Links of the Day for 9/8/06

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After a week’s hiatus spent reentering the world of higher education, I return to clean out the tubes. I’m sure you missed me terribly, and I promise I’ll control my language.

• The Twins dropped the opener against Detroit on Thursday, 7-2. Baker took a beating, and the bats remained silent against the glory that is Justin Verlander. Cuddyer did add his ninety-third RBI on a solo homer in the 7th, so SBG has some updating to do.



• I do admit to slightly jumping the gun on the writing of these links (work beckons), but at the moment the White Sox are down 8-1 in the ninth to Cleveland. I’m going to assume no ground will be lost there, and the Twins lead will remain at one-half game (one in the loss column).



• It appears that the F-Bomb will be manning up and rejoining the Twins’ rotation sooner than later. Liriano will be making a rehab start on Saturday, and his next turn could be taken on a big-league mound. I don’t need to tell you how important this is.



• Maybe Francisco’s return will balance out the performance of The Giant Silva. You never know when he might get another tummy-ache.



• Don’t worry. If this broadcasting thing doesn’t work out for Bert, he’s got other options.



• Maybe the Target Center will start selling gyros.

Who is the MVP?

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One of the hot topics in the Yankees series was the American League’s MVP candidates, since three of them were playing in front of the New York media. A similarly hot topic was whether a bias towards Yankees and Red Sox exist, in large part because a certain worldwide sports network is located in Connecticut. Are the Twins (or White Sox, for that matter) being short-changed? Let’s try and put homerism aside and take a look at the two groups of candidates this year:

The Sluggers
They don’t bring much to the party defensively, but they also bring bats big enough to make piñatas wish they could give up their candy prematurely. Here are their numbers (as of 9/5), with the leaders highlighted:

Player	Team	AB	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	RBI
Justin Morneau	MIN	491	0.318	0.400	0.578	0.978	114
Jermaine Dye	CHW	463	0.326	0.392	0.641	1.033	107
Jim Thome	CHW	421	0.292	0.414	0.615	1.029	95
Manny Ramirez	BOS	432	0.326	0.444	0.630	1.074	100
David Ortiz	BOS	487	0.285	0.400	0.630	1.030	121
Travis Hafner	CLE	454	0.308	0.439	0.659	1.098	117

If there’s a clear winner on this list, I don’t see him. Travis Hafner has the highest on-base percentage (OBP) and on-base plus slugging percentage (OPS), but the Indians could probably have finished in fourth place with or without him. Manny Ramirez is never mentioned as a candidate, but he leads the league in slugging. Jermaine Dye has had a tremendous year, but only leads in batting average.

Lots of folks discount RBI as a performance metric, but to some extent it shows a player who is taking advantage of his opportunities. That also fits David Ortiz’s reputation, and he still leads the league, despite his recent absence. Justin Morneau doesn’t lead in anything, but certainly belongs in the debate. He’s definitely a notch below the rest in power.

You can flip a coin between these guys, and fortunately, there are still three weeks left for the race to be decided. Currently, I’d place Big Papi ahead of the field by a nose, just because the Red Sox would never have been in the playoff race without him. Morneau, Dye and Manny would be next, with Morneau having a slight lead, just because he doesn’t have as much help in the lineup, and is probably more valuable to his team. But there’s another group of players that also deserve consideration.

The Players
These guys are valuable because of what they contribute both offensively and defensively. The list is a little shorter, but no less impressive:

Player	Team	Pos	AB	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	RBI
Vernon Wells	TOR	CF	522	0.316	0.370	0.575	0.945	93
Grady Sizemore	CLE	CF	554	0.296	0.378	0.536	0.914	63
Joe Mauer	MIN	C	442	0.346	0.427	0.498	0.925	73
Derek Jeter	NYY	SS	529	0.344	0.421	0.486	0.907	84

If the race really was between Joe Mauer and Derek Jeter, it might as well be a dead heat, depending on what you think of Jeter’s defensive value. In my mind, it’s a race for second place, because Vernon Wells is having more of an impact than either Mauer or Jeter, while playing center field for the Blue Jays, who have been on the fringes of the playoff race for most of the year.

