TWIT: You Say You Want a Revolution

Weekly Roundup

I could hardly be happier. On the heels of a week where the Twins actually finished with a winning record, taking two out of three from a pair of craptastic opponents, I wake up on a sunny holiday Monday to this bombshell from the Strib:

“The Twins haven't officially announced anything, but all indications are that righthander Ramon Ortiz, who has a 10.97 ERA this month, will be demoted to the bullpen.

That would open the door for Class AAA Rochester righthander Kevin Slowey to step into the rotation.”

Eep! Eep! I could not be any more satisfied to be right in reading the Twins front office, correctly predicting that they were waiting to the 40-50 game mark to sit down for a family meeting and start sorting through these difficult issues. Ortiz actually looked pretty good for about four or five innings on Saturday, then he once again forgot that he was supposed to be pitching in a game and not a homerun derby. Toronto went HR-2B-HR against him, and there were two 350+ foot foul balls in the sequence, as well. I don’t know whether Ortiz is tiring, losing focus, or just coincidentally missing pitches the third time through the order, but with the organizational depth in the AAA rotation paired with the recently swiss cheese’d bullpen, it seems like it is about time to put Ramon on mop-up duty. Encouragingly, Ortiz has a sterling history as a reliever, going back to his last stint in the DH league in 2004 when the Angels became similarly frustrated with the fact that he cannot retire batters. That year, he made 20 relief appearances, limiting his ERA to 2.76 (compared to 5.47 as a starter). The most important change was the fact that his homerun rate dropped from 1.48 as a starter to 0.92 as a reliever. While 49 innings is a pretty limited sample size, the fact that anyone who has watched Ortiz this year knows that he struggles deeper into games lends credence to the idea that he would better serve the Twins in a relief role.

Replacing Ortiz with Kevin Slowey is not a lame duck move, either. Slowey has dominated AAA with a 1.54 ERA in 64.1 innings this year, compiling an absolutely jaw dropping 57-5 K/BB ratio along the way. If minor league numbers mean anything, he should step in and contribute right away. His future is bright, as well, with PECOTA projecting him to be worth 114 runs of VORP over the next five seasons, maintaining about a 40% chance to play at a “star” level across that period. The knock on Slowey in scouting circles is that his tremendous fastball command has compensated for the lack of an out pitch in the minors, but it will leave him vulnerable to getting smacked around in the majors. Kevin Goldstein, the most scouting-oriented writer at Baseball Prospectus wrote that, “Slowey’s pure stuff is middle-of-the-road, which already ran him into occasional trouble in Double-A, and leaves many observers wondering what his major league out pitch will be.” And while the K/BB ratio is impressive, the fact that he isn’t even striking out a batter per inning in the minors seems to confirm that suspicion. Still, if Slowey ends up being a solid 3-4 starter instead of a 1-2 guy, nobody is going to complain. Right now, all he needs to do is keep his ERA under 5.00, and nobody will say boo.

Biggest Success

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote that Mike Cuddyer needed to get himself back into slugger’s form, and that other members of the offense needed to start supporting Justin Morneau a little more until Joe Mauer returns from injury. Cuddyer’s .400/.556/.700 line with 2 HR, 7 R, and 7 RBI certainly qualifies him for success. Luis Castillo getting 9 singles for a .333 average and .379 OBP also helps. Morneau, though, has been an absolute beast, coming up with the right hits at the right times, and making one beautiful belly flop onto first base to beat out a chopper on Sunday. Morneau clearly lead the team for the week, hitting .400/.444/.900 with 4 HR, 13 RBI, and 23 total bases. He only drew one walk for the week, but there’s a big difference between an empty .300 hitter and an empty .400 hitter, and with all of those homeruns, he’s not even falling into that category. The most encouraging part is that Morneau has seemingly recaptured the heady approach at the plate that brought him so much success last year, going the opposite way when the pitchers are trying to avoid him, such as that bases loaded, two out chopper that plated two runs against A.J. Burnett.

Biggest Disappointment

It might be silly to keep piling it on Ortiz, and I want to give Jeff Cirillo (.143/.250/.214) a grace period, even though I have high hopes for his season. I give this award, then, to the sloppiness that turned what could have been an inspiring win on Saturday night into a depressing 13 inning loss that taxed an already exhausted bullpen. Scott Ulger ran the Twins into two outs at the plate that were not even close to scoring runs, one of which came with only one out in the inning and was followed by Mike Cuddyer’s two (woulda been 3) run homer. Later in the game, Torii Hunter tried to stretch a completely run-of-the-mill leadoff single into a double for no particular reason, getting himself thrown out by about a full second. Then, during their comeback in the ninth, Hunter batted with runners on first and second with nobody out, and grounded into a weak double play that squashed the chances for a walkoff hit. Those four scoring chances would have given them the win in regulation, but instead they stretched it out and lost in 13. All of that and I haven’t even mentioned the shining star that is Jorge DePaula. I know he must have thrown strikes at some point in his life to get here, so there are probably nerves at play. Nonetheless, giving up 8 runs on 6 hits, 5 walks, and a hit batsman in a single inning pitched (over two games) is completely inexcusable. I mean, that is Rafael Betancourt level failure out of the bullpen. Forget it, I’m going to stay positive this week.

On the Horizon

More home games to start the week, with three against the White Sox followed by the start of a six game Left Coast road trip at Oakland and Anaheim. The White Sox series could be interesting, because the Twins enter Monday’s game two back of the Pale Hoes in the standings. I’m a little concerned about the status of the bullpen, though, as Neshek had to work two on Saturday, and Rincon and Nathan had to pitch on both Saturday and Sunday. If ever there was a day for a Johan Santana CG, it will be Monday afternoon’s series opener. Catching Oakland right now is not such a bad thing, either. Like the Twins and Blue Jays, they have been decimated by injuries, although they knew it was coming by stacking their outfield with guys they could get on the cheap because their ability to stay healthy did not match their ability to play baseball. Kotsay, Snelling, Stewart, Bradley… no wonder they are walking wounded. Justin Duchscherer may return by the end of the week, so the Twins might not have the pleasure of facing new closer Allen Embree, who is 67 years old, but the A’s bullpen is in rough shape anyway.

The Big Picture

I already covered the major issue in the introduction, with 20% of the starts possibly going to a competent pitcher rather than an incompetent one. The bullpen should be better, as well, with Nathan, Rincon, and Neshek being backed up by Ortiz and Guerrier, then the less inspiring fresh faces down the road. The top-level guys have great career numbers against lefties, so the lack of a LOOGY should not doom the team in high leverage situations.

The Twins also moved ahead of Chicago in the adjusted standings since the Twins are +6 for the year in run scoring and the Sox are -17. With Mauer set to come back later in the week, the offense is poised to improve upon their 7^th place rank in the league for runs scored and with the more optimistic forecast for the starting rotation, the run prevention could move up a bit from its current 5^th place rank. With Chicago continuing to scuffle and Detroit finally suffering due to their inability to prevent runs from crossing the plate (3^rd worse in the AL), the Twins have a good opportunity to get back into the race over the next couple of weeks. Now, I finally believe they have the right alignment of their personnel to make that happen.

