So Gardy finally brought Nathan in the the 8th tonight, and while it didn't work out this time LEN III leaves us with the happy information that Gardy is sticking with the idea.

Just wanted to make sure everyone saw this.  We've all been talking about this for awhile and all, and it's nice to see it happening.  We need it.  LEN III makes a good point that havng started it earlier in the year might have tired Joe out too.

As I looked around the Metrodome on Sunday afternoon, seeing 40,000 fans scream as the Twins took the division lead, I couldn’t help but ask, ‘what the hell?’  We’ve spent a lot of time talking about all the things we think the Twins should or should not do to what players and who they might trade and how they can capture the division.  But we’ve happily glossed over the fact that the Twins are really where they are quite inexplicably.  The national media is typically surprised to see us sitting atop our division.  We, after all, lost our two most recognizable stars last offseason, including the best pitcher in baseball.  Wise Twins fans saw that this tea looked like one that would play just above .500.  Pessimistic ones wondered if we’d beat last year’s win total of 78.

So what the hell’s happened in the meantime?  We can’t help but feel very pleased with the contributions we’ve gotten from our young starters.  Even still, our run prevention, hurt by a mediocre defense and a bullpen far more pedestrian than we are accustomed too, had remained unimpressive at 9th in the AL.

Our hitting is where things get weird.  The Twins hitters have been perhaps a bit better than expected, but few Twins hitters are really shattering realistic expectations (Denard Span and Alexi Casilla come to my mind as the most pleasant surprises, but those guys are still humbler speedsters, not world mashers).  Michael Cuddyer was supposed to remain an important right handed producer in the heart of our lineup, but he’s missed much of the year and produced poorly when healthy.  Brendon Harris and Delmon Young have hit much better of late, but both started so poorly that their overall numbers are still relatively depressed.  Carlos Gomez has been one of the worst hitters in the league so far this year and has more plate appearances than anyone else on the team other than Morneau.  So the Twins team production numbers are good, though not great.  While their team batting average is a nice 4th place in the AL, proven better indicators OBP and SLG remain middle of the road at 8th and 20th in the AL respectively.  This puts our OPS at .743, respectable, but only good for 8th in the AL.  Of course, there is the well publicized lack of homers with the Twin having more than no other AL team.  We aren’t a successful team at stealing bases, ranking in the bottom half in bases stolen and tied for last in all of baseball with the putrid Washington Nationals for worst success percentage.

So then why is the middle of the road production of our hitters adding up to the 5th best run scoring offense in the American League, right among with all the top tier offenses like Boston, Detroit, and Chicago?

The Twins have had absurd success this year with runners in scoring position.  The team OPS shoot up over .100 points above normal to a stratospheric .848.  The general trend is for teams to hit better with runners in scoring position than overall (pitcher’s in jams already struggling, worse pitchers are more frequently in that situation in the first place, pitchers in the set, etc) but the Twin’s jump is far beyond reasonable deviation.  The Twins are the best hitting team in all of baseball with RISP.  They are hitting a ridiculous .315.  They have both the highest on base and second highest slugging percentages in all of baseball in these situations.  That’s right, the team with the fewest home runs in the AL magically transforms into the biggest bundle of sluggers in the entire game when runners are standing on second or third. 
I don’t really believe in clutch hitting as a sustainable skill, but even the most devout lover of Derek Jeter has to admit that our team production with runners in scoring position is well beyond what even the most clutch team should be able to expect to hold.  The best explanation for the majority of the disparity is plain luck, and lots of it.  Lots of baseball is a lot of luck, but this is just ridiculous.

So, first the Twins are scoring more runs, a lot more runs, then they really ought to be.  Then, on top of that, they’re winning more games than their run differential should even allow.  The Twins have given up 514 runs this year and scored 547, good for a quality +33 difference.  Their Pythagorean winning percentage has them at 59 wins.  Sitting 3 games above their Pythagorean expected isn’t outside the bounds of simple chance deviation but it is once again, on the lucky side of fate.  Often, you will see teams with very good records in close games which can be a big part of the disparity.  Often, great bullpens or defenses are given as factors that can help win close games and push a team beyond its expected numbers, but the Twins have neither this year.  Close games hasn’t been they key anyway as the Twins have a 21-17 record in 1 run games that isn’t peculiarly different from their overall record.  Meanwhile, we sit ahead of the White Sox who have scored more runs than us, given up less, and have a much more impressive +75 run differential.

