James Richter

For me, what the 19/20-year olds did in Cedar Rapids, even in partial seasons, was more impressive than what the older guys did in Fort Myers/New Britain.

Nice analysis. It's a good illustration of why I think the Twins should be patient with the FA market this offseason - what they've already got is pretty decent. The key to 2010 was scooping up Thome and Hudson on cheap, 1-year deals 3 weeks before spring training. The Orioles followed that formula this winter with Nelson Cruz. That's how the Twins should try to improve the roster for 2015 while making sure they don't block any of the goodies that are on their way up through the farm system.

The fan base has clearly lost interest in the product the Twins have been putting on the field. But I agree with Nick that an aggressive roster overhaul this offseason would be a mistake. If the FO is thinking that way, too, then replacing Gardy may be the most effective way to reassure the fans that next year won't be more of the same.

Particularly damning for the coaching staff this year is the degree to which this team's record is underperforming against expectations. By the Pythagorean expected winning% they should have 4 more wins and be on target for a sub-90 loss season. That would make a huge difference in terms of showing progress to the fan base. Also, in the 2nd half the pitching staff has an ERA more than a full run higher than FIP and xFIP. Part of that's the defense, but I think it has more to do with all the crooked numbers the staff has been allowing. The starters fold as soon as they get in a jam; the relievers come in to stop the bleeding but instead throw gas on the fire. That's been true of rookies and veterans alike. Under the circumstances, a change in pitching coach is definitely warranted, and I wouldn't be upset if Gardy moved along as well.

Bernier is a bit of a head-scratcher, but I like the other 7. They earned their promotions with their play in the minors, and they have a chance to contribute something in 2015. Plus, they might take some innings and ABs away from some players who have been struggling recently (Nunez, Fryer, half the bullpen). I wish a few of the really exciting prospects had been fit enough to come up, but it could still be a productive September.

I'd kinda like to see Wimmers get a chance. After 3 lost seasons he's finally starting to show something, especially since being moved to the pen. It would be nice to evaluate him in a hostile pitching environment against a league full of stud hitters before making a 40-man decision on him in November. I like the 6 guys they picked, but I think Levi Michael would have been a good choice, too. When he's been on the field this year he's been really good, but he hasn't been tested much above A-ball. Guess I'm just hoping our formerly struggling 1st-round picks can still amount to something!

I think the Twins can definitely afford to be patient with this year's FA market. By year's end they might find that Hicks and Schafer both finished the year strongly, Buxton and Rosario kicked ass in the AFL, and Sano picked up right where he left off in winter ball. If 2 or more of those things come to pass, there's probably no need to even worry about LF. The FO can sit back with all their chips and wait for a Jim Thome/Orlando Hudson-type bargain to materialize in the final weeks before spring training.

There's way too much uncertainty surrounding Sano's development and final position right now to say conclusively that he'll be manning the hot corner at any point in 2015. Meanwhile, we already have a cost-controlled, average or better performer at the position. Now, if somebody approaches the FO and offers an overpay for Plouffe, make the deal. But they shouldn't be shopping him until Sano proves he's ready to stick at 3B in the Majors.

A big reason why the Twins have been so terrible the past 4 seasons is that their bench and AAA depth has been sub-replacement level. Starters get hurt, and even when healthy need regular days off. Even assuming he plays every game for the remainder of the season, Mauer will have averaged just 123 games played over the past 6 seasons. It is not a smart bet that his durability will significantly improve as he gets deeper into his 30's. It is also not a smart bet that Suzuki will be a productive player for more than 100 starts behind the plate. Remember what happened to Parmelee after his terrific 1st month of MLB experience when he came straight up from AA? That could happen to Vargas, too. Between C & DH there should be at least 90 starts available for Pinto in 2015, and he'd be a great PH option in the other games when they bring the LOOGY in to face Arcia. Next year's team is better with him on it.

