Liriano less of a concern for Twins than their sputtering offense
Posted on April 25th, 2008 – 12:00 PMBy Joe Christensen
Star Tribune baseball editor Dennis Brackin greeted me yesterday by saying, “So, who are you trying to send to the minors today?”
A few minutes later, a slew of us tracking the Twins on the Internet were cracking up when Carlos Gomez went deep to start the game. Put that in your Around the Majors pipe and smoke it!
Looks like a day off did the young man some good. Let’s see how that home run swing and subsequent bunt single translate into his attempts to get on base this weekend in Texas.
But then … yes, about The Franchise?
The season outlook darkened considerably for the Twins, when Francisco Liriano fell apart. Some in the office were in full doom-and-gloom mode. The concerns I kept hearing were pitching, pitching, pitching.
Here’s what I say: Pitching isn’t this team’s main concern. It’s still the offense.
Liriano might look lost, but the Twins have enough depth to keep their starting pitching engine churning. Kevin Slowey is on the mend. Brian Duensing (2-3, 2.40 ERA) and Kevin Mulvey (2-1, 1.16) are knocking on the door at Class AAA Rochester.
Nick Blackburn and Scott Baker have settled in nicely. Boof Bonser and Livan Hernandez — a combined 62 innings pitched and 7-for-10 in quality starts — have been OK.
Take away Liriano’s three games, and Twins starters have combined to go 7-6 with a 3.64 ERA. That ERA would rank third among American League starting staffs.
Let’s face it, the Twins rushed Liriano. They had reports that he wasn’t ready following his April 8 start for Rochester and called him up anyway. It was a reasonable gamble, considering Liriano’s pre-surgery talent, but it backfired.
Now, assuming Liriano is headed back to the minors, they must keep him focused. He must keep himself focused no matter the weather conditions or defense behind him. Forget the slider. Forget the change-up. He has to command the fastball, or none of it matters.
Meanwhile, the Twins get Michael Cuddyer back from the DL tonight. This is no small thing. He is their No. 3 hitter. He had a great spring batting between Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau.
After a shaky first series against the Angels, Cuddyer was 2-for-2 against Kansas City and looked like a machine on the basepaths that night before he dislocated his right index finger.
It might take Cuddyer a while to regain his timing, but his mere presence should make the lineup better.
Listen, the offense has to get better. The Twins are averaging 3.6 runs per game, second worst in the league. If that doesn’t improve, the rest is irrelevant. You could turn back time to 2006, bring back Johan and the rookie Liriano, and the Twins would be in a heap of trouble with run production like that.
122 Responses to "Liriano less of a concern for Twins than their sputtering offense"
The biggest concerns for me aren’t Lamb or Everett (we knew what to expect)….or even Monroe.
It’s the guys like Young, who are part of the rebuilding this team is trying to do.
They’ve got homerun power in Cuddy (once he’s back), Morneau, Young, Kubel…that’s a good heart of the order. They’re just not hitting them out.
I’d be interested in seeing how many homers the Twins had hit by this point last year.
Why won’t anyone consider sending Punto to AAA. What is great defense when you can’t hit. 2 game in a row he takes 3 strikes looking!! How many of his 8 hits are not bunts?
Great post, Joe. I totally agree. I also agree with T that Young is really concerning, however I do think that he’ll get going. Hopefully with the Twins playing in Arlington, he can get a home run or two and break out of his funk. Heck, if he were playing in Arlington, he’d probably have 4-5 home runs this season. He just hasn’t caught a break while the team’s played in a couple larger parks (he had one in Detroit and two in Oakland that would have been home runs in Arlington). But regardless, he needs to get going. He needs more than a single every other game and he needs to learn not to swing at the down and away pitches while he looks at the ones down the middle.
I still say give Barry Bonds a small contract. Doesn’t help us for tomorrow, but maybe it does if we win more games and start getting more hits because of it. You know the fans here would treat him as a ballplayer and not a criminal and you’d actually sell more tickets. His OBP alone is worth it not to mention the upper deck shots over the baggy…We’d even get him cheaper than Monroe at this point.
That’ll teach you to analyze a person’s talents based on one bad game.
They had “reports” that Liriano wasn’t ready? All they had to do was look at the AAA box score. He did terrible, and now he’s doing worse at a higher level. It’s not rocket science, Twins.
