With this All-Star break forcing to watch so little baseball, we now have a moment to drink up the frothy milkshake of statistics from the first half. So, you and I, we shall dissect the stats and find out who has been lucky, unlucky and a little of both.
With Francisco Liriano heating up, and so few teams branded as definitive sellers as trade-deadline season gets ready to kick into high gear, interest in the lefty figures to pique soon. Earlier today, Ken Rosenthal reported that some teams prefer Liriano as a reliever. While Liriano could work out as a reliever, acquiring him to be one seems like a circuitous route to success.
When Francisco Liriano shut down the Athletics in his return to the starting rotation, many dismissed it as just one start, and one against the Athletics at that. Instead, Liriano has taken that start and ran with it, and six starts later he looks reborn. There could hardly be a bigger difference between Liriano’s first five starts and his last seven:
First five starts:
26.2 IP, 37 H, 30 R, 28 ER, 21 K, 19 BB, 6 HR
Last seven starts:
42.2 IP, 25 H, 15 R, 14 ER, 46 K, 18 BB, 1 HR
The reader may very well be totally and irretrievably drunk at the moment, but it’s not for that reason that he’s seeing Trevor Plouffe‘s name near the top of the preceding [leaderboard]. As of Tuesday night, at least, Plouffe had hit the most home runs (nine) among major leaguers in June.
— Carson Cistulli, Daily Notes
If you are a self-respecting, perfectly rational human, then you have no doubt been ignoring the Minnesota Twins. Even fans from the Northstar State have been watching their beloved team — now at 34-45 — through face-covering hands of anguish.
So it is likely you, like me, did not really think about Trevor Plouffe before right now or perhaps earlier this month. I knew his name, but it was not until a fan suggested he deserved a movie in his honor that I realized something was askew.
And a askew it is: Plouffe — a utility infielder with a consistent history of ~95 wRC+ in the minors — has 18 home runs and a .371 wOBA (137 wRC+). Not only has he earned the starting third base job in Minnesota, he has shot up the MLB leaderboards and would currently have the 3rd best wRC+ among third basemen if he had the qualifying plate appearances.
And though his home run power may be partly mirage, there is enough evidence now to think Plouffe’s re-birth is for real.
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While watching the Mets pound on the Cubs yesterday, I noticed that David Wright still has a walk rate (BB%) higher than his strikeout rate (K%). If Wright managed to continue this trend through the end of the season it would be the first time in his career he achieved such a feat.
Francisco Liriano is back. After a month-long banishment to the bullpen, Liriano has returned to the rotation looking like a completely different pitcher. In his six starts prior to his demotion, Liriano was broken. The lefty allowed 37 hits in just 26.2 innings, and racked up a 9.45 ERA. While his stint in the bullpen only lasted five outings, it seemed to be exactly what he needed. Since rejoining the Minnesota Twins’ rotation, Liriano has allowed just 16 hits in 30.1 innings, and has posted a 2.67 ERA. Even though there are some reasons to doubt Liriano’s recent performance, there are also some signs that his success could be due to an altered approach.
Lost in the Kansas City Royals’ Yuniesky Betancourt-fueled 5-3 extra-innings win over the Cardinals yesterday was that Alex Gordon tied his franchise record with five walks in a single game. Yeah, I’m as furious as the rest of you that this was overlooked. But hey, at least this time he at least scored a run. When Gordon originally set the record (as I am sure you all remember) back on July 30, 2008 against Oakland, he did not score once. (I remember that game well, as not long before that I had an argument with someone who said that Jose Guillen was the Royals’ only “feared” hitter, unlike that loser Gordon. Guillen hit right behind Gordon in this game. FEAR.)
It was an amazing feat, in a way, but not nearly the most times on base without scoring. In fact, since 1918, there have been 73 players who have gotten on base six or more times without scoring in regular season games. What follows is a look at the most extreme cases.
Francisco Liriano turned some heads with his May 30th start against Oakland, in which he tossed six shutout innings with nine strikeouts. It was Oakland, though, and that leaves an obvious question heading into Tuesday night’s start against Kansas City: was it the lineup, or did Liriano actually turn a corner?
If you hadn’t guessed from my first piece on Midwest League prospects, the league is simply loaded with talent. Taking that statement one step further, few would argue it was the best prospect league in all of minor league baseball at present. In this installment, seven more prospects ranging from the relative unknowns to household names (if there is such a thing when it comes to prospects).
The Minnesota Twins have not had many bright spots this season, but one seems to be the return of Joe Mauer’s bat. After an injury-plagued disaster of a 2011 seasons, Joe Mauer is hitting like his old self again. After his 2-4 with a home run and a walk peformance in yesterday’s losing effort against the White Sox, Mauer now has a classic, Mauer-esque .301/.414/.423 (138 wRC+) line on the season.
One of the biggest concerns for the Twins going into the season was that they would not only be terrible (which has happened), but that if they needed to move one of their big contracts (Mauer and Morneau) for rebuilding purposes, that neither player would hit well enough to bring back much in trade given what they are owed. This is not to say that the Twins “have” to trade Mauer any time soon — if and when they should consider it is another discussion. The two-part question here a whether Mauer’s bat is really back after the mess that was 2011, and also whether he will be worth his sizable contract going forward.