Brad Swanson

Jim - I apologize for the insinuation that you had attacked me personally. I responded to two thoughts at the same time, which was lazy and irresponsible. I think your original argument and subsequent follow-ups are logical and well-reasoned. I completely understand why you do not like WAR and I can fully appreciate that. You make some great points about the fielding component and that is definitely where WAR can get a bit fuzzy. I would agree with your point about positioning as well. I can't say for sure that UZR is accurate. For me, WAR is the best measure that we have to compare a player like Greg Gagne to someone like say, Rafael Furcal. If something better comes along, I'll gladly use that instead. Wise One - Fair enough. I thought this through carefully and thought it made sense. Obviously, my work is always going to make the most sense to me. If I failed here, then I failed. I can accept that.

A couple things. I do know how WAR is calculated and I do understand how it works. I said I couldn't explain it, but maybe I should have simply written that I won't explain it. I chose not to explain WAR because it would have doubled the length of this post. I did want to address the concept of WAR and explain why I use it. I find issues with the stat, and I was very up front about that. However, I stand by its use and I think it is a good tool to evaluate players. I can understand why some would prefer to use a stat without fully understanding how it works, especially a stat as complicated as WAR. Thus, my toothbrush example. Also, I think this measure makes good sense and I apologize if I did not explain it better. Basically, I wanted to find players who had careers similar to Gagne's or peaks similar to Gagne's or who seemed to be on an equal or better career path to Gagne. In this way, I was able to discover just how few players actually reach the level of a player that I don't think many realized was as special as he was. Finally, when we get to a point in society where we can seek to understand things better rather than attack other people for their ideas, we will have a much better Twins site and a much better society. I can handle criticism and I am happy to respond to it. I know there are flaws in my logic at times and I am working to be a better communicator. However, there are good and bad ways to frame an argument. If you find something you don't like about my information, please tell me. It isn't just about me either. I see plenty of people on this site who get major criticism for their ideas or ideals. Maybe that is just the way the internet works, and there is nothing that can be done about it. I will say, no one wants to feel personally attacked and no one should be personally attacked on a baseball website.

Originally posted at Kevin Slowey was Framed! The most recent episode of Gleeman and the Geek touched on a familiar topic for Twins fans. The middle infield has been a consistent area of need for the Minnesota Twins, since the days of Greg Gagne and Chuck Knoblauch. It was discussion of Gagne that specifically interested me. I remember Gagne as a kid. He was a player that I never really thought a whole lot about. Now that I am older, I understand his value. The Twins haven't had a consistent shortstop since the days of Gagne. In the coming weeks, I want to investigate just how rare good middle infielders are. Are the Twins in a unique situation, or are most teams in consistent need for quality middle infielders? I want to focus on this quandary from a few different angles. This week, Greg Gagne is my muse. How rare is a player like Greg Gagne? I intend to find out. We need to start with some GAGNE FACTS! Greg Gagne debuted in 1983. Gagne played 1765 games at shortstop. In his 15 season career, Gagne accumulated an fWAR of 26.1 At his peak, defined as his best 5-year stretch, Gagne had an fWAR of 15.0. Gagne posted three seasons with an fWAR greater than 3.0. Let's talk WAR for a bit. WAR is not a perfect stat. WAR has major limitations. The fact that three different sites have their own version of WAR and they do not match up is troubling. All that being said, I like WAR. In my opinion, WAR is the best way to look at the overall value of a player and compare that value to other players. In addition, the comparisons translate to past eras, which is very useful when looking at players from the 80s and today, like I did here. WAR includes offense, defense and baserunning. Many do not trust the defensive metrics, but I don't trust your eyes. I couldn't tell you how WAR is calculated. Think about all the things you use on a daily basis that you would have no idea how to construct, create or compute. I use an electric toothbrush a few times a day and I have no clue how to put one of those together. Does that mean I shouldn't use it? I don't think so. I trust people who put more time into innovation to create things that I do not need to understand or create on my own, but still plan to use. WAR is one of those things for me. I chose to use FanGraphs' version of WAR for this study. Back to the research. I used GAGNE FACTS! to define some research terms. I wanted to find how many middle infielders were Gagne or better. FanGraphs.com helped me create a custom spreadsheet for middle infielders who debuted in 1983 or later. I defined a middle infielder as a player who played more games in the middle infield than any other position. I made one exception (Alfonso Soriano) because he provided so much value at second base early in his career. From there, I included only players who could match or exceed Gagne's career fWAR, his 5-year-peak fWAR, or are active players with three seasons greater than 3.0 fWAR (pro-rated based on how many seasons the player has actually played). I call this the Gagne Threshold. The result is this spreadsheet. I included wOBA, Fld, and BsR. wOBA is a great measure of offensive production. It is much better than OPS because the importance of each type of hitting result is weighted properly in line with their actual run value. Fld is the fielding component that FanGraphs uses for WAR and BsR is their baserunning component. You can see just how good each player is in each area, with these segmented numbers. I found 63 players who met the Gagne Threshold. 33 primarily played second and 30 primarily played short. Basically, there have been 62 players as good or better than Greg Gagne (Gagne makes 63) who have debuted since 1983. Perhaps Greg Gagne is even more special than I thought. I wanted to look at some data related to these players, so I looked up whether they had been drafted or signed internationally. Here are a couple of facts: 42 of these players were drafted and 21 were signed internationally Of the 42 drafted, 29 were drafted out of college and 13 were drafted out of high school 18 of those players drafted were selected in the first round 12 players were selected in rounds 2-5 Out of curiosity, I looked to where these players were from. Here are the most common results: [TABLE=class: grid, width: 500] California DominicanRepublic Florida Venezuela New York Puerto Rico North Carolina 13 11 5 5 4 4 3 [/TABLE] Back to the original premise. 63 players in 30 seasons is roughly 2 new players per season. If only two middle infielders are added to the quality player pool each year, it would stand to reason that many teams are looking for middle infielders. 35 players are active, which might indicate an uptick in the talent pool, but many of these players have not reached any sort of career Gagne Threshold, but simply have a few good seasons early in their careers. They may never have another good season, then drop out of this pool. Regardless, there aren't many quality middle infielders to choose from. Here are debuts by year: [TABLE=class: grid, width: 500] [TD=colspan: 6]Number of Debuts by Year (* not possible based on Threshold)[/TD] 1983 3 1993 0 2003 3 1984 0 1994 1 2004 1 1985 0 1995 4 2005 5 1986 4 1996 3 2006 6 1987 0 1997 3 2007 2 1988 2 1998 2 2008 2 1989 1 1999 1 2009 2 1990 2 2000 3 2010 2 1991 1 2001 2 2011 * 1992 5 2002 3 2012 * [/TABLE] There isn't a pattern, but the 80s certainly look leaner than the 90s and 00s. It does appear that there are more quality middle infielders entering the pool in recent years. Add in young, promising players who have not qualified or have large chunks of their careers remaining, and you could see this pool expanding in the coming years. The question remains, is this a Twins issue, or a league issue? Here is a team chart: [TABLE=class: grid, width: 500] Team Signed/Drafted Peaked With Arizona 1 0 Atlanta 5 4 Baltimore 1 2 Boston 4 3 Chicago C 1 1 Chicago W 2 2 Cincinnati 1 2 Cleveland 1 4 Colorado 1 1 Detroit 0 2 Houston 3 1 Kansas City 1 0 Los Angeles A 3 2 Los Angeles D 0 1 Miami 2 3 Milwaukee 2 2 Minnesota 2 3 New York M 1 1 New York Y 4 3 Oakland 1 1 Philadelphia 2 3 Pittsburgh 2 2 San Diego 4 1 San Francisco 1 4 Seattle 5 2 St. Louis 1 1 Tampa Bay 0 1 Texas 2 4 Toronto 4 3 Washington/Montreal 6 4 [/TABLE] The Nationals franchise leads the way with 6 players, while Detroit, the L.A. Dodgers and Tampa Bay have zero. From there, I looked at when these players reached their peak. I didn't necessarily mean their best season, but more or less when they became a notable player. Atlanta, Cleveland, San Francisco, Texas and Washington/Montreal had 4 each, while Arizona and Kansas City had zero. Basically, the Twins do struggle to find quality middle infielders, but this seems to be more of a talent pool issue, rather than a Twins ineptitude issue. At least, that is how I see it, as no team is miles ahead of the Twins. Interestingly enough, many of these players who were traded while very young, netted big name players in return. Here are just a few players that these middle infielders helped bring back in trades: Bert Blyleven, Randy Johnson, Fred McGriff, Josh Beckett, Mark Teixeira, and Scott Rolen. Not bad. There is much more to this story. The Twins are in a 20 year Gagne Threshold drought, but does that mean the middle infield has been a constant gaping hole? In the near future, I want to look at each individual season from 1983 to 2012. How many good middle infielders were there in each season? Who were these players and why didn't they all reach the Gagne Threshold? I'm already working on another spreadsheet, and I am excited to share it with all of you.

