Nick Nelson

[ATTACH=CONFIG]1004[/ATTACH]No surprise here, but the Twins have reportedly designated Jason Marquis for assignment after the veteran was tagged by the Brewers for eight runs while recording only five outs on Sunday. Marquis has never been a particularly good pitcher and I certainly wasn't high on his signing at the time, but I wouldn't have guessed he'd be the worst starter in baseball. From the moment he showed up to spring training, Marquis had nothing; he struggled to get the ball over the plate and when he did hitters went to town. As Parker pointed out on Twitter, the veteran ranked last in the majors in FIP, HR/9, swinging strike rate and first-pitch strike rate. Marquis' dismissal was more than warranted, but it opens yet another hole to plug in the rotation. There a number of replacement options, yet none are overly appealing. Anthony Swarzak has been working long relief and could be stretched out quickly, but he's best suited for where he's at. The same goes for Brian Duensing, who really seems to have found his calling as a lefty specialist. The Twins may consider recalling Liam Hendriks, who was demoted to Triple-A after posting a 9.00 ERA in four starts for Minnesota but has allowed only four runs on 10 hits in three turns since returning to Rochester. It's not uncommon for a young starter to get knocked around then head down to the minors to make some tweaks, returning later in the season with greater confidence (Kevin Slowey in 2007 is a good example). Another option would be Cole DeVries, a 27-year-old right-hander who's been moderately successful in Triple-A. Although he's a nice story as a local guy from Eden Prairie, I don't think DeVries is a likely candidate to succeed in the majors as he's a soft-tosser with a 1.41 career WHIP in Triple-A. But perhaps the Twins feel differently. Personally, I'd be in favor of adding Anthony Slama – who has struck out 20 batters over 11 2/3 scoreless innings in his past 10 appearances at Triple-A, where his ERA sits at 0.45 – to the 40-man roster and getting him up in the bullpen, sliding either Swarzak or Duensing into the starting corps. It's not ideal, but "ideal" has pretty much flown out the window at this point. At least Swarzak and Duensing are reasonably good bets to hold their own as a No. 5 starter and the Twins could finally get an extended look at what they have in Slama. What move(s) would you make in the aftermath of the Marquis news?

Back in February, I framed the Twins' rotation as a series of five coin flips. Looking back, it's funny how the worst case scenario seems to have struck in every single situation: The Twins seem to have flipped tails five times in a row. Ouch. Granted, there were a number of warning signs attached to each of these guys, which is why I dubbed them "dangerous gambles," but it would have taken an unruly pessimist to predict that things would go so horribly awry for the rotation. Fans are rightfully frustrated with the lackluster outings delivered by Twins starters on an almost nightly basis, and much of the heat is being directed toward the front office. I think this is a little unfair. Blackburn and Liriano were both on fire in spring training, so their quick descents into the regular season have been surprising. Baker's elbow couldn't have been handled much differently. Marquis has at least been serviceable when healthy for the majority of his career – this is likely the worst he's ever pitched. And Liam Hendriks looked like a solid enough fallback, given his domination of the minor leagues. Nothing has worked, for any of those guys. Front to back, the starting corps has been a catastrophe. Baker had a cascade of bad news regarding his elbow, resulting in the likely end to his Twins career. Liriano has been demoted to the bullpen, Hendriks to the minors. Blackburn has been placed on the disabled list for reasons that may have as much to do with performance as health. Marquis may be on the verge of getting cut. The only member of the rotation that has performed about as you'd expect is Pavano, and he's done so while throwing 85 MPH with a sore shoulder. Altogether, the Twins' starters have been getting battered around like a bunch of marginal minor-leaguers. Ironically, the only guys who have been able to break the spell of ineptitude are a couple of marginal minor-leaguers. Scott Diamond and P.J. Walters are not noteworthy prospects. They were pretty far back in line to receive major-league starts back when camp broke, but things have spiraled so quickly it took them only until mid-May to get a shot. And to their credit, both have taken advantage in a way that nobody in front of them on the depth chart has been able to. Diamond blanked opponents for seven innings in two consecutive outings after being called up last week. Walters tossed six innings of one-run ball on Saturday and took a tough loss, then beat the Tigers in their own park with 6 1/3 strong innings on Thursday. Together, the two have combined for four quality starts in four turns; the rest of the Twins' starters have produced seven quality starts in 34 tries. I've never seen anything quite like it. An entire stable of veteran starters with track records of major-league success pitching abysmally, and then two guys from the bottom of the depth chart coming up and setting the example. To what can we attribute this strange turn of events? Opponents haven't had the chance to fully scout Diamond and Walters – that might be part of it. But mostly I think it's just the law of averages. The Twins have had so many bad breaks, so many awful performances, so many inexplicable miscues, that eventually a few things had to start going their way. I believe what we've seen in the Twins' respectable 5-5 run over the past 10 games is a team's luck finally – FINALLY – starting to swing. Rather than getting dud outings from guys with high expectations, they're getting great outings from guys with no expectations. Rather than folding in tough spots, the relievers are coming through (Glen Perkins in the eighth Thursday serving as a prime example). Rather than continuing to struggle in his return from injury, Justin Morneau is swatting the ball. Rather than being placed on the DL at the last second, Ryan Doumit is being pulled off it at the last second. And rather than losing night after night, the Twins are starting to win a few. Let's hope it keeps up. [ATTACH=CONFIG]979[/ATTACH]

There actually have been quite a few more homers hit at Target Field since the trees were removed. Hasn't positively impacted the team's play though, clearly.

