TheLeviathan

My biggest concern with accountability is how did Worley go from a very competent pitcher in the NL to Nick Blackburn over an offseason. How did that train derail THAT badly?

Well, for starters, do you think the Twins are going to score 200 more runs this year than last? That's essentially what you predicted.

Probably true, but I'd suggest most competitions are basically the same - the decision was made long before any meaningless ST at-bats.

Pittsburgh landing him is the scariest part of this. The biggest adjustment they made for Liriano was adjusting how he used his pitches. A few people here have suggested Worley's pitch selection with us has been part of the problem. We'll see if it's something that simple or he's just done.

Very disappointing end result to this.

Wow! You must be expecting him to have a monster year! Er...wait....I get the impression you are saying something else by this too.....

Yeah, I wasn't clear on that. Depending on where you look, the Twins got somewhere between 3-5 wins from luck last year that I think can be safely attributed to the outstanding bullpen. If that luck swings the other way - say rather than being +4 they are -4, you have an 8 game swing. So not a WAR thing as much as a swing of luck.

1) I think it would be hard for Hicks not to improve on last year, but he's a wildcard that's hard to predict other than he should be better by some degree 2)Willingham's health is always going to be dubious now because the guy is clearly broken down and we may be looking at Presley as his replacement when he goes down. 3) We're still giving Florimon at-bats Imagine any scenario in which a starting infielder goes down for a month - that's 30 games of Escobar replacing that player. Any OF goes down and you're likely looking at Wilkin Ramirez or Presley or Hermann. You don't even have to imagine Mauer gets hurt to start cringing at this lineup's depth.

I'm unconvinced that group could have been better with less innings. The bulk of those mop-up innings were pitched by guys that performed very, very well. I do agree that one could argue SP improvements would help after a year in which a bullpen performed very poorly and many guys were asked to perform in roles they are unaccustomed to...but that's not what we're talking about here. We overtaxed our middle and long relief and they performed incredibly. So I'm not sure that line of reasoning works for this team. Now the SP improvements may allow the Twins to better tailor their bullpen usage, but there is still a high (IMO) risk that the bullpen takes a step backward. The reasoning is simply the degree to which the entire bullpen overperformed expectations and career norms. Could this group be establishing a new norm? Very possible, but hard to say. Either way, with an offense not looking to put up flashy numbers, those one run games are going to be huge difference makers to our record.

Very true, but the tricky part with bullpens is sometimes the guy you think is going to be one of your "best guys" ends up being a total dud. And a guy like Swarzak (an afterthought) is a borderline team MVP...sad as that may be. The benefit the Twins have there is a lot of depth in case guys do flop, so that does help.

I think this is an important point. Last year when there were struggles/injuries we called up Arcia and slid Doumit around. This year it's what? Hermann and Bernier and Wilkin Ramirez? Look at AAA and tell me there is ANY injury which can be substituted with even a semi-competent replacement. It won't take this silly disaster talk for this offense to be in a lot more trouble than it already is. Any injury and you just put 5 number 9 hitters in the lineup rather than 4. Two injuries and you bring it to 6. This is a team with a putrid lineup and putrid depth behind it and that could derail things in a hurry with even a modicum of injury issues. ESPN had them at 61-101 though I see Bref has them at 3. So fair enough..it's in that range. Looking at the details makes me believe even more the bullpen is largely to credit for that "luck". The team was 24-25 in 1-run games and 9-7 in extra inning games - both far higher percentages than their overall W/L. I think, moreso than the lineup or the rotation, the bullpen is going to have the largest impact on whether this team is a 70ish win team or a 60ish win team. I don't buy for a second that less of a workload is going to make them better - they had a helluva workload last year and were brilliant. So let's do away with colloquialism...better starters pitching more innings doesn't impact the performance of the relievers. If the bullpen had been bad last year and you wanted to cite overwork....maybe. Even then these are different things. Now you could argue that every bullpen guy last year outperformed realistic expectations apart from maybe Duensing, but even he was alright. The key is what kinds of arms are Theilbar, Fien, Burton, Swarzak, Pressley, and even Perkins to an extent. Those guys were all anywhere from good to brilliant, but bullpen performance is easily the hardest thing to predict year to year. In my eyes, their ability to bring us "luck" is the most telling thing. Most of us can agree the rotation will show some improvement (how much is a very big question mark IMO) and the lineup is likely as bad or slightly worse than last year. This is really the lynchpin of the discussion - can the bullpen salvage enough close games for us to boost the W/L total. I honestly don't know the answer to that and I think it would be wild guessing either way. But to the Twins credit they often generate this sort of luck with their bullpens, so maybe they will.

