Finding Hope

It turns out you can find a good chunk of 'hope' in 'hoops'. We're about to find out how powerful that that little literary coincidence is.

In this state, it's more potent than we might expect, or even want to admit. I'm not sure if there is any other region in the country that embraces youth movements in sports quite like Minnesota does. It's a bad habit. We want to think it's based on our natural optimism, but the truth is darker. We embrace the beginning because we've been so dissappointed watching our teams fail to successfully negotiate those last few steps at the end.

And so we yearn to rebuild. The Wild can state from their inception that they'll be relatively incompetent for a half dozen years while they wait for their minor league system to bear fruit. They still sell out. Watching a successful baseball team for a half dozen years is almost more than we can bear. We yearn to tear it down and restart, rather than face the possible torture of another short playoff appearance.

And now there are the Wolves. My family and I went to last night's preseason game and The Chatty Chatty Princess™ wore her Garnett jersey, "even though he's not on the team any more daddy." I hear you kid. And seemingly, so does the rest of the fan base. When talking with a sales rep tonight, I was informed that the season ticket package was the only way left to get tix to their most popular game this season - Friday, Febuary 8th versus the Celtics. It's gonna get a bit dusty in Target Center that night.

Until then, we have a lot of new guys to watch, and based on tonight's game, it'll be easy for this fan base to find some hope. Rashad McCants and Al Jefferson both look like real players, and Jefferson could end up an all-star. Craig Smith is still undersized vertically, but looked the part of the gritty backup power forward. Theo Ratliff looked competent.

But there will be growing pains. I want to get excited about Randy Foye, but he didn't play much, and didn't shine when he did. I made the mistake of watching first round pick Corey Brewer, and I wish I could get those images out of my head. Not that I don't think he won't eventually look good, but tonight he just looked lost, and I don't expect that will be the last time.

But the guy that made me rush to rotowire.com to look up his stats and history was Sebastian Telfair. He looked like a real point guard, delivering bounce passes in the lane, drawing the double team, attacking the basket. He's just 22 years old, and was drafted 13th overall out of high school in 2004.

His history is interesting. His one year with the Celtics was terrible - he fell from a promising first string guy to a troubled 3rd string guy - but he was playing for Doc Rivers. And just a year ago he was good enough that the Celtics, a rebuilding team, traded a #7 pick for him after he spent two years with Portland. And you have to love any guy who rotowire describes as "a New York City playground legend".

Listen, if he becomes as good at point guard as McCants looks like he'll be at small forward, that would allow Foye to become the sniper shooting guard that he seemingly needs to be. And suddenly the Wolves have four above-average players in their starting rotation, and they're all young and ....

Ah, you see, it got me too. It might be a bad habit, but bad habits come from somewhere, don't they? Like boredom. Or desperation.

Or hope.

The Blame Game: Dysfunction

Dysfunction isn't simple. It's a layered beast. The problems build over time, and it makes it difficult to identify what the current problem is. We remember the problem that is three layers down, but maybe not the one we can deal with right now.

And I know this well, because I'm a Vikings fan.

And I can guarantee you by the end of today's game, I was nearly as dysfunctional as my favorite NFL team. I had become angrier and angrier as I watched the game, and as I drove home listening to KFAN, it was apparent that wasn't unique. But I wondered if we weren't being as dysfunctional as the offense, focusing on old problems instead of the immediate issue.

Yes, Adrian Peterson still doesn't touch the ball enough, but was that the biggest issue with why the Vikings offense stalled in nine straight drives? And so, through the magic of TIVO, I thought it might be kind of neat to recap them quickly, and play The Blame Game.

2nd drive. Starting at the Vikings 1 yard line - After a succesful first drive, the Vikings go three and out, but bad field position should get most of the blame. And I'll let Bobby Wade off the hook for that.
Blame: Nobody. Wade did what he was supposed to do and let a punted ball over his head go past him. It was just a bad bounce.

3rd drive. Starting at the Vikes 21 yard line - Well, the first two plays were runs by Peterson that made all of 1 yard. 3rd down was a pass to Ferguson that was off-target, caught, but bobbled out of bounds and found to be incomplete on replay.
Blame: Nobody. It was logical to run a couple of times, and they went to the right guy. I suppose it could be on Jackson for the bad pass, but two crummy runs set it up.

By the way, these are the only meaningful times the offense had the ball in the first half. Considering that the offense scored on one of their three possessions and began another on their own one yar line, that wasn't a bad half.

4th drive. Starting at the Vikes 16 yard line - Two runs gain seven yards, and the second could have gone farther if Peterson reads his block. But on 3rd and three, Peterson is on the sideline and the Vikes line up in the shotgun. The try to run a pick play on the left. It takes a long time to develop, the pass is on target, but the receiver is covered, and it's broken up.
Blame: Coaching, but not just for having Peterson on the sideline. Why, on third and three, do you commit to the pass with a shotgun? Why not play-action? Why allow the cornerbacks to jam the receivers? Why not keep the defense honest?

5th drive. Starting at the Vikes 7 yard line - Jackson almost earns a safety on the first play, when he intentionally grounds the ball from the one yard line. It was supposed to be a short pass in the flat to Kleinsasser, but the Cowboys left defensive end was up field and blocked the vision of Jackson. The second option seemed to be a the wide receiver on the other sideline who simply never moved - until Jackson started looking for him at which point he was gone. The next two plays were running plays, the first of which was a zero yard gain by Peterson.
Blame: Offensive Line This drive was doomed on the first play. At first, that looked like Jackson's fault, and he certainly could have been decisive earlier. But the line wins the blame for two reasons:
1) The right guard took several steps back immeiately after the snap, inviting the left end to clog up that lane. Either that's his mistake or it's a stupidly designed play.
2) With his first option removed, Jackson just didn't have time to identify a second option. Even on a three-step drop, he needs more time than he had.

6th drive. Starting at the Vikes 24 yard line - The Vikings move the ball on this drive. A big third down completion to Bobby Wade precedes a 12-yard scramble by Jackson and a fifteen-yard run by Peterson. At the Cowboys 31-yard line, the Vikes hand off to Taylor for no yards. Jackson misses Bobby Wade for a long completion on a well-excecuted play-action pass. And then Jackson feels the rush and throws a dump pass at the feet of Troy Williamson. Adrian Peterson is not on the field for any of those three plays.
Blame: Jackson Again, this changed from game time. At the time I was irate that Peterson wasn't on the field. I'm still baffled by him not being there, but that second play was set up to work perfectly, and the third play was makable and could've gotten the first down (or at least a closer field goal attempt.) Jackson threw a bad pass on second down and a made a decision way too late on third down.

7th drive. Starting on Vikes own 20 yard line - A promising start as Peterson runs for 12 yards, Taylor runs for 16 and then Jackson tucks the ball and runs for three more. Ryan Cook commits a false start penalty so the Vikes need twelve yards on two downs. Adrian Peterson drops a long pass. Jackson completes a dump pass to Taylor on third down, but the Vikes are four yards short and punt again at the Cowboys 47 yard line.
Blame: Offensive line. It's a tough call, because I don't love the idea of trying to throw 20 yards downfield to Peterson on a must-have play, and Peterson did drop the ball. Plus, the offensive line generally gave Jackson enough time. But that false start penalty changed that drive.

8th drive. Starting on Vikes own 9 yard line -
Blame: Peterson. He fumbles the ball and the Cowboys recover and kick a field goal.

9th drive. Starting on Vikes own 22 yard line - Yet another drive starts out well, with a short run by Taylor and a 21-yard pass to Troy Williamson. Peterson comes back into the game, and the Vikes fake him the ball on an end around but hand off to Taylor up the middle for no gain. On second down, Jackson takes a short drop and looks for one of three receivers all of which have stopped about seven yards out. His first option is covered and before he can throw the ball to the outside receiver he's hit by the defender that Peterson was blocking. On third down, the Cowboys send an extra rusher, Jackson is pressured and tries to dump it to Taylor, but it's incomplete.
Blame: Don't know When three plays in a row go nowhere, it's hard to say. I originally had thought this was play-calling, but Peterson was in the game, and the team was trying to use the play-action pass.

10th drive. Starting on Cowboys 45-yard line - The Vikes try three pass plays, and Peterson isn't on the field for any of them. First, they throw long down the sideline to Sydney Rice, and that's broken up. On second down, Jackson drills a 10-yard pass towards Bobby Wade, but it's way off target. On third down, Jackson is sacked, despite having time and two outlet options, at least one of which was wide open.
Blame: Jackson You must have Peterson on the field for these, even if he isn't the blocker Taylor is. But Jackson made an absolute mess of the last two plays and didn't give the Vikes a chance to attempt a fourth down.

