Deciding the Twins Lineup

While the Twins entered the Spring with few new addition, they still have some pretty notable questions to answer in terms of who’s on the field for opening day.  The most talked about issue is in the outfield, but the left side of the infield is a bit questionable as well, not to mention the recent complication of Mr. Mauer’s health.

Let’s start with the outfield, where I believe the answer is the easiest.  The question in most people’s mind is whether to leave out Cuddyer or Young.  Looking at it in that light makes it obvious to me — Young has to be out there most days.  He has way more upside and right now is probably at least as good.  Both of them have shaky defense, but good arms.  So they should probably spend most of their outfield time in the slightly smaller (in the Dome at least) rightfield.  Delmon is 23 and there’s every reason to think he’ll be better this year.  Cuddyer is 30 and there’s no reason to think he’ll repeat his 2006 numbers — 2007 numbers perhaps since he’s healthy, but even that seems like a stretch.  Span was the best in the bunch last year by most regards, but may see a little bit of a regression if he’s not careful.  Gomez has fully proven himself defensively, now we just need to see some better at-bats, but he’s young, I’d like to believe that’s coming.  So my answer then is Young in right, Gomez in center, and Span in left.  With Cuddyer occassionally subbing in right and people shifting as necessary.

The majority of Cuddyer’s work should be at DH.  I think platooning him and Kubel would be a pretty good solution.  Kubel struggles a bit against lefties, and Cuddyer is a bit better against them, so put them together and we actually have a somewhat legitimate DH.  Either one of them can play the outfield from time to time if necessary (preferably not with a flyball pitcher on the mound though).

So then, left side of the infield?  The Twins big offseason acquisition was Joe Crede.  This gives them a bit more of a presence at thirdbase, but I’m not sure it does more than that.  When he’s doing well, Crede has a bit of power and a nice glove, but is never going to hit for average or be an OBP machine.  Not the worst thing in the world since most of the rest of the Twins have no power, but can kind of hit for average.  I find it fairly unlikely that Crede has a great year though.  I’d expect something average, around the neighborhood of .250/.300/.450.  If he’s not able to do that for us, I think the Twins need to be very open to options like Buscher and Harris.  I don’t think a platoon of the two of them would be so bad — nothing to get excited about, but the way I see it, neither is Crede.

Then of course there’s the always fearsome Nick Punto.  The best thing about the Crede signing is that it meant our only free agent signing wasn’t Punto.  That would have made for a pathetic offseason.  And by the way, we definitely overpaid for the guy.  Two years and $8 million for a guy who barely hit above .200 the last time we trusted him as a starter?  Seems a bit silly in this economy.  Punto is a solid defender and either sorta hits for average or hits for nothing at all.  We’ll see which it is this year.  If he struggles, early the Twins need to be open to taking away his starting job too.  Harris can technically play short, as can some of our minor leaguers waiting in the wings. Gardy, don’t be afraid to use them.

Mauer won’t be starting the season, and the question everyone is asking is when he’ll be back.  I’m being blindly optimistic that it will be soon.  Until the Redmond is the natural choice, and actually should do a fine job for us.  The concern with him is obviously the fact that he’s a soon-to-be 38 year old catcher who has never played 90 games in a season.  Jose Morales is the most likely candidate to help out Redmond, and he’s not a terrible option, but I think everyone will feel more comfortable when Mauer is back.

My proposed lineup then is this:

• Denard Span, LF
• Alexi Casilla, 2B
• Jason Kubel, DH
• Justin Morneau, 1B
• Delmon Young, RF
• Joe Crede, 3B
• Nick Punto, SS
• Mike Redmond, C
• Carlos Gomez, CF

I’m not exactly set on that, I considered switching Kubel and Delmon, but ended up going with this since Gardy seems to prefer Kubel hitting third in Mauer’s absence.  Also, I support quite a bit of variability with this — putting Cuddyer in at DH or in RF, putting in Buscher or Harris, giving Morales a try, etc.  I think the Twins have the flexibility to do that as well as some positions that lack obvious superiority, which to me means they should give different people a chance and let others rest.

I’m really looking forward to this season, it should be an interesting one for the Twins and for all of baseball really.  I should be making somewhat more regular posts as the season will be starting again soon.  Keep coming back.

Did the Rays Win the Garza-Young Trade?

