I haven’t written much in the month of May. Between a freelance job that’s eating more time than it should and a best friend suffering from cancer, I haven’t had much time to focus on the Twins. And that’s probably a good thing, Because quite frankly, the Twins have started to get a little boring and predictable.
Ooooh, Batista can’t hit and can’t field.
Ooooooh, Castro hits less than Batista.
Ooooooh, Jason Bartlett is wasting away in Rochester
Oooooooh, Morneau tries to pull everything and can’t field.
Oooooooh, Stewart and Castillo are leadoff hitters who’ve lost a step or seven.
Ooooooh, Rondell White is no Jim Thome at the plate.
Oooooh, something isn’t quite right with Radke and Silva.
Oooooh, there are sherpas in Nepal who’ve never heard of baseball who could manage a team better than Ron Gardenhire.
You don’t want to be negative. You want to say something positive like “Hey, the team still employs Joe Mauer and Johan Santana.” But at the same time, how can you do that when the team you’ve lived and died with for way to long has seemingly internalized the lyrics to Ratt’s Round and Round and made it a battle cry?
And, as much as I hate to admit it, I’m starting to blame Terry Ryan who may in fact be the most ironic General Manager in baseball. No GM does a better job of finding young talent. And no GM in baseball trusts that young talent less. Would say the 2002 Twins exist for example if Carl Pohlad hadn’t forced Ryan’s hand in 1999, forcing him to play a rookie laden club in 1999 by giving him no payroll?
Ryan gets credit for building the team’s 2002-04 clubs that won division championships? Maybe it’s time to give him some of the blame for building the bad clubs of the late 90s as well. You remember, when the club’s philosophy was “We’re only one free agent signing of a Minnesotan in his late 30s away from a World Series banner”? When Otis Nixon was seen as the perfect replacement to Chuck Knoblauch? When the brand of nearly unwatchable baseball placed on the field nearly had the team on the first plane to Charlotte?
In the late 90s, it was readily assumed that Tom Kelly lack of trust in rookies like Rich Becker, Todd Walker and David Ortiz was the reason the Twins brought in so many over-the-hill veterans. Cut to 10 years later, and here the Twins we go again. The Twins are sacrificing their youth, and doing it with about as much success as they had in the mid-to-late 90s as well. Only now it’s happening again with a different manager at the helm. Which leads us to one of two conclusions, neither one being a trait carried by an elite GM:
A) The GM is the one who doesn’t trust his young players
B) The GM is too milquetoast to stand up to the manager, who spends more time around the players and is more likely to cater to his “boys” for that reason.
I’m not sure which one is the truth. I do know that following the formula the Twins used in the late 90s is a bad idea. I went to about a dozen games a year in the late 90s, and the Metrodome was a much lonelier place then.
And if the Twins don’t fix this problem soon, the new stadium will likely be just as lonely a place when it opens in 2010.
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Trade Value Question
So here are a couple of questions to the peanut gallery.
What is Torii Hunter's value to the Twins?
What package of players from the Yankees makes you willing to part ways with him?
And which of these four players is most similar to Hunter in terms of career path and value-- Devon White, Marquis Grissom, Amos Otis or Willie Davis?
What is Torii Hunter's value to the Twins?
What package of players from the Yankees makes you willing to part ways with him?
And which of these four players is most similar to Hunter in terms of career path and value-- Devon White, Marquis Grissom, Amos Otis or Willie Davis?
Trade Value Question
So here are a couple of questions to the peanut gallery.
What is Torii Hunter's value to the Twins?
What package of players from the Yankees makes you willing to part ways with him?
And which of these four players is most similar to Hunter in terms of career path and value-- Devon White, Marquis Grissom, Amos Otis or Willie Davis?
What is Torii Hunter's value to the Twins?
What package of players from the Yankees makes you willing to part ways with him?
And which of these four players is most similar to Hunter in terms of career path and value-- Devon White, Marquis Grissom, Amos Otis or Willie Davis?
Monday, May 08, 2006
Looking to the minors
This weekend, I tried to come up with part two of Pitching and Defense. It didn't work out quite the way I planned it. In fact in the end the only thing I could conclude was that I was even more confused than when I started. So instead, I'm going to go to the old fail-safe today-- writing about what is going on in the minor leagues and looking in on my top 50 prospect list I posted in the offseason. And what better place to start than by looking at the places I was wrong?
• With Matt Moses, it looks like the Twins have one legit hitting prospect in the system.