If I’d told you before the season started that, 20 games in, Denard Span would have a .386 OBP, Joe Mauer would be hitting .329 and Justin Morneau would have an IsoP of .236, plus newcomer Josh Willingham would have a 1.114 OPS, what would you have expected the Twins’ record to be? Better than 5-15, I hope. There are a lot of reasons why it is that poor, and some of them are not easily solved, but I don’t believe the offense is one of them. [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK] Download attachment: cfiles16803.jpg Ultimately, it’s about scoring runs, and those numbers are not good. The Twins have crossed the plate just 77 times in their first 20 games, putting them on pace to score 624 runs. Unless they pick it up, we’ll be facing 100 losses again at the end of September. Fortunately, they have picked it up. Since forgetting to bring their bats to the opening series in Baltimore, the Twins have hit .279/.343/.419 with 11/14 SB. If you plug their offensive numbers from the past 17 games into a simple formulation of Runs Created, you get just over 5 runs/game, on pace for about 820 runs on the year. That’s a lineup that can contend in a weak AL Central. Sadly, the formula hasn’t been reflective of their real-world performance. They’ve actually averaged 4.2 runs/game over their last 17, a pace for 686 runs on the season. With this pitching staff, that will probably leave them at least 10 games under .500. There are two major reasons for this discrepancy between the formula and what’s really happened over the last 3 weeks. Happily, neither is likely to be a problem over the long haul. First, though they’ve hit well overall, they’ve had a lot of trouble cashing in on their scoring opportunities. Since Baltimore, they’re hitting .241 with RISP. In 2011, they hit .249 overall and .248 with RISP, and the AL as a whole hit .257 overall and .258 with RISP. With a large enough sample size, the numbers will even out. Unless you believe there’s something inherently un-clutch about the Twins’ hitters. I don’t. Second, there are the double plays. The Twins have already hit into 22 DPs, a rate of 1 for every 11.5 baserunners. The other 13 teams in the AL have combined to hit into 200, about 15 apiece, a rate of 1 for every 16.3 baserunners. Just in case you think there’s something about the Twins’ hitting style that makes them more likely to hit into DPs, last year’s horrific offense did so at a rate of... 1 for every 16.5 baserunners. Given enough time, the frequency of Twin-killings should normalize. Not only are they hitting into more than their share of DPs, they’re doing it disproportionately in games where it hurts the most. The Twins had 8 of them turned against them in 4 games they lost by a single run. Had they been able to redistribute one rally-killing DP away from each of those games (such as Sean Burroughs’ on Wednesday or the dicey call on Doumit’s sinking liner on Friday), it’s not hard to imagine them having 3-4 more wins than they do right now. And, given the strength of their early-season opponents and their disastrous starting pitching, 8-9 wins at this stage would be a decent accomplishment. I would expect their BABIP to come down somewhat over the course of the season. Even so, this lineup appears to be capable of producing at least 750 runs over 162 games. That’s a strength - the average AL team scored 723 runs in 2011. The Twins’ typical starting 9 earns about $54M combined. Doumit is the only guy in that group who isn’t under contract or team control for 2013. The other 8 could all be back for a combined salary of... about $54M. This team’s troubles sit squarely on the pitching side. They may not be solvable this year, but there will be an opportunity to mostly wipe the slate clean next offseason. The quality and stability of the offense gives them the opportunity to devote just about all of their resources to upgrading the pitching. They’ve got big problems this year, but I wouldn’t dismantle the offense and write off 2013 yet. Click here to view the article

