SB Nation User Blog: SBG

1987 World Series DVDs!

SBG — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 22:09:31 -0000

Hello, Twinkie Town fans. I'm sure most of you know of my site. I'm a frequent reader here at TT and I enjoy the work a lot of you do. I wanted to let you know about a special offer that I'm providing over at SBG.

Pardon me for the shameless plug, and I promise that I'll make it up by posting some actual content once the season starts. But, I have an opportunity for all die-hard Twins fans.

As you may know, a DVD set of the 1987 World Series is soon to be released. It just so happens that I have an authentic copy to give away. All you have to do is stop by and register at my site for a chance to win, for free, the complete set. I'll even pay the shipping (and I'll handle it for free, too). Stop on by and sign up.

Go Twins! (And sorry again for the shameless plug... I hope you all don't mind.) I know that a lot of you have already signed up and that's great. You'll be in the running for the last copy! To everyone else, stop on by and take advantage of a unique opportunity.

The Best Twenty Game Stretch Ever?

SBG — Sun, 02 Jul 2006 16:57:15 -0000

I wrote the following column after Wednesday's game. I had the idea that this might be the best 20 game stretch in Twins history. I jumped the gun by comparing the Twins 20 game stretch in 1991 to a 19 game stretch in 2006. I've updated the column to a twenty game stretch through Friday night. Of course, the Twins won on Saturday night, too, so the streak continues. But I wanted to update the column and provide it for your consumption.

The other day I said in a moment of exurberence that this recent hot streak was as well as the Twins have played in fifteen years. Of course, I was referring to the stretch beginning on June 1, 1991 in which the Twins were one pitch away from winning twenty straight games. At the end of play on May 31, 1991, the Twins had a 23-25 record and were tied for fifth in the seven team American League West, just one game ahead of the Kansas City Royals (have they been in the cellar forever? No it just seems that way) and 5 1/2 games behind both Texas and Oakland. The standings at the end of May 1991 looked like this.

Team Name W L PCT GB
Texas Rangers 26 17 0.605 --
Oakland Athletics 28 19 0.596 --
California Angels 26 21 0.553 2.0
Seattle Mariners 25 23 0.521 3.5
Minnesota Twins 23 25 0.479 5.5
Chicago White Sox 21 23 0.477 5.5
Kansas City Royals 21 25 0.457 6.5

The Twins then won 15 straight games, the streak ending when Rick Aguilera gave up three runs in the ninth inning against Baltimore to blow a two run save. The Twins then won four more in a row, and after those 20 games, in which they went 19-1, the Twins had a record of 42-26 and were in first place, with a four game lead over Oakland. The streak was an impressive one, to be sure, and the Twins had the good fortune of having everyone else in front of them fail even stay close to them. The standings at the end of play on June 22, 1991 looked like this.

Team Name W L PCT GB
Minnesota Twins 42 26 0.618 --
Oakland Athletics 38 30 0.559 4.0
California Angels 37 30 0.552 4.5
Seattle Mariners 37 30 0.552 4.5
Texas Rangers 34 29 0.540 5.5
Chicago White Sox 32 33 0.492 8.5
Kansas City Royals 32 33 0.492 8.5

During that stretch, the Twins not only played historically well, but the top two teams in the division, Oakland and Texas, played sub-.500 baseball. Other teams in the division played well during that time, but no one hung with the Twins. Here is how the division fared between May 31, 1991 and June 22, 1991.

Team Name W L PCT GB
Minnesota Twins 19 1 0.950 --
Seattle Mariners 12 7 0.632 6.5
Kansas City Royals 11 8 0.579 7.5
California Angels 11 9 0.550 8.0
Chicago White Sox 11 10 0.524 8.5
Oakland Athletics 10 11 0.476 9.5
Texas Rangers 8 12 0.400 11.0

Of course, the big deal is that the Twins made up between 6.5 and 11.0 games on every team in the division in three weeks. But, there's more to the story. The rest of the division was 6 games over .500 during that time. Counting the Twins, the American League West was 24 games over .500 over the course of the three week period. In other words, the American League West was pounding the crap out of the American League East. For the season, the American League West was a full 60 games over .500 and every team in the division played .500 ball or better.

