Young Guns

The most recent stop amongst my summer of travels led me to the Twin Cities for my first Twins game of the year. Since I wanted to leave the Cities that night, I had some doubt as to whether I would actually make the game, but when I noticed that Liriano was defending the literal home turf against King Felix Hernandez, it became an easy decision. My desire to attend a baseball game in person is directly related to the quality of the pitching match-up since I perceive a much larger difference between seeing a pitcher in person and on television. Other common occurrences in the game are adequately replicated through broadcast, but it is difficult to fully comprehend the movement on pitches and their exact location unless you can see them in person. Simple as that sounds, sitting 450 feet from home plate somewhat dampens the effect, but I was able to pick out a few interesting points in the game anyway.

-First, the pitchers. Lots of fans and analysts have speculated as to why King Felix has not replicated his success from his major league stint last season. One theory which I find plausible has to do with pitch ordering and selection. Writers at USSMariner.com have speculated that Kenji Jojima has stopped calling first-pitch changeups, either getting Hernandez behind in the count or serving up a fat fastball to mash right away. Nate Silver of Baseball Prospectus pointed out recently that batters hit .379/.471/.644 off of Hernandez after a first pitch ball, and none of analysis surprises me. I would take the speculative hypothesis one step farther, that Hernandez is not only getting behind in the count, but is afraid to throw anything but a fastball once he gets behind. He pitched well enough against the Twins last night to justify his status as an elite pitcher, but remember that he was pitching against the Twins and most lineups are not as easily struck out nine times or limited to two walks. Perhaps it was a step in the right direction, but he still spent too much time behind hitters and was hardly dynamic or dominating.

-Liriano remained on his short leash, throwing 83 pitches over five innings. Once again, kudos to Ron Gardenhire or whoever else made the decision to keep stress off of the electric 22 year-old with a checkered injury history. He is far more valuable as a 5-6 inning starter for the rest of this year and the next several years than he would be pitching 7-8 innings a start this year and blowing out his elbow due to the big increase in innings pitched. As good as Justin Verlander has been for Detroit, there have to be some alarm bells going off in Tiger fans’ heads when they notice that he will probably throw 30 or more innings beyond his previous career high. One important difference is that Verlander’s extra innings may mean the difference between making the postseason and staying home while Liriano is pitching for the future. In person, the most impressive aspect of Liriano’s repertoire for me had to be the sheer power on his fastball. I would like to make a distinction here between what I mean by “power” and “velocity” when I watch a pitcher, because I think they are two different things. I am convinced that a 93 MPH fastball with good placement and movement can be much more powerful than a 96 MPH fastball lacking those qualities. The most powerful pitcher I have ever seen in person is Roger Clemens, but Billy Wagner and Ben Sheets are on the short list. After seeing Liriano pitch, I have to put him on that list as well, especially considering how dominating he is with the high four-seamer.
-Richie Sexson has been one of the worst regulars in the major leagues this season and he does not seem like the same player he has always been. Like Jeromy Burnitz, Adam Dunn and others, he makes his money by swinging hard and letting the ball fall where it may. I do not believe he has consciously changed his approach at the plate, but he has looked extremely passive as a hitter, striding less than I remember from previous seasons and routinely missing balls late. He had this problem last night, striking out in his first and third at bats and suffered the same fate for the same reason with the bases loaded against Boof Bonser tonight. It is difficult to say which came first, the passiveness or the slump, because the loss of confidence could easily have come from some other, more mechanical flaw that was causing him to struggle in the first place. I guess this situation is precisely why they employ a hitting coach.

-The most memorable individual play of last night’s game was Torii’s shoestring catch and double play in the top of the fifth. Even though I have ragged on Hunter’s defense- or at least the perception that he is still one of the very best defenders in the majors- he made a really nice play in this game. If anyone did not see the play, Hunter ran in on Ichiro’s shallow fly to left-center somewhat lackadaisically, making it look as if he meant to play the ball on a hop. With the bases loaded, a base hit could have scored two runs, so Jojima started running full speed when it looked as if Hunter would not catch the ball. I would like to give Hunter credit for intentionally duping Jojima, but I think even he was surprised how much the ball carried, extending at the last second to make the catch and holding up the ball to show the umpire that he made the catch before noticing how far off the bag the runner had strayed. He easily relayed the throw to second to end the inning, saving a three run lead and possibly preserving the win. It was certainly a nice defensive play, but the nonchalant way he made it is more memorable to me than the fact he actually made the play.

Offensive Defense

Throughout the Twins mini-dynasty, we all knew them as a pitching-defense team with just enough offense to carry them through the rotation’s rough patches. Sometimes it was frustrating to watch them choose more talented glovesmen over hitters who probably offered more total value to the team, but nobody ever complained that the team was actually bad defensively. I guess the tradition probably goes back to Tom Kelly and Andy Macphail, as Minnesota never really transitioned out of the quick and nimble turf era since they continued playing fully half of their games on artificial surfaces. Tim Laudner won a World Series ring with a .190 batting average because he was a good defender. The team was bearish on both Todd Walker and David Ortiz, both eventual starters on a World Champion, because they did not play enough defense. More recently, Doug Mientkiewicz held his job at 1B over Justin Morneau for months and even years longer than was justifiable for no reason other than his agility and ball-picking. By winning three straight division titles, the Twins legitimated their strategy, proving that preventing runs is every bit as important as scoring them and finding a different path to success than the bombs away approach in the AL East. The problem with the pitching-defense focus is that it requires both pitching and defense, and when one starts to slip, the other becomes painfully exposed. The Twins trouble preventing runs this season exemplifies how bad a pitching staff can look when the defense behind it stops catching the balls put into play. Any observer can see the Twins defensive struggles by tuning into a couple of games each week or by looking at a stat sheet that shows them near the bottom of the league in every relevant defensive category. Today, I want to ponder that conundrum a little more to find out who and what are the culprits.

