9-16: Thank Goodness for the Padres and Astros

The Twins are not the worst team in the league; they are just playing like it right now.   Since this team is not going to entertain me, I guess I'll have to entertain myself.  Usually I like to write 10,000 word essays breaking down the teams' strengths and struggles, looking for any sign of hope, however faint, but with finals coming up and all that, I don't really have time.  Besides, sometimes a crappy Photoshop job picture really is worth a thousand words.  Like last night's game:

And the middle infield situation:

9-12: Thank Goodness Lent is Over

via Fangraphs

Sweep!

I decided to give up drinking for Lent.  I am nothing more than a social drinker, but I do enjoy beer a lot.  Probably a lot more than I should.  And I don't really eat the best diet, so I figured my poor liver could use a bit of a break.  Frankly, I didn't even miss it all that much, at least not until baseball season started.  This team has not been very much fun to watch, and this game was pretty much a microcosm of all of their problems thus far (well, except for the fact that they actually managed to steal a win, but you get my point).  The Twins jumped out to an early lead thanks to back-to-back RBI hits by Justin Morneau and Jason Kubel, but a couple of baserunning blunders in the same inning nearly cost the Twins the game.  The pitching staff coughed up the lead the very next inning, allowing three runs on a couple of doubles (one was initially ruled home run, but overturned and ruled a double upon replay). The Indians certainly had their chances to win this game, but the offense was just good enough to win, the pitching was just good enough to win, and I think that pretty much describes what the 2011 Twins will be:  just good enough to win more often than not.  I hope my liver enjoyed its vacation. 

8-12: Not Last

via Fangraphs

Look out first-place Cleveland Indians, here come the Twins! 

Rumors of the Twins' demise may have been a tad premature.  Blah, blah, it's April, blah, blah, blah, small sample size, blah, blah, blah, it ain't over 'til it's over, blah blah, remember 2006 and 2009, blah, blah, blah. I think we all knew going into the season that this was going to be a deeply flawed team in a deeply flawed division. Most projection systems had the Twins winning it, but with little more than three games separating them from the Tigers and White Sox atop the division. The good news is that the Twins probably aren't as bad as they've been playing as of late. The bad news, of course, is that they don't have much of a margin for error.  


A few more thoughts on the Twins' slow start:

• Everything that could have possibly gone wrong to start the season has, in fact, gone wrong.  Joe Mauer is hurt and/or sick. Tsuyoshi Nishioka is hurt. Justin Morneau was sick. Delmon Young got off to a very Delmon Young-ish start, and then he too got sick.  Joe Nathan isn't the Joe Nathan we have all grown to love over the past eight seasons.  Michael Cuddyer, Danny Valencia, Francisco Liriano, and Carl Pavano have all gotten off to slow starts. And Alexi Casilla, well, actually Casilla has been living up to expectations both in the field and at the plate, and that is not a good thing. With iffy pitching and a weak offense, it is little wonder that the Twins have the worst run differential in the league.
  

• The middle infield stinks.  Michael Cuddyer has made four starts at second base this season, which probably says it all about the middle infield situation.  Nishioka was in the midst of a steep learning curve before his fateful collision with Nick Swisher, while Alexi Casilla seems bound and determined to give his starting job back.  The shortstop has collected six hits in 47 plate appearances, with just two extra-base hits, while providing around average defense.  Casilla is so frustrating to watch because he seems like he should be much better on defense than he actually is.  He's speedy, so he should have a ton of range, but he doesn't.  Perhaps most irritating, however, is his tendency to make a spectacular play one moment, then turn around and boot a routine grounder the next.  

I think the worst part of the J. J. Hardy trade is that it left the infield with little depth.  I am in the minority, but I don't I blame the organization for wanting to part with Hardy, given his price tag and the fact that he hasn't been completely healthy since 2008 (though I do blame them for getting such a poor return for one of the better shortstops in the league).  I don't blame the Twins for not wanting to bring Orlando Hudson back either, even though he probably was the best second baseman they have had since Chuck Knoblauch.  Given the choice between investing two years and $11.5 million in a 33 year-old Hudson, or three years and a little over $11 million (including the posting fee) on a 27 year-old talented-but-untested Japanese rookie with injury concerns of his own, I would probably roll the dice on the Japanese player.


