Twins Resurgent

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[fusion_text]Of all the times this year I have given up on the Twins, counted them out for the year, been resigned to their mediocrity, perhaps none was as premature as last night. After erupting for four runs against White Sox ace Chris Sale in the second inning, the Twins were coasting at home. Rookie starter Tyler Duffey had faced 14 batters and gotten 14 outs. He didn’t get another. His three straight walks were demoralizing; then a bloop double and home run off two different relievers in the sixth inning left the Twins suddenly trailing, 5-4, in a game they should have, and had to, win. Barely hanging onto the final wild-card berth, a loss here to start September would surely spell doom.

Then, like a bolt from Thor, the game turned back on one swing from Miguel Sano, the biggest reason these Twins may no longer be the fluke they have seemed for much of the summer. After tying the game in the seventh, the Twins broke it open with three runs in the eighth with a good bunt by Suzuki, baserunning by Buxton and even a “clutch” hit by Mauer. This presented Glen Perkins with another gift “save,” in which he allowed three hits and one run and didn’t miss a bat all night. The Twins are alive for one more day, playing “meaningful” games in September. Who would have thought?

The quotation marks above point me to three final thoughts. The resurgent Twins have been powered by their new players, Sano, Eddie Rosario and Eduardo Escobar, with admirable fill-in play from Eduardo Nunez. The veterans Dozier, Plouffe and Suzuki have been steady, although hitting a combined .240-something. The one player who hasn’t been leading is Joe Mauer, who is taking down more salary than the rest of the starting lineup combined. He chips in with singles and rbi’s and a .275 average that would be respectable for a catcher or a power hitter, but he is neither. Furthermore, he is under that contract for three more years, posing the question of what the Twins will do with him as their young stars mature. He is merely adequate as a first baseman, a position either Sano or Plouffe could fill with power.

Perkins’s save was too similar to almost all his outings since (and including) the All-Star Game. His first two blown saves crushed the team’s spirit – based on their play in the games that followed – and were both among the times I wrote them off for the year. Maybe his sore neck was responsible, but if he was healthy last night he didn’t look much better. By contrast, Yankees closer Andrew Miller struck out the side in his ninth inning, which is the kind of confidence-inspiring performance you want from a closer. Complicating, but perhaps helping, the situation is the emergence of both Trevor May and Kevin Jepsen as shut-down relievers. Jepsen fared well in Perkins’s absence, but what will allow Paul Molitor to use him in place of Perkins now that Perkins is back?

Finally, I should add some perspective to the meaningfulness of the Twins’ September. Yes, they could sneak into the wild-card game, although Texas, with Cole Hamels, should have an edge over Minnesota’s unpredictable starting staff. But is this any better than making the NBA Playoffs as the eighth seed from the Eastern Conference? The Twins don’t have an ace to play in the one-game wild-card playoff. And if they survive that – seemingly against the Yankees, who have dominated them – they would run into the Blue Jays, Astros or Royals, all of whom are playing on a different level. Still, it could be a good learning experience for the rookies to build on in 2016; so I will continue to watch and hope.

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Surprising Twins at the Break

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Since I have written off the Twins twice already, I owe them a positive notice at the traditional midsummer break, which finds them with the third best record in the entire American League. Regardless of what transpires the rest of the year, I applaud them from turning a projected wasted year into a season of captivating baseball. For many reasons, the Twins have been fun to watch.

1. The starting rotation is amazingly better than last year’s. I’ll bet the Twins pitchers have recorded more “quality starts” by mid-July than they logged all last season. That means that, win or lose, the Twins are in almost every game. There is no Chris Sale or David Price ace, but Tommy Milone and Kyle Gibson have been solid, limiting the opposition to a run here, a run there, nothing more. Phil Hughes hasn’t been the number one starter he was last year, but both he and Mike Pelfrey are good for six innings more often than not. Trevor May has shown the potential to pair with Gibson for years to come, while his replacement, Ervin Santana, has the look of a competent pitcher in his two starts, one good, one bad.