The Time Has Come

Hitting a baseball is about timing. Mastering that timing requires a batter to find a balance between patiently waiting for the right pitch and being aggressive enough to hit the right pitch when it comes. Effective management necessitates a similar skill set of knowing precisely how long to wait before pouncing. In Moneyball, Billy Beane extols the virtues of appropriate managerial patience within a baseball season. Teams who respond to quickly to especially strong or weak starts are usually punished in kind when the player returns to a previously established performance level. And while different stats take different amounts of time to stabilize, 40-50 games is a generally accepted rule of thumb for how long it takes before one can start making generalizations about a team. The Twins have subscribed to this theory pretty doctrinally over the last couple of seasons; it is no coincidence that Sidney Ponson received his walking papers 37 games into the season, Juan Castro lost his full-time starting job 47 games into the 2006 season, and Francisco Liriano got his first start in team game number 42.

Now that Minnesota has completed 47 games of the 2007 season, a few glaring weaknesses have started to show themselves. Offensively, the team has done a slightly better job of getting on base up and down the lineup than it had in many previous seasons, but besides Justin Morneau, there has been far too little power. The DH, LF, and 3B positions have not produced nearly enough offensively, and the team will struggle to support a less-than-dominant pitching staff if the status quo remains. In the rotation, Terry Ryan has already started to address the problems at the back end. Sir Sidney met his fate last week, and Ramon Ortiz has to be feeling the heat to pick up that 1-5 team record in his last 6 starts. Further complicating matters is the fact that the bullpen has collapsed onto itself, as a mysterious shoulder parasite has been gnawing at the sinews of Jesse Crain, Dennis Reyes, and Glen Perkins. With the impending free agency of Torii Hunter after the season, and contracts running out for Johan Santana and Joe Nathan after next year, the Twins have to straddle the balance between making moves to contend now and putting themselves in a position to remain competitive when moving into their new stadium in 2010.

Addressing these difficulties requires an honest assessment of the team’s stock in the majors and minors. Starting pitching is a position of strength, with an A+ ace at the top, an established, young member of the rotation in Bonser waiting on his first arbitration hearing, four big-time prospects who are either ready or close to ready to contribute (Baker, Perkins, Garza, Slowey), and a gaggle of prospects who would be far more distinguished in any other system that does not cast such a long shadow (Alexander Smit, Kyle Waldrop, Eduardo Morlan, Jay Rainville). On top of that group is a wildcard pitcher who outpitched Santana for long stretches last year, that being the absent Francisco Liriano.With pre-arb pitching prospects in vogue- as evidenced by the market value of recently-traded players like Brandon McCarthy and Jason Hirsch- that embarrassment of riches could help patch over lots of other organizational shortcomings if Terry Ryan chose to make a challenge trade or two. Additionally, the Twins have at least one position player who is ready to step into the lineup this minute in Alexi Casilla, who can do a pretty good Luis Castillo impersonation right now. Finally, one underrated resource is that the Twins grew a lot of their talent themselves, giving them additional leverage through arbitration or buying out those arbitration years in a long-term contract. In other words, the Twins will have several more years of players like Joe Mauer, Justin Morneau, Jason Kubel, Jason Bartlett, Mike Cuddyer, Boof Bonser, and Francisco Liriano at prices below market value.

At the moment, I see two moves that could dramatically improve the Twins for the next few years and would also decrease payroll. First, I still desperately want the Twins to address their third-base problem. Nick Punto has value as a utility player with some on-base skills and a very good glove. As an everyday corner infielder, his lack of power becomes extremely troublesome. Also, Jeff Cirillo is a fine option to spell lefties at DH or an infield corner, but the fact that his only listed position is “DH” hints at the trouble with playing him there everyday, not to mention the fact that he is extremely likely to break down if he continues playing so frequently.

To the Twins potential benefit, Edwin Encarnacion is a third baseman with some power who has fallen out of favor with the Wayne Krivsky’s Reds, a former Twins employee who has shown an affinity for collecting his former charges (Joe Mays, Juan Castro, Kyle Lohse, Eddie Guardado). Since the Reds were bearish enough on Encarnacion to sent him to AAA earlier this month, it does not seem unreasonable to think that he could be had for the right price. With Cincinnati’s organizational pitching deficiency, I believe the Twins could find a pretty solid match. Offering Krivsky’s choice of the second-tier pitching prospects in the system might be enough to fetch Encarnacion. If not the Twins should at least consider sending Slowey for a player PECOTA saw hitting .277/.350/.482 this year with room for even more growth. Altogether, PECOTA sees Encarnacion as an even bet to reach “star” or “superstar” levels every year from 2008-2010, all of which would come before he reaches his first free agent contract. A right-handed hitter with decent patience and a powerful bat would fit extremely well lower in the Twins lineup, and would look especially potent compared to the man he would replace- the chances of Punto slugging .482 are slim and none, and slim just left town. And even though Encarnacion has had a very difficult 100 plate appearances to start the season, his strong 2006 and previous minor league accomplishments show that he is a quality batsman. The average in the .220s just means the Twins have a chance to buy low from a team that is in a position to blow it all up.

Playing off of their primary non-pitching resource, I believe it would be intelligent for the Twins to aggressively market Luis Castillo for another young bat. Casilla might not replace Castillo’s current hot-hitting, but he’s a better bet to be a productive member of the team after this season, and the difference between them for two or three months (Castillo is a free agent at season’s end) is not nearly great enough to make the difference between contending and falling out. With championship aspirations and a glaring hole at the keystone, the Mets would make a perfect trading partner for the Twins on the Castillo front. Even better, the Mets have a glut of young talent in the outfield, and not enough playing time to go around. With Omar Minaya’s affinity for Latino players, former top prospect Lastings Milledge has seemingly fallen out of organizational favor, sliding out of the outfield rotation. Even with Shawn Green breaking a bone in his foot, the team said it planned on giving the extra at bats to Carlos Gomez, leaving Milledge in New Orleans with his .333 batting average. Milledge’s glove excels at an outfield corner, and can play in center as well, giving the Twins the option of playing him in left this year and immediately solving the Hunter conundrum at season’s end without having to taste the inevitable Denard Span disaster. PECOTA sees Milledge as a .285/.356/.461 batter this year, part of an upward trend continuing for the next 5+ years for the 22 year old. Milledge is far from a finished product- for instance, I have heard some concerns about his makeup. What better way to help a player mature than by putting him next to Torii Hunter, a team leader and an ambassador for the game who happens to play the same position? It doesn’t hurt that the Hunter is one of the most fully established African-American players in the game. Milledge would also have to improve his plate discipline and develop his power potential. Both of these goals are better achieved through playing every day in the majors rather than continue to mash a level of pitching he has already mastered. While the Encarnacion deal seems like a good idea, the Milledge one seems like an absolute slam dunk for both teams to the point where I would be severely disappointed if it didn’t get done.

If the Twins made these trades, it would give them the ability to start a lineup looking something like this:

1. Casilla- 2B
2. Mauer- C
3. Hunter- CF
4. Morneau- 1B
5. Cuddyer- RF
6. Milledge- LF
7. Kubel/Cirillo- DH
8. Encarnacion- 3B
9. Bartlett- SS

Factoring in Hunter’s possible departure (a fate of which I am not yet nearly convinced), putting Milledge in center makes it much easier to find a LF option within the system (Ford, Tyner, Kubel) or on the cheaper side of the free agent market- far easier than paying top dollar for someone with enough of a glove for center. The reason these trades appeal to me is that I think it strikes a balance between their interests for this year and the ability to compete going forward. Both players are cheap today and will remain cheap into the future. The players surrendered in the trades come from spots of organizational depth, lessening the impact of their departures. Addressing these issues now puts the team in a position to compete, just like last year when the Twins proactively addressed their weaknesses. While it is still early enough to make up a steep deficit within the division, enough time has already passed to see some problems clearly. Dealing with them now strikes the delicate balance patience and activity.

