Willihammer

I don't see why Mauer shouldn't be leading off. He's an OBP machine and probably the 2nd best baserunner on the team.

Yes, that was my point. You said it was impossible to argue for speed and I'm saying its possible and here's an example of where we can see the value of superior speed. Rather than merely flatly siting UBR or some other esoteric stat that might get dismissed as sabr mumbo jumbo. There's an average weighted value to taking the extra base, tagging up, breaking up a double play, beating out a potential double play for a fieldier's choice, advancing to third on a GB hit up the middle. There's anywhere from 1 to 2 wins or more separating the best and the worst baserunners every year, and that's before you even look at stolen bases.

Firstly, there are a lot more stats that indirectly measure speed than SB. For one, baseball-reference has a baserunning section on a player's "More Stats" tab. Secondly, I think we can get a crude measure of strong baserunning, or SPEED and I will attempt to do this by looking at two players who hit in front of similar lineups (in an attempt to control for that very important variable). Enter: Mike Trout and Austin Jackson. Both were leadoff hitters for lineups that were very strong 1-5 last year. Behind Jackson, hit Dirks/Santiago, Cabrera, Fielder, and Young. Behind Trout was Aybar, Pujols, Hunter, and Morales. More or less an equivalent 2-4, I think we can agree. Maybe even a slight edge to the Tigers. So, as a starting point, take RS%: the percentage of times a runner reaches base and scores. Trout had the edge, 44% to 40%. What might explain the difference then, if the hitters hitting behind Trout and Jackson were equally productive? Trout and Jackson made about the same number of outs on the bases (22 to 23), but Trout got on base 22 more times. So, they were picked off, thrown out, or caught stealing at almost the exact same rate. So its not baserunning blunders that separated them. Next we can try to solve for positive contributions. Jackson stole 12 bases in 292 opportunities. Trout stole 49 bases in 246 opportunities. Two other things we can look at are 1stS2 and 1stS3 - the number of times a runner reached 2nd and 3rd base (or home) respectively, when a single is hit. The Tigers hit 43 singles when Jackson was standing on 1st base. Of these, Jackson reached 2nd base 28 times, and reached 3rd base or scored, 15 times. But consider this: The Angels hit 45 singles hit when Trout was standing on 1st. Of these, Trout reached 2nd base 17 times. But 28 times he ran all the way to third or home. He actually took the extra base(s) more often than not. And that, I believe, accounts for that 4% variance in scoring efficiency. Over the course of 600 PAs, with a constant OBP of .399, that's 10 runs. A full win, separating a player with very good speed, and one with elite speed.

Could say the same about Worley. He threw a few nice sliders in hish last start but I think I counted 3 changups / splitters / splangeups. The rest were all 2 and 4 seem fastballs (which look to be as good as they're going to get). Its like someone needs to remind these guys that ST games don't count.

Its an interesting question. There doesn't appear to be a lot of good research on the topic. My first thought is that, pitching is hard work. Pitching 7+ innings is exhausting work. So being fit might not directly help a pitcher stay effective deeper into ballgames, but it almost certainly wouldn't hurt, and could very easily help. Worley has already demonstrated difficulty retiring hitters in the 3rd and 4th trip through the order. This might be due to his limited arsenal, but it might also be the result of just getting tired.

The run values vary year to year and team to team. Overall, these are the average run values for 2012, per fangraphs: Obviously this doesn't count taking extra bases, scoring from 2nd on a single, etc. Safe to say that those things are all probably comparable to SBs in their run values though. So, if you take player A: a lousy baserunner who costs his team 7.5 runs in caught stealing and baserunning blunders; and player B who steals 50 bases and is caught only 5 times, and who produces 8 additional runs via 1st to 3rd, scoring from 2nd on a single, etc. (totaling +16 net runs). Assume both play on the same, perfectly league average 2012 team. Player A will need to draw 34 additional walks to equal player B's run value, a difference of .056 OBP. Or, he could hit 17 home runs, a difference of .028 in OBP. edit: Error. Only 11 HRs with a weighted run value 23.5 runs. A difference of .018 OBP instead of .028.