There’s room for disagreement, even if there were not three weeks left. As of now, there is no clear cut winner, and it would be hard to claim that any player is being disrespected by not being handed the award prematurely. In fact, the only disservice that can be done at this point is not including all of these players in the debate.

On The Hill

Detroit: Wilfredo Ledezma (2-2, 2.38 ERA)

• 2005: 2-4, 49.2 IP, 30 K, 7.07 ERA


• 2006: 41.2 IP, 34 H, 29K, 17 BB, HR


• Detroit’s playing match-ups with their last spot in the rotation, and Ledezma gets the draw versus Minnesota because he’s left-handed. You gotta love Leyland.

Friday: Matt Garza (1-4, 5.88 ERA)

• 2005(mnrs):4-4, 3.59 ERA, 75.2 IP, 89 K


• 2006(mnrs):14-4, 135.2 IP, 1.99 ERA, 154 K


• 2006: 26 IP, 30 H, 17 K, 10 BB, 3 HR


• Three steps forward, one step back. In his last start, Garza struggled to throw his off-speed pitches for strikes and the Yankees eventually wore him down.


• Watch the radar readings. When they’re under 90, is he throwing strikes? If so, he’s fine. If not, the Tigers will wait for the cheese (a fastball).


• It seems that every game Garza starts he is hurt by Torii Hunter’s lack of range in CF. Every damn game. It’s uncanny.

Detroit Series Preview

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Detroit
Runs – 688 (7th)
Runs Against – 546 (1st)

Status Report: Everyone was waiting for the Tigers to fade, and to some extent, they have. They’re 9-17 since they last faced the Twins, and “just” 30 games over .500. Of course, that may have something to do with them waiting for the playoffs for the last two months. Their record still puts them on pace for 98 wins this year, is good enough for a four game lead in the AL Central, and gives them the best record in the American League.

What's Not Working

For months they’ve battled the notion that they couldn’t keep up this pace, in particular because they’re inexperienced starting pitching would fade. But as the season concludes, it is their hitting that is faltering, fueled partly by an injury to their second baseman. Sound familiar?

The Tigers have a couple of weeks head start on the Twins in this story, and that’s not a good thing. Some of Detroit’s bigger (and more expensive) bats struggled through August, which has resulted in an extended slump:

• Ivan "Pudge" Rodriguez, previously hitting third, has been bumped down the lineup to the 6th position. For good reason. In August, he only hit .250, and didn’t compensate for that with any power (just 2 HR) or plate discipline (17 strikeout versus 4 walks). There’s no word of an injury, so he might just be wearing down as the season progresses, similar to what we’re seeing on the Twins.



• Magglio Ordonez has struggled since the All-Star break, and like Pudge, it was made worse by a lack of power (though a home run this week may indicate that he’s bouncing back). Again, there’s no indication that an injury is the problem, but he’s also a 32-year-old who had major knee surgery just a couple of years ago.



• Detroit needs to hope that this isn’t indicative of a long-term problem, since they owe him $45 million over the next three years. Plus another $33 million for two more years if he makes 135 starts in 2009. The lesson, as always, is that Scott Boras is Lucifer.



• Coming into August, 25-year-old center fielder Curtis Granderson looked like the leadoff hitter for the next decade. But hitting .156 in August has lowered his production to the level of a fourth outfielder.



• Detroit was applauded when they were the only AL Central team who improved themselves at the trade deadline, acquiring Sean Casey from the Pirates. But Casey is only hitting .247 since the trade with just two home runs.



• Third baseman Brandon Inge’s hot hitting helped fuel Detroit’s hot start, but his power has completely deserted him and he hit just .156 last month.

Add all that up, and the Tigers, whose offense was unbelievably hot when they visited in May, have had only the 10th best offense in the American League since the All-Star break. That’s worrisome for a team heading to the post-season, and considering some of the ages of their better players (and how much more guaranteed money they have coming), it’s downright alarming.

What's Working

Obviously, not all the news has been bad, even lately. Craig Monroe has (finally) shown the power that the team anticipated, slugging 9 home runs since August 1st. Carlos Guillen has finally stayed healthy for a full year, hitting .310, slugging over .500, and continuing to produce down the stretch. Marcus Thames has finally fulfilled some of the promise that stat heads claimed he had, with 24 home runs.

