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Friday, April 16, 2004
Dropping Like Injury Prone FliesI'll say this much, I'm sick of these frickin' injuries.Doug Mientkiewicz rolled his ankle trying to beat out a double play in the first inning last night. He immediately left the game and was taken to a hospital for x-rays. The Twins are saying it's just a mild sprain, but I would guess Mientkiewicz will be out for at least a few games. The list of wounded Twins now looks like this: - Doug Mientkiewicz, ankle - Torii Hunter, hamstring - Joe Mauer, knee - Matthew LeCroy, ribs - Rick Helling, leg - Grant Balfour, shoulder Seriously, that's pretty amazing, considering we're nine games into the season. Five of those six guys are on the DL. This Twins team sure does look different than it did about a month ago. Terry Mulholland, Joe Roa and Seth Greisinger are in the bullpen, Henry Blanco is the starting catcher, Jose Offerman is playing every day, Aaron Fultz has been one of their best relievers, and Nick Punto is getting tons of at-bats. Perhaps not being able to watch this team on TV right now isn't such a horrible thing after all. Speaking of Henry Blanco, he is featured prominently in my new THT article for today. Hot Starts and On Pace Fors Here's the part about Henry: ---------- Henry Blanco came into the 2004 season a career .219/.295/.353 hitter in 1,404 plate appearances. In his five full-seasons in the major leagues, his cumulative career-highs were .236/.320/.394 with seven home runs and 31 RBIs. He began this season as Joe Mauer's backup, likely to see playing time maybe once or twice a week. First Mauer went down, and then the Twins made Matthew LeCroy the starting catcher. Then LeCroy went down. Now, Henry Blanco is playing every day. In his first 33 plate appearances of the season, Henry Blanco is batting .360/.500/.840 with three homers, three doubles, six walks, seven RBIs and eight runs scored. That is plenty amazing in itself, but it becomes even more incredible when you consider the fact that Blanco started the season 0-for-8. Since then, he has gone 9-for-17 (.529) with a 1.235 slugging percentage. Blanco has played in eight games this season. He went hitless in four of them, going a combined 0-for-11. Check out what he's done in the other four games: AVG OBP SLG OPSFor those of you interested in specifics, that is 9-for-14 with four walks, three homers and three doubles. A guy who was a career .219 hitter with a career-high of seven homers in a season, already has a two-homer game and a 4-for-4 game under his belt, and he's driven in three runs in a game twice already. Forget Joe Mauer, folks. The Twins have Henry Blanco. ---------- There's plenty more where that came from, so head over to The Hardball Times and check out my articles from this week: -- News, Notes and Quotes (April 12, 2004) -- All Eyes on Barry -- Garret Anderson: So Overrated He's...Underrated? -- Hot Starts and On Pace Fors Before I give my picks for the day, I want to thank everyone who helped me recover some of The Hardball Times' lost articles from our little "black out" this week. Particularly Wes and Marty, whose help was essential to getting us up and running again. It should be smooth sailing from here on out over there, so make sure to make THT one of your daily stops. Oh, and GO WOLVES! Today's picks: Florida (Oliver) +110 over Atlanta (Wright) Arizona (Johnson) -110 over San Diego (Peavy) New York (Vazquez) -125 over Boston (Wakefield) Chicago (Wright) -110 over Tampa Bay (Abbott) Total to date: $720 W/L record: 15-13 (1-0 yesterday for +100.) *****Comments? Questions? Email me!*****     
Thursday, April 15, 2004
THT news and some basketballThe Hardball Times was knocked out for about a day and a half, but we should be back up and running very soon and perhaps, depending on when you're reading this, we already are.I've got a brand new article for today and it's likely you didn't get a chance to read my article from Tuesday before we crashed, so you should check that out too. Meanwhile, the NBA regular season came to a close last night and the Minnesota Timberwolves, through a unique set of circumstances, caught a little break (at least in my opinion). The Lakers managed to beat Portland in double overtime (thanks to two amazing Kobe Bryant three-pointers), while the Kings lost to Golden State. LA and Sacramento came into the night tied atop the Pacific Division, which means LA ends up winning it by one game. What that means is that the Lakers move up to the #2 seed, while Sacramento falls to #4. Had LA and Sacramento tied, the Lakers would have been the #4 seed, thanks to losing the tie-breaker. Why does this matter to the Timberwolves? Well, because, thanks to a win over Memphis last night, they are the top seed in the West. That means, assuming they beat Denver in round one, they will likely face