2. Rookies have been a surprise. Principally, this means Eddie Rosario, who was called up as an injury replacement and has shown no sign of ever leaving. He hits lefties and righties and uses all fields and is a wonderful defensive upgrade from Oswaldo Arcia, who started the year in left. It’s too soon to declare Miguel Sano as established, but he sure looks comfortable and has shown the power the Twins sorely lacked. Both he and Byron Buxton were projected as late-season callups once the race was over, but both vaulted up much sooner from Double-A. In Buxton’s case, it may be premature: he looked lost against breaking pitches before he was injured and he was thrown out both times he tried to steal; but his athleticism is obvious and there is hope he can still develop as a hitter (see the following).

3. Brian Dozier and Trevor Plouffe have gone from mediocre hole-pluggers to legitimate Major League regulars, the kind we saw on teams in the ’50s. Both have solidified the Twins’ infield defense and, pending Sano’s emergence, represent what passes for power on the Twins. Dozier’s walk-off homer against Detroit, when the Twins came back from 6-1 down in the ninth, just may have given his team the confidence it needs to contend this year. It certainly sparked them to wins against the Tigers the next two days, turning around the psychology of that important matchup.

4. Everyone is chipping in. The Twins are just as likely to get runs from the bottom of the lineup as the middle. Eduardo Escobar, Eduardo Nunez, Rosario and even the formerly forlorn Aaron Hicks have all contributed to the offense. Other days it is Torii Hunter, Dozier and Plouffe. Joe Mauer is having another terrible year and leads the league in warning-track outs, but somehow is the team’s statistical leader in hitting with runners in scoring position.

5. Torii Hunter has given the team a personality. We don’t get to see them dancing in the locker room after wins, but we do see the three outfielders’ synchronized leap at game’s end and you get the feeling that everybody gets along and is having fun playing the game.

A lot could go wrong in the second half. Dozier and Plouffe, who are irreplaceable, could go into prolonged slumps. Opposing pitchers could discover a flaw in Sano’s swing. Hunter will turn 40. Once any of the pitchers starts to get pummeled, they could all lose confidence. Perkins has been perfect in save opportunities, but he is hardly unhittable. And just as the Royals have lost Alex Gordon and the Tigers Miguel Cabrera, someone could get hurt, exposing the Twins’ lack of depth. But I’ll take my chances; there are enough good story lines to follow and whatever the Twins do, I’ll be watching.

Twins Fall Fast

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[fusion_text]One week after the Twins had the best record in the American League they are falling toward mediocrity, and maybe more. When they were in first I had no idea, as I suggested in a previous post, what they were doing there. As for why they have lost four straight, with more to come, the answer is obvious: they are just not that good. More particularly, their offense was a mirage that has now evaporated. When your only hitter with double-digit home runs is your leadoff batter (after 60 games) you know there’s a power shortage. Then throw in .260 averages for your best regulars, including number-three hitter Joe Mauer, and the lack of run production is totally predictable.

The Twins’ starting pitching has been remarkably good. Without an established ace, the starters are churning out quality start after quality start. All that accomplishes, though, is putting the spotlight on the sputtering attack. Earlier in the season, things were going so well that we didn’t mind that hopes-of-the-future Buxton and Sano were still down in Double-A. Now, however, I am dying to see Buxton, at least, called up, if only so I don’t have to watch Aaron Hicks suffer. The relief pitching has been fine, but that only helps when the team is ahead (which is the only time Molitor will use his best: Boyer, Fien and Perkins). Now that Stauffer is gone, there is only Duensing to be cleared out. Oh, and they have to figure out what to do with Nolasco. It would be nice if another team wanted him.[/fusion_text]

Twins in First

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[fusion_text]I must acknowledge the Twins’ appearance, however fleeting, at the top of the AL East standings (5/28/15). This represents an extraordinary turnaround from their disastrous first week when I, and many others more informed than I, wrote them off for the season. It is also a surprise to the national prognosticators who uniformly picked the Twins to finish in the cellar for a third (or is it a fourth?) consecutive season.