Originally posted at Kevin Slowey was Framed! The most recent episode of Gleeman and the Geek touched on a familiar topic for Twins fans. The middle infield has been a consistent area of need for the Minnesota Twins, since the days of Greg Gagne and Chuck Knoblauch. It was discussion of Gagne that specifically interested me. I remember Gagne as a kid. He was a player that I never really thought a whole lot about. Now that I am older, I understand his value. The Twins haven't had a consistent shortstop since the days of Gagne. In the coming weeks, I want to investigate just how rare good middle infielders are. Are the Twins in a unique situation, or are most teams in consistent need for quality middle infielders? I want to focus on this quandary from a few different angles. This week, Greg Gagne is my muse. How rare is a player like Greg Gagne? I intend to find out. We need to start with some GAGNE FACTS! Greg Gagne debuted in 1983. Gagne played 1765 games at shortstop. In his 15 season career, Gagne accumulated an fWAR of 26.1 At his peak, defined as his best 5-year stretch, Gagne had an fWAR of 15.0. Gagne posted three seasons with an fWAR greater than 3.0. Let's talk WAR for a bit. WAR is not a perfect stat. WAR has major limitations. The fact that three different sites have their own version of WAR and they do not match up is troubling. All that being said, I like WAR. In my opinion, WAR is the best way to look at the overall value of a player and compare that value to other players. In addition, the comparisons translate to past eras, which is very useful when looking at players from the 80s and today, like I did here. WAR includes offense, defense and baserunning. Many do not trust the defensive metrics, but I don't trust your eyes. I couldn't tell you how WAR is calculated. Think about all the things you use on a daily basis that you would have no idea how to construct, create or compute. I use an electric toothbrush a few times a day and I have no clue how to put one of those together. Does that mean I shouldn't use it? I don't think so. I trust people who put more time into innovation to create things that I do not need to understand or create on my own, but still plan to use. WAR is one of those things for me. I chose to use FanGraphs' version of WAR for this study. Back to the research. I used GAGNE FACTS! to define some research terms. I wanted to find how many middle infielders were Gagne or better. FanGraphs.com helped me create a custom spreadsheet for middle infielders who debuted in 1983 or later. I defined a middle infielder as a player who played more games in the middle infield than any other position. I made one exception (Alfonso Soriano) because he provided so much value at second base early in his career. From there, I included only players who could match or exceed Gagne's career fWAR, his 5-year-peak fWAR, or are active players with three seasons greater than 3.0 fWAR (pro-rated based on how many seasons the player has actually played). I call this the Gagne Threshold. The result is this spreadsheet. I included wOBA, Fld, and BsR. wOBA is a great measure of offensive production. It is much better than OPS because the importance of each type of hitting result is weighted properly in line with their actual run value. Fld is the fielding component that FanGraphs uses for WAR and BsR is their baserunning component. You can see just how good each player is in each area, with these segmented numbers. I found 63 players who met the Gagne Threshold. 33 primarily played second and 30 primarily played short. Basically, there have been 62 players as good or better than Greg Gagne (Gagne makes 63) who have debuted since 1983. Perhaps Greg Gagne is even more special than I thought. I wanted to look at some data related to these players, so I looked up whether they had been drafted or signed internationally. Here are a couple of facts: 42 of these players were drafted and 21 were signed internationally Of the 42 drafted, 29 were drafted out of college and 13 were drafted out of high school 18 of those players drafted were selected in the first round 12 players were selected in rounds 2-5 Out of curiosity, I looked to where these players were from. Here are the most common results: [TABLE=class: grid, width: 500] California DominicanRepublic Florida Venezuela New York Puerto Rico North Carolina 13 11 5 5 4 4 3 [/TABLE] Back to the original premise. 63 players in 30 seasons is roughly 2 new players per season. If only two middle infielders are added to the quality player pool each year, it would stand to reason that many teams are looking for middle infielders. 35 players are active, which might indicate an uptick in the talent pool, but many of these players have not reached any sort of career Gagne Threshold, but simply have a few good seasons early in their careers. They may never have another good season, then drop out of this pool. Regardless, there aren't many quality middle infielders to choose from. Here are debuts by year: [TABLE=class: grid, width: 500] [TD=colspan: 6]Number of Debuts by Year (* not possible based on Threshold)[/TD] 1983 3 1993 0 2003 3 1984 0 1994 1 2004 1 1985 0 1995 4 2005 5 1986 4 1996 3 2006 6 1987 0 1997 3 2007 2 1988 2 1998 2 2008 2 1989 1 1999 1 2009 2 1990 2 2000 3 2010 2 1991 1 2001 2 2011 * 1992 5 2002 3 2012 * [/TABLE] There isn't a pattern, but the 80s certainly look leaner than the 90s and 00s. It does appear that there are more quality middle infielders entering the pool in recent years. Add in young, promising players who have not qualified or have large chunks of their careers remaining, and you could see this pool expanding in the coming years. The question remains, is this a Twins issue, or a league issue? Here is a team chart: [TABLE=class: grid, width: 500] Team Signed/Drafted Peaked With Arizona 1 0 Atlanta 5 4 Baltimore 1 2 Boston 4 3 Chicago C 1 1 Chicago W 2 2 Cincinnati 1 2 Cleveland 1 4 Colorado 1 1 Detroit 0 2 Houston 3 1 Kansas City 1 0 Los Angeles A 3 2 Los Angeles D 0 1 Miami 2 3 Milwaukee 2 2 Minnesota 2 3 New York M 1 1 New York Y 4 3 Oakland 1 1 Philadelphia 2 3 Pittsburgh 2 2 San Diego 4 1 San Francisco 1 4 Seattle 5 2 St. Louis 1 1 Tampa Bay 0 1 Texas 2 4 Toronto 4 3 Washington/Montreal 6 4 [/TABLE] The Nationals franchise leads the way with 6 players, while Detroit, the L.A. Dodgers and Tampa Bay have zero. From there, I looked at when these players reached their peak. I didn't necessarily mean their best season, but more or less when they became a notable player. Atlanta, Cleveland, San Francisco, Texas and Washington/Montreal had 4 each, while Arizona and Kansas City had zero. Basically, the Twins do struggle to find quality middle infielders, but this seems to be more of a talent pool issue, rather than a Twins ineptitude issue. At least, that is how I see it, as no team is miles ahead of the Twins. Interestingly enough, many of these players who were traded while very young, netted big name players in return. Here are just a few players that these middle infielders helped bring back in trades: Bert Blyleven, Randy Johnson, Fred McGriff, Josh Beckett, Mark Teixeira, and Scott Rolen. Not bad. There is much more to this story. The Twins are in a 20 year Gagne Threshold drought, but does that mean the middle infield has been a constant gaping hole? In the near future, I want to look at each individual season from 1983 to 2012. How many good middle infielders were there in each season? Who were these players and why didn't they all reach the Gagne Threshold? I'm already working on another spreadsheet, and I am excited to share it with all of you.

