. For Leslie, she had Dilaudid and a comfortable-ish place to lay down. For family it is impossible to relax because a) you're freaked out about the person who's in the hospital and b) they don't provide many comfortable options for sitting/laying down in the room.

Needless to say I haven't had much interest in the Twins lately and upon seeing how they've played the last few days, I haven't missed much. I had half of a piece written on what kinds of moves the Twins might make in the off-season, but that remains unfinished. It's not very pleasant, but I like it when life adjusts your perspective and shows you what's important. It's been really easy to get frustrated with the Twins this season, but having gone through these past few days, it's doesn't matter to me as much. I guess what I'm saying is that I'm not as down about it. I'm still disappointed. I'm still fearful that Bill Smith will cripple this team somehow. But, I'm more willing to look for a silver lining, look toward the future, etc. Anyway, Leslie is back home now, there is still some pain, but she's doing better, which is a relief to me. My thanks to the Good Lord.

Fence Sitters

2011-07-28T12:06:00.000-04:00

Thanks to great performances by Ervin Santana, John Danks and Brian Duensing yesterday, the Twins find themselves 6 games behind 1st place with only 4 days remaining till the trade deadline...what is Bill Smith gonna do? So far I've heard rumors involving Denard Span and Michael Cuddyer, hopefully they are just that because the type of rumors I've heard (Span for Drew Storen/Ian Desmond) do not sound favorable for the Twins. As for me, I honestly do not care whether the Twins are sellers or not in the next few days. My only hope is that if they do move a few pieces, they get good value in return.

I think this past week has highlighted just how tall a task it is to gain ground in a division when there are three teams ahead of you. With the White Sox, Tigers and Indians all seemingly playing one another, there have been more than a few nights where at least one of those teams is guaranteed to win which puts pressure on the the Twins to win or fall even further behind. Fortunately the White Sox have put away division-leading Detroit the past couple of nights, but if they (the White Sox) get into the mix at the top, that will only further complicate the Twins struggle to get to the top.

We've been seeing some really positive things from Joe Mauer these past couple of days. Two nights ago Mauer hit a pinch-hit double in a come-from-behind Twins victory. Last night Mauer went 2-for-4 with his first homerun of the year and, not only that, his single was to the opposite field, a good sign that he is seeing the ball well. My dream scenario would be Mauer finding his power stroke while continuing to hit for average - and then Morneau returns in mid-August and immediately starts hitting...ok, maybe it's far-fetched, but if it happens it could make September pretty interesting.

Focusing the microscope a little on the Twins pitching staff...after going 17-9 with a 3.08/1.26 ERA/WHIP in June, the pitching staff as a whole has come back to earth in July, going 15-10 with a 4.47/1.36 ERA/WHIP. I'd love to try and spin this by saying something like, "but their xFIP this month is 2.50" but that is sadly untrue. The 4.47 ERA looks a lot more like April (4.88) and May's (4.87) than it does June which suggests to me that June was probably a little flukey. The Twins starters, in particular, are going to need to be a lot more consistent if they have any hope of reaching the playoffs. Francisco Liriano, Nick Blackburn and Brian Duensing have been the most inconsistent over the past few weeks, to the point where it almost impossible to predict how any one of the aforementioned pitchers is going to fare in any given start. To highlight that a bit, Twins starters had a 3.00 ERA in June and so far in July they have a 4.44 ERA...that's not going to cut it when you're chasing down 3 teams in your own division.

I guess I feel a little silly saying things like "if the Twins have any hope of winning the division". Realistically, they don't stand much of a chance. Baseball Prospectus publishes a playoff odds report every day and it is based off statistics that they run through simulator 1,000,000 times and today they have the Twins playoff chances at 5.0%. By comparison, the Tigers have a 62.4% chance and the White Sox have a 23.8% chance of making the playoff. So, like I said, unlikely...but hey, this season has been all about trying to keep the hope alive, so why stop now right?

Verlander'd

2011-07-22T15:30:00.000-04:00

22 days into the month and this is only the 5th post of July here at TBS...our apologies. My excuse is that I was on vacation for awhile and while that one is pretty weak, Matt's excuse is that he has been busy spreading HUGE news...our very own Matt Larson will be a brand-new dad soon! Congratulations to him and to his wife Ali! That's very exciting stuff, can't wait to meet his new daughter, due sometime in mid-January.

After a nice 5-day break from humanity up in the North Woods of Wisconsin, I returned yesterday to a pleasant surprise...the Twins hadn't dropped in the standings! Yay. I didn't get to catch last night's game, but in reading the box score this morning, one thing was clear...the Twins got Verlander'd. 8 innings, 5 hits, 1 run, 9 strikeouts, 0 walks...looks like a Verlander line to me. With the loss last night, the Twins have now lost 10 straight games against the Tigers dating back to last year. If the Twins want to be in the AL Central race come Monday morning, they had better reverse this luck quickly, starting tonight against Max Scherzer. The Twins throw Brian Duensing out there tonight and Duensing has pitched well in July so far with 2 wins and a 2.01 ERA in 22.1 innings. Scherzer hasn't had very good luck against the Twins in his career with a 9.13 ERA in 4 career starts against our hometown team.

The Twins get Jason Kubel back tonight after an extended stint on the DL. Kubel was pretty much the Twins lone bright spot during the first two months of the season, hitting .310/.355/.465 with 30 RBIs in the first 52 games of the season. He hasn't played in a Major League game since May 30th when he went down with a foot injury. During his most recent 5-game rehab stint with Triple-A Rochester, Kubel 6 hits in 18 at-bats with a HR, 2 RBIs, 3 walks and 4 Ks. Hopefully he can provide a spark to an offense that has struggled lately, scoring 5 of more runs only twice in 9 games since the All-Star break. Kubel's activation means that Scott Baker, Denard Span and Justin Morneau (and Kevin Slowey) are the only Twins' players that remain on the disabled list. Baker is expected to be activated for a start tomorrow against the Tigers.

During the "critical 12-game stretch" to start the 2nd half, the Twins are 5-4 so far which isn't great, but it means they haven't lost any ground either. They are currently 6 games out of 1st with 64 games left to play. In order to get to 85 wins, which is how many I believe it will take to win the division this year, they need to go 39-25 (.609, 99-win pace)...not an impossible task, but getting more difficult with each loss. To put it in perspective, the Tigers only need to go 33-31 (.515, 84-win pace) in their final 64 games to get to 85 wins. If Bill Smith decides to add a piece or two within the next 9 days, I'd like to see what we can get in the way of serviceable relievers. That said, my confidence in Smith to make a savvy trade or two is not very high. Hope is still alive though, Go Twins!

Getting Liriano Back on Track

2011-07-14T18:30:00.001-04:00

As the Twins head into this crucial 12-game home stand that could very well make or break the season, it seems almost fitting that Francisco Liriano is starting the first game against the Royals. Liriano's season has paralleled the Twins' in many ways; he struggled mightily to begin the year but appeared to be completely locked in during May and most of June. Unlike the Twins, however, Liriano entered the All-Star break on a bit of a sour note, giving up five earned runs in two of his last three starts, included his last start vs Tampa where he struck out only four while walking the same amount. The control issues that he has struggled with all season seemed to have reaappeared, and out of the 91 pitches he threw, almost half were balls. Liriano's struggles earlier in the year were well documented on the Twins blogosphere, but I wanted to take another look at what he's done well and what he needs to do to get back on track and sustain his success. Scott Baker has emerged as the Twins' most dominant pitcher this season, but Liriano showed last year what he's capable of and will be a huge part of any stretch run that materializes (fingers crossed).

Liriano's ERA currently stands at 5.06, a lot of which is still fallout from his atrocious start to the season. He's been better than that, but not markedly better, with a 4.43 FIP and 4.26 xFIP. The decrease in strikeouts and uptick in walks are still holding him back significantly in this regard; in addition to a drop-off of nearly two K/9, he's walking more than two batters more. In the month of June, he posted a stellar 27:7 K:BB ratio, but he's walked almost the same number of batters in only two July starts. I don't have the savvy about pitching mechanics or the knowledge to dig deep into Pitch F/X to explain if he's somehow regressed mechanically or has changed his release point from what he was doing in June, but it's somewhat troubling that the control issues from earlier seem to be resurfacing. The whole "should Liriano pitch to contact" debate and the discussion of what that really means aside, Liriano certainly needs to avoid giving up as many free passes if he's going to regain his dominance, as he hasn't been able to compensate for wildness by missing more bats. It seems obvious, but it's true. To be fair, three less-than-great starts recently is still a small sample size and all pitchers have off nights, but it highlights the fact that Liriano hasn't been consistent, and thus not currently the pitcher that most Twins fans would trust at this point in the season to get a crucial win (I have to think that would be Baker, but feel free to disagree with me on that one).

Digging farther into the numbers, there are a few other things that stand out. On the positive side, Liriano's swinging strike percentage remains excellent at 12.2%. Liriano posted a 12.4% in the 2010 campaign, and is only surpassed by Michael Pineda this year (12.5%) in all of baseball. If he keeps this up, it's very possible that we'll see the strikeouts start to come around again. Contrary to last year though, and perhaps contributing to the lack of K's, is that his O-Swing percentage (percentage of swings generated on pitches outside the strike zone, or, in general, batters "chasing") is down from 34.4% last year to 27.9% this year. The effect that stat is really having though is purely speculative; for comparison, Liriano's 2006 mark was only 27.5% (although that year he did put up a stunningly awsome 16.4% swinging strike percentage). If I had to guess, I'd say that more batters this year seem to be laying off the slider, a fact which may be backed up by the fact that last year his slider was worth 19 runs above average, whereas this year it's only been worth 5.6. While still an effective pitch, this decrease in results from the slider, in turn, may be causing him to favor the changeup more (4% increase from last year). That said, I'm not sure that throwing the slider more is any sort of answer, I'm more just pointing out things I'm noticing in the numbers.

Lastly, I'll discuss the concept of keeping the ball on the ground. We've already seen that he's missing fewer bats and thus has been relying more on balls in play to get outs, so looking at what types of balls are being put in play is important. In general, the more ground balls the better for a pitcher. Even though ground balls have a higher BABIP that fly balls, the biggest thing is that ground balls can't leave the yard. Last year, Liriano posted a career-high 53.6% ground ball rate, and I think that that was a positive contributor to his success, particularly in the small amount of home runs he gave up. This season, his GB rate has fallen off to 47.9%, and my gut wants to tell me that this is somehow related to his decreased success. However, with Liriano, it's not quite that simple on a game-by-game basis. For someone like Nick Blackburn, who isn't able to generate many strikeouts, there's usually a pretty good correlation between getting more ground balls and quality starts. For Liriano, though, that surface-level analysis doesn't play out. Case in point: during the game against the Royals (which brought the pitch-to-contact debate to a head) Liriano generated 15 ground balls and only 3 fly balls. Some of those ground balls (6 in fact) just happened to find their way through the infield in the fourth inning. Conversely, during his no-hitter, Liriano generated 11 fly balls compared to only 9 grounders. On May 22nd versus Arizona, his ratio was even worse with 12 fly balls to 5 grounders, yet he escaped with only two earned runs. And lastly, on July 6th versus Tampa, his GB:FB ratio was 2:9 yet he surrendered 5 earned. All of this goes to say that as a season-long trend, it could be that less grounders might equal less success, but it's harder to make sense of that when you dig into individual examples.

I started this piece intending to pick out concrete things that Liriano needs to do to find more consistency and get his season back on the right path, but along the way I think I found more questions than answers. Does he need to throw more strikes? Does he need to throw the slider more often and more effectively? Does he need to generate more ground balls? He certainly needs to cut down on the walks, and if batters aren't chasing as many balls outside the zone, he may have to find a way to compensate for that to avoid walking batters and running up his pitch count. However, for Liriano, throwing more strikes shouldn't mean turning into Blackburn or Buerhle; it should mean finding good locations within the zone early in the count to set up his out pitches. Regarding throwing the slider more, I wouldn't suggest that's any sort of answer. The reason that he hasn't been throwing it as much could be that it hasn't been as effective - I'll have to come back to why exactly that is, but there has to be a reason. And regarding keeping the ball on the ground, well, that's a little more complicated than I thought but I still would generally suggest it's a good idea, if only to try to keep home runs in check. (Liriano's HR/FB rate last season was 6.3%, which was certainly a bit luck-driven, but generating grounders certainly contributed). All of this might just be a fancy way of saying "pitch better," and the haste with which I tried to get this out means I probably left plenty of gaps in my logic. But if Liriano can regain the excellent command he exhibited last year (and stretches of this year), it will go a long way towards helping him return to dominance. With an in-form Liriano and a healthy, consistent Scott Baker, the Twins will have a 1-2 punch that could push them into a playoff spot.

Ready for the Ride to Continue

2011-07-13T12:56:00.001-04:00

Last night I actually watched the All-Star game. More precisely, I glanced up at the TV every once in awhile while playing games on my phone. It was boring...except the Timberlake interview which was decidedly awkward and amusing. I thought it was fitting that the respective leaders in the MVP-race for each league hit homeruns. The NL pitching dominated, though to be fair the AL was sans Sabathia, Price, Hernandez, Lester, etc. It's a shame that this game actually decides something. Oh well.

Now that the All-Star game is mercifully over, I'm looking forward to two things: a) Chris Berman being used strictly for Monday Night Football purposes and b) the 'second-half'. I think the Twins have a legitimate shot to make up for their horrible start and I'm excited to see how they play in these first few games post-All-Star-break. I'm excited for a 12-game homestand. I'm excited to see if Delmon Young can find his sea-legs again and help carry the load a little. I'm excited to see what happens if the Twins pull even closer to the Tigers and Indians by the end of the month. Yes, our beloved Twins are 6.5 games out of first, but the gap doesn't seem that large.

To quickly update the Twins injuries:

Scott Baker is in line to make his next start on Monday, July 18th against the Indians. His MRI last week showed only a minor flexor strain so hopefully he will be able to pick up right where he left off.

Delmon Young was activated and will start tomorrow against the Royals. He had a nice 9-game rehab stint at Triple-A, seeing 5 of his 9 hits (31 at-bats) go for extra bases including 2HRs.

Kevin Slowey threw 4.2 innings of scoreless baseball at Triple-A last Sunday with 3Ks and 1BB. He will pitch in one more rehab start coming up this week. According to Ron Gardenhire the Twins have no plans to call him up once he's ready, which really makes absolutely ZERO sense to me. At the very least he could be used in the bullpen and in my opinion, he deserves strong consideration for a rotation spot which would give the Twins the option of putting Brian Duensing in the bullpen as a left-handed specialist or long-reliever. Wasting Kevin Slowey's talent in Triple-A is just plain stupid.

Jason Kubel continues to rehab his injured foot and is probably still another 10-15 days away...and that's if things go well. He's expected to start in some rehab games at Fort Meyers here over the next few days, but there is no concrete rehab schedule at this point.

Denard Span will be meeting with doctors (perhaps today) in hopes of receiving clearance to start a rehab assignment. He ran the bases and worked out hard this past weekend and reported no symptoms. If cleared, he will probably need about 7-10 rehab games before he comes off the DL.

Update 12:03pm CDT: According to D-Span's twitter feed, he was cleared to begin a rehab assignment today, great news!

Justin Morneau is still on doctor-ordered post-surgery rest, but could resume light baseball activity here in the next week or so. His target for a return is mid-August, which may be slightly optimistic but, if true, could prove quite valuable to the Twins if they can stay in contention until then. Positive word from him is that his wrist has been feeling much better lately and continued rest will hopefully allow it to fully heal.

Whew, I think that's it in terms of injuries. Jim Thome has been dealing with a sprained toe, but it doesn't seem like anything a few days rest won't take care of. Injuries have been the main storyline for the Twins this season, but it looks like (fingers crossed) the Twins may finally be getting closer to "healthy" here in the next 2-3 weeks.

Some Interesting Reading Around the Twins Blogosphere (and elsewhere):

Nate Gilmore over at Puckett's Pond gave the Twins a first-half report card of sorts. I can't say I disagree with any of his marks.

Corey Ettinger put together an AL Central All-Star team with a little bit of justification for each selection. There aren't many Twins players in the bunch but then again, they haven't had that many stand-out players yet this season.

Nick Nelson wrote a good piece comparing this year's team to the 2003 Twins team that was in a similar situation at the All-Star break and went on to win the division. Hope seems to be running high again in Twins Territory and damn it, it feels good.

TT over at Granny Baseball is going through a series of posts explaining statistics. So far they've done BABIP, K/9 and IP. Nothing super in-depth here, but it's a nice primer for people looking to better their understanding of baseball statistics. What's odd about these posts is that Granny Baseball has been a very anti-sabermetrics blog...

The Common Man and Bill over at The Platoon Advantage had an interesting read about the number of players selected to the All-Star game.

And finally, Deadspin had a good read today about the 100 Worst Baseball Players of All-Time. It's interesting to see a lot of pretty good managers high on that list including Tommy Lasorda, Billy Martin and Ozzie Guillen. This is the first installment of the list.

24-12

2011-07-11T11:28:00.000-04:00

Ahhh. Nothing like a series with the White Sox to make me feel good about the Twins heading into the All-Star break. I managed to watch 3 out of the 4 games this weekend and I have to say, I was generally impressed with what I saw. Living in Chicago, it's always interesting to me to hear what the White Sox announcers have to say about the Twins. One thing is for sure, the Twins are in the heads of the announcers, for sure, and perhaps even the entire White Sox team. After taking 3 of 4 over the weekend, the Twins have won 9 out of their last 10 against Chicago and 29 out their last 36. Sometimes I wish we could play the White Sox all the time, fortunately we get 19 games against them every year.

After playing to a 17-36 (.321, 52-win pace) record through the end of May, the Twins have turned around with a 24-12 (.667, 108-win pace) record since June 1st. They enter the All-Star break with a 41-48 record, sitting in 4th place, 6.5 games behind the division-leading Detroit Tigers. One year ago today, the Twins were sitting in 3rd place with a 46-42 record, 3.5 games behind division-leading Chicago...I'm just sayin' for as good as the memories are of last year's team are, they weren't in all that different of a situation than this year's version is. The difference is that this year's squad dug themselves a massive hole at the beginning of the season and last year's team had a slump in the middle of the season...it's all about perspective. I don't believe this team has 108-win talent, but I also believe they're way better than a 52-win pace. Hopefully this division continues to run mediocre and the Twins can have the final laugh when it's all over.

Being that I live in Chicago, I usually watch Twins v. White Sox games on Chicago television which inevitably means a run-in with Ken "Hawk" Harrelson, the play-by-play (and color) man for the White Sox. Generally he's irritating to listen to, but he's been in baseball for a LONG time and has a deep knowledge of the game, which I can appreciate. During one of the games over the weekend he said that in all of his years of baseball, he's never seen a team have as many injuries to key players as the Twins have had. Given that this team is still in contention...with everything they've gone through, I think Gardenhire and his coaching staff deserve some serious praise. It wasn't that long ago that this team was carting out a mostly Triple-A lineup on a nightly basis, and a lot of those guys are still up here and are contributing in big ways.

The Twins did some shuffling after yesterday's game, sending down Rene Tosoni and Rene Rivera to make room for Delmon Young and hot-hitting Trevor Plouffe. It's good to see Delmon back, especially considering how ugly his ankle injury looked initially. With him and Kubes out the outfield defense has been better, but I think we've missed their bats. As for Plouffe, my gut tells me that calling him up will end in disaster (and another eventual demotion), but I guess he's earned a shot with his bat. Where the Twins will find him playing time is a mystery, but he did kinda force their hand. Either way, I'm happy because a few months ago I purchased an ad for this blog on the Trevor Plouffe baseball-reference page so Plouffe = traffic, thanks Trevor!

Looking ahead to "2nd half", the Twins have 12 straight games (at home!!) against AL Central opponents starting with 4 against Kansas City. Starting on July 18th they will have 8 straight games against the Tigers and Indians, both of whom are in front of them in the standings. This will be a key stretch for the Twins and could mean the difference between whether the Twins are sellers or not. Congratulations to Michael Cuddyer on his All-Star selection, enjoy the break and GO TWINS!!

Capps Has Got to Go

2011-07-06T11:17:00.000-04:00

On the face of things, the Twins have been playing pretty well lately. After a 6-game slide they've bounced back and have won 6 of their past 7 games and had it not been for a bullpen implosion against Milwaukee over the weekend we would be talking about a 7-game winning streak...and that's the face of things. When one turns the power up on the microscope, however, you see a team that is barely getting by, mostly because of a shaky back end of the bullpen. It hasn't been great all year, but things have really took a turn for the worse over the past 4 games and most of the blame lands squarely on Matt Capps' shoulders.

On Saturday, the Twins jumped out to a 7-0 lead over the Milwaukee Brewers and looked to be in cruise-mode en route to another victory. Carl Pavano wasn't lights out, but made it through 7 2/3rds innings giving up 3 earned runs, tipped his cap and handed it off to the bullpen to get the last 4 outs. Perkins came in and did his job striking out the only guy he faced. Capps came in with a 3-run lead to start the 9th inning, gave up three straight singles, got two outs and then gave up another double Nyjer Morgan and a single to George Kottaras to blow the game. Phil Dumatrait had to be called in to get the final out of the inning.

