Should the Twins sign Bonds?

The Hardball Times has a good review of the Twins season up. At the end the Author, Josh Kalk, makes the case that the Twins should sign Barry Bonds to DH, move Jason Kubel to LF and Delmon Young to Center, benching Carlos Gomez. The article is worth reading but I disagree with him on one point:

"Give the front office credit for dumping Hernandez when they did as well. It takes some guts to dump your opening day starter, who also was leading the team in victories. The move was clearly the right choice, but sometimes the right choice is clouded by potential media/fan backlash."

Practically everyone who knows anything about the Minnesota Twins wanted them to dump Hernandez and bring up Liriano about two weeks before the Twins actually made the move. There would have been certain media/fan backlash if they would have kept Hernandez in the rotation and Liriano in AAA.

Series preview - New York

Note: The stats next to the pitchers are as follows (IP,SO/BB,WHIP,VORP)

Game 1

Monday August 11th @ 7:10pm (FSN)

G. Pekins (102.7, 52/26. 1.47, 12.0)
vs
S. Ponson (95.7, 42/22, 1.56, 3.9)

Sidney Ponson hasn't been horrible this year. He hasn't been good either. Since arriving in New York he's walked as many as he's struck out and he's allowing more than one hit per inning.

After shutting out the Texas Rangers through six innings in his first start after the All-Star game Perkins has had three rocky starts in a row, the first coming in New York. Two of those games were late inning meltdowns, so we'll see if the hook comes quicker as a result.

Game 2

Tuesday August 12th @ 7:10pm (FSN)

N. Blackburn (140, 71/21, 1.27, 21.1)
vs
M. Mussina (140.3, 96/20, 1.20, 26.3)

Mike Mussina is having a typical Mike Mussina year, which seems to happen less frequent nowadays, but are good years when they do happen.

Nick Blackburn didn't have a great outing last time through against Seattle, but it wasn't that bad either. He's putting together a very nice first season and has even been a little unlucky in doing so; he's got a BABIP of .306 on the year.

Game 3

Wednesday August 13th @ 12:10pm (FSN)

K. Slowey (108.3, 78/16, 1.10, 19.2)
vs
D. Rasner (87, 54/28, 1.55, 0.7)

Darrell Rasner hasn't been any great shakes this year, although his last decent game came against the Twins. His .7 VORP in 87 innings gives you an idea of his contribution to the team.

Slowey can look dominating in one game and average in the next. His last outing against Kansas City, he only allowed one run, but also seven hits in 5 and 2/3 while only striking out two. He had the least bad start of the Twins pitchers in the last series against the Yankees.

Casilla could be back soon

Alexi Casilla, out since July 29th, could be back in the lineup sooner than first expected.

"He said it looks good," Gardenhire said. "He seems to think he'll be able to start activity next week and go from there. He'll be in a splint for another week and start working out with us and start taking batting practice next week. Right now, everything is good."

Cuddyer injures foot

UPDATE: It looks like Cuddyer will be out for at least 4-6 weeks, and possibly the rest of the season.

*

A line drive fractured Michael Cuddyer's second metatarsal in his left foot last night while playing with AAA Rochester. No word yet on what this means for his return to the lineup, which was expected on Monday. In four games with the Red Wings, Cuddyer went three for ten, with two doubles, three walks and three strikeouts

Series preview - @ Kansas City

Note: The stats next to the pitchers are as follows (IP,SO/BB,WHIP,VORP)

Game 1

Friday August 8th @ 7:10pm (FSN)

K. Slowey (102.7, 76/16, 1.10, 16.3)
vs
K. Davies (63.3, 32/24, 1.56, 6.9)

At 24 years old Davies is having his best year as a pro. His BB/9 and HR/9 have gotten better, but his K/9 has regressed. His average GmSc on the year is 50 and his ERA+ is 100, meaning he's almost exactly a league average pitcher.

Slowey has been inconsistent as of late, recording game scores of 89, 46, 18, 43, 79, and 47 in his last six starts. In his last start he struck out seven and didn't walk any, but gave up five runs on six hits including two HR.

Game 2

Saturday August 9th @ 7:10pm (FSN)

F. Liriano (16.3, 12/16, 2.08, -2.7)
vs
Z. Greinke (146.7, 131/42, 1.31, 27.1)

Zach Greinke is putting up almost exactly the same numbers this year as last, when he split time between the starting rotation and the bullpen and they're pretty good numbers.

In Liriano's first start back in the majors, against Cleveland, he went six scoreless innings, giving up three hits and three walks with five strikeouts. It was not a dominating performance, he often fell behind batters, but it was six innings of zero's in his first big league start since April, so you can't nitpick too much.

