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Series Preview in Blog: Cleveland Indians (Round 4)

This post is also published at Stick and Ball Guy's site. Stop by and check out what SBG Nation has to say.

Minnesota Twins (67-63) @ Cleveland Indians (72-57)

The Twins come off their four-game sweep of Baltimore heading into Cleveland to face the first-place Indians. The Indians just finished a 6-3 road trip, winning two of three from Tampa, Detroit, and Kansas City. Recently the Indians have struggled a bit at home, going 7-14 since the All-Star Break at Jacobs Field, losing six of their last eight. Still the Indians remain comfortably over .500 at home with a 38-26 mark. The Twins, with their six-game road winning streak, have approached the neighborhood of .500 again, with a 32-33 mark away from home. The real difference betwixt these two teams is in their success against their own division. The Indians boast a 31-20 mark, while the Twins are struggling with a 21-26 record against the AL Central. Those records pretty much represent the difference in the standings coming into this series.

The struggles of the Twins offense have been well documented and discussed. But, in reading some of the Indians blogs, I began to feel like they were stealing all of our complaints. Read this entry and you have to admit, if the word Cleveland Indians were replaced by Minnesota Twins and some names switched around, then it certainly wouldn't have looked out of place on any Twins blog as recently as a couple of weeks ago. The Indians offense has also been struggling of late, and it has lead to a few members of the team taking some heat from the fans (Casey Blake has an OPS of .622 in August, his only sub-.700 month of this season). The offensive struggles have lead to some new blood in the lineup, and some of the youngsters have stepped up and contributed immediately. I understand the temptation to switch up the roster when it seems like your team is struggling to score runs, but Cleveland had better be careful or they might do something that they will regret (I know the entry is from almost a month ago, but I couldn't resist). Manager Eric Wedge has let his frustration be known, threatening to shake up the lineup and bench those players that don't produce. Some people think it's a little late in the game for Wedge to start playing the fiery motivator role, and so are a little skeptical of these reports.

Series Preview in Blog: Seattle Mariners (Round 2)

This post is also published at Stick and Ball Guy's site. Stop by and check out what SBG Nation has to say.

Minnesota Twins (58-59) @ Seattle Mariners (65-50)

The Twins continue their death march road trip with a three game series in Seattle. Thus far they are 1-5 on this trip, and have dipped below the .500 mark for the first time in quite a while. The Mariners on the other hand return home after a road trip through Baltimore and Chicago which saw them go 5-1 while pounding out 47 runs. That road trip got Seattle back to .500 away from home, but their home record is an impressive 37-22 (trailing only LA, Bos, NY for best in AL). The Twins have struggled lately on the road, winning only 3 of their last 14 away from the Dome while seeing their road record fall to 26-32. The Mariners are currently in second place in the AL West, 3.5 games behind the Angels. In the Wild Card standings, they are the current leaders, with a one loss lead on the Yankees, but it would probably be prudent to focus on the division for now.

Mike Hargrove made the surprising decision to step down in the middle of an 8-game winning streak earlier in the season. The fact that he retired despite the fact that his Mariners team was starting to show signs of competing for a playoff spot didn't satisfy some fans, who may have preferred a more ignominious exit. His replacement, bench coach John McLaren, hasn't exactly been earning rave reviews. Although he hasn't been the subject of too many long-winded rants, most of the criticisms are short, quick, and to the point. On the other hand, he has shown an increasing willingness to mix things up as he gets more comfortable in his role, and every now and then you have to give credit where credit is due when a series of moves works out just as planned.

A lot of the frustration with McLaren (and before him, Hargrove) stems from the unwillingness to sit underperforming veterans like Raul Ibanez and Richie Sexson. If someone ran a business like the Mariners run their roster, well you can see it probably wouldn't work that well. Sexson has struggled this year, posting a .203/.298/.390 line, and it doesn't look like it will improve real soon. The recent road trip saw him hit .353/.353/.412 and could be a sign of him turning it around, but don't be fooled. Mariners fans still would rather have anyone else up there in the middle of a rally.

Raul Ibanez is a similar case to Sexson. He has been less than impressive this year, both with the bat (.253/.310/.387 before recent road trip) and in the field. He too heated up on the recent road trip, hitting 5 homeruns in 5 games and posting an OPS of 1.919 in 26 PA in Baltimore and Chicago (two hitters parks in the heat of August, it will be interesting to see if these two hitter's resurgence carries over to the pitcher-friendly Safeco Field). The struggles of Ibanez prompted the callup of Adam Jones, the Mariners top hitting prospect. The reaction of some of the veteran players to that move was, to put it nicely, a little less than enthusiastic. Jones has gotten 13 PA so far and has hit well (.417/.462/.500) but given the veteran's recent hot bats, he may not get as much playing time as some would like.

In other prospect news, Ryan Rowland-Smith made his major league debut earlier this season, and he has appeared in 11 games this year. He made at least one good first impression with an appearance against the Red Sox.

Things get started off with Johan Santana versus Felix Hernandez. The Mariners have actually had more success against left-handed starting pitchers this year. You've no doubt heard about turning around a switch-hitter to get a more favorable matchup, but the Mariners have been employing the same tactic against LHP, which may account for their success. King Felix hasn't quite returned to the utterly dominating form he was in early in the season, and some fans are getting tired of his non-regal behavior. Sometimes you just need to step back and realize that, even if he's not everything you want right now, he's still something special.

Tuesday pits Matt Garza against Horacio Ramirez in a pitching matchup that might actually favor the Twins. Ramirez has really struggled this year, but he's been better at home, so he's got that going for him (in addition to facing the Twins offense).