• I had Matt Garza ranked 11th when I did my pre-season list, and Kevin Slowey ranked 19th. Slowey, in particular, has made me look particularly stupid with his 22:1 K/BB ratio. John Sickles had an interesting little post on his blog about when you promote Garza. I'm not sure I buy his ten start rule, but at the same time you have to realize that Double-A is going to be the first real test to the question of how Garza and Slowey are. It's going to tell us how well Garza will survive without a good third pitch and what Slowey will be able to do with fringe average stuff. You want them to have a lot of confidence going into that level, because there is a chance it might get destroyed rather quickly.
• I didn't think much of Erik Lis this offseason, not ranking him in my top 50. I'm a little regretful of that now with his hot start and new found strike zone discipline. We'll see how regrettful I am at the end of the week. My freelance schedule finally allows me the chance to see the Beloit team in action.
• Did I have Doug Deeds too high? Maybe. But then again I can see it from another perspective too. What does putting an Eastern League All-Star smack back in the Eastern League do to a players pysche?
• There's something about Trent Oeltjen's plate discipline that's floating my boat lately. Now if he can only find 15 homeruns a season, he'll be golden as a prospect.
• With Matt Moses, it looks like the Twins have one legit hitting prospect in the system.
• I had Matt Garza ranked 11th when I did my pre-season list, and Kevin Slowey ranked 19th. Slowey, in particular, has made me look particularly stupid with his 22:1 K/BB ratio. John Sickles had an interesting little post on his blog about when you promote Garza. I'm not sure I buy his ten start rule, but at the same time you have to realize that Double-A is going to be the first real test to the question of how Garza and Slowey are. It's going to tell us how well Garza will survive without a good third pitch and what Slowey will be able to do with fringe average stuff. You want them to have a lot of confidence going into that level, because there is a chance it might get destroyed rather quickly.
• I didn't think much of Erik Lis this offseason, not ranking him in my top 50. I'm a little regretful of that now with his hot start and new found strike zone discipline. We'll see how regrettful I am at the end of the week. My freelance schedule finally allows me the chance to see the Beloit team in action.
• Did I have Doug Deeds too high? Maybe. But then again I can see it from another perspective too. What does putting an Eastern League All-Star smack back in the Eastern League do to a players pysche?
• There's something about Trent Oeltjen's plate discipline that's floating my boat lately. Now if he can only find 15 homeruns a season, he'll be golden as a prospect.
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
Pitching and Fielding: Part One
So what is wrong with the Twins anyway? Well, that question we can easily answer. Here’s how the Twins rank in all of the majors in three key categories.
Runs Scored, 104 (27th)
ERA, 6.13 (30th)
Defensive Efficiency, .644 (30th)
What does that mean? The Twins aren’t really doing a good job of scoring runs. They aren’t doing a good job at preventing runs either. And when a ball gets put in play, the defense isn’t doing a very good job at turning it into an out. The last two are particularly irksome, because, well, they’re suppose to be the Twins’ bread and butter. And yet nearly every Twins pitcher is suffering from shell shock, and the Twins infield has been about as effective at stopping ground balls as a sieve is for boiling water. That last comment should be particularly irking to Twins fans, since that’s Gardenhire and Ryan’s reasoning for keeping Jason Bartlett in Rochester and Michael Cuddyer on the bench. The biggest problem for the Twins’ though really hasn’t been the two players starting instead of them though. It’s been the Gold Glover the Twins brought in to shore up the infield, Mr. Luis Castillo himself.
How much has Castillo’s nagging injuries hurt him in the field? It’s hard to say, but he looks a step or two slower, his zone rating is sitting at .701 (for comparison, Punto posted an .877 mark last year) and according to Baseball Prospectus Castillo is currently five runs worse than the average second baseman. By the same regards, Batista is at a .710 Zone Rating (compared to a “horrific” .780 from Michael Cuddyer last year) and Castro’s .780 Zone Rating (compared to .865 from Jason Bartlett last year, Castro came in at .813 last season as well). That’s not good infield defense, no matter how Bert Blyleven, Gord Wittmeyer, Dan Gladden or anyone tries to spin it.
Johan Santana and Scott Baker seem to be pitching alright so far this year. But they’re also extreme flyball pitchers. The worst starting pitcher on the Twins’ so far this year, Carlos Silva, just so happens to be the staff’s most extreme sinkerballer. Lohse has also trended towards being a groundball pitcher the last couple of years, and the new cut fastball Radke developed this offseason to combat lefties should make him more groundball prone in theory as well. To take it even further, when players have put the ball in play against Francisco Liriano, it’s usually been on the ground. And Liriano has been fairly hit prone, with a WHIP of 1.53.