Sorry to lose you. I enjoyed reading your viewpoints.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]960[/ATTACH]Much has been made of Twins fans booing Joe Mauer at Target Field this year. Personally, I'm not offended by it. It's how some invested fans choose to express their disappointment and frustration. They paid for the tickets that help pay the players' enormous salaries, so those in attendance should be free to voice their displeasure with what's happening. In this case, it's not totally unjustified. Not that I myself would ever boo Mauer. There have been ball players in this game's long history who have been deserving of booing – scumbags, entitled pricks and racists among them – but No. 7 is not (at least to my knowledge) any of those things. He's a very handsomely paid athlete who is not currently providing the value that the Twins hoped for and expected when they inked him to a $184 million contract extension three years ago. I doubt it's his fault. It's not like Mauer isn't trying, which is why the booing strikes me as odd. By all accounts, he worked out like a maniac during the offseason, desperate to distance himself from the nightmare season that was 2011. But I do wonder if it's a little too late, and the years of punishment behind the plate have fundamentally weakened him as a hitter. After grounding out three times on Wednesday, Mauer is now hitting .270/.391/.365 on the campaign. That's far from embarrassing, but it's also quite similar to the .287/.360/.368 line he finished with last year, when he admitted he never felt right all season. Last year Mauer totaled three home runs and 15 doubles in 333 plate appearances. This year, at his current pace, he'll have 16 doubles and two homers when he reaches that PA mark. That's a real lack of power, and it stems from an increasingly extreme ground ball rate. His approach at the plate has been excellent. He's striking out at a measly 9.3 percent clip (ninth-lowest in the majors) and he's on pace to draw more than 100 walks. Yet when he puts the ball in play, he rarely does so with authority. His 58.7 percent grounder rate eclipses last year's 55.4, which was at the time a career high. He's still a great, professional hitter, but when I see him now I just don't see signs of the the dominant player who in 2009 hit .365 with 28 homers. I don't even see the guy who in 2010 hit .327 with 43 doubles. It was some hybrid of those models that the Twins hoped they'd be getting at least in the early years of his contract, but right now Mauer appears headed toward rather quickly becoming a first baseman and No. 2 hitter who takes great at-bats and gets on base a ton but doesn't hit for much power or run well. That's not a $23 million franchise centerpiece. It's Doug Mientkiewicz. And that's why the people boo. But Mauer is out there on the field every day, trying to get things figured out, so you won't hear me joining the chorus. Catching for many years takes a toll, even on the most pristine of athletes. I wrote an article last year framed around one of my favorite quotes from Johnny Bench: "A catcher and his body are like an outlaw and his horse. He's got to ride that nag till it drops." Bench was one of many backstops who have either retired early, switched positions or seen their production wane rapidly with age. I'll name another example – one with parallels to Mauer that cannot be ignored: Jason Kendall. Kendall spent the first nine years of his career in Pittsburgh, serving as a full-time catcher and hitting .306/.387/.418 while averaging eight home runs. In 2005, at age 30, he was traded to the Oakland A's, and over the next six years he would hit .260/.333/.318 while hitting eight home runs total. Kendall retired at age 36, which will be Mauer's age when his contract with the Twins is up.

I don't know about the mental aspects, but I'll be keeping an eye on whether the move to the bullpen pumps some life into Liriano's fastball and especially his slider. His pitches just haven't had their normal bite even when in the zone.

