Category Archives: MLB

Minnesota Twins, MLB

Why the Twins Will Make the Playoffs

Because they shouldn't.

That's the best reason for hope, because history shows that the Twins under Gardy have been at their best when the prognostications are at their worst. Under Gardy, the Twins have won the division every year the consensus was that they would be lucky to be .500 except for 2008, and that season the Twins lost in a one-game playoff after another improbable comeback. Other than that, the Twins were big underdogs in 2002 and 2006 and they probably had their best two seasons under Gardy other than 2010.

I think Gardy loves to play up the "Us against Them" mentality and is able to get everyone to buy into the team concept when there is little pressure on the team. That also goes for the late-season comebacks in 2003 and 2009.

If I was to give an honest prediction, I would say that it is going to be very hard to make the playoffs in the AL. The Rangers, Angels, Yankees, Rays, Red Sox and Tigers are all going to be very tough and are all probably better than anyone in the NL. Still, every time we try to count the Twins out, they surprise us with another fantastic season. After last year, this better be a doozy of a season.

We just have to remember that a .500 season would be an 18-game improvement, which is outstanding. If the Twins can get close to that and give me hope for the future, such as a healthy season from Mauer  and signs of future success from Parmelee, Revere, Hendricks, Dozier and Benson, and an emergence of a reliever or two, I'll consider it a very successful season.

Minnesota Twins, MLB

Roster Is Set

32 Comments

From LEN3:

Here are your 2012 Minnesota Twins

Catchers: Joe Mauer. Ryan Doumit

Infielders: Justin Morneau, Chris Parmelee, Alexi Casilla, Jamey Carroll, Danny Valencia, Luke Hughes, Sean Burroughs

Outfielders: Josh Willingham, Denard Span, Trevor Plouffe, Ben Revere

Starters: Carl Pavano, Francisco Liriano, Liam Hendriks, Nick Blackburn

Relievers: Matt Capps, Glen Perkins, Jared Burton, Brian Duensing. Matt Maloney, Alex Burnett, Jeff Gray, Anthony Swarzak

Minnesota Twins, MLB

Hope Springs Eternal

8 Comments

There was a discussion the other day on the upcoming Twins seasons and the mood was cautious at best. While certainly a 99-loss season leaves plenty of reason for pessimism, this is still the time for hope for better things for our favorite team. Of course, just getting back to .500 would be a large improvement. So, I thought I would look at what the Twins have done to improve and how this team is looking to start the season.

First off, here's a look at least season's primary starting 9 vs. who we expect to be the starting nine guys in the lineup for Opening Day this year.

C: Drew Butera                  Joe Mauer

1B: Justin Morneau         Chris Parmelee

2B: Alexi Casilla                Alexi Casilla

SS: Tsuyoshi Nishioka   Jamey Carroll

3B: Danny Valencia         Danny Valencia

LF: Delmon Young           Josh Willingham

CF: Ben Revere                  Denard Span

RF: Michael Cuddyer      Ryan Doumit

DH: Jim Thome                  Justin Morneau

Replacing Butera and Nishi with actual major league players are both big steps forward and I feel like the Twins adequately replaced any real losses from last year, essentially replacing Cuddyer and Thome with Willingham and Doumit, who give the Twins better roster flexibility. That lineup looks very deep and could provide a lot of big innings. Now here's the expected bench:

Revere

Hughes

Plouffe

Burroughs

This may be the best bench the Twins have had in quite some time. It is the first time I can remember the Twins have gone without a quintessential utility infielder (ala Denny Hocking or Nick Punto). Of course, it could be argued that the Twins start two utility infielders in their middle infield, but that is why it is a good idea to go with more offense on the bench. Revere will be an ideal pinch runner/defensive replacement for both Willingham and Doumit (or other possible RFs, such as Plouffe or Parmelee). Hughes and Plouffe provide right-handed pop off the bench for a team with a lefty-heavy starting lineup. Burroughs provides an experienced left-handed pinch hitter for Carroll or even Casilla or Valencia and a left-handed backup to Valencia. The lineup provides some great options for when facing pitchers with large platoon splits:

vs. Lefty                    vs. Righty

Span CF                     Span CF
Carroll SS                 Carroll SS
Mauer C                     Mauer C
Willingham LF        Mourneau DH
Doumit DH               Doumit RF
Valencia 3B              Parmelee 1B
Plouffe RF                 Burroughs 3B
Hughes 1B                  Casilla 2B
Casilla 2B                   Revere LF

