Babysitter Wanted

The Twins are full of frustrating players right now, but Francisco Liriano might actually be at the top of the list. He even looks frustrated with himself, but of course that's what is so maddening. He found himself in mid-May, back when he was throwing to Rene Rivera, but Rivera was (justifiably) sent down when there was a roster crunch. Still, I can't help but wonder if Rivera is the secret sauce that Liriano needs right now.

Coming into last night's debacle, Lirino had made nearly an equal number of starts with Drew Butera, Joe Mauer and Rene Rivera behind the dish. But the results have been vastly different. Liriano has posted a 5.26 ERA with a 1.449 WHIP throwing to Butera. He's been even worse with Mauer, with a 6.19 ERA and a 1.753 WHIP. But with Rivera, he's been Cy Young: 2.89 ERA and a 1.125 WHIP.

Of course, this reeks of small sample size, but sometimes that's all you've got to work with. I'll agree that it seems more than a little silly to carry a guy on the 25-man roster just to be Liriano's babysitter, but right now there happens to be plenty of dead wood on this roster:

• Jason Repko is the sixth outfielder on the roster and third center fielder. The only reason he is still on the roster is that he's out of options, but at some point he turns from reserve to hostage. Can you justify carrying him for another 4 weeks just so you maybe keep him in the offseason? And even if you did lose him, wouldn't the cost to replace him be minimal?
  

• Yesterday Jose Mijares was not brought in to pitch an inning when the Twins had a 37-run lead. Scarier? That was totally justified. He's also out of options, and again, I can kind of see keeping him around just so you can try him out again next season. But really, why? Is there any hope next year is any different? Has any year been much different for him? He hasn't been a serious setup option since his September callup.
  

• Tsuyoshi Nishioka has turned into my whipping boy lately, I'll admit it. But seriously - put the poor kid out of his misery. He looks like he would actually be relieved to be sent down to Rochester at this point. I might even consider dropping him to New Britain if he continues to insist on using this slappie left-handed approach versus southpaws. I suspect the plan was to wait for Casilla to come back, but Tolbert can play there and Plouffe can sub in a pinch.
  

Last night was the kind of game drives Gardy to the industrial-sized bottle of cherry extract, so I wouldn't be shocked if we see some roster changes regardless. But seeing as the Twins have repeatedly tried and failed to get Liriano's head on straight this year, doesn't it make a little sense to at least try that which has already worked? Especially when so little is to be lost?

On Magic, Isolation and 1991

The concept of a 13-year-old facing a spiritual dilemma feels odd, but there it is. This upcoming year, my Chatty Chatty Princess faces the daunting task of attending weekly confirmation classes without much belief in a higher power. I know she’s going to attend – I still hold that much control - but I don’t know how her quest will end. My hope would that she finds what I found: an unseen love and magic worth holding onto.

I’ve seen that magic a few times in my life and one of them concerns the 1991 Minnesota Twins, who are being honored this weekend at Target Field. It seems like an appropriate time to share that story, but first I need to talk about the ‘87 team.

My fandom for the Twins has ebbed and flowed, but the needle had inched back to “obsessive” in the mid-80s. During spring training of 1987, I decided this year might be different, that it might be special. However, I watched the summer unfold with mixed feelings of delight and dread. My favorite team was seemingly sprinkled in fairy dust, but I knew that I was destined to miss the culmination of years of loyalty.

That’s because the 1987 season would end during the fall of my junior year in college. Nearly a year before, I had applied and been accepted to study abroad - and not just abroad. Since the foreign language I was studying was Russian, I was studying in Krasnodar, a small rural city in the Soviet Union. I left at the end of August and would not return until December.

To say I felt isolated there was an understatement. First, there were the challenges of being abroad: not really knowing anyone other than a group of students, not knowing the language particularly well, and not knowing a completely different (and ridiculously inefficient) culture and economic system.

People ask me what communism was like. You know how before Christmas you go to the post office, and there is a huge line and there are only two windows open even though you see all kinds of other postal employees around? And you wait and wait and get angrier and angrier and then just as you get to the front of the line, he CLOSES the window because it’s time for his break and you have to wait that much longer? It was like that. Only for EVERYTHING.

Then there was the group of students I was with. To this day I have trouble putting my finger on the dysfunction that surrounded that group. Most were friendly enough, but there was a pretension that seeped through most interactions and poisoned the waters. It added to the isolation.

And finally, there was the fact that we were in the freaking USSR in 1987. The whole philosophy was one of isolationism. There was no internet or email. A phone call took 30 minutes to connect, cost $10 per minute, had to be made in the middle of the night, could only be made from hotel phones AND that was only if you could get the Russian operator to understand what you wanted. In the four months I was there, I managed to speak to my parents once – and their big news was that my dog had died.

There also wasn’t any news of any kind from outside the Soviet Union. You can be sure that Pravda wasn’t promoting a lot of US news. Ditto any newscasts, though it’s not like TV was much of an option anyway. Anything mailed from the U.S. took three weeks to arrive. You would send a letter home with a request or question, and hear back a month-and-a-half later.

So following the Twins pennant race and postseason run was a bit of a challenge. Near as I could tell, there were two other baseball fans on the trip: John (who was another Twins fan) and Nina (who happened to be a Cardinals fan). Anyone who called home was required to get several pieces of information from their parents to report back to the group – and two of those were the status of the Twins and Cardinals.

My only real connections home were the occasional packets of newspaper clippings and John. We spent most of October together scheming ways to get news. One of us would get a mail package and we would both digest every story, every inch. We found out from other students’ phone calls that the Twins had won the first two games versus the Cardinals. We found out from a later phone call that they had lost the next three.

We deduced the Twins had won game 6 by bringing a radio to the top of the hotel and trying desperately to get Radio Free Europe. Through 20 minutes of static we heard two words: “game seven” and that was enough. We found out the winner three days later when Nina got through on a pay phone to the Marine barracks in Moscow. John and I celebrated with Nina and my girlfriend and some cold bottles of vodka.

John was my tether to baseball, and I was his. But when our trip abroad ended, I never saw John again. Except once.

1991 was a different story. I was out of college with a good job, and was crazy about this girl I was dating from Philadelphia. She and a mutual friend were visiting for the weekend of Games 6 and 7. We were all baseball freaks, so we found ourselves walking around the Metrodome in the frigid weather, trying to scalp tickets. $85 apiece seemed like a lot to pay to sit two rows from the top, but the girls were cold, so we hustled into Game 6 rather than risk losing that chance. Obviously, that was the best $85 I ever spent.

The girlfriend (who later became my wife) changed her ticket to fly back a day later so we could watch Game 7. I was so worked up about the game I failed to make any arrangements to see it with friends. So we sat in my apartment on the living room couch and watched the tensest game I’d ever seen. It had been a long weekend, and this really wasn’t her team. As the sun went down, she laid down on the couch to watch, her head on my lap, eventually falling asleep.

So now I was trapped. Inning after inning of nervous energy with no release. No eating. No drinking. No pacing. No talking. I was every bit as isolated as I had been in the USSR, maybe more so. It was an agony I could not escape. There was nothing to do but see it through.

She awoke for the bottom of the 10th inning. After Larkin swung at that first pitch I literally didn’t know what to do with myself. I think we jumped around in the living room for a while and then she asked, “So, what do you want to do?”

I wanted to go downtown. I wanted to reconnect. We flew down Park Avenue and somewhat reluctantly entrusted my beat-up Prelude to the city’s meters. And then we just … ran around aimlessly. Every group of people greeted each other with high fives. Music blared, leading to dancing. There was more running than walking, and even some skipping. I suspect I was doing both – right up until some other blind reveling Twins fan ran right into me, nearly knocking each other down. I braced myself for a possible confrontation…

It was John.

We stood looking at each other with mouths agape. Then we babbled at each other about our team, just like we had 4 years and 10,000 miles away. I don’t think we shared a single detail about our current lives. We just marveled at what had happened, and whatever power had brought this convergence. Still stunned, we parted, and I explained to The Voice Of Reason what had just happened:

“I think I just got a cosmic do-over.”

----------------------------

As you probably know, there are a whole bunch of great DVDs about the 1991 series being given away by bloggers, myself included. (THANK YOU to MLB for the opportunity to do this.) You can buy them both yourself by clicking on the links below. They are:

Minnesota Twins 1991 World Series Collecter’s Edition DVD Set which include all seven games recorded in their entirety plus bonus footage. I guarantee that you’ll be struck by all the drama that you had long since forgotten. This was not a series for the feint of heart. They run $69.95, which is considerably less than I paid for that Game 6 ticket.

The Minnesota Twins 1991 World Series Collector’s Edition is for those of you with more of a life – it smushes all of the drama into a one-hour-and-fifteen minutes disc. It’s also just $19.95.

Or you could get it free, as I have one copy of each that MLB has assigned me to give away. I was going to have a contest to beat my 1991 story above, but

1) that would be pretty easy and
2) the Twins are already doing that (and you can get a bobblehead set from them for it.)