Defense is the one facet of baseball where every player influences other players on the field. At the plate, the ability to get on base in front of a teammate or to offer lineup “protection” is valuable, but limited in its applicability to that teammate’s ability to hit. On defense, though, there is a much greater domino effect; a great shortstop can cover ground for a weak third baseman or up the middle, and a good center fielder mitigates the damages of all-bat players on the corners. Conversely, a bad shortstop forces his fellow infielders to cover more ground, putting increased pressure on everyone, and the same goes for the outfielders. For these reasons, small personnel changes can have a big impact on a team’s defense, such as the addition of Scott Podsednik to the White Sox last year, turning an average defensive outfield into possibly the best in the game by letting Roward shade towards right and letting Jermaine Dye’s strong arm outweigh his limited mobility. The Twins seem to have gone in the opposite direction this year, moving back from the top or the middle of the back in team defense to the very bottom. Statistically, the Twins are far and away the worst at turning batted balls into outs, converting only 64.7% of their opportunities. The differences between the Twins and the second-to-last Pittsburgh Pirates is equal to the difference between Pittsburgh and 14th place Atlanta. I knew the defense was struggling when I watched the infielders miss balls they can usually play, but I had no idea the problem was so overwhelming. No wonder the BABIP has been so high and the pitchers’ ERAs have been so ridiculous.

Without looking at the stats, there are a few problems that stand out defensively. Luis Castillo has won Gold Gloves, cementing his reputation as a solid defender, but his positioning has been off coming to the American League. More troubling and difficult to fix is the problem he has shown getting balls deep in the hole on turf; his bad legs are a well documented problem and the fraction of a second he loses on the faster surface combined with his slower start from injuries yields a far less effective defensive second baseman. Morneau struggles at times, but he has been no worse than anyone would expect. In fact, he has made some athletic plays that hint at more defensive ability than I would have imagined, but he still has trouble picking bad throws and occasionally just misses an easy play. Castro has not been terrible, but he has been distinctly different than he was last year when he played such a great shortstop. Then, he charged every ball and maintained a strong range. Now, he seems content to let the ball come to him, making plays closer than they need to be at first, preventing some double plays and giving him less time to make decisions with runners on base. I have mentioned earlier that Jason Bartlett has a stronger statistical record at short over the long term and I maintain that he would do a better job even today. Furthermore, part of Castro’s problem may be the domino effect of Tony Batista’s horrible range at third. Even Gardenhire acknowledges that Batista’s defense has been abysmal, saying that Luis Rodriguez gives them more range at the position. When Castro has to cover for Batista, it throws off his natural positioning and timing, making the entire infield worse. In the outfield, Hunter has clearly lost a step after his injury. He was already starting to slow down little by little, but now it seems as if he can only turn it on for certain big plays, allowing him to make the occasion homerun saving grab, but do not count on seeing many more Superman-style diving catches in the power alleys. Other than Cuddyer’s arm, the rest of the outfield has been consistently unimpressive, and the stats agree with me. Among the regulars, Batista leads the futility with a defensive Rate of 81 (19 runs worse than average over 100 games). Castro is at 104, but down from 127 a year ago. Castillo has been so bad he is even below replacement level by one run, coming in with a rate of 84. Morneau is at 92, Hunter at 98, Ford at 90 (LF), Stewart at 94, and Cuddyer at 95. Mauer is the only exceptionally good fielder on the roster at 112. Independently, only Castillo and Batista has the power to throw off an entire defensive unit, but the effect compounds itself with each additional struggling fielder, giving the Twins all sorts of trouble preventing runs and making the pitchers look much worse than they really are.

Twins Notes

A few things worthy of discussion today, the most prominent being the approval of a new stadium. My impression of the process is that the people most in favor of the stadium behaved like spoiled children, repeatedly insisting on the need for a new toy while increasingly frustrated caretakers denied their request over and over. Eventually, the hassle of “parenting” became too great and the legislature caved to a $522 million present to prove their love to the team, preventing it from packing up its belongings in a knapsack and running away to join the circus.

I have mentioned a few times in this space that I generally oppose public funding for sports venues. As a society, we seem to assume special privilege for athletes: the market sets the high salaries, but the culture lets them get away with crimes (O.J., Kobe, and many lesser examples) and bestows them demigod status. Everybody knows that spending half a billion dollars on a facility that can only be used for 80 baseball games a year- or hopefully more- is not economically tenable, no matter how many creative accountants and economists the supporters dig up. A recent Harvard economics dissertation calculated the real value of properties and lease agreements to give a conclusive net cost of public funded sports venues. Surprisingly, only one stadium built in the last 20 years paid dividends to the city: the Metrodome. Due to the lease deal and parking arrangements that favor the city and the exceptionally low cost (about $88 million in 2006 money), the Metrodome was worth the city’s while, but it has not worked out as well for the teams who occupy the facility. Maybe if the state still had the pre-Ventura budget surplus, capricious spending would be excusable, but giving people millions of dollars to build what is essentially their own office building seems absurd to me.

There are things I will miss about the Metrodome. The stadium housed Kirby Puckett’s entire career, highlighted by Game 6 of the 1991 World Series. It is the stadium where I saw my first baseball game, my first playoff game, my first World Series game and most other notable baseball related occurrences. Presumably, the Vikings will eventually follow the Twins out of the Dome, leaving in their wake the Garry Anderson missed FG, the one event that most completely exemplifies Minnesota football in my lifetime.

On the other hand, it will be fun to make my first quasi-religious pilgrimage back to Minnesota in a few years, and the designs for the stadium look dandy. I have always firmly believed that Minnesota fans are some of the most dedicated and sincere sports fans in the world, and the early April games will test that hypothesis by forcing the tradeoff between watching baseball and being able to feel one’s extremities. In the meantime, let’s soak up as much artificial warmth as possible and appreciate what the Dome still has to offer.


I covered the promotions of Liriano and Bonser pretty extensively last week, but it seems prudent to point out that each had a very successful debut in the starting rotation. Neither made it into the seventh inning, but we can only hope for so much from young starting pitchers, and keeping the young pitchers healthy until the team can contend again is more important for the moment anyhow.

