Archive for Twins

With Opening Day on the horizon, three teams are planning to enter the season with exclusively right-handed rotations: the Guardians, the Twins, and the White Sox. As I’m sure I don’t have to tell you, that’s not the only thing these clubs have in common; they’re also the three contenders for the AL Central crown. An all-righty rotation isn’t unheard of, but it is uncommon, and it’s particularly unusual to see three within the same division. Here’s how they each stack up:

Around this time last season, there were likewise three teams planning to deploy all-righty rotations: the Guardians, the Twins, and the Mets. The Mets, however, had lefty in David Peterson at Triple-A, and it was only a matter of time before they needed him. Indeed, he was called up two days into the season and made his first start a week later. As for the Guardians and Twins, they also had lefties waiting in the wings. Konnor Pilkington was the first man called up when Cleveland needed a sixth starter; Devin Smeltzer wasn’t the first call-up for Minnesota, but he was soon to follow.

This year, the White Sox have joined the all-righty ranks. In fact, they haven’t had a left-handed starter since releasing Dallas Keuchel last May. Meanwhile, the Guardians and Twins have more right-handed depth than last season. Pilkington is still around for Cleveland, but he had a poor showing this spring, and several right-handed prospects are moving their way up the depth chart. As for Minnesota, Smeltzer elected free agency in October, and every new starter the team acquired this offseason has been a righty. Read the rest of this entry »

Over the last thirty days, no starting pitcher has been even close to touching Roy Oswalt’s 2.48 WPA/LI. Derek Lowe, as great as he has been lately, is still a full win lower. Third on that list, however, is Francisco Liriano, the Twins lefty phenom who underwent surgery and made his return to the big leagues this year. In his early outings, he simply stunk. He wasn’t striking hitters out, walked many, and gave up plenty of hits. This earned him a demotion wherein he could hopefully, for the sake of Twins fans, work on his kinks and get that confidence and swagger back.

Prior to this recent 30-day stretch, he had made 5 starts, for just 22 innings, in which 24 hits and 16 earned runs were surrendered, along with 18 walks and 17 strikeouts. Recently, however, he made 6 starts, for 40 innings, giving up just 28 hits and 6 earned runs, walking no more than 7 and fanning 34. With a WHIP under 0.90, an ERA of 1.35, a K/BB nearing 5.0, Liriano has earned produced a 1.32 WPA/LI in these six starts. This more than made up for the poor performance early on as his seasonal wins added have gone from -0.18 to 1.14.

He may have been dominant lately, but I’m not sure I would say he is 100% “back” yet. His K/9 is 7.40—7.65 in this six-game stretch—way down from the 10.71 in 2006. His BB/9 has risen about a full batter per. Instead of 2005-06, where he was clearly a groundball pitcher instead of a flyball pitcher, his current GB/FB is 43%/41%, resulting in a 1.05 GB/FB. On top of that, his HR/FB is a very low 5.3%, meaning he has seen a vast increase in flyballs but is keeping them in the yard at a lucky or likely unsustainable pace.

Though he is still likely not himself following the surgery, he is only throwing 90-91 mph, instead of 94-95 mph on his fastball, while his slider has been around 83 mph instead of 87-88 mph. He may be effective right now, and his numbers may look like the Liriano we fell in love with two years ago, but he seems to be quite a bit away from reclaiming the throne as “the next Johan.” It definitely could happen as his body gets more comfortable, but right now, he is a different version of Liriano, inferior to what we glimpsed in 2005-06, but still effective.

The Minnesota Twins have been one of the more surprising stories in baseball this year, given that relatively few people gave them any sort of significant shot at contending at all. Yet, as we approach the 100-game mark of the season, the Twinkies are 55-43 and sit just a half-game behind the White Sox for first place in the AL Central; additionally, they are only one game behind the Red Sox for the Wild Card. For a team performing well to be considered a surprising story, the implication exists that either the franchise floundered in the recent past, like the Rays, or that its components are largely unknown commodities to the more general public.

Since the Twins have made the playoffs quite a bit this decade the surprise factor stems from their players not receiving massive amounts of publicity. Ipso facto, while most people could recite the 25-man roster for numerous teams in the league I would be willing to wager one of the toughest would be the Gardenhire Gang. Think about it. Their top slugger won the home run derby and the commentators present couldn’t even pronounce his name… let alone remember he won an MVP not too long ago. Their starting centerfielder is more commonly known outside of Minnesota as “that Johan trade guy.” And the only members of their starting pitching staff most people know about are Livan Hernandez, who doesn’t deserve to be one of the only members recognized, and Boof Bonser, whose name is, well, Boof. Point blank, you don’t forget a guy named Boof.

This last notion is really a shame because their success in the starting rotation has largely been reliant upon the performance of the other three: Scott Baker, Nick Blackburn, and Kevin Slowey (Glen Perkins you get honorable mention). This trio does not possess lights out “stuff” nor do they fire the ball past hitters with plus-fastballs. Instead, they limit their baserunners and have been quite adept at stranding those that do happen to reach base. Baker has been better at this than his two colleagues, stranding 82.4% of runners, a number behind only John Lackey at the top of the AL leaderboard. A number like this certainly isn’t expected to be sustained, so his performance from here on out will likely hinge upon just how far that rate drops.

None of the three had extremely significant service time so the reliability of their pre-season projections was not as high as, say, Livan’s, but they have essentially either matched these projections or have outdone them in the first 59% of the season. Going forward, Baker is projected at an FIP of 3.90, with Blackburn at 3.93 and Slowey at 4.12, all very respectable numbers. Their strikeout to walk ratios are not expected to be as high as we have seen thus far but are not likely to plummet all the way down towards J.C. Romero-ville. Lastly, their BABIPs are all either on the average or right around the corner so they haven’t necessarily been of extreme benefit in that department.

