AaronGleeman.com

2009-07-02T00:52:00.002-05:00

Twins Through Three Months

In reviewing the Twins through two months, I used Expected Fielding Independent Pitching (xFIP) and a comparison to last season's numbers to show that the starting rotation hadn't pitched as badly as their ugly ERAs suggested, citing Scott Baker and Francisco Liriano as the prime examples. Sure enough the rotation turned things around in June, going 13-7 with a 3.61 ERA and 124-to-45 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 169.1 innings spread over 27 starts after coming into the month with a collective 4.95 ERA.

Baker went 4-0 with a 3.20 ERA in six starts and Liriano went 2-1 with a 3.77 ERA in five starts, and the group as a whole saw its luck even out after a rough April and May. On the other hand, after evaluating the bullpen's performance through two months my take was that it "is going to need reinforcements to avoid remaining a clear weakness." Instead the Twins' bullpen combined for a 2.53 ERA and 65-to-26 strikeout-to-walk ratio over 67.1 innings in June.

With the rotation predictably getting on track and the bullpen trio of Joe Nathan, Matt Guerrier, and R.A. Dickey combining to allow just two runs in 31.2 innings the Twins went 15-12 in June after going 11-11 in April and 14-16 in May. And that success came despite the offense crashing back down to earth by averaging just 4.1 runs per game in June after scoring 6.5 runs per game in May. Here's a look at the individual xFIPs through three months:

STARTERS             IP     xFIP        RELIEVERS            IP     xFIP
Scott Baker        92.0     4.18        Joe Nathan         31.0     2.50
Kevin Slowey       87.2     4.35        Matt Guerrier      35.1     4.39
Fran Liriano       89.2     4.57        R.A. Dickey        44.0     4.44
Glen Perkins       67.0     4.81        Luis Ayala         32.1     4.79
Nick Blackburn    107.1     4.98        Jose Mijares       23.0     5.22
Anthony Swarzak    27.2     5.02        Sean Henn          11.1     5.33
                                        Jesse Crain        17.2     5.41

As was the case a month ago everyone in the rotation is basically in the 4.15-5.00 range, with the main difference being that their ERAs now more closely resemble their xFIPs. Blackburn is the outlier, as his 3.10 ERA varies wildly from a 4.98 xFIP. Part of that comes from leading the team with seven unearned runs allowed while the rest of the staff has combined for nine, but xFIP also knows that someone with just 45 strikeouts in 107.1 innings and a ground-ball rate of 46 percent can't sustain a 3.10 ERA.

Similarly, the bullpen's June success should be tempered somewhat by the relievers' mediocre overall xFIPs. Nathan has been his usual amazing self and has thankfully gotten more action of late, but when the primary setup men have xFIPs of 4.39, 4.44, and 5.22 it doesn't bode particularly well for the second half. I'm confident that the rotation has righted the ship and certainly Guerrier, Dickey, and Jose Mijares have looked at times like a playoff-caliber trio, but ultimately the Twins still need one more quality arm.

While the pitching staff was thriving in June the offense ranked just 10th in the 14-team league in runs, declining by 40 percent from the lineup's otherworldly May performance. Joe Mauer's out-of-nowhere power display more or less ceased, as he managed just three homers over 109 at-bats, but he batted .353/.403/.490 to basically match his career mark of .323/.404/.475. In other words he stopped being some sort of cross between Babe Ruth and Barry Bonds to just resume being an MVP-caliber catcher.

Justin Morneau also dropped off considerably in June, but was still plenty productive at .255/.342/.459, and Jason Kubel kept rolling at .291/.371/.628 with eight homers. Michael Cuddyer was also solid at .278/.333/.481, but no other hitter managed even a .725 OPS as Joe Crede struggled, Delmon Young and Carlos Gomez continued to flail away, and Denard Span hit just .208 while missing half the month with an inner-ear infection.

An amazing May sandwiched between a poor April and June adds up to ranking ninth in the AL in runs per game overall. All of which is disappointing given some of the big individual performances, but not really surprising given that they've had a sub par offense in all but one of Ron Gardenhire's seasons as manager. Here's a look at Runs Above Replacement, which calculates how many runs someone was worth both offensively and defensively compared to a replacement-level player at the same position:

                      RAR                              RAR
Joe Mauer            38.1        Nick Punto           -3.1
Justin Morneau       25.9        Matt Tolbert         -5.6
Joe Crede            20.7        Alexi Casilla       -10.8
Denard Span          15.5        Delmon Young        -15.2
Michael Cuddyer      13.3
Jason Kubel          12.1
Brendan Harris        9.3
Jose Morales          7.4
Mike Redmond          1.2
Carlos Gomez          0.3
Brian Buscher         0.1

Despite missing all of April with a back injury Mauer ranked as the second-most valuable player in the league through three months, checking in at 38.1 runs better than a replacement-level catcher in his 54 games. Morneau and Crede also ranked 17th and 27th among AL players respectively, but got there in much different ways. Morneau was the league's fourth-best hitter, producing 22 runs above average at the plate. Crede was the AL's second-best fielder, producing 11 runs above average with his glove.

Mauer, Morneau, Crede, and Span also ranked 1-2-3-4 in that order through the end of May, so there's no real change at the top, but Kubel and Brendan Harris moved up considerably in June to essentially give the Twins seven solidly productive spots in the lineup. Unfortunately a lineup has nine places, and second base and the third outfield spot continue to drag the Twins down in a huge way. The fivesome of Gomez, Young, Nick Punto, Matt Tolbert, and Alexi Casilla were 34.4 runs below replacement level.

Or put another way, those five guys have basically canceled out Mauer's amazing season. Of that group only Gomez rates above replacement level, and just barely, because his glove in center field remains very good and his measly .229/.283/.331 line at the plate is made somewhat more palatable by the fact that center fielders as a whole have a lower OPS than any position but catchers and shortstops. Young, on the other hand, is awful defensively and has hit worse than Gomez at a high-offense position.

In fact, at 15.2 runs below replacement level Young has been the single worst all-around player in the entire American League. Of course, that was also the case last month. He's batted .256/.281/.318 at a position where the average guy hits .270/.343/.442, putting him 22 percent below average offensively in addition to Ultimate Zone Rating pegging him as 9.3 runs below average on defense. And the amazing thing is that Young has done all that damage in just 185 plate appearances spread over 50 games.

Casilla ranks as the third-worst player in the AL despite spending a big chunk of the year at Triple-A, which is what happens when you hit .180/.242/.225 with poor defense. Tolbert hasn't been any better, hitting .185/.274/.235 with similarly poor UZR numbers as Twins second basemen combine to provide worse production than any other position in baseball. June was the Twins' best month and the pitching staff made strides, but adding a capable second baseman and a reliever would still have a big impact.

Once you're done here, check out my "Circling The Bases" blog over at NBCSports.com.

2009-06-30T13:24:00.003-05:00

Awful News: Phil Miller Laid Off By Pioneer Press

David Brauer of MinnPost reports that Twins beat reporter Phil Miller has been laid off by the St. Paul Pioneer Press. In addition to being one hell of a nice guy Miller did a fantastic job covering the team, so this is terrible news for Twins fans. Kelsie Smith moves up to become the primary beat writer and will do a nice job, but the newspaper's Twins coverage can't help but suffer without Miller. This really stinks, on a personal level and as a fan who likes as much good content about the team as possible. Ugh.

Once you're done here, check out my "Circling The Bases" blog over at NBCSports.com.

2009-06-29T00:05:00.001-05:00

What Happened To All The Bunt Hits?

Last year the Twins tied the all-time MLB record for bunt hits in a season with 68, while no other team managed even 40. Carlos Gomez led baseball with 30, which would have ranked sixth among teams, and Alexi Casilla was second in the AL with 16 despite playing only 98 games. Along with Gomez and Casilla combining for 46 bunt hits, Nick Punto chipped in seven, Joe Mauer, Denard Span, and Matt Tolbert had four apiece, and nearly five percent of the Twins' total hits came via bunt.

This season has been a much different story, as the Twins rank just sixth in bunt hits and are on pace to finish with fewer than half as many as they had last year. Much of the decrease in bunt hits comes from Gomez being relegated to the bench for 32 of 77 games after starting 143 times last season and Casilla playing his way back to Triple-A, because they obviously can't rack up bunt hits from the dugout or Rochester. With that said, bunting less often even when they're in the lineup has also been a factor.

Gomez laid down a bunt in 11 percent of his plate appearances last year, reaching safely 45.5 percent of the time to become just the fifth player since 1959 to bunt for at least 30 hits in a season. This year Gomez has bunted in just six percent of his plate appearances while reaching safely 27.3 percent of the time. In other words, he's bunted about half as often and done so about half as successfully. Much has been made of Gomez's decline at the plate, but bunting accounts for nearly the entire change.

Gomez is hitting just .225 with a .358 slugging percentage on non-bunts this year, which while terrible is no worse than last season when he hit .233 with a .348 slugging percentage on non-bunts. In terms of actual hitting he hasn't changed at all, but the difference is that bunts accounted for over 20 percent of his hits last year and Gomez batted .455 when he laid one down. This year bunts have accounted for just eight percent of Gomez's hits and he's batted just .273 when he lays one down.

Twins fans have heard all about Gomez's supposed potential offensively since the team acquired him as the centerpiece of last offseason's Johan Santana trade, but through over 900 plate appearances in the majors he's hit .227 with a .337 slugging percentage when not bunting. Those are putrid numbers and cast serious doubt on Gomez's ability to develop into an impact hitter, but the good news is that he remains one of the game's fastest players and is a career .433 hitter when dropping a bunt down.

Because of his great glove in center field Gomez will always have value regardless of how poorly he's doing at the plate, but given his success bunting and how horrible he's been when swinging away it makes no sense for him to be laying one down half as often this year. Joe Vavra and company surely have him focusing on putting together better at-bats and taking the ball the other way, which have the potential to make him a competent hitter, but in the meantime his only real weapon has gone missing.

Casilla bunted almost as often as Gomez last year, laying one down in nine percent of his trips to the plate, and was nearly as successful by reaching safely on 43 percent of his attempts. In addition to the bunting Casilla was also more successful than Gomez on non-bunts, hitting .265 with a .368 slugging percentage. Those non-bunt numbers still weren't good, but they're positively Mauer-esque compared to Casilla hitting .162 with a .210 slugging percentage on non-bunts this season.

As a team the Twins have gone from bunting once every 36 plate appearances and reaching safely 40 percent of the time in 2008 to bunting once every 51 plate appearances and reaching safely 28 percent of the time this year. That might not seem like a huge difference and certainly the lineup's dramatically increased power is a much more important change overall, but when it comes to the light-hitting speed guys like Gomez, Casilla, Tolbert, and Punto all struggling the lack of bunts is definitely curious.

Once you're done here, check out my "Circling The Bases" blog over at NBCSports.com.

2009-06-26T00:41:00.003-05:00

Timberwolves Draft Rubio, Flynn, and Ellington

I'll keep my thoughts on the Timberwolves' point guard-heavy draft shorter than usual because various trade rumors could render all of this moot, but for the most part I'm pleased. Many people seem to be overestimating Ricky Rubio's odds of developing into an impact player rather than just a flashy passer, but his falling into the Wolves' laps at No. 5 overall was close to a best-case scenario and Jonny Flynn is one of the handful of guys from a fairly weak draft class whom I'm certain will be a good NBA player.

