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Friday, October 05, 2007
Link-O-RamaIt also looks like the Mottrams are now the first family of sports blogging. As someone who's fascinated by the changing media landscape of print versus online, it's been interesting to watch all the new hires and roster shuffling going on at various newspapers and websites over the past year. It's amazing how quickly blogging has become a prominent part of many mainstream websites and the blog influence figures to get even stronger now that bloggers are starting to get into positions of power. Leitch: How much time do you spend on the Web, personally?Arenas then went on to engage in some blog readership trash-talking with Chris Paul--"nobody reads his site"--which officially shows that he's a true blogger. Josh's Thoughts: What is something people would be shocked to know about you?Span was the Twins' first-round pick back in 2002 and because of that many fans still view him as the team's center fielder of the future. In reality, he's done little in the minors to show that he's capable of becoming a quality major leaguer and has certainly not shown that he's capable of stepping in for Torii Hunter in 2008. Here's a look at what Span has done since advancing past Single-A midway through the 2005 season: LEVEL G PA AVG OBP SLG OPS SB CSThe Twins knew that Span possessed very little power when they drafted him, but he's also shown no ability to get on base or utilize his outstanding speed. It's probably worth noting that a quick search through my archives shows that "Denard Span" and "suck" have never appeared together in an entry that I've written, although perhaps Span would interpret what I just wrote about his lack of development as me saying that he "sucks." If so, then thanks for reading and you're welcome for the motivation. As someone who works from home and could realistically do his job from nearly anywhere, that type of comparison is endlessly intriguing. Also noteworthy is that the same 2,200-square foot home in Minneapolis would cost about $416,000, which makes it the market closest to the national average price of $422,343. I've always assumed that living in the Twins Cities was inexpensive relative to the entire country, but apparently that's not the case. I'm very happy with The House That Blog Built, but before committing to a 2,100-square foot place in Minnetonka it might have been fun to see what the same money could have gotten in one of those 10 most-affordable markets where you can get 2,200 square feet for under $157,000. Sure, living in Minot or Topeka or Tulsa or Wichita isn't ideal, but the place would be huge! On the other hand, there's the option of moving to New York, working at the NBC Sports offices, and living in a one-bedroom closet. In an ironic twist given that they hired me several years after reading this blog, it seems like some day soon I might be in danger of being the only Rotoworld writer without a Rotoworld blog. Of course, my obsession with the Twins and Elisha Cuthbert mean that I'm probably best served by keeping my blogging activities here, where I can devote thousands of words to Chris Heintz and bore people with personal stories. That sort of stuff tends only to fly on a website that's your name followed by a .com. He is the hidden reason the Braves produced Cy Glavine, Cy Smoltz and Cy Maddux, along with all of those consecutive years of team ERAs that ranked first or second in baseball. He caught everything. He threw out everybody. He made the spectacular routine. He did so through an 11th year with the Braves that will produce a 10th Gold Glove, but management will shove Jones out the door by allowing him to become a free agent while yawning.Tom Glavine, John Smoltz, and Greg Maddux combined to win six Cy Youngs with the Braves, but only one came with Jones in center field. In fact, when Glavine won the first of those six awards in 1991, Jones was 14 years old. Moore calls Jones "the hidden reason" behind the Cy Youngs, but he was at Single-A when Maddux won the award in 1993, 1994, and 1995. Also, Jones' MLB debut came 120 games into the 1996 season, yet the Braves led the NL in ERA in 1992, 1993, 1995, and 1996. Nutini, 20, was hopelessly introverted at the Fitzgerald. With his vintage Jon Bon Jovi-like helmet of hair covering much of his face, he sang the entire 75-minute set with his eyes closed. In fact, he looked up at the crowd maybe only twice between songs. ... [L]ost in his vocal riffing, rolling his r's with a Scottish brogue, oblivious to the audience.It's certainly possible that Nutini is simply introverted and inexperienced on stage, but my guess is that he was also a little bit drunk. In addition to a water bottle, he constantly took sips from a thermos while stumbling around the stage and sang entire songs while hunched over, doing little more than tapping his feet spastically At one point, while he was mumbling his way through some between-song banter, someone from the audience yelled out, "Get sober!" I can't be certain given his thick accent, but a few songs later I'm fairly sure that he mumbled something like, "Now I'm almost sober." Near the end of the concert, after he had knocked the thermos over and caused some of its contents to spill onto the stage, he repeatedly raised his drink in a quasi-toast that I'm pretty sure people don't do with coffee. Of course, none of that really mattered. He looked strange on stage, but the actual performance was outstanding. What Bream's review failed to mention, perhaps because he arrived late, was that Nutini's opening act really stole the show. I'd never heard of Serena Ryder before, but she started the show by walking out on stage and fearlessly belting out an a cappella song that showed off her incredible voice. She then picked up her guitar and did a set that was like a cross between Alanis Morissette, Tracy Chapman, Janis Joplin, and Bonnie Raitt. She was even funny while bantering between songs. Ryder finished her set by asking the audience to clap along while she did a foot-stomping, a capella version of "Sing Sing" that is this week's AG.com-approved music video: Once you're done here, check out my latest "Daily Dose" column over at Rotoworld.     