So let’s do this instead: I’ve been trying to get you folks to join Twitter for months now and here’s your chance to get something out of it. Do the following:

1. Sign up for Twitter at http://twitter.com (if you’re not already signed up)
2. Go to http://twitter.com/twinsgeek and click on the ‘Follow’ button (again, if you aren’t already.)
3. Send out the following tweet: “@twinsgeek Please send me a 1991 DVD for reading your goofy #CosmicDoOver story at http://bit.ly/nk6SLP”

I’ll choose two of them at random sometime Friday morning. I can’t imagine getting more than a dozen or so such tweets, so I think your chances will be pretty good. If you win, I’ll send you a direct mail message and then send your address to MLB to send you the DVDs.

That’s it. And after you’ve followed me, be sure to follow the tweets of all the rest of the TwinsCentric crew: @SethTweets, @OverTheBaggy and @Nnelson9

Denard Span vs. Drew Storen

A Defense Of The Value Of Relievers

You can blame this extended column on John Dyer-Bennet, my Calc II professor back in 1985. He’s the guy that instilled in me a very high standard for what is “intuitively obvious.”

Yesterday, rumors heated up nationally about the Washington Nationals’ interest in swapping their closer Drew Storen for Twins center fielder Denard Span. The leading indicator of fan reaction, Twitter, nearly self-combusted. I’d estimate that 90-95% of the reactions varied from “this is a terrible idea” to “the Twins need to get more than Storen.”

There is no doubt that some of that is a knee-jerk reaction to last year’s Matt Capps-Wilson Ramos trade. There are too many similarities to ignore: the Twins acquire the Nationals closer at midseason for a young, cost-controlled, up-the-middle defensive player. And as someone who ripped the hell out of that trade the day it was made, I can sympathize.

But Span is not Ramos, and Storen REALLY isn’t Capps. Comparing Storen to Capps because they’ve both been Nationals closers is akin to comparing gold to lead because they’re both metallic elements. Storen isn’t an average reliever who happened to be plugged into the closer role for the Nationals without throwing up all over himself for three months. He’s the real deal. I’ll let some other blogs (or the comments section) give the statistical breakdown, but if a deal goes down, rest assured that the Twins are getting a good ’un here. For lack of a better comp, think Joe Nathan, with a year less service time.

But the comparison that counts isn’t Storen-Capps, it’s Storen-Span. So let’s compare them.

If you look at the “other stuff” that we pay so much attention to – things like salary, age, service time, contract options, health – there is no doubt that Storen comes out ahead. He’s younger. He has less service time. His money isn’t guaranteed so there is less financial risk. He’s under team control longer. He’ll be cheaper for the next four years (and Span will be a FA by then). I suppose one could argue about the health risks inherent with a pitcher vs. a position player, but Span’s concussion history would seem to balance that out.

On all those fronts, Storen gets the checkmark. To me, that is intuitively obvious.

It also doesn’t appear that Span is any better at his role than Storen is at his. Without a lot of analysis, Span would appear to be better than about 2/3 of the center fielders in the majors. But there is no question that Storen is quite a bit better than 2/3 of the relief pitchers in the majors. That figure might be as high as 90%.

(Dyer-Bennet would hate that last paragraph. But this story is already gonna go extremely long. I’ll take the demerits and move on. If someone wants to challenge it or do the analysis, you can get the extra credit.)

Instead, what is intuitively obvious to everyone – save me, apparently – is that an everyday position player is much more valuable to a team than a relief pitcher. It is so obvious that several Twitter users were flummoxed that I would even ask why they believe that. I was accused of playing dumb or trolling.

But gratefully, some did reply, and I’d like to examine the arguments.

Everyday Players Play And Do A Lot More
We track a lot of statistics for baseball, and relievers usually have the fewest of those statistics. It’s reasonable to suggest this shows a higher level of value for position players.

But comparing the overall value of those stats becomes problematic. First, there is the problem that hitters and pitchers have different statistics: how does an RBI double compare to a scoreless eighth inning? Then there is the problem of context – how did those hits or outs impact the game?

Indeed, measuring the value of players in a single game is problematic, let alone for a full season. For instance, in last night’s 7-1 win, who was more valuable: Brian Duensing (6 2/3 IP, 1 run) or Joe Mauer (2-4, 3R, 2RBI)? You might have your opinion, I might have mine. There is no intuitively obvious answer. How would one measure such a thing?

One way would be to try and measure each player’s impact on a game. You know that Mauer’s single in the fourth inning helped the Twins and impacted the game. You know that Duensing’s scoreless sixth inning impacted the game. But you don’t know exactly how much each impacted the game.

But what if I told you that historically (counting thousands of MLB games), teams that were in the same position as the Twins were when Mauer came to the plate had won 62% of their games. But after that hit, teams in roughly that same position had won 73% of their games. It would be fair to give Mauer credit for that 11%, wouldn’t it?

And what if I said that when Duensing took the hill in the middle of the sixth to protect a 3-run lead, historically teams had won 83% of their games? But that teams who still had a 3-run lead at the end of the sixth had won 89% of their games? Wouldn’t it be reasonable to suggest that Duesning and the Twins defense should get credit for driving that game 6% closer to a win?

And if you’re trying to determine the impact of a player on a season, isn’t it reasonable to add up all those percentages – both positive and negative – and see how a player impacted his team?

This is the theory behind Win Probability Added (WPA).

(And this is where I lose a big chunk of the sabrmetric stats guys. Because while you might think that they would love this stat, my experience is that most of them dislike it. The most common criticism? They don’t like the results. It’s usually expressed by saying something like “But that says that Phil Dumatrait has been more valuable than Carl Pavano!”

And I gotta say, as someone who championed sabrmetric stats closer to their infancy, that reaction makes me want to cry. Bill James talks about how he used to think that once he explained his discoveries to baseball teams, and proved his methods, they would accept them. Instead, they would say something like “That can’t be true – it shows that Darrin Erstad isn’t valuable! He’s a gamer!”

The parallels are obvious. It drives me crazy to think that the high priests who pride themselves on championing baseball research are those most passionate about discrediting stuff like this. I’m not kidding about the wanting to cry thing. I honestly feel a small buzzing below my ears when I hear people say crap like that. For those of you looking for a hot button, you found one.)

Anyway, there are flaws with WPA. One is that it gives credit to the pitcher for the defense behind him, which most traditional sabrmetricians suggest is worth about 1/3 of the value. Obviously, that also means fielders don’t get that credit, either. We’ll try to accommodate that a bit.

Another criticism is that even though WPA tries to value hits and scoreless innings in the context of game, it doesn’t take it far enough. The probabilities reflect average teams and not true probabilities of facing teams. For instance, ideally it would assign a higher probability of holding a lead versus the Royals as opposed to the Yankees.

(There are likely other flaws, too. It took time to uncover some flaws in the Pythagorean Formula, Runs Created, UZR, VORP and WAR. We’ll likely find some more in WPA too, provided we continue to actually study it.)

In terms of impacting the game, Denard Span leads all Twins hitters, having added 84% to the team’s probability in the 56 games he played. If you want to see all the Twins, both hitters and pitchers, you can do so .

And Storen? +236%. Even if we give 1/3 of that credit to his defense, and even if we give Span an extra fifty points for the above average defense he has played in center field, Storen has impacted the Nationals a bit more than Span has impacted the Twins this year. He also has had that impact while being a closer on a team that is five games under .500.

How can that be the case? Because one thing WPA shows is how a manager can leverage the value of player at critical points. Very good relievers can have very high or very low WPA scores because a manager will consistently put them in the right place at the right (or very wrong) time. If they come through, they save the game and increase the probability of winning significantly. If they blow it, they can lose a ton of those probability points. For instance, for the Twins, Glen Perkins is second on the team with +151%. But Matt Capps is near the bottom at –90%. The swings for relievers can be volatile – which bring us to the next point.


Relievers are too volatile to be valuable.
This is the point that makes the least sense to me. If relievers are more volatile than position players, wouldn’t it mean that the relievers who perform are more valuable? There’s a reason that tech stocks that perform are valued sky-high. It’s because tech stocks are volatile, and those that perform are worth a lot more – even more than regular high-performing stocks.

I think what is really meant here is “I don’t trust Drew Storen, because relievers are volatile and Storen is a reliever.” I can’t make you trust Drew Storen. If it makes you feel better, most of the tweets I saw yesterday concerning the trade from Nationals fans were also rending their garments. Apparently they trust him.


Good center fielders are more rare than good relievers.
There is another definition of value beyond impact: rarity. The more rare a commodity, the more valuable it is. I argued this several times during the offseason when berating the Twins for offering arbitration to Matt Capps.

The problem with comparing Span and Storen on that basis is that they’re both exceedingly rare. One doesn’t find 27-year-old center fielders with a career OBP of .366 on the free agent market, and one doesn’t find 23-year-old fireballers with a sub-one WHIP on the free agent market, either. If we did, my best guess is that Storen would probably get a better contract than Span, but I can understand those that are wary of him being overpaid because of his “closer experience.”

But I’m sure about one thing: they’re close to each other in the rarity department. For this exercise, that’s enough.


An everyday player is harder to replace than a reliever.
Usually, this is demonstrated in one of two ways.

The most common is anecdotal. “The Rays signed Juan Cruz to a minor league deal and look what he did for them this year.” Or, more regionally, “Nobody thought Glen Perkins was going to be any good, and look what he did.” Certainly, there are several success stories throughout each season that are similar.

