Daneeka's Ghost

I'm Gone

2007-09-09T22:41:00.001-05:00

Series Preview in Blog: Cleveland Indians (Round 4)

2007-08-26T22:58:00.000-05:00

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.

In the first game of the series Carlos Silva will pitch against Paul Byrd. The Twins will be facing Paul Byrd for the fourth time. Hopefully the fourth time is the charm, because Byrd is 3-0 against the Twins this year with a 3.52 ERA and a 1.04 WHIP. Of course, the Indians have scored 29 runs in those three games, so it would help if the Twins limited the tribe's offense a little more effectively. Silva is the exact opposite of Byrd, as he has gone 0-3 against Cleveland with an ERA of 5.00.

Boof Bonser will pitch against Jake Westbrook who has been hot of late. In his last five starts he has allowed only 6 earned runs in 36 innings for an ERA of 1.50. That is the lowest ERA of any starter in their 5 previous starts that the Twins have faced this season. This doesn't bode well for the Twins offensively; five other times the opposing starting pitcher has had an ERA below 2.00 in their last five starts and the Twins have been shut out twice and only managed 4 runs in 35 innings while going 1-4.

Interesting (to me) Trivia note: Of the 17 opposing starters not to allow a run against the Twins, which one had the highest ERA over their previous five starts?

In the finale, Johan Santana will pitch against Carsten Charles Sabathia. Like Byrd, the Twins will be facing Sabathia for the fourth time. However, they have managed to take one of the previous three games against C. C. who has posted a 1.66 ERA and a 1.02 WHIP to go with his 2-1 record against the Twins. This will be the fifth time Santana has pitched against the Tribe, he has posted a 3.67 ERA in his four starts but doesn't have any wins to show for it. Meanwhile Cleveland has handed Johan 3 of his 9 losses this season.

I don't know what it is about the AL Central, but with Palehose 7's documenting the White Sox search for pie, and the Indians apparent exuberance for pie, you have to wonder at what point the Twins will start having clubhouse bake-offs (my money is on Punto, the man apparently makes a mean slushee, and it's only a small step from there).

Series Preview in Blog: Seattle Mariners (Round 2)

2007-08-13T10:11:00.000-05:00

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

2007-08-12T00:56:00.000-05:00

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)

2007-08-10T23:10:00.000-05:00

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'

2007-08-08T09:37:00.000-05:00

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)

2007-08-07T00:22:00.000-05:00

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

2007-08-02T19:51:00.000-05:00

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)
G old 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

2007-08-01T06:50:00.000-05:00

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)

2007-07-30T10:00:00.000-05:00

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)

2007-07-27T09:00:00.000-05:00

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?

2007-07-25T20:00:00.000-05:00

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)

2007-07-23T10:00:00.000-05:00

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

2007-07-21T20:30:00.000-05:00

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)

2007-07-20T10:00:00.000-05:00

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)

2007-07-17T10:00:00.000-05:00

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.

Series Preview in Blog: Oakland Athletics (Round 2)

2007-07-12T08:00:00.000-05:00

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 (45-43) vs. Oakland Athletics (44-44)

Both of these teams are right around .500, and in that spirit the Twins have been alternating winning and losing nicely, going 12-12 in their last 24, and 5-6 in their last 11. In the week before the All-Star break, Oakland stumbled a bit, falling back to .500 with a 2-5 record in series losses to Toronto and Seattle at home. Going back a bit further, the A's went 5-12 going into the break. The A's are currently in third place in the AL West, 9 games back of the Angels. They bring a 21-21 road record into this series. The Twins were 22-20 at home in the first half with some tough opponents coming up on this 10-game homestand. The A's will be followed by the Tigers and the Angels at the Metrodome.

Despite the A's well-documented tendency to start slow and come on strong in the second half, there are still reasons to think that this team isn't equipped to make a similar surge this year. For gnasing of teeth in list form, here's ten things that are bothering Oakland fans.

On the other side of the spectrum, one of everyone's fondest memories of baseball probably involve going to games as a youngster. If you're really lucky you can have your first ever game (and first bench-clearing brawl) immortalized in photo essay form just in case you don't remember it very well.

The A's haven't announced their starting pitchers for this series anywhere that I looked, so all I can tell you is that Chad Gaudin will start against Scott Baker tonight. Gaudin has posted a very respectable 2.88 ERA thus far this season, but has been walking a lot of batters (5.0 BB/9 over his last 8 starts). That was the theme in his previous start against the Twins as well, when he walked 5 batters in 5 innings, but only allowed 2 runs to pick up the win. The walks are certainly a worrying trend, but perhaps we should be more worried about the power of Ryan at Catfish Stew to influence the performance of A's pitchers through his posts. If that trend continues, expect Gaudin to have pinpoint control and a career high in strikeouts tonight.

The probable starters for this series are still in flux due to the number of injuries affecting the A's pitching staff. Rich Harden made his first start since April in the week before the break, going 2.2 IP while allowing 4 runs. His ability to give the A's consistent innings will go a long way toward clearing up the starting rotation for the second half. Closer Huston Street has also been on the DL since May, but he is expected to replace the glass of Syrah with a baseball sometime in the second half. (More on Street's interest in wine here)

Finally, your first ballgame is great, but can it compare to a dancing mascot?

Happy Birthday!

2007-07-11T00:01:00.000-05:00

Happy Birthday Buttercup!

Thanks for everything you do.

June Strength of Schedule

2007-07-11T00:00:00.000-05:00

Check out the earlier post on strength of schedule for explanations of these numbers.

First up is the AL Central:

AL Central	May Record	May SOS	Expected June SOS	Actual June SOS	Difference	June Record	Expected July SOS
Chicago White Sox	12-14	.473	.439	.472	-33	10-18	.524
Cleveland Indians	19-11	.526	.468	.474	-6	15-13	.488
Detroit Tigers	16-12	.547	.496	.514	-18	16-10	.536
Kansas City Royals	11-17	.543	.504	.511	-7	15-12	.524
Minnesota Twins	13-14	.502	.530	.504	26	15-12	.526

The Tigers continued to win in June, actually improving on their .571 winning percentage of May with a .615 winning percentage in June. They did that despite having the most difficult opponents of the teams in the division. The Tigers won series against the Indians, Mets, Brewers, and Braves. All of those teams were over .500 when the Tigers met them. The Indians played just a touch over .500 against a much easier schedule. The Indians missed opportunities by losing two of three to both Cincinnati and Washington. The surprise of the month was the Kansas City Royals who finished the month of June three games above .500, the highlight being a three game sweep of the Angels.

The Twins, for the most part, kept pace with their divisional opponents, they lost a couple games in the standings to the Tigers, but stayed right with the Indians. The difference in expected SOS and actual SOS comes from the Braves, Mets, and Brewers coming back to earth a bit after hot starts, and the Nationals playing the Twins tougher than one might expect. The Twins can't afford to just keep pace with the Tigers and Indians anymore. They have remained on the perimeter of striking distance for most of the season, but now is the time to make their move.

Coming up, the Tigers have a tough month, with the Angels, A's, Mariners, Indians, and Twins all on their schedule. They have already won 2 of 3 from Cleveland, so it could be more of the same from Detroit. Cleveland has a relatively easy schedule, with series against KC, Chicago, and Texas. However, they also have the aforementioned series with Detroit, along with games against Boston and Minnesota. If Cleveland can beat the teams it is supposed to beat, it should be a pretty straightforward July for the Tribe.

As I have already mentioned, the Twins have a big month. They have division rivals Cleveland and Detroit, in addition to series against Oakland, Los Angeles (of Anaheim), and the Yankees. By the end of the month we should know where the Twins stand in relation to the best teams of the AL Central. They've been keeping the deficit manageable, but now is the time for some big wins against tough opponents.

For completeness, here’s the remainder of the American League:

AL East	May Record	May SOS	Expected June SOS	Actual June SOS	Difference	June Record	Expected July SOS
Baltimore Orioles	15-13	.515	.528	.504	24	8-17	.477
Boston Red Sox	20-8	.519	.504	.522	-18	13-14	.468
New York Yankees	13-15	.514	.532	.440	92	14-11	.480
Tampa Bay Devil Rays	11-15	.469	.505	.478	27	11-17	.535
Toronto Blue Jays	12-16	.515	.506	.444	62	14-13	.530

AL West	May Record	May SOS	Expected June SOS	Actual June SOS	Difference	June Record	Expected July SOS
Los Angeles Angels	18-11	.511	.456	.470	-14	17-9	.492
Oakland Athletics	14-13	.461	.528	.469	59	15-13	.536
Seattle Mariners	16-14	.532	.479	.495	-16	18-9	.505
Texas Rangers	9-20	.479	.502	.555	-53	14-12	.564

Series Preview in Blog: Chicago White Sox (Round 3)

2007-07-06T10:00:00.000-05:00

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 (43-41) @ Chicago White Sox (37-45)

The Twins head into the All-Star break with four games in three games in Chicago. This series wraps up the current road trip, on which the Twins dropped to 3-4 when they lost 3 of 4 to the Yankees in New York. After an over .500 June (15-12), the Twins have stumbled out of the gate in July, starting off 1-4. The White Sox finish their seven game homestand with this weekend’s series. The previous series the Sox split 4 games with Baltimore after a successful 6-1 road trip through Tampa and Kansas City. The Sox remain in fourth place in the AL Central, 12.5 games back of the first place Indians, and 5 games behind the third place Twins. The Sox have struggled more at home than on the road, posting a 17-23 record in The Cell where they haven’t won a series since May 23 (they have split two series in that span). Meanwhile the Twins remain right around .500 on the road, with a record of 21-21.

While the Sox have certainly fallen short of their expectations this season, if they just had a little more grit they would probably be just fine, right? Grit or no grit, at least their manager still knows how to keep loose as they flail away. Still, when your team struggles like the White Sox have, it seems like every game is the same old story.

I thought it was interesting that Kenny Williams, the White Sox GM, will often consult with players before making roster moves. Not quite as surprising is that sometimes he wishes Ozzie would just shut up.

On Friday, the series kicks off with a double header which is a makeup game for the cancelled game in April. Since the other two games of the series were split betwixt the two teams, the Twins have a chance to win two series in one weekend (in a manner of speaking). Toward that goal, Scott Baker, fresh off two quality starts, will face Jon Garland (6-5, 3.15 ERA, 1.16 WHIP), who has posted a 1.91 ERA since June 1 in 6 starts. In the nightcap, Twins fans get their first look at a Matt Garza as a starting pitcher when he will start against Gavin Floyd, who was recently recalled from the minors and will also be making his first major league start this season. He made 15 minor league starts this season with a 7-3 record, a 3.10 ERA, 0.67 HR/9, 3.0 BB/9, and 7.7 K/9. For more, here's a review of one of those 15 starts.

Saturday afternoon will pit Boof Bonser against Mark Buehrle (5-4, 3.26 ERA, 1.11 WHIP) who's future has been the subject of intense speculation for quite a while now. This could be the last time the Twins have to face Buehrle in a White Sox uniform (picture from South Side Sox). As always, Mark has been an innings eater for the Sox. He has thrown more than seven innings in each of his last five starts (1.91 ERA in that span).

The Buehrle saga began with the Sox trying to negotiate a contract extension, but as the Sox struggled, and the deal didn't get done, people began to speculate as to the possibility of a trade. The deal has been on and off a few times. The hang-up on the extension was apparently a no-trade clause, which Buehrle wanted, but the Sox were unwilling to give.

It's always been a tough franchise to embrace, and even in the afterglow of immense success, the stone face always seems to make itself evident. … It often seems like the Sox organization is businesslike on good days, cold on bad days, and vengeful in the ugliest of times. And that's why fans get so worked up when a guy like Buehrle is on the cusp of leaving, because he's none of those things. Aaron Rowand's presence is demanded on every message board, mailbag and call-in show for the exact same reasons.

-Sox Machine

Going into the All-Star break the Twins will send Carlos Silva to the mound to face Javier Vazquez (5-5, 3.70 ERA, 1.08 WHIP), who has been, in a word, inconsistent this season. But when he has been on, he has been very good. He has 6 starts this year where he has allowed 1 run or less (including two starts against the Twins).

The attentive reader has probably noticed that starting pitching is not the reason the Sox are currently under .500. The bullpen has been pretty shaky, which has given Sox fans a whole new way to interpret Win Expectancy.

Finally, if you have read either of the first two White Sox previews, you know I'm a fan of Palehose 7. Recently, it has been trying times over there as ~~Ozzie~~ Captain Hand has had to deal with the legend of Aaron Rowand.

One Good Week: Scott Baker

2007-07-04T21:00:00.000-05:00

SCOTT BAKER June 26 – July 3
(2 GS, 0-1, 1.20 ERA, 15 IP, 7 H, 2 BB, 12 K)

From the outset, 2007 was an important season for Scott Baker. He had spent portions of the last two years with the Twins (with varying degrees of success), and this season would go a long way toward determining the role Baker would play with the organization in the future. Coming into the 2007 season, he was one of many young pitchers that were vying for a position in the rotation. Well, we all know how spring training turned out; Sidney Ponson and Ramon Ortiz started the season with the major league team while Baker, Matt Garza, and Kevin Slowey began the season in Rochester at AAA. The two veterans were eventually phased out of the rotation while Slowey and Baker were called up as their replacements.

Baker had an impressive debut campaign in 2005 (see table below for numbers) but followed that up with a bit of a disappointing 2006 (again, the table below has numbers to back me up). Meanwhile, despite his struggles last year, Baker dominated AAA in ’06 and ’07 which only reinforced that he had little to prove except at the major league level. On May 19, Baker was called up and delivered an impressive first start against Milwaukee (8.1 IP, 2 ER). In his next 5 starts, Baker posted an ERA of 8.37 with a WHIP of 1.94 while not lasting 6 innings in any of the five starts. The outlook at that point was less than sunny, but Baker turned things around for at least a week with the two starts noted above. In fact, in his last two starts, the only thing more adept at preventing runs than Baker has been the Twins offense. Baker received one run of support in 16 innings of Twins “offense”.

	GS	W-L	IP	ER	H	BB	SO	ERA	WHIP	BAA
2005	9	3-3	52.2	20	47	14	32	3.42	1.16	.240
2006	16	5-8	83.1	59	114	16	62	6.37	1.56	.324
2007	8	2-3	47.0	26	50	11	35	4.98	1.30	.273

The Twins offense is not the subject of this article however. Scott Baker’s recent success is. Looking at his numbers season by season it's obvious that opponents were hitting Baker harder in 2006 than his other seasons (BAA and WHIP higher, BB rate constant), resulting in a much higher ERA. Looking at some other rate stats (another table coming up) it is clear that is the result of Scott's HR/FB returning to a more normal 12.5% from an unsustainably low rate in 2005. Also it seems he was a little bit unlucky as the BABIP of his opponents was significantly higher than normal. Once again the .264 BABIP in 2005 is probably unsustainable for a young pitcher like Baker, as examples Fransisco Liriano and Johan Santana had BABIP of .286 and .273 respectively in 2006. Baker's difficulties arose from the fact that he was allowing a lot of HR due to his high HR/FB and his low GB/FB percentage. Even when the ball stayed in the park, batters were reaching safely (probably due to the higher line drive percentage). This year, so far the BABIP has returned to something closer to normal with a corresponding drop in line drive percentage. The HR/FB ratio has remained a bit of a concern, but the effect of that has been mitigated somewhat by the fact that there have been a lot fewer fly balls in general due to an increase in the GB/FB ratio.