the #4 seed in the second round, which is now the far-more-beatable Kings and not the Lakers. The Kings dropping to #4 is good for Minnesota, but also good for all NBA fans, because now the two highest scoring teams in the league -- Sacramento and Dallas -- are facing off in the first round. It should be one of the more entertaining, high-scoring series in years. The regular season turned out about as well as possible for Minnesota. The team is clicking heading into the playoffs, having won nine in a row. They are the #1 seed in the West, something they've never even come close to before. They managed to avoid potential second round matchups with, in my opinion, the two most dangerous teams in the West -- LA and San Antonio. And they get to play a defensively challenged team that will probably be worn out from a fast-paced first round series instead. Oh, and Kevin Garnett is going to win the MVP too, which is pretty cool (and totally deserved). If anyone is interested, here are my picks for the NBA awards: Most Valuable Player: 1) Kevin Garnett 2) Tim Duncan 3) Peja Stojakovic Rookie of the Year: 1) LeBron James 2) Carmelo Anthony 3) Dwayne Wade All-NBA First Team: C) Shaquille O'Neal F) Kevin Garnett F) Tim Duncan G) Kobe Bryant G) Sam Cassell All-NBA Second Team: C) Yao Ming F) Andrei Kirilenko F) Peja Stojakovic G) Tracy McGrady G) Jason Kidd Today's picks: Florida (Pavano) -125 over Montreal (Day) Total to date: $620 W/L record: 14-13 (1-2 yesterday for -140.) *****Comments? Questions? Email me!*****
Wednesday, April 14, 2004
Trouble at THTSome of you may have noticed that The Hardball Times is "down." If you go there, you'll get a little message saying, "The Hardball Times is currently experiencing technical difficulties. We'll be back up and running shortly. Sorry for the inconvenience, and check back with us later."A couple things... 1) I hate computers. They lull you into a comfort zone by working perfectly for a while, but just when you start to count on them, they let you down. 2) We're having a little trouble recovering our articles from Monday and Tuesday. If anyone saved them on their computer or has the cached page on their browser, could you please e-mail me asap? Thanks. Other than the website I worked so hard on for months and months crashing totally unannounced yesterday afternoon, it was a perfectly fine Tuesday. The Twins didn't lose any games or any pitchers on waivers, which is great. Normally, with no article at THT today I would have something nice and lengthy for you here, but, alas, I am so stressed out over the crashing of the site that I basically spent all day staring at my computer screen, exchanging worried IMs with people. Say a little prayer for our infant website and I'll talk to you tomorrow. Today's picks: Atlanta (Thomson) -105 over New York (Yates) Pittsburgh (Vogelsong) +175 over Chicago (Clement) San Diego (Wells) -140 over Los Angeles (Ishii) Total to date: $760 W/L record: 13-11 (1-1 yesterday for 0, with one rainout.) *****Comments? Questions? Email me!*****
Tuesday, April 13, 2004
The Terry Mulholland EraAnother day, another loss that no one saw.I thought I had come up with a brilliant plan, thanks to the help of one of my loyal readers. You see, Twins games are not on TV here thanks to the ongoing "negotiations" between the Twins' new TV channel, Victory Sports, and the cable and satellite providers. Many people suggested to me that I buy MLB.TV from MLB.com, where you can watch games on your computer. The problem with that, of course, is that Twins games are blacked out for people in Minnesota on MLB.com, just as they are on the Extra Innings Package or similar things. But then a little light bulb popped into my head and I said, "What would happen if someone living in another region 'bought' the MLB.TV package for me?" They won't black out the Twins games for me if they think I'm living in, say, California, right? It was a good plan, in theory. The problem is that, apparently, MLB.com is able to see where you are actually viewing the games from. So, even though you sign up for the package outside of Minnesota, they could tell that I was sitting in Minneapolis, trying to watch yesterday afternoon's loss to the Indians. So much for that, huh? Meanwhile, while no one was watching, the Twins designated their third pitcher for assignment in the last two weeks. First it was Sean Douglass, who was cut at the end of spring training. Then, last week, it was Mike Nakamura, who was let go in order for the Twins to clear a spot for Seth "20.25 ERA" Greisinger. Yesterday, the Twins DFA'd Brad Thomas in order to make room on the 25-man roster for...are you ready for this?...Terry Mulholland. Yes, the same Terry Mulholland who turned 41 years old last month and hasn't had an ERA that was better than league average since 1999. Honestly, I don't get it. Douglass, Nakamura