SB Nation User Blog: Johnny Safron

The Twin Cities Marathon

Johnny Safron — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 03:44:37 -0000

Good going, Gardenhire.

Since replacing Tom Kelly, Gardenhire is one of the five winningest managers in baseball. Like Tom Kelly, he'll have that job as long as he wants it.

Gardenhire, not only goosed the team to .786 winning percentage in games Morneau did not start this season, he understands that youth drives championships, so he installed rookie Matt Tolbert at third.

Since then, the team is 16-4.

Good for Casilla, avoiding one long winter.

Bill Smith gets the last laugh, picking up O-Cab and Rausch and Mahay rather than Garcia and Washburn, allowing Gardenhire to adeptly manipulate his bullpen down the stretch.

This season is one more nail in Jim Leyland's coffin, perhaps the most overrated manager of the past 20 years.

Too bad for the city of Detroit. They got nothing going for them there. Sorry, folks.

Fire Joe Vavra

Johnny Safron — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 04:25:28 -0000

This will mark the second season since 1989 that the Twins will finish above the league average in walks

In the 12 games since Morneau went down the Twins have 48 walks, or 4 per game. That’s a 13 percent increase in walks from before Morny's stress fracture, or as some like to erroneously call it to dramatize the situation, "a broken back."

Observant followers have known throughout the season that this edition of the Twins has been more patient than any Twins’ team in recent memory. Those same fans have noted even more patience since Morneau went down.

Whipping boy Nick Punto has a .500-plus OBP in the past seven days and more than .420 for the past month.

What is the team now? 16-3 without Morneau in the starting lineup this year?

That’s a good lesson for the "trade Cuddyer," "trade Delmon," "trade Gomez," folks, although folks like that tend to forget real quick. With someone like Jason Tyner as a spare part, a team is screwed when a daily player goes down. But with the extra talent, no such problem. Big-league teams don’t win with Jason Tyners as spare parts.

There’s no such thing as a "crowded outfield" situation or "too many starting pitchers."

More good facts

Johnny Safron — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 19:18:18 -0000

Twins get their new "most important" win of the season with three rookies in the lineup (and a 23-year-old).
Twins now 10-2 in games Morneau doesn’t start.
Nick Punto in September: .351 BA, .875 OPS. More hits than Morneau in fewer PAs since the All-Star break.
Gardenhire continues his masterful bullpen orchestration: on this streak: 14 innings from the bullpen, 2 earned runs.

Twins won-loss record in player starts so far this year.

Crede 48-39 +9

Mauer 62-55 +7

Kubel 61-56 +5

Young 45-40 +5

Twins 75-72 +3

Casilla 33-31 +2

Cuddyer 68-67 +1

Span 65-64 +1

Punto 51-50 +1

Harris 47-47 --

Gomez 41-42 -1

Morneau 65-70 -5

Less-neau

Johnny Safron — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 04:49:43 -0000

Wow, this makes three consecutive seasons of crippling second-half slides for Justin Morneau.

Batting about .170 for the past month. Hit the All-Star mark with 70 RBI and has yet to crack 100 for the season.

It hasn't been as bad as 2007, when his second-half OPS was about .240 below his first half, but it's hard to match a dip that deep.

You could argue the inner ear problem affected him, but this isn't an isolated half-season, it's a habit.

Days of the 23-man roster nearly over

Johnny Safron — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 03:12:55 -0000

With September call-ups and Crede going on the DL, Gardenhire will have a full bench to work with, rather than a 23-man roster when Crede couldn't answer the bell and a 24-man roster and two bullpen catchers when Crede could high-pants it onto the field.

Nice career for an underdog who was never supposed to make it to The Show, Redmond, but one look in April and it was clear the skills were gone. It's not just the Brett Favres of the sports world who don't want to step aside.

It must have been interesting in the Twins' front office this August as they felt hogtied on what to do with Redmond as the pages fell form the calendar at a glacial pace.

Thanks, Garza

Johnny Safron — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 02:31:16 -0000

Matt Garza haunts the Twins again, turning in probably his worst start of the season and falling to 7-9 this season as Los Tigres win.

Sure, you can talk about run support.

You can talk about bad luck.

Certainly, he has pitched better than this record, but the bottom line is the Rays aren't winning when he's starting, and that's not the idea.

The Rays are 13-13 in his starts this year. For a .590 baseball club.

This will continue to be a trade people speak about for a long time, but in two seasons with the Rays Matt Garza is 18-18, and Tampa Bay is 27-29 when Garza starts.

Looks like the Twinkers are spending a little ching

Johnny Safron — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 22:46:38 -0000

Being this came from a pay site I won't include too much, in order to keep barristers from sweeping down, but if you're industrious maybe you can find the whole thing in print or online.

From the Wall Street Journal Europe:

BERLIN -- Kathy Kepler, once a star ballerina at the Berlin ballet, has a saying: "Three days away, out of the ballet."

That training motto also serves her son Max, baseball's most unusual prospect. Max Kepler-Rozycki, 16, has just received an $800,000 bonus to sign with the Minnesota Twins, a stunning sum for a teenager out of Europe and a record for an amateur position player outside the U.S. and Latin America.

Officials from a dozen U.S. Major League teams, including the New York Yankees and Chicago Cubs, came to Berlin this year to check out the 1.9-meter, 86-kilogram outfielder.

NOTE: For those not familiar with the metric system, that translates into 9 foot, 720-pound outfielder. Well, maybe I'm a little off on my conversion.

So Mauer has raised...

Johnny Safron — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 03:25:31 -0000

...his average 30 points this month. It's a wonderful thing to miss that first month. He's still has a small enough amount of ABs that a tear like this can have an impact.

If he were to miraculously hit .400, he would do it having raised his average nearly 50 points in the final two months of the season.

As it is, he already has more hits than he had last month in 106 PAs (he's in his 70s now) and he should also pass up his June hit total.

His OBP for the month is about.525.

The Red Sox most certainly are seeing this and searching for more items of commerce - such as wall board, tire gauges and lint traps - to put their logo on to sell to the rabid Nor'easters in order to raise the ching to sign this guy in 2012.

And he's done it with Morneau in a funk.

How bad are the Twins this month?

Johnny Safron — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 02:01:32 -0000

So bad that it is August 15 and they have played only four games in which Joe Nathan would have been considered an option. The Twins have either won by so much or lost by so much that their All-Star closer has pitched twice in August and is on pace for a career low in games and innings.

The Twins really have 4-and-a-half "championship" players, with Nathan as the only pitcher. Then you have Mauer, Morneau, Span and Crede - when he can answer the bell.

You can't really win much of anything at the big-league level with so few championship players, and the way this club has played this month, it has managed to marginalize one of them.

Keep it up, boys. Since the advent of the "closer," it's not likely anyone's healthy closer appeared only four times in a month. The Twins have Nathan on such a pace.

Manny Ramirez's kidneys at 50

Johnny Safron — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 03:48:30 -0000

Manny Ramirez's kidneys at 50

Reds' starter Bronson Arroyo had some comments in USA Today today (is there an echo in here?) that probably upset Bud Selig's breakfast this noon.

Bronson ought to run his mouth a little more often. He tossed a two-hitter tonight. Not that there was anyone there to see it.