It's easy to be down on the Twins' prospects for this year. 2011 was in many ways their worst season ever, and the offseason moves by Terry Ryan didn't do much more than maintain the talent level they started with last April. So we must be headed for another dreadful season, right? Not so fast. [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK] The Twins allowed 804 runs last year. Their pitching staff was last in the Majors in K/9, 29th in ERA and 29th in WHIP. But they were also last in BABIP, suggesting that things might bounce better for them this year. Their FIP (4.30), xFIP (4.33) and SIERA (4.27), though still among the worst in the league, indicate the pitchers deserved better than their 4.60 team ERA. Were they to pitch precisely as poorly in 2012, they could be expected to allow 45 fewer ER over the same number of innings. The defense, somewhat surprisingly, wasn't terrible in terms of range. UZR/150, for example, has them at just -0.4 R for the season. What killed them were errors; they were 28th in errors and fielding percentage. The 80 unearned runs they allowed were by far the most of the Gardy era. Over the last 10 seasons, they've averaged between 50-60 UER. Cutting back on errors is something the Twins can control, and with the additional emphasis they're placing on fundamentals this spring, I would expect them to reduce their mistakes by about 1/3. Simply replacing the abysmal play they got at SS with Jamey Carroll's excellent career averages at the position would eliminate 19 errors and 13 UER. On the run prevention side of the ledger, if you give the Twins' pitchers a 4.30 ERA over 1450 IP (a roughly league average total), they will allow 693 ER. If you assume that the more focused and slightly upgraded defense will cough up a more typical 55 UER, you get a total of 748 RA. The offensive side is clouded by lingering injury concerns to some key players. But until I hear reports to the contrary, I'm going to assume that everyone is healthy, and therefore ready to contribute at the levels they've established in recent years. The exception is Morneau - I don't think it's reasonable to expect him to return to the MVP-caliber play he displayed before his concussion. Below is a table which builds a simple formulation of runs created: (H+BB-CS)x(TB+.55SB)/(AB+BB). The numbers I'm projecting for the starters are based on the stats from their last 3 healthy seasons, prorated over the number of ABs they racked up in a typical year. Span's averages go from 2008 up to the point of his concussion; Doumit's and Casilla's include 2008 since they missed so many games between 2009-2011. I'm throwing out Mauer's 2011 as an injury aberration and using 2008-2010 instead. With Morneau, I'm also throwing out 2011, but estimating only 75% of his 2008-2010 production over 140 games. I'm only using Major League stats for Valencia and Revere. The starters account for about 77% of the total ABs the Twins had in 2011. The remainder will go to the bench, which I assume will be Butera, Nishioka, Plouffe and Hughes, or similarly unimpressive players. Whoever comes up from Rochester will also be thrown into that pool. I'll give that cast of characters a 23% share of the Punto-esque numbers the Twins hitters as group posted last year (.247/.306/.360). The results: [TABLE=width: 500, align: center] Player AB H BB TB SB CS RC Span 593 172 68 233 24 7 87 Carroll 410 111 50 141 10 2 51 Mauer 523 178 75 263 2 2 111 Morneau 524 118 55 208 0 0 62 Willingham 471 121 67 226 5 1 80 Doumit 419 118 31 188 2 1 62 Valencia 540 145 38 219 3 4 68 Casilla 317 82 28 112 11 2 37 Revere 450 120 26 139 34 9 45 Subs 1240 307 99 446 24 18 133 Total 5487 1472 537 2175 115 46 729 [/TABLE] 729 runs scored. 748 runs allowed. That differential should result in around 80 wins. With no improvement from the pitching staff, and with Morneau hitting something like .225/.299/.397 over 140 games. From there, the upside is considerable. What if Baker is healthy enough to take Diamond's starts? Subtract 7 ER. Or if Zumaya can apply his 3.05 career ERA to Nathan's 44.2 IP? Subtract 9 ER. What if Revere improves his average to .280? Add 5 RC. What if Morneau is 80% of his former self? Add 8 RC. The 2012 Twins don't look like they're going to be a very good team, but they shouldn't suck, either. As long as they aren't unlucky and can put their best guys on the field about 3/4 of the time, they should be around .500. I wouldn't expect any less of them. Click here to view the article

I'd put the over/under on Hamels at 6/$130M. Definitely going to get $20M+ per, definitely going to get 6+ years guaranteed. The market loves lefty aces. $19.5M/year might land Greinke, but they'd probably have to go at least 5 years. With the injury, Marcum might not get $10M AAV, but I bet he gets more than 6.5M. Maybe a match of Pavano's deal? No need for Torii - Benson's gonna be able to at least match the old man's OPS, and with much fresher legs...