Game 3

Sunday August 10th @ 12:10pm (WFTC29)

S. Baker (107.3, 93/23, 1.17, 20.8)
vs
G. Meche (146.7, 115/51, 1.31, 22.6)

With Greinke and Meche the Royals have two quality pitchers they can throw at you back to back, which, for the Royals, is something. Meche has been on fire since the All-Star break, recording his lowest GmSc, a 60, in his last outing against Boston. A 60 GmSc is still pretty good.

Baker on the other hand has been scuffling and his last outing against Seattle was his worst of the year, he gave up six runs in five and a third. The Royals are the kind of team it's easy to bounce back against.

Injury Update

Michael Cuddyer, left index finger

Cuddyer played in his first rehab game last night with AAA Rochester, going 1-3 with a BB and a SO. Provided all goes well he's expected to be back with the Twins on August 10th.

The return of Cuddyer presents the Twins with a dilemma, four outfielders and three positions. Young, Span and Gomez are playing well right now so it will be interesting to see how Gardenhire juggles the playing time.

Alexi Casilla, 15-day DL, right thumb

Casilla is resting in the hopes that he can get well enough to come back in September. He's wearing a splint and doing rehab but Gardenhire made sure to point out that if there is a chance he will do further damage than he'll be shelved.

Casilla has the promise of being the Twins regular 2B for a while so they won't take any chances with his long term health, and they have a decent amount of infield depth, so it's not the end of the world if he misses the rest of the year.

Pat Neshek, 60-day DL, right elbow

Neshek has been playing catch down in Fort Myers and he has reported no problems so far, but Gardenhire cautioned that "it's still very early in the process."

Neshek would be a big boost to an overworked bullpen down the stretch and add more value to the team than either of the two players above where the Twins have depth, but his return by the end of the year is probably less than 50-50.

Twins defense is not that good

Last week The Baseball Analysts published an excel spreadsheet that compiles fielding performance based on a system devised by Justin Inaz using freely available fielding stats from The Hardball Times. Using the posted spreadsheet I compiled a Minnesota Twins version with tabs for; all players, individual performance at each position and overall position performance.

The system Justin devised is a Range metric, giving an indication of a fielders range, not arm strength, ability to turn a double play or pick a bad throw out of the dirt. In other words this metric looks at a fielders ability to field balls hit in their general direction relative to league average and convert those chances into outs.

Here are a few terms to be aware of before we begin:

• BIZ - Balls hit into a fielder's zone that are converted to outs
  
• OOZ - Balls hit out of a fielders zone that are converted to outs
  
• Plays - combination of BIZ and OOZ
  
• Runs - an adjustment to try and determine the amount of runs saved or lost
  

We're not looking at a full season's data, so any analysis will be incomplete, but what these numbers show is that the Twins are one of the worst fielding teams in the majors as far as range is concerned. Only the Royals are worse. How come the Twins are so bad? It comes down to the play of two players really, the infield corners, Justin Morneau and Mike Lamb. Here's a position by position breakdown:

Pos	BIZ+/-	OOZ+/-	Plays+/-	Runs+/-
1B	-6.14	-6.99	-13.13	-10.48
2B	-3.12	-2.88	-6.00	-4.52
3B	-13.90	-7.21	-20.40	-16.32
SS	-1.08	-11.95	-13.03	-9.81
LF	-2.38	-2.12	-4.50	-3.98
CF	2.99	1.86	4.85	4.85
RF	-0.40	-9.34	-9.74	-8.21

The Twins are giving away runs at almost every position, the lone exception being CF, where, using this method, Carlos Gomez rates as one of the five best CF's in MLB. All of the good work he has done is offset by other people playing center and Delmon Young playing LF though. Overall the outfield has been dragged down by the play of Jason Kubel and he's primarily the DH now, as it's currently configured Gomez, Young and Span is actually above average, with Span offsetting Young and Gomez anchoring the unit.

The biggest hole for the Twins has been the infield and in particular the left side of the infield. To this point Mike Lamb has played the most innings at 3B, and he's been terrible, bad at fielding balls hit in his zone and outside his zone. The shortstop position has been primarily split between three players; Everett, Punto and Harris. Everett and Punto were both better than average at fielding balls hit in their zone and below average on balls out of their zone which made both of them about average or slightly below. Unfortunately, Harris has been bad at balls in his zone and out of it.

Looking at the numbers above the shortstops have overall have been about average at fielding balls hit in their zone, the problem is they don't have any range beyond their zone. This combination of poor 3B and SS play has cost the Twins about 26 runs combined, the same amount lost by the entire Texas Rangers team.

The upside to all of this is that two of the Twins worst fielders, Lamb and Kubel are not playing in the field much anymore and their replacements are both above average. That should help a lot and probably already has, the Twins recent success correlates with Span taking over RF and Buscher taking over 3B.

While this metric leaves out some important parts of team defense, it gives a pretty good indication of a fielder's ability to field balls and make outs, which the Twins haven't been very good at that this year. It's surprising than that their young pitching has done as well as it has in front of such a limited group of fielders.

