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Friday, June 11, 2004
Good News, Bad NewsIt was another long day at the hospital and I spent what time I did have on a vintage Gleeman-length article that is up right now at The Hardball Times, so today's blog entry is going to be a short one. Some good news/bad news thoughts on last night's Twins game ...Good news ... My family "released" me from the hospital with orders to watch the Twins game. Bad news ... The game went 15 innings and it kept me up late, so I'll be dead tired while spending another day at the hospital today. Bad news ... Luis Rivas started his third straight game at second base and Michael Cuddyer was the only Minnesota position player who didn't play in the game. Good news ... Rivas went 2-for-6 with two singles and scored a run. Bad news ... That brought his season totals up to .236/.266/.358. Good news ... The Twins got their third straight great performance by a starting pitcher (7 IP, 2 ER from Kyle Lohse) and their bullpen combined to pitch eight (yes, eight) scoreless innings. Bad news ... They still needed 15 innings to scrape together enough runs to win, and against Matt Ginter no less. Good news ... Jose Offerman came off the bench with a pinch-hit double to tie the game with two outs in the bottom of the ninth. Bad news ... Offerman, despite hitting .227 on the year and about .050 in the last six weeks, probably just guaranteed himself another 150 at-bats this season. Good news ... We got to see Matthew LeCroy, the Aaron Gleeman lookalike and incredibly slow human being, score from first base on Offerman's double. Bad news ... LeCroy will be out for the next three weeks as he tries to recover from his lengthy journey. Good news ... Twins pitchers combined for 13 strikeouts and walked just five New York hitters. Bad news ... Twins hitters combined for just three walks. Good news ... Grant Balfour finally got into a meaningful game and pitched well, earning his first win of the season. Bad news ... Juan Rincon did not get the win that would have pushed him to 8-3 on the year, which would have almost guaranteed him a (completely undeserved) spot on the AL All-Star team and probably 2-3 ESPN.com articles. Bad news ... Joe Mauer went 0-for-2 before being lifted for a pinch-runner, dropping his batting average to .261 on the year. Good news ... Mauer continued to show an incredible amount of plate discipline, walking twice while looking at about 400 pitches. Good news ... AL CENTRALNew article at The Hardball Times: The Boys of Moneyball, Again Friday's picks: Houston (Redding) -110 over Milwaukee (Davis) Arizona (Sparks) +130 over Toronto (Hentgen) Cleveland (Sabathia) -120 over Cincinnati (Wilson) San Francisco (Hermanson) +110 over Baltimore (Bedard) Montreal (Hernandez) +110 over Seattle (Franklin) Pittsburgh (Benson) +210 over Oakland (Hudson) Chicago (Maddux) -105 over Anaheim (Lackey) Saturday's picks: San Francisco (Hermanson) +120 over Baltimore (Lopez) Boston (Wakefield) -145 over Los Angeles (Weaver) New York (Leiter) -140 over Kansas City (George) San Diego (Tankersley) +180 over New York (Lieber) Philadelphia (Millwood) -120 over Minnesota (Silva) Montreal (Vargas) +165 over Seattle (Moyer) Sunday's picks: Arizona (Johnson) -140 over Toronto (Lilly) San Diego (Wells) +180 over New York (Vazquez) San Francisco (Williams) +105 over Baltimore (Ponson) St. Louis (Williams) -110 over Texas (Rickey) Minnesota (Radke) -140 over Philadelphia (Abbott) Kansas City (Greinke) +120 over New York (Glavine) Montreal (Armas) +130 over Seattle (Pineiro) Pittsburgh (Wells) +210 over Oakland (Mulder) Chicago (Clement) +125 over Anaheim (Escobar) Los Angeles (Nomo) +220 over Boston (Martinez) Total to date: -$1,820 W/L record: 89-117 (3-2 yesterday for +140, with one rainout.) *****Comments? Questions? Email me!*****     
Thursday, June 10, 2004
