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Friday, September 12, 2008
Link-O-RamaI think he was out for good. I think he was that football player, the guy who kisses all the good-looking girls.For anyone who doesn't speak fluent Ozzie, "that football player who kisses all the good-looking girls" is Tom Brady. Fortunately for the White Sox and unfortunately for the Twins' playoff chances, it sounds like Konerko avoided a major injury. The whole thing is basically 343 seconds of comedy gold, including a clearly shell-shocked Papelbon discussing his "sexuality" with an absolutely giddy Ortiz afterward, but my favorite part of the video is Big Papi holding court in the clubhouse wearing a red headband, matching knee-high socks, and a blue robe with his name and jersey number on the back. Papelbon in a blonde wig was a marginally less absurd look. Considering the lack of warning and seemingly less than ideal Monday afternoon time slot that's pretty damn amazing to me and obviously shows that there would be plenty of interest in making the live chat a weekly feature. My plan is to do a live chat here one afternoon each week, but I'm looking for some feedback on whether Monday or Wednesday would be the best fit (for now at least Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday aren't doable for me). If you're interested in the live chats, please cast your vote: UPDATE: The poll is closed. Thanks for voting. Incidentally, my Rotoworld live chat yesterday afternoon featured 5,195 questions from 2,067 people, which is insane. Despite answering an average of 1.25 questions per minute for over two hours, by the end every other query was some variation of "why aren't you answering my question?!" Fielding football questions from a 2,000-person angry mob is surprisingly entertaining, but it was a lot more fun having something resembling an actual chat with a more manageable, laid back audience here. Once you're done here, check out my latest "Daily Dose" column over at Rotoworld.     
Thursday, September 11, 2008
(Still) 1.0 GBSo close. The Twins did their part last night as Kevin Slowey and a 12-hit attack defeated the Royals, but sadly the White Sox narrowly avoided blowing 5-0 and 6-2 leads, hanging on for a 6-5 win to maintain their one-game lead in the AL Central. Shaun Marcum will try to do the Twins a favor by topping Gavin Floyd tonight after Roy Halladay surprisingly failed to get the job done against Mark Buehrle, and the Twins will look for a sweep behind Francisco Liriano. Some notes while waiting for the division to be tied ... Slowey is now 16-10 with a 3.97 ERA and 158-to-30 strikeout-to-walk ratio through 213 career innings, which looks like a season pulled right out of Brad Radke's career. In fact, if you prorate Radke's career numbers to those same 213 innings they're eerily similar to what Slowey has done thus far: IP W L ERA SO BB HR OAVGSince getting knocked around by the White Sox on June 8, Slowey is 10-3 with a 2.98 ERA in 16 starts. AVG OBP SLG OPS K/BB AB/HRPlayer X is none other than Jason Kubel and aside from the lack of a $24 million contract extension his career marks now very much resemble Cuddyer's totals. YEAR PA AVG OBP SLG OPS HR RBI RUNIn 2006 he sat out five of the team's first 145 games and typically hit either fifth or sixth in the lineup, but this year he's played every game while always batting cleanup. Not missing any time and moving up a spot or two in the batting order helps explains Morneau's 50 extra plate appearances compared to this same point in 2006. He's used those additional 50 trips to the plate to accumulate nearly identical run production despite having 10 fewer homers and a 56-point drop in OPS. Once you're done here, check out my latest "Daily Dose" column over at Rotoworld.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
1.0 GBI keep on living, to keep from crying - Amos Lee, "Bottom of the Barrel"What a difference a day makes. Along with the Twins beating the Royals, yesterday also saw the White Sox drop both games of a doubleheader to the Blue Jays, announce that Carlos Quentin will miss the remainder of the season following wrist surgery, and lose Paul Konerko to a knee injury. It'd be tough for the Twins' playoff chances to improve any more than that in the span of 24 hours, and with the White Sox facing Roy Halladay tonight the division may soon be tied with 17 games remaining. Giddy up!  W L WIN% GB Once you're done here, check out my latest "Daily Dose" column over at Rotoworld.