On Sunday the Twins got themselves into a donnybrook, with Nick Blackburn giving up 6 runs and Zack Greinke surrendering 5. The Twins also got the Brewer bullpen and held a 9-7 lead going into the top of the 9th. Gardenhire once again called on Capps to close the game and he proceeded to give up a lead-off single to Rickie Weeks, got Nyjer Morgan to ground into a fielder choice and, and gave up another single to Corey Hart. At this point, Gardy must have been steaming because with a 2-run lead, Capps had men at 1st and 2nd with only one-out and all-world hitter Prince Fielder strolling to the plate. Gardy decided to make a change calling on Glen Perkins who proceeded to strike out Fielder and pinch-hitter Casey McGehee to save the game and the day.

On Monday, suddenly-hot Brian Duensing threw a complete game shutout for our Twins as they cruised to a 7-0 victory. We were spared of any Capps meltdown for one day.

Last night, the Twins once again found themselves clinging to a small lead late in the game. Up 3-1 after getting to starter James Shields early in the game, Gardenhire maddeningly called on Capps once again to try and close out the victory. He must have immediately started kicking himself for making that choice as he watched Capps give up a lead-off bomb to B.J. Upton. Then a single Casey Kotchman. A fly-out, a line-out...could it be? No. A walk to Kelly Shoppach. Men at 1st and 2nd with 2-outs and a 1-run lead. Gardy had once again seen enough and once again called on Perkins to clean up Capps' mess, which he did on 3 pitches, getting Johnny Damon to ground out to short. Glen Perkins 2, Matt Capps 0.

As it stands at this very moment, the Twins are 7 games out of 1st place in the AL Central. After a game tonight to close out their series with the Rays, the Twins have 16-straight games against AL Central opponents beginning with a 4-game weekend set with their rivals from the Southside, the Chicago White Sox. If the Twins stand a chance at pulling off a miracle comeback in this division, they have got to be able to close games out when they have a lead in the 9th inning and right now, that means the Matt Capps has to be removed from the role. Right now they have two guys who are better options in the 9th, starting with Glen Perkins.

Glen Perkins has easily been the Twins most consistent reliever all season. After falling from grace and finding himself at Triple-A last year, Perkins has resurrected his career and is pitching as well as ever. Over his last 21 appearances, he's given up only 5 earned runs. He has a 32:11 K:BB ratio over 30.1 innings this year which is excellent and I think he has proven over the past 3 nights that he can get the job done when it matters. If there's a more pressure-packed situation than closing a game, it's closing a game when the guy who's supposed to be the closer can't do it.

Aside from Perkins, the case could be made that Joe Nathan deserves his old job back. Since coming back from the DL in late June, Nathan has thrown 5 innings of work surrendering one-run (the one run came in his first appearance off the DL) while striking out 5 against 0 walks. Not only that, his velocity is looking a whole lot more Nathan-like lately. Last night he threw 13 pitches, 9 of which we strikes. His fastball averaged 92.72mph and touched as high as 93.2mph. In the two seasons prior to Tommy John surgery, Nathan's fastball was averaging 93.6mph...earlier in the season Nathan was struggling to hit 91-92mph on the gun and now he's averaging almost 93mph...that's a good sign.

Either Perkins or Nathan would probably be a better option in the closer role at this point and I think either guy could succeed in the role. I have to imagine the Twins would love to get Nathan back in the closer role given that he is basically a very expensive set-up man right now. I'd be fine with either option, I just know Capps has to go. Every win is a precious commodity at this stage of the season and the Twins cannot afford to have a guy in the closer role who can't get the job done.

Nishioka's Struggles No Surprise

2011-06-30T12:20:00.002-04:00

I'm going to quickly revisit something I wrote several months ago, shortly after the Twins' hasty exit from the playoffs last year. The entire piece can be found here. Here's the quote:

"[...] re-upping with Hardy eats up a large portion of the off-season money the Twins have to spend, but as I've tried to lay out here, Hardy is the most important one to re-sign given his positional significance coupled with the potential difficulties of replacing him."

I wrote that on October 25th, 2010 and by now all of us are painfully familiar with what happened shortly thereafter. The Twins watched Orlando Hudson walk via free-agency. They traded Hardy to the Orioles for two less-than-mediocre relief "prospects", and they put all of their eggs into the Tsuyoshi Nishioka basket, paying the $5M posting fee to negotiate with the Japanese shortstop and ultimately signing him to a 3-year, $9M contract. Leading up to Spring Training, there was a lot of talk about how Yoshi would transition to Major League Baseball. Many of us bloggers actually managed to convince ourselves that a Nishioka-Casilla middle-infield battery would be pretty decent, at least defensively. Oh how I wish we had been right.

In February, I penned another piece that was inspired by something Phil Mackey had written about the number of Japanese players who had come over the the U.S. and had successful MLB careers. After reading that list I did some research, the results of which you can read here. At the risk of quoting myself too many times in my own piece, here was my conclusion.

"I'm not trying to be Debbie Downer here, but the track record is undeniable. Aside from Ichiro, who possessed superior hitting and fielding skills prior to coming to the U.S., and Hideki Matsui, who was as great of a power hitter as Japan has ever seen, the overall crop of Japanese players has been disappointing. What's really scary to me is that some of these guys were .300+ hitters in Japan (K. Matsui, Iguchi, Iwamura) and couldn't crack .275 over here...Nishioka was only a .293 hitter in Japan (.287 career average before an unusually good 2010 seasons). Nishioka also didn't have much power in Japan (career .426 SLG%), though he is only 25, so he could develop that as he goes along. I hope it works out for young Nishi, but history suggests the road will be a tough one."

I also wrote (last self-quote, I promise):

"[...] aside from Ichiro, none of the players I covered won a Gold Glove in the U.S. despite the fact that a few of them won the award multiple times in Japan."

I know that Nishioka has only played in 19 Major League games for the Twins. I know this (sample-size alert!!). I also know that the bulk of those games have been after an extended absence due to a broken leg and that perhaps he is simply quite rusty from the long layoff. I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt for awhile. That said, history is not in Nishioka's favor and at some point, one runs out of excuses. What started out as an interesting departure from the norm for the Twins could prove to be one of their more ill-advised personnel decisions of the last decade. As Gleeman pointed out in his column today, JJ Hardy is hitting .307/.369/.547 with 11HRs and only 1 error in 50 games this season for the Orioles, while Nishioka has committed 6 errors in 19 total games (between 2B & SS) while hitting .197/.254/.242.

Nishioka deserves more time before being labeled a 'bust', probably the entirety of a season...but my hopes for him have never been high and he's done nothing so far to change my mind. Don't get me wrong, I love his attitude, I love that he really seems to care about what the fans think of him and I love his work ethic. That said, I fear that the Twins are blinded by the investment they've made in the 26-year-old to the point where they are probably unwilling to do the one thing that would help Nishioka out more than anything: send him down to Triple-A for awhile. A minor league assignment would take the pressure off of him and give him a chance to further-grasp the unique aspects of baseball on this side of the Pacific. If the Twins are going to make a move like that, the time would be now. If you wait any longer, you're too far into his contract. If you're Bill Smith and you decide that this season is a bust, why not try to develop him a little bit, re-tool the team in the off-season, and come back next year with guns blazing? It just makes sense.

Eight Steps Forward, Five Steps Back

2011-06-27T18:39:00.000-04:00

After ripping off eight straight wins to climb back into the thick of the division race, the Twins lost the remaining two games in San Francisco and got swept at Miller Park (which, to be fair, has been the hardest place in baseball for road teams this season, with the Brewers owning a 29-11 record there). The previously sparkling pitching was nowhere to be found, by both the starters and the bullpen, and after scoring nine runs against the Giants last Tuesday night, the Twins proceeded to score that exact same number in the following five games. Frankly, they're lucky that the division deficit remains at nine games, as Cleveland and Detroit went 4-6 and 5-5 in their last ten, respectively.

The merry-go-round of injuries continues to spin as well, the latest casualty being Justin Morneau. To be honest, I think many of us thought he just had a minor wrist injury, and the fact that he was going to have neck surgery to fix a herniated disc caught me by surprise. Much like 2009 and 2010, it once again appears that Morneau is going to be on the DL for more time than he spends on the field. In addition, Delmon Young went to the DL with an ankle injury after getting it caught underneath the fence in left field, meaning that Rene Tosoni's latest stint at Rochester was a short-lived one. Denard Span is still having post-concussion symptoms that are eerily similar to Morneau's lingering problems, and there's no idea when he might be back, while Jason Kubel could return within a week. Jim Thome was back and contributed an RBI single in yesterday's game, but Mauer and Nishioka continue to struggle mightly after their return.

The Twins will limp back to Target Field for a series with the Dodgers, who haven't visited Minnesota since 2006. Off the field, the Dodgers are even more of a mess than they are on the field, having just filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, so hopefully that will have a demoralizing (rather than galvanizing) affect. Tonight's matchup will feature Nick Blackburn for the Twins, proud owner of a 3.15 ERA who has given up two earned runs or less in nine of his last ten starts. As odd as it sounds, Blackburn may be the pitcher the Twins would count on the most to right the ship at this point. Los Doyers counter with Chad Billingsley, who bounced back from a string of ugly outings with a one-run, six K performance against the Tigers in his last start. Billingsley can rack up the strikeouts at times but is also prone to issuing walks, so the Twins would be wise to adopt a patient approach. Tuesday's game will see Brian Duensing take on Ted Lilly in a lefty matchup, and Wednesday will feature Scott Baker, who took a step back in Milwaukee after his 10-strikeout gem versus the Rangers, and Dodgers rookie Rubby De La Rosa, who has a cannon for an arm but seems to have trouble finding the strike zone at points. Following the Dodgers series, the Twins will see the Brewers again, this time at Target Field.

This season has been quite the roller coaster, and although many fans aren't quite back to saying the Twins are out of it, the recent stretch of play has taken some of the luster out of what appeared to be a miraculous run back into the thick of the division race. Is "it" still "happening"? Is the glass half empty or half full? Nine games back with 86 to play looks more daunting than six or seven, but it's certainly better than 16.5. The Twins can no longer get back to .500 by the All-Star break, but this team has proven before that it truly isn't over until it's over and, at least eight steps forward and five steps back still equals three steps forward. The first step in going to be to snapping this five-game skid, and let's hope Blackburn is up to the task.

Random Twins Notes and a Word on Rivalries

2011-06-23T10:50:00.001-04:00

It's tough to see the hometown team lose on a night in which the Indians and Tigers both won, but hey, there are gonna be bumps in the road and the Twins ran into a pitcher, in Vogelsong, who's been on a roll lately. The Twins didn't really help themselves out, committing three errors in the game and staying mostly silent at the plate, but Delmon Young and Michael Cuddyer continued their hot streaks with 2-hits each in the game. The Twins will have a tall task in the rubber match of the series this afternoon as they face two-time Cy Young Award winner Tim Lincecum. Lincecum has struggled of late so perhaps the Twins aren't getting the best version of him. The Twins will throw out left-hander Brian Duensing who has been pretty effective in June allowing only 5 earned runs over his last 16 innings of work. Duensing will need to continue to be on top of his game if the Twins are going to have a shot at winning this one.

Joe Nathan and Jim Thome are expected to be activated from the DL before the start of Friday's game against the Milwaukee Brewers. Nathan will likely be used as a set-up man right away, but it wouldn't surprise me one bit if he is the team's closer by season's end. Reports have been positive on Nathan especially concerning his velocity and control, both of which were concerns before he was placed on the DL. If he can prove effective, his presence could go a long way in improving the back-end of the Twins bullpen. As for Thome, it's hard to be that optimistic about the remainder of the season for him. Last year the Twins caught lightening in a bottle with Thome as he was healthy most of the season AND hit 25 dingers. This year has been the complete opposite as Thome has already seen the DL twice. I wouldn't be surprised if this is Thome's last season, and if he hits 7 or more homeruns to surpass the 600 mark, I can almost assure you this will be his last season. I'm rooting for the guy to stay healthy, but it's hard to know what to expect.

Justin Morneau and Denard Span both remain on the DL, but things are looking better for Morneau than they are for Span. Nick Nelson had a good piece yesterday on Span's situation and it doesn't sound good. In fact, it sounds a lot like Morneau's situation last season and at this point, Span and the Twins have no idea how long he is going to be out of the lineup. Morneau is supposed to have his soft cast removed tomorrow or Saturday and the thinking is that he might be able to resume baseball activities at some point shortly thereafter. I would guess that if Morneau's wrist is feeling better, he'll be put on some sort of rehab program that would last a week or so. Wrist injuries are notorious for sapping power hitters of their power, so there's no use in rushing Morneau back if his wrist isn't close to 100%.

Late last week I wrote a piece about realignment in baseball and how ridiculous the idea is. Today I was scanning my Facebook news feed when I came across the following exchange. It reminded me how great the rivalries in baseball are, especially among cross-town rivals, enjoy.

Realignment is Ridiculous

2011-06-16T12:19:00.000-04:00

I was listening to Mike & Mike on ESPN radio this morning on my drive into work and they were talking about realignment in baseball and my blood started to boil. Greeny was floating his "idea" out there and it goes something like this:

* Get rid of divisions and instead have two 15-team leagues
* Every team in League A plays every team from League B for one 3 game series every year
* The rest of a team's games are spread out evenly against teams in their own league
* Have a rolling inter-league schedule to compensate for the odd number of teams in each league

His reason for realignment? "Fairness and equality." I'm sorry, but since when is "fairness" and "equality" the standard in professional sports?? And since when do we entertain the idea of altering divisions and leagues for the sake of a couple of teams who play in the AL East (Orioles & Blue Jays)?? This is ridiculous. First of all, baseball is INHERENTLY "unfair" because of the absence of a salary cap. Every individual ball club determines how much they want to spend on payroll. Realignment would only be a band-aid solution...and a bad one at that. Second, this isn't rec. league t-ball. This is pro sports, a land where fairness and equality don't matter. If you're a GM/Team President and you want your team to be better, bring in better scouts, pursue the bigger name free-agents, find a way to put butts in the seats; that is the name of the game afterall.

The Steinbrenners don't have more money than the other owners (ok, maybe they do, but all of the owners in baseball are multi-millionaires, billionaires, whatever), they simply choose to funnel more of their money into their baseball team and it pays off with winning ball clubs and world championships. If a team wants to go about it in a cheaper manner, they have the option of adopting a strategy similar to what the Tampa Bay Rays employ...advanced stats consultants, finding cutting edge methods to identify young talent, making savvy moves to bring in talent via free-agency and trades, etc. Just because the Orioles and Jays are stuck in a division that includes the Yankees and Red Sox doesn't mean we should try and fix it by realigning both leagues.

There really aren't many excuses for a low-payroll team in MLB. 1) You've got revenue-sharing in which large-market/high-payroll teams like the Yankees, Red Sox, Phillies, etc make payments to smaller market ball clubs. 2) The MLB draft favors teams who perform poorly and if you've got a team like the Royals who are near the bottom of the league every year, you can start to accumulate talent through the draft and build a ball club cheaply that way (as they have done). 3) Almost every team in baseball has some sort of TV deal these days which is another way to generate a lot of revenue. Blah, blah, blah.

I get tired of this "fairness" and "equality" BS. I remember when I was kid playing rec. league t-ball and my team would clearly lay a whupping on the other team and at the end of the game the coaches would say it was a "tie." I was beside myself, even at 6-years-old. In life as in baseball there are winners and losers...why our society feels the need the deny this reality is beyond me. If the Orioles and Jays want to compete in the AL East, I suggest they find creative ways to do so, either that or spend more money. It really is that simple. I don't care if it isn't fair, I don't care if it's not equal and I'm 100% against re-arranging the divisions in baseball so that teams like them have a better shot at making the playoffs.

/steps off soapbox
//resumes day

Series Preview: Twins vs White Sox

2011-06-14T22:39:00.171-04:00

I was trying to get this out before the game last night, but the weather did me a favor and gave me a little extra time and one less game to write about, being that the make-up game won't be played during this series. We haven't done one of these in a while, but with the the hated White Sox coming to town I figured it would be a good time to take stock of where these two teams stand. Both have disappointed so far this season after being pegged again as the two main contenders in the division, but each have shown signs of life as of late and are playing much better baseball. The Twins come in as winners of 8 of their last 10, and the White Sox have won 9 of 13 after suffering a 13-4 beatdown against the Jays on May 29th. The Twins have owned the Sox over the last few years, and courtesy of mlb.com, I found out that the Twins are 26-7 against the White Sox since 2009. That's dominance.

What is perhaps most surprising about the Twins' recent run is that they've done it despite a revolving door of injuries. For a team that scored above five runs so few times even with a marginally healthy lineup earlier in the season, it's pretty impressive that they've averaged over five runs a game over this recent run with no Jason Kubel, no Joe Mauer, no Jim Thome, a completely ineffective (and recently DL'ed) Justin Morneau, and no Denard Span, who was put on the 7-day DL with symptoms from a mild concussion (now a word that strikes fear into the heart of Twins Territory). What's even better is that help should be on the way soon; Tsuyoshi Nishioka and Glen Perkins could be back as soon as today, and Mauer should be getting ever closer to his long-awaited return.

But perhaps the biggest contributor to the team's success has been the pitching. Over the last 14 days, the Twins rank second in the league in overall ERA, and their sparkling 1.45 bullpen ERA is the best mark in baseball. Only Matt Capps has allowed a run out of the bullpen in the month of June. For as much as the bullpen was maligned earlier in the season, they are finding a way to get it done recently. It's not perhaps as good as that underneath the surface, as the 3.80 FIP and 5.00 xFIP marks attest over that same span (as well as the .194 BABIP), but the biggest thing is that the patchwork relief corps is producing results on the field. The starting pitching has also been excellent, with Liriano flirting with a perfect game, Scott Baker twirling a complete-game gem against the Rangers, and Carl Pavano allowing only three runs in his last sixteen innings. Anthony Swarzak performed admirably in two spot starts, and despite his ugly outing in monsoon conditions on Friday, Brian Duensing's previous start before that had been eight solid innings against the Royals. Here's a look at how the pitching matchups stack up for this now rain-shortened series:

Game 1: Carl Pavano (3-5, 4.54 ERA/3.99 FIP) vs Gavin Floyd (6-5, 3.89 ERA/3.81 FIP)

With the rainout, Tuesday's starters were simply pushed to Wednesday. As I noted earlier, Pavano comes into this game off of a seven-inning start against the Indians in which he allowed only one run on seven hits and struck out three. After an atrocious stretch to open the season, Pavano has started to regain his 2010 form, keeping up a strong ground ball rate and limiting walks. His 3.48 K/9 is by far the lowest mark in the majors, but he's also managed to keep the free passes in check, with his 1.90 BB/9 rate also among the lowest in the league. Pavano doesn't have much of a split this season, but he's been slightly more effective versus lefties.

Gavin Floyd has been perhaps the best starter for the White Sox this year not named Philip Humber (whose .220 BABIP has to start catching up with him at some point). He's down almost a mile-and-a-half per hour on his average fastball velocity this season and his K/9 rate is down slightly from his last few seasons, but he's also posting the lowest BB/9 rate of his career. Floyd has struggled against the Twins in his career with a 5.27 ERA, particularly having trouble in starts in Minnesota, and has fared much better against right-handers than left-handers this season. Ordinarily this would work in the Twins' favor, but the current lineup is much more right-handed as of late in the absence of almost all their lefty mashers.

Game 2: Nick Blackburn (5-4, 3.47 ERA/4.60 FIP) vs Mark Buerhle (3.95 ERA/3.74 FIP)

Don't look for a lot of strikeouts in this one either, although to be fair Blackburn actually has the K/9 advantage in this matchup. Blackie's 4.99 K/9 mark is the highest of his career even if it's still below league average, and he's also inducing ground balls at a 52% clip, also a career high. He's leading Twins starters in ERA at 3.47 even if FIP hates his K/BB rate, and his xFIP is a very respectable 3.77. For the type of pitcher he is, he's doing everything he needs to do to be successful. In his last start against the Rangers he struck out six and induced 13 grounders versus only 7 fly balls, allowing four runs (two earned) on ten hits.

If there's one word to describe Mark Buerhle, it's consistency, and at this point you know basically what you're getting from him. Buerhle has never thrown less than 200 innings in a season in his entire career, and his recipe for success resembles Nick Blackburn's in a lot of ways. Both pitchers rely heavily on pitching to contact, although Blackburn has a better career ground ball rate (and significantly higher rate this season in particular). Buehrle's average fastball this season is 85.4(!) miles per hour, and he obviously needs to change speeds and have pinpoint control to be effective. In his last start, he earned the win against Oakland after going seven innings while striking out four and walking one.

Overall, both teams come into the series playing well. For the Twins, a big key for the pitchers will be to keep the ball in the yard, as the White Sox have homered in eleven straight games. Paul Konerko has been one of the AL's best hitters this season, Alexei Ramirez is leading AL shortstops in WAR with 3.0, and Carlos Quentin is showing a huge resurgence in his power with 17 home runs already. Pavano has been able to avoid the home run pretty well this season, allowing only seven, but Blackburn has been prone to the long ball, giving up a team-high 12 (tied with Scott Baker). In the game I saw on June 9th, Blackburn gave up two absolute moon shots to Josh Hamilton and Nelson Cruz, and the White Sox have similar ability to punish mistakes.