With that said, Ty Lawson is another in that handful and the Wolves sadly teased me by selecting him only to swap him for a future first-round pick. Obviously keeping Lawson after taking Rubio and Flynn would've been miles beyond overkill, but he was great value at No. 18 and I'm convinced that he'll have a strong career. Taking his North Carolina teammate, Wayne Ellington, was a good fit at No. 28 given the roster's complete lack of shooters and if nothing else he'll be a nice long-term bench scorer.

David Kahn's assurances that Rubio and Flynn will work in tandem are intriguing and drafting two point guards isn't so crazy when one of them is 18 years old and no sure thing to be freed from his contract, but I'm skeptical to say the least. However, at the end of the day the rebuilding Wolves' primarily goal should've been simply acquiring as much talent as possible and Rubio, Flynn, Ellington, and a future first rounder is a plenty nice haul in that respect. I'm very curious to see how it all shakes out.

Once you're done here, check out my "Circling The Bases" blog over at NBCSports.com.

2009-06-24T01:15:00.002-05:00

Twins Notes: Covers, Promotions, Delusions, and Bingo

Joe Mauer is on the cover of this week's Sports Illustrated with a headline about his "chase" for .400, which is amusing given that going hitless last night pushed his batting average below .400 before the magazine even showed up on newsstands. There's a reason why no one has batted .400 in almost 70 years and it has nothing to do with any silliness about a "cover jinx." Here's a comparison between this week's cover and Mauer's previous SI cover in August of 2006:

You'll notice that "hometown hero" appears on both covers.

Given a promotion after hitting .284/.373/.483 with seven homers, 25 total extra-base hits, and a nice 40-to-31 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 57 games at Double-A, Danny Valencia went 3-for-5 with a double in his Triple-A debut last night. Valencia ranked sixth on my list of the Twins' best prospects heading into the season and it looks like he may be ready to take over for Joe Crede as the starting third baseman in 2010. I'm not convinced that he'll have big power, but Valencia should be a solid all-around player.

Asked yesterday about the Twins' decision to designate Luis Ayala for assignment while calling up Bobby Keppel from Rochester, Ron Gardenhire revealed that Ayala was unhappy with his middle-relief role and requested a trade several weeks ago. As you can imagine that didn't sit well with Gardenhire, which explains why the Twins were willing to cut him loose despite Ayala proving reasonably useful in low-leverage spots. Here's some of what Gardenhire had to say:

He wanted an eighth-inning role, that's why he signed over here. He wasn't pitching well enough to be an eighth-inning guy. So there you have it. His thoughts were if we gave him the ball in that eighth inning, he'd be able to do the job. My thoughts are if you're not getting them out, you're not going to pitch in the eighth inning. We're trying to win. So there's your difference.

When you walk into my office and tell me you don't like your role--and he talked about his contract for next year--you lose me right there. I don't deal with that. We're talking about winning now. That's why he's out the door and another guy's in there to pitch. And it's not because he's a bad guy. His theories are a little different.

Gardenhire has every right to react the way that he did and ultimately Ayala is expendable enough that he's not worth the hassle, but part of the reason why he "wanted an eighth-inning role" is that the Twins talked him up as a setup man when they signed him. He was never worthy of that job and Gardenhire deserves credit for realizing that when Bill Smith couldn't, but Ayala had reason to be delusional about his ability given what the front office no doubt told him about his likely role during the courtship process.

Back when Ayala signed in February nearly every story about the move included some mention of his supposed "sinker." Here's what I wrote at the time:

Can the people who get paid to write about the Twins please stop referring to him as a "sinkerballer"? When the Twins signed Ayala two weeks ago Joe Christensen of the Minneapolis Star Tribune and Phil Miller of the St. Paul Pioneer Press both called him a "sinkerball specialist" and last week LaVelle E. Neal III called him "the sinkerballing Ayala." Ayala and the Twins may tell you that he throws a sinker, but he hasn't actually had an above-average ground-ball rate since 2004.

Sure enough, Joe Christensen's story about Ayala being cut included a note about how "the Twins had grown increasingly frustrated with Ayala's inconsistency with his sinker." Shocking!

On a related note, remember all that stuff about how Sean Henn "features a 95-mph fastball"? Turns out, he's averaged 92.4 miles per hour with his fastball since being called up last month, which is very close to the 91.7 miles per hour that he averaged with his fastball in previous stints as a big leaguer. If only there were ways for journalists to research this type of data rather than just relying on the subjects they're reporting on to provide them with information.

I've toyed with the notion of creating a Bert Blyleven drinking game, but feared that too many AG.com readers would die of alcohol poisoning if/when he said "left the ball up" a couple hundred times during one of Scott Baker's starts. All of which is why Seth Stohs creating the "Bert Blyleven Bingo Board" is a much better (and safer) idea. It seems like fun, but playing would involve taking my television off mute during Twins games and my ears aren't prepared to take that chance.

Nick Punto's refusal to cease sliding head-first into first base has now created one injury along with zero base hits and countless moments of ecstasy for Dick Bremer. Yay for false hustle!

Once you're done here, check out my "Circling The Bases" blog over at NBCSports.com.

2009-06-23T00:05:00.000-05:00

Twins Cut Ayala, Promote Keppel, Ignore Delaney and Slama

Luis Ayala is the latest in a long line of veteran free agents who didn't make it to the All-Star break with the Twins after the signing was criticized in this space. Handed a one-year, $1.3 million deal this winter as the Twins chose saving money on a veteran mediocrity rather than actually upgrading a bullpen that desperately needed another capable late-inning option, Ayala predictably proved to be merely a decent middle reliever by posting a 4.80 xFIP in 32.1 innings. In fact, my projection was "right around 4.50."

Of course, the funny thing about the Twins' decision to designate Ayala for assignment yesterday is that he was hardly the least-effective member of the bullpen and his replacement is far from a good bet to provide an upgrade. Ayala was horribly mismatched as a late-inning setup man, but the Twins should have known that when they signed him and even while failing to fit their preferred role he was relatively useful as a rubber-armed middle man. In other words, he was who they (should have) thought he was.

In a situation reminiscent of last month's swap of Craig Breslow for Sean Henn, the Twins have called up minor-league veteran Bobby Keppel to replace Ayala in the bullpen. At the time of the Breslow-Henn switch my analysis was that "it sure seems like the Twins chose the new lefty reliever over the old lefty reliever just because they felt the need to shake things up." Ayala-Keppel is the right-handed version of that same sentiment, right down to Henn and Keppel signing minor-league deals on the same day.

Keppel is a 27-year-old veteran of a decade in the minors who owns a 5.16 ERA in 572 career innings at Triple-A, including marks of 5.67, 5.48, and 5.99 during the previous three seasons. Those horrible performances came as a starter and Keppel has worked primarily as a reliever this season for the first time in his career, which along with a nice-looking 2.44 ERA in 55 innings at Rochester apparently has the Twins optimistic about his potential. They shouldn't be, because he's basically a poor man's Ayala.

Keppel is a moderate ground-ball pitcher with mediocre control and little ability to miss bats, managing just 28 strikeouts in 55 innings this season and 4.4 strikeouts per nine innings throughout his Triple-A career. He's looked good at Rochester thanks to the defense turning over 72 percent of his balls in play into outs and just one of the 47 fly balls hit against him traveling over the fence, but much like Henn he simply doesn't have a track record that suggests the ability to consistently get big-league hitters out.

Since that swap of left-handers Breslow has a 4.39 xFIP in 18 appearances with the A's and Henn has a 5.04 xFIP in 13 appearances with the Twins, and dropping Ayala for Keppel figures to work out much the same way. Meanwhile, the Twins boast a pair of legitimately promising relief prospects in Robert Delaney and Anthony Slama, but the former was passed over for his Triple-A bullpen mate Keppel and the latter can't even get a promotion to Rochester despite already being 25 years old.

Delaney has a 2.42 ERA, 50-to-10 strikeout-to-walk ratio, and .225 opponents' batting average in 48.1 innings between Double-A and Triple-A, including 10 strikeouts versus just two non-intentional walks in a dozen innings since last month's promotion to Rochester. He's a 24-year-old right-hander who's thrived at every level, posting a 2.03 ERA and 235-to-38 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 222 career innings, yet the Twins are choosing Triple-A filler like Keppel over him.

Slama had a 1.01 ERA with 110 strikeouts and a .173 opponents' batting average in 71 innings at high Single-A last season and has a 2.70 ERA with 53 strikeouts and a .225 opponents' batting average in 36.2 innings at Double-A so far this year, but the Twins inexplicably haven't even seen fit to let him join Delaney at Rochester six months after his 25th birthday. While two of the organization's top arms are at New Britain and Rochester, the Twins' bullpen ranks 11th in xFIP and 10th in Win Probability Added.

Dating back to Pat Neshek's elbow injury last May the Twins have clearly needed bullpen help, but Bill Smith refused to bring in a veteran setup man at the trading deadline, targeted mediocrities like Ayala rather than legitimate upgrades this winter, and is now turning to a journeyman with a 5.13 ERA in 572 innings at Triple-A rather than give Delaney or Slama a chance. The situation has gone from frustrating to bewildering and the front office's decision-making under Smith continues to disappoint.

Once you're done here, check out my "Circling The Bases" blog over at NBCSports.com.

2009-06-19T00:50:00.002-05:00

Link-O-Rama

It took two decades, but Troy Aikman can finally enter the workforce.

Harold Reynolds, expert baseball analyst.

Picture of the Week, courtesy of some kid having his dreams crushed by Megan Fox:

If it's any consolation, I'm of the opinion that she's overrated.

And speaking of my not-yet-published list of overrated female celebrities, ESPN may have stumbled across an idea for their 50th television channel.

By now you've probably seen and heard plenty about Artie Lange's appearance on the first episode of Joe Buck Live on HBO, so I'll spare you the details and simply offer up a handful of points. First, I'm a lifelong Howard Stern fan and a near-lifelong Joe Buck hater, so you can probably figure out my basic view of the whole thing. Second, anyone who invites Lange to be on a live show running on a channel without language restrictions and then acts shocked when he's filthy is either an idiot or a liar. Or both.

Third, it should be noted that Buck's show was merely one of several media appearances that Lange made recently while promoting the paperback version of his bestselling book and he was an excellent guest on both Jimmy Kimmel Live and The Adam Carolla Podcast. Fourth, prior to Lange's segment the show was incredibly boring and humorless. Fifth, Buck is the same guy who freaked out about the "disgusting act" of Randy Moss pretending to moon fans in Green Bay. And finally ... Fiya!

I'm very excited about Mike Florio and ProFootballTalk joining the NBCSports.com family. Plus, at the bottom of the big announcement--which got tons of media attention throughout the week--is this note:

"ProFootballTalk on NBCSports.com" is the second major blog on NBCSports.com, joining "Circling the Bases," which focuses on Major League Baseball.

Hey, that's me!

College Humor explains why I stopped watching Entourage several seasons ago:

Wheel of Fortune has a wider range of storylines (and slightly better acting).

David Kahn got off to a nice start as Timberwolves boss with two good decisions this week, cutting all ties with Kevin McHale and turning down the Suns' offer of Amare Stoudemire for Al Jefferson and the No. 6 overall pick. Amusingly, news of the McHale decision came via Kevin Love's midnight Tweet.