It’s time for Liriano to poop or get off the pot. He needs to start to take responsibility for how he is doing. It has been over 18 months since he had surgery, there is no reason he shouldn’t be at 100% by now. It seems pretty evident to me that he was not rehabbing 100% like we heard. He was not keeping himself in good condition and that should fall on him not the Twins. The guy is an adult and needs to act like it, the Twins can’t hold his hand forever.
I agree jama. I think a big reason the Twins brought him up, knowing he wasn’t ready, was so they could keep their eyes on him. The Twins are about as cautious and careful as possible with their pitchers — sometimes to a fault. I don’t think they would just recklessly rush him. This team’s not doing nuthin’ this year anyway.
But to say “it’s been 18 months” isn’t exactly fair either. It takes most pitchers two full baseball seasons to fully get back to normal.
The offense is like novocaine. Mind-numbing.
thank you joe you just said what i have been saying for days. however, you left out the fire vavra part! weather or not he is or is not a great hitting coach the results aren’t there and haven’t been for over a year, it’s time for a new approach.
Jama, you’re an tool! It’s not Liriano’s arm that’s the problem, it’s his location. After not pitching for a while, it happens … even Maddux and Radke had location difficulties after short layoffs.
Get a clue before you mindlessly pop off next time, ma’am!
t: 15 hr in 24 gms 07; 11 hrs 22 gms 08.
Will you people stop bringing up the Nick Punto talk. I agree, he is not the greatest hitter, but in a close game - it is pretty comforting to know that you have someone sitting there who can come in and help win a game with his defense.
Punto is not the issue - the issue is the Twins lack of patience at the plate and consistent inability to get good pitches. How many times are we going to watch opposing command pitchers go into the eigth or ninth inning with only 70 pitches, 15 groundouts to the second baseman and only 3 singles by the Twins.
It is early in the year and the averages will play themself out - Hopefully DYoung and Joe can get things straightened out. Remember - without our #3 hitter we are still only a game or so out of first place.
jemihami
Have you watched the games Liriano has pitched? His velocity is down, he is out of shape and yes he is mentally in a different country. Gardenhire was quoted as saying Liriano came into camp out of shape and that the Twins basically called him up so they could keep an eye on him. That is not him taking resposiblity on himself.
Amen! Punto should play every day he’s the best player on the team everyone one of his errors was a bad bonce and every so was a bad call by the umpire! Go Nicky!!!
Even I have to say that Punto is one of the least of the Twins worries. He isn’t hurting them this year.
Of course, hitting is the problem, like it has been for the last several years. Time for coaching changes…
The Twins don’t need Bonds, Thomas, or any of the other broken down sluggers that rest their bags in the Twin Cities every other year. The Twins need a legit slugger still in his prime. What they should do is sign Texiera or someone similar this offseason. If they don’t have the money, trade Nathan and find someone else to close out games.
Pitching is not their problem. Getting to the other team’s pitchers is.
To clarify my comment above…
It is not a matter of players as much but of coaches/manager/organizational philosophy.
A couple weeks ago, I posted data
(http://tenthinningstretch.blogspot.com/2008/04/bit-of-batting-research.html)
that shows that almost every player who left the Twins had a higher slugging percentage after they left and almost every player who joined the Twins had lower slugging percentage that previously.
There are 4 coaches who are not pulling their weight (Liddle, Stelly, Ulger, Vavra) and a manager who has been indifferent to the situation. Something has to be done…
M.
So you don’t give Johan $130 million but you are going to give it to Texiera? That’s funny.
If Twins fans would get excited about signing Cream or Clear Barry, all fan credibility on wanting players of character and good riddance to Torii and Johan because they were greedy can never be taken even semi-seriously again.
All comes back to the terrible job Terry Ryan and his staff did drafting and developing hitters.
Holes exist at 3b, ss, lf (though I’m hopeful here), cf and possibly 2b. They have no 4th OF (if Kubel is your 4th, they have no dh). 5 of the position players currently starting are from outside the organization.
Yet, somehow, the staff got a free pass for years.
I think there is something wrong with their minor league philosophy / development techniques, but it could be who they pick.
thrylos98: you hit the nail on the head, to bad vavra couldn’t get this team to hit something other than a ground ball to the infield.
jama,
I never said Johan wasn’t worth his $130MM. I said Nathan wasn’t worth his $47MM. Although generally speaking, signing a slugger to a long-term deal does carry less performance risk and injury risk than signing a starting pitcher.
It has to be partly the players. You really think a coach could do anything for Everrett or Punto at SS? They are so bad that they can’t even see “average” hitter from where they are. Lamb was mediocre for Houston. Young was the 19th best LF in baseball last year. Gomez is basically a rookie that was rushed to the majors, and their 4th best hitter (Cuddeyer) has been hurt for 2 weeks.