The Twins currently sit 10 games back behind the now-division-leading Tigers, and the White Sox sit 4.5 back. The Tigers and the Indians are currently playing each other, and with a few more wins the Twins have a chance to get their deficit down to single digits for the first time in quite a while. With another home series with the offensively-challenged Padres on the horizon, followed by the similarly-inept Giants, there's good reason to think the hot streak could continue. There's still obviously a long way to go, but with some key players soon to return from injury, the future is certainly looking brighter.

The Bat Shatters All-Star Team

2011-06-14T16:53:00.002-04:00

As part of the Baseball Bloggers Alliance (BBA), each site gets the opportunity to vote on a few things every year and one of those things is the MLB All-Star game. My vote doesn't really count for anything more than any other person's but I think the BBA compiles all the votes from the blogs in the Alliance and, well, it gives people an idea of who the bloggers are voting for...I know, you're really excited right? I'll start with my National League picks, then do the American League, with a short blurb on why I made each selection. Enjoy.

NATIONAL LEAGUE

C - Brian McCann - Atlanta Braves
With Buster Posey out of the picture for the rest of this season, this selection becomes a bit of a no-brainer, though there are certainly other catchers who are contending for the starting catcher spot in the NL (Miguel Montero, Chris Ianetta, Yadier Molina to name a few). McCann has a .303/.374/.491 hitting-line coming into play today, making him the best offensive catcher in the NL and though defensively he is not the best, the fact that he leads NL catchers in HRs and RBIs makes up the difference.

1B - Prince Fielder - Milwaukee Brewers
This was a tough one because two guys, Prince and Joey Votto, are both playing at a very high level for contending teams. I give the edge to Fielder though because the dude's been all-world so far this season. Coming into today, he already has 19HRs, 58RBIs and a .303/.416/.622 hitting line. Since the middle of May, the Brewers have been on a tear and a lot of the credit belongs to Fielder, who has done a great job of anchoring the Brewers offense. What I've always liked about Fielder is that he swings his hardest every time, he runs his hardest every time and you can just sense the intensity with which he plays the game. I like to see that in an athlete and he doesn't disappoint.

2B - Rickie Weeks - Milwaukee Brewers
I guess you could make a case for Brandon Phillips here, but aside from those two guys, this field is pretty weak overall. If Chase Utley hadn't been injured I imagine his name would be here in the mix, but I don't believe in giving a guy an All-Star slot just because he's been good in the past. Weeks, like Fielder, is a big reason the Brewers are contenders and his 12HRs leads all NL 2nd basemen (tied with Kelly Johnson).

SS - Jose Reyes - New York Mets
Jose Reyes may not have the HR power of a Troy Tulowitzki, but he actually has a higher SLG% than Tulo and, not only that, Reyes leads the NL in AVG, OBP and SLG among all shortstops with over 150 at-bats. He also leads NL shortstops with 20 stolen bases and 47 runs. He's been a one man wrecking crew and if he can maintain the .342/.386/.524 hitting line he has going, it could be one of the more impressive seasons we've seen from a shortstop in quite some time.

3B - Ryan Roberts - Arizona Diamondbacks
Raise your hand if you know who this guy is. I'll be honest, I didn't know him either. Nevertheless, he leads NL 3rd basemen with 10 HRs, he has the highest OPS among NL 3rd basemen, he's got a slick glove AND he is tied for the NL lead (among 3rd basemen) with 9 stolen bases. Gotta respect those numbers.

RF - Lance Berkman - St. Louis Cardinals
The change of scenery to New York didn't work out for Berkman, but things have certainly worked out for him in St. Louis and if not for being a total defensive dud, he would easily be the NL's most valuable right-fielder. Berkman has played at a consistently high-level at the plate and that's pretty much the sole reason he gets my vote.

CF - Matt Kemp - Los Angeles Dodgers
He hits for average, he steals bases, he leads the NL in HRs and if not for weak fielding abilities, he'd be up there with Jose Bautista for the title of Most Valuable (in terms of WAR). Kemp is having a breakout year and is on pace to put up some ridiculous numbers.

LF - Ryan Braun - Milwaukee Brewers
I swear I'm not a Brewers fan...they just have that many superstars right now on offense. Braun leads all NL left-fielders in Runs, Homeruns, RBIs, stolen bases, SLG% and WAR. That's domination at the position and makes him deserving of an All-Star slot. Matt Holliday would certainly be in the mix as well if he weren't on the DL.

Starting Pitchers:
Roy Halladay - Philadelphia Phillies
Doc is doing it again, no surprise here. His ERA (2.39) would be impressive alone, but it's doubly impressive when you consider his FIP (2.11) and xFIP (2.34) are both even better. He's solidly in his prime right now.

Cole Hamels - Philadelphia Phillies
Both Hamels and Halladay have K/9 rates over 9.0 and BB/9 rates below 2.00. We could be looking at a co-Cy Young award this year with teammates winning it...I would wager that's never happened before.

Jair Jurjens - Atlanta Braves
I'd put Cliff Lee here because he is just as deserving, but that would be boring. Jair missed the first half of April due to injury, but has been nothing short of spectacular since returning. His 1.82 ERA is the best in the NL, and while he doesn't rack up Ks with the best of them, he doesn't walk anyone either as evidenced by his NL 2nd-best 1.25 BB/9 ratio.

Other Guys I'd Vote For: Cliff Lee, Clayton Kershaw, Jaime Garcia, Daniel Hudson, Tommy Hanson

Relief Pitchers:
Jonny Venters - Atlanta Braves
Look at his stats, you won't regret it...ridiculous. His teammate Craig Kimbrel has ridiculous stats as well, though in a different way. Worth a look, I'm jealous that the Braves have both of them...

John Axford - Milwaukee Brewers
I'll vote for the guy simply because he's admirably filled the biggest closer's shoes of all-time in Trevor Hoffman. Axford has 18 saves, a sub-3.00 ERA and he's only blown 2 saves so far this year. At 28-years-old, we could be seeing this guy in the closers' role for awhile.

Mike Adams - San Diego Padres
I root for the underdog and in this case, I suspect that few people outside of fantasy baseball would recognize this guy's name. Adams has a near 10.0 K/9 ratio, a 1.17 BB/9 ratio, a 1.17 ERA and he's "held" 12 games for the Padres. He's exactly what you want to have when you go to the 'pen and you can't argue with those numbers...saves are sexy, but consistency is king.

AMERICAN LEAGUE

C - Alex Avila - Detroit Tigers
I like stories like Avila. Guy gets a chance to shine, comes through with flying colors. Avila has the best SLG% of all American League catchers (min. 150 PAs) and though his BABIP (.359) suggests this won't last forever, it's been a nice run for a guy who's getting his first real shot.

1B - Adrian Gonzalez - Boston Red Sox
There are literally half a dozen guys who had a legit case for starting 1st basemen for the American League. Miguel Cabrera, Paul Konerko, and Mark Teixeira all have the numbers to support their cases. That said, it's A-Gonz who has risen to the top.

2B - Howie Kendrick - Los Angeles Angels
Playing on the west coast, Kendrick doesn't get much love, but between his glove at 2nd and his bat, there hasn't been a better 2nd basemen so far this year. Kendrick spent a little time on the DL, but has come back with a vengeance and coming into tonight he has a .310/.375/.495 triple-slash with 7HRs and 5 stolen bases. His BABIP is way up there (.369) so a 2nd-half swoon is possible, but hey, these are awards for what a guy has done right?

SS - Alexei Ramirez - Chicago White Sox
I know, I know, Asdrubal Cabrera has a better SLG% and more HRs, RBIs and stolen bases. BUT, his play at shortstop, a critical position on the field, doesn't match up to Alexei's and to me that makes a difference. The middle infield is crucial to a team's success and The Cuban Missile has done more to help the White Sox than Cabrera has done to help Cleveland.

3B - Alex Rodriguez - New York Yankees
A-Rod is still the best 3rd baseman in baseball and I predict he will be for at least another 2-4 years. He's not stealing bases like he used to but he's still hitting for power, he has excellent plate discipline, he has an excellent glove and in my mind, when he's playing at the level he has been at this year, he's nearly worth the ridiculous salary he makes.
Honorable Mentions: Kevin Youkilis, Adrian Beltre, Evan Longoria

RF - Jose Bautista - Toronto Blue Jays
This is easily the most one-sided race in all of baseball. According to fangraphs.com, Bautista has amassed an MLB-best 4.7 WAR to-date, the next closest right-fielder is Matt Joyce with 2.7 WAR. To put that into perspective, Bautista has been almost twice as valuable as the next best guy. Dude's got a .701 SLG%...that is ridic.

CF - Curtis Granderson - New York Yankees
You can't help but like this guy. He's a good person and a great baseball player and well, it's easy to vote for someone like that when they're having a fantastic year, which Granderson is. His 20HRs, 54 Runs, and 47 RBIs are all tops for qualified centerfielders and he's made a handful of excellent defensive plays as well.

LF - Alex Gordon (?) - Kansas City Royals
Never thought I'd see the day. Gordon has had himself a nice season and is benefiting from the fact that LF has to be one of the most shallow positions in the American League. There isn't much competition and his .818 OPS takes the cake.

DH - David Ortiz - Boston Red Sox
Another category where the competition isn't close, though Ortiz might be the only truly full-time DH out there. Yawn.

Starting Pitchers:
Dan Haren - Los Angeles Angels
There hasn't been much talk about Danny boy, but he's quietly had himself a great year so far with an AL-best 2.52 FIP and 4th-best 2.56 ERA. He has the 2nd best BB/9 ratio in the American League and though he only has 5 wins to show for his efforts, he's been one of the AL's most dominating starters so far this year.

Jered Weaver - Los Angeles Angels
Between the Phillies and Angels...you've got the 5 best pitchers in baseball. Weaver was absolutely light-out in April, had a rougher go of it in May, but has overall been excellent so far this season. His 3.1 WAR is tied for AL-best with teammate Dan Haren and his 2.24 ERA is behind only Josh Beckett and upstart Alexi Ogando for the AL lead.

Felix Hernandez - Seattle Mariners
Considering who King Felix plays for, perhaps he doesn't deserve this spot, but hey, this is about individual talent. Hernandez leads the AL in Ks and innings-pitched and has done nothing to cast any doubt on his Cy Young award from last season. His ERA isn't the best, but he's got the 4th best xFIP in the AL and manages to give even the lowly Seattle Mariners a chance to win every time he's out there.

Relief Pitchers:
Jordan Walden - Los Angeles Angels
This guy is another good example of someone who got an opportunity and seized it. Walden's got a tidy 2.76 ERA (2.04 FIP), he hasn't allowed a HR and while he's blown 3 saves, this is his first year closing and he's only 23-years-old.

David Robertson - New York Yankees
This guy won't get any love because he's a closer, but David Robertson has stranded 87.2% of runners on-base, he has a 1.37 ERA (26.1 innings), and he has the 4th most "holds" in the American League. His 14.70 K/9 ratio is impressive and yet...he get no love.

Mariano Rivera - New York Yankees
If the Phillies and Angels have 5 of Baseball's best starters, the Braves and Yankees have 4 of MLB's best relievers. Rivera continues to dominate, he owns a sub-2.00 ERA and sub-2.00 FIP and he's tied for the AL's 2nd best mark in Saves with 16. I respect both the way Rivera comports himself, and his consistency on the field.

Whew, if you're still reading, thank you, that was one of my longest posts ever.

Don't Give Up on Kubes

2011-06-10T17:05:00.000-04:00

I'm really digging the Twins winning ways lately and the hopeful Twins fan in me is starting to have dreams of this team winning 25 out of 30 games and getting back into the division race. The realistic fan in me knows that's not likely. In the likelier scenario that the Twins are still "out of it" at the end of June, they'll likely become sellers and I'm here to beg that they consider re-signing Jason Kubel. Here is my case:

We're all familiar with the ups and down of Jason Kubel's career with the Twins. Kubes destroyed Minor League pitching for 4 years before getting a shot at the Bigs in 2004. He didn't disappoint, hitting .300/.358/.433 as a 22-year-old in 23 games with the Twins. That fall, he endured a serious knee injury which kept him out of baseball for the entire 2005 season, and while he re-emerged with the Twins in 2006, the results were nothing like before. Kubel struggled for a couple of seasons in 2006 and 2007 before putting it all together in 2008. In '08, he hit .272/.335/.471 with 20HRs and 78RBIs while seeing part-time action in the outfield. In 2009, he had his 'breakout' hitting .300/.369/.539 with 28HRs and 103 RBIs. In a contract-year last season, he only managed a .249 batting-average, but did surpass the 20 homerun plateau for the 3rd straight season while driving in 92 runs.

Last off-season, the Twins picked up a $5.25M option on Kubel which was a pretty good deal for them and a pretty good deal for Kubel as well, considering how little he did in 2010 to help himself out. At the beginning of this year, while almost everything and everyone fell apart around him, Kubel was spectacular hitting .310/.355/.465 with 5HR and 30RBI before landing on the DL with a sprained left foot on June 2nd. As we get closer to July, talk around the interwebs has increased about the likelihood of the Twins being sellers, and Kubel's name gets mentioned often, along with the likes of Michael Cuddyer, Kevin Slowey and Delmon Young. Let's take a look at other left-handed power hitters over the last three years:

Click to enlarge (props to fangraphs.com)

The graph is pretty small, so if you don't feel like clicking on it, I'll let you know what it says. To produce the graph I sorted by OFers with a qualified # of at-bats over the last three years. Then I sorted it further by hitters against right-handed pitching and then sorted it from highest to lowest OPS. Over the last three years, Kubel has the 11th highest OPS (.883), the 11th highest batting average and the 8th most HRs against right-handers...among all of the outfielders in baseball. You won't find his name on the WAR leaderboards, but that's because his defense is so atrocious. If he was strictly in a DH role, his value would increase. Without Thome next year, the Twins will likely have an opening at DH, a role Kubel is familiar with and could probably excel in.

I'm not trying to make it sound like Kubel is a superstar player. He's not. What I am trying to say is that Kubel, as a left-handed hitter with power, possesses an offensive skill-set that is not all that common in MLB, and is not easily replaceable if they trade him or let him go. Kubel has had some injury problems over the years, but for the past three season he's been a consistent producer and a valuable part of the Twins lineup. For a reasonable amount of money, say $5-$7M per over 3-5 years (Kubes is only 29) you could have yourself a very capable DH who gives you some flexibility to play him in the field if someone goes down with an injury. With the salaries of Michael Cuddyer and Joe Nathan coming off the books at the end of the season, $5-7M/year is a reasonable amount of money to spend on a guy who can hit with power from the left side of the plate.

Game of Adjustments

2011-06-08T17:21:00.000-04:00

I will be glad when the NBA Playoffs are over. I mean come on, how long have they been going on now? A month? Two months? It's almost mid-June for crying out loud. I have nothing against basketball, but what I do have a problem with is ESPN's CONSTANT "coverage" of every game. From the moment one game ends to the time the next one begins it's nothing but basketball. Hello, there are 10-15 Major League Baseball games every day that we could talk about!? There are other sports! But I digress. It was during this wall-to-wall NBA playoff coverage that something caught my ear and made me think for a second. For those who don't follow the NBA, LeBron James scored only 8 points for the Heat in last night's game, which I believe was a career-low for him in the post-season. Last night's performance has caused people to question all sorts of things about him including his greatness as a player, his focus, his intensity and, ultimately, his eventual legacy. That got me thinking, why have we gotten to a point where the big picture is no longer important? One game changes how some people are viewing LeBron James?

Player X goes through a bad streak (Adam Dunn for example) and sports talk radio hosts starting talking about benching the guy. Albert Pujols has a slow start to the season and people start asking "is this the end for Albert?" Joe Mauer has an injury and people start demanding that the 28-year-old catcher change positions (myself included on that one). Jose Bautista blossoms into a power hitter and people immediately begin to question his integrity with accusations of steroid use. What happened to patience? What happened to taking into account a guy's entire track-record as a player before making sweeping judgements?

Take Adam Dunn for example. He's had a miserable go of it with the White Sox so far this year. Coming into play tonight he's hitting .176/.314/.309, he's struck out 80 times already this season and he's only hit 5 homeruns. This for a guy whose career hitting line is .248/.378/.514. The fact is that Adam Dunn has been one of the most consistent hitters in all of baseball for the better part of the last decade. His yearly homerun totals since 2004? 46,40,40,40,40,38,38. His yearly RBI totals? 102,101,92,106,100,105,103. There are very few players in baseball that are as consistent and yet the local media here in Chicago have been questioning not only the contract that Dunn signed, but also Dunn's abilities as a baseball player. Rarely is it mentioned that the guy had an appendectomy 2 weeks into the season. Few people have considered that this guy played every day in the field for the last 8 seasons and is now being asked to fill a role in which all he does is hit (DH). Even fewer people talk about the fact that Dunn changed leagues in coming to the White Sox and is now regularly facing pitchers whom he's never seen before. To top it off, no one is talking about the fact that teams are now playing a shift on him when he is at the plate, which was rarely, if ever, done prior to this season.

People who've been around baseball often say that "baseball is a game of adjustments." From my vantage point Adam Dunn has had a lot to adjust to...but in today's world it seems like everyone expects Dunn to make a seamless transition. And he's hardly the first or last example of this. Pujols is an even better example. People are going to question a guy who in 10 season put up numbers good enough to make him worthy of the Hall of Fame? Come on. I get the whole "what have you done for me lately" sentiment, but enough with the knee-jerk reactions and hair-trigger analyses. I know I'm just spitting into the wind with all of this, but I have a lot more respect for writers and sports commentators who put less stock in the day-to-day (or week-to-week as it were) and focus on the bigger picture. I feel like a lot of today's commentary, whether it be on sports, the economy, politics, etc, is fueled by impatience and short-sightedness.

Random Twins Stuff

2011-06-07T17:27:00.000-04:00

Well, I made it. My wife and I bought our first house and closed at the end of April and then spent every evening of the next three weeks sanding, taping, painting, and moving. It was exhausting, but now it's all done and I can get back to the things I love to do, like writing about the Twins. I was able to very passively follow the Twins while this was all going on and I was just as happy to have the distraction since the team was playing so poorly. Happily as I've transitioned back in normal life, the Twins have started playing better. Thank you for bearing with this blog and thanks to Matt for picking up some of the slack. In news unrelated to the Twins, our very own Matt Larson was recently on Jeopardy! and not only was he on Jeopardy!, he managed to win his first round by $1. Congratulations Matt!

I'm not one to even bother reporting "site news" normally, but this is a little different. TheBatShatters recently joined the Baseball Bloggers Alliance which is a grouping of 298 (currently) baseball blogs. It's a pretty cool group, and you can expect to see a post or two now and again related to the BBA. If you want to check out their webpage, you can find it here. Well-known Twins blogger Seth Stohs (SethSpeaks) is the president of the Twins chapter of the BBA.

Odd and kinda scary news out of Twins camp this afternoon. It appears that Denard Span is suffering from some sort of vertigo or something that will keep him from playing for at least the next few days. ESPN1500 is reporting that D-Span is headed back to the Twin Cities to meet with doctors to try to figure out what is going on. What's odd is that it's likely not a concussion as D-Span was checked out for that recently following a collision at home plate during the series with KC. Unfortunately it's just another in a long line of injuries for the Twins who will now have to figure out a way of getting around the loss of their lead-off man for at least a couple of games.

Tsuyoshi Nishioka has begun a rehab assignment with the Fort Myers Miracle this week and it's been reported that he has been doing a lot of work with Paul Molitor on avoiding collisions at 2nd base. I wish I could find it, but I saw a pretty cool video on how they're trying to teach Nishioka the art of the jump throw. Basically they're tossing a beach ball at him while he makes throws to first, pretty clever idea if you ask me. Teammate and Twins superstar Joe Mauer has also started a rehab assignment of sorts with the Miracle and while he's not eligible to come off the DL until June 12th, it looks like things are headed in a positive direction (finally!) for Joe and I would expect to see him back with the Major League ballclub within a couple of weeks.

After the final two games of the series with the Indians, the Twins will start a 10-game homestand against the Rangers, White Sox and Padres and, in fact, 19 out of their next 25 games following the Indians series will be at Target Field. For a road-weary team this has got to be good news and it is giving me hope that maybe this team can go on a little run. Coming into play they are 11.5 games out, but with a couple of more wins tonight and tomorrow night they could cut that lead down to 9.5 and then you consider that there are still about 100 games left of the season and well...ok, let's not get carried away. Go Twins!

Now is the Time to Play it Smart

2011-06-03T11:21:00.001-04:00

At 18-37, the Twins are effectively out of the race for the AL Central crown...this is not new news. They're 15.5 games behind Cleveland coming into play today and the astronomical win-loss record they would have to put together from this point forward to win even 90 games is on the edge of ridiculous (for those that are curious, they'd have to go 72-35 from here on out). Everyone and their mom around the interwebs is talking about how the Twins are likely going to be sellers come the trade deadline and while I don't disagree with that sentiment, it can not be said emphatically enough that now is the time for the Twins to be smart and play their cards right.

When you're a "seller" that means a) things haven't gone well for you this year and b)you're not expecting them to get better quickly enough to contend. In terms of getting a good deal, that leaves you at a disadvantage. When you're a seller, you're essentially trying to dump salary or perhaps get a load of prospects in return for a more valuable Major Leaguer. The one thing the Twins absolutely need to keep in mind throughout the next two months is that they have both Michael Cuddyer and Joe Nathan's salaries coming off the books at the end of the season. That's $21,750,000 in salary between those two players alone. In addition to that, Jason Kubel, Matt Capps, and Jim Thome's salaries are also expiring at the end of the season, good for another $15,400,000 off the payroll number. In total, that's $37,150,000 in salary coming off the books at the end of the season, which is about 33% of the current payroll figure ($113M). Granted, yes, you would have to replace those guys, but aside from Kubes you can probably pretty easily replace that production at a fraction of the cost.