After seeing the two starters who were supposed to serve as veteran leaders in the rotation exit after recording only 12 outs on successive nights, it's not hard to understand why the Twins have been carrying 13 pitchers on the roster for much of the year. What is hard to understand is why, with all these different relief slots, and with so many different guys being shuffled in and out, the Twins still haven't been able to find room for Anthony Slama on the major-league roster.[ATTACH=CONFIG]918[/ATTACH] Slama has clearly never been held in particularly high esteem by the organization, despite his dazzling numbers in the minors. He owns a lifetime 2.00 ERA and 1.08 WHIP, and he has averaged more than 10 strikeouts per nine innings at every single level, yet he's been mired in Triple-A for four years and at age 28 he has logged only seven MLB innings. The knocks against Slama are that his control isn't very good and he's weak against left-handed hitting. Those things both may be true, but neither precludes him from being a useful big-league reliever. His numbers in Triple-A are absurdly dominant. In 133 1/3 total innings for Rochester, he has registered a 2.36 ERA and 161-to-66 strikeout-to-walk ratio, yielding only 87 hits. This year, he has struck out 43 percent of the batters he's faced while posting a 0.59 ERA as the Red Wings' closer. Although he's been able to consistently overcome his flaws and decimate hitters at every level of the minors, the Twins simply do not seem to view him as a guy who can make an impact at the next level. Apparently, they're not alone. At the end of last season, Slama was removed from the 40-man roster and exposed to waivers. Nobody claimed him. I presumed at the time that both the decision to outright him and the lack of interest from even reliever-needy bottom feeders stemmed largely from elbow problems that ended his 2011 campaign in August. Yet this year, the side-arming righty has shown no ill effects from the injury – he's been nearly unhittable. So at this point Slama is healthy, averaging almost two strikeouts per inning in Triple-A, and 28 years old. Oh, and there's an open spot on the 40-man roster. In this lost season, it's baffling that the Twins aren't interested in taking an extended look at what the guy can do against big-league hitters. If control is his biggest problem, why not make him a project for Rick Anderson? What is there to lose? Slama's stuff might not be especially great, but I have an exceedingly difficult time believing that a pitcher can overpower hitters to that degree at the highest level of the minor leagues and stand no chance of providing value in the majors. Give him a chance.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]900[/ATTACH]The true importance of the strikeout is a subject of much debate in baseball circles. It is generally agreed, though, that the K is a powerful weapon for pitchers, one with strengths (it's the most reliable method of recording an out) and weaknesses (pitching for strikeouts requires more pitches and taxes the arm). Dennis Brackin wrote a great piece for the Star Tribune last week on the subject of pitching to contact, which is a philosophy that the Twins have notoriously espoused. Brackin's article sought to clarify some misconceptions about the phrase. Most notably, that coaches are actively encouraging pitchers not to strike anyone out. A severe strikeout deficiency is currently the greatest downfall for Minnesota's pitching staff, but it's not the coaching approach that is at issue. It's the personnel. For whatever reason, the Twins have strayed away more and more from stocking the roster with strikeout pitchers in recent years. Maybe because it's cheaper, or maybe because the organization lacks the scouting chops to find quality power arms. In any case, the amount of contact that Twins pitchers are now allowing makes it nearly impossible to succeed. The chart below, which I put together as part of the Twins scorecard content for next week's series against the Indians (only $1 at the stadium!) paints a picture of how Twins pitching staffs have evolved over the years from a K-rate perspective, and how their results have been impacted: [TABLE] Year ERA (AL Rank) K/9 (AL Rank) 2002 4.12 (6th) 6.6 (5th) 2003 4.41 (7th) 6.1 (9th) 2004 4.03 (1st) 6.8 (3rd) 2005 3.71 (5th) 5.9 (10th) 2006 3.95 (2nd) 7.3 (1st) 2007 4.15 (5th) 6.9 (4th) 2008 4.17 (7th) 6.1 (12th) 2009 4.50 (11th) 6.5 (10th) 2010 3.95 (5th) 6.5 (10th) 2011 4.58 (13th) 6.0 (14th) 2012 5.69 (14th) 5.3 (14th) [/TABLE] As you can see, the Twins weren't always a contact-heavy staff. In fact, back in 2006 they led the league in whiffs per nine innings, and ranked second in ERA. Back then, Johan Santana was leading the rotation and Joe Nathan the bullpen. Now, Carl Pavano is the No. 1 starter and Matt Capps the closer. Those two set the tone for a staff that pitches to contact at an outrageously extreme rate. Since the start of last year, Pavano has struck out a lower percentage of hitters (10.9%) than any starting pitcher in baseball other than Jamie Moyer, who is 49, and Brad Penny, who was just released by a Japanese team. Meanwhile, Capps has struck out a lower percentage (12.4%) than any reliever other than Aaron Laffey and Erasmo Ramirez, both of whom are presently in Triple-A. The major leagues as a whole are averaging 7.3 K/9 this year. Excluding Scott Diamond, who's pitched once, the Twins currently have two pitchers on their entire staff with a K-rate above that mark: Glen Perkins and Jared Burton. As a team, Minnesota is averaging 5.3 strikeouts per nine innings; if that were to hold, it would be the lowest figure for an MLB club since the 2003 Tigers averaged 4.8. That team also lost 119 games. (Incidentally, the Twins are currently on pace to lose 117). As a general philosophy, telling hurlers to pitch to contact -- as in, trust your stuff and don't be afraid to throw in the zone early in the count -- isn't so bad. It's been Rick Anderson's calling card for many years. But at this point, the Twins have completely abandoned the punch-out. There are basically no starting pitchers in the entire organization who excel at missing bats. That needs to change. When you allow as much contact as this team currently is, you're going to struggle to limit hits and runs regardless of how good your defense is.