Nick Nelson

I blame the Twins' medical staff.

What an obtuse statement. I'd still take Liriano over 3 or 4 members of the Twins' current rotation. Easily.

13/3 GB/FB ratio for Diamond today. Only one walk. If he keeps throwing strikes and getting grounders (as he did all last year) he's going to be pretty good.

I know that from my perspective, the problem is that the error statistic doesn't do a good job of tabulating actual errors. That's not because you guys do a bad job, it's because the rules are poorly written. A guy doesn't get an error because he lost the ball in the sun? I mean, he still made a mistake. Blocking out the sun to catch a fly ball is part of the game. The whole "if he doesn't touch it, it's not an error" principle is absurd, and frequently rewards players for lacking range, thus causing fielding % to have the opposite of its desired effect. I think a defensive misplay is generally obvious to a person of moderate baseball intelligence, and I'd be fine allowing for a more subjective approach so long as knowledgeable scorekeepers (such as Stew) are assigned. I think we'd see much more accuracy.

Well I wasn't talking about it as an abstract concept, I was talking about this particular scenario. The Twins signed Pelfrey to be a veteran innings-eater; they can't afford to have him be a 5IP-max guy, as they're too liable for short starts elsewhere in the rotation (see: Tuesday night). And of course, Pelfrey cannot be relied upon to consistently provide even five good innings, so the point is moot. I think the calls to release him are premature. He's got his velocity back and he's feeling good so I could easily see him putting together a solid second half once he's straightened out. But right now this isn't working. A 6.5% K-rate is embarrassing. That's not big-league caliber. He's getting hit and he's getting hit hard. There's a real double-standard in play when Liam Hendriks is getting bumped down for far lesser offenses. I have a hard time understanding that since Hendriks is the one that actually that may figure into the long term plan.

If Pelfrey is done for the night after five innings and ~80 pitches then he shouldn't be in the majors, which is basically my entire point.

You can view the page at http://twinsdaily.com/content.php?r=1650-Time-to-Put-Pelf-on-the-Shelf

[ATTACH=CONFIG]3951[/ATTACH]In a season where he's largely stayed in the good graces of the fan base, Ron Gardenhire finally awakened the critics on Monday night. With the Twins leading Detroit 3-1 and angling for a big win to kick off their treacherous road trip, Gardenhire sent Mike Pelfrey out to pitch the sixth inning despite the fact that the starter had pretty clearly been surviving on smoke and mirrors all night. Pelfrey had not struck out a single hitter and, in the previous inning, had only managed to work around a single and triple by inducing a hard-hit ground ball double play. Pelfrey took the mound in the sixth and imploded against the middle of the Detroit lineup, allowing an infield single, a walk and then a go-ahead three-run homer to Prince Fielder. Finally the bullpen took over and did its thing, holding the Tigers scoreless the rest of the way, but the damage was done and the Twins sustained one of their toughest losses of the season. Pelfrey's meltdown seemed all too inevitable given the way he's pitched this year. He has failed to complete six innings in any of his five starts, he is allowing nearly two base runners per inning on average with opponents hitting .356 against him, and he has a 7.66 ERA. Pelfrey was never a huge strikeout guy, but he has managed to fan only seven of the 108 batters he has faced this season, giving him the lowest rate in the majors by a fairly wide margin. In light of those numbers, it strikes me that the issue isn't Gardenhire crossing his fingers and trying to squeeze another inning out of the right-hander. The issue is that Pelfrey is on the big-league roster to begin with. When the veteran returned to the mound back on April 4th, just 11 months removed from Tommy John surgery, I marveled at the accomplishment, even if he didn't look very good. It was a great story. It still is a great story; after rocketing through his recovery, Pelfrey has taken the mound every five days, battling and throwing strikes. He claims to feel fine and his velocity is back close to where it was prior to surgery. Those are real positives. But those positives don't mask the fact that Pelfrey clearly does not have what it takes to consistently retire major-league hitters right now. He can't throw past anybody and opponents are putting the ball in the air against him more at an unprecedented rate. Many of his outs are hard-hit liners. Parker pointed out last week the numerous issues present in the righty's game. Surely the Twins are aware of these issues, and they can't be thrilled with the signs of progression on Monday night even if Pelfrey managed to dance through five innings before falling apart. I have faith that Pelf will improve and sharpen up the lacking aspects of his game over time as he moves further away from the surgery (which took place one year ago today, officially), but letting that process play out in the majors, where it's costing the team games, is not acceptable. With Liam Hendriks and Kyle Gibson waiting for a chance in Triple-A while Samuel Deduno inches closer to returning from a groin injury, the Twins have options available that make a lot more sense at the moment, whether the goal is to win now or cultivate for the future. A demotion to Triple-A until Pelfrey proves ready is a seemingly obvious baseball decision. The fact that he's a good story (and, by all accounts, a good guy) shouldn't cloud that.

