Cup of Coffee

May 14, 2011: Comedy Central

27 Comments

It would have been nice if all these games against the East had taken place when the Twins were healthy. You know, assuming they eventually get healthy this year.

Three wins over the last fifteen games.

27 thoughts on “May 14, 2011: Comedy Central”

  2. woke up this morning and heard 'Cant You Hear Me Knocking' by the Rolling Stones on the radio. this is a great way to way up! I have a feeling the Twins will win in a route this afternoon

  3. Last night's lineup did do well that the Twins are going with the same one, except to make it a little more exciting, the Twins took out the worst hitter and replaced him with an even worse hitter in Rene Rivera.

  4. The guest speaker at the local SABR chapter meeting this morning was Bill Smith. Here's my report (most are rough quotes):

    On injuries: expect Thome back next week, Mauer will go to Ft Myers early this week and "hopefully" will be back with the Twins in a couple of weeks, Nishioka expected back around June 1.

    On slow start: We can't go on with four "automatic outs" in the lineup. The veterans will come around/come off the DL, but the young guys have to produce.

    On team makeup and Target Field skewing away from power: we worked hard to build a left-handed team (both offense and pitching), and had hoped that by leaving Target Field's dimensions similar to the Dome it would pay off. That hasn't worked out yet.

    On Mauer: Joe Mauer will be the team's catcher(he went on for a few minutes about Carlton Fisk's early-career injuries and compared the two). The current injury is a aberration. The team has "ideas" to help Mauer avoid injuries. Very satisfied with Butera as a backup catcher when he's hitting ".220 or .230" because of his defense, but reiterated that he needs to hit better to remain the backup. Got a lot of grief for letting Ramos go, but reiterated several times that "we would not have won the division last year without Capps." Says Morales was not a viable backup because teams could steal 20 times off of him in a three-game series. We are "always looking for upgrades", but so are all teams.

    On revenue: Lots of talk about emerging as a larger-market team. Twins will be payers in terms of revenue sharing this year (about $15-20 million). A major theme of the whole talk was that the organization has spent the last 20 or so years with a small market identity. That has changed rather suddenly and, reading between the lines a bit, the organization is still adjusting. Gave the example of the relievers who left during the offseason - the organization is not in a place where it is willing to pay $4 million for a set up man.

    On scouting vs. stats: Ryan was an evaluator, I am an administrator. I don't pretend to be a scout, but have people around me who are. We value some of the new stats (for example, have used Runs Created adjusted for position to evaluate hitters for the last 20 years). Currently expanding statistical analysis, will have a newly created position Manager of Baseball Research and Statistics to be filled internally (he gave a name but I didn't recognize it or fully catch it). Admitted the Twins are one of the last clubs to have that kind of position, and that he still leans heavily on Ryan's advice when it comes to player evaluation.

    On Miguel Sano: projects to be a Miguel Cabrera, too big to remain at shortstop.

    Overall I was impressed that he took an hour on a game day to talk with a group that couldn't have been much bigger than 30. He was very candid and stayed to answer questions for about a half hour after. He didn't hide from the fact that the team is playing terrible, though for better or worse his general talking point was "be patient, they'll come around."

      1. Yes, although he sort of qualified it with the belief that they will come around. I was left with the impression that he admits they have been automatic outs lately, but he seems to believe that they will figure it out.

  5. Scored four tix section 110, row 7. Stop by and I'll buy you a beer. Or a hot cocoa.

    1. I'll be in Section 327. Pretty sure I'll be arrested if I try to get to section 110 so you'll just have to deliver my hot cocoa! 🙂

        1. We actually upgraded to section 111, row 22. Great seats, under the overhang, and half price off face. Bad weather isn't always a bad thing.

  6. Question for the wgom: When is the last time the Twins drafted and developed a league average (or above) shortstop? Gagne, Guzman, and Bartlett were all minor league trades, correct? Does that make Smalley the last one? That would be a 30 year drought.

    I must be missing someone. Right?