My MinnPost colleague David Brauer put together an interesting recap of the local media madness that ensued after Love broke the story via Twitter, with appearances by friends of AG.com Seth Kaplan, Doogie Wolfson, and Howard Sinker. His recap contains the first utterance of the phrase "I assumed Doogie knew what he was doing" since our fantasy football draft in 1995.

Last month my suggestion that the Wolves should be interested in taking North Carolina point guard Ty Lawson with the aforementioned No. 6 overall selection was mocked by someone in the comments section who wrote that "Lawson isn't even the sixth-best point guard in the draft" and "picking Lawson sixth would be worse than every single move McHale ever made." Both of those statements were fairly absurd even before John Hollinger's "draft rater" on ESPN.com fell in love with Lawson this week:

Two players are neck and neck for the top spot in this year's Draft Rater. You could easily guess that one of them is Blake Griffin, but most folks never would have guessed that the other is Lawson. Lawson, who is coming off an electric performance in leading North Carolina to the championship, grades out highly for several reasons:

Although he's short for a point guard, his shooting numbers (47.1 percent on 3-pointers), strong assist rate and microscopic turnover ratio (9.1, first among point guard prospects) all point to him as an NBA keeper. ... [T]he rating is emphatic enough for me to say Lawson should be at the top of the college point guard ladder, ahead of Jonny Flynn, Jrue Holiday, Jeff Teague & Co.

I'd certainly never suggest that Lawson is the best player in the draft, but my eyes and Hollinger's rating system both think that he'll be a very solid NBA point guard and getting that type of player with the No. 6 pick should be considered a victory for a team in desperate need of backcourt help. Instead he'll likely go in the mid-teens and have a better career than half the players picked ahead of him.

For some reason Craig Ferguson, a couple puppets, a guy in his underwear strumming the guitar, and another leather-clad guy lip-syncing "I'm Yours" by Jason Mraz is incredibly amusing to me:

That would be a pretty good example of why comedy is subjective.

Joe Morgan's mind is playing tricks on him.

Here's the shirt that all the guys at the SABR convention would wear if we weren't too fat to fit in them.

Murray Chass, who still refuses to call himself a blogger, wasn't very pleased after discovering that bloggers don't get quite the same treatment as New York Times columnists:

Vaughn concluded our telephone conversation telling me not to call Friedman any more. I replied that if I write about the Rays again and feel the need to seek a comment from Friedman I will call and it will be Friedman's prerogative to call or not to call back.

And then, just to prove that he's a blogger whether he's willing to admit it or not, Chass explained: "I like having no editors. Most of them, I have found, have been useless, if not downright incompetent." Heh.

When women say that "men are dogs" this could be what they mean.

Here are some of the highlights from my NBCSports.com blogging this week:

- Joe Mauer, plate appearances, and hitting .400
- Liriano and Johnson: A tale of two surgeries
- Blister to blame for Santana's struggles?
- LaRoches and Weavers making brotherly history
- More arm issues and maybe surgery for Scheppers?
- The Jerod Morris Hex? Ibanez lands on disabled list
- Pirates turning down offers for Ian Snell
- Manuel completes first year as Mets manager
- Guillen might be done, so Tigers start shopping
- Smoltz expects to make Red Sox debut next week
- Quote of the Day: D-Train derailed again

Finally, this week's AG.com-approved music video is Jace Everett with a live version of "Bad Things" on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno:

Once you're done here, check out my "Circling The Bases" blog over at NBCSports.com.

2009-06-18T00:51:00.002-05:00

Roster Shuffling: Perkins for Crain, Pridie for Span

After a month on the disabled list with an elbow injury Glen Perkins rejoined the rotation Tuesday night with six solid innings against the Pirates. Perkins missed slightly more time than initially expected, but looked very good in his return start and said afterward that his elbow was pain free. Anthony Swarzak filled in capably for five turns in the rotation and has now been joined at Triple-A by Jesse Crain, who in a surprise move was optioned back to Rochester to make room on the roster for Perkins.

Crain hasn't been in the minors since 2004, when he saved 19 games with a 2.47 ERA and 64-to-17 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 51 innings at Triple-A as a 22-year-old before his MLB debut in August. Since then he's made 272 appearances for the Twins totaling 280 innings, posting a 3.57 ERA and 172-to-99 strikeout-to-walk ratio while allowing opponents to bat just .247/.315/.377. While the shape of Crain's performance has varied wildly from year-to-year, for the most part he's been a quality setup man.

He missed most of 2007 following surgery to repair a torn rotator cuff and labrum in his right shoulder, but bounced back amazingly well from that potentially career-ending combination last year with a 3.59 ERA and 50-to-24 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 62.2 innings. Ron Gardenhire made an effort to give Crain a reasonable workload as he returned from surgery, but that all changed this season as he appeared in seven of the first dozen games before predictably landing on the DL with more shoulder problems.

Crain returned two weeks later with back-to-back scoreless innings, but coughed up 12 runs on 19 hits and seven walks in 9.2 innings over his next 14 appearances. He's never stopped pumping mid-90s fastballs at hitters and even averaged 94.1 miles per hour while struggling during the past month, but despite retaining that velocity Crain's fastball hasn't been particularly effective since 2005 and his main off-speed pitch has changed from a high-80s slider to a high-70s curveball with disastrous results.

Whether the slider-curveball switch was made out of post-surgery necessity or design, it's clear that he was far more effective when his mid-90s fastball worked in tandem with a hard off-speed pitch. Sadly, it sounds like the Twins aren't aware of the switch hurting his performance, because Joe Christensen of the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports that "the Twins want Crain to rack up innings at Rochester, so he can hone his sinker and curveball."

I'm certainly in no position to tell someone how to pitch and Rick Anderson has no doubt thought long and hard about how to fix Crain, but the numbers regarding the effectiveness of his slider and curveball are tough to ignore. Along with the change in his approach, what made Crain's struggles so frustrating was that the Twins never really stopped trotting him out there in high-leverage spots and let him take a ninth-inning loss just hours before sending him to Triple-A.

Crain is still just 27 years old and the combination of a mid-90s fastball and track record of success in the majors leaves him plenty of room to bounce back, but it would surprise me if he's able to return as much more than a capable middle reliever given that his Expected Fielding Independent Pitching (xFIP) is at 4.72 since surgery and he's never racked up tons of strikeouts. Crain makes $1.7 million this year and will be arbitration-eligible for the final time in 2010, so he's in danger of being cut in the offseason.

Along with activating Perkins from the DL and sending Crain to Triple-A, the Twins placed Denard Span on the shelf with an inner-ear infection and filled his roster spot with Jason Pridie. Span's trip to the DL was backdated to June 10, so if medication cures his dizziness he'll be eligible to return next Thursday and Pridie will merely spend a week pinch-running and playing defense. Asking him to do more than that is a mistake, as my write-up ranking him as the team's No. 29 prospect this winter detailed:

Jason Pridie had a breakout 2007 season, hitting .303/.352/.487 in 134 games between Double-A and Triple-A, which convinced the Twins to acquire him from the Rays as part of the Matt Garza-for-Delmon Young swap two years after briefly holding him on their roster as a Rule 5 pick. Pridie predictably came crashing back down to earth at Rochester last year, performing so badly in the first half (.243/.276/.392) that a big second half (.326/.364/.522) left him at just .270/.305/.435 in 138 games overall.

Pridie has persuaded the Twins that he's promising enough to acquire twice, but it's tough to see him becoming more than a fourth outfielder given his non-existent plate discipline, horrendous strike-zone control, and .278 career batting average. He's an excellent athlete with good wheels and some pop in his bat, which is no doubt the combination of tools that had Twins scouts smitten, but Pridie has yet to consistently turn his physical ability into actual baseball skills and time is running out.

Pridie's strong finish provides some reason for optimism heading into 2009, but even while putting up big second-half numbers he posted an awful 51-to-12 strikeout-to-walk ratio. For the season he struck out 152 times while drawing 28 non-intentional walks, which is abysmal strike-zone control that keeps Pridie from taking full advantage of his speed or power. He made his MLB debut in September and will likely see more of Minnesota this season, but right now Pridie is just an unused toolbox.

Since then Pridie has hit .255/.285/.333 with a 41-to-9 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 61 games at Rochester, giving him a .277/.317/.433 career line in 1,160 plate appearances at Triple-A along with .248/.297/.360 in 907 plate appearances at Double-A. In other words, he can't hit. My guess is that the Twins would've bypassed Pridie for another player if they felt that Span would be out for an extended period of time, as calling him up only makes sense because he was the lone outfielder already on the 40-man roster.

Once you're done here, check out my "Circling The Bases" blog over at NBCSports.com.

2009-06-16T00:05:00.000-05:00

Quote of the Week: "He's just not a real good hitter"

An unnamed scout, on Delmon Young:

I'll tell you what. This kid's hitting instincts are nowhere near what we all thought he'd be. He's so undisciplined, it's unbelievable. He's still got speed. He's still got a good arm. He still has skills. He's just not a real good hitter.

Presumably that isn't the same scout who "gushed that Young's potential is so great that he compared him to Frank Robinson" shortly after the trade with Tampa Bay. Based on the above quote and Patrick Reusse's column in the Minneapolis Star Tribune it looks like people are finally starting to think beyond their old copies of Baseball America when evaluating Young's potential. And all it took was 1,591 plate appearances of undisciplined, powerless, .288/.322/.401 hitting to get the point across.

Once you're done here, check out my "Circling The Bases" blog over at NBCSports.com.

2009-06-15T00:05:00.000-05:00

Reviewing Anthony Swarzak's Five-Start Debut

Anthony Swarzak went out on a high note, tossing seven shutout innings Saturday before being sent back to Triple-A with Glen Perkins set to rejoin the rotation Tuesday. Swarzak was solid in his first taste of the majors, going 2-2 with a 3.90 ERA in five starts, although he didn't pitch as well as that indicates. Swarzak struck out 18, walked 10, and induced 42 percent ground balls in 27.2 innings, and Expected Fielding Independent Pitching (xFIP) shows that would produce an ERA around 5.00 over the long haul.

Of course, even a 5.00 xFIP is a pretty decent five-start debut from a 23-year-old and Swarzak certainly showed that he's capable of being a successful starter in the big leagues. However, in ranking him as the Twins' seventh-best prospect coming into the season my write-up suggested that his minor-league track record "casts doubt on Swarzak's ability to be more than a mid-rotation starter" and he displayed some of those limitations during his first action in Minnesota.

In particular Swarzak's raw stuff didn't really live up to the hype after Baseball America's scouting report described his "91-93 mph fastball that touches 95" and "high-70s curveball" while opining that he "has the best combination of stuff, youth, and experience" in the Twins' system. That description of his stuff fits what fans have heard from various sources throughout Swarzak's climb up the organization ladder, but in reality he averaged 90.9 miles per hour with his fastball and never came close to "touching 95."

His "high-70s curveball" averaged 75.9 miles per hour, which is close enough to the hype, but he threw it just 10 percent of the time and had little success with the pitch. Swarzak actually threw his changeup slightly more often than his curveball, but with similarly sub par results. Lack of success with off-speed stuff isn't unique from a 23-year-old pitcher, but when combined with a fastball that clocked in at 88-92 mph it "casts doubt on Swarzak's ability to be more than a mid-rotation starter."