TWIT: A New Hope

Weekly Roundup

A second straight week looked like it was going to be utterly disastrous before the team got enough of a rebound over the weekend to let fans exhale, albeit just a little bit. Going 2-4 and looking absolutely miserable in getting swept by Cleveland (outscored 24-8) is a pretty ominous start to the week. Taking a series against a division leader and nominal rival on the road while coming up a couple innings short of a sweep helps temper the sting just a little bit, and keeping in mind that this road trip has been one of the particularly difficult kind provides the kind of excuse that any worthy failure would desire.

If there was a theme to the Cleveland series, it was that the Twins never really had a chance. Getting blown out by 8 in the slow-pitch softball series opener- Ortiz versus Byrd, 28 combined hits, 10 for extra bases- set a nasty tone, since the bullpen-reliant team had to five relievers for eight innings on the first day of nine straight games. Carlos Silva gave them six mediocre innings the next day to aid in the recovery, although they were not nearly good enough to keep the offense in the game against a dominant C.C. Sabathia. Between Silva and Sabathia giving a combined 14 innings of work, I am extremely glad that I was not the pitching mound, trampled under foot by two of the girthiest pitchers left (now that Sid has beached himself in Aruba, of course). The next day, Johan Santana was out-dueled by Fausto Carmona, who lived up to the rhetorical idiom, “Who is the best young starting pitcher in baseball? Whoever starts against the Twins.” Carmona did nothing more than keep the ball down and in the strike zone, and the Twins gleefully obliged, hitting 17 ground ball outs. The idea for a ground ball pitcher is to work deep into games, give up hits here and there, but limit walks and extra base hits to keep the damage to a minimum. Against Carmona, the Twins hit 6 fly balls, and only one extra base hit, a double by Morneau. A team total of five total bases does not usually get the job done.

At least the weekend series saw the Twins hitting Milwaukee at just the right time, as the Brewers have seemingly hit the high-water mark and are in the process of regressing to their true level of ability, still good, but not .700 good. Boof kicked off the festivities with one of the team’s best starts of the year on Friday, making fans forget all about poor, departed Sidney. Ponson’s replacement, Scott Baker, followed suit on Saturday with another strong outing, propelling the team to an easy win and hopefully restoring organizational confidence that he can be a solid major league pitcher, even if he doesn’t have a dominating out pitch. Ramon Ortiz looked good for four innings on Sunday, and a 5-2 lead gave the appearance that the team was headed for a sweep and a full rebound from the Cleveland debacle. Three Brewers runs in the fifth and another lackadaisical outing from Reyes (against a pair of lefties, no less) ended that notion, preventing a truly happy Monday.

The team is still struggling to hit for power and to get on base. The bullpen is still below what we anticipated coming into the year, especially with one of the better pitchers on the shelf for the remainder of the year. The rotation still has major problems, as Silva is good for innings exclusively, and Ortiz cannot even say that. Nonetheless, I think the highs and lows of the early season are starting to plane out, as the team is hitting about as well as it should without Joe Mauer, and the pitching is starting to become predictable. The next step is finding solutions to the now-apparent problems, which I will discuss later.

Biggest Success

Even though Boof Bonser had an exceptional start on Saturday, functioning like an ace in stopping the team’s bleeding through sheer force of will, he was not the most impressive success of the week. That title goes to newly promoted Scott Baker, the triple-A all-star who won plenty of supporters with a gritty and effective outing against a good offense on the road. Before losing his spot in the rotation, Sidney Ponson’s top single Game Score was 66, a May 1^st outing against Tampa Bay- his average GS for the year was 37. Against a tougher offense, Baker came up with a GS of 68 on Saturday, not a career performance, but pretty awesome in comparison. Through seven starts, Ponson had exactly one quality start, the aforementioned Tampa game; Baker matched that total in his first outing. In 37.2 innings of work, Ponson accrued -6.9 runs worth of value over replacement level, while Baker’s one start was worth 3.3. Obviously, Scott Baker is not going to go 8+ innings in every start, and his stats will look different when he gets back into the DH league, but when he has already bested six weeks worth of work by Ponson in only one night, there is finally some room for optimism at the back end of the rotation. Why Baker needed another 30 or so AAA innings instead of starting the season with the big club is beyond me. Why the Twins felt the need to pay Ponson the salary that only became guaranteed when he made the major league roster is also beyond me. How the Twins could imagine that Ponson was going to be part of a contending ball club is way beyond me. But those demons are in the past, and it’s now time to worry about the future. If that future includes an honest shot at a full-time gig for Scott Baker, I think his extensive minor league track record should speak for itself.

Biggest Disappointment

Now that the Ponson situation is resolved, the Twins only have three starting pitching candidates who are more qualified for the rotation than Ramon Ortiz. Ortiz compiled a stunning 18.56 ERA over two starts last week, keeping the team in one game and keeping them out of another. When a good day includes 4.1 innings of work and five earned runs, it might be time to pursue other career choices. The junk that Ortiz got to work in April is simply not working in May; he’s routinely getting tagged as if he were throwing batting practice. In 5.1 innings for the week, he gave up an astonishing 17 hits and 11 earned runs. His control is fine, as he walked only one, but it may be a little too fine, considering that he only struck out a pair of batters. Even though he’s not terribly old (34 on Wednesday), the weak, straight fastballs suggest that Ortiz might be totally done. I’d rather give Perkins, Slowey, or Garza a whirl than spend another 2-3 months trying to figure that one out.

On the Horizon

It wasn’t easy to do, but the Twins finally found a patch in their schedule where they will face a couple of teams struggling even more than they are. The Rangers had high hopes before the season, but at 10 games under .500 and missing Hank Blalock and Kevin Millwood, there is plenty of trouble to go around. Even in a miserable division, the Rangers are already talking about blowing up and starting over, as the Mark Teixeira trade rumors have started earlier than usual this year. Aside from Tex, no regular has an OBP above .335, and the starting pitching has been as bad as it usually is. If not for games like Sunday’s blowout win over the Astros where the team hit six homers, the cause would be even less hopeful. Either way, the Rangers are weak enough that anything less than a series win would be a disappointment for the Twins.

The same can be said for the Blue Jays, whose struggles lie in the fact that they have become the walking wounded. They had a high-risk, high-reward roster, and the season thus far has demonstrated the former part of that duality. It should not come as a surprise that the team has health problems when the last two years’ big ticket items have included Troy Glaus, Frank Thomas, A.J. Burnett, and B.J. Ryan. On Friday, a caller on Philly sports radio commented that the Phillies have no excuse for anything less than a sweep against the Jays. I don’t know how that over-excited gentleman felt about taking 2 of 3, but I’m going to take a slightly more measured approach into the weekend. In any case, if the Twins come out of this week with a losing record, it is something just short of an abomination.