Saying More Less

“But I would venture to say I say less to umpires than probably any manager in the league, and particularly at this time of year, I say even more less.''

- Detroit Tigers Manager, Jim Leyland

It’s hard to make your point to an umpire when you can only say “more less”. And Leyland made it harder still in last Thursday’s game versus the Yankees.

Leyland had a point he wanted to make after umpire James Hoye ejected him for criticizing a strike call in the Tigers half of the seventh inning. The inning finished up immediately following the ejection, and Leyland came out to argue his point.

Except that it’s the middle of the seventh inning in Yankee stadium, where Kate Smith’s recording of God Bless America is always played. And that’s proceeded by Yankees public-address announcer Bob Sheppard asking for a moment of silence.

So in the midst of arguing, Leyland honored the moment of silence. Then he listened to Kate. And then he resumed his argument.

“In my opinion, the umpire was trigger-happy. I didn't curse. I didn't do anything,” said Leyland.

“Obviously, I did after I went out there.”

But only after a respectful (and appropriate) patriotic pause. Saying more less, indeed.

On The Hill

Tigers: Justin Verlander (15-7, 3.27 ERA)

• 2005 (HighA-AA): 11-2, 118.2 IP, 136 K, 1.29 ERA


• 2006: 165 IP, 157 H, 112 K, 52 BB, 16 HR


• With apologies to Jon Papelbon and Francisco Liriano, here’s your American League Rookie of the Year. And he still has to be considered a candidate for the Cy Young award, too.


• See if any of this sounds familiar: the year after he was drafted in the first round, he started in A ball and was promoted quickly, ending up in the majors by the end of the year. The difference between Verlander and Matt Garza is that Verlander wasn’t forced into a pennant race last year.

Twins: Scott Baker (4-7, 6.55 ERA)

• 2005: 3-3. 53.2 IP, 32 K, 3.35 ERA


• 2006 (AAA): 5-4, 84.1 IP, 2.67 ERA, 68 K


• 2006: 68.2 IP, 56 K, 92 H, 15 HR


• How much does this guy love playing the Yankees? His high point this season was his April win over them, and his victory in the rain last Saturday might as well have been a baptism for the new life it breathed into his starting pitching hopes.


• After Silva’s start on Wednesday, Baker will need to be impressive to remain in the rotation.

Twins Takes

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Sorry for the short entry today, but I was at my fantasy football draft last night and didn't get to see much of the game. Just a couple of quick notes:

• The updates on Francisco “The F-bomb” Liriano are so frequent as to start blending together. (Is he throwing a simulated game without cleats today or is he playing catch at 120 feet in Rochester? I forget.) But while we know exactly how many pitches he’ll throw in his first start on Thursday the 14th, we don’t know who he’s replacing in the rotation.
  
  The answer isn’t obvious from the schedule. The 14th would have belonged to Boof Bonser, but I think it’s safe to say that he isn’t the odd man out. Carlos Silva and Scott Baker would seem to be the leading candidates, and between them they have three starts this homestand to show they deserve the last two starts. Also, reaplacing one of them would allow Matt Garza to be skipped on Monday the 18th, which will be the Twins last off day before playing 14 straight days to end the season.
  
  So watch those three starts. Silva and Baker aren’t just pitching for two more chances to pitch this year. Both of their future is up in the air for next year, and they’ll be trying to prove they belong in 2007, too.



• The PTBNL (that's player to be named later) for Phil Nevin was named and traded. It's Adam Harben. To be honest, I was a little dissappointed, though on further reflection, maybe I shouldn't have been:
  
  - Harben hasn't been a top 10 prospect for the Twins.
  - He took a step backwards this year.
  - Two years ago, the Twins traded Doug Mientkiewicz for minor league pitcher Justin Jones. Tis is probably comparable. I would rank Harben as higher than Jones, but Nevin was also better to to get than Mientkiewicz, because he doesn't have any salary guaranteed for next year.
  
  I'm just not sure the Twins really got anything they needed from the Nevin trade, since I (still) think Rondell White will outperform him. So I would have been more comfortable giving up a little less.
  
  But what it does demonstrate is that Terry Ryan seems to recognize that this organization has some pitching depth, and can probably afford to overpay a bit for some help in the current year. That's a good sign going forward.