The road trip ends with Scott Baker taking on Jarrod Washburn, which means they will face two different Jareds on this trip and neither one can spell their name correctly. The Twins will want to work some counts and get Washburn's pitch count up because he has run out of gas pretty consistently in his recent starts.

Kansas City has Emil Brown. Seattle has the Mariner Moose. It's gettin' dangerous out there on the diamond.

Finally, Ichiro just signed a pretty big contract, but, seeing as how he's an odd dude, he attributes the decision to stay in Seattle to his dog. Maybe he's hallucinating due to hunger, seeing as how he apparently never eats anything.

That Was a Pretty Big Cliff

Presented without comment, three measures of offensive production over the course of the Twins season based on 10-game windows. (thus the data for runs per game at game 97 is the team's runs per game over games 88-97).

Runs/Game

Batting Average

On-Base Plus Slugging
If you're interested, here's the raw data

Series Preview in Blog: Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (Round 3)

This post is also published at Stick and Ball Guy's site. Stop by and check out what SBG Nation has to say.

All right, here we go, a series preview from the end of dinner (burgers, corn on the cob, and pineapple straight off the grill) before the end of the game tonight. That way it's still kosher as a preview, right? Thank goodness they're on the west coast so I get the cushion of the late start time.

Minnesota Twins (58-56) @ Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (66-47)

The Angels started off their homestand by winning two of three from Boston. Now they finish their week at home with three against the Twins. The Twins are in the middle of a nine-game road trip, which did not start off all that well when the Royals took two of three from Minnesota. Los Angeles has the best home record in the American League at 37-17, while the Twins are 26-29 on the road. The Angels are in first place in the AL West with a 2.5 game lead over Seattle.

This is the third series betwixt these two teams, each team has won one series and the season series stands at 3-3. Recaps from game 1, game 2, and game 3 of the last series can be found at those links.

Their normal catcher Mike Napoli is on the DL and the Angels have been relying on a couple of young catchers, Jeff Mathis and Ryan Budde. Mathis has done a very good job, and Budde is getting his first look at the major leagues.

**Just to make this whole "race against time" thing interesting, I take an hour and a half trip into downtown Chicago to give myself a bit of a handicap, it is now the bottom of the fourth inning**

The Angels offense is similar to the Twins in that neither hit very many homeruns. Of course, the difference is that the Angels offense actually works pretty well. Nonetheless, the lack of homerun power lead plenty of people to speculate that the Angels need a big bat to remain contenders. Other people point out that, depending on what numbers are most important to you, a case can be made that no such need exists. Still, it's a little bit disheartening when the trade deadline passes and nothing at all is done. The trade deadline did see Luis Castillo depart from Minnesota, but before he showed up in New York, apparently he added one last assist to the Twins when found time to help out the Angels in their sweep of Detroit.

Those of us who rely on MLB.tv for our Twins viewing will be treated to the hometown tandem of Steve Physioc and Rex Hudler. I don't think that I would be out of place to call these two announcers "much-maligned", but an odd thing has happened this year. The number of games these two were scheduled to call was scaled back in favor of a second broadcast team of Jose Mota and Mark Gubicza. Only it turns out almost everybody hates those two even more than the original duo. Additionally, the radio guy has been called into the booth to announce a few games as well, so the powers that be are certainly casting about for a solution.

**Wait a second, the Twins just scored a run. I've got to take a moment to savor this.**

Another story that has popped up here and there is the number of vermin violations Angel Stadium has accumulated in the last two years. A bit of careful reading shows a few inconsistencies in the article and its response. The big problem seems to be allowing the dirty stadium to sit overnight before cleaning. Of course, management has offered some reasoning for that, but you have to think this bad publicity will force them to implement cleanup operations in a more timely manner.

I didn't really have a place for this, but Mike Scioscia has never struck me as a particularly astute tactician. Articles like this only reinforce that notion.

Finally, this has nothing to do with the Angels other than that it happened in a game they were playing in, but umpire gaffes are the kinds of stories that are always good for a chuckle.

**And I'm done with plenty of time to spare. I would have rather Light Rail Baker mowed down the Angels in order and I didn't quite finish in time, but, alas, it wasn't to be**

I Got Nothin'

What can I say about this Twins team? The pitching is good, the hitting is atrocious. That's all there is to it. There are only so many ways you can write that analysis.

Minnesota in the last 10 games:
.221/.278/.319, 25 runs
those are their worst 10 game totals this season in runs, BA, and OPS
the Twins have been hit by a pitch more times (4) than they have hit HR (3) in that span

If it truly is darkest before the dawn, I can't imagine it getting much darker for the Twins bats, dawn must be coming soon.

This went up a bit ago, but check out my profile at SBG Nation. It was a lot of fun to chat up the commenters there for an afternoon.

Thanks to Rhubarb_Runner for pointing out that Daneeka's Ghost is available in multiple languages (put that page back through Google translation for some interesting phrasing).

Series Preview in Blog: Kansas City Royals (Round 4)

This post is also published at Stick and Ball Guy's site. Stop by and check out what SBG Nation has to say.

Minnesota Twins (57-54) @ Kansas City Royals (48-62)

The Twins finished their 7 game homestand at 4-3 with a series split against the Indians, they begin a road trip that starts in KC, and goes through LA and Seattle, totaling nine games. Since their demolition of the White Sox in a doubleheader in Chicago, the Twins are 2-6 on the road. The Royals return home after a 1-5 road trip to begin a brief homestand against the Twins and the Blue Jays. Kansas City has identical 24-31 records at home and on the road, although they have won their last four contests at Kauffman Stadium. Kauffman Stadium has been very much a hitter’s park this year, so maybe that will help the Twins offense get going. The Twins are 25-27 on the road so far this year.