and Thomas are no great shakes themselves (although I really think Nakamura can be a solid reliever), but they are all relatively young and have various levels of potential. Meanwhile, all three will have been lost (assuming someone takes Thomas from them) because the Twins wanted to keep Joe Roa, Seth Greisinger and Terry Mulholland. This makes very little sense to me. Why keep Roa over Douglass, if all you needed was someone to eat innings? Why lose Nakamura in order to call Greisinger up, when Nakamura could have been called up himself? Why lose Thomas to pick up Mulholland, when Thomas, despite being 14 years younger, was doing a perfectly good job as "horrendously bad lefty" out of the bullpen himself? Sometimes it's tough to be a Twins fan. For a well-run organization that has a lot of success (at least of late) they sure do make a lot of moves (and non-moves) that have me shaking my head. New article at The Hardball Times: All Eyes on Barry Today's picks: Florida (Penny) -120 over Montreal (Vargas) Los Angeles (Weaver) +140 over San Diego (Eaton) Tampa Bay (Abbott) +250 over New York (Brown) Total to date: $760 W/L record: 12-10 (1-1 yesterday for +75, thanks to a +200 on Kris Benson and the Pirates.) *****Comments? Questions? Email me!*****
Monday, April 12, 2004
That Boy Ain't RightThe good news for Twins fans is that, as far as I know, Johan Santana made it through yesterday's start without any arm problems. He completed five innings, threw 94 pitches, and appeared as though he could have gone another inning or so, had this been the middle of the year.The bad news is that he didn't look much like Johan Santana. Santana's bread and butter, the thing that makes him a special pitcher, is his changeup. It is, in my opinion, one of the best in baseball. He throws it extremely well, with the same arm angle as his fastball, and it just drops off the table. When he's got the changeup working, in addition to the very good fastball, it is a deadly combination that leads to tons of hitters looking foolish and a lot of strikeouts. Yesterday, however, Santana was throwing almost entirely fastballs. He threw some changeups and some sliders, but he was going with the heater in situations when he definitely would have thrown something off-speed last year. I don't know if this has to do with the forearm problems he had in his first start, with the elbow surgery he had during the off-season, or if he simply doesn't have a feel for the off-speed stuff yet. Whatever it is, it has me worried. Santana talked all spring about not having a feel for his changeup, and then he had a couple good outings right before the season started, and he seemed to have found a comfort zone for his best pitch. He clearly didn't have that feel during his first start and he didn't have it yesterday either. Santana was able to get to two strikes on a hitter 11 times yesterday, but he simply couldn't put anyone away. TWO STRIKES ON INN RESULTGetting 11 batters to two-strike counts in five innings seems like a pretty damn good number to me. He was only able to get that all-important third strike on three of them though, which is concerning. In some cases, not only was Santana not able to put the batter away after he got two strikes on them, he threw a ton of pitches trying. Check out the number of pitches Santana threw after he got two strikes on the batter in each of those 11 instances: TWO STRIKES ON INN #In all, Santana threw 32 pitches after getting two strikes on a batter, which seems to me like a tremendous amount. In other words, 34% of the total pitches he threw yesterday came after he already had two strikes on the batter. Yet, he was able to get a strikeout on just three of those 32 pitches. Here's another concerning thing... Over the last two years, Santana has been one of the most extreme fly ball pitchers in all of baseball. In 2002 and 2003 combined, Santana induced 329 fly balls compared to just 206 ground balls, for a GB/FB ratio of 0.62. To put that GB/FB ratio in some context, none of the 92 pitchers who qualified for the ERA title last year had a ratio that fly ball dominant. Yet, despite getting more fly balls than anyone, Santana has been exactly the opposite so far this season. Santana recorded 15 outs yesterday. Three of them were on strikeouts, two of them were on fly balls, and 10 of them were on ground balls. Santana was very similar in his first start of the year, getting eight ground ball outs and just three fly ball outs. That means, for the year, Santana has a GB/FB ratio of 18/5, or 3.60/1. To put that in some context, only one of the 92 pitchers who qualified for the ERA title had a higher GB/FB ratio. Derek Lowe, with his heavy sinker, had 3.92 ground balls for every fly ball. Essentially, Santana has gone from being perhaps the most extreme fly ball pitcher in baseball over the past two years to being