The Big Picture

Cleveland and Detroit are playing extremely well, but recent history has taught us that a seven game divisional lead is not nearly enough to consider run-away-and-hide status. Three games under five hundred is less than optimal, but the Twins are still on the positive side of the ledger in first, second, and third order wins, including a net run surplus of 6 for the year. Since they are losing plenty of close games, there is room for improvement without any major roster tinkering.

That’s not to say that some roster tinkering wouldn’t do them some good. Moving Baker in place of Ponson has probably already given them at least a two win improvement over the course of the season, with the possibility of a much higher upside. The next step must be to fix the “Ortiz” section of the rotation. The franchise has enough bad memories associated with that last name, there’s no reason to miss the postseason on account of another one. With better alternatives up and down the system and enough time having passed to alleviate arbitration concerns, it would be extremely prudent for the Twins to swallow Ramon’s sunk cost and go with whomever they trust out of the Perkins-Slowey-Garza triumvirate. Enough time has passed that we can say that this problem is real and tangible, and the passage of more time will not alleviate it.

Also the offense needs to produce more, even accounting for the absence of Joe Mauer. Specifically, Jason Kubel needs to continue his slow march back to respectability, and Ron Gardenhire has to find a way to get something out of third base. If he can fashion some sort of platoon out of Jeff Cirillo and Nick Punto, they may get a passable amount of production. I’m still concerned that there isn’t enough young offensive talent to support the roster as time goes on, and I would welcome a sort of dashing challenge trade where Ryan tests his scouting chops by trying to get more than value in the form of hitting prospects for one of his young pitching prospects.

Crain's Winding Road

A season that looked like another difficult reclamation project became an altogether wasted season this week when Jesse Crain’s shoulder diagnosis turned up a double negative: torn rotator cuff and torn labrum. Crain’s recovery from the injury will likely take us far enough into the future that any projection is more speculation than comprehension. Add to that uncertainty the immense variability in Crain’s performance since reaching the majors, and you have one terribly schizophrenic player on your hands.

Crain’s failings to this point in the 2007 season led many observers to wonder if he was compensating for some sort of injury. His pitches looked flat, and he was not so much inconsistent as he was consistently weak. Torn shoulder muscles mean the fulcrum of the pitcher’s power generator has lost its effectiveness, and the pitcher is relegated to throwing batting practice fastballs. In this respect, shoulder injuries differ from elbow injuries, where pitchers often struggle with command, piling up deep counts and walking too many batters, while not necessarily giving up more hits or more solid contact. Crain’s season has followed that trend to a “t,” as his walk rate has increased from 2.1 per nine last year to 2.2 in 2007, a meaningless difference, while his pitches per plate appearances have risen only slightly, from 3.5 to 3.7. The causal factor behind adding two full runs to his ERA is the fact that he can’t throw the ball by anyone, and opponents’ hits are going farther than ever before. Crain is striking out 24% fewer batters than last year, and when balls are put into play, the batters are slugging an impressive .539 against him, unlike the meager .305 and .378 figures he allowed in 2005 and 2006, respectively. Even more impressive is the explosion of his homerun rate, hovering between .70 and .71 for the last three seasons, shooting up to 2.17 in his limited innings this year, a 206% increase. Perhaps this analysis is as meaningless as saying, “I told you so,” without ever having actually told anyone so, but at very least, the injury cannot be considered surprising.

Part of the reason that many observers dismissed Crain’s early struggles is that he had such similar problems last year, which turned out to be a very solid campaign by seasons’ end. After failing to finish even a single inning for the second straight appearances on May 27, 2006, Crain’s ERA crested at 7.97, a far cry from his 5.51 mark that has plagued the bullpen this year. From that point forward, he kept his ERA at a stellar 1.92, striking out three times more batters than he walked, and holding opponents to an outstanding .276 slugging average. Needless to say, Twins fans hoped for the same sort of rounding into for this year as last, pegging Crain as a slow starter who needs time to find a fell for his pitches rather than blaming the horrendous start on the ulterior factor which wound up being the true culprit. Even more telling is the fact that some of Crain’s most comparable players up to his current age have suffered similar fates, including top comp Antonio Osuna (missed nearly two full years with injuries, including a torn labrum in 2001), and Scott Williamson (a notoriously injury-plagued reliever whose biochemistry stood in the way of some nasty stuff).

The intrigue in Crain’s statistical line does not stop there, however, as every season has been something of a departure from the one before it. In the minors, Crain was a lights-out closer with a dominating fastball that he used to overpower batters on his way to an 11.4 K/9 in his final AAA stint in 2004. With numbers like that, some fans (including me) pegged Crain as the next in line for the closers job with Eddie Guardado’s departure after the 2003 season. Terry Ryan knew better, trading for the then-unheralded Joe Nathan to fill that slot in dominating fashion, and Crain split 2004 between Rochester and Minnesota, piling up those gaudy strikeout numbers for the Red Wings, and finding success in a totally different way for the big club. Crain saw limited action in the majors that year, throwing only 27 innings on top of the 50.2 he threw in AAA. In that time, his strikeout rate went from outstanding to miniscule, as he walked nearly as many batters (12) as he managed to strike out (14). Due to an unusually low batting average on balls in play (.194), Crain sustained a terrific 2.00 ERA and earned himself an invitation to rejoin the big club despite the bipolar nature of his major and minor league numbers.

The following season saw Crain continue his balancing act, striking out even fewer batters than the year before. His strikeout rate fell to 2.8, a level so low that even an insane ground-baller like Chien-Ming Wang would do a double take. His walk rate crept above the strikeout rate, putting an incredible amount of stress on the defense behind him, which rose to the occasion, helping him to a spectacular .222 BABIP and suppressing his ERA to 2.71 over a robust 79.2 innings. The .789 defensive efficiency rate for the fielders behind Crain would have lead the majors that year by leaps and bounds, showing just how much help he got from those behind him. Crain did not even do all that much to make their jobs easier, inducing groundballs on only 46.4% of balls in play, a pretty average number. To be fair, when batters put the ball in the air, Crain managed to pop them up remarkably often- 20.2% of the time- a skill which shows that he was fooling batters, jamming them with tough pitches, or both. I credit some of Crain’s surprising road to success to pitching coach Rick Anderson, who said at the time of Crain’s call-up that he would have to pitch more intelligently in the majors to get hitters out, not falling back on dialing up a blazing fastball as frequently as he did in the minors. Still, Crain’s 2005 was fluky in many ways, and did not seem to be a repeatable task at the time.

Oddly enough, Crain avoided the prophecy in 2006 by becoming a “normal” dominant reliever. After trudging through the aforementioned cold streak, he managed to mix together a lethal combination of strikeouts (7.1 per nine and better than 3 for each walk) and groundballs (up to 55.2% of balls in play). That arsenal actually raised his overall ERA to a more normal 3.52, but the underlying improvement can be seen in the decrease in PERA, which fell from 5.02 to 3.36, a more accurate representation of the pitcher’s contribution to run prevention. Perhaps most importantly, Crain made the improvements throughout the season from a struggling pitcher to a successful one, even if his true ability was never that of a 1.92 ERA pitcher.