	K/9	GB/FB	LD%	HR/FB	BABIP
2005	5.5	0.83	23.8%	7.1%	.264
2006	6.7	0.72	29.5%	12.5%	.355
2007	6.7	1.18	23.4%	13.7%	.305

In Baker's last two starts he has accumulated a WPA of +0.502 compared to -0.857 in his previous 5 starts. He has kept the ball in the park (1 HR in 15 IP, 7.7% HR/FB) while inducing a good amount of ground balls (1.23 GB/FB ratio). Couple that with a slight kick in strikeout rate (7.2 K/9) and you have an extremely effective starting pitcher on your hands. Baker has certainly gotten a bit lucky in these starts, evidenced by the .167 BABIP this week. While that is not always going to be the case, the hope is that going forward from here the Twin's offense will give Scott a little more breathing room, so that even with the inevitable correction in BABIP and HR/FB, the more frequent occurrence of ground balls and strikeouts will be enough to increase the likelihood of success in Baker's starts this season.

The Mind of Dwayne Hoover: The Iowa Baseball Confederacy

2007-07-03T09:00:00.000-05:00

This is another entry in "The Mind of Dwayne Hoover". If you're wondering what that means, check out the introductory post for a full list of entries in this series. Enjoy!

The Iowa Baseball Confederacy, by W. P. Kinsella

“My name is Gideon Clarke, and, like my father before me, I have on more than one occasion been physically ejected from the corporate offices of the Chicago Cubs Baseball Club."

In Big Inning (beginning?), Iowa there was baseball. Gideon Clarke knows this, just like his father knew it. Gideon’s father was struck by lightning and imbued with an encyclopedic knowledge of a baseball league called the Iowa Baseball Confederacy. The catch is that there is no evidence, physical or anecdotal, that this league ever existed. Old newspapers don’t have any box scores, former players, owners, even the commissioner deny the existence of this baseball league. The Chicago Cubs front office certainly will not acknowledge that, in 1908, the Cubs traveled to Big Inning to play an exhibition double-header against a team of Iowa Baseball Confederacy All-Stars. The town of Big Inning has since been renamed Onamata and the old baseball field is gone. It is as if every trace and memory of the Confederacy has been wiped from the face of the earth.

Gideon inherits the knowledge of the Iowa Baseball Confederacy when his father dies. He also inherits the obsession of finding proof that this league existed. After years of searching, one man reveals to Gideon that he remembers playing in the Confederacy, and with his help, Gideon finds himself transported back to July 4, 1908, the day of the scheduled double-header pitting the Iowa Baseball Confederacy All-Stars against the Chicago Cubs. Stan, a career minor leaguer, who has pursued his dream of a major league opportunity for far too long, accompanies Gideon on his travel back in time. This date is important, because this is the point that the Clarke family’s memory of the Confederacy stops. After this date, there is no mention of the league in their memories, nor is there any mention of why it ceased to be.

What happened during this game that ended the Confederacy?

It turns out that nearly everything happens over the course of over 2,000 innings of baseball. The Cubs and All-Stars battle each other in a ridiculously protracted game, whenever the Cubs score to take the lead in the top of the inning, the Confederacy comes back to tie the game in the bottom. Gideon’s friend Stan finds himself playing in the game, which is as close as he has ever come to fulfilling his dream of playing in the big leagues.

That is one of the themes of this book. While Stan is coming so close to fulfilling his obsession, Gideon is witnessing the vindication of his and his father’s years of research and frustration. Both of them have found everything they could have ever wanted in this baseball game.

“Why not baseball?” my father would say. “Name me a more perfect game! Name me a game with more possibilities for magic, voodoo, hoodoo, enchantment, obsession, possession. There’s always time for daydreaming, time to create your own illusions at the ballpark. I bet there isn’t a magician anywhere who doesn’t love baseball. No mere mortal could have dreamed up the dimensions of a baseball field. No man could be that perfect. … The field runs to infinity,” he would shout, gesturing wildly. “You ever think of that, Gid? There’s no limit to how far a man might possibly hit a ball, and there’s no limit to how far a fleet outfielder might run to retrieve it. The foul lines run on forever, forever diverging. There’s no place in America that’s not part of a major-league ballfield.”

But the game continues on. It is unmoved by the obsessions and dreams of those involved with it. Numerous times Stan and Gideon marvel at the fact that this game is essentially the same as the game played in the present. Similarly, the game played by the semi-pros of the Confederacy is exactly the same as that played by the best team in the game, their opponents, the Cubs. Indeed, the game chews up its participants and spits them out. Players go mad and leave the game. When Gideon faces Cubs pitcher Three Finger Brown, he describes “His uniform rotting off his body; the sole of his left shoe, flapping. He looks back from his blue-glazed face, weary, but his eyes burn so much I feel I can see the electric glow of them.”

It is not just the player’s obsessions that try to influence the game. The Cubs front office (business) tries to order them back to finish the Major League season, but the team remains in Iowa while they fall further and further behind in the standings. The U. S. president, Theodore Roosevelt (politics) drops by to give his thoughts on the game, but he takes his turn at bat, is struck out, and the game continues. Nature sends a never-ending downpour and lightning strikes, but the game continues on unabated. Even Leonardo DaVinci (science) appears and considers tinkering with his invention (he claims baseball as his own). But he can’t find a way to improve the game. Religion also takes its turn, in the form of the Twelve-Hour Church of Time Immemorial. Their constant refrain of “we shall not be moved” could be construed as the theme song for this particular game, but, in the end, they find themselves washed away with everything else, leaving only baseball.

Unfortunately for Gideon, he comes to realize that the Confederacy is doomed. Once the game is finished, he will be returned to his own time and possibly lose everything he has gained through this game. As he is told in the early stages of the game:

“Then you have learned one thing – that accomplishing your heart’s desire is not all as wonderful as you expected.”

For Kinsella, baseball is a magical game that has untold layers and reflections in American society. Kinsella is the author of Shoeless Joe, the book that is the basis for the movie Field of Dreams. He has also published a lot of short story collections, mostly having to do with baseball and Iowa (I think we all see the theme here). Portions of The Iowa Baseball Confederacy initially appeared in some of those short story collections. The Iowa Baseball Confederacy was a book that I considered my favorite for a while in junior high. Mostly because I really liked Shoeless Joe, but whenever I would name that book people would start talking about Field of Dreams (which I hadn't seen). So, being the contrarian that I am, I chose Kinsella's lesser known book as my favorite, even though I knew it probably wasn't as good. This book was a pretty easy read (I finished it in a couple of sittings). It was enjoyable the second time around, as when I read it the first time I was probably 12 or 13 years old, so this time I was able to appreciate a lot more of the book. There are a lot of unexplained and mystical events, which some people have found difficult to swallow. I would recommend Shoeless Joe before this book, but if you like Kinsella's style, this book has that in spades.

Series Preview in Blog: New York Yankees (Round 2)

2007-07-02T10:00:00.000-05:00

If you missed it, check out what the Wild did this weekend.

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 (42-38) @ New York Yankees (37-41)

The Twins finished June strong, going 13-6 before starting off July with a frustrating 1-0 loss to the Tigers on Sunday night. The Yankees, on the other hand, started off strong in June, going 13-2 before losing 9 of their last 11 games including 2 of 3 to Oakland this weekend to start off their current 10 game homestand. The Yankees will host the Angels following the Twins series leading into the All-Star break. The Yankees slide has put them 11 games back of the Red Sox, in third place in the division. They have struggled on the road, but are a respectable 21-16 at Yankee Stadium. The Twins come into the Bronx with a 20-18 record on the road. The Twins also have an odd statistic of losing or splitting 8 of 9 of the first three series of each month this season (the only series win coming with the sweep of Baltimore in the season opener).

All-Star Trivia: If Pat Neshek were to win the Final Vote and be named to the All-Star team, he would be a rarity in that he would be named as a relief pitcher who isn't a closer (38 appearances, 0 saves). Who was the last relief pitcher to be named to the All-Star team without recording a save through the All-Star break in that season? (hint: it's not Fransisco Liriano in '06, who had 12 relief appearances but recorded 1 save)

The Yankees recent swoon (and large divisional deficit) has caused a lot of Yankee fans to pack it in for this season. Others are trying to justify their continued attention, or put the season into some kind of context. Still others are turning their attention to the other teams in the league, trying to combat the commonly held misconception that New Yorkers only care about New York. Here's one Yankee fan's look at the rest of the big leagues.

Many frustrated Yankee fans are pointing the finger at Torre and Cashman. Cashman is no doubt trying to acquire the best pieces out there for the Yankees. Although, he's not so busy that he has forgotten about his adoring fans. According to his diary, Steinbrenner is dreaming of firing Torre, while at the same time plotting his revenge on those who cast the "Bronx is Burning" series on ESPN. As far as replacements for Torre, why not Billy Joel?

There were a couple of recurring items that were brought up in my searches as causes for the Yankee struggles. Both first base and the outfield have struggled offensively. With Doug Mientkiewicz's injury, a surprising number of replacements have been auditioned at the first base position. Giambi, never the best option in the field, is dealing with a torn plantar fascia. Even Jorge Posada got a turn at first. Of course, these being the Yankees, there is always the option of acquiring a replacement from outside the organization. In the outfield, Johnny Damon has been injured, but not enough to go on the DL, so he continues to struggle trying to play through the pain. At some point, enough is enough, NoMaas has put together the following campaign poster for the good of the Yankees outfield.

Pitching matchups for this four game set include Boof Bonser taking on Roger Clemens on Monday, who's much ballyhooed return began with a victory in his first start, but has since not been very productive (0-3, 5.40 ERA, 1.56 WHIP in 3 starts).

Tuesday brings Carlos Silva against Chien-Ming Wang (7-4, 3.86 ERA). Wang didn't get a loss in June, going 4-0 over 6 starts. However, in his last two starts he earned two no-decisions while giving up 10 runs.

Johan Santana will face Mike Mussina (4-5, 4.63 ERA) on Wednesday. Mussina made an abbreviated start against the Twins in April but left after two innings and ended up on the DL. Recently, Mussina has been effective, not allowing more than 3 runs in any of his last 5 starts.

The finale on Thursday will pit Kevin Slowey against Kei Igawa. Igawa was sent to the minors for most of May and June, since his recall, he has made two starts, posting an ERA of 4.91 and a WHIP of 1.45.

Not many links in the starting pitching section of this preview. That's because all the action is in the bullpen. Kyle Farnsworth attracted some attention when he threw a tantrum after being unable to finish an inning recently. His lack of success thus far (ERA over 6 in his last 10 appearances) in 2007 hasn't earned him much tolerance in the Yankee blogging community. Adding to the insanity is the fact that Scott Proctor is perhaps misunderstanding the bullpen's role of "putting out fires". This, of course, comes after another outing that does nothing to inspire confidence in Yankees fans.

Finally, this would probably fit better in AMR's Mugshot Purgatory, but I found it too late last night to pass it on. Ten of the remaining sixteen contestants in the Mustache Madness bracket are former Yankees (Sal Fasano sighting!). That is a long and storied mustachioed tradition that Yankee fans should certainly be proud of.

Fernandez Traded

2007-06-30T22:24:00.000-05:00

Manny Fernandez has been traded to the Boston Bruins according to Michael Russo's blog at the Star Tribune. The Wild are rumored to be getting Petr Kalus in return.

This accomplishes a couple of things.

- Getting rid of Fernandez contract frees up enough cap space that the Wild are more likely to make a move on the free agent market.

- Backstrom is now the #1 goalie.

- In return, the Wild get Kalus, who scored 4 goals on 8 shots in his NHL stint. In general, it seems he's someone who will be an asset to the Wild in the coming years as a gritty forward with a bit of a scoring touch.

More on that and other Wild (and crazy) news tomorrow.

Series Preview in Blog: Detroit Tigers (Round 3)

2007-06-29T10:00:00.000-05:00

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 (40-37) @ Detroit Tigers (46-31)

The Twins finished their short homestand with a win on Thursday to give them a series split with Toronto. They begin a 10-day, 11-game road trip with a weekend series against the Tigers. The Twins currently have an 18-17 record on the road. After this series, Minnesota heads into the All-Star break with four-games against the Yankees and four more against the White Sox. The Tigers found their four-game series against Texas shortened to three with a rainout on Wednesday. Before the rainout, the Tigers had lost the first two games, but they rebounded on Thursday to avoid a sweep behind a good outing from Kenny Rogers. Before this series the Tigers blew through the National League with an 8-1 road trip in interleague play. The Tigers are in the midst of a long homestand, as they have 12 games against the Rangers, Twins, Indians, and Red Sox. That will even things out a bit, as before the current homestand the Tigers had played 10 more games on the road than at home (19-16 record at Comerica). The Tigers currently stand in first place in the AL Central, one half game ahead of Cleveland, and six games ahead of the Twins. All things considered, it's a good time to be a Tigers fan.

According to this guy, the Tigers have a couple of sure Hall of Famers in their lineup, and there are a few others who may get a look currently in the AL Central.

Detroit has been scoring runs at a very impressive pace so far this season. Coming into the season, the Tigers offense was believed to be pretty potent, but thus far they have surpassed all expectations. In fact, in addition to some impressive streaks, several players are on record-setting paces. It's good to know that even with all the success, there are still some hitters that can be had.

Fortunately the Twins won't have to worry about Gary Sheffield for two of the three games in this series.

The Tigers are throwing some successful pitchers at the Twins. The three Tigers starters have a record of 20-4 with a 3.25 ERA and a 1.24 WHIP in 33 starts. They have averaged 6 1/3 innings pitched per start.

The series opens with the marquee matchup, Johan Santana vs. Justin Verlander (9-2, 2.78). Verlander has only allowed four runs over his last four starts, which include two shutouts and one no-hitter, with all the requisite superstitions being observed. The Twins handed him one of his two losses in his shortest start this season back in April (3.0 IP, 5 R, 8 H, 0 SO).

Saturday afternoon Kevin Slowey will take on Andrew Miller (3-1, 2.70), who has four starts this season, all against the National League. Miller replaced Chad Durbin in the rotation, and even though he's had some success so far (two starts with 0 runs allowed), people are pleading caution with his development.

Scott Baker will pitch the finale on Sunday night opposite Jeremy Bonderman (8-1, 3.90). Bonderman went 4-1 in June despite allowing 4 runs per start with an ERA of 4.99. Bonderman will be attempting to get back to a .500 record for his career, after a very rough start.

While the starting pitching has been solid, the bullpen has been the source of some gnashing of teeth. The Tigers have taken some steps to adress their issues, the aforementioned moving of Chad Durbin from the rotation to the bullpen, as well as the callup of Eulogio De La Cruz. In addition, Wilfredo Ledezma was traded to the Braves for Macay McBride. There is some debate as to whether this actually helped the Tigers very much.

Verlander taking the new guy under his wing (from Roar of the Tigers)

Todd Jones has been a target of a lot of the bullpen criticism, although he still has the manager's confidence. And, really, his problems are all very simple, once they are properly explained.

That's a lot of words about one bullpen. It might be simpler to understand the Tigers relief corps through some mind-altering drugs.

Finally, the Tigers recently traded Mike Maroth, who is, without a doubt, one of the classiest major leaguers out there. He suffered through the losing years and, because of injury, didn't get to fully share in the successes of last year. Now this year he found himself the odd man out of a good rotation, but still took the time to thank Detroit fans on his blog (June 23rd entry). It hasn't been decided who Maroth has been traded for, but here's a novel approach to name the ever popular 'player to be named later'.