Thursday, October 04, 2007
My Team MVP BallotWith the recently completed season still fresh in everyone's minds, I figured now would be a good time to examine who the most valuable (and least valuable) Twins were this year. There are certainly any number of different ways to approach such a task, but my preferred method is to utilize several different player-evaluation metrics and attempt to synthesize the information from them to form what should be one well-rounded opinion. It'd be easy to go by gut feel, conventional wisdom, or a single statistic, but taking a wisdom-of-crowds approach by involving as much objective information and evidence as possible is more worthwhile. Rather than post a bunch of numbers and reveal my team MVP ballot, let's walk through the different metrics that I used and examine what each one had to say about assigning value to Twins players this season. If you're unfamiliar with something being referenced, click on the links to learn more. First up is Value Over Replacement Player, which takes a player's production and compares it to the "replacement level" for his position, which is a level of performance that's considered readily available and easily obtained. In other words, how many runs was someone worth compared to a low-level player who a team could acquire at minimal cost. Justin Morneau gets compared to first basemen, Torii Hunter gets compared to center fielders, and so on, with playing time being a big factor. VORP VORPAs you can see, because replacement level is such a low baseline for comparison, few players racked up negative totals. Despite that, Nick Punto managed to be 27.1 runs worse than a replacement-level player offensively by hitting .210/.291/.271 in 536 plate appearances. Not only did -27.1 VORP rank dead last in all of baseball, it's the fourth-worst total any position player has posted since 1959, topping only George Wright (-33.1 in 1985), Neifi Perez (-28.0 in 2002), and David McCarty (-27.3 in 1993). In terms of production and playing time, the season Punto just turned in offensively was among the worst handful of the past 50 years. At the other end of the spectrum, Johan Santana leads the team by a wide margin with 60.0 VORP. Santana was worth 57.3 runs more than a replacement-level pitcher and tacked on 2.7 VORP by hitting .286/.375/.714 during inter-league play. Hunter leads all position players with 39.2 VORP, which doesn't include his defensive contributions in center field. Next up is Linear Weights (with a positional adjustment added), which is somewhat similar to VORP except that all comparisons are made to "average" rather than "replacement level." Average is a much higher baseline for comparison, so the result is far fewer positive contributions and far more negative contributions. In other words, compared to replacement level nearly everyone except Punto comes out looking decent. Compared to average, a lot fewer players keep their head above water. LWTS LWTSSantana once again leads the team by a wide margin, while Punto again brings up the rear with an awful total. Morneau is a good example of the difference between VORP and Linear Weights, as his hitting goes from being worth 28.8 runs above replacement level to just 1.2 runs above average. While the caliber of readily available first basemen is clearly inferior to Morneau, the average MLB first baseman batted .276/.357/.463 this season compared to Morneau hitting .271/.343/.492. Compared to other players at his position, Morneau had a slightly below average on-base percentage and a slightly above average slugging percentage, which adds up to essentially being an average hitter overall. Hunter fares better than Morneau in Linear Weights, but is no longer the top-ranked position player thanks to the average MLB center fielder batting .272/.338/.420 compared to his .287/.334/.505. An 85-point edge in SLG is big, but a below average OBP keeps him from racking up a huge total. By comparison, Joe Mauer is helped by switching from VORP to Linear Weights and vaults ahead of Hunter as the top position player because his .293/.382/.426 hitting line was far superior to the average MLB catcher batting .256/.318/.394. Along with the changes involving Morneau, Hunter, and Mauer, you'll notice that Matt Guerrier ranks ahead of Joe Nathan in both VORP and Linear Weights, which is explained in part by both systems viewing all innings and plate appearances as equal. In other words, tossing a scoreless inning with a 10-run lead counts the same as tossing a scoreless inning in a tie game. The third and final metric differs from that, as Win Probability Added is designed specifically to measure the impact that each play has on a team's chances of winning. While VORP and Linear Weights place the same value on a home run whether it comes in a tight game or a blowout, WPA values a walk-off homer much differently