Yes, I think some of this is likely on the coaches, but I put it on the front office, first and foremost (and not the current FO).
thrylos98, are you really arguing that a good hitting coach could turn this bunch of stiffs into an average team?
thrylos98, are you really arguing that a good hitting coach could turn this bunch of stiffs into an average team?
It’s not just a hitting coach issue.
A good hitting coach can probably get more from people like Young, Gomez, Kubel, Mauer, Tolbert
Better organizational philosophy would work on drafting power hitting prospect and try to develop their power in the minors, as well as try to grab opportunities (see Frank Thomas) when they come.
Better roster and game management would lead on not playing Span over Monroe or Punto over Tolbert and not filling the bench with some glove no bat players.
My motto for this season, which I officially announced on my website on Opening Day, was “Win or lose, just score some fricking runs!” Seriously, 2005 and 2007’s offensive woes were sickening, and I would rather the Twins be terrible and score plenty of runs than be .500 and play a bunch of 3-1 games.
I would rather the Twins be terrible and score plenty of runs…
You may say that now, but it’s just as maddening (if not more) to watch a team score 9 runs in a game and lose.
That’s what I was going to say, Mike. Let’s review the Twins FA signings the last few years….
Tony Batista
Rondell White
Tim Raines
Ruben Sierra
Jose Offerman
Henry Blanco
Luis Castillo (then traded away)
Adam Everett
Mike Lamb
Casey Blake (who they then released)
Quinton McCracken
Paul Molitor
Jeff Cirillo
And in trades…
Bret Boone
Delmon Young
Carlos Gomez
Nick Punto
Jason Barlett
These guys are all terrible. The only two that had decent potential are Casey Blake and Delmon Young. What do you think the Twins hitting coach should produce?
Twins have plenty of pitching that’s OK.
Franchise is the only one in the org. that is big ready and at one point has DOMINATING stuff.
All the other guys won’t get 10+ k’s on a regular basis!
You need these kind of pitchers to be a serious post season contender
The last bat I can remember the Twins going out and getting and actually producing quality was Shannon Stewart and that was about 5 years ago now.
M. if you want to wait for the Twins to get another young power hitter you will need to wait another 3 or 5 years assuming Bill Smith can draft better than Ryan when it comes to hitting. If Bonds was here people here would quickly forget he’s a criminal after the first bomb he hit and the bombs he hits today you would have to assume are drug free. If they aren’t maybe he can teach Rincon how to get by with the juice again so he is worth something again. I say we do take a chance on a cheap old power hitter a la Andy McPhale and his Don Baylor acquisition. Is it also a coinsidence that the Orioles are off to a good start one year after McPhail joins their organization?
Should have paid santana and let cuddy walk
BONDS IS THE WORST THING TO HAPPEN TO BASEBALL SINCE THE BLACKSOX SCANDAL!!
NO BARRY HERE!!!
PIAZZA OK BONDS BAD!
I put the blame on the hitters until someone can explain to me the differences between what Vavra teaches and what the “good” batting instructors teach.
My guess is the differences are minimal, but the differences in the students are the real difference.
[…] SuperHero Times wrote an interesting post today on Liriano less of a concern for Twins than their sputtering offenseHere’s a quick excerptStar Tribune baseball editor Dennis Brackin greeted me yesterday by saying, “So, who are you going to try to send to the minors today?” A few […]
I would settle for Piazza. I’m just saying we need someone that puts some fear into the opposing pitcher instead of just Morneau. Thank goodness we locked him up.
sane
I agree that hitting coaches only make a small difference. The problem with the Twins is their hitting strategy throughout the whole organization. Making sure every player uses all parts of the field. Level swing instead of a little upper cut. Things like this. That is why a guy like Big Papi absolutely hated the coaches. They wouldn’t let him use his natural swing. They were to obsessed with him hitting the ball the other way and advancing runners. The Twins have tried this philosophy for over a decade and it has been proven that it doesn’t work real well. That is partially the reason the Twins have very little power hitters. They don’t try to produce them.
Piazza wouldn’t put any fear into a major league pitcher. This isn’t 2001 any more. Piazza represents exactly the same kind of washed-up trash above that the Twins have been signing since 2000.
M: In response to your query, Luis Castillo. If you go by the fan reaction when he was traded….it was a huge bat that was important to the tema.