That's a classic case of bad chart labeling. The 273 is his career number, the 245 is his 2004-2012 number. I just used Mauer's career era for the second one. I should update that!

Originally posted at Kevin Slowey was Framed! Sometimes inspiration strikes in odd ways. Today, Rhett Bollinger, the Twins' MLB.com beat writer, sent out this tweet: Joe Mauer just popped out. Something he did only once last year in 641 plate appearances. #MNTwins — Rhett Bollinger (@RhettBollinger) February 26, 2013 Wait, what? I saw that come through my feed and I was immediately interested. Was it true? @bridman77 Yep. It's actually only once in the last two years. Fangraphs has the stats. — Rhett Bollinger (@RhettBollinger) February 26, 2013 That seems so unlikely. Even by raw luck, one would think that Mauer would pop out a few times each year. Mauer was the best in the AL last year at not making outs. He only made an out 58.4% of the time. He had 641 plate appearances and only one resulted in an infield fly ball, which is what I will now be using to describe a pop up (at times). He struck out 88 times, so he still made over 300 outs with his bat. And yet, only once did he make an out by flying out in the infield. How rare is this? I was inspired to investigate. I started doing some research. Mauer has only 20 infield fly outs in his nine-year-career. Crazy. I decided to look at how many players had 20 or more infield fly outs last season. Forty. Forty players! Forty players popped out as much or more than Mauer has in his entire career, and all just last season. Now I am really intrigued. Here's a spreadsheet that resulted from my intrigue: Infield Fly Ball Nerd Spreadsheet Looking at the spreadsheet demonstrates just how rare this feat or accomplishment or freak occurrence really is. In fact, take a look at this chart: [TABLE=class: grid, width: 500] [/TD][TD]Mauer Infield Fly Balls # of Players > 20 IFFB that season Mauer Infield Hits 2004 1 87 4 2005 3 62 6 2006 2 73 8 2007 1 62 5 2008 6 57 10 2009 2 50 8 2010 4 46 12 2011 0 56 6 2012 1 40 8 Total 20 533 67 [/TABLE] Mauer has had 20 infield fly balls in 9 years, and 533 players have had 20 or more infield fly balls in a season during that same span. I threw in a BONUS! column that shows Mauer has over 3 times as many infield hits than infield fly balls. How crazy. Before I go further, this data does not necessarily mean these were all pop outs. They are simply infield fly balls. Some may have dropped, although it stands to reason that the vast majority were converted into outs. So, when I use these terms interchangeably, I apologize. This isn't an academic journal. Since we are all in love with this stat at this point, I looked at who created the most infield fly balls per plate appearance. Basically, these are the Pop-Up Kings (2002-2012 data): [TABLE=class: grid, width: 500] Name IFFB PA IFFB/PA Eric Byrnes 273 3478 7.85% Tony Batista 180 2315 7.78% Mike Rivera 45 593 7.59% Todd Greene 58 841 6.90% Mike Moustakas 64 979 6.54% Rod Barajas 234 3642 6.43% Joe Crede 212 3307 6.41% Drew Butera 33 531 6.21% John Flaherty 43 692 6.21% Lenny Harris 34 555 6.13% [/TABLE] Do you prefer volume pop-up hitters? Here is the chart for you (2004-2012 data used to mirror Mauer's career)! [TABLE=class: grid, width: 500] Name Career IFFB Vernon Wells 277 Carlos Lee 255 Eric Byrnes 245 Albert Pujols 239 Johnny Damon 221 Alex Gonzalez 212 Jimmy Rollins 210 Yuniesky Betancourt 207 Aramis Ramirez 206 Rod Barajas 205 [/TABLE] A few familiar names indeed! Personally, I'd rather remember Eric Byrnes for his extreme pop-up-edness, rather than for his current gig at MLB Network. Tony Batista would have absolutely been my first guess as a Pop-Up King. The way he stands would seem to lend itself to popping up a lot. The leaders pop-up about every 13 plate appearances. What about the players with the lowest rate of infield fly balls? WordHippo tells me that the opposite of a King is a Subject. So, here are the Pop-Up Subjects (that sounds terrible): [TABLE=class: grid, width: 500] Name IFFB PA IFFB/PA Larry Bigbie 1 1218 0.08% Julio Franco 4 1517 0.26% Ben Revere 3 1064 0.28% Joey Votto 11 3064 0.36% Howie Kendrick 13 3232 0.40% Ryan Howard 19 4701 0.40% Joe Mauer 20 4552 0.44% Derek Jeter 34 7644 0.44% Jose Tabata 6 1197 0.50% Buster Posey 7 1255 0.56% [/TABLE] Mauer, even with all his anti-pop-up glory, is only 7th. Larry Bigbie had one pop-up in his career. Here is the box score from that game, in case you want to frame it. Many of the names on this list are players who just don't hit a lot of fly balls at all. Just looking at last year, Ben Revere had the lowest fly ball rate, Jeter was second lowest, Kendrick fourth and Mauer sixth. Votto, Howard and Posey seem like the anomalies, as they are all powerful hitters. Votto and Posey post lower than average fly ball rates, and Howard is right at average. The fact that each hits a lot of homeruns is quite impressive, as they just hit fewer balls in the air than most power hitters. I refuse to try to make sense of anything related to Julio Franco. Back to Mauer. Mauer hits an infield fly ball once in every 227 plate appearances. So, today's event was pretty rare. In fact, we might not see another one until around June. The real question is why is he such a Subject of Pop-Ups? I really hate that name. Let's call them No Pop-Up Dudes going forward. A bigger picture can be seen with all of his batted ball data. Here are his batted ball rates compared with league average: [TABLE=class: grid, width: 500] Rates Mauer League Avg LD 23.10% 20% GB 50.30% 44% FB 26.60% 36% IFFB 2.20% 10% [/TABLE] This helps to explain his lack of home run power, but overall great hitting. BUT WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?!?!? I don't know, nothing? Well, the best contact hitters seem to be good at avoiding the worst type of contact. It stands to reason that the infield fly ball is the worst type of batted ball. It doesn't get converted to hits or runs unless there is some sort of hilarious infield mishap and they almost never lead to sacrificed runners. Mauer likely avoids this type of contact because he has such a great approach and he doesn't deviate from it. He swings easily and tends to swing at only pitches he can handle. The fact that he doesn't hit a lot of fly balls to begin with helps as well. Overall, Mauer seems to be a hitter who knows exactly what he wants to do, and stays within that approach in nearly all cases. Or, he's a wizard. Upon further review, Grant Brisbee, Jeff Sullivan, and Jeff Passan all wrote about Joey Votto's extreme aversion to pop ups. You could argue that he was the original No Pop-Up Dude. In addition, Sullivan wrote about how remarkable Joe Mauer is. You can say I stole from everyone and no one.