How have they done it?, is the question, and despite watching many recent games on MLB.TV, I have no answer. They lack a power hitter, and no regular is batting over, or even close to, .300. Their defense is solid, if pedestrian. Their one historic All-Star, Joe Mauer, plays a power position, first base, but has one home run. Their relievers, with the exception of closer Glen Perkins, are pitchers I’d never heard of. Perkins, it is true, is 18 for 18 in save situations, but he’s been doing more like Eddie Guardado than Mariano Rivera.

The most obvious group that should be credited with the Twins’ resurgence is the starting rotation. Again, though, there is no dominant pitcher and no breakout star. In fact, the one pitcher who was supposed to anchor the rotation, Ervin Santana, will not join the team for another month because of his drug suspension. Hughes, Gibson, Nolasco, May and Pelfrey have all looked terrible at times, but seemingly on cue they have all begun to build comfortably winning records. Perhaps they realize that the first to falter will be replaced by Santana, if not an original member of the rotation, Tommy Milone, who is tearing up Triple-A.

The best explanation I can offer comes down to the intangible that may be the most important difference between winning and losing in sports, and that is confidence. Once the Twins started winning with their anonymous lineup, they began to believe they should be winning and the cycle kept repeating itself. Maybe this came from the positive spirit brought in by Torii Hunter. Maybe it’s due to new manager Paul Molitor. Maybe the critical mass of Latin players who relaxed each other. Who knows? The next question is, what will happen when the inevitable losing streak arrives? Will the confidence crumble and the wheels fall off, exposing the obvious talent deficiencies?

All I know for sure (and the same thing has been stated by the reporters and broadcasters covering the team) is that the Twins have become a fun team to watch and made me cautiously optimistic, but no more, about the summer of baseball to come.

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Defensive Indifference

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[fusion_text]When the Twins have a lead larger than one in the ninth and a baserunner reaches first, they routinely decline to hold him on, giving him a free run to second base but allowing the first baseman to play behind the runner in presumably a better defensive position. Rather than registeringing this a stolen base, baseball scores this a nullity,  calling it “defensive indifference.” There is one additional marginal benefit: it allows Twins closer Glen Perkins to focus all his attention on the batter.

I am waiting for the statheads to pronounce on the wisdom of this maneuver, but until I see the empirical evidence let me give my view: I hate it, and I shall now count the ways.

One: allowing the baserunner to move from first to second eliminates the force play at second. I have frequently seen the play – the ground ball up the middle, the ground ball in the shortstop hole – where an out was possible at second base but not at first. Rarer, in my experience, is the play where the first baseman could not get an out because he was holding the runner instead of playing behind him. Thus, defensively, the DI makes no sense.

Two: the pitcher’s ability to hold a runner on first atrophies. Perkins is the prime example. He so routinely allows the runner to take second that he has become terrible at holding on the runner when it is needed. You can look it up, but my sense is that he has one of the highest stolen-base percentages of any lefthanded pitcher. In his mind, all that is important is getting the batter out. Unfortunately, sometimes the batter gets a hit, and if a runner has stolen second that can mean a run and the lead.

Three: I don’t like to see “meaningless” runs. Sure, a 6-5 victory counts the same as 6-4, but it doesn’t feel the same. Someone has gotten an rbi and someone has scored a run they don’t deserve. The team gets credit for a “one-run win,” which some analysts down the line will use as a yardstick for clutch performance. And to the unwary distant observer, the game will look to have been closer than it actually was – just as an empty-net goal makes a hockey game appear more lopsided than it really was.

Four: Every athlete in professional sports should give full effort at all times. This is, admittedly, a moral view of sports that is subjective and personal. In club tennis we talk of giving a “courtesy game,” rather than winning 6-love, but no professional would expect, or probably want, such a courtesy. The extreme example was Brett Favre’s allowing Michael Strahan to tackle him at the end of a game so Strahan would set the sack record. Strahan’s record, as a result, is forever tainted. A run scored after DI is not as bad, but it’s in the same ballpark. Every run should be earned, is how I look at it.

