A Return to Relevance

Undoubtedly, one of success’ spoils is attention. Players readily acknowledge that they play for the fans as much as they play for themselves; imagine a scene where the Miami Heat celebrated their game six NBA Finals win in an empty arena- no fans, no cameras, no David Stern, no distraught Texans, no teary-eyed Mark Cuban. In the same vein, it is difficult for a fan when his or her team fades into irrelevance, receiving only standard beat reports about how so-and-so took some good BP and thinks he has corrected his swing. After four straight winning seasons, three of which ended in the postseason, the Twins firmly entrenched themselves in Major League Baseball’s collective consciousness, but a disappointing fade in 2005 followed by a lackluster 17-24 start in 2006 saw them riding in the AL Central’s backseat. The White Sox continue to ride high on the publicity hog with a World Championship and the most charismatic- good or bad- manager in the game (please do not ask me to take Jay Mariotti’s side on any issue). The Tigers make for a genuinely good baseball story, especially for newspaper writers who prefer to see success befall teams playing by the book. A team turning it around behind a lifer like Jim Leyland and a glovey, gritty leader like Pudge Rodriguez almost writes its own puff pieces. Kansas City has been so bad that out of towners at least fell sorry for the team and its fans, while Cleveland has received a fair amount of press for falling so far short of expectations.

All the while, the Twins slowly but surely circled the toilet bowl for the first month and a half of the season, not making a statement for their inclusion in the public dialogue, but not falling so far short as to warrant national attention- precisely the kind of negative reinforcement that may have forced changes sooner. Eventually, the level heads seized control of the organization from whomever made the egregiously poor value calculations that preferred Castro’s glove to Bartlett’s bat, White’s past to Kubel’s present and future, Lohse’s salary to Liriano’s dominance, and Batista’s… um, whatever Batista did to Punto’s marginally useful on-base skills. With the changes has come a relative outpouring of press, mostly positive, for the way the Twins have started leveraging their always strong farm system into results on the field. Some of the authors have provided clever and thoughtful insights into why the Twins have improved as they have, while others have not. I would like to relay some of the overriding themes of the articles to you in order to distill the usefulness from the editorial failure.

San Francisco Chronicle, 6/18, “Twins are princes at home but paupers on road,” by Mark Camps- This short article simply points out that the Twins have struggled on the road, but offers no explanation one way or the other. Camps recalls the “Dome Field Advantage” from the ‘80s and early ‘90s, but offers no discussion of how the team’s success rate has fluctuated as other teams moved away from turf and played more and more games outdoors with the closings of the Kingdome and the Astrodome. I truly believe that the Twins home-road splits are largely the vagaries of a small sample size and that their final road record will not be nearly so morbid having completed 81 games. Remember from my research on home field advantage last summer that it is not unusual for a team to win 25% more games at home than on the road, and the Twins have already started to experience a sharp correction.
New York Times, 6/18, “Mauer Kneels Before No One in Batting Race,” by Murray Chass- Clearly, Mauer has arrived when he makes it into the New York Times Sports section. Chass, a terrific writer, picked a good topic as Mauer surged to the AL batting lead, pointing out that no catcher had ever won the AL batting title. Even without much power (.142 ISO), Mauer is sandwiched between Miguel Cabrera and Carlos Beltran as the 8th most valuable offensive player in the majors with a 34.6 VORP, easily on pace to set the Twins single-season record once again. Chass interviewed both players who have been in batting title pursuits and former catchers who had to grind out ABs on progressively sorer knees late in the season, and all agreed that Mauer’s heady approach to hitting gives him a good chance to stay in the race. Tony Pena pointed out that catching is also mentally draining, but Chass added that Mauer has hit .670 in his 27 ABs as a DH this year.

Houston Chronicle, 6/21, “Squeezed by small market, Twins get top players young and cheap,” by Terrance Harris- Another worthless piece reiterating that there are multiple approaches to building a ball club that have worked through the history of the game. Different teams win in different ways, and while it may be easier to patch holes in the near term through free agent acquisitions, that type of roster constructions can be weak on the edges with little cheap and malleable talent available from having given away so many draft picks. Harris is reiterating Michael Lewis’s central theme from Moneyball, but in a much less controversial manor, largely because it does not include critical analysis, numbers, or Billy Beane’s ego. An interview with Gardenhire yielded the only truly interesting part of the article, where he points out some of the drawbacks of signing free agents and insists that the days of being content to finish .500 are long gone. It seems as if his view of history places 2002-2004 closer to the present than 2005, as the team has very recently thrown away money on free agents (moves which Gardenhire vociferously praised through his insistence on playing the likes of Castro, White and Batista) and contented itself with finishing very near .500. I guess I ought to stop being surprised when Gardenhire shows an inability to think critically.

Baseball Prospectus, 6/23, “Stealing the Spotlight,” by Joe Sheehan- Sheehan’s article was the one that really caught my attention, because I generally regard his chosen topics as reflective of the most important baseball stories in the current news cycle. In my estimation, Sheehan’s greatest strength is his ability to step back and discern the important parts of a team’s makeup or performance from the irrelevant parts. He compliments the Twins decisions while remaining critical of their timing, saying that the Twins could have been real contenders if they put their best lineup on the field at the start of the season rather than giving some very worthy opponents a considerable head start. He writes that, “The best thing to come out of this season, if Ryan and Gardenhire take the lesson, is an understanding that experience is no substitute for ability. The decision to play veterans over the ready products of the system cost them a number of wins early in the season, and if it’s too late to salvage 2006, perhaps learning that lesson can have a positive impact on 2007 and beyond.” Ultimately, he is right. Winning 14 of 16 will make any fan start to think of getting back into contention, no matter how bad the team has been, but the Twins are about as likely to play .800 baseball the rest of the way as they are to play .200. Let us be encouraged by good play, maybe even as a signal that the Twins have removed the bad decision making from their system- Gardenhire clearly prefers good gloves to good bats, Krivsky may have been a driving force behind some of the bad pickups, as his reacquisition of Castro hints. At the same time, let us not forget that an eventual championship is the ultimate goal and that the team is best off building toward that goal over the long term. That brings me to the next article.

ESPN.com, 6/23, “What would you do about Torii?” by Jason Stark- Stark highlights the roster issue most emblematic of the Twins transition from one core to another. The focus of this press surge clearly demarcates Mauer, Santana, Liriano, etc as the most important players on the current roster, but Terry Ryan, casual Twins fans, and Torii himself all realize the impact his glove and his smile have on the team. Retaining him reflects an understanding of different economic circumstances going into the new stadium, both in terms of the extra spending and the symbolic transition with him on the field, but Stark highlights the fact that the move is four years away. Hunter will likely be scarcely useful by that time, and spending big to retain him is a PR move more than a baseball move. That formula never works. I have said it before, but let me reiterate: Hunter’s glove and perceived status as a leader (read: quotability) make him an overvalued commodity. I would rather see my team cash in its fool’s gold for more stable assets than buy into the market’s inefficiencies.

Arizona Republic, 6/25, “Twins M&M boys provide nice 1-2 punch,” by Joseph Reaves- Almost every article I have read deals primarily with either Mauer, Liriano, or both. Liriano started getting attention nearly commensurate with his performance after his impressive national television debut that doubled as a public shaming of the greatest pitcher of the generation. Reaves went another step in his article, invoking the legend of the 30 homerun hitter and possibly jinxing the rest of Morneau’s season. Does anyone else feel like his current sustained hot steak is just a little too good to be true? Out of town writers catching on is probably either a sign that it is for real, or else that we are set up for titanic disappointment in the very near future.