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
Twins Notes: Average, Average, and SchedulesThere's certainly nothing wrong with hitting .293/.337/.398, especially for a 23-year-old middle infielder, but the lesson with Casilla is that people like me place a ton of emphasis on players' minor-league track records for a reason. Casilla got off to a great start that involved hitting for a higher batting average and more power than he looked capable of sustaining based on his minor-league numbers and sure enough he came back down to earth a bit once the sample size of plate appearances increased.  MLB second basemen as a whole have hit .275/.336/.408 this year, so continuing to bat .293/.337/.398 (or .285/.340/.400) would essentially make Casilla average offensively for his position. Defensively he's posted an .800 Revised Zone Rating in 673 innings at second base, which is three percent worse than the AL average of .820 and ranks just 11th among the league's 14 second basemen who've logged at least 500 innings. On the bases he's been surprisingly passive, going just 6-for-8 on steals.Add it all up and Casilla has been slightly below average for the position as a 23-year-old in his first full season, which is very encouraging from someone who was hitting just .219 at Triple-A when the Twins called him up in mid-May. While his lack of power perhaps makes it tough to project the same type of long-term improvement that you'd assume from most league-average 23-year-olds, Casilla's showing in 79 games with the Twins should make the team feel good about second base going forward. SHORTSTOP RZR SECOND BASE RZR THIRD BASE RZRUnfortunately he hasn't been average since taking over at shortstop after Casilla's return, with so-so range, several game-changing errors, and a .245/.316/.286 line in 13 consecutive starts at the position. He's bounced back offensively after a historically awful 2007, matching Casilla by hitting .285/.342/.397. That'd be very good production from a truly great defender, but that label is more perception than reality with Punto. Still, like Casilla he's been a pleasant surprise and more or less average overall this year. Whether based on his track record in the minors, relatively brief time in the majors, or raw stuff there's little to suggest that Bass is capable of being more than a marginal big-league pitcher. I've harped on that point all year while perhaps being overly harsh on Bass, but the Twins' decision to keep him on the roster for fear of losing him on waivers quickly went from odd to inexplicable. After predictably passing through waivers unclaimed, Bass has been traded to the Orioles for a player to be named later. LaVelle E. Neal III of the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports that Bass may "go into Baltimore’s rotation to audition for next year," but his first Orioles appearance came as a reliever. More specifically, he entered a 2-2 game with the bases loaded in the sixth inning, promptly walked in the go-ahead run, and then allowed two runs of his own on the way to an 11-2 loss. If Bass somehow ends up in a major-league rotation for any length of time, the over-under on his ERA should probably be around 5.50. Twins: White Sox:The Twins' remaining opponents have a .499 winning percentage, whereas the White Sox's remaining opponents have a .505 winning percentage. That may look significant because one set of opponents is above .500 and the other is below .500, but in reality the difference between .499 and .505 is just one win over the course of a 162-game schedule. In other words, the two schedules are basically even and both teams have 10 games left on the road. If you ignore the matching opponents and the three-game series against each other at the Metrodome during the final week of the season, the schedules essentially boil down to this: The Twins play three games against the Royals, three games against the Orioles, and four games against the Rays, while the White Sox play three games against the Tigers, four games against the Blue Jays, and four games against the Yankees. Viewed that way the Twins' opponent's winning percentage is .503, compared to .520 for the White Sox, which equals a three-game difference over a full season. Time is definitely running out, but the Twins will be in reasonable shape as long as they're within two games when the White Sox come to town on September 23. Winning two of three would then put them a game back going into the Royals series, at which point they'd need to win at least two out of three while rooting for the Indians to do the same. Once you're done here, check out my latest "Daily Dose" column over at Rotoworld.
Monday, September 08, 2008
AG.com "Live Chat" at Noon TodayI've decided that today is a good time for the first ever AG.com "live chat." Why? Three reasons, actually. First, my live chat over at Rotoworld last week went really well and made me incredibly anxious to try it here as soon as possible. Second, after covering NFL games for eight hours yesterday I'm running too low on energy to type up any kind of respectable entry here. Third, at this point my brain can't handle writing about another ugly Twins loss involving another blown lead, at least not yet. Doing this without any kind of warning may lead to a lack of participation, especially on a Monday, but after being overwhelmed by 3,575 questions from 1,838 people during last week's Rotoworld session a limited audience may not be such a bad thing. My hope is that at least a few dozen of you can take a break from whatever it is you do on a Monday afternoon to join me. And if you can't make it, but would like to ask something, you can e-mail me your question to be included in the live chat. See ya at noon ...
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