Welcome Back JohanYesterday was another long day at the hospital and today will be one too. Yesterday was so long that I was there for lunch and dinner, saw multiple nursing shift changes, and missed the entire Twins game. When I finally got home though, I had this waiting for me:IP H R ER BB SO HR PITIt's nice to have you back, Johan. If you don't mind me asking, where the hell have you been? The season started in April, just in case you were wondering. It's now June. Anyway, what's done is done. I won't bring up those first dozen starts if you keep doing that for the next few months. Although, I will say that it would have been nice of you to pitch your first great game of the season when I could have actually watched it ... I was sitting in my grandpa's hospital room and my uncle came in and reported to me that the Twins were winning 5-1 in the 7th inning. "Santana gave up a solo homer," he said. To which I of course asked, "Who hit it?" He looked at me, paused for a moment, and replied, "Is it possible that it was Gerald Williams?" I have to say, it was the first time I've ever been asked that question. I told him no, because as far as I knew, Gerald Williams' major league career was no more. Turns out, Gerald Williams, who turns 38 in August and hasn't been a productive player since 1999 or 2000 (depending on how charitable you want to be with the word "productive"), played his first game of the season last night and did, in fact, take my main man Johan deep. If that weren't the only run he gave up in seven innings, that's the sort of thing that Johan might get a little grief about. Each day, when I get to the hospital, my grandpa asks, "How's Mauer doing?" For the first few days he asked that, my answer wasn't all that good. I am looking forward to him asking today though, because Joe went 2-for-3 with a pair of doubles to snap out of a 1-for-14 slump since coming back from knee surgery. He's now got his batting average up to .286 and he's also sporting a gorgeous .375 on-base percentage and equally beautiful .525 slugging percentage. As I was finally leaving the hospital a middle-aged woman stopped me in the hallway and, noticing my ever-present Twins hat, asked, "Are the Twins winning?" "They were up 5-1 in the seventh ... I'm not sure if they won." "That's good, but more importantly, is Santana still in?" For some reason that little exchange made me feel good on the ride home. On a sadder note, I see that a stint on the disabled list and some nice play by Michael Cuddyer couldn't keep Luis Rivas away from second base. Rivas is like a cockroach. You can hurt him, you can put him on the DL, you can give him at-bats so he can continue to show how awful he is offensively and you can keep hitting ground balls to him so he can turn them into singles, but he just won't go away. Cuddyer finds himself on the bench, yet again. At least they let Justin Morneau actually play, albeit in Rochester, New York. Cuddyer was perhaps the most productive hitter the Twins had in May, which is both damning with faint praise and completely true. He hit .241/.327/.470 with four homers, five doubles and 13 RBIs in 83 at-bats. And before Rivas came back, Cuddyer was hitting .333 with a .458 slugging percentage in June. Of course, just when he started to hit, the Twins stick him right back on the bench, so he can not play for days at a time and atrophy. They'll probably give him another "chance" in the outfield or at second base or something later in the year, and then they'll complain when he doesn't immediately hit .320 with power, and bench him after a week. I think the thing to keep in mind as the Twins jerk various good players like Cuddyer and Morneau around time after time, is that Luis Rivas now has 1,529 at-bats at the major league level, despite multiple trips to the disabled list and a career hitting line of .260/.308/.374. 1,529 at-bats. Think about that the next time you wonder why they can't find a place for Cuddyer to play or why Justin Morneau was rewarded with a total of 24 at-bats for his continued bashing of minor-league pitching. Today's picks: Colorado (Jennings) +200 over New York (Contreras) San Diego (Valdes) +235 over Boston (Schilling) Arizona (Fossum) +140 over Baltimore (Cabrera) Florida (Pavano) -120 over Cleveland (Davis) Minnesota (Lohse) -110 over New York (Ginter) Chicago (Schoeneweis) -105 over Philadelphia (Myers) Total to date: -$1,960 W/L record: 86-115 (2-4 yesterday for -225. Yeah, I stink. So what?!) *****Comments? Questions? Email me!*****
Wednesday, June 09, 2004