With the White Sox challenging the Royals for the cellar in the AL Central, sportswriters may have to come up with a new adjective to describe the Kansas City Nine. Although it may not seem all that exciting to be looking at a season of 75 wins, for some fans this puts the Royals only a season away.

The Soul of Baseball Section:
I still haven’t read a single post at this blog that I haven’t liked. So, I can understand feeling a little bit of awe if I were to meet the man behind it. One of my favorite recent posts was about neutral wins (with a bonus Twins connection). Looking at the Royals rotation, they would benefit greatly from having a league-average offense behind them (I kind of know how they feel).

Tuesday brings Boof Bonser battling Brian Bannister, and blustering blogger Big-mak believes Billy Butler and Brian Buscher’s big bats become bashers before bullpen brigades breakup the blitz. Bannister started the lone KC win in the previous series, going seven innings and allowing three runs (an offensive explosion!). For those who have the requisite subscription, Baseball Prospectus did an interview of Bannister recently.

Johan Santana faces Odalis Perez in Wednesday’s game, in an almost-rematch of the scheduled starters of the game that was cancelled due to the 35W bridge tragedy. Perez is probably looking forward to facing the Twins, since his last 5 starts have come against some of the top offenses in baseball (Cleveland, Boston, Texas and twice against the Yankees).

In the finale, Matt Garza takes on new Royal acquisition Kyle Davies. Davies was picked up in a trade in which the Royals sent Octavio Dotel (who always seems to be on the block at the deadline… or maybe it’s just me) to Atlanta. His debut didn’t go so well, he gave up A-Rod’s 500th HR. Fortunately, the chances of him giving up another milestone HR are pretty slim (unless he gives up 14 HR to Torii Hunter to get him to 200).

Random pitching notes that I'm too tired to work into paragraphs:
Joakim Soria has been really f***in’ good this year.

Gil Meche is infinitely more professional than the hefty lefty from Cleveland. (Mugshot humor!)

Scott Elarton has no business making a start at the major league level.

Finally, I have been sorely tempted to purchase a subscription to baseball-reference.com ever since I discovered the site. I just know that the minute I give into the temptation, I will be lost forever in little projects like “just how good was Kevin Appier?”

Twins Blogs

2007 Twins Blog (PPress)
Aaron Gleeman
Angryscott's Haberdashery and Twins Blog
Around the Majors (Christensen)
Batgirl
Battle Your Tail Off
BoofBerg
Bugs and Cranks
Bullpen Catcher
Carlos Silva Fan Club
Coffeyville Whirlwind
Court’s Sports
Curlz and Curveballs
Dregs and Vestiges
Fan’s View (Sinker)
Gold Seat
Greet Machine
Josh’s Opinion
The King’s Game
Lip Gloss and Baseball
Martin Andrade
Minnesota Baseball Central
MN Gameday
MN Twins Fan
MN Twins Talk
MPR: The Bleacher Bums
My Life According to Baseball
The National Anthem Before a Cubs Game
Nick and Nick
Pat Neshek’s Blog
The Porch
Pulling a Blyleven
Runnin' With the Twins
SBG Nation
Seth Speaks
Still the Loyal Twins Fan
Taylor’s Twins Talk
Thank You Brian Sabean
Third Base Line
Todd’s Twins
Tony…the Killer and Carew
Tuesdays with Torii
Twinkie Town
Twin Killngs
Twinnin
Twins Ballpark 2010
Twins Ballpark Update
Twins Broadcasters
Twins Fans
Twins Geek
Twins Insider (Neal)
Twins Junkie
Twins Nation
Twins not Twinkies
Twins Sisters
Twins Territory
Warning Track Power
Will Young

Justin Morneau and the Twins Offense

Over the last two seasons Justin Morneau has been one of the best run producers in the American League with 62 HR and 219 RBI. What makes this fact more impressive is that on the surface he has been producing all those runs on a team who does not possess one of the elite AL offenses. It would seem intuitive to conclude that Morneau has to be more efficient in the opportunities that he gets, since the more potent offenses are going to yield more opportunities for hitters in their lineups. While there may be some truth to that way of thinking, it's actually Morneau's ability to go deep that is keeping him on the RBI leaderboard this season, not his performance with runners on base.

A simple way to approximate the chances a hitter gets to drive in baserunners is baserunners per PA, which is shown in the table below for the top 5 AL hitters in Runners Driven In (RDI = RBI-HR).

Player	RDI	BR	BR/PA
M. Ordonez	72	346	0.77
A. Rodriguez	68	356	0.76
V. Guerrero	67	324	0.74
J. Morneau	61	333	0.77
V. Martinez	61	296	0.70

Morneau is in the middle of the pack here, so at first glance it doesn't seem he's suffering from a lack of opportunities. But one of the hallmarks of the Twins offense is its lack of power, so is it reasonable to expect a larger percentage of those runners to be on first base? It turns out that is not the case either. In fact, Morneau has had the most chances with a runner on third (the easiest RDI opportunity) and isn't getting less chances with RISP than any of the top 5. If you've noticed that the number of chances (the numbers in parentheses) don't add up to the number of baserunners in the previous table, I discounted plate appearances in which the hitter was intentionally walked because that doesn't represent an opportunity to drive in any runners. Back to the numbers with RISP, a caveat to that observation is that a larger percentage of those RISP chances come with two outs for Morneau. This is most likely the result of "productive" outs moving runners into scoring position (or "non-productive" outs keeping them there until Morneau comes to bat). What struck me is the fact that Morneau doesn't stand out in driving runners in from third base (more two out situations mean less RBI groundouts or sac flies) and he is merely average bringing runners in from second and first. In general the Twins offense has had difficulties scoring runners from first, as detailed previously here, and it appears that Morneau is not an exception to that rule.