I think there's plenty of reason to be optimistic about the offense, with the key being the health of Span, Mauer and Morneau, but I think the biggest concern for Twins fans are about the pitching staff. But I think there is reason to be optimistic there. First of all, the starting staff is primarily unchanged from the 94-win 2010 team, with Jason Marquis replacing Kevin Slowey. The key will be Liriano getting back to 2010 form and Scott Baker staying healthy. Liriano has been brilliant this spring with excellent control and more strikeouts than innings pitched. Baker had a sore elbow slow him and will start the season on the DL for a week or so, but he did the same in 2010 and ended up pitching over 170 innings. If Liriano is your No. 1 and Baker is No. 2 and you have innings eaters like Pavano and Marquis at the back of the rotation then you should do pretty well, especially if you have an offense to support them.

The bullpen was unquestionably the biggest problem in 2011. The good news is that only Glen Perkins, one of the few highlights for the Twins, Matt Capps and the durable and flexible Anthony Swarzak return. Alex Burnett might return as well, but that is looking less and less likely (thankfully). Duensing has returned to the role he excelled in in 2010, so the Twins have an experienced (and hopefully reliable) closer and a top setup man along with a solid lefty and swing man. The questions remain with the rest, but Matt Maloney has been great this spring and Jared Burton has been solid and both have major league experience. The best reason for optimism is the Twins have specialized in making a good bullpen out of a lot of question marks. Hopefully, they'll continue to evaluate bullpen options on results instead of radar guns.

With so many health questions, the Plan Bs for each position is very important for this team. The biggest improvement in this area was signing Doumit to be Mauer's backup, giving the Twins a guy who would not only be far better than Butera, but better than the average catcher. J.R. Towles has hit well this spring and the former top prospect could be a solid backup catcher if needed. Morneau is another big question. The Twins already have Parmelee at first, and of course anyone can DH. If Morneau does go down, Doumit can be the primary DH, which is what he originally was signed to be, and Plouffe and Revere can share time in RF. Span is another concern, but Revere has shown himself to be a brilliant CF and Joe Benson is another option in AAA.  The middle infield depth another health concern since Carroll is 38 and Casilla has never lasted through an entire season as a starter, but Brian Dozier has had a great spring and most reports have him the Twins' best defensive shortstop right now. My guess is he would be the starter for the Twins if Terry Ryan hadn't already promised that job to Carroll when he signed him this offseason. If either starter in the middle infield goes down, the other would play second and Dozier would most likely be called up to play shortstop. Luke Hughes is another option to play second base with the other starter playing shortstop. Even if Valencia goes down, the Twins could platoon Burroughs and Hughes there.

The pitching depth is more of a concern, but Liam Hendricks looks ready to be a solid major league starter and may even be an improvement over Marquis or Blackburn. Anthony Swarzak also could be a decent fifth starter if needed. Kyle Waldrop and Carlos Gutierrez provide hope for bullpen help this summer, although Waldrop will start the season on the DL with arm problems. Of course, the Twins provded in 2010 that its not difficult to find middle relief help during the season.

The reality is, the Twins won't be able to replace Mauer or Morneau, so a lot of the team's success hinges on their health. But the good news is both appear to be healthy at this point. Mauer is playing like pretty much every other year but 2011 and Morneau is finally hitting after an awful start to spring training. I think both are as healthy as they are going to get. I don't think they'll wear down, however the concern with Morneau is how much of a hit or jolt can he take before his concussion symptoms return. If he can play at least two-thirds of the season for the first time in three seasons, the Twins chances for a return to respectability will be greatly improved.

Minnesota Twins

What’s the Plan?

69 Comments

The injury to Joel Zumaya once again brings up the Twins' lack of pitching, especially in the bullpen.  We all know that there were a lot of free agent pitchers out there, and that almost all of them went to teams other than the Twins.  That means the Twins will enter this season with pretty much the same pitchers they had last year other than some subtractions, most notably Joe Nathan.  It seems obvious this will not be good enough.