The Twins' DraftI'm still spending the bulk of my time at the hospital, but I actually had some time to do a little reading and writing yesterday, so I pumped out a little something on the Twins' draft (which you'll find below) and a little something on the draft as a whole (which you'll find at The Hardball Times).Thanks to everyone who sent along e-mails of support yesterday after I mentioned the family stuff I am going through. The situation is getting better, but it's going very slowly and we're not out of the woods yet. Anyway, let's talk a little baseball ... Before I get into my thoughts on the Twins' recently-completed 2004 draft, I need to say that I have absolutely no expertise when it comes to this area of baseball. I have not seen any of these high school draftees play and I have only seen a limited amount of college baseball this year. Beyond that, I haven't even read, heard or talked about many of the guys who were picked. I won't even attempt to analyze the high school players the Twins took -- and there were a ton of them, which you can read more about at THT -- because I just know nothing about them and the information that is available is pretty limited. With regard to the few college players the Twins took, I am able to give you a little information on them by way of their stats from this past season. All of the following numbers come courtesy of my THT colleague Craig Burley, who put together some great NCAA hitting and pitching data during the past two weeks. First, let's take a look at the college pitchers the Twins drafted ... *RSAA is Runs Saved Above Average, which is adjusted for strength of schedule and ballpark. **Rank is the player's rank among all 2004 NCAA pitchers in RSAA. ***There are a couple guys Craig doesn't have data on, which means they didn't pitch enough this year to make his cut. Glen Perkins | Pick #22 | Minnesota | LHPI think by now we all realize that the Twins are a team geared towards picking high school players, but I do think they do a nice job mixing in a few solid college choices, particularly with pitchers. They did it last year with Scott Baker, their #2 pick out of Oklahoma State, and they did it in 2002 with Jesse Crain, who is one of the best reliever prospects in baseball now. I've seen Glen Perkins pitch multiple times and he's clearly the real deal. Good stats, good stuff, highly regarded in all circles, ranked as the 32nd-best NCAA pitcher in 2004 according to Craig's adjustments. Matt Fox looks like a very nice pick at #35. Great numbers and Craig's adjustments have him as the 18th-best NCAA pitcher last year. Gotta love a 1.99 ERA and a 119/32 strikeout/walk ratio is a thing of beauty. John Williams and Jay Sawatski also look like solid picks at #211 and #241. Both are fairly high up on Craig's rankings and both have very solid stats across-the-board. With Mousser, it would seem on the surface like not only a good pick, but a great pick. Getting a guy who pitched in the Pac-10 at Arizona State and had a 3.93 ERA and ranked 70th among all NCAA pitchers in RSAA with the #1,051 pick in the draft?! That seems crazy, right? Well, Mousser did a wonderful job preventing runs last year and he did face some stiff competition, but he also had a 41/41 strikeout/walk ratio, which is beyond horrible. Okay, let's move on to the college hitters now ... *LWRAA is Linear Weights Runs Above Average, which is adjusted for strength of schedule and ballpark. **Rank is a player's rank among all 2004 NCAA hitters in LWRAA. ***There are a couple guys Craig doesn't have data on, which means they didn't play enough this year to make his cut. Jeremy Pickrel | Pick #301 | Illinois State | OFThe first college position player they took, Jeremy Pickrel, has nice looking numbers on the surface (.396 on-base percentage, .562 slugging percentage), but I'm actually not all that excited about him. First, he played an easy schedule, according to Craig's calculations. Second, he struck out 73 times in 153 at-bats and walked just 29 times. I like to see a far better strikeout/walk ratio from a college hitter, preferably close to 1/1, so striking out 48% of the time is not going to get me too excited. Plus, anyone who hits .268 against relatively weak competition, with a metal bat, is automatically suspect in my book. Javi Sanchez's numbers don't do much for me either, especially the low batting average and sub-.400 slugging percentage. I will say that he played much tougher competition than Peckrel, had a pitcher's ballpark for a home, and played the least-offensive defensive position (catcher). He also had a 23/19 strikeout/walk ratio. Matt Tolbert, the shortstop from Ole Miss, also doesn't do much for me, and that's coming from the president of the Guzman/Rivas-Haters Club. If you can only manage a .365 slugging percentage in college, I just don't see how you can be a good major leaguer. He'd better be Ozzie Smith defensively. I don't see a whole lot in Lahey either. He hit just .260, had twice as many strikeouts as walks, and played weak competition. The good news is that he's a catcher and he had an Isolated Power number of .252. Oh, and he's from Princeton, so he's smart. Always good to have some brains in the organization. Strangely