So what did I learn? First, the offense was a little better than I thought, moving the ball on three of their second-half drives. But there was plenty of blame to go around for when it stalled, with the Vikings right side of the offensive line not getting it's fair share.

Second, while there are a few times that Vikings fans can legitimately gripe about Peterson's role, it's probably not more than a handful of plays. And it's also worth noting that when it comes to blame, Peterson's fumble, dropped pass and missed block led to three stalled drives. You could argue that he is a runner-up in The Blame Game.

But the "winner" is probably Tarvaris Jackson. Reviewing the game, he completed more passes than I remembered, though I'm sure we'll hear more about his longer off-target passes. But what really hurt him and the Vikings were several short dump passes that he threw a little too late, staying with primary and secondary receivers a little too long.

Not that this was the only problem. It appears there are indeed several layers of dysfunction to the Vikings offense. We may indeed be just scratching the surface.

Pythagorean Limits

This will shock you, I know, but I love mathematical magic tricks.

You know the kind I'm talking about. You'll get an email that tells you to pick a number a number and then add 30 and square it and add pi and by the end of the email, it's telling you you your birthday. I love that stuff.

And in some ways, that's what baseball's pythagorean theorem is. (If you visit this site, you likely know what I'm talking about, and if you don't, this is a nice primer.) You square a few numbers and presto-change-o, you have a win-loss record. It's magical. And we all know from history what happens to anything magical.

That's right. It becomes misused. Because those that know the tricks like the attention or the power, and those that don't can become pretty gullible. That's probably overstating what is happening now, and it is surely twisting the motives. But baseball's pythagorean theorem has some limits that have become convenient to ignore for its practitioners. I'd like to go through a couple of those over the next couple days, starting with:

1. It ain't gospel.

You will undoubtedly see, at some point in next year's season previews, someone pointing to a team's pythagorean theorem as proof that they will be worse or better next year. For instance, the Braves underperformed their pythagorean record last year, so they're really a better team than you might have thought. This conclusion is justified because (as is often stated) a team's pythagorean theorem is a better indicator than a team's actual record as to their true ability.

And it is, but just barely. Here you'll find GameDay's study that looks at team over the last ten years. The spreadsheet compares each team's record to:
1) it's record the previous year and
2) it's pythagorean record the previous year.

The results are consistent with what every study I've read about this. The pythagorean record has a slightly higher correlation than the actual record, but not by much. In our study, the comparison was .582 to .555. That's a difference that is technically known in the statistical community as "pretty much a wash".

Or, in other words, flip a coin as to which one you want to pay more attention to.

Which doesn't mean that you should ignore a team's pythagorean record. Just understand that the team also has a real record, and it's nearly an equally valid indicator of how good that team is. So don't treat is as gospel. Or even a minor miracle.

It's just a neat magic trick.

Second Thoughts

Yesterday at BaseballProspecus.com, Joe Sheehan talked about the Indians-Yankees series. Here's the link, but unless you have a subscription, I don't think you can access it. Sorry.

Joe's a fantastic writer, but what struck me was a common thought expressed early in the story. It's practically a gospel among the baseball scholarly. He suggests that the postseason is a crapshoot and carries that thought to its logical conclusion:

"Perhaps I’m excessively dogmatic on this matter, but to me, the relative emphases placed on the postseason and the regular season are completely out of whack. The latter is a much stiffer test, and a much better gauge, of a baseball team than the former is. Use whatever term you like—"small sample size," "luck," "randomness," "variance," — but the statheads have this one right. Best-of-fives and best-of-sevens don’t do enough to separate comparable baseball teams, and while the winner of one is more often than not the one that played better during the series, playing better over four games is a vanishingly small test."

I myself have spit out similar thoughts often, especially give the Twins postseason futility. But this time I was suddenly struck by something. Namely, that nobody other than baseball fans ever says this.

For instance, the Spurs record last year was much worse than the Mavericks, but the Spurs won the NBA championship, the Mavs went home early, and nobody doubts who was the better team. (Though, I'll admit, Phoenix was a different story.) In the NFL, if a 12-4 team beats a 14-2 team in the Super Bowl – a single game - nobody tries to claim the 12-4 team was better. And when Anaheim marched through the Stanley Cup playoffs last year, they were acclaimed by all sides as a clearly superior team to emulate, despite having the third most points in the regular season.

In other sports, it's assumed that during the grind of a regular season, guys take nights off and injuries skew records. Or that special players wait until the playoffs to turn their games up a notch. Or that some players save themselves for the playoffs, or even play a slightly different game during the regular season so as not to tip their hands to some of the better teams.

And I have trouble seeing where baseball is any different. Is 162 games that much more effective in leveling the field than 81? Is baseball's grind different than the NHL's or NBA's? Is the goal of being one of the top eight teams so much different than being one of the top sixteen? Or twelve? MLB, NHL and NBA playoffs are similar in that they have best of five or seven games series. And the NFL, whose showdowns are just single games, never talks about sample size. So why are we so anxious to write off the playoffs? Why are we tempted to ignore the results when the best play against the best?

There are three obvious answers. Either:
1) There is something inherently different about baseball OR
2) Baseball is right and all the other sports are wrong OR
3) The other sports are right and baseball is wrong.

And for the first time tonight, I started to wonder if the answer is “C”. Maybe studying the stats has warped our view a bit. We look at the records and run differentials and regular season awards and feel like we know which team is best. Those facts mean something to us – we discovered them, we study them, we prove them and we take comfort in them. And from those stats, we crown a best team using 162 games of data. That is something that no other sport can really do with stats, or at least not the way baseball can.

But then that team doesn’t win. And so we have a choice: we can claim small sample size, or we can go back to the drawing board and try again to measure that which seems increasingly (and suddenly) immeasurable.

It’s not difficult to see why we choose the former. But tonight, it’s equally not clear that it’s the right choice.

Suffering from Vertigo

I suppose it's appropriate for the period of mourning to come to an end. Three days seems about right, and there's no use dragging these kind of things out. (Though I do think black suits me. )

It started late Saturday night, appropriately enough at about the time the clock struck midnight, though the Phillies had turned back into pumpkins long before that. It was more painful for The Voice Of Reason than for me, obviously, seeing as she grew up with them.

But for a Twins fan there was a special kind of pain, more of an ache, because you've felt this before. The outsider might theorize that was due to the similarities between this year's Phils and last year's Twins - the whole late charge preceding a quick playoff exit. But Twins fans recognized the familiar stink of a couple of ex-Twins.

In case you missed it, Game 2 was decided when Charlie Manuel made a move that would have left any Twins fan's mouth agape. His pitcher, rookie Kyle Kendrick, had struggled, but was leading 3-2 in the fourth inning. Unfortunately, the bases were loaded. So with two outs, Manuel pulled his starter early and brought in....

..wait for it.....wait for it.....

KYLE LOHSE.

Blink. Blink.

Just thinking about this makes my ears ring. Are you F-ing kidding me?!? Kyle Freaking Lohse??!!?? Does Manuel know nothing about his career? I mean, has there ever been a pitcher more gifted in putting up crooked numbers than Lohse? Why not just signal for the bullpen to send out a kerosene truck? And a Molotov cocktail? Were they not warmed up yet?

To Lohse's credit, he did manage to throw four pitches before giving up the inevitable grand slam.

And then, in Game 3, the game was tied 1-1 in the bottom of the eighth inning. Flash Gordon had recorded the first out, but a left-hander was coming up, so the Phillies brought in....

....you guessed it....

JC Romero. Many people will say that Romero has thrived with the Phillies, pointing to his 1.92 ERA. But Romero was thriving with them the way he thrived while throwing 33 straight scoreless innings with the Twins in his last year with the team. He was effectively wild then and had been effectively wild in the National League, walking 25 players in his 26.1 innings in the senior circuit.

To his credit, he didn't walk any in Game 3. And, perhaps to show up Lohse, he did record a single out. And then he recorded three straight hits. Which led to him recording an earned run. Which held up in the ninth to record an "L".

And as a Twins fan, I knew it was going to happen. I'd seen it all before, over and over. And all I could do was play the part of Scottie Ferguson and watch Kim Novak fall off that damn bell tower yet again.

Hmmm..maybe it's not mourning after all. Maybe it's vertigo.

