Palmer and Thorn and Denard's Decision

There could be a ton of great stuff to cover tonight, so let's lighting round through them quickly before we get to something that I've been meaning to study for several years.

Michael Cuddyer batting third - Until Joe Mauer comes back, the Twins are going to need to piece together the middle of the order, and I'm not sure how much it usually matter one batter versus another. But it mattered tonight.

Cuddyer got the lone RBI, but he also left a couple of other scoring chances on the field, and he looked overmatched. That can happen for right-handed hitters facing King Felix. So the logical question is "Why was a right-handed hitter batting third?"

It isn't because Gardy didn't want to bat two left-handers next to each other, because two lefties still did end up batting next to each other, in the fourth and fifth spots. It wasn't because Gardy wanted to guard against a late left-handed reliever being used, becaue Seattle's bullpen doesn't have a left-handed reliever.

It's a puzzling choice. On the other hand, it would make perfect sense tonight against the left-handed Erik Bedard, especially because Cuddyer has hit Bedard (3 for 12) better than either Delmon Young (2-15) or Joe Crede (o-11). Don't be shocked if it's Mike Redmond (2 for 5).

The Bullpen Meltdown - Like the Twins this offseason, I think I'm just going to ignore this for a little while. Let's leave it at this: Nice job, guys.

Sitting Delmon Young - In general, I like Gardenhire's approach to this. He's going to play them all and let it sort itself out. And I think it will. After all, let's not forget that there's a reason why none of them are above this little competition. They all could be capable starters, but they all also have their flaws.

Tonight I thought Gardy's choices made the team better. I'm not crazy about penciling Gomez's name above line 8 in my scorecard, but I need to admit the outfield defense really did shine. Gomez made a catch that Span probably doesn't make in center. And Span made three catches tonight that Young doesn't make in left. Of course, I wonder if he really should have made all three of those, so let's move onto our next topic. But first, a little shout out to AT&T....

My Tweeting - I'd like to give a shout out to AT&T, whose 3G network apparently couldn't handle 50,000 people in the area of the dome. So I couldn't shoot out a blog post or a single tweet. Nice job guys.

Denard's Foul Catch - The Mariners scored their first run tonight on a play one seldom sees. With Adrian Beltre on third base and one outs, Jose Lopez hit a fairly deep fly ball to left field that was going to be about 25 feet into foul territory. Span chose to catch it, Beltre tagged up and came home, and the throw from Span wasn't particularly close. Mariners led 1 to 0.

I winced a little, suspecting that "The Book" would say that ball should've been allowed to drop. I think it was obvious to most that by catching it, Span was conceding the run, and Span is heady enough that I suspect he knew the same thing. It was the leading run, so that's bad. But it's also early in the game, so that's good. So I wanted to research what various baseball mathematical models would say about the decision.

First, let's check out Palmer and Thorn's Expected Run Matrix. It's a neat grid that shows, given a certain number of outs and people on base, the average number of runs that should score that inning, based on 75 years of major league games. It was published in The Hidden Game of Baseball by Pete Palmer and John Thorn. It looks like this, and I've bolded the appropriate squares:

OUTS	None	1st	2nd	3rd	1st & 2nd	1st & 3rd	2nd & 3rd	Full
0 Outs	0.454	0.783	1.068	1.277	1.38	1.639	1.946	2.254
1 Out	0.249	0.478	0.699	0.897	0.888	1.088	1.371	1.546
2 Outs	0.095	0.209	0.348	0.382	0.457	0.494	0.661	0.798

- With a runner on 3rd and one out, one would expect to give up .897 runs. That's the situation if Span doesn't catch the ball.
- With two outs and nobody on, one would expect to give up just .095 runs, but of course a run has also scored, so that's 1.095 runs. That's the situation if Span caught the ball.
- By catching the ball, on average, Span gave up an extra tenth of a run.

So according to Palmer and Thorn, it's fairly close, but the smart move is generally to let the ball drop. Considering Lopez isn't an especially dangerous hitter, and the count would be 1-2, and Francisco Liriano was on the mound, I think the context supports that idea too.

But before we move on, I want to check one other model. Fangraphs.com has a beautiful method for tracking the outcomes of a game called Win Probability. The idea is similar to the one above. For just about every conceivable situation and find the probability of a team winning that game, based on what has happened historically in that situation.

From yesterday's game graph, it looks like the Twins chances of winning that game decreased from 45.3% to 43.2% with that catch. If it was a smart move (and it would have been if the game was later and the Twins held a decent lead) you would have seen the probability increase.

So, it's like we thought at the time. Probably not a good move, but not particularly damaging or stupid either. Which bring me to my next shout out....

Bridge Work on 35W last night at 10:00 - It's nice to know that a little thing like 50,000 fans in cars doesn't stop MNDOT from reducing the major artery from downtown to just one lane. Way to play through adversity guys. Nice job. If you really want to impress me, you should do the same thing tomorrow during rush hour. You know,if it's convenient for you.