M. if you don’t want any of the power hitting vets available, what is your suggestion to inject some life into our teams slugging percentage. The common denominator in your list of failed acquisitions is probably that none of them averaged 25 homers a season.
I should note a number of the players in the Twins FA list were productive hitters… just not at the point that the Twins signed them. Kinda obvious point, I know, but I do realize that Molitor, Raines, Cirillo, to name a few, all were quality major leaguers at one point in their careers.
As a team, the Twins OBP is .297….that is absolutely ridiculous….
Also, just once would I love to see Joe Mauer Turn on a ball and hit a homerun…just once…not too much to ask for
The problem is not with this player or that one. Every single one of the starters has an OPS less than expected:
Morneau .817 should be +100
Harris .706 this is probably about right
Kubel .704 should be +100
Mauer .686 should be +200
Gomez. 610 should be +100
Young .609 should be +200
Lamb .470 should be +300
Punto .579 unfortunately, this is about right
The anemic offense to date is system wide.
jama,
Maybe the cause and effect are reversed.
The Twins can’t (won’t? - another discussion) afford to pay for a Murderer’s Row.
Morneau, Cuddyer and the Seven Dwarfs can’t play Bombs Away! with the Yanks, Sox and Tigers.
If they can’t hit homers,
the Twins HAVE to use the whole field because they can’t go 1st to 3rd when they hit singles to left.
HR hitting contests are not won by lineups like the Twins.
If they had five Big Papi’s, they might start uppercutting and pulling.
Thats not an option with current offensive personnel.
Sign a bit bat who is still in his prime (26-29). Most hitters who are FAs are going to be at the back end of that range, but you can still get 3-4 productive years out of a HR hitter at that age. These guys are expensive… probably $15MM - $20MM a year. But just signing one first gives protection to the quality hitters that the Twins do have (Mauer, Morneau, kind of Kubel) and moves all the weaknesses down 1 step in the ladder… the 4th best hitter becomes the 5th best, the 5th best becomes the 6th best, and the 9th best gets bumped.
If the Twins say they don’t have the money, then trade Nathan. You can find bullpen arms for cheaper than $14MM/yr who will perform adequately.
Ryan
If te Twins sign an aging DH who may (or may not) produce some power numbers, they will have to take one of their better power hitters (Kubel) out of the lineup. I realize Kubel is no Big Papi, but he is one of the few Twins who can actually hit it out once in a while.
It would be nice to see the Twins take a few more walks considering they are last in all of baseball, the team with the next fewest has 11 more…
Castillo’s OBP .360 and he’s 6/6 in stolen bases maybe if we wouldn’t have traded him Johan would still be here?
we already beat this to death sane, it doesn’t matter, right or wrong if you are a good coach, manager, gm whatever if the results are bad. happens all the time, results count in pro sports, except like the t-wolves, pirates etc. coaches, managers and gm’s get canned all the time and very often not because they are bad, they wouldn’t have been hired if they were, but because they don’t get results.
can’t fire all the players so the coaches go. sometimes a change has to be made no matter who’s at fault.
The problem with signing a veteran DH is that the Twins would bench one of their better hitters (probably Kubel) where the real hitting problems have been SS, 3B, CF and an overall lack of power and plate discipline.
M’s right we have to bite the bullet at some point and pay to bring in a big money hitter in his prime.
Nathan and any relief pitcher is expendable!
Don’t know why you expect Gomez to have an OPS around .710. He’s going to struggle to have an OBP even around .300 and he’s not going to SLG .410.
gobble,
You are right.
Vavra can be fired.
I just don’t think he can be blamed.
So fire him, but don’t plan on that solving the problem any more than replacing Ullger solved the problem.
saam, you are right, we need Kubel in there. Too bad Cuddy never worked out at third. Kubel could hide out in right and we could have a legit DH if we could open the wallet.
Like Bert similarly says, have Monroe envision each pitcher wearing a Twins jersey with Joe Blanton’s head on it.
who did we get for castillo again?
That’s right no one who’s ever going to play in the majors and castillo is better than half our major leeague players!
The Twins are lucky, given their hitting, to have the record they do at this point.
If the hitting doesn’t improve as it should, then none of the rest of this bloviating really matters.
Molitor was a quality player at one point in his career…. really, i guess thats why he’s in the Hall of Fame.
