|
|
|
Friday, May 02, 2008
Link-O-RamaMy thoughts on the subject could redefine Gleeman-length, but the video pretty much speaks for itself and some of my favorite writers have already weighed in on the topic, so check out Bissinger-related takes from Alan Sepinwall of the Newark Star Ledger, Michael David Smith of AOL Fanhouse, Joe Posnanski of the Kansas City Star, Jason McIntyre of The Big Lead, King Kaufman of Salon, and Jon Weisman of Dodger Thoughts. Leitch recovered from the experience to pen a well-done postmortem piece hours after the taping, and Jason Whitlock of FOXSports.com and Ken Tremendous of Fire Joe Morgan also wrote interesting takes after being involved in the show. Bissinger surely got high fives backstage and congratulatory phone calls from fellow old-school media types, but to me he just looked like an angry, bitter, out of touch man who unknowingly made a great case for why blogs are thriving and newspapers aren't. I haven't read either newspaper's print edition regularly in years, but frequent the Star Tribune's website daily. Doing the same with the Pioneer Press' website is tough, because the layout is awful and most articles vanish within days, making linking to content nearly impossible. For a newspaper to make life difficult on people who'd like to read and link to stories online is inexplicable at this stage of the game, and I'd be curious to see a comparison of online readership in addition to print circulation. Based on personal experience, my guess is the Star Tribune dominates online even more than in print (where Brauer notes they still hold a 2-to-1 edge). Phil Miller is a nice, smart guy who does a good job as Twins beat writer in St. Paul, but LaVelle E. Neal III and Joe Christensen will continue to dominate the links here until the Pioneer Press' website ceases being a mess. Also of note (to me at least) is that Rotoworld's daily readership is now within 10 percent of the Pioneer Press' print circulation. My favorite was Willie McGee. His court vision and passing are actually pretty impressive. Seriously. Four years of that definitely prepared me for a life of blogging. I'll walk 60 miles over the course of three days with other people in an effort to raise awareness and to find a cure for breast cancer. I've created a mini-program named "Walks for a Walker" to raise money for the walk. In this program, people are donating a certain amount of money for each Twins walk from the beginning of the season until August 1 (since the walk is in September).For more information, please check out her blog, where you can pledge a donation and then have even more reason to hope that Carlos Gomez can learn some semblance of the strike zone. Once you're done here, check out my latest "Daily Dose" column over at Rotoworld.     
Thursday, May 01, 2008
Twins Notes: Bunting For Hits and Letting It FlyGiven their reaction to the topic my guess is they simply saw the huge total from Butler and assumed Gomez wasn't close to being on that sort of bunt-hitting pace. In reality, he's actually on track to top Butler's mark. According to Baseball Prospectus, since 1959 only Butler, Willy Taveras (38 in 2007), Kenny Lofton (31 in 1992), and Alex Sanchez (31 in 2003) have bunted for more than 30 hits in a year, so Gomez has a chance to make some history even if his pace slows considerably.  Fox showed that among players who attempted to bunt for a hit at least 100 times from 1959-2007, Carew was the only one to be successful more than two-thirds of the time. Carew's success rate? An astounding 80 percent. To put that in some context, Butler, Lofton, and Otis Nixon were the only three players to have more bunt hits than Carew from 1959-2007 and their success rates were 51, 59, and 46 percent, respectively. So far, Gomez has successfully bunted for a hit on 53 percent of his attempts. He walked five and allowed five hits, including a homer to Jeff Bailey, a 29-year-old veteran of 4,000 plate appearances in the minors who has appeared in three career MLB games. Liriano has made a total of 11 post-surgery starts if you include spring training along with his time in the minors and majors, posting a 7.03 ERA, 36-to-32 strikeout-to-walk ratio, and 1.94 WHIP in 40 innings. If you ignore his spring starts, he has a 9.00 ERA, 21-to-23 strikeout-to-walk ratio, and 2.25 WHIP in 24 innings. To show the difference between team batting average and team offense, Christensen noted that the White Sox came into this week's series against the Twins leading the league in runs per game despite ranking dead last in batting average. He could have just as easily and perhaps even more convincingly used the Twins as the example, because they've shown for years that "batting average" and "offense" are often very different things. From the time they re-emerged as a competitive team in 2001 through last season, the Twins ranked among the AL's top five in batting average five times in seven years. During that same span, they never ranked among the AL's top five in scoring and were in the bottom half of the league all but one year. On average from 2001-2007, the Twins ranked sixth in batting average and 11th in scoring, including a 2006 season that saw them lead the league in batting average while ranking just eighth in runs. None of that is a coincidence, because few organizations place more emphasis on batting average while focusing less on power and plate discipline. All of which is why the Twins haven't finished with a higher ranking in runs scored than batting average since way back in 1987. For 20 years the team has been better at hitting for average than actually scoring