Opening Day lineups are fun. But the real definition of a team is the composite lineup throughout the season.

Were the 2006 Twins defined more by opening day starter Tony Batista or the meteoric rise and fall of young Francisco Liriano?

IN 1984, the year Kirby Puckett established himself in centerfield for the Twins, the opening day center fielder was Jim Eisenreich.

The real test is to guess the season-long lineup. Baseball-Reference does a great job of keeping track of the primaries at each position, as well as the key bench players. What will Baseball-Reference's 2013 Twins page look like at season end? Here is what it looked like after 2012.

Over at VeryWellThen.Com I’m holding a “challenge” – a contest of sorts – to most-correctly guess the overall lineup for the Twins for the 2013 season -- i.e. what the 2013 Twins Baseball-Reference page will look like.

Go to VeryWellThen.Com and leave your best guess in the comments section.


To make it interesting, I’m offering a free T-Shirt of the winner's choice from the Diamond-Centric great collection of Twins-Centric T-Shirts.

Complete details are at VeryWellThen.Com. Entries need to be made before Opening Day.

Over at my blog VeryWellThen.Com I am hosting a contest -- a challenge -- for you to pick the predominant Twins lineup of 2013. By "predominant", I mean "what BaseballReference.Com will show at season end for the Twins."




Baseball Reference fills in the predominant lineup of the team -- generally, whoever plays the most at any position gets that slot on the BR page. The pitchers are classified as the starters based on some formula of games started and innings pitched, while the relief pitchers appear to be ranked on innings pitched alone. Check out what the BR page looked like for the 2012 Twins.

The "predominant" 25 man roster for 2012 Twins looked like this:

	Hitters	PAs
C	Joe Mauer	641
1B	Justin Morneau	570
2B	Alexi Casilla	326
SS	Brian Dozier	340
3B	Trevor Plouffe	465
LF	Josh Willingham	615
CF	Denard Span	568
RF	Ben Revere	553
DH	Ryan Doumit	528
	Reserves
IF	Jamey Carroll	537
1B	Chris Parmelee	210
RF	Darin Mastroianni	186
SS	Pedro Florimon	150
3B	Danny Valencia	132

	Pitchers	G	GS	SV	IP
SP	Scott Diamond	27	27	0	173.0
SP	Francisco Liriano	22	17	0	100.0
SP	Nick Blackburn	19	19	0	98.2
SP	Cole De Vries	17	16	0	87.2
SP	Liam Hendriks	16	16	0	85.1
SP	Sam Deduno	15	15	0	79.0
CL	Glen Perkins	70	0	16	70.1
RP	Brian Duensing	55	11	0	109.0
RP	Alex Burnett	67	0	0	71.2
RP	Jared Burton	64	0	5	62.0
RP	Jeff Gray	49	0	0	52.0

So the challenge to you is to guess what the lineup page will look like for the 2013 at the season's end. To take the challenge -- go to VeryWellThen.Com and enter your guess in the comments section of this post.

You'll need to pick the following:

• the 9 position slots (includes DH)
• the top 5 reserve batters
• the 6 starting slots
• the 1 Closer slot
• the top 4 additional relief pitchers.

That's a 25 man roster -- so 25 points available in this challenge. For the challenge, the order does not matter for the the 5 reserve batters or the relievers. For the starters, the order does not matter except as a tie breaker -- explained below. The Closer is its own slot (if you have Perkins as your closer and Burton gets the most saves, you do not get a point for Perkins even if Perkins makes the list of 4 relievers).


There's a prize, too. It costs you nothing to play. You might win a prize. Not a bad deal.

The prize for the winner: one t-shirt of your choice from the Diamond Centric collection. (I am unaffiliated with DiamondCentric. But their t-shirts make fine Twins-related swag.)

There are also a few rules.


1. Pick 25 roster slots, as set forth above. One point for each slot you get right, as determined by Baseball References 2013 Twins page. The person with the most points wins.


