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Friday, August 29, 2008
Link-O-Rama Craig Monroe should be included rather than Brian Bass, but you get the idea.The poker alliance will hold another tournament next week at the Republican National Convention in Minnesota. The individual buy-in will be raised to $1,000. But members of Congress and their staff can still play for free.Sure, some actor named Ben Affleck won the tournament at the Democratic National Convention, but imagine the buzz it'll generate for the organization when some unknown blogger wins the Republican National Convention version. Or something. With newspaper readership declining rapidly and more people than ever getting their news online, the Star Tribune's focus should be on providing unique content that can't be found at any number of other places. Sure, the dwindling number of people who rely upon the newspaper for all their news will miss the AP stories, but that's not the demographic the Star Tribune should be focusing on anyway. Over the long haul, relying less on content that can be found elsewhere will be key to bringing in new readers. I feel like I'm working for the Titanic. The print product is dead. It all has to be fed into the internet product now. The internet is going to save the written word. We're not positioned for anything. These aren't sour grapes, these are the facts. Yahoo! got something like 30 million hits during the Olympics. These places are for real. They're legit. It's just something we're all going to have to come to grips with. Our fathers may read a newspaper over coffee, but I don't know anyone under 40 who is picking up a newspaper and reading it. I think newspapers that aren't competing on the internet are dead in the water.It pains me to agree with Mariotti on anything, but the archives here are filled with similar sentiments. Of course, as Deadspin notes it's possible that Mariotti simply threw a hissy fit and then thought up that stuff after the Sun Times shocked him by actually accepting his resignation. Amusingly, the Sun Times press release announcing the big news included this zinger: "We wish Jay well and will miss him--not personally, of course--but in the sense of noticing he is no longer here, at least for a few days." Who knew that Kevin McAllister and Robert Neville were so similar? Once you're done here, check out my latest "Daily Dose" column over at Rotoworld.     
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Lamb ChoppedLost in Eddie Guardado's return to Minnesota is that the Twins cut Mike Lamb loose to make room for him on the roster. Signed to a two-year, $6.6 million contract this winter, Lamb is still due around $3.5 million for the remainder of this season and all of next year. Between the $3.5 million still owed Lamb and the money due to both Craig Monroe and Juan Rincon after they were released, the Twins have eaten approximately $6.5 million in dead money. That total doesn't include another $6.5 million paid to those three players while they were actually on the team or $7.5 million spent on fellow free-agent busts Livan Hernandez and Adam Everett, whose contracts weren't eaten. Add it all up and the Twins committed $21 million to the veteran fivesome of Hernandez, Lamb, Rincon, Everett, and Monroe, each of whom were released (Monroe, Rincon, Lamb), dumped on another team (Hernandez), or benched after nearly being cut loose (Everett). An inexplicable rebate on Hernandez courtesy of the Rockies drops that total to around $20 million, but the point remains. Not all five of those signings were likely to be disasters, although certainly anyone who read this blog during the offseason saw plenty of objections to the $11 million in contracts handed to Hernandez, Rincon, and Monroe. On the other hand, the $9 million spent on Lamb and Everett struck me as reasonable and those two signings turned out just as badly as the other three.  Everett's value has always been completely dependent on his being an elite defensive shortstop, so season-long shoulder problems leaving him with a noodle arm go a long way toward explaining why he's been a bust. Lamb is the opposite in that his value has always come almost strictly from his bat, but unlike with Everett there's no simple explanation for why he suddenly ceased hitting. Prior to joining the Twins, Lamb spent four seasons with the Astros, hitting .281/.342/.464 in 1,435 plate appearances.That strong four-year run with Houston included Lamb hitting .289/.366/.453 in 353 plate appearances last season as a 31-year-old, yet he never showed anything resembling that sort of bat with the Twins. He started regularly at third base through mid-June, but lost the job to Brian Buscher after hitting just .226/.265/.305 in 211 trips to the plate. Lamb then spent the next two months as a little-used reserve, batting a total of 49 times in 10 weeks while hitting .267/.327/.400 (and growing a spectacular beard). Signing Hernandez, Monroe, and Rincon all struck me as mistakes