enough, the last college hitter they took, Landon Burt of San Diego State, is the one I think I like the most. He hit .321, had a great 26/45 strikeout/walk ratio, and went 30-for-34 stealing bases. He doesn't have much power and he played in a hitter's park, but Craig's system has him as the 316th-best hitter in the land this year, and you've gotta like that from a guy you pick #811. Finally, I posted my initial thoughts on the Twins' entire draft (not just college guys) earlier, but for those who missed it, here it is again: I think it looks good, or at least "not bad." I like that they grabbed Glen Perkins from the Gophers, and their first pick (the high school shortstop/pitcher) sounds like he's universally regarded as a top player. I am a little "intrigued" by the fact that the Twins started their draft with a shortstop and then took pitchers with 14 of the next 16 picks. It does make some sense, in that they do seem to be fairly stacked with young position players (Mauer, Morneau, Kubel, Cuddyer, Span, Bartlett, Ford, Restovich) throughout the system, and they have older guys like Torii Hunter and Shannon Stewart locked up for the next several years. And really, aside from the middle infield, what position are they desperately lacking at in regard to young, potential future starters? So they took this shortstop Trevor Plouffe with their first pick, loaded up on pitchers, and snatched a few other position players later in the draft. New article at The Hardball Times: Draft Notes Today's picks: Toronto (Batista) -120 over Los Angeles (Lima) Colorado (Kennedy) +220 over New York (Brown) Atlanta (Thomson) -120 over Detroit (Bonderman) Chicago (Garland) -110 over Philadelphia (Milton) New York (Trachsel) +115 over Minnesota (Santana) Houston (Miller) +105 over Seattle (Garcia) Total to date: -$1,735 W/L record: 84-111 (3-3 yesterday to break even. I was two runs away from going 5-1 for +640. Two runs!) *****Comments? Questions? Email me!*****
Tuesday, June 08, 2004
Out of the LoopMy family is having a fairly serious emergency, so I have been at the hospital for essentially all of the past two days. About nine hours on Sunday, about 10 hours yesterday, and I'm almost certainly there as you read this today.It is amazing just how quickly you can get out of the sports loop. I missed most of the Lakers/Pistons Game 1, I missed Joe Mauer's first home run as a major leaguer, and I missed the entire first day of the MLB draft. Anyway, I'm writing this in the short period of time between coming home from the hospital and going to sleep (and then heading back again), so I apologize for the lack of length and substance. However, I do have a new article up over at The Hardball Times (written slightly before this emergency), so you can definitely still get your daily dose of Gleeman. I have barely had two minutes to glance at the Twins' draft, but I think it looks good, or at least "not bad." I like that they grabbed Glen Perkins from the Gophers, and their first pick (the high school shortstop/pitcher) sounds like he's universally regarded as a top player. I am a little "intrigued" by the fact that the Twins started their draft with a shortstop and then took pitchers with 14 of the next 16 picks. It does make some sense, in that they do seem to be fairly stacked with young position players (Mauer, Morneau, Kubel, Cuddyer, Span, Bartlett, Ford, Restovich) throughout the system, and they have older guys like Torii Hunter and Shannon Stewart locked up for the next several years. And really, aside from the middle infield, what position are they desperately lacking at in regard to young, potential future starters? So they took this shortstop Trevor Plouffe with their first pick, loaded up on pitchers, and snatched a few other position players later in the draft. Regarding the rest of the draft ... I am hoping to have some more time to look at it in some depth and formulate some informed opinions, but my first reaction to all the proceedings is that it sucks that guys like Jered Weaver and Stephen Drew drop to the middle of the first round because teams can't afford to sign them, and it sucks even more that the rich teams (or at least the not poor teams) who can afford to sign them are able to get them as a result. The point of the draft is, at least in part, to give the best players to the worst teams. That's just not happening, and it hasn't been happening for a while now. I'll be back with something tomorrow. Or not. Gotta drop everything for family, that's one of my rules. New article at The Hardball Times: The Magic Twenty (Center Field) Today's picks: St. Louis (Williams) +135 over Chicago (Clement) Toronto (Lilly) -110 over Los Angeles (Nomo) San Diego (Wells) +190 over Boston (Martinez) Colorado (Fassero) +250 over New York (Vazquez) Arizona (Johnson) -140 over Baltimore (Ponson) Houston (Clemens) -140 over Seattle (Pineiro) Total to date: -$1,735 W/L record: 81-108 (1-1 yesterday for -10. At some point, I would assume I'll just luck into a some wins or something.) *****Comments? Questions? Email me!*****