In other words, many times going off a pitcher's minor-league track record can tell you more than going off a pitcher's scouting report, although I'm certainly not saying that Baseball America does a poor job. At the end of the day radar-gun readings can simply be incorrect and reports can involve exaggeration, but in Swarzak's case at least his performance at Triple-A served as a very strong predictor of his debut performance in the majors:

               SO9     BB9     HR9      GB%      BIP
Triple-A       5.9     2.5     0.5     43.3     .282
Majors         5.9     3.3     1.0     41.6     .276

Regardless of the velocity of his fastball or the quality of his off-speed stuff, Swarzak had 5.9 strikeouts per nine innings with 43 percent ground balls at Triple-A and nearly duplicated those numbers exactly during his MLB debut with 5.9 strikeouts per nine innings and 42 percent ground balls. His walk rate rose and major-league hitters were predictably able to send more of his fly balls over the fence than Triple-A hitters, but for the most part Swarzak at Triple-A was very similar to Swarzak in Minnesota.

The scouting reports didn't quite match the stuff that Swarzak actually displayed during his debut, calls for him to replace Francisco Liriano in the rotation were misguided on multiple levels, and there's lots of reason to be skeptical about--don't stop me if you've heard this before--his "ability to be more than a mid-rotation starter." On the other hand, he certainly held his own through five outings and should give the Twins some confidence that they have a capable 23-year-old starter on call at Triple-A.

Once you're done here, check out my "Circling The Bases" blog over at NBCSports.com.

2009-06-12T02:39:00.002-05:00

Link-O-Rama

Oakland has one of the worst offenses in the league and he eventually allowed three runs, but Nick Blackburn holding the A's scoreless through seven innings yesterday afternoon probably qualifies as a minor miracle given the horrendous outfield that the Twins put out there behind him. Of course, the three runs came after the Twins ditched the Delmon Young-Michael Cuddyer-Jason Kubel alignment, which is why I'm not sitting on an island somewhere counting my winnings from betting on baseball.

The past two Link-O-Rama entries have featured a pretty girl throwing a football, so in the interest of fairness here's the baseball version.

Jose Mijares showed that he could have a post-baseball career in plus-size modeling by dressing up in lingerie and letting Carlos Gomez get fresh with him. Seriously:

I'd say that he's about 10 pounds away from being Official Fantasy Girl of AG.com material.

Kelly Brook dramatically improved her burgeoning OFGoAG.com candidacy this week by following in Mijares' lingerie-wearing footsteps and getting motorboated on an actual motorboat.

Braves prospect Barbaro Canizares has a great name and an even better scouting report, because an unnamed teammate explained: "He can't run, can't throw, and can't field, but the sumbitch can hit."

Here's what manager Ozzie Guillen had to say following one of the White Sox's recent losses:

Is the clubhouse closed? We should open it and let them answer why they're so horse shit. I talked to them. One thing about it: Good teams win games. Bad teams have meetings. Well, I think we're to the point of having a lot of meetings. That's all I can say.

Meanwhile, there's speculation that the White Sox are preparing to sell off some of their veterans.

If the Official Fantasy Girl of AG.com competition were limited to native Minnesotans, Kelly Carlson of Nip/Tuck fame would be a front-runner.

Despite all the hype in the world, Selena Roberts' book about Alex Rodriguez sold 16,000 copies.

In a Minneapolis Star Tribune column ostensibly about Joe Mauer's contract, Patrick Reusse wrote:

Baseball's descent from the national pastime to relying on regional appeal--as with basketball and hockey--has left the grand old game with a fan base that can be rather dimwitted. There's the smug minority that think it's all about make-believe statistics, and there is the obtuse majority that looks at a 162-game baseball schedule through the same lens as it does a 16-game NFL season.

Those are people with baseball observations that are neither bright nor original, and yet they have an urge to express them in BlogWorld or in calls to radio shows. A couple of months ago, this crowd was insistent that Mauer was an injury-prone singles hitter and in need of a position change for the Twins to get much more out of him.

I'm amused by the notion of "make-believe statistics" as opposed to, presumably, "real statistics." Also, Reusse has both a blog and a radio show. Just saying. On a more serious note, the idea that people in "BlogWorld" were "insistent that Mauer was an injury-prone singles hitter" and "in need of a position change" is absolutely absurd, unless by "BlogWorld" he just means people who make comments on the Star Tribune's website and not actual bloggers who, like him, produce content for an audience.

If he's referring to the people who hang out in the Star Tribune's comments section then congrats for finding a barrel full of fish to shoot, but if he's referring to the people who actually blog about the Twins then Reusse either has no clue what he's talking about or is simply being intelluctually dishonest. Or maybe he's just confusing us with Jim Souhan, who prior to about six weeks ago consistently wrote all of those things about Mauer in the same newspaper. I'd say more, but ... I dunno, who cares?

For the most part Jimmy Fallon strikes me as unwatchable, but Mark-Paul Gosselaar appearing on his show in character as Zack Morris was beyond awesome:

Sad news about his relationship with Kelly Kapowski, though.

Meanwhile, Conan O'Brien provided some late-night awesomeness of his own by revealing the true inspiration for his new set design:

I'm not even really much of a O'Brien fan, but he's still several million times better than Jay Leno.

Shane Schilling hasn't been doing all that well since being kicked off the Gophers.

Justin Morneau is approximately as good at blogging as I am at hitting.

Rob Dibble apparently isn't a big fan of Rob Neyer or Keith Law. I'm sure they're equally crushed.

While talking about Billy Joel and Christie Brinkley many years ago, Howard Stern theorized that for every incredibly beautiful, lusted-after woman in the world there's a man somewhere sick of being with her. Leonardo DiCaprio and Bar Refaeli are the latest data points supporting that theory.

HBO is reportedly undecided about renewing one of my favorite shows, In Treatment.

Here are some of the highlights from my NBCSports.com blogging this week:

- Quote of the Day: 'My urine, my blood, my stool'
- Good face, bad player: Why track records matter
- Arredondo goes from 10-2 with 1.62 ERA to Triple-A
- Cardinals interested in Miguel Tejada?
- Smoltz close to joining Red Sox, but in what role?
- Quote of the Day: 'Money, fame, girls looking at you'
- Pirates lighting candles over McLouth trade
- Former No. 1 pick pleads guilty to assault on draft day
- Brandon Morrow switching roles ... again
- And so it begins: Boras starts to over-sell Strasburg
- Mazzaro's career starts with 13.2 shutout innings

We just finished the inaugural season of "Gleeman World 2" in WhatIfSports.com's Hardball Dynasty game and it looks like we'll have some franchise openings. Hardball Dynasty is not a fantasy baseball game, but rather a simulation of running a fictional MLB organization from rookie-ball to the majors. It's incredibly detailed and time-consuming with a steep learning curve, so first and foremost we're looking for owners who've played Hardball Dynasty in the past, although anyone is free to express interest.

Finally, in honor of Gosselaar/Morris and my childhood this week's AG.com-approved music video is the Saved By The Bell theme song:

Once you're done here, check out my "Circling The Bases" blog over at NBCSports.com.

2009-06-10T00:56:00.002-05:00

Twins Draft Kyle Gibson, Three Other College Pitchers

As recently as last month University of Missouri right-hander Kyle Gibson was a consensus top-10 pick who Baseball America ranked as high as the No. 4 overall prospect in the draft, but his velocity dipping into the mid-80s late in the season caused his stock to drop. Gibson initially explained his struggles by saying that he'd been experiencing forearm tightness, which is often the precursor to significant elbow problems, but further examination revealed a stress fracture in his forearm.

While far from good news for a young pitcher, a stress fracture typically represents less of a long-term risk than standard arm injuries and most reports suggested that Gibson would be sidelined for weeks rather than months. Of course, rumors began swirling that Gibson had something more serious wrong with his arm and when the Twins' first pick rolled around last night his name remained on the board. That wasn't particularly surprising, but that the risk-averse Twins actually selected him was a shock.

Gibson was believed to be a fairly painless signing even before the injury and the Twins certainly target those types of players on draft day, but taking the plunge on a top-10 talent who scared other teams off due to a big question mark is way out of character. Whether or not the risk proves worthwhile depends on the accuracy of the Twins' medical evaluation and Gibson's healing power, not to mention his actual development as a pitcher, but before knowing any of that the pick strikes me as a pleasant surprise.

While considered one of the draft's elite pitchers Gibson doesn't project as an ace, but everyone from Baseball America and MLB.com to ESPN and Baseball Prospectus seems to agree that he's capable of becoming a solid No. 2 or No. 3 starter and will be on the fast track to the big leagues once he gets healthy. Most of the scouting reports on Gibson were written before his velocity declined and the injury was discovered, but here's part of Baseball America's assessment:

He relies on two-seam fastballs more than four-seamers, usually pitching at 88-91 mph with good sink and tailing action, though he can reach back for 94 mph when needed. He has two of the better secondary pitches in the draft, a crisp 82-85 mph slider and a deceptive changeup with fade that can generate swings and misses. All of his offerings play up because he has excellent command and pitchability.

He repeats his smooth delivery easily, and his 6-foot-6, 208-pound frame allows him to throw on a steep downhill plane. If there's a knock on Gibson, it's that he hasn't added much velocity during his three years with the Tigers, but that hasn't stopped him from succeeding as soon as he stepped on campus. He led Team USA's college team with five wins last summer, including a victory in the gold-medal game at the the FISU World Championships.

And here's part of the ESPN.com scouting report:

Gibson has been a candidate for the 2009 draft's first round since a strong freshman year at Missouri. He's tall and projectable, already showing a solid-average fastball at 89-93 mph with good downhill plane. His changeup is ahead of his slider, although both project as above-average pitches. On days when he has the sharp slider, he'll miss plenty of bats. He's a first-rounder and a high-probability arm who should end up in the middle of a big league rotation in fairly short order.

There are tons of other similarly worded scouting reports, but the basic idea is that Gibson is a 6-foot-6 right-hander with a low-90s fastball, two solid off-speed pitches, great command, and a strong track record pitching against good college competition. He had a 3.21 ERA and 131-to-19 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 106.2 innings this year despite pitching through an injury for part of the season and playing in a hitter-friendly environment that averaged over 11 runs per game.

Gibson has been on the path to a top-10 pick for several years now, but a potentially short-term injury dropped him into the Twins' laps and they uncharacteristically decided to roll the dice. Time may show that the other teams were smart to pass on Gibson because of his uncertain health status, but I'm glad that the Twins gambled on him and added a high-upside arm to the organization that they really had no business getting with the No. 22 overall pick.

After snagging Gibson in the first round the Twins stuck with the college pitcher theme, taking Indiana left-hander Matt Bashore at No. 46, Florida right-hander Billy Bullock at No. 70, and Jacksonville State right-hander Ben Tootle at No. 101. In reading some of the pre-draft scouting reports Bullock sounded like an intriguing player who could be a solid fit for the Twins with one of their first two picks, so picking him up at No. 70 is another nice surprise.

Initially a starter, Bullock moved to the bullpen this year and became the Gators' closer while posting a 2.64 ERA and 50-to-22 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 48 innings. His control is spotty, no one seems to think much of his off-speed stuff, and serving up seven homers in 173 at-bats is a red flag, but Bullock also regularly works in the mid-90s with his fastball and was frequently dominant for one of the best teams in the country. Keith Law of ESPN.com calls him "the top college closer in this draft class."

