Nick Nelson

This is a pretty great thread. Love seeing all the perspectives.

Yeah, I'm pretty shocked by how bad this team has been so far. Last year's club was at least respectable when most the guys were healthy. Cody's probably right that a hot streak will hit at some point but they've dug themselves a HUGE hole with some truly miserable play. One series win in their first six and already two sweeps at home? Yikes. From 2008 to 2010, the Twins got swept at home three times total.

I think that'd be ideal. Or just have Provus call the entire game. I agree with the comments about Gladden's refreshing willingness to speak his opinions without holding back (the comment from one_eyed_jack about a hypothetical Valencia play was spot on) but his play-by-play is brutal to listen to.

Yes, that's what I meant, and I don't really see it as debatable. A great deal of Mauer's value was vested in his playing catcher, which has already become a part-time assignment at age 29. The market doesn't bear much relevance here, as context is key; money spent affects different teams in different ways. For the Twins, Mauer represents nearly a quarter of the payroll. He was paid based on the player he was in 2009 and it seems unlikely we'll ever see that player again -- certainly not every year for the life of the contract (he's already missed that boat). Criticizing the contract is an exercise in hindsight judgment, but that doesn't mean the claims don't ring true. Anyone who's being rational will admit that the Twins had no choice but to get the deal done, and due to some truly unfortunate timing they ended up paying an absolute premium. His bulky contract is something they now have to work around, but it doesn't change the fact that Mauer is ultimately an asset. I'd like to see more people focusing on that truth.

It's clear at this point that Mauer is not going to be worth $23M to the Twins. There's not much use in further hand-wringing about his salary. I'm not sure why every discussion about him invariably needs to circle back to that complaint.

You can view the page at http://www.twinsdaily.com/content.php?471-Mauer-Making-a-Statement

[ATTACH=CONFIG]738[/ATTACH]The Twins have played 18 games this year, and Joe Mauer has been in the starting lineup for every single one. That's right – you might not have noticed, but the embattled catcher has not taken a day off this season after missing half of the 2011 campaign due to various ailments. This is the longest Mauer has even gone into a season without stopping to rest, and it's not like the early schedule has been particularly forgiving, with only one day off and plenty of travel. Granted, Mauer has been catching much less frequently than normal -- he's been behind the plate for only 10 games -- but nevertheless, this iron man stands in stark contrast to the guy who last year drew the ire of media, fans and reportedly even some teammates for his inability or unwillingness to stay on the field. It seems that No. 7 is making a statement. Fortunately, his bat is starting to back up that message. Mauer stumbled out to a slow start, batting .242 with a .675 OPS and nearly as many GIDP (4) as RBI (5) through Minnesota's first nine games. Since the start of the Yankees series, however, Mauer is hitting .382/.475/.471 with three doubles and five walks. He's stopped putting everything on the ground and he's even stolen a couple bases – an indication that his legs are feeling pretty good. He's struck out just three times in his past 46 plate appearances. Mauer's overall production hasn't been extraordinary, but it's extremely encouraging to see him pushing his batting average up over .300 and consistently taking quality at-bats. April is historically one of his quieter months, so if he can continue to heat up as the weather does the same, he could find himself once again grouped with the league's top hitters. The Twins have already had plenty of things go wrong this year, but getting Mauer back on track was always the top priority. It appears that he's well on his way, and Ron Gardenhire deserves credit for moving him around and keeping him fresh enough to take the field each day.

Those pitchers are not going to be part of a quality rotation going forward. You're not rebuilding by giving starts to Swarzak and Maloney, you're just throwing games away. Let those two continue to work in the bullpen, where they actually have a chance to be long-term assets.

Small sample size? This has been an ongoing problem for over a year. I don't expect his rate to remain as absurdly low as it is now, but this is a real problem.

The problem wasn't nearly as drastic when they traded for him. He was striking out nearly 20 percent of hitters for the Nats in 2010 before the Twins acquired him and maintained that rate after switching teams. At that point, he was a solid reliever. Typically they seem to understand that strikeouts are important for late-inning relievers. They always talk about needing power arms at the back end of the bullpen, but Capps simply doesn't qualify in spite of his decent velocity. Would this really be in instance of bad luck, though? They knew he was hurt last year, did nothing to address the problem and re-signed him at a high price in a flush reliever market during the offseason. Sounds more like bad planning than bad fortune to me.