Totally agree, I was only talking about competitions for spots.

Also, this just goes to show again how utterly useless ST competitions are. Kubel could literally not have been a worse player all spring and he's still got a spot.

jokin - you literally projected them all but Hughes to be better than their career averages and for none of them to get hurt. It's not unrealistic, but it's clearly optimistic. The point being, even granting that....the team is still marginally better unless they get lucky again next year. Even cooking the books on the optimistic side doesn't yield a real impressive result. That's the issue. My post was just a comical comparison of how we keep hearing the same arguments about how the guys replaced the previous year will make the team way better. We heard it "had" to happen last year too and it didn't because optimistic projections insist on ignoring injuries and assume progression, not regression or the unanticipated. I think it'll probably be a bit better, I'm just dubious of how much until several of these guys show that they are an actual upgrade.

Looks like it's Parmalee or Colabello. I'd prefer Parms.

I haven't denied that the rotation is likely a little better, but it's hardly a given. Those two things are very different statements. Even after you gave virtually every starter a full season projection (no injuries) and better than career-norm performances (certainly better than the previous few years in almost all cases) - you still barely account for the team's luck last year. I don't know how that can lead to optimism unless you believe the team will be 5 games lucky again next year. You're entitled to that, maybe their bullpen is the key to that, but I wouldn't bank on it.

Well, there you have it. If you only cook the books so every pitcher has a slightly better than average year, there are no injuries, and luck is neutral we'll win 68/69 games. I'm not sure that had the effect on my pessimism you intended.

No, but it sure destroys the "well they just HAVE to be better" meme. Three years running, I need to see it first. Also, this team doesn't need some Cusackian apocalypse for the dam to break as you keep suggesting. The margin is far thinner than that.

Also, all these arguments sound the same: Nolasco/Hughes/Pelfry/Gibson just HAVE to be better than Hendricks, Hernandez, Albers,Worley vs. Correia/Pelfrey/Diamond/Deduno/Worley just HAVe to be better than Devries, Vasquez, Hendricks, Blackburn, and Liriano How'd that turn out? 4.77 vs. 4.55 - technically right and utterly meaningless.

Even if you stick with the +9 and the -4 for the offense we're talking about a wash when you factor out the good luck from last year. And, in my eyes, it's perfectly fair to talk about probabilities about aging and health. Especially when you are citing the performance of a multitude of injury replacements or other dreck that was called up because we had no other choice. As if this team will march through 162 games without having to dip down into the dreck just below the current dreck. It's completely unfair to say "Well let's not talk injuries....but just wait until these guys that won't get injured replace the injury replacements of last year!" The realist in my pegs them for a wash....the depth chart and the reality of injuries pegs them for worse.

Totally agree. The realist in me sees little improvement, but the optimist in me hopes Gibson and Arcia absolutely dominate and that we get to see Meyer and others join that pair later. It's really all I feel like I have to hold on to looking at this roster.

Well, at least we're not being unreasonable in our representation of the other side right? Yeesh. A bullpen regression could cost several of those wins in and of themselves. Zips has Mauer losing at least 2 wins off his WAR. Pelfrey is projected as .1 vs. 2.1 last year. 6 wins can get chewed up pretty quick when you have no depth and limited starting talent. So to address that unfair hyperbole above - the pitching staff may make up those 6 wins. (MAY) So right there, we could assume an improvement. We could also see a regression from the bullpen that creates a team closer to it's Expected w/l and eat up 4-5 wins of that 6 right there. Then you throw in the drop from Morneau to Suzuki, the drop from Doumit to Kubel (as it stands today), and you're right back where you were. That isn't every single player and it doesn't even factor in many projections expecting a dip from Mauer. Or expecting Willingham sidelined again. Or any number of very possible scenarios that aren't pessimistic but just reasonable. (Any injuries to this offense could get VERY ugly, VERY fast) So when you factor in an almost total lack of depth to go with these shaky scenarios it isn't hard to see them taking a step backward.

Well, count this as offseason three of that same argument. I might be a little sensitive to it as well because every year we get 3-4 people that want to climb their high horse to tell everyone on the pessimistic side what shame they should feel for not believing it can't get worse/not improve. Well, it HAS gotten worse/not improved every year. Even when it seemed statistically unlikely to do so. So I understand optimism (I like Hughes a lot for example) but on the flip side some pessimism about the "it just HAS to be better" should be pretty understandable for anyone that has watched the product the last for years. To me, anything from 60-70 is a pretty reasonable guess.

It would be some crazy irony if Bartlett made this roster because of his "veteran-ness"....

Very true. I hate the whole notion of pretending you have independent journalists but they are really just shills. It's really becoming common in sports today.