Of course, there are also a lot of disasters, too. There is a reason that at every trade deadline relievers are a hot commodity, and believe it or not, it’s not because every GM of every really good team is too stupid to sign good relievers. It’s because, going back to an earlier point, relievers are really volatile.

When you have a lot of volatile commodities, many are much better than you think they’re going to be and many are much worse. If you only look at the ones that over perform, you feel like an idiot. “Look how that tech stock came through. Why didn’t all the traders pick that? They could’ve had it at a record low price. It was easy. Why are they all such idiots?”

They aren’t idiots – they’re just in the business of picking volatile assets. A bunch of them are going to over perform and look good. A bunch are going to under perform and look dismal. But looking at the good ones and concluding that good tech stocks are easily replaceable is foolish.

The second way is to use a formula like VORP or WARP or something that ends in RP, which stands for “replacement player.” The problem with using those kinds of metrics when evaluating relievers is that it misses the context of what they do. It relies on the number of innings they pitched, and since they don’t pitch many innings, they’re not very valuable. We know that isn’t true because of the importance of the innings that they are put in. They are really, really poor metrics for evaluating relievers.

It isn’t clear to me how to judge what a replaceable player is at each position, at least not in an overnight entry. So instead of looking at a player in relation to a “replacement player” which is supposed to be freely available talent in AAA, let’s look at it in relation to an average MLB player or pitcher.

Certainly, if you use that in relation to WPA, we’re going to get the same result as before. WPA compares both hitters and pitchers performance to how players have historically affected games or to an average player. Storen has improved his chances +236% over an average pitcher. Span has improved his team’s chances of winning +84% over an average hitter, plus he’s saved about 10 runs over an average center fielder. That’s what we came up with before.

If you prefer to use something like runs, I suppose we could compare Span’s runs created to the median center fielders runs created and tack on the defensive runs he saved. Then we could compare Storen’s runs saved to it using Baseball Prospectus’ great little report. But it’s after midnight, and I don’t see that report anywhere on their site right now.

That might show me I’m wrong – that Span’s impact is quite a bit greater compared to an average center fielder than Storen’s is to an average middle reliever. If someone wants to do that and post it somewhere just let me know in the comments below. I’m cooked. Perhaps that is why it is still not obvious that Span (or any effective hitter) is more valuable than Storen (or any effective reliever). Or perhaps it is because it isn’t obvious at all.

Reliever Countdown - The Top Four

There has been a lot of talk about how the Twins need a right-handed reliever. There has also been a lot of talk about the number of right-handed relievers available for trade. However, I’d seen precious few specifics, so back on Thursday I started examining fourteen names that are supposedly available and ranking them from worst to first. Today we get to the names that might induce TC Bear to do cartwheels – and not just for their impact THIS YEAR.

(If you want to see some more realistic names, check out Part 1 and Part 2.)

WHAT THE MARKET WILL BEAR
These are the premier guys. They’re the names about whom lots of teams will be calling and asking. To get any of them, a team not only must make a great offer, it likely has to be better than other great offers.

#4. Leo Nunez
Nunez is the 27-year-old closer for the Marlins. He’s been good enough to already rack up 27 saves for Florida, but it’s the secondary statistics that really impress: nearly a strikeout per inning (42K in 45.2 IP) with good control (15 BB). The Marlins are ten games out of the wild card, so he could be available for the right package. The team that acquires him gets to hang onto him this year and next year as he’s still arbitration eligible. He’ll likely cost $6-7M next year and be a free agent in 2013.

It’s been reported that the Marlins have talked to the Red Sox and Phillies about him and the Marlins supposedly want young pitching in return. They could also certainly use an everyday third baseman.

#3. Mike Adams
There may not be a name more mentioned on the trade market than Adams – remarkable considering he isn’t a closer. Adams is the setup man for Heath Bell in San Diego, but his stats are (and have been) more impressive than Bell’s. His WHIP is an obscene .727, with just 23 hits and 9 walks in 44 innings. It’s also remarkable that he’s available considering Bell will be a free agent at the end of the season; one would think that the Padres would want to have Adams around if Bell leaves.

Like Nunez, Adams will be around through 2012 and becomes a free agent in 2013. Unlike Nunez, Adams will likely be quite a bit cheaper next year (because he isn’t collecting saves) and is already 32 years old. The Padres say they would need to be overwhelmed to consider trading him.

#2. Joakim Soria
For most of Soria’s career, it has been speculated that the Royals closer could be available in a trade, despite the Kansas City’s protests. The 27-year-old has been a top shelf reliever for several years – an eerie match for Joe Nathan. This year he struggled early, lost his closer job in May, but has gone back to living up to his “Mexecutioner” nickname; since June 1st he has 17 K and 2BB in 20 innings and his WHIP is just 0.750.

All of that would place him high on this list, but it’s his contract that elevates him to the top two. He’s making 4M this year, $6M in 2012, $8M in 2013 and $8.75M in 2014. But best of all, each of those years are team options. If he’s throwing like a top flight closer, he’s a bargain. If not, the team who has him can cut bait. And when that contract ends, he’ll still only be 30 years old.

#1. Tyler Clippard
The top guy on this list isn’t the closer for the Washington Nationals; he’s their setup man. But he’s 26 years old, has a WHIP this year of .828, and has struck out 64 guys while throwing a hefty 64 innings. He’s got closer stuff, but hasn’t been the closer yet, which makes him cheaper.

Similar to Soria, a team could bring back Clippard on a year-to-year basis for several years, but that control last four years, through 2015. Exactly how much that would cost depends on how much he would win in arbitration, but a rough guess of his salary the next four years would be something like $1.5M, $4M, $7M, and $9M.

What would it take to get him? According to Ken Rosenthal, any trade for Clippard would need to fill a specific long-term need, such as center field. One of the names that Rosenthal mentions is Denard Span. Nick Cafardo reported that the Rangers have made “a lot of inquiries” on Clippard and also mentions that the Braves, Yankees and Red Sox have also looked into acquiring him.

Reliever Countdown Part II

“It is not God's will merely that we should be happy, but that we should make ourselves happy.”

- Immanuel Kant

Tragically, what would make me happy is to continue our a posteiori look at all the right-handed relievers clogging the trade market. Yesterday I promised to count down the top eleven. I lied. I’m going with the top fourteen, because readers sent three more names between comments and tweets. To review, yesterday I ranked the following:

NOT NOTHING, BUT NOT SOMETHING, EITHER
14. Juan Cruz

DECENT PROSPECT
12. Frank Francisco
11. Kerry Wood
10. Jon Rauch

Today, let’s backtrack a bit and add a name and a new category:

SOMETHING LESS THAN A DECENT PROSPECT

13. Matt Guerrier
Guerrier is with the Dodgers now, and having a mediocre year (1.323 WHIP), meaning it’s a little more in line with his “stuff” than he had with the Twins. I started by putting him a half point behind Jon Rauch on the list because:

1) He’s not having quite as good a year as Rauch and
2) He has a guaranteed contract that pays him through 2013 that pays him somewhere between $7.5M and $10M the next two years.

But the more I thought about it, the less he’ll cost in a trade. He can’t be a free agent, so the whole Type B status thing doesn’t really matter. The Dodgers would probably love to have that back-loaded contract off their books. And it’s not like he’s been especially good this year.

Honestly, the more I think about it, the more likely it seems he ends up returning to the Twins. He was a popular guy – very popular in the Twins clubhouse. He fits the basic need for a fairly reliable mid-inning right-hander. If the Dodgers commit to paying his $3M signing bonus, I gotta think the chances of him returning to the Twins is almost 50/50.

Late thought: I honestly wonder if this isn’t for whom the Twins could trade Kevin Slowey. Discuss.

GIVE 'TIL IT HURTS
I ranked and re-ranked the guys in this category at least a dozen times. The challenge is that they all bring different benefits, so they’re hard to compare. What they all have in common is that they’ll cost you someone that you really don’t want to give up.

9. Kyle Farnsworth
I’ll be honest: it kind of depresses me that the Rays might actually sell at the trade deadline, but I’m assured they will. The Rays reliever to grab is the 35-year-old Farnsworth – and actually it kind of depresses me to say that, too. Farnsworth has had a roller-coaster of a career and I always get a little hopeful when he comes into the game for the opposing team. It’s hard to place him this high on this list.

However, there is no denying the success he’s had this year. His WHIP (.957) is one of the best on this list. His control, which has always been a little questionable, has been exceptional, with just 7 walks in 38.2 IP. He’s currently closing for the Rays. The reason I rank him a little lower than the others is that his strikeout rate has only been mediocre, with 28K in 38.2 IP.

Finally, Farnsworth has a $3.3M club option that a team can exercise next year. He also projects as a Type A free agent – but I’m not sure if that increases or decreases his value to any team that acquires him (or for the Rays). My guess is that if a team offered him arbitration, he would simply accept it, and make more than they would pay for the club option.

8. Heath Bell
The Padres closer, and one of the most talked about names on the trade market, only ranks 8th on the list? After all, we’re talking about a closer who has posted 40+ saves over the last two years and is on pace for almost 50 this year. The 33-year-old will be a free agent at the end of the year, but has a 1.195 WHIP. Isn’t he EXACTLY what teams need?

