John Bonnes

Let me count the ways in which the Twins focused on adding offense this year: Of the ~$18M the Twins spent this offseason, $14M were spent on adding hitters. The only exceptions were bargain-shopping acquisitions of Jason Marquis and Joe Zumaya. Jamey Carroll was one of the first free agents signed this offseason, and he was given a 2-year deal, despite being limited defensively and being 38 years old? Why? Because he could get on base. He doesn’t have a hit this year. Ryan Doumit has a long history of injuries and is known as a poor defensive catcher. He was added because his career OPS is 774. Chris Parmelee was added to the roster despite never playing at AAA. Ben Revere was moved to fourth outfielder and most of the outfield realliged to add offense, just a couple of weeks before the season began. Morneau was moved to designated hitter to allow him to remain healthy, so the Twins could have more offense. Mauer, even when he’s not catching, has been in the starting lineup every game playing another position, because he should be able to provide more offense. Danny Valencia is starting at the hot corner despite his managers concerns about his defense because at least he can provide some offense against southpaws. The last spot on the roster didn’t go to a utility infielder or a third catcher – it went to Sean Burroughs to act as a left-handed pinch hitter. There have been any number of moves that I have been critical of the Twins this offseason: re-signing Matt Capps, gambling on Joel Zumaya, signing Ryan Doumit given his injury history, cutting payroll, etc. But the one thing I could not say is that the Twins undervalued the impact of offense. Indeed, the exact opposite has been true. Almost every decision they have made this offseason was made to maximize their ability to score runs. And yet, four games (and six runs) into the season, that’s exactly what is killing them.

I've deleted a few personal attacks already on this thread. There are a few more that I should probably go after, but there's enough out here that it's going to be easier to just start banning users. If you want to argue against someone's point, you should be able do so without "fans like you" or "you don't do this" or "you don't do that." If you see posts like this report them, don't reply in kind. Thanks.

You can view the page at http://twinsdaily.com/content.php?413-Series-Preview-Angels-By-The-Numbers

Series Preview: The Angels By The Numbers 92.5 – The “over/under” estimate from casinos on the number of games the Angels will win this year. That’s the highest number of any team in the AL West. 73 - The “over/under” estimate from casinos on the number of games the Twins will win this year. Offseason 317,500,000 – The dollars the Angels guaranteed to pitcher CJ Wilson and slugger Albert Pujols when they signed them this offseason. 154,000,000 – USAToday’s computation of the Angels payroll this year, 4th most in MLB. It is $61M more than the Twins. In The Dugout 12 – Years in which Mike Scioscia has managed the Angels. +188 – How far over .500 Scioscia has been as a coach in those 12 years. By comparison, Ron Gardenhire is +109 in 11 seasons. 9 – Years in which Scioscia has received at least one Manager of the Year vote. 75 – The least number of games a Scioscia team has ever won. That was back in 2001. On The Hill This Series 7th – Where Dan Haren, who is scheduled to pitch the 3rd game versus the Twins, finished in American League Cy Young voting last year. 6th - Where CJ Wilson, who is scheduled to pitch the 1st game versus the Twins, finished in American League Cy Young voting last year. 2nd - Where Jered Weaver, who is scheduled to pitch the 2nd game versus the Twins, finished in American League Cy Young voting last year. Phat Albert 11 – Seasons Albert Pujols has been in the majors. 10 – Seasons in which Pujols has been a top 5 finisher in MVP voting. In 2007, a year in which he hit a career low 32 home runs, he slipped to ninth. 7 – Seasons in which Pujuls has either won the MVP award or been the runner up.