immediately, but bringing in Lamb and Everett seemed like reasonable decisions. Unfortunately, Hernandez, Monroe, and Rincon were as bad as expected, while Lamb stopped hitting and Everett stopped fielding to see their value vanish by both failing on the one side of the ball that they previously thrived. Lamb is far from the first mediocre veteran to prove worthless after joining the Twins of late, but he's a rare multi-year mistake. Lamb is highly unlikely to be handed another starting job, but should find a bench spot somewhere. Hitting .233/.276/.322 in 261 plate appearances as a 32-year-old is ugly, but he'd be a decent reserve for a team that doesn't have left-handed hitters like Buscher and Justin Morneau starting at the infield corners. For the Twins, there's zero need for a left-handed hitter backing up Morneau and Buscher is essentially a younger, cheaper version of the player they thought they were getting in Lamb. Lamb has hit .277/.334/.418 in 2,937 career plate appearances and has poor range with a decent arm at third base. Buscher has hit .288/.332/.392 in the majors and .280/.349/.404 in the minors, and has decent range with a poor arm at third base. Going with a 27-year-old version instead of a 32-year-old version makes lots of sense, but sadly it cost the Twins $6.6 million and 261 plate appearances in the process. After cutting Lamb, Ron Gardenhire pulled no punches assessing his time with the Twins: His energy level wasn't what we expected. He's more of a veteran, laid-back guy, and we play at a different level. We like to run. We like to do all kinds of things. He's a veteran off-the-bench type of guy; that's what he looks like to me, and we were looking for something a little different. That's probably why it didn't work out.Gardenhire usually takes that stance regarding young players rather than a veteran, but his suggesting that someone's personality is to blame for their struggles comes as no surprise. In reality, Lamb not hitting is "probably why it didn't work out." If he'd hit .289/.366/.453 like he did with the Astros last year, being a "laid-back guy" who doesn't "like to run" likely wouldn't have been an issue. To Lamb's credit, he handled the news and Gardenhire's subsequent comments pretty well: I'm embarrassed for having gotten fired. I wish it had turned out better. Bill [Smith] and Rob [Antony] stuck their necks out for me. I hope it's not held against them. If [his laid-back attitude] was a problem, I wish someone would have told me. I would have thrown stuff if I needed to.As a player who doesn't "battle his tail off" Lamb simply needed to hit, and he didn't. Once you're done here, check out my latest "Daily Dose" column over at Rotoworld.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Everyday Eddie: The ReturnThe original fire is died and gone, but the riot inside moves on. - Audioslave, "Original Fire"After missing out on LaTroy Hawkins last month the Twins decided to bring back another key member of the 2003 bullpen yesterday afternoon, acquiring Eddie Guardado from the Rangers for 21-year-old pitching prospect Mark Hamburger. Like Hawkins, Guardado left the Twins as a free agent following the 2003 season, signing a three-year, $13 million contract with the Mariners while the Twins selected Glen Perkins with one of the draft picks they received as compensation for letting him walk. While Joe Nathan thrived as his replacement with the Twins, Guardado spent two seasons closing for a last-place team in Seattle before being stripped of ninth-inning duties midway through his third year. He converted 8-of-9 saves for the Reds after being traded that July, but was sidelined by an elbow injury that eventually required Tommy John surgery. After sitting out a year to recover from surgery he came back in August of last season and struggled, posting a 7.24 ERA in 15 outings with the Reds. Cut loose after the season, Guardado signed an incentive-laden one-year deal with the Rangers and resurrected his career at the age of 37. Shoulder soreness knocked him out for most of April, but once healthy he emerged as the Rangers' primary setup man and recently took over closer duties from C.J. Wilson. Despite calling one of the majors' most hitter-friendly ballparks home, Guardado posted a 3.65 ERA and 28-to-17 strikeout-to-walk ratio over 49.1 innings with the Rangers.  