So what's the point I'm trying to make? What I'm trying to highlight here is the fact that the Twins don't absolutely NEED to be sellers. Sure, it would be nice to get a couple of prospects for Kubel or Slowey, there isn't much debating that the farm system is in need of an influx in talent...but it isn't worth trading either player unless you're getting something decent in return. The Twins will have enough flexibility with the payroll at the end of this season to make a lot of changes, they don't need to make bad deals now to preemptively try and patch up the holes on a terrible team. The people in the Twins' front office need to be both shrewd and smart right now because for as bad as things look, there is no reason to panic.

I don't think there is much debate that the middle infield is of utmost concern for this team going into next season. That said, considering the investment that the Twins have made in Tsuyoshi Nishioka, it's unlikely that they will be in the market for a 2nd basemen in the off-season. Here's one option that's intriguing:

Kelly Johnson - 2B - Diamondbacks - 29-years-old
Johnson has had somewhat of a down year so far this season, but he owns a career .794 OPS and is a solid defensive 2nd-baseman as well. Johnson has legitimate 20-25HR power and though he does strikeout a lot, he has managed a career .347 OBP. Johnson is set to make $5.85M this season, but could probably be had for $6-$8M per and would be an immediate upgrade over any of the options the Twins currently have at 2nd base.

As for Shortstop, the Twins clearly have a need there. Here are some of the better options:

Jose Reyes - SS - Mets - 27-years-old
Though this is likely a long-shot for the Twins, it's at least worth mentioning that a shortstop of Reyes' caliber will likely be on the market at the end of this season (provided he doesn't re-sign before the end of the year). Reyes has a solid .774 career OPS and while he's no gold-glove at shortstop, he would be light-years better than anything the Twins have, both offensively and defensively.

J.J. Hardy - SS - Orioles - 28-years-old
I find this scenario unlikely as well, considering that a) the Twins traded him away for two garbage relievers and b) there were rumblings that the coaching staff wasn't that impressed with Hardy. The Twins would have to be stupid not to consider this option, however, because the fact of the matter is that the Twins are getting schooled this season on the importance of middle-infield defense and Hardy, when healthy, is about as good as it gets at shortstop.

Rafael Furcal - SS - Dodgers - 33-years-old
While Furcal is an older option, his .285/.350/.410 hitting line would fit nicely into the Twins lineup. With Furcal, the question is always "can he stay healthy" as he has seen significant DL time in 3 out of the last 4 seasons. When he has been healthy he been a good producer offensively and his glove, well, it's been good enough (.965 career Fielding% at SS). The tricky thing with Furcal is that if he reaches 600 PAs this year (unlikely), his $12M option for 2012 become automatic. I can't see the Dodgers picking up a $12M option on him otherwise, so it's likely that Furcal will be a free-agent at the end of this season.

Other options include Yuniesky Betancourt, Ramon Santiago, and Jack Wilson, but to be completely frank, none of those options are much better than the middle-infield options the Twins have had this season.

Given that the Twins will likely have $20-$30M to spend during this coming off-season, using $8M-$10M of that money to fix their shortstop problem should be a no-brainer and they really couldn't go very wrong with any of the three options above. I would be ecstatic to have Reyes, but I find that to be so unlikely, it's not even worth getting excited about. The bottomline with all of this is that the Twins don't need to be aggressive sellers in the next two months and, in fact, they shouldn't make a deal unless they're getting quality in return. Bill Smith could go a long way in repairing his image with Twins fans if he makes patient, smart moves this year that end up paying off next year or down the road.

Future HOFer?: Miguel Tejada

2011-06-01T12:55:00.000-04:00

I'm in agreement with what Matt wrote the other day, I have almost zero interest in writing about the Twins. When I do I find that what I write is mostly negative (or sarcastic) and that's just not healthy. This blog originally started out covering Major League Baseball in general and I have no problem with it reverting back to that for the time being. It's one thing when the team you love has a run of bad luck because of injuries or the like. That stuff happens from time to time and, well, you re-group, get healthy and try again next year. It's another thing when the front-office of your favorite team makes poor decision after poor decision and hamstrings what should otherwise be a good team...especially when that front-office has a brand-new stadium and over $100M at their disposal. Anyway, the bottomline is that I don't want to write yet another negative post about this team, so I'm going to continue my series on potential future Hall of Famers, players who are towards the end of their career who have borderline Hall of Fame numbers. Today's subject is a somewhat controversial one: Miguel Tejada.

Miguel Odalis Tejada was signed as an amateur free-agent by the Oakland Athletics in 1993 at the age of 21. Tejada had been playing in the Dominican Republic and was showing signs of being a special talent there. He quickly made his way through the Minor Leagues, though surprisingly he was not a very good fielder at the time, committing 70 errors in his first 182 Minor League games. His bat was there though, including a decent degree of patience, sporting a 142:246 K:BB ratio through his first 3 MiL seasons. Tejada was called up to the Bigs in August of 1997 and finished out that season with the A's, hitting .202/.240/.333 in 104 PAs (23 games). In 1998 he didn't make the team out of Spring Training, but was called up at the end of May and played the rest of the season at SS for the A's, hitting .233/.298/.384 while committing 26 errors in 526 chances.

The 1999 season was when things really got going for Tejada. He didn't smack the cover off the baseball or anything, but he played the full season at shortstop and his numbers finally started to resemble his MiL numbers. In 159 games at shortstop, Tejada hit .251/.325/.427 with 21HRs, 93Rs and 84RBIs. He also improved on defense committing 21 errors in 784 chances, good for a .973 fielding percentage. From 1999 to 2006, Tejada compiled 34.9 WAR (4.36 average) and won the MVP award for the 2002 season. During that year he played in all 162 games, he hit .308/.354/.508, he hit 34HRs, drove in 131, compiled 204 hits and crossed home plate 108 times. To be honest, he didn't deserve the MVP award that year, and it wasn't even close. Alex Rodriguez should have won the MVP award as he hit .300/.392/.623 in 2002 and drove in 142 runs (10.0 WAR!!!) for the Rangers. That said, the Rangers finished last in the AL West while the Athletics won 103 games and captured the division crown. Even Nomar Garciaparra was more deserving of the MVP award for Red Sox team that fell just short of the playoffs...but hey, winning is everything and in this case, Tejada has the A's success in 2002 to thank for his MVP award.

Tejada hasn't exactly been the same since the 2006 season. Where he was once a perennial .800+ OPS guy, he hasn't hit that mark since the 2006 season and through 50 games this year with the Giants, his OPS sits at a Twins-esque .520. At 37 years old, Tejada is clearly in the twilight of his career, though others will chalk his decline up to being a former steroid user. In 2005 Tejada was part of a panel that testified before Congress about steroids in baseball, it was later found that he lied under oath and in 2009, he was charged with lying to Congress, he pled guilty, and he was sentenced to one-year of probation. So Tejada is a known steroid-user, which will likely be a nail in the coffin for his HOF chances...unless some people change their mind. From a statistical stand-point, Tejada has the numbers...though he is a fringe candidate which likely means he won't get in. I guess it will all depend on how the "Steroid Era" is viewed 5-7 years from now when Tejada is eligible for the Hall. I'll leave you with a highlight of his offensive achievements (through 5/31/11) and let you decide.

2,077 Games
8,893 Plate-Appearances
8,145 At-Bats
1,202 Runs Scored
456 Doubles
2,326 Hits
301 Homeruns
1,272 RBIs
Career .286/.336/.458 hitting line
Career .971 Fielding% between SS and 3B
6-time All-Star
1 MVP Award
2 Silver Slugger Awards
29th Among Active Players with 41.0 accumulated WAR

One interesting side-note about Tejada. He's been to the playoffs 4 different times, all with Oakland, and every single one of those teams lost in the first round

Fairweather Blogging

2011-05-27T19:02:00.000-04:00

So this is what it must feel like to be a Royals blogger. Or a Pirates blogger. Or a Nationals blogger. For my generation of Twins fans, sustained stretches of losing haven't been a part of our baseball experience since our middle school and early high school years, before most kids are very interested in keeping up with the team on a daily basis, let alone trying to do advanced statistical analysis. This type of losing is something we haven't seen in over a decade, and it's frankly getting hard to watch. I have no desire to be a fairweather fan, and still care a great deal about this team, but as a blogger, there's not much left to say that hasn't been said already about the atrocious start to the season. I'm not trying to make excuses for the lack of content around here lately, but the reality is that my energy level for churning out Twins-related posts has taken a dive along with the team's record.

Does this make me a fairweather blogger? Does my lack of enthusiasm for churning out 1,000 words about why the Twins have somehow managed to have both the worst offense and worst pitching staff in baseball mean that I'm failing in my duty to the Twins blogosphere? Should I add another to the long line of "what's wrong with [insert name of almost any Twins player here]?" posts? What about a feature on the Marvelous Imploding Bullpen? (Worth their weight in negative WAR! Able to blow huge leads in a single inning!) This feeling serves to solidify the respect I have for those people who have kept up blogs for losing teams even when it didn't appear that there was much light at the end of the tunnel. For the Royals, that light may be fast approaching. For other teams like the aforementioned Pirates and Nationals, the future maybe doesn't look quite so bright, but both are playing better baseball than the Twins at the moment. My point is that I'm getting a good sense of the dedication that it takes to write about a team that seems to be making mistake after mistake, each one compounding the next.

The situation in Minnesota for the future isn't necessarily all gloom and doom. There should be a good chunk of money coming off the books next year, Target Field should continue to provide a good revenue stream (although that shouldn't be taken for granted given the current quality of the on-field product), and the farm system has at least some glimmers of impact talent. However, the front office will certainly need to start making better personnel decision than the ones that contributed to this predicament in the first place (perhaps most notably sapping the organization of depth at middle infield and catcher), and if it gets to the point where we're looking at a firesale come July, it will need to be managed in a way that isn't getting pennies on the dollar in return. Potential changes using in-house options and teams that make logical trade partners are certainly worthy topics for posts in and of themselves, and I'm sure that at some point I'll be able to muster up some analytical willpower to try and produce some constructive suggestions for how to move this team forward. I just don't think that point is now. I'm headed to Target Field to see the Twins take on the Rangers on June 9th, and I have no doubt that I will enjoy every minute of it. I hope I'm not a fairweather fan, but bear with me as I figure out what it means to not be a fairweather blogger.

What's With the Over-Analyzing?

2011-05-23T12:20:00.002-04:00

Ugh. Just when I thought things might be looking brighter for our beleaguered Twins, the bullpen blows back-to-back games and they lose yet another 1-run game, managing to score only 2 runs in yesterday's loss. What gives. Seriously. I dared to watch Saturday's game as it was the late game on the MLB Network and I was pleased until the 8th inning. The Twins had a 6-3 lead and only needed 6 more outs to secure the victory. Then:

Single
pitching change (Perkins for Nathan)
Single
pitching change (Capps for Perkins)
2-Run Double
Bunt-Single
Fielder Choice
Single
GRAND SLAM

Summary: 6 hits, 6 runs, 1 out recorded

Just like that the lead was gone. The culprit for this blown-lead was, once again, Matt Capps, who the Twins front-office IDIOTICALLY traded away THEIR BEST PROSPECT for last season. Capps is now worth -0.2 WAR this year while Wilson Ramos quietly has been having an absolutely stellar rookie season with the Washington Nationals, hitting .272/.347/.447 (1.1 WAR). I know, I know, I've mentioned this several times before, give it a rest, right? Ok, I'll move on...still makes me so mad when I think about it.

Alot of people on the big-box networks (ESPN, MLB Network) have said, "I don't understand why the Twins are so bad, they essentially have the same team as last year yet they are so much worse." This line of logic simply does not stand to reason:

A) The Twins have had a number of injuries this year that they did not have last year. So far the following players have spent time on the DL: Joe Mauer, Tsuyoshi Nishioka, Delmon Young, Jim Thome, Jason Repko, Jose Mijares, Glen Perkins, Kevin Slowey and I'm sure I've missed a couple of others.
B) The bullpen looks absolutely NOTHING like last year's bullpen. Last year the Twins had Jesse Crain, Jon Rauch, Matt Guerrier, and Brian Fuentes (for part of the year) and those are actually some decent relievers. Instead of letting Capps walk and signing a couple of those guys, they inexplicably decided to trade away a very good shortstop for a couple of mediocre relievers, move a starter to the bullpen and claim another also-ran off waivers. This strategy has, predictably, failed utterly as the Twins have Baseball's worst bullpen.
C) Because of the injuries and because of some ill-advised trades, the Twins middle-infield looks entirely different and folks, the 2B and SS positions are the two most important defensive positions on the baseball field. Last year the Twins had some excellent middle-infield defensive, even when Hardy and Hudson were out with injuries. This year it's been a circus, and that difference has shown up in pitcher ERAs.

More to the title of this piece, I was reading Parker Hageman's piece at Over The Baggy today in which he writes about an adjustment Matt Capps has made in his approach to left-handed hitters vs. right-handed hitters. As it turns out, Capps actually moves to the far left side of the pitching rubber when pitching to left-handed hitters. It really is a good piece, as Hageman's usually are, and it left me scratching my head. First the whole "pitching to contact" thing with Liriano, now this... As Hageman says in his piece, no one knows if this is an adjustment Capps has made on his own or whether it's something the coaching staff has tried to get him to do, but needless to say, the results have not been good at all.

What I want to know is 'why all the over-analyzing?' Capps pitched well for the Twins last year, so did Liriano...why make any adjustments to their approaches? "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." I think these guys are probably pressing enough as it is without having to think about making wholesale changes to their respective approaches to pitching. Let the pitchers pitch and try to find enough hitters who can hit...sometimes things really are simple and straight-forward.

Start of Something Better?

2011-05-18T11:34:00.000-04:00

Though his velocity is still not quite where it was last year, Francisco Liriano took a major step forward last night against the Mariners, striking out 9 batters while only walking one. Granted, yes, it was the Mariners, whose offense is pretty much triple-A level, but the major takeaway I'm seeing is that Liriano's control was improved, which really is the key to his success. Here are a few other highlights:

- 65% of his pitches were strikes (72/110)
- He threw first pitch strikes to 17 out of 26 batters-faced
- He tallied 18 swinging strikes (16.3%) which is a vast improvement over the 10.9 swinging strike percentage he has averaged so far this year
- Induced 7 groundball outs vs. 5 flyball outs which means he was keeping his pitches down

Over his last three starts, Liriano has a no-hitter, a 3-hitter (last night) and one dud game in which he was pulled early due to illness. His ERA over 19 innings so far in May is 2.37 compared to an April ERA of 9.13. I'll need to see a couple more quality starts to say for sure, but it looks like Liriano is slowly settling in and I think his start last night could be the start of a good run for him.

In other news, Joe Mauer is headed to Ft. Meyers for extended spring training which is a positive sign. Though no timetable has been set for his return, the fact that he is moving his rehab there suggests that he is getting much closer to playing in some minor league games. Jim Thome and Tsuyoshi Nishioka are also down at Ft. Meyers and by all accounts, both of them are progressing well...it would be a boon to the Twins offense to have all three of them return...hopefully they will all be back soon.

Michael Cuddyer is having himself a pretty good May so far. In 49 May at-bats, he is hitting .327/.400/.408 with a healthy 8:6 K:BB ratio. Meanwhile Danny Valencia's "season of regression" continues. After hitting just .217/.294/.315 in April, he has followed that up with an equally poor May (so far), hitting .220/.304/.340. Despite an excellent 18:16 K:BB ratio, Valencia simply isn't getting as "lucky" this year, watching his BABIP drop from .345 last year to .231 so far this season. Basically, for as lucky as he was last year, he has been equally unlucky so far this year...

This stretch in the Twins schedule might be a good place to turn things around. Tonight they start a two-game series at Oakland, then it's off to play 3 with the Arizona Diamondback (18-23), before coming home to play 3 more against the Mariners and Angels. After that the Twins have a slew of division games against Detroit, Cleveland and KC. Here's to hoping anyway...

Remembering Harmon Killebrew

2011-05-17T17:48:00.002-04:00

Just as I was getting set to unleash an angry rant about the joke that is the 2011 Twins, I heard that Harmon Killebrew passed away after a long battle with esophageal cancer. Sometimes I need a reminder that baseball is, well, baseball, and that there are bigger and more important things going on in the world than a game. Killebrew's death, like that of Kirby Puckett in 2006, gives that perspective. Whereas Puckett was the icon of my childhood, Killebrew was that icon for Twins fans growing up in the 60s and 70s, my father included. I obviously wasn't old enough to remember Killebrew's playing days, but I've heard plenty of stories about what he meant to Twins fans during his 14 seasons in Minnesota, and his presence within the organization even after his playing career was over will be missed. I was lucky enough to see him take the field (not to play obviously) during the old-timers' game in September of last year alongside plenty of other Twins legends, an experience that I won't soon forget.

Although Killebrew posted numbers that make him one of the greatest power hitters in baseball history, his greatness extended off the field as well. He hit 573 homers and topped 40 in a season eight times, but was known by friends and fellow players as much for his sportsmanship and kindness as for his tape measure blasts (the longest being a 520-foot moon shot at the old Met Stadium, now commemorated by the huge bronze glove at Target Field). When Jim Thome, who mirrors Killebrew in many ways (both as a player and a person), passed him on the all-time home run list, Killebrew recorded a congratulatory message that played on the stadium video screen and seemed genuinely happy for Thome. Although his nickname was the Killer, it had more to do with what he did to baseballs than his demeanor.

As a player, perhaps his best season was 1969, where he clubbed 49 homers and knocked in 140 runs with a 1.011 OPS, earning MVP honors and guiding the Twins to the ALCS. There are plenty of other places and collections of statistics that dive further into what he did and didn't do well as a hitter, but I don't feel like this is the time to nitpick where he should be ranked among the all-time greats. It's safe to say that he has a well-deserved spot in Cooperstown as the first Twin to be enshrined there.

Regardless of the quality of play of the current squad, reflecting on the life of Harmon Killebrew is a good reminder of why we love baseball and what makes our sports heroes such a big part of many of our lives. Although hearing the news of Killebrew's death didn't affect me the same way that Kirby Puckett's death did, I still mourn with Twins fans everywhere at the loss of a Minnesota legend. By all accounts, it sounded like he died peacefully with his wife at his side, and I'm glad to know that he's no longer suffering the pain of cancer. My prayers go out to his family and friends. I'll be going to a game at Target Field in early June, and I'm going to make sure to pause at Gate #3 to reflect on a great baseball player and a great man.

How One Small Trade Could be the Un-Doing of the Mauer Deal

2011-05-10T16:19:00.000-04:00

I have Joe Mauer on my fantasy baseball team. My fantasy baseball team was recently named "All Hail Joe Mauer" until I recently changed it to "Bilateral Leg Weakness". I have reached in each of the last two fantasy baseball drafts to assure that I would get Mauer. I DVRed his Head & Shoulders commercials...ok, that last one is made up. Needless to say I like the guy, as a player and as a person, so you can imagine the angst that his injury has caused me, especially with the continuing mystery as to when we might see him back on the field. I was reading around the Twins blogs yesterday and came across this piece by Nick Nelson. It's a very honest look at the Joe Mauer situation...but it's hard to read because of the truths it contains.

Nick's piece got me thinking...how could the Twins have gotten themselves into this situation when less than a year ago, they had an effing logjam at catcher that every team would have been envious of. For those of you who've forgotten:

Jose Morales - C - Age 28
The Twins drafted Morales in the 3rd round of the 2001 draft and his arbitration eligibility would have started in 2012; he would not have been a free-agent until 2016. The Twins decided to trade him for a minor league pitcher, Paul Bargas, in December of last year. Morales has been a back-up for the Rockies this year and hasn't exactly lit the world on fire, but his .630 OPS, as paltry as that is, is still 280 points better than the Twins best option so far this season. Meanwhile Paul Bargas, the guy the Twin traded Morales for, has tragically been diagnosed with brain cancer and is currently undergoing chemotherapy. My point here is that the Twins could have kept Morales, passed on the rather average young lefty and been a lot better off right now.

Wilson Ramos - C - Age 23
The Twins signed young Wilson Ramos as a free-agent in 2004 at the age of 16. Ramos went on to develop nicely in the minors, posting a .285/.332/.431 triple-slash in ~1,600 career MiL plate-appearances. Last year, in the midst of a playoff run, Bill Smith and the Twins front office decided to use the organization's most valuable trade piece to acquire closer Matt Capps from the Washington Nationals. Ramos didn't play much for the Nationals last season (54 total PAs) but this year he has had regular playing time and is hitting .319/.377/.493 so far in 77 PAs with 2HRs and 7 RBI. Like Morales, Ramos won't be a free-agent until 2016. Ramos has accumulated 0.9 WAR (wins above replacement) so far this season while Capps, in his entire time with the Twins to this point, has accumulated about 1.0 WAR.

So, just to make my point glaringly obvious...The Twins had two offensively capable catchers, both of whom would have been under team control through 2015, and traded them FOR RELIEVERS.