Tootle had limited success as a college starter, posting a 4.56 ERA and 58-to-35 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 51.1 innings against mediocre competition this year, but was slowed by a stomach virus that caused him to lose 20 pounds and fared much better last year with a 3.79 ERA and 79-to-29 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 86 innings. Tootle is another guy with iffy secondary stuff and a big-time fastball, so like Bullock he's a boom-or-bust pick who could end up as a hard-throwing reliever that the bullpen has craved.

Along with Gibson and a pair of hard-throwing righties out of Florida the Twins also picked up Bashore after the 6-foot-3 southpaw posted a 4.07 ERA and 108-to-30 strikeout-to-walk ratio over 95 innings for the Hoosiers. He won't light up radar guns like Bullock and Tootle, but Bashore has an above-average fastball with the command that the Twins always target in starters and was one of the better pitchers in the Big Ten while going 5-1 with a 2.36 ERA during conference play.

I'd like to have seen the Twins address the system's glaring lack of middle-infield depth with a first-day pick, but they've had an awful lot of success with college pitchers in recent years and Gibson, Bashore, Bullock, and Tootle are all good values based on various pre-draft rankings. Gibson falling to No. 22 is particularly good fortune and the Twins were daring enough to take advantage, which combined with adding a productive Big Ten starter and a pair of potential late-inning relievers makes for a nice haul.

Once you're done here, check out my "Circling The Bases" blog over at NBCSports.com.

2009-06-08T00:05:00.000-05:00

Stat of the Day: OPS+ for Catchers

OPS+ measures a hitter's all-around offensive performance within the context of ballpark, league, and era, accounting for the fact that hitting at Dodger Stadium in 1968 is much different than hitting at Coors Field in 2008. Here are the career OPS+ leaders among catchers with at least 2,500 trips to the plate:

Mike Piazza         142
Joe Mauer           135
Mickey Cochrane     128
Bill Dickey         127
Johnny Bench        126
Gabby Hartnett      126
Roger Bresnahan     126
Yogi Berra          125
Ernie Lombardi      125
Roy Campanella      124

Apparently this Joe Mauer guy was pretty decent even before the past six weeks.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
We just completed the inaugural season of Gleeman World 2 for WhatIfSports.com's Hardball Dynasty game and it looks like we'll have some franchise openings. Hardball Dynasty is not a fantasy baseball game, but rather a simulation of running a fictional MLB organization from rookie-ball to the majors. It's incredibly detailed and time-consuming with a steep learning curve, so first and foremost we're looking for owners who've played Hardball Dynasty in the past, although anyone is free to express interest.

Once you're done here, check out my "Circling The Bases" blog over at NBCSports.com.

2009-06-05T00:17:00.005-05:00

Link-O-Rama

For posterity's sake and because looking at the numbers makes me smile, the first four hitters in the Twins' lineup have the following season totals after collectively going 10-for-15 with four homers, two doubles, four walks, 10 RBIs, and 11 runs scored in yesterday's blowout win against the Indians:

1. Denard Span        .307 AVG     .395 OBP     .410 SLG
2. Joe Mauer          .436 AVG     .519 OBP     .845 SLG
3. Justin Morneau     .348 AVG     .426 OBP     .657 SLG
4. Jason Kubel        .322 AVG     .374 OBP     .532 SLG

Here's hoping that Ron Gardenhire can resist the urge to fix what isn't broken by jamming Alexi Casilla or Matt Tolbert in there.

According to Sports Business Journal, the Twins have baseball's eighth-largest television audience with an average of 108,000 "households" per game, which is pretty amazing when New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Detroit are the only markets ahead of Minnesota. Meanwhile, the Washington Post notes that the Nationals have seen their TV audience increase by 56 percent this season ... and are still drawing only 12,000 households per game.

The poor Gatorade machine that Carlos Zambrano went berserk on last week has been designated for assignment by the Cubs.

Apparently they don't have pitch counts in Seth Stohs' hometown.

Barry Bonds may have stumbled upon a new career.

"Amazing" by Kanye West has basically been running on an endless loop during the NBA playoffs, so this remix honors the subset of guys who rarely make any "Where Amazing Happens" commercials:

"No matter what they'll never pass it to me, my range is as far as my arms can reach. I'm Caucasian."

People magazine calls Alex Rodriguez's relationship with Kate Hudson "somewhat serious," noting that "Hudson followed Rodriguez on the road late last month to Dallas" and the couple "worked out together in the fitness center" of the team hotel. If by some miracle Hudson ever makes a decent movie again--seriously, check out her resume since Almost Famous--the Hollywood media will no doubt start buzzing with talk of performance-enhancing drugs. Does human growth hormone help you act?

Apparently the "good-looking girl playing football in a bikini" craze is taking over the world of staged photo shoots: Kim Kardashian last week and Kristin Cavallari this week.

Kimbo Slice is a cast member for the next season of The Ultimate Fighter, which gives him another opportunity to be exposed as all hype and no substance against unknown fighters.

Trevor Born wrote one of the best Twins blogs around before falling off the face of the blogosphere in mid-2007, but it turns out that he's been kind of busy since then:

University of Minnesota student journalist Trevor Born has been named this year's recipient of the Big Ten Conference William R. Reed Memorial Award. ... The conference annually honors the former commissioner by presenting this award to a student journalist ... who ... best exemplifies the spirit, ideals and dedication to the Big Ten and intercollegiate athletics.

A sophomore journalism major, Born is the beat writer for football and men's basketball at the Minnesota Daily, a post he has held since the second semester of his freshman year. Born was named the 2008 Sports Reporter of the Year by the campus daily publication and has spent time freelancing for the Associated Press. In addition to his excellence as a reporter, Born has excelled in the classroom, maintaining a 3.8 GPA in the University Honors Program.

That's all, huh? Nearly three years ago one of these Link-O-Rama entries included my plan for "landing a newspaper gig" that involved "waiting a couple decades until Born is the editor-in-chief somewhere and hoping he remembers me." At this rate the "couple decades" timetable is going to look kind of silly.

Official Fantasy Girl of AG.com fourth runner-up Mila Kunis, looking good as usual.

In his latest first-round projection, Jonathan Mayo of MLB.com has the Twins picking a high-school pitcher, Matt Hobgood, at No. 22 overall. While that may indeed happen, it's worth noting that the Twins have selected either a high-school hitter or college pitcher with their first pick in every draft since 1997.

Last week's Link-O-Rama included the latest amusing installment of Between Two Ferns With Zach Galifianakis, so here's a 5,000-word New York Times article about the man himself.

Brad Pitt has begun "pre-production work" on the Moneyball film, which apparently involves wearing hats and boarding private jets.

On a related note, Moneyball isn't the only Michael Lewis book being made into a movie.

I'm on the fence about the "fire pit" at the Twins' new ballpark, but the Brewers using their parking lot for drive-in movies is a brilliant idea. Even their initial movie selections are good: Anchorman and Jaws the first night, The Sandlot and Major League the second night.

Friend of AG.com, Dodgers blogger, and Variety editor Jon Weisman put together a survey about the decade's best television and the results look surprisingly good to me.

David Dorsey of the Fort Myers News-Press wrote a nice article about the tallest pitcher in baseball, Twins right-hander Loek Van Mil.

Here are some of the highlights from my NBCSports.com blogging this week:

- Craziness in the NCAA baseball tournament
- RAR has Longoria, Ibanez as MVPs through May
- Daily Dose: Busy day in Atlanta
- Quote of the Day: White Sox are 'in trouble'
- No one is watching the Nationals ... still
- Zambrano is having a bad week
- Quote of the Day: Holliday 'wants a chance to win'
- The Strasburg Watch: Amazing year ends with loss
- Nats fire pitching coach with Strasburg on horizon
- Good news, bad news for first-place teams

Finally, since I'm no longer the lone human to not see the film, this week's AG.com-approved music video is Bruce Springsteen singing "The Wrestler":

Once you're done here, check out my "Circling The Bases" blog over at NBCSports.com.

2009-06-03T00:05:00.001-05:00

Twins Through Two Months (Part 2: Pitchers)

Starting pitching was supposed to be the Twins' strength this season after Scott Baker, Kevin Slowey, Nick Blackburn, Francisco Liriano, and Glen Perkins came together as one of baseball's best young rotations last year, but they've collectively taken a huge step backward through two months. Blackburn and Slowey have lived up to expectations, but Baker and Liriano have been big disappointments while Perkins' strong start unraveled thanks to an elbow injury. Here's a look at the overall numbers:

TWINS STARTING PITCHING
 
YEAR     IP/G      ERA     SO9     BB9     HR9      AVG      OBP      SLG
2008      5.9     4.32     5.6     2.1     1.2     .283     .324     .443
2009      5.9     4.95     5.9     2.5     1.4     .280     .329     .462

If asked to compare this year's rotation to last year's version most fans would probably guess that the numbers are vastly different, but that's not really the case. Yes, the rotation's ERA has risen 15 percent, which is ultimately the problem, but within that Twins starters have been remarkably similar to 2008. They're averaging the same 5.9 innings per start as last season--which would no doubt shock a lot of people--and have allowed a .280/.329/.462 line that's pretty damn close to last year's .283/.324/.443.

Through two months this year's rotation has given up about 15 percent more walks and homers, which matches the rise in ERA. They've also struggled to limit big innings as hitters have seemingly bunched damage together more often, particularly against Baker and Liriano. More walks have led to a slightly higher on-base percentage, more homers have led to a slightly higher slugging percentage, and that extra damage coming in bunches has compounded the problems on the way to a 63-point rise in ERA.

All of which is a long way of saying that the rotation should improve over the next four months, although it's worth noting that Twins starters ranked just eighth in the league with a 4.32 ERA last year, so even last season they weren't "great" as much as "solid and young." While big innings and ugly ERAs make it seem like Baker and Liriano have totally fallen apart, using Expected Fielding Independent Pitching (xFIP) to strip away the impact of defense, bullpen, and luck paints a somewhat different picture:

xFIP                2008     2009
Kevin Slowey        4.14     4.43
Scott Baker         4.25     4.74
Nick Blackburn      4.55     4.90
Francisco Liriano   4.40     4.94
Glen Perkins        5.05     5.11

According to xFIP, the rotation's decline has been the result of everyone basically pitching 5-10 percent worse than they did last season, which is a notion that'll be impossible to accept for people who can't get beyond Baker and Liriano both sporting an ERA in the 6.00s. However, neither pitcher has been as bad as his ERA suggests and Liriano in particular has been hurt by some combination of bad luck and poor defense.

FRANCISCO LIRIANO
 
YEAR      SO%      BB%      GB%      LD%     LOB%      BIP
2008     20.3      9.7     41.6     18.1     68.9     .302
2009     18.9     10.6     38.5     20.9     63.2     .333

There's zero doubt that Liriano's performance has declined. His strikeouts are down seven percent, his walks are up nine percent, and he's given up 15 percent more line drives while inducing seven percent fewer ground balls. However, all of that isn't enough to take his ERA from 3.91 to 6.60. Liriano has also stranded just 63.2 percent of his runners while the Twins' defense has allowed a .333 batting average on his balls in play, both of which are among the worst figures in the AL and somewhat luck-based.

Plenty of people will be quick to blame Liriano for all of that, but in reality defense and luck play a huge role. For instance, in Liriano's last start against the Rays there were at least three instances where the entire outing would've been viewed far differently had a ground ball been converted into an out. But as has been the case in many of Liriano's starts, the balls in play found holes, innings got extended, more damage was done, and his ERA ballooned higher. Baker is a similar story, albeit with more homers.