For the past couple months this space has been filled with pleas for the Twins to add another capable arm to the struggling bullpen, but the team didn't pull off a trade for Hawkins, misguidedly chose not to claim Chad Bradford off waivers, failed to sign Al Reyes, and inexplicably refuses to bring up Bobby Korecky from Triple-A. Age and injuries mean that Guardado is no longer the same "Everyday Eddie" who Twins fans remember, but he still has enough left in the tank to at least fit the "capable arm" bill.How much of an upgrade he represents for the Twins' bullpen depends on how you examine his time with the Rangers. A 3.65 ERA in Texas is very solid and his .220/.286/.358 opponent's batting line is great. Beyond that, at 3.77 his Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) ranks 30th in the AL among relievers with at least 40 innings (slightly below Jesse Crain at 3.71 and Bradford at 3.73). In other words, FIP suggests that he's pitched well enough to be the second or third option in most bullpens. However, FIP's souped-up brother Expected Fielding Independent Pitching (xFIP) tells a different story. Guardado has a 5.25 xFIP, which is well below par for a reliever and would rank as the second-worst mark for anyone who's pitched for the Twins this season behind only Juan Rincon at 5.56. How can two seemingly similar stats differ so much in their evaluation of Guardado's performance? It's mostly due to FIP quantifying what has happened and xFIP predicting what will happen. Much of the disagreement between the two metrics comes from Guardado's home-run rate. FIP sees that he's allowed just three homers in 49.1 innings and credits him for keeping the ball in the ballpark the same way that it credits him for recording 28 strikeouts or handing out 17 walks. On the other hand, xFIP sees that he's an extreme fly-ball pitcher and just 3.7 percent of his fly balls have gone over the fence, and predicts that rate will rise toward Guardado's career norms and the MLB average over time. GUARDADO HR RATEJust 3.7 percent of his fly balls going for homers sticks out from the rest of his career like a sore thumb, which is why xFIP has the edge over FIP in terms of predictive value. Allowing 3.7 homers per 100 fly balls simply isn't likely to be sustainable over the long haul, although as the Twins' lineup has shown by continuing to thrive with runners in scoring position that doesn't mean it can't be sustained for quite a while. However, the smart money would be on Guardado serving up more homers going forward. From 2002-2007 he allowed a homer on 10.6 percent of his fly balls (MLB average is 11 percent) while never posting a homer rate below 7.5 percent, so his current rate of 3.7 percent is pretty clearly a fluke. Despite that FIP sees Guardado's three homers allowed and asks no more questions, crediting him with keeping the ball in the ballpark. Meanwhile, xFIP looks at his extreme fly-ball rate and suggests that he's been very fortunate to give up just three homers, predicting a lot more long balls in his future. Guardado also got excellent defensive support from the Rangers, who turned 76 percent of his balls in play into outs. Like his home-run rate, allowing a .240 average on balls in play is far better than his career norm (.288) and the MLB average (.305). Compared to his 2001-2003 peak, he's striking out 41 percent fewer batters, which makes sense given that his average fastball is now clocked at 85.9 miles per hour, down 1-2 mph from his time with the Mariners and 3-4 mph from his time with the Twins. GUARDADO PA SO% BB% GB%All of which is why Guardado likely doesn't represent as much of an upgrade as his ERA suggests. Of course, even if xFIP is right and Guardado is truly closer to a 5.00 ERA pitcher than a 3.65 ERA pitcher at this point, that doesn't mean his luck will necessarily even out over the next six weeks. My preference would have been to claim Bradford off waivers or call up Korecky from Triple-A, but for whatever reason the Twins opted against those choices. However, if the only options at this late date in the year were sticking with the current group of relievers or dealing for a familiar veteran with a somewhat lucky 3.65 ERA, then bringing back Guardado makes plenty of sense. He's not likely to have as much success as he did with the Rangers, but Guardado out-running regression to the mean for another 10-15 innings certainly wouldn't surprise me. He's a "capable arm" with tons of late-inning experience and the Twins trust him. Plus, the price was right. Previous reports suggested that the Rangers were asking for one of the Twins' top pitching prospects in exchange for Guardado, but in the end they accepted a rookie-ball reliever who was signed after an open tryout at the Metrodome last year. Hamburger throws in the mid-90s and has been impressive at Elizabethton, posting a 40-to-13 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 36.2 innings, but the odds are heavily against the Twins being haunted by the decision to deal an undrafted rookie-ball reliever. Beyond that, even if Guardado stays healthy and effective while making enough appearances to reach the various performance bonuses in his contract, he'll cost less than the Twins pocketed by dumping Livan Hernandez on the Rockies. As we saw last night Guardado isn't going to "fix" the bullpen all by himself and calling up Korecky from Triple-A for further help still makes all kinds of sense, but general manager Bill Smith has at least given Ron Gardenhire another decent late-inning option. Finally.  Welcome back, Eddie.Once you're done here, check out my latest "Daily Dose" column over at Rotoworld.