    1. Smalley was drafted by the Rangers and acquired in the first Bert trade.

      Some quick searching turns up two shortstops drafted/signed by the Twins and to have a positive WAR: Zoilo Versalles and Pat Meares.

      1. Rivas might have played SS if Guzman wouldn't have been around. (Just like Jacque would have played CF in the absence of Torii.)

        1. Danny Thompson was a Twins first-round draft pick in the 1968 June draft. He was the full-time SS in 1972, when he earned 2.1 rWAR and had a 97 OPS+.

    2. On the other hand, they've been on a pretty good roll with center fielders--Puckett, Hunter, and Span for sure, and Jacque Jones would likely have been league average in CF for a handful of seasons if Hunter wasn't blocking him.

      At this point, I'm less disappointed about not developing a league average shortstop (which is generally difficult) than I am in the current bullpen. I guess they're not spending much money outside of Capps and Nathan, but they put a lot of money into two relievers, which probably makes less sense than trying to spread the money around a bit.

      Perkins has been good, which wasn't unreasonable for the Twins to expect, so good call on keeping him around. Other than that, the bullpen has basically been a disaster. Nathan could maybe pull it together, but not to what he was before. Slowey could be good if he gets healthy, but he'll probably wind up in the rotation. Capps wouldn't really be a problem except for the opportunity cost of paying him so much money.

      1. They've been all over OF and it looks like they have a chance to continue that with Revere, Hicks, etc. They still can't find a SS.

        1. It is irritating when such an important position goes bad for so long.

          One name that should probably be thrown into the conversation is Chuck Knoblauch. He played SS his first year in the minors, and I wonder if he would have been given the chance to play SS had Gagne not been entrenched at SS already. Even had he been a somewhat sub-par fielder at SS, he hit enough that he would have been well above average there.

  7. Last year the Twins had eight position players with 2+ fWAR: Morneau, Mauer, Thome, Hudson, Span, Valencia, Hardy, Young. They combined for 27.2 fWAR over a 162-game season.

    So far this year, those eight players (even including Hudson and Hardy) have combined for 3.3 fWAR over 36 games, on pace for 14.9 fWAR over 162 games.

    Without Hudson and Hardy, the remaining six players have 2.0 fWAR so far, on pace for 9.0 fWAR over 162 games.

    Technically, there should be some regression to the mean, and I'd expect the remaining six players to be worth closer to 15 fWAR (maybe 20 fWAR if Mauer and Morneau both get it together) than 9 fWAR at the end of the season, but even 15-20 fWAR is a drop-off of 7-12 wins.

    I think they had a reasonable plan to offset Thome's regression to the mean with Kubel likely to improve upon his 0.3 fWAR. Putting Casilla in the infield obviously hasn't paid off, and while the jury's still out on Nishioka, I'd be surprised if he's much better than 1 win over a season.

    The Twins couldn't do a lot about Morneau's regression--his contract was locked in and it would have been hugely unpopular to try to replace him. Probably best to compare his numbers to his '08-'09 numbers. Even sans concussion, he was more likely to be 3-4 WAR this year than 5+ WAR. 2010 line drive rate is between '08 and '09. Ground ball rate a little lower. His BABIP is at .250, which isn't that far off .273 and .312 from '09 and '08. His walk rate is down to pre-2008 levels, and he's just hitting for no power whatsoever. He's had months nearly this bad in the past, but they've usually been at the end of the season. I'd be less concerned if not for the concussion.

    Mauer could still get pretty close to his 5 fWAR from last year, we'll see. Span's over halfway to his 2.9 fWAR from last year.

    Banking on Delmon to be league average again wasn't such a terrible bet, and he could still get there. (Not that I would have complained had they found a decent return to ship him out of town.) Tough to say much about his performance with only 67 PA in the bank.

    Valencia's hitting more line drives than he was last year, and his BABIP is way down. That probably won't last. His power's about where it was last year and he's walking a little more. I'm pretty bullish on Valencia.

    1. Span has rebounded nicely and is becoming an elite fielder. Unfortunately his ISO is a paltry .063.

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