I’ve moved Bell everywhere from 5th to 9th on this list, and ultimately downgraded him because of his strikeout rate this year. IN the previous years, he’s struck out more guys than he has pitched innings, showing absolute dominance. This year he has struck out 28 in 39.1 innings. That just scares me a bit. But I won’t take it personally if you want to rank him above the next much less accomplished relievers.

7. Octavio Dotel
Here’s another name I didn’t expect to find this high on my list. After all, Dotel is basically a 37-year-old journeyman reliever, albeit a pretty successful one. His latest stop has been Toronto, and his numbers this year pop out: 29K in 27 IP with a 1.111 WHIP. He’s been grim death to right-handed hitters (.169 BA/.464 OPS).

But there’s more. He is also is a Type B free agent, and he also has a club option next year for $3.5M. I still feel a little silly ranking Dotel this high – it’s Dotel. (Like I said, you can shuffle a lot of these guys around.) But when I add up all those factors, I end up with him a notch above the crowd.

6. Jim Johnson
The Orioles have talked about turning Johnson, their 28-year-old setup man, into a starter next year. He’s a little different than the other guys in this category because he doesn’t put up eye-popping numbers (38 K in 58 IP), but has had good results (1.155 WHIP). I’m ranking him slightly higher than the others because he’s under team control through arbitration through 2014. But make no mistake, he’s a setup man, not a closer.

5. Grant Balfour
Balfour is Dotel with a better recent track record. You’ll remember him throwing heat with the Twins before a shoulder injury, way back in 2004. This year he’s with Oakland and putting up exactly the kind of numbers you want to see from a right-handed setup guy: 40K in 37.2 IP, 15 BB, and just 24 Hits. That’s just a 1.035 WHIP.

He’s a little more expensive than most on this list, making $4M this year and again in 2012 with a club option for $4.5M in 2013. A savvy team could take his closer-type stuff and that contract and have a hell of a nice option for the next couple of years - even if he never becomes the closer.

Unless you folks throw some more names at me in the comments, that leaves me with four names to cover, including two closers and two setup men. All of them will cost a pound of flesh – but they sure are fun to talk about. See ya on Monday.

Reliever Countdown

The Twins need right-handed relievers. You know this. I know this. The front office, the coaches and the players know this. It’s become a priori; even Kant knows it. It’s transcendental.

What I don’t know, and haven’t seen, is exactly what the Twins can do about it. So let’s do a little a posteiori analysis on eleven names that could be available this trade deadline. While we’re at it, we’ll rank them from the least to the most desirable. We’ll group them by what it might take to land them.


NOT NOTHING, BUT NOT SOMETHING, EITHER

11. Juan Cruz
The 32-year-old bounced back a little this season with the Rays after two miserable years with the Royals. It’s nice that the Rays were to get a 3.44 ERA and 21 hits in 34 inning from a guy they signed to a minor league deal. Unfortunately, Cruz is still having troubles with his control (he also has 21 BB) and now he’s sidelined until after the deadline with a strained groin. It’s a shame, because in some ways he’s having a better year than the next two guys on the list, but he wouldn’t cost a team nearly as much thanks to how the Collective Bargaining Agreement rewards teams that lose free agents. (See, Francisco, Frank.)


DECENT PROSPECT

10. Frank Francisco
He’s the former closer for the Rangers and was supposed to be the closer for the Blue Jays. He started the year on the DL with some pectoral/shoulder problem, came back, was given the closing duties and has now lost them again.

If you take nothing else away from this story, take away this: you can tell a lot about the year a reliever is having by looking at his WHIP (Walks + Hits/Inning Pitched). 1 is awesome. 1.5 is very bad. Francisco’s is 1.725. If the Twins go after him, it’s because they think they see something they can fix.

The Blue Jays shouldn’t need to be talked into selling off their relievers since their team sits 9.5 GB of the wild card. Indeed, it almost looks like management assembled their bullpen with the express purpose of selling at the trade deadline. Francisco is a free agent at the end of the season, so you might think he could be had at a reasonable price. But that’s where the Collective Bargaining Agreement comes in.

Currently, Francisco is on track to be a “Type B” free agent, meaning the team that he leaves would receive a supplementary draft pick after the first round if they offered him arbitration. Provided he finishes the year fine, he’s a safe bet to offer arbitration, so the Jays will get a good draft pick by NOT trading him. That’s why a team will need to give up a decent prospect to get him.

9. Kerry Wood
Gawd, what a winding road it has been for this 34-year-old. He looked like he bounced back last offseason, accepted a $1.5M offer just so he could pitch with the Cubs again, but has struggled (1.516 WHIP) in the right-handed setup role there. His control has been especially shaky, and lately he’s been dealing with a blister.

The Cubs will be selling, and Wood will be a free agent this offseason, but he will also cost a team a decent prospect for the same reason Francisco will – he’s on track to be a Type B free agent.

8. Jon Rauch
Yep – same scary neck tatoo guy that you know. He signed with the Blue Jays and has gotten a fair number of saves while Francisco has struggled. As with the Twins, he hasn’t been especially dominant: 27K in 39.1 IP and a 1.271 ERA. Whichever team trades for him can also bring him back next year at $3.75M, which seems fair. He also projects as a Type B free agent, so letting him walk could conceivably net a supplementary pick – unless the team was worried his saves would jack up his arbitration case.

I’ll just say this for the last time and then let it drop: Rauch will have similar stats to what Matt Capps had when the Twins gave up Wilson Ramos for him last year, including the “closer” experience that some deemed so valuable. He’s also on pace to finish the season with stats similar to what Capps has last year; the same performance that convinced the Twins to pay $7M so he would return in 2011. And one can expect just about the same out of Rauch in 2012 that one could reasonably have expected out of Capps this year.

Some might think that piling on Capps at this point is gratuitous, but that misses the point: I’m not piling on Capps at all. I’m piling on the front office’s infatuation. They repeatedly tried to acquire him, finally paid a premium price, and then compounded the mistake by overpaying so again in the offseason. And the entire time they defiantly told critics that we were missing something.

Turns out, we are. We’re missing Wilson Ramos, $7 million and seven blown wins.

So, if you were a big fan of the whole Matt Capps move, I present to you: Jon Rauch. While I’d like to say there is almost no chance ohttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.giff him coming back, who knows what the front office will favor?

We’ll get to #7 through #4 tomorrow (in part because I’m not quite sure how I’ll rank them) and then finish up the list on Monday. And if you have any other names you would like me to make sure are included, let me hear about them in the comments section. Or, follow me on twitter and send me a tweet with the names you want to hear.

Cuddyer Will Be Back

Yesterday on Twitter, I asked the question:

What percent sure are you that Cuddy will be w the #Twins next year?

I got twenty responses, ranging from 1% to 99%; such is the range of opinion. I answered 80%, simply based on the fact that he likes the Twins and the Twins like (and, probably need) him. It seemed like something that would find a way to get done.

But after looking into my crystal ball, I think I’m going higher. And Cuddy might not be as thrilled with coming back as we (and he) might think. Here’s why.

If he keeps up his current pace, Michael Cuddyer will not just be a free agent, he’ll be a “Type A” free agent. What does that mean? It means he and the Twins need to do a dance:

Step 1: The Twins need to decide if they are going to offer Cuddyer arbitration.

This means that the Twins are essentially offering Cuddyer a one-year contract at whatever an arbitrator would decide he is worth, which is ironically probably more than he would make on the free agent market on a per year basis. For instance, a couple of weeks ago I did a quick analysis and figured that Cuddyer could be in line for as much as a three-year, $27 million contract. But if the Twins offered him arbitration, I’d need to guess that he might get ten or eleven million for 2012.

Why would the Twins offer that? We’ll get to that in step two. There is a major incentive for them to offer that deal to Cuddyer.

Likely result: the Twins offer arbitration. In general, the Twins have been willing to overpay for a one-year deal. We saw it this year with Matt Capps and Carl Pavano. There are countless other examples over the last ten years. The Twins worry about the length of multi-year deals, but often will pay a premium to only be tied up for one year.

Step 2: Cuddyer needs to decide if he will accept arbitration.

If he accepts it, he foregoes his free agency and goes to the arbitrator to figure out what he makes for 2012 and delays free agency by a year. That’s not a small risk. If he’s had a great year, not only is he risking that he won’t have as great a year next year, but he’ll be a year older, 33 instead of 32. He does not want to do that.

But rejecting it is tricky, too, and this is where we find out WHY they Twins offered arbitration.

Any team that offers their Type A free agents arbitration is compensated for losing them. Usually, this includes an extra compensatory high draft pick and another very high – first or second round – draft pick from the team that signs him. So any team that signed Cuddyer would not only need to pay the freight, they would also need to send the Twins their very high draft pick. In MLB, this is something that teams have been generally unwilling to do unless it has been for very desirable guys, especially over the last couple years. That greatly reduces Cuddyer’s potential suitors. His agent and he will need to decide if they’re likely to rank high enough for a big contract AND a high draft pick.

Likely result: if Cuddy accepts arbitration, it’s over – Cuddyer will be a Twins in 2012, albeit a grumpy one. So lets’ assume he rejects arbitration, just so we get to step 3.

Step 3: Cuddyer hits the free agent market with a loadstone around his neck.