than a solo shot in a 15-2 game. That's an important distinction when it comes to Guerrier versus Nathan, because Nathan typically pitches in higher-leverage situations. Thus, on average WPA views his scoreless innings as being more valuable than Guerrier's scoreless innings (and views Nathan giving up a run as being more costly than Guerrier giving up a run). As with Linear Weights, WPA uses average as a baseline and I've added positional adjustments because they aren't built in. WPA WPAAs you can see, Nathan benefits greatly from WPA because a) he was fantastic this season and b) the vast majority of his appearances came in tight situations. If you perform well in key spots, WPA rewards you. If you struggle in key spots, your WPA total plummets. All of which is why the WPA rankings look quite different than the rankings for VORP and Linear Weights. VORP and Linear Weights look at how you performed overall, while WPA looks at how you performed in specific situations. One thing that all three metrics have in common is that they fail to account for defensive contributions, which is obviously a major factor when assessing a player's overall value and a big part of why all three rankings are pitching-heavy at the top. To rectify that problem, I've gathered fielding stats from The Hardball Times, Ultimate Zone Rating, and Baseball Prospectus, weighing them equally to come up with a three-headed defensive value for each player. Similarly, I combined VORP, Linear Weights, and WPA to come up with three-headed values for hitters and pitchers. Because the baselines are different and some metrics deal in runs while others deal in wins, it's impossible to combine them to get one "big number." Instead, I've tried to weigh everything equally so that each metric accounts for one slice of the overall pie. By combining VORP, Linear Weights, and WPA with three different defensive tools, here's what my ballot for team MVP looks like: 1. Johan Santana 14. Matt GarzaThe Twins Cities chapter of the Baseball Writers Association of America predictably voted Hunter the team MVP, but the numbers don't really support that in large part because the various fielding metrics no longer view him as an elite defensive center fielder. There's certainly a good argument to be made for Hunter being the most-valuable position player and I may have even made it prior to examining the numbers, but I think it's pretty clear that Santana was the Twins' MVP in 2007. Again. Once you're done here, check out my latest "Daily Dose" column over at Rotoworld.
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
Twins Notes: Fetching, Slapping, and Good Guys Christensen is right, except that $25 million might actually be far-fetched on the low side. Last winter's crop of free-agent starting pitchers included Barry Zito, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Jason Schmidt, Ted Lilly, Gil Meche, Vicente Padilla, Miguel Batista, Jason Marquis, Adam Eaton, Woody Williams, and Greg Maddux, among several other well-known veterans, yet Jeff Suppan managed to get $42 million as a 32-year-old coming off a season in which he went 12-7 with a 4.12 ERA in 190 innings.Silva is a 29-year-old coming off a season in which he went 13-14 with a 4.19 ERA in 202 innings, and this offseason's pool of free-agent starters isn't nearly as deep or star-filled. In fact, an argument can be made for Silva being among the 2-3 most desirable targets in the entire bunch. With mediocrity like Eaton and Marquis getting over $20 million apiece in last winter's jam-packed market, my guess is that Silva's next contract is likely to be worth closer to $40 million than $20 million. Somebody needs to slap a couple people around and say, "You've got to play no matter what." If you don't play every day, and you're a good player, then how can you help the team win?Hunter made similar comments about Joe Mauer a few months ago, but when asked if he was talking about Mauer this time around he denied it. Of course, the only other Twins players to miss significant time with injuries this season were Francisco Liriano, Rondell White, and Jesse Crain. I'm guessing that not even Hunter would rip a teammate for missing time following arm surgery and White is reportedly one of his best friends, which makes it pretty obvious that he's again talking about Mauer. As always, the local media eats up everything Hunter says, with Kelly Thesier of MLB.com writing that Hunter "has been known to speak his mind on numerous occasions." That's a nice way to spin repeatedly calling out a teammate publicly. Meanwhile, over the past three seasons Hunter played 405 games and Mauer played 380 games despite manning the most physically demanding position, yet Hunter passes himself off as some sort of iron man while constantly questioning Mauer's toughness. Meanwhile, the foursome of Scott Baker, Matt Garza, Kevin