Player	from 1st	from 2nd	from 3rd	RISP	% of PARISP w/ 2 out
M. Ordonez	0.09 (171)	0.22 (119)	0.60 (50)	0.33	0.43
A. Rodriguez	0.13 (181)	0.15 (115)	0.50 (54)	0.26	0.41
V. Guerrero	0.12 (150)	0.22 (88)	0.51 (58)	0.34	0.33
J. Morneau	0.08 (151)	0.20 (98)	0.41 (70)	0.29	0.47
V. Martinez	0.07 (159)	0.22 (86)	0.65 (48)	0.37	0.38

While Morneau has performed well in his role, driving in plenty of runs, his place on the RBI leaderboard has come abgout differently than the other hitters. Morneau has been able to remain on this short list mostly due ot his ability to hit HR. Only A-Rod has more home runs in the AL and the highest percentage of RBI from HR. Looking at the runs per HR for these hitters, it could be used as an argument that not enough Twins are getting on base in front of Morneau. If you've been paying attention, you know that Morneau is second in the AL in solo HR (Morneau-16, Carlos Pena-17) not because of a lack of opportunities. He's been able to hit a lot of solo HR to make up for a performance with runners on which isn't quite in line with the other top AL hitters this season.

Player	HR	RBI% from HR	R/HR
M. Ordonez	16	0.28	1.56
A. Rodriguez	35	0.66	1.94
V. Guerrero	14	0.36	2.07
J. Morneau	28	0.49	1.57
V. Martinez	17	0.37	1.71

With all of this considered, Morneau is having another monster year in which he is currently on pace for 43 HR and 137 RBI. Those numbers are impressive enough that the footnote that he's doing it all within a subpar offense needn't be applied. Especially since the surrounding offense is actually giving him a reasonable amount of opportunities to add to those numbers.

Series Preview in Blog: Kansas City Royals (Round 3)

This post is also published at Stick and Ball Guy's site. Stop by and check out what SBG Nation has to say.

I'm not sure I should even be doing this preview. I've seen what happens to people who try to cover the Royals. If Emil Brown asks about me, I was never here.

Minnesota Twins (53-51) vs. Kansas City Royals (47-57)

The Twins have been alternating series wins and losses since the break. Hopefully they avoid regressing against the Royals since they finished their road trip by winning two of three from Cleveland. The Royals enter the Dome on a four game winning streak, having swept three games from the Rangers in Kauffman Stadium. The Royals are 23-26 on the road, while the Twins are 28-24 at home this season. As I mentioned in this weekend's preview, the Twins should get used to the Royals, because they will be seeing a lot of them in the next 42 games (13 against KC). Hopefully they can put some distance betwixt themselves and KC, because the Twins are actually currently closer to the last place Royals than they are to the second-place Indians.

The Royals are keeping pace with the White Sox, trying to finish the season above the AL Central cellar for the first time since '03. When your team has been struggling for as long as KC, it's enough for some cautious optimism. A big reason for the optimism is the young talent in the Royals batting order. Billy Butler (.315/.357/.483) and Alex Gordon (.302/.347/.464 in June/July) have been hitting the ball well. Even though they may not be part of the AL Central elite just yet, this piece on Mark Teahan's struggles shows they know what it takes to compete in this division. A quote:

These are not the kind of numbers that even an average corner outfielder/infielder can expect to keep a job with.

Now if you'll excuse me, that one is just sitting on a tee, waiting for someone to take a mighty swing...

Mark Teahan - .280/.353/.398, 5 HR, 29 XBH in 430 PA
Twins at 3B - .231/.303/.322, 4 HR, 22 XBH in 420 PA
Twins in LF - .235/.286/.377, 11 HR, 30 XBH in 406 PA

Kansas City recently called up Ryan Braun to help out in the bullpen. I think they just waited until interleague play was over to avoid the confusion if he were brought in to face Milwaukee's rookie third baseman Ryan Braun. Of course that confusion is nothing compared to what must have happened to John Buck(?) right before this.



Starting pitchers for this series will be Scott Baker agai ---OW!!---

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Emil Brown is my favorite baseball player. That is all.

Series Preview in Blog: Cleveland Indians (Round 3)

This post is also published at Stick and Ball Guy's site. Stop by and check out what SBG Nation has to say.

Minnesota Twins (51-50) @ Cleveland Indians (59-43)

The Twins look to notch their first win this season against Cleveland in a three game weekend series on the road. If they don't get that elusive win this season, it doesn't matter too much. First of all, the Twins have essentially played themselves out of the playoff picture, going 2-7 over their last three series including sweeps at the hands of Detroit and Toronto. Secondly, they will get plenty more chances against this Indians team. In fact, their next 14 games, and 26 of their next 45, (58%) are evenly split against Cleveland and Kansas City. So get used to these guys, because we're going to see a lot of them. The Indians have been playing .500 since the break, losing 3 of 4 in their most recent series against Boston to start their current homestand. They remain in second place in the AL Central, 1.5 games back of Detroit. They have been very good at home, only the Angels and Brewers have fewer home losses than the Indians 35-18 record. The Twins, meanwhile, need a weekend sweep to get back to .500 on the road from their current 23-26 mark.