Help Wanted

A couple of days ago, I ripped the Wolves for trading Trenton Hassel for Greg Buckner, and things got a little testy in the comments section. The facts that I presented surrounding Buckner's contract were questioned, and to be fair, those details make all the difference. If the Wolves did indeed trade Hassell for a player whose contract they can dump a year earlier, power to them, even if he is three years older.

For the record, I got my info from usatoday.com, where they list nba salaries and contracts. They claim that Buckner's contract goes a year longer than Hassell's and that it's the player's option. On the other hand, Patricia Bender's excellent site seems to indicate the the contracts end the same year, and that Buckner's has a team option, which is a critical difference.

I'm going to assume that Bender's site (and the contract info reported by the PiPress) is correct, because otherwise, the trade would either be overwhelmingly stupid or... well, maybe something even be uglier. The fact that Buckner is $750,000 cheaper for this year can't help but make me wonder - was this done to save some nickels and dimes for this year?

Of course, the problem is that I can't get a straight answer on any of the questions that naturally arise, like "What is the Wolves salary level this year?" I can tell you that the NBA salary cap is at $55.63M, and that if I add up the salaries from espn.com's Wolves roster, it equals $55.16M. Which makes it looks like Hassell's salary would have put them over the cap, resulting in a luxury tax. But I don't know if all that money on that page really counts against the cap, or if more than that counts against the cap, or what.

The same problem existed tonight when I wanted to talk about the Wild and their season opener. The Wild look like a team that Twins fans should enjoy, given their philosophy of buuilding a young core of talent in the minors and slowly integrating them into the NHL for an extended run of success.

But is all this talk of young talent a bunch of hooey? Are they rated highly by national publications? The first two links returned from a Google search of "top NHL minor league prospects" were links to baseball prospects. The next link looks promising - for those willing to pay $12/month. Another site has two Wild prospects in the top 50, but one is the new backup goalie and the other is #47 and was a little dissappointing last year. However, they're ranked as having the 7th best minors in the NHL. Of course, this is all by the same (and totally unknown to me) source.

It isn't clear that these sports have found the intersection of entertainment and information that baseball has. But I'm determined to start putting some of these together so we have more to go by than corporate media.

So I'm asking for help. If you have some favorite sites for basketball, football or hockey, even if they're super wonkish and geeky, please let me know about them in the comments below. And while your at it, if you see any MN professional sports blogs or news that aren't included in our feeds on MNGameDay.com, by all mean let me know.

Don't worry, we'll get back to baseball soon. It's still my passion. But as we move through baseball's offseason, I'll also try to use these new links to get a level deeper into some of these other sports, too.

Thanks,
John

Another CF Option and the Madness of McHale

The two great loves of my life, TVOR and TIVO are patiently waiting for me to come to bed, so rather than a full story, let's throw three developments out there that I think deserve more attention and call it a day.

Another CF Option
I still think the Twins will make it difficult for Torii Hunter to walk out the door, but I've been wrong about that before (see Koskie, Corie). The local fan base is starting to understand that the length of the deal is a much bigger issue than the amount of the deal, but there's another happier barrier that might keep the Twins from showing Hunter the money.

There are a hell of a lot of replacements for Hunter.

You might be a little confused right now, seeing as we've been subjected to nearly limitless rants about how irreplacable a presence Hunter is, but if the Twins don't sign Hunter, they'll have plenty of options on the free agent market. Indeed, not only is center field the lushest position of this year's free agent market, it's more loaded than it has been in recent memory.

You've probably heard of Andruw Jones, but there's also Mike Cameron, Aaron Rowand, Corey Patterson, and Kenny Lofton. Granted, none of these guys will replace Hunter's offensive production by himself, but none is likley to be as expensive, either. And at the risk of being labeled a blasphemer by the various high priests of sports opinion, that money is going to be spent, and it's likely going to be spent on offense.

And now we can add another name to that list. Kosuke Fukufome of Japan's Chunichi Dragons will likely be coming to the US this offseason, too. He's played right field in Japan, but has the speed for center and reportedly has an arm that is "better than Ichiro". Given the success Ichiro had playing CF for the Mariners this year, Fukudome might very well end up there next year.

Hmm, what else to tell you about Fukudome? He's 30 years old, bats left-handed (darn), and is one of the top stars in Japan. In fact, last year he won the batting title and the MVP with a .351 batting average and 31 home runs. He was hurt this year midway through the season, and is underwent endoscopic elbow surgery, but was hitting .294 with 13 home runs when his season ended.

It's a stretch to think that the Twins would subject themselves to the goofy system involved with signing a Japanese player, but even if they don't, this adds one more premier name to the market. It also makes the market that much more lush, and could eliminate one suitor for Hunter.

Another McHale Mcstake
I suppose at this point, nothing should suprise me, but did anyone realize the Wolves made yet another horrendous trade last week?

The Wolves sent Trenton Hassell to the Dallas Mavericks for Greg Buckner in a straight swap. It was widely reported as two similar players trading teams. After all, both are defensive specialists who struggle to make much difference offensively.

But that misses two items in the small print. First, Hassell is three years younger than Buckner. Second, Hassell's contract has one less guaranteed year than Buckner. So Buckner is older AND more expensive. Quite the exacta.

Oh, hell, it gets even a little better than that, too. Both players have a 'players option' for the last year of their contract (Buckner in 2010-11, Hassell in 2009-10). It's for almost exactly the same amount of money, about $4.3 million. Except that Hassell will be 30 when making that decision and Buckner will be 34. So guess which player is more likely to tack another guaranteed year onto the end of that deal?

That's right. The guy the Wolves got.

So let's unpack this a little. The Wolves, a team with absolutely no expectations for this year, just made a trade that:

a) removed one of their more popular players and
b) made themselves older and
c) hurt their financial flexibility for at least one and probably two extra seasons.

It's stunning. Obviously it doesn't have the impact of some of the other boneheaded trades this team has made. But when you take into account the simplicity of it (swapping similar players) this might be one of the most blatantly stupid trades McHale has made.

And that's saying something.

New MNGameDay.com Stuff
I'm determined to blog a lot more this offseason, and I'd really like to mix-in some non-baseball stuff regularly. I'd sure love to see the progress that I see with baseball coverage in this town expanded to some of the other professional teams. The more voices, the better, especially because I still trust bloggers to give us twice as much analysis as we're likely to get in dailies.

So, in addition to the Twins (and Vikings) blogs and news that have been at the bottom of MNGameDay.com, you'll now find feeds for the Wolves and Wild. As always, if you know of any great blogs or sites about our local teams that I'm missing, please let me know.

Thoughts as I Simmer

So, after wrestling with a spreadsheet for a couple of hours that disected the free agent market, I discovered I massacred the damn thing beyond repair about an hour-and-a-half ago.

.....Simmer.....

The Bonnes household will be watching the MLB postseason with a rooting interest after all. The Philadelphia Phillies finally lived up to their "Fighting" monikor and found their way into the postseason today. In case you don't know, The Voice of Reason is a native Philadelphian, and I courted her for several years in that fair city. In fact, we had season tickets to the Phils the last time they made the postseason, in 1993.

(In fact, that banner picture of me screaming was taken at one of those postseason games. It was snapped from the upper deck of Veteran's Stadium minutes after the Phils eliminated the Braves in the NLCS. If you look really closely, you can see the "P" on the hat.)

Most of the coverage will likely center around the collapse of the New York Mets, and strangely enough, that's probably fine with Philly fans. I'm not sure which they enjoy more: the Phils' incredible finish or the Mets' historic collapse. For Phils fans, it's the sports equivalent of a menage a trois with two supermodels. One is unbelievable. Two is - well - where does one go for unbelievable squared?

But I think it's worth noting that this was one hell of a clutch performance, especially for a franchise traditionally know for their futility. The Phils won 13 of their last 17 games, and needed every damn one. They also played the Mets seven times in August and September and won every one of those games, too.

If you've seen any tapes of their games, you can see that Philadelphia has rallied around this team like very few other Phils teams, and there is no doubt that is partly based on some of the personalities involved, particularly Jimmy Rollins. But mostly it's because this team earned that playoff spot. And in doing so, they also earned a spot in a great sports town's hearts.

.....Simmer.....

In my search for info on the free agents, I came across a pretty good site that some of you might find interesting. MLB4U.com has several tools for analyzing the free agent market, including a complete list of possible free agents and a list of the top free agents available, including predictions on where they'll end up.

It's by no means perfect. First of all, it looks like most of the overviews haven't been updated in a month of so, and that leads to some questionable predictions, such as suggesting Eric Gagne will receive a 3-year, $36 million deal. But a lot of their predictions look like they're in the right ballpark, and Twins fans might find the sixth name on the list especially interesting.