Player Spotlight: Justin Morneau

Justin Morneau just wrapped up an amazing month at the plate in July, hitting .360/.473/.708 with more than twice as many walks as strikeouts. His OPS was 1.181 for the month. That's a video game number.

When you compare July to what he did in June you see he had less plate appearances and less hits, but twice as many doubles, three times as many home runs, more than twice the walks and half the strikeouts. He hit almost as many doubles in July (13) as he had in the three months previous (14). In 110 plate appearances he struck out just eight times. His OPS+ for the month was 207, meaning he was 107% better than the average 1B.

Looking at his numbers there are two big differences between July and the first three months, his doubles and his strikeout to walk ratio. The 13 doubles he hit lead MLB and his BB/SO ratio was by far and away the best for players with at least 100 plate appearances, as was his OBP and OPS. If he can keep that up, hitting more doubles and walking more than striking out, he should be able to actually compete with Josh Hamilton for MVP votes.

Series preview - @ Seattle

Note: The stats next to the pitchers are as follows (IP,SO/BB,WHIP,VORP)

Game 1

Monday August 4th @ 9:10pm (FSN)

G. Perkins (96.3, 50/25, 1.43, 12.6)
vs
M. Batista (91, 57/59, 1.89, -19.7)

Miguel Batista has been really awful this year coming out of the bullpen, now he's in the starting rotation. This kind of inspired roster manipulation exemplifies the 2008 Seattle Mariners and has helped make them, against all expectations, one of the worst teams in MLB. To be fair, Batista has been good since moving into the rotation, but it's only been two starts so far.

Perkins, on the other hand, has gotten banged around a little in his last two starts. He's thrown almost 120 innings combined (major and minor) this year, the most he threw in a minor league year was 134 back in 2005. He could be hitting a wall, or he could have just had two not-so-good starts back-to-back, either way he shouldn't have too much trouble with an anemic Mariners offense.

Game 2

Tuesday August 5th @ 9:10pm (FSN)

S. Baker (102, 89/21, 1.12, 23.1)
vs
R.A. Dickey (81.7, 45/36, 1.51, 9.4)

Dickey is a knuckleballer and as such you never really know if he's going to be 'on' or not. His last start was good, the two before that, not so much. Regardless, even when he has a good game it's not that good, he doesn't strike out many and walks more than he should.

Baker's last two games haven't been great, but they haven't been bad either, he's only really had one bad start all year. But he walked three batters in each of the last two games, before that the most he'd walked in a game all year was two. On the surface July looks like it was a good month for Baker, but he posted a .238 BABIP, which is bound to regress.

Game 3

Wednesday August 6th @ 3:40pm (FSN)

N. Blackburn (134, 70/20, 1.26, 19.6)
vs
J. Washburn (122.7, 69/38, 1.48, 6.2)

The subject of all sorts of trade rumors leading up to the deadline, Jarrod Washburn ended up staying put. He's having worse of a year than what has become a pretty typical Jarrod Washburn year, which is average. His last great year was his contract year, a phenomenon the Mariners have some experience with.

Nick Blackburn had two almost identical starts in a row against Jeremy Sowers of the Indians, both times going seven innings allowing one run and issuing one walk. Five out of his last six starts have been quality starts; the other was against the Yankees. Like Baker though his BABIP dropped off a cliff in July, lower than Bakers at .228.

Twins drop the F-bomb

Francisco Liriano makes his long awaited return to the major leagues today against the Indians, with the Twins a half game back of the White Sox for the division lead. Instead of making a deadline deal, the Twins called up Liriano, who is a significant upgrade over the guy he's replacing, Livan Hernandez. Whereas the Chicago White Sox brought in a guy, Ken Griffey Jr., who doesn't provide an upgrade over what they have now and if they continue to play him at CF might end up costing them more runs than he creates. All of that assumes he can even stay on the field though, he had to leave yesterdays game with leg cramps, not a good sign for their hopes of playing him in CF.

The Twins now have a starting rotation without any liabilities and a solid bullpen with a great backend. They could use an infield bat and a return to productivity from Michael Cuddyer, but I think the team that wins the division will be the team who's starting pitching holds up down the stretch. That could be a challenge for both teams, the Twins pitching is young and the Sox rotation is peppered with injuries and question marks.

Liriano could be the difference for the Twins like he was in 2006. He has the potential to be the Ace that the staff lacks right now, a left-handed flamethrower who can dominate a game and anchor a rotation. Today will be his first step in that direction.

