What's With the Over-Analyzing?

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?

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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?")

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

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

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

"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

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

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?

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...

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)

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

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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

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

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

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!