Really premier guys are not slowed down by costing a team a first round pick. But Cuddyer, especially before this year, was not a premier guy. He suddenly falls behind some of the other names out there who teams don’t have to give up a first round pick to sign.

For instance, Jason Kubel doesn’t look like he’ll be a Type A free agent. As such, a team wouldn’t need to give up their first round pick to sign Kubel. So if the choice is signing Cuddyer and giving up the pick, or signing Kubel and not, you can expect that Kubel leapfrogs Cuddyer. Cody Ross is another example of a guy that could do the same thing. Pretty soon, the teams that are will to pay big bucks dry up.

You might remember, this is essentially what happened to Carl Pavano this offseason. By January, most starting pitchers had signed. Pavano was the subject of plenty of rumors, but no really good offers. Instead, teams kept telling the media that the Twins wanted Pavano to return, and Pavano wanted to return, and nobody wanted to give up their draft pick, and…..

And eventually the Twins worked out a fairly reasonable deal with Pavano.

Likely result: ditto.

The Twins know this. They are certainly not opposed to it, given how many other outfielders they might be leaving, and how desperate their team is for right-handed power.

They will also lose the ability to offer that arbitration if they trade Cuddyer. They’ll also lose the chance of getting two high draft picks for him if he walks as a free agent. Any offer for Cuddyer is going to need to be crazy good, and the Twins would need to feel like they have no hope of competing, and even then, I’m not sure the Twins would pull the trigger.

So, up my prediction to 90%. And whether you like it or not, expect Cuddyer to be in a Twins uniform next year.

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Honestly, why aren’t you following Seth, Nick, Parker and myself on Twitter? Its not like facebook. It’s basically a 140 character blog delivered right to your phone or PC. Oh, and with several dozen posts a day. Just click on the links above and click follow. I’m telling you, try it. What exactly are you afraid of losing?

Enthusiasms

“A man becomes preeminent, he’s expected to have enthusiasms. Enthusiasms. Enthusiasms… What are mine? What draws my admiration? What is that which give me joy? Baseball!”

- Al Capone in The Untouchables

I know better than to dispute Capone, especially after watching the end of that scene. But I wonder if we don’t need to temper our enthusiasms a little regarding a couple of saviors that are seemingly “stuck” in Rochester.

Trevor Plouffe
It’s been suggested that it is time to recall Plouffe from Rochester again, to play – well – his role is unclear beyond hitting the ball hard. Maybe to start at second base, or at first base or in all kinds of places at once, like Bugs Bunny. So long as we aren’t expecting him to make too many throws from shortstop, his .663(!) slugging percentage in AAA this year could play just about anywhere.

I’m fine with that.

But understand that the Trevor Plouffe that we have seen this year is NOT the Trevor Plouffe that has been in the Twins system since 2004. He’s never had an OPS over 736 in any stop in the minors – and now he’s at 1047. He’s 25 years old and in his FOURTH season at AAA. He also hit all of .200 in his admittedly short (71 plate appearances) time with the Twins this year. So that .308 batting average with 15 home runs that we’re seeing in his 196 plate appearances in AAA is either:

a) a huge fluke
b) a huge breakthrough
c) a little of both.

Personally, I’m going with “c.” Want to know what number encourages me the most? 32 strikeouts vs 20 walks. For most of his career, that ratio was anywhere from 2:1 to 3:1, and now it’s about 1.5:1. He’s drawing a lot more walks than he has at any other time in his career. That might be just a result of hitting well and for power, but it’s almost always a good sign when you see that kind of leap. It’s the same thing that happened to Denard Span when he broke through in 2008.

I’m optimistic that the Twins 1st round choice from 2004 can be an everyday player in the major leagues – maybe a very good one. I also agree that now is as good a time as any to promote him. But pointing to home run totals that far exceed anything he has ever done before is borderline deceptive. He’s not that guy. We shouldn’t let our enthusiams get the better of us.

Kyle Gibson
Somewhere along the line the term “future ace” got attached to Gibson’s name. My sense is that is taking things a little too far. Let’s see how he’s doing and compare him to some other Twins who were hyped at his age.

There is a lot to like, to be sure. As a 23-year-old in Rochester, he’s having more success than his 3.87 ERA (itself, pretty good) suggests. His hits (85) per inning pitched (81.1) are about even, which is about average. His control looks excellent with a 4:1 strikeout (83) to walk (21) ratio. But the stat that gets prospect hounds’ attention is that he’s striking out a guy per inning this year. That’s even more encouraging because it improves on what he did last year (126K in 152 IP).

Compare that to two other guys who also had their first extensive time at Rochester as 23-year-olds. Scott Baker and Kevin Slowey both had very good profiles. They matched Gibson in most ways – hits, control - but neither had quite that good of a strikeout rate. It isn’t unreasonable to expect that Gibson could be better than either of them, which would be nice considering they’ve both been up and down so far in their careers. Certainly neither could be described as an ace entering this year.

Now compare those numbers to a third guy in the rotation who spent most of his time in Rochester as a 21-year-old: Francisco Liriano. Liriano showed the same control, but he was striking out 11 guys per nine innings and giving up just 56 hits in 91 innings. Now THAT’S a guy who profiles to be an ace – and even then he’s had a rocky road.

Gibson is more than his stats obviously. He seems like a genuinely good guy, and people also like to talk about his sinker, and how it induces a lot of ground balls. I’ll just note that neither his hit or home runs totals suggest that the latter is a particularly significant factor yet.

Finally, I’ll throw one more name out there. Matt Garza threw 92 inning in Rochester as a 23-year-old before being called up to help the 2007 Twins. His numbers at Rochester over that time are almost identical to Gibson’s. Since he’s been promoted to the majors, he’s posted a career 3.98 ERA and has been a workhorse, averaging close to 200 innings per year.

Of course, he’s also on his third team, in part due to some well-publicized attitude issues. Could Gibson be a Garza, with fewer strikeouts but more ground ball tendencies, and without the head case issues? That’s something to be excited about. I don’t know if “future ace” applies, but enthusiams are justified.

The Twins control all five members of their starting rotation for next year, and you can add Kevin Slowey and Anthony Swarzak to that list if you like. But I’d have trouble listing Gibson as trade bait for anything but the biggest fish. He might truly be one of The Untouchables.

Scott Baker and Ace-dom

This offseason, Twins fans spent a lot of time whining about Zack Greinkie, and how the Twins needed to find An Ace. Maybe we found one?

Scott Baker pitched another gem yesterday, throwing 7.1 shutout innings and lowering his ERA to 3.15. For the season, he now has 101 strikeouts in 105.1 innings. That puts him in 6th place in the American League, behind James Shields, Felix Hernandez, Justin Verlander, David Price and Jered Weaver. Those names sound a lot like Aces. It puts him above names Twins fans like to lust over, like CC Sabathia, Ricky Romero and Josh Beckett. And, of course, Zack Greinke.

By the way, it also puts him above Francisco Liriano, both in raw numbers (Liriano has 61 K) and K/9 rate.

But I’m not here to argue about whether he’s An Ace. My experience with people that say they want An Ace is that they don’t want to define what An Ace is. What they really mean is they want “that guy.” Anyone besides that guy (this offseason, it was generally Greinke or Cliff Lee) is not An Ace. It’s a convenient way to whine about how grass the green is someplace else.

Instead, I want to know: should we have seen this from Baker?

In some ways, we did. Back in October, we ran a two part series looking for Hidden Aces that started on the TwinsCentric blog and finished up on TwinsGeek.com. The method was simple: pick all those pitchers who had enough innings to qualify for an ERA title and then sort them by how good they were at striking out people. Greinke was 38th on that list, so we decided to look at the one above him on the list and see if there was any chance of the Twins acquiring each pitcher.

I think its worth going back to read that series, because some of the names really jump out. We wondered if James Shields might be a good target for a bounce back year. He might just start the All-Star game. We wondered if Toronto’s Shaun Marcum could be had in a trade. Milwaukee did just that, and he’s leading their rotation which is leading their team which is leading their division.

And we found another name on that list we didn’t expect to find: Scott Baker. Here was what was written:

First, I should point out that he had the second highest ERA of anyone on this [Hidden Aces] list, second to Jamie Shields. But it’s also worth noting that his strikeout rate and walk rate this year were very, very good. He just gave up too many damn hits. Oh, and led the league in slumped shoulders.

It turns out I could say the same thing about Jamie Shields (#18 yesterday), and I’m fairly confident Shields will bounce back. Would other teams be saying that about Baker? Are they wrong, or would a little distance give us a better perspective? And how much did the elbow problems, on which he had surgery immediately following the season, play into things?

This whole exercise is making me wonder if he is a very good candidate to have that breakout year we’ve been waiting for. He just turned 29 years old. His career strikeout rate is over 7 per nine innings. His walk rate is close to 2 per nine innings. His hit rate was below 1 per inning for the last two years. He is exactly the kind of sneaky good struggling pitcher that I would target just looking at his stats. Oh, plus, he’s relatively cheap.

That doesn’t mean he belongs on a list of possible aces. But he’s exactly the kind of sleeper that suddenly breaks through and everyone looks back and wonders how they didn’t see it coming. Shouldn’t we know better? Didn’t we just go through this with Liriano?