The thing is that if it's obvious to us, it must be obvious to the people running the Twins, too.  That raises the question of why the Twins didn't do more to deal with it.  There are two default explanations we tend to go to in a situation like this, but neither seems to apply.

1.  The Twins are a bunch of tightwads.  Maybe they are, but that's not really an answer here.  No one was expecting them to sign a superstar.  As many people have pointed out, most notably Aaron Gleeman, there were lots of pitchers the Twins could have signed for very little.  The Twins may or may not be cheap, but that's not the reason they did not make more moves.

2.  The general manager is a doofus.  I have to confess, if Bill Smith was still the GM, this is where I'd have gone, but he's not.  Terry Ryan is, and I don't think Terry Ryan is a doofus.

When Terry Ryan ran the Twins before, he always had some sort of plan.  It may or may not have been a good plan, but he always had one, and eventually we could see what it was.  So, assuming he has a plan now, the questions are what is the plan, and why did making moves to improve the pitching this off-season not fit the plan.

I clearly don't know, but here's my best guess.  Terry Ryan made the decision that the Twins were not likely to contend for the division anyway.  While the pitchers out there might have helped some, they were not good enough to turn the Twins from a 99-loss team into contenders, and they were not good enough to be part of a long-term solution.  Therefore, he decided to go with what they have.  This will save a little money, but I don't think that was the primary motivation.  I think the main reasons are a)  to give some of these guys one last, long chance in the majors and determine, once and for all, whether they're good enough to pitch there and b) to make sure there's room for guys like Liam Hendriks, Carlos Gutierrez, and Deolis Guerra when they're ready to come up.

We may or may not like this plan, but that's my best guess at what the plan is.  What do you think?

History, Minnesota Twins

February 21, 1993: Random Day in Twins History

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I used a random number generator to pick a season from the past with the idea that I would quickly highlight the Twins history that occurred today in that year.  The generator sent me to the year 1993.

On this date in 1993, pitchers and catchers had reported to Ft. Myers but position players were not expected for another four days. However, forty-one year old Dave Winfield, the big off-season acquisition for the Twins, reported to camp.  The only two regulars who were not in Ft. Myers by this point were Pedro Munoz (expected tomorrow) and Scott Erickson who was attending a wedding.

Winfield brought a first-basemen's mitt with him to camp despite having only played ten innings in his entire career - all in 1978 - at the position.  Tom Kelly told the media that he anticipated that Kent Hrbek would play 120 games at first base in 1993 with his other appearances being at DH while Winfield would play about 120 games at DH with his other games at either first base or right field.*  Winfield told reporters that he had not picked up a bat the entire offseason, but worked out often to remain in shape.

*Winfield would play just thirty-two innings at first base during the regular season.  Hrbek started 110 games at first base that year with David McCarty, Gene Larkin and Terry Jorgensen each making more appearances at first base than Winfield.

Winfield had driven in the game-winning run in Game 7 of the previous World Series for Toronto, and Kelly expected another strong offensive season from Winfield.  When asked if Winfield's performance would decrease because of his age, Kelly said, "If he had a decline last year from the previous year, then you might be able to say that. But he was in a good lineup and we feel we have pretty much the same kind of lineup, where he should be just as productive. Even if he does tail off a little bit, those would still be pretty good numbers."*

*While Winfield would record his 3,000th hit that season, his OPS dropped 100 points, his OPS+ dropped from 137 to 105, and his WAR dropped almost four wins to replacement level.

Besides the addition of Winfield, another hot topic was Tom Kelly's discussion about Kirby Puckett's future.  Kelly suggested that he might transition Puckett to right field over the course of the season.  In typical Kelly double-speak, he rambled, "I'd always consider it.  I'm going to talk to him about it.  If he wants to move I might move him.  But then I might not.  It wouldn't seem right.  It just doesn't seem like the Twins if you move him from there.  It's like a peanut butter sandwich - you're supposed to have jelly."*

*Kelly did eventually move Puckett to right field over the course of the season, and Puckett would start just three games in center field after 1993.  The move occurred over the All-Star Break as Puckett started just three games in centerfield over the next two months.  Curiously, he then shifted back to centerfield for his final sixteen starts in September.

