Twins Notes

Back from Argentina for only a few hours, I re-acclimated myself to the culture by watching the Santana-Schilling duel up close. Not that I have anything against soccer- watching Argentina’s first game in a bar with diehard fans was one of those experiences so appropriate that you could paint a picture of it- but even Latin Americans cannot resist a game as exciting as baseball. Tuesday’s affair had everything you could ask for, Santana coming out firing in the marquee pitching match-up, Schilling answering the bell to make up a tête-à-tête of contrasting styles, Varitek and Cuddyer adding to the suspense by finally finding a small chink in the opposing pitchers’ armor, and Jason Kubel dramatically bringing the team back from the dead with his hit-of-hits, the walk-off grand slam. And even though the Twins will probably not play any particularly meaningful games the rest of the season, the Red Sox have cultivated enough of a fan base (that’s a euphemism for “bandwagon”) during the Theo Epstein era that the 33,000 fans in attendance got fired up and engaged in a little back and forth cheering. This game may well turn out to be the best Twins game to watch all season, and I was lucky enough to be there. A few observations:

-Gardenhire has become entirely too devoted to flip-flopping right and left-handed batters through the lineup. I understand that he wants to neutralize the opponents’ bullpen options, but there are several mitigating factors. For one, it is hard to imagine a scenario where it will make that much of a difference. Only Morneau has especially bad platoon splits against lefties, and Gardy would not pinch hit for him anyway, so that match-up will still come at the opposing manager’s discretion. In this particular game, Boston did not even have a particularly strong lefty reliever, so the move was even less strategic. And even though lineup construction only matters for a few runs a year one way or another, having Lew Ford batting near the top of the order is a recipe for disaster. While I cannot prove anyone else would have fared better, Ford had two terrible plate appearances that may have ended the game with much less consternation: in the first inning, he grounded weakly into a double play with Castillo on first immediately before Mauer hit a gap single that may have moved Castillo up two bases. In the ninth inning, Castillo led off with a double that hugged the left field line, needing only a sac bunt to give Mauer a chance to end it with a fly ball, and Ford somehow hit a chopper that ended the threat by letting Youkilis throw Castillo out at third. So maybe the lineup issue is not the real problem, but it is symptomatic of the bigger problems that Gardenhire is too doctrinal in his playing time distribution (fixed lineups, defined bullpen roles, failure to creatively use versatile players over several years) and remains too dedicated to older players.

-Mauer only had one hit in the game, hardly in line with hitting .500 for the rest of the season, but I feel like his hot streak has been the most exciting Minnesota storyline of the year so far. Every few years, a player who usually hits over .300 gets hot for a couple of months and makes it look like he could break the 60-year streak of .400-lessness. But there is a reason Ted Williams keeps that distinction. The vagaries of batting average allow for a good hitter to hit .400 for a couple of months just as easily as they allow Derek Jeter to hit under .200 through May like he did two years ago. If you flip a coin a thousand times, there will probably be a stretch of 100 in there somewhere with 65% heads or tails. Similarly, if you think of a .300 hitter as a weighted coin with a 70/30 probability, enough flips will eventually come up .400 for a while. The problem is that Mauer and other hitters come to the plate enough times in a season to start to even out the binomial probabilities over time. That leaves the question of what Mauer is likely to do the rest of the year. The short answer is that he is still the same player he was before the year and we should treat his projection as such. In other words, he did not suddenly mature into a .400 hitter, but remains a .315-ish hitter who had a couple of good months. That does not mean he is due to struggle, but it does mean that he is more likely to hit .315 the rest of the year than he is to hit .400, or .250 for that matter. Still, he has covered considerable ground already this season by going 82-215 so far. If he finishes the year with 530 ABs (roughly his AB/G extrapolated over 145 games) and hits .315 the rest of the way, he would go 99-315, still good for a .342 BA and a good shot at the batting crown. Handicapping the batting race would probably have to start with a .340 hitter, but with Ichiro having a good year, I would still prefer to put my money on him.

-Remember what I said a paragraph ago about Mauer being the Twins’ most exciting storyline? Maybe I should take that back now that the oppressive Batista regime has been toppled. DFA’ing that creaky mess can only mean good times ahead, as Jason Bartlett filled his roster spot. Even if Juan Castro assumes the starting job at third base, nobody will mistake him for a permanent solution, or even possibility, so we can consider the future instead of the unhappy present. Even simply replacing Batista in the lineup with Bartlett and shifting Castro to third represents a big upgrade offensively (particularly in much needed OBP) and defensively. If Bartlett starts at short and either Rodriguez or Tiffee gets most of the time at the hot corner, that’s an even bigger improvement. More exciting is that Batista’s demotion on the heals of promoting Bonser and Liriano means that Terry Ryan understands that he needs to reload, stop throwing away money on nothing free agents, and dedicate time and money to developing position players who can contribute to a championship offense. In all likelihood, Rondell White will be the next domino to fall, saving some money and opening up a spot on the 40-man roster. Even the Torii Hunter trade rumors have come back, and while I believe the likelihood of such a trade is low, I will still allow myself to consider the rich possibility of selling high on the most overvalued commodity the team possesses.