Before today I wouldn’t have given two cares about whether Baker got traded away this offseason. Now, I’d love to see him stick around, because I want to see what kind of year he has. I suspect I’m going to want to see it happen with him as a Twin.

What does all this mean? Probably that we got lucky, both as prognosticators and Twins fans. But it absolutely means we are doing this exercise at the end of next season, too.

Consistent Change

As I was editing the Twins Official Scorecard this weekend, I checked a fact dug up by Eric Johnson of tkTwinsCities.com. He claimed:

“The Twins 2011 Opening Day lineup looked like this:

Span
Nishioka
Mauer
Morneau
Young
Kubel
Cuddyer
Valencia
Casilla

Since Opening Day, that lineup has been on the field exactly one time. And that was on April 7th.”

The seemed a little far-fetched, so I checked it out. Which is where I found out that the truth is even worse.

According to baseball-reference.com, they didn’t even have those same players in the lineup on 4/7. On 4/7, Thome started over Delmon Young. In fact, they have NEVER started those same players in the starting lineup together since Opening Day – not in any combination.

Now, I imagine that isn’t terribly rare. For instance, if a player from that Opening Day lineup is out for the season with an injury, that would happen. A team would simply plug a new player into that position and roll with that lineup. But injuries have prompted the Twins to take that inconsistency to a whole different level. Through 75 games (that would be through Saturday’s game) the Twins have sported 71 different batting orders.

Read that last sentence again.

I’d love to show you the order that the Twins have used the most, but the truth is that they have NEVER used exactly the same batting order more than twice. And it isn’t just because they are having guys bat in different places in the order. They also haven’t fielded any defensive lineup more than three times all season. The daily lineup tweets are as suspenseful and random as lotto numbers.

The moral of the story? While it’s tempting to shift our criticism to the offseason or the fielding or the starting pitching or the bullpen, the fact remains: the story of the season is injuries. I know writers are tired of writing about it, and the team is tired of talking about it, and readers are tired of reading about it. That’s because this string of bad voodoo has gone on forever.

But its length just compounds its impact. Just because we have run out of adjectives beyond “ridiculous” to describe its effect, doesn't make it any less important.

What If The Twins Are Buyers?

Never fear. Trade talk is still here.

Three weeks ago, the Twins were destined to be sellers at the MLB trade deadline at the end of July. Speculation centered around which veterans were on the block because… well, what else were you going to talk about? The latest injury? How many guys were under .200? Whether Trevor Plouffe's next throw would make it into the second deck?

No more. If the Twins do nothing more than tread water for the next few weeks, they would still likely be buyers at the trade deadline. But that doesn't mean the idle speculation has to end. In fact, it’s just the opposite. Being a buyer is far juicier than being a seller.

With so many young players being given significant roles early this season, this team could suddenly have a lot of tradable chips IF they can ever get healthy.

Starting Pitchers
Every current member of the starting rotation is either under contract for next year or the Twins have a team option to bring him back. In reserve, they have Kevin Slowey and Anthony Swarzak. Plus, they have Kyle Gibson, a blue chip prospect, waiting for room in Rochester. Want to dream about a big acquisition? There's where you start.
Topic: Kyle Gibson for elite Royals closer Joakim Soria, who is under contract through 2014. Discuss.

Third Base
Another great place to start is where there are obvious position battles. Luke Hughes has been giving Danny Valencia a run for his money at third base, and it's really the only position they both fit well. Once Morneau returns, could Valencia be traded to a non-contender for a useful guy? Or could Hughes?
Topic: Blue Jays relievers Jason Fraser (who has a $4M team option next year) of Frank Francisco (who will be a free agent) for Valencia or Hughes. Does any combination of those guys make sense to you? Or what would you trade away for BOTH Frasor and Francisco?

Middle Infield
Or how about the middle infield? Both Casilla and Nishioka look like they can handle shortstop. Could Hughes or Plouffe or Tolbert handle second base for a half season for the right deal?
Topic: If JJ Hardy decides he would rather test the free agent waters than sign a long-term deal with the Orioles, would you trade Casilla for him? (And if not, why are we still kvetching about that trade?)

Pavano vs The Thieving Giants

Despite giving up more baserunners than last year, Carl Pavano has been stingier with base-stealers. Last year, he gave up 31 stolen bases in 33 games, while he's given up just 10 in his fourteen starts.

That difference is due, in part, to a change the Twins made last year in response to teams running crazy against Pavano - Drew Butera became his personal catcher. That will undoubtedly NOT be the case tonight. with the Twins playing in a National League park, the only way Joe Mauer makes his way into the starting lineup is as the starting catcher.

So I'll be paying special attention to how Pavano and the Twins react to any Giants that make their way to first base. It could be that Pavano has made some adjustments to better hold runners. It could be that Mauer has recovered enough over the last couple of months to close the defensive gap between he and Butera. And it bodes well that the Giants don't have a single player in double-digits with steals.

You can bet the coaching staff and front office will be paying special attention to that, too. Injured players are getting healthier. One of the healthy players left with options is Butera. It would make that decision a lot easier if Pavano and Mauer can work together to control the opposition's running game.

Cuddyer's Contract Push

Where does Cuddyer rank vs. other potential free agents?

The recent news that the Phillies approached the Twins about trading Michael Cuddyer made me wonder...where does Cuddyer rank with the upcoming free agent class of outfielders?

A: Right near the top.

I'm guessing the top guy is going to be Carlos Beltran. His injury history and age (34 years old) likely will mean clubs won't go Werth-crazy about him, but he he's a premier guy who seems to have bounced back.

But Cuddyer is currently in the next group, along with Jason Kubel. I'd add Cody Ross to that group too, and I find them mostly interchangable. A half-step below those guys but similar in age are Josh Willingham, Jonny Gomes and Ryan Ludwick. One could add Juan Rivera too.

JD Drew kind of belong in his own group. He's older than those guys (35) and not doing much this year, but I would think he would draw as much interest as Cuddy, Kubel and Ross.

Then we get to the older guys. Tops might be Johnny Damon, just because he can still play in the outfield. I'm not sure I can say the same thing about Bobby Abreu and Vladamir Guerrero, but they can still hit. I don't think any American League team will touch Pat Burrell with a 10-foot pole, but he'll be available. Raul Ibanez might be re-animated. I suspect Hideki Matsui will be back in Japan soon.

There are some intriguing bounceback guys, too. Carlos Guillen hasn't played yet this year. Magglio Ordonez essentially hasn't either. David DeJesus shouldn't be overlooked.

Still, that means today Cuddy finds himself in the top five of free agent MLB outfielders, and is blessed with being fairly young. That feels to me like a contract that is at least 3 years long, and approaching $9-$10M/year. And if the Twins balk at that price for him and Kubel, they'll be harder than we think to replace.

Twins Tweets

Once upon a time, there was a site called TwinsGeek.com that blogged every damn weekday. And along with a more lengthy column, that site used to regularly feature an area called Twins Takes, that spewed out shorter observations about the previous day’s Twins games.

Then came Twitter.

It’s not entirely accurate that Twitter has caused me to post less. I posted less before Twitter, but it has absolutely turned into a channel for my Twins Takes. And Twins Takes was often a starting point for a lot of longer takes that turned into columns. Combine that with three independent businesses and a couple of increasingly independent children, and I’m down to once per week.

(Eight years – that’s all I ask. I promise I’ll be writing someplace everyday about this team in eight more years. That’s when everyone goes away to college.)

In the meantime, there are the tweets.

I know they’re only 140 characters, and truthfully, they aren’t the most fun 140 characters to write. So let’s expand a little bit on some of the tweets from yesterday’s win over the White Sox.

9:45 AM - 80 degrees, sunny & a weekday #Twins game. After waiting for this for 27 years, this will NEVER get old.

I wasn’t just waiting 27 years for a gorgeous outdoor baseball game in Minneapolis, I was waiting 27 years for Minneapolis to be a baseball city, as opposed to a football city. I’m not sure the switch has happened – sports radio will tell you it hasn’t yet – but it’s trending that way. And yesterday was a perfect example.

Before the game, we sat in Smalley’s Alley and talked with a stranger about the Phillies rotation. Then we sat in our seats and talked with friends about how “Mr. Dinkelman” is what some crazy lady would name her cat. And afterwards we sat at Kieran’s talking about whether we would root for Detroit or Cleveland to win.

These are baseball conversations in a baseball city. I don’t get a baseball city very often, but I did yesterday, and I’m getting it more and more often. I like that.

11:35 - @TomPelissero @PMac21 Any guess who Perkins will replace? Please tell me it isn't James.

The Twins need bullpen help, and have since…well, further back than the beginning of the season. Meanwhile, in Rochester, Chuck James was putting up OBSCENE numbers: 37 K in 28.1 innings, giving up just 18 hits and 9 walks and a 1.57 ERA. But other guys kept getting called up. Finally, it was his turn.

I can understand the club’s hesitation. James doesn’t have outstanding “stuff,” but he’s been incredibly effective in AAA and he carried that forward into his time with the Twins. In seven games, he pitched five innings, gave up only ONE hit, walked two, and gave up no runs. And sure enough he was the guy sent down yesterday.

I haven’t looked through the guys and their options situation, so maybe he was the obvious choice for those reasons. But regardless, it sucks. I literally can’t think of anything more he could do to show he belongs on this roster. But that’s not what bums me out most about this move.