Here are their numbers this year, followed by what can be expected from here on out:

Scott Baker (now): 3.99 FIP, 1.16 WHIP, 4.86 K/BB, 1.52 BB/9
Scott Baker (2nd): 3.90 FIP, 1.26 WHIP, 3.08 K/BB, 2.13 BB/9

Nick Blackburn (now): 3.86 FIP, 1.27 WHIP, 3.56 K/BB, 1.37 BB/9
Nick Blackburn (2nd): 3.93 FIP, 1.29 WHIP, 2.58 K/BB, 2.16 BB/9

Kevin Slowey (now): 3.98 FIP, 1.13 WHIP, 4.69 K/BB, 1.42 BB/9
Kevin Slowey (2nd): 4.12 FIP, 1.19 WHIP, 3.00 K/BB, 2.13 BB/9

Their projections from here on out are calling for higher walk rates which in turn raises the WHIP and lowers the K/BB. This means more baserunners will reach and their barometric success (such as ERA) will be determined by an ability to strand them. There are plenty of “if’s” that must be met for the Twins to sustain their success and have a legitimate shot at winning the division, but I don’t consider it to be out of reach. Baker, Blackburn, and Slowey might not be the most well-known, or most exciting pitchers in all of baseball, but they have definitely been solid performers expected to continue producing at a quality level, most likely under the radar.

This past week proved to be quite the eventful one in major league baseball. The AL continued its domination of the senior circuit, the Tigers climbed back to .500, the Diamondbacks continued to fall toward .500, C.C. Sabathia dropped his ERA to 3.78 while taking the league lead with 118 strikeouts, and then there were the two events or oddities I will profile here: the Dodgers were no-hit and won, and the Twins faced four former Cy Young Award winners in five days.

First, the Twins: From 6/20 to 6/25 they played and won five contests in their nine-game winning streak, beating Randy Johnson, Brandon Webb, Jake Peavy, and Greg Maddux. Now, they did not beat all four of these pitchers, specifically, as Trevor Hoffman lost Peavy’s game; still, this made me wonder if something similar has ever happened before. Facing four Cy Young Award winners in five games would require two or more award winners to be on the same team as well as the schedule to pan out to one of the following:

a) 3 on one team, 1 on the team played after that series, faced consecutively
b) 2 on one team, 2 on the next team, comprising the final and first games of different series
c) 1 award winner in the final game of a series, 2 in a two-game series, and 1 to start the next

My first thought was that the Braves might factor in here as, from 1997-2002, John Smoltz, Greg Maddux, and Tom Glavine had all at least won one award. If the three of them pitched in a series and the opposing team then faced, say, Randy Johnson in their next game it would work. Unfortunately, I don’t have anything coded for this; if anyone out there does, please let us know if this has ever happened before.

Secondly, the Dodgers beat the Angels last night, 1-0, yet did not record one hit. Their lone run came on two errors and a sac fly in the fifth inning. Jered Weaver and Jose Arredondo combined to surrender no hits—it isn’t officially labeled a no-hitter by major league baseball since the Dodgers only batted eight times.

Though reported that this was the fifth time since 1900 in which a team won while failing to record a hit, the other four all appear to have taken place from 1956 until now. Here are the other four:

1) 4/23/1964, Reds 1-0 Colt .45’s, no-hit by Ken Johnson
2) 4/30/1967, Tigers 2-1 Orioles, 8.2 hitless from Steve Barber
3) 7/1/1990, White Sox 4-0 Yankees, 8.0 hitless from Andy Hawkins
4) 4/12/1992, Indians 2-1 Red Sox, 8.0 hitless from Matt Young

Only in a game like baseball can a pitcher allow no hits to his opposition, while pitching a complete game, yet lose the game and additionally fail to get his efforts recognized as a no-hitter. Such a crazy week in an unpredictable sport topped off with just the fifth hitless win in history.

Entering tonight’s action the Twins have a 23-24 record and are just 3.5 games behind the first place White Sox. Though the 2008 season is still relatively young, I think it is safe to say most of us did not expect the Twinkies to be so close to .500, at any point this season. By trading the best pitcher in the game, Johan Santana, for a slew of prospects, the Twins seemed poised for a rebuilding phase; one that would not necessarily bring with it much success this year. Despite this, the Twins are no cakewalk and catcher Joe Mauer is a major reason why.

Though Joe is yet to hit his first home run, he is posting a .333/.404/.413 slash line, which gives him the highest catcher-OPS in the American League; only Geovany Soto and Brian McCann have higher OPS counts for catchers. Additionally, he has struck out just 13 times in 150 at-bats, the fifth lowest K% in the AL.

He leads the Twins with a 1.39 WPA, 1.09 REW, and 11.29 BRAA. His WPA surpasses everyone else on his team so much so that it would take the aggregate sum of Justin Morneau, Carlos Gomez, Craig Monroe, and Scott Baker to roughly equal Mauer’s contributions. He is hitting the same percentage of flyballs from a year ago but has replaced 5.5% of his grounders with line drives this year.

The area of Mauer’s statistics that fascinates me most is his selectivity. He has swung at a very low 16.2% of pitches outside of the strike zone yet has increased his out of zone contact by nearly ten percent. This increase has given him the highest percentage of contact out of the zone in the league.

In the strike zone, Mauer has an almost identical percentage of swings to last year, and only Bobby Abreu has swung at less in the zone in the AL. Despite his low frequency of swings in the zone he ranks 8th in zone contact.

A commonly accepted creed is for the batter to “wait for his pitch.” Well, Mauer not only waits for his pitches more often than the vast majority of the league, but he makes good use of them!