Slowey, and Glen Perkins--young starters who I suggested should have been chosen instead to fill the final three-fifths of the rotation--combined to go 18-17 with a 4.11 ERA in 322 innings while costing the Twins about $1 million. It's often the case that veterans are simply a more expensive version of the youth a team already has, and it would have been interesting to see how much an extra $7 million could have helped the Twins' punchless offense. The reason I'm bringing all of that up again now is because LEN3 recently wrote an article devoted to Morneau's second-half decline that included the following: Morneau initially thought that participating in the All-Star Home Run Derby affected his swing the rest of the season — although he hit four homers in his first 11 games after the break. But last week he admitted that he gave away too many at-bats, which his postbreak numbers (seven homers and 37 RBI) reflect.Whether LEN3 saw my note here, read Ubelmann's post on the same subject over at Stick and Ball Guy's blog, or did the required number-crunching on his own, it's nice to see a mainstream media member who's covering the Twins go beyond simply trusting that whatever someone from the team tells them is fact. I like him. I like the possibilities of what he brings to the table. When he relaxes, he can really put a swing on the ball. It's hard. You're pressing, you want to do well, and you're not playing every day. I just talked to him about relaxing. He's a big, strong guy. You know what? You're going to strike out, son. Everybody does. Just swing away. And when he does connect, he hits it a long ways. Power is something that's hard to find.When a manager goes out of his way to play guys who lack power on a team that clearly values power less than most organizations, it's amusing to hear him say that "power is something that's hard to find." Beyond that, this amazingly isn't the first time that Gardenhire has heaped praise on Jones, who's a career .250/.304/.439 hitter in nine minor-league seasons and batted .208/.262/.338 in 31 games with the Twins as a 26-year-old rookie.  Talking about Jones being called up for the first time back in May, Gardenhire said: "We let him get his feet wet. But I'd like for him to get a soaking. I really like the instant run production he can put up there when he walks up to the plate." At the time, his praise of Jones helped me further come along to the notion that Gardenhire doesn't always treat young players unfairly and always irrationally favor veterans, but rather only praises mediocre players. Here's what I wrote at the time:If Jones was good, Gardenhire would surely be telling anyone who would listen that he strikes out too much or needs to work on his defense or isn't "having good at-bats." But because Jones has all those weaknesses and isn't good, Gardenhire lets the compliments and words of encouragement fly. I used to think that Gardenhire put guys like Jones in the "young" category with Kubel, Bartlett, and Baker, but it's starting to seem like he views them as "mediocre" with Ford, Silva, Juan Castro, and Tony Batista.Of course, it's only a theory. Once you're done here, check out my latest "Daily Dose" column over at Rotoworld.
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
Almost, But Not QuiteIf you'd have told me in January that Ramon Ortiz would be the winning pitcher in MLB's first October game, I'd have been thrilled. And shocked. That the victory was for the Rockies and came after Ortiz posted a 5.14 ERA for the Twins is somehow both more and less surprising at the same time. If last night's Wild Card-deciding game between the Rockies and Padres in any indication of what's ahead in the playoffs, the next month might be enough to make me forget about the Twins' season for a while.  Those of you who either haven't been around during past offseasons or have short memories may be wondering what happens to this blog once the Twins' season is over. The answer is that it's business as usual. Today's content is meager because I went to a concert last night and then stayed up late to watch the 13-inning Rockies-Padres game when I got home--once every three years I allow life to interfere with blogging--but you can expect 4-5 new entries per week from now until spring training.Along with yesterday's look at how the Twins' bullpen this season compared to the 2006 version, I'm currently working on a few other review-style entries that examine various aspects of the Twins' first losing season since 2000. I'm hoping to have the first one posted here tomorrow, but that depends on whether or not some custom stats that I've called in a favor for get delivered between now and then. In the meantime, I'm hosting a fantasy football "chat" over at Rotoworld this afternoon. Come say hello. Once you're done here, check out my latest "Daily Dose" column over at Rotoworld.