In both instances, the game’s final score does not give the full account of the strong outing from the starting pitcher. On Friday night, Liriano only pitched five innings, efficiently retiring batters by using only 68 pitches, but falling subject to kid gloves anyway since he has spent the season working out of the pen. The 7-1 final score makes it look like a walkover, but Liriano actually pitched in something of a duel with Doug Davis, leaving the game after five with the score tied at one. The Twins added a run in the top of the sixth to give Liriano the win, but the game still hung in the balance until the seventh when Tony Batista’s grand slam sealed the deal. Bonser was less efficient, throwing 97 pitches (only 58 for strikes), but making it through the sixth inning. He gave up only one run on five hits, striking out eight and walking three. One could complain about the walk total or the overall number of pitches, but it would be nitpicking, as Bonser rose to the occasion a day after the bullpen was abused in a 16-10 win. Bonser lost the decision when Jesse Crain got bombed in the seventh inning, raising his season ERA to 7.52, a struggle which I predicted again and again before the start of the season. One start is not enough to draw conclusions, but both pitchers looked good. Hopefully, they did not look good enough to Terry Ryan to think he can make the team contend this year. With good prospects in the system, valuable commodities ripe to trade, and no more pressure to play for stadium votes, the Twins can finally start thinking about winning 90-95 games in 2008 and beyond rather than treading water with 80-85 this season.


It is not Twins news directly, but any Twins fan has to be interested in the A.J. Pierzynski developments. It has never been a secret that A.J. is something of a… shall we say, showman, but he immortalized himself this weekend by somehow baiting Michael Barrett into cold-cocking him after a play at the plate. Some writers have speculated that Barrett was upset that a fellow catcher would charge the plate so aggressively, but I have to believe that A.J. said something or did something characteristically arrogant and irritating that got under Barrett’s skin. Major League players do not just run after one another for making aggressive plays, and they certainly do not usually start fights that can be avoided due to hefty suspensions acting as deterrence.

I was immediately reminded of the 2002 ALDS against the Oakland A’s, perhaps A.J.’s shining moment in a Twins uniform. After hitting a HR off of Mark Mulder in the 8th inning to put the Twins up 3-1 in a game they would eventually win 3-2, Pierzynski famously shouted, “BOO-YEAH!” when stepping on home plate. An angry Ramon Hernandez shouted at Pierzynski as he returned to the dugout and many of the A’s focused on A.J. rather than the game or the end of their season at the post-game press conference. Add to the mix the fact that he alienated himself from his entire team in 2004 with the Giants and it is hardly surprising that he was the one to start the season’s first real bench clearing brawl. He followed his performance by hitting a HR on Sunday, then openly mocking the pitcher, Carlos Zambrano, by executing Zambrano’s personal hit-the-chest-kiss-the-fingers-point-to-the-sky celebration when crossing the plate, sending the intense Zambranon into hysterics on the mound. Nonetheless, the Cubs completed the poetic justice when Barrett’s hit keyed a late rally to win the game.

In Defense of Interleague

Every year it seems that interleague play comes about just as the season starts settling into a comfortable rhythm, forcing fans to reevaluate their teams as new competition comes to town. Not coincidentally, the schedulers place the first round of interleague games at a crucial point in the season where a fluky hot streak starts to go cold, making the games seem even more important. Nonetheless, more and more pundits seem to favor doing away with the fan favorite every year, arguing that the important and exciting games for which fans turn out in droves should not even occur. These happen to be the same people who think that Red Sox/Yankees games should not lead off Sportscenter in some perverted form of baseball affirmative action that completely misses the point. Oddly enough, ten years after MLB launched interleague play and the NBA launched the WNBA, the endeavor with fan support and financial success also happens to be the only one that might cease to be.

Fundamentally, my support of interleague play comes down to one argument: it is good for the popularity of the game. New Nationals president Stan Kasten has made a point of talking about how baseball teams have to market themselves to casual fans as well as die-hards, meaning putting a good team on the field is important, but putting a good product on the field goes a step further. One important aspect that makes interleague play appealing is that the games are remarkably competitive. Coming into this season’s interleague games, the NL held an extremely narrow 1104-1096 advantage over the AL in total interleague wins. That makes for a .502 winning percentage, a virtual split between a wide variety of teams. More directly, fans respond to the incentive of seeing different opponents. To continue with the Nationals example, the team drew over 30,000 fans for their series opener with the Orioles, 67% of RFK’s capacity. Their most recent home stand drew and average of less than 25,000 per game, including 21,000 to the most comparable game on Friday night. The increase in attendance has been well documented, and it makes sense that casual fans would respond to the marketing tool of a regional rivalry, however contrived it may be to the fanatical fans who do things like, say, read baseball blogs in their free time. Kasten is right: any extra marketing that makes the team more appealing to casual fans eventually helps improve the revenue stream, which opens up financial possibilities that can make the team more competitive. For all the talk of how the Twins and A’s exemplify the lower-budget models for success in opposition to the Yankees and Red Sox, not even Bud Selig would argue that greater financial parity through the free market would be bad for baseball. Interleague play is an avenue toward that type of financial equity, marketing different opponents as exotic and bringing more people to the game.

It may be instructive to think of Interleague play as a necessary development in the course of baseball history. Just like globalization has led to natural changes in the economy and the way in which business interact with one another, baseball has changed dramatically over the last half century. There is an old fable that the 1927 Pittsburgh Pirates had seen little of the Yankees before that year’s World Series even though they were an accomplished group of players with 94 regular season wins under their belts. The story goes that some of the Pirates offensive leaders, including Lloyd Waner and Pie Traynor watched the Bombers take batting practice before game one and were so impressed by the power of Ruth, Gehrig, et al (the top three Yankee sluggers out homered the top three Buccos 125-25 that season) that they packed it in and got swept 4-0. Whether or not that story has any truth, it illustrates how different the game was 75 years ago. Free agency started to demystify the AL-NL split, cable TV continued the trend, and now we have Baseball Tonight, MLB.tv, entirely too much radio coverage, hundreds of websites on every team, and video games imitating individual players’ skills. The division between the two leagues is illusory by now, so what is the point of pretending they cannot play one another? The cat is out of the bag.