Originally posted at Kevin Slowey was Framed! Sometimes inspiration strikes in odd ways. Today, Rhett Bollinger, the Twins' MLB.com beat writer, sent out this tweet: Joe Mauer just popped out. Something he did only once last year in 641 plate appearances. #MNTwins — Rhett Bollinger (@RhettBollinger) February 26, 2013 Wait, what? I saw that come through my feed and I was immediately interested. Was it true? @bridman77 Yep. It's actually only once in the last two years. Fangraphs has the stats. — Rhett Bollinger (@RhettBollinger) February 26, 2013 That seems so unlikely. Even by raw luck, one would think that Mauer would pop out a few times each year. Mauer was the best in the AL last year at not making outs. He only made an out 58.4% of the time. He had 641 plate appearances and only one resulted in an infield fly ball, which is what I will now be using to describe a pop up (at times). He struck out 88 times, so he still made over 300 outs with his bat. And yet, only once did he make an out by flying out in the infield. How rare is this? I was inspired to investigate. I started doing some research. Mauer has only 20 infield fly outs in his nine-year-career. Crazy. I decided to look at how many players had 20 or more infield fly outs last season. Forty. Forty players! Forty players popped out as much or more than Mauer has in his entire career, and all just last season. Now I am really intrigued. Here's a spreadsheet that resulted from my intrigue: Infield Fly Ball Nerd Spreadsheet Looking at the spreadsheet demonstrates just how rare this feat or accomplishment or freak occurrence really is. In fact, take a look at this chart: [TABLE=class: grid, width: 500] [/TD][TD]Mauer Infield Fly Balls # of Players > 20 IFFB that season Mauer Infield Hits 2004 1 87 4 2005 3 62 6 2006 2 73 8 2007 1 62 5 2008 6 57 10 2009 2 50 8 2010 4 46 12 2011 0 56 6 2012 1 40 8 Total 20 533 67 [/TABLE] Mauer has had 20 infield fly balls in 9 years, and 533 players have had 20 or more infield fly balls in a season during that same span. I threw in a BONUS! column that shows Mauer has over 3 times as many infield hits than infield fly balls. How crazy. Before I go further, this data does not necessarily mean these were all pop outs. They are simply infield fly balls. Some may have dropped, although it stands to reason that the vast majority were converted into outs. So, when I use these terms interchangeably, I apologize. This isn't an academic journal. Since we are all in love with this stat at this point, I looked at who created the most infield fly balls per plate appearance. Basically, these are the Pop-Up Kings (2002-2012 data): [TABLE=class: grid, width: 500] Name IFFB PA IFFB/PA Eric Byrnes 273 3478 7.85% Tony Batista 180 2315 7.78% Mike Rivera 45 593 7.59% Todd Greene 58 841 6.90% Mike Moustakas 64 979 6.54% Rod Barajas 234 3642 6.43% Joe Crede 212 3307 6.41% Drew Butera 33 531 6.21% John Flaherty 43 692 6.21% Lenny Harris 34 555 6.13% [/TABLE] Do you prefer volume pop-up hitters? Here is the chart for you (2004-2012 data used to mirror Mauer's career)! [TABLE=class: grid, width: 500] Name Career IFFB Vernon Wells 277 Carlos Lee 255 Eric Byrnes 245 Albert Pujols 239 Johnny Damon 221 Alex Gonzalez 212 Jimmy Rollins 210 Yuniesky Betancourt 207 Aramis Ramirez 206 Rod Barajas 205 [/TABLE] A few familiar names indeed! Personally, I'd rather remember Eric Byrnes for his extreme pop-up-edness, rather than for his current gig at MLB Network. Tony Batista would have absolutely been my first guess as a Pop-Up King. The way he stands would seem to lend itself to popping up a lot. The leaders pop-up about every 13 plate appearances. What about the players with the lowest rate of infield fly balls? WordHippo tells me that the opposite of a King is a Subject. So, here are the Pop-Up Subjects (that sounds terrible): [TABLE=class: grid, width: 500] Name IFFB PA IFFB/PA Larry Bigbie 1 1218 0.08% Julio Franco 4 1517 0.26% Ben Revere 3 1064 0.28% Joey Votto 11 3064 0.36% Howie Kendrick 13 3232 0.40% Ryan Howard 19 4701 0.40% Joe Mauer 20 4552 0.44% Derek Jeter 34 7644 0.44% Jose Tabata 6 1197 0.50% Buster Posey 7 1255 0.56% [/TABLE] Mauer, even with all his anti-pop-up glory, is only 7th. Larry Bigbie had one pop-up in his career. Here is the box score from that game, in case you want to frame it. Many of the names on this list are players who just don't hit a lot of fly balls at all. Just looking at last year, Ben Revere had the lowest fly ball rate, Jeter was second lowest, Kendrick fourth and Mauer sixth. Votto, Howard and Posey seem like the anomalies, as they are all powerful hitters. Votto and Posey post lower than average fly ball rates, and Howard is right at average. The fact that each hits a lot of homeruns is quite impressive, as they just hit fewer balls in the air than most power hitters. I refuse to try to make sense of anything related to Julio Franco. Back to Mauer. Mauer hits an infield fly ball once in every 227 plate appearances. So, today's event was pretty rare. In fact, we might not see another one until around June. The real question is why is he such a Subject of Pop-Ups? I really hate that name. Let's call them No Pop-Up Dudes going forward. A bigger picture can be seen with all of his batted ball data. Here are his batted ball rates compared with league average: [TABLE=class: grid, width: 500] Rates Mauer League Avg LD 23.10% 20% GB 50.30% 44% FB 26.60% 36% IFFB 2.20% 10% [/TABLE] This helps to explain his lack of home run power, but overall great hitting. BUT WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?!?!? I don't know, nothing? Well, the best contact hitters seem to be good at avoiding the worst type of contact. It stands to reason that the infield fly ball is the worst type of batted ball. It doesn't get converted to hits or runs unless there is some sort of hilarious infield mishap and they almost never lead to sacrificed runners. Mauer likely avoids this type of contact because he has such a great approach and he doesn't deviate from it. He swings easily and tends to swing at only pitches he can handle. The fact that he doesn't hit a lot of fly balls to begin with helps as well. Overall, Mauer seems to be a hitter who knows exactly what he wants to do, and stays within that approach in nearly all cases. Or, he's a wizard. Upon further review, Grant Brisbee, Jeff Sullivan, and Jeff Passan all wrote about Joey Votto's extreme aversion to pop ups. You could argue that he was the original No Pop-Up Dude. In addition, Sullivan wrote about how remarkable Joe Mauer is. You can say I stole from everyone and no one.

That's just sound strategy.

This is an excellent run-down. Very valid points on both ends. I think the only way to let Willingham play out his contract would be if the Twins honestly think they can contend in 2014. I'm starting to think it's not completely crazy that they can, but a lot would have to go right this season and in the 2013 off-season. Basically, if they want to wait through all of 2013 before they trade him, I'd be fine with that. In the Yankees scenario you proposed, I'd probably try to get Angelo Gumbs, but that is beside the point. If the Twins aren't going to contend in 2014, they should really try to get what they can, rather than letting him walk with no return. Luckily, they can keep evaluating deals until the 2014 trade deadline.