2. The first tiebreaker is the number of correctly-ranked starting pitchers for your entry. For example, for 2012 if you guessed the order of the six starting pitchers for the Twins would be Diamond, Blackburn, Liriano, Duensing, Hendricks and De Vries, I would have called you a lunatic. And you would have received 2 points in the tie-breaker for correctly having Diamond as the #1 starting pitcher and Hendricks as the #6 starting pitcher.


3. The second tiebreaker is the time-stamp of your entry.


4. You can also enter "Other", if you choose a player that is not in the Twins System at the time of your entry. If Oswaldo Arcia starts the season in the minors but gets the most PA's to be Right Field, you only get a point for the RF slot if you guessed Arcia. A minor league Twin is not an "Other". But if the Twins trade for JJ Hardy to be their shortstop two days after you made your entry and you put "Other" as your shortstop, you get a point. For entries made after such a hypothetical trade, you would only get a point if you had Hardy as your SS. See how it works?


5. You must make your entry in the comments section to the corresponding post on VeryWellThen.com. Entries made in the comments section of Twins Daily do not count, nor do entries made in tweets, written on bathroom walls, or whispered to a dog. While you're at my blog, I recommend that you follow me on Twitter (@Very_Well_Then). Throughout the season I'll try to make a few updates on the state of this contest. And hopefully I'll have some other blog entries to let you know about.


6. One entry per person. Don't use several different emails. Take a shot at this. Get on with your life.

7. Entries must be submitted before first pitch on opening day.

8. You have to do better than me to win. It's my challenge. My post counts as the entry with the earliest time-stamp. I already win the second tie-breaker.


9. Void if prohibited by law. (I thought I'd better say that.)

Go HERE to see my guess for the 25 man lineup and then take your own guess.

[Originally posted at VeryWellThen.Com]

Harper’s magazine begins each issue with a list of number-oriented factoids called Harper’s Index. Below is VeryWellThen.Com’s third annual series of number-oriented factoids about the Twins baseball season. Here on the Twin-ternet, such a list has to be called “Brian Harper’s Index.”



The single-season homerun record for Target Field (set by Josh Willingham in 2012): 21


Number of Twins wins at Target Field: 31


Twins team rank in Major League Baseball for home wins: 30


Number of Twins winning streaks of 4 or more games: 3


Number of Twins losing streaks of 4 or more games: 9


Twins team rank in American League for stolen bases: 1


Denard Span’s Wins Above Replacement (WAR) as calculated by Baseball Reference: 4.8


Rank of Denard Span’s WAR among Twins Players: 1


Twins team rank in American League for OPS by Center Fielders (Span's primary position): 12


Twins team rank in American League for OPS by Catchers: 2


OPS for Joe Mauer while playing catcher: .952


OPS for Joe Mauer while playing any position other than catcher: .767


OPS for Justin Morneau against right hand pitchers in 2012 and in his career: .902/.904


OPS for Justin Morneau against left hand pitchers in 2012 and in his career: .569/.728


OPS and home run total for Trevor Plouffe in 55 games between May 16 and July 19) : .997/18


OPS and home run total for Trevor Plouffe in all other games: .565/6


Twins team rank in American League by starting pitching for ERA, Wins, Quality Starts, Strikeouts and Innings Pitched: 14


Number of wins by Jeff Gray: 6


Jeff Gray’s rank on Twins for most wins : 2 (tied with Sam Deduno)


***

Number of Twitter followers that I have, rounded up to the nearest million: 1,000,000

[Follow me on Twitter at Very_Well_Then]

[Originally posted at VeryWellThen.Com]

Ben Revere does not yet qualify for the Batting Title. His 4 for 5 evening against Cleveland sent his batting average up to .331 – which would be good enough for second place in the American League. Except that to qualify for the leader board, he needs 3.1 plate appearances for every game his team has played. The Twins have played 109 games, which means that his 331 plate appearances fall 7 short of qualifying.