Plus, there are funny happenings every year during interleague that I would not want to miss. Career-long AL pitchers trying to bunt is one good one, and so is the annual sojourn of all-bat, no-glove DHs like David Ortiz and Travis Hafner to the grassy part of the baseball stadium. Commentators always spend entirely too much time talking about the strategic differences between the leagues, which seems like a joke until we all realize that half of the AL managers are really too dumb to execute a successful double switch- couldn’t MLB put on a yearly weekend seminar during spring training where they teach the managers basic strategy so they do not fall into these traps of embarrassment? Altogether, they’re good times.

I could understand why some people would oppose interleague play if it meant tougher conditions on the players, meaningful bastardization of the World Series, lost revenue for teams, or a worse product for fans, but none of these situations exists. In fact, interleague games are demonstrably more competitive and they increase teams’ revenue, making the continuation of the new tradition a no-brainer.

By the way, I wrote this piece 35 minutes before my college graduation, and I see that as a positive reflection of proper prioritization. Analysis comes before pomp.

And I Don’t Break ‘Em for Nobody

After swapping out Silva for Liriano, it got into my head that Radke and Lohse must be in a bit of trouble as well. Silva’s struggles were so profound that they made Lohse’s terrible start look a little less terrible, but consider that his two best starts of the season were both six inning outings with ten base-runners. Like most baseball fans, I follow Major League stats more closely than Minor League ones, but I had to check out the Rochester updates every few days this season just to catch a glimpse of a sub-8.00 ERA. Boof Bonser jumped off the page by separating himself from the rest of the AAA pitching staff with a strikeout per inning pitched, long and effective starts and a microscopic ERA compared to his big league counterparts.

Perhaps the most intriguing storyline here is the demotion of a starting pitcher making nearly $4 million this season and with 152 career starts. During Monday’s getaway match-up with the White Sox, Jack Morris joined Dick Bremer in the booth, commenting that the Twins starters all have too much service time to be optioned to the minor leagues. Since Lohse has been in the majors and with the Twins for the entire run of winning seasons (a distinction he shares with Santana, Rincon, Hunter and Radke), it seemed logical that he could not be sent to the minors without his consent. If you are unfamiliar with the option rule, think of it this way: once a player joins the 40-man roster, the team can assign him to the minor leagues and recall him to the major leagues without going through waivers for three seasons. There are limitations to when and how the player can be recalled, but if the team does not burn up options before five years of Major League service time, the options vanish. Major League Baseball defines a season as 90 days for the purpose of counting towards an option year, specifically in the instance where a player signs a major league contract (thus joining the 40 man roster) and spends less than 90 days playing that season (as in the short season rookie leagues). I, like Jack Morris, was under the impression that Lohse fulfilled his fifth year of Major League service at the end of the 2005 season after spending more than 90 days on the roster in 2001 (June 20 until the end of the season). Apparently, the definition of an option year is different than a year of service time, giving the Twins until June 20 of this year to option Lohse to AAA for the first time since his original recall. Therefore, the Twins can keep Lohse in the minors for as long as they see fit (which might not be long at $4 million), but lose the ability to option him after about one more month of Major League service, after which they can outright him to the minors which requires his approval. The more likely scenario is that Ryan has already started actively shopping Lohse so the team can get something out of him while forcing someone else to pay his salary.

In terms of performance, I previously alluded to the fact that Silva was unique from the rest of the staff in that he was not struggling with bad luck to go with his bad pitching in terms of batting average on balls in play (BABIP). Lohse is a member of the opposite group, suffering from a .370 BABIP so far this year, which inflates his ERA artificially. On the other hand, a .370 BABIP is not a death sentence. Juan Rincon has pitched around his .373 BABIP with a 9.82 K/9 and no HR surrendered so far, leaving him with a sub-3.00 ERA. Lohse, though, has always struggled with a poor K/BB ratio and lots of HR. Small problems in both categories combined with bad luck to doom the start of his 2006 campaign. Other than ERA, most of Lohse’s stats are not out of line with his career numbers, but any reasonable team would be more inclined to work through struggles with a 24-25 year old than a 27 year old with nearly five seasons under his belt. Sometimes a pitcher in this mold will reward a GM’s patience, as in the case of Jon Garland, but more often than not, several years of struggles do not predict success. Still, Lohse has eaten enough innings in his career and won enough games that some over-eager GM will throw away a couple of B or C prospects for the privileging of watching him pitch every fifth day. As I have mentioned before, I will side with Terry Ryan in that sort of deal.

Speaking of Ryan’s penchant for fleecing teams out of their pitching prospects, replacing Lohse with Bonser refers back to two of those trades. Lohse came over from the Cubs for a washed up Rick Aguilera in 1999, at least gobbling up some league average innings at a cost efficient rate during 2001-2005. Bonser, of course, joins Liriano and Nathan as crucial elements of the Twins staff for this season and likely for several seasons to come. Not to rub salt in the wound, but the Giants could really use some help preventing runs as they languish in last place. Of course, the help is not lost on the Minnesota rotation, fresh off a sweep at the hands of the division-leading Tigers. Bonser should provide some help toward that end, even though PECOTA only sees him as a 5.04 ERA. Part of the problem that PECOTA saw was that his strikeout rate had never been strong enough to compensate for a fairly high walk rate until last season. Even though a 23 year-old pitcher can make real improvements, especially when joining a new team and working with a new coaching staff, PECOTA does not weigh the organizational change and sees translation trouble in going from AAA in SF to a full season of AA after joining the Twins. Since he has made real improvements every year since joining the Minnesota organization, his numbers this year do not seem so out of line. He has posted a strikeout per inning while continuing to walk about 3.5 per nine, differentiating himself from the rest of Minnesota’s control freak staff. Unlike Baker and Liriano, Bonser does not have the pedigree to contend for the Rookie of the Year, but he will certainly perform at a higher level than Lohse’s 2006, and probably a higher level than Lohse’s best seasons.