I am just astounded by the closer's inability to miss bats here early in the season. I figured he'd rebound a bit after seeing his K-rate drop to a career-low 12 percent last year, but so far the issue has only been magnified. Capps has struck out only two of the 28 batters he's faced, or 7 percent. Last year, no reliever in the majors who threw more than 40 innings had a K-rate below 10 percent. Not long ago, Capps was perfectly capable of notching a punch-out from time to time, but here in the prime of his career it appears that he's completely lost the ability to fool hitters. He doesn't exactly induce enough weak contact to survive while allowing 90+ percent of hitters to put the ball in play (I don't know that any pitcher does). So I have two questions for discussion: 1) What's wrong with Capps? His velocity has been decent and he's been mixing in a fair number of sliders but no one's whiffing on his pitches. I suggested last week that his forearm/elbow injury might still be bothering him. 2) If it continues, how much longer can/will the Twins put up with this kind of dismal K-rate before they remove Capps not only from the closer role, but from high-leverage duties period? You could argue that the pitch-to-contact model might be effective when applied to starters, but it's disastrous for a late-inning pitcher and I'd hope the Twins realize that.

This is not only misleading, but blatantly wrong. Capps has two strikeouts in seven innings. He has struck out two of 28 batters this year, or 7 percent. That's a huge reduction from his 18 percent career rate, and a sizable drop-off even from last year's 12 percent rate.

Ah, a thread from thrylos proclaiming that all the management and coaches should be fired. How original. This is a rebuilding year. Anyone who saw it as anything different was being willfully optimistic. The Twins are battling through a tough early stretch and dealing with plenty of pitching issues that are out of their control (please don't tell me you're one of those people who think it's the coaching staff's fault that Liriano can't throw strikes). The season is not a month old, and they've played elite teams almost exclusively. I don't know how much slack they should be cut but it's a lot more than this.

You can view the page at http://www.twinsdaily.com/content.php?465-Shaky-Control-Puts-Liriano-on-Shaky-Ground

Francisco Liriano was tagged with a loss Sunday as he allowed five runs over five innings, handing out four walks while throwing just 47 of 86 pitches for strikes. It qualified as his best start of the season. Through four turns, Liriano sits with an 11.02 ERA, 2.28 WHIP and 12-to-13 strikeout-to-walk ratio over 16 2/3 innings. Only 57 percent of his pitches are finding the zone, which is the same rate he finished with in 2011. He was being counted on this year to rebound and lead the rotation, but instead he's been its biggest problem. Given that he's shown no meaningful signs of improvement over these first four starts, the Twins are undoubtedly taking a look at their options. I've been one of Liriano's staunchest defenders, but even I wouldn't fault the team for bumping him to the bullpen until he figures out how to throw strikes. The left-hander seems oddly ambivalent about the situation, considering how much it impacts his livelihood. Pitching his way out of the rotation in the season preceding his first foray into free agency? He stands to cost himself many millions. It's a tough thing for the Twins to have to do, but his abysmal performance is giving them little choice but to consider making a move. This is hardly an ideal situation for the club. Their starting pitching depth is already stretched thin with Scott Baker gone for the year, and while Anthony Swarzak has been relatively effect as a swing man, that's the role he's best suited for and his outing last week against the Yankees was an example of why he shouldn't be starting regularly. Brian Duensing and Matt Maloney, like Swarzak, are pitchers with a history of starting who are better suited for relief roles. You could make a case that Scott Diamond is banging on the door in Triple-A, as he's 4-0 with a 1.07 ERA and 18-to-5 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 25 1/3 innings over his first four starts in Rochester. Of course, the 25-year-old Diamond was also one of the Twins' early cuts in spring training after pitching quite poorly in big-league stints last year. People shouldn't get overly worked up over four good Triple-A starts from the lefty. He's putting up essentially the same peripherals now as he did last year, when he went 4-14 with a 5.56 ERA for Rochester. He has stranded over 90 percent of base runners up to this point, which is beyond unsustainable. If called up, Diamond won't fool many hitters, but he'll at least throw strikes and might be able to hold his own thanks to a solid grounder rate. A complete turnaround from Liriano might be the only way for the Twins to climb into contention, because they're destined to wallow in mediocrity with a rotation full of soft-tossing contact pitchers, but it's hard to hold out hope for such a reversal from Frankie when he's looking every bit as bad as he did for basically the entire 2011 season. At this point, replacing him with a guy who has "No. 5 starter" written all over him is beginning to look like a palatable option. That's bad news for the Twins, and it's worse news for Liriano's bank account. [ATTACH=CONFIG]707[/ATTACH]