So in just a few days he should debut on the charts with a bullet, likely landing in the top 5.

But wait! If you apply the “Tony Gwynn Rule” he’s already near the top of the charts. In one of my favorite obscure baseball rules, a batter can win the batting title if he remains in the lead even if he goes hitless in those missing plate appearances. Official Major League Rule 10.22(a).

I wrote about this back in 2009 — when Mauer missed April to injury but stormed into mid-summer with a batting average over .400 but not enough plate appearances to qualify on the leader board. Here’s what I wrote then:

Call it the “Tony Gwynn” rule, if you will. The rule has been around since 1967, but it was Tony who benefitted from the rule in 1996 — a season where he ended up 5 plate appearances short of the batting title threshold of 3.1 plate appearances per game.

Tony’s season ending average was .353, ahead of Ellis Burks’ .344. Ellis had the highest batting average of any National Leaguer who qualified for the batting title. Did he take home the batting crown? No. The rule allows for trading in a player’s deficient PA’s for outs. Apply a theoretical zero-for-five day to Tony’s stats to get him to 503, and Tony’s batting average would have been .349, keeping him ahead of Ellis. [...]

As of close of business today (Sunday, June 14, 2009), Joe Mauer’s batting average is .413. His 181 plate appearances leave him 21 short of the 202 necessary for the Twins’ 65 games to date. Adding a hypothetical O-fer 21 streak to Joe’s season gives him a .364 [average]. Ichiro has a batting average [...] of .360 as I type this. A season-ending strike breaks out overnight and Joe is the champion.

So for Revere, add an O-fer 8 to his stats and he stands at .3238. Which would place him third on an adjusted Batting Title board, behind only Mike Trout (.346) and Miguel Cabrera (.3241).



Perhaps this is just the sign of a dismal Twins season — when I take a contrived rule and apply it to establish a hypothetical third place standing on a list for a Twins player who will be on that same list in just a few days.

Originally posted at VeryWellThen.Com

It's time for the Second Annual Bobby Darwin Awards, issued by this very website: VeryWellThen.Com.


The award goes to the Twin with the fastest start within the first week to ten days of the season. The award gets its name from Bobby Darwin -- who debuted with a hot start as a 29 year old rookie center fielder for the Twins in1972, right around the time I was forming my first baseball memories.


Darwin arrived with the Twins from the Dodgers organization for his first chance to play outfield at a major league level. He hit 5 home runs in his first 8 games.

My cousin Bobby was an early baseball mentor to me. Despite sharing a first name with Darwin, he told me not to get too carried away with Darwin's fast start. Cousin Bobby, in his ten-year-old wisdom, warned me that every year some Twin would start off really hot, but would crash back to earth. Here, at 7 years old, I was receiving my first lesson with "regression to the mean."


Darwin hit his 6th home run in game 12, but didn't connect with his 7th of 1972 until game 45. Cousin Bobby had it down. In the end, Darwin had a respectable season --- with 22 home runs and an OPS+ of 123. The Twins traded Darwin away in his fourth season with the team -- perhaps tiring of his league-leading strike-out totals.
Interesting aside: Darwin debuted for one game with the Dodgers as a pitcher at age 19. He would get 3 more pitching appearances with the Dodgers at age 26 before going back to the minors to reinvent himself as an outfielder.


With last year's atrocious start by the Twins, I had to look really hard to find someone to give the First Annual Bobby Darwin Award. I settled on Nick Blackburn for two early acceptable outings. That was for a team that started 3-6.


This years' Twins have started even worse. Three series into the year and the Twins stand 2-7.


However, it is much easier this year to select the fast-starter. In a Bobby Darwin worthy start, Josh Willingham has 4 home runs, is batting .444 and his OPS is in the stratosphere at 1.508. According to an Aaron Gleeman tweet, he is only the fourth Twin to home 4 times in the first six games of the season. The other three: Kirby Puckett, Tony Oliva and, of course, Bobby Darwin. That's two legendary Twins -- Puckett in 1987 and Oliva in 1966 -- having years where they were in the discussion for MVP. And one Twin who had a season that one young fan remembered enough to grow up and make up a silly blog award about.