Before 2006, Terry Ryan vowed that he was not afraid of using two rookie starters in his starting rotation. He started the season with the more established players getting the most playing time, but lived up to the management axiom that the first 40-50 games are spent learning what the team most needs and the next 40-50 are spent fulfilling those needs. After the first 40-odd games demonstrated a prominent need for improving the pitching staff, Ryan stayed true to his earlier statement, boldly putting faith in young talent. Nobody is about to mistake Ryan for a Cuban gangster. Nonetheless, these moves echo Tony Montana’s proudest attributes: his balls and his word.

Silva Lining

Forget the likelihood of a pitcher legitimately adding five runs of ERA from one year to the next without experiencing a major injury or age attrition. Forget the memorably low walk rates that made a sinkerballer without a strikeout pitch an effective major league starter. Even forget the painful experience of 41 runs and 12 homeruns in 42 innings so far this year that has put the Twins at a big deficit in the AL Central. Usually, a train wreck this bad makes Twins fans complain in Rivasian proportions, but we can all look forward to brighter every-fifth-days ahead. Francisco Liriano has arrived.

Over the last several years, we have all become accustomed to painfully long leashes on Twins players. Luis Rivas played through months and even years of win-killing crappiness. More recently, we witnessed Bret Boone exhibit a hopelessly deteriorated skill set for entirely too long before he was sent on his way. Old Man Mulholland, Kyle Lohse, Juan Castro, Tony Batista, Henry Blanco, Doug Mientkiewicz. Let’s just say that the Terry Ryan regime has not made its reputation for choosing young players over veterans or for giving up on anyone quickly. The fact that Gardenhire and Ryan agreed that Carlos Silva needed to be bumped out of the rotation after only seven starts speaks volumes about how bad he has been so far this season. I have no agenda against Silva; he’s actually one of my favorite Twins to watch, and losing his rotation spot probably decreases the resale value of my #52 Silva jersey. Nonetheless, you may remember that I argued recently that he has been uniquely worse than the rest of the struggling Twins starters because his troubles do not go back to an unusually high batting average on balls in play. As of Today, Silva’s previously low BABIP has jumped to .335- a bit high, but not unusual for a heavy groundball pitcher. The higher HR rate (ok, obscenely high 2.93 HR/9 rate) and the low K rate (2.54/9) coupled to send Silva’s season into flames. In other words, Silva didn’t just step off of the tightrope; the tightrope snapped and Silva had no net below him.

Let me reiterate: hope is on the way, and hope’s name is Francisco Liriano. Where a low BABIP masked Silva’s weaknesses last year, Liriano has had the opposite problem so far in the major leagues and has succeeded in spite of it. In 23 IP last season, he posted a phenomenal 33:7 K:BB ratio and surrendered 4 HR- a little high, but within the realm of the small sample size. Out of the bullpen, he has posted similar numbers so far this season, with an even better 32:4 K:BB ratio and only one HR. Not impressed by the 3.22 ERA? Consider that the Twins defense has let him down to the tune of a .441 BABIP, meaning that he should have fully 33% less base runners to worry about once the sample size evens out. He’s sixth on the team in IP and second in value over replacement player, nearly eight runs better than replacement and more than three full wins better than Silva so far.

Is it reasonable to expect Liriano to continue at the same high level of performance? PECOTA predicted a 26.6 VORP for Liriano in 39 games (22 starts, 158 IP). The playing time projections were pretty much on target. The Twins used him as a “long” reliever, averaging about 2 IP per performance with more days in between uses, but if he had pitched those 17 relief appearances at one inning per appearance, that would leave him 141 innings in 22 starts, or approximately six and a half innings per start. Considering that he joins the rotation in its eighth full turn, Liriano stands to make about 23-24 starts, putting the playing time on par with PECOTA’s projection. The 4.18 EqERA seems high for Liriano, though, as he has proven that he can strike out more than 8 batters per nine innings and walk less than 3.3/9, which are the rates PECOTA had set for him. He has not shown a particular proclivity for throwing groundballs over his minor league career, but has thrown almost two groundballs for every flyball his limited playing time this year. Continuing that trend would press his HR rate below the projection of 0.8/9. Maybe he is not ready to be Johan Santana just yet, but remember Johan’s first year as a starter? He put up a 3.07 ERA in 158 IP with 169 Ks, 47 BBs and 17 HRs. Maybe those numbers are a little ambitious for Liriano’s first full season, especially since Johan had four times more major league experience before becoming a full time starter than Liriano has now, but his makeup, stuff, and numbers all indicate a bright future so long as the team treats him with kid gloves through the injury nexus, taking the ample contributions as they come, but not pushing him into ace workhorse territory this season or next. Remember that Liriano came to the Twins cheaply due to past injury problems, so as exciting as he is to watch, the team has to continue doing whatever they do to avoid major pitching injuries. If they can do so, Liriano can be a star in the league for years to come.

Red is to Blue...

As spring turns to summer, nothing but standardized tests stands between eager students and unfettered free time. Thus, I like to think of May has analogy season, the one time of year when syllogisms, metaphors, and various logical propositions take center stage. So driven by inspiration derived from a discussion about Terrell Owens, today I want to take on the question of sports equivalencies. You know the drill; in football, pundits say that Peyton Manning is the new Dan Marino, or they will make inter-sport comparisons between the likes of Derek Jeter and Joe Montana. I would like to address some of the most intriguing characters outside of baseball, both through history and in contemporary times. Among their baseball reflections, I want to focus on relatively modern players because the extended media focus of ESPN 1-12 and the internet have given us more information about players on and off the field. That analysis makes for easier and more complete comparisons.