Coupla Twins Notes

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Sorry for the short entry today, but I was at my fantasy football draft last night and didn't get to see much of the game. Just a couple of quick notes:

• The updates on Francisco “The F-bomb” Liriano are so frequent as to start blending together. (Is he throwing a simulated game without cleats today or is he playing catch at 120 feet in Rochester? I forget.) But while we know exactly how many pitches he’ll throw in his first start on Thursday the 14th, we don’t know who he’s replacing in the rotation.
  
  The answer isn’t obvious from the schedule. The 14th would have belonged to Boof Bonser, but I think it’s safe to say that he isn’t the odd man out. Carlos Silva and Scott Baker would seem to be the leading candidates, and between them they have three starts this homestand to show they deserve the last two starts. Also, reaplacing one of them would allow Matt Garza to be skipped on Monday the 18th, which will be the Twins last off day before playing 14 straight days to end the season.
  
  So watch those three starts. Silva and Baker aren’t just pitching for two more chances to pitch this year. Both of their future is up in the air for next year, and they’ll be trying to prove they belong in 2007, too.



• The PTBNL (that's player to be named later) for Phil Nevin was named and traded. It's Adam Harben. To be honest, I was a little dissappointed, though on further reflection, maybe I shouldn't have been:
  
  - Harben hasn't been a top 10 prospect for the Twins.
  - He took a step backwards this year.
  - Two years ago, the Twins traded Doug Mientkiewicz for minor league pitcher Justin Jones. Tis is probably comparable. I would rank Harben as higher than Jones, but Nevin was also better to to get than Mientkiewicz, because he doesn't have any salary guaranteed for next year.
  
  I'm just not sure the Twins really got anything they needed from the Nevin trade, since I (still) think Rondell White will outperform him. So I would have been more comfortable giving up a little less.
  
  But what it does demonstrate is that Terry Ryan seems to recognize that this organization has some pitching depth, and can probably afford to overpay a bit for some help in the current year. That's a good sign going forward.

Links of the Day for 9/5/06

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One of the benefits of being on the east coast is the easy access to the great ball parks, whether it’s Camden Yards, PNC Park or Yankee Stadium, all are within an easy day’s drive. And Friday night I hopped on a bus from D.C. to Manhattan, and took in the last two games of the Twins-Yankees series this weekend and everything that comes with a visit to the House that Ruth Built. As a newcomer to Yankee Stadium, the Labor Day weekend provided me with everything I was looking for—tickets in the always rowdy bleachers, a ride on the subway, Monument Park, roll call, groundskeepers doing the YMCA and a Twins victory.

One of the most common of the Bronx zoo’s chants was that of “M-V-P” for Derek “the Captain” Jeter. Now, of course the hometown team is going to think that their favorite player is the most valuable, but does Jeter actually deserve the award? While I did enjoy the delicious irony of watching him strikeout each day with two outs and the tying run on second while the Yankee fans screamed their vote, his numbers seem to say he’s a legitimate candidate for the award. He’s second in the AL in win shares with 25, he’s sporting a line of .342/.421./486 for the year and he’s been playing his normal, “stellar” defense.

But is he the most valuable player in the American League? Now, you may chalk this up to being a homer, but I say no. I think that Joe Mauer is the choice for the award, dependant on two things—the Twins make the playoffs and Mauer starts hitting again. Despite his slump, he’s still out performing Jeter at the plate, racking up 26 win shares and posting a .346/.427/.498 line. He also plays a much tougher position defensively and plays it much better than Jeter does. Finally, Mauer is more valuable than Jeter is because he has less help around him. If you tally up the Win Shares for the rest of the Yankees lineup, you’ll find that they have accumulated 112, while the Twins lineup only has 93.

Of course, I wasn’t stupid enough to try and make this argument to the bleacher creatures, but hopefully the readers here are slightly more receptive.

And now, some Quick Links:

• As Alexi Casilla found out in his first at bat the Yankees always seem to get the breaks. Of course, like a good Twin, he managed to overcome the Yankees’ advantage anyway.



• If Boof and Baker continue to pitch as well as they have lately (and I know Baker only has 1 start since being called up), they could have a historically young playoff rotation.