How many Twins starting pitchers do you have confidence in? For me, the list begins and ends with Scott Diamond. How sad is that? Check this out: Through Sunday's games, the average AL starter gives his team just under 6 IP/GS with a 4.33 ERA. The Twins have gotten just 5 1/3 IP/GS with a 6.18 ERA. With league average starting pitching, the Twins would have allowed 41 fewer ER in 34.1 more IP. That reduced workload on the bullpen (3.58 ERA) saves another 14 ER, for a total of 55 fewer RA. The resulting 210 RS and 229 RA differential produces a pythagorean record of 24-29. Hardly stellar, but with the league's most difficult opening schedule behind them they would be on pace to win at least 10 more games than last year. That's a team that still needs a lot of work, but is far from hopeless. This weekend I was wishing there was some way the Twins could find a decent guy to hold down a spot in their decimated rotation without having to give up too much - a difficult task in the middle of the season. But the Reds have just released Jeff Francis. There's a cheap, veteran replacement for Jason Marquis (or Carl Pavano or Nick Blackburn depending on how you look at it). I never thought I'd say this, but, "Pretty please, let's sign Jeff Francis right away!"

How many Twins starting pitchers do you have confidence in? For me, the list begins and ends with Scott Diamond. How sad is that? Check this out: Through Sunday's games, the average AL starter gives his team just under 6 IP/GS with a 4.33 ERA. The Twins have gotten just 5 1/3 IP/GS with a 6.18 ERA. With league average starting pitching, the Twins would have allowed 41 fewer ER in 34.1 more IP. That reduced workload on the bullpen (3.58 ERA) saves another 14 ER, for a total of 55 fewer RA. The resulting 210 RS and 229 RA differential produces a pythagorean record of 24-29. Hardly stellar, but with the league's most difficult opening schedule behind them they would be on pace to win at least 10 more games than last year. That's a team that still needs a lot of work, but is far from hopeless. This weekend I was wishing there was some way the Twins could find a decent guy to hold down a spot in their decimated rotation without having to give up too much - a difficult task in the middle of the season. But the Reds have just released Jeff Francis. There's a cheap, veteran replacement for Jason Marquis (or Carl Pavano or Nick Blackburn depending on how you look at it). I never thought I'd say this, but, "Pretty please, let's sign Jeff Francis right away!"

Span's been on base constantly this season and only has a handful of SB attempts. They need to be more aggressive in general, but especially when the speed guys are on.

I'm not feeling the Nats, either. How about the Rays? They'll need a CF for next year after BJ Upton departs. Span's game should play well on the turf, and he's a Tampa native, so they should like that from a PR standpoint in addition to the cost certainty of his contract. They have a surplus of good starting pitching, a huge need for the Twins, particularly with the injuries to Gibson and Wimmers. How about starting a package around Alex Cobb?

That's a great insight, MileHigh. If they're not going to bother to compete until 2015, there's no point keeping Willingham around, and his contract might make him every bit as appealing as Span. But if they're going to hang onto Willingham and try to build something around him and Mauer over the medium term, then maybe a player like Span has value here. Or trade him for MLB-ready guys who could be under team control through the remainder of Mauer's contract. Let them take their lumps over the next couple seasons so that they're seasoned veterans by the time Sano and co. show up. Remember, the core of the 2002-2004 team started playing together in 1999. The Royals' studs started showing up last year, but they look like they've still got a ways to go. If you're talking about the Twins timing prospects to arrive in 2015, they may not be ready to play well until 2018.

With an eye on 2015, this is spot on with one exception: you've got to let go of Willingham. By then there will be somebody homegrown who can hit better than he will at age 36, and most likely field and run the bases better, for less than 1/10th the price.