Monday, June 07, 2004
The Minnesota Twins, by MonthThe Twins are now into their third month of the 2004 season, and I thought it might be interesting to look back at how they've played in each of the first two months and try to figure out what that might tell us about the rest of the season.First, here are the basics ... TEAMIt's not hard to see what happened to this team. The pitching staff was pretty bad in April, but the offense was absolutely out of control, scoring over six runs per game. Then, once May hit, the pitching staff improved quite a bit (12%), but the offense dropped off a cliff, falling by about 37%. Whereas they outscored their opponent by an average of 0.55 runs per game in April, they were outscored by 1.04 runs per game in May. I think they're actually lucky that their May record (12-16) wasn't worse. Overall, for the first two months, they averaged 4.80 runs per game and gave up 5.14. To put that in some context, for the entire 2003 season they averaged 4.94 runs per game and allowed 4.68. So, clearly, both the offense and defense are underperforming compared to last year, but the defense is the bigger issue. So, let's take a look at that first ... PITCHINGThe Twins walked more batters in May (+14.7%) and struck out slightly fewer hitters (-3.6%), but their batting average against, on-base percentage against and slugging percentage against all dropped. The slugging percentage improvement was the biggest (8.2%), which is thanks to a drop in home runs allowed (14.8%) and in doubles allowed (18.0%). The team gave up singles at roughly the same rate in both months. Here's a look at the individual pitchers ... PITCHINGYou can see how the roles of Seth Greisinger, Joe Roa and Terry Mulholland increased in May. Mulholland's was almost by default, since he was signed near the end of April, while Greisinger took over as the full-time #5 starter and Roa established himself in the bullpen. The Twins cut bait on Carlos Pulido and Brad Thomas, and Grant Balfour came off the disabled list. Other than that, the staff has been pretty steady. In general, the bullpen has been excellent this year. The fivesome of Joe Nathan, Juan Rincon, J.C. Romero, Roa and Aaron Fultz were all good in both months, and even Mulholland hasn't been horrible as a long-relief man. Nathan had an amazing May, as batters hit 4-for-40 off him with zero extra-base hits and 15 strikeouts. He did walk four people, so his totals were .100/.182/.100 for a GPA of .107. In other words, that's about as good as a pitcher gets. The starting pitching, on the other hand, stinks. Aside from Brad Radke in May, no starter had a GPA allowed below .250 in either month. Greisinger has given them a couple of decent starts, but he averaged just 5.0 innings per start over the first two months and batters hit a robust .309/.363/.539 against him, which is just terrible. With the bullpen performing well and several guys doing a nice job, I think the Twins might be best served to give Joe Roa a chance to start some games. Roa has been very solid in relief and has shown he can pitch multiple innings at a time. Plus, he has been a starter for just about his entire career before this season. In fact, he has a career record of 61-28 with a 3.38 ERA in 118 Triple-A starts. The only reason I can think of to keep Greisinger in the rotation over Roa is that Ron Gardenhire feels he needs Roa more in the bullpen, and you all should know how crazy I think that concept is. If the Twins were getting better starting pitching from the #5 spot in their rotation, they wouldn't be relying on the bullpen as much. If you needed more proof of this whole one-inning-closer thing being stupid, check out Joe Nathan's usage compared to some of the other relievers. Nathan is, clearly, the team's best reliever (which is why he's the closer), yet he pitched just 11.0 and 12.2 innings in the first two months. Meanwhile, Fultz pitched 11.2 and 13.0 innings, Romero pitched 11.1 and 16.0 innings, and Rincon pitched 12.0 and 14.0 innings. Why