If you happen to be reading this in Cleveland, and are planning on going to the games, you need to read these first. Mistake by the Lake has all the info you could want on the parking and concessions at Jacobs Field. I love the scatterplot breakdown of parking price versus walking distance. If you're looking for something to do after the game, if you can somehow make your way into the clubhouse, you could participate in a baseball video game tournament. Alternatively, you could befriend Grady Sizemore and tag along on his trips to Las Vegas. If you're more laid back than that, you could just ask Sizemore where to find the local whiffle ball games. The commercials here aren't quite awkward enough to be uproariously funny, but I did enjoy the argument about ghost runners.

The Indians have been very proactive this season in signing their big-name free agents before they hit the open market. Manager Eric Wedge and designated hitter Travis Hafner are the most recent to sign extensions. After signing his extension, Wedge went right out and gave an exciting preview of what to expect in years to come. With Hafner in place, here's a look at what the Indians of the future will look like. Actually, they look an awful lot like the Indians of right now. Knowing that Democrats are much more likely to favor the designated hitter rule, wouldn't it have made more sense for Hafner to sign in a blue state (preferably one that doesn't have an AL Central team)? On the flip side of the coin, could there be the possibility that Twins fans, soured on the DH concept by the likes of Jason Tyner and Garrett Jones, will exhibit a swing to the conservative side of the political spectrum?

While we're on a political note, I found it interesting that the Indians developmental academy in the Dominican Republic has began to require that its prospects attend a secondary education program and pursue high school degrees. Even more interesting is that Cleveland is one of the first organizations to do so.

From the future of the Indians to the past, here are a couple of stories. One concerns the career of Larry Doby, the first African American player in the American League. The other is a real interesting story about former Indians oufielder Dave Gallagher's debut playing behind his idol Steve Carlton.

Lastly, with the Twins falling out of the race, if they don't turn things around this weekend, I may find myself joining the fan-club with the most ingenious nickname I've heard in a while. That's right, I may become one of R-Gark's Aardvarks.

Inconsistent Offense?

The Twins just completed a series in which they scored five runs in three games while being swept by the Blue Jays. In my searches for the Series Preview in Blog, I came across this article about the inconsistency of the Jays offense in comparison to some other teams. The Twins were one of the more inconsistent offenses mentioned in the study. The author doesn't delve into cause and effect with his numbers (except for a rough characterization of teams as 'power' or 'speed' reliant offenses), but the short answer has little to do with a reliance on speed in the Twins offense. Rather the Twins offense goes mostly as the 3-6 hitters go. Unfortunately those hitters are the least consistently productive of the Twins regular lineup.

Player	OPS	St. Dev.	High	Low
Mike Redmond	.680	.224	1.173	.343
Jason Tyner	.649	.221	1.026	.266
Jeff Cirillo	.741	.202	1.019	.449
Michael Cuddyer	.923	.184	1.156	.508
Joe Mauer	.849	.182	1.249	.547
Torii Hunter	.901	.174	1.180	.623
Justin Morneau	.949	.160	1.260	.689
Luis Castillo	.702	.156	.901	.372
Jason Bartlett	.666	.155	.867	.247
Nick Punto	.594	.137	.816	.370
Jason Kubel	.709	.120	.919	.512

I looked at the eleven Twins players that have the most plate appearances so far this season. For each player, I divided the 100 games of the 2007 season into 19 ten-game sections (i.e. 1-10, 6-15, 11-20, etc.), calculated the OPS for each section, and then calculated the standard deviation of that data set. I threw out any of those sections where the player had less than 15 plate appearances, which gave the results in the table at the left.

The most inconsistent performers (Tyner, Redmond, Cirillo) are those that don't play as often. The next rung on the inconsistency ladder belongs to Minnesota's "big 4"; Cuddyer, Mauer, Hunter, Morneau. The most consistent are the "little 4"; the regular players with OPS under .800 (Kubel, Bartlett, Punto, Castillo). The biggest surprise to me was Joe Mauer's numbers. It's hard to believe that Mauer is less consistent than Torii Hunter. And, in fact, if you eliminate just the 10 game stretch immediately after he came off the disabled list the standard deviation drops significantly. So I dropped the highest and lowest sections from each players data and recalculated the data.

Player	OPS	St. Dev.	Adjusted	High	Low
Jeff Cirillo	.741	.202	.175	1.019	.449
Jason Tyner	.649	.221	.164	1.026	.266
Mike Redmond	.680	.224	.163	1.173	.343
Torii Hunter	.901	.174	.156	1.180	.623
Michael Cuddyer	.923	.184	.154	1.156	.508
Justin Morneau	.949	.160	.136	1.260	.689
Luis Castillo	.702	.156	.128	.901	.372
Nick Punto	.594	.137	.122	.816	.370
Jason Bartlett	.666	.155	.117	.867	.247
Joe Mauer	.849	.182	.113	1.249	.547
Jason Kubel	.709	.120	.104	.919	.512

For the most part the trends remain the same. The bench players are the most inconsistent, probably due to the uneven amount of playing time they get during the season. Cuddyer, Hunter, and Morneau remain in the same position. They produce more overall, but their production is less consistent than others in the offense. The biggest movers in this adjustment are Joe Mauer and Jason Bartlett, who both suffered from one below average cross-section (Mauer coming off the DL, Bartlett's first 10 games of '07). Mauer is pretty remarkable. Not only is he able to produce at a high level, he's one of the most consistent hitters in the Twins lineup this season. The other players at the bottom of the table are all of the lighter hitting variety, consistently providing a lower level of offense.