We would like to think otherwise, but a competitive team in major league baseball doesn’t have that many opportunities for players to compete in a true meritocracy. There is too much history, too much pressure, and too few opportunities. The Twins bullpen this year has mostly been the exception to that rule. I can’t believe this team doesn’t need Chuck James, no matter with which hand he’s throwing. I’m bummed because I thought I was seeing a meritocracy, and now I’m not sure.

1:10 PM - AJ being AJ (A Jackass). Sliding into 2b to take out Nishioka when it isn't a DP situation.

I got a little flak from some folks over this tweet, and I’ll withdraw it if the replay proves me wrong. But here is what I saw from up the right field line.

There are two outs and AJ Pierzynski is on first base. Alex Rios hits a slow ground ball that Nishioka fields and steps on second base for the third out. AJ Pierzynski, as if the double-play was possible, slides hard into second base to take out Nishioka, who hops over him and then tosses the ball to the pitcher’s mound.

If the double-play was possible, that might have been an aggressive, but clean, slide. But the double-play wasn’t possible. The moment Nishioka stepped on that bag, AJ was out. So either AJ had a brain cramp and forgot there were two outs, or it was a bush league play.

2:20 PM - I find our new DP combo adorable.

I’m not crazy about Nishioka, and haven’t been since I saw him play. In the short-term, he looks overmatched. In the long-term, I’m more hopeful, as he’s just 26.

But I gotta say, I enjoyed watching him and Alexi Casilla in the middle infield today. They weren’t perfect. Nishi had an bumbling error. The two of them clearly need to work on their timing on double-plays, too. But they are both fired up, both on their toes, wear their emotions on their sleaves and they looked like they feed of each other’s enthusiasm a bit. It was fun to watch them. And that gives me some hope.

(Now stick Nishi in the nine spot and let him get his legs under him.)

On a Book, Two Pitches & Rage

Umpires have biases. And we want them to.

To illustrate that, I want to talk about two pitches from the Cleveland series. Not two pitchers, mind you – just two pitches. Seriously. But first I want to talk about a book, then how it changed how I watched baseball forever, and finally about why I flew into a rage on Wednesday night.

The Book
The book is called Scorecasting by Tobias J Moskowitz and L. Jon Weerthem. It looks like it’s similar to the book Freakonomics, except that it focuses exclusively on sports. I say “seems” because I haven’t read it yet, at least not completely. However, if you have an iPad or iPhone, you can download the first chapter for free – and just that much has changed forever how I watch baseball.

The chapter is about a bias that umpires have because they are, with the possible exception of Joe West, human. And humans are far more willing to forgive an error of omission over an error of commission. That is, we are more willing to forgive an error caused by doing nothing over an error caused by doing something. And thus humans are for more willing to commit an error of omission over an error of commission, because it gets us into less trouble. I’ll give an example from the book:

“In a well-known psychological experiment, the subjects were posed the following question: Imagine there have been several epidemics of a certain kind of flu that everyone contracts and that can be fatal to children under three years of age. About 10 out of every 10,000 children with this flu will die from it. A vaccine for the flu, which eliminates the change of getting it, causes death in 5 or every 10,000 children. Would you vaccinate your child?”

Most parents opted to NOT to vaccinate their child, despite it halving the chances of their child dying. The thought of doing something to the child which would cause his or her death was worse than the though of doing nothing and doubling the chances of death.

The Games
The same bias is statistically apparent in umpires when it comes to calling balls and strikes and now I can’t help but notice it.

In 2007, mlb.com installed the pitch f/x equipment in all the ballparks, providing data on 2 million pitches, including 1.15 million called pitches. Suddenly we could see from data how accurate umpires were in calling balls and strikes, and whether there are any circumstances that made them less accurate. It turns out there are.

A ball that is in the strike zone is called accurately by an umpire 80.2% of the time. But that number dives if there are two strikes on the batter (and it isn’t a full count). Then, a ball in the strike zone is called a strike just 61.3% of the time. He’s almost twice as likely to mistakenly count a strike as a ball. Again, don’t forget – we KNOW that these are really strikes from the f/x data.

The same thing happens the other way on pitches outside the strike zone on three-ball counts, though it’s not quite so drastic. A pitch outside the strike zone is called a ball 87.8% of the time, but if there are three balls (and it’s not a full count) it’s only called a ball 84% of the time.

The reason? Because calling strike three or ball four ends the at-bat. It’s active – it affects the game far more than giving the batter and pitcher another pitch to resolve the at-bat themselves. The incentive is toward the error of omission rather than that of commission.

Incidentally, this is most apparent on borderline pitches. Over all counts, a borderline is called a strike 49.9% of the time – almost literally a coin flip. But with a 2-strike count (again not a full count) it’s called a strike just 38.2% of the time. And with a three ball count, it’s called a strike 60% of the time. The percentages become even more extreme on 3-0 and 0-2 counts.

So yesterday, in the bottom of the tenth, I completely understood the call I saw. Holding a 3-2 lead, Twins pitcher Phil Dumatrait was trying to get the first save of his career. It wasn’t going to be easy. There were two outs, but a runner was on second base, and Shin-Soo Choo had worked a 3-1 count.

The next pitch was a fastball, right on the inside edge of the strikezone. It could have gone either way, but I never doubted which way it would be called given what was at stake. Sure enough, it was strike two.

The at-bat was decided by the players on the next pitch. Shoo grounded out to first base.

The Rage
That study has made me anticipate called pitches and at-bats in a different way, usually bringing a level of peace to what I saw. It had the opposite effect on Tuesday night.

In many ways, it was the exact same situation. This time the Indians led by one in the top of the ninth and had two outs. But the Twins had a runner on second base and Michael Cuddyer was trying to drive him in.

I should also mention that isn’t a terrible situation for a baseball team. Historically, a team in that situation has still won almost 11% of their games. That’s the kind of hope that can make a fan slide forward in their seats a bit.

But there was one critical difference: the count was 2-2, not 3-1. Indians closer Chris Perez threw a fastball in a very similar place that Dumatrait would a day later, though maybe a touch more outside the zone when looking at the f/x placement. Cuddyer took the pitch, confident it was outside. But home plate umpire Adrian Johnson punched him out, ending the game.

Cuddyer’s reaction was telling. He exploded. It’s rare to see any Twin confront an umpire. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Cuddyer, of all people, get frontal with an ump. But this time he nearly pounced on him, reacting so aggressively that the Cleveland announcers thought he might have bumped him. It took two coaches to hold him back when Johnson tried to walk away.

Watching on my bedroom TV, I was going nearly as ballistic. It’s one thing to make a bad call. But to make a bad call that didn’t need to be made, that could have been avoided so the players could resolve the game instead?

This may be a bias that we, as fans, want to reward. For the first time, I thought about whether or not I really want to take that kind of call out of an umpire’s hands. Don’t we want someone who prompts the batter and pitcher to resolve their conflicts themselves? Even if it might not be a perfectly accurate call.

On Runs, Common Sense & Baserunning

I’ve heard it said that sabremetrics biggest contribution is to validate common sense. There is some truth to that. For instance, last night, with runners on 1st and 2nd and nobody out, Michael Cuddyer was thrown out stealing third base. There is no question that is a boneheaded play. Cuddyer can already score without the team getting a base hit, just by advancing on balls in play. And getting to third base doesn’t increase his chances of scoring that much considering there are no outs. That’s common sense.

When it happened, rather than launch into a “What is in that young man’s head?” rant, announcer Bert Blyleven said something to the affect of “If you’re going to try to steal that base in that situation, you had better make it.” He’s right, and if you want to confirm how dunderheaded that steal was, that’s exactly how you do it – by measuring just how often it needs to pay off to make it worthwhile.

You do that with something called the Run Expectancy Matrix. It is what it says it is: a table that shows how many runs can be expected to score in an inning, based on historical data. For instance, for the years 1993-2010, the table on the right shows the average runs that scored in an inning for every combination of outs and baserunners:

So, when an inning begins without any runners on base and 0 outs, the matrix says an average of .544 runs were scored. But if the leadoff batter gets on first, an average of .941 runs are scored. By getting on base, the leadoff batter did his part to add 4/10 of a run to his team.

Using a table like this, you can validate that Cuddyer had to be very sure to steal that base. Stealing it would have increased the teams run expectancy from 1.556 to 1.853, or about 3/10 of a run. But getting caught cut the run expectancy from 1.556 to .562, almost a full run. With those numbers, if he doesn’t make it 77% of the time, it’s a bad play. That’s a high percentage when it comes to stealing bases.

It made me wonder what the stats would say about some baserunning earlier in the game. The inning before, Ben Revere had got on base and stole second with one out. Batting behind him were Rene Rivera and Matt Tolbert.

To me, the obvious move is to try and steal third base. With one out, that really increases the chance of him getting home, especially with two guys batting their weight behind him. I might even go so far as to say that it is even more important than stealing second base to put himself into “scoring position.”

But that is definitely not common sense. I’ve been told by people I respect that I’m an idiot for even suggesting Revere attempt that steal. Why lose a guy in scoring position, just to get him a little further into scoring position? So let’s evaluate that statistically using the same matrix.