runs--and often significantly better--yet no one in the organization seems to view that as a problem. When I first came to Minnesota, that's when I was told, "Stay inside the ball, hit the ball the other way." I always was a power hitter in the minor leagues. Everything changed when I went to Minnesota. I would take a hard swing and my first manager would be in the dugout, saying, "Hey, HEY, what are you doing?"Beyond the apparent lack of interest in encouraging slugging and inability to develop power hitters, the organization also repeatedly makes it clear that they care little about plate discipline, acquiring players who struggle to control the strike zone and seemingly refusing to coach them differently. When told last week that Delmon Young had chased more pitches out of the strike zone this season than any other hitter in baseball, Ron Gardenhire said: I watched Torii Hunter for like 10 years. You think Torii hasn't swung? You know what? There's nothing wrong with swinging. That's why they give you a bat. This kid's 22 years old. He's got everything ahead of him. So let it fly. Learn as you go. He'll learn the strike zone.Gardenhire acting like he knows what makes Ortiz a great hitter while dismissing his outstanding plate discipline is amusing given what Ortiz has repeatedly said about the Twins stifling his development. Torii Hunter is a fantastic all-around player and succeeds offensively despite lacking plate discipline, but possessing that ability is fairly unique and pointing to him as the model for Young hardly inspires confidence given Hunter's lowly .325 career on-base percentage and unspectacular .795 OPS. Beyond that, why are the only choices to "go up there looking to walk" or "swing at everything"? What happened to being disciplined, showing patience, working the count in your favor, and putting together a good at-bat? How many seasons in a row does the Twins' offense need to rank in the bottom half of the league while everyone in charge downplays the importance of plate discipline before people do the math? And why do they love pitchers who avoid issuing walks, but not hitters who coax them? The Twins have failed to draw an above-average number of walks every year since 1988. On average during the 20 seasons since then they've ranked 10th in walks, never placing higher than seventh. So far this season they rank dead last in walks and on-base percentage, plus second-to-last in homers and runs. Oh, and as usual they also rank fifth in batting average, for all the good that does them. As for Young, he's "let it fly" to the tune of .265/.306/.314 this year and .290/.317/.407 for his career Once you're done here, check out my latest "Daily Dose" column over at Rotoworld.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Me on FOX's "Sports on Demand"Here's the video of my appearance on FOX's "Sports on Demand" show yesterday: "Sports on Demand" - April 28, 2008 Thanks to sports director Jim Rich and producer Seth Kaplan for inviting me down to the FOX studios and having me on for the full 30-minute live show. Aside from me looking not totally unlike a whale on camera, it went well and was a lot of fun. We covered a wide range of Twins topics in some pretty solid depth and also discussed the Vikings, so please check it out. Once you're done here, check out my latest "Daily Dose" column over at Rotoworld.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Twins Notes: Liriano, More Liriano, Korecky, and WaldropI would say maybe one more start here to get a little bit more command, maybe build a little bit more strength. That would be my call. Of course, I know it's going to be a group decision. His health is good. His strength is good. His mound presence is good. He just pitched backwards, and maybe he just wanted to find out if he could use all his pitches.Instead, the Twins called up Liriano shortly after Cliburn uttered those words and stuck him right back into the rotation. He looked shaky in his first two starts and then completely fell apart in his third outing Thursday against the A's, allowing six runs on five hits and three walks without making it out of the first inning. Liriano's first two post-surgery outings were recapped in plenty of detail here, and the third start featured the same decreased velocity and lack of command. After going 0-3 with an 11.32 ERA, 13 walks, and a .366 batting average against in three starts, his comeback was aborted Friday and Liriano was sent back to Triple-A. He rarely looked comfortable on the mound or capable of consistently getting big-league hitters out with the stuff he was working with, and Official Twins Beat Writer of AG.com LaVelle E. Neal III reports that Liriano will stay in Rochester "for a while." Here's what pitching coach Rick Anderson had to say about the three-start comeback: Confidence comes with success. He's got to get down there and clear his mind, and he admitted to me that he's thinking too much about what he's doing. I asked him, "How did you feel before you were hurt?" He said, "I didn't think, I just threw." He's not to that point yet. When he does get to that point, he will have success, and success breeds confidence.What Anderson said is true, but no amount of confidence is going to make up for Liriano's missing velocity. General manager Bill Smith said Friday that "there's no harm done" in calling up Liriano when the Twins did, but Anderson's quote about his current lack of confidence may contradict that somewhat. Smith also admitted that the Twins rushed Liriano's return timetable "just a bit" due to Kevin Slowey's biceps injury, which seems incredibly short-sighted. "I