Therein lies the problem with the Twins offense. The top and bottom of the order are consistently producing subpar offensive numbers (OPS of .594 to .709) so they rarely are able to pick up the slack when the middle of the order isn't at its top production. Unfortunately, it seems that the middle of the order this season has been the most unpredictable part of the offense, whether it's availability (Mauer spending significant time on the DL) or just production. If one or two (or sometimes three) of the "big 4" aren't producing, the offense almost completely evaporates. It's also interesting to note that the right-handed component of the "big 4" is the less consistent half. That might be a factor in the Twins struggles against left-handed pitching.

The inconsistency is not the fault of the middle of the order being more or less consistent than the rest of the lineup. In fact, I would predict that most of the high OPS hitters would see more variance than lighter-hitting players. Rather, it is an offense that is constructed to rely on a few people in the lineup to produce the majority of the runs, and when the remainder of the lineup doesn't heat up to cover the downswings of the big bats, the offense is doomed to sputter.

Series Preview in Blog: Toronto Blue Jays (Round 3)

This post is also published at Stick and Ball Guy's site. Stop by and check out what SBG Nation has to say.

I apologize for not getting something together for the Angels series, our cats dumped a vase of flowers on our keyboard and the bottom row stopped working for a couple of days. Being that 'Los A_geles', 'A_ahei_', and 'A_gels' all required use of the 'n' or 'm' key, I decided to pass on that for the moment. However I could have possibly posted something about 'typewriters' or 'stewaredesses', or maybe 'polkas', but it just didn't seem right. Anyway, we're back, new keyboard in hand, with the Toro_to _lue Jays.

Minnesota Twins (51-47) @ Toronto Blue Jays (48-50)

The Twins finished up a 6-4 homestand by winning two of three from the Angels. They now head out on the road for six games against the Jays and the Indians. The Blue Jays won two of three from Seattle this past weekend in Toronto and finish up their homestand with these three games against the Twins. Toronto is in third place in the AL East, 11 games behind the Red Sox, far enough out of the races that it may be time to give up on this season for the Jays front office. The Blue Jays have been a very different team in Canada, where they are 28-20 (as opposed to the US where they are 20-30). The Twins haven't played a game north of the border, but they are an even 23-23 on the road. The Twins won 4 of the 7 games played by these two teams in Minnesota.

Toronto Blue Jays Inspired Trivia: The Blue Jays are one of four franchises in the Major Leagues which have not officially retired a jersey number (excepting Jackie Robinson's 42). Can you name the other three? (Hint: at least one of the answers is a franchise over 15 years old). You can cross off the Yankees and the Nationals from your potential answers, as they have not only retired numbers, they've retired the same number twice (NY - #8, WAS - #10).

Here's the midseason report card on the Blue Jays offense. Alex Rios gets high marks, but no mention is made of his penchant for very loud shirts. There were quite a few comments on how inconsistent the Jays offense has been this season. But, when you crunch the numbers, Toronto fans have got nothing on Twins fans in that department. Of course, there are other ways to annoy your fan base. Losing on a balk is certainly right up there.

Report cards on the starters and the relievers were also filled out, with the bullpen getting high marks. The Twins will face a trio of young Toronto starters in this series, while missing Roy Halladay (Nick Punto breathes a sigh of relief). The Blue Jays have been blessed with some strong performances from their young pitchers, which is naturally a bad thing. While I can't really agree that good equals bad for the Jays, it will be interesting to see how the rotation changes in the remainder of this season and in to the next.

On Monday Johan Santana pitches against Shaun Marcum (13 starts, 3.24 ERA, 1.12 WHIP, .219 BAA, 2.9 BB/9). Marcum has hit a rough patch recently, posting a 8.22 ERA over his last 3 starts. He has received the lowest amount of run support from the offense as well. In his previous outing against the Twins he held them to one run in 8 innings in a no-decision.

Tuesday brings Scott Baker and Dustin McGowan (14 starts, 4.84 ERA, .248 BAA, 3.5 BB/9). McGowan has alternated good and bad outings over the last 7 starts (2,6,0,5,0,6,2 runs allowed) and he’s due for a bad outing. Personally, I'm looking forward to the battle of the sideburns, McGowan versus Mauer. While his facial hair choices have drawn some criticism, Marcum says "My wife is the only one who likes them, and she’s the only one that counts." For more on facial hair, there are a couple of links in this entry to the best beards and mustaches in baseball. Sal Fasano is understandably featured in those lists, Fasano is currently in the Toronto farm system, and he has endeared himself to Toronto fans to the point where they have taken up the cause that the American League could have used him in the All-Star game. That's a hard pill to swallow, but what's undeniable is that Fasano has been the best Jays catcher with respect to throwing out baserunners, something the Jays have struggled with all year.

In the finale, it's Carlos Silva against Jesse Litsch (7 starts, 4.54 ERA, .317 BAA, 3.8 BB/9). All these Toronto pitchers seem to have control issues. In his start against the Twins, the rookie Litsch required a lot of pitches (89) to go only 4.3 innings, and gave up 8 hits and 3 runs.

Finally, this is the last series against the Blue Jays, so it's my last chance to mention The Batter's Box Hall of Names. A roster is assembled following a theme, and they've had a lot of great entries in the series. My favorites are Latin themed names, the last player standing from each birth year, a series on players with the same first and last initials, and, of course, the Harry Potter themed roster.