I’m not quite so ready to say they did. I see a lot of people talking about what a great trade it was for the Rays. Granted it would seem that this year it’s been better for them as they’re still playing and the Twins aren’t (of course there are a lot of other factors at play there). But even if Delmon had had a terrible year and Garza had been phenomenal (neither of which were the case) you can’t yet judge a trade where the two main players are still under 25.

So let’s take a quick look at how the players compare.

• Matt Garza had a good year, he finally seemed to get comfortable and no longer loses his composure at the first sign of trouble. He also posted impressive stats. Looking at standard sorts of numbers, he was 11-9 with a 3.70 ERA and and 128 strikeouts in 184.2 innings. Slightly more advanced numbers are and ERA+ of 118 (100 is average), a WHIP of 1.24, and 50% quality starts. Good numbers certainly, and I’m sure the Rays are pretty excited about the fact that he won’t even be 25 until next month.

• Jason Bartlett was given the team MVP award by the Tampa Bay sports writers. A lot of people didn’t agree with that since he had an OPS+ of 85. He hit a solid .286, but he managed only 1 homerun and 37 RBIs while walking only 22 times. His defense was considered a reason for the team’s dramatic turnaround, but his ‘range factor’ and ‘zone rating’ suggest he’s only about league average for qualifying shortstops. Watching him play I feel he’s a good defender, but not much suggests that’s he’s great.

• Delmon Young was a disappointment to many, and seemed to be perpetually frustrating to Twins fans. Despite what a lot of them might tell you, he actually had a pretty solid season. An OPS+ of 100 suggests he was exactly league average. He batted .290 and hit 10 homers, which was good enough for third on the Twins. Something I look at as a positive is the direction of his strikeout to walk ratio. He still strikes out an awful lot and doesn’t walk very often, but compared to the year before they’re both moving in the right direction. Delmon played good defense as well. Admittedly I’d rather see the ball hit to Gomez or Span, but that doesn’t mean he’s not good. His 11 outfield assists were good enough for sixth among all outfielders. Also, I think it’s really important to note here that the kid just turned 23 a couple weeks ago. There is a ton of room for improvement and nothing to suggest that it isn’t coming.

• Brendan Harris is believed to be the weakest of the four players (I’m ignoring Jason Pridie and Eduardo Morlan) partially because he’s now 28 and isn’t considered to have a whole lot of upside. That’s not to say he wasn’t extremely valuable to the Twins this year. He played a 130 games mainly at second, third, and short. He had an OPS+ of 94 while hitting .265 with seven homers. Nothing too impressive, but not far from average. His defense is usually considered to be lousy, but his range factor last year actually suggests he was a pretty good shortstop (but not so good at second and third). I don’t see him at all as a long term solution for the Twins, but he’s filled in acceptably well.

So after all of that what do we have? A simple summing on each side of OPS+/ERA+ puts the Rays at 203 and the Twins at 194. It’s a difference, but not a huge one. Obviously that’s an extremely crude way to compare and doesn’t take into account a lot of things (like defense). Some additional factors were the needs of the teams. The Twins at the time thought they really needed a solid outfielder (after losing Hunter, not yet having Gomez, and not being so sure about Kubel as well as Denard Span not having emerged) and liked the look of Young (now of course they seem to have too many outfielders, but I suppose that’s a good problem to have) and the Rays wanted some pitching and were also looking to upgrade their defense. All the involved players are being payed relative pennies, so that wasn’t really a factor. How would things look if next year Garza has an ERA of 4.20 and Delmon hits .300 with 20 homers? That’s fairly unlikely, but no one’s going to tell you it can’t happen. The only thing that can be said definitively about this trade is that it’s way too early to know who got the better end, and I’m tired of people presuming otherwise.

Ode to an Unlikely Season

The Twins are done for the year after a disappointing loss to the White sox in their 163 game of the year. 163rd games really make you realize how important every game is. It makes you wonder about games that could have been. It makes you wonder what would have happened if the ump had made the right call on that Pierzynski play awhile back, or what might have happened if Cliff Lee had started the last game against the White Sox instead of Bryan Bullington, or how things might have looked if the Twins bullpen wasn’t so atrocious for their extensive late season road trips, or if they had brought up Liriano and replaced Livan one start earlier. Unfortunately these are what-ifs that will nave have answers. After all, that’s just how baseball works, some things don’t go your way and some do. At the end of the year you just hope to come out ahead. The Twins finished the season needing one more thing to go right.