The Twins don’t have a great offense, but it will emerge as a good offense this season. The Twins know they can’t get into marathon scoring to win games, so they have to keep it close with good pitching/defense and take advantage the opportunities they have. Every team has a bad series. Look at last weekend. On paper, the Indians have a way better offense than the Twins, but our pitching and defense shut them down. Just because you spend a lot of money and put a lot of big bombers in the line-up it doesn’t mean you are going to win games. Look at how the Tigers have started the season.
It’s one thing when you trade a veteran for good prospects but to trade Castillo for Butera and Martinson is just a crime.
Saam,
If you signed Big Tex, you could possibly kick him or Morneau over to the hot corner. It’s ok to get crap production out of your 2B (it’s nice if it’s there, but it’s not necessary)… SS you would like something out of, but you can kind of fake it and having Mauer can cover for one unproductive spot in your lineup since the catcher is normally a black hole. So if you had a real OF (which the Twins are close on) and a slugger at 3B who was at least better defensively than Ryan Braun, you’d actually have a lineup.
Yah Shawn, I know. But my point is he was well past his HoF production during his publicity stint with the Twins (see Molitor hit #3,000!)
ES16: No, the Twins won’t emerge as a good offense this season. They’ll stay (as they are now) an offensive offense this season.
sane if you can figure out what the problem is maybe gardy will give you a job.
except for the last half of 07 its been a long time since we’ve had a good hitting team. something is wrong besides bad umps, may very well be bad players.
Gobble,
“may very well be bad players.”
At least “not good enough” players.
“we already beat this to death sane”
Agreed, but I didn’t bring up the subject, and I am doing my best (and failing) not to chime in.
Castillo was a FA after last season. If the Twins had outbid the Mets for his services we’d just have one more thing to complain about. The guy could barely move on the turf.
And the Twins still wouldn’t have Santana.
Twins could have kept Castillo for the remainder of last year, then gotten a compensation draft pick….probably better than the two prospects the got from the mets
How many hitters are FA when they are in their prime? Next year Texiera will be available and that is about it. The Yankees have already penciled him into their 2009 opening day roster. There is no way the Twins can/will outbid the Yankees for a guy like this. You have to develop your own power hitters and then sign them before they hit the Free Agent market. That is the landscape of baseball these days. The Rays just signed Longoria to a 8 year deal after he had played 6 games in the bigs.
It is not a matter of players as much but of coaches/manager/organizational philosophy.
A couple weeks ago, I posted data
(http://tenthinningstretch.blogspot.com/2008/04/bit-of-batting-research.html)
that shows that almost every player who left the Twins had a higher slugging percentage after they left and almost every player who joined the Twins had lower slugging percentage that previously.
Interesting. Did you also factor into the study that the Metrodome has been a consistent pitcher’s park since 2006? Or that some players (Ortiz being the biggest example) went from the Twins to a better hitter’s park?
I’ll venture to guess that Ortiz has better road numbers with the Sox than he had with the Twins.
Fezik
Terry Ryan had an agreement with ownership that he would dump salary if the Twins were not in contention.
Of course the dome is going to be a pitchers park with our week hitters and strong pitchers.
T - if you go by player reaction Luis Castillo’s trade signaled that management didn’t care about them, and gave up on them. Santana, and Hunter both said that was when they knew that leaving Minnesota was a likelihood, and not an idea anymore (paraphrasing). The wind went out of the team’s sails, and you can argue with me, but the team’s performance after that signals that I’m not just doom and gloom guy.
Liriano needs to go to AA. Isn’t Bobby Cuellar supposed to be one of the better pitching coaches in baseball?
Bc
If you go by everyting Hunter said he would be on at least ten different rosters right now.
Santana went where the money was.
coming_former you must have been listening to Reusse this morning too. He suggested that because Santana gives him a ton of credit for setting him up to be the pitcher he is.
This year there’s Tex. The year after that is Holliday. The year after that are Alex Rios and Garrett Atkins. This past offseason Miguel Cabrera was available if you were willing to give out the contract and deal some prospects.
In recent years, Magglio Ordonez, Alfonso Soriano and Carlos Beltran have all been signed as FAs. So the players are rare, but they’re out there if you bring your wallet.
please nobody else say the Twins should sign Piazza. He has been washed up for what about 4 years now? I’d much rather have Bonds. atleast he was productive last year
M
Did you just say that you could have Morneau play 3B? I sure hope you were joking. The funny thing about Texiera is that he actually played 3B out of High School. Like I said before though, the Yankees need a 1B and they have already penciled him into their lineup next year. Plus he is a Boras client so you know he is going to go where the money is. The Yankees should have about 60 million to spend next off season
I’m all about a new look at hitting coach. I think Vavra is over his head and we need someone that has experience with an experienced line up.