It's Carlos Silva. Yeah, OUR Carlos Silva. The same one. Their prediction on Silva is that he'll sign a 3-year, $35 million deal. (They predict the Dodgers.)

The brutal truth is that the free agent starting pitching market is razor thin, and while one could argue whether or not Silva is the best free agent pitcher likely to be available, it's hard to argue that he's not one of the best free agent pitchers available. He looks like a legitimate #2 or #3 starter, and he's just 28 years old, and those guys get three year contracts for $10 million per year in this market.

It also brings home a couple of other brutal truths. First, any announcers or scribes who wasted their breath or ink this month suggesting that the Twins might re-sign Silva needs to take a look at how they do their jobs. There is no chance. There hasn't been any chance since, ironically, Silva showed that he didn't suck. This should put that crap to bed once and for all.

And while we're wishing things nighty-night, can we also break out the bedtime stories for talk about how not signing Silva could reduce the Twins chance of signing Johan Santana? Yeah, I'm sure Santana will be bitter about his good friend signing a deal for $35 million. And he'll be particularly furious about their part in converting Silva from a swingman with the Phils into one of the wealthiest men in Venezuela. Johan will just be spitting about it.

The second, much more brutal truth, is that it shows how the Twins really, really, REALLY screwed up at the trade deadline this year. It's one thing to think a team has a chance when they don't - that's an easy mistake to make. It's almost forgivable, because the Twins really were only a handful of games back at the time.

But if that's where Ryan's head was at, he can't trade Castillo unless it's for a super-prospect or significant help next year or payroll room to add help this past year. And if he's going to trade Castillo, why the hell isn't he shopping the two more valuable free agents on the roster?

And as unforgivable as it was to not use the deadline as a decision point for Hunter, it was even more unforgivable to not leverage Silva's value. Look, Silva was both more valuable to the league AND more replacable for the Twins than Castillo. So even if you do subscribe to the middle-of-the-road path the Twins tried to walk, Silva needs to be moved too.

I have spent an inordinate amount of time defending moves the Twins have made over the last year or so, in part because I think the criticism often has more to do with advancing an agenda than with anaylsis. But the more we look at the Twins moves (and lack thereof) around the trade deadline, the more I think the Twins have gotten off easy. This offseason is poised to show exactly how flawed their decision-making was. Silva's free agent value might just be the first very bad sign.

And another reason to simmer.

Podcast #2

It's been quite a week. If you would've told me last weekend, while I was researching free agent options, that I'd spend the second half of the week defending Nick Punto, I wouldn't have believed it.

Tonight was spent working on the other new project, the podcast of my friends watching various sporting events. If you missed the first one, I think you missed something pretty good. I was nervous that the only people who would think it was entertaining was the people who were actually there, but then I got this email from a guy I know in Chicago:

I am about to soil myself and I am only 4 mins in.

So I'm taking that as a positive sign. This Vikings/Lions game was considerably more painful, but I think the podcast turned out better. For starters, it includes much better language, with only one word I wish I could bleep. Also, the audio is quite a bit better, and without the volume changes that were so painful for the first one. It was also quite a bit easier to put together, and I'm getting the hang of this Audacity software a little, though there are at least 20 things I would like to learn about it.

So, anyway, if you like hearing guys talk about random stuff while watching football, give it a try. This week's is about 15 minutes long. You can subscribe to the podcast using:

http://www.switchpod.com/users/jbonnes/feed.xml

Or, if you just want to try this one, you can listen to it at:

http://media.switchpod.com/users/jbonnes/070916Vikings.mp3

Please let me know what you think, whether you like it or not. I'm a big boy. I can take it.

Killing the Messenger

I saw the headline in the Strib and smirked. I read the story and smiled. It was going to fuel more Twins Territory energy than the lethal concoction of dollar dogs and Chuck Knoblauch. This was going to be fun.

La Velle E Neal reported yesterday that Ron Gardenhire was leaning toward starting Nick Punto at second base next year over prospect Alexi Casilla. Punto, of course, has posted a batting average significantly lower than, well, than most writers/bloggers weight, present company included. I wonder if Neal giggled as he wrote it in anticipation of the public reaction. Honestly, how could he not have?

The reaction was as conservative and placid as most internet-based stories. I counted three blog entries by noon, and several other blogs where the comments section was overrunning with reader reaction. The prevailing sentiment was that this was symptomatic of larger issue with the Twins and that Ron Gardenhire was an idiot.

Taken altogether, it wasn’t unlike an uprising. And the more I thought about it, the more the message was distilled into three short words that are a staple of angry mobs.

“Kill the messenger!”

Face it Twins Territory, Gardy is simply telling us an unpleasant truth that we already know: Alexi Casilla has done almost nothing to indicate that he is anywhere near ready to play at the major league level. Hell, I’ll take it a step further. Alexi Casilla has done almost nothing this year in terms of growth other than age a year. And any objective observer who hasn’t bought into the spring training hype and trade deadline excusathon would conclude the same thing:

• This year he hit .269 in Rochester.
• His plate discipline declined from last year.
• His major league OBP is .278.
• He’s been prone to boneheaded mistakes in the field and on the base paths.
• Versus left-handed pitching he has been positively abysmal (454 OPS)

Put yourself in Gardenhire’s shoes. Compare that player to a guy who had .300 average last year when he discovered plate discipline, has an excellent glove and is guaranteed $2.4 million whether he plays or not. Which one would you lean towards starting there next year?

Even the decision to play Punto at second or third base in front of Brian Buscher and Alexi Casilla at this point in the season makes some sense. Again, whether we want to admit it or not, the Twins already "know what they have" with all these guys. So do we.

• Casilla is a speedy slap hitter who hasn't shown, either at AAA or MLB, that he's ready for the majors.
• Buscher is a late prospect, ala Lew Ford, whose upside is probably Ron Coomer, both offensively and defensively.
• Punto is a starting middle infielder if he's hitting well and showing plate discipline, which he did last year. He’s a utility infielder if he isn't, which he did every other year.
  

Of the three, the one I feel least sure projecting next year is Punto, then Buscher, then Casilla. So why are we so worked up that Casilla is riding the pine?

Don’t get me wrong – this is really depressing news. It's most depressing because it is undoubtedly true. There isn't much help in the free agent market for second basemen, and there is no way that Casilla takes that job away from Punto in spring training if Gardy has it in his mind that it's Punto's.

But Gardenhire isn’t to blame that Alexi Casilla got a year older without getting a year better. That rests solely on Casilla’s shoulders. Or maybe we should blame Terry Ryan for using Casilla’s development as an excuse for the Luis Castillo trade. Or maybe we should look in the mirror for buying into the party line and wishcasting a player to be something he’s not. (Yet.) It seems thereare plenty of other accurate targets for our anger.

Let’s leave the messenger alone.

The Filthy Rich Twins?

Gloom and doom seems to rule the airwaves and print media surrounding this team, especially when it comes to the upcoming offseason. But one fairly significant fact surrounding this team has been overlooked, and it could make all the difference for new General Manager Bill Smith.

The Twins have a LOT of money to spend this offseason:

• Add up all the Twins likely salaries, including arbitration award increases, and it adds up to about $50 million. (For details, see the 2008 GM Cheat Sheet part one and two)
• The Twins payroll this year was about $73 million heading into the season, and about $70 million after losing Luis Castillo, Jeff Cirillo and Ramon Ortiz. That’s about $10 million more than they spent in 2006.

You don’t have to be a sabremetrician to see that leaves at least $20 million for the Twins to spend this offseason, and up to $30 million if they increase their payroll again (which a great many other MLB teams seem to be doing, even without new ballparks on the way).

Now, that money doesn’t include money the Twins might need to pony up if they want to re-sign Torii Hunter, but the sticking point on Hunter has never been the amount of money he would be paid next year. The question is whether the Twins want to guarantee him an enormous chunk of ching when he’s turning 37 in 2012 (which other teams will undoubtedly do).

But even if they don’t re-sign Hunter, that still leaves an enormous amount of money for this franchise, more than they had in any single year that Terry Ryan oversaw the franchise. The erroneous criticism of Ryan was that he didn’t like to spend money on free agents. Whether he liked to or not, there’s certainly no evidence he ever had any to spend.

(Personally, I can hardly wait to see the media reaction if Smith does make a big free agent splash. Will columnists speculate that Jim Pohlad is more willing to spend than his father? Will radio hosts suggest that Smith is better at persuading the Pohlads to spend than Ryan was? Will radio callers wonder if Ryan was the obstacle to spending money all along?)