You haven't noticed the head duck? Its like a tell. He only does it when he's bluffing, and he never gets the call. He's doing it again right now, catching Worley http://www.baseballprospectus.com/u/images/20110521_doumit_avila.gif

If you look at Mauer's heat maps, he likes the ball on the outer half. He has the best batted ball rates and the highest swing percentages in those zones. Consquently, that's where he's pitched least frequently. Everyone in baseball is aware that that's Mauer's preference. If he took a 2-0 pitch middle-up (I'd like to see the location on pitchf/x), I think that's perfectly understandable. He hits middle-up well, but not as well as away-up or middle-away. That's what you're supposed to do on 2-0 or 3-1. Take a swing at "your pitch," not just any old strike. Its smart hitting. Take a look at his heat map: Baseball Prospectus | PitchFX Hitter Profile: Joe Mauer

That's a fair point and something I should have accounted for. If you eliminate home runs from the equation, you are left with Mauer getting on base 257 times and Willingham 190 times. Of these, Mauer scored 71 runs and Willingham 50 runs. Or, 27.6% of appearances for Mauer, and 26.3% of appearances for Willingham. Its probably worth noting two things: Mauer is an above average baserunner and Willingham is a below average baserunner. In 2012, Mauer took the extra base 46% of the time to Willingham's 40%, scored from 2nd on a single in 16/17 chances to Willingham's 7/14. Mauer just flat out hit more doubles (and triples) too so he was in scoring position more often. Similarly with Mauer advancing to 2nd on a single (advancing 23/35 times when a single is hit to Willingham's 18/32) Small beans but it counts. All around, Mauer ran the bases better and in a small way that did contribute to him scoring more than Willingham. But I still believe that all things being equal, the guy hitting 3rd will score less often than the same hitter, in the same lineup, batting 4th, although I admit the difference is probably smaller than I initially indicated.

You mean, swinging at good pitches and not swinging at bad pitches? Yes, Mauer does that consistently. There's a reason guys pitch around Joe Mauer when the game's on the line. Same thing happens to Pujols and all the other guys you listed. The best hitters in the game are always walked in key situations.

The majority of Guzman's PAs during 2001-2002 were hitting from the 1st or 2nd spot in the order. Meaning, he more often got on base with 0 or 1 out. Whereas Doug, batting in the 3 hole and to a lesser extent, the 6 hole, he more often got on base with 2 outs. Thus there were fewer opportunities for him to be driven in. Its the same reason Willingham scored more runs than Mauer last year despite Mauer having a .050 advantage in OBP. More often when mauer got on, there were already two outs. By contrast, Willingham lead off the 2nd inning quite a bit, got on base quite a bit, and had 3 full outs where he could be driven in. Incidentally, this is why you don't squander a high OBP guy by putting him in the 3 hole.

No. Mauer hasn't been perfect in every situation but in general the statistics say exactly the opposite.

I have posted this before but a while back I went through hitter production according to wOBA by position in the order for 2012 hitters. It sort of vaguely supports what they expound in the Book (linked in Chief's post). https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B5pIzP28qdp-WTZ5aHBJWHRRQ3c/edit?usp=sharing Based on that I'd say you could put your two best hitters in the 1 and 4 hole since they will leadoff a lot of innings and also if your 4 hitter comes up in the first that obviously can only happen if there's a man on base. Then I'd fill in around them to work against the opposition's bullpen management (L-R-L-R), with the knowledge that the 7-hole guy will leadoff the 3rd about 10% of games.

I think we've seen enough freak injuries to baseball players over the past year, to start keeping track. First up is Mark Rzepczynski's eye bruise from March 8 Cardinals lefty Rzepczynski injures eye in golf outing : Sports

I know the organizatio has invested heavily in Hicks and Parmelee but neither has unseated Mastroianni for a starting job in my mind. They've all had good springs but Mastro has proven he can play at the MLB level while Parmelee has flopped there and Hicks hasn't even seen AAA. Similarly for the middle infield and Carroll. Florimon is the shortstop now, and we're going just ignore the fact that Carroll continues to draw more walks and play comparable defense? Heck I'm a dozier guy and the same could be said about 2B. Its bad enough we'll have to put one of those guys out there everyday, why put them both out there if we don't have to?