The 30 year old virgin

If you're a 30 year old, career minor leaguer, getting called up to the big league team has to be a pretty good feeling. Since 1999 in the Reds system Randy Ruiz has been in the minors, 975 games played for 16 different teams and nine different organizations. He didn't make it to AAA until last year while in the Phillies system. This year in Rochester, his first full season in AAA, he has been one of the best hitters in the International league, putting up a .320/.366/.536 with 17 HR and 33 2B. His most glaring weakness is his .20 BB/SO ratio, but the Twins aren't looking for him to get on base as much as drive runners in against lefties.

That's not what happened last night though. Ruiz got a two out single in the bottom of the seventh for his first major league hit. Than Brendan Harris hit a double down the line and Ruiz was off and running. Watching him chug around the bases sort of reminded me of Kirby. While rounding second Indians left fielder Franklin Gutierrez had trouble with the ball and Ruiz was waved home. The 235 pound, 30 year old rookie got to run flat out from first to home, and after he crossed the plate it looked as though he might need a parachute to stop his momentum. I was waiting for him to grab an oxygen mask, like a defensive lineman who returns a fumble for a touchdown would.

He probably won't be around after Cuddyer comes back, but who knows when that will be, and until than the 30 year old rookie will get to live his dream, playing on a major league ballclub.

Liriano finally called up

The Twins made the move today that everyone knew they were going to make, calling up Francisco Liriano from AAA Rochester. They also called up career minor leaguer Randy Ruiz and optioned Craig Monroe and Livan Hernandez, neither of whom has played up to the Twins modest expectations.

Series preview - Cleveland

Note: The stats next to the pitchers are as follows (IP,SO/BB,WHIP,VORP)

Game 1

Friday August 1st @ 7:10pm (FSN)

N. Blackburn (127, 68/19, 1.30, 16.3)
vs
J. Sowers (58.3, 34/23, 1.64, -9.4)

A rematch of Sunday's contest that saw Sowers throw his best game of the year, his only start with a GmSc above 50 in fact. I don't imagine that will continue.

Blackburn had a strong outing in that game as well, recovering nicely from his debacle at Yankee stadium. July was a good month for Blackburn, his three slash numbers were down to .217/.240/.304, while his K/BB ratio held steady.

Looking closer at the numbers we see that his improvement was largely due to a BABIP of .331 from April -June that went down to .227 in July. He was unlucky early in the year, but got lucky in July, which made it look like he was throwing better than he was, his K/BB ratio didn't change after all. Overall his BABIP is .306 which is a little above league average but not out of line.

Game 2

Saturday August 2nd @ 6:10pm (FSN)

K. Slowey(96.7, 69/16, 1.10, 17.2)
vs
P. Byrd (115, 53/22, 1.3, 3.3)

Paul Byrd had a good outing his last time on the mound, holding the Tigers to four hits and no runs over 7 2/3 innings, but he walked three. His K/BB ratio is 2.41 for the year, but just 1.84 over the last five games. He's striking people out at roughly the same rate; he's just giving up more walks than he had been.

Slowey had a complete game shutout in his last outing, the first game of the Chicago series, and his second shutout in his last five starts. Even with that July was a tough month for Slowey though, his walks and hits allowed per inning were up while his K's per inning were down. More than likely it was a rough patch and he'll bounce back in August.

Game 3

Sunday August 3rd @ 1:10pm (WFTC29)

F. Liriano (10, 7/13, 2.71, -6.5)
vs
M. Ginter (15, 9/1, 1.40, -2.0)

Matt Ginter has been all over the last five years. A first round pick for the White Sox in 1999, he never really caught on with them and in 2004 was traded to the Mets. He signed with Detroit in 2005 and didn't pitch in the majors again until this year. He's only thrown 15 innings, but hasn't been terrible, hovering right around replacement level.

Liriano was terrible in three starts in April, but has been lights out for the last month down in AAA. Over his last six starts he's sporting an 8.5 K/BB ratio and has allowed only five runs in 41 innings, four of those coming in one game. He's ready to go and gets to make his return on Sunday in front of a home crowd who'll be happy to see him.

Deadline day

UPDATE: The deadline passed and the Twins didn't make a deal. Not really a surprise. They still might get something done in a waiver deal for a reliever or an infielder, but I don't think they will, that's their style.

*

Today is baseball's non-waiver trading deadline and I'll continue to update this post as the day goes on, for now here are the most current rumors:

• Bob Dutton says the Twins are looking for a second baseman, as Casilla is likely done for the year, names mentioned were Mark Grudzielanek, Brian Roberts and Rich Aurilia.
  
• A name that continues to come up in the different rumors out there is Boof Bonser.

As things are right now the most I would expect the Twins to do is make a minor trade for an average to replacement level infielder.

WTF? Sox get Griffey

UPDATE: Griffey has approved the deal.

*

The White Sox have acquired Ken Griffey Jr., pending his approval.

As Ken alludes to in his piece, where does he play? The sox already have great corner outfielders, a DH, a 1B, everywhere that Griffey could conceivably play. I don't understand this. It won't affect the game tonight, Griffey still has to approve the deal, but I don't really see how this helps the White Sox.