Series Preview: The Angels By The Numbers 92.5 – The “over/under” estimate from casinos on the number of games the Angels will win this year. That’s the highest number of any team in the AL West. 73 - The “over/under” estimate from casinos on the number of games the Twins will win this year. Offseason 317,500,000 – The dollars the Angels guaranteed to pitcher CJ Wilson and slugger Albert Pujols when they signed them this offseason. 154,000,000 – USAToday’s computation of the Angels payroll this year, 4th most in MLB. It is $61M more than the Twins. In The Dugout 12 – Years in which Mike Scioscia has managed the Angels. +188 – How far over .500 Scioscia has been as a coach in those 12 years. By comparison, Ron Gardenhire is +109 in 11 seasons. 9 – Years in which Scioscia has received at least one Manager of the Year vote. 75 – The least number of games a Scioscia team has ever won. That was back in 2001. On The Hill This Series 7th – Where Dan Haren, who is scheduled to pitch the 3rd game versus the Twins, finished in American League Cy Young voting last year. 6th - Where CJ Wilson, who is scheduled to pitch the 1st game versus the Twins, finished in American League Cy Young voting last year. 2nd - Where Jered Weaver, who is scheduled to pitch the 2nd game versus the Twins, finished in American League Cy Young voting last year. Phat Albert 11 – Seasons Albert Pujols has been in the majors. 10 – Seasons in which Pujols has been a top 5 finisher in MVP voting. In 2007, a year in which he hit a career low 32 home runs, he slipped to ninth. 7 – Seasons in which Pujuls has either won the MVP award or been the runner up.

As someone who was writing throughout the time that the Twins released Ortiz, I have always had trouble criticizing that move. I wrote about it several times per week for several weeks. At the time Ortiz had some serious flaws - he was hurt a lot, he couldn't hit lefties at all, he seemed like purely a DH and he was about to get expensive. Ryan went to the winter meetings clearly trying to trade him and came back frustrated that he couldn't find any takers. He released him and Boston ended up signing him (for just $1.25M) and a couple of other guys (Millar, Jeremy Giambi and someone else if memory serves) with those four guys fighting for two spots. Ortiz was clearly the last guy in the race coming into spring training. I can't remember how he worked his way into the lineup, but if you look at 2003, you'll notice he wasn't an everyday player until the end of April. It really was out of nowhere. Regarding a race discussion, I don't think that's out of bounds on this forum. I don't think Ortiz is an especially compelling data point for all the reasons I just listed. Bottom line: he wasn't the same guy here.

48 hours ago I would have thought that Gardy was safe for as long as he wanted. But now I'm wondering. It's a nebulous answer, but it depends how the team looks as much as the results. If they look ugly, you never know. Things could go south much faster than I would have thought.

I gotta say, I think this is a myth. It certainly has not been the case for Liriano or Nathan. I think we hear a lot about the cases where guys come back well, and hear very little about the guys who don't, because they just aren't heard from again.

BTW, AJ, good song and thanks for doing this story. And yes, the walkup music for players is often a topic of discussion between me and my friends (and on Twitter) during games.

@TwinsTunes on twitter says he'll be announcing the Twins walkup music on Monday.

I talked a little bit about this yesterday, wondering what the lineup would look like today. It doesn't mean anything, other than Gardy likes to have all his players get a start in games in the first week of the season. But it does answer another question - when Revere starts, will he consider moving Willingham to RF? Nope. And UGH.

Does anyone know if the Twins players walk up music is listed anywhere?

I heard this one in the Northwoods League last summer and loved it: the first 32 second of .

Pavano on the mound yesterday sparked some debate about this, but it's worth it's own thread. The common criticism is that the Twins don't care enough about strikeouts and power, opting instead for control and low walk rates. This runs counter to sabrmetric studies that suggest the one of the most effective way to keep runners off base is to keep them from putting the ball in play. I might counter with this: it's not like one can go out and buy flamethrowers off the shelves at Cub (especially not at a discount). There is nothing revolutionary about saying "Guys who strike guys out are very good." Every team wants those guys. They want them in free agency, and they want them in trades and they want them in the draft. It's hard to compete for those guys when a team: a) played with a fairly low payroll for most of the last decade was adamant about sticking to the "slot" amount in the draft and c) was successful enough to consistently get lower picks in the draft d) and, let's face it, has dealt with some injuries to some high upside pitchers. Rather than compete in a crowded market, they've looked for a market inefficiency and that is control. And for the most part it has worked. They've had enough starting pitching to keep them competitive and enough bullpen arms to consistently give them an advantage over most of the last decade. But a decade of success is catching up with them and things are getting even leaner. Am I wrong?