The Sinister Side of the Twins

2007-06-27T08:00:00.000-05:00

The word “left” comes from ‘lyft’ which means worthless in Old English. The left side of the Buddhist yin and yang symbol represents darkness. The German word linkisch means left, but can also be translated as awkward, clumsy, or socially inferior. Likewise, mancino means both left and dishonest in the Italian language. In a similar vein, the Latin word ‘sinister’ initially meant left, but eventually changed to mean evil or unlucky. The Twins, being one of the most etymologically aware teams in Major League Baseball, have done their best to adhere to these principles, and indeed, the left side (3B, SS, LF) has been by far the weakest link in the Twins offense in the 2007 season.

Here are the Twins who have appeared in at least 10 games at one of the positions named above, and their stats in those games. (All stats accurate through Monday 6/25)

Third Base:

Player	G	PA	H	2B	3B	HR	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG
Cirillo	10	39	13	2	1	1	2	1	.371	.405	.571
Punto	54	224	48	7	2	1	25	32	.244	.329	.315
-----
		263	61	9	3	2	27	33	.263	.340	.353
AL 3B		263	62	13	1	8	23	46	.264	.335	.436

Cirillo has been doing very well when he has been in as Punto’s replacement at third base. His numbers bring the Twins 3B up to league average in BA and OBP, but Punto’s numbers lag behind in two of the three rate categories (on base % being the exception), and as a whole the largest discrepancy is in slugging percentage, but that isn’t much of a surprise. Even in Punto’s breakout 2006 season, his SLG was at .373, still well below third basemen league wide.

The bad news is that, after a bit of rebound in May (.364 OBP with a .639 OPS overall), Punto has struggled mightily in June (.175/.268/.254, .522 OPS) doing very little to improve the standing of the left side in the Twins lineup.

Shortstop:

Player	G	PA	H	2B	3B	HR	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG
Bartlett	63	236	52	8	0	1	23	27	.250	.335	.303
Punto	10	37	3	1	0	0	5	6	.094	.216	.125
-----
		273	55	9	0	1	28	32	.229	.319	.279
AL AVG		273	67	13	1	5	19	39	.271	.326	.392

Again, there is a noticeable lack of power from this position as Bartlett and Punto have managed to slug .113 points less than American League shortstops as a whole. The on base percentage is very close to average, and Bartlett’s is a little above.

I’m a Bartlett fan, so I feel duty-bound to point out that his average has come up each month to the point where he has hit .270/.338/.333 thus far in June. Although the power numbers still aren’t there for Jason, he’s getting on base at an above average clip compared to other AL shortstops.

Left Field:

Player	G	PA	H	2B	3B	HR	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG
Ford	18	69	15	3	0	1	4	9	.238	.304	.333
Kubel	43	164	38	8	0	5	8	27	.248	.288	.399
Tyner	10	33	8	2	0	0	2	2	.258	.303	.323
-----
		266	61	13	0	6	14	38	.247	.294	.372
AL AVG		266	63	13	2	6	22	43	.264	.328	.407

Finally, we see some league average power! Well, almost. This position looks the bleakest of three at first glance as the Twins threesome of Ford, Kubel, and Tyner combined to hit .017 points below AL left-fielders in BA, get on base at a rate that’s .034 points below and slug .035 points worse. Kubel has taken over the lion’s share of the playing time and, unsurprisingly, he has shown the most power of these three, although saying anyone has more power than Ford and Tyner isn’t too much of a statement.

Kubel also got off to a slow start, but has seen his numbers improve (SLG - .348 in April, .366 in May, and .500 in June). Kubel’s .814 OPS in June is actually higher than average (.735) for an AL left-fielder, and he probably represents the Twins best chance to put up above average offense from one of these three positions going forward.

To sum everything up, the AL average for these three positions are .266/.337/.411 while the Twins are getting .245/.316/.334 from these six players for an OPS that is almost a full .100 points below league average. Kubel is the only player mentioned here who has shown some signs of power, and he has started to come on as the season has progressed. I didn’t include Cirillo in that sentence, because I don’t think anybody is convinced that Cirillo could continue to slug .571 with meaningful playing time. As far as on-base percentage goes, Bartlett and Punto are the highest in this group, but neither has an OBP above .340, and neither has any power to speak of. And that’s the main story here, the left side of the Twins so far this season has been populated with players who are serviceable at times as far as getting on base, but the power outage from these positions is what has frustrated most Twins fans.

Series Preview in Blog: Toronto Blue Jays (Round 2)

2007-06-25T11:00:00.000-05:00

If you're stopping by for the first time since Friday, don't forget to check out this weekend's work, a summary of the 2007 NHL Draft for the Minnesota Wild.

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 (38-35) v. Toronto Blue Jays (37-37)

The Twins return home for 4 against the Jays after completing their interleague schedule with a 4-2 road trip to the east coast. The last time they faced the Blue Jays they were in the midst of turning around a bad start to May and battling their way toward .500. They won two of three from the Blue Jays, giving them their third straight series win (a streak they would extend to five). Currently, the Twins have begun to heat up a bit after another slow start to June, winning their last two series as they battle to stay above .500. Hopefully, the Twins can engineer a similar result and take this series as well. Toronto got back to .500 with a 3-game sweep of Colorado to finish off a 6-3 homestand. Minnesota is the first stop on a 10-game road trip for Toronto, who will head west to take on Seattle and Oakland after they are finished in the Twin Cities. The Blue Jays are currently in second place in the AL East, 11 games behind the first place Red Sox. They have a pretty large home/road split, with a 13-19 record away from Toronto. The Twins are a much more balanced 20-18 at the Metrodome.

In the last series, The Jays scored 14 runs (8 of them coming via HR) on 29 hits (6 HR) in three games. Doing the most damage were Alex Rios (7-15, HR), Lyle Overbay (5-15, HR, 4 RBI), and pinch hitter Adam Lind (2-3, HR). Frank Thomas had an interesting series as he only got two hits, but because they both went for extra bases (a double and a home run), and he drew 4 walks, his OPS for the series was and intimidating 1.129. On another note, Thomas is currently sitting at 499 career home runs. Given that he has hit more home runs (49) against the Twins than any other team, it only seems fitting that he would come to town now.

On to the Bluebirds:

The Jays have made it back to .500 for the first time since May 1. But, while it may seem like they are still in the hunt for a playoff spot, it's an uphill battle from here. And while it's encouraging for Jays fans to see their team playing better, the increasing payroll serves as a reminder that this team is still underachieving. As is usually the case, the manager is taking some heat for that. Jays fans have also been giving Frank Thomas a hard time, and the Big Hurt fired back last week (as to be expected from a blog called Drunk Blue Jays Fans, the language is a bit off color, just thought you'd like to know). Perhaps he should have talked to Vernon Wells about how to properly respond to a heckler.

The Jays rotation has seen some changes since they were last here. Then the Twins faced Jesse Litsch (currently in AAA), Tomo Ohka (released), and A.J. Burnett (15-day DL, although he may start on Thursday). This time they will face 80% of the Jays rotation, only missing Dustin McGowan, which is notable for two reasons: First off, he's got fantastic sideburns. Secondly, he nearly threw a no-hitter on Sunday against Colorado.

The Twins missed Roy Halladay due to his appendectomy in May, but he'll start the series opener against Kevin Slowey. Halladay (8-2, 4.08 ERA, 1.21 WHIP) has been outstanding again this year, except for a couple of starts surrounding his DL stint. In his last three starts, he's 3-0 with a 2.42 ERA and a 1.02 WHIP averaging 7+1/3 innings per start. He's one of the most well liked people in Toronto sports, and he just reached a milestone 1,000 career strikeouts in his last start. That's a lot of positives for Doc, surely he's due for rude awakening, right?

Tuesday's game will match up Scott Baker (5.1 IP, 3 ER, 4 BB in his May start vs. Toronto) against ~~Sean~~ ~~Shawn~~ Shaun Marcum (3-0, 2.45 as starter, 8 starts) who has stepped in and done a very good job for the Jays since becoming a part of the rotation. In his eight starts thus far he's had three where he didn't allow a run.

Wednesday will feature Boof Bonser and Josh Towers (1-5, 5.68 as starter, 7 starts) who started the year in the rotation, was bumped to the bullpen, then reinstated as a starter earlier this month. Towers hasn't been lights out by any stretch of the imagination, but he certainly hasn't benefited from superior defense either. 6 of the 30 runs he has allowed in his starts have been unearned. His teammates have tried to help him out in other ways though. Frank Thomas (always looking for someone to yell at) chewed him out in the middle of one of his starts, and it seemed to help a little bit. Perhaps he was too busy concocting his next revolutionary action to worry how he was pitching that day.

In the series finale the Jays are scheduled to throw A. J. Burnett, but he will be coming off the 15-day disabled list (shoulder), so it's possible he won't be ready. He pitched well against the Twins in May, only allowing 3 hits and 3 walks in an 8-inning complete game. Add in a hit batsman and a throwing error (by A. J. himself) and the Twins were able to score 4 runs while stranding only 3 baserunners in their 4-2 victory. Carlos Silva got the win in that game (7.1 IP, 2 ER, 6 H), and Thursday is scheduled to be the rematch (this time it's personal!) betwixt these two starters. Given Burnett's injury history, it wouldn't be that surprising if the Jays took it easy with him with regard to pitch counts. Up until now they certainly haven't. At least when he's on the DL, A. J. is capable of amusing himself.

Finally, first there was the Frank Thomas commercial that was taken off the air in Canada. Now, after seeing this A. J. Burnett commercial, I'm noticing a trend, and I have to ask, why must the Blue Jays hit everyone in the head? Everyone knows, for true comedy, you have to go for the groin. (this commercial was banned from TV, so it could be inappropriate for some)

Series Preview in Blog: Florida Marlins

2007-06-22T11:00:00.000-05:00

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

I have to tell you, I was less than impressed with the Marlins fan's online presence, there just wasn't much to be had. The same thing happened when we played Tampa right after the Yankees, maybe the enormous New York fan base skews my perception or something. Wait, you say you don't care how difficult I have it? You just want the links? Well, I think I can do that:

Minnesota Twins (36-34) @ Florida Marlins (35-38)

The Marlins are returning home after a 3-3 road trip through KC and Chicago, where they took 2 of 3 from the Sox. The Marlins have actually played much better on the road, where they are just above .500, than at home where they are 14-19. Florida has held their own in interleague play, going 8-7, although the only team they have faced with a winning record is Cleveland, who took 2 of 3 from the Marlins on their last homestand. This series they get another look at an AL team that is over .500 (although it was a bit of a struggle for the Twins to get there). The Twins started off their National League road trip by winning the final two games of their series against the New York Mets. That brought their road record to an even 16-16 on the season, and with that series victory the Twins clinched at least a .500 record in interleague play as they improved to 9-6 against the NL. That marks the 6th time in the last 7 years the Twins have been .500+ in interleague play (2005 being the only exception). The Twins are in third place in the AL Central 5.5 back of co-leaders Cleveland and Detroit. The Marlins are in fourth place in the NL East, 4.5 back of the leaders, and 2.5 back of third place Philly. They're still close enough that it would be premature to give up on their first ever division title.

On to the Fish:

I mentioned that the Marlins actually have a better record on the road than at home. That may be because they play in a nearly empty football stadium. People who have attended games there were not impressed. That guy thinks the Marlins don't do a very good job of marketing their team or the experience of a Major League game. I'm sure he's ecstatic to know that he's got Ozzie Guillen in his corner on that point. Fortunately, you don't have to take Ozzie's word for it, or even the word of a blogger you've never met. You can see the stadium for yourself via this webcam. (Disclaimer: Having just stumbled on to this Thursday night, I haven't seen what the view is, so if it's a waste of your time, I apologize.) The Marlins are attempting to get legislative support for the construction of a new stadium, but so far it's been tough sledding. The Marlins Ballpark News is dedicated to a full overview of the situation for the Marlins as well as other area teams.

Guillen actually gives his opinion on a wide range of topics (imagine that) in that interview although one of his main points is a conversation he had with Miguel Cabrera, who has drawn some media coverage due to his weight increase. In addition to that, Cabrera apparently keeps all kinds of weird stuff in his locker. I don't know that I'd be comfortable sitting next to a locker that appears to have shrunked heads hanging in it, but I guess it's Miami, you have to expect something bizzare to happen.

In the category of bizarre, we find the backstory to the Rally Fish. An interesting origin to be sure, I can't wait to hear the (similarly fantastical?) story behind SBG's rally cap.

The Marlins have struggled with injuries to their impressive stable of young pitchers. Recently, Anibal Sanchez went down for the season with shoulder issues, and two of the three pitchers Minnesota is scheduled to face are recovering from their own injuries.

We'll get the healthy one out of the way first. On Friday Boof Bonser pitches against Scott Olsen. Olsen has a 4.89 ERA, but he has been a little bit unlucky in that regard. In his last 5 starts, he has given up 0.32 HR/9 while striking out 7.7 per nine. Where he's been hurt is the free passes (4.2 BB/9), but still his FIP over those 5 starts is 3.35, compared to his ERA of 5.19. Olsen has been healthy, but he has had several incidents with teammates and fans which have given him the label of being a hothead.

Josh Johnson makes the start for Florida on Saturday against Carlos Silva. This will be only his second start of the year after he missed the first few months of the season due to ulnar nerve irritation in his right biceps. While on a rehab assignment, Johnson observed the tradition of buying his teammates dinner. The Marlins have had so many pitchers injured that the Jupiter Hammerheads (Class A) are living the good life. In his one previous start, Johnson allowed 8 runs to the potent White Sox lineup, but only 4 were earned as he worked 3.2 innings.

Dontrelle Willis hasn't gone on the disabled list ... yet. What started as tightness in his arm became a significant problem in his last start against the White Sox, which was as ineffective as it was short (4 ER, 1 IP). As a result of this injury, it's not certain that Willis will get the ball against Johan Santana on Sunday. Rather, it could be Byung-Hyun Kim who gets the spot start. So we will just have to wait and see. If I had to guess, I would say that he starts because he's built up some good karma by aiding those in need.

Marlins Trivia: The Marlins came into existence in 1993, and have not lost a post-season series since then, capturing 2 World Series titles and going 6-0 in post-season series. Including the Marlins, there are 5 teams whose last post-season appearance resulted in a World Series championship. Can you name them?

Finally, sometimes baseball can seem like such a simple game.

Jersey of Fortune Update

2007-06-21T08:00:00.000-05:00

Behold the mystical powers of the Jersey of Fortune!

Actually, we've fallen on hard times with the Jersey recently, as the Twins have lost the last 3 outings. Looking over the games in question, I seem to only wear the Jersey when the Twins are on the road. We may have to mix it up a bit going forward.

Torii Hunter is absolutely crushing the ball in games where I wear the Jersey. Although if I am in attendance at the actual park he must get nervous or something. Otherwise how do you explain the 0 for 6 with 3 SO and 2 BB in games I have attended this season? When I wear the Jersey in the comfort of my living room he's an otherworldly .545/.583/1.455. That's an OPS of 2.038!