You can view the page at http://www.twinsdaily.com/content.php?451-Three-Bagger-M-M-Revival-Capps-Health-Perspective

* It's funny how the timing works out sometimes. On Monday, I wrote a post here discussing the offense's struggles, noting that they stemmed largely from a lack of production from Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau. At that point, both lineup cornerstones had contributed minimally, which was a big reason the Twins were averaging just 3.1 runs over their first nine games. My conclusion: "It's too early to panic with either of these players, but up to this point they haven't really shown signs that they're ready to reverse course after dismal 2011 campaigns. It would be awfully nice if they could begin doing so this week in New York." Sure enough, the M&M boys answered the call in the Big Apple. In the four-game series, the tandem combined to go 11-for-27 with three doubles and three homers. Mauer started lifting the ball and Morneau generally took much better at-bats. Not coincidentally, the Twins averaged 5.5 runs and came away with their most successful series in the Bronx in over a decade. Obviously the turnaround had nothing to do my post, but like I said, it's funny how these things work out sometimes. * In a similar vein, I shot out the following tweet during Wednesday night's game after Matt Capps served up a home run to Derek Jeter: "Matt Capps has struck out one of the 19 batters he's faced this year. #WhyIsHeClosing" Naturally, Capps proceeded to immediately strike out Curtis Granderson before retiring Mark Teixeira on a deep fly to close out a one-run victory. Yet, in this case, the point still stands. While he's managed to convert all three of his save chances thus far, Capps' inability to miss bats is a recipe for disaster in the ninth inning. [ATTACH=CONFIG]678[/ATTACH]I'll be honest: I'm not convinced that whatever arm ailment was plaguing the right-hander last summer has gone away. In my mind, there were two clear indicators that something was wrong with Capps last year: A) A decrease in velocity. His fastball went from averaging 93.6 MPH in 2009 and 94.0 MPH in 2010 to 92.9 in 2011. A huge drop in strikeout rate. Probably not totally unrelated to the dashed velo, but Capps went from striking out 18.7 of the batters he faced in the first six seasons of his big-league career (including 19.3 percent in 2010) to just 12.4 percent in 2011. So far this year, Capps is averaging 92.6 MPH with his fastball and has struck out 9.5 percent of the batters he's faced after fanning six of 51 in spring training. He has only pitched five innings thus far, so the small sample caveat obviously applies in a big way, but these are troubling signs for a guy who was rendered ineffective as closer last year by an injury that was not addressed in any way. Hopefully he responds to my harping on these issues in the same way Mauer and Morneau did. * In the grand scheme of things, it's tough to be too upset about the Twins' current 4-9 record. Obviously the season-opening sweep in Baltimore was beyond ugly, but since then the Twins have gone 4-6 against three elite teams. They won a series at home against a very good Angels club and split in New York against their longtime tormenters. While the Twins weren't able to come up with a win against the Rangers, they were generally competitive in that series and Texas has been essentially unstoppable this year -- they're now 11-2 after wiping out the Tigers on Thursday night. If the Twins are still only five games under .500 when they come out of this treacherous opening stretch, they'll be in decent position going forward. Of course, if they don't start pitching better, that's all moot.

Since that dud first series in Baltimore, the Twins are now 4-5. They won a series against a pretty good Angels team, got swept by the Rangers who have basically been unstoppable, and are now guaranteed at least a split against the Yankees in New York. Considering how bad they've looked at times, that's pretty good. Offense is looking legit. Really wish they had more pitching.

Yeah, I'm pretty shocked by this. Not that I think Hughes is anything special, but they didn't give him much of a chance to show anything after a legitimately impressive spring. I think Gardy really dislikes his defense