would you create a setup where your best relief pitcher is pitching less than all of your other relief pitchers? Nathan was 10th on the team in innings pitched through May. Finally, here is the hidden key to their improved pitching in May, the fielding ... DEFENSIVE EFFICIENCY RATIOThat is the rate at which the Twins' defense turned balls in play into outs. This is, in my opinion, one of the most overlooked aspects of a team. When you look at the amount of runs a team allows, the pitching is always a huge factor, but it's not the only factor. Once the ball gets put in play (not a home run, strikeout or walk), it is up to the defense to turn it into an out, and their success doing that is extremely important. When singles and doubles start falling in, the pitching staff has to face more batters, rallies are extended, more pitches are thrown, and runners on base start scoring. In short, the Twins' defense has been horrible this season. Considering defense is something the team prides itself on and talks about constantly, it's extremely bad. The average American League team turned balls in play into outs 68.7% of the time through the end of May. The Twins converted balls in play into outs just 67.1% of the time in the first two months. There are some teams that can and do get away with low DERs, but the Twins are not one of those teams. They don't get a huge number of strikeouts and they are very stingy with walks, which means they are allowing a ton of balls in play. Plus, they give up quite a few home runs, which makes limiting the amount of hits on balls in play that much more important. Here's a look at the Twins' DER for the past few years ... YEAR DERThe defense this season is clearly not as good as it has been for the past few years, which is very troubling. For the most part, the defensive core (Cristian Guzman, Luis Rivas, Torii Hunter, Jacque Jones, Doug Mientkiewicz, Corey Koskie) remains the same, although some of those guys have missed time with injuries and Jones has shifted from left field to right field. It could just be a bad or unlucky two months. Defense can go into slumps just like offense can, so it's possible the Twins are just slumping and they'll turn it around and get the DER over 70% by the time the year is over. The improvement from April to May is certainly a step in the right direction. In fact, I think the DER improvement from April to May shows why the pitching staff allowed 18% fewer doubles in May. Getting more specific, doubles allowed can mostly be traced to the outfield defense and I think the fact that Torii Hunter missed about two-thirds of April and was healthy for almost all of May might explain the improvements there. Another thing I would like to think led to the improvement from April to May is the fact that Luis Rivas missed quite a bit of time in April and was replaced by Michael Cuddyer at second base. Now, Cuddyer is no great shakes defensively, but this would go along with my "anyone is better than Luis Rivas out there" theory. Okay, enough with the pitching and defense. Let's take a look at the guys who put the runs on the board ... HITTINGWell, right off the bat you see that the Twins walked significantly less (-20.0%) and struck out significantly more (+20.4%) in May, which is a pretty good way to go about ruining an offense. The Twins' hitters hit homers at about the same rate, but their singles (-10.8%) and doubles (-26.8%) dropped by quite a bit, which is why the team batting average fell by 52 points. Some of the decline in walks and hike in strikeouts can probably be traced back to the fact that a hacker like Hunter played a lot more in May than he did in April, while patient hitters like Shannon Stewart and Koskie played a lot less. Here's a look at the individual hitters ... HITTINGNow, this is interesting. First of all, you can see that the offensive collapse in May was not limited to just a few guys, it was a team-wide thing. Of the guys who got significant playing time (40+ plate appearances), six had a GPA of at least .275 in April, compared to zero in May. That's right, not a single guy who played on a regular basis had a GPA of even .275 in May. The best offense from regulars in May came from Cuddyer, Hunter and Lew Ford. Cuddyer, finally given a chance to play on a somewhat everyday basis, hit .241/.337/.470 with four homers and five doubles. He also walked 12 times, drove in 13 runs and scored 13 times -- all in just 95 plate appearances. Meanwhile, Ford lost all of his power from April, but still managed to hit .290 and get