Coming into 2007, it seemed that Crain was poised to surpass Juan Rincon and his diminishing ability to miss bats as the Twins’ second most reliable reliever. Instead, his entire season has been a tremendous headache, one which fans hoped would culminate in a return to form sometime around June 1^st. Instead, the injury indicates that Crain may have been pitching at or near his true level through 2006, and regressed due to the injury rather than making a habit out of slow starts. With such a major injury, Crain’s performance record to date tells us little about how he will recover and whether he will ever return to elite relief status. If anything, learning the skill of retiring batters without over powering them by placing the fastball (2005) and by utilizing breaking pitches to get outs (2006) should help him recover from the potential loss in velocity. For now, we can only wait for the next surprising twist along the odd career path of Jesse Crain.

Algonquin for, “The Good Land”

With a 25-13 record and the internet’s recent proliferation of “Are they for real?” columns, it is fair to say that the Brewers are better than most people expected. Before the season, they were a trendy pick in the NL Central, more because the division looked like a disaster than because they looked like a threat to win 90 games. After returning a losing roster plus Jeff Suppan, the Brewers looked like they may be plagued by the same old problems that kept them on the cusp of contention for the last two seasons. Instead, they have broken out forcefully, staking themselves to a 6.5 game lead over the second place Astros in the division and making themselves prohibitive favorites to make the postseason. I am certainly willing to concede that the team has put itself in a better position than I expected at this point in the season. However, I thin the more interesting questions are the ones regarding what has made them so successful, and what we can expect from the team the rest of the year.

Even after dropping two in a row, the Brewers sport a remarkable .658 winning percentage nearly a quarter of the way through the season. As Tom Verducci pointed out in his recent column on the Brewers, teams with that sort of start tend to make the playoffs, not only because they put themselves in a great position, but also because it is difficult to crash that far back to Earth. In order to end up a .500 team, the Brewers would have to finish 56-68- a .451 winning percentage befitting a 73-89 team over a full season. It is fair to say that the Brewers have amply demonstrated that they are better than a 73 win team. Even if they finish the year as the .512 (83 win) team I projected them to be before the season, they would finish the season with 89 wins, a strong number in a division that has been less than gangbusters thus far.

As if the record did not speak for itself, the Brewers’ individual production has been a good deal rosier than anticipated so far. Whether those results come from a genuine improvement or a couple of lucky months requires a deeper look at the changes in statistics. The most profound change has been J.J. Hardy, a toolsy shortstop who has never put it together at the plate or in the stamina department, but who has hit like A-Rod in 2007, putting up a .327/.376/.628 line with 23 extra base hits and a homerun every 14 plate appearances. Considering that PECOTA forecast a total of 12 homeruns in 446 PAs, and a .256/.318/.403 line, his actual production seems extremely fortunate. In fact, his 90^th percentile PECOTA forecast had him at a much more modest .295/.359/.486 line, which would be fairly easily reached after the start he has already put up. Given that many scouts have raved about Hardy for years only to see him succumb to yet another injury, and the fact that he is an athletic, still improving 24 year old, and it is not surprising that he has made strides. A 40-homer pace though? Probably less likely. More than anyone else on the roster, Hardy stands to see a pretty noticeable regression to the mean over the next several months, albeit one that will still leave him with an impressive final batting line.

A couple of other young contributors to the Brewers may have made progress toward becoming stars, as well. Rickie Weeks, for instance, has always had pop- a .155 ISO in his rookie year- but lacked the plate discipline to give wheels to his so-so contact skills. This year, he has yet to remedy the contact issues, hitting only .244 to this point, but by increasing his walk rate from 7.3% to 12.7% of his plate appearances while maintaining his ability to take one for the team (11 in 2005, 19 in 2006, and 3 so far this year), he has raised his OBP to a still-respectable .352. An OPS over 800 for a speedy second baseman is outstanding unto itself, and it will only continue to rise as his batting average exits the doldrums.

As for the rest of the offense, Prince Fielder has developed into an elite offensive force even more quickly than most expected, giving the lineup a masher in the middle. Last year’s revelation, Bill Hall, has kept his bat in the transition to the outfield, hitting .281/.351/.474. Kevin Mench has been unimpressive, but with Corey Hart back from injury and Geoff Jenkins partying like it’s 1999, the outfield has enough firepower to relegate him to bench work. Only third base has caused the occasional tear in Milwaukee fans’ beers, as Craig Counsell and Tony Graffanino have left much to be desired. Luckily, the organization has one of baseball’s top prospects stashed away at that exact position in Nashville, with Ryan Braun walloping .358/.426/.716 with an encouraging 2 errors in 28 games. Braun may struggle with his discipline at first, readjusting to pitchers who can actually challenge him, but his future is bright, and his presence will temper some of the regression from the other hot hitting infielders.

Between Suppan, Ben Sheets, Chris Capuano, David Bush, and Claudio Vargas, the Brewers have had the sort of deep and consistent rotation that has helped teams like Detroit and Chicago make giant leaps forward in recent years. Vargas has been a surprise, but the other four have lived up to their potential as solid, consistent starters who will eat up innings while keeping their team in the game. Sheets has the ability to be something much more, though his depressed strikeout rate- down almost 100% from last year to 4.84 per nine- shows why he has been only average so far. The rest of the rotation has held it together by keeping the ball in the park, allowing only 99 homeruns so far, third best in the majors in a park that does not particularly favor the pitchers. Additionally, the starters have done their best to help out a merely average defense by limiting base runners; nobody has walked more than 3.5 per nine, and Sheets, Suppan, and Bush are all below 2.05.

My primary concerns about the Brewers coming into the year were two of the team’s problems from last year that seemed unresolved. First, the bullpen, constructed out of sabermetric glue and popsicle sticks, had lots of live arms that could not get anyone out. So far, Francisco Cordero, Carlos Villanueva, Brian Shouse, and Derrick Turnbow have all walked too many batters, but have compensated by either striking out loads (Cordero- 12.42, Tunbow- 12.94), or eliminating homeruns from the equation altogether. My second concern was the team’s defense, which struggled mightily last year, particularly in the infield. The return of J.J. Hardy has stabilized the infield to an extent, and giving third base to a couple of guys who can field without hitting has helped enough to bring them to the middle of the pack in terms of defensive efficiency. Overall, the Brewers rank 16^th in the majors at turning batted balls into outs, a number which looks unremarkable, but means quite a bit considering the team’s defensive deficiencies in recent years. The Brewers ranking in the middle of the pack here is akin to the White Sox running away with the category two years ago; some regression should be expected.

Lastly, the Brewers have an interesting situation in their own division. Six and a half games on the Astros is a good number now that Roger Clemens has committed himself elsewhere. The more concerning foe is not the defending World Champions, it is the underachieving Chicago Cubs, who have outscored their opponents by 25 runs despite a below-.500 record. In fact, the Cubs and Reds are the two biggest underachieves in baseball, according to third order wins, and adjusting the teams’ records for their true performance makes the division race look much closer. After that adjustment, the Cubs pull dead even with the Brewers atop the division and the Reds lurk only 2.5 games back. Of course, the Brewers deserve recognition for being the one team in that group who is actually winning games, and the spot atop the others in the division gives them that prize. This exercise does more to tell where they teams are headed than where they have been. If the Brewers continue to be the 22 win team that third order wins peg them to be, they would win 94 games and probably take the division easily. If Hardy and company regress, or if injuries strike like they did last year, the Brewers could end up around 90 victories. For the Cubs to match that total from their 17-19 present, they would have to play .589 ball, ambitious even considering their .583 current third order pace. In that regard, it is not hard to see the Brewers as division champs and postseason participants for the first time since 1982. As far as I am concerned, that is enough of a qualification to make them “for real.”