Thank you! However, gil4 is correct. A billion points to you! Save those points. Still photos of pitchers throwing are crazy. His elbow is not in a natural position.

I can't lie, I've thought about going and buying another pack at least a few times since yesterday. Nope, not Slowey, but you're on the right track.

Originally posted at Kevin Slowey was Framed! I went to Target this afternoon. That alone is exciting enough for a new post, but there's more! I was going to get bread and milk for my family. I also needed to buy some pens, which happen to be on the opposite end of the store. There's still more. After procuring my pens, I went down an unmanned checkout aisle to get a soda pop. I wanted a Diet Dr. Pepper. Farther down that aisle were the baseball cards. I thought to myself "oh man, I used to love baseball cards." It's true. In fact, this card is burned into my brain and remains my favorite card ever. http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-v8rm8jo9rSY/USmnwx5r4DI/AAAAAAAAAPQ/m88zpwdxePU/s320/1993-Topps-KirbyPuckett.jpg I stood there looking at the cards. At first, I was surprised. Then, I was confused. There were packs and then there were jumbo packs, then there were these value boxes and then there were some other value boxes that were bigger. It was overwhelming. I had invested a good five minutes into this venture, so I decided I would buy a pack of baseball cards. I scoured the area for something familiar. There were old looking cards that were new and there were some packs that had only 3 or 4 cards for like 5 dollars. Now, I'm no cheapskate, but man, that seems high. I found the 2013 Topps. I used to collect Topps! In fact, that Kirby Puckett card is a Topps! I wondered if any of the cards would have giant bats involved, but figured the only legal way to find out was to buy a pack. So, I got the pack of 2013 Topps. There were 12 cards for $1.99, which actually doesn't seem that unreasonable. I'd like to turn this into a cute story where I forget to buy the milk and bread because I was so excited, but that just isn't the case. I arrived home and shared with my wife that I bought a pack of cards. She didn't seem that impressed, but wasn't mad or witty or anything stereotypical like that. This isn't a sitcom. However, she was not nearly as excited as I was when I opened the pack. The cards are pretty nice. The photos are good. There was this weird green card that I assumed was super valuable, but the pack says there are 1 in every 6 packs. Considering there were roughly 5,000 packs at that one Target, I'm guessing these aren't very rare. They ugly too. I didn't get any Twins in Twin uniforms, but I did get this little gem: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-TxhUeXi0btU/USmoW9dXyJI/AAAAAAAAAPY/wHqPfZLqW8c/s320/photo102.JPG I also got rookie phenom Jurickson Profar's rookie card! I know this because there is a logo with an RC on it: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YUczBvbG22s/USmon3x8afI/AAAAAAAAAPg/HbpamZsvxiU/s320/photo+(98).JPG I zoomed in on his face. It looks painted. I can't confirm if Profar's real face just looks like a painting, or if this is a photoshopped image. If anyone knows the answer, please let me know. Take a look at this bad picture and see for yourself: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vvdEJff5FzM/USmoz1QV44I/AAAAAAAAAPo/Wc1gcjdUURo/s320/photo+(100).JPG As you can see, I don't take great care of my card collection: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HLxMvXB6XuU/USmo7JZuEhI/AAAAAAAAAPw/rP8xUy9P8i0/s320/photo101.JPG They fell off the couch and landed there. I had forgotten they were on the couch. At first, the dog was very interested, but ultimately seemed bored with the whole deal: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BnBa3uhOtpY/USmpKpDzsUI/AAAAAAAAAP4/5sG5i5DAhiE/s320/photo+(99).JPG One of the blinds is crooked. I should fix that. Ok, what's the point of all this? I got a card that had a checklist on the back. I didn't take a picture for some reason, and I'm not really able to get off the couch right now: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NCbSCOpE454/USmpWmIqDfI/AAAAAAAAAQA/r-fi-_5O4t4/s320/photo103.JPG He does that. Have you typed with a 90 lb dog on your arm? You should, it adds a degree of difficulty. The checklist is the cheese here though. I remember when I was a kid, the checklist card was just a list of players. It sucked. I usually threw them out. They didn't have a players on them or anything. This 2013 version had Johan Santana on the front. Very nice! I'm a gypsy. My wife. Sorry, Borat loop. The checklist got me thinking: do they make a card for each player? I did some research and found that in 2012, they made 3 series of Topps standard cards. There was series 1, series 2, and update series. I guess series 3 would have been too predictable. I did investigate further and found that "update series" is for players who have changed teams and other events like the all-star game and whatnot. This confirms my suspicions that each player does not have a card. Side note: Topps makes like a million different sets each year. Some have really funny names like Gypsy Queen. There is also a baseball card Wikipedia of sorts. Here's the link, have fun! Back to the task at hand. It's simple math. There are 330 cards in each of these Topps sets. 330 x 3 = 990. In any given season, there are at least 750 players, but usually many more. That should add up, but remember what I said about the "update series." Perhaps the worst players just don't get a card. That makes sense, right? Oh wait: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-TxhUeXi0btU/USmoW9dXyJI/AAAAAAAAAPY/wHqPfZLqW8c/s320/photo102.JPG So, that's not it. The reality is that some players must be snubbed! You can't have a player on a Topps card until they actually play an MLB game. It's a rule. It must be a contract thing. So, some rookies might not get cards until the next season. That's fine. There likely was not a 2012 Profar card. I checked eBay quick but that was exhausting. There are just too many colors and variations. What happened to the days of guys holding giant bats? I decided to find the player checklists from the three series in 2012 to see which Twins were snubbed by the good people at Topps. In the end, I found 32 players who had cards in the 2012 sets. I also counted 8 fairly notable Twins without cards. Here is the spreadsheet I made. Don't make fun of me. [TABLE=class: grid, width: 500] Card # Player Notes Series 1 [/TD] 62 Ben Revere 81 Liam Hendriks Rookie Card 95 Chris Parmelee Rookie Card 97 Jim Thome Record Breakers, not sure which one 111 Kevin Slowey In a Twins Uniform, I looked it up 164 Carl Pavano 179 Denard Span 230 Justin Morneau 235 Joe Benson Rookie Card 249 Trevor Plouffe 276 Scott Baker 292 Ben Revere again? 303 Danny Valencia lol 316 Nick Blackburn lol Series 2 337 Glen Perkins 389 Alexi Casilla Note to self: buy this 411 Tsuyoshi Nishioka hmm 501 Matt Capps 512 Josh Willingham 517 Francisco Liriano 529 Luke Hughes huh? 535 Joe Mauer I was starting to wonder 655 Ryan Doumit [TD=colspan: 2]Update Series [/TD] US7 Joe Mauer All-Star US67 Jamey Carroll US112 Eduardo Escobar Rookie Card US140 Brian Duensing US158 Jared Burton US161 Brian Dozier Rookie Card US163 Scott Diamond US274 Jeff Gray BWAHAHAHAHAHA US330 Alex Burnett That's right, the last card for the year is Alex Burnett No Card Darin Mastroianni 0.8 WAR Pedro Florimon 0.8 WAR Matt Carson 0.1 WAR Anthony Swarzak -0.6 WAR Cole De Vries 0.2 WAR P.J. Walters -0.6 WAR Sam Deduno 0.5 WAR [TD]Casey Fien 1.0 WAR [/TABLE] I listed those without cards by WAR. The winner: Casey Fien. Casey Fien was pretty good last year. He was certainly better than Alex Burnett and Jeff Gray. Plus, Casey Fien doesn't even have a rookie card, even though he has played in parts of three seasons. At least not one I can find. I have decided to reward him with his own card. I'd say the results are a bit mixed. I'm still learning the intricacies of gimp. A billion points if you can guess the body of the player I used. No google, yo. http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-XLu2t5dsiro/USmqj1O_wkI/AAAAAAAAAQM/Pzzowh9VtxM/s320/casey Whoa, that is terrifying. With that, I have righted an injustice and taken you on a journey of what happens on an average Saturday in my house. If you have feedback, I'd love to read it. Clearly, I need more things to help me pass the time. If you like this sort of nonsense, you can read about my trip to Glenallen Hill and see what a bowl of Bobby Bonilla ice cream might be like. Click here, you'll be "glad" you did. Brad Swanson is a professional photohop guy. He had the title line in Star Wars.