The organization prided itself on its focus on simplicity and working hard.  Having won at least ninety games in each of the previous two seasons, and a World Series title, the Twins expected to compete in the AL West again.  Still, the front office conceded that its success hinged on young pitching.

"The top three [of Scott Erickson, Kevin Tapani, and Jim Deshaies] I think will be fine," VP of Player Personnel Terry Ryan said. "Whether or not the other three guys [Pat Mahomes, Willie Banks, and Mike Trombley] will provide us with solid fourth and fifth starters is the big question. If they give us consistency at that four spot then we're certainly going to be competitive. Any time you throw our offense out there, then we're going to be OK."

The team also planned to realign the left side of its infield as Scott Leius attempted to shift from third base to shortstop while Terry Jorgensen would start at third base.*  The Twins also suggested that they were attempted to acquire Dave Hansen from the Dodgers to work into the third base logjam.  Discussing the rotation and lineup, Ryan explained, "We have some question marks on the left side of our infield, and we are awfully righthanded, both on the mound and with our bats.  But I think we'll show that if you can hit, it doesn't matter whether you bat right or left."

*Leius only played in eight games that season and Pat Meares took over at SS during the year.  Jorgensen struggled at third while splitting time with Mike Pagliarulo and Jeff Reboulet.

Minnesota Twins

Cost of the Status Quo

2 Comments

Thought experiment! Let's say that the Twins were so taken by the 2006 squad that they decided to keep each player from that team as long as they were good enough to play professional ball. In this experiment, we could think of all the Twins' players as restricted free agents where the team would always match the offer sheet. Looking back at that squad, there are a bunch of guys who make next to nothing these days (or are out of baseball), but there are some pulling down big money. The list, by 2012 guaranteed compensation:

$24M -- Santana
$23M -- Mauer
$18M -- Hunter
$14M -- Morneau
$11.9M -- Lohse
$10M -- Cuddyer (est, full contract is $31.5M over 3 yrs)
$7M -- Kubel (est, full contract is $15M over 2yrs)
$7M -- Nathan
$7M -- Garza (arb. estimate)
$6.5M -- Baker
$5.5M -- Bartlett
$5M -- Liriano (arb. estimate)
$4.5M -- Crain
$3.75M -- Guerrier
$2M -- Silva (yes, the Cubs still owe Silva $2M next year)
$1.5M -- Punto
$1.5M -- Perkins (arb. estimate)
$1M -- Casilla (arb. estimate)

So that's $153M for 18 players (but 17 active players.) Figure about $1M/player for the last 8 spots on the active roster and $400K/player for the 15 spots left on the 40-man, and that gets you to $167M for a full 40-man roster. If you figure that Blackburn and Span make the active roster, then you're up to about $173M. I'm not sure how many wins that team would be expected to win, but at first glance I wouldn't be too optimistic.

Of course, if the Twins had managed their roster this way, Luis Castillo would never have been traded and we wouldn't have gone through the Drew Butera experience. Maybe that's worth $173M all by itself.

MLB

New MLB CBA

26 Comments

Not sure if this has been covered yet, but:

MLB wants to expand replay to include fair-or-foul calls, "whether a fly ball or line drive was trapped" and fan interference all around the ballpark. Umpires still must give their approval and it's uncertain whether the extra replay will be in place by opening day.

Personally, I'm not a fan of replay on fair-or-foul calls, but there it is. My guess is that we're going to see a lot more close calls get called "fair" and then (maybe) rescinded on replay, for the same reasons that NFL refs consistently err on the side of ruling a fumble on the field--if you reverse a "foul" call, it's hard to tell what might have happened, but it's generally really straightforward to reverse a "fair" call. I think it's a matter of taste, but for a call that umps get correct so often, I'd rather see focus on improvement directed elsewhere. We'll see how it plays out, I know to a large degree I'm swimming upstream on this issue.

Eliminating a practice of some teams, there is a prohibition on "taxi squads" -- calling up players from the minors and not activating them.

Do teams really do this? I can't think of any recent examples. Usually the Twins are in dire need of the player they call up since they tend to have a wait-and-see approach to players going on the DL.

And there's at least one issue still to be decided.