TWIT: No Mas (aka Punchless)

Weekly Roundup

Last week, I closed by tempering expectations for a six-game set against two solid AL Central opponents. I commented that it is not such a bad week to be cold, since these games will be difficult no matter what, and a couple of good wins could help jumpstart the team’s collective momentum generator, seemingly still puttering out black smoke from last year’s winterization. In a way, I may have been making excuses in advance, anticipating a putrid performance across an important segment of the schedule and compensating by lowering expectations. After all, if you set your goals low enough, you will be sure to reach them. As it has worked out, the Twins needed a dramatic walk-off homerun by Justin Morneau- legitimately one of the most exciting moments of the season so far- to get a single game during the week (I am writing during the lead-up to Sunday Night Baseball’s feature presentation of Boof vs. Virgil in primetime, so another win is a possibility). My pessimism has fomented so substantially that I saw the name “Virgil Vazquez” on the pitching probables list and thought to myself, “Oh no, first career start, that guy’s going to kill us.”

Joe Morgan hit the nail on the head during the SNB pre-game show, pointing out that most of the Twins regulars have performed relatively close to expectations, and the team is not scoring close to enough runs to remain competitive. After lurching through an easy part of the schedule, ripe for the picking with Kansas City and Tampa Bay, the truth has come out against the real competition: the Twins do not have enough bats to stay in the race. The nagging injuries to role players, and now Joe Mauer, have played a roll in suppressing run production, but do any of these numbers look totally out of line?

Morneau- .265/.353/.529

Hunter- .313/.345/.565

Cuddyer- .270/.316/.407

Punto- .215/.301/.289

Bartlett- .257/.331/.312

Kubel- .243/.295/.320

Mauer- .353/.446/.480

Castillo- .310/.361/.340

Sure, only Mauer and Hunter would have been considered successes at those levels, but only Cuddyer and Punto are noticeably below the range of reasonable expectations. Bartlett is basically a league-average on-base guy with a good glove and little power. And that’s what he has been this year. Morneau is a solid power hitter with so-so discipline whose average from 2006 was destined to come down. And that’s what he has been this year. Assuming that Kubel would start hitting for doubles power and a high average because time had passed was based mostly on blind faith going into the season, yet I remain hopeful to that end. Since his gruesome knee injury, he has been inconsistent across the board, wildly impatient at the plate, and constantly battling to keep his OBP above water. And that’s what he has been this year. I could go on like this, but you get the picture.

The real problem is that the Twins have walked on an offensive tightrope for a long time, getting just enough out of the lineup to support a reliable defense, a solid rotation and an excellent bullpen. This year, however, the lineup has produced too many duds to remain competitive. In the early part of the decade, they relied on consistency from top-to-bottom; only Luis Rivas stands out as a true black hole in any of the lineups that helped win three straight division titles (plus, the competition was weaker). Last year, Mauer and Morneau were transcendent enough to put the entire roster on their backs, get a little help here and there from whomever else was swinging a hot bat, and pull the team back into the divisional race. Subtract Mauer from the equation and bring Morneau back to earth, and that lineup suddenly becomes a group of below average hitters waiting for someone to get hot enough to carry them for a few games at a time. Torii Hunter did it for two weeks, Luis Castillo has tried to do it this week, but they are making a crazy number of outs.

Getting on base has been an issue for many in the lineup, but the problem that really stands out is their inability to generate any sort of power. Over the last week, the Twins slugged .341 as a team, putting them slightly behind the recently departed Shannon Stewart’s season total, and even with Chris Duffy- the same Chris Duffy’s whose lack of power has made him a fringe regular in spite of solid on-base skills and blazing speed. Other than Morneau’s three homeruns and one triple, the entire team combined for seven doubles and nothing else in the XBH department. To reach the AL average of a .407 slugging average, they would have had to turn 14 of their 52 singles into doubles, tripling their non-Morneau XBH total. Bottom line- a team can’t survive hitting for such little power.

Biggest Success

I got a little verbose in the whiny, cathartic part of the article, so I will pick up the pace here. After all, there are so few successes to discuss, that it should not take terribly long. For what it is worth, the starting rotation is rounding into form, as Boof struck out seven, walking only one, and giving up a single earned run in a seven inning start earlier in the week. Johan continued his early season passability, although the lack of endurance and strict pitch count is a potentially worrisome caution flag. Sidney Ponson still sucks, that’s nothing new. I think we’re better of treating him like the fat, old guy in a pickup basketball team who always weasels his way into games and sweats way too much: you don’t expect him to contribute anything at all, so any small victory comes off as a pleasant surprise. (Ah-ha! Just after I have written this, Ponson has been DFA’d- that’s right, he’s been sent to that big steak buffet in the sky. Here’s to hoping Garza gets another shot at the rotation and goes Liriano on us. Or Slowey. Or Baker. Oh, hell, I’m just glad Ponson is gone; it’s the 2007 Batista moment!)

Setting aside Torii’s incredibly catch on Wednesday, the overall player of the week has to be Morneau. Luis Castillo hit .400, albeit as empty of a .400 as you can dream up with only one XBH and 3 walks. Mike Redmond went 9-17 on the week, which is nice. Only Morneau put a stamp on the week, though, with his huge homerun and six runs batted in (the second best total for the week was 2). He hit only .250, but he can get away with it if he keeps slugging .800, or even .500 with the sort of patience that earned him 4 bases on balls in only 24 plate appearances. Wait, that’s not called patience, that’s called being the only batter in the lineup who can hit anything but a single.

Biggest Disappointment

I guess I already beat this horse to death, as well. In lieu of a standout candidate, I will give this week’s award as a sort of seasonal achievement nod to Mike Cuddyer, whose four singles, no extra base hits, one walk, and one run batted in typified how useless he has been to the lineup for the last month or so. After a decent start to the campaign, Cuddyer has fallen off of a cliff at a time that coincided with one of the team’s other two run producers went on the DL. Luckily, Justin Morneau is Canadian, otherwise Cuddyer would have been saddled as the team’s chief run producer for more than one game after the MVP broke his nose.

On the Horizon

When a team struggles, there’s nothing better than a road trip to visit two of the three hottest teams in the game. By the time the Twins reach Texas early next week, the Rangers may seem like a AAA team compared to the buzz saws they will see in Cleveland and Milwaukee for three games apiece. If Cleveland has a vulnerability, it may be shooting photon torpedoes into the back end of their bullpen, where Joe Borowski’s job has to be on the line after horribly botching a relatively easy save opportunity against Oakland on Sunday (two outs, two strikes, two run lead- too little). The Twins will get early-contact pitchers Paul Byrd and Fausto Carmona as the bread in a C.C. Sabathia sandwich (I hear that’s a tender cut of meat). Their groundball tendencies may line up well with Minnesota’s single-it is. Don’t be surprised if the Twins have something like 3 runs on 12 hits and 1 walk in one of these games.