But what an improbable season it was! One of my favorite things about the season is that if you look back to the beginning and think about it, it makes no sense that we competed. It would have surprised people if the Twins needed a 143rd game, much less a 163rd. Let’s look at it like this:

The Twins were well short of the playoffs last year, then lost the game’s best pitcher, and their star outfielder who was a key offensive piece. They also lost a [formerly] reliable starter, and gave up a talented young starter. Along the way they picked up some players. Delmon Young, Brendan Harris, Carlos Gomez, Adam Everett, Livan Hernandez, Craig Monroe, and Mike Lamb were the most notable. Not exactly equivalent to what was given up, but some possibilities for (albeit somewhat limited) success. Here’s where it gets impressive though. What if at the beginning of the season I told you Livan would only be good for a few games and then quickly turn into the worst pitcher in baseball, Boof Bonser would pitch so poorly he gets dumped into the bullpen (where he does no better) at the beginning of June, Scott Baker would spend a month on the DL, Francisco Liriano would not meaningfully contribute until August, Pat Neshek would essentially be on the DL the entire season, Michael Cuddyer would be miss about three and a half months of the season, neither Joe Mauer or Delmon Young would hit a homerun until June, and Adam Everett would be hurt and along with Mike Lamb and Craig Monroe hit just a bit over .200? All of that in combination with the players we lost and the fact that we weren’t a playoff team last season wouldn’t give you much hope for this year. But in spite of all of that, the Twins found ways to win, young guys stepped up and filled the plethora of voids.

The Twins reinvented themselves this year. It’s hard not to when so many of the opening day starters are not starting by the end of the season. And personally I like the new look of the Twins, they steal bases and get bunt hits, and they hit enough singles to make your head spin. The pitchers throw strikes, (something of a lost art these days) and work both sides of the plate. The most exciting thing though is that almost everyone is so young that you can only see them improving. Next year looks bright as long as players can stay healthy and they keep play Twins baseball.

Twins Bullpen Has Been Awful

When the season started I looked at the bullpen and thought it would save us a lot of games, and with the increased importance of deep bullpens these days, it would really make us a reasonable team. Of course, baseball being the unpredictable game that it is, the starting pitching and offense turned out to be pretty great and the bullpen has been shaky at best. Early on it was strong, but recently no lead seems safe. Even Joe Nathan hasn’t been very good. I don’t know exactly what the bullpen’s problem has been, maybe being overworked early on, but I never would have anticipated such a huge downturn.

Since August 24, Twins starters have been 7-5 and relievers have been 1-10. If they had gone just 5-6, the Twins would be leading the Central right now by a game and a half. And by the way, that one win was in the second game of the doubleheader last weekend when Perkins just didn’t last the required five to qualify for the win. It’s just depressing how many leads have been thrown away recently. The last two games have been particularly painful. Yesterday they fought back from an 8-1 deficit to actually pull ahead 9-8, and as soon as they do Guardado gives up a homerun and we go on to lose in extras under the watch of Joe Nathan. Today they battle the best pitcher in the league this year and actually manage to tie the score up late and then the bullpen immediately gives the lead back. Hard to watch.

If the Twins want to have any chance at the playoffs, the bullpen needs to shape up immediately.

Thoughts on Hannahan

I’ve casually followed Jack Hannahan throughout the year based on a familial connection to him. He clearly hasn’t lit up the league, but he does seem to have a pretty nice swing and he plays solid defense. I went looking through his stats to see if I could uncover why he hasn’t had more success. Obviously there is no easy answer and it’s not like anyone is expecting him to be the next great third baseman, but I certainly think he’s more talented than his numbers show.

My best suggestion is that he should be more aggressive early in the count. Early this season he was walking a lot, which made for a pretty nice OBP, but since it’s peak of .402 in mid May it’s tumbled down 100 points. Perhaps he began relying more on the walk and as result ended up taking more pitches early in the count which he could have hit. I don’t know for sure, more research would certainly be required. What I do know is that he sees more pitches per plate appearance than almost everyone in the league. He’s eight in baseball with an average of 4.21. I typically look at that as a good thing, that he’s working the count and making the pitcher work, but the problem comes in in the fact that he’s not taking advantage when he gets in hitters counts. In counts of 3-0, 3-1, 2-0, and 2-1 he’s hitting only .212, but perhaps the problem is that only 12.8% of his at-bats are decided on those counts. Which tells me he’s continuing to take pitches, most of which end up as strikes, and thus let the pitcher back into the at-bat.  If you’re going to be a player that works the count and see a lot pitches, you need to be able to take advantage of those hitters counts, and it seems Hannahan just isn’t doing that.