Let's look at this another way: later on in 2006, the Twins enjoyed a 42 game stretch (about 25% of the season) in which they went 34-8. Had that stretch begun with the 1st game of the year instead of the 59th, would you have expected them to keep it up for 162 games, finishing with 130 wins, making them the best team in the history of baseball? I don't think that would have been reasonable. The Orioles are on pace to win 110 games - think that's going to happen? On this date last year, Cleveland was on pace to win 110 games - how'd that turn out? The point is, over a six-month season, teams usually win about the number of games they're supposed to win. This team is not supposed to lose 100 games. They will if they don't play better, but they are talented enough to play better. Demand that they play better, and give them a few more weeks to show that they can. There will be plenty of time to blow things up in July if they don't.

Through 25 games: [TABLE=width: 500, align: center] Year W L GB RS RA Diff BA OBP SLG ERA WHIP HR/9 2006 9 16 9.0 99 156 -57 .251 .309 .366 6.35 1.64 1.56 2012 7 18 7.5 90 139 -49 .246 .312 .362 5.61 1.41 1.59 [/TABLE] Nearly identical offensive performances - the 9 extra runs the 2006 team had were due to some combination of more HR and fewer GIDP. The pitching was even worse back then. As tough as last week’s series in Anaheim was to swallow, how about the sweep the ’06 team suffered in Detroit at the about the same time of year: they were outscored 33-1! Though they had 2 more wins than the current squad, they were buried 1.5 games deeper in the standings thanks to a hot start by the defending champion White Sox. Changes would come to that roster, but not right away. Even while Tony Batista and Juan Castro continued to occupy the left side of the IF and Rondell White took his swings every day, things improved markedly. Over their next 25 games, they went 14-11, hitting .288/.347/.429 with a 4.12 ERA and 1.39 WHIP, outscoring their opponents 137-114. Despite that, they dropped to 11.5 GB as Detroit surged to the top of the standings. Two things I’d like people to think about when they see this comparison: 1) The 2012 Twins are no worse than the team that broke camp in 2006, and that team managed to recover to a .460 Win% given a large enough sample of games. This team can do that, too. 25 games is only 15% of the season. 2) Though the sort of upgrades that eventually carried the 2006 team on a historic 71-33 run to finish the season don’t appear to be within reach now, they don’t need to be. 2006 was the toughest AL Central ever, with three teams winning 90 or more games. I’d be surprised if even one team reaches that level this year. The top run differential in the division right now is +2. 6 games under .500 is within 5 games of first place, and that’s close enough to be in the division race and buying at the trade deadline. I don’t think the current is roster is necessarily a contender, but they’re better than they’ve shown, and this is a terrible division. Could we give it another 4 weeks before we start thinking about how to blow this team up?

Through 25 games: [TABLE=width: 500, align: center] Year W L GB RS RA Diff BA OBP SLG ERA WHIP HR/9 2006 9 16 9.0 99 156 -57 .251 .309 .366 6.35 1.64 1.56 2012 7 18 7.5 90 139 -49 .246 .312 .362 5.61 1.41 1.59 [/TABLE] Nearly identical offensive performances - the 9 extra runs the 2006 team had were due to some combination of more HR and fewer GIDP. The pitching was even worse back then. As tough as last week’s series in Anaheim was to swallow, how about the sweep the ’06 team suffered in Detroit at the about the same time of year: they were outscored 33-1! Though they had 2 more wins than the current squad, they were buried 1.5 games deeper in the standings thanks to a hot start by the defending champion White Sox. Changes would come to that roster, but not right away. Even while Tony Batista and Juan Castro continued to occupy the left side of the IF and Rondell White took his swings every day, things improved markedly. Over their next 25 games, they went 14-11, hitting .288/.347/.429 with a 4.12 ERA and 1.39 WHIP, outscoring their opponents 137-114. Despite that, they dropped to 11.5 GB as Detroit surged to the top of the standings. Two things I’d like people to think about when they see this comparison: 1) The 2012 Twins are no worse than the team that broke camp in 2006, and that team managed to recover to a .460 Win% given a large enough sample of games. This team can do that, too. 25 games is only 15% of the season. 2) Though the sort of upgrades that eventually carried the 2006 team on a historic 71-33 run to finish the season don’t appear to be within reach now, they don’t need to be. 2006 was the toughest AL Central ever, with three teams winning 90 or more games. I’d be surprised if even one team reaches that level this year. The top run differential in the division right now is +2. 6 games under .500 is within 5 games of first place, and that’s close enough to be in the division race and buying at the trade deadline. I don’t think the current is roster is necessarily a contender, but they’re better than they’ve shown, and this is a terrible division. Could we give it another 4 weeks before we start thinking about how to blow this team up?