More to the point of my overall piece, I believe the Ramos for Capps trade has the potential to ruin the Mauer contract. I have to imagine that the Twins were at least aware that the likelihood of Mauer finishing out his contract as a catcher were slim to none. At age 28, Mauer simply doesn't have many years left behind the plate if he a) wants to remain healthy and b) wants to remain productive. So, knowing that, why did the Twins feel that Ramos was an expendable piece? Wouldn't you plan for the worst-case scenario, especially when it virtually costs you NOTHING to have that insurance in your back pocket? As things stand now, the Twins have no one in the farm system who could play an offensively-competent everyday catcher role and to me, that's a travesty.

During this past off-season, which saw the Twins budget-strapped under the weight of several large contracts, many pointed towards next season when the expiring contracts of Joe Nathan and Michael Cuddyer will free up some extra-cash. Ostensibly the Twins would have used that money to fill some holes in the bullpen and perhaps in the middle-infield as well. Now they need to strongly consider getting a competent back-up catcher as well, a need they would most likely not have had if they had simply held on to Ramos...or even to Morales.

I've been vocal in my criticism of the post-Terry Ryan front-office and my criticism continues. Aside from the moves to bring Orlando Hudson and JJ Hardy on-board following the 2009 season, Bill Smith has made ~~stupid~~ ill-advised move after ill-advised move and now we are seeing the results of that on the field. A team obviously can't anticipate having as many injuries as the Twins have had, but when your depth at key infield positions (2B, SS, C) is as shallow as the Twins have had this season, the blame falls on directly on the General Manager, there is simply no way around that. By trading a valuable organizational asset for an also-ran reliever, Bill Smith has put the future of this team in jeopardy. Time after time he has shown zero foresight and folks, that is major reason why this team is 12-21 coming into their game tonight. Short of a miraculously good run later this year, the Twins will likely finish 3rd or worse in the division this year when they were thought to be a contender for the division crown when the season started.

Re-post: Jon Marthaler's Venn Diagrams

2011-05-09T17:56:00.001-04:00

I don't have too much energy to write any new content today, so I'm just going to go ahead and leave this here.

http://www.twinkietown.com/2011/5/9/2161007/explaining-the-twins-with-venn-diagrams

Kudos to Jon Marthaler for a brilliant post. At least someone still has a sense of humor about this team, I'm more prone to cringe than laugh these days. Let's hope the Twins can pull off a split at Fenway, but I'm probably not holding my breath.

Series Preview: Twins vs Red Sox

2011-05-06T18:10:00.000-04:00

In the latest of the Twins' early season road games against AL East foes(I've said it before, but who made this schedule?), they're shipping up to Boston to take on the Red Sox. Like the Twins, the Red Sox had many of their fans in early-season panic mode after limping out to a 2-10 start. However, they then went on to win eight of their next nine and have shown some signs of playing up to their talent level. The Twins are catching them on a bit of a down note after they dropped their last two against the Angels, with last night's loss coming in an 11-0 beatdown. The Red Sox are more towards the middle of the pack in terms of offense than the Twins and have scored 40 more runs on the season, but, like the Twins, have also struggled with their pitching, ranking near the bottom of the league in ERA, FIP and xFIP. That said, we all know that Fenway is a tough place to play, and the Twins have dropped seven in a row there, so they've certainly got their work cut out for them.

Pitching Matchups:

Scott Baker (1-2, 3.16 ERA, 4.01 FIP) vs Tim Wakefield (0-0, 4.08 ERA, 5.05 FIP)

After a shaky start to the season that saw him give up four home runs in his first two games, Baker seems to have found his groove. He looked good against the Rays, dominant against the Orioles, and slightly less overpowering against the Royals but still effective. More importantly, he's allowed no home runs in those three starts. His peripherals look mostly in line with his career averages (except for a slight uptick in walks, which seems to be some sort of disease infecting the normally strike-throwing Twins rotation this year). The Red Sox batter that he's faced most often is the currently-scuffling Carl Crawford, who owns a monster 1.286 OPS against Baker in 14 career ABs, but I'm usually not one to put much stock in these batter vs. pitcher stats over such a small sample.

Tim Wakefield will be making just his second start of the season for the Red Sox after spending most of the year coming out of the bullpen. In his only other start against Seattle on May 1st, the veteran knuckleballer was effective, allowing only one earned on three hits and striking out three. You know you're getting about 85% knuckleballs from Wakefield on any given night, and it's always a bit of an adjustment for hitters (especially the youngsters, who likely haven't faced many knuckleballs in the minors).

Brian Duensing (2-1, 2.91 ERA, 3.54 FIP) vs Clay Buccholz (2-3, 4.81 ERA, 5.87 FIP)

After earning a rotation spot during spring training, Duensing has picked up where he left off last year as one of the Twins' more consistent starters. Thus far, he's the only Twins starter to have both increased his strikeout rate (to 6.09 K/9) and lowered his walk rate (2.38 BB/9). His 3.54 FIP is the best on the team and four of his five starts have been quality starts. He obviously doesn't have the most overwhelming stuff, but for a staff in desperate need of consistency, Duensing has been a rock so far. He's been death to lefties (1.79 FIP, .222 BAA) and has yet to walk one in 45 batters faced, so hopefully he'll find success against a somewhat lefty-heavy Red Sox lineup.

Needless to say, Clay Buchholz has been a disappointment for the Sox this year. He had a monster year last year, going 17-7 with a sparkling 2.33 ERA, but much like Liriano, his command appears to have completely deserted him. He's walked 4.81 batters per nine this year, and (like Liriano) he's one of only four pitchers in baseball who have walked more batters than they've struck out. His swing percentage is down, his contact rate is up, and nothing seems to be going right for Buchholz at the moment. Some of his struggles may be due to the fact that his BABP sits at .313, whereas he had a "luckier" rate of .261 last season. He's been a solid pitcher over his still fairly young career; I just hope Saturday isn't the night he gets back on track.

Carl Pavano (2-3, 5.48 ERA, 4.41 FIP) vs. Daisuke Matsuzaka (2-3, 4.33 ERA 4.58 FIP)

This matchup actually has a few intriguing side-stories. The first side-story is that Dice-K is pitching on short-rest, having been forced into action during the 7-hour debacle that the Red Sox played against the Angels on Tuesday night. While it's true that he only threw an inning's worth of pitches, it might have used up his savings (lulz) rendering him less effective come Sunday. In all seriousness, Dice-K has pitched well against the Twins during his career holding a 2.30 ERA in 27.1 innings with a 26:11 K:BB ratio. After a couple of brutal starts to start the year, Dice-K settled down a bit and had a couple of dominant outings before against struggling in his last start and again in the inning of work he put in against the Angels.

As for Dice-K's counterpart, Pavano doesn't have much to hang his hat on either, coming off a brutal start against Kansas City in which he gave up 7 runs (6 earned) in only 5.1 innings of work. The story gets even worse when you look at Pavano's career against the Red Sox...he holds a terrible 6.09 ERA and 1.676 WHIP in 34 innings of work and an even worse 11.70 career ERA at Fenway Park (10 IP). I think the best the Twins can hope for in this one is a slug-fest, though with the way the offense has been going I'm not sure a slugfest favors the Twins either.

Francisco Liriano (2-4, 6.61 ERA, 5.62 FIP) vs. Jon Lester (4-1, 2.33 ERA, 3.47 FIP)

I suppose my impression of this one is tainted by the fact that I wasn't very impressed with Liriano's no-hitter against the White Sox. While I'm hopeful that it's a sign that Liriano is turning things around, the jury is still out on my mind. Ron Gardenhire originally came out yesterday saying that he though the Twins might decide to move Liriano's start back a day to give him some extra rest, but now it's looking like he'll start this one. I personally think this is a mistake and one need look no further than his stat sheet to see why. In 19.2 career innings against the Red Sox, Liriano has a 7.78 ERA and 1.678 WHIP and in his career at Fenway, Liriano has a 12.46 ERA and 1.846 WHIP over 8.2 innings. It makes more sense to start him at home against the Tigers on Tuesday, but hey I'm not the manager, I just write for a blog.

On the bump for the Red Sox is 27-year-old lefty hurler Jon Lester who has been absolutely lights-out lately. Let's all have a collective groan. GROAN... Ok, now that that's out of the way, we can focus on numbers. Over his last 4 outings, Lester has pitched 27 innings, given up 4 earned runs, struck out 29 batters and only walked 9. In those 4 starts, hitters have a triple-slash of .208/.276/.323 against the lefty. Lester is pretty much the 'ace' of the Red Sox rotation at this point and with the way he's been going, he's one of the best pitchers in baseball right now. Liriano might have to throw a second consecutive no-hitter to keep the Twins in this one.

Regardless of how the pitching matchups shake out, the Twins are going to need to come up with a way to score some runs to have any chance of taking a few of these games. A few suggestions to make this happen: a) have some of whatever Jason Kubel's having before tonight's game, b) run the bases at a higher-than-Little-League level, and c) secretly change out the baseball for a softball. That or just start hitting better. That'll work too.

Liriano-no!

2011-05-04T00:11:00.000-04:00

I'm not sure if I'm the first one to get to this particular headline, and I probably won't be the last, but I'm going to go for it anyway. In a season that has not provided many moments for Twins fans to cheer about, we finally have something to celebrate. Amidst one of the worst stretches of his career, Francisco Liriano turned an a very unlikely no-hitter against the White Sox on Tuesday night, marking the Twins' first no-hitter since Eric Milton in 1999. It certainly wasn't the prettiest no-hitter of all time, and the cynical part of me might want to point out that Liriano walked six batters while striking out only two. However, Liriano didn't come close to the most walks issued in a no-no (the Reds' Jim Maloney in 1965 walked 10, not to mention Edwin Jackson's 8 from last season) or the least amount of strikeouts (the Cubs' Ken Holtzman in 1971 didn't strike out anyone). Other Debbie downers might like to point out that the Twins were only able to scratch out one run, a solo shot by Jason Kubel in the 4th inning. But you know what? Screw that. For a team that's been playing some of the worst baseball I can remember a Twins team playing (and this includes the late-90s), I can't think of many things that would serve as more of a shot in the arm than a no-hitter against a hated division rival.

That said, I don't know if this will be some sort of turning point in the Twins' 2011 season. I don't know if Liriano will suddenly regain his 2010 form. There are still plenty of questions surrounding this team, and it's highly likely that we may see some significant changes coming in the next few months. All I know is that for right now, beating the White Sox while sending them momentarily to the cellar of the AL Central feels great, and beating them on the first no-hitter in 12 years feels even better. I was actually try to find a video of Hawk Harrelson dejectedly calling the final out with his typical complete lack of emotion for anything related to the opposing team, but it's obviously nowhere to be found (on the White Sox site at least). Regardless if this ends up having anything to do with this season's eventual outcome, I'm basking in the moment. Go Twins.

Our Only Hope: The Law of Averages

2011-05-03T18:09:00.000-04:00

Ok, I'll be honest, "law of averages" is a meaningless term. But right now this Twins team is so bad that we all need something to put our hope in, and this is the route I have chosen to go. I thought to myself, "ok, the Twins have been bad, as a whole, but how well would they have to perform to get back to their respective career averages by season's end?" Naturally that won't happen in every case, but it will in a few and so that can give us hope that yes, this team will improve. I'll start from the top of the order, give you their current hitting line, give you their career averages based on the stated number of PAs/ABs, and project what their hitting line and production-level would need to be to meet their career averages. I will clearly state how many PAs and ABs I expect them to have at the end of the year, obviously making the assumption that they will stay healthy for the rest of the season. I'm not bothering to project Slugging % because I don't have that much time.

1.) Denard Span - CF (700PAs/600ABs) - 150-160 games played
Current line: .284/.339/.367   13Rs   6RBI   1HR   2SB
Career line: .288/.365/.390    90Rs   63RBI   5HRs   24SB
Future line: .289/.370             77Rs   57RBI   4HRs   22SB

2.) Alexi Casilla - SS (540PAs/500ABs) - 120-130 games played
Current line: .190/.257/.286   10Rs   3RBI   0HRs 2SB
Career line: .246/.303/.324    60Rs   42RBI   4HRs 15SB
Future line: .254/.313            50Rs   39RBI   4HRs   13SB

3.) Joe Mauer - C (500PAs/440ABs) - 115-120 games played
For Mauer, I'm making the assumption that he returns within the next 2-3 weeks...if that's not the case then obviously you have to adjust these numbers, but 2-3 weeks sounds reasonable at this point.
Current line: .235/.289/.265   2Rs   4RBI   0HRs   0SB
Career line: .326/.406/.479    65Rs 70RBI   6HRs   2SB
Future line: .333/.413             63Rs   66RBI   6HRs   2SB

4.) Justin Morneau - 1B (600PAs/540ABs) - 135-145 games played
Current line: .225/.287/.338   6Rs   9RBI   1HR 0SB
Career line: .284/.356/.507   80Rs   95RBI   24HRs   1SB
Future line: .296/.370            74Rs   86RBI   23HRs   1SB

5.) Jason Kubel - RF/DH (585PAs/535ABs) - 140-150 games played
Current line: .354/.406/.510   11Rs   10RBI   2HRs   1SB
Career line: .274/.338/.465    75Rs   90RBI   23HRs   1SB
Future line: .257/.322             64Rs   80RBI   21HRs   0SB

6.) Delmon Young - LF (575PAs/525ABs) - 130-140 games played
Again, with Young I'm assuming his stay on the DL is not an extended stay and that he'll return to the lineup in 1-2 weeks.
Current line: .228/.286/.281   3Rs   6RBI   0HRs   1SB
Career line: .291/.324.431     76Rs   91RBI   16HRs   7SB
Future line: .298/.327             73Rs   85RBI   16HRs   6SB

7.) Michael Cuddyer - Utility (650PAs/575ABs) - 150-160 games played
Current line: .226/.287/.355   8Rs   4RBI   3HRs   2SB
Career line: .269/.341/.448    86Rs   81RBI   20HRs   6SB
Future line: .277/.351             78Rs   77RBI   17HRs   4SB

8.) Danny Valencia - 3B (600ABs/550ABs) - 155-160 games played
Current line: .211/.292/.305   8Rs   13RBI   2HRs   1SB
Career line: .287/.336/.414    55Rs   77RBI   13HRs   5SB
Future line: .303/.343             47Rs   64RBI   11HRs   4SB

9.) Random Player - 2B/SS
With Nishioka coming back eventually, and this role being shared by Drew Butera, Luke Hughes, etc, etc., it's pretty meaningless to try and project this slot in the lineup. Most of the guys who fill the 9-hitter role for the Twins don't have enough Major League at-bats to give us a reliable career-average.

So what does all this mean? It means that most of the Twins regulars, aside from Span and Kubes, are going to have to play above their heads (in some cases way above their heads), just to finish with an average year. 27 games (the number the Twins have played so far) represents about 17% of the total 162 game schedule. In some cases (Morneau, Cuddyer, Mauer) these guys are going to have to fit 90% of a year's production into just over 80% remaining on the season....and I haven't even touched the pitching!

I assume there are other people out there who listen to Mike & Mike on ESPN Radio in the morning and every Tuesday morning they have Jayson Stark who is a baseball guru and loves stats and baseball history. Anyway, they were talking about the Twins and White Sox this morning, and it was mentioned that the Twins are 10 games out before 30 games have been completed. According to Elias (via Stark) only 3 teams in baseball history have ever won the division after trailing by 10 or more through 30 games. Only 1 (!) team in the modern-era has done it, and that was the 1987 Tigers. I'll never stop hoping as a Twins fan, but things are getting serious now, to the point where if they don't turn around soon, we'll be looking at a fire-sale come July...mark my words, you heard it here first. At least 7/9ths of the lineup are performing far below their career-averages...and we've said for awhile now "ah, it's going to turn around soon" and it hasn't. Now would be a great time to start...I'd love to hear a bunch of "dad-gummit's" from Hawk Harrelson this week.

Epic Fail

2011-04-28T15:58:00.000-04:00

You know that old saying that "if you don't have anything nice to say don't say anything at all?" That about sums it up. I try to be as positive as anyone but after a nice three-game winning streak that had us believing the worst was over, this team is back to playing some embarrassing baseball at home. I could try to find some silver linings here, but frankly I don't have the time or energy at the moment. No one seems to have a good idea of who's injured and how bad it really is, and I'm fairly convinced we might see some position players on the mound in the night game tonight given how badly the bullpen has been stretched due to the atrocious starting pitching performances. I'm certainly not writing off the season yet, but it's been hard watching this team the last two games. I have no idea what it's going to take to get things back on track, but someone better get it figured out soon.

Future HOFer?: Omar Vizquel

2011-04-27T12:12:00.000-04:00

Twins' news is pretty slow these days. Between rain-outs and off-days they've had quite a bit of time off. Given that they have a number of ailing players, this has been a welcome break I'm sure, and hopefully they can hit the ground running tonight at home against the Rays. In lieu of a rambling piece about the Twins or a Rays/Twins preview, I thought I would continue my series about potential future Hall-of-Famers. In case you're new to this blog, I've also done this with Carlos Delgado, Todd Helton, Bobby Abreu and Johnny Damon.There are the obvious HOFers out there (Pujols, A-Rod, Jeter, etc) but I want to give the lesser-known guys, or perhaps even a few on-the-bubble guys, some pub.

Omar Enrique Vizquel broke into the Major Leagues with the Mariners in 1989 (Griffey Jr.'s rookie year) at the age of 22. He has played in at least 62 games in every season since then and just 3 days ago, he celebrated his 44th birthday. He's one of those ageless types, like Jamie Moyer, that just keep playing and playing and playing. I'll let you decide if the sheer length of his career should diminish his numbers in any way, all I'm going to do is share them, and try to find his place in the history books. Here's a look at his body of work to-date:

23 seasons
2,858 games played
10,292 at-bats (20th all-time)
2,807 hits
1,416 runs
445 doubles
80 homeruns
938 RBIs
1,014 walks
1,053 strikeouts
.273/.338/.354 hitting line
401 stolen bases
3 All-Star Appearances
11 Gold Glove Awards
2 World Series Appearances (both losses)
.985 career fielding% (best all-time at SS)

Even though Vizquel now plays for the hated White Sox, I have to stand in admiration of his overall numbers. While it's true that the simple longevity of his career has afforded him the opportunity to compile those stats, they are impressive nonetheless. The most impressive aspect of Vizquel's game is not even found on your average stat sheet, that being his defense. Between 1993 and 2001, Vizquel won 9 consecutive Gold Glove awards and is easily one of the best, if not the best, defensive shortstops to ever play Major League Baseball.

Over at FanGraphs.com, there is a section with sortable career stats. If you select the "SS" tab, and then select the "Value" tab...and then sort by "Positional Value", Vizquel's name is 6th all-time on the Shortstop list in terms of overall value. The number shown there incorporates batting skills, fielding skills and runs over placement level. He is behind only the likes of Luis Aparicio (HOF), Rabbit Maranville (HOF), Luke Appling (HOF), Bill Dahlen, and Ozzie Smith (HOF). If you sort by "replacement value", which is something that incorporates Vizquel's year-in, year-out health alongside his fielding and hitting abilities (read more here), Vizquel is 4th all-time among shortstops behind only Cal Ripken Jr., Robin Yount and Honus Wagner. That's some pretty good company.

In looking at his offensive stat sheet, I can't help but gape at his K/BB ratio. Here's a guy who never had much power, but managed a nearly 1:1 K/BB ratio throughout his career. That tells me he has a fantastic eye, and that he's exceedingly patient.

Aside from a discussion on Vizquel's HOF merit is the fact that he appears to be one of the good guys in baseball. Quiet, goes about his business, works hard, the kind of player that any manager would want and a guy the White Sox are lucky to have. Omar is very involved in the community, working with a variety of different charities and supporting people in his home country of Venezuela as well.

If I'm being honest, there's really not much doubt that Omar Vizquel has Hall of Fame credentials. His offensive numbers aren't all that eye-popping, but when you add in his defensive prowess, there is little doubt left that he is deserving of the Hall. If he was to reach 3,000 hits, which is still possible, I think that would make him a lock for 1st-ballot Hall of Famer. Vizquel probably only has a year or two left on his career, but his legacy will be one of outstanding defense, speed and longevity. Hats off to you Omar.

A Break in the Clouds (and "Where are they now?")

2011-04-25T10:49:00.000-04:00

Ahhh. An above-average offensive game, a couple of wins, two good pitching performances, things are looking up. On top of that, the Twins aren't in the cellar anymore courtesy of a White Sox slump which has seen them lose 10 out of 11 games. Morneau's looking good in his return from the flu, Gardy says Delmon Young should be back in the lineup tomorrow, the Indians and Royals are returning to earth a little bit...slowly but surely things are turning around.

I didn't get to watch either of the games this weekend, I'm currently in the process of moving so that's taking up a majority of my time, but I did read/see a couple of things that made me smile. One was the 4 hits and 4 RBI from Morneau over the weekend. That's great to see and I don't think it will be long here before we start to see the thunder return to his bat. Jason Bay of the New York Mets, who also suffered a concussion and was out for awhile, hit his first HR of the season which gives me hope for Morneau. The second thing I read about that made me smile was regarding Nathan's appearance in Saturday's 10-3 win. He came in with a 7-run lead, pitched well, and I read that the fans were standing and cheering during the final three outs. I don't know the guy personally, but Joe Nathan seems like a good person and a hard-working player and I was happy to see the fans give him some love. That had to feel good.