The Big Picture

It’s still early. It’s still early. It’s still early. Repeat the refrain with me. The Twins have the same record today as they did after the same number of games last year. With injuries plaguing them instead of incompetence, it should be even easier to correct the course, right? If there is any value in a cold spell, it’s that the overachieving part of their peripheral statistics has sunk back to even keel, putting the adjusted record very close to the actual record. The other good news is that the Twins have actually outscored their opponents this year, hinting at the possibility that the offensive struggles are due to inconsistency rather than a persistent lack of ability. I still believe that Cuddyer will hit better, that either Punto or Bartlett will round into something more acceptable, and that someone out of the Kubel, Tyner, Ford, White grouping will be get hot enough to approach league average. It is frightening that Detroit and Cleveland have run so far out in front, but just like the Twins were overachieving when they were in first place, the Indians are 3 games ahead of their third order win projection, and the Tigers are 4.6 ahead. These things tend to even out over the course of the season, so keep hope alive. Plus, based on the sample size of the first inning of the Sunday Night game, the offense is right back on track!

St. Louis Street Sense

Winners get all of the attention. When things are going good, luxury accoutrements tend to fall into your lap. Sure, there will always be detractors who throw stones at the throne out of jealousy or some similarly misguided sentiment. Altogether, though, it is usually good to be on top. For those who watched last weekend’s Kentucky Derby, it should come as no surprise that the frontrunner can be severely disappointed. In baseball, the season is long enough for a team to languish in mediocrity for months at a time before finally righting the ship toward a championship, such as the 2006 edition of the Minnesota Twins, who underperformed into June, but still won 97 games and the most competitive division in all of baseball. Underperformance, overvaluation, and plain bad luck all contribute to teams coming slow out of the gates, but smart teams have a way of systematically reversing these trends over a 162 game season. Certain teams stand out as early underperformers this year, especially the World Champion St. Louis Cardinals. Today, I will look a little deeper at the team’s struggles to discern truth from fiction and see if they have it in them to pull a Street Sense and win going away.

The Cards are not only an excellent case study in slow starts, but the debate surrounding their season going forward legitimately has to sides. Remember two key factors coming down on the side of the pessimists: first, the team backed into the playoffs last year, icing over to an 83 win finish only to thaw out in time to win 11 postseason games behind pitchers who overachieved then left town (Suppan, Weaver). Also, their preseason outlook was not very rosy, especially when run through the computers, as Nate Silver from Baseball Prospectus commented, “I’ve publicly disavowed PECOTA’s projection that the 2005 champs will finish with 90 losses, but it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if that’s where the 2006 champs wind up.” Thirty games into the season, the Cardinals are playing more like a 95 loss team than a 90 loss team (.400 Win%) with an individual performance-adjusted record to match.

The issues afflicting the Cardinals are not limited to run scoring or run prevention alone. As of Monday, the team ranks dead last in the NL in runs scored, just two runs behind the Nationals, who play with Styrofoam bats and bowling balls in their canyon-like dwelling. Their runs allowed, certainly aided by the deft bullpen management of LaRussa and Duncan, still puts them 5^th to last in the league with 146 runs allowed. The problems even extend across situations, as the entire team has a .614 OPS at home, a .658 OPS on the road, a .658 OPS against RHP, and a.576 OPS against LHP (aided by Kip Wells’ impressive 3.500 OPS in exactly 2 plate appearances). In other words, they are hitting like the Nats and pitching like the Pirates, two fates a defending champion usually does not endure.

On offense, part of the problem is that two of their five most valuable offensive contributors have been starting pitchers Kip Wells and Adam Wainwright. And while there’s nothing wrong with a team adding pitchers that can hit, it becomes a problem when you have only two regulars and So Taguchi who can out-produce them at the dish. They are currently getting sub-replacement level contributions out of second base- free agent “bargain” Adam Kennedy and Aaron Miles alike-, shortstop- David Eckstein’s hitting 216/.283/.245 in 20% of a season-, third base- Scott Rolen is scarcely better-, center field- Jim Edmonds might be cooked-, and right field- Preston Wilson, Skip Schumaker and Scott Speizio are all individually below a 0.0 VORP. Even Albert Pujols has under-performed, hitting .259/.357/.464. A line like that would be a letdown in a normal year; when the team needs him to be Lou Gehrig, it is even more harmful. Only Chris Duncan has impressed, hitting .320 and slugging well over .500.

The starting rotation, a major point of concern in the off season, has also had major difficulty. Braden Looper, of all people, has chipped in with a 2.66 ERA in 7 starts, bolstered by the fact that he is not giving up homeruns, period. The rest of the rotation, including Anthony Reyes, Wainwright, Wells, and Randy Keisler, has been at or below replacement level. Wells came into the season as one of those pitchers who needed to earn his way into a rotation rather than out of one, and he has done nearly enough to earn his way out, even without a clear alternative. Getting only one start out of Chris Carpenter has not helped matters in the least. At least the bullpen has been a bright spot, as all of their standard matchup-heavy retreads have produced like only Dave Duncan can make them.

At leas there is room for optimism with the team. Looking at the offense, there is absolutely no way players like Eckstein and Rolen can continue playing so incredibly poorly, especially with established track records indicating a much higher level of ability. PECOTA projected Rolen to hit .283/.367/.504 and Eckstein to hit .278/.338/.348. These guys are .100 points off of both of their OBP and SLG; such an oddity is not a decline, it’s an aberration. Even Adam Kennedy should eventually come around to a level commensurate with a Major League player, if not the star he was for that one afternoon in 2002. Pujols will start raking again, and even Yadier Molina has made a few less outs, putting up a .345 OBP so far, albeit at the cost of some slugging.

The onus for the outfield rests on GM Walt Jocketty, who has to find somebody better than the deadweight in right field, and may have to find a way to gracefully manage the Edmonds situation if his head injuries are still affecting his performance. As for the pitching situation, Reyes and Wainwright are talented pitchers who will improve to average performance at very least, and they may have lucked into a quality starter with Looper. Waiting out the three months for Carpenter’s return with only these three legitimate starters will be a sizable problem, though, maybe big enough to necessitate a move.

For the record, I have counted up a total of nine black holes for the Cardinals so far: second, third, short, center, right, and four starting pitchers. The three infield spots and two of the rotation spots will almost certainly fix themselves as time goes by and players break out of nasty slumps. Center field is a mystery to me, because Jim Edmonds appeared to be at a crossroads heading into the year, and instead of choosing a path, he ran into the fork in the road and knocked himself out. Right field and the other two rotation spots will present major problems for the team, at least until August, when Carpenter may or may not return to anchor the rotation. In the meantime, the Cards have nine full games to make up on the surging Brewers, and four other teams to overcome. Given that this team probably did not have a large margin for error to start, giving themselves a degree of difficulty was probably not a good idea. I can imagine the team getting back to .500 in a best case scenario, but even then, the playoffs are quite a stretch. After seeing a horse pass 18 other horses to win the Derby in ¾ of a mile, I know that stranger things have happened. Still, don’t bet on it.