The other reason I say he should be more aggressive early is due to the fact that he actually does quite well when he puts it in play early in the count. He’s batting .412 in counts of 0-0, 0-1, and 1-0 (and of the three the lowest is 1-0). So as much as I tend to like it when a hitter sees a lot of pitches, it’s not always the best strategy, especially when it seems to not be a style that suits the hitter. My suggestions may lead to a few less walks, but hopefully it will lead to a lot more hits and maybe a few less strikeouts as well.

Homerun Review

Baseball has finally come up with a system to review homeruns to be sure they’re over the wall and in fair territory. In a way it’s the end of an era and the start of a different one. Most people assume that some replay will inevitably lead to more replay. An interesting point made by Morneau and the Twins about fair and foul balls in general, not just homers. Obviously for the Twins, homeruns aren’t as much of their game, but doubles down the line certainly are, and if it’s called foul when it’s not that could easily cost them (or any team) runs. And the reverse is clearly true as well.

I generally approve of this new replay implementation because it’s important to make the right calls, which can be especially tough on plays where umps don’t have a great view, but it is an extremely slippery slope. I wonder how long it’ll be before review finds its way into more plays. Fair and foul calls make some sense to me, and maybe calls on whether an outfielder trapped the ball on a catch or not. As soon you get into safe or out calls it makes me a little uncomfortable though. It just doesn’t feel right. For the most part umps make the right call on those, they’re right there, but sometimes they don’t and I suppose you want to get it right, because they could very easily change the outcome of the game.  Part of what I fear is that it’ll turn into the replay mess that is football. That system is annoying and really does delay the game. I just don’t get people arguing that this new system will delay that game, it’s so rarely that it’ll even be necessary and usually the right call is pretty clear from the replay. But there are tons of close plays in baseball and if you start reviewing all of them, then it does delay the game, and I don’t see a simple way to do it without really losing some of the integrity of the game, as well as the umps. I think football has lost that, as have the refs there. They aren’t even expected to be right anymore; they don’t have to be. As far as using cameras and computers to call balls and strikes goes, I think that must never happen. The human element of the umpire is key, they game entirely changes without it.

One thing is for sure, we are on the cusp of something here, how far it goes I’m not sure, but I wonder if this may mark the beginning of a new era, and may one day be referred to the way we now refer to the DH era or the deadball era.

Twins Add Guardado

The Twins have brought back Eddie Guardado, most likely hoping that he’ll provide a little relief to the currently beleaguered relief corps. I think it’s a nice move as he’s proven veteran who had some great success with the orginization previously. His numbers aren’t as impressive these days, but I think he’ll be a help nonetheless. This is a short, fully un-researched post as I’m doing it from my phone (isn’t technology neat?) but I just thought I’d mention the move. Here’s do Everyday Eddie successfully reliving his glory days.

Jeff Kent Doing Well in Front of Manny

As I previously proposed, hitting in front of Manny can provide a big lift for a player. I wondered what might happen in LA. For most of the time since then Jeff Kent has been hitting in front of Manny, and he’s done quite well. In fact, he’s hitting .481 in 13 games since moving to the three spot. I’d say that’s increased performance. His average has jumped from .256 to .285 in that time. Obviously Manny’s been doing pretty well since then too, hitting .403 with a 1.204 OPS with his new team. I think the Dodgers are pretty satisfied.

Are the Twins Just Lucky?

So once again it’s been questioned whether or not the Twins are just lucky. People frequently cite the impressive .312 average with runners in scoring position. This is of course higher than expected, but I don’t think it’s clear proof that it’s just them being lucky. I have a few different thoughts on the matter.

