SB Nation User Blog: MNPundit

My Answer to the Poll Question

MNPundit — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 19:59:39 -0000

What should the Twins Off-Season priority be?

Since I can't figure out how to comment on the poll: Replacing Terry Ryan. He's the equivalent of Kevin McHale.

Over At Last, a Heat of the Moment Angry Rage Diary

MNPundit — Sat, 07 Oct 2006 14:07:53 -0000

My immediate thoughts after the last out (at 5:56pm my time) cross posted from my non baseball blog. As you can see I went from anger, sorrow and humiliation and out the other side to melancholy acceptance and hope at the end.

Dear Team:

Brad Radke's sacrifice and final year? You wasted it.
Liriano establishing himself? You wasted it.
Kirby Puckett's year? You wasted it.
Ozzie Guillen calling us Piranhas? You wasted it.
The Division Crown? You wasted it.
The Homefield Advantage? You wasted it.
The good Karma from the stadium bill? You wasted it.
That 16-2 run in June? You wasted it.
That 96-66 record? You wasted it.

And you know what? Now you have win 95 more games to try again. Think you can do it? You'd better.

...I sure hope you can.

Do We Need to Win the Central?

MNPundit — Sun, 10 Sep 2006 22:42:55 -0000

I know there are still many games left, but you have to start looking ahead at some point. After checking out the Twins win today, I hopped over to ESPN's Hunt for October and was reminded that if the race ended today, the Tigers would face the A's and the Twins would for the third time in the last 4 years, face the New York Yankees. If the Twins win the Central they will play the As as the Wild Card team is likley to come from the Central Division. Both Boston and the Angels are 7 games behind us.

Let me remind you of the results of those previous meetings...

2002 - Twins win games 1,4,5 defeat Oakland and Joe Morgan announces "It's just goes to show the best team doesn't always win." Twins go on to win the first game against that year's champion, the Angels, and the bullpen collapses after game 1, Angels Win Series 4-1.

2003 - Twins win game 1 in NY, LaTroy Hawkins and rest of bullpen implode in game 4 and New York Wins Series 3-1.

2004 - Twins win game 1 in NY, Juan Rincon allows 3-run HR to tie game 4 and New York Wins Series 3-1.

I know the Twins have beaten the Yankees in the regular season at times (IIRC in 03 and 04 at the end of the season Gardy allowed his team to lose the series to rest his players making me charge him with momentum killing) but even for the players who weren't there like Bartlett that kind of thing has got to be in the back of your mind.

So, cut to the present day, once again the Twins have lost the series in New York though this time they don't have Radke. But in his two appearances against them, Scott Baker has owned the Yankees. And the team did do better against them in 2004 than in 2003, nearly winning game 2 and game 4. So it's possible that they could win and this team does have an experienced Mauer and Morneau. It has a couple of good relievers in Reyes and Neshek, it's got a solid reliever in Rincon and Nathan remains a lights-out closer blowing 2 saves this year of which the Twins won 1 game in extra innings. And a short series may very well favor us over the Yankees as opposed to a long one. But a part of me desperately hopes they Twins win the Central so they don't have to take on the Yankees right away.

Poll

Can the Twins beat the Yankees in the ALDS?

Easy, the Twins sweep the series

1 votes

Twins have a strong showing and win 3-1 or 3-2

30 votes

Twins fall short but just barely 2-3 or 1-3

9 votes

Twins collapse and are swept

1 votes

What are you talking about? It's too early to worry about this!

14 votes

55 votes | Poll has closed

Untapped Reservoir, Crazy Lib, or Eye Candy?

MNPundit — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 22:38:50 -0000

Taking a break from the Twins, I thought I'd articulate an idea I've been running around in my head for the last year or so.

Jackie Robinson, we all know that name -- the man who broke the color line in baseball, the man whose number was universaly retired, venerated even now and of course a damn good player. Baseball is my favorite sport, only soccer has the kind of international appeal that baseball has, and especially with the birth of the WBC (which I fully support) it's become a truly international game.

The barriers beside talent and poor management skills are falling. There are increasing numbers of players coming over from Japan and Korea, from Europe and it's expanding in Central Asia as well hopefully displacing Crickett (boring to watch, and astonishingly, even MORE boring to play, sorry Crickett fans.)

The Women's College World Series just finished up in Oklahoma as well, Arizona swept Northwestern and the ladies took home another title putting them that much closer to UCLA's record of softball titles. I must confess, I was rooting for Northwestern because it was their first time.

So can you guess where I'm going now? Maybe. There is one line that baseball has yet to cross and if it did, it would be a blockbuster. That's right, the gender line. I still can't figure out how to make the extended entry work, but here goes.

Remember a cool baseball story from last year? A little league pitcher pitches a perfect game, with 18 strikeouts! The story garnered extra attention because the pitcher was a girl. Even if she wasn't a fluke, when she gets to highschool the coaches will politely ask her to play softball. While there are girls who play on highschool teams, it's still not common and nearly unheard of in college.