Rios just signed a 5 or 6 year deal. The Twins didn’t have the prospects to get Cabrera. Soriano and Beltran both signed contracts that the Twins just can’t afford. Ordonez was coming off a major knee injury and nobody was offering anything close to what he got.
The Metrodome is a heavily-favored pitchers park: http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/stats/parkfactor
M
You also seem to forget that rather than signing a FA the Twins just gave Morneau, a power hitter, a pretty large contract. I think the Twins best chance to get more power is to do what they did with Young. Trade away pitching for an up and coming player that is under team control for another 5 years and hope that they fulfill their potential. The Twins have to make Power a priority in the draft also.
Beltran signed for 7 years, $119MM ($17MM per). You trade Nathan’s $14MM per, add in a few million for the Rondell White’s of the world that the Twins use, and you have Beltran.
And even if the Yankees have $60MM to spend, they won’t spend $60MM on one player. $20MM/yr should be enough to get Tex. Expensive? Yes. Needed? Also yes.
All those charts are telling me is that we are one punto away from the dome being the lowest run producing park.
jama,
That would be enough if the Twins offense was good. But it’s not. The Twins don’t need to maintain the guys they have; they need to upgrade.
And again, if budget is an issue, then trade Nathan and use the $$ for a slugger.
M: that could be skewed by the twins having good pitching thus visiting teams hit less than normal and the twins a poor hitting team thus making visiting pitchers look better.
just a thought!
Although I do like the trade for Delmon Young. The kid is a potential All Star for years to come. Gomez… if you could steal first base, he’d be valuable. As is, Wily Taverez is his upside with a significant downside risk.
$14 million is not going to get you a “slugger” it is going to get you an overpaid average player. Aaron Rowand is getting that amount for Christ sake. It is going to cost you a heck of a lot more than that to get a real power guy. And the problem with paying all your money to 2 power hitters is that the pitching will suffer. The Twins have to have one of the lowest paid starting staff in the league. Other than Livan I don’t think any of the other starters even make $1 million. Eventually you are going to have to pay those guys too. I don’t see the Twins payroll topping $100 million in the next 4 or 5 years. You can’t tie up 50% of that in 3 guys. (Morneau, Player x, and Mauer)
gobbledygookguy,
No, it can’t be. Park factors compare how well the same teams do in different parks. PF = ((homeRS + homeRA)/(homeG)) / ((roadRS + roadRA)/(roadG))
jama,
I never said $14MM would get you a slugger. I said $15MM - $20MM gets you a slugger. You would use the money from Nathan plus whatever money you would otherwise throw at a garbage hitter and then you’re at least within a couple of million. It’s not an exact money for money on the books, but it’s close enough.
sorry! to complicated for me just give me a beer and hot dog.
i think i saw that formula in an astro physics class explaining how fast the universe is expanding!
As M points out, no power hitters do that well here. The twins need extra base hit types who go for the gaps. Mauer, Cuddy, Harris, Kubel, Lamb and Young should do that, they just aren’t. Mauer needs to step up and we need Cuddy back. We are on pace for a .500 season which is about what can be expected unless we get some luck and career years out of some of these guys. Many of you were predicting a mere 60 wins during ST, but we look ok.
It’s less complicated than it reads.
All it does is add up the number of runs scored by a team and its opposition in its own park and divide by the number of games. Then it adds up the number of runs scored by both teams in an away game and divide by the number of games.
So if there are 600 runs scored in Twins home games but 1,000 runs scored in Twins away games, the Metrodome park factor is 0.6 (600/1,000).
This may be obvious to most people here, but I just noticed that the Twins are last in the majors in walks…dead last, with only 43 on the season.
The only way they are going to score more runs is if they display at least a little patience at the plate.
Gomez and Young have a combined total of five walks. That’s right, five walks for two players who haven’t sat out more than two games through the early part of the season. I know they are young and aggressive, but Vavra should be pushing patience hard.
While Gomez’s strike to walk ratio is more than 10 to one, Other twins are striking out five times more than they are walking:
Gomez - 2 walks, 24 K’s. Batting leadoff?
Young - 3 walks, 14 K’s.
Harris - 5 walks, 17 K’s.
Monroe - 3 walks, 13 K’s.
Kubel - 3 walks, 17 K’s.
Does anyone know what the record is for fewest walks taken by an AL team? I’d imagine the Twins have to be on a pace to give that record a run for its money.
