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Escobar could have bailed him out too. Great example of a play winning teams make. Certainly not an easy play though. Gotta make plays with runners on base.

Escobar had a tough night last night but even with his two-error performance, he only has 7 errors on the year. Plus he more than made up for it at the plate. I don't think we should be so quick to anoint Santana our SS of the future. Probably best to just let them both play until Buxton arrives (if ever) and see if anybody takes themselves out of the running. However, maybe we should consider letting Schafer play is natural position (CF) and move Santana over to LF. Schafer has more experience and covers more ground.

Chummin'... But seriously, have you seen him pick it? Way better than that other guy.

Those are great points, and I would agree. It's on the players as much as the coaches/FO. Maybe we need to have a separate thread about a larger point though, which is: What does the development plan look like for each player and what institutional steps are the Twins taking to execute that? Is there a frank discussion between mgmt and players about, "Look Nick/Jordan/Kennys, this is you, this is where we want you to be - get there and the money will come either from us or somebody else. Let's figure out how to get from point A to point B." I understand you don't want to pigeon hole every player you draft because they can change so much between age 18/20 to the time they are 25-ish. However, there are a lot of guys who you know are going down a certain track. Again, Nick Gordon. Look at his brother. Focus on making him the best "Dee Gordon" type player he can be. They are probably doing that, but it would be great to know more about the process... especially if you've been a losing team for an extended period with no change in management.

Some guys fit a mold right from day one. They are lightning fast but unlikely to ever develop much power. In some cases, like with Ben Revere or Nick Gordon, there's no question about what type of player they need to become to be successful at the major league level and how they can best leverage their skills. I mean even if Revere hits .290 over a 10-year stretch he could be much more valuable if he could add 30 points to his OBP and 10 points to his average via bunting. Gleeman and Parker made some great points on bunting in this week's podcast, mostly talking about Jordan Schafer. It would be great to hear the coaching staff or the front office explain an in-season training regimen for these guys. Something like: We hired 5 retired minor league pitchers to specifically work with players at all levels on bunting and pitch recognition. At the major league level, the Twins have a plan for player X and Y and they each spend 30 minutes each day having bunting contests. We're hoping this translates to an extra hit or two each week during the season and allows us to do a better job in sacrifice situations. We also have these guys working on pitch recognition to try to increase their ability to draw walks. My hunch is that Arcia's pre-game routine is pretty similar to Schafer, which would be a waste of his skill set. And with Shafer, he's actually really good at slapping the ball the other way so he should be able to play games with the third baseman where he can pull a bunt back and slap it. Plus, once he's on first he's going to turn it into a double almost every time if he runs on the right pitch. In a perfect world, Shafer would OBP .370, hit leadoff, then set up Mauer and either Arcia or Vargas with lot's of fastballs on the outer half - allowing those guys to guess hit. A player like that could be incredibly valuable playing CF until Buxton arrives, which at this point might be 2016 or maybe even (gulp) never. And same story with Revere, that's what you're looking for from these types of players. But is there a daily commitment to mold these guys into that prototypical leadoff or #2 hitter? There should be. Development isn't a one size fits all program, but it needs to happen every day not just for one month out of the year. Nick Gordon is the next opportunity to do this. He is 3.5 seconds home to first. That's 80 speed. He bats left handed. Get it done guys! Every day! http://kstp.com/kstpImages/repository/2014-06/twinsnickgordonap.jpg Image Credit: KSTP. And please, if you're with the Twins media, can we ask some specific questions about pre/post-game routines? What is or is not being done? Explain to your fan base how you're trying to improve. Each player has specific things they need to work on. You still might lose 90 games but at least provide some explanation about what the coaching staff is doing on a daily basis to get better. After the last 3 seasons, they owe us that.

He's probably just getting tired. Let's cross our fingers, but its the time of the year that it wouldn't be surprising to have some dead-arm stuff going on. Probably just needs rest. This is different than the stuff we heard about Sano's elbow late last summer. Totally understandable for Stewart to be fatigued but I remember thinking something was wrong when Sano was having trouble throwing last year. That shouldn't happen to a position player for an extended period of time at this point in the year.

Well, I guess I disagree about Mauer. He is having a sub-par year, that was my point. I don't expect him to hit 30 HRs but he needs to be around 290/370/440 in order to help the offense in any meaningful way. His contract is tough because it limits the amount of money we have available to do other deals. I'm not mad about him 'not earning his money', I don't care, it's not my money. But it does suck that Mauer will hamstring us financially for years to come. I'll still root for him and with the concussion, he's where he needs to be, but that doesn't change facts. I lived in Juneau for 10 years but moved back to MN last year. Been to Kodiak once. Flew over the airport twice before that. Tough weather out there.

Friggin Obama.

Let's add elbow tightness

Thanks Nick and Brock. I'll try that and give the primer another look. I agree, this site looks and functions great. I'm still learning all the little tricks with the editor so, no fault but my own there.