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]882[/ATTACH]Well, I never expected it would be this bad. Sure, I had plenty of doubts about these 2012 Twins. I realized I was being somewhat optimistic when I projected them to finish around .500, and I also realized that there was a chance injuries could pile up and send the club into the same sort of spiral that engulfed it last summer. The thing is, the roster has remained relatively healthy. Outside of Scott Baker, the Twins have largely been playing with the group that they hoped to have this season. And yet, they've still been almost every bit as bad as they were in the final two months of the 2011 season, when under-qualified minor-leaguers filled the lineup and apathy seemed to take hold of a team that dropped 41 of its final 54 games. It's getting worse, not better. What is going on? A sense of hopelessness currently permeates this organization from top to bottom. Players and coaches are despondent in their quotes. The front office appears totally clueless, cycling through Quad-A players like Clete Thomas and Erik Komatsu while making the same kind of blunders handling injured players as they did last year. The lineup, which figured to be Minnesota's greatest strength, just went through the worst offensive slump in modern major-league history. And then of course there's the starting pitching. It's been outrageously awful, and there's little hope on the horizon. Just take a look at the organization's top three pitching prospects: 1) Liam Hendriks opened the season with the big-league club after a good spring and has been utterly over-matched by MLB hitters, posting a 9.00 ERA, 1.89 WHIP and 9-to-4 strikeout-to-walk ratio while coughing up five homers in 18 innings. He's now been replaced in the rotation by Scott Diamond, who will probably fare better but not by a lot. 2) Kyle Gibson is recovering from Tommy John. He's expected back next year, but Twins fans know all too well that the process of returning to full strength after elbow surgery can drag on and ding a pitcher's upside. 3) Alex Wimmers, whom the Twins were also counting on to be knocking on the door next year, is currently on the shelf indefinitely with – what else? – an elbow tear. The medical staff has opted to avoid surgery for now, but we know how that goes. Aside from Diamond, Nick Blackburn is the only current member of the rotation under contract beyond this year. The Twins don't have quality pitching prospects coming up on the farm, they don't have many assets that they can trade for impact arms, and with attendance dropping precipitously it seems highly unlikely that they'll come up with the money it takes to bring in legitimate help through free agency. This organization is in dire shape. Here in Year 3 of a beautiful new stadium, the current situation is downright depressing. Strong leadership is required to bring the Twins out of this miserable funk, and frankly the front office's bumbling desperation hardly inspires confidence. It's time to make something happen. This is beyond unacceptable, and the fans deserve a whole lot better. I'm not calling for anyone to lose their job, I'm calling for some people to step the hell up.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]828[/ATTACH]The Twins announced today that they have designated infielder Sean Burroughs for assignment to make room for Drew Butera on the 25-man roster. This one is a head-scratcher. You can certainly make the argument that Joe Mauer's knee tenderness necessitated a call-up for Butera, as he may serve as more of a second catcher than third catcher for the time being. It's just tough to understand why the Twins felt the need to dump Burroughs when there was no good reason to do so. Justin Morneau came out of Monday night's game against the Angels due to wrist pain. This isn't a guy with a low pain threshold, so it's safe to say that Morneau must have been hurting pretty bad to pull himself from the game. The problem was deemed serious enough that he was immediately flown back to Minnesota for an MRI. Fortunately, Morneau received good news today when it was revealed that there's no structural damage to the wrist, but he won't be ready to play until Friday "at the earliest." Why not just throw Morneau on the DL and delay the roster decision? I'm not saying Burroughs is necessarily useful, but we can't make that judgment based on his 18 sporadic plate appearances. He was at the very least a veteran left-handed bat to bring off the bench, and with him and Luke Hughes both gone there is nobody on the roster to press Danny Valencia, who has been shaky in the field and jarringly horrible at the plate with a .646 OPS and 18-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio. Maybe Burroughs wasn't really an asset, but the Twins sure seemed convinced he was less than a month ago. Beyond weakening the bench and forcing the team to play short-handed for at least the next two games, the decision not to DL Morneau seems questionable on its own merits. He claims that the wrist has been bothering him since the Rays series – which was over a week ago – and it's a recurring injury from last year, so giving him an extra 10 days to rest probably wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. Rather than play it safe and stash a player on the disabled list to keep the roster at full strength, the Twins have decided to wait a few days and reevaluate. Sadly typical of this team.