My clincher on the inappropriateness of defensive indifference is this: baseball is a game of statistics, ad nauseum, ad infinitum. I have yet, however, to see a statistic relating in any way to DI (e.g., which team has given up the most). No one thinks of it as part of baseball, and it shouldn’t be.[/fusion_text][fusion_text]Click edit button to change this text.[/fusion_text]

Twins Report

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[fusion_text]It’s still early in the season, so perhaps it is not surprising that this year’s Twins are still searching for an identity. No pitcher has emerged as a stopper; no hitter has stepped up as clutch. They have won many more games than I feared they would after their disastrous opening series against the Tigers, but without any pattern. Each win has had a different hero.

The biggest hole so far seems to be the lack of a power hitter. Kennys Vargas showed strength and potential as a late call-up last year but has been too cold to even play everyday. Oswaldo Arcia has been similarly erratic, and neither of them is an asset defensively. Worse, the big hope for the future, Miguel Sano, missed last year with injury and is doing nothing in the minors this year. Every team needs a cleanup hitter, which the Twins just don’t have.

The offense, therefore, depends on Suzuki here, Santana there and the occasional pop from Plouffe. Mauer will hit .300, but many of those will be harmless singles and when he goes for power he just reaches the warning track. A lot of the other averages are closer to .200 than .300, which should correct itself; but I suspect that .250 will be enough to keep you in the Twins lineup this year. All this is enough to win some games but, depending on pitching, won’t get you above .500.

Aah, the pitching. Phil Hughes, the putative stopper, has yet to win, but has pitched okay. Kyle Gibson continues to be tough at home, worthless on the road. Then there are Ricky Nolasco and Mike Pelfrey, previous busts who may or may not regain form from a couple years ago. Since I started writing this report, the fifth starter, Tommy Milone, has been sent to the minors and replaced by Trevor May. In other words, the starting rotation is still in flux, and the relief corps even more so. Their only All-Star in the past is closer Glen Perkins, and while he is racking up saves, he isn’t blowing hitters away like he has. The rest of the bunch is pretty anonymous.

So, we will see. We can’t count on anything yet – not the pitching, nor the hitting, nor the defense and certainly not the baserunning. Yet after sweeping a home series against the White Sox, the Twins are looking better, surprisingly, than two of their four division foes. They are competitive. Whether they will be anything more is an open question. The Byron Buxton watch continues.[/fusion_text]

Instant Replay Redux

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[fusion_text]On consecutive nights, Jordan Schafer of the Twins 1) hit a soft liner to center that the outfielder dove for and appeared to catch, but when the play was challenged it was obvious that the ball had squirted out of the glove and rolled on the ground before being picked up again; and 2) made a diving catch to save a run that was ruled a trap until the replay showed that the ball never touched the ground. The same week, two runners that were called safe at first were shown, when challenged, to have reached the bag just after the ball. There was no manager running out of the dugout, kicking dirt, no complaints by either side, no discussions among umpires. How did baseball get along, one wondered, without replay challenges?

One reservation: when a White Sox base stealer was called out at second he hopped up, immediately asking his manager to challenge the call. It appeared to the Twins announcers (and me) that the call was incorrect, but after a review of the replay, the umpires confirmed their call. There simply wasn’t a camera angle that clearly showed when the tag was made. And thus, the Sox lost their challenge for the game.

Of all the sports that have adopted an instant replay challenge system, tennis is the cleanest. The camera technology always shows whether the ball is in or out, down to a millimeter. Plus, the replay is visible to spectators, so it becomes part of the entertainment.

Football probably has the longest history with replays – and the most problems. The principal one is that there are 22 big bodies around the ball, and sometimes there is no clear view of the play. Second, there is no clear line dividing when a player has control of the ball; thus, the question, did his knee touch the ground before the ball came loose is often debatable. The lack of clarity is evident when the TV announcers predict the review result and are wrong, which occurs regularly. The other problem in football is that the replay challenge, even when there is a clear result, can’t always undo the damage of a bad call. If the referee thinks the runner is down before he fumbles and, consequently, blows his whistle, and the fumble is recovered by the opposing team and run in for an apparent touchdown, the ball will be brought back to the spot of the fumble and the touchdown nullified, even if the replay shows the whistle should not have been blown.