Flash forward to 2006. Once again, the Twins are playing in a power house division and once again the Twins found themselves back in the pack, although this year it is even moreso. Over the last 20 games ending on Friday night, the Twins are 18-2, almost the same level of dominance as the 1991 Twins big stretch. Yet, the Twins gained only 1/2 game against the Detroit Tigers. Top James made the point that rarely has a team played as well as the Twins and not made up any ground. Of course, I humbly point out to Top James that rarely has a team like the Tigers, already in first place and basically winning 90% of their games for almost three weeks put so little distance between themselves and the two teams directly below them. It is a phenomenal stretch.

One reason has been thrown out for the inablility of the Twins to move up is that interleague play has prevented the Twins from playing the teams ahead of them. However, in 1991, the Twins played zero, that's right, zero games against teams ahead of them in the standings during the twenty game stretch. The first two games were against the Royals -- the only team in the division below the Twins -- and the other 18 games were against the worst three teams in the American League East . The Twins caught a soft spot in the schedule and made hay. It propelled them to a Division and, eventually, World Championship.

So, is it possible that the current stretch is better than the legendary 1991 stretch? Let's take a look.

During the 1991 streak, the Twins scored 118 runs and allowed 58 runs, for an expected winning percentage of 78.5%. During the current streak, the Twins have scored 122 runs and allowed 54 runs, for an expected winning percentage of 81.5%.

As of June 22, 1991, the last day of the streak, every team that the Twins played during the streak was below .500 and the average record was 25-39, a winning percentage of 39.2%. Pretty crappy. As of right now, the average record of the teams that the Twins have played over the last 19 games is 36.5-41.5, a winning percentage of 46.7%. That might not seem like much difference. But the average 1991 average opponent projects to a record of 64-98 while the 2006 average opponent projects to a record of 76-86. In addition, seven games were played against teams with better than .500 records. Six of those games were against division leaders. So, the quality of opponent has been much better.

Let's look at starting pitching.

Year IP H R ER BB SO HR FIP ERA QS
1991 135.33 122 46 38 33 73 12 3.71 2.53 16
2006 131.33 107 35 31 19 98 12 2.73 2.12 15

Of course, there is one more game in the 1991 stretch, but the numbers are better in 2006. The innings are comparable, the strikeouts are up, walks are down and the HRs are about the same (and this is a much more homer-friendly time, especially considering that the dome had the plexiglass in 1991 and that monstrosity in Houston). Add it up and you have a much better FIP, a better ERA and it was achieved against better competition. While the 1991 Twins had Morris, Tapani, and Erickson mowing down all comers, the Twins counter with our Stupendous Southpaws, along with a bunch of other guys trying to prove that the first part of the year was a fluke, or in the case of Boof Bonser, trying to prove he belongs, period.

While the Twins have been frustrated by their inability to make up ground, fans should -- and have, I believe -- just flat out enjoy the play. And why not. It might just be the best 20 game stretch in club history.

Hunter Makes a Stand

SBG — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 03:33:17 -0000

Torii Hunter tells the Twins what it will take to keep him in a Twins uniform.

Says Torii: "I already don't like the Dome, so I'm not going to get used. It's got to be a long-term deal. For me to be here it's got to be five or six years."

Five or six years. For Hunter. Says Top Jimmy:

Hunter is making $10.75 million this year. The Twins have an option to keep him for 2007 at $12 million.
The Yankees signed center fielder Johnny Damon for five years at $55 million last offseason, and that might provide a benchmark for Hunter's expectations.

With Mauer, Morneau, Cuddyer, Santana, Liriano and Nathan all expected to make big money over that time, I can't see any way the Twins could possibly agree to that kind of contract.

360 Degrees -- A Trip Around the Rotation

SBG — Sun, 14 May 2006 03:39:16 -0000

Hello, Twinkie Town. I have been writing a regular feature this season that I call 360 degrees in which I analyze the Twins starting pitching after every trip in the rotation. The Twins completed their seventh trip around the rotation on Friday night and below is my report. Of course, this time the "trip" included two starts by the one and only Johan Santana. Look for my feature every five games at SBG. Below is my seventh edition of 360 degrees.

This lucky seventh time around the rotation, the Twins found a great way to improve their starting pitching. The answer? Why, just hand the ball to Johan Santana 40% of the time. That way, only one other good outing is necessary for a 60% winning percentage. As it turns out, the Twins only got one other good start, that by Kyle Lohse. They also erupted for 15 runs when Silva was throwing batting practice, so as a result, the Twins won four of the five games played this time around.