In my last post, I investigated whether the offense was really as bad as it has looked so far. I discovered that, since the Home Opener, the Twins have been swinging the bats well enough to average about 5 runs/game. They have been held back by an extremely low BA with RISP and high rate of HIDP, each of which is likely to revert to the mean over a large enough sample. Once that happens, we should be left with an above-average offense for 2012-2013. The news is not so good on the run prevention side, though that is also significantly better than it would appear. In all of baseball, only the Brewers have allowed more than the Twins 10.23 H/9. You might expect that poor fielding range would be a contributor to that, as it is in Milwaukee. But in fact, the defensive metrics generally view the Twins’ defense favorably so far, rating them average to slightly above in most cases. Their 14 errors and .983 Fielding% rank in the top half of MLB, and they’re on pace to allow just 37 unearned runs - less than half last year’s total. The defense isn’t a problem, either. That leaves the pitching, and that has been brutal. The Twins’ staff ranks at the bottom of MLB in runs allowed, ERA, FIP, xFIP, tERA, SIERA, BAA, HR/9 and LOB%. Their BABIP against, though high for April, isn’t much different from last year’s league average of .294 - another indication that the defense hasn’t hurt them. Despite Francisco Liriano’s struggles finding the strike zone, the staff as a whole has an excellent 2.56 BB/9, so at least they’re doing that right. 21.9% of their balls in play have been line drives, a rate that places them in the bottom third of the league, though still ahead of good pitching teams like Texas, Tampa and Oakland. Their very low K/9 is going to put pressure on their defense all year. But even so, things shouldn’t be this bad. They are mainly because of two factors which, like the offensive problems of BA with RISP and HIDP, should eventually revert to the mean. First is their LOB%. Right now it’s at 66.8%, nearly 2% lower than the next worst team. Last year’s pitiful staff was also worst in the Majors, but at 69.1%. Now, 2.3% may not seem like a big difference, but it adds up quickly. It means that 1 extra guy is scoring for every 43 who reach base. With the Twins’ WHIP at 1.42, they’re giving up at least 13 baserunners per nine innings pitched. So that terrible strand rate translates to nearly 1 more run allowed every 3 games than last year’s dreadful staff. This factor does a lot to explain why their FIP (5.13) is half a run lower than their ERA (5.64). Second is their HR/FB. Typically, 1 out of every 10 or 11 flies will leave the yard. For the Twins, it’s been 1 out of 6. Last year’s godawful staff allowed homers at pretty much the normal ratio, which is why their FIP, xFIP and SIERA were all about the same (while FIP uses the HR/FB pitchers actually had, xFIP and SIERA use the average rate, which results in more accurate predictions). Interestingly, the Twins’ xFIP (4.34) and SIERA (4.32) for April were almost exactly the same as their totals from 2011 (4.33 and 4.27). Remember, those numbers are still 30th out of 30 teams. But they look a hell of a lot better than 5.64. If the Twins’ ERA was where xFIP and SIERA say it should be, they would have allowed 96 R in April. Along with the 87 runs they scored, that would make their expected record 10-12. But as I pointed out last time, the offense swung the bats well enough to have scored 86 runs in the 17 games following opening weekend. Add those to the 5 they got in Baltimore and the 10 they scored on Sunday and Monday, and you’ve got a team that should be .500, just a game back in the AL Central standings. Ultimately, I don’t think .500 will cut it, but it’s more in line with my expectations of the abilities of these players. With Scott Baker and Joel Zumaya lost for the season and Liriano and Matt Capps lost in the woods, the Twins desperately need a high quality addition to both the rotation and the bullpen. That will cost them something; whether they feel it’s worth the price will depend on how quickly they can start matching their on-field results with what the formulae say they should be producing. If they don’t make a move, we can expect them to remain the worst staff in baseball. But even so, they should be better than this.