First off, I wonder whether they’re just getting runners in scoring position with the right men up. Clearly if men are in scoring position with your best hitters up the team will have a higher average with runners in scoring position. In the Twins case, those hitters are Mauer and Morneau. Based on the fact that Morneau is racking up the RBI’s it’s safe to assume he’s getting plenty of chances with men on. The top of the order for much of the year was Gomez and Casilla, while Gomez has a pretty feeble OBP for a leadoff man, his speed often allowed him to advance into scoring position rather than just being on first, of course what aided this was Casilla’s success in the two hole. He actually has a higher average with men on first only (.333) rather than in scoring position (.322). Of course behind him is Mauer who has an excellent OBP of .409, which frequently pushed Casilla into scoring position. So now is when Morneau comes up and there may very well be someone in scoring position, and his average in that situation? A beefy .374. He also has the most at bats with runners in scoring position, which makes sense based on what I just laid out. Alright, well how does this compare to last year, a year where the Twins as a team only hit .276 with RISP and missed the playoffs? Morneau hit .291. The huge increase can perhaps be explained by Morneau’s maturation as a hitter. Morneau himself said he felt his lower level of success last year was due to the fact he was trying to hit homeruns more, and this year he isn’t. And it could well be assumed he tried to hit them more with runners on. So perhaps one reason the Twins are doing so well with runners in scoring position is Justin Morneau and his possible development as a better clutch hitter. The rest of the Twins lineup’s RISP average is closer to their overall average.

Another possible explanation is their style of play in combination with the Metrodome. When there are runners in scoring position the opposing infield will many times be brought in to try and cut down a runner at the plate. With the infield in they have less range on grounders, this becomes amplified on the fast Metrodome turf, and additionally by the groundball hitters the Twins have in their order. As a team they have a groundball-flyball ratio of 1.4, well above the league average.

I guess the final matter is whether or not any of this is important. Even if the Twins are getting quite lucky and they shouldn’t be doing as well as they are, the fact is they have been pretty consistently good with RISP, and it’s not as if we’re looking at stats from a month or two, 118 games is a reasonable sample size, so even if they’re just lucky, who’s to say they can’t keep being lucky?

The Trading Deadline and how Big Papi will fare

As I’m sure you’ve noticed, there’s been some pretty big names switching cities this week. I’m very interested to see how these trades pan out, because only time can tell who gets the better end of a trade.

One of the most interesting things for me will be the various effects of the Manny trade. Obviously no one can replace Manny in a lineup, and I think one of the forgotten elements of that is the protection he offers the hitter in front of him. Everyone knows that David Ortiz is a great hitter, but I wonder how much of his success is due to the guy hitting behind him. When Ortiz was in Minnesota he wasn’t a star by any means, and obviously a lot of his turn around in Boston came when they explained to him that he’s not a small-ball, Minnesota Twins type player. He’s a slugger and he should be driving guys in from first rather than getting them over to second. Opening him up to do that made a big difference, but I’m guessing it didn’t hurt that he had a phenomenal hitter behind him in the order.

Some level of evidence can be seen in the stats. Ortiz wasn’t consistently the number three hitter (in front of Manny) until his second season with the Sox (2004). His first season with them he was certainly better than he was with the Twins, but his second season is when he really took off. In 2003: .288/.369/.592 and in 2004: .301/.380/.603. That obviously doesn’t prove anything, but I do think it’s interesting to note. The other main piece of evidence to show there is value hitting in front of Manny is how well JD Drew did with it this year. Other than his post season performance last year, Drew has been a bit of a bust in Boston, until they plopped him in front of Manny when Ortiz was hurt. Again, I’m not saying this was the only reason for the turn around, I’m just saying it couldn’t have hurt.

The point of all this being that it will be interesting to see not only how Ortiz and Drew do now that Manny is playing on the other end of the country, but it will be interesting to see how Russell Martin or whoever hits in front of Manny does. Keep your eye out, see if there’s any legitimacy to my claims.

The others thing that will be interesting to watch, and even harder to evaluate is Griffey’s impact. He should help White Sox offense a bit, assuming he essentially bumps out Konerko, but his defense in center field could have a negative impact. In general, I’m curious how many games may be sacrificed due to the White Sox lousy defense in the outfield. It’s not hard at all for one fly ball to determine the fate of a game, and if it’s one that the old legs out there can’t quite catch up to, it’s going to result in a few games not going the way of Chicago. Of course as a Twins fan, I like the sound of that, and given the Twins relatively strong outfield defense I feel secure there. Unfortuntely the Twins are not without their fair share of problems, and in general I would have to imagine the addition of Griffey will slightly help the White Sox.