I had MLB Network on a lot this weekend and I watched the Cubs game on Saturday so I got to watch former-Twin Matt Guerrier cough up a Dodger lead on Saturday, giving up 5 earned run in 1.2 innings of work. That got me thinking, "I wonder how other recently departed Twins are faring for their new teams?" So, here's a quick run-down:

Orlando Hudson - 2B - San Diego Padres
After a decent start to the season, Hudson has cooled off considerably and currently finds himself mired in a 4-for-33 slump. His triple-slash currently sits at .229/.349/.271 through 70 at-bats. O-Dog does have 7 steals so far this year, which is only 3 less than his best season total. In the field he's been money as he does not yet have an error at 2nd and has been a part of 15 double-plays.

J.J. Hardy - SS - Baltimore Orioles
Hardy only made it 6 games into the season before he found himself on the DL with a left oblique strain. He's supposed to take some swings today, but it's probably another week or two before he'll be back with the Major League squad.

Jesse Crain - RP - Chicago White Sox
With all sorts of problems at the back end of the bullpen for the Sox (6 blown saves in 7 chances), I wouldn't be surprised if Guillen gave Crain a shot at the closer role for the Sox. Crain has been quite effective so far this year with 11 Ks against only 2BB in 10.1 innings of work. Crain and Sergio Santos have easily been the White Sox more effective relief arms, but haven't had many higher-leverage opportunities lately as the Sox have lost 10 of 11 games.

Matt Guerrier - RP - Los Angeles Dodgers
In Guerrier's defense, he had not surrendered a run until Saturday's debacle which saw him give up 5 runs against the Cubs in 1.2 innings of work. Guerrier has still yet to give up an extra-base hit and prior to Saturday's blow-up, he had retired 33 of 39 batters-faced.

Jon Rauch - RP/Closer - Toronto Blue Jays
Rauch has been the de-facto closer so far this season, but that may be changing soon as Frank Francisco has come off the DL. Rauch has done a serviceable job in the role to this point, saving 3 games for the Jays and only surrendering 2 runs in 8.2 IP. Rauch will likely resume more of a set-up role going forward as Francisco is expected to regain the role of closer shortly.

Brian Fuentes - Closer - Oakland Athletics
With Andrew Bailey side-lined due to injury (right forearm strain), Fuentes has been filling as the Athletics' closer since the beginning of the season. Aside from two ugly outings against the Mariners and Tigers, Fuentes has pitched pretty well saving 6 games for the A's with 10Ks in 11 IP. The timetable for Bailey's return is early-May at which point Fuentes could find himself back in a set-up role, or even a LOOGY role.

Pat Neshek - RP - San Diego Padres
Neshek's velocity is still pretty awful, but he's managed to pitch well despite that fact, holding a 2.25 ERA over 8 IP so far. Neshek's control isn't there either (7:5 K/BB) which leads me to believe the National League simply hasn't adapted to his unorthodox delivery yet. Unless his velocity and command improve, he will start getting shelled once hitters get more comfortable with his release point. Pat's fan-friendly attitude hasn't changed though and I'm sure that if he sticks around with the Padres he'll become as popular there as he wa with the Twins.

That about does it for players worth mentioning. I wouldn't say that any of the ex-Twins are doing amazingly well, but it's early. As for the Twins, things are looking up, if they can get Liriano going a little better and get Mauer back sometime soon, we could be looking at a big turnaround. Fingers-crossed, Go Twins.

Gut Check Time

2011-04-20T11:51:00.000-04:00

Denard Span (.313/.352/.418)
Matt Tolbert (.214/.214/.321)
Jason Kubel (.311/.354/.492)
Jim Thome (.171/.261/.293)
Michael Cuddyer (.250/.308/.300)
Danny Valencia (.220/.313/.288)
Luke Hughes (.190/.190/.238)
Drew Butera (.174/.174/.217)
Alexi Casilla (.128/.190/.179)

That was the lineup for the Twins last night against the Orioles, a b-squad lineup in just about every way. Five of those players have OBPs below .265 and, not only that, SEVEN of those players also have SLUGGING %'s under .325. Hughes, Butera and Casilla have combined for 13 hits in 83 at-bats (.157) this year. Blah, blah, blah, I know, most of us are keenly aware of how much the Twins offense has sucked so far this year. The result last night was predictable as the Twins got shut out, managing only 7 hits (5 singles) and 4 walks along the way, while leaving 9 men on base and going 0-9 as a team with RISP.

What's my point with all of this? My point is that this team has lacked fire in the early goings, and I'm starting to question the toughness of guys like Delmon Young and Justin Morneau. I know that Morneau had his bout with a severe concussion, and that the Twins have been understandably cautious with him in his recovery...but this team is struggling hard at the plate and unless this flu is some sort of mega-disease, we need these guys out there, in uniform, doing as best they can. I'm not privy to the team like some are so who knows, Morneau's case of the flu might be a bad one, but on a night that the team is already without it's All-Star catcher and offensively-talented left-fielder...it's gut check time guys...somebody has got to play through a little pain or come through in the clutch.

What I'm not sensing from the Twins is any urgency. It's easy to think, in the beginnings of a 162-game schedule, that these early games don't matter all that much, but they do, and the Twins have helped to prove that fact over the past several years. 2008 and 2009 were perfect examples. In many ways, the Twins have been lucky so far this year in that the Tigers and White Sox have struggled out of the gate as well. Sure the Indians and Royals have played well up to this point, but I don't think either team has the tools for sustained success. So the Twins are, in my mind, still "in it" but unless they start playing significantly better, and soon, then they may very well play themselves out of contention by June.

Tuesday Notes

2011-04-19T14:21:00.003-04:00

The Twins are certainly still having trouble scoring runs, having not yet topped five in a game, but they've managed to put together their first back-to-back wins on the season. I'm not going to dwell on the uglier parts of the losses over the weekend, because we've spent enough time doing that and it finally feels good to get a few wins in a row. The Twins will look to keep the ball rolling tonight with the seemingly back-in-form Carl Pavano going against Jake Arrietta.

Starting pitching:

On Sunday, Brian Duensing allowed two runs, scattering seven hits over seven innings to continue his solid start to the season. He struck out five while walking two. Duensing's K/9 through 20 IP sits at 6.30, up almost a full point from last year's mark of 5.37. His swinging-strike percentage is 9.5%, up from the 7.7% he posted last year. It's probably too early to tell whether this uptick is sustainable, but obviously missing more bats should translate into continued success for Duensing and he's kept the Twins in every game he's started this year.

Liriano had what should, on the surface, look like a confidence-building start last night, allowing only two runs and pitching into the seventh inning. This is great, and he picked up his first win, but there are still plenty of red flags here. For starters he walked five, equaling his total from his disastrous first start in Toronto. He struck out only two, meaning that his K/BB rate now sits at 1.00. Both runs he allowed came on home runs, bringing his season total to four after allowing only nine all of last year. That's not to say it was all bad though, and there are encouraging signs. Liriano induced 13 ground ball outs as opposed to 6 fly balls, continuing a trend from his previous start. According to PitchFX, he averaged 93.19 mph with his fastball and touched 95.6, a huge improvement over his first start where he sat at 90.4 mph. It's hard to know quite what to make of Liriano so far, but he's certainly going to have to get the walks under control if he wants to come anywhere close to last year's success.

Offense:

Still not great, but getting better? Maybe? Kubel at least over the weekend showed some of the power that's been non-existent from this crew so far. Last night's win featured some clutch hitting from unlikely sources (Butera??) and to be able to scratch out five runs and win without Mauer and Morneau is at least a positive. I mean, the bats have to catch fire at some point....right?

Defense:

It should be said that this was an unexpected positive from the last two games. Sunday's game featured great catches from all three outfielders - Repko ranging far back and to his left and laying out, Kubel making a leaping catch near the wall in right, and Delmon with one of his sort-of-awkward-but-effective dives coming in on a low line drive to left. Casilla and Tolbert, despite their shortcomings with the bats, have looked like a more than capable double-play combination, turning a great DP in the 8th inning of Sunday's game to bail Perkins out of a jam and turning another key DP in the 6th inning last night. Casilla also made a Punto-esque barehand and diving throw for the final out of the 6th. It's still too early for the advanced defensive metrics to have much to say, but the team UZR as it stands now certainly isn't embarrassing, for what it's worth. Maybe not much.

Bullpen:

If the story of the weekend was Nathan being replaced by Capps as closer (which has been written about in many different places) the story of the night last night was Jim Hoey pitching 1 1/3 scoreless innings, striking out one, and sitting at 96.7 mph with the fastball. Sure, he's no Aroldis Chapman, but it was a change for Twins fans to see someone throwing heat out of the bullpen. Hoey's career numbers are fairly ugly and I'm not convinced he's an impact arm in the bullpen or even someone I'd regularly trust in high-leverage situations, but there aren't a lot of more promising options in the minors that look ready right now. One of the biggest problems I see with Hoey is that, as evidenced by his strikezone plot, most of his pitches (including mistakes) were up in the zone. When it comes to blowing high fastballs by hitters, 97 is ok, but it's certainly not 102, and Hoey only averages 0.18 of horizontal movement on his four-seam fastball according to PitchFX. This means it's really straight (Capps' fastball averaged, for comparison, 4.5 inches of movement). Straight + up in the zone can mean problems down the line, but I'll give Hoey a chance to prove me wrong. He does feature a changeup as well that he threw four times, each for a strike, and generated his only K of the night by freezing Mark Reynolds. It's a pitch he has apparently worked on a lot over the off-season, and this article claims it's actually a splitter, but it looks basically like a changeup. He'll need to continue to mix that in to stay effective, as, unlike Chapman, I don't think his straight heat is enough to get him by.

First pitch tonight is at 6:05 CT. It looks like storms are on the way in Baltimore, so let's hope the Twins can get the game in and get another win!

Comfortably Numb

2011-04-15T10:57:00.000-04:00

"Relax, relax, relax
I need some information first.
Just the basic facts.
Can you show me where it hurts?

There is no pain, you are receding.
A distant ship's smoke on the horizon.
You are only coming through in waves.
Your lips move, but I can’t hear what you’re saying."

-Pink Floyd, Comfortably Numb

Yesterday I was concerned to read that Joe Mauer was being held out for a 2nd straight game but there were enough points of justification to allay the fears of injury. Then I flicked on my computer this morning to the news that Mauer had landed on the DL and my head literally fell into my hands. John Bonnes over at TwinsGeek wrote a soothing piece yesterday about how he felt that "dawn" was coming for the Twins and with all of my heart I wanted to believe that. Things couldn't get much worse right?? I guess they could get worse and they did get worse.

I don't want to dwell on it too much. First of all, we don't know much about the condition that Mauer has or how long it will take for him to recover and get back on the field. Second, just like with Nishioka's injury, it has happened, the team has to move on and try to figure out a way to win. There's no way around it. It sucks, 100% it sucks. Like Nick Nelson said today, "at this point things are about as dreary as they've ever been [...] and we're only in April.

One thing I've been reading around the blogs (especially in the comments) so far this morning is this impression that because the Twins have recovered from season-ending injuries to the likes of Morneau and Nathan the last couple of years, they will somehow manage to do the same in this case. Though I appreciate that sentiment and would love to believe it, this simply isn't the same kind of injury. Mauer's role is bigger in that he is essentially the captain of the pitching staff. If his injury proves serious and causes him to miss months instead of weeks, the effect of that would be much more widely felt than losing a Justin Morneau or a Joe Nathan.

I guess we'll find out more over the next few days, but right now it's hard not to feel sick about how this season has started for the Twins. I would be elated if they turned things around, Mauer injury only required a 15-day DL stay, Nishioka came back in mid-to-late May and slid right back into his role and everything turned out rosy at the end of the season, but I'm not expecting that.

Busting the Slump

2011-04-14T14:03:00.000-04:00

To be completely honest, I've been struggling a little to come up with ideas for posts. It's certainly been frustrating to watch this Twins team limp out of the gates at the start of the season, and as much as I've touted my generally optimistic outlook, it's admittedly been difficult to stay positive. I've thought about going through the Twins' offensive rankings thus far, but they're pretty much last in every meaningful category, so that makes for a depressing read. I've considered the "how much are we paying Joe Mauer per weak grounder to second" post, but that's probably still a little premature through eleven games. I've considered writing about how Target Field is the new PETCO (except for Jim Thome's moon shot over the weekend), but I haven't been able to find much hard data (outside of watching the flags in right field) to explain why there seems to be some sort of forcefield knocking balls onto the warning track. I'm certainly no meteorologist, but it certainly looks like Target Plaza = wind tunnel. And after yesterday's game, I pondered looking at what's going on with Liriano, but the entire Twins blogosphere already beat me there.

So what's left? This still-young season has resembled some sort of bizarro world where nothing is as it seems. The biggest perceived strengths of this team - a largely intact offense that had no problem scoring runs last year and a starting rotation that boasts some of the best depth in the league - have looked like weaknesses. On the other hand, the biggest question mark - a bullpen depleted by free agency - has been one of the few bright spots with a collective 3.09 ERA and 3.43 FIP in 35 innings of work. Some things have been predictable (shaky defense, Alexi Casilla's bat, and Baker serving up home runs) and some things have me scratching my head after spring training (Delmon looking more like the 2009 rather than 2010 version, Valencia looking frequently lost both at the plate and in the field, and the complete lack of power evidenced by a collective .070 ISO). It's probably not fair to single out individual hitters though, because outside of Span and maybe Kubel, it's all been pretty bad. The Twins have 88 hits on the season, which puts them further towards the middle of the pack than the bottom, but as the Royals learned last year, a team does not live on singles alone. The Twins have technically out-hit the Yankees (who have 82 hits); the difference is that 20 of the Yankees' hits have been home runs, compared to the whopping 3 that have left the yard for Minnesota.

It's still too early to pick out underlying statistical trends that would explain the anemic offense, and on the whole, I don't think anyone is legitimately concerned that Mauer will hit .265 all year and Morneau and Delmon will finish the season with a combined zero home runs. As Adam wrote over at Puckett's Pond, though, there does appear to be some sort of groupthink going on regarding plate discipline, seemingly an effort by Twins batsmen to hit their way out of this collective funk rather than staying patient, working counts, and waiting for good pitches to hit. I'd agree that if I had to point to one thing that should be firmly within the team's control (meaning not BABIP or something else related to "luck"), taking a more patient approach at the plate should certainly help to generate baserunners and help some of the singles lead to more runs.

The bad news is that after a brief homestand, the Twins are back on the east coast. The good news is that they face the Rays and the Orioles, both teams who have experienced similar run-scoring troubles. Tampa's wOBA on the season is only four points higher than the Twins at .271, even after the 20-hit beatdown they laid on the Red Sox a few days ago. The Orioles are slightly better than that at .286, but they have also done a stellar job of run prevention, aided by their up-and-coming young arms such as Zach Britton (and potentially Brian Matusz who may be back just in time to face the Twins).

Whatever it is that explains the offensive struggles, maybe the fake turf and cream-colored ceiling of Tropicana Field will kindle some memory of the M&M boys rifling homers over the baggy, aided by the air conditioning vents in the Metrodome roof (or so the legend goes) rather than hindered by the swirling Target Field winds. Maybe the ghost of Jason Kubel's game-winning RBI pop-up off the catwalk is still lingering somewhere in the rafters, seeking to reverse the string of bad luck that was particularly evident yesterday in the numerous seeing-eye singles that found their way through during Liriano's disastrous sixth inning. Maybe Twins Geek is right, that it's darkest just before the dawn. I don't exactly know what got the Twins here and what will get them out of it, but there's no reason it can't start tonight.

KC Royals vs. MN Twins Series Preview

2011-04-12T11:53:00.000-04:00

Last night's Rays v. Red Sox game gave me hope for the Twins. If you didn't see the game, the Rays unleashed a 20-hit, 16-run onslaught against the Red Sox after hitting even more poorly than the Twins through their first 9 games. I would love to see a game ~~or two~~ or ten like that from our beloved Twins...a laugh-er would be good for the souls of Twins fans everywhere.

Game 1 - Tuesday 7:10pm CST

Pitching Matchup: Jeff Francis (0-0, 1.98 ERA) vs. Brian Duensing (0-0, 5.14 ERA)

Discussion:
Jeff Francis came to the Royals from the Rockies this past off-season and has gotten his 2011 campaign off to a good start...which means he's due to have a blow-up on the mound. During his career, Francis has never had a season-ERA under 4.16 and for over the last two seasons, he hasn't managed an ERA below 5.00 though he has battled through various injuries. His first two starts of this year were both at home, against the Angels and White Sox and in each game he struck-out 4 and walked only 1, gave up 1 homerun and threw about 100 pitches in 6.2IP and 7.0IP respectively. Nobody on the Twins really has much experience with Francis, though Morneau is 1-for-3 with a HR against Francis. The Twins would be best-served to go with as much of a right-handed lineup as they can against the lefty Francis as he has allowed a .298/.346/.464 career hitting line to righty hitters.
As for Brian Duensing, he got roughed up early in his only start of the year against the Yankees, but managed to settle down and get through 7 innings, striking out 7 while walking only 2. Duensing has feasted on Royal hitters so far in his career surrendering a meager .263/.282/.395 hitting line against them in a collective 38 at-bats (7:1 K/BB). The thing the Twins will have to watch in this game, and throughout the series, is KC's penchant to steal bases. Through 9 games, Royal runners have stolen a MLB-best 15 bags, a trend which has carried over from Spring Training where they stole 57 bases. What's interesting to note is that the Royals don't have a starter in the Top 20 for stolen-bases, their team-leader is a bench guy (Jarrod Dyson) and he has 3 stolen bases. For the Royals it's been a team-effort on the bases with 8 guys having at least 1 SB.

If I had to take a guess at a result, I'd say Twins 7, Royals 4

Game 2 - Wednesday 12:10pm CST

Pitching Matchup: Kyle Davies (0-1, 9.00 ERA) vs. Francisco Liriano (0-2, 7.71 ERA)

Discussion:
Davies has struggled so far this year giving up 9 runs over two starts, walking 7 and striking out only 5. Davies has never been a very good pitcher in the Majors, but has managed to keep a starting job because of who he pitches for. If the Twins don't score many runs in this one, we'll know something is wrong folks because as a team, the Twins have a .288/.406/.429 hitting line against Davies in 156 at-bats and have walked more times than they've struck out against him. Thome and Kubel both have career 1.200+ OPS marks against Davies so it should be a no-brainer that both of them should be in the lineup.
Francisco Liriano has also struggled so far this season, but looked better in his last outing vs. the Yankees on April 7th. A number of current Royal hitters have had an appreciable number of at-bats against our ace, but none of them have gotten very good results, except for Alex Gordon who owns a .930 OPS against Liriano in 11 career at-bats. I expect Liriano to be even better in this game and it should help him some to be back in the spacious confines of Target Field as well. In his last start against the Yankees, Liriano had a 8/7 GB/FB ratio which indicates that he had improved control of his pitches. If we start to see pitch velocities that are closer to last year's then I think we will start to see Liriano start to dominate the competition once again. Hopefully he will start that trend by putting together a good start against the Royals on Wednesday afternoon.

Prediction: Twins 8, Royals 2

It's just a short two-game set but I hope this is where the Twins will start to turn things around at the plate. Overall the pitching has been good the past few days and the bullpen has been surprisingly good; I think the Twins can really get on a run here if they can get it going with the sticks. Go Twins!

Wanna See a Great Catch?

2011-04-11T09:30:00.002-04:00

Credit: Associated Press

Holy Crap.

This catch made by Sam Fuld in yesterday's White Sox v. Rays game was among of the best I've ever seen. My 2nd favorite part of the video is Hawk Harrelson's version of the call, you have to watch till the 3rd time they show the catch. Most of the time Hawk bothers the crap out of me, but he does have some of the most entertaining calls in all of baseball.

The one aspect of the catch that bothers me? Check out the White Sox fan just beyond the fence who taunts Fuld after the catch. Seriously? Respect the skills!

Sputtering Offense Not a Surprise...

2011-04-10T20:06:00.000-04:00

When Tsuyoshi Nishioka went down with a broken leg last Thursday, Ron Gardenhire was left with some interesting decisions to make with regards to his daily batting lineup. The result? Mauer in the 2-hole, Morneau in the 3-hole and Delmon Young batting cleanup. The result on the field...a stagnant offense and 6 runs in three games over the weekend. Though none of the Twins' players are hitting particularly well, I believe a lot of blame for that fact can be placed on this very odd lineup that Gardenhire has put together. There was no better example of that than today's game in which Morneau was 3-for-4 and yet drove in only one run (on a ground-out mind you) because the hitters in front of him, Mauer and Span, went a combined 2-for-8 with both hits coming late in the ballgame. In the 1st inning Morneau came to the plate with 2-out and no one on, in the 4th inning he led off the inning (again, no one on obviously) and in the 6th he again came to the plate with 2-out and no one on base. A 3-hole hitter comes to the plate with 2-out and no one on more than any other position in the lineup, a fact I expounded upon in my piece on lineup optimization a couple of weeks ago.

I won't cover it all over again, but the lineup optimization basics say that you should have a high-average/high on-base % guy leading off, the team's best hitter hitting second, an average player in the 3-hole (because the 2-out, no one on sitch) and your power guys batting cleanup and 5th. Putting Morneau at 3 gives him a few more at-bats sure, but it saps his chances to do damage. In today's game, had he gone 3-for-4 as the cleanup guy, he may have had an opportunity or two to drive someone in, and otherwise would have led off a couple of innings with hits and who knows how things might have transpired from there. As it was, his hits were wasted as Delmon Young went 1-for-4 hitting behind him.