Originally posted at Kevin Slowey was Framed! I went to Target this afternoon. That alone is exciting enough for a new post, but there's more! I was going to get bread and milk for my family. I also needed to buy some pens, which happen to be on the opposite end of the store. There's still more. After procuring my pens, I went down an unmanned checkout aisle to get a soda pop. I wanted a Diet Dr. Pepper. Farther down that aisle were the baseball cards. I thought to myself "oh man, I used to love baseball cards." It's true. In fact, this card is burned into my brain and remains my favorite card ever. http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-v8rm8jo9rSY/USmnwx5r4DI/AAAAAAAAAPQ/m88zpwdxePU/s320/1993-Topps-KirbyPuckett.jpg I stood there looking at the cards. At first, I was surprised. Then, I was confused. There were packs and then there were jumbo packs, then there were these value boxes and then there were some other value boxes that were bigger. It was overwhelming. I had invested a good five minutes into this venture, so I decided I would buy a pack of baseball cards. I scoured the area for something familiar. There were old looking cards that were new and there were some packs that had only 3 or 4 cards for like 5 dollars. Now, I'm no cheapskate, but man, that seems high. I found the 2013 Topps. I used to collect Topps! In fact, that Kirby Puckett card is a Topps! I wondered if any of the cards would have giant bats involved, but figured the only legal way to find out was to buy a pack. So, I got the pack of 2013 Topps. There were 12 cards for $1.99, which actually doesn't seem that unreasonable. I'd like to turn this into a cute story where I forget to buy the milk and bread because I was so excited, but that just isn't the case. I arrived home and shared with my wife that I bought a pack of cards. She didn't seem that impressed, but wasn't mad or witty or anything stereotypical like that. This isn't a sitcom. However, she was not nearly as excited as I was when I opened the pack. The cards are pretty nice. The photos are good. There was this weird green card that I assumed was super valuable, but the pack says there are 1 in every 6 packs. Considering there were roughly 5,000 packs at that one Target, I'm guessing these aren't very rare. They ugly too. I didn't get any Twins in Twin uniforms, but I did get this little gem: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-TxhUeXi0btU/USmoW9dXyJI/AAAAAAAAAPY/wHqPfZLqW8c/s320/photo102.JPG I also got rookie phenom Jurickson Profar's rookie card! I know this because there is a logo with an RC on it: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YUczBvbG22s/USmon3x8afI/AAAAAAAAAPg/HbpamZsvxiU/s320/photo+(98).JPG I zoomed in on his face. It looks painted. I can't confirm if Profar's real face just looks like a painting, or if this is a photoshopped image. If anyone knows the answer, please let me know. Take a look at this bad picture and see for yourself: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vvdEJff5FzM/USmoz1QV44I/AAAAAAAAAPo/Wc1gcjdUURo/s320/photo+(100).JPG As you can see, I don't take great care of my card collection: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HLxMvXB6XuU/USmo7JZuEhI/AAAAAAAAAPw/rP8xUy9P8i0/s320/photo101.JPG They fell off the couch and landed there. I had forgotten they were on the couch. At first, the dog was very interested, but ultimately seemed bored with the whole deal: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BnBa3uhOtpY/USmpKpDzsUI/AAAAAAAAAP4/5sG5i5DAhiE/s320/photo+(99).JPG One of the blinds is crooked. I should fix that. Ok, what's the point of all this? I got a card that had a checklist on the back. I didn't take a picture for some reason, and I'm not really able to get off the couch right now: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NCbSCOpE454/USmpWmIqDfI/AAAAAAAAAQA/r-fi-_5O4t4/s320/photo103.JPG He does that. Have you typed with a 90 lb dog on your arm? You should, it adds a degree of difficulty. The checklist is the cheese here though. I remember when I was a kid, the checklist card was just a list of players. It sucked. I usually threw them out. They didn't have a players on them or anything. This 2013 version had Johan Santana on the front. Very nice! I'm a gypsy. My wife. Sorry, Borat loop. The checklist got me thinking: do they make a card for each player? I did some research and found that in 2012, they made 3 series of Topps standard cards. There was series 1, series 2, and update series. I guess series 3 would have been too predictable. I did investigate further and found that "update series" is for players who have changed teams and other events like the all-star game and whatnot. This confirms my suspicions that each player does not have a card. Side note: Topps makes like a million different sets each year. Some have really funny names like Gypsy Queen. There is also a baseball card Wikipedia of sorts. Here's the link, have fun! Back to the task at hand. It's simple math. There are 330 cards in each of these Topps sets. 330 x 3 = 990. In any given season, there are at least 750 players, but usually many more. That should add up, but remember what I said about the "update series." Perhaps the worst players just don't get a card. That makes sense, right? Oh wait: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-TxhUeXi0btU/USmoW9dXyJI/AAAAAAAAAPY/wHqPfZLqW8c/s320/photo102.JPG So, that's not it. The reality is that some players must be snubbed! You can't have a player on a Topps card until they actually play an MLB game. It's a rule. It must be a contract thing. So, some rookies might not get cards until the next season. That's fine. There likely was not a 2012 Profar card. I checked eBay quick but that was exhausting. There are just too many colors and variations. What happened to the days of guys holding giant bats? I decided to find the player checklists from the three series in 2012 to see which Twins were snubbed by the good people at Topps. In the end, I found 32 players who had cards in the 2012 sets. I also counted 8 fairly notable Twins without cards. Here is the spreadsheet I made. Don't make fun of me. [TABLE=class: grid, width: 500] Card # Player Notes Series 1 [/TD] 62 Ben Revere 81 Liam Hendriks Rookie Card 95 Chris Parmelee Rookie Card 97 Jim Thome Record Breakers, not sure which one 111 Kevin Slowey In a Twins Uniform, I looked it up 164 Carl Pavano 179 Denard Span 230 Justin Morneau 235 Joe Benson Rookie Card 249 Trevor Plouffe 276 Scott Baker 292 Ben Revere again? 303 Danny Valencia lol 316 Nick Blackburn lol Series 2 337 Glen Perkins 389 Alexi Casilla Note to self: buy this 411 Tsuyoshi Nishioka hmm 501 Matt Capps 512 Josh Willingham 517 Francisco Liriano 529 Luke Hughes huh? 535 Joe Mauer I was starting to wonder 655 Ryan Doumit [TD=colspan: 2]Update Series [/TD] US7 Joe Mauer All-Star US67 Jamey Carroll US112 Eduardo Escobar Rookie Card US140 Brian Duensing US158 Jared Burton US161 Brian Dozier Rookie Card US163 Scott Diamond US274 Jeff Gray BWAHAHAHAHAHA US330 Alex Burnett That's right, the last card for the year is Alex Burnett No Card Darin Mastroianni 0.8 WAR Pedro Florimon 0.8 WAR Matt Carson 0.1 WAR Anthony Swarzak -0.6 WAR Cole De Vries 0.2 WAR P.J. Walters -0.6 WAR Sam Deduno 0.5 WAR [TD]Casey Fien 1.0 WAR [/TABLE] I listed those without cards by WAR. The winner: Casey Fien. Casey Fien was pretty good last year. He was certainly better than Alex Burnett and Jeff Gray. Plus, Casey Fien doesn't even have a rookie card, even though he has played in parts of three seasons. At least not one I can find. I have decided to reward him with his own card. I'd say the results are a bit mixed. I'm still learning the intricacies of gimp. A billion points if you can guess the body of the player I used. No google, yo. http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-XLu2t5dsiro/USmqj1O_wkI/AAAAAAAAAQM/Pzzowh9VtxM/s320/casey Whoa, that is terrifying. With that, I have righted an injustice and taken you on a journey of what happens on an average Saturday in my house. If you have feedback, I'd love to read it. Clearly, I need more things to help me pass the time. If you like this sort of nonsense, you can read about my trip to Glenallen Hill and see what a bowl of Bobby Bonilla ice cream might be like. Click here, you'll be "glad" you did. Brad Swanson is a professional photohop guy. He had the title line in Star Wars.