So the Twins are scoring more runs than the contributions of their hitters ought to lead to, and are then winning more games than those runs, even with all those strange extras, should allow, leaving us doubly lucky.  I can’t profess to know why this is happening and the Twins are where they are.  I wrote in the Gameday programs over a month ago about the Twins’ unusual fortune with runners in scoring position and mentioned that those successes were likely to regress, but it just hasn’t come about.  The Twins have long been accustomed to beating their Pythagorean, but the elements of the team typically given credit for the achievement are absent from the team this year (although the team is not beating their expected wins so radically this year as it has in the past when it was sometimes well outside usual statistical deviation).

I can’t explain why the team is drawing 40,000 eager fans in what was to be a ‘reloading’ year.  I can’t explain why losing their two best players from the previous year, then losing Pat Neshek, their most important set-up man, and Michael Cuddyer, their most important right handed bat, hasn’t killed whatever remaining chance the team had.  The best I can do is thank the baseball gods that the Indians have totally collapsed and that we play in a suddenly weak-again AL Central.

I don’t have the answer to how the hell this team is pulling it off, so all there is for us to do is sit back, cheer, and enjoy the ride.

From the Blog of Joe Christensen:

 

The Twins plan to cut ties with Livan Hernandez and Craig Monroe today, clearing space for Francisco Liriano and Randy Ruiz to join the roster from Class AAA Rochester.

The team has yet to make an official announcement, but Liriano and Ruiz are on their way to the Twin Cities from Class AAA Rochester, according to people with knowledge of the situation.

Hernandez and Monroe likely will be designated for assignment.

I hae to run, so I don't have any more time to comment, but obviously I'm happy to see Liriano back up, and I'm also very pleased for Randy Ruiz.  This is a big chance for him after working so hard in the minors for so long, and he's certainly earned it with his .320 batting average and 17 homers in AAA this year.

PS, that's about 20% of the payroll wasted on washed up veterans from the scrap heap.  When will this organization learn that you get what you pay for...

It should be pretty well known by now that I'm not often a big fan of Ron Gardenhire's decision when it comes to a lot of things.  COnsidering Carlos Gomez has been one of the worst hitters in the American League so far this year, a lot of people have been wondering why he's still leading off.

Gardenhire recently said he thinks Gomez needs to have better at bats, but he's not going to move him down in the order.  That prompted a funny line from this article.

 

Gomez hasn't visibly shown much frustration during his recent slump, but the prolonged struggles have started to affect the center fielder's demeanor off the field slightly. And that's part of the reason why Gardenhire said there have been no plans to alter Gomez's role in the order, despite his recent troubles in the leadoff spot. The skipper has always been cautious to change things drastically for young players who are in the midst of a slump.

Ummm...

via www.gardenal.org

That's all I really have to say about that level of fallacy.

So I'm breeaking a little rule of mine and doing something that's always scared me a bit.  I'm going to a Twins game at US Cellular.

I'll be cheering loud.  Wish me luck that I don't get in any fights too bad (Like a good Twins fan, the only thing I hate more than the White Sox is their fans) or if I do, I'll win.

Here's to Nick Blackburn!

I'm serious about the fight thing though.  It's a legitimate concern.  We'll see how this goes...

 The following will appear in the Gameday Program for this weekends series against the Yankees.  I wrote it.  I have reservations about giving away my pearls of genious and wisdom for free, but I though, ah, what the hell.

April Showers Bring…

April was not a kind month to the hitters of the Minnesota Twins.  They finished the month with the worst On Base Percentage and the third worst Slugging Percentage in the AL and scored more runs than only the lowly Royals.  Carlos Gomez, the centerpiece of the Johan Santana trade, was exciting for the first few games before showing his inexperience en route to a dreadful .253/.260/.354 (Batting Average/On Base Percentage/Slugging Percentage) hitting line.  Michael Cuddyer spent most of the month hurt, Joe Mauer hit a lukewarm .298 with 0 home runs, Jason Kubel did little outside a few home runs, Mike Lamb hit below the Mendoza line, and Delmon Young did nothing to add power to the lineup.

May brought the flowers as promised.  The Twins have rebounded to score 129 runs so far in May, 3rd most in the American League, while putting up the third best On Base Percentage in the league and a surprisingly solid sixth best Slugging Percentage.  The Twins also managed to defy their usual problems with plate patience by drawing the third most walks in the AL and striking out the third fewest times.