Although the Twins are among the lead leaders in fewest batter strikeouts, they don’t have enough power to reject free passes in favor of ground-out after ground-out.
I really think the bats will pick up as the season progresses, but the extremely low walk total is worrisome. Hope it is being addressed.
I agree with something jama just said. At some point, Baker will need to be paid, and probably 1-2 other pitchers that pitch this year will also. Plus, I just don’t see them acquiring a player already being paid a lot, it isn’t their style.
They should deal some AAA pitching right now, before everyone realizes how bad Humber and Perkins are (oooops, too late on that one). Hopefully, at some point this year, a pitcher or two are dealt for a hitter that has a chance to be very good, but I bet they hold onto all the young pitchers they have this year and do nothing to make the team better until the offseason.
If the total number of runs scored home and away were equal, then the park would be run neutral, equal to 1.0.
we really need a lineup to complain about, thank god it’s about time to go home i need a nap before the game starts.
anybody else get snow today?
Oh, concerning the walks,
Shameless, you are right. Didn’t see your previous post until now. I think the lack of walks is one of the key reasons why the offense is struggling.
What bothers me most is how some of our players seem like under achievers (Mauer, Young, Kubel, Baker). Now with Cisco debacle they have an excuse to fail. Plus we have the front office moping around. Could you imagine Gladden pinning his hopes on one savior? This team seems weak mentally. Maybe they should talk to some of the Wild players. At the very least this team has the talent to compete for this weak division and fail in the first round of the playoffs.
The Twins may have to expend some money on pitching, but it’s less of a concern since historically they’ve done a good job selecting and developing them in-house. Also, it’s easier for a young pitcher to be effective than it is a young slugger. So if they only have a limited budget, I’d make sure a good portion of it goes to quality bats.
the problem with the offense is lack of coaching from rookie ball through the majors.
hire Butch Wyneger as the MLB hitting coach… he’s the AAA hitting instructor with the Yankees.
Also look at Bill Madlock with the AAA team, Mike Greenwell with the AA team and bring in people who had high on base percentages in high school and college when drafting!
You can’t teach patience and a good eye as well as you can teach power, or tweak the stance.
Oh and most importantly above all things… FIRE JOE VAVRA!
oh great i see we’ve reached the point where we throw out names at random, here’s my contribution
Jim Eisenrich for 3rd base coach. He seems like the type who has a good windmill motion.
The Twins have 43 walks this season, fewest in the major leagues. Kansas City has the second fewest with 58. The Cardinals have 112 walks this season.
Spot on, BC. You need to get patient hitters from the get-go. The Twins team OBP right now is .297, 2nd to last in the majors, only ahead of the AA team which is the SF Giants. If they could jump up even to middle of the pack around .333, they would see a dramatic improvement.
Also, as far as pitching goes, something that occurred to me this winter is that Billy Beane does a great job of leveraging his ballpark. It’s a pitcher-friendly park so he takes on young pitchers, they look really good, and then he deals them to other clubs for quality prospects. The Twins should do the same.
The Twins have been drafting patient hitters. Mauer, Kubel, Benson, Parmalee. They were all patient hitters in high school. I saw something in Baseball America, I think, that was ripping the Twins for trying to change these hitters approach. They thought Parmalee and Benson were striking out too much. Some guys just aren’t bad ball hitters. It appears the approach is to draft patient hitters with good eyes and turn them loose.
Jama,
I’ve been thinking about your half of the payroll to three guys. Lessee what we can come up with…. salaries for guys… this ignores the signing bonuses which you can pro-rate if you want… I’m just looking at salaries right now.
Morneau:
2009: $7.4MM
2010: $10.6MM
2011-: $14MM
Mauer:
2009: $10.5MM
2010: 12.5MM
2011-: FA so ?
Also of note:
Cuddyer:
2009: $6.75MM
2010: $8.5MM
So looking at 2009, you have Morneau/Mauer/Cuddyer locked in at $25MM, give or take. In 2010, you have them in for $31MM. Mike Lamb is making $3.5MM this year and $3MM next (this is the kind of contract I was saying you could add in to Nathan’s money to get into the range of a real hitter).