So are there any particularly good fits on the free agent market for the Twins? Strangely, the easiest hole to fill might be the one left by Hunter:

Center Field – If the Twins don’t re-sign Hunter, they can take comfort that there are a fair number of replacements. Brave Andruw Jones is the biggest name, but he’s had a terrible year. Odds are, he would be willing to sign a one-year deal to increase his value again. Padre Mike Cameron is on the down slope of his career, but would be a capable and more affordable option. Phillie Aaron Rowand has a combination of defense, offense and youth that is going to earn him a bigger contract than anyone expects. In fact, he might be as desirable in the market as Hunter. Finally, Indian Kenny Lofton would be a nice short-term solution to replace Hunter in the field and Luis Castillo at the top of the order.

Third Base – The position that Twins fans mention the most (and the one that has hurt the Twins this year the most) will also be the hardest to fill this offseason. The big name is Yankee Alex Rodriguez, but the Twins aren’t going to be getting him, no matter how much money they have. Red Sox Mike Lowell is more likely, but he’s 33 and will be looking for a long-term deal, ala Hunter. Beyond those two, the only real improvement over someone like Brian Buscher would be Mike Lamb, but can he hit left-handers?

Designated Hitter/Left Field – If you’re dreaming of adding a big bat, you would think this would be the best place to start. Umm, maybe not. The Reds have a $13M option on 28-year-old Adam Dunn that I’m guessing they’ll pick up, but if not, he’ll be at the top of the list. (I also wouldn’t rule out a trade between the Twins and Reds for him). Beyond Dunn, you have to start checking expiration dates, because some of these guys are likely starting to curdle: Mike Piazza, Sammy Sosa, Barry Bonds, and Bobby Abreu.

As one looks at the names available, it’s a little ironic (and depressing) that the free agent market is so thin at exactly the time that the Twins have money to spend. But it shouldn’t be overlooked that the Twins do, indeed have money to spend. Fans recognize that this is a critical offseason for this franchise. We should start expecting it to be a rewarding one, too.

The Impact of Terry Ryan

Make no mistake - this is bad. How bad? As bad as losing Torii Hunter or Johan Santana?

I suspect a statistical study could show it is. In fact, I've read just such a study. Several years ago a reader sent me a statistical analysis that compared win totals to payroll. Using regression analysis he derived a formula that turned dollars into wins, and then he compared how teams had performed to how they should have performed given their payroll.

His conclusion? That Ryan was worth about $45M over his time as GM. And that number has undoubtedly increased.

This year Ryan has come under unprecedented criticism, the majority of it misdirected. Critics focus on the number of players that haven't worked out, citing names like Bret Boone or Tony Batista, as if these players were ever anything more than low-cost gambles or role players.

We cannont forget that money is always the biggest consideration and limitation with this franchise. It has to be. That was a truth that Ryan publicly denied but embraced with every trade and minor league promotion. He might have believed promotion from within and a productive farm system was the best way to build a team regardless of payroll restrictions, but it's not like he really had a choice.

So don't kid yourself - this not a good thing.

How bad it is remains to be seen. Ryan was quick to minimize his role and credit others and there is ample evidence that he leaves behind a strong organization. Critics might point to a lack of major league ready hitters, but you can’t ignore the pitching that has been prepared, or the hitters that the engine has already produced. When looking holistically at the organization – the scouting, the farm system, the coaching and the players – the Twins aren’t in a much worse place moving forward then they were two days ago.

And, to be fair, the trade deadline fiasco might have been an indication that the “lack of enthusiasm” that Ryan mentioned numerous times yesterday might have been spilling over into his work. The Twins needed to move decisively in a direction that week, and instead wound up choosing a middle path that looks like the worst possible one.

Finally, all indication are that the Twins have chosen a suitable successor in Bill Smith. Face it – a nationwide search of ex-GMs wasn’t going to turn up an ideal candidate to lead a low-payroll team. Suggestions that Steve Phillips, the former GM of the Mets, would somehow be more credible to lead a team with the Twins payroll constraints than Ryan’s assistant GM are ludicrous. For better or worse, the Twins next GM needed to be a second-in-command from a successful small market team, which means it was either Smith or some guy from the A’s. Why not Smith?

Given his replacement, the organization, and some signs of decline, losing Ryan may not be as bad as losing a big name star. But nobody, not Hunter or Santana or Mauer or Morneau, has had the positive impact on this franchise that Ryan has over the last ten years. That should be his legacy.

And Now For Something Completely Different

You may have noticed I haven't been writing much for the last week, and that's because I wanted to try something I've had in the back of my mind for about 20 years. That's how long I've gotten together with friends to watch sports, which invariably turns into a conversation about sports and life. So last weekend for the Vikes home opener, we set up some mics, recorded it, and this week I've been battling audacity to try and turn it into something listenable. You can find it at:

http://media.switchpod.com/users/jbonnes/070909Falcons.mp3

It's about 15 mintues long and our conversation focuses on lot on Joey Harrington and razor blades, strangely enough. On the one hand, I find it pretty entertaining and funny. On the other hand, it's pretty clear I need a LOT more practice with Audacity, the mixer and the mics we got. Just keep the volume knob on your MP3 player handy. Trust me.

I'd appreciate any feedback you have. I liked doing it, and think it could get a lot better, but it is a lot more work than I thought, and I'm going to need to evaluate just how committed to it I want to be.

Try this instead...

Sorry, but the end of a losing streak still isn't enough to take the focus off the Vikes today, at least in my mind. I'm going to be a littlele busy with a podcast experiment tonight, so check out Vikesgeek.com for his excellent take.

Question the Easy

It seems I can't hear a summary of the Twins system without It. Corporate media, bloggers, sports radio all have to mention It. It has gone from symbolic to distraction to bad habit. And it's long past time to start the pendulum swing the other direction on It.

I'm talking about the signing of Ramon Ortiz and Sidney Ponson for a combined $4 million dollars. It's the default criticism of the franchise these days, and it breaks my heart to say that it's parroted among blogs and baseball sites where one hopes for some real analysis. Instead of being viewed as what it was - a low-cost, early season gamble to insure against too much reliance on young pitching - it's become the #1 reason that the Twins aren't returning to the playoffs for the fifth time in six years.

So let's touch touch ground again quickly, shall we?

1) If you want to rip those signings, you must include Silva in the triumverate. He was every bit the gamble, and maybe a bigger one considering his salary and his dismal 2006. In spring training, he was the one which drew the most concern.

Nobody, including the Twins, expected all three to pitch 30+ games each. If one paid out, they broke even on the combined $8M they paid them. If two paid out, they were ahead. Silva justified that salary all by himself.

2) The signings were abll about depth, which just happened to be THE key area that bit the Twins in the butt this year. Unfortunately, the Twins just invested in depth on the wrong side of the ball.

But last offseason, that seemed ludicrous. The Twins had every regular starter returning and had one of the top offenses in the American League after the All-Star break. On the other hand, the pitching had lost two of their top pitchers and was legitimately looking at three gaping holes behind Johan Santana and (ironically) Boof Bonser.

3) I have yet to see someone show me exactly how the $4M they spent on those two guys would’ve improved the offense this year. (And PLEASE don't throw a diamond-in-the-rough name at me like Dmitri Young. Young was only still in the league because Jim Bowden knew him, and Bowden brought him into camp the same way the Twins brought in Ken Harvey - as a 3rd option if everything went wrong.)

4) There’s now plenty of evidence that the $3M they threw at Ortiz wouldn’t have been spent otherwise – that Ryan stretched the budget just to make sure. In fact, while I have trouble identifying how the Ortiz deal hurt the club considerably this year, it's legacy might be more significant in the future. It may have hurt their draft strategy this year (though certainly nobody from the Twins would fess up to that) and it likely gave Ryan another hurdle when looking for an impact bat at the trade deadline.

5) Oh, and let’s not forget that the problem this year hasn’t been the starting pitching. In fact, it can be argued that the development Scott Baker and Matt Garza have shown is a result of starting the season in the minors. God knows making the team out of spring training hasn’t helped Boof.

It's similar to the criticism the Twins face to this day for keeping Johan Santana in the bullpen (a move I was highly critical of, by the way). It's easy to get lathered up about what this team might have done in 2002 if he was in the rotation. But then you realize you're criticizing an organization for how it developed a multiple Cy Young Award winner. And that just makes you sound kinda, you know, stupid.