Twins record with jersey of fortune: 2-3

Torii Hunter with the Jersey of Fortune: 6 for 17, .353/.450/.941,
1 2B, 3 HR, 5 RBI, 3 BB, 5 SO, 1 SB

Home Runs w/ JoF
Hunter 3
Morneau 2
Cuddyer 1

Starters
Bonser 6.0 IP, 1 ER, 2 SO
Santana 13.0 IP, 4 ER, 15 SO
Baker 5.2 IP, 5 ER, 4 SO
Ortiz 4.1 IP, 5 ER, 2 SO

I have worn the Jersey for five games (the conditions have to be just right... or else I just forget). They are :

BAL 4 @ MIN 7
MIN 3 @ CWS 1
MIN 3 @ TB 4
MIN 5 @ MIL 6
MIN 1 @ LAA 5

Series Preview in Blog: New York Mets

2007-06-18T23:00:00.000-05:00

Well, this is a day late (and probably a dollar short) but since this is my only chance to write something about New York's National League team, I'll put something up to appease the masses. Actually, I only recieved one complaint (from Buttercup) about not having it posted yesterday, so I guess I should say I'll put something up to appease my immediate family.

As we (Buttercup and I) drove back to Chicago, we were able to find the Milwaukee broadcast of the game, and we were delighted to hear the Twins get out to a 5-0 lead. After being essentially cut off from Twins baseball for two days it was good to hear that they had picked up where they left off with their sweep of Atlanta. Only Bob Uecker tells us that the Brewers have won the first two games of the series. Clearly, the Twins need me. I made it home, and in the time it took to unpack the car (with the radio now off) the lead shrank to 5-2. I began watching again and the Twins stormed back to take a 9-2 lead. With the game well in hand, I was a bit drowsy, so I lay down for a quick nap. I awoke in the 9th inning just in time to see Lew Ford's throw miss the mark on a game-tying (what!?) sacrifice fly. I watched the last two batters of the game, a Joe Nathan strikeout victim and Justin Morneau's home run, which brought the score of the game when I was watching to MN - 10, MIL - 1. I guess I didn't realize I had so much power over the Twins.

Minnesota Twins (34-33) @ New York Mets (37-30)

The Twins begin their interleague road trip with a series against the New York Mets. So far the Twins are 7-5 against the National League, 2-1 on the road. The Mets are 4-5 in interleague play mostly from two series against their crosstown rivals, the Yankees (3-3), in their other series they lost two of three to the Tigers. The Mets are returning from a road trip where they faced the Tigers, were swept by the Dodgers, and lost two of three to the Yankees. So far this season the Twins are 14-15 on the road (it seems like the Twins are about a .500 team regardless of situation doesn’t it?) while the Mets are 17-16 at home.

Game 1 featured Carlos Silva against John Maine. Maine had a fantastic start (5-0, 9 ER in 7 starts) but has since cooled off a little bit (18 ER, 7 HR, 6 starts).

Game 2 has Johan Santana going against Jorge Sosa who had a rough start his last time out (5.2IP, 6 R, 8 H), but has been relatively solid this season (6-2, 3.42 ERA, averaging over 6 IP/start).

Game 3 will send Scott Baker to the mound against Oliver Perez. Hopefully Baker continues his big apple magic, as he allowed 2 hits and 1 run over 5 innings to the Yankees in his only other New York start. Perez had his own success against the Yankees the last time out, pitching 7.1 scoreless innings. In 2007, Perez has had only 2 starts where he has allowed more than 3 earned runs.

If those descriptions of the Mets starting pitchers don't quite do it for you, maybe something a little more alcohol-based will do the trick.

Before this series the Mets were struggling a bit (as evidenced by their last road trip), and it's been a result of a lack of both offense and pitching. Add to that a lack of clutch hitting, and you've got the whole team searching for answers. Here's an analysis of David Wright's swing this year when he's hitting .281/.369/.490, and a comparison to his swing last season when he hit .311/.381/.531.

Speaking of David Wright, he shaved his head. I didn't realize this was a big deal, but it's obviously a point of some contention.

Not technically a blog entry, but this NY Times article about Scott Schoeneweis and his choice of jersey number was deemed interesting enough by the expert panel of judges to be allowed into this entry.

Finally, Lastings Milledge is currently in the minor leagues, but since he's always the subject of trade rumors he could be headed to anybody's favorite team. To brush up on your Milledge knowledge, here are some Lastings Milledge facts.

Series Preview in Blog: Milwaukee Brewers (Round 2)

2007-06-15T11:00:00.000-05:00

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 (33-31) v. Milwaukee Brewers (36-30)

After their previous series against the Brewers, the Twins left Milwaukee three games below .500, while the Brewers were a comfortable 10 games above .500. In the three-plus weeks since, the Twins have gone 13-8 while the Brewers have not fared as well, going 9-13. More recently, the Brewers have lost two of three in Texas and won two of three in Detroit (I always liked the Brewers) on their current road trip. Despite their struggles, the Brewers remain the only team with a record over .500 in the NL Central, and they maintain a 5.5 game lead over the second place Chicago Cubs.

In that last series the Twins won two of three from the Brewers. I was there (and I've got the lousy pictures to prove it), as were many others including Nick N. (of Nick & Nick), Cheesehead Craig (of Oracle of Cheese), Freealonzo (of Lost Forest After Dark), and Shane (of Greet Machine).

On to the Brew Crew:

The Brewers have outperformed their Pythagorean win total all year (36 actual compared to 33 Pythagorean). Is that sustainable? Some people seem to think the Brewers have the roster to continue that success.

One new face since the previous series is Ryan Braun at third base. Since being called up he has certainly impressed with an OPS of .937 and a line of .314/.351/.586. He has also been the subject of some mugshot hijinx.

Prince Fielder is still on the team, and he's still hitting a ridiculous amount of home runs. All those home runs are good enough for Fielder to be ranked the 14th best player in MLB by ESPN's new metric. There were a few Brewers who made the top 100.

Despite all that talent, the recent slide has begun to cause rumblings about the managerial stylings of Ned Yost. To make things short and sweet, they're not in favor of it.

Friday night, Scott Baker pitches against Claudio Vargas. Both pitchers pitched in the previous series, Baker had his auspicious debut, while Vargas struggled a bit (4 IP, 5 ER, 6 H, 6 BB). The Brewers were able to come back and save Vargas from a loss, and since then Vargas has pitched a little bit better. In his 3 starts since he's pitched into the 6th and allowed 3 or 4 runs. Nonetheless his turn was skipped in the rotation the last time through so he hasn't started in 10 days.

Saturday, Boof Bonser takes on Dave Bush, who also pitched in the two teams first meeting, in fact, he was Baker's opponent (7.1 IP, 5 ER, 8 H, 1 BB). Bush has a 6.07 ERA in his last 5 starts, and it always seems like the Twins offense struggles to score against scuffling pitchers like that, doesn't it?

In the finale on Sunday the Twins youth movement continues when Kevin Slowey pitches against Jeff Suppan. Suppan has been absolutely average in his last 5 starts, going 6 IP and allowing 4 ER almost every time.

Suppan's last outing was against Justin Verlander when Verlander tossed his no-hitter. This guy claims to be the first to post about it although it doesn't seem like he has much to say.

The Brewers rotation seems to be in a state of flux right now. The Twins are just missing the Major League debut of hot prospect Yovanni Gallardo who will go on Monday. Needless to say, Brewers fans are excited to see what he can do.

Finally, plenty of baseball player have blogs, and I've pointed out some of them in other editions of this series. This is a first though, a baseball player who blogs about football. Specifically, Kevin Mench blogs about the Philadelphia Eagles (you have to log in to see his blog, so I just linked to the article about the blog).

How Good is Johan Santana?

2007-06-14T18:15:00.000-05:00

June 12, 2002

Bobby Cox: Good win boys. Everybody be ready to go to the airport by midnight tonight! ... What is it?

Designated Flunkie: What do you want me to do with the file on tonight's pitcher?

Cox: Well, we probably won't play the Twins again for about 5 years, what are the odds this guy is still pitching then? Keep the file but don't waste too much time updating it.

Flunkie: Yes, sir.

	Gm	GS	W-L	IP	ER	H	BB	SO	ERA	WHIP	BAA	Cy
J. Santana through 6/12/02	48	11	4-4	145	92	169	77	114	5.71	1.70	.297	0

June 14, 2007

Bobby Cox: Alright, who are we up against tonight?

New Designated Flunkie: Johan Santana, boss. Here's his file.

Cox: I see we've faced him before. And we beat him, this guy must be a pushover... Wait, why aren't there any updates after 2002?

Flunkie: Well, we didn't bother keeping tabs on the Twins pitchers since it's been so long since we played them. Looking back, that may have been a bad idea.

Cox: Hmmm, we'll just have to go with what we have then, it doesn't seem like this guy should give us too much trouble.

Flunkie: You're right, boss. How much could he have changed?

	Gm	GS	W-L	IP	ER	H	BB	SO	ERA	WHIP	BAA	Cy
J. Santana after 6/12/02	183	143	80-33	1030.2	326	788	258	1098	2.85	1.01	.209	2

The Levale Speigner Report

2007-06-13T23:30:00.000-05:00

Here are the lines over their last four starts of two starting pitchers who recently faced the Twins.

Starter 1: 14.1 IP, 23 R, 30 H, 8 SO, 7 BB,
14.44 ERA, .423 BAA, 1.045 OPS
Starter 2: 26.1 IP, 5 R, 17 H, 15 SO, 9 BB,
1.71 ERA, .177 BAA, .533 OPS

Now, here are the lines for those same two starters in their starts against the Twins.

Starter 1: 6 IP, 1 R, 2 H, BB, 3 SO
Starter 2: 7 IP, 6 R, 7 H, BB, 2 SO

Starter 1 is Levale Speigner, a rule 5 draft pick who had four extremely rocky starts before shutting down the Twins on Saturday. Starter 2 is John Lackey, who has been one of the better starting pitchers in the American League over the last two seasons (ERA+ 2005 - 122, 2006 - 123). Lackey has pitched very well thus far, but the Twins were able to get to him and avoid a sweep in Los Angeles last Wednesday. Anecdotally, this has seemed to be a pattern for the Twins this season. Whenever they face a struggling pitcher (probably young, especially left-handed) they seem to have enormous struggles putting up any kind of offense. I know it's easy to remember getting only 2 hits off of a pitcher like Speigner, but if Minnesota had knocked out 7 or 8 hits in five innings and put some runs on the board, the game would have been quickly forgotten. Do the Twins actually struggle more against below average pitchers? Or is this a case of selective memory making a problem seem worse than it actually is?

To investigate that question, I looked at the opposing starting pitchers in the 63 games the Twins have played so far this year (through Wed.). For each pitcher I sampled the five starts before their outing against the Twins to get as good of an idea as possible of how they were doing around the time of their outing. Early in the season obviously there wouldn't be five starts beforehand, so I used any starts before the Twins outing, then complemented with starts directly after the outing versus the Twins to get to five total starts. I calculated FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching) as well as the more conventional ERA statistic for the 5 starts. Then I calculated runs per nine innings and WHIP for the start against the Twins. (Note: Virgil Vazquez (Det.) only has one start on the season, and it came against the Twins. I have placed him in the highest FIP/ERA category when it came time to place him) The American League average for these four stats are FIP and ERA - 4.40, R/G - 4.71, WHIP - 1.39.

First, I split things up by pitchers who were above or below league average in their 5 surrounding starts. That gives:

Surrounding FIP	Avg. FIP	R/9 v. Twins	WHIP v. Twins
below 4.40	3.78	4.36	1.26
above 4.40	5.27	4.99	1.44
Surrounding ERA	Avg. ERA	R/9 v. Twins	WHIP v. Twins
below 4.40	3.11	4.44	1.33
above 4.40	6.36	4.96	1.40

That table seems to indicate that the Twins are pretty much following the expected trend, they're hitting the "worse" pitchers harder by both measures than the pitchers who had enjoyed more recent success. However, it is true that with both FIP and ERA, the runs produced by the Twins were above the levels previously observed in the more successful pitchers and below the levels of the less successful hurlers. Not quite the pronounced effect as my frustration would lead me to believe, but it's a start.

Breaking it down further:

Surrounding FIP	Starts	Avg. FIP	R/9 v. Twins	WHIP v. Twins
below 3.80	12	3.18	4.29	1.38
3.80 - 4.40	16	4.18	4.40	1.19
4.40 - 5.10	15	4.72	5.66	1.49
5.10 - 6.00	13	5.36	4.44	1.35
above 6.00	7	6.90	4.69	1.54

Again we see that the Twins outperform against the tougher pitchers while not hitting the struggling pitchers as hard as one might predict. Overall, FIP seems to be a better indicator of future success against the Twins than ERA (shown in the table below):

Surrounding ERA	Starts	Avg. ERA	R/9 v. Twins	WHIP v. Twins
below 3.00	14	2.39	5.38	1.48
3.00 - 4.40	16	3.76	3.71	1.21
4.40 - 5.25	10	4.84	3.44	1.24
5.25 - 6.50	10	5.74	6.54	1.61
above 6.50	13	8.77	5.20	1.39

The first thing that jumps out is that the Twins are killing pitchers with an ERA under 3.00, so that backs up one part of the hypothesis. Although, taking these numbers with those of the previous table, it may be that the pitchers with the low ERA who have benefited from fielding help (and thus have a higher FIP) may be regressing to the mean a bit and inflating the numbers in the first row of this table. Also, the pitchers with the highest ERA outperformed their previous track record against the Twins, so there may be something to the perception after all. Note that the WHIP for the 6.50+ ERA category is lower than that of the below 3.00 ERA. However, the average pitchers (ERA from 3.00-5.25) seem to give the Twins the most trouble.

Overall, it seems that the data backs up the idea that the Twins struggle more than they should against pitchers who haven't been having success. On the converse side, they don't seem to be struggling with the most successful pitchers. It's certainly an odd quirk, and I don't know if it would hold up over a larger sample size, but it's certainly interesting to see some numbers to back up my perception.

I'll try to keep the database up to date and check in periodically with updates throughout the year. So you've got that to look forward to.

Series Preview in Blog: Atlanta Braves

2007-06-12T11:00:00.000-05:00

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 (30-31) v. Atlanta Braves (35-29)

The Twins host the Braves after an uninspiring start to the current homestand. Minnesota has now lost 3 series in a row as they look to turn things around against Atlanta. The Braves come into the series possibly turning the corner on their own struggles. They just finished a 3-5 homestand against Florida and Chicago that included a 5-game losing streak in which they scored 15 runs in 7 games before this weekend. They almost equaled that total in their last two games, scoring 13 runs in back to back wins against the Cubs. The Braves are currently in second place in the NL East, 2.5 games back of the Mets. The Braves actually have a better record on the road than at home, with a 17-13 mark away from Atlanta. The Twins are an even .500 at home at 16-16. Even though the Twins haven't been on fire lately, they are still helping instill fear in the opposition. Hopefully the Twins will beat Atlanta so badly that they will be out for revenge when they play both Cleveland and Detroit in the next week and a half.

On to the Braves:

The Braves have been a thrifty club for a while, and it's mostly due to the reluctancy of the ownership to shell out money for player contracts. If they can't spend the cash to bring in big name players to put the fans in the seats, they'll have to rely on some inspired promotions to get the fans to the ballpark.

The Braves have two up and coming catchers in Brian McCann (referred to as "Heap" for reasons I'm not aware of) and Jarrod Saltalamacchia. McCann has had some defensive struggles this year, and some facial hair struggles as well. McCann has a sore ankle and finger, and has been playing sporadically over the last week or so.

In the infield, first baseman Scott Thorman in his second year has been struggling at the plate (.228/.259/.389). Second base is manned by Kelly Johnson, while Edgar Renteria plays short (he was hit in the hand on Sunday, I don't know how serious it was, but he left the game). Chipper Jones, the usual third baseman is eligible to come off the DL, but it will probably be another 2-4 weeks before he has recovered from "some bleeding where one of the bones in his hands meets a ligament." In his stead rookie Yunel Escobar has impressed, and has been the subject of some trade talk.