Nice work! I like Arcia. I could see him rounding into a Andre Ethier type. .280/.360/.500 with more doubles than home runs, but 20-25 home runs consistently and 30 home runs always a possibility. He might be more of a left fielder, especially with the outfield arms the Twins have in the system, but his defense is not why he is an exciting player anyway. Also I think "The Blizzard of Oz" could really catch on.

Thanks for all the positive feedback on the post. I think it will be really interesting to follow these teams over the next 2-3 years. I'm very willing to revisit at the end of this season, going into next season and for as long as people want to read about them! I do agree that the teams that stick with a Front Office are more likely to achieve success, if the original plan is sound. Owners that get impatient often make moves with the Front Office too early and that can make things worse.

And you know what, even O'Dowd got his team to a World Series, so he certainly deserves some level of respect.

I love it! A baseball case study. Each of these teams had some level of success in the mid-2000s. I completely agree that intelligent decision-makers lead to quicker rebuilds. It seems that 4 of the 5 teams I investigated have well-respected GMs and good front offices. Not surprisingly, the one GM that doesn't seem to get much respect (O'Dowd) is the leader of the team with the worst (lack of a) plan. This is also why I think the Twins will get things turned around. I am one who has a lot of trust in and respect for Terry Ryan.

Ha, mutated! I love it.

The Astros farm system could improve a lot, much like the Twins' system improved this past year. They have a lot of high ceiling players.

I totally get that. I just hope they don't hesitate if they are offered something good.