Terrell Owens: Owens is one of the most polarizing and interesting characters in all of sports today. He’s remarkably skilled, uninjured and in phenomenal shape, driven to win like few others, never in trouble with the law or the league, and such a disruptive influence that no team can tolerate him. Can you imagine a player with his skill set signing with a team and the team’s entire fan base groaning and worrying about the team falling apart? Owens is so cocky and self-centered that he has chewed up and spit out both quarterbacks with whom he has starred. To be honest, Owens is a one of a kind player whose off field issues do not extend to anything seemingly serious, but still manage to ruin team chemistry like clockwork. Baseball is a different type of sport where teammates interact less on the field and can therefore do their own thing off of it without alienating each other. A handful of players have reputations as malcontents or as just plain annoying, like A.J. Pierzynski and Nick Swisher, but between the two of them, they have only managed to tear apart one team. There are also several basketball players who succeed for a season or two with each team before alienating everyone and packing it in, like Tim Thomas, Stephon Marbury, Steve Francis, Jalen Rose and Sam Cassell (in other words, expect the Knicks to pursue Sam Cassell when his contract runs up). But this type of player is more symptomatic of an inter-reliant team sport like basketball where players get fed up with one another. To me, Frank Thomas seems like the only comparable player in professional sports with enough star power and self-interest to make it into T.O.’s league. If you want metaphorical imagery for comparison, recall the driveway workouts and personal trainers that Owens used in lieu of participating productively in Eagles camp. Additionally, think about Thomas hiring his own hitting coach, rehabbing his injuries on his own time, and constantly sneering at teammates and reporters, all while hitting like Ted Williams. Owens has been higher profile than Thomas ever was, but imagine if one of the top teams of the mid-‘90s, like the Braves, picked up the Big Hurt and he didn’t get along with a more popular star, like Greg Maddux. In that situation, I think we would remember Thomas much like we currently think of Owens: a great athlete, but one whose ego stands in the way of ultimate success.

Ron Artest: Artest is another train-wreck player who is more entertaining and newsworthy for his freak outs than for his play. Personally, I believe that Artest is one of the ten-or-so best players in the NBA and that his defensive ability remains undervalued because it is so difficult to quantify. Still, employing Artest is the same type of gamble as building a team around an injury-prone star. It might work for awhile, but you have to acknowledge the constant and prevalent possibility of a cataclysmic meltdown. Once again, I see one comparable baseball player in recent history who is so skilled and so successful, yet so explosive as to offset his positive abilities. Albert Belle had a similar career, putting up outstanding stats with the occasional violent and unpredictable outbursts diminishing his usefulness. Nobody has a meltdown on record comparable to Artest fighting a fan in a basketball arena, but Belle did beat up Fernando Vina for no apparent reason other than being in the way. He fought with umps and yelled at them, he corked his bats and he berated fans (like calling them “village idiots” in 1997). He even chased down and tackled a kid who egged his house on Haloween. Part of Artest’s intrigue is that his transgressions are so original and surprising that there are two reactions: a reactionary shock followed by a growing anticipation of what is about to come next. Belle is one of the few baseball players who share that quality, and the only one who can approximate Artest’s ablility.

Peyton Manning: To shift away from the cancerous players to the nauseatingly All-American, corn-fed, aww-shucks golden boy, meet Peyton Manning! Comparing someone to Peyton requires us to understand which qualities are essential to Manning as a player. Indeed, his statistical accomplishments are incredible, but he has never won anything, which is arguably more closely linked to his identity than the stats. He is overexposed to the point where you expect to see him in any NFL commercial, charity event or TV program. If I told you that two NFL players were present at the Kentucky Derby Diabetes benefit dinner, you would know they were Peyton and Eli without me having to tell you. By the way, there is some subtle irony in the fact that the sport most symbolic of slovenly Southern largesse sponsors research for the most visible disease into which one can eat oneself. But I digress. Who is most like Manning? All stats and no results? I’ll say it is a tossup between Ichiro and Todd Helton. In Manning’s case, it is important to note that he puts up great stats, but unlike A-Rod or Lebron, those stats do not necessarily make the team better or get them closer to wins. In Ichiro’s case, he puts up very visible stats that are also very overrated, slapping singles all over the field while some of his peers get on base just as often while hitting for more power, all with much lower profiles. Certainly, Ichiro is talented and valuable, but his value conforms so well to the scouty conception of value that dominates baseball journalism and commentary that his image is force-fed to unwitting observers until we believe that he actually deserves MVP consideration. How can I compare a Japanese player to someone so closely tied to the All-American boy identity? By understanding that the nationality is not as important as how we interpret it, and Ichiro is a throwback to the good ole days of baseball when the managers smoked cigars and sweat smelled like apple pie. Helton, on the other hand, actually preceded Manning as the Tennessee QB, a fact that I forgot until after I saw the similarity between the two of them. Helton’s defining characteristic is the disparity between his stats and his true ability as dictated by the system (or stadium) in which he plays. Manning is also beneficiary of a system that is more suited for concrete than a football field, putting up insane stats because he has spent most of his career with a defense that requires 30+ points per game to remain competitive. Sound familiar? I’m going to withhold judgment between Helton and Ichiro until I find out who calls more audibles in the field and who watches more tape, because those aspects are as “Peyton” as anything else.

Michael Jordan: I know I said I was focusing on contemporary players for this article, but as easily as I could use Barry Bonds as the answer to the question, citing his aggressive play, his unparalleled stats, and his transcendence of the sport. Nonetheless, I’m going with Babe Ruth, and not because he has one more home run than Bonds as I write this column. It is important that Jordan was and is a beloved character while Bonds is quickly approaching super-villain status. The most crucial element of this comparison, though, is the role that each player served as ambassador for his sport. Ruth and Jordan came about at the start of vibrant eras and elevated their sports to unprecedented popularity: Ruth emerging as the first great slugger of the live-ball era and Jordan seamlessly transitioning out of the Magic-Bird rivalry and elevating the level of the game while simultaneously sparking highlight era with his dunks and the help of ESPN. I don’t think the comparison to Bonds is very good at all, except that each player had a great career within the last 20 years, so I will not push the issue any further.