The Twins offense certainly isn't by any means doomed with this lineup. As I mentioned earlier, none of the Twins hitters seem to be seeing the ball very well with several of them hitting below the Mendoza-line. This poor hitting is further compounded by the fact that the team as a whole seems impatient at the plate, drawing a total of THREE walks (against 19 strikeouts) in this latest three-game set with the Athletics. When you're not hitting well, and you're not working walks, you aren't going to score many runs and that's what we've seen lately with the Twins. To Pavano, Blackburn and Baker's credit, they pitched pretty well in the series, but the offensive gave them little to no support to back their efforts which is a shame considering how few runs the Twins would have needed to score to take the series.

Put simply, it's up to the hitters to hit (duh). That said, if I were Ron Gardenhire I would keep Mauer in the 2-hole, move Morneau back to the cleanup spot and put Delmon Young or Danny Valencia in the 3-hole. Morneau seems to be hitting better and better as the season moves along and he needs to be put in a situation where he can either a) drive runs in or b) get things started in an inning. Putting him in a position where he is coming to the plate with no one on base and 2-outs is wasting his abilities. As for the other hitters..."come on boys, you gotta get some hits!" Coming into today's game, the Twins as a team were hitting just .203...which is downright terrible. Hopefully the bats will come around this week as the Twins take on the Royals and punchless-Rays. Maybe they'll take some extra BP during their day off tomorrow.

Home Sweet Home (and trying to stay positive)

2011-04-08T13:24:00.000-04:00

The Twins limp home after a 2-4 eastcoast road-trip and while there is plenty to be down about, at least our boys are coming home. I've been reading around some of the Twins blogs and, understandably, the hot topic of the day is Nishioka's unfortunate injury in yesterday's game. I want to change the subject though because honestly, it happened, he's out, and we have to move on.

In trying to focus on positive things, I've come up with a couple of observations:

1.) The Twins bullpen was fantastic in the Yankee series. The bullpen as a whole pitched 8 scoreless innings against a very potent Yankee lineup and they were key in the Twins' victory in game 2 of the series.

2.) Though Baker and Duensing struggled in the early innings against the Yankees, both of them settled down and gave the team 6+ innings.

It may seem like I'm grasping at straws there, and I am a little, but those two things are certainly positive developments, especially considering how many of us have expressed our concerns with the bullpen. Another thing to keep in mind is the disparity in schedules between the Twins and White Sox so far. While the Twins had a very difficult road-trip against teams that were a combined 36 games over .500 last season, the White Sox had the Indians and Royals. Now they draw the Rays and their Triple-A offense while the Twins draw the Oakland Athletics who have one of the deeper and more talented starting rotations in the American League. The schedule will even itself out eventually, I'm just saying...

I think the thing I am most positive about is the fact that Justin Morneau looks like he's officially healthy. He's started the majority of the games so far and his bat is looking better and better. Yes the Twins lost 4 out of 6 games on the road-trip, but they also didn't score more than 5 runs in any of those games and their only homeruns came from Denard Span and Danny Valencia. The bats are gonna come around folks and this offense is going to be good, we just have to be patient.

I had to have Matt talk me off the ledge yesterday, so lest you think I simply have my rose-colored glasses on, I don't. I'm aware of the legitimate concerns this team has going forward, especially in the middle-infield. That said, we have to keep in mind how young this season is. I think we're going to start seeing some better outings from our starters in the next couple of weeks and I think having a couple of series' at home will be good medicine for this team. And hey, Nishioka's not going to miss the whole season, he'll be back by mid-May, early-June and we can get back to over-analyzing his defense and hitting abilities. Till then we've got Luke Hughes and Matt Tolbert to kick around.

Exaggerating a Win

2011-04-06T10:04:00.000-04:00

Getty Images

WE BEAT THE YANKEES...AT YANKEE STADIUM!! Who cares if we overblow it?? Yeah, yeah, it's sad that a regular season win, within the first two weeks of the season mind you, against the Yankees feels like winning a playoff game. Who cares? For now I'm basking in the glory of a come-from-behind, morale-boosting, early-season win. Here's a couple of notes on the game and the series so far:

In the first two innings of games against the Twins this year, the Yankees have scored 8 runs on the strength of 3 HRs. In innings 3 through 9, they've scored zero runs. This is both encouraging and discouraging. Nice to see both Baker & Duensing settle in after rough starts though.
After committing a couple of errors in the three-game series with the Blue Jays, Tsuyoshi Nishioka has seemingly settled in and has had a great series defensively against the Yankees helping to turn 4 double-plays in two games and handling the routine grounders with ease. At the plate last night he had a key hit in the 10th inning after failing to lay down a bunt.
In the 8th inning rally against Soriano, the Twins had a number of patient at-bats, drawing three walks with every hitter seeming to work a deep count. That kind of a patience is very encouraging, especially given the amount of quick outs the Twins have had so far this season.
Delmon Young hit the luckiest 2-out, 3-run double you will ever see. First, the only reason Mauer scored from 1st is because Delmon had worked the count to 3-2 with 2-out. Second, the ball was essentially a pop-up...that happened to find about a 10 sq. ft. area of the field that no one could get to. I'm not complaining, but I'll call it like I see it.
Michael Cuddyer looked pretty terrible last night, no way around that really.
Matt Capps deserves as much credit for the win as Young does, pitching through the heart of the Yankee lineup (Swish, Tex, A-Rod, Cano, Posada, Martin) in the 8th and 9th innings, retiring them 6-up, 6-down. He made fairly light work for Nathan by getting through those guys.
As Gleeman pointed out today, Nathan's velocity is still lacking, but he was effective enough in the 10th inning of last night's game. I don't think my heart could have taken it if Nathan had eeked out another save.
With a near-miracle win last night, the Twins have a solid shot at taking at least 2 of 4 in New York with Carl Pavano and Francisco Liriano on the mound for the next two games. That would be about as much as I could have hoped for coming in.

Hopefully the team didn't go out and celebrate too much last night. This was a great early-season win and so far I've been impressed with the team in the first two games of this series, they've gotten down early but have fought back against a tough team. It's amazing how much one game can change your perspective.

The Good, The Bad, and the Mostly Ugly

2011-04-05T16:39:00.003-04:00

Remember that post I had before the season started about not trying not to hit the panic button? Well...I'm still not going to. Had you told me that the Twins would kick off the season 1-3, based on the opening schedule taking them out for seven games to places that they've had less success than any others, I wouldn't have disagreed. What I didn't see coming was Pavano getting massacred for eight runs in four innings, Liriano giving up two homers and walking five while the offense managed one hit, or, on the flip side, Blackburn keeping a potent Jays lineup in check for one earned run while inducing 13 ground ball outs. All surprising in different ways. The opening series provided a few parts good mixed in with a healthy dose of bad and ugly.

Last night, the Twins once again succumbed to the Yankees in the Bronx, a scenario we're unfortunately all too familiar with. The first two innings looked like vintage (at times) Scott Baker, serving up home runs to Alex Rodriguez and Jorge Posada on a couple very poorly located pitches. Another young pitcher, Ivan Nova, was mowing the Twins down without much resistance. It looked like an ugly start to the season was about to get even uglier. In the fifth inning, though, the Twins started to show some signs of life. I'm not one for moral victories (and sometimes close losses are harder to take than blowouts), but at this stage of the season I'm much happier that this game ended as it did even if the result was a loss. It's too early for any serious statistical analysis, so the below is based largely on suffering through these games on TV.

The good:

- Justin Morneau had hit some balls hard during the Toronto series without much to show for it, and last night he turned in a 2 for 4 performance including a double that was absolutely smoked. It's hard not to cringe a little watching him slide into second, but he's looking more and more comfortable at the plate.

- The middle infield combo of Nishioka and Casilla combined for two doubles, one RBI, a run scored and turned two double plays. Let's hope the communication that looked sorely lacking in Toronto is coming around.

- In the spirit of Fire Joe Morgan, we try to avoid writing too much about the importance of determination, grit, etc, but it was encouraging to see Scott Baker make it through four scoreless innings after an atrocious start, albeit with the benefit of some hard-hit balls finding their way directly to a Twins fielder. According to PitchFX, his fastball averaged 90.39 mph, almost a full mph slower than his 2010 average, and his slider was almost three mph off his 2010 average of 84. Obviously it's still a little early in the season to be reading a lot into dips in velocity, but on Opening Day last year he averaged 91.48 and 82.75, respectively.

- After a 1-2-3 inning last night, Kevin Slowey has a 1.37 FIP through 3 2/3 innings and hasn't allowed a run or walked anyone. Sure, he's given up 5 hits but also has a 6:4 GB/FB ratio. Hooray for small sample sizes!

The bad:

- Denard Span was 0-4 with three strikeouts. However, I'm going to give him a free pass because he single-handedly provided most of the Twins' offense over the weekend.

- Delmon Young was 1-4 with a swinging bunt as his only hit and also grounded into a double play. Remember what I said about him driving the ball with authority in spring training? Yeah...not so much yet, but he'll be fine. Parker Hagemann pointed out that the Yankees did a good job of working Delmon away in the zone - he'll need to do a better job of looking to drive the ball to the opposite field if other teams take this approach.

The ugly:

- I hate to even put him in this category, but Joe Mauer looks like he certainly could have used a few more weeks in Ft. Myers. I'm certainly not knocking him for not having enough at bats to get his swing where it needs to be, especially coming off knee surgery, but he's 1 for 11 and has only gotten the ball out of the infield a few times, with the bulk being weak ground balls. He'll come around as well, but he's obviously a little behind the curve right now.

- Valencia went 0-3, meaning his only hit of the season was his homer on Sunday (and leaving him with a BABIP of .000 in 15 plate appearances). It's also unlikely that this will continue, but needless to say it's been a slow start for the youngster for whom so many have been predicting regression.

If the Twins can manage to eke out one more win over the next three games, I'll accept taking the much-needed trip back to Target Field at 2-5. The Twins will have five games at home vs Oakland and KC, before heading back out to the AL East for 8 more (seriously, who made this schedule?) Sabathia will take the mound again tonight versus Duensing, but then Pavano and Liriano will likely face Freddy Garcia and A.J. Burnett, respectively. If Pavano and Liriano can put their awful first starts behind them, I like the Twins' chances in either of those games. The bottom line is that it's been an ugly start, but for most of the team, the only place to go from here is up.

A Disappointing Start

2011-04-03T21:46:00.001-04:00

The Twins' first series of the year is now in the books and if I summed it up in one word, that word would be: disappointing. From Carl Pavano's opening inning on Friday to Joe Nathan's white-knuckle save to win today's game, the Twins looked to be on shaky ground the entire time. I suppose there are several caveats that should be mentioned before people think I'm getting too down on this team.

a) The series was on the road and last year's 94-win team only won 50% of their road games.
b) The series was against an AL East opponent and, say what you will, the Twins have had perennial struggles with AL East opponent for several years now.
c) It's the first series of the year, there's a lot of baseball yet to be played.
d) Hey, the Twins are getting these tough road games out of the way early right?
e) Both Liriano and Pavano are better pitchers than they showed in their respective starts. If it was Blackburn, Baker or Duensing that had struggled, there would be more reason to worry going forward, but Pavano and Liriano will bounce back.

I think it's that last point that gives me hope. Sure Pavano and Liriano got roughed up and it was ugly, but they are both good pitchers who, more than likely, just happened to have rough starts in back-to-back games. It's not what you'd like to see, especially to start a year, but it's not the end of the world. That said, there are a few other things that happened that do have me worried...

a) Tsuyoshi Nishioka had 2 errors in three games,...that kind of defense is not going to win you any Gold Gloves in the Major Leagues. It could be nerves, but it's something to watch going forward.
b) Justin Morneau looks like he could have used a couple more weeks of Spring Training. He's 1 for 10 on the young season, with a strikeout and a walk and he hasn't looked anything like his old self...here's hoping he turns it around.
c) The bullpen looked shaky and they were used a lot on Friday and Saturday.
d) As mentioned earlier, Nathan looked very hittable today, and the Pitch FX data on his outing suggests that he's still in recovery-mode from Tommy John surgery. His fastest fastball today was 91.8 mph, almost a full 2 mph slower than his average fastball in 2009 and 2009. Not only that, his command was very spotty, which indicates that he's not all the way back. This will be something to keep a close eye on, if he has another outing like he did today, Gardenhire may choose to make Capps the closer for awhile.

So now it's on to New York City to play the Yankees for four. I don't even need to go into how much the Twins have struggled again New York for the last several years, every Twins fan is painfully aware. We'll get our first looks at Scott Baker and Brian Duensing in the series as they go up against Ivan Nova and Yankee-ace CC Sabathia. I'm looking to see some more offense for the Twins in this series and hoping for a little better defense as well. It think it would be a big boost of confidence for the Twins if they could split this series, though I'm not holding my breath.

Previewing Twins vs. Jays - Pitching Matchups

2011-03-31T11:34:00.002-04:00

I can barely contain myself, I'm so excited for the regular season start. My friends and I call the time between the Super Bowl and the start of the baseball regular season "Sports Purgatory." It's that time of the year where unless you are a hockey fan, NBA fan or college basketball fan, nothing is really going on. Granted, the NCAA Tournament does provide a nice respite, and it dovetails nicely with the start of the baseball season, but unless the Gophers are good *choke* then I'm not really into it. The baseball regular season is finally mere hours away, a slate of 6 games kicking things off today followed by a more robust schedule of games tomorrow in which we will get our first glimpse of our 2011 Minnesota Twins. It's my pleasure to bring you my take on the pitching matchups for this weekend's series with the Blue Jays.

Game #1 - Friday - 7:07pm EST start

Matchup:
Carl Pavano vs. Ricky Romero

Ricky Romero (2010 stats)
210.0IP    (14-9)     3.73/3.64 ERA/FIP     1.29 WHIP     174/82 K/BB

Romero followed up a decent rookie campaign with an excellent season in 2010 and is on a lot of people's fantasy radars to perform well once again this season. What makes Romero a good pitcher is his ability to induce ground balls and last season, he owned a 55.2 GB%, good for a Top 10 mark in all of Major League baseball (just ahead of Felix Hernandez). The way to get to Romero is being patient as he is somewhat prone to issue the walk (3.51 BB/9 in 2010). Romero doesn't have blow-you-away stuff, his fastball sits in the high-80s to low-90s, it's his ability to mix it up that gets hitters to strike-out or make weak contact. He only threw his fastball 42% of the time last year while he threw his changeup 26% of the time; both of the pitches look the same delivery-wise, one is just about 6mph slower than the other. Romero is 2-0 lifetime against the Twins with a 2.78ERA in 22.2 IP. He is much more effective against right-handers (.252/.338/.352) than he is against left-handers (.286/.349/.477) so hopefully the Twins will go with a more lefty-heavy lineup.

Carl Pavano (2010 stats)
221.0IP     (17-11)     3.75/4.02 ERA/FIP     1.19 WHIP     117/37 K/BB

If you've been following Spring Training, you know that Carl has looked pretty good up to this point. This is a good sign because April is typically a rough month for Carl. In his career he's made 41 April starts and pitched to an ERA 4.70, his worst monthly ERA by a sizeable margin. That said, a healthy Pavano is certainly capable of being a horse for the Twins again this year. I don't necessarily expect him to duplicate last year's efforts, and there's always the injury question with Carl, but overall he's been good with the Twins and there is little reason to doubt him. I have been reading that some people think that because Pavano got the Opening Day start that he is somehow the Twins "ace" ...which is honestly ridiculous. Liriano is the clear ace and I think that Pavano got the start because he is the veteran in this situation and Gardy is old-school like that.
Pavano hasn't fared well against the Jays in his career, sporting a bloated 5.91 ERA in 12 career starts...but we'll see, here's hoping his Spring momentum carries over.

Game #2 - Saturday - 1:07pm EST

Matchup:
Francisco Liriano vs. Kyle Drabek

Kyle Drabek (2010 Triple-A stats)
162.0 IP     (14-9)     2.94/3.87 ERA/FIP     1.20 WHIP     132/68 K/BB

Drabek made a short 17 inning Major League debut at the end of last season, but this season he enters as the #2 starter for the Blue Jays which means a whole lot more responsibility and pressure. Drabek's minor league numbers are not bad, but they're also not that eye-popping. In just over 429 MiL innings, he compiled a 3.41/1.23 ERA/WHIP with 7.5 Ks/9 and a 2.18 K/BB ratio. Drabek's main pitch is his fastball which he can hurl about 92-95 mph. His secondary pitch is a slider which he throws about 84-86 mph. It looks like patience is again the way to approach Drabek, he's not a strikeout machine so if you wait for a good pitch to hit, you'll probably get one.
Drabek was impressive this spring flashing a 14:1 K/BB ratio in 16 innings of work. It'll be interesting to see how he does this season as a member of the young Blue Jays rotation.

Francisco Liriano (2010 stats)
191.2 IP     (14-10)     3.62/2.66 ERA/FIP     1.26 WHIP     201/58 K/BB

Liriano looked better and better with each start this Spring as he looks to put together a 2nd straight year of domination. A .331 BABIP really hurt his traditional numbers last year, but the secondary numbers suggested that Liriano was one of the best pitchers in baseball last year. Among starting pitchers who throw a slider, there was no slider that was more valuable than Liriano's at 19.0 runs above average.
Even though Liriano is 0-2 against the Jays in his career, he has not pitched that poorly against them. In 13+ innings, he has a 4.05 ERA with 14Ks and 2BB. None of the current Jays players aside from Rajai Davis (14) has very many career ABs against Liriano.

Game #3 - Sunday - 1:07pm EST

Matchup:
Nick Blackburn vs. Brett Cecil

Brett Cecil (2010 stats)
172.2 IP     (15-7)     4.22/4.03 ERA/FIP     1.33 WHIP     117/54 K/BB

Cecil's sophomore season in the Bigs was somewhat of a breakout campaign for the 24-year-old lefthander. After not making the club out of Spring Training in 2010, Cecil was called up early in the season and went on to win 15 games.
Cecil is a lot like teammate Ricky Romero in that he tends to fool hitters by keeping them guessing as to what he's going to throw. Though he does throw his four-seam fastball more than any other pitch (31% of the time), he also throws his slider (20%), changeup (~20%), and two-seamer (~20%) enough of the time to keep hitters off-balance. This doesn't translate to a high K-rate like it does for Romero, but it does allow him to be effective despite a fastball that typically sits right around 90 mph.
Cecil is 2-0 vs. the Twins in his young career posting a 2.08 ERA and 1.00 WHIP in 13 innings of work.

Nick Blackburn (2010 stats)
161.0 IP     (10-12)     5.42/5.07 ERA/FIP     1.45 WHIP     68/40 K/BB

Oh boy, let the 'Nick Blackburn experience' being once again. Blackie had a nice Spring flashing a team-best (among starters) 1.73 ERA with 11K and 3BB in 26 innings of work. After last year's disaster, the Twins are banking on a bounce-back year from Blackburn, but if that doesn't pan out, the Twins have people in the wings to replace him, which is a comfort for me.
I've talked enough about Blackburn this off-season where I won't go too in-depth here. Suffice to say, his success depends on his ability to control his pitches and induce ground-balls. If we see lower than normal K-rates and higher than normal walk rates early on, he can probably kiss his spot in the rotation good-bye before May gets here.
In 13.2 career innings vs. the Jays, Blackburn has an impressive 2.63 ERA and 0.73 WHIP with a surprising 12:1 K/BB ratio...

This should be a good series, the pitching matchups certainly look competitive. With the somewhat cold & dreary weather we're having here in the Upper Midwest, I'm glad that the Twins are starting the season in a dome, though an AL East roadtrip that runs through New York is kind of a brutal way to start a season. Thank God baseball is back!

The Audacity of Hope?

2011-03-30T18:12:00.001-04:00

On the eve of Opening Day (for some teams anyway) and with a tidy 2-0 victory under the Twins’ belt to complete Spring Training, we’re all eagerly anticipating Friday night at the Rogers Center and the beginning of the 162-game quest for another division title (and hopefully beyond). In today’s game, Scott baker tossed five shutout innings with four punchouts, Perkins and Slowey added a scoreless inning apiece, Nishioka singled and stole a base, and Kubel continued his strong spring with a double and an RBI. The Twins will have a day off on Thursday before heading north, and I figured this was a good place to wrap up where the Twins have been over the last few months and where they’re headed.

If you read Joe Posnanski’s slightly meandering but overall good piece in defense of a sabermetric approach to baseball (or spent enough time on this site or other places where advanced stats are held in high regard), it hits on the very important idea of sample size. To some extent, then, one season’s worth of spring training statistics are (or should be) nearly meaningless in terms of evaluating a player’s true talent. In other words, despite that there are a number of factors that would point to a potential rebound year for Denard Span, the fact that Span rocked a .339/.385/.458 line in spring training this year does not necessarily mean that’s a sure thing. With that said, however, I’m at least open to making some general observations interspersed with stats that should be taken with a large grain of salt.

- Delmon Young hasn’t given us a reason to think that he won’t pick up where he left off last season. He’s carrying a 1.066 OPS coming out of Fort Meyers and appears to be driving the ball with authority. In the field, though, don’t hold your breath.