Am I missing something?

"Clogging up the bases"

I heard John Gordon, the Twins radio announcer, use this phrase last night about the White Sox. I don't remember exactly what he said, but something about how their power hitters took too many walks and were "clogging up the bases."

Clogging up the bases?

I really don't understand what that means. Because Jim Thome or Jermaine Dye is standing on first base, no one else can get to it, it's unavailable? WTF does clogging up the bases mean? Its sounds to me like a reactionary statement first made by a member of the anti-sabermetrics crowd as a way of devaluing walks.

"You don't want people to get walks because they just clog up the base paths! How in the hell are you going to score runs with guys on base?"

It's such an incredibly stupid statement. It's so incredibly stupid I just can't believe a thinking person would utter it.

Just for fun let's take a look at the teams with the most walks.

1. Chicago Cubs (2nd in runs)
   
2. N.Y. Mets (7th in runs)
   
3. St. Louis (10th in runs)
   
4. Boston (3rd in runs)
   
5. Atlanta (17th in runs)
   

Those are some good teams, two are division leaders and only one is below .500. Two of those teams (Cubs and Boston) are the two best teams in baseball right now according to RS/RA. They don't seem to have a problem with guys "clogging up the bases," even though they're among the league leaders in walks. The very idea that a guy getting a walk is somehow a bad thing is ridiculous, the "clogging up the bases" line, doubly so.

That wasn't the only fun though, later on in the broadcast Gordon was talking about Nick Swisher, who used to play for the Oakland A's, and how in Chicago they "want you to get three good hacks at the ball. In Oakland they don't want you to swing until you have two strikes." The implication was that Oakland's way of doing things is stupid. Again, patience and walks are not good.

My response: "Dude, you watch Joe Mauer play every night. Does he ever swing at the first pitch? Do you make a concerted effort to remain ignorant?"

For a little more fun let's take a look at Nick Swisher's last season in Oakland and Nick Swisher's current season in Chicago.

Team	PA	BA	OBP	SLG	AB/HR	BB/SO
Oak	659	.262	.381	.455	24.5	.76
Chi	421	.228	.348	.405	23.4	.71

He's striking out at a slightly higher rate than last year and going slightly fewer at bats between home runs, but both of those numbers look like normal fluctuations to me. The biggest change is in his three slash numbers, BA/OBP/SLG. If Nick Swisher has adopted Chicago's "three good hacks at the ball" philosophy, as John Gordon claims, it hasn't had any positive effect on his hitting so far and if anything has caused him to fall off a cliff. But John Gordon doesn't care; he obviously has a grudge against guys who walk a lot, like Joe Mauer 16th in MLB in BB/PA and 2nd in BB/K.

Comments like those of John Gordon are why I don't like listening to Twins games on KSTP, they're always clogging up the radio with bullshit.

Castilla hurt, Everett called up

Alexi Castilla was placed on the 15-day DL today with a torn tendon in his right thumb. Adam Everett has been recalled to take his place on the roster, although thankfully, it looks like his lineup spot will be taken by Nick Punto.

Hawkins, Liriano coming?

Joe Christensen says the Twins are looking at LaTroy Hawkins to help their bullpen, which is sort of like looking for a flamethrower to put out a fire. There's a reason that the Yankee's designated him for assignment, he's not any good, not anymore. More interestingly, Anthony Swarzak has been called up to AAA and will pitch Wednesday. This could be a sign that Liriano will get called up soon, having pitched Sunday he won't be available for the Chicago series, but I would be surprised if he wasn't on the major league team by the end of the week.

"We come here to kick their butt, but they are here for a reason."

That reason, of course, is the schedule.

The quote comes from White Sox manager, and media darling, Ozzie Guillen, discussing why he likes the Twins so much. Why do you always talk about liking the Twins so much Ozzie?

"Why? Tell the people in Chicago how many playoffs the White Sox have and how many the Minnesota Twins have since I've been managing and since I've been playing," Guillen said. "I give people compliments when they need to or when they have to. ... They build good players. They play the game good. They've been playing the game like that since I was playing. And that's why I do it."

Here's a look at some of his other comments, run through a bullshit translator:

What he said: "They are supposed to be in last place this year, and look at where they are at right now."

Translated: "They aren't really that good." (BTW, how in the world are the Twins supposed to be in last place in a division also occupied by the Royals?)

What he said: "They have one of the best, to me, first basemen in baseball. And nobody says anything about this kid. If this kid was playing in New York, Boston, Chicago, the Cubs, he would be the king. He would own baseball. But he plays in Minnesota."

Translated: "If Justin Morneau played in a real city he would get the respect he deserves, but he plays in Siberia, so, you know..." (Does Ozzie forget that Morneau won the freaking MVP award in 2006?)