Thanks for offering up free pizza guys! I forgot about the offer until after I wrote my post, as it was just a function of wanting to quantify where were getting beat and having a little time on my hands. But hey, I loves me some Papa Johns so I'll take it if my post qualifies. And if I can figure out how to deal with spacing issues and incorporating tables into a blog post, I will probably chime in again at some point. Not sure why my post turned out with such poor formatting when it was correct in the text editor. It eliminates some spaces I think, for some reason.

I hope this is a joke. Even if Santana and Escobar may regress (which is not certain), SS is the least of our problems as we have 2! potentially above average, cheap options in house. We need to look at the corners, which I spent a lot of time discussing on my first blog post. We are below average at every corner position and DH, offensively, and above average at every position up the middle. Let's fix the glaring problems before we start trying to fix things that might be become a problem. This ain't the 1996 Indians.

I am being fair and reasonable when it comes to Mauer. He has been league average, but has been 7% below the league average 1B. Given his contract, he needs to be have a wRC+ well above 107 if we are going to have a top 5 offense. This isn't to say Joe's bat and his contract will continue to be an albatross. He's a potential HOF'er. He's likely to improve on his numbers this year and next, but we can't expect a +.870 OPS next year either. It's possible, but unless Joe gets some help even a decent season from him won't matter enough. You are correct in stating that it doesn't matter which position produces runs, however, Dozier's production has nothing to do with Mauer or the other corner positions. Poor production from the corners and DH spot is why we haven't been above league average (in offense) since 2010 (when we had Morneau, Cuddyer, Thome, Kubel (in his prime), and Delmon's only decent season). That's plain to see, and yes, they've tried to address it, somewhat half-heartedly, through signing Willingham/Doumit and giving Parmelee and Arcia playing time. But it hasn't worked out very well, and even at the time expecting big things from all those players was far from a sure thing. The pitching staff has been an even bigger issue and mgmt decide to spend most of its money there (and on Joe's contract). So I'm not going to second too much. I thought they should have signed Nelson Cruz or Mike Morse because those deals were so team friendly, but maybe they did and they chose to go elsewhere.

Hey! Lonestar! I could have gone into more detail there, but had to draw the line somewhere. My overall sense is we are slightly below average, when factoring in range and consistency, but not too bad. Not elite, on most days, but not terrible. As for Mauer... He has a wRc+ of 100, so exactly league avg, not great for a 1B but better than our alternatives. Playing through injuries might explain some of that but lots of other players play through stuff too. He's definitely better than what he's showed this season. Also, we don't need to be above avg at every position. But we can't be below average at all the positions that are supposed to be productive either, not if we want to sniff 90 wins. I also agree with other comments that we could see some regression next year from our middle positions. However those guys have definitely earned the right to be penciled in for 2015.