Originally posted at Kevin Slowey was Framed! Not all bad teams are created equal. Some teams are bad for just one injury-plagued season. Some teams are bad for a few seasons and then good for a few seasons. Some teams are just chronically bad. Bad teams need to be changed. Bad teams have the benefit of receiving good draft picks, but other than that, they don't really gain any sort of advantage from being bad. Teams do not want to be bad. Bad teams can struggle to attract fans and free agents, while also struggling to keep their own home-grown players. Good franchises can field bad teams. Most teams go through rough patches. The Boston Red Sox might have been the most successful franchise of the 2000s, but finished in last place in 2012. Going with the local angle, the Twins were successful during that same decade, but has suffered through 2 consecutive last place seasons. As hard as it may be to swallow, the Twins need to rebuild. Some fans cringe at that word, some scoff, but the reality is that any given last place team needs to rebuild in some manner. That being said, not all rebuilds are the same. Let's look at the 5 worst teams from 2012 and try to better understand their method for rebuilding. Note: I created some charts for my own purposes. I took the 5 best players on each of these five teams, over the past three seasons. I used fWAR to determine the best 5 players. I just wanted to see if this data indicated anything. I think it does, you might disagree, but I'll include the charts as I think they are pretty interesting. The chart shows the player name, their fWAR that season, and what team this player is with right now. I used NOWHERE for players without a team, because I am a drama queen. Houston Astros - Blow Up the Outside World [TABLE=class: grid, width: 500] 2010 - 76-86 [/TD] Michael Bourn 5.8 Indians Brett Myers 4.7 Indians Hunter Pence 2.8 Giants Roy Oswalt 2.5 NOWHERE Wandy Rodriguez 2.3 Pirates 2011 - 56-106 Carlos Lee 3.7 NOWHERE Hunter Pence 3.2 Giants Clint Barmes 2.9 Pirates Wandy Rodriguez 2.3 Pirates Michael Bourn 2.1 Indians 2012 - 55-107 Lucas Harrell 2.8 Astros Justin Maxwell 2.3 Astros Wilton Lopez 2.2 Rockies Jed Lowrie 2.1 A's Jose Altuve 1.3 Astros [/TABLE] The Astros seems to be employing the fantasy baseball "full rebuild." They have basically taken each and every valuable player and traded them for younger pieces. They will hang on to young, cheap players, but anyone else is being used to rebuild their farm system. They will likely have a payroll around 25 million this season, which is comically low. When you look at their chart, you can see that nearly every valuable player has been moved. The three remaining players are all pre-arbitration. Only Bud Norris and Carlos Pena will make more than 2 million dollars in 2013, and both seem very unlikely to finish their seasons in Houston. The present in Houston is terribly bleak. The future is getting brighter. Their farm system is much improved. Going into 2012, the Astros had a terrible team and a terrible farm system. Only one of those statements is true today, due to their trades. It also doesn't hurt to get the first pick in the draft, which they used to draft a very promising shortstop named Carlos Correa. The farm system is nice, but everyone knows that prospects aren't sure bets. My biggest issue with this form of rebuild is that teams eventually run out of good players to trade. Right now, Houston might be able to get something for Norris, Lucas Harrell and Jose Altuve. Do they really want to trade those guys? Each is relatively young, each is relatively productive and each is under team control for the foreseeable future. At some point, these atom bomb rebuilds have to start showing MLB results. Correa won't be ready for years. They have the first pick this June as well, but who knows when that player will be ready? This rebuild could take 5 more years, for all we know. It's a risky endeavor, that is for sure. Chicago Cubs - Mrs Dash [TABLE=class: grid, width: 500] 2010 - 75-87 Marlon Byrd 3.5 Mets Geovany Soto 3.1 Rangers Carlos Marmol 2.6 Cubs Randy Wells 2.6 Rangers Carlos Zambrano 2.5 NOWHERE 2011 - 71-91 Starlin Castro 3 Cubs Aramis Ramirez 2.5 Brewers Matt Garza 2.5 Cubs Sean Marshall 2.4 Reds Carlos Pena 2.3 Astros 2012 - 61-101 Darwin Barney 4.6 Cubs Starlin Castro 3.5 Cubs Ryan Dempster 3.3 Red Sox Anthony Rizzo 2.2 Cubs Alfonso Soriano 1.8 Cubs [/TABLE] The Cubs are one of those franchises that seems to sprinkle good seasons around their general misery. It makes me sad. I like the Cubs and I hope they turn things around. It looks like my hopes might be coming to fruition. The Cubs do not seem to want to sit around, blow things up and wait to see if their talented prospects pan out. Instead, they are seasoning in some good players here and there, making smart decisions and trying to build the ship as they sail, so to speak. They certainly do not have the payroll of a rebuilding team. They'll likely settle in right around $100 million, but that isn't a crazy figure when you consider their market and fan-base. Their roster is better going into 2013 and they have some pieces that they could move if the team struggles, but who can also contribute if the team experiences some success. They have a nice young core of players, including Starlin Castro, Anthony Rizzo, Jeff Samardija and yes, Darwin Barney. They have some elite prospects in their system and they will pick 2nd in the June draft. It seems that the Cubs are willing to move anyone outside of their young core and farm system. They added depth to their starting staff, and signed guys who can be moved if the 2013 season isn't going well. They went upside with Scott Baker, Scott Feldman and Carlos Villanueva. If one guy hits, they could have a long-term contributor in their rotation. If all three hit, well, that would be nice for the Cub fans. There is obvious risk in this strategy as well. The market for injured pitchers isn't great, and the Cubs exploited that, but they will have to rely on that same market if they decide to try to move those pitchers. Colorado Rockies - Hide under coats; hope it all works out [TABLE=class: grid, width: 500] 2010 - 83-79 Ubaldo Jimenez 7.3 Indians Troy Tulowitzki 6.5 Rockies Carlos Gonzalez 5.8 Rockies Jhoulys Chacin 2.4 Rockies Miguel Olivo 2.3 Reds 2011 - 73-89 Troy Tulowitzki 5.9 Rockies Carlos Gonzalez 4.2 Rockies Jhoulys Chacin 3.6 Rockies Chris Iannetta 3.1 Angels Dexter Fowler 2.5 Rockies 2012 - 64-98 Rafael Betancourt 2.6 Rockies Dexter Fowler 2.5 Rockies Matt Belisle 2.3 Rockies Jhoulys Chacin 2 Rockies Josh Roenicke 2 Twins [/TABLE] The Rockies confuse me. They have had two consecutive bad seasons. They have a couple of superstar players, but both miss a decent chunk of seemingly each season (Troy Tulowitzki and Carlos Gonzalez). They did next to nothing this off-season, other than signing Jeff Francis, and trading for Reid Brignac and Wilton Lopez. These aren't moves that help rebuild a team. They also did not trade anyone for any sort of young player or prospect. Their strategy seems to hinge on healthy seasons from their stars and development from their young pitchers. Their farm system is pretty poor, so there isn't a lot of help coming from that part of the organization. They have good players (I love Dexter Fowler), but they also have old players. Gonzalez is 27 and Tulowitzki is 28. Both are signed forever, so that is good, but there isn't much around them. Michael Cuddyer is overrated, Todd Helton is a billion and I can't think of a third thing. I think that is a bad sign. I can't assess any risk because I have no idea what they are even doing. Minnesota Twins - Some sort of Cobra-Squirrel hybrid [TABLE=class: grid, width: 500] 2010 - 94-68 Joe Mauer 5.5 Twins Justin Morneau 4.6 Twins Jim Thome 3.4 NOWHERE Orlando Hudson 2.6 NOWHERE Brian Duensing 2.4 Twins 2011 - 63-99 Scott Baker 4.2 Cubs Denard Span 2.3 Nationals Glen Perkins 2 Twins Carl Pavano 1.8 NOWHERE Michael Cuddyer 1.7 Rockies 2012 - 66-96 Denard Span 4.8 Nationals Joe Mauer 4.1 Twins Jamey Carroll 3.2 Twins Josh Willingham 2.9 Twins Ben Revere 2.4 Phillies [/TABLE] The Twins have certainly struck like a cobra in a few instances this off-season. They added three young pitchers (Vance Worley, Alex Meyer, and Trevor May) in two excellent trades. At the same time, they have been hesitant to trade off other valuable players like Josh Willingham and Justin Morneau. They may simply be lying in wait, looking for the best deal. It is also possible that the market for these two players isn't very good right now. Each has question marks, and each could address them in 2013, raising their trade value. The Twins never really seem committed to a full rebuild, but they have done a nice job of picking their spots and addressing their needs. It is still a work-in-progress though. Much like the Astros, the Twins could run out of good players to trade. Really, other than Willingham and Morneau, the only realistic trade pieces are Ryan Doumit, Glen Perkins and Jared Burton. Each of those guys might also be worth keeping around. Unlike the Astros, the Twins have more near-ready prospect talent. Aaron Hicks, Oswaldo Arcia, Alex Meyer, Kyle Gibson and Trevor May are all top ten prospects who likely will be playing in Minnesota before the end of the 2014 season. The Twins also have some payroll flexibility, and could use the 2013 off-season to truly improve their MLB team, around these young, promising players. Some are starting to say that 2013 is not a rebuilding year. I don't agree with that sentiment, but I do think the Twins are going to relevant as soon as 2014. I see strong parallels between 2014 and that 2001 season that started their AL Central mini-dynasty. There was uproar about the free agent starting pitchers that were signed this off-season, but the reality is that the Twins likely did not want to sign anyone who would block the young arms who are getting closer to Minnesota each day. There is risk here, and the middle infield is still an issue, but the Twins are amassing resources and making shrewd moves when given the opportunity. Cleveland Indians - Protein Powder [TABLE=class: grid, width: 500] 2010 - 69-93 Shin-Soo Choo 5.6 Reds Roberto Hernandez 2.5 Rays Chris Perez 2.5 Indians Travis Hafner 2.1 Yankees Carlos Santana 1.8 Indians 2011 - 80-82 Asdrubal Cabrera 4.6 Indians Justin Masterson 3.6 Indians Carlos Santana 3.4 Indians Jack Hannahan 2.2 Reds Joe Smith 2.2 Indians 2012 - 68-94 [TD] Jason Kipnis 3.7 Indians Carlos Santana 3.7 Indians Shin-Soo Choo 3.1 Reds Asdrubal Cabrera 3 Indians Michael Brantley 2.9 Indians [/TABLE] The Indians seem to be employing a strategy similar to the Cubs. They likely had a better MLB team to begin with, but definitely do not have a comparable farm system. The Indians seem to be targeting their weaknesses and dealing from their strengths. This isn't a unique strategy, but that doesn't make it any easier to implement. The Indians needed to bolster their young pitching, and used Shin-Soo Choo, a great player, to get Trevor Bauer. Bauer has his flaws, but he also has crazy upside. The Indians also signed some good players in free agency, including Nick Swisher, Michael Bourn and yes, Mark Reynolds. They have their core of good players: Jason Kipnis, Carlos Santana, Asdrubal Cabrera, Michael Brantley, Bourn and Swisher. They have interesting arms in Bauer, Justin Masterson, Carlos Carrasco, and Ubaldo Jimenez. They also have two great bullpen arms in Vinnie Pestano and Chris Perez. You could make the argument that the Indians have been rebuilt. They might not be a World Series team, but who knows? A lot of people want to find the next 2012 Orioles or 2012 A's. Likely, there won't be one, but the Indians might be as good a bet as any other team. So, not all rebuilds are the same. Each of these teams had major flaws, and that is why they were the five worst teams in 2012. However, each is employing a different method in their quest to return to relevance. Which strategies will work? Only time will tell.