Calls to remove Liriano from the rotation and replace him with Anthony Swarzak are being fueled by an over-reliance on ERA and lack of understanding about the nuts and bolts of pitching performances. Yes, Liriano has an ugly 6.60, but his 50-to-28 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 58.2 innings and other factors show that he hasn't been nearly that awful. Yes, Swarzak has a 2.08 ERA, but he also has a 6/6 K/BB ratio with an unsustainably amazing 98.5 left-on-base percentage and .205 average on balls in play.

If this were 1989 or even 1999 it might make sense to champion a rotation switch by saying, "Swarzak has a 2.08 ERA and Liriano has a 6.60 ERA." However, this is 2009 and thanks to the explosion of data and research we know enough about what makes pitchers effective that ERAs fail to accurately depict either performance. Whether you choose to conclude that Swarzak has pitched very well or been very fortunate, if he keeps performing like he has through two starts his ERA will be closer to 6.08 than 2.08.

While that's bad news for Swarzak, it's also good news for Liriano, Baker, and the rest of the rotation, which is likely to do a much better job keeping runs off the board for the final two-thirds of the season. Unfortunately the same isn't necessarily true for the bullpen, which has been about as bad as expected after general manager Bill Smith stubbornly refused to bring in the relief help that the Twins have so obviously needed dating back to the middle of last year. Here's how the primary relievers stack up:

                     IP     xFIP
Joe Nathan         19.1     3.15
Matt Guerrier      25.0     4.12
Jose Mijares       16.2     4.46
R.A. Dickey        30.1     4.99
Luis Ayala         22.2     5.00
Jesse Crain        14.2     5.61

Jose Mijares' call-up and Matt Guerrier's bounceback have patched a couple of the gaping holes, but they've both been merely mediocre as far as primary setup men go and the rest of the bullpen can't be counted on in anything resembling an important spot. Plus, while Joe Nathan remains one of the elite closers in baseball and by far the Twins' best reliever, he's frustratingly been allowed to face a grand total of just 75 batters in 52 games and is quietly looking slightly more human at the age of 34.

If last year is any indication Smith won't bother to bring in any veteran relief help at the trading deadline. Robert Delaney and Anthony Slama are good relief prospects who've consistently posted ridiculous numbers in the minors, yet the Twins just got around to promoting the 24-year-old Delaney to Triple-A yesterday and the 25-year-old Slama remains at Double-A. The Twins have been one good setup man short of a solid bullpen since Pat Neshek went down last May and there's no sign of that changing.

Absolutely dreadful production from three lineup spots has the Twins' offense ranked just eighth in the AL despite Babe Ruth-like production from Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau, whereas the pitching staff also ranks eighth in the league because the young starters have regressed while the shallow bullpen has unfortunately met expectations. I'm fairly confident that the rotation can turn things around, but the bullpen is going to need reinforcements to avoid remaining a clear weakness.

Once you're done here, check out my "Circling The Bases" blog over at NBCSports.com.

2009-06-01T00:06:00.000-05:00

Twins Through Two Months (Part 1: Hitters)

Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau were the two best hitters in all of baseball during May, combining to hit .386/.478/.773 with 20 homers, 16 doubles, 39 walks, 51 runs, and 61 RBIs in 30 games, yet despite getting Babe Ruth-like production from two spots in the lineup the Twins finished the month just 14-16. The Twins lost more than they won in May while out-scoring their opponents by 30 runs (168 to 138), which perhaps makes up for going 11-11 in April while being out-scored by 23 runs (116 to 93).

Through two months the Twins have scored 261 runs and allowed 254 runs, which would typically lead to being something like 27-25 instead of 25-27, but their run totals are skewed somewhat by the 20-1 thrashing they gave the White Sox on May 21. If the final score of that blowout win was 10-1 rather than 20-1 the Twins would've been out-scored 254 to 251 to more closely match their 25-27 record. Turn the 20-1 into 10-1 and the Twins would rank ninth among AL teams in both run scoring and run prevention.

In other words, the Twins simply haven't been a very good team through one-third of the season, which is a difficult pill to swallow given some of the outstanding individual performances they've gotten from position players. Morneau has been the best hitter in the AL through two months, Mauer was the best player in the world during May, and the Twins have also gotten good all-around play from Denard Span, Joe Crede, Michael Cuddyer, and Jason Kubel, yet the offense as a whole has been merely mediocre.

                      RAR                              RAR
Joe Mauer            27.0        Brian Buscher        -1.6
Justin Morneau       22.3        Nick Punto           -3.6
Joe Crede            14.7        Matt Tolbert         -6.0
Denard Span          13.9        Alexi Casilla        -6.9
Michael Cuddyer      12.7        Delmon Young        -12.2
Jose Morales          6.1
Jason Kubel           5.6
Brendan Harris        2.8
Mike Redmond          1.1
Carlos Gomez          0.7

RAR stands for Runs Above Replacement, which calculates how many runs someone was worth both offensively and defensively compared to a replacement-level player at the same position. For instance, through 52 games Morneau has been worth 22.3 runs more than a replacement-level first baseman, which ranks as the sixth-best RAR total in the league. Mauer is one of the five players with a better RAR than Morneau, checking in at 27.0 runs above a replacement-level catcher despite missing all of April.

Along with Mauer at No. 3 and Morneau at No. 6, Crede, Span, and Cuddyer are among the AL's top 30 in RAR and Kubel has also been very solid despite the high replacement level at designated hitter. Add it all up and those six guys have been 96.2 runs better than replacement-level players offensively and defensively through 52 games. Unfortunately the lineup has nine places rather than six, and the Twins have gotten horrible production from second base, shortstop, and one of the outfield spots.

Nick Punto was placed on the disabled list over the weekend with a groin injury, but not before he hit .187/.290/.211 in 150 plate appearances while playing mediocre defense. That performance was worth 3.6 runs less than a replacement-level shortstop and not surprisingly the Twins rank 12th in the league with a measly .587 OPS from the position. We've seen this before from Punto, who somehow racked up 536 plate appearances in 2007 while hitting .210/.291/.271 to rank among MLB's worst players.

As little as the Twins have gotten from shortstop, their second basemen have been even worse. In fact, no position in the league has been less productive than Twins second basemen, who've managed a hideous .477 OPS with poor defense. Ron Gardenhire would love nothing more than to ruin the Twins' ideal batting order by sticking a speedy, light-hitting, bunt-happy second baseman in the No. 2 spot, but even he can't ignore Alexi Casilla and Matt Tolbert combining for 12.9 runs below replacement level.

Unlike the middle-infield trio of Punto, Tolbert, and Casilla, Carlos Gomez's great glove in center field at least cancels out his awful hitting so the end result is basically a replacement-level player. His overall .220/.282/.310 line is awful, but Gomez has shown some signs of improved plate discipline, ranks as one of the elite defensive center fielders in the league for the second straight season, and deserves to be playing every day--whether in Minnesota or Rochester--after starting just 28 of 52 games.

Gomez offsets some of his terrible hitting with an excellent glove, but Delmon Young has been useless on both sides of the ball. In fact, at 12.2 runs below replacement level offensively and defensively he's been the single worst all-around player in the AL through two months. Young has hit .239/.282/.275 in 117 plate appearances, which is good for a .557 OPS. No other corner outfielder in the league with that much playing time has an OPS below .640.

Not only has Young failed to make any significant strides at the plate for the third straight season, he's actually regressed from last year's poor performance. Young was one of the most undisciplined hitters in baseball last season, but this time around he's struck out twice as often while drawing even fewer walks. Beyond that his power has gone from bad to non-existent as he's managed just one homer and one double in 109 at-bats while once again ranking among the AL leaders in ground-ball percentage.

Believe it or not, being the AL's worst-hitting outfielder only scratches the surface of Young's awfulness because he plays an offense-driven position that's home to many big bats and complements his lack of production at the plate with horrendous defense in left field. On a per-inning basis Young has been the second-worst corner outfielder in the league defensively behind only Jose Guillen and since joining the Twins last year Ultimate Zone Rating has him 23.1 runs below average on defense alone.

All of which is a long way of saying that Gomez has been bad, but the trio of Punto, Tolbert, and Casilla have been terrible and Young has been the worst player in the league. Simply replacing Young, Punto, Tolbert, and Casilla with even replacement-level players would have saved the Twins around 30 runs, which is the difference between trailing the Tigers by 4.5 games or 1.5 games. The good news is that foursome can't help but improve. The bad news is that Mauer and Morneau won't hit like Ruth all year.

Once you're done here, check out my "Circling The Bases" blog over at NBCSports.com.

2009-05-29T02:19:00.006-05:00

Link-O-Rama

If you've ever wondered what Mr. T would look like throwing out the first pitch at Wrigley Field while wearing matching American flag bandanna and shorts, today is your lucky day. He's a southpaw!

One of the guests on Adam Carolla's podcast this week was James Gunn, who in addition to being a director, writer, and actor is also the brother of former The Hardball Times writer Brian Gunn. Oh, and he was married to Official Fantasy Girl of AG.com candidate Jenna Fischer for eight years. In listening to the podcast it was impossible for me decide whether I was more jealous of Gunn for being married to Fischer or for hanging out with Carolla, which I'm pretty sure means that I'm insane.

Speaking of the OFGoAG.com, I'm not ready to dethrone title-holder Keeley Hazell yet, but I am giving serious thought to expanding the "candidates" list to include Diora Baird, Minka Kelly, and Kelly Brook along with holdovers Fischer, Marisa Miller, Mila Kunis, Kate Beckinsale, and ex-OFGoAG.com Elisha Cuthbert. Speak now or forever hold your peace and let me know of any Link-O-Rama regulars who I'm overlooking.

Jose Canseco's mixed martial arts debut earlier this week predictably lasted for all of 77 seconds, as he "tapped out to avoid getting hurt" once his 7-foot-2 opponent started mounting an attack.

Marko Jaric didn't waste any time after marrying his then-virgin supermodel girlfriend Adriana Lima on Valentine's Day, because she's reportedly three months pregnant.

Amazingly, the Nationals aren't any better at spelling than they are at playing baseball.

My NBCSports.com colleague Tiffany Simons has been busy shooting Twins-related videos, talking to Bert Blyleven about eating worms and asking Joe Mauer why he didn't end up playing football at her beloved Florida State.

Zach Galifianakis interviewed The Hangover co-star Bradley Cooper between two ferns:

"Is that f***ing Carrot Top behind me?"

Let this be a lesson to all the other sports: Stealing ideas from baseball will lead to pain.

I'm sure her audience still dwarfs AG.com's, but among the 30 blogs run by MLB.com beat reporters Kelly Thesier's apparently ranks 28th in readership. I'd say something snarky about "Kelly's Corner" as a blog name, but "AaronGleeman.com" isn't exactly an inspired title.

As friend of AG.com Thor Nystrom reported while subbing for Thesier at MLB.com, Brad Penny beat the Twins on Monday despite "vomiting between innings." Or as Terry Francona put it: "He would come out, throw up, laugh, go get them."

Rotoworld basketball guru Steve Alexander's latest NBA mock draft has the Timberwolves selecting North Carolina point guard Ty Lawson with the No. 6 pick, which would make me happy. He's by far the most underrated player in the draft and point guard is the Wolves' biggest need.