How do you think Josh Willingham's season will turn out?


Congratulations to Josh Willingham as the Second Annual VeryWellThen.Com Bobby Darwin Award winner.


[Haven't had enough of my blinding insight? Follow me on Twitter at Very_Well_Then]

Let’s cheer for the Minnesota Twins today. Because these Minnesota Twins – the 2012 Minnesota Twins – might not be around tomorrow.

I just took a look at the Opening Day lineup and I’m struck by how few players I see — at least in the starting lineup — as a reliable part of the Twins future. The same thing goes for the projected starting rotation (my feeling is amplified with newsflash update of Scott Baker lasting 3 batters in his minor-league start today).

The Twins are very much a team in transition and in just two short years they may barely resemble what you see here at the beginning of 2012.

Take a look at the 2012 Opening Day starting lineup and the projected five man rotation and who do you reasonably expect to be on the team in two years, when the 2014 season starts up?

2012 Starting Lineup
1. Denard Span, CF
2. Jamey Carroll, SS
3. Joe Mauer, C
4. Justin Morneau, DH
5. Josh Willingham, LF
6. Ryan Doumit, RF
7. Danny Valencia, 3B
8. Chris Parmelee, 1B
9. Alexi Casilla, 2B

2012 Projected Rotation
Carl Pavano
Francisco Liriano
Nick Blackburn
Scott Baker
Jason Marquis

Well, Joe Mauer won’t be going anywhere – there will still be 5 more years at $23M per owed to him. He’ll still do the 2014 ceremonial opening day squatting at catcher, but will likely start seeing more and more time at other positions.

Who else?

Josh Willingham will have one more year on his contract.

And then? Well…

Ryan Doumit is committed to just one year. Call him a ‘Journey-man’ – he’ll be going his Separate Ways (Worlds Apart).

Jamey Carroll is committed to two years plus an unlikely-to-be tapped 2014 option. He certainly won’t be an everyday middle infielder at age 40.

It’s reasonable to question whether either of the Concussion Twins will be every day Twins in 2014. Justin Morneau will be a free agent and 2014 will be the final non-option year of Denard Span’s contract. The Twins are as loyal as an MLB team gets, but extending on Morneau makes little sense from today’s perspective. Span is the more likely of the two to be starting on Opening Day 2014, but that’s a dicey proposition, too.

Alexi Casilla will be a free agent and likely not worth the pursuit.

Valencia will be entering his first year of arbitration (translation: muy caro) – right about the time that super-prospect Miguel Sano will be knocking down the door of third base.

Parmalee will still be cheap – the question remains if he has what it takes to be a full-time bat at first base or DH.

That’s the 2012 opening day starting lineup.

Projecting any current starters onto the 2014 rotation isn’t a good bet either. Pavano and Liriano will be free agents* after this season, Baker after the next. Marquis is probably a one year gap-filler. Blackburn has a 2014 option that I hope the Twins will recognize as over-priced.

* For all the free agents, remember that under the new collective bargaining deal, offering arbitration is a much worse bet for teams since only really expensive team offers (i.e. no Twins offers) will bring back any compensation picks. So the Pavano-style one-year-at-a-time deal at arbitration prices is a thing of the past.

So the starting Twins of 2014 might only have Mauer and a lame-duck Willingham from 2012’s opening starters. Of course the Ghost of Opening Day Future will contain spirits from the Ghost of Baseball Season Present, as likely 2012 contributors Plouffe, Dozier, Benson and Hendricks will be asked to step up to lead roles by 2014.

Still, that’s not a lot of continuity. On the bright side, the Twins will have flexibility with only 14 Million non-Mauer dollars presently on the 2014 books.

