Twins Notes: Lohse and the O

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote the following about Kyle Lohse:

"It seems that Lohse has more or less come to a point of mutual dissatisfaction with Minnesota, and neither side would be angry to see the union end. So what happens? He finally starts succeeding, exemplified by the seven shutout innings he threw in the depressing loss to KC."

Both of the predictions seem to be pretty much on the money, as he's pitched better over the last couple of weeks while his relationship with the team has devolved into childish fighting, and the front office has openly acknowledged that they will try to trade him in the offseason (ESPN insider). Gardy recently lifted Lohse from a game earlier than he wanted, and Lohse took a baseball bat to the door of Gardy's office after the game, injuring himself in the process. While Lohse is behaving like one of those kids on a Sally Jesse Rafael bootcamp show, Gardy is successfully playing the role of sympathetic, but not blameless parent. It wouldn't surprise me to find out that Gardy has been lifting Lohse early routinely as a misguided disciplinary effort. As I've mentioned several times, Lohse is having a surprisingly good season; his 26.6 VORP is good for 4th on the team, a stone's throw from Radke's 32.0. Overall, that ranks him tied for 31st in the AL with C.C. Sabathia, ahead of the much more heralded Jeremy Bonderman, among others.

I keep writing about Lohse because I think the media covering the Twins have ganged up on him as a sort of scapegoat for a bad season and for clubhouse instability. Another symptom of misguided media: the ESPN broadcast crew last week attributing the Twins weak offense to the inability to resign Corey Koskie and Christian Guzman. It would be hard to say that Koskie's injury would be predictable; even with a chronically bad back, a broken thumb is just unfortunate. Guzman, though, was not a "loss" as much as it was "cutting bait." After several consecutive seasons of declining production, they let him walk into the open arms of Jim Bowden, who now has to give up a compensatory draft pick for the right to play someone who can't hit .200.

To compare the actual stats, the Twins aren't losing much there. In terms of pure wins, Koskie is 2.0 Wins Above Replace Player, Guzman about .4. The Minnesota trio of Cuddyer, Castro and Bartlett has a cumulative 6.9 WARP (1.3, 3.3, 2.3 respectively) including adjusted offensive and defensive contributions. In terms of rate stats, Koskie has a .255 EQA (equivalent average, designed to make all offensive contributions look like a batting average, where a good player is about .300, etc), Guzman is at .184, Cuddyer at .254 (strikingly similar to Koskie offensively), Castro at .245, and Bartlett at .249.

These numbers can lead to two conclusions upon which we may not currently be in agreement. First, the Twins offensive problems are not due to free agent departures. Unless you count non-tendering David Ortiz (which wasn't that bad of a move for a team with more depth than cash), the position players they have lost due to price in one way or another are A. J. Pierzynski, Doug Mientkiewicz, Corey Koskie and Christian Guzman. All of these players had the best years in Twins uniforms, all of them declined noticeably with other teams. Add in Eric Milton, LaTroy Hawkins and Eddie Guardado as players Terry Ryan has gotten rid of by his own volition, and he has a pretty exceptional record of knowing when to turn someone loose. Considering that he actually turned a profit of Joe Nathan, Carlos Silva, Nick Punto, Francisco Liriano, Boof Bonser and a pocketful of draft picks, and Ryan looks like a genius. In any case, the offensive failure is an internal phenomenon, powered by the poor seasons of Justin Morneau, the second base disaster, Shannon Stewart and Lew Ford. If they got league average production from each of these positions, the offense would probably be good enough to get them into the playoffs.

The second, and less important, conclusion is that Juan Castro has not been that bad. Indeed, defensive metrics are raw, but by any measure, he has been brilliant in the field, and just a tick behind Bartlett offensively. I don't mean to say that he should keep getting playing time, as Bartlett should continue his improvement, but they could do worse than giving Castro some starts at second if Punto and Rivas are the next best options. Also, it isn't fair to hang the poor season on him, as he's only a small part of the problem.

NL Wild Card updates forthcoming, hopefully on Thursday.