The Ortiz/Ponson criticism is starting to become an embarrassment to the blogger community. It’s everything that we used to criticize corporate media for. It’s bad enough that we keep ripping a gamble that everyone knew was a gamble because it didn’t work out. It’s downright ridiculous that we keep attributing an entire season of failure to a dozen bad starts in April and a couple of million dollars that probably would not have been spent otherwise.

We do it in part because it's something that we could have predicted. Great. Pat yourself on the back for successfully reading a career statistical chart. So did the rest of the league - that's why those guys were so cheap.

But mostly we do It because it's easy and because we've heard it so much. Let's quit taking the easy way out. We're better than that.

2008 GM Cheat Sheet (Part II)

Ok, time for the second half of the exercise. Here are your options. You're not limited to them, and feel free to push back on the price, but I'm not completely pulling these out of thin air. This is a pretty good guess to what the market will bear....

(Oh, and I apologize in advance for how far down below this the table is. It has to do with how blogger handles white space. Which, by the way is "not well". It's there. Just scroll down a bit.)

Position	Name	$	Options
CF			· Re-signing Hunter will cost approximately $16M/year for several years. · You can offer Jason Tyner arbitration for approximately $1 million. · You can promote Denard Span, AAA CF hitting .252/.302/.359 and pay him $.4M · Other free agent CFs and their approximate cost… o Aaron Rowand - $12M o Andruw Jones - $10M o Mike Cameron - $8M o Corey Patterson - $4M o Darin Erstad - $2M
3B			· You can hand it back to Nick Punto (who is already listed at MI) and just list his replacement here for approximately $1M. · You can hand it to Brian Buscher (who is already at CI) and just list his replacement here for approximately .5M · Other free agent 3B and their approximate cost…. o Alex Rodriguez - $28M o Mike Lowell - $12M o Mike Lamb - $7M o Russel Branyan, Morgan Ensberg, Abraham Nunez - $2-3M
DH			· You can bring back Rondell White for…oh, who are we kidding? Nobody is bringing back Rondell White. · Other possible free agent DHs and their approximate cost…. o Adam Dunn - $15M o Moises Alou, Geoff Jenkins, Bobby Abreu - $8M o Jeff Conine, Sean Casey - $6M o Mike Sweeney - $4M
5th starter			· Francisco Liriano, Kevin Slowey or Glen Perkins will cost about $400,000. · Re-signing Carlos Silva will likely cost $4-5M · If you want more experience, free agent Ps and their approximate cost…. o Curt Schilling - $15M o Kenny Rogers, Freddy Garcia - $8M
4th OF			· You can offer Jason Tyner arbitration for approximately $750,000. · A veteran free agent will cost about $1M
Last Bench			· A fifth outfielder free agent will cost about $.5M · You can promote someone from the minors like Garret Jones, Matt Tolbert or Denard Span for $.4M · Another middle infield free agent will cost about $.8M · A left-handed bench bat with some power will cost about $1M.
MR			· Bringing back Rincon will cost about $2 million · You can promote a pitcher from the minors, like Glen Perkins, Carmen Cali or even start Francisco Liriano again in the bullpen for $.4M · A veteran free agent will cost anywhere from $.5M to $2.5M depending on how much success they’ve had recently.
Long Relief			· You can promote a pitcher from the minors, like Glen Perkins, Nick Blackburn, or Brian Duensing for $.4M · A long relief veteran will probably cost around $1M
TOTAL		$	· Remember, it needs to be under $30 M unless you’re going to start searching the cushions of Carl’s couch.

How’d you do? Did you improve the offense? Did you add power? Are you relying on young pitching? And, most importantly, is your boss going to be happy with how much you spent?

Great. Now let us know by commenting below. (Unless, of course, it involves Sidney Ponson. Then you might want to try again.)

2008 Twins GM Cheat Sheet (Part 1)

So, you’re a little dissatisfied, huh? Thinking you could do a better job? Well, to be a major league GM, you could either:

a) put some time in at the major league level, probably schlepping around as a scout for a dozen years or so years, stay on top of the free agent market, and show you can negotiate with players’ agents. Or…

b) you could just swing by MNGameDay.com.

It looks like you chose (b), so we know you’re smart, but let’s see how smart. Your job is to create a competitive 2008 team while keeping the payroll under $80 million (a pretty realistic guess as to next year’s salary level).

We’ll give you the tools you need. Below you’ll find lists of the positions, the players who will most likely be back, their approximate salaries, and a list of the other assumption we’re making in case you want to challenge them.

Then you’ll find your area. We’ll list the open positions and some of the options you have (including how much they cost). You can build your own team and compare it to the job Terry Ryan does this offseason. Just make sure the total is under $80 million, because your boss isn’t known as the freest spender in the world.

The Lineup

The numbers for a lot of these players are estimates, since Justin Morneau, and Michael Cuddyer and eligible for arbitration, but they’re close. If you’re able to sign them to long-term deals, you might be able to knock a million off of that, but that’s about the most you can expect. We’ve included Alexi Casilla, since the Twins seem sold on him. We put Kubel in left field, but you could move him to DH, or just leave him off if you like. And Nick Punto is listed as the middle infield backup a little later.

The remaining spaces are center field, third base, and designated hitter for you to play with, and we’ve spent $23.05 million.

Starting Pitching

We’ll assume that Silva’s spot is open, though you can re-sign him later. We’re keeping Bonser in the rotation for now, since he’s certainly passable as a 4th starter. Those salaries bring our grand total to $38 million.

Bench
Punto and Redmond are both under contract, so they’re playing someplace. For now, we put Brian Buscher in a Jeff-Cirillo-type role – if you don’t like it, move him around as you like, including back to AAA. Those salaries bump us up to $41.25M

Bullpen

You could quibble about whether Guerrier should be included here. We included him despite being eligible for arbitration because he looks like a relative bargain, and we have enough spots to fill. The additional salaries bring us up to $49.65 million.

Summary
You’re 2/3 of the way there! Seventeen of the 25 roster spots are spoken for, and $49.65 million is spent. That leaves about $30 million to fill eight spots. Take a stab at what you think you want to do and we'll be back tomorrow with some more specific options and salaries. We'll see you then.

Twins, something. Royals, nothing.

Scotty,

About 80 years from now you're going to die. And as you wait for a decision, I want you to know that tonight is fair game. While you are standing in all your naked judgement before The Almighty, it's valid to point out to him that Mike Sweeney:

1) shouldn't have even been on that team and
b) simply failed to get any real wood on a pop-up.

And, while you're at it, you may want to point out that (god damn it) you deserved better than that given the last two years that you've struggled through.

And I, for one, will be right there with you. And so will 26,000 Twins fans.

Sincerely,
TG

On History, Performance and Disappointments

Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
- George Santaya

You’ve probably heard this historical quote before, but the truth is that Santaya never said it, or at least that is not what he wrote. What he actually wrote was “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Santaya wasn’t even talking about history – he was talking about change and retention.

Which means that the quote most often used to justify studying history isn’t itself accurate. Apparently, we’re open to learning from history, so long as we can mold it to say what we want it to say.

I’ve felt the same way over the last month reading the various requiems by bloggers, sportswriters and talk show hosts about the Twins disappointing season. They differ on the importance of various mistakes, but they seem united in one point – that the Twins should have been able to foresee this stuff. And that the Twins need to learn from their mistakes so they don’t make them again.

I’m not so sure. As I look at the performances of many of the players and compare them to my own expectations, I see a lot of gambles that didn’t work out, and very few that did. In short, I see a fair amount of bad luck, and not something that can necessarily be learned from.

Rather than go through the various criticisms, try doing the following: name all the Twins who disappointed you this season and compare them to all the ones who outperformed your expectations. Go ahead, try it.

My list of those who clearly performed worse than expectations (because of injuries or otherwise) includes Nick Punto, Rondell White, Jeff Cirillo, Jason Bartlett, Joe Mauer, Michael Cuddyer, Jason Kubel, Denys Reyes, Jesse Crain, Juan Rincon, Glen Perkins and Boof Bonser.

And here are the ones who have exceeded expectations: Torii Hunter, Scott Baker, Carlos Silva and Matt Garza.

It doesn’t have anything to do with signing mediocrity or over-emphasizing speed or trusting veterans too much. It has to do with too many bad years by too many players. About the only thing we might be able to learn is that expectations for some of these guys may need to be altered. But for most of them, I’m not even sure that’s appropriate.