one of the most extreme ground ball pitchers in baseball in two starts this year. Now, two starts are just two starts, and it's somewhat silly to get worked up about what someone does in nine innings in April, but I think it is clear that Santana is not quite right. Santana got tons of outs on pop ups and weak fly balls last year, thanks to that changeup and his ability to keep batters off balance. It would make sense then that, in not throwing as many changeups and not throwing them effectively, Santana would not be able to induce as many of those weak balls in the air. Instead, he's throwing his fastball without keeping people off balance with the changeup, which leads to a lot more hard hit balls and a lot more grounders and line drives. Just when I thought I'd seen everything... ...in the eighth inning yesterday, Henry Blanco hit a ball into the gap in left-center (no, that's not the strange thing). The ball skipped to the wall and the outfielder had a little trouble picking it up cleanly. So Blanco, not satisfied with a double, decides he's going to try for a triple. The idea looked and probably felt to Blanco like a good one right up until he was about halfway to third, at which point he was clearly out of gas. The throw beat Blanco to the bag by about 10 feet and Blanco went "sliding" into third with some sort of a belly flop/somersault combination. The next batter (Cristian Guzman), of course, hit a line drive into that same gap in left-center for a double that would have scored Blanco from second without much trouble. The lesson here? Two things, actually. 1) If you make an out at third base, the next batter is going to get a hit. 2) If you're Henry Blanco, be happy that you're in the major leagues, be happy you have a hit, be happy it's a double...AND DON'T GET CUTE AND TRY FOR A TRIPLE. That is all. Actually though, whatever has gotten into Henry Blanco for the first week of the season is pretty amazing. This is a guy who came into the season as a .219/.295/.353 hitter in over 1,400 plate appearances. The Twins made it known that they were signing him strictly for his defense behind the plate and the fact that they wanted a veteran like him around to work with Joe Mauer. With Mauer (and Matthew LeCroy) out of action, Blanco has been forced into more playing time than even he could have dreamed of. Through yesterday, he is batting .267/.476/.733, which looks like a line out of Barry Bonds' career. Blanco has two homers and that double I just talked about in 15 at bats, and has walked five times already. I was looking at Blanco's career numbers and it struck me that, if you ignore batting average, he isn't a bad hitter for a catcher. Look at his career numbers, prorated to a "full-season's" worth of playing time: AB HR 2B 3B BBHe's no Mike Piazza, but those are some respectable power numbers and he's got quite a bit of plate discipline (although some of those walks are intentional, thanks to him batting #8 in the NL). With all that said, he's a career .219 hitter, which is why his overall offense has been so incredibly bad. Actually though, that makes the fact that he has managed to draw so many walks somewhat impressive. The Twins are 3-3 and Henry Blanco and Jose Offerman have probably been their two best hitters. I'm not sure if those are good things or bad things. Today's picks: Arizona (Webb) -125 over Colorado (Jennings) Pittsburgh (Benson) +200 over Chicago (Maddux) Total to date: $685 W/L record: 11-9 (2-1 on Friday for +160, including a nice +200 on Jon Garland and the ChiSox.) *****Comments? Questions? Email me!*****
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 Official Fantasy Girl of AG.com OFGoAG.com Timeline: Heidi Klum (8/2002 - 12/2003) Jessica Alba (12/2003 - 10/2004) Elisha Cuthbert (10/2004 - 11/2006) Vacant (11/2006 - 6/2008) Keeley Hazell (6/2008 - 3/2010) Mila Kunis (3/2010 - Present) OFGoAG.com Candidates: Marisa Miller Jenna Fischer Kate Beckinsale Keeley Hazell Diora Baird Top 40 Twins Prospects of 2010: 1. Aaron Hicks, CF 2. Kyle Gibson, SP 3. Wilson Ramos, C 4. Miguel Angel Sano, SS 5. Ben Revere, CF 6. Angel Morales, CF 7. David Bromberg, SP 8. Danny Valencia, 3B 9. Matthew Bashore, SP 10. Billy Bullock, RP 11. Rene Tosoni, RF 12. Chris Parmelee, RF 13. Adrian Salcedo, SP 14. Joe Benson, CF 15. Jeff Manship, SP 16. Tyler Robertson, SP 17. Carlos Gutierrez, RP 18. B.J. Hermsen, SP 19. Anthony Slama, RP 20. Max Kepler, CF 21. Alex Burnett, RP 22. Robert Delaney, RP 23. Luke Hughes, 3B 24. Ben Tootle, RP 25. Deolis Guerra, SP 26. Shooter Hunt, SP 27. Trevor Plouffe, SS 28. Michael McCardell, SP 29. Reggie Williams, 2B 30. Estarlin De Los Santos, SS 31. Derek McCallum, 2B 32. Jose Morales, C 33. Chris Herrmann, LF 34. Bobby Lanigan, SP 35. Danny Rams, C 36. Josmil Pinto, C 37. Steven Tolleson, 2B 38. Anderson Hidalgo, 3B 39. Loek Van Mil, RP 40. Joe Testa, RP |