The outfield is an interesting group. Andruw Jones is the most well known of the regular outfielders. He is also probably the smoothest, based on the difficulty Jeff Francoeur has with celebrations. Of course Francoeur probably picked it up from former Brave (now National) Ryan Langerhans. When Francoeur isn't awkwardly deciding whether or not to hug someone, he's doing his best Britney Spears impression, or stealing Brian McCann's lucky shirt. Matt Diaz is also in the outfield, but he's apparently boring, so that's enough about him.

The pitching matchup tonight (Tuesday) is Kevin Slowey against Kyle Davies (5.31 ERA, 1.50 WHIP) who has alternated good with bad outings in recent history (runs allowed in chronological order: 4-1-6-1-8-1-5). Is that evidence of thinking too hard on the mound? Whether that is the case or not, unfortunately for the Twins, Davies is coming off a bad start (5.0 IP, 5 R, 6 H, 2 BB) so it could be rough sailing.

On Wednesday Carlos Silva will go up against Chuck James (3.66 ERA, 1.50 WHIP) who hasn't allowed more than 3 runs in a start since April (8 starts). James and Davies are second and third year pitchers respectively in an organization that has been well known for producing pitching talent. In recent years however, it hasn't quite been the same.

In the finale, Johan Santana will face off against somebody, probably Tim Hudson, although he took a line drive off his leg in his last start and had to leave the game. John Smoltz was another possibility to pitch in this series as he skipped his last start due to a sore shoulder for which he received a cortisone shot. One guy who won't be pitching for the Braves is Mark Redman, who started the year in the rotation, but was released in May after 5 starts.

If I could just go back to John Smoltz for a second; he is the subject of this article which postulates that pitchers recovering from injuries would do well to follow Smoltz' example and spend some significant time in the bullpen. The argument is that the bullpen stint extended Smoltz' career and effectiveness. Perusing that article I was surprised to see that Smoltz had posted an ERA+ of 371(!) in the 2003 season. I was so impressed that I looked into it a little bit more.

Here are the top ERA+ for closers that I could find (by no means a complete list). Also, a much more complete list of the top ERA+ in baseball history (for those who qualified with 1 IP/G).

Closer	Season	ERA+	Cy Young?		Starter	Season	ERA+	Cy Young?
Eckersley	1990	606	N	1.	Keefe	1880	294	N/A
Smoltz	2003	371	N	2.	P. Martinez	2000	285	Y
Gagne	2003	335	Y	3.	Leonard	1914	279	N/A
Fingers	1981	332	Y	4.	Maddux	1994	273	Y
Rivera	2005	323	N	5.	Maddux	1995	259	Y

Nathan	2004	292	N	84.	Santana	2004	182	Y

Wow, the Eck had a hell of a season! The only thing I could find that came close was Dennys Reyes in 2006 (ERA+ of 504).

Which leads into our trivia question for this series: The Twins have had the American League leader in ERA+ 6 times. Johan Santana has won that distinction 3 times in a row. Who are the other three Twins hurlers to lead the league in this category?

Finally, the minor league manager who blew a gasket has been all over the news and the internet. There are a few players on the current Braves roster who played for him, here are their thoughts.

Series Preview in Blog: Introduction

2007-06-11T01:00:00.000-05:00

The Series Preview in Blog started at the beginning of this season. As I surveyed the Twins blog landscape, I wanted to start my own little corner of the internet, but I wanted to contribute something that wasn't readily available elsewhere. There's plenty of excellent recaps and analysis sites out there, so instead I wanted to take a look at what the Twins opponents are discussing entering their series with Minnesota. So far I think it's been going well, with enormous thanks to Stick and Ball Guy for allowing me to publish it on his site as well.

I will update the following list as new series previews are published here and link to this post from the sidebar. Thus, this will function as an archive for all the posts in this series. Enjoy, and thanks for reading!

Series Preview in Blog:
--------------------------------

AL East	AL Central
Baltimore Orioles (4/2-4/4)	Chicago White Sox
Boston Red Sox (5/4-5/6)	Round 1 (4/6-4/8)
Round 2 (coming soon)	Round 2 (5/8-5/10)
New York Yankees (4/9-4/11)	Round 3 (7/6-7/8)
Round 2 (7/2-7/5)	Round 4 (coming soon)
Tampa Bay Devil Rays (4/12-4/15)	Round 5 (coming soon)
Round 2 (5/1-5/3)
Toronto Blue Jays (5/25-5/27)	Cleveland Indians
Round 2 (6/25-6/28)	Round 1 (4/23-4/24)
Round 3 (7/23-7/25)	Round 2 (5/15-5/17)
AL West	Round 3 (7/27-7/29)
Los Angeles Angels (6/4-6/6)	Round 4 (8/27-8/29)
Round 2 (7/20-7/22)
Round 3 (8/10-8/12)	Detroit Tigers
Oakland Athletics (6/1-6/3)	Round 1 (4/27-4/29)
Round 2 (7/12-7/15)	Round 2 (5/11-5/13)
Seattle Mariners (4/17-4/19)	Round 3 (6/29-7/1)
Round 2 (8/13-8/15)	Round 4 (7/17-7/19)
Texas Rangers (5/21-5/23)	Round 5 (coming soon)
Round 2 (coming soon)	Round 6 (coming soon)
Round 3 (coming soon)
National League	Kansas City Royals
Atlanta Braves (6/12-6/14)	Round 1 (4/20-4/22)
Florida Marlins (6/22-6/24)	Round 2 (4/25-4/26)
Milwaukee Brewers (5/18-5/20)	Round 3 (7/30-8/1)
Round 2 (6/15-6/17)	Round 4 (8/7-8/9)
New York Mets (6/18-6/20)	Round 5 (coming soon)
Washington Nationals (6/8-6/10)

Series Preview in Blog: Washington Nationals

2007-06-08T11:00:00.000-05:00

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 (29-29) v. Washington Nationals (24-36)

Ramon Ortiz's trip down memory lane continues with this weekend series at the Dome against the Nationals. The Twins are returning home after a disappointing road trip. After finishing May winning 11 of 15, the Twins struggled on the west coast, dropping 2 series in Oakland and Anaheim. The Nationals finished up a simlarly disheartening nine-game homestand in which they lost 2 of 3 to the Dodgers, the Padres, and the Pirates. This marks the beginning of a nine-game American League road trip for Washington that will take them to Baltimore (who are not well liked by some Nats fans) and Toronto after they finish here. The Nationals currently reside in last place in the NL East, 12 games behind the Mets and 5.5 games behind fourth place Florida. The Twins are 15-14 at home, winning 6 of their last 7 at the Dome. The Nationals are 10-17 on the road, and have won 5 of their last 6 away from home. Interestingly, they haven't lost a game in which they used the designated hitter yet this year (0-0).

First off, Federal Baseball does a similar preview of the Nationals' upcoming series that is usually posted on the morning of the first game. I'll update this with the link if I get a chance, but it should be the top entry on the page linked above once it's up.

If the series were taking place in D.C. the Twins would get to take in the great Presidents Race, which Teddy Roosevelt has famously never won. What would happen if he did win one?

On to the Nats:

The Nationals have been not very good since moving to Washington. Now, there are a couple of ways a fan can approach that. An optimistic point of view aligns itself nicely with the Nationals good guy manager, Manny Acta. Manny is so nice that some bloggers have begun pleading for him to blow a gasket, just once. And he tried, he really did, to no avail. The secret to remaining optimistic is to find something to occupy yourself while you're at the game. Alternatively, a fan could go the other way and refuse the optimism of the front office and the manager.

I suppose it is possible to trace the evolution of the relief pitcher in a manner superficially similar to the evolution of man. Somewhere out of the primordial goop (variously, cricket or rounders) baseball was born, and then the first traces of the reliever began to appear, although in his original form he was hard to compare to today's reliever and probably lacked self-awareness that he was in fact a relief pitcher.
-Basil at Federal Baseball

That was taken from this article which compares the rise of the closer as a defined position in the bullpen, to the current rise of the set-up man. Throughout that article, the author refers (and links) to this Hardball Times article that describes the rise of the closer. Be warned, it's a long post, but I thought it was interesting, so I pass it on to you.

Try as I might, I didn't find a post vilifying Tony Batista. Rather, it seems that the fans have just accepted that he will stink and there's just not much point ranting about it (Although one guy does refer to him as Ass O'Plenty). However, here's a post that asks that question Twins fans used to wrestle with time and time again, is it possible that Cristian Guzman is an all-star? He's had a great start since returning in May (.319/.365/.457 with 5 triples) with what would be career highs in BA and OBP, so it's not out of the question, but he'll have to beat out Dmitri Young (.329/.403/.509) to be the Nats representative. The only other regulars with OPS over .700 are two Ryans, Church and Zimmerman (who may be suffering the dreaded sophomore slump). One thing is for sure, the lack of offense isn't a result of too much junk food in the clubhouse.

The Nationals will be moving into a new stadium soon, and the ticket package information was recently sent out. Reactions were mixed at best, ranging from angry to irate.

Pitching matchups for the series are Carlos Silva vs. Jason Simontacchi tonight (Friday). Simontacchi's year got started late this year as he had groin troubles, thus he only has 6 starts, in which he has a 2-4 record with 5.61 ERA and a 1.51 WHIP. His last two starts have been losses in which he allowed at least 6 runs. A torn labrum (and the recovery from it) kept Jason out of the majors for the last two years so all his previous experience comes from 2004 or earlier. In fact the Twins won't face a starting pitcher in this series who pitched in the majors in '05 or '06.

On Saturday it's a matchup of Rule Five draft picks, as Johan Santana goes against Levale Speigner. This rookie starter was actually drafted by the Twins (14th round, 2003) and pitched as high as AAA Rochester in '05 and '06 before the Nationals picked him up this year. Speigner started the year in the bullpen (12 appearances 3.77 ERA), but has 4 starts under his belt in 2007. Things haven't gone smoothly for Levale thus far, and it's all this guy's fault. He has yet to get an out in the fifth inning of any start and his line is not for the faint of heart (0-2, 14.44 ERA, 2.58 WHIP). Some mistakenly thought he was done after his last start. Others are trying to figure a way for him to help not only his team, but his country.

On Sunday, Boof Bonser goes against Mike Bacsik owner of a 1-2 record, a 4.13 ERA, and a 1.33 WHIP in four starts since being called up from AAA Columbus in the middle of May. He had three good starts right away before cooling off in his last start (4.1 IP, 6 ER, 5 BB) against Pittsburgh. Bacsik also hasn't pitched in the majors since 2004 with the Rangers. Since then he has pitched at the AAA level in the Philadelphia and Arizona organizations, and did an internship at a sports talk radio station in Dallas, so he's got a career in mind if this pitching thing doesn't pan out.

Well, that was a lot of words on the starting pitchers. I really shouldn't have bothered since these guys will probably be gone soon anyway. The Nats have had 9 different pitchers start ballgames for them, and only one, rookie Matt Chico, has made more than 10 starts.

Finally, the Nationals pitchers may be numerous, but it seems most of them are a little bit loony too. Starting pitchers are visited by demigods while on the mound, and the relievers are looking at livestock on the internet. I just don't know about these National League types.

The Mind of Dwayne Hoover: What is the What

2007-06-07T09:10:00.000-05:00

This is the first entry in "The Mind of Dwayne Hoover". If you're wondering what that means, check out the introductory post I put up a couple days ago. Enjoy!

What is the What, by Dave Eggers

What is the What is the autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng, one of the Lost Boys of Sudan. Displaced from his home by the civil war in Sudan he spent several years in refugee camps before being relocated to the United States. The book is a fictional biography, so it is designated a novel, but most of the events happened in the life of Valentino Achak Deng. The story is told in two threads, the first is his account of a burglary which happens in Atlanta where he has been relocated. Throughout the burglary, the assault that accompanies it, and his subsequent trip to the hospital, Valentino mentally tells his story to the people he encounters. The purpose of his telling changes from person to person but the common thread is the explanation that though he may seem like he does not belong or fit inhere in this country he has endured hardships which easily trump what he is dealing with now.

The story he tells is of his wandering as one of the Lost Boys of Sudan after his village is overrun and destroyed as a result of Sudan's civil war. On his journey he witnesses atrocities, starvation, and the harshness of the African wilderness. I'm not of a huge fan of documentaries or non-fiction, so this is probably a reflection of my personal preference, rather than a literary criticism, but these recountings were the parts of the book I could take or leave. It wasn't that they were too graphic. Rather, it just seemed like so many pages were devoted to showing how horrible the conditions were when a select few of the anecdotes could have served just as well. However, there was certainly more to the story than the recounting of Deng's hardships in Africa and the U. S.

Deng grew up in a village in southern Sudan populated by people of the Dinka tribe (whose most famous member is former NBA player Manute Bol). Achak's father tells the story of the What. When God created the first Dinka he was offered the choice betwixt a cow and the What. The first Dinka saw that the cow would provide him with a renewable source of meat and milk and almost everything he would need for survival in southern Sudan. So he chose the cow and from then on the Dinka people were herdsmen who relied on the cow for their livelihood. Of course, his father relays this story as evidence of the superior intellect of the Dinka. Rather than succumbing to the temptation of the unknown What, he chose the sensible choice which he knew would provide for him and his people. This choice however, doesn't satisfy everyone's natural curiosity. Every time the story is told it is followed by the question that is the title of the book, "What is the What?"

Over the course of his displacement from his village and his long, arduous walk to Ethiopia, Achak is thrust into the unknown. His village and family are gone, possibly forever. Old friends from his previous life appear and disappear only to reinforce the fact hat everything he previously knew is now uprooted and set adrift in this new, frightening, violent world.

We are told about this hardship as we are also learning of Valentino's struggles in America, where he is robbed and beaten by strangers who have forced their way into his apartment. Even after his escape from Sudan and the refugee camps of his childhood, he is still living in an unfamiliar world, with new dangers he has never faced and could not anticipate.

This is the answer to the question. This is the What. The unknown, the unsafe, the unfamiliar are all what the man in his father's parable turned away from in favor of the safe, docile life of a herdsman. This is no longer an option for Valentino Achak Deng. He has been thrust into the What and he must learn to succeed while he is playing by rules he is picking up as he goes along.

It's not all bad. Throughout the book, Deng meets many people, from his sponsors in the United States to aid workers in refugee camps, who help him toward success and allow him to bring some certainty into his otherwise uncertain journey. Therein lies the allure of the What. It represents not only uncertainty, but also opportunity. Over and over the Lost Boys are told that they are the future of Sudan. They have been afforded opportunities that have never been available to other Sudanese children. This story is an account of one of those boys coming to terms with this realization while surrounded by the upheaval of a civil war which has plagued his home for most of his lifetime.

This was the first book I have read by Dave Eggers, and I enjoyed the reading. Although the subject matter wasn't exactly my favorite, the story was a very good one. It was a little bit longer than I thought it needed to be, but there was no point at which I was laboring through the book. Overall, I would recommend the book if you haven't already read it. If you have read it, what did you think? Let me know in the comments. Thanks for reading!