Team USA, and every other country's team, will never be a perennial powerhouse because of the WBC's tournament structure. Not because of lack of leadership or effort or fan support. Its a basketball tournament with baseball teams.

I'd bet the over too. Rotation is better, bullpen is very strong. Gordon and Butler are for real. Hosmer, Mous, and Escobar should all improve. They are young and healthy enough to do very well IMHO.

Has he outplayed Mastro?

If Correia's ERA+ keeps trending at +10 per year, he'll be above average in that 2nd year!

Did Liriano say anything about the Twins fielding a competitive offer? I thought he said "the Pirates offer was better." By my count, the only guy Jr outbid the market for, was Harden for a whopping $1m. Speaking of which, is he throwing off a mound yet or still limited to 120 foot catch? If Jr is to be believed, the Twins didn't even outbid the market for Correia. So for the 2nd straight free agency, pitching was the Twins clearest weakness. And for the 2nd straight year, Jr basically did the same thing: Correia : Marquis Harden : Zumaya Roenicke : Maloney Pressly : Diamond Perez : Burton I see little reason to hope for anything better than what we saw from last offseason's acquisitions.

Here's a question. How long would GardyAndy let Deduno get away with that leg sweep if he were pitching with the Twins?

Toushay about the 2005 team This comment sort of opened up a can of worms for me. I started looking into what meager pinch hitting statistics are easily available and it appears that pinch hitting is, generally speaking, pretty small peanuts. Exceedingly small, and actually detrimental in some cases. This is a good but old BP article on the topic: and further on, this: 1 run per 60 PAs on average - when replacing a lefty with a righty, or vice versa. To put that in perspective, the Twins averaged 70 PH ABs since 2010 (unfortunately ESPN's PH tracker doesn't track walks and PAs). Call it 100 PH PAs on average. Assume Gardy is doing a LHB-RHB or RHB-LHB swap 90% of the time (which would be difficult to do if he is replacing a switch-hitter, eg. Florimon), and you have around 1.8 runs gained in those situations. Further on, the BP author writes that in the 20% (10% in AL) of PH appearances where a PH replaces a same-handed hitter, the PHer can be expecte to perform worse than the player he's replacing around a third of the time (after accounting for the PH penalty). But, there's still a small gain overall. So, based on this, we're looking at something like 2 whole runs over the course of a hundred PH PAs in a year, as an estimate. An argument could definitely be made that there about a hundred ways to better use that 25th roster spot besides carrying a Colabello or even a Thome.

It does make you wonder where teams are at in their ability to project how a minor league pitcher's stuff will change with the different ball, esp. when you see teams like the Twins trade MLB regulars for those guys.

In fairness, they haven't carried 3 catchers for most of Gardy's tenure. That only started in 2009 after Mauer was activated late after coming back from injury. And even then, Morales was as much a (switch hitting) pinch hitter as he was the 3rd catcher. Next year, Pavano started requesting a personal catcher, then 2011 happened. 2012 Butera caught Liriano during his renaissance. Everything we've read from Gardy this offseason has been he wants more pop off the bench. He knows that Butera isn't doing him any good when the team is down 4-1 going into the 6th every day.

They called up Butera about the time they called up Diamond. I assume the two had been working together in AAA but I don't know that for sure. In any case, immediately Butera started catching Pavano and Diamond. So I believe the Twins' reasoning for bringing Butera onto the roster was less about having a redundant backup and more about his knack (however real or imagined) for handling some pitchers. At least, handling them better than Doumit. But now that Diamond has established that he can pitch effectively to whoever is catching, and Pavano and Liriano are not on the team, then Gardy has no reason to break camp with him. I will be curious to watch however, if Gibson gets on track, if they bring up Butera again when they call up Gibson.