Thanks for the link Sarah. That's this Monday night folks. The presenters are: Stew - who I talked about above Dan Levitt - who is the editor of the Mpls SABR conventions publication this year (with a TON of history) and Tom Swift - who wrote Chief Bender's Burden: The Silent Struggle of a Baseball Star (The HOF pitcher Bender was from Minnesota) It's going to be in the downtown Mpls public library, opens a baseball exhibit, and here's the info copied from the link above: Talkin' Baseball Room Location: Pohlad Hall Tuesday, April 10, 7–8:30 p.m. Join local authors and baseball historians Stew Thornley, Dan Levitt and Tom Swift in a discussion of the history and quirks of baseball. Presented to kick off the Bank of America exhibit “Baseball: America's Game” in the Cargill Hall. Sponsored by the Friends of the Hennepin County Library. http://www.hclib.org/pub/images/TellAFriend.png Tell a Friend

I'll agree with TWinsNorth49 - if we're going to point fingers, the majority should be pointed at a heavily left-handed lineup that could do absolutely nothing against a right-hander who sported a 5.05 ERA last year.

Yes, thank you very much for passing this along, I'm looking forward to reading this... For the record, if you're looking for a LOT more about early baseball history in MN (including quite a bit about the ballparks), you might want to order (either from Amazon or your local library) Stew Thornley's Baseball in Minnesota: The Definitive History. Thornley is a local treasure - fanatical about this stuff and getting the details right, but also a good storyteller. He has done several stories for TwinsCentric when we were putting out the Twins annual. In fact, come to think about it, one of them was also a stadium story. If you have any of those Twins Annuals, you can find another story in there, too.

During the season, I think you'll hear quite a bit of Twins talk. PA does a LOT on the Twins, especially during that 11AM FSN hour. Common also talks about them quite a bit, especially with Rosen. Barreiro has Coomer and LaVelle on regularly. I'll grant you: it's never enough, and they won't talk about it as much as ESPN1500 who carrie the Twins, but I think you'll get quite a bit of baseball talk on KFAN.

I'll admit - I'm losing track. Was it reported that Baker had any elbow surgery this offseason? I know he did before 2011. Last summer, when he was shut down in August and most of September, it was for a right flexor strain. It sounds like a right flexor strain can have a lot of similar symptoms to a torn ulnar collateral ligament, so an MRI is used to confirm that it is one and not the other. It also sounds like the "cure" is just more rest.

I'd say the chances that Gardenhire makes no changes to the lineup are about -80% for the second game of the season tomorrow. Considering the Twins face a right-hander, what do we think he'll do? 1. Burroughs for Valencia maybe? 2. Doumit at catcher, Mauer at 1B and ??? in RF? If he doesn't do this tomorrow, it has to be Sunday, right? 3. Hughes at 2B and Casilla on the bench? Any other ideas out there?

There were a couple of interesting bullpen moves today worth examining.... 1) Bringing in Jeff Gray in the 8th down 4-0. At the time, I thought this was fine, since Gray strikes me as a end of the bullpen guy and one that might be used when the team is probably going to lose the game. But I was a little surprised that when he started giving up baserunners (as one might expect from Jeff Gray) he pulled him and went with the lefty, which raised the second question.... 2) Bringing in Duensing to face Markakis made perfect sense because Markakis hits left-handed. But then he kept him in to face Jones, who is right-handed. And the hitters after Jones - Wieters, Betemit, and Reynolds - are all switch hitters or right-handed. It may be that Wieters is more susceptible to lefties or something, but I was surprised Gardenhire left Duensing in there. BTW, Duensing struck out Jones on a low fastball, albeit after falling behind 3-1.

I found it interesting today that when Casilla was lifted for Burroughs, and Gardy had to go to his bench for a new second baseman, that he brought in Plouffe over Hughes. It was certainly a defensible move, but it raises the question - exactly when would Hughes be a bench asset? Plouffe can play every position Hughes can and he would probably be the preferred pinch hitter when facing lefties. Is the only time that Hughes going to be used when Plouffe has already filled in somewhere else?

It was an important play, to be sure. And Doumit looked pretty bad. I guess I just believe that an average athlete can pick that position up fairly quickly. This year might change my tune, but I'd still stick with this alignment over one that had Parmelee on the bench.

I am baffled by this. Completely baffled. So let me get this straight....Baker takes himself out of a game at the beginning of March, complains about not being able to get loose, complains about having a sore elbow.....and no MRI. INstead, they rest it, have him pitch a bit more, and then...Baker takes himself out of a game at the beginning of April, complains about not being able to get loose, complains about having a sore elbow...and now they'll give him an MRI. That makes sense. Don't want to rush these invasive procedures.