Monthly Strength of Schedule

2007-06-06T09:00:00.001-05:00

The month of May was a tale of two different teams for the Twins. They began the month by losing their first 5 series to Tampa Bay, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, and Cleveland. But this was followed by winning their final 4 series of the month against Milwaukee, Toronto, Texas, and Chicago. Of the teams that the Twins played in May, only the Devil Rays and Rangers entered the month with records under .500, so the fact that the Twins managed to rebound after a difficult start could be interpreted as a positive sign. But was it the Twins turning it around, or did they hit a stretch of teams cooling off after good starts? I wanted to see how the Twins opponents so far this season stacked up against the other teams in the division and the American League. So I tried to look at the relative strengths of schedule for those teams. The strength of schedule (SOS) for a team each month was calculated using the opponent's records for that month in games not against the team in question. (Thus, Seattle had an overall 10-10 record in April, but a 10-7 record was used for the calculation of Minnesota's SOS due to the Twins sweep of Seattle). These records were then weighted by the number of games played against that opponent (so KC's record counted more for MN in April, due to the 5 games played against the Royals). I also looked at whether the actual strength of schedule for May corresponded to what on would have predicted looking at the records at the end of April. Expected SOS for a month was calculated using the records of the upcoming opponents through the first of the month in question. Again the records were weighted by the number of games against each opponent.

First up is the AL Central:

AL Central	April Record	April SOS	Expected May SOS	Actual May SOS	Difference	May Record	Expected June SOS
Chicago White Sox	12-11	.526	.473	.473	0	12-14	.439
Cleveland Indians	14-8	.504	.511	.526	-15	19-11	.468
Detroit Tigers	14-11	.477	.511	.547	-36	16-12	.496
Kansas City Royals	8-18	.528	.508	.543	-35	11-17	.504
Minnesota Twins	14-11	.451	.544	.502	42	13-14	.530

At the end of April, the Twins had faced the easiest schedule of the division and had managed to more or less keep pace with the frontrunners. But at this point the data set wasn’t very large, so it’s difficult to draw too many meaningful conclusions. Moving on into May, we start to get an appreciable amount of data. At the beginning of May the Twins looked to have the hardest road ahead, and though they finished the month with a record below .500 it wasn’t because of the level of their competition. In fact, only the White Sox had an easier schedule for the month. The Twins were the only team in the division whose opponents regressed in May. This is mostly due to the Twins series against the Brewers (16-9 in April, 14-15 in May), and the Blue Jays (13-12 in April, 12-16 in May). The Indians and Tigers just kept on rolling even though they both had challenging schedules for the month. That seems to bode well for those teams, if they can continue to win even against opponents who are playing well; chances are they will be around the top of the division at the end of the season. Unfortunately, the news isn’t as good for the Twins and White Sox, who both struggled to stay around .500 despite having easier schedules. Going forward, once again it looks like the Twins are going to be facing the opponents who have had the most success thus far in 2007. It looks like it will be tough to make up ground on the Indians especially this month, but as May showed, there is always the chance that the teams who got off to a hot start in the first two months (and drove up Minnesota’s expected strength of schedule) could cool off and become easy wins for the Twins.

For completeness, here’s the remainder of the American League:

AL East	April Record	April SOS	Expected May SOS	Actual May SOS	Difference	May Record	Expected June SOS
Baltimore Orioles	12-14	.498	.499	.515	-16	15-13	.528
Boston Red Sox	16-8	.469	.517	.519	-2	20-8	.504
New York Yankees	9-14	.530	.523	.514	9	13-15	.532
Tampa Bay Devil Rays	11-14	.492	.497	.469	28	11-15	.505
Toronto Blue Jays	13-12	.491	.494	.515	-21	12-16	.506

AL West	April Record	April SOS	Expected May SOS	Actual May SOS	Difference	May Record	Expected June SOS
Los Angeles Angels	15-11	.515	.482	.511	-29	18-11	.456
Oakland Athletics	12-13	.479	.457	.461	-4	14-13	.528
Seattle Mariners	10-10	.488	.480	.532	-52	16-14	.479
Texas Rangers	10-15	.527	.499	.479	20	9-20	.502

After the lowest SOS in the league in April, the Twins had the highest expected SOS in May in the league and were beneficiaries of the largest difference betwixt expected and actual SOS. As we look ahead to June, the Twins are the only AL Central team whose expected SOS is in the top half of the American League (they are second only to the Yankees). This month, if it follows these predictions will tell us a lot about where the Twins will settle in the divisional race, if they can remain within striking distance while playing quality opponents, a little optimism could be warranted. If not, at least this Slowey kid looks pretty good.

The Mind of Dwayne Hoover: Introduction

2007-06-05T08:00:00.000-05:00

This will be the introduction for a new feature found only here at Daneeka's Ghost. Since the blog is named for a literary character (from my favorite book of all time) I felt I needed to add a bit of literary flavor.

Simply put, this series will be essentially my thoughts on the books that I recently finished reading. I will do my best not to give away any endings or significant plot twists, but I will gear the review toward someone who has read the book in question, so there will be some things given away. I hope you enjoy it, or at least find my thoughts interesting.

The name of the series comes from Dwayne Hoover, a character in Kurt Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions, who is a car salesman that believes the stories of failed science fiction writer Kilgore Trout are truth. Hoover is a man who is incapable of understanding the literature that he worships, and has, in fact, chosen an idol who almost everyone else would agree is unworthy of admiration. Hopefully, I'll choose better books and the series will be a little more insightful than its namesake.

This will be somewhat sporadic, as I have less time for reading than I would like. However, if you're reading this you probably came from the latest entry in "The Mind of Dwayne Hoover", see below for a full list of the entries in this series. Also there is a link in the sidebar under "Recurring Themes" if you get lost and need to find your way back here. Thanks for reading, let me know what you think.

The Mind of Dwayne Hoover:
--------------------------------------------
What is the What, by Dave Eggers
The Iowa Baseball Confederacy, by W. P. Kinsella

Series Preview in Blog: Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim

2007-06-04T11:00:00.000-05:00

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 (28-27) @ Los Angeles Angels (36-22)

The Twins started their west coast road trip by losing two of three to Oakland while scoring 5 runs in 3 games. The Angels are finishing a 10 game homestand on which they are 5-2 so far, winning two of three from Seattle and three of four from Baltimore last weekend. The Angels have been extremely successful at home this year, posting a 22-8 record. The Twins are 13-13 on the road in 2007. The Angels are first in the AL West, leading second place Seattle by 5.5 games.

The Angels have been one of the best teams in baseball over the last 162 regular season games, including their odd ability to win game after game at Yankee Stadium. In fact, this is the best record in franchise history after 58 games. These are good things to keep in mind when playing GM and considering ways to improve the team. Bill Stoneman, the actual GM, has had an up and down tenure, here's a look at the up and the down.

On to the Halos:

The Angels are a team that is not built on sabermetric principles, they don't walk a lot (only the Mariners have drawn fewer free passes in the AL), and they rely on speed (most stolen bases in the AL, only the Devil Rays have more attempts or caught stealing). Thus when their players are ranked number one and number two in a sabermetric category (win shares), they get kind of excited.

Angels Themed Trivia:
Garret Anderson made his return from the DL yesterday. He has now had 101 plate appearances this year, in which he has only drawn 1 walk (which was intentional). Who set the major league record for fewest walks in a season with 10 in 526 plate appearances?

The Angels outfield (must..resist..Disney..joke) includes Gary Matthews, Jr. (.288/.349/.451) who recently talked about how he dealt with the HGH allegations that surfaced about him earlier this year. Others in the outfield are Reggie Willits (326/.426/.370), who got off to a great start due to a variety of factors, Garret Anderson (.263/.265/.389), and Vlad Guerrero (.349/.452/.608). Although intentionally walking Vlad doesn't seem to irritate him much, at least one observer noticed that it makes Matthews, who hits behind Guerrero, angry.

Injuries have caused a bit of anxiety at the infield positions. Macier Izturis is on the DL with hamstring problems, which left third base as a question mark for a while. Super-utility player Chone Figgins (.198/.264/.277) has filled in at that position, and is coming off a fantastic weekend where he went 9/15 with a 2B in the four games against Baltimore. Howie Kendrick was also bit by the injury bug when he broke a finger after a very hot start in which he hit .327/.365/.490. Since returning from the DL he has hit .125/.167/.200 in 42 PA. Orlando Cabrera (.318/.370/.441) and Casey Kotchman (.300/.375/.488) have been regulars at the other infield positions thus far. Speaking of Cabrera, it's not every day you see an athlete claiming he was not misquoted.

The single player who had the most entries devoted to him was the DH, Shea Hillenbrand (.241/.261/.324). He hasn't impressed fans so far this year, and already the trade rumors have started. Check out the comments on this entry for a few suggestions as to what the Angels should try to get in return. As for in-house replacements at the DH position, the front-runner is Kendry Morales, who has spent some time with the major league club, although he didn't get a lot of at bats. Morales was sent back to AAA when Anderson came off the DL.

Pitching matchups for this series start off with Boof Bonser against Jered Weaver (a.k.a. Younger Bongtoke) on Monday, followed by Scott Baker against Kelvim Escobar on Tuesday. No doubt Escobar's legion of "hot friends" will be watching intently. Escobar has had some success this year with a 3.00 ERA, he has only allowed 2 home runs in 66 innings pitched. Finally, Kevin Slowey faces John Lackey in the finale. Lackey leads the league with 9 wins so far and he's pitched long enough to get a decision in all 12 of his starts this year. Some people attribute his success this year to his being able to control his emotions on the mound. Lackey is also one of many major leaguers who has started his own blog.

The Angels have very strong pitching from the starters to the bullpen. The bullpen is anchored by closer Fransisco Rodriguez who is 19 for 20 in save opportunities this year, including his last 13 straight. The rest of the bullpen is primarily composed of Scott Shields (27 appearances 2.76 ERA), Chris Bootcheck (12 appearances 3.48 ERA), and Dustin Moseley (13 appearances 1.42 ERA). The only lefty on their active roster is Darren Oliver (19 appearances, 7.98 ERA) who allowed at least one run in 5 of 10 appearances in May. Justin Speier was off to a good start out of the 'pen (15 appearances, 1.69 ERA) but he was placed on the disabled list at the end of April "due to a non-baseball related medical condition."

Finally, it has been noted that the Angels don't seem to hit as well in the later innings this year, leading many to note the ineffectiveness of the Rally Monkey. Other people think the monkey may be stretching herself too thin as she appears to be moonlighting for another team in the area.

Series Preview in Blog: Oakland Athletics

2007-06-01T11:00:00.000-05:00

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 (27-25) @ Oakland Athletics (26-26)

The Twins wrapped up a very successful 5-1 homestand by sweeping the White Sox in three games. Since being swept by the Indians in Cleveland, the Twins have won 4 straight series. Oakland also had a day off yesterday after winning two of three from the visiting Texas Rangers. Before that series Oakland scuffled a bit on a road trip through Chicago and Baltimore, losing two of three to both the Sox and the O's. Oakland is at .500 right now, and they've been consistent thus far, finishing April with a 12-13 record, and a 14-13 record in May. In an effort to show they are a .500 team in every way, the A's are 13-13 at home on the season. Minnesota enters this series with a 12-11 record on the road. The Twins moved past the White Sox into third place, yet remain 5.5 game behind Cleveland. The A's are likewise in third place in the West, 5.5 games behind the Twins next opponent, the Angels.

Previously, I linked to the single season home run leaders from each state. Here are the career leaders. Additionally, here are the career leaders in strikeouts for each state (and some countries), which also includes active leaders for each state. Anyone from N. Dakota just needs to suit up for a day and they can claim the active lead. Most interesting is the heated battle for the lead in Venezuelan born hurlers. Current standings are 1. Wilson Alvarez (1330), 2. Freddy Garcia (1246), 3. Johan Santana (1233).

Santana will get a chance to gain some ground on Sunday when he faces Chad Gaudin, who just finished a 4-0 May (2.15 ERA, 0 HR) and hasn't allowed an earned run in his last two starts (14 IP). Other matchups for the weekend include Kevin Slowey's major league debut against Joe Kennedy, who's coming off a terrible start against Baltimore (4.2 IP, 7 R, 8 H, 5 BB) and Carlos Silva versus Joe Blanton, who suffered a similar fate against the O's (6.0 IP, 8 R, 10 H, 3 HR).

The A's have suffered a fair amount of injuries so far this year, and it's the hot topic for all their blogs it seems. 12 Oakland players have been on the DL, even Bob Geren's cliches are starting to show signs of wear and tear. The injuries have been so consistent that the writers at Athletics Nation are starting to reuse their headlines. Theories abound on why the A's are seemingly always injured. Could it be a conspiracy? Actually, Catfish Stew isn't all that surprised, it stands to reason that this particular group of players is spending significant time on the DL. This Hardball Times article about how the "new inefficiency" is players who are injury risks raises the possibility that this method of mixing and matching could be part of the design.

Athletics Nation is unique (or at least in rare company) in the access it has to the clubhouse and front office of the team. As evidence, here is a Q & A with manager Bob Geren which is populated with questions from readers of the blog itself. One of the questions concerns a new ballpark and what the increased revenue for the A's could mean. Perhaps as a foreshadowing of things to come, the A's broke character a little bit and signed Nick Swisher to a 5 year deal worth over $25 million. Other questions concern Jason Kendall, whose continued struggles (.189/.233/.201) have begun to influence a groundswell of support for Adam Melhuse.

On a completely random note, rookie Travis Buck has been playing well, and may in the running for some hardware by the end of the year.

Finally, Ryan Langerhans didn't spend much time on the A's roster, but, in that time he contributed mightily to the all-important "hotness quotient". And since I'm always aiming to please as many readers as possible, I feel duty-bound to point out that the A's wives aren't all that bad looking either. For something that's more baseball related, keep scrolling down to see Oakland players wearing socks the way they were meant to be worn (with stirrups!).

A Look Back: Recent Twins Draft History, Part II

2007-05-30T18:30:00.000-05:00

With the Major League Baseball Amateur Draft on the horizon, this is the second of two articles looking at the Twins' most recent drafts. The first part looked at the first round picks of the last fifteen years and how they are faring (or have fared) in professional baseball. This week I will look at the Twins minor leagues and how the draft has been used to stock the Twins system.

In the last five years the Twins have drafted 59 players in the first ten rounds. Of those 59, 45 are currently playing (or on rosters) within the Twins organization (76%). Breaking these picks down by position shows the Twins love of young arms. 30 pitchers, 4 catchers, 6 first basemen, 6 second basemen/shortstops, 3 third basemen, and 10 outfielders were taken. This pitching fixation peaked in 2004 when 11 of the 14 players taken in the first ten rounds were pitchers. Sorting the draft picks by current level in the minors gives the data shown in the chart below:

Not surprisingly, the recent draft picks populate the low echelons of the minors. All in all it seems to be an orderly progression through the minors. Except when it comes to pitching.

Level (# of top picks)
Major Leagues (5) - Slowey, Baker, Crain, Neshek, Perkins
Rochester, AAA (6) - 3 pitchers
New Britain, AA (7) - 6 pitchers
Fort Myers, A (10) - 4 pitchers
Beloit, A (10) - 2 pitchers

If the Twins draft and sign a pitcher early in the draft, chances are they will be progressing more rapidly through the system than the other positions. From the 60 picks of our data set, the only prospects to reach the majors are pitchers, and of the four non-pitchers closest to the bigs (Span, Moses, Deeds, Plouffe), barring injury at the major league level, none have a realistic shot at significant major league experience this year. Is this evidence that the Twins scouting staff is significantly better at evaluating pitching talent than hitting prospects? Or is this just another effect of the fact that you will always need good pitching? I want to go with the second option, but the Twins farm system doesn't seem to be producing quality hitters where the major league club has its biggest holes. Even from that previous list of the four highly drafted prospects closest to the majors, I wouldn't characterize any of them as a legitimate major league bat at this point.