In my last post, I investigated whether the offense was really as bad as it has looked so far. I discovered that, since the Home Opener, the Twins have been swinging the bats well enough to average about 5 runs/game. They have been held back by an extremely low BA with RISP and high rate of HIDP, each of which is likely to revert to the mean over a large enough sample. Once that happens, we should be left with an above-average offense for 2012-2013. The news is not so good on the run prevention side, though that is also significantly better than it would appear. In all of baseball, only the Brewers have allowed more than the Twins 10.23 H/9. You might expect that poor fielding range would be a contributor to that, as it is in Milwaukee. But in fact, the defensive metrics generally view the Twins’ defense favorably so far, rating them average to slightly above in most cases. Their 14 errors and .983 Fielding% rank in the top half of MLB, and they’re on pace to allow just 37 unearned runs - less than half last year’s total. The defense isn’t a problem, either. That leaves the pitching, and that has been brutal. The Twins’ staff ranks at the bottom of MLB in runs allowed, ERA, FIP, xFIP, tERA, SIERA, BAA, HR/9 and LOB%. Their BABIP against, though high for April, isn’t much different from last year’s league average of .294 - another indication that the defense hasn’t hurt them. Despite Francisco Liriano’s struggles finding the strike zone, the staff as a whole has an excellent 2.56 BB/9, so at least they’re doing that right. 21.9% of their balls in play have been line drives, a rate that places them in the bottom third of the league, though still ahead of good pitching teams like Texas, Tampa and Oakland. Their very low K/9 is going to put pressure on their defense all year. But even so, things shouldn’t be this bad. They are mainly because of two factors which, like the offensive problems of BA with RISP and HIDP, should eventually revert to the mean. First is their LOB%. Right now it’s at 66.8%, nearly 2% lower than the next worst team. Last year’s pitiful staff was also worst in the Majors, but at 69.1%. Now, 2.3% may not seem like a big difference, but it adds up quickly. It means that 1 extra guy is scoring for every 43 who reach base. With the Twins’ WHIP at 1.42, they’re giving up at least 13 baserunners per nine innings pitched. So that terrible strand rate translates to nearly 1 more run allowed every 3 games than last year’s dreadful staff. This factor does a lot to explain why their FIP (5.13) is half a run lower than their ERA (5.64). Second is their HR/FB. Typically, 1 out of every 10 or 11 flies will leave the yard. For the Twins, it’s been 1 out of 6. Last year’s godawful staff allowed homers at pretty much the normal ratio, which is why their FIP, xFIP and SIERA were all about the same (while FIP uses the HR/FB pitchers actually had, xFIP and SIERA use the average rate, which results in more accurate predictions). Interestingly, the Twins’ xFIP (4.34) and SIERA (4.32) for April were almost exactly the same as their totals from 2011 (4.33 and 4.27). Remember, those numbers are still 30th out of 30 teams. But they look a hell of a lot better than 5.64. If the Twins’ ERA was where xFIP and SIERA say it should be, they would have allowed 96 R in April. Along with the 87 runs they scored, that would make their expected record 10-12. But as I pointed out last time, the offense swung the bats well enough to have scored 86 runs in the 17 games following opening weekend. Add those to the 5 they got in Baltimore and the 10 they scored on Sunday and Monday, and you’ve got a team that should be .500, just a game back in the AL Central standings. Ultimately, I don’t think .500 will cut it, but it’s more in line with my expectations of the abilities of these players. With Scott Baker and Joel Zumaya lost for the season and Liriano and Matt Capps lost in the woods, the Twins desperately need a high quality addition to both the rotation and the bullpen. That will cost them something; whether they feel it’s worth the price will depend on how quickly they can start matching their on-field results with what the formulae say they should be producing. If they don’t make a move, we can expect them to remain the worst staff in baseball. But even so, they should be better than this.