Podcast - Which reminds me, if you would like to hear my live reaction to MNDOT's decision, or the 'shout out' I gave to the bassbowl determined to halt any thought of merging, you'll want to check out Seth Stoh's and my podcast last night at MNGameNight.com. And join me tonight, too, while I break down the Bedard/Blackburn duel.

Opening Day 2009!

Last year for opening series, I wrote this in GameDay’s Dugout Splinters:

If you were a Yankees fan who wanted to win a World Series, you could just sit back and wait for the top free agent to hit the market and demand your team sign him. And, I suppose, if you wanted to be a successful parent, you could just adopt a 17-year-old National Merit Scholar.

But Twins fans are like the rest of us parents. We understand that it is infinitely more rewarding to see success come from someone in whom we’ve invested some time.

It still holds true, and so we're going to look at 12 reasons to watch this year, no matter what happens. But this year, in preparation of developing a Twitterholic dependency, I’m gonna try to capture these 12 players twitter-style, in 140 characters or less.

We’ll go with the first seven right now and I’ll release the last five exclusively through the new Twitter account gradually before today’s game. (Sign up!) So which 12 stories am I most interested in following? Starting at #12...

12 Cuddyer-I don't believe 2006 was a fluke. Slug the inside stuff and bloop the outside stuff big fella. That’s all I’m looking for.

11 DYoung-Spring: 65 AB, 0BB, 10K. Pulling the ball is easy. Identifying which pitch to pull is not. Adversity is coming for this guy. Wince.

10 PHumber-His numbers from the 2nd half of AAA suggest he can be very valuable. But will he overcome the learning curve fast enough?

9 RADickey-Knuckleballers stats are often much better indoors. Lets turn on those blowers behind home plate and see what happens.

8 Kubel-I know he’s a breakout candidate, but can he hit LHs? Gardy still hasn’t given him even 100 AB against them, and he hasn’t deserved them.

7 Slowey-Everyone's favorite breakout pitcher, but didn't he breakout last year? 160IP, 123K, 24BB, 3.99ERA. Shame on us for not noticing.

6 Crain-Spring: 8K, 1BB, 10IP. I don’t totally trust him for the 8th, but I'm looking forward to seeing him. Could have a HUGE impact.

Tweeter
Again, I’d love to have you follow me all baseball season in Tweeter, especially because with the new GameDay/Twins partnership, I should have significantly more access. Tomorrow I'll tweet the second half of this list, and I’ll be tweeting throughout the home opener, too. And if you don’t want to sign up for Twitter for whatever reason, notice that my tweets are also displayed over on the right-hand side.

Podcast
But wait! There's more! Because Seth Stohs and I are also going to be podcasting weeknights after Twins games too. We’re starting tonight at 10:00 at MNGameNight.com. Stop by and listen or download it to your ipod. We would love to know what you think.

DugoutSplinters.com
And finally, GameDay will be providing online updates for the Dugout Splinters that you can find in every Twins Official Scorecard (sold for just $1!). You can find them before every Twins home game at DugoutSplinters.com. I just posted the pitching probables for what should be a doozy tonight at the dome.

GameDay Chatter: Grating Expectations

During the 2009 season, the Twins Radio Network is going extend their broadcasting after each Sunday game to include a couple of hours or Twins sports talk with Jack Morris and Chris Atteberry. And yes, this means your Sunday's are completely shot to hell.

This show is going to include a weekly 'rant' by a GameDay writer/blogger called 'GameDay Chatter'. Since we were a little pressed for time this week, I wrote up this one, and you'll find a draft of it below. If you're interested in hearing the audio, or talking with Morris or Atteberry about it, be sure to tune in on Sunday.

Grating Expectations

At the risk of offending the baseball gods, is anyone else smirking when they hear that the real AL Central favorite this year is the Cleveland Indians? Admirers will point out that the Indians record after the all-star break. And their run differential. And that they were devastated by injuries and had a productive offseason.

It sounds good until you realize we’ve heard all this before. This will be the Indians fifth straight year as at least a co-favorite in the division, and they’ve made it to the playoffs just once. Last year they were so dismal that they folded at the beginning of July, trading away CC Sabathia. Who they didn’t replace during that “productive” offseason.

Which, by the way, looks a lot less productive than it did in January. Acquiring Mark DeRosa from the Cubs was supposed to initiate a shift in player positions that would tighten the Indians infield defense and provide a little extra offense. Except that manager Eric Wedge hasn’t shifted the players, so they essentially have three infielders now playing out of position.

And their new closer, Kerry Wood, is universally considered one of the top closers in the American League, provided his arm holds up. Now that is aweso……hold it. What was that last part? You see, Wood hasn’t had a perfectly healthy year since 2002. His first spring training appearance was mid-March because – wanna guess - he was hurt.

And I haven’t even mentioned the injury-ridden back of the rotation. Or the fact that last year’s ace, Cliff Lee, is posting a 12+ ERA while begging for a long term extension. Uh, how’s the arm feeling, Cliff?

The Indians are a good baseball club in a division full of good baseball clubs. I’m not saying they can’t compete. But they have plenty to sort out. And maybe we should let them meet modest expectations before we crown them king.