think we did the right thing," Smith said. "Maybe the best thing that will come out of this is everyone realizes he's not ready." Fair enough, but given how he pitched this spring and during his abbreviated stay in the minors, it's unclear exactly what made the Twins think that Liriano would have success in the majors to begin with. Of course, my MinnPost colleague Pat Borzi recently wrote that the Twins may have wanted Liriano in the majors just to keep an eye on him regardless of his performance. It seems pretty obvious now that those reports were completely false, because Liriano averaged 88-91 miles per hour with his fastball this month, reached 93 MPH on maybe a handful of pitches in three starts, and never came anywhere close to "throwing it up to 96" at any point. Nearly every report about Liriano prior to his arrival at spring training noted that he was looking good and throwing as hard as ever, which is astounding given what we know now.  That got my dander up at the time, because it differed dramatically from every other Liriano report, yet Ringolsby didn't see fit to expand upon his note. My response here opined that the Liriano information "would be worthy of more than a one-line note buried midway through Ringolsby's column if it was based on serious reporting" and suggested that "if Ringolsby has solid information about Liriano being behind schedule, it'd be nice to engage in a little journalism by sharing with the rest of the class." For the most part my feelings on Ringolsby's report haven't changed. It seemed to me that "he will not be ready until midseason" implied that Liriano wouldn't pitch until then, let alone pitch multiple times in April. Beyond that, Ringolsby dropping that little tidbit into the middle of a column without going into any further detail still seems odd to me, but while engaging in an extremely long, testy e-mail discussion with me over the past few weeks Ringolsby explained that his non-Rockies coverage is limited. Of course, the column that the Liriano note appeared in contained 1,300 words of non-Rockies content, so Ringolsby certainly could have offered up another sentence or two if he felt that the news he was passing along had major importance. Whatever the case, my dismissal of Ringolsby's note was due partly to it differing from what later proved to be totally inaccurate reports, making the whole situation an interesting reminder not to believe everything you read regardless of the source (among other things). He's spent parts of three seasons at Triple-A, posting a 3.31 ERA and 111-to-54 strikeout-to-walk ratio over 149.1 total innings. Korecky has been a closer in the minors, saving 110 career games, but he's already 28 years old and his low strikeout rate combined with mediocre control make it unlikely that he'll succeed as a late-inning option in the majors. With that said, Korecky has a 3.04 ERA in 365 pro innings and induces a high percentage of ground balls, so a middle-relief gig seems doable. The closer he's gotten to the majors the more difficult it's been for Waldrop to succeed on that mediocre stuff, which is evident by his sub par strikeout rates and the deterioration of his once-great control. With that said, it's important to note that he's only 22 years old despite logging over 500 pro innings already and has induced two ground balls for every fly ball over the past two seasons, which shows that he's still capable of having a solid big-league career as a fourth or fifth starter.It's possible that a year of lost development time won't hurt Waldrop's long-term outlook as much as it would an elite pitching prospect, because he's relatively polished and seemingly doesn't have a ton of projection remaining. Of course, he'll have to come back from the surgery first and that's certainly no sure thing. Along with Waldrop's season-ending shoulder injury, LEN3 reports that No. 13 prospect Deibinson Romero will miss 3-4 weeks following surgery to repair torn meniscus in his right knee. IP H R ER BB SO HRMaking his way back from a strained biceps, Slowey began his rehab assignment by starting the game and tossed three solid innings. Guerra came on in relief and worked four innings to pick up the win. Danny Graves, who was an All-Star closer with the Reds and is now little more than minor-league filler at the age of 33, pitched a scoreless eighth inning. And Tim Lahey, who was briefly lost via the Rule 5 draft before returning to the organization earlier this month, closed things out. Once you're done here, check out my latest "Daily Dose" column over at Rotoworld.
|
E-Mail: aarongleeman@gmail.com Twitter: twitter.com/aarongleeman  Read Me Elsewhere Rotoworld NBC Sports MinnPost Minnesota Twins Stuff Minneapolis Star Tribune St. Paul Pioneer Press MinnesotaTwins.com LaVelle E. Neal III Joe Christensen Kelsie Smith Kelly Thesier Seth Stohs Stick and Ball Guy Nick Nelson Parker Hageman Phil Mackey John Bonnes Edward Thoma Josh Johnson Howard Sinker Twinkie Town Pat Neshek Sports Stuff Hardball Talk Rotoworld Fan Graphs Baseball-Reference.com The Hardball Times Baseball America Baseball Think Factory Bill Simmons Rob Neyer Joe Posnanski Big League Stew The Big Lead Deadspin Fanhouse Baseball Prospectus U.S.S. Mariner Al's Ramblings Sports By Brooks Baseball Musings MLB Trade Rumors Non-Sports Stuff MinnPost Alan Sepinwall David Brauer Adam Carolla Poker Road Gorilla Mask Wicked Chops Poker WWTDD? Popoholic The Superficial Steve Silver Tao of Poker Discount Sporting Goods   ![[Powered by Blogger]](http://buttons.blogger.com/bloggerbutton1.gif){kind=small}
 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 |