Speaking of the Wolves, I'll give new president of basketball operations David Kahn some credit for writing a personal message to fans upon his hiring, although it wasn't the most confidence-inspiring 600 words that I've ever read. He sounds like a very smart, capable person, but it's unclear whether he can actually evaluate basketball players.

My favorite television critic, Alan Sepinwall, wraps up what was an outstanding second season of In Treatment with a lengthy and revealing interview with showrunner Warren Leight. It sounds like no one is sure whether the show will come back for a third season, but I'll be Freaks and Geeks-style crushed if it doesn't. Allison Pill really shined this season and likely wouldn't be back for Season 3 regardless, but Gabriel Byrne continues to amaze in the lead role and the show is the most underrated on TV.

As a world-class beard-grower myself, I'm humbled by these men.

Speaking of awesome facial hair, Clay Zavada's mustache is getting all sorts of attention.

Not only did the Dodgers host a star-studded "Blogger Night" at Dodger Stadium last month, they're now "providing press credentials and full media access" to select bloggers. I've got a nice rant all cued up about how that relates to the Twins because of what some of my fellow bloggers have experienced recently, but for once I'll bite my tongue and just say that the Dodgers are way ahead of the curve.

In the MVN mock draft, Seth Stohs has the Twins taking high schooler Bobby Borchering at No. 22.

Here are some of the highlights from my NBCSports.com blogging this week:

- M&M Boys putting on a show in Minnesota
- Rangers tell fan 'Yankees Suck' shirt is 'profane'
- Burnett, Cash have their 'candlesticks' moment
- Data doesn't support Bradley's claims of ump bias
- Rickmania or Doc Porcello? Rookie wins 5 straight
- National League has the edge in pitchers hitting
- Chipper finally wears the Golden Sombrero
- Smoltz's rehab start gets mixed reviews
- Luis Hernandez, Trey Hillman, and track records
- Are the Rockies preparing for a firesale?
- Dodgers doing just fine without Manny

I also wrote a brief entry about yesterday's umpire-related madness at the Metrodome.

Finally, this week's AG.com-approved music video is Carolla favorite John Hiatt doing a live version of "Have A Little Faith In Me":

Once you're done here, check out my "Circling The Bases" blog over at NBCSports.com.

2009-05-28T00:05:00.000-05:00

AG.com Live Chat Today at 3:00 PM

This afternoon's Twins-Red Sox game should be over just in time for a 3:00 p.m. live chat. As always, I'll open the doors for questions 15 minutes early and keep going until you guys run out of stuff to ask.

AaronGleeman.com Live Chat

Once you're done here, check out my "Circling The Bases" blog over at NBCSports.com.

2009-05-26T01:11:00.001-05:00

Twins Notes: Mauer, Morneau, Gomez, and Swarzak

Joe Mauer was out of the lineup yesterday after starting 17 straight games, so instead of collecting multiple hits he just came off the bench with a two-run homer against Jonathan Papelbon that pulled the Twins to within one run in the ninth inning. Mauer has already surpassed last season's homer total in 533 fewer plate appearances and is just two long balls shy of tying his career-high of 13 from 2006. He's up to .444/.530/.913, which is just silly. He could go into a 0-for-39 slump and still be hitting .300.

Lost in Mauer's ridiculousness is that Justin Morneau is batting .341/.422/.653 with 13 homers, 13 doubles, 24 walks, 41 RBIs, and 37 runs in 46 games. He's on pace to set new career-highs in nearly every key category and leads AL in OPS (at least until Mauer gets enough plate appearances to qualify). Morneau has undeservedly overshadowed Mauer, winning the MVP in 2006 and finishing second last year despite being the second-best player on his own team, so it's ironic that he's now overlooked.

Along with Morneau leading the AL with a 1.075 mark, the Twins also have Jason Kubel (.911) and Michael Cuddyer (.891) among the top 20 in OPS. Toss in Mauer and they've had four of the 20 best hitters, and interestingly Jason Bartlett (1.014) and Torii Hunter (.987) are sixth and ninth respectively. The quintet of Mauer, Morneau, Kubel, Cuddyer, and Joe Crede have combined for 45 homers in 691 at-bats after the entire team totaled 111 homers in 5,641 at-bats last season. I could get used to this.

At the other end of the spectrum, the Twins rank dead last in OPS from second basemen at .475 and second-to-last in OPS from shortstops at .577. The 92 middle-infield starts have been divided among Nick Punto (38), Alexi Casilla (21), Brendan Harris (18), and Matt Tolbert (15), who've combined to hit .195/.254/.251 with three homers in 386 plate appearances in those games. National League pitchers have hit .138/.189/.170 with an average of two homers per 386 plate appearances this season.

Carlos Gomez is the leader in the clubhouse for most ridiculous injury of the year. LaVelle E. Neal III of the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports that he "needed two stitches in his head after getting caught in the revolving door while entering the stadium." Phil Miller of the St. Paul Pioneer Press provided further details: "Gomez was walking through the door ... someone came in behind him and the door stopped, but Gomez didn't. He sustained a cut on his eyebrow." And then he went 1-for-4 with two great catches.

Anthony Swarzak exceeded my expectations and then some in his major-league debut Saturday, tossing seven shutout innings against the Brewers. He averaged 90 miles per hour with his fastball, throwing it on 76 of 98 pitches, and also featured an 80-mph changeup and a 75-mph curveball. While he wasn't quite as impressive as the seven scoreless frames suggest, striking three and walking two, Swarzak threw 65 percent strikes and certainly looked capable of becoming a solid mid-rotation starter.

There are some rumblings out of San Francisco that the Giants are shopping for a hitter and may be dangling Matt Cain in trade talks, which should be of interest to Twins fans given the offseason rumors of a Cain-for-Delmon Young swap. Back then my suggestion was to package "Nick Blackburn or Glen Perkins with Young for Cain and a lesser player," but even that may not get the job done now that Cain is 5-1 with a 2.40 ERA and Young is hitting .253/.296/.297.

On a related note, Joe Christensen has an update on the increasingly regrettable Tampa Bay trade.

Over at ESPN.com Rob Neyer wonders when Francisco Liriano is going to take "the next step" in his recovery from Tommy John elbow surgery, but the answer is probably "never" if "the next step" involves reclaiming the dominance that he had in 2006. Liriano simply isn't the same pitcher that he was before going under the knife, although certainly he's still capable of looking a lot better than he has this year.

Last week on the FSN pregame show Jim Souhan said that he'd take Morneau over Mauer, which is a stance that he's misguidedly held for the past three years. This week Souhan wrote that Mauer is the best player in baseball, which is a stance that he'll hold until Mauer stops homering every eight at-bats.

Once you're done here, check out my "Circling The Bases" blog over at NBCSports.com.

2009-05-25T00:05:00.000-05:00

Happy Memorial Day

Once you're done here, check out my "Circling The Bases" blog over at NBCSports.com.

2009-05-22T02:30:00.003-05:00

Link-O-Rama

After six straight road losses yesterday's 20-1 thrashing of the White Sox was an unexpected treat, and the Twins amusingly finished the 1-6 road trip with a plus-seven run differential. Justin Morneau and Nick Punto combined to go 0-for-7 while the rest of the Twins' starters went 19-for-35 (.543) with four homers, including a grand slam from Joe Mauer. And of course Nick Blackburn took the 20 runs of support and tossed seven shutout innings before Joe Nathan closed out the 19-run lead.

Mauer is such a great hitter that batting .417 or getting on base at a .500 clip during a 19-game stretch shouldn't surprise anyone, but eight homers and five doubles in 72 at-bats is totally unexpected even without considering that he missed April with an injury. He hasn't abandoned his patient approach at the plate and isn't suddenly pulling the ball consistently. He's still taking tons of pitches and going the the other way with most of the balls he hits, but the fly balls just seem to be traveling a little further.

I'm not sure how to explain it and have no idea whether it'll last, but holy shit has Mauer been amazing. At .417/.500/.819 he'd be leading all of baseball in batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging percentage with enough plate appearances to qualify and he has one homer per 9.0 at-bats after going deep once every 46.8 at-bats coming into the season. Plus, Ron Gardenhire may even leave him in the No. 2 spot that I've been advocating for years now after the 20-run outburst with Mauer there yesterday.

UPDATE: Just posted a lengthy entry about Mauer over at the NBCSports.com blog.

Thanks to Jessica Biel, I've discovered the real reason why the Minnesota Daily wouldn't hire me.

Have you ever wondered what it would look like if Pablo Sandoval was running the bases, spotted a piece of cake on second base, and then got shot in the leg by a sniper? If so, this is your lucky day!

After years of developing Twins prospects as minor-league pitching coordinator, Rick Knapp is now thriving as the Tigers' new pitching coach. I'd be slightly happier for him if they weren't in the AL Central.

According to the New York Times, Jimmy Kimmel's monologue this week at ABC's annual upfront presentation was "withering" and "the assembled advertisers received his performance with a mixture of uneasy laughs and the occasional gasp." That description caused me to seek out the footage:

Unless the video has been doctored somehow, I'm not sure how anyone could watch that and call the crowd's reaction "a mixture of uneasy laughs and the occasional gasp." Seems more like he killed for the better part of six straight minutes, got a ton of big laughs throughout, and was basically hilarious.

On a related note, Aziz Ansari of Parks and Recreation was a great guest on Jimmy Kimmel Live.

I'm really hoping that Mark Buehrle knows this woman.

For anyone who thinks their childhood was bad, read this disturbing story. "My daddy ate my eyes."

I'm totally against the notion of Brett Favre quarterbacking the Vikings at this stage of his career, but could probably be talked into Kim Kardashian behind center after looking at these pictures.

According to the New York Post, Alex Rodriguez has "traded in a vintage Madonna for a late-model Kate Hudson" and the two were "making out" in a bar following last Friday's game against the Twins. I'll say this about A-Rod: He has eclectic taste.

On a similar note, Jim Edmonds appears to be coping just fine with unemployment.

I'm still not sure what Kelly Brock does and it still doesn't matter to me.

Last year I went on a reading binge, burning through like a dozen books in a couple weeks, and The Road by Cormac McCarthy was one of my favorites. I'm intrigued by the movie version, which is set to come out in October, but based on Charlize Theron being prominently featured in the preview it seems like the film strays significantly from the novel in at least one huge way. Based strictly on the book, the female character would get approximately 42 seconds of screen time in the movie.

I'm cautiously optimistic, because the original material is so amazing and Viggo Mortensen strikes me as a good choice to play the lead role, but an I Am Legend-style disappointment wouldn't surprise me. Movies straying significantly from the source material when the source material would've made a better movie really bothers me and I Am Legend is the prime example of that recently. Of course, it still ends up hooking me for a half-hour each time I stumble across it on HBO.

After getting turned down by their first 50 or so choices, the Timberwolves settled on David Kahn as their new general manager. His primary qualification is not being Kevin McHale, but aside from that I'm not very excited about a guy who "last worked full time in the NBA in 2002." Kevin Love was 14 in 2002.

My MinnPost colleague David Brauer reports that the St. Paul Pioneer Press could be eliminating as many as 30 newsroom jobs as part of $2.4 million in budget cuts, so Twins fans should be hoping that Phil Miller and Kelsie Smith avoid the ax.

Because devoting about half of my DVR to his assorted television shows isn't enough, now Gordon Ramsay can scream profanities directly at me.

The Atlanta Journal Constitution recently profiled the most underrated person in sports television.

