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Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Blogless in SeattleIf George Costanza has taught me anything, it's that leaving on a high note is extremely important.With Joe Mauer's 5-for-5 game and Francisco Liriano's eighth win providing the proper send off, I'm heading to Seattle for the 36th annual Society for American Baseball Research convention. This will be my third SABR convention, and if you're curious about what sort of stuff I'll be doing in Seattle you can check out my trip reports for Cincinnati in 2004 and Toronto in 2005.  The short version is that it involves baseball, poker, and drinking, with the added bonus of attending a couple big-league games in the host city, meeting some big names from the world of baseball writing, and seeing some great research presentations. I'm particularly excited about this year's convention because the keynote speaker is Jim Bouton, who wrote the greatest book I've ever read, Ball Four.When I return Monday, I hope to have both a non-botched Wolves draft pick (LaMarcus Aldridge or Brandon Roy, please!) and a still-hot Twins team to discuss, and if Mauer's not hitting at least .450 by then I'll be very disappointed.     
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Another WinClearly livid with himself for going an entire week without a multi-hit game, Joe Mauer went 4-for-5 with a career-high five RBIs against the Dodgers last night. Mauer's batting average--which had slumped to a pathetic .368--jumped back to an MLB-leading .377 and his .444 on-base percentage now ranks second in the AL behind only Travis Hafner's .448.A 23-year-old catcher who has thrown out 41 percent of would-be base-stealers, Mauer is on pace to hit .377/.444/.526 with 10 homers, 45 doubles, 215 hits, 90 runs scored, 85 RBIs, and 15 steals in his second full season. After lining an RBI single to left field off left-handed reliever Hong-Chih Kuo, Mauer is now hitting .370 against southpaws to go along with his .380 batting average against righties.  A few other notes on the Twins' 8-2 win, if only because it helps me avoid packing for my trip to Seattle ... Obviously one game doesn't mean much by itself, but take a look at Silva's season-long ground ball-to-fly ball ratio compared to his first two years with the Twins: YEAR GB/FBSilva has basically gone from being a ground-ball pitcher to being a neutral pitcher, which is bad news for a guy who allows such a huge number of balls in play. Since moving back into the starting rotation this month Silva has a 0.88 GB-to-FB ratio in five starts, which means he's actually been an extreme fly-ball pitcher. What's interesting is that throughout Silva's time in Minnesota pitching coach Rick Anderson has said that how well Silva is pitching can be determined more by his keeping the ball on the ground than his actual results. In other words, if Silva gets tons of ground balls he's doing a good job regardless of what the fielders do with them. There's a lot of truth to that, but if you asked Anderson about Silva's pitching since rejoining the rotation he'd probably be very pleased. Anderson has a right to be, of course, but over the long haul I don't think Silva can be successful with a GB-to-FB ratio close to even. He gives up too many hits to make it work without also bailing himself out of jams with double plays, and the extra-base hits will pile up in a hurry. Despite showing almost zero power over the past month, Punto is hitting .277 on the year and has maintained an outstanding .375 on-base percentage, including .388 in May and .392 in June. Can he keep that up while essentially just taking a bunch of pitches and slapping some singles? I doubt it, but at the very least his defense at third base is a revelation after watching Tony Batista for 50 games. For the season Hunter has drawn 32 non-intentional walks in 73 games, which doesn't sound like a lot until you realize his career-high is 43 non-intentional walks back in 2003. Hunter also showed some marginal improvements in patience last year, and if he keeps up his recent pace he'll set a new career-high by the All-Star break. The new-found plate discipline has allowed Hunter to post a career-best .340 on-base percentage despite a .264 batting average, but it's not all good news. Hunter's .421 slugging percentage would be his lowest since 2000 and his .158 Isolated Power is nearly 20 percent below his career mark coming into this season.