The problems with WAR are simple: 1) people try to use it as a comprehensive indicator of player value rather than what it is -- another interesting yet imperfect metric; 2) it is heavily influenced by defense and we still have no great way to measure that. Even proponents of WAR would likely tell you that the statistic is pretty worthless in a one-month sample, so the examples you've pointed out aren't very compelling even though I generally agree with what you're getting at.

Nice to hear that he's realistic and frank in assessing himself. And good on him for the strong start. It won't last forever -- as he admits -- but right now I'm happy to shut up and enjoy the ride.

Exactly. I gotta say I'm pretty puzzled by Gardy's harshness toward his defense at third considering he had pretty much never played the position before last year. Plouffe's hardly the only one butchering plays out there, and at least to my eyes he seems to be getting better in certain areas. He's certainly got all the tools to be a quality 3B.

Yes, that is how basically every team operates. You guys have a weird conception of how sports medicine works. Athletes routinely play through minor injuries. Didn't the article say they'd already done two MRIs?

You can view the page at http://twinsdaily.com/content.php?r=1640-Strong-Start-Bodes-Well-For-Twins

[ATTACH=CONFIG]3918[/ATTACH]T.S. Eliot once famously wrote that April is the cruelest month, and for the Twins that adage has held true over the past two years. Between 2011 and 2012, the team went 15-33 during the season's first month while watching devastating injuries pile up – from Tsuyoshi Nishioka's broken leg and Joe Mauer's bilateral leg weakness to Scott Baker's unscheduled Tommy John surgery. Against that backdrop, the first four weeks of this 2013 campaign have been blissful, even if the club's performance has been more solid than great and the game-viewing conditions have been mostly horrible. With nearly a full month in the books, the Twins are above .500 and everybody's intact. And the temperatures are back in the 70s. Life is great. But like the weather, which is expected to return to depressingly frigid levels in a few days, the Twins' run of good fortune won't last forever. In fact, a harsh dose of reality may be in the offings as they head to Detroit to take on a three-headed monster in Scherzer/Verlander/Sanchez. That brutal series opens a 10-game road trip that should prove telling. Can the Twins continue to frequent the win column while plagued by so many problem areas? The lineup has sputtered too often, ranking 10th in the AL in runs per game and 13th in OPS. The defense has been shaky, with inexperience manifesting in head-scratching miscues. The starting rotation, while seeming on the surface to be a vast improvement over last season, still presents major concerns, especially when you factor in the inevitable return to Earth for ace-of-the-moment Kevin Correia. Yet none of that seems too noticeable. The baseball season is a long one, full of ebbs and flows, and right now the Twins are in a positive place, fresh off their most impressive accomplishment thus far. A stacked Rangers team brought a 14-7 record into a town and tipped off a four-game series with two straight one-run victories. Surprisingly, the Twins recovered from that gut punch and bounced back to split the series with a pair of convincing wins, outscoring the Rangers 12-2. It marked the first time this year Texas has suffered consecutive losses. For Minnesota, this was a statement series, and Correia's gem in the finale was as much of a statement game. The Twins are charging ahead with their trademark formula: throw strikes, let 'em hit it, manufacture enough runs to come out on top. Their pitchers sport the league's lowest K/9 average (6.1) but also the league's lowest BB/9 (2.4). Right now, it's working well enough for them, in large part because their pitchers aren't giving up any homers. (They've surrendered only 11 long balls, tied for fewest in the minors -- unsustainable for such a contact-heavy staff even if it is full of sinkerballers.) While that formula seems unlikely to hold up in the long run, the important thing might be that it's gotten them by until now. As I've frequently alluded, this is a team that stands to get better as the season progresses, and we're seeing that dynamic unfold before our eyes. Aaron Hicks is gradually figuring things out, Oswaldo Arcia is showing promising early flashes, Kyle Gibson appears to be closing in on a promotion and Alex Meyer is tearing up Double-A. Entering the season, my initial thinking was that these early weeks would be the hardest on the Twins, as green rookies went through the usual growing pains and the reassembled rotation took its obligatory lumps. The club has weathered all that, and is still in position to wrap up the month with more victories than losses with a win Monday or Tuesday in Mo-town. No one should be hoodwinked into thinking that the Twins are suddenly a surprise playoff contender because they've played well over their first 20 games, but staying afloat in this first month has been crucial. Recent brutal starts have put a hurt on the team's ticket sales, and could have been especially toxic when combined with the nasty weather this month. Reversing the trend was a high priority. Will this help set the Twins up to carry out their ultimate goal of remaining relevant into the final month of the season? Still a cloudy proposition, but with confidence building and impact help potentially on the way, it's hardly outlandish.