Twins Average with RISP

A recent article in the Hardball Times plotted each of the American League teams with respect to their number of at bats with runners in scoring position (RISP) and their batting average in those situations. Inspection of the plot reveals a couple of things that are obvious and unsurprising:

- Detroit and New York (two of the best team offenses in the AL) are outdistancing the rest of the league in opportunities with RISP.

- Oakland and Chicago (two of the worst team offenses in the AL) are suffering from a lack of opportunities and a failure to capitalize in those occasions.

There are also some surprises to be found. The most surprising thing that caught my attention was that the Twins seemed to be outperforming some potent offenses. They had more ABRISP than Cleveland, Boston, and Texas, while having a better BARISP than New York, Cleveland, and Boston.

Now, as any Twins blogger can tell you, the Twins offense has not been something to be described as potent this season. Rather, they have been maddeningly inconsistent and, at times, depressingly incompetent. Can these two thoughts be reconciled? Can the Twins be performing well with RISP, with plenty of chances, and still be the sometimes putrid product that fans have come to dread?

On Saturday against the Angels, Justin Morneau led off the bottom of the second inning with a double. The Twins hitters would get four plate appearances with RISP as they went single, groundout, strikeout, and popout without scoring a run. They generated lots of plate appearances, even got a hit, but didn’t actually produce any offense. This kind of inning is the reason that the Twins can be where they are on the aforementioned plot without having a similar offense to the other teams in the same area.

Here is a look at top 5 teams in the American League in plate appearances with RISP have performed:

Team	PARISP	BARISP	OPSRISP	PA/HR	PA/XBH
NY Yankees	1132	.274	.772	45.3	14.7
Detroit Tigers	1077	.321	.895	37.1	11.2
Cleveland Indians	1064	.261	.770	35.5	13.6
Boston Red Sox	1063	.270	.807	40.9	12.4
Minnesota Twins	1056	.281	.788	42.2	13.9

Once again, the Twins don’t really stick out here, their OPS is right in the middle, they don’t hit HRs as often as the other teams but the extra base hit frequency isn’t terribly out of line. So, the problem doesn’t look like it is with production with RISP. The story of stranded Justin Morneau that I related at the beginning of this article doesn’t seem to be indicative of the Twins production in general (although it certainly feels like it has happens often).

Moving forward, the top 5 teams in the AL in runs scored and the Twins are shown below, as well as the percentage of their runs that came in plate appearances with RISP. This is not a perfect number, because it will also include batters driving themselves in with homeruns and runners scoring from first, but we’ll tackle that after we take a look at this.

Detroit Tigers	78.5%
Cleveland Indians	74.5%
New York Yankees	77.0%
Boston Red Sox	77.5%
Texas Rangers	75.5%
Minnesota Twins	82.0%

First of all, these are essentially the same teams as before although the Rangers have scored more runs than the Twins (who rank eighth in the AL in R/G). Looking at the percentages we begin to get an idea of where the Twins offense is failing. On average the top 5 offenses in the league are scoring 76.6% of their runs in PARISP. The Twins have a significantly higher percentage than that (82.0%) which indicates that if the Twins don’t have their runners in scoring position they are much less likely to drive in a run than these other teams.

In order to try to approximate the trouble that Minnesota has scoring runners from first, I subtracted all homeruns and any runners that scored from first on homeruns. I did not find a time-efficient way to account for runners scoring from first in 1st and 2nd, 1st and 3rd, and bases loaded situations, so this remains a rough approximation, but it backs up my previous point. The Twins remain the highest percentage on the list, and in fact, have further separated themselves (in the wrong direction) from the average of the other 5 teams (67.9%).

Detroit Tigers	70.6%
Cleveland Indians	64.1%
New York Yankees	69.5%
Boston Red Sox	69.2%
Texas Rangers	66.2%
Minnesota Twins	73.7%

Before we finish, here’s one last point about the Twins not being able to score runners from first at the same rate as the elite offenses of the AL. In situations where there was only a runner on first, the Twins are, unsurprisingly, the least likely to score that runner. Of course there are lots of other situations that aren’t accounted for here, but it’s another point toward the conclusion that the Twins lack of power is all that is holding them back from being among the best offenses in the American League.

Team	R	PA/R
Detroit Tigers	35	19.0
Cleveland Indians	44	16.1
New York Yankees	41	17.5
Boston Red Sox	37	19.5
Texas Rangers	37	16.5
Minnesota Twins	32	21.0

The offense is getting people into scoring position and hitting at a reasonable clip when they get there. However, they haven’t been able to complement that RISP success with a few extra base hits that score runners that are not in scoring position. I’m nowhere near the first to say this, and I’m sure I won’t be the last, but it would very much help the Twins to pick up a powerful bat, either at the trade deadline or in the offseason. In fact, an upgrade in this area is one the few differences betwixt the Twins and the best offenses in the AL.

Series Preview in Blog: Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (Round 2)

The Twins will face starters John Lackey, Jered Weaver, and Joe Saunders in this series, all of whom have 'J' as their first initial. 34 of 95 games so far in 2007 have been against starters whose 1st name starts with ‘J’ (most of any initial).

Starters with first initial 'J' - 5.3 R/9
Starters with a different first initial - 4.8 R/9

On the subject of starting pitcher’s first initials, the Twins have faced five initials five times or more. They have had the most success against the letter ‘D’ (5.6 R/9).

'M' is the letter that has given the Twins the most trouble (allowing 3.1 runs per nine innings). (Doesn’t get much more trivial than that, does it?)