So I’d urge readers to be careful when reading or listening to these orations. Ask yourself if what they’re proposing is really the lesson we should learn. Or whether we should instead listen to a different quote attributed to Santaya:

History is a pack of lies about events that never happened told by people who weren't there.

Bonnes Family Vacation: Day 2

So, this is a new one.

I've spent more than my fair share of time in bars, and like to think that I've done just about everything there is to do in one, but I've never blogged in one. Yet, here I am, in our hotel sports bar, a fairly happening place, literally bellied up to the bar so I can reach the keyboard on my Dell laptop.

I'm down here because my family is sleeping. And they're sleeping because they have all sucked the life out of each other by 9:45 tonight. And that's because we have completed our second day of our family vacation.

So maybe a better question is why am I NOT sleeping. And it's because I want to stretch a bit, write about something a little different than baseball. I'm a little wary, because usually when I write about my family, I have a story to tell, but tonight I'm writing because there isn't a story to tell. I'm writing because I'm sure there are a dozen stories from the last 48 hours, and I'm wondering how I missed them. It's almost like I'm writing to punish myself, but it's more to remind myself to keep a storyteller's eye on things.

And one such story should probably be the drive here to Chicago. I cannot tell you why, but it was incredibly important to me to drive here - to force my family into a seven hour drive. And I have no idea why. It's not like I remember anything important happening in the care on the endless trips my family took every other summer out west.

What I remember is trivial. Like I remember my brother and I taking every available pillow (I think there were four of them) and sticking them into the foot wells of the back seat. That way, one of us would sleep on the large back seat (no bucket seats in those old station wagons) and the other one would sleep on the floor of the back seat. The pillows were important, because they leveled the back floor a bit so the enormous hump that ran through the back of the car wasn't sticking into the middle of your back (too much). So it wasn't because I thought something important would happen for them.

Mostly, I think I wanted to drive because I really like to drive. I'd like to say it makes me think things out, and that's partly true, but again, I can't remember any particularly illuminating insights I've ever had while driving. I just like the feeling of being in the car, of going somewhere, of things changing, and I want the kids to eventually gain that too. So, naturally, I'm dragging them on these little death marches.

On second thought, maybe that isn't the best idea, huh?

But it seems to be working, especially for The Boy™, who has been especially happy. In fact, he's been annoyingly happy. Keeping him focused is nearly always a challenge, but this week it's been impossible. He gets so excited about a simple concept like Dunkin Donuts for breakfast that when the big stuff comes (like going on a speedboat tour of Chicago) he doesn't even know what he's doing.

It's been tragically funny to watch him interact with The Voice of Reason™ in this condition. Today, they literally had the following conversation as he prepared to go out to the swimming pool. I'm going to portray it from his point-of-view:

TB: Mom, where are my (swimming) goggles?
TVOR: Buzz buzz buzz buzzy-buzz. Buzz buzz buzz buzzy-buzz your buzzy-buzz.
(The Boy™ wanders around the hotel room for twenty seconds wondering what he's doing, then remembers he's looking for his goggles.)
TB: (a little more urgently): Mom, have you seen my goggles?
TVOR: Buzz buzz buzz buzzy-buzz. You need to buzzy-buzz your sandals. Get your sandals on.
(The Boy™ spins around the room for 5 more seconds, clues in that he's supposed to be getting his sandals, and then realizes that Mom is still missing the point.)
TB: My GOGGLES. Where are my goggles?
TVOR: I. HAVE. YOUR. GOGGLES. (long pause) YOU. NEE-EED. TO PUT ON. YOUR SANDALS.

By the third time she has repeated the same sentence, she's speaking slowly. And loudly. She's looking him in the eye. And waving the goggles in front of his nose. She is using all possible resources at her disposal to get the point across. I expect the next step was for her to find a conference room with one of those giant Post-It™ pads and illustrate it for him.

Of course, I find this endlessly amusing in part because I've been doing this to her for years. This Sunday morning I needed to pick up The Chatty Chatty Princess™ from a slumber party, and so I asked TVOR if she had the invitation so I could find the house's address. And she looked at me like I had just grown a third eye.

"It's on the kitchen table. I found it. I brought it to you. I asked you if you would go get her. You said yes. Then I handed you the invitation. You said thanks. Then you set it down on the kitchen table."

I, of course, remember none of this, because I was reading the paper at the time. And I have no doubt that everything she said was true. My talking point now is that for the last seventeen years I've been preparing her for having her own small boy. I'm sure her point is that he's my freaking son, and she should have been a little more careful about selecting a less shallow gene pool.

But here's the punchline. The invitation was on the kitchen table, but I forgot it there when I went to pick her up, so I had to call TVOR from outside the house and confirm the damn address anyway.

Hey, look, I found a story. That was fun. Maybe, just maybe, we'll try again tomorrow night.

The Untold Story of How Joe Helped Nick Out of his Slump

by Twins Geek

As Joe Mauer waited his turn for the batting cage, he noticed Patrick Reusse weaving his way towards him. “Hey Joe!” his gravel voice squeaked. “How many RBI do you think you’ll drive in this season?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I don’t really keep track.”
”What? Then how do you compare yourself to other players?”
“By height.”

Thinking he had missed part of the conversation (again), Reusse wandered away to ask Morneau when he was going to start hitting left-handers again. From his shadow, little Nick Punto suddenly emerged. “Hey, Joe. Can I ask you something?”
“Sure thing, Ned. Shoot.” said Joe kindly.
“It’s Nick, Joe”, replied Punto. “Did you ever trouble getting excited about baseball?”
“No, I've never had that problem,” Joe replied thoughtfully. “Why?”
“Forget it. I didn't think you'd understand”, Nick dejectedly. But he fired back up almost immediately. “I’ve got to hit again. I’ve just got to!”
“Nick, this isn't Russia. Is this Russia? This isn't Russia, is it?"
“Um, no…”
“I didn't think so. Now, the thing is, do you want to hit?”
“Well, yeah. If I don’t, I might lose my job,“ lamented Nick. “I mean, how am I going to support my family?”
“Whoa, Nate. I’m not even a free agent yet. I helped you find that jewelry endorsement, and I bought you that Coke yesterday. I can’t pay for everything…”
“No, no,” Nick quickly responded as Joe entered the batting cage. “It’s just, I really, really, want to hit again. I’m tired of grounding out weakly to shortstop. I’m not ready for my career to end and to spend the rest of my life selling baseball stuff from some warehouse.”
“What’s the matter with selling baseball stuff?” wondered Joe. “I own two warehouses full of QuickSwings.™”
“I notice you don’t spend a lot of time at them.”
“I’m not sure where they are.”

After a couple of practice swings, Joe looked back at Nick, and seemingly made a decision. “I like you, Nancy”, he said.
“That's Nick, Joe”, replied Nick.
“Nick. I’m going to give you a little advice. There's a force in the universe that makes things happen.” And out of his back pocket, he pulled a headband. “All you have to do is get in touch with it,” he said as he put the headband around his head and... over his eyes? “Stop thinking.” He picked up the bat. “Hear nothing. Feel nothing.” He brought the back bat, cocked, waiting for the pitch. “Just let things happen and be….”
The pitching machine clicked. The ball fired.
“…the ball.”
The arms swung. The wrists uncoiled. With a holy smack the ball flew straight up the middle.
“That was kind of incredible, Joe!” exclaimed Nick.
“Thank you very little, replied Joe. “Here, you try it.”
“Pardon me?” said Nick.
“You try it,” Said Joe, handing Nick the bat and blindfold. “Just relax. Find your center.”
Nick lined himself up at the plate. Resting the bat on his leg, he put the blindfold over his eyes. “Just picture the pitch. Picture it” quietly coached Joe.
Nick picked up the bat, raising his arms behind his head.
“Turn off all the sound. Just let it happen,” continued Joe. “Be the ball,” he whispered. “Be the ball, Nick.”
The machine clicked. The ball fired – right past Punto with the bat still cocked behind his head.
“You're not being the ball, Nick,” scolded Joe.
“Well, it's difficult with you talking like that,” spat back Nick.
“OK. I'm not talking,” said Joe soothingly. “I’ve stopped talking. I'm not talking now. Be the ball.”
The machine clicked. The ball fired. But this time, the bat connected – and the ball dribbled weakly to the left of the pitching machine.
Punto whipped off the blindfold. “Where did it go?” he asked.
“Right in the warehouse,” sighed Joe. “It's okay. We'll work on it.”

The Twins Geek writes a couple time per week about Minnesota Sports at TwinsGeek.com. And on his deathbed, he’ll receive total consciousness. So he’s got that going for him. Which is nice.