Why? I think it's because by the time of college (and maybe highschool) most girls are used to the softball system. I imagine it would be as difficult for a person to switch from softball to baseball as it would be the otherway around. It could eventually be done but not without a lot of work. Of course there's also an argument that highschool boys would sexually harass any girl on their team or that it would break team unity, but I for one, would not have been threatned if girls had been added to my highschool sports teams so its difficult for me to understand that particular objection.

One of the (few) things I liked about Moneyball, was that the use of the SABR system was a new way to evaluate players and find value in some players the traditional system overlooked.

This could be an untapped reservoir of talent, and I for one, wonder if MLB teams could exploit it. If some organization, either one that needed to generate publicity (say, like Tampa Bay) or one with budget constraints (hint hint, Twins!) quietly began to construct a system to draft females along with males...

Of course, you'd need a solid baseball programs at the highschool level (at the least) to be able to find women with the talent to be selected to minor league teams, but as something that might pay dividends it's something that I would rally behind and there IS the American Women's Baseball Federation and the Women's International Baseball Association. In recent years these organizations have been actively increasing the numbers of female ball players. Perhaps some offers could be made to some of the better players there to place them in minor league systems.

I understand that this would be a huge opening to criticism. "Why are you wasting team resources buiilding a farm system for girls? What if you can't sign some great start because you spent all this money on that? What can you hope to accomplish?"

Due to physical differences I don't think women will approach parity to men in baseball, but I don't see why a solid minority couldn't hold their own with occasional stars. I guess in the end, I'm aruging for "let 'em play and see what happens!"

A Bucket of COLD Spit (now with actual analysis)

MNPundit — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 23:24:00 -0000

My last diary was a fantasy post. I was honestly surprised by the response. So I tried a little harder and looked at the teams we might realistically consider trading Hunter to and what we could get from them in return which I determined to be middle-infield (2B/3B Castillo is awesome but he is not a part of a 2 year rebuilding effort and free Bartlett) or maybe bullpen help. I looked around for teams who are 1) contending or about to contend in the next 2-3 years and 2) teams that need a center fielder 3)teams that are freespenders or with low-payroll

If a team is not about to contend in a few years, I'm not sure how much they'd want Torii and his salary since he is in his prime now and for the next few years (unless they want him to pacify the fanbase).

A note: I don't know much about what are in the respective teams minor league systems except the Twins so I'm focusing on the major league rosters. Also, because of our spotty record with call-ups I'd prefer having someone who already has been introduced to the major leagues.

In the AL those teams turned out to be the Mariners and the Angels. More below the fold, if I can get the extended sections to work right...

Anaheim
I don't see anyone in the major league system that the Twins could covet at at either middle infield, 3B, or bullpen except [Erick] Aybar at 2B but dowe really want to give Gardenhire another highly-touted prospect to screw with? I shudder to think of the Aybar carnival that would quickly set up shop at 2B next to the Bartlett one in the middle-infield. Of course, Aybar has performed well for the Angels in limited playing time so maybe that kind of thing would make Gardy smile. Did Aybar go to winterball?

Seattle
Jose Lopez at 2B, in the same number of MLG games (54) as last year he is slugging .100+ higher, but his OBP despite being up from last year's is a subpar .312. His minor league OBP numbers fluctuate wildly at first glance. His SLG number is also closer to his minor league norm so perhaps he needed to get aclimated.

George Sherill is a lefty with more strikeouts than innings and walks at the minor league level with some concern over walks (11BB to 19SO in the sample size of 16IP) at the majors. Still maybe if Anderson can work with him on his control and avoid teaching him a sinker, he could return to his consistently low walk totals of the minor leagues. Does Seattle see itself as a team that can contend in the next 2-3 years?

Now it's time to take a look at a league I know less about, the NL.

NL West
Giants
A wash as far as I can tell.

Rockies
They started out hot so maybe they're hoping this is their chance to win. Both Rockies CFs, Freeman and Sullivan are sub-par offensively (and at Coors no less) but seem adequate defensively at first glance. In this trade the Twins would likely target Garrett Atkins (3B). Looking at his park-adjusted stats on Baseball Reference he still looks to be better than anything we've got at 3B now. Moreover, the Rockies went down in payroll from opening day 2005 to 2006 by about 7 million dollars. That is in the ballpark to Hunter's salary, and he would bring theirs up to about $50 million.

I have a hard time believing that the Rockies would give up 27 year old hitting-his-prime Atkins, who hits lefties and righties pretty well, and whose batting average is actually higher on the road, for Hunter. Perhaps if the Twins sweeten the deal with Baker but I label this one as barely possible.

Padres
Between Cameron and Roberts you have the makings of one good Centerfielder. They might combine in Hunter, but what would they do with Cameron/Roberts? Moreover the infielders likely targetted here would be Mark Bellhorn (using infielder loosely!) or Geoff Blum who is 33. Padres are out.

Dodgers
At nearly $100 million payroll it's going to have to be a blockbuster trade to send Torii to the Dodgers. Moreover, despite having played in only 33 games, Kenny Lofton seems to be doing about as good as Hunter. No deal.

Diamondbacks
Eric Byrnes is on fire right now with an OPS north of .950. There is no way.