What I like about Ozzie is that he's a world class bullshiter. I give people compliments when they need to or when they have to… He constructs good BS. He BS's they way you're supposed to. He's been BS'ing that way since I first started BS'ing.

Series preview - Chicago

Note: The stats next to the pitchers are as follows (IP,SO/BB,WHIP,VORP)

Game 1

Monday July 28th @ 7:10pm (FSN)

K. Slowey (87.7, 64/15, 1.14, 11.2)
vs
M. Buehrle (139, 81/34, 1.26, 21.3)

The first of three left handers the Twins will face this series, Mark Buerhle is having a typical Mark Buerhle year, which is a pretty good year. Slowey hasn't had a good start since June 29th. He's walking more hitters and striking out less and the results have been predictable.

Game 2

Tuesday July 29th @ 7:10pm (FSN)

G. Perkins (90.3, 46/23, 1.42, 12.4)
vs
C. Richard (4, 7/1, 2.00, -2.4)

Clayton Richard struck out 7 while walking 1 in 4 innings in his first start. That's good. The defense behind him wasn't. While the Yankee's beat him up in his last start, Perkins has been the Twins most consistent pitcher. I would look for him to continue that trend against Chicago.

Game 3

Sunday July 30th @ 7:10pm (FSN)

L. Hernandez (135.7, 53/27, 1.60, -3.9)
vs
G. Floyd (123.7, 85/53, 1.23, 10.9)

Gavin Floyd is having his best year as a pro although his strikeout to walk ratio has regressed since last year, he walked 7 in a game at Texas recently. Livan is simply one of the worst pitchers in MLB this year. He doesn't strike anyone out and gives up a ton of hits, the only good thing you can say about him is that he doesn't issue a lot of walks, but when people are hitting .336/.363/.499 against you, it doesn't really matter if they're not getting walked.

Game 4

Sunday July 31st @ 7:10pm (FSN)

S. Baker (96, 81/18, 1.11, 22.9)
vs
J. Danks (124.7, 102/33, 1.21, 32.4)

Danks is having a pretty good second year, his walks and hits are down and his strikeouts are up. He hasn't fared well against the Twins though and in his first start after the break he had trouble with an anemic Royals offense. Scott Baker has been the Twins best starter all year, though his last start was his shortest since June 5th. He's touted as being a better second half pitcher because of a lower career ERA in the second half. This is actually incorrect, his ERA is lower mostly because his BABIP is lower which is due to luck, his SO/BB ratio is actually worse in the second half.

Grow a pair

Here's Baseball Prospectus' take on the Francisco Liriano situation. They agree with Liriano's agent that the only reason Liriano is still in the minors is to limit his service time and delay arbitration. I don't have a good read on Twins GM Bill Smith yet, his ridiculous comment about wins aside, but either way you look at it, this situation doesn't make him look good. He's either too stupid and/or stubborn to bring Liriano up, or he's trying to avoid paying the kid, which is stupid.

Liriano is supposed to pitch tonight for the Red Wings and everything coming out of the Twins seems to indicate that they'll let him. With a big 4 game Chicago series coming up and Livan scheduled to pitch in it they need to make a move, but I have a feeling that Smith would rather have Livan go against the White Sox because he's "unflappable."

"We thought getting Livan here would be a big plus because of the experience he brings. He's been through more on and off the field in his life, as a Cuban defector and all that; he's been through the World Series; and in 10 years he's never been on the disabled list."

"He's unflappable. When you watch him pitch, you never know if he's up 3-0 or down 3-0."

But either way the bases are loaded with one out.

3B Prospects

The Twins seem intent on landing a 3B, even though it's not their most glaring hole, so let's look at the most talked about candidates.

Player	PA	OBP	SLG	HR	SO	BB	OPS+	VORP
Beltre	418	.330	.432	16	62	41	107	12.7
Blalock	119	.336	.454	4	12	1	111	4.0
C. Blake	364	.364	.464	11	67	33	119	19.9

Blalock has a gigantic question mark surrounding his ability to even help out down the stretch, when healthy he is as good as the other two on the list, but he hasn't been healthy for much this season or last.

The decision for Beltre or Blake looks cut and dry based on those numbers. Blake is having a better offensive year, but when you look at their career 1st half/2nd half splits you see that Blake thrives in the first half and Beltre in the second. Beltre is also under contract for next year, which may or may not affect the Twins decision making, and is touted as being superior defensively, although the numbers don't bear that out. At one point in his career Beltre was an elite fielder, but he hasn't been that since 2006.