Here are some of the highlights from my NBCSports.com blogging this week:

- How good would Peavy be away from Petco Park?
- Nationals bullpen providing zero relief
- Eric Chavez is a sneeze away from retirement
- What's wrong with Garrett Atkins?
- Justin Upton is a freak of nature
- Pudge's 300th homer and why catching is hard
- Quarter-season progress report: MIN and WAS
- Quarter-season progress report: BAL and SD

Finally, in honor of the Wolves hiring Kahn this week's AG.com-approved music video is The Rolling Stones doing a live version of "You Can't Always Get What You Want":

Once you're done here, check out my "Circling The Bases" blog over at NBCSports.com.

2009-05-21T00:31:00.002-05:00

Twins Call Up Swarzak, Lose Breslow on Waivers

Glen Perkins' sore elbow set in a motion of a series of moves that ultimately boiled down to Anthony Swarzak replacing Perkins in the rotation and Sean Henn replacing Craig Breslow in the bullpen. For now it sounds like Perkins has avoided a serious injury, so Swarzak will likely make three starts before heading back to Triple-A, with big-league debut coming Saturday against the Brewers. Swarzak ranked seventh on my list of the Twins' best prospects coming into the season, with this write-up:

Anthony Swarzak got off to a slow start in 2007 before being slapped with a 50-game suspension for violating baseball's substance abuse policy, but had a 2.67 ERA and 69-to-18 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 80.2 innings at Double-A after returning. Despite that strong showing at New Britain the Twins sent him back there last year and he was awful, going 3-8 with a 5.67 ERA and .304 opponent's average in 20 starts before an undeserved promotion. And then of course he went 5-0 with a 1.80 ERA at Triple-A.

Those pretty numbers make it seem like something clicked for Swarzak once he got to Rochester, but in reality his success there came via an awful lot of smoke and mirrors. His strikeout rate actually fell 15 percent compared to what he did at Double-A and his strikeout-to-walk ratio was sub par at 26-to-14 in 45 innings. Swarzak thrived in his first taste of Triple-A because 74 percent of his balls in play were converted into outs, whereas that number was 66 percent at Double-A and 68 percent for his career.

His strikeout percentage has declined with every step up the organizational ladder, going from 26.2 at low Single-A and 21.8 at high Single-A to 18.6 at Double-A and 13.8 at Triple-A. To some extent that's due to moving quickly through the system and reaching Triple-A as a 22-year-old, but that trend casts doubt on Swarzak's ability to be more than a mid-rotation starter. The raw stuff is certainly there to miss more bats and he's still got plenty of time to develop further, but his ceiling has lowered.

Since then he's posted a 2.25 ERA in seven starts at Triple-A, which is no doubt why the Twins chose him over Kevin Mulvey or Brian Duensing to fill in for Perkins and no doubt what most people will focus on when discussing Swarzak's future. However, his 32-to-11 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 44 innings once again failed to match the sparkling ERA and Swarzak now has just 58 strikeouts compared to 25 walks in 89 career innings at Rochester.

Those numbers certainly aren't bad from a 23-year-old at Triple-A, but when combined with the fact that he's a fly-ball pitcher Swarzak's sub par strikeout rate and mediocre control don't predict great success. Now, he throws much harder than the lack of missed bats would suggest and also features a curveball that everyone seems to agree is a strong pitch, so what Swarzak has done at Triple-A thus far definitely doesn't put a cap on his long-term upside.

At the same time, it does signal that the odds are against his thriving in the big leagues right now and indicates that he's currently on track to develop into a mid-rotation starter rather than an ace, which will be something to consider when all anyone wants to talk about is his ERA. Along with adding Swarzak to the rotation the Twins also lost Breslow on waivers, which is disappointing fewer than 48 hours after calling up Henn from Triple-A because both are 28-year-old, left-handed middle relievers.

Breslow has struggled to throw strikes, handing out 11 walks in 14.1 innings, and served up a walk-off homer to Alex Rodriguez over the weekend, but he had a 1.91 ERA and 39-to-19 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 47 innings last season and is simply a better pitcher than Henn. The difference isn't huge and the impact will likely be minimal given the limited bullpen role, but it sure seems like the Twins chose the new lefty reliever over the old lefty reliever just because they felt the need to shake things up.

MAJORS           IP      ERA      FIP      SO%      BB%      GB%
Breslow        89.2     2.91     3.89     19.7     11.9     39.8
Henn           50.0     7.20     6.60     15.2     15.2     38.0
 
TRIPLE-A         IP      ERA      FIP      SO%      BB%
Breslow       144.2     3.42     2.94     25.8      8.1
Henn          113.0     3.58     3.24     21.5     10.2

The above stats ignore how Henn fared as a full-time starter, so it's an apples-to-apples comparison of relief work. Breslow has been significantly better as a major-league reliever, with 30 percent more strikeouts, 22 percent fewer walks, and a huge edge in ERA and FIP. The gap isn't nearly as big when it comes to Triple-A numbers, but Breslow still holds a clear advantage in strikeouts, walks, and overall performance. He's just a better pitcher, period, and not surprisingly the A's plucked him off waivers.

Once you're done here, check out my "Circling The Bases" blog over at NBCSports.com.

2009-05-20T00:05:00.001-05:00

I'd Much Rather Stay Fat and Have the Twins Win

I'm in no mood to write about a five-game losing streak despite allowing my "pounds lost" to approach "Twins wins" on the Fat-O-Meter, so instead feast your eyes on this hopefully amusing video of the very special message that Torii Hunter had for Joe Nathan when they faced off last month:

At least he was nice enough to aim it away from Jose Morales.

Once you're done here, check out my "Circling The Bases" blog over at NBCSports.com.

2009-05-19T00:05:00.001-05:00

Twins Swept, Perkins Hurt

As if losing four straight games to the Yankees by a total of five runs wasn't enough, now Glen Perkins has been placed on the disabled list with left elbow inflammation.

Even before last night's first-inning implosion Perkins had given up 18 runs in 22.1 innings during his previous four starts, and now we know why: Perkins "said after the game that he had been dealing with some soreness in his elbow for some time." As usual attempting to pitch through arm soreness ends up simply hurting the team and the player. Instead of being shut down immediately, Perkins allowed 24 runs in 23 innings while delaying a trip to the disabled list and possibly making the injury worse.

Now he's headed back to Minnesota to undergo an MRI exam today and the Twins have called up Sean Henn from Triple-A to take his place on the roster, although another move will probably be necessary to replace him in the rotation Saturday. I'm not sure whether Perkins hid the injury or the Twins allowed him to "pitch through" the soreness even after being informed, but either way it was foolish. Hopefully all it ends up costing the Twins are some wins, rather than the alternative. Oh, and next up: Chicago.

Once you're done here, check out my "Circling The Bases" blog over at NBCSports.com.

2009-05-18T00:14:00.002-05:00

Twins Notes: Good Play, Bad Batting Order, Ugly Bullpen

If you missed it during yesterday's game, Joe Mauer's diving play at the plate on a ball that deflected off Jose Mijares is among the best you'll ever see from a catcher. Joe Christensen of the Minneapolis Star Tribune has a recap of the play and MLB.com has the video. And here's the end result:

As Mike Redmond put it: "That's one of the best plays I've ever seen. Instinct-wise, that play was off the charts. I told him I don't know how he did it. I would have thrown that ball on instinct."

You won't find tons of analysis about batting orders in this space, because few topics are discussed more and matter less. Batting orders certainly do matter, but as long as you're doing a reasonable job putting the best hitters near the top of the lineup and the worst hitters near the bottom of the lineup the difference between "perfect" and "mediocre" is minimal in the grand scheme of things. In other words, I'm typically far more concerned about who's in the lineup than where they're batting.

However, sometimes the batting order is so obviously out of whack that it screams for an adjustment and Matt Tolbert hitting second directly in front of Mauer and Justin Morneau is clearly not an example of "putting the best hitters near the top of the lineup and the worst hitters near the bottom of the lineup." Instead, it's an example of a manager obsessed with sticking light-hitting, bunt-happy middle infielders between the leadoff man and No. 3 hitter. And it's an example of something that costs the Twins runs.

Ron Gardenhire may love him, Dick Bremer and Bert Blyleven may fawn over everything he does, and fans may have been excited when the Twins called him up to replace Alexi Casilla at second base, but Tolbert is arguably the team's worst hitter and at the very least is among the team's worst hitters. He's hit .257/.314/.349 through 172 plate appearances in the majors after batting .287/.347/.417 in 582 plate appearances at Triple-A, and at 27 years old isn't likely to suddenly get much better.

Yet because Tolbert is a small, scrappy, switch-hitting middle infielder with little power and the ability to bunt Gardenhire is willing to a) give him the second most plate appearances on the team, and b) give added importance to those plate appearances by putting them directly in front of the team's best hitters. Given the lack of other options I'm fine with Tolbert as the short-term starter at second base, but batting him second in the lineup shows a fundamental lack of understanding about how runs are scored.

Peter Gammons of ESPN.com reports that the Twins are among a handful of teams that "are on the prowl for relievers," which is either mildly amusing or incredibly frustrating given general manager Bill Smith's refusal to address the obvious weakness of the bullpen dating back to the middle of last year. Twins relievers have a 5.51 ERA along with the third-worst Win Probability Added in the league. And it's not due to being overworked, because the bullpen's 109.1 innings rank fourth-lowest in the AL.

The bullpen is a mess and prospects Robert Delaney and Anthony Slama are thriving at Double-A, so the Twins are thinking about calling up ... Sean Henn. According to Kelly Thesier of MLB.com, Henn "features a 95-mph fastball" and "has posted a 1.23 ERA in 14 appearances at Rochester." According to reality, Henn has thrown 1,354 big-league pitches with an average fastball velocity of 91.7 miles per hour, has a 7.56 ERA in the majors, and is a 28-year-old with 77 walks in 197 career Triple-A innings.

So, why not call up Delaney or Slama? Thesier writes that they "have caught some people's attention at New Britain, but it doesn't seem like they are quite to the point of helping the club just yet." Gardenhire explains that "there are some pretty good pitchers there, but guys that are not ready." In other words, as always the Twins must waste time and wins on veteran mediocrity before turning to their young talent. Hell, Delaney and Slama are 24 and 25 years old respectively and can't even get promoted to Triple-A.

Matt Garza has a 3.50 ERA and Jason Bartlett is batting .370/.407/.563, so naturally Sid Hartman is writing about how the "Twins-Rays trade may yet pay dividend." He explains that at the time of the trade "there was a lot of enthusiasm among fans and the media" and "Smith received a lot of accolades," as if that's evidence of anything but "fans and the media" buying whatever the Twins are selling. In reality, the trade stunk from Day 1 and is getting progressively worse. Smith, of course, has "no regrets."

Remember how Gardenhire said a few weeks ago that he wouldn't use Mauer at designated hitter? Since returning from the disabled list Mauer has started 11 of 16 games at catcher and has been the DH in three of the other five games. I'm certainly not complaining, just saying.

Tim Kurkjian of ESPN.com wrote the latest in a long line of puff pieces about the Twins having "high-character players." Worth reading, if you're into that sort of thing.

Juan Rincon was designated for assignment by the Tigers after allowing six runs on 12 hits and six walks in 10.1 innings. Rincon has now played for three-fifths of the AL Central since 2007, so hopefully he completes the divisional tour.

Once you're done here, check out my "Circling The Bases" blog over at NBCSports.com.