NL East
Mets
Carlos Beltran means we move right along to the Braves.

Braves
Andruw (drew-wuh?) Jones means we shimmy on over to the Phillies.

Phillies
Aaron Rowand + 90 million payroll means its trime to truck over to the Guzman-less Nationals.

Nationals
With an opening day payroll of $63mil and a CF whose offense is about 70 points below Hunter's (even after a park justment that is a definite problem) and who is a downgrade even after park adjustment and you have a recipe for a possible trade. If only Nick Johnson played 3B.

Other Nationals possibilities are Jose Vidro and Ryan Zimmerman (3B). Now Vidro made $7,000,000 the last two years and he is still only 29. However, he might be too high profile a target to let go...

Zimmerman is 22, blew through Single A, and played 63 games in while posting a .850 OPS in AA before being bumped up to the big club in a late season call up (I assume) where he proceeded to suffer little decline in his offensive skills. Now with the Nationals in all of 2006, he has sunk down to a .784 OPS with a .450 SLG while playing in their pitcher's park. He hits better on the road than at home (by a decent margin) though the last couple of games he's gone through a slump.

If Washington were looking to win the next couple years (and they might, I'm not sure what their plan is) I'd target Zimmerman and hope that he keeps his numbers up in the more hitter-friendly Metrodome despite the league transition because I think he'd be worth more here than in the Nationals home-park. However he is still young and who knows what our system will do to him?

Marlins
Well I already got bruised on that one, didn't I? Besides they're rebuilding. Maybe if I give them a turkey sandwich Miguel Cabrera will come to Minnesota?

Next time? The NL Central!

More Than a Bucket of Warm Spit

MNPundit — Thu, 01 Jun 2006 04:29:15 -0000

Thanks to Jesse on the frontpage, we have a clear comparisson over how Hunter has played over the last month. Now obviously he has an (expensive) option for next year, but remember all that trade talk after May?

Can you imagine the value we can get for Torii if we can trade while he's this hot? How would we get? Yes, I'm going to propose a trade.... Torii Hunter + Scott Baker/Kyle Lohse + prospect TBD for Miguel Cabrera. Would this be likely? Well probably not but it's not out of the realm of possibility. What do you think?

Can we rid ourselves of Rondell White yet?

MNPundit — Wed, 17 May 2006 01:42:30 -0000

Is it possible that Rondell White is just done, that his skills disappeared in 2006? Even with his "10 game hitting streak" he's hitting .185 with an OBP of .194 before tonight. His power is almost non existent. Even Juan Castro has a higher slugging %.

Now some said just wait on white, patience, he will return to his form (which while not utterly spectacular was that of a solid veteran.

How much longer should we wait and who can we replace him with? Kubel and hope that he gets his licks in the majors and improves because he surely seems to have more potential than White?

9 InningsWin

MNPundit — Mon, 08 May 2006 04:48:42 -0000

I think is the first time they did it, and maybe I'm wrong... but I think this is the first time the Twins have lead start to finish in a game. Congratulations Twins on winning a game in a way that doesnt' depress me in the first few innings!

A couple of questions spring to mind.

-Is Jesse Crain back? That would be huge.
-Is Santanna all warmed up now? That would be huge as well.
-Is Liriano going through some bad luck, or are players starting to figure him out so he needs to adjust to the league? Something to think about.

Does Gardy Ever Hear Himself Speak? (A Rant)

MNPundit — Mon, 01 May 2006 17:18:04 -0000

Gardenhire:
"Baseball goes in cycles, always in cycles," Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said. "We had a good April last year, and it didn't exactly work out the way we wanted to. This year we've not had a very good April. Maybe we can turn it around and play better the rest of the year."

When Dick and Bert do it, I understand. They're announcers on TV they have to parrot the organization line. When Gladden and... I'm drawing a blank on the other guy right now forgive me, but when the radio guys say things like it annoys me more because radio is a freer medium than TV but I still understand. They need to spin things for the Twins.

So you'd think I understand when Gardenhire says stuff like this... but you'd be wrong.

If I thought Gardy was just saying that because it's what he's supposed to say, I wouldn't worry that much. But it's become apparent over the one year when he actually had to take heat because the Twins sucked, that he really believes this kind of thing. He really believes it's all just luck and there's almost nothing he can do about it except trust in his veterans and massage egos.

When he says that we did well the 1st month in 2005 and look how that turned out, and look how bad now... Does he think we're stupid?

You can point to the example of the As as second-half surges, but have you seen in this organization anywhere, and I mean ANYWHERE (besides Santana) the kind of talent, drive, intelligence and confidence that making a comback of that magnitude requires? I haven't at least, not at the major league level.

Gardenhire saying stuff like that sounds so idiotic and patronizing both, that I can barely stand it. It was annoying when the Twins were winning divisions titles but now? 100 times worse at least. I want to reach through the TV/Radio/Newspaper and yell at him "Get a clue! Use your head for once!"

I think the most frustrating thing is that there's no hope of kicking him out anytime soon. Let's have a little less superficial Minnesota Nice and some more substantive leadership please.