First, I’ll point out that stealing second base increased the run expectancy by .16 runs. But if he steals third base, he increases the run expectancy by .26. So it is definitely valuable for him to steal that base, more so than stealing second.

But it’s also true that getting caught is a lot worse. If you crunch the numbers, one needs to be slightly more certain of stealing third base – 69% versus 67% for stealing second base. And, of course, it is usually harder to steal third base. Still, I would argue that the historically inept batters behind Revere balance some of that out. For the record, Revere didn’t score.

So in this case, statistics lend a little nuance to the debate that common sense might not have. Stealing third with one out is quite valuable valuable, and even though one needs to be a little more confident, it’s not crazy.

Triviality

A few questions that I wondered about and looked up recently…

1. So, who hit for the Twins in May?

Top of the OPS (On-base Plus Slugging) list? Alexi Casilla with a .281/.351/.424 line. Then came Denard Span (.762), Jason Kubel and Michael Cuddyer (.746), Justin Morneau (.723) and Trevor Plouffe (.715). Nobody had an 800 OPS.

The bottom of the list should be of no surprise to Twins fans. Delmon Young, in 66 AB, had a line of .197/.206/.242 – and still wasn’t the lowest regular. Drew Butera’s 346 OPS (.137/.170/.176) beat him out in a (sigh) not especially close race.

2. Am I right in thinking that Span’s defense has improved?

The defensive metrics imply that he’s getting to more hits. Span’s UZR this year in center field is +10, meaning he’s saved 10 runs over an average center fielder. That puts him on pace to save something like 30 runs over the course of the season, which is Gomezian or even Hunterrific.

Carlos Gomez, by the way, is about six runs better than average. And his on-base percentage has actually dipped this year, to .280. But that may represent progress, as he’s on pace for a career record number of walks with 13 so far. His career high is 25.

3. How soon before I watch a shortstop routinely make routine plays look routine?

This one struck me on Tuesday night at the exact moment that Matt Tolbert’s bone-headed throw to third base sailed over Danny Valencia’s confused head. I consider myself a pretty calm, analytical and detached guy – but that was the straw-brained play that broke this camel’s back. Why could he not make that throw? Why would he try that throw before looking to see if Valencia is on third? Why try that throw at all considering the easy play was at first and it would be the second out? The questions came in waves – and so did the rage.

The answer – and maybe my salve – is that Tsuyoshi Nishioka made it into a rehab game on Monday and Wednesday and will again today. He’ll likely begin a rehab assignment no later than Saturday, the 4th. Which means that barring any injuries (knock, knock) I’ll be seeing him no later than the 25th, if not earlier.

Believe me, I remember how overmatched he looked that first week. But he didn’t look blatantly stupid. And I’ve seen way too much stupid at that position the last couple of weeks. Let the countdown begin.

4. What is it that misery loves again?

Answer: Company. Or alcohol. Fortunately, we can provide you both.

On Friday night, the Twins face the Royals at 7:10 PM. They’ll play in Kansas City, which has a beautiful stadium and fantastic BBQ, but is eight hours (and a whole Iowa) away. So what to do?

Join myself and the rest of the TwinsCentric guys at Smalley’s near Target Field. They’re giving us appetizer specials and (more importantly for people watching the game) drink specials. We’ll have some kind of raffle for some front row Twins tickets and other stuff where the money will go to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. We’ll watch the game, bitch about Casilla, Hoey, Delmon, etc., and you can tell me, Nick, Seth and Parker exactly how stupid we really are. Sounds like a pretty solid Friday night to me.

We’ll see you there. If you have any questions, post ‘em in the comments below.

Sometimes...

...a player just isn’t who you want him to be. Case in point: Kevin Slowey.

The highest praise you heap on Kevin Slowey is that his career ERA is 4.43.

Again, that’s the best thing. And that’s not a particularly good thing. That career ERA is higher than that of any other Twins starting pitcher, including the two guys most commonly mentioned as pitchers he could replace, Nick Blackburn (4.37) and Brian Duensing (3.37). It’s even a skosh worse than Carlos Silva (4.42) had with the Twins, for chrissakes.

But it is better than some others. For instance, it’s better than Rick Reed (4.47). It’s better than Kyle Lohse (4.88). It’s better than RA Dickey (4.62) and Boof Bonser (5.10). It’s even a little better (so far) than Glen Perkins (4.58).

If you think Slowey is a better pitcher than that - if you think he’s not in that class, maybe he isn’t the player you want him to be.

There aren’t a lot of other stats that can dress him up any better than ERA. He gives up a LOT of hits. The average major league pitcher gives up about one per inning. Slowey has pitched 488 innings and given up 547 hits. To his credit, he makes up for it a little bit by not walking too many guys.

He’s a fly ball pitcher and has given up a LOT of home runs. The average pitcher gives up about one per nine innings. In those 488 innings, an average pitcher would have given up about 54. Slowey has given up 76.

And, by far the biggest problem is that he has had maddeningly short outings. It takes him a lot of pitches to retire batters. His best year ever, he pitched 160 innings. Last year, mostly due to leaving games early, he had a total of eight quality starts (in 28 games started). By comparison, in his 13 starts, Duensing had nine quality starts.

You know what you call a guy with that resume? A fringe starter. A swing man. If you think he’s more than that, maybe he just isn’t who you want him to be.

Those are exactly the tags the Twins tried out this year, and it hasn’t gone well. But make no mistake: the person most responsible for this debacle is Slowey – and it’s not a close call. To criticize the Twins for accurately evaluating Slowey’s track record and plugging him into a role that reflects that track record is ludicrous.

I understand that Slowey probably isn’t too fond of those plans. I suspect he thinks they are unfair, or don’t utilize him to his full potential. The bottom line: he thinks he’s better than that. But Kevin, you’re now in year four of your major league career and the track record is pretty clear. You might want to step back and evaluate.

Have you been the player you want yourself to be?

Late Night Musings

Stuff I looked up during the Twins game today.

1. Before the game I wondered if there was an easy way to show that the Twins hitting is a much bigger problem than their pitching. Despite being last in the league in runs, the answer is “no,” because the Twins are last in ERA, too. They’re also second to last in total runs given up. And their starters are third to last in the league in ERA while also logging the third fewest innings. And they're 27th in quality starts. That about does it.

2. Justin Morneau gets the scoring started when he singles on a breaking ball from Brandon McCarthy. Giving Morneau a breaking ball seemed like an odd choice. Sure enough, according to myinsideedge.com, he is only hitting .208 on fastballs this year. The MLB average is .290.

3. Oakland gains the lead on a single following TWO fielding gaffes. With two outs, Casilla makes a great play to range far to his left to field a ground ball, but Morneau was also trying for the ball and Pavano didn’t cover the bag. Then, on a routine groundball, Plouffe absolutely air mails a ball that would’ve ended the inning.

I haven’t seen Plouffe’s defensive metrics yet because he hasn’t logged enough time to make them meaningful. But his error total went down from 26 in 111 games in 2009 to 11 in 92 games last year. That doesn’t speak to his range, but he looks like he’s certainly worked on his consistency. That was his first error in the majors this year.

4. Want some good news? The Twins batters BABIP is just .264, also last in the majors. Why is that good news? Because it suggests there is some tough luck going on, too.

5. After retaking the lead 3-2, the Twins had their inning cut short by an odd 3-6 double play. The ground ball was hit by Morneau to the A’s first baseman who tagged first base, then threw it to second base where the runner (Trevor Plouffe) was tagged out before he got to the base.

I was asked why the runner had to be tagged. The answer is that once first base was tagged, Morneau was out, so that base was open, so Plouffe had the option to return to it. Thus, it wasn’t a force play and Plouffe needed to be tagged - just stepping on the base wasn't enough. I thought that was instinctual, but the answer wasn’t instinctual to the person I was talking to. I wondered what the rule really was.

In particular, it made me wonder what would’ve happened if Plouffe had gone back to first – but that Morneau (perhaps the fielder missed the bag) had not been forced out. Obviously they can’t both be on the bag. I knew the rule said that one runner was out, and I assumed it would be the lead runner – which is why the lead runner runs. That is the answer, by the way, by rule 7.08:

7.08 A runner is out when
"(e) He fails to reach the next base before a fielder tags him or the base, after he has been forced to advance by reason of the batter becoming a runner.

But that’s only because of the force out. The rule changes if two runners end up on the same base where it isn’t a force out. For example, imagine a runner is trapped in a run down and forced back to a base that already had a player on his own team. However, one of the other bases before that base is open, so it isn’t a force out. In that case, it isn’t the lead runner that is out. It’s the other runner, but only after he is tagged:

7.03. "Two runners may not occupy a base, but if, while the ball is alive, two runners are touching a base, the following runner shall be out when tagged. The preceeding runner is entitled to the base."

Or at least, I think that's how I read it. Unless they're talking about which runner got to the base first.

6. I’m at the point now where I trust Glen Perkins as much, if not more, than anyone else in the bullpen. I didn’t look anything up to confirm that. I just feel the need to say it.

7. Twins versus the AL Central so far this year – 5-6. That means they have 61 games left to play in their division, and since the split to three divisions per league, that’s been a helluva strong indicator of who wins the division. Remember that the next time someone tells you the division race is already over.