Our Minnesota Twins enter today with a record of 54-65, tied for 12th in the AL with Boston, and bringing up the rear in the AL Central. The Forums and Blogs could fill volumes about what has transpired, what should have happened, and where we can go from here. However, I'd like to take a more quantitative approach and look at the team versus the rest of the league to see what we can deduce about the team and where they are losing the most ground. Based on this data, I'll comment a bit on what this means going forward. Here's the your 2014 Minnesota Twins in a nutshell (through 8.13.2014): Win-Loss Record: 54-65 Pythagorean Win-Loss Record: 56-65 W/L Rank in AL: T-12/15 Payroll: $84,912,500 (11th/15 in AL) Hitters and Fielding AL Runs Scored Rank: 8th/15 Weighted Runs Created (wRC+) by Position (100 = league average, definition): Position: Twins, AL, and Diff. C: 108, 94, +14 1B: 90, 107, -17 2B: 115, 91, +24 SS: 97, 85, +12 3B: 94, 99, -5 LF: 91, 102, -11 CF: 114, 103, +11 RF: 86, 98, -12 DH: 88, 102, -14 All Pos: 97, 99, -2 Runs/G: 4.20, 4.23, -0.03 Fielding%: 0.985, 0.984, +0.001 Pitching AL Runs Against Rank: 12th/15 Starters: Twins, AL, and Diff. Starters ERA: 4.97, 3.99, +0.98 QS Ratio: 44%, 51%, -7% xFIP: 4.20, 3.91, +0.29 K/9 & BB/9: 6.0 & 2.5, 7.3 & 2.8, -1.3 & -0.3 BABIP: 0.319, 0.299, +0.020 Bullpen: Twins, AL, and Diff. Bullpen ERA: 3.28, 3.63, -0.35 xFIP: 4.04, 3.75, +0.29 K/9 & BB/9: 6.9 & 2.7, 8.3 & 3.3, -1.4 & -0.6 BABIP: 0.291, 0.292, -0.001 W/L in Relief: 17-13, 18-17, - Total ERA: 4.35, 3.86, +0.49 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- So what can we say about these numbers? The starting pitching has largely failed this team. Currently the starters' ERA is nearly a full run above the league average. The offense has been excellent from "up-the-middle" positions but production from the corner positions (and DH) lags far behind the rest of the league. Let's dig a bit further, starting with the hitters. The most obvious thing is that Joe Mauer has really hurt this team since moving to 1B. It's hard to overstate this enough. He accounts for 27% of the payroll and the team is trailing the league average 1B by 17 wRC+. Hopefully this will change, and he's been hot recently since returning from the DL but these numbers look back, not forward. We could look at a variety of hitting metrics here, but wRC+ is a good one that incorporates overall hitting contribution. If not for Kurt Suzuki's unexpected, above-average play it would look even worse. What else? Traditionally, offensive production comes from the corners and the DH. We are significantly lacking at four of these five positions (but still below average at all five). Injuries to Willingham have hurt. Arcia has been banged up but has largely been a bust this year (injuries haven't helped). Still I'm glad he's getting a chance to play despite his struggles. Rather than use the DH as a position to stash a defensively-limited, stud hitter, they have again used it as a position to plug in whomever Gardy wanted in the lineup that day that he didn't have room for. A DH by committee usually isn't a good sign, certainly not if you're "saving" it to rest the legs of a below average 1B or feature below average hitters at every corner position. The Twins have been pleasantly surprising up the middle, getting above average production from Suzuki, Santana, Dozier, and Escobar (and Fuld, essentially). These guys have largely offset poor production from "power" positions allowing us to rank in the middle of the pack in runs scored overall. Which brings us to the pitchers. This is where the Twins are losing the most ground to their competition. More specifically, it's the starting pitching. Despite good seasons from Phil Hughes and Kyle Gibson, the rest of the rotation has been way below average. Our starters have been a little unlucky as evidenced by their xFIP and BABIP, but still, they strike out less batters, get taken out sooner, and provide fewer QS (quality starts) than other staffs. The bullpen has actually been better than the league average. However, further analysis suggests they may be getting somewhat lucky. Like the starters they strike out fewer hitters, but have a much lower BABIP and their ERA is well below what would be expected from their FIP. They've also managed a better record that the rest of the league; however, this is more likely a by-product of poor starting pitching performances (i.e. less opportunity to blow leads and more opportunity to vulture come-from-behind wins). What does this mean going forward? The first order of business is to decide what 2015 will be about. Will they attempt to win the division or use it as a "transition" year? In any case, the rest of 2014 must allow the team to assess what pieces can contribute at SP and the "power" positions. Finally, I think it would be wise to consider the bullpen. There's a good chance they'll regress. It falls off tremendously after Perkins. If they are to compete for the division, let alone in the postseason, they really need two or three above average arms in the pen. Right now there aren't any complementary bullpen arms who are (well) above average. Personally, we should have relatively low expectations for 2015. The Twins will likely be trying to assess the same issues next year. In my opinion, the best we can hope for is to find one to three players who can be fixtures at power positions (Sano, Vargas, Arcia). Unfortunately, they don't have any power prospects in the upper levels beyond the aforementioned guys. On the staff, Nolasco has to improve, obviously, but they also need to fill in two other positions (assuming nobody gets hurt, which never happens with pitchers right?). Maybe Meyer and May can do that, but it's asking a lot to go 2-for-2 with top pitching prospects out of the gate (health issues aside). And the bullpen... they need to find two or three upgrades there as well. Maybe Stephen Pryor, the art school phenom or Nick Burdi? Do all that, stay health... and we can win the division next year. But as you can see, the odds do not look good by expecting minimal injuries and getting production upgrades from all those positions. As good as the farm system is, they are still a few years away. The best thing this team can do would be to deposit the money it saves from shedding contracts in the bank and wait until 2016 (or the trade deadline in 2015 if things are going better than expected). In the meantime, try out the rookies (Vargas, Sano, Buxton, Pinto) and take flyers on some AAAA players. Remember, Jose Bautista, Chris Davis, Nelson Cruz, Brandon Moss, Chris Davis, Dallas Keuchel, Colin McHugh, and Tyson Ross were all picked up for next to nothing. If they can find one or two of these guys it could set us up for 2016 to sign a few vets and compete. The Twins can offer playing time at several positions after this year if we don't lock ourselves into expensive veterans with limited upside in 2015, which will probably be another rebuilding year. *All stats come from Baseball Reference and FanGraphs. Note: I apologize for the lack of formatting in the data, I realize it makes the data much harder to read. I made several attempts to align the data to make it easier to read but it would always get reset by the blog editor prior to publishing. If anybody knows how to construct/import tables in TD's blogging application, feel free to PM me.

Hey that was fun Twinkies. Let's do it again tomorrow.

I always love that one.

Don't forget the fact his moving over to first coincided with a brutally cold winter and spring flooding.

Yeah yeah, I'm glad it worked out, but still... We might see the first 5 man infield in a long time at some point against him.

Doozy?

That's what I was thinking.

Nice! Way to go Joe!

Another out on Oakland.

Couldn't help myself, but hey, I didn't start it.

I might have to go back and watch a lot of these, most of his best work happened when i was either too young to understand it or appreciate it.