- Nick Blackburn looks healthy and fairly comfortable on the mound. He put up a 1.08 WHIP in 26 innings, faced the minimum amount of batters in his last ST start, induced two double-play grounders, and is doing a generally good job of killing worms, which he absolutely has to do to be effective given the extreme lack of ability to miss bats. Do I think Kevin Slowey is a better pitcher? Yes, but the 2008, 2009 and late-2010 versions of Nick Blackburn showed the ability to be at least moderately effective when sticking to his strengths, and it appears that he’s in a position to do that heading into the season. We obviously saw last year, however, that relying on contact to get outs has the potential to send your season into a tailspin in a hurry, and with Slowey waiting in the wings, Blackburn’s leash might not be all that long.

- Nishioka’s spring training UZR...ok, just kidding. As one of the most sample-size-dependent stats, the idea of spring training UZR is especially ludicrous. I haven’t seen him play enough to have formed an opinion of his fielding skills, but Gardy seems to think he’s got Gold Glove potential (a statement which is dubious for at least two reasons, but I digress). It’ll be a while before the advanced metrics have much to say about it, so for now, I’ll take Gardy’s word for it that the kid can handle himself with the glove. As far as hitting, 58 at bats is certainly not enough for the Twins to know what they have in what I assume will be the 2nd lineup spot, but he did put together a nice 13-game hitting streak and a tidy .345/.367/.414 line. Here’s hoping!

- There haven’t been any setbacks (that we know of) with the big names coming back from injury. This might be the biggest victory of all. Mauer’s knee has been fully cleared and he seems to be suffering no ill effects. Morneau’s put in 33 at-bats along with time in the field without complaining of concussion symptoms (again, that we know of), and that’s certainly more important than his .152 batting average. His Opening Day status is still in doubt, but all signs point to progress. Joe Nathan hasn’t been dominant, but he appears to have regained most of his velocity. His slider, his most important secondary offering, has been slow to come back after Tommy John (ask Liriano about that one too), but he hasn’t complained of arm pain even after pitching on back-to-back days. And at least Cuddyer seems to be able to play with a hole in his foot.

On the blog spectrum, I’d like to consider myself more of a glass-half-full sort of guy. Sure, I’ve had my panic moments, but I try to keep things more on the positive side while still being aware of the cold hard facts where appropriate. My goal here was to point out some encouraging trends from spring training, but I'll acknowledge that there are still plenty of areas with unanswered questions. Nick Nelson wrote a well-written piece today responding to allegations that he’s a glass-half-empty type and came to the conclusion that even if we take a look at the numbers and find that they just don’t add up in the way we’d like, ultimately we’re all fans who hope for the best for the team we love. This is, after all, the time of year when hope springs eternal, even for Pirates fans. There are obviously still concerns with this team, perhaps none larger than the threat of injury to the aforementioned trio of Morneau, Mauer and Nathan that would cause the Twins to have to dip into their questionable reserves of minor league offense and bullpen help. Nick’s got the Twins finishing second or third in the Central, which is certainly fair, and if it shakes out that way, I can’t say I’d be utterly shocked. However, we picked the Twins to take the division again, and that’s not just wishful thinking. Some chips may have to fall in just the right way, but based on the spring so far, I have no reason to believe that they won’t.

Something New

2011-03-29T22:08:00.000-04:00

Late last week, I happened to see a tweet from Wally Fish over at Puckett's Pond calling for new writers. While I have thoroughly enjoyed building this site from nothing, I also like to embrace new things so starting today, I'm now on staff over at Puckett's Pond. I will continue to write here as well, but I just wanted to let everyone know where they can find me in between my posts here. Check us out!

How Does the Twins Starting Rotation Stack Up?

2011-03-28T14:46:00.000-04:00

I was reading another excellent piece by Nick Nelson, a summary of the Twins Starting Pitchers, and then I read the comments...I should probably stop reading comments in blogs, but I saw them and now I can't help myself. This was comment...

"You ask, "Can we compete without top-of-the line pitching?"
The answer is: Within our mediocre division, yes; with the rest of the league, no. Same answer for the past 10 years or so."

The comment's owner is Ed Bast, a faithful commenter on many blogs (which we all appreciate!) and while there is nothing that bothers me about that comment, I just happen to disagree and wahlah, this post was born...so for that Ed, I thank you.

Nowhere in Nick's article did he suggest that the Twins' starting pitching was anything less than "top-of-the-line", in fact he called it the club's "strongest and deepest position." And I agree with that, their starting pitching, particularly the depth they have at the position, is easily their greatest strength. Like I said though, the comment got me thinking and so I want to compare the Twins 5 starters with other top rotations in the American League, just to see how they stack up. For argument's sake, I'm going to use each pitcher's 2010 stats, and for the Twins, I'll rank 1-5 as I see them actually slotted in terms of talent, not in the order Gardenhire elected each one this Spring. For review:

Francisco Liriano (ace)

191.2 IP (14-10) 3.62/2.66 ERA/FIP 1.26 WHIP 201/58 K/BB

Carl Pavano

221.0 IP (17-10) 3.75/4.02 ERA/FIP 1.19 WHIP 117/37 K/BB

Scott Baker

170.1 IP (12-9) 4.49/3.96 ERA/FIP 1.34 WHIP 148/43 K/BB

Brian Duensing

130.2 IP (10-3) 2.62/3.85 ERA/FIP 1.20 WHIP 78/35 K/BB

Nick Blackburn

161.0 IP (10-12) 5.42/5.07 ERA/FIP 1.45 WHIP 68/40 K/BB

I've been hearing the most buzz about the Red Sox, so let's start there.

Jon Lester (ace)

208.0 IP (19-9) 3.25/3.13 ERA/FIP 1.20 WHIP 225/83 K/BB

Clay Buchholz

173.2 IP (17-7) 2.33/3.61 ERA/FIP 1.20 WHIP 120/67 K/BB

Josh Beckett

127.2 IP (6-6) 5.75/4.54 ERA/FIP 1.54 WHIP 116/45 K/BB

John Lackey

215.0 IP (14-11) 4.40/3.85 ERA/FIP 1.42 WHIP 156/72 K/BB

Daisuke Matsuzaka

153.2 IP (9-6) 4.69/4.05 ERA/FIP 1.37 WHIP 133/74 K/BB

Like the Twins with Liriano and Pavano, the Red Sox had a formidable 1-2 punch last year with Lester and Buchholz. You can count on a healthy Beckett having a better 2011, but Lackey and Daisuke are no more of a "sure thing" than Duensing and Blackburn are. Of all of the other AL teams expected to compete this year, the Red Sox starting rotation appears to be the best of the bunch, but on paper, they aren't that much better than the Twins starting 5, especially if Baker has a 2011 campaign that more closely resembles his 2008 and 2008 seasons and Buchholz experiences some regression this year as his stats indicate he might. Next up, the White Sox.

John Danks (ace)

213.0 IP (15-11) 3.72/3.70 ERA/FIP 1.33 WHIP 162/70 K/BB

Gavin Floyd

187.1 IP (10-13) 4.08/3.46 ERA/FIP 1.37 WHIP 151/58 K/BB

Edwin Jackson

209.1 IP (10-12) 4.47/3.86 ERA/FIP 1.39 WHIP 181/78 K/BB

Jake Peavy

107.0 IP (7-6) 4.63/4.01 ERA/FIP 1.23 WHIP 93/34 K/BB

Mark Buehrle

210.1 IP (13-13) 4.28/3.90 ERA/FIP 1.40 WHIP 99/49 K/BB

The White Sox will, in my opinion, once again be the Twins toughest competition for the AL Central crown. Their collective ERA/FIP splits suggest that they were quite an unlucky bunch last year, but when you see those inflated WHIPs, it's not that hard to see why. If Gavin Floyd can throw well in the early part of the year, and Jake Peavy makes a strong comeback from back-to-back injury-plagued seasons...watch out. Otherwise this team will struggle to keep up in the AL Central once again because their options to replace these 5 aren't very good. Next up, the Yankees.

CC Sabathia (ace)

237.2 IP (21-7) 3.18/3.54 ERA/FIP 1.19 WHIP 197/74 K/BB

A.J. Burnett

186.2 IP (10-15) 5.26/4.83 ERA/FIP 1.51 WHIP 145/78 K/BB

Phil Hughes

176.1 IP (18-8) 4.19/4.25 ERA/FIP 1.25 WHIP 146/58 K/BB

Ivan Nova

42.0 IP (1-2) 4.50/4.36 ERA/FIP 1.45 WHIP 26/17 K/BB
Freddy Garcia

157.0 IP (12-6) 4.64/4.77 ERA/FIP 1.38 WHIP 89/45 K/BB

Burnett had a terrible year, which leads me to believe we'll see a bit of a bounce back from him, though he is 34, so last year might just had been the beginning of the end. CC, what can you say, the guy is superhuman. Phil Hughes gives the Yankees a shot to contend, without a 3rd starter like him, they'd have no chance. Nova and Garcia will be the wild-cards, Nova's minor league track doesn't suggest that he's going to light the world on fire, and in 7 starts last year (10 appearances overall), I think he showed what kind of Major League pitcher he will be. Honestly, I like the Twins top 3 up against the Yankees top 3...remember folks, it wasn't really the starting pitching that has lost games for the Twins against the Yankees in the playoffs...it's been their inability to put any meaningful offense together. We'll get to see the two teams match up right out of the gate this year as the Twins second series of the season is a 3-game series in New York. Onto the next team, the Rays.

David Price (ace)

208.2 IP (19-6) 2.72/3.42 ERA/FIP 1.19 WHIP 188/79 K/BB

James Shields

203.1 IP (13-15) 5.18/4.24 ERA/FIP 1.46 WHIP 187/51 K/BB

Jeremy Hellickson

36.1 IP (4-0) 3.47/3.88 ERA/FIP 1.10 WHIP 33/8 K/BB

Wade Davis

168.0 IP (12-10) 4.07/4.79 ERA/FIP 1.35 WHIP 113/62 K/BB

Jeff Niemann

174.1 IP (12-8) 4.39/4.61 ERA/FIP 1.26 WHIP 131/61 K/BB

Whether the Rays are a contender in the AL East this year will depend almost solely on their rotation. Price looks like a stud, Hellickson really impressed people last year in 4 starts, and if Shields bounces back from a pretty unlucky year (.341 BABIP), they could have quite a rotation. Losing Carl Crawford on offense is going to hurt so the Rays will be relying heavily on their rotation to give them innings and keep them in games. One team left, the Oakland A's.

Brett Anderson (ace?)

112.1 IP (7-6) 2.80/3.21 ERA/FIP 1.19 WHIP 75/22 K/BB

Trevor Cahill

196.2 IP (18-8) 2.97/4.19 ERA/FIP 1.11 WHIP 118/63 K/BB

Gio Gonzalez

200.2 IP (15-9) 3.23/3.78 ERA/FIP 1.31 WHIP 171/92 K/BB

Dallas Braden

192.2 IP (11-14) 3.50/3.80 ERA/FIP 1.16 WHIP 113/43 K/BB

Brandon McCarthy (2009 numbers, spent the year in Triple-A in 2010)

97.1 IP (7-4) 4.62/4.70 ERA/FIP 1.36 WHIP 65/36 K/BB

On paper, this looks like a pretty nice starting 5. The only problem is injury. Both Gonzalez and Anderson have had injury problems within the past two years and 4 out of the 5 guys are pretty young. Like the Rays, the Athletics success this year will depend on this group staying healthy and pitching well, something this group certainly has the potential to do.

So that's a lot of numbers and those are all last year's numbers and things could change drastically this year due to injury or other factors and blah, blah, blah. The point of this post was to suggest that the Twins Starting Rotation is not that much different than most of the other top rotations in the American League. Most of the rotations, even the great ones, have weaker pieces in the 4 and 5 slots. Most of them have a dominant "ace" type guy, so do the Twins in Liriano. Most of them rotations have a horse, a guy who can pitch 200+ innings with above average results, so do the Twins in Pavano (fingers crossed he stays healthy). If Scott Baker can pitch like he did in '08 and '09, I would put him up against any of the #3s I just listed above. There's a lot of "ifs" with the Twins, but these 'ifs' aren't great stretches of the imagination, they are things that could easily come true.

Now if we can just get that offense to come alive in the playoffs...that would really help turn the Twins' post-season fortunes around.

AL Central Projected Standings: 2011 Edition

2011-03-25T17:02:00.002-04:00

Ah, the AL Central. Although the Twins have had a great deal of success in the division over the last decade, many people are quick to chalk up that success to the weakness of the division rather than the strength of the team. Sure, barring the Twins’ runaway title last year, the AL Central race in recent years usually comes down to the final games of the season, meaning that the title chase is often a close, exciting race that highlights the parity of the division. But is it a good division? While it’s maybe not the AL East, you’d be hard pressed to say that there aren’t three quality teams at the top of this division that all have a shot at the playoffs. As we’ve already covered the individual previews for these teams, we thought we’d take a shot at making some foolish projections that will likely be proven wrong by July (except for the fact that the Royals and the Indians will be league doormats again, which is pretty much guaranteed). Baseball Prospectus aggregates their PECOTA projections into Depth Charts, which they then use to project team standings. It’s obviously not a perfect system, but we’ll use them as a baseline to start our projections and pick out areas where we agree and disagree.

Detroit Tigers (AK)

PECOTA PROJECTION:
(83-79) 722 RS 705 RA .266 BA .332 OBP .413 SLG

Honestly, I think that the fact that PECOTA is so high on Max Scherzer is half the reason the Tigers season projection is so bullish. As I covered in my earlier preview of the Tigers, they didn’t add that many impact players, so I’m having trouble seeing how they are suddenly contenders. It seems like every year, the Tigers are someone’s sexy pick to surprise in the AL Central and every year, they fall short of the mark.

Aside from Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer the Tigers starting rotation doesn’t inspire much fear. Scherzer’s numbers have been pretty consistent over the past two seasons and I suppose his PECOTA projection (200IP (13-13) 3.57 ERA/1.29 WHIP, 199K, 3.4WAR) isn’t that outlandish. Porcello can be expected to have a bounceback year, but Coke and Penny are complete wild cards.

The Tigers offense ought to be formidable, especially with the addition of Victor Martinez alongside the likes of Miguel Cabrera and Magglio Ordonez. One thing you can put lots of money on is some regression from Austin Jackson in terms of his batting average and on-base percentage from last year. His .341 OBP was serviceable in the lead-off spot last year, but if he regresses to the .320 OBP that PECOTA has him projected at, Leyland would have to have some serious coconuts to continue batting him lead-off.

Honestly I expect more of the same this year from the Tigers...they’ll contend through April and May and fall off in June and be out of it by August. They simply don’t have the rotation depth that both the Twins and Sox have, rendering a good offense rather useless. They may very well win 83 games, but 83 games isn’t going to win this division.

Minnesota Twins (AK)

PECOTA PROJECTION:
(83-79) 719 RS 704 RA .274 BA .338 OBP .406 SLG

For a team that scored 781 runs (sans Morneau for half the season mind you) and only gave up 671 runs, this projection seems like a bit of a slap in the face. That was the most runs scored in the AL Central and the least runs allowed. Sure they lost a couple of starters in the off-season (Hardy & Hudson) and sure they lost half the bullpen, but the starting pitching is pretty much unchanged from last year, they have what looks to be a healthy Morneau once again, and Joe Nathan is slated to return to his closers role.

I’m not going to bet against this team, no matter how shoddy the bullpen looks, because year-in and year-out they have proven to be contenders. I have full confidence in the Twins starting staff, I think their offense will be at least as good as last year’s and I think this team will win at least 90 games...with the usual caveat being team health. Aside from the bullpen, there isn’t much reason to doubt this team. After going 47-25 against AL Central foes last season, I suspect they’ll have a little more difficulty this year, but I see them as a strong contender to once again win the AL Central.

Chicago White Sox (AK)

PECOTA PROJECTION:
(82-80) 737 RS 725 RA .264 BA .328 OBP .427 SLG

The offensive projections for this team are about right. They are pegged to lead the division in slugging which should come as no surprise. With the addition of Adam Dunn to a lineup that already features power-hitters like Konerko, Rios, Quentin, and Alexei Ramirez, they should easily lead the AL Central in HRs. Batting average and On-Base Percentage are another story, however, as PECOTA only projects 2 of the 9 starters to have a .275 or higher average and only 3 of the 9 to have an OBP above .326. Nevertheless, the Sox look to have a much more competent offense this season than last.

I think the true strength of this team lies in their pitching, specifically the top end of their rotation and the bullpen. John Danks has been a horse for this team for the past 3 seasons and is just now entering the prime of his career. If Gavin Floyd can avoid his perennial early-season struggles he could really put something together, and I’m just now mentioning Edwin Jackson and former Cy Young award winner Jake Peavy. They have the potential for a very solid 1 through 5 and their bullpen is even better. They have a cast of serviceable righties and lefties (Crain, Ohman, Santos, Bruney), all leading up to flame-throwing Chris Sale and dominating lefty closer Matt Thornton.

When I look at it on paper, this is the team that looks to give the Twins the most trouble. Having Dunn in the lineup reminds me of when Thome was filling that role for the Sox and that starting rotation looks like it has the stuff to go toe-to-toe with the Twins. Better get up on this team early boys, it’s gonna be tough once you get to the ‘pen.

Cleveland Indians (ML)

PECOTA PROJECTION:
(74-88) 701 RS 768 RA .256 BA .335 OBP .395 SLG

In our team preview of the Indians, we didn’t have a whole lot to say, because frankly, this Indians team looks basically similar to last year’s team that won 69 games. PECOTA has them slated for five more wins, which may be enough to keep them out of last place, but this team certainly doesn’t look like a contender this year. Having a full year of Carlos Santana will certainly help, and the team’s OBP is projected to be the second-highest in the division (buoyed by OBP all-stars Santana and Shin-Soo Choo), but the Indians, like the Royals (spoiler alert), are probably still a few years away from challenging for division title.

As we covered in our preview, some help is on the way this year from their 7th-ranked (acccording to Baseball America) farm system, likely starting with five-star 2B prospect Jason Kipnis. Bryce Stowell is a power bullpen arm that might see 2011 action as well, but neither of these guys are probably immediate impact players in the short term. The rotation is a huge question mark outside of Fausto Carmona, and although there are a few promising youngsters like Drew Pomeranz on the way up, overall I’d expect only modest improvements from the 2011 version of the Indians. If I had to take the over-under on 74 wins, I’d probably take the under.

Kansas City Royals (ML)

PECOTA PROJECTION:
(68-94) 678 RS 807 RA .264 BA .326 OBP .393 SLG

I have to say I have a great amount of admiration for Royals fans, especially Royals bloggers. To stick with a team that has been this bad for this long takes a special breed of dedication. The sad news is for Royals nation is that 2011 isn’t going to be their year. For a team on the verge of losing 95 games for a third straight year, the PECOTA projection of 68-94 isn’t much of a victory, and their 678 RS projection is a small improvement over the 676 they actually scored last year. PECOTA has Kila Kila’hue looking like an All-Star (which is surprisingly very optimistic for PECOTA) and Billy Butler can still rake, but this team will struggle to both score and prevent runs. The rotation could be especially bad - with the departure of Zack Greinke, they can really only hope for Jeff Francis to regain some of his 2007 form and for Luke Hochevar to finally take a step forward, both of which are big ifs (although Hochevar did manage a respectable 3.93 FIP last year).

The really good news for Royals fans is that the cavalry is coming - their farm system is STACKED with premium talent, the consensus best crop of minor leaguers in the game, some of whom could potentially make an appearance in 2011 (although I wouldn’t be surprised if the Royals were stingy on starting the clock on service time with these guys). Will Myers (catcher), Mike Moustakas (3B), and Eric Hosmer (1B) can all flat-out mash and are rated among the top-three propects in all of baseball at their respective positions. Mike Montgomery and John Lamb are excellent left-handed starters as well and will at some point provide a boost to the floundering rotation. The rest of the division should be on notice that the Royals are poised to contend within the next few years, even if this season will likely be more of the same. I don’t think they’ll hit 95 losses again and I could see them getting past 70 wins, but they’ll still be in last place. But maybe not for long.

So in light of these extremely in-depth analyses, here are our projected standings for the Central (just for fun, here were our predictions last year for 2010). In hindsight, the Twins surpassed our expectations, we hit the Sox and Tigers pretty much right on, and both the Indians and Royals were a little worse than we thought (PECOTA slated the Indians for 83 wins and the Royals for 78 in 2010 though...oops).

Minnesota Twins 90-72
Chicago White Sox 86-76
Detroit Tigers 84-78
Cleveland Indians 72-90
Kansas City Royals 70-92

So yeah, we’ve got the Twins winning the division again. Call us homers if you will, but we don’t see how this year’s team is 11 wins worse than last year’s. Valencia may regress a bit, Thome might not capture the lightning in a bottle that he had last year, and Pavano may pitch closer to his 4.02 FIP from last year than his 3.75 ERA (all of which may explain part of PECOTA’s projected dropoff), but 11 wins is a pretty substantial regression for a team that is largely unchanged outside of the bullpen and middle infield. The bullpen has question marks to say the least, but there’s no reason not to expect at least modest rebounds from Span, Kubel and Cuddyer, and the starting rotation has depth behind emerging ace Francisco Liriano. We’re optimistic about the Twins barring a good reason not to be, and we’re also a little more bullish about how the rest of the division will fare overall. If history has taught us anything about this division, however the final standings shake out, it should be another close race.We'll see you in a week.