Year	Rate2	RAR2
2000	111	36
2001	104	25
2002	92	13
2003	99	22
2004	114	44
2005	107	32
2006	109	35
2007	98	17
2008	91	4

2004 was his biggest year at the plate as well as in the field, and the two years preceding that were his two worst full years as a pro, offensively and defensively. The difference in the defensive down turn in 2002-2003 and the one taking place now is that he's performing above his career levels offensively now. That leads me to believe that his defensive down turn is independent of a general downturn in overall performance. I don't think his defensive skills will evaporate; rather it looks like he's now just an average fielder, with numbers very similar to Blake's.

Beltre and Blalock are under club control for next year, Beltre is under contract and Blalock has a club option, so their respective teams may not feel any urgency to make a move and the Indians may not want to ship us Blake simply because we share a division. Beltre is the only one, because he's under contract for next year and he's only 29, that I would consider parting with any top-shelf prospects for.

I still maintain that 3B isn't the Twins biggest weakness, as long as Buscher doesn't regress too much he's better than replacement level talent, which is a lot more than can be said for Carlos Gomez who's been wasting AB's all year. Gomez is among the league leaders in SO's and lowest OBP. I don't doubt his talent, but he clearly needs to work on his plate discipline down in Rochester before playing every day at the major league level. The problem for the Twins is that right now they don't have anyone to replace him with, Cuddyer is still hurt and Jason Pridie's SO/BB ratio is just as bad in AAA as Gomez's is. If they can get an outfielder, my suggestion is Adam Dunn, for a similar price to what the Yankee's paid for Nady, it would be worth it.

Having said all that, the Twins best move might just be to stand pat and continue to build for 2010 and the new ballpark.

Gomez hurts back

Carlos Gomez left the game tonight in the first inning with an injured back, he was replaced in the lineup by Jason Kubel. He got hurt when he made a leaping catch of a fly ball hit by Ben Francisco and crashed into the outfield wall.

UPDATE: Gomez had an MRI done that was negative. No word yet on how long he'll be out.

1990-91 recap

The Hardball Times has a good analysis of the Twins finishing last in 1990 only to win the World Series the next year. Craig Brown takes a look at everything that had to happen for such a turnaround to take place. It's an excellent article that, for me, brought back fond memories of 1991.

Series preview - @ Cleveland

Note: The stats next to the pitchers are as follows (IP,SO/BB,WHIP,VORP)

Game 1

Friday July 25th @ 6:05pm (FSN)

L. Hernandez (127, 47/24, 1.58, -4.0)
vs
C. Lee (133, 110/20, 1.04, 45.5)

The bad news is that Livan's road splits make the numbers above look good. You might think the good news is that the last time the Twins faced Lee they won 11-2, but I don't think that was anything more than an off night on the road for Lee.

Game 2

Saturday July 26th @ 6:05pm (FSN)

S. Baker (91, 76/15, 1.08, 22.6)
vs
F. Carmona (58, 23/38, 1.58, 13.1)

Carmona returns to the Indians lineup just in time to face the Twins. It will be interesting to see how Carmona fares, having struggled early on with walks and now coming back from injury. This is the only matchup of the series with two starters worth watching.

Game 3

Sunday July 27th @ 12:05pm (WFTC29)

N. Blackburn (120, 65/18, 1.30, 12.1)
vs
J. Sowers (50, 29/22, 1.84, -12.6)

Last time we saw Nick Blackburn he was getting yanked in the 2nd inning against New York. Blackburn's been having those types of outings with more regularity and may be hitting a wall. He's still way better than Sowers.

Trade for a 3B? Why?

Take a look at the Twins lineup as it currently stands, do you see the hole?

Pos - Player	VORP	OPS+
C - J.Mauer	32.5	139
1B - J.Morneau	34.9	144
2B - A.Casilla	14.3	118
3B - B.Buscher	3.5	113
SS - N.Punto	7.4	118
OF - D.Young	8.1	100
OF - D.Span	7.4	138
OF - C.Gomez	-6.1	71
DH - J.Kubel	10.6	111

I wouldn't be looking at Hank Blalock or Casey Blake, I would be looking at Adam Dunn.

OF - A.Dunn

28.9

142

Kill the save

Jerome Holtzman, a sports writer for over thirty years and the inventor of the Save rule, died on Saturday at the age of 81. Hopefully the Save rule he created, like a distraught wife, will follow him to the grave.

The main problem with saves is that pitchers have no control over save opportunities; that's not the only problem though. It wouldn't be so bad if not for the fact that most people look first at the number of saves a guy has, than, maybe, at the rest of his stats. All the talk this year of K-Rod going after the saves record, for example, obscures the fact that he's not the best reliever in baseball. Or even the second best.

