Twins Notes

The Cisco Kid has resumed throwing activities, making it through a 50 toss outing from 90 feet with another one on the horizon that will stretch him out to 120 feet. I do not really know what any of this means, but it seems good that he is throwing and not hurting at the same time. Getting Liriano back in the rotation would obviously be a tremendous help, and would cascade to the rest of the pitching staff. Radke’s workload needs to be limited- is it any surprise that he left after two innings on Friday after a particularly laborious start last weekend? And erratic performances by the rest of the rookie starters have strained the bullpen, which needs to stay in good shape if the team wants to finish strong in the regular season and beyond. To that end, Matt Guerrier’s return should not be understated; his 14 IP makes up nearly two full games that Radke, Reyes, Crain, Rincon, and others did not have to pitch. He does not strike out a huge number of batters, but he is a Twins pitcher, so he is a control freak, walking only two in those 14 IP and not allowing a single homerun. Factor in a GB/FB ratio consistently better than 3:2 and you have a very useful swingman on your hands. That is what Guerrier has quietly become for the Twins. His value has been enhanced by several circumstances, such as the ineffectiveness of Lohse and Silva, the poor health of Liriano and Radke, and the extra workload put on the bullpen. Getting Liriano back would take some of the pressure off of that bullpen, but until then, be thankful that it has been so effective.

By the way, who makes the standards for rehab processes? I do not doubt that knowledgeable medical professionals are doing their best work, but who says that 120 feet is the magic number? Why does he throw 25 throws instead of 28 or 19? I think the larger point here is that there is still a tremendous amount we do not know about the workings of the human body, and may never know. Since so much of medical theory is postulation rather than deductive and quantifiable truth, take medical reports with a grain of salt. Maybe Liriano will be back in early-mid September, or maybe he will suffer an unforeseen setback. Anybody pretending to know the answer is dead wrong; the estimated return is just as precise as the 120 feet or the 50 throws.

Until Liriano is healthy enough to return, do not expect any meaningful changes to the roster. The potential September call-ups will not inspire or elate any Twins fans. Josh Rabe will probably be back, which should not mean much to anyone outside his immediate family. Chris Heintz’s name comes up frequently, probably too frequently for an everyday player who cannot crack a .700 OPS at AAA. He has to be considered a prospect, playing fairly well in the IL in his age 21 season, though he has little to contribute that the Twins are not already getting out of their top two backstops. Moreover, nobody on the AAA roster hits for any real power, which is the one area the bench could really improve. Bringing Rondell White back from the DL exhausts their potential for adding a bit of pop to the lineup or the reserves, and even that move is more of a reshuffling of the deck chairs than real improvement, as would be adding Terry Tiffee to the four-corners mix. Maybe bringing back Gassner or Baker to mop up some innings will accomplish the aforementioned bullpen rest, but the pitching moves do not have much more potential than that. All in all, the September roster expansion has happened over the course of the season for the Twins, as they have replaced several starters with players who started the year in AAA, like Bartlett, Bonser, and Neshek.

Updating a previous article I wrote on playoff odds, the Twins are up to a roughly even money bet to win the AL Wild Card, as Boston continues to fade and Chicago struggles with all teams who do not have the best record in the league. Perhaps more encouraging is the fact that the team has moved up considerably in its chances of winning the division outright. The Tigers still have an 83% chance of holding on in the Central, but they have the best record in baseball and only the third best chance of winning the division. The Twins have moved up beyond 10% within the division, meaning they should not be dismissed as a divisional contender- their odds are better than the cumulative probability of the Red Sox to make the playoffs by hook or by crook. Only a half game back in the standings, the White Sox swoon has dropped them to 39% for the playoffs and only 5% for the division, even though they have the same number of wins as the Twins. One interesting note is the projected total number of wins from the simulation on which the playoff odds are based. The Tigers average 99.7 wins per season in the simulation and the Twins come out with 94.2, though the average for the division winner is 100.7, meaning the difference has to come from an occasional 100+ win season from the Twins or the Sox. Finishing 25-10 seems unlikely, but the simulations say that it is a non-zero probability, and the Twins have done more than a few surprising things this season.