Before we go to the numbers, let me take a quick break to state the obvious. Johan Santana is a great pitcher. He is a brilliant athlete and on the fast track to being one of the great Twins of all time. I wonder where he'll land in the Aaron Gleeman TOP 40. In five years, he could very well be challenging for number one over all. Despite all of the problems that this team has, they have Santana and every five days (or two out of every five days) Twins fans should be ecstatic that he's taking the ball. I happened to have ESPN the other night during that abomination known as "Baseball Tonight." They had a conversation about who is the best pitcher in the American League. I'm not sure, but I don't believe that Mr. Santana name even came up in the conversation. If you heard that, let me know. I'd like to get some verification on that. I wasn't listening too closely, I'll admit.

Now, let's go to the numbers.

IP: 31 (31)
R: 15 (14)
ER: 14 (14)
H: 37 (24)
K: 29 (26)
BB: 9 (2)
HP: 1 (1)
HR: 4 (6)
ERA: 4.06 (4.06)
WHIP: 1.48 (1.16)
FIP: 3.23 (3.46)
QS: 3 (3)

The numbers are remarkably similar to the last time around (which I have added parenthetically). One might conclude that the Twins pitching staff has started to stabilize. And if so, these are numbers that I could live with over the long term. In fact, I'd be pretty happy with them. But, it is it true?

The last time out, the Twins got very good performances from Silva and Radke against the hapless Royals (who seem to open up a can of whoop-ass on the Indians every time they see them). This time, down in the trade winds in Texas, both Radke and Silva pitched poorly. Lohse, pitching for his job, then came out and shut the Rangers down, sort of. It wasn't pretty (six hits and four walks in six innings), but the results were good (one run and six Ks). Obviously, substituting Santana for Baker makes the overall numbers look better. I'd say that the Twins probably pitched about the same over all this time around, considering the improved level of competition. But, any illusions that this staff is going to start pitching at this level as a group should be dashed unless the trend continues.

Let's look at that last ten games, or 720 degrees, if you will.

IP R ER H BB K ERA OPS WHIP FIP GPA K/9 K/BB
62 29 28 71 11 55 4.06 .813 1.32 3.35 .267 7.98 5.00

The OPS is pretty high, and that is coming from a .494 slugging percentage. The strikeouts per 9 is excellent and so is the K/BB. It's a good thing that the Twins aren't walking many people, because the hit total is up there.

Now let's pull Santana's three starts out of there.

IP R ER H BB K ERA OPS WHIP FIP GPA K/9 K/BB
41 25 24 56 9 25 5.27 .915 1.59 4.79 .300 5.48 2.78

FIP is Fielding Independent Pitching or 3.20 + (HR*13 + BB*4 -K*3)IP, which approximates the pitcher's contribution to his ERA. GPA is gross production average, (1.8*OBP + SLG)/4, which provides a little better balance between OBP and SLG than OPS.
The Twins' opponents are slugging .558 against everyone else over the last ten games, and that's with the two good outings against Kansas City. Ye-ouch! It is ugly.

In the last five games, the Twins' starters faced 134 batters. The Twins starters walked 9, struck out 29, allowed four home runs and hit one batter. The Twins committed three errors. Using the Hardball Times formula for defensive efficiency, which is

DEF_EFF = (BFP-H-K-BB-HBP-Errors)(BFP-HR-K-BB-HBP)

The Twins DEF_EFF for the last five games is .615, which is even worse than their MLB worst total. Our friend ubelmann recently wrote a heckuva good piece here at Twinkie Town about the Twins' defensive struggles.

As a staff, the starters allowed opponents to hit .298/.351/.448/.799 with a GPA of .270. Let's break that down by start.

Johan Santana (I): .160/.222/.320/.542 GPA: .180 FIP: 0.91
Brad Radke: .524/.583/.714/1.298 GPA: .441 FIP: 5.00
Carlos Silva: .379/.379/.724/1.103 GPA: .352 FIP: 7.03
Kyle Lohse: .250/.357/.250/.607 GPA: .223 FIP: 2.87
Johan Santana (II): .200/.231/.400/.631 GPA: .204 FIP: 1.34

Radke let everyone get on base. Silva got his brains beat in. Lohse battled, but his strikeout totals were darned good and he allowed no extra base hits. Of course, the pitcher of the rotation was Johan Santana, again. The only question is which of the bookends you prefer, the manhandling of Detroit or the bitch slapping of the White Sox.