First Initial	Gms	IP	R/9
A	5	28.0	5.1
B	1	6.0	10.5
C	12	70.1	4.7
D	5	29.0	5.6
E	3	9.0	14.0
F	3	17.0	2.6
G	1	5.2	9.5
J	34	214.0	5.3
K	4	23.2	5.3
L	2	8.1	3.3
M	6	34.1	3.2
N	2	14.0	1.9
O	3	16.1	6.1
P	1	7.0	6.4
R	3	18.0	5.5
S	3	22.0	2.0
T	3	21.1	1.3
V	2	8.1	8.6
Z	2	12.0	3.0

Series Preview in Blog: Detroit Tigers (Round 4)

This post is also published at Stick and Ball Guy's site. Stop by and check out what SBG Nation has to say.

Minnesota Twins (49-43) vs. Detroit Tigers (54-36)

The Twins came out of the All-Star break on fire, sweeping Oakland in four games. They enter this series a season-high 6 games over .500, with six games remaining on the current homestand. The Tigers went into the break on a hot streak, 6-1 in July, but they come to the Metrodome after splitting four games in Seattle. The fact that Detroit didn’t win the road series is a bit of a rarity, they have won the last four road series and have a better record on the road, with a 29-17 mark away from the Motor City. That is the best road record in the majors (closest is Arizona at 27-20). The Twins’ home record improved dramatically over the last weekend to 26-20, which is nowhere near the best home record in the majors (Cleveland 33-13 holds that distinction).

I’m not looking for a war with Major League Baseball, but I have a problem that the minute anything happens, suddenly a suspension comes into play. I don’t think that’s right. There are going to be arguments. When you’re playing for big stakes, there are going to be arguments. If they want to take that away, let’s just go to Sunday school.

-Jim Leyland, on Pudge's impending suspension for contact with an umpire

Here's one of the dangers of blogging. If you post something about the questions facing the team in the second half, there is always the chance that someone else will answer them on their own blog. Then, suddenly, someone else gives their opinions and calls you out. Then, of course, you have no recourse but to answer your own questions. All in all, every one of the three respondents were very wary of the Twins, despite the fact that they aren't as close as Cleveland.

A little over a week ago, ubelmann looked at the Twins distribution of runs scored and runs allowed. In a similar vein, Billfer at the Detroit Tigers Weblog looks at the same distributions, and surprisingly, the Tigers score more and allow more than the Twins. My favorite quote from the entry was, "with runs allowed, one would expect the Tigers to have a 42.6-43.4 record given normal run support. So essentially without the strength of their offense they’d be a .500 team." Detroit's offense has been a strength all season long, and it has been starting with the leadoff hitter Curtis Granderson. He has been among the league leaders in extra base hits the entire season, and has already accumulated 16 triples. So many triples so quickly has drawn some attention, but looking at others who have hit a lot of triples in the first half, there may be a drop-off in the remainder of the season. Granderson doesn't hit like a typical leadoff hitter. His OBP is lower than ideal, but all those extra-base hits could be a way to make up for that. Baseball Musings looked at the difference and decided that an on-base percentage point is worth more than a slugging percentage point.

Something that probably won't affect the offense at all (in a negative fashion, anyway) is Neifi Perez' suspension for testing positive for stimulants.

So now we’ve gone from Neifi!! being an occasional defensive help and a constant offensive wasteland to Neifi!! being little more than a dustbunny for the team. You know what I mean. Useless, a little gross, nobody quite knows how it got there, and you really just want to sweep it back under the bed from whence it came.
- Roar of the Tigers

Probably one of the main reasons for the difficulty the Tigers have had in preventing runs has been the fact that it has been a revolving door of pitchers on the club due to injury, promotions, demotions, and trades. Overall, the Tigers have lost about $5M in salary to the disabled list from their pitching staff alone. A majority of that comes from Kenny Rogers missing almost half the season, so that number may be a bit inflated for effect.

Starting Pitchers for the next three days:

Matt Garza vs. Nate Robertson

Garza makes his second start of the ’07 season after his successful debut against the White Sox. Nate Robertson makes his fourth start after coming off the DL. In his last three starts he has gone 1-0, with just over 5 innings per start and an ERA of 4.32. Robertson has his own blog, and he is certainly maintaining a positive attitude about his return to the team and just about everything else.

I couldn't decide on a favorite Santana image, so you decide: Deranged St. Nick is from Stop Mike Lupica, while the much more cuddly monster is from Roar of the Tigers

Johan Santana vs. Andrew Miller

Andrew Miller represents the second lefty in a row Detroit will throw at the Twins. Minnesota has had a little more trouble with left-handed starters (4.52 R/9) than right-handed starters (5.32 R/9), scoring almost a full run less per nine innings. Counter to that trend, the Twins scored 6 runs off of Miller in 5 innings the last time they met, which has been by far Miller's worst start of his season. He has earned the decision in all seven of his starts.

Scott Baker vs. Jeremy Bonderman

Once again the series finale will pit Baker against Bonderman. The last time these two met, Baker was excellent, but Bonderman was just one run better as the Tigers avoided a sweep, winning 1-0. Hopefully the Twins find themselves in a similar position coming into the game and get a similarly outstanding performance from Baker, and I’ll take my chances that the offense puts enough runs on the board.

Finally, Gary Sheffield has made some comments recently about steroids, Barry Bonds, and Joe Torre's treatment of specific players on the Yankees. If you're interested, here's some background on the Torre situation, using stories from Sheff's book to dissect the situation. For the lighter side of the interview, look to Sheffield's definition of steroids.