	ERA	SO	BB	IP	WHIP	SV	VORP
K-Rod	2.20	47	28	45	1.244	41	15.7
J. Nathan	1.11	46	11	40.7	0.959	27	19.3
M. Rivera	1.22	53	4	44.3	0.677	24	20.4

Of those three, the best one has the least amount of saves. K-Rod is a very good pitcher, but to talk about a guy who will likely not throw 100 innings this season as an MVP is ludicrous. The culprit here is not K-Rod but the save stat itself. The only reason K-Rod has so many saves is because he's had so many more save opportunities then the other two pitchers listed. They all have about the same amount of innings pitched, but Nathan and Rivera are better than K-Rod in every way possible except saves and even with saves it depends on how you look at it.

	SV	BLSV	PCT
K-Rod	41	3	93
J. Nathan	27	2	93
M. Rivera	24	0	100

The save has greatly distorted the value of the closer role and doesn't really serve any purpose; relievers can be looked at with the same basic pitching metrics as starters. The whole point of the save was to give the relievers something akin to a win, but the win is a BS stat too, we don't need a stat so that a subgroup of pitchers gets their own stat similar to another group of pitcher's stat, but not quite. There is also a stat called 'holds', intended to be like a save for middle relievers. The hold is yet another BS stat to give to yet another subgroup of pitchers for no good reason other than to give out more stats that don't mean anything. Do you know that Carlos Marmol of the Chicago Cubs leads MLB in holds with 22? Do you think he even knows?

I'm tilting at windmills here, but baseball should get rid of the hold and save, they're both useless and don't properly reward performance.

Liriano adds emphasis to request to get called up

Francisco Liriano threw another great game today, further making his case for an immediate call-up. If the Twins handle this situation like they handled the Gomez situation then Liriano should get called up sometime in mid-August.

One of the problems the Twins are going to face down the stretch is the inevitable regression of most of their starting pitchers who have, up till now, overachieved. You could see some early signs of it in the now wrapped up Yankees series, although it is just one series. Of course in the previous series they completely neutralized the vaunted Rangers offense, but the fact still remains that all four of these guys are having better seasons then anyone thought they would and are going to be pitching more innings then any of them have before, that usually means they will regress some in the second half.

The logical thing to do is move Livan into the pen and stick Liriano in his rotation spot. The main obstacle to this move is the fact that Twins GM Bill Smith doesn't like pitchers with low ERA's, instead he prefers pitchers who have wins.

Denard Span to bat leadoff tonight

Denard Span will bat leadoff for the Twins tonight against the Yankees. This hardly comes as a surprise. It seems like everyone who has an opinion about the Twins has expressed a desire to see this happen. The only question is why Gardenhire took as long as he did to make this move. Span's OBP is sitting at .424, 143 points above Gomez's .281. That's a .281 OBP, not batting average. I don't think Span is really a .424 OBP guy (he's only had 101 PA) and I don't think Gomez is really as bad as .281, but regardless, that's a huge difference.

I like pitchers with a 7.00 ERA, seriously

Twins general manager Bill Smith, on Livan Hernandez, who improved to 10-6 with a 5.29 earned-run average with Saturday's victory over Texas:

"I'll take the (10) wins. Who do you want, a guy who's 10-15 with a 2.80 ERA or a guy who's 16-8 with a 7.00 ERA? I'll take the 16-8."

All Star game frustration leads to a new stat

I was cheering for the All Star game to end in a tie. I don't recall ever cheering for a sporting event to end in a tie before, but it felt like the right thing to do. I'm a fan of watching slow motion train wreaks. Justin Morneau, of all people, ruined it for me in the 15th, ending the longest All Star game ever and disappointing all of us who wanted to see the spectacle of position players pitching in an All Star game. The whole thing got me to thinking and out of that thinking I managed to think up a stat, more fun than useful.

I call it the B.S. index, named after none other than Bug Selig. The stat works this way. For every World Series where home field advantage would have been different if not for the "This Time it Counts" rule you add one to the B.S. index.

It's that simple.

There are two different ways of computing however, the classic method and the winning percentage method. Since home field advantage used to switch between the two leagues every year, the classic method is computed by taking the amount of years the rule has been in effect and dividing that number by two. You then subtract that from the amount of times the league with the most home field advantages has gotten home field. Since the rule went into effect the American league has gotten home field advantage 6 times and the National league has gotten home field advantage 0 times.

So the formula for the classic method goes: bsHFA - cHFA
bsHFA = Home field advantages as awarded by the All-Star game
cHFA = Classic Home field advantage, computed by taking the number of years since the rule went into effect and dividing by 2 (Y/2). Or: 6 - ( 6 / 2 ) = 3

Using the classic method baseballs B.S. index now stands at 3.

The other method, winning percentage, awards home field advantage to the World series team with the best winning percentage. The formula for the winning percentage method goes: bsHFA - wpHFD
wpHFA = Winning percentage based HFA
Using this method the HFA is 5 (because we can't count this year yet) and the wpHFA is 4 (4 American league teams had the best record, one National league team).
So: 5 - 4 = 1

Using the winning percentage method baseballs B.S. index now stands at a modest 1.