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

Getty Images

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

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

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

The Good, The Bad, and the Mostly Ugly

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!

The Audacity of Hope?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Something New

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

How Does the Twins Starting Rotation Stack Up?

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

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

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

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

Francisco Liriano (ace)

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

Carl Pavano

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

Scott Baker

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

Brian Duensing

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

Nick Blackburn

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

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

Jon Lester (ace)

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

Clay Buchholz

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

Josh Beckett

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

John Lackey

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

Daisuke Matsuzaka

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

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

John Danks (ace)

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

Gavin Floyd

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

Edwin Jackson

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

Jake Peavy

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

Mark Buehrle

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

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

CC Sabathia (ace)

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

A.J. Burnett

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

Phil Hughes

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

Ivan Nova

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

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

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

David Price (ace)

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

James Shields

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

Jeremy Hellickson

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

Wade Davis 

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

Jeff Niemann

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

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

Brett Anderson (ace?)

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

Trevor Cahill

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

Gio Gonzalez

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

Dallas Braden

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

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

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

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

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

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

AL Central Projected Standings: 2011 Edition

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

Detroit Tigers (AK)

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

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

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

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

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

Minnesota Twins (AK)

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

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

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

Chicago White Sox (AK)

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

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

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

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

Cleveland Indians (ML)

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

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

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

Kansas City Royals (ML)


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

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

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

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

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

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