The problem is that the Twins had no backup plan should either Casilla or Nishioka get hurt or just generally suck at baseball.  They could have re-signed Nick Punto at a reduced rate, or they could have added Orlando Cabrera or Adam Kennedy or any other cheap, replacement-level infielder.   Instead of signing another middle infielder, though, they decided to bring back Jim Thome.  Now, I love Jim Thome, and probably nobody wants to see him hit his 600th home run in a Twins uniform more than I do.  But, I like it a lot more when the Twins score a lot of runs and win games.  That is really hard to do when the left side of the infield has a combined OPS+ of 49. And though Thome's contract isn't exactly breaking the bank, his deal isn't exactly a steal for the Twins this year, either.  Thome was one of the great free agent bargains last year, but the Twins were also a more complete team then, having shored up their middle infield with Hardy and Hudson.  A part-time DH was a luxury they could afford.

• Denard Span and Jason Kubel be hittin'.   Two of the most disappointing hitters last season, Span and Kubel, have been the lone bright spots in the lineup thus far.  Kubel is batting .319/.356/.478 with a .372 wOBA and .159 ISO, while Span is once again hitting like one of the premier leadoff hitters in the game, with a .346 on-base percentage.  The Twins as a team have been scoring an average of 3.35 runs per game, which is slightly better than the 2010 Mariners, who averaged 3.17 runs per game.  The best hitters on that Mariners' team were Ichiro (113 OPS+) and Russell Branyan (123 OPS+), similar to Kubel (133) and Span (114).  However, the 2010 Mariners did not have the hope of Justin Morneau and Joe Mauer returning to their usual awesomeness,  they were stuck with Casey Kotchman and Adam Moore.  So, you know, things could be a lot worse. 

• The pitching could certainly be better.  The organization likes to stress pitching to contact, but so far the Twins have been pitching to a little too much contact.  They aren't missing many bats, with a 5.91 K/9 rate, and they've been walking the world thus far, with a 3.42 BB/9 rate.  Their 4.55 ERA and 4.69 FIP rank near the bottom of the league.  The pitching staff got off to a similarly slow start last year, and they ended up being one of the better staffs in the league, so I'm not going to make a big deal out of a few rough starts in April.  There are certainly more question marks surrounding this group, what with all of the departures in the bullpen and Joe Nathan still struggling to find his stuff, but in all likelihood pitching will be the least of the Twins' problems.
  

I am a little concerned with Francisco Liriano, however.   It's tempting to chalk up his poor performance to bad luck; he isn't giving up that many line drives (7.4%), and the defense behind him can kindly be described as porous.  However, bad luck doesn't explain his dismal 6.10 K/9 or the fact that he's walking about as many batters as he strikes out.  While his slider is as nasty as ever, with an 18.5% whiff rate, his fastball isn't fooling anybody  His velocity is down a few mph; up until his last start, he was averaging around 91 mph instead of 93.7.  His command of the pitch is godawful as well; he's getting just 53.5% of his fastballs over for strikes.  It's not surprising, then, that F-bomb is getting hit pretty hard:  batters are making contact with 64.7% of his pitches outside the strikezone, and 76.3% of his pitches overall.  It isn't uncommon for starting pitchers to see a drop in velocity early in the season, and there is no indication that there is anything physically wrong with Liriano, so it's too soon to panic just yet.  F-bomb wasn't exactly in the greatest of shape when he showed up in spring training, so he may need extra time to build his arm strength.   As long as he's healthy, Liriano should see his velocity increase to the 93-94 mph range by the end of May.

Idiots In Control Now

The season is mercifully over for the Timberwolves. I thought about doing a more throrough analysis of the current state of the team, but why go to all that trouble bother when a 3-second video sums it up nicely:




At 17-65, the Woofs beat out the hapless Cavs for the worst record in the league. Think about that: the Cavs lost 26 games in a row, setting a new NBA record for the worst losing streak in history. Of course, this means the Woofs will somehow wind up with the third pick in the draft. Unless the draft isn't very deep, then they'll snag the fourth pick.

Twins Avoid Defeat by Winning

I am way too busy to be posting much of anything.  I have a test in one of my finance classes that I should probably be studying for right now.  However, a win in Yankee Stadium is such a rare event for our hometown nine that I felt the need to capture it for posterity.  You know, in case it never happens again.