I hope you enjoyed my 360 Degrees feature.

SBG

Twins Defense

SBG — Sat, 19 Nov 2005 14:30:39 -0000

This article first appeared at my site, SBG, concerning the Twins defense.

Before the season ended, I wrote that the Twins' defense, contrary to popular belief, was improved in 2005. I got virtually no reaction to this assertion, partially because I talked about Barry Bonds in the same post and Surprise! that is what people wanted to talk about. Over at The Bleacher Bums, a very nice joint blog from MPR, at least one of the authors was complaining about the dropoff in the Twins defense. Being the acerbic fella that I sometimes am, I openly challenged the author in his comments, which promptred the one of the authors to respond, "SBG, you are full of [fecal matter]." Well, he didn't actually say that. What he said was that was an example of statistics run amok.

Keep reading for more on the 2005 Twins Defense.

Baseball Prospectus has listed the 2005 Twins as the fourth best defensive team in the majors in terms of PADE (park adjusted defensive efficiency -- seriously, these guys work HARD to come up with their stats).

How can this be? Didn't our eyes tell us something completely different?????

I will start by saying this. Defensive numbers, especially with regard to individual players are not necessarily reliable. Certainly, errors, long regarded as the primary indicator of defensive excellence is not really a good indicator. A player with concrete feet who doesn't make errors isn't a better defensive player who gets to every ball, but makes a few errors.

The number that I like is defensive efficiency. It's a team defensive number that calculates the percentage of balls put in play that result in outs. The league average was 69.47%. That is, 69.47% of balls put in play were converted into outs. The Twins' percentage was 70.33%. Above average, yes, but that doesn't seem like a whole lot above average. So, the 2005 Twins are a little above average. The 2004 team must have been way above average, right? Guess what. That's not the way it was. In 2004, the Twins had a defensive efficiency of .688, good for 10th in the 14 team AL.

Counter to everything you've heard anyone else say, it appears that the 2005 Twins defense was actually one of the best in the league. That is, if you value making a high percentage of outs on balls put into play.

According to BP, the Twins' PADE was 1.54, meaning that they turned 1.54% more balls into outs, given the parks that they played in. In other words, if the league average is 69.47%, the Twins turned 71.01% of balls put into play into outs, adjusting for park effects. That's probably one fewer base runner for every two games. BP describes a 1% increase as "not insignificant."

BP provides a statistic called RAA, which is the number of runs saved (defensively) above average. As a team, the Twins saved 35 runs above the average defensively. Collectively, then, the Twins defense meant four wins for the Twins over the average defense (to come up with this, I added 35 runs to the total allowed and calculated the Pythagorean Winning Percentage).

So who saved the most runs defensively over the average? Torii Hunter? Well, maybe not, he only play 93 games. Well, then, who?

Two players each saved 12 runs over the average: Juan Castro and Jason Bartlett. And Bartlett played 64.8 games. (Castro played 80.0 games.)

Next was Jacque Jones. He saved 11 runs over the average player at his position. Hmmm. How about Torii? How'd he do? One. Gold Glover Torii Hunter saved one run over the average. One. How does that grab you? I know what you are thinking. He better hit. How about this? Jones hit .249/.319/.438/.757 this year. The average AL Right Fielder hit .270/.332/.451/.783. The average AL Center Fielder hit .268/.322/.407/.729. So, he's a below average right fielder offensively, but his an above average center fielder, offensively. With his defense, he might be a decent option in center field. Now, he's not a great option in center, but he's probably just as good as Hunter. Actually, neither one earned their money last year.

Next was Joe Mauer with 10. Man, we really miss Henry Blanco.

So where did the Twins suffer? Well, Justin Morneau was 14 runs below average. Michael Cuddyer was 8 runs below average. Note on Cuddyer (and everyone else): since Michael played multiple positions, I added the results at each position to get a total.

I'm not sure exactly how these numbers are calculated. I'm not sure if they are an accurate reflection of what players are the best and worst. Like I said, I do like the defensive efficiency numbers, but as a team, four games seems about right.

The manager and general manager have both indicated that the Twins 2005 defense was below par and needs to be upgraded. Obviously, what needs to be upgraded is the offense. But, hey, the defense was pretty darned good. In fact, it was one of the best in the league.