[Contract info for this post comes from: Cot's Baseball Contracts at Baseball Prospectus]

[Original Posted at VeryWellThen.com]

[Haven't had enough of my blinding insight? Follow me on Twitter at Very_Well_Then]

[Original Posted at VeryWellThen.com]

Below are excerpts from various sources regarding today's shocking announcement from MLB.

Press Release: First Annual MLB Hunger Games
MLB.Com – 7 hours ago

The Capitol (AP) -- President Selig announced today that Major League Baseball is replacing its annual All-Star Game with the First Annual MLB Hunger Games, to be held in Kansas City from July 9 through July 11, 2012. Each MLB team will be required to provide one position player and one pitcher to participate in a winner-take-all fight to the death.

The team providing the winning “tribute” -- as each participant is called -- will get the expanded wild card play-off spot for the 2012 season. The league represented by the winning tribute will also get home field advantage in the World Series.

As President Selig, wearing a white rose in his lapel, explained to an enthusiastic press corps: “This time it really counts.”




The Business of Sports Weblog: Forum on MLB Hunger Games
WallStreetJournal.Com – 3 hours ago

Heyman: My sources say that the owners made this move in frustration over years of being unable to impose a salary cap.

Stark: Yes, you can see how President Selig meticulously paved the path for today’s announcement. First, he gets the Player’s Union to agree to require all players to appear in Kansas City for All-Star Weekend, no matter what. Then, he gets the extra playoff slot in place as the fan incentive in rooting for their tributes in the Games.

Rosenthal: The union was caught completely off guard by today’s announcement. I’m hearing that they’re preparing a complaint for the Labor Relations Board. But the complaint won’t be based on the allegation that subjecting union members to death by hand-to-hand combat constitutes an unfair labor practice, but rather, that any change in the way that World Series home field advantage is determined requires union consent under the collective bargaining agreement.

Stark: I see this as a brilliant marketing move by MLB. Just look at the popularity of the bloodlust sports -- cage fighting and the UFC -- especially amongst the young demographic.

Neyer: I think MLB is totally misreading its fan base. I could see this working in the NFL. Definitely, the NHL. But baseball is the pastoral game, it’s about coming home.

Heyman: I think those are outdated notions, Rob.

Neyer: May I remind you that baseball has zero teams named after a bird of prey, but three teams named after songbirds.*

* The last words spoken by Rob Neyer before being turned into an Avox.




Twins Pick First MLB Hunger Game Tributes
Minneapolis Star Tribune – 1 hour ago

Minnesota was the first district to select its participants in the First Annual MLB Hunger Games, to be held this summer in Kansas City. In today’s selection process to the MLB Hunger Games – known as the “reaping” – Twins owner Jim Pohlad drew the names of Carl Pavano and Justin Morneau, as the pitcher and position player to represent the Minnesota Twins as Hunger Game tributes.

In a surprise move -- and in an apparent effort to put to rest lingering questions about his toughness -- Joe Mauer volunteered to replace Justin Morneau as a tribute.

“Even if Justin won, he was going to have a tough time coming back to help the team after the rigors of the Hunger Games, I figure,” explained Mauer on why he volunteered to replace Morneau. “You just can’t mess around with concussions.”

Ron “Haymitch” Gardenhire will be mentoring the Twins tributes, Pavano and Mauer, at the Hunger Games. He had several initial thoughts on his tributes' chances.

“I think Joe stands a pretty good chance. [Kansas City’s] Kaufman Stadium doesn’t favor the home run hitter so much, so he should be able to use his gap power. And, as a catcher, he’ll have a leg up on most everyone with his familiarity with the use of the protective gear.”

“Pavs, well he’s not going to blow his competition away. He’s going to have to survive on craft and guile. We’ll definitely want him to pitch to contact.”

“There’s no way we should be going head to head with the big boys from Boston or New York. I think we’ll look to form some alliances with some small market teams, let the teams from the East beat each other up, and see if we can get a survivor from there. “

The other MLB teams will be selecting their tributes as the preseason progresses.