Meeting Up With An Old Friend

To be totally honest, it's been a couple of years since I've paid close attention to the Vikings, for various reasons. Their "brand" of football isn't purely to blame, though it certainly made watching them on Sunday afternoons less compelling. But it's also been about the stage of life I'm in, and maybe moreso about the stage of life my entire group of friends is now in.

Twenty years ago, Sunday afternoons were comletely reserved for the guys, and that habit stayed with us into early marriages, in part because our wives were either interested in the game or at least understood that we were only going to be minimally available for those three hours. And if enough beer was consumed, mabye the 3-6 hours after that.

Kids, however, have no such interest or knowledge. These days a game is interrupted about 20 times, and any house that hosts needs to accomodate twice as many people as it used to. Add to that the increased responsibilities most of us have on the weekend and instead of watching 16 games per year in their entirety, I'm more likely to catch three.

But I think that might change this year. And so, it was more than a little anticipation I sat down on Friday night with a beer, my TV and a Tivo to reaquaint myself with an old friend. And I gotta say, I wasn't dissappointed.

You gotta remember, the Jets are a good team that plays in the AFC, which automatically makes them a better team than the Vikings going into this game. Add on that it's a game on the road, and in New York which can provide all kinds of delicious distractions, and a dominating first half is a real positive sign.

But the preseason is made for evealuating players, not teams, so let's jump into a some Thumbs Up and Thumbs Downs

Thumbs Up - Chad Greenway
The interception return for a touchdown was the play that most people will be talking about, but he made a play earlier in the quarter that I thought was more impressive. On another safety valve pass, Greenway sniffed it out from at least ten yards behind the line of scrimmage and made an open field tackle behind the line of scrimmage. I haven't seen a linebacker on the Vikings make that play in the 21st century. Please God, keep this kid healthy.

Thumbs Down - The rest of the linebackers
That may be a little harsh on EJ Henderson, who only embarassed himself once. On the other hand, I watched Ben Leber run himself out of position at least three times. Once, he managed to somehow make ten yards behind the line of scrimmage, on the opposite side of the field, at exactly the time that the running back was cutting back to where he should have been. I honestly don't know how he got out of position so quickly. I think he might have teleported.

Thumbs Up - Adrian Peterson
He showed us a spin, speed in running away from most of the defense, and the ability to deliver a blow - on his first play. Giggle.

Thumbs Down - Marcus James
Any pressure the Jets got came from the Vikings' right side, including the one that resulted in Bollinger's fumble. I was legitimately embarassed for James on the play.

Thumbs Up - Ray Edwards
I suspect he'll be called for approximately seven offside penalties this year - someone get that guy a decaf. On the other hand, hold that thought - two big plays behind the line of scrimmage and some consistent pressure from a defensive end is something this team desperately needs.

Thumbs Down - Alex Reyes
He's not kicking field goals, right? And he's not punting either? So his ONLY job is to kick it deep on kickoffs, right? Well, then, he should probably do that.

Thumbs Up - Aundrae Allison
First, I think he deserves some props for being the first person in the history of the world to spell Andre in a phonetically responsible way. And second, I just plain like a guy who takes a kick and runs it straight up the field. I don't care if he breaks a single tackle all year. I'm being totally serious.

Thumbs Down - Cedric Griffin
You know why they picked on you Cedric? Because you can't play physically. That's why.

Which means you can't just give the receiver ten yards and expect to tackle him before he gains a single yard after the catch. after the catch. On the touchdown play, I don't even blame Griffin much for missing the tackle. But he wasn't even in the camera's view from the beginning of that play until the receiver had the ball. He started ten yards back, then he backpedaled. The Vikings sent six guys at the QB and he didn't need to take even three steps back. He completed a nine yard pass doing nothing more than standing up and rifling the ball.

And that's enough for the night, and the weekend. We'll see you Monday, when we'll be back talking about the Twins.

Touching Base

Hey everyone,

Sorry I haven't written much this week. Part of the reason is that I'm really struggling to the the Sept GameDay issue out the door, but it's also because there have been two unforeseen developments that have gobbled up time, Pac Man style.

1. I got an iPhone on Friday. I haven't found a time waster this impactful since, well, probably since blogging. I just love the damn thing but I spend the whole weekend learning all it's little secrets and battling AT&T to get it activated.

2. Flash Gordon was released on DVD last week. Words cannot express my delight at spending Tuesday night watching this with my kids. All you really need to know about it is that if you check out the IMDB.com page, the lead actor doesn't have a submitted picture. Nor does the lead actress. Or fully 2/3 of the cast.

And yet it was one of the most delightfully bad movies of my youth, and after watching it almost 30 years later, it's both better and worse than I remembered. I don't know how a movie with such terrible special effects, forced dialogue and automaton acting can still be so entertaining. Add all that to a soundtrack from Queen and you can almost come to the conclusion that they were trying to make another Rocky Horror Picture Show. And frankly, I think the theater dorks just beat the geeks to the punch on that one.

So anyway, I'm not writing baseball tonight. But by Monday I'll have the 2008 GM Cheat Sheet up on the site, so you can start working on next year's team.

You know, this was

On Zen, Fast Food and Third Base

I don't know exactly where this Zennish story comes from, because like most Americans, I like my Zen the way I like my fast food - quick, made to order and mostly forgetable. But the story goes something like this....

A kid is walking in the jungle and happens across a really hungry man-eating tiger looking for something quick, made to order, and mostly forgetable. The boy tries to run away but finds himself on the edge of a high, steep cliff. He quickly climbs down a couple feet on a vine, peering down at certain death both above and below, because he notices two new hungry tigers pacing at the bottom of the cliff.

And then the vine starts to slowly pull out of the cliff.

While frantically pondering his dilemna, he notices a small strawberry plant growing out of the cliff. It has one nearly perfect strawberry. And so, seconds before the vine gives way completely, he plucks it and pops it in his mouth and thinks "That is the most delicious strawberry I have ever tasted."

The lesson is, of course, unknowable, because otherwise they would just tell you the damn lesson instead of torturing both you and our little protagonist with this story. But it has something to do with getting what you can out of a hopeless situation, which brings us to third base and the Minnesota Twins.

The trade deadline passed without making any moves to upgrade that position, but the worse news is that there doesn't seem to be much hope in the offseason either. Here's a pretty good list of what you can expect to be available as far as third basemen go:

Yikes. If you don't get scared by that "AB" column, you should. There are a total of two regular third baseman on that list, but we might as well run through them all, starting at the bottom:

Abraham O Nunez is a 31-year-old utility player who fell into the job in Philly when David Bell left. He "broke through" back in 2005 when his OPS exceeded 700 (704 - but that exceeds 700) for the first time while replacing Scott Rolen in Cincinatti. The sad part is he might not even be available, as the Phillies do have an option on his contract.

Morgan Ensberg is also 31, and had great seasons in 2004 and 2005, positioning himself as a solid player for several years. (You shoulda signed that guaranteed long-term contract, Morgan). Last year, however, he hit .235 and this year he's just as bad, especially because he's also lost all plate discipline and power. Everything about his stats suggest he's done, and being designated for assignment by the lowly Astros would seem to verify it.

Since these guys are listed by OPS, 31-year-old Russel Branyan looks like a reasonable option. He's not. He's been on three teams this year, and he's hitting .197

Mike Lowell, on the other hand, is definitely going to be an option for someone. He's bounced back nicely from that slump two years ago that made eveyone wonder exactly what he had been putting in his body. He's 33 years old, and has hit for both average and power for the last two years. He'll also likely demand a four-year contract in excess of $12 million per year.

Mike Lamb has had a decent year, and a decent career so far as a platooning first baseman and third baseman. I suspect his at-bats have been limited because he struggles mightily against left-handed pitching. He's been hanging around in Houston for the last few years, and he missed being a free agent by just twelve days this year. He's positioned to either be the bargain of the offseason, or the guy that gets a contract much larger than anyone anticipates.

Alex Rodriguez deserves his own entry, and will likely get it this offseason. I think we can safely assume that his upcoming $25-30 million contract won't be with the Twins.

So there you have it. The two lions below are going to be getting money the Twins likely can't match. The four lions above don't have any full-time experience, and with the possible exception of Lamb, don't look like they're much of an improvement on Nick Punto or Brian Buscher.

And so we may need to forgive the Twins if this offseason doesn't produce the result we've all been looking for, and the Twins are force to stay with their in-house options. Instead we might want to prepare ourselves for the quick, forgetable solution, even if it isn't made to order.