Monday, June 26, 2006
Running Really Fast ... In PlaceThe Twins have won 14 of their last 16 games, going from 25-33 (.431) to 39-35 (.527). They've won five straight series--including three-game sweeps of the Red Sox, Pirates, and Cubs--and have won six of their last seven road games after beginning the season 9-24 away from the Metrodome. That's obviously the good news.The bad news is that despite completely turning the season around, the Twins are nearly as far out of the playoff picture as they were before. Back on June 7 the Twins were 11.5 games behind the Tigers in the division and 11 games behind the White Sox for the Wild Card. And now? The Twins are 11 games behind the Tigers in the division and 9.5 games behind the White Sox for the Wild Card. That's right, by winning 14 out of 16 games the Twins picked up a half game on Detroit and 1.5 games on Chicago. The Twins' play over the past three weeks has been incredibly encouraging and the emergence of several young players once Tony Batista, Rondell White, and Juan Castro stopped playing regularly has made the team fun to watch again. With that said, the argument could be made that the Twins are actually facing longer odds to make the postseason now than they were before winning 14 of 16. They've gone from being 11 games out of a playoff spot to 9.5 games out, but there are now 16 fewer games with which to close the gap. In other words, another 10 percent of the season has been played and the Twins essentially treaded water relative to the teams in front of them. That's a depressing way to look at things, but such is life when two teams in your division are on pace for 105-win seasons. If the Tigers and White Sox simply play .500 baseball for the remainder of the season--they've won 67 percent and 66 percent of their respective games thus far--the Twins would have to go 56-32 (.636) to win the division or 55-33 (.625) to win the Wild Card. They'd also have to hold off the Yankees and Blue Jays, who are both still ahead of the Twins in the Wild Card standings. I realize that today's entry makes me the proverbial turd in the punch bowl, but these are just the facts. Actually, my level of optimism rose to a surprisingly high level over the weekend, right up until the point that I looked at the standings and noticed how little things have actually improved. And if my new-found optimism has to come crashing down ... well, everyone else's optimism is coming along for the fall. With all of that said, it's a whole hell of a lot more fun to watch the Twins now than it was just a few weeks ago. There's some reason to be emotionally involved on a day-to-day basis beyond wanting to torture yourself and there's some reason for hope. It's just that the hope probably has more to do with next season than most fans are willing to admit while riding this current wave of wins. As for what's been behind all the winning, let's take a look ... G AVG OBP SLG OPSJustin Morneau has carried the team on his shoulders for the past 16 games, smacking eight homers, driving in 24 runs, and hitting .422/.471/.875 for a ridiculous 1.346 OPS. Jason Kubel can't quite match those numbers, but he batted .367/.380/.673 with four homers and 14 RBIs while also cracking a 1.000 OPS. Jason Bartlett hit .368/.455/.474 stepping in for Castro (.231/.258/.308) at shortstop, Joe Mauer continued to bat .350, Terry Tiffee provided a nice spark off the bench and at third base, and Michael Cuddyer kept his overall production up despite a dip in batting average. Those six hitters have been the Twins' offense, making up for Luis Castillo's continued slump and Lew Ford's season-long ineptitude. The lineup as a whole batted .280/.359/.432 during the 16-game stretch, scoring 5.7 runs per game after averaging just 4.5 runs per game through June 7. Despite a few big homers receiving most of the attention, getting on base at a much higher clip is actually the main reason behind a healthy run-scoring increase of 27 percent. IP ERA SO BB WHIPAfter allowing 5.2 runs per game through June 7, the Twins' pitching staff amazingly cut that in half over the past 16 games, allowing an average of 2.7 runs per game. During that stretch they held opponents to a measly .236/.278/.344, posting a 114-to-29 strikeout-to-walk ratio. Five of those 29 walks were intentional, meaning the pitchers handed out just 1.5 non-intentional walks per game. The main sources of the staff's dominance is easy to spot. Johan Santana and Francisco Liriano combined to go 6-0 with a 1.44 ERA and 50-to-7 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 50 innings. In the bullpen, Joe Nathan and Juan Rincon combined for a 1.19 ERA and 25-to-4 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 22.2 innings, as Nathan finally found consistent work for the first time all year. Jesse Crain and Dennys Reyes were also very effective in relief, and Brad Radke and Carlos Silva quietly returned to respectability after throwing batting practice for the first 10 weeks or so. In fact, the only pitcher on the entire staff who pitched poorly over the past 16 games is Kyle Lohse, who put up an 8.53 ERA in 6.1 innings while Pat Neshek keeps making Triple-A hitters look silly. Add it all up and you get an offense scoring 27 percent more often, a pitching staff giving up half as many runs, and a team going 14-2 after starting 25-33. The Twins may not keep it up and it might be too late to truly matter anyway, but watching Mauer, Santana, Liriano, Morneau, Kubel, Nathan, Bartlett, Cuddyer, and Rincon is enough to make me think 2007 could be a special year.
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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 |