Lengthy and interesting writeup on Jack Goin and the Twins' stat department in the Pioneer Press, including a nice shout-out to Twins Daily: Minnesota Twins join 'Moneyball' era behind mystery man - TwinCities.com

Really? So we're all going to blast the medical staff (again) and no one is going to put any of the blame on Mastroianni, who undoubtedly continued to downplay the injury and -- by forcing his way through it -- ended up making it much worse? These guys are professional athletes. It's their job to take care of their own bodies. If he's hiding a significant injury, that's his bad.

The Twins are in a much better place if we're legitimately starting to worry about finding room on the 40-man. For the last few years there have been several interchangeable spots.

I think you’re mostly right, but I didn’t get the sense that Mauer fully had his strength back over the first couple months last year. I mean, he was slugging .399 on June 1. In the latter part of the season he really seemed to hit his stride and added eight more homers the rest of the way, which is a relatively high number for him. This year he’s already gone deep twice – he didn’t hit his second homer until May 24 last year. He’s also playing catcher a lot more than he did last year.

You can view the page at http://twinsdaily.com/content.php?r=1619-Accelerating-the-Rebuild-Timeline

[ATTACH=CONFIG]3856[/ATTACH]When healthy, Joe Mauer is one of baseball’s elite players, and a fitting centerpiece for a championship-caliber team. The Twins are aware of this, which is why they locked him up with a $184 million contract back in 2010. When they committed to paying the hometown star $23 million annually for eight years – up until he’s 35 – the Twins knew that the best value in the deal was likely to come on the front end. That’s just a natural facet of baseball and pro sports in general; players are at their best around their late 20s and tend to decline as they age into their 30s while athleticism, quickness and durability gradually erode. That’s especially true for a career catcher with a history of leg injuries. None of that means Mauer is bound to turn into a pumpkin any time soon, but as you watch him right now – 30 years old, fully healthy for the first time in ages – you’re looking at one of the game’s premier players. We can’t take for granted that he will continue to play at this level forever, especially while remaining at catcher. His unparalleled approach at the plate means he’ll probably be a good hitter until the day he retires, but Mauer simply won’t be able to affect games in the same way if he’s a plodding designated hitter or first baseman. Like it or not, that’s in his future at some point down the line. Despite their strong start to the season, the Twins would probably admit that they’re not currently within a window of contention. It’s in their best interest to enter one sooner rather than later, and while there are various reasons for that, Mauer has to rank near the top of the list. All the talk we heard during the offseason about how the organization should set its sights on competing in 2016 never made any sense; are the Twins just supposed to let three potentially great years from one of the best players in franchise history go to waste while waiting for prospects to (hopefully) grow into big-league contributors? Fortunately, the rebuilding timeline doesn’t presently look as daunting as some feared. In part, that’s because a couple guys that the Twins expect to be part of their next contending core – Aaron Hicks and Oswaldo Arcia – are already getting their feet wet in the big leagues. Meanwhile, Miguel Sano and Byron Buxton are obliterating their current levels and could be on the move more quickly than anticipated. Of course, pitching is the key piece in this equation, and in that department the Twins also seem headed rapidly in the right direction. Newly acquired starter Alex Meyer – who, let’s face it, might be the single most important prospect in the system with the way the organization has put all its eggs in the “potential ace” basket – is off to a torrid start in New Britain with a 1.69 ERA and plenty of strikeouts through three starts. His teammate and fellow fresh acquisition Trevor May has also flashed some dominance, though his typical command issues remain present. Kyle Gibson has been solid in Triple-A. It seems likely that at least two, and maybe all three, of these young hurlers will get a chance to pitch in the majors at some point this year, positioning them to help fill out a rotation that already features one or two quality long-term pieces. Put it all together, knock on some wood, and you’ve got an organization headed toward an ideal scenario: a group of capable young players with a bit of experience surrounding a still prime-aged superstar, with plenty of money available to fill in holes as needed.