Other interesting notes are that none of the 2002 draft class are populating the minor leagues at a level lower than AAA. Apparently you have 3 or 4 seasons to prove yourself or you're out. That means things don't look good for David Shinskie (Ft. Myers, drafted '03) or Johnny Woodard (Beloit, drafted '03). I don't know for sure the rules about service time and minor league free agency, but I'm pretty sure that plays a role in this.

Of course, the draft is about more than just the top few picks. The Twins current farm system is littered with players drafted by the Twins in rounds after the tenth. 93 players in the system from the A level to the major league club were originally drafted by the Twins, including 17 who were signed as undrafted free agents. Over half of those 93 are at the A level (either Beloit or Fort Myers), where nearly the entire rosters are made of recent Twins picks. The full distribution is shown below.

Level (# of draft picks)
Major League (14) - Cuddyer, Hunter, Kubel, Mauer, Miller, Morneau, Slowey, 4 pitchers mentioned above, and 3 undrafted free agents (DePaula, Rincon, Rodriguez)
Rochester, AAA (11) - 1 undrafted free agent
New Britain, AA (18) - 5 undrafted free agents
Fort Myers, A (22) - 3 undrafted free agents
Beloit, A (28) - 5 undrafted free agents

Again, it's notable that players drafted before '02 are not a significant presence in the minors. This is probably a good thing for the organization, as career minor leaguers do very little to help the success of the major league club.

Throughout the system, the Twins draft picks are used as the main source of players for every level. Of course there are those picks that will fall by the wayside on their progression from the lower levels to the top levels, but the Twins have shown the ability to keep enough of their draft picks around so that they form a nucleus around which the upper levels of the organization are built. For an organization with financial restrictions like Minnesota, this an important skill that has no doubt fueled the recent success of the franchise.

This is not a look forward at what kind of draft the Twins are looking to have this year, but through these looks back we can see that the Twins have relied on their draft to provide a large part of their talent pool in the recent history. Thus, it is easy to conclude that many Twins fans will have a vested interest in the results of the upcoming draft.

Series Preview in Blog: Toronto Blue Jays

2007-05-25T11:00:00.000-05:00

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 (22-24) v. Toronto Blue Jays (21-25)

The Twins return home after a nine game road trip, on which they went 4-5. They started by being swept by the Indians before taking two of three from Milwaukee and Texas. Toronto will finish off their own nine game road trip with this series. They are 3-3 thus far, losing 2 of 3 to Philadelphia last weekend and winning 2 of 3 from Baltimore this week. The Blue Jays have a 9-14 record on the road, while the Twins have a slightly better 10-13 record at home. The Blue Jays are currently third in the AL East, 10 games back of the Red Sox and a half game back of the second place Yankees. The Twins remain in fourth place in the central division, 7 games back of Detroit and 2.5 back of third place Chicago.

This has little to do with the Jays, but Happy Birthday to Jason Kubel (Friday). Hopefully someday he will make it off the bench on the "Born on May 25" team.

On to the Jays:

The only thing I don't understand about this list is how Corey Koskie was on this team for a full season and managed to not make a single appearance.

The Jays have shown signs of life recently, but for a while, they looked terrible (I'm sure some of you can relate). That stretch included a nine game losing streak and a stretch of 5-14 baseball. As this interview with Jays manager John Gibbons shows, there's no need to worry he's on top of all the important things. Here's a more serious analysis of some of general manager J. P. Riccardi's moves this season.

The Blue Jays pitchers for the series will be Jesse Litsch (called up on Tuesday), Tomo Ohka, and A. J. Burnett. Saturday's matchup of Ohka vs. Ortiz should be interesting. Ohka was removed from the rotation earlier this month after going 0-2 with a 6.35 ERA in May. Saturday marks his return to the rotation after 11 days rest. Burnett has won his last three starts and has been the rock of the rotation in recent times for Toronto. The Twins will not be seeing Roy Halliday this series as he is still recovering from an appendectomy.

Offensively, Lyle Overbay has continued his slow start, which could be cause for concern for Jays fans. You can also add Vernon Wells to that list.

The Blue Jays all-time top 50 has some familiar faces for Twins fans. Specifically #21, #33, and #38. No, I didn't get those numbers wrong, Paul Molitor is really only #38 on that list. Here's the authors defense of that placement.

Finally, while the Jays are here at the Dome, I'm sure that Twins fans will be well behaved. However, if they aren't nice to Vernon Wells, they may get a souvenir out of the deal. More on the story here.

That's it from me, if you find anything interesting, feel free to post it in the comments. Thanks for reading.

Gone Fishing

2007-05-24T18:00:00.000-05:00

I'll be out of town for the next week, so there won't be any new postings here. However I have submitted some things elsewhere, so if you're dying to read some of my stuff, check out the following.

A Look Back: Recent Twins Draft History, Part I was posted yesterday. It includes a look at the Twins first round picks over the last fifteen years and some discussion of those prospects.

Series Preview in Blog: Toronto Blue Jays will be posted at Stick and Ball Guy on Friday morning. However I have not written a preview for the White Sox series that starts next week. Check out Round 1 or Round 2 for some Sox links.

A Look Back: Recent Twins Draft History, Part II will be posted next Wednesday (5/30). It's a look at Twins draft picks populating the farm system.

I will post the series preview here when I return, but go read it now before it gets stale. Thanks for reading, and I'll catch you when I get back.

A Look Back: Recent Twins Draft History, Part I

2007-05-23T09:00:00.000-05:00

With the Major League Baseball Amateur Draft on the horizon, this is the first of two articles looking at the Twins' most recent drafts. This part looks at the first round picks of the last fifteen years and how they are faring (or have fared) in professional baseball. Next week I will look at the Twins minor leagues and how the draft has been used to stock the Twins system.

In the last 15 years, the Twins have drafted 22 players (including the supplemental first round). Of those 22, they have signed 20 of them (91%). They have drafted 9 pitchers, although recently there has been a larger focus at that position as five of the last eight first round picks have been pitchers. 4 outfielders and 3 catchers have also been drafted in the first round by the Twins.

Ten of these players have already made their major league debut with the Minnesota Twins, while eight more remain in the farm system awaiting their chance. That leaves two players (B. J. Garbe '99 and Ryan Mills '98) who never made it to the major league level after being drafted in the first round by the Twins. Incidentally, The Twins current roster (and disabled list) contains four of their first round picks (Hunter, Cuddyer, Mauer, and Perkins).

Of the ten players who have made it to the bigs, Matt Garza and Adam Johnson were the fastest, reaching the majors in their second season in the Twins organization. The average time from draft to debut was 3.8 years for those ten picks.

To satisfy all your curiosity, here are some words and numbers about each of the Twins first round draft picks in the last 15 years:

	2006 - Chris Parmelee - (20th overall - OF) currently with Beloit (A) Parmelee turned heads with his fast start last year. He hit 8 home runs in 45 games last year at the Rookie level before a late promotion to Beloit. Overall he hit .273/.369/.500 last year which resulted in his being listed as the #94 prospect in Baseball America's top 100 prospects of 2007. So far this year, he's hit .226/.305/.374 at Beloit with two home runs. Some eyebrows have been raised by his high strikeout total (38 SO in 115 AB) but he's only 19 years old, so he's still got plenty of time to develop. His mix of patience and power are the attributes that lead to the Twins selecting him in the first round.
	2005 - Matt Garza - (25th overall - P) currently with Rochester (AAA) - 1 ML season Garza's unbelievably fast rise through the farm system last year caught a lot of attention, and he was ranked #21 in Baseball America's top 100 prospects of 2007. He began last season with Fort Myers and pitched his way to promotions to New Britain and then Rochester, and finally, Minnesota. In nine starts with the Twins, Garza pitched 50 innings, allowing 32 earned runs (5.76 ERA) while striking out 6.8 per nine innings. He began the 2007 season at Rochester and is currently boasting a 3.86 ERA with 8.4 K/9 through his first nine starts. It's only a matter of time until Garza dons a Twins uniform again.
	2005 - Henry Sanchez - (39th overall - 1B) currently with Elizabethton (Rookie), 3rd minor league season Sanchez was drafted out of high school and spent some time at Beloit last year. That stint, combined with his time in rookie ball gives a career line of .211/.274/.351 coming into this year. Sanchez is currently recovering from an injury, and so I couldn't find any stats from this season. It doesn't seem like he's on the fast track right now, but only time will tell.
	2004 - Trevor Plouffe - (20th overall - SS) currently with New Britain (AA), 4th minor league season Drafted out of high school as the first of 5 first-round picks for the Twins in 2004, Plouffe has spent the last two seasons at A level before his promotion this year. In the previous three seasons he has hit .244/.321/.353. So far this season, Plouffe has hit .250/.306/.402 with the uptick in power due mostly to an increased number of doubles (11 2B out of 33 hits). Plouffe's defense has also been improved according to scouts, which adds to the overall optimistic picture for this prospect.
	2004 - Glen Perkins - (22nd overall - P) currently with Minnesota Twins, 2nd ML season After being drafted from the University of Minnesota, Perkins made his debut in the stretch run for the Twins last season and was called up early this season, where he stayed until a recent injury put him on the disabled list. In those two stints, Perkins has 16 appearances, all out of the bullpen, with an ERA of 3.38, a 1.19 WHIP, and 6.75 K/9. In the minors, Perkins moved quickly, never spending more than one year at any level. He started 60 games while posting an ERA of 3.36, a 1.24 WHIP, and 9.63 K/9
	2004 - Kyle Waldrop - (25th overall - P) currently with New Britain (AA), 4th minor league season Waldrop was recently promoted to New Britain after getting off to a good start this year. In eight starts, he averaged 5.5 IP, had an ERA of 2.86 while striking out 41 in 44 innings. His first start at AA also looked good, as Waldrop allowed one earned run in seven innings. Since signing with the Twins, he has spent a year at rookie ball, followed by two years split betwixt Beloit and Fort Myers at the A level. In his minor league career, Waldrop has an ERA of 3.83, a WHIP of 1.21, while maintaining a SO/BB ratio of 4 to 1 and striking out 6.3 batters per 9 innings.
	2004 - Matthew Fox - (35th overall - P) currently with Beloit (A), 3rd minor league season Originally drafted, but not signed, in 2001 by the Arizona Diamondbacks, Fox attended the University of Central Florida before being drafted by the Twins. 2007 represents his first season above rookie level due to a injury to his labrum which took his 2005 season. He's only appeared in one game thus far this year as he spent time at extended spring training, but he did pitch a scoreless inning in that appearance.
	2004 - Jay Rainville - (39th overall - P) currently with Fort Myers (A), 3rd minor league season Jay Rainville was drafted out of high school and began with one season at the rookie level, followed by parts of a season with Beloit and Fort Myers. In those two seasons, his ERA was 3.06 and his WHIP was 1.20. He would miss the entire 2006 season with an arm injury before returning this year where he left off, at Fort Myers. Rainville has eight starts this season for the Miracle, he has a 3.22 ERA in those starts with a 1.27 WHIP while averaging 4.5 IP/start.
	2003 - Matt Moses - (21st overall - 3B) currently with Rochester (AAA), 5th minor league season The Twins drafted Moses out of high school, and he spent a little more than a season at each level through the Twins system hitting .261/.323/.402 over the last four seasons. This is his first year at AAA, and he's hitting .244/.264/.341. On a positive note Moses posted his highest home run total last season at New Britain (15, 31.6 AB/HR) which is a good sign for one of the Twins power hitting prospects.
	2002 - Denard Span - (20th overall - OF) currently with Rochester (AAA), 5th minor league season Span has long been tagged as Torii Hunter's successor in centerfield for the Twins. Due to Mr. Hunter, Span hasn't progressed to the majors as quickly as others on this list, but in his four previous seasons in the minors (none above AA), he has hit .288/.359/.346 while stealing 76 bases in about 1600 plate appearances. In his first season at AAA this year, Span is hitting .226/.282/.299 with 10 stolen bases.
	2001 - Joe Mauer - (1st pick overall - C) currently with Minnesota Twins, 4th ML season, .323/.403/.472 Mauer started the season with the Twins in 2004 after the departure of A. J. Pierzynski. Unfortunately, due to injury, he would only appear in 35 games that year. Since then, Mauer has become a hitting machine, he won the batting title last season and posted a career high average (.347) and OBP (.446). Last year, Mauer won numerous accolades, including the Silver Slugger Award, an All-Star selection, and he garnered enough votes to place 6th in the AL MVP race. Mauer is currently on the disabled list with a leg injury but prior to that was still hitting well (.353/.446/.480).
	2000 - Adam Johnson - (2nd overall - P) 2 major league seasons, 10.25 ERA, 2.05 WHIP Johson shot through the minor leagues, reaching the Majors after short stops at A, AA, and AAA in 2001. He would appear in seven games for the major league club including four starts, posting an 8.28 ERA and a 1.8 WHIP. After spending 2002 at AAA, Johnson made another brief appearance with the Twins in 2003, appearing in two games, pitching 1.1 innings and allowing eight runs. After another season in the minors, Johnson was released by Twins in 2005 and signed by the Oakland A's. After a couple of seasons in the Oakland farm system, Johnson is out of professional baseball.
	1999 - B. J. Garbe - (5th overall - OF) 6 minor league seasons Garbe was drafted out of high school by the Twins and spent two years each at the A and AA levels of the Twins organization. He hit .218/.298/.294 in those four seasons before he was traded in 2004 for Pat Borders. Garbe spent time in the Mariners and Marlins farm systems until 2006, but I couldn't find a current team for him this season.
	1998 - Ryan Mills - (6th overall - P) 7 minor league seasons Mills was originally drafted by the Yankees in the 13th round of the 1995 draft, but instead attended Arizona State University until the Twins drafted him in the first round. Mills would spend about two years at each level of the minors (as a starter at A and AA; and in the bullpen at AAA) but didn't excel at any of them, as he posted a record of 17-40 with an ERA of 5.79 and a WHIP of 1.73 while walking 5.9 batters per nine innings. After 2004, the Twins released Mills and he hasn't resurfaced anywhere else that I can find.
	1997 - Michael Cuddyer - (9th overall - SS/1B/2B/3B/OF) currently with Minnesota Twins, 7th ML season, .269/.341/.454 Cuddyer had his breakout year last year when he hit 41 doubles and 24 home runs with a .284/.362/.504 line. It's probably not coincidental that last season marked the first time Cuddyer played more than 95 games at any one position (142 games in right field). He made his debut in 2001, but spent significant time in the minors each of the next three seasons.
	1997 - Matt LeCroy - (50th overall - C) currently with Rochester (AAA) - 7 ML seasons The Mets drafted LeCroy initially in 1994, but he went to Clemson University instead for three seasons before the Twins drafted him. LeCroy made his debut with the Twins in 2000 and played six seasons with the Twins before he was granted free agency after the 2005 season. In those six seasons, LeCroy hit .275/.346/.460 with the Twins while averaging about 240 plate appearances per year. His best year was 2003 (coincidentally the year he got the most at-bats) when he hit 17 home runs while posting a line of .287/.342/.490. After a year in Washington, LeCroy returned to the Twins in the off-season as a free agent and is currently hitting .197/.256/.291 at AAA Rochester.
	1996 - Travis Lee - (2nd overall - 1B - did not sign) 9 year ML career, .256/.337/.408
	1995 - Mark Redman - (13th overall - P) currently with Atlanta Braves, 9th ML season Redman spent time with the Twins in three seasons from 1999 to 2001. However, the only consistent action he saw was in 2000, when he started 24 games and posted an ERA of 4.76, 7.0 K/9, and a 1.41 WHIP, which was good enough to place him 6th in the AL Rookie of the Year voting. Those numbers only differ from his career numbers in the frequency of strikeouts (5.5 career K/9, 4.75 ERA, 1.42 WHIP). He was traded to the Detroit Tigers at the deadline of the next year for Todd Jones. After leaving the Twins, Redman has been named an All-Star once ('06 with Kansas City) and won a World Series ('03 with Florida).
	1994 - Todd Walker - (8th overall - 2B) currently with Oakland Athletics, 12th ML season Walker made his debut with the Twins in 1996 and spent four seasons with the Twins, including a spectacular 1998 season where he posted career highs in BA (.316), OBP (.372) and OPS+ (119). In his Twins tenure, he hit .285/.341/.413 which corresponds with his career line of .289/.348/.435. He was traded to Colorado for another Todd, Todd Sears, in July of 2000.
	1993 - Torii Hunter - (20th overall - OF) currently with Minnesota Twins, 11th ML season, .271/.324/.469 Hunter has patrolled center field for the Twins for the better part of the last nine seasons. In that time, his best performance to date was the 2002 season when he hit .289/.334/.524, won a start in the All-Star game, and came in 6th in the AL MVP voting. This year Hunter is demolishing all those numbers hitting an astronomical .318/.353/.611 so far. Hunter has also won six Gold Gloves and has been widely regarded as one of the best defensive centerfielders in the game.
	1993 - Jason Varitek - (21st overall - C - did not sign) currently with Boston Red Sox, 11th ML season, .269/.349/.449 2-time All-Star ('03, '05), Silver Slugger (2005), World Series (2004)
	1992 - Dan Serafini - (26th overall - P) six major league seasons Serafini had a six year career in the major leagues starting with three seasons with the Twins from 1996 to 1998 before his contract was purchased by the Chicago Cubs. With the Twins Serafini appeared in 35 games and for a couple stretches filled in as a starter. He started 14 games, posting a 5.45 ERA while averaging 5.1 innings per start with a 1.57 WHIP and 4.7 K/9 in those games. Overall with the Twins, Serafini posted a 5.88 ERA and a 1.67 WHIP.