If I’d told you before the season started that, 20 games in, Denard Span would have a .386 OBP, Joe Mauer would be hitting .329 and Justin Morneau would have an IsoP of .236, plus newcomer Josh Willingham would have a 1.114 OPS, what would you have expected the Twins’ record to be? Better than 5-15, I hope. There are a lot of reasons why it is that poor, and some of them are not easily solved, but I don’t believe the offense is one of them. Ultimately, it’s about scoring runs, and the numbers there are not good. The Twins have crossed the plate just 77 times in their first 20 games, putting them on pace to score 624 runs. Unless they pick it up, we’ll be facing 100 losses again at the end of September. Fortunately, they have picked it up. Since forgetting to bring their bats to the opening series in Baltimore, the Twins have hit .279/.343/.419 with 11/14 SB. If you plug their offensive numbers from the past 17 games into a simple formulation of Runs Created, you get just over 5 runs/game, on pace for about 820 runs on the year. That’s a lineup that can contend in a weak AL Central. Sadly, the formula hasn’t been reflective of their real-world performance. They’ve actually averaged 4.2 runs/game over their last 17, a pace for 686 runs on the season. With this pitching staff, that will probably leave them at least 10 games under .500. There are two major reasons for this discrepancy between the formula and what’s really happened over the last 3 weeks. Happily, neither is likely to be a problem over the long haul. First, though they’ve hit well overall, they’ve had a lot of trouble cashing in on their scoring opportunities. Since Baltimore, they’re hitting .241 with RISP. In 2011, they hit .249 overall and .248 with RISP, and the AL as a whole hit .257 overall and .258 with RISP. With a large enough sample size, the numbers will even out. Unless you believe there’s something inherently un-clutch about the Twins’ hitters. I don’t. Second, there are the double plays. The Twins have already hit into 22 DPs, a rate of 1 for every 11.5 baserunners. The other 13 teams in the AL have combined to hit into 200, about 15 apiece, a rate of 1 for every 16.3 baserunners. Just in case you think there’s something about the Twins’ hitting style that makes them more likely to hit into DPs, last year’s horrific offense did so at a rate of... 1 for every 16.5 baserunners. Given enough time, the frequency of Twin-killings should normalize. Not only are they hitting into more than their share of DPs, they’re doing it disproportionately in games where it hurts the most. The Twins had 8 of them turned against them in 4 games they lost by a single run. Had they been able to redistribute one rally-killing DP away from each of those games (such as Sean Burroughs’ on Wednesday or the dicey call on Doumit’s sinking liner on Friday), it’s not hard to imagine them having 3-4 more wins than they do right now. And, given the strength of their early-season opponents and their disastrous starting pitching, 8-9 wins at this stage would be a decent accomplishment. I would expect their BABIP to come down somewhat over the course of the season. Even so, this lineup appears to be capable of producing at least 750 runs over 162 games. That’s a strength - the average AL team scored 723 runs in 2011. The Twins’ typical starting 9 earns about $54M combined. Doumit is the only guy in that group who isn’t under contract or team control for 2013. The other 8 could all be back for a combined salary of... about $54M. This team’s troubles sit squarely on the pitching side. They may not be solvable this year, but there will be an opportunity to mostly wipe the slate clean next offseason. The quality and stability of the offense gives them the opportunity to devote just about all of their resources to upgrading the pitching. They’ve got big problems this year, but I wouldn’t dismantle the offense and write off 2013 yet.