Monday, August 25, 2008
Twins Notes: Sub-1.00 ERAs, 100 RBIs, and Two StrikesYEAR IP ERAThat's the whole list. Four pitchers in 90 years and all of them in the past two decades. Like Nathan, Dennis Eckersley and Jonathan Papelbon both had their sub-1.00 ERA seasons as closers. Chris Hammond had zero saves in 2002, as his 0.95 ERA came as John Smoltz's setup man after sitting out three straight years with injuries. Interestingly, if the innings cutoff moves from 55 to 50, Dennys Reyes and his 0.89 ERA in 2006 crack the list (along with Bill Henry in 1964 and Rob Murphy in 1986). Comparing a great year from Nathan to Eckersley's ridiculous 1990 season struck me as familiar and sure enough a look through the archives shows that the topic was covered in this space way back on August 5, 2004. That was Nathan's first season with the Twins and his ERA was under 1.00 as late as August 18, when he had a 0.82 ERA (and 34 saves) in 54.2 innings. Here's a look at how Nathan's current numbers compare to where he stood on August 18, 2004: YEAR G SV IP ER ERA SO BB HR OAVGAfter allowing just five earned runs and blowing just one save through 54.2 innings in 2004, Nathan proceeded to cough up seven runs and blow two saves in his next three appearances. His ERA more than doubled to 1.74 before ending up at 1.62. Even if Nathan can avoid that same fate this season, he may have some company in the 55-inning, sub-1.00 ERA club. Side-arming A's rookie Brad Ziegler has a 0.41 ERA in 44 frames after his career-opening 39-inning scoreless streak ended last week. G PA AVG OBP SLG OPS HR RBIMorneau is great, but Killebrew was a monster. In fact, the 55-point gap in OPS is actually wider than it looks because Killebrew posted those numbers in an environment that was much less conducive to big offense. From 1969-1971, the AL as a whole hit just .248 with a .319 on-base percentage and .371 slugging percentage, as the average team scored 4.04 runs per game. From 2006-2008, the AL as a whole has hit .272 with a .338 OBP and .427 SLG, as the average team scores 4.88 runs per game. In other words, compared to Killebrew, Morneau is playing in an environment that boosts slugging by 15 percent and ups overall scoring by 21 percent. If you take Killebrew's production from 1969-1971 and adjust it to the offensive levels that Morneau has experienced from 2006-2008, his line jumps to .295/.435/.615 with an average of 150 RBIs per year, giving him a 160-point edge in OPS. And those weren't even the three best years of Killebrew's career. Not even close. Here's Morneau on Killebrew: He's a Hall of Famer, 573 homers. He's the guy who's got all the power records in our organization. To have my name next to him is pretty nice, but I've still got a long way to go to come close to what he did.Baseball-Reference.com has a stat called OPS+ that takes a hitter's production and compares it to the offensive environment that he played in. A 100 OPS+ is exactly average, Babe Ruth holds the all-time career record at 207, and Barry Bonds set the single-season record at 268 in 2002. Morneau's career OPS+ is 121 and he had a personal-best 140 OPS+ in his MVP-winning 2006 season. Killebrew has a 143 OPS+ for his 22-year career and topped a 140 OPS+ nine times. Killer could hit just a little bit. In other words, everyone is awful once they have two strikes, but Gomez is really awful. He's 27 percent worse than the league average while striking out 40 percent more often. Actually, not everyone is awful once they have two strikes. Joe Mauer is hitting .272 while striking out in just 18.6 percent of his 210 plate appearances with two strikes and if you remove Gomez's awful two-strike work from the mix the rest of the Twins are hitting .218 on two-strike counts. 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 |