Enormous thanks to TwinsCards.com, which is where I found all these images.

Series Preview in Blog: Texas Rangers

2007-05-21T11:00:00.000-05:00

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 (20-23) @ Texas Rangers (17-27)

The Texas Rangers have just finished a road trip which took them to Tampa Bay, where they were swept in three games, and Houston, where they won two of three including a rout on Sunday. The Twins are finishing a road trip which started in Cleveland, where they were swept in three games, then to Milwaukee, where they won two of three, but not the game that I attended. The Rangers and Twins both reside in fourth place in their respective divisions, the Rangers are 9.5 games back of the Angels, while the Twins remain 7 back of the Tigers and Indians. The Rangers are 10-10 at home, and the Twins have an identical 10-10 record on the road. Seeing that, I predict a series split.

On to the Rangers:

The Rangers have played for the last couple years at Ameriquest Field, but they have terminated the agreement with Ameriquest, so the field is once again known as The Ballpark in Arlington. Whatever the field is called, one of the Rangers' beat writers can see a current Twins outfielder playing half his games there in the near future.

The Twins will face Vicente Padilla on Monday, who hasn't had much success this year (Rangers are 1-8 in games that he starts) Other starters for the series for the Rangers are Kameron Loe and Robinson Tejeda. Tejeda had a very impressive start last time out, no-hitting the Astros for the first five innings. If he can extend a no-hitter for a complete game he will add his name to this list.

Texas is currently 10 games under .500 for this season. When they have started the first 41 games with a losing record, they haven't been able to dig their way out. But, even if the Rangers don't win them all, at least they're a bunch of nice guys.

It's been an up and down season for the Rangers thus far, and, though there is some optimism out there, the general consensus is that this is probably a rebuilding year. Then the question becomes, do they have the right men (Ron Washington as manager and John Daniels as GM) for the job? It seems as though one of those two may be on thin ice if things don't improve. Personally, I like these thoughts from Washington about first pitch swinging, nothing groundbreaking, but it certainly adresses the point.

With any rebuilding season, attention has turned to the farm system. I think this is pretty interesting, a calendar of the probable pitchers for each day in the minor leagues. Given the Rangers recent history developing pitchers from within, it may not be as useful of a reference as it first appears.

Trade rumors have also followed the Rangers and their inauspicious start. Eric Gagne has been mentioned, but the most popular target of trade rumors, third baseman Hank Blalock, has just been put on the 60 day DL while he undergoes surgery.

Rangers Trivia: The Rangers pitchers hold the record for the highest batting average in a single season by an American League pitching staff. What was their average, and in what year? (Link for the answer)

On Assignment: Brewers 6, Twins 5

2007-05-21T01:00:00.000-05:00

As I lounged about this weekend, an urgent message suddenly appeared in my inbox from the headquarters of the Minnesota Sports Guys conglomerate. I was chosen to attend a Twins game this weekend at Miller Park. Despite the fact that Ramon Ortiz would be pitching, and that I would be wading into hostile territory with which I was not familiar (my first visit to Miller Park), I felt duty-bound to do my best. Following is my report. (Keep in mind, I am not a professional picture taker, I'm barely an amateur, so there's not much and it may not be high quality, but I'll try to fill in with witty commentary where appropriate)

Yep, that's the place. We (me and my wife) exited off the freeway and were pretty much right by the front gate, which we thought boded well. After another 20 minutes of driving we reached our parking spot and made the long trek back toward the field (which is essentially in the middle of an enormous parking lot).

Also, you may notice that the roof was closed. No outdoor baseball for us.

We found our seats pretty easily (after procuring some cheesy fries in a helmet). This was the view from section 430 (the MNSG budget apparently isn't all that large). The place was pretty well packed with a reasonable representation of Twins fans. And I should point out that the Brewers fans that I met were very well behaved, before and after the game (I probably would have ranted about them if they weren't, so I have to give them credit).

In the above picture, the Brewers had just walked Jason Bartlett to get to Ramon Ortiz in the big 4-run fourth.

At this point my wife pointed out that TC, the Twins mascot, was in attendance, hanging out with Bernie Brewer on the infamous slide. (Emphasis mine, there were no giant purple arrows at the game). Shortly after this half inning finished, Bernie and TC disappeared from the slide and TC wasn't seen again. In an interesting parallel, the Brewers outscored the Twins 6 to 1 for the remainder of the game. Perhaps Bernie took matters into his own hands? I know the Twins policy is not to negotiate for hostages, but it had to be weighing on their minds.

Ramon Ortiz plots his next big inning (alternatively, he frets about the plight of TC).

It wouldn't be Milwaukee without a Sausage Race. Here they come, around the homeplate area, I had the bratwurst in a friendly wager with my wife (that's him in the green hat at the back of the pack. grrrrrrr)

It was Sunday, so it was a relay (as anyone who's witnessed a sausage race knows). The "little weenies" ran the last leg and the bratwurst made a valiant comeback to finish second. Unfortunately the wife's pick, the polish, won easily, so I lost that bet (and no, I won't tell you what the wager was, it's not important).

I had a picture of Ramon Ortiz, and here's a picture of Pat Neshek. I didn't get a picture of Dennys Reyes because I was covering my eyes in horror the whole time he was on the field. He trotted in from the bullpen and I was desperately trying to convince myself that Juan Rincon had become a lefty. But Dennys laughed at my pitiful attempts to deny him as he coughed up a run to give the Brewers the lead.

Neshek was awesome, after getting two outs on two pitches in the 7th, my wife predicted three strikeouts on 9 pitches in the 8th. She was pretty close, Neshek got two strikeouts and a pop-up on 10 pitches. Between this and the polish sausage thing (plus she got the attendance game right, too) I was getting a little freaked out.

Damn.

I had a good time, I always enjoy a baseball game, and this one was close enough to be entertaining throughout. I got to give Cuddyer a standing ovation for his home run, and I got to curse the offense for failing to capitalize on a leadoff double in a tie game. The whole range of emotions in one afternoon. I really felt the Twins should have pulled this one out, but I can be content with 2 of 3 on the road in a series. That's it from me, I'm off to sharpen my photojournalism skills, thanks for reading!

Series Preview in Blog: Milwaukee Brewers

2007-05-18T11:00:00.000-05:00

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

After an extremely busy week, me and my better half are heading up to Milwaukee for the series finale with the Brewers. We have tickets in the upper deck, so no doubt we are entered into the Brewer’s fancy new database. It will be my first trip to Miller Park, although I’m beginning to wonder if going to watch the Twins is going to be all that cathartic. Ah well, it will be nice to get out to the ballpark anyway. I’m not sure that I know exactly what all this is about but I’ll try to behave myself so as not to raise the ire of the Brewers faithful.

Minnesota Twins (18-22) @ Milwaukee Brewers (26-15)

The Twins are happy to see the AL Central in their rearview mirror for now. In their last three series, all against AL Central opponents, the Twins are 2-7. The Brewers have been struggling a bit as of late after their hot start. They lost 5 of 7 on their recent road trip to New York and Philadelphia. The Brewers lead the NL Central by 5.5 games over Houston which is a lead that has actually shrunk from an impressive 8 games earlier in the week. The Twins remain in fourth place in the AL Central, 7 games back of Cleveland (let’s not talk about how close they were before this week). The Twins are 8-9 on the road (0-3 on this road trip) while the Brewers are a solid 16-5 at Miller Park.

On to the Brew Crew:

First off, the number of links to this site are staggering, so if the Brewers make the playoffs, you may want to stay away from any Brewers fans for a bit.

If you’re nostalgic for the old Brewers, here are a couple of petitions to bring back the old logo and Bernie’s beer mug to Miller Park. Although, the old Brewers weren’t all that good, in fact one of them, Dale Sveum, has earned the distinction of being named the captain of the Worst. Team. Ever.

This series marks the beginning of interleague play where the Twins and the Brewers have been designated as each other’s interleague “rival”. While the Twins may not necessarily be the most heated rival, Brewers fans still look forward to this series.

An interview with Rick Braun, the beat writer for the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, about the Brewers hot start and what they need to due to sustain their success. The hot start has plenty of people debating whether they are for real or not. Here’s a point - counterpoint argument on exactly that topic. Their hot start has them dreaming big though, no, not about the playoffs, about an SI cover. I don’t have the data on how long it’s been since the Brewers were on the cover, so no rehash of last entry’s trivia question. I do know that Milwaukee hasn’t won the World Series as the Brewers, the last time a Milwaukee team won the World Series was 1957 as the Braves. Since then Milwaukee has been laboring under the curse of the North Shore Line. (incidentally, this is the only post I’ve linked to thus far with a tag of “ferroequinology”)

Of course, just because they’re off to a good start doesn’t mean that Ned Yost gets a free pass as the manager. Plenty of people dislike his bullpen management, although you have to admit that he will defend his players.

Prince Fielder is chasing teammate J. J. Hardy for the lead on the Brewers (and the National League) in homeruns so far this year. Maybe a change in his theme song is all he needs to catch up. These two Brewers represent part of the future of the organization, but there are some very good prospects waiting in the wings. One of the better known prospects of the Brewer’s past was Brooks Kieschnick who tried to make a career as both a hitter and a pitcher. Here’s a look back at his career.

Gardenhire has been warning us that this day would come, but here’s an example where the emergency third catcher played a pivotal role in the outcome of the game.

Finally, maybe the Twins best hope for a victory is that the Brewers could be preoccupied by their upcoming brush with fame.

Series Preview in Blog: Cleveland Indians (Round 2)

2007-05-15T11:00:00.000-05:00

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 (18-19) @ Cleveland Indians (21-14)

The Twins struggled through another week losing two of three to a couple of AL Central opponents at home. This series marks the beginning of a nine-game road trip for the Twins which will take them to Milwaukee and Texas. The Indians got off to a scorching April, reviewed here, before their recently finished road trip against the Orioles, Angels, and A's in which they lost six of ten including a heartbreaking walkoff loss on Sunday to the A's. The Indians are currently second in the division, one game behind the Tigers and four games ahead of the fourth place Twins. The Indians have won nine of their last ten at Jacobs Field, and are 11-3 as the home team (9-2 at the Jake). The Twins are 8-6 on the road so far this season.

This marks the Twins first journey to Jacobs Field this season. It's always been a fan favorite, as this review of the stadium experience shows.

On to the Indigenous Peoples:

Once again, I bring you the Cleveland Indians roster as Homestar Runner characters. I don't know why I find this fascinating. I just like any system that equates Grady Sizemore and Jason Grilli through a character named Pom-Pom.

The Indians front office, led by GM Mark Shapiro, has long been in the sabermetrics camp. They cemented that reputation by the hiring of Baseball Prospectus's Keith Woolner, the inventer of the VORP statistic, as their Manager of Baseball Research and Analysis. Shapiro's sabermetrics influence can be seen in the team's emphasis on on-base percentage over batting average. Speaking of Shapiro's fingerprints, here are rundowns of his best moves as a GM, and his worst moves as well.

Indians trivia: Grady Sizemore recently appeared solo on the cover of Sports Illustrated. Before him, who was the last Cleveland Indian to be afforded that honor? (+10 to the first provider of the correct answer)

That cover, and a couple of player ranking articles released recently have occasioned some comment in the Indians blogosphere. Here's a look at the AL Central team's showing in those rankings. Of course with the drafting of Brady Quinn by the Browns, there are a couple of dreamboats on the Cleveland sports scene. Depending on who you ask, there are plenty of good-looking ballplayers on the Indians alone.

Pitching for the Indians this series will be Paul Byrd, who hasn't allowed more than four runs in his last five starts, Carsten Charles Sabathia, who lost his first decision of the season in the Oakland series, and Fausto Carmona, who has been the surprise of the Indians team so far this season. Carmona has gotten an extended look due to the abdomial injury to Jake Westbrook, and he has certainly made an impression. In fact, when Westbrook returns, the Tribe will have to decide which of their young starters to send back to AAA. The other candidate for demotion is Jeremy Sowers, who has struggled after a breakout season last year. Here's some analysis of what's going wrong this year. It seems like a classic case of a low strikeout pitcher whose batted balls aren't finding gloves at the same rate.

The bullpen has been very much improved over last year, in fact, as of May 9, they were ranked in the top ten of baseball by Beyond the Box Score. Of course, they're still trailing two other teams from the AL Central, including the Twins. Not everyone in the bullpen has found their way however, Jason Davis was recently designated for assignment and traded to Seattle for the infamous Player to be Named Later (that guy just can't stay on one team!). This marks the end of the road for a pitcher whose upside never really materialized in Cleveland.

For a team that has been labeled as "up and coming" for a couple of years, it's satisfying for their fans to finally see the team living up to those expectations (at least for a month and a half). They've faced some adversity from the beginning, from snowouts in April to the bizzare situation where the umpires put a run on the board two innings after it scored. Some think that adversity has worked to bring the clubhouse together. Others point to veteran leadership of the sometimes unsung heroes. Others point to the scuffle with the Blue Jays. Regardless of what caused it, you can't say the Indians have had an unevenful beginning to the 2007 season.

Finally, I found several references to some terrible Indians commercials which are dominating the airwaves in Ohio. Here are some better ideas, many of which got a genuine chuckle out of me.