At the same time, to defend the Twins infielders, Silva and Radke have both given up 10 homeruns and only Tampa Bay has surrendered more doubles than the Twins so far this year. That indicates that the opposition is hitting them harder. And that could be the root of the Twins’ fielding problems.
Is the Twins fielding woes causing the team’s pitching woes? Or is it vice versa? That’s a story for part two, I suppose.
• From my labia…
“Hey jewscott between Kemp, Cameron, Neshek, Boof, and the lefty-tastics Miller & Barrett which ones actually have the stuff to not suck ass with the Twins?”
Any one of them could come up in the right situation and not “suck ass.” Any one of them could come and “suck ass” too. Boof makes some sense if you believe my rant above because like Santana and Baker, he’s an extreme flyball pitcher. It’s also hard to argue that a guy who’s struck out 30 batters in 15 innings so far like Neshek has so far will come up and “suck ass” too. Those are probably the two best bets on the list, though long term Neshek is more of a gimmick than a pitcher with his almost submarine delivery. Cameron and Kemp are the worst bets on the list.
In other news, now that I have labia and suck ass on my blog, I can’t wait for the new wave of Googlers to hit my site.
Runs Scored, 104 (27th)
ERA, 6.13 (30th)
Defensive Efficiency, .644 (30th)
What does that mean? The Twins aren’t really doing a good job of scoring runs. They aren’t doing a good job at preventing runs either. And when a ball gets put in play, the defense isn’t doing a very good job at turning it into an out. The last two are particularly irksome, because, well, they’re suppose to be the Twins’ bread and butter. And yet nearly every Twins pitcher is suffering from shell shock, and the Twins infield has been about as effective at stopping ground balls as a sieve is for boiling water. That last comment should be particularly irking to Twins fans, since that’s Gardenhire and Ryan’s reasoning for keeping Jason Bartlett in Rochester and Michael Cuddyer on the bench. The biggest problem for the Twins’ though really hasn’t been the two players starting instead of them though. It’s been the Gold Glover the Twins brought in to shore up the infield, Mr. Luis Castillo himself.
How much has Castillo’s nagging injuries hurt him in the field? It’s hard to say, but he looks a step or two slower, his zone rating is sitting at .701 (for comparison, Punto posted an .877 mark last year) and according to Baseball Prospectus Castillo is currently five runs worse than the average second baseman. By the same regards, Batista is at a .710 Zone Rating (compared to a “horrific” .780 from Michael Cuddyer last year) and Castro’s .780 Zone Rating (compared to .865 from Jason Bartlett last year, Castro came in at .813 last season as well). That’s not good infield defense, no matter how Bert Blyleven, Gord Wittmeyer, Dan Gladden or anyone tries to spin it.
Johan Santana and Scott Baker seem to be pitching alright so far this year. But they’re also extreme flyball pitchers. The worst starting pitcher on the Twins’ so far this year, Carlos Silva, just so happens to be the staff’s most extreme sinkerballer. Lohse has also trended towards being a groundball pitcher the last couple of years, and the new cut fastball Radke developed this offseason to combat lefties should make him more groundball prone in theory as well. To take it even further, when players have put the ball in play against Francisco Liriano, it’s usually been on the ground. And Liriano has been fairly hit prone, with a WHIP of 1.53.
At the same time, to defend the Twins infielders, Silva and Radke have both given up 10 homeruns and only Tampa Bay has surrendered more doubles than the Twins so far this year. That indicates that the opposition is hitting them harder. And that could be the root of the Twins’ fielding problems.
Is the Twins fielding woes causing the team’s pitching woes? Or is it vice versa? That’s a story for part two, I suppose.
• From my labia…
“Hey jewscott between Kemp, Cameron, Neshek, Boof, and the lefty-tastics Miller & Barrett which ones actually have the stuff to not suck ass with the Twins?”
Any one of them could come up in the right situation and not “suck ass.” Any one of them could come and “suck ass” too. Boof makes some sense if you believe my rant above because like Santana and Baker, he’s an extreme flyball pitcher. It’s also hard to argue that a guy who’s struck out 30 batters in 15 innings so far like Neshek has so far will come up and “suck ass” too. Those are probably the two best bets on the list, though long term Neshek is more of a gimmick than a pitcher with his almost submarine delivery. Cameron and Kemp are the worst bets on the list.
In other news, now that I have labia and suck ass on my blog, I can’t wait for the new wave of Googlers to hit my site.
Monday, May 01, 2006
Simple question
Sorry about the delays. Sorry this isn't a real post. Just two simple questions to stir some debates.
1) What's wrong with the Twins?
2) How do you fix it?
1) What's wrong with the Twins?
2) How do you fix it?
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