Leading the improvement charge was Carlos Gomez.  After sitting out a game in Oakland on April 23rd, Gomez hit a home run and a single in his return to the lineup and hasn’t looked back since, posting a  .317/.367/.505/ line with 4 home runs total and 8 stolen bases in 10 chances.  All this was capped by his astounding cycle performance on May 7th in a 13-1 drubbing of the hated White Sox.  Gomez still strikes out a lot, but after only one walk in the entire month of April his 6 in May are doing wonders for his OBP, which is doing wonders for his ability to actually use his speed as a leadoff hitter.

Jason Kubel returning to form has also had a big effect on the Twins offense.  After a bad April that had Craig Monroe threatening for more at bats in the DH spot, Kubel has gotten on track in May with a .264/.344/.472 line with 2 home runs in 53 at bats.  After a dreadful 20/3 K/BB ratio in April, he has found his plate eye again with an even 7/7 ratio in May.  After years of seeing players like Jason Tyner and Lew Ford spend lots of time in the DH spot, it’s nice to see Kubel start to thrive in the role.

There is more room for improvement too.  Michael Cuddyer has stunk up the batters box since his return and is now hitting a putrid .237/.304/.319.  Cuddyer is an important hitter for the Twins since most of the Twins best hitters are all left handed and productive Cuddyer makes it much harder for opposing managers to create favorable matchups against Mauer, Morneau, and Kubel late in the game.  Meanwhile, Delmon Young has also struggled at the plate with a mediocre .268 BA and almost no power.  The Twins expected to have more than one home run between their two starting corner outfielders by now.  Fortunately, Cuddyer’s established track record and Young’s age gives us plenty of reason to think they’ll bounce back soon and give the offense another boost.

And, sure, it doesn’t have anything to do with offense, but Fransisco Liriano is still down in AAA slowly getting his control and velocity back…

The Little Things?

The media, both local and national, has long praised the Twins for “doing all the little things right.”  But it doesn’t seem like this year’s Twins got the memo.  The Twins defense this year has been quite bad by several different measurements.  Team Defensive Efficiency measures the percentage of balls in play that a team turns into outs.  Even seemingly small variations in this number can have enormous effects on the effectiveness of a team’s ability to prevent runs.  Currently, the Twins DEF ranks them at 24th in baseball, a very bad place to be for a team that is supposed to pride itself on defense and pitching.  The Twins are also making more mistakes than most teams as they have already committed 40 errors, 4th most in baseball.  And all of this isn’t taking into account a whole host of other mistakes the Twins have made such as Delmon Young’s recent misplay that turned a blooper down the line into a game-tying inside the park home run or Brendon Harris’s continued struggles at turning the double play.

Another thing the Twins have been used to is a rock solid bullpen.  The Twins bullpen has been downright pedestrian this year, ranking in at 8th in the American League in ERA.  Losing 8th inning ace Pat Neshek has had a predictably bad effect on the bullpen as the Twins relievers have given up more runs in May than the relievers of any other AL team.  This is all after signing the still-dominant Joe Nathan to a contract worth at least $47 million this offseason.  Unfortunately, Nathan hasn’t been used terribly often this year, having logged only 20.1 innings so far, which represents only 13% on the bullpen’s total innings.  A lot of pitchers are going to have to step up to fill Neshek’s funky shoes and it seems like the best pitcher on the team should be asked for a little extra as well.

ON THE HILL  

Friday: Glen Perkins (2-1, 2.77 ERA, 5.5 K/9)

•    2008:  26 IP, 16 K, 27 H, 4 BB, 4 HR
•    (AAA):  33.1 IP, 27 K, 28 H, 19 BB, 2 HR
•    After missing most of last year with a shoulder injury, Glen Perkins has made the most of his time in the majors since his callup with 4 great starts against some of the league’s top offenses.
•    Perkins has stranded over 90% of his runner allowed on base so far this season.  Unfortunately, history shows that number to be impossibly high for any pitcher to sustain over time, so unless he starts allowing fewer baserunners he’s likely to start seeing more runs score.

Saturday: Boof Bonser (2-6, 6.16 ERA, 5.6 K/9)

•    2008:  61.3 IP, 68 H, 40 K, 17 BB, 8 HR
•    2007:  173 IP, 199 H, 136 K, 65 BB, 27 HR
•    Boof will be happy to see the month of May end.  After a solid April with a 3.75 ERA, Boof has been throwing batting practice in May to the tune of a 9.59 ERA…
•    And there may be good hope for Boof going forward. Bonser has stranded only 52% of his runners so far.  That number is bound to improve, helping Bonser’s ERA.
•    Boof may be running out of chances though.  With Scott Baker returning from the DL, Bonser may find himself the odd man out if he doesn’t find his stuff soon.

