My fandom for this team is wavering - I can admit it. In March I was optimistic that the Twins could put the 2011 disaster behind them and have a respectable season, hell maybe even a winning season. It is now clear that my 'rose-colored glasses' were on and those glasses now lay broken in pieces on the ground. Reality is a bitch sometimes. After watching historic offensive ineptitude over the last 5 games, watching the team get no-hit and swept by the Angels and handled easily by the lowly Mariners, it's getting to the point where I can't follow this team on a daily basis any longer. I'm not going to stop being a fan - it just hurts too much to continue watching day after day. All that said, I think it's time that the Twins front-office took a realistic look at things. This team isn't going to win anything this year...and likely won't be winning anything next year either. The current team in inept on a number of levels with too many holes to address all at once. So, knowing that the mountain lay in front of you, first steps need to be taken and taken soon. The first thing I would do is see what you can get for Matt Capps.
There are a number of teams right now with struggling and/or injured Closers. Potential teams that would be looking for a closer include: Yankees, Marlins, Nationals, Blue Jays, Angels, Red Sox, Athletics, Giants, and on and on. Trading for Matt Capps was the beginning of the fall for the Twins and dealing him now could be the beginning of the healing process. I know that not all of the teams I mentioned above are going to be interested in an overweight closer with a suspect history of success in the 'Closer' role, but surely there must be a team or two out there who could be duped into giving up a prospect or two for the 28-year-old right-hander, just as the Twins were 2 years ago. The bottom-line is that the Twins aren't really going to need Capps and there is currently a lot of potential demand for someone with his experience. Not only that, you clear the remainder of his $4.5M salary off the books.
There are other players the Twins could trade. Denard Span, Carl Pavano and Josh Willingham come to mind. None are more useless to this team, however, than the portly Capps. The Twins have a strained bullpen already, but with the way the starters have pitched it doesn't really make sense to hold on to a guy like Capps given the closer situations on so many other teams. The Twins have to start turning the ship around by rebuilding their depleted Minor League system and that happens by trading expendable talent like Capps.
Beyond trading Capps, this organization needs to take some serious time in thinking about their philosophies towards pitching and hitting. The "pitch-to-contact" philosophy that has now become the punch-line to jokes when referring to the Twins, is obviously flawed. Without good defense to back up these types of pitchers, the results are bound to be disastrous. From an offensive standpoint, the brass seem to put an emphasis on the elusive concept of "team speed" but a) poorly utilize the speed they do have and b) don't understand that "team speed" and winning don't correlate very well. The teams that are successful have a balance between "power" and "finesse". They have the boppers who can hit one out at any moment and they have the scrappy singles and doubles hitters who can pester the opponent with speed. They have power arms and they have control pitchers. They don't get stuck trying to hoard one type of pitcher or hitter. They put a high value on players whose strengths translate into winning baseball...no matter the particular way in which they go about it.
I want to be optimistic about this team, but Twins fans, I'm afraid we're in for a few years of losing baseball before things get better. There are a lot of factors, both internally and externally, working against this team. The division has gotten better. The Twins minor league system has some talent, but that talent is currently at the A and AA levels and is not nearing maturity to the Bigs. The current squad of big-league talent isn't that good. Payroll will continue to shrink as attendance wanes. The Twins don't have much to offer in the form of trade-bait. In summary, this team needs Terry Ryan's savvy more than ever, to dig out of a hole that has quickly gotten very deep.
Showing posts with label Futile Offense. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Futile Offense. Show all posts
Monday, May 7, 2012
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Time for Joe to Go?
I know it's 'in vogue' to call for the head of the hitting coach when things are going badly. I'm hardly the first and if things keep going like this for the Twins (6 runs in 4 games) more and more people will jump on that bandwagon. The fact of the matter is that in each of the past two season, the Twins offense has gotten off to a very slow start and sometimes a change a scenery is needed, even if the old scenery isn't necessarily the problem.
Last year, the circumstances were different, but the outcome was the same. In their first 29 games of 2011, the Twins managed only one game in which the offense scored more than 5 runs. Injuries were to blame more than anything else for the slow start in 2011, but this year the Twins entered and emerged from Spring Training with a fully capable lineup that had been playing well leading up to the beginning of the season.
Their struggles so far this year are no mystery when you look at the data. As a team they seem unable to hit a ball that doesn't hit the ground before it hits a glove. In fact, of all the balls the Twins have put in play so far this season, 67.7% of them have been groundballs which, far and away, leads the Majors. Their GB/FB ratio is 3.35/1 -- almost DOUBLE that of any other team (the next closest is the Giants at 1.87/1 GB/FB ratio). The propensity to hit groundballs has led to an understandably low BABIP (.184) which pretty much explains why the Twins have been unable to score runs. To put it a different way - the Twins have scored 6 runs in 4 games and 3 of those runs have come as a result of HRs hit by Josh Willingham. If not for that, the Twins would have been shutout twice in the first 4 games. [all stats courtesy of fangraphs.com]
Joe Vavra's had a good run. He was hired following the 2005 season and in 2006, the Twins scored over 800 runs and won 96 games. After a down year in 2007, the Twins again reached the 800+ runs mark in both 2008 and 2009 and almost reached that mark in 2010 scoring 781 runs. Last year, well, we all know what happened last year - the team only scored 619 runs on it's way to one of the worst years in franchise history.
I'm only half-heartedly calling for a change. I know it's only 4 games and I also know that there are 158 games left this season. The Twins offense could (and probably will) turn it around at any point. I'm saying that if this offensive futility continues, then there needs to be some changes made -- and in this case I think it should start with the hitting coach.
Last year, the circumstances were different, but the outcome was the same. In their first 29 games of 2011, the Twins managed only one game in which the offense scored more than 5 runs. Injuries were to blame more than anything else for the slow start in 2011, but this year the Twins entered and emerged from Spring Training with a fully capable lineup that had been playing well leading up to the beginning of the season.
Their struggles so far this year are no mystery when you look at the data. As a team they seem unable to hit a ball that doesn't hit the ground before it hits a glove. In fact, of all the balls the Twins have put in play so far this season, 67.7% of them have been groundballs which, far and away, leads the Majors. Their GB/FB ratio is 3.35/1 -- almost DOUBLE that of any other team (the next closest is the Giants at 1.87/1 GB/FB ratio). The propensity to hit groundballs has led to an understandably low BABIP (.184) which pretty much explains why the Twins have been unable to score runs. To put it a different way - the Twins have scored 6 runs in 4 games and 3 of those runs have come as a result of HRs hit by Josh Willingham. If not for that, the Twins would have been shutout twice in the first 4 games. [all stats courtesy of fangraphs.com]
Joe Vavra's had a good run. He was hired following the 2005 season and in 2006, the Twins scored over 800 runs and won 96 games. After a down year in 2007, the Twins again reached the 800+ runs mark in both 2008 and 2009 and almost reached that mark in 2010 scoring 781 runs. Last year, well, we all know what happened last year - the team only scored 619 runs on it's way to one of the worst years in franchise history.
I'm only half-heartedly calling for a change. I know it's only 4 games and I also know that there are 158 games left this season. The Twins offense could (and probably will) turn it around at any point. I'm saying that if this offensive futility continues, then there needs to be some changes made -- and in this case I think it should start with the hitting coach.
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