Monday, October 01, 2007
Breaking Down The BullpenRelief pitching was perhaps the Twins' biggest strength this season, but the bullpen was actually much worse than last season. Over at The Hardball Times, Dave Studenmund compared each team's 2006 bullpen to their 2007 bullpen using Win Probability Added, which showed that the Twins' bullpen experienced the third-biggest season-to-season decline. Last season's relievers combined for an 11.00 WPA, whereas this year's group finished at 6.02. Here's what the traditional numbers look like: YEAR ERA IP SO BB HR AVG OBP SLGEven at 6.02 WPA the Twins' bullpen ranked as the sixth-best in baseball, but at 11.00 they led MLB by a wide margin in 2006. That 4.98 WPA decline ranked as the third-largest behind only the A's (8.31) and Yankees (8.04). In what isn't surprising given that they went from a fourth-place finish that included tons of blown leads to a division title, the Indians' bullpen experienced the biggest season-to-season improvement, going from -6.80 WPA in 2006 to 7.83 WPA in 2007 for an amazing jump of 14.63 WPA. It's also interesting to note that MLB bullpens as a whole improved quite a bit compared to last season, which suggests that either teams are doing a better job of deploying their relievers or relievers simply had a good year. A dozen teams saw their bullpen improve by at least 3.00 WPA this season, whereas the Twins were among just six teams that saw their bullpen decline by at least 3.00 WPA. For the Twins relievers who were around in both 2006 and 2007, here's a look at how they fared: 2006 2007 DIFFJoe Nathan's decline was a big one, but he actually just went from extraordinary to merely excellent. In 2006, Nathan's 5.13 WPA ranked third among all MLB relievers. This year, Nathan's 3.63 WPA ranked seventh among all MLB relievers. Dennys Reyes experienced an even bigger decline than Nathan as he struggled with injuries and predictably came crashing back down to earth after posting a 1.47 WPA and 0.89 ERA in 2006. Along with Nathan remaining one of baseball's elite closers, the big improvements from Pat Neshek and Matt Guerrier are what kept the Twins' bullpen as a major strength. Neshek was fantastic last season, but spent half the year at Triple-A. This season he was in the Twins' bullpen the entire time and ranked 10th among MLB relievers with a 2.83 WPA. Meanwhile, Guerrier went from being a solid middle reliever (0.43) to a good setup man (1.61), ranking 18th among non-closer relievers in WPA.  Neshek and Guerrier combined for a massive 2.91 WPA jump, but Juan Rincon's 2.84 WPA decline essentially canceled that out. Last season Rincon's 2.38 WPA ranked 17th among all MLB relievers and fifth among non-closers, but it plummeted to -0.46 this year. As a group, the seven holdovers from 2006 saw their WPA decline by 3.17. To put that in some context, a 3.17 WPA would have ranked eighth among all MLB relievers, so the decline was essentially like losing one elite reliever.Of course, even the seven holdovers' 3.17 WPA decline accounts for just 64 percent of the bullpen's total dropoff. A small chunk of the decline (0.11 WPA, to be exact) came from starters who spent some time in the bullpen. In 2006, Carlos Silva, Matt Garza, Francisco Liriano, and Kyle Lohse fit into the "starters" group and combined for a 0.49 WPA as relievers. In 2007, Garza, Scott Baker, Kevin Slowey, Ramon Ortiz, and Boof Bonser fit into the "starters" group and combined for a 0.38 WPA as relievers. That leaves 1.70 WPA worth of decline to account for still and it's pretty easy to spot. Aside from the aforementioned starters spending some time in the bullpen, the Twins used a grand total of just eight relievers in 2006 and all but Willie Eyre returned in 2007. However, because of injuries to Reyes and Jesse Crain, the Twins used a total of 11 relievers (again, not counting starters) this year. The "extra" relievers were Nick Blackburn, Julio DePaula, Carmen Cali, and Jason Miller. They combined for a -1.62 WPA, which along with Eyre's 0.08 WPA as a mop-up man last season accounts for that "missing" 1.70 WPA dropoff. Most of that comes from DePaula's brutal -0.63 WPA in just 20 innings and Blackburn's back-to-back implosions that dragged him down to a horrendous -0.81 WPA in 11.2 relief innings. Toss in Cali's -0.23 WPA in 21 innings and the new guys did an awful lot of damage in limited action. There is certainly no shortage of areas to point to when it comes to explaining how the Twins had their first losing season since 2000, but lost in the many obvious weaknesses is the fact that the bullpen went from being extraordinary to very good. Relief pitching remained a major strength, but the difference between being the absolute best in baseball and simply being among the best in baseball definitely cost the Twins wins. Once you're done here, check out my latest "Daily Dose" column over at Rotoworld.
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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 |