on base at a .371 clip. Hunter returned from injury and hit .255/.327/.489 with a team-best 14 RBIs and 16 runs scored. Other than those three (and Justin Morneau, who had a .302 GPA in very limited time), the entire offense was a mess. Guzman put up superficially good numbers in both months, hitting .292 in April and then .283 in May. As usual though, hidden behind those nice batting averages is the fact that he does nothing else beyond hitting singles. His GPAs (.234, .238) were horrible both months, even for a shortstop. This is something I have talked about before, of course. If you look at the above numbers very closely, you can actually see Henry Blanco and Jose Offerman turn into pumpkins. With Joe Mauer out, Blanco did very nicely in April and then continued to get plenty of playing time in May, and responded by "hitting" .145/.185/.242. Offerman also started hot and then completely fell apart, hitting .156/.289/.219 in May. Looking closely at the numbers, the only hitter on the entire team who was actually consistent from month-to-month is Guzman, whose GPA changed by just four points. Everyone else who had significant time in both months saw their GPA change by at least 30 points. Closing thoughts ... The pitching got better and the offense stunk in May. The first part of that is good news and the second part can at least be traced somewhat to all of the injuries and the fact that Blanco and Offerman started to play like themselves after great first months. Mauer's return should help in a several ways. First, it takes Blanco out of the lineup which, even if Mauer isn't great, will help the offense. Second, it allows Matthew LeCroy to (hopefully) DH on a regular basis, which will keep Offerman out of the lineup. I would say that having Cuddyer (arguably their most productive hitter in May) in the lineup at second base every day would also help the offense quite a bit, but it sounds like Rivas is on his way back from the DL, so I'm not at all confident that Cuddyer will continue to play second base regularly. My suggestions are pretty typical and mostly stuff I've been saying for a while now. Jacque Jones needs to be on the bench against lefties. He started out extremely well against them and everyone was e-mailing me to gloat about how wrong I was about him never improving against southpaws. Well guess what? Now he's down to .257/.345/.297 against them, and most of that decent on-base percentage is due to being hit by four pitches. You simply cannot have a corner outfielder who hits like that in the lineup. Oh, and for those of you wondering, he hit .231/.274/.336 against lefties from 2001-2003. Funny how those e-mails stopped all of a sudden. Rivas needs to either get injured again or stay on his rehab assignment for about three months. Cuddyer being in the lineup in place of him on an everyday basis would be a huge boost to the offense. For more on this topic from last week week, click here. It strikes me as both strange and frustrating that the offense has struggled so much over the last six weeks and Justin Morneau, perhaps the best hitter in the entire organization, spent all but a week of that time either on the bench or at Triple-A. Morneau is now batting .342/.411/.621 with 10 homers and 15 doubles in 40 Triple-A games, and he hit .292/.370/.542 when the Twins decided to let him hit for seven games. I just don't know what else to say about this. The team can't score runs, they have a semi-opening at designated hitter, and they have one of the best hitting prospects in all of baseball destroying Triple-A pitching. Somehow those dots just can't get connected. On the pitching side of things, I wish they would utilize Joe Nathan more, whether in multi-inning appearances or simply in more games where the team is either tied or behind by a run. There's just no reason for him to be fifth among relievers in innings pitched. Also, I would give Joe Roa a look as the fifth starter. He has been very good out of the bullpen, he has a nice track record of starting in the minor leagues, and Seth Greisinger is simply not getting the job done. Beyond those things, you just have to hope that Johan Santana and Kyle Lohse improve, and that the hitters can get healthy and back to hitting. Today's picks: St. Louis (Carpenter) -120 over Chicago (Rusch) Houston (Duckworth) -110 over Seattle (Nageotte) Total to date: -$1,725 W/L record: 80-107 (5-10 over the weekend for -440, with one no-bet thanks to a different starting pitcher.) *****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 |