TWIT: First and Foremost

Weekly Roundup

It would be very easy for me to fill up 1200 words by talking about the ins, outs, and what-have-yous of the Joe Mauer conundrum. Instead, I will try to be concise and get it out of the way as quickly as possible. First of all, a strained quad can happen in many different ways, but one of the ways near the top of the list is compensating for a sore knee. I will not put it past a catcher to wear out his leg muscles independently of another injury, although anyone who follows players will knee injuries knows that hamstring and quad injuries are more than slightly correlated with them. In that regard, I fear that we have not heard the last of the Mauer knee saga, and that it will continue for as long as he remains at the position. Since the Twins have such a pressing need at third base, I would not hesitate to start working him out at the hot corner sooner than later, but using him in a more creative way to get some defensive contribution from behind the plate. Naturally, finding a replacement catcher is not the easiest thing to do considering the positional scarcity; that is another area where they will be better off if they start considering options now instead of waiting for zero hour to arrive.

In terms of performance, the drop-off does not go straight from Mauer to Redmond since both of them were already in the lineup fairly frequently. If Mauer was getting 90% of a full implement of plate appearances before, Redmond probably gets half of those freed up at bats, going from a half-time player to a full-time one. The rest will be split fairly evenly between reserve outfielders and DH candidates, primarily Jasons Kubel and Tyner. The way these two have been hitting, that’s a dicey proposition, as their combined effort straddles replacement level. I keep hoping that regular playing time will get Kubel’s hitting approach back on track, so there is reason for optimism in his case. We knew that a big chunk of the offense would rest on his ability to hit .290 with doubles power- it’s just becoming crucial much sooner than anyone expected.

As for the week itself, the Twins suffered the ungracious fate of losing four out of six despite outscoring their opponents for the week. The big three game set with the Red Sox yielded a total of five runs scored despite missing six-game winner Josh Becket (who Curt Schilling predicted would get crazy good on his blog due to improved fastball location), and Daisuke Matsuzaka, who just seems like the sort of pitcher who would hold the Twins scoreless on two hits for seven innings. And by that “sort of pitcher,” I mean anyone who is struggling against the rest of the league. Dropping two out of three to Tampa is far more humiliating than losing a couple of squeakers to the hottest team in the league, and they did it in a particularly gut-wrenching way. With two outs in the ninth, the Wednesday game seemed thoroughly in hand. And MLB.com featured the headline, “Twins Squander Chances” for the Thursday game, which pretty much sums it up.

Biggest Success

The obvious choice here, and perhaps the correct one, would be to go with Torii Hunter for the second straight week. As far as the offense went, he carried them. Hunter has continued to absolutely rake, this week going .417/.462/.750 with four extra base hits and six runs scored. He’s stealing bases, he’s not striking out, his defense has looked good, and he is hitting better than he has ever hit in his career. There is an obvious sample size warning here. Nonetheless, it looks like Torii has found a vintage bottle of Alfonso Soriano’s Magical Contract Year Elixir: take it, and price yourself out of your team’s pay-scale.

But I’m not going with Torii; it would be too easy. Instead I’m giving credit where I almost never do. Every time I watched the Twins this week, I was impressed by something that Ron Gardenhire did. In some cases, it was something fairly large, like making the gutsy call to yank Santana after five plus on Saturday, turning it over to a hot bullpen that got the team its only win of the series. In other cases, he did his usually adept push-button job of managing the bullpen. The only runs relievers gave up all week were in the extra innings D-Rays game (and Gardy can’t be faulted for Nathan losing his command two-thirds of the way through a save), and an insurance run in the ninth inning of Friday’s 2-0 loss. I was even satisfied with the way he handled the lineup, abandoning his usual style of subbing a player into a lineup spot as well as a position for Sunday’s matchup with Schilling. While it did not yield a win, moving Hunter up to third in the order and finally moving Redmond down shows that he’s at least paying attention to what happens in games. That might not seem worthy of the “biggest success” label, but considering some of his failings in the past, I’ll take what I can get.

Biggest Disappointment

Joe Mauer. It sure was stupid of him to go out and get himself injured like that.

No, really, the least valuable player of the week probably has to be Justin Morneau. The reigning MVP struck out in more than 1/3 of his at bats (8 of 23), managing a single extra base hit and failing to bring his OBP or SLG over the Batista-ian .300 mark. All of this in the offense’s darkest hour, when a single big hit could have made the difference in any one of their four losses for the week. In Wednesday’s loss, he left three on base in a one run loss. On Thursday, it was 5 LOB and a two run loss (that’s nuthin! Mauer had 9 LOB in the same game). Friday: 3 LOB, 2 run loss. Sunday: 4 LOB, 1 run loss. That means that a red-hot week from Morneau could easily have swung a 2-4 week to a 4-2 week. It is not fair to place the entire onus of a bad week on one player, but Morneau was especially bad.

On the Horizon

It doesn’t get any easier from here, as the Twins return to the Dome for a week that could get ugly, but could also help them turn their fortunes around against their two biggest divisional rivals. The struggling White Sox could provide some sort of respite, although old friend A.J. Pierzynski may have started to reverse their momentum by tying their game with the Angels on a two-run homer in the 8^th, then securing the win with an RBI single in the 10^th on Sunday. At 14-14 and a negative run differential, the White Sox have underachieved in games in which their starting pitcher does not throw a no-hitter, so here’s to hoping the week gets off to a good start against another team playing below its level. The Twins will need to be hot out of the gates, especially since Detroit rolls into Minneapolis for a weekend series. The Tigers have been on fire, winning seven in a row heading into their series with Seattle during the week. Altogether, I think the schedule is fairly favorable, since the Twins are in a lull right now and can get by with a 3-3 record (two against Chicago and one against Detroit seems reasonable) without inching toward disaster. Even a 2-4 record would not send anyone into catatonic shock with Mauer out and the offense already struggling. These low expectations lead to possibly surprising results, and winning four or five of the games is certainly not out of the question.

The Big Picture

I have mentioned third-order wins a few times already, and it is not a stat that looks kindly upon the 2007 Twins thus far. The fact that they are fully two wins ahead of their third order stats means that they are scoring and preventing runs than their individual performances suggest should be possible. Since several key players are not performing up to their standard level- Morneau, Bonser, Crain- it is reasonable that the performance will even out and they will keep their heads above water in terms of run differential.

Two other issues piqued my interest for the future of the Twins beyond the next seven days. Primarily, the Mauer situation, which I have already addressed extensively, could become a thorn in the team’s side, since the backup catching duties fall to Chris Heintz, a player who doesn’t even hit in AAA. Terry Ryan needs to get on the phone with the league of backup catchers to see if he can buy Wiki Gonzalez out of his insurance sales business, or see if baseball seems more appealing that installing seamless siding to John Flaherty. If Mauer returns in two weeks, it is not an issue, but if a third catcher is necessary, there are cheap alternatives to Heintz who can do something well.

Lastly, I’m not sure how much more we need to see out of Sidney Ponson. Short of showing up to a start inebriated (which probably hasn’t happened, although I can make no promises), he has already proven that he is still the pitcher that washed out of every other pitching starved organization over the last two seasons. To paraphrase the immortal Denny Green: He is what we thought he was! If you’re going to knight him, then knight him! He is what we thought he was! He has made no shocking transformation, and Rick Anderson has only so much mojo to go around. Let’s give him a coupon to the Old Country Buffet, call up one of the three starters in Rochester with an ERA under 2.50 (Slowey, Garza, Baker) or stretch out Perkins, then act confused when Ponson returns from said buffet in mid-July weighing 345 pounds. It’s for the good of the land; get it done.