For the postseason, the sides agreed to negotiate on tiebreaker rules -- do teams tied for the last wild-card berth meet on the field, or will the tie be broken by a formula?

I hope it's on the field. I hate tiebreakers with the unbalanced schedule. I mean, I guess I hate the wild card with the unbalanced schedule, but tiebreakers are a further injustice (in my book.) I suppose the issue is that this means the players have to play more games without additional compensation, since paying players extra for the playoff game would conceivably provide an incentive on some level for teams to want to tie to end the season. Yeah, it's a little far-fetched, but given its history with gambling and game fixing, I think they are right to be cautious.

I'm probably getting ahead of myself, though--travel and schedule are likely bigger culprits. Who wants to be the team that plays three games in three days in three different cities? Well, I guess I'd rather do that than sit at home because I lost a tiebreaker, but I suppose on some level that's a matter of taste, too.

Quick uniform number switches will be a thing of the past.

Players must tell the commissioner's office by July 31 of the preceding year if they want a new jersey. That is, unless "the player (or someone on his behalf) purchases the existing finished goods inventory of apparel containing the player's jersey number." As in, every replica jersey, jacket, T-shirt, mug and anything else with a number that's anywhere in stock.

I wonder what made this a pressing issue. It seems like most players that switch their number spontaneously are either accommodating a teammate or pretty unknown. This also makes me wonder if, say, the NBA got burned when Kobe switched his number and MLB didn't want that to happen to them. (Unsure on how the timing works there.) I'd guess the major ramification here is if a team makes a big free agent acquisition and the new guy wants an occupied number, the new guy is going to have to buy a whole bunch of jerseys to make it happen.

The deal also bans players and team officials from asking official scorers to reconsider decisions -- clubs must instead send video to MLB to appeal calls -- and increases punishments for slow-moving hitters and pitchers, raising pace-of-game fines up to $10,000 each for the sixth violation and beyond.

Anything that reduces bias on the part of official scorekeepers is a plus in my book. The scorekeepers don't get paid enough to deal with players complaining about their decisions anyway. Not a big fan of the pace-of-game fines. Does the league get fined every time the players are ready to play and the commercial break isn't over yet?

That's about it, except for no corporate tats. Have there been any high-profile cases of this? I can imagine some corporation might pay good money for a forearm tattoo.

MLB

$3B over 20 years in perspective

5 Comments

The Angels reportedly just signed a new TV deal worth $3B over 20 years. I'd guess that it's backloaded to some degree, so let's say for the sake of argument it starts at $131M in 2012 and goes up $2M/year after that.

Say you had a 40,000-seat stadium and hosted 81 home games per year. You charge $70/ticket on 10% of your seats, $60/ticket on 10% of your seats, $50/ticket on 20% of your seats, $30/ticket on 30% of your seats, $20/ticket on 20% of your seats, and $10 on 10% of your seats. If you sell out all 81 games at those prices, you'd make $120M.

Angels ticket prices are probably a little higher than that, but but we can see that roughly speaking, this puts their local TV revenue on the same magnitude as what we might expect their ticket revenue to be. On top of that, they've got national TV revenue from the league, luxury box sales, parking revenue, concessions revenue, and ad revenue from the outfield walls, etc. I don't really know what those add to the bottom line, but it's not hard for me to envision a total revenue of about $700-800M next year.

How much extra money can signing Pujols make them in the really short term? I don't think it's too bit a stretch to say that adding Pujols, not so much adding any kind of star appeal there is, but adding 6 wins next year, pushes them close to 48K/game attendance next year. It doesn't seem like a huge bump from 40K/game, given the size of their market. Then say they get revenue from an additional 3 playoff home games (1 in ALDS and 2 in ALCS), at ticket prices double that of regular season games, because Pujols (or Pujols/Wilson if you want to look at it that way) is enough to push them ahead of the Rangers. That'd be roughly an extra $24M in regular season ticket revenue and an extra $10-11M in postseason ticket revenue.

So in the short term, it's pretty easy to see outcomes where the Pujols signing turns a profit for the Angels. In the longer term, I think the security of that long-term TV deal gives the Angels enough payroll to compete even if Pujols is nearly a non-contributor, and by that point they've potentially gained a bunch of fans along the way.