So if you signed a slugger for say $20MM/yr, you would have the meat of your order for $45MM in 2009 and $51MM for 2010. That’s actually not bad. And this is where the value of player control comes in… Delmon Young won’t be arb eligible in 2010 and Gomez until 2011. So for two years at least, you have 6 of your 9 hitters locked in just around $50MM. You can get by with filler/cost-controlled guys such as Kubel to fill out your lineup and you still have say $40MM (if your total payroll is $100MM, which shouldn’t be ridiculous given a new stadium) to handle your pitchers. Nathan’s $14MM takes a big bite out of that, but hey, I’ve been saying that for months. And even if you want to hold onto old Joe, the Twins have gotten by many years paying their pitchers less than a collective $26MM.
No one really expected GOGO our DY to walk very much! The veteran guys need to step up and have solid at bats every plate appearance!!How many times have I seen Mauer and Morneau ground out early in the count?…..too many!
I don’t know if Morneau ever walks non-intentionally!
You know who used to average 60 BB a year…..oh yah Luis Castillo who we traded away for nothing and alienated our star pitcher in the process!
If the twins ever did decide to spend money on a player in their prime who would that be?
Who has the character to go with the big bat?
Cuddy and Nathan are over paid so why not bring in a real hitter?
Well, the real cherry free agent this off-season is Big Tex. There’s some possibility that Matt Holliday would be made available if the Rox decide that they don’t want to cough up for his next contract and get what they can.
There’s lesser, or at least different, players who could be had such as Crawford or even Crede. But if you want a true #4 or #5 hitter in their prime, it’s a short list. As far as character goes, I think as long as they’re not getting arrested or embarrassing themselves and the franchise, I wouldn’t worry about it.
How about Man Ram?
Come on be open minded…lol
The Liriano decision–and preemptive advice–is why Stan Cliburn should be manager of this team instead of Gardy, who, looking at his line-up tonight, might be getting worse as a manager. (I’m NOT going to take Nick Punto out of the line up ever!! And Baby Jesus is a legit #3 hitter!! I say so!!)
As for the offense, Joe V. needs to go. He’s never been a batting coach at any other level, and he consistently takes good MLB hitters (Lamb and Young this year) and makes them worse hitters. Here’s an interesting stat: In five years as hitting coach, Scotty Ulger’s offense made the playoffs four of those years.
It’s time for a certain amount of change in this organization. It started with Terry Ryan, now its time to pink-slip the manager and batting coach. After all, we’re not playing for next year with this roster. Billy wants to win today.
Promote Stan already. Let his brother manage Rochester.
HEY Joe Gomez has two hits tonight do you still think that Gomez should get sent down i dont
I’m sorry. Scotty was hitting coach for four years, making the playoffs three. My bad.
Dano (LOL
Who the hell are we going to bring up??? Gomez is the only choice, you know? We live and die with the guy. That’s life.
Has anyone out there noticed what Stu Cliburn has done with the Rochester pitchers that last couple of years??? Some impressive numbers.
Hey Joe, who is this guy, Hughes, in New Britain, he’s killing the ball and he plays 3rd base. Any chance of him moving up to Rochester or skipping triple A altogether?
Hughes is Australian so its naht bloody likely!
First Gomez being overmatched before he rips a leadoff HR and now the “sputtering” offense spends a day on the merry-go-round with 16 hits and 12 runs!
Keep up the good work, Joe! You seem to be doing a better job of turning the Twins around than all of their coaches put together!
Well, Man Ram isn’t in his prime, although even in his post prime he’s probably one of the top 15 hitters in the majors. But the reason I didn’t mention him is because the Red Sox possess exercisable options this year and next at $20MM per, I think, and I don’t see how they don’t exercise it.
And Twins fans, as much as anyone, should know not to make too much of teeing off of Sodney Ponson.
The problem is simple-the Twins and their upper management somehow think you can contend for a World Series and keep bringing in retreads and players way past their prime ala Rondell White, Craig Monroe,Batista,Jeff Cirillo, -we are in the process of a new stadium being built and we heard for years that with the new stadium would come better players etc santana, hunter, castillo all gone, why?? Gotta keep the payroll down and keep playing small ball. Detroit picks up Cabrera, White sox picked up Jim thome, us we pick up players that ending up costing us less money ,but give us nothing in terms of offensive punch, get used to this Twins fans, we will never win another world series until we keep our good players and quit with the rebuilding mode and really push for a world championship.
Hey, has anyone asked Sid Hartman about what he thinks about the twins punchless offense? Or, how they can improve but not spend to much money doing so…..
To those of you who are a little dense, Joe Nathan is NOT expendable. What good would be trading him for a guy who might produce one or two extra runs in a game to have that obliterated in the 9th inning by the replacement for your star close (Gagne anybody?)