Muhammad Ali: Trick question, no athlete in any sport compares to Ali. Here’s what it would take to make a comparable player: combine the social relevance of Jackie Robinson, the overexposure of Barry Bonds, the charisma of a vintage Sosa-McGwire combination, the sheer athleticism of Ken Griffey Jr., the longevity of Roger Clemens, the dedication of Juan Pierre, the mysticism of Pedro Martinez, the what-could-have-been of Ted Williams (where Williams missed prime years for going to war, Ali missed his for protesting war), the results of Sandy Koufax, and the all around ability of Willie Mays. It may seem like I exaggerate his ability, but consider the attention that he brought to the sport and to himself on top of the sport. Consider his level of success in a golden era of boxing where the best athletes actually considered fighting for a career. Most importantly, consider the status of Ali as the primary focus in an individual sport. Team sports dominate the horizon now, so much so that I am confident in saying that no athlete will ever approximate Ali’s ability and cultural significance. I know it sounds smarmy, but The Greatest is no understatement.

Pack it in, Meat

They say 40-45 games give an indication of a team's true ability. Conditions will change from mid-May to the end of September, but if there is one glaring hole, it will be obvious by this point in the season. Thirty-one games for the Twins have served as a pretty good confirmation of many pre-season predictions: from Batista's suckitude to Castro's predictable trek toward replacement level. Patrick Reusse hit the nail on the head over the weekend when he started talking about shipping players out of town while they still have something to offer the team, but a knee-jerk is never the best solution and engulfing the team in a fire sale (forgive the mixed metaphor) hurts the chances of a successful 2008-2010. In other words, rebuilding is necessary, but a full scale dismantling would be a mistake.

Consider some recent examples of how teams have gone about rebuilding. One avenue is to trade off every last bit of talent, a la Florida or even Cleveland. This strategy has an adverse affect on the fan base, forcing everyone to question the dedication of ownership to winning. As long as Pohlad is in town, the Twins' higher-ups are already walking a PR tightrope, so it would be a mistake to alienate the entire Twinkie nation while they push for a new ball park. Furthermore, I think such an all-out reorganization would be unnecessary since the Twins have building blocks in place to contend with a relatively small influx of new, young, and cheap talent. Now consider the Oakland A's, who did not miss a beat after trading away Mark Mulder and Tim Hudson while letting other stars trickle out of town for draft picks. Several factors differentiate the Twins from the A's, most notably that Oakland had a better team besides its top-tier stars then than the Twins do now. Also, Billy Beane prefers stockpiling draft picks whereas Terry Ryan has a history of mining other teams' farm systems for unpolished diamonds. The Twins may also want to avoid doling out big draft bonuses to teenagers in the draft when they already have two of the game's most valuable commodities in or near their primes. Fundamentally, the Twins have to build around Santana and Mauer, and pushing to get another wave of young contributors through trades is a realistic way to get back into contention in about two years. This situation is more optimistic than the one in the mid-90s because they have a better founded farm system with legitimate stars around whom they can build, not Scott Stahoviak, David McCarty and Rich Becker. Here are five suggestions- in descending order of importance and urgency- for making changes before the end of the year that would open up the possibility of contending in the future.

1. Stop playing Juan Castro and Tony Batista: This proposition should have been intuitive before the season no matter what they wanted to do. Luis Rodriguez, Terry Tiffee and Michael Cuddyer are all flawed but superior options at third base who are more productive right now offensively and defensively and who are not as expensive as Batista. I have ranted repeatedly about Bartlett's desireability relative to Castro, and nothing- including concerns about his vocal audibility- has happened this season to change my mind. The worst that could happen in either instance of eating the veteran's salary is discovering that the younger players are not ready or never will be, which still brings them a step closer to contention than they are right now. Matt Moses is probably the long term answer at third, so they might as well stop hurting themselves and overpaying to do it in the meantime.

2. Trade Kyle Lohse: Some of the surprising early season contenders have been hitting rich teams with a serious need for pitching, which is a big benefit to the Twins if this is the year they start auctioning off their pitchers to the highest bidder. Cincinatti, Colorado, and Texas all seriously need innings eaters right now if they want to stay in contention, and even with his putrid start, Lohse would be an attractive option if any of them want to make a run at the division. We also know that Texas had an interest in Lohse last year before the deadline and that the New York Mets are about to enter the bidding for more pitchers since they traded away all of their depth before the season and now face losing Victor Zambrano for all of 2006. I will not speculate as to which prospects the Twins ought to pursue, as Terry Ryan and his staff know the depths of these systems better than I do (Justin Jones? Francisco Liriano? Not guys I would have picked when Ryan did). Suffice to say that position players are more of a need than pitchers right now with that positional depth in the system.

3. Trade Torii Hunter and Shannon Stewart, try to trade Rondell White: Time to slow the role of the soul patrol. For several years, I liked the idea of playing an all African-American outfield in an era where African-American players occupy less and less of the MLB population, but I would never advocate sacrficing the ability to compete to do so. Hunter's reputation makes him worth far more on the trade market than his on-field ability could ever do by itself, and Stewart will benefit from an early resurgence. White had trouble finding a home as a DH-only before the season began, and finding someone to assume that salary now could be even more difficult, but worth a try since he is not going to contribute anything to the next contending Twins team. Altogether, I would not be surprised if Stewart yielded a B prospect and Hunter returned an A prospect and some filler (which is Terry Ryan codespeak for sleeeeeeper). I guess this scenario means that Ford assumes CF for the rest of the year, with Cuddyer in RF and Kubel in LF most of the time, but the longer term has to include Alex Romero and exclude Lew Ford. Center remains a question, as none of the current crop of top prospects has that kind of a glove and Denard Span has done nothing to indicate he is a major league caliber prospect. Anyway, better to address the problem now than to pretend it will go away, then end up with Span hitting .260/.310/.360 in two years or else signing someone like the shell of what was once Gary Matthews Jr.

4. Try to trade Brad Radke: Sure, he can invoke a no-trade clause, but Radke has accomplished enough in his career that he could be worth more than anyone else on this list if shopped at the deadline. Starting pitching is always at a premium, and we already know that the Yankees and Red Sox both wanted to sign Radke two years ago. Reusse dismissed this possibility because he thought Radke would want to leave as a Twin, but the opportunity to make a run deep into the playoffs has to be an intriguing one, and keeping him around for the rest of this season will not make the team much better, and has a great cost (financially and in terms of the opportunity cost of losing out on a top prospect).