• The relatively new blog “Viva Rivas!” has an interesting take on the importance of the Main Stream Media



• Finally, Wikipedia has a list of Bert’s other “incidents” as a color commentator.

Links of the Day for Labor Day

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We sports fans spend an awful lot of time bitching and moaning about the men selected to describe ballgames on TV and radio. Entire websites are now devoted to cataloguing the supposed inadequacies of broadcasters from Joe Morgan to Joe Buck, and no sports blog worth its bandwidth ever seems able to go more than a week without taking at least a casual shot at some play-by-play man or other. Given all that, you would assume that the sporting airwaves must be filled with countless sportscasting fiascos, but in fact, most broadcasters actually manage to pull off a pretty professional show nearly all the time, even if we may hate the manner in which they do it.

Still, everyone can have a bad day, as Bert Blyleven found out at just about 12:03pm Central Time Sunday. For those who missed the beginning of today’s game on WFTC-TV, you may commence kicking yourselves immediately. (Actually, you’ll probably be able to find it on YouTube before too long. And by “before too long,” Intern Sam means “as soon as Intern Sam figures out how his video capture device works.”)

During the opening commentary just after the broadcast went on the air, Bert stumbled a few times while trying to keep up with a montage of video highlights and stats, and eventually fell hopelessly behind the video he was narrating. He then paused, and said, clear as day: “We’re gonna do this f*ckin’ thing over, ‘cause I just f*cked it up.” There was then another longish pause, during which several people in the production van probably went into cardiac arrest, and then Bert was heard to remark, “Oh, we’re live? I did not know that.”

To Bert’s credit, he apologized instantly, and actually apologized again after the next commercial break, explaining that the Twins’ broadcast team tapes many of its opens beforehand, and he had no idea that he was live on the air. (This in itself is a bit odd, since there must be a clock in the announcing booth, and it would stand to reason that if the announcing team is doing the open after the time the broadcast is scheduled to begin, the effing thing must be live. But whatever.) One would assume that Blyleven won’t face any disciplinary action from the team (though he was reprimanded earlier this season for making salacious comments about Paula Abdul) but anyone who knows anything about the television business will tell you that this likely won’t be the last we hear of the episode.

For the last two years, the FCC has been in heavy crackdown mode, issuing major fines against any station that airs indecent language, frequently even handing down fines in clearly accidental situations. Had Sunday’s Twins game been broadcast on FSN North, none of this would matter, since the FCC does not have the power to regulate content on cable networks. But the game aired on over-the-air station WFTC, and that means that the FCC, if it so chooses, could fine the station as much as $650,000 under new obscenity rules approved by Congress earlier this year. (That’s one $325,000 fine for each of Bert’s two derivations of the f-word, a tenfold increase from the old penalty.)

Further complicating the potential FCC situation is the fact that, while any fines would be levied against WFTC, the broadcaster who uttered the offending words works not for the station, but for the Twins. Would WFTC try to force the team to pay the fine? It’s a tough call, and one I’m sure the Twins and WFTC are both hoping they won’t have to make. (While the FCC has been merciless in its treatment of some offending broadcasts, it has also been wildly inconsistent, so it’s always possible that we’ll never hear of this again, particularly if the FCC doesn’t get any viewer complaints about the incident.) Anyway, most of Twins Territory probably doesn’t give a flying leap about any of this, so we’ll move on now, but the point is: Hee. Bert said f*ck. Twice.

• LaVelle Neal thinks Terry Ryan will live to regret not trading a few youngsters for a veteran arm, and makes a pretty good case that acquiring help for the struggling rotation wouldn’t have necessitated the loss of a top prospect. The rotation is now well and truly in the tank, and even with the news that Francisco Liriano might be back as soon as next week, the Twins’ odds of keeping pace in the wild card race are looking pretty long, particularly if they struggle against the Tigers this week.



• There’s been plenty of Morneau-for-MVP talk, but what about Gardy for manager of the year? (Now, there’s a notion sure to be popular with readers of this site.) And how long will it be before baseball just starts letting ESPN hand out all its postseason awards to the Yankees?



• Speaking of ESPN, they’re apparently coming dangerously close to a major crisis…



• In case anyone cares, the St. Paul Saints will be facing the Fort Worth Cats for the American Association championship this week.