Sunday: Nick Blackburn (4-3, 3.39 ERA, 4.8 K/9)

•    2008: 71.2 IP, 38 K, 86 H, 11 BB, 4 HR
•    2007 (AAA): 110.2 IP, 57 K, 96 H, 12 BB, 7 HR
•    And you thought the Twins lost Carlos Silva.  Blackburn has showed why he was ranked the Twins best prospect by Baseball America this offseason.  He doesn’t strike many out, but he walks very few and gets a lot of ground balls.
•    For a change of pace, Blackburn has stranded a totally average number of runners and all of his peripheral numbers align with his results.  His performance so far has been legit.

Monday: Livan Hernandez (6-2, 4.22 ERA, 2.7 K/9)

•    2008:  70.1 IP, 22 K, 90 H, 13 BB, 9 HR
•    2007:  204.3 IP, 90 K, 247 H, 79 BB, 34 HR
•    Hernandez’s signing was a controversial move for the Twins.  His fastball routinely guns in around 85 MPH, his performance has suffered over the last few years, he was blocking the youngsters, and the move to the AL, league of the DH, would balloon his ERA off the charts.  Or so it seemed…
•    Instead, Hernandez has done a nice job for the Twins.  He still has a laughably low strikeout rate, but he’s cut his walk rate in half and given a nice boost to the number of grounders he induces.  With all the injuries to the bullpen, Hernandez’s steady 200 innings may be just what the doctor ordered.

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The results of today's MRI on Pat Neshek's right elbow were not good.  La Velle E. Neil reported on his blog that Neshek has been diagnosed with an acute partial tear of the ulner collateral ligament.  Yes, that said tear, and yes, that's the Tommy John ligament.  The word on what that means right now is Neshek will not throw for at least 3 months.  Surgery has not been mentioned at any point yet, but I highly doubt it's medically out of question considering the importance of that ligament.

This is clearly terrible news for the Twins.  Not only is it almost certain that Neshek will be done for the balance of the year, causing the Twins to lose their top set-up guy, but an injury to this part of the body casts instant doubt on how Neshek will pitch for the rest of his career.

Neshek is likely to get a second opinion, and hopefully we'll soon hear word about the injury being something a player can recover from soon...

It seems obvious to me from where I'm sitting here, but for those of you who don't live in Chicago, the Twins final game with the White Sox has been postponed due to hard rain.  Based on forecasts for the weekend series in Kansas City, this way be the first of a couple games missed in the next few days.

O=I'm pretty disappointed by the rainout in general, since Twins vs White Sox is the only time I really get to watch the Twins play until June.  On the other hand, Joe Christensen detailed in his blog why the rainout may be coming at a good time for the Twins.

Anyways, on to Kansas City we go.  Livan Hernandez will presumably get his spot in the rotation in the first game on Friday (assuming it is played), facing off against Gil Meche.

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

"He had a big night," Gardenhire said of Kubel, who finished with six RBI. "I've always said, I really believe this guy can hit. And you know what? He's going to get plenty of opportunities this year. He had 450 [plate appearances] last year, and I think he's going to get more than that this year.

Oh God, thank you, yes.  Put it on the books now, Gardenhire just said more than 450 PA's for Kubel this year.  I feel an enormous worry lifted off my shoulders.

Now go read Jesse's post below.  It's an ACTUAL entry.  With, you know, words, and research and stuff.  That Jesse, he sure writes English good...

According to Joe Christensen's blog, Fransisco Liriano had a marginal start tonight in Rochester:

Francisco Liriano needed 88 pitches to get through four innings tonight for Class AAA Rochester, and Casey Daigle has replaced him to start the fifth inning in Norfolk, Va.

Liriano gave up three runs on five hits, with three walks and three strikeouts. It remains unclear if that was enough to convince the Twins he is ready to rejoin the major league rotation.

 Alexi Casilla did make two errors in the field behind Liriano, which cost him somewhat in his final line, but those results remain discouraging coming from AAA.  It looks like Liriano may make another start or two in the minors before trying his hand in the major.  However, Liriano WILL be called up sooner or later, and probably not too much later.  The question then becomes, which Twins starter is demoted?

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