5. Be patient: Winning is addictive, but we have to remember that a smaller-market team does not usually contend every single year. Tom Kelly was notoriously quick to condemn certain players, which often came back to hurt them, like when Todd Walker and David Ortiz found much greater success with the Red Sox while the Twins were competitive, but missing a couple of bats (at DH and 2B no less). Let Bartlett struggle. Give Moses and Romero time to become the hitters they can become at AAA. Don't worry so much about Cuddyer's range and let him have time to become something other than a utility man. Keep Morneau in the lineup against lefties to let him learn how to hit them. I am sure we all remember the general malaise and melancholy that came with last season's fade from contention, but having a plan for the future that includes Santana and Mauer is infinitely more exciting and hopeful than staying in this holding pattern of crappy veterans and imaginary clubhouse moxie. Oh, and they should fire Ron Gardenhire, too.

Dial Down the Center

In one of my Spring Training articles, I mentioned the different perspective I took in approaching a game as intimate as an early March match-up. As close to the action as I felt in the cozy Arizona ballparks, my inability to actually play baseball prevents me from getting much closer than the first few rows. Meanwhile, a variety of factors has conspired to get me feeling even closer to basketball, and it has changed my outlook on the NBA and the sport in general. For one, the NCAA tournament left me feeling unfulfilled when my Hoyas bowed out after giving eventual champion Florida their toughest test of the tournament. Next, the NBA playoffs caught my attention even though Kevin Garnett could not pull his band of rejects to a winning record, as Kobe, Lebron, Shaq and the Pistons have provided ample points of interest. Most importantly, my computer crashed a couple of weeks ago, robbing me of my primary distraction while my final college class ended nearly contemporaneously. The newfound free time has been spent on the basketball court, where some former coworkers at the gym have introduced me to some pretty exceptional players, like the NBA’s Kevin Braswell (he has not technically played in an NBA game, but he has signed an NBA contract, played in preseason NBA games with the Heat, and averaged almost 20 PPG in the top European leagues, so he’s legit). Playing head to head with guys on his level has made me realize just how much the NBA shares in common with a really good pickup game. Some people say the same thing in a derogatory tone, but I mean it in the most complementary sense, since I think it gives the individual players a lot more credit for just how good they are. There is no supernatural quality that distinguishes the NBA or other professional leagues from a group of people who just love to play the game. That said, I believe that having teammates who complement one another means much more in basketball than it does in baseball, and our understanding of basketball statistics should take that interplay into consideration. Sure, certain stats like shooting percentage reflect the reality which they describe, but others are so dependent on game states and interactions within the team that they do not tell the whole story. Watch the Cavaliers’ next game closely and count how many rebounds Lebron grabs just because he is the top dog and his teammates let him go after a ball that any one of them could have had. That doesn’t make him a worse player, but it shows that his statistics are not necessarily reflective of the role he plays in the game. Defense is even more vague, as stats like steals and blocks cannot begin to measure the value of having someone like Ron Artest making the other team’s best wing obsolete. I am not the first to criticize statistics in basketball, and I think that there is some value in them, especially when they are used to describe an entire team’s performance, but I think an over-reliance on certain stats is misleading. By the way, the first time I guarded Braswell, I matched his scoring output as we scored two baskets apiece in a game to eleven (although he was way off and one of mine was a fast break layup).

But my story is neither here nor there, so before I lose you entirely, I’ll do a quick rundown of some recent happenings in the AL Central.

Twins: Ok, so the pitching has been worse than anticipated. Nonetheless, the offense has been pretty much on line, and the team is not scoring nearly enough runs to contend with Cleveland and Chicago no matte how much better the pitching gets. Rondell White has already cost the team almost two full wins with his bat (as a DH no less) with his -17.5 VORP. Sierra, Batista, Kubel, Hunter, Ford, Castro, and Morneau all join him below replacement level, leaving Rodriguez, Redmond and Punto as the 4th, 5th, and 7th best offensive players so far. Other than Punto’s relative success (a 0.0 VORP!), is there anything here that we should find surprising? Hunter and White are the only ones far below their previously established level of performance, and Stewart’s improbable return to 2003 form nearly offsets Hunter’s poor offense. In other words, Hunter has been slightly worse than what we expected from Stewart and Stewart has been slightly better than what we expected from Hunter. The offense was built on the notion that Mauer and Morneau would capture their best possible road to superstardom, and in a hurry. Instead, Moreanu looks like he did last year and Mauer’s power is more of a trickle than a fire hose. Yes, the record looks bad, but do not be surprised if it stays that way if the team keeps giving Sierra, Castro, and Batista regular playing time.

White Sox: Maybe nobody noticed it, but the Sox picked up Jeff Nelson and shipped him to their extended spring training camp earlier this week. I’ll grant that the probability of getting anything out of Nelson is low, but the team assumes virtually no risk if he washes out. The move exemplifies the change that made Kenny Williams a good GM: he went from taking big risks with high rewards (Carl Everett- first time, Roberto Alomar) to taking many small risks that could collectively pan out into one or two diamonds in the rough, like Bobby Jenks. The Red Sox successfully employed this strategy in nabbing David Ortiz, then using him with Jeremy Giambi, Kevin Millar and David McCarty until Ortiz definitively won the battle. I hate to acknowledge that the Sox are now whipping the Twins administratively as well as on the field, but I can only run from the truth for so long.

Indians: C.C. Sabathia is back for now, but he still looks like a muscle strain waiting to happen. I’m not such a stickler for body type on a professional athlete, but Sabathia is one of those instances where the injury is so easily traceable to his lifestyle. Remember when David Wells hurt himself on a barstool? C.C.’s problems with strained muscles rank right up there with Boomer’s on the “Well, no shit” scale. Cleveland’s front office is famous for their loyalty and their interest in guys with good personalities, but for their sake I hope they don’t have too much Midwestern courtesy to at least tell their best pitcher to learn to touch his toes.

As I mentioned earlier, I am currently sans computer, so updates will be sporadic until that situation is resolved.