In all, it is rather impressive how far and how fast instant replay challenges have infiltrated sports that have been around for years. The big question: how long until baseball allows the radar to call balls and strikes?[/fusion_text]

Trade Deadline

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It’s almost humorous to read that the Twins players are worried that the front office will break the team up as the trade deadline approaches, looking for future prospects at the expense of fielding a winning team this year. The necessary implication of this concern is that there is somebody on the current Twins roster whom a contending team would be interested in! Maybe Josh Willingham, a below-average outfielder who is hitting .212? How about the many players who have been cut, or traded away, by better teams in the not-too-distant past: Sam Fuld, Eduardo Escobar, Eduardo Nunez, even Phil Hughes? Or a third baseman hitting .240 who has had three years to improve, in vain? Kurt Suzuki would be a useful addition to a number of teams, but as the team’s best hitter and everyday catcher he is more valuable in Minnesota than he would be anywhere else. Glen Perkins is a valuable chip, but he has so identified with Minnesota that a trade would be a major betrayal, which the Twins can’t afford. No, the only player I see as possible trade bait is 8th-inning setup man Casey Fien. But what would the Twins realistically get in return? Given the Twins’ traditional reticence to make trades, I’m not holding my breath.

Midseason Twins

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Amid a third consecutive floundering season by the Minnesota Twins I can sum up the main cause of my disappointment in two words: Joe Mauer. The rest is pretty much as expected: a free-agent flop at the top of the rotation – this year it’s Ricky Nolasco instead of Mike Pelfrey or Vance Worley. Then there are the various journeymen who show flashes of competence, even excitement, but eventually revert to norm: Chris Parmelee, Sam Fuld, Eduardo Escobar. Brian Dozier is being hailed as the answer at second base, and while he leads the AL in runs scored and adds dimension in base-stealing and defense, he is hitting only .234. Trevor Plouffe has also taken a step forward at third. Conversely, Oswaldo Arcia has regressed from the immense potential he briefly displayed last fall. The bullpen is above average, despite their excessive usage; even though Burton and Perkins aren’t quite the lockdown they were in 2013, Fien and Thielbar have shown they are more than flukes. Swarzak, Duensing and Guerrier can be very good or not, but every team will have weaknesses in relievers 5-7. Phil Hughes is the most professional of the starters, maybe because he was a Yankee for so long, and Kyle Gibson gives indications of being only one year away from the next Brad Radke. There are rumored arms down on the farm, and I should include the unseen Yohan Pino in this group, who should make Correia, Deduno and Nolasco expendable. And speaking of the farm, everyone is still counting on Byron Buxton and Miguel Sano, even though both have been hurt all year. So, as I said, it’s pretty much business as usual – beat up on the White Sox, fall flat before the Yankees – with one glaring exception. We all assumed another season of hitting .330 from Mauer – or perhaps more, and with fewer injuries because of his move to first base. Instead, despite a recent surge, he’s been hitting 60 points below his average most of the year, with a troubling jump in strikeouts. He’s never been known as a clutch hitter or a power hitter, and those numbers are also at all-time lows. When he comes up with two men on base and grounds meekly to second it’s dispiriting to us fans, and I wonder if it doesn’t have some effect on his teammates, as well. Adding insult to injury (which Mauer currently has), Justin Morneau, whom Mauer replaced at first,  is having an All-Star caliber season for the Rockies.

The Twins will have plenty of time to experiment the rest of this year. Among the questions to be answered: Is Danny Santana the shortstop the Twins have been looking for since Greg Gagne? Is Eduardo Nunez more than the journeyman he’s been for other teams, or is that enough? Can Arcia be taught better defense and will he grow as a hitter? Can Deduno be more consistent, and in what role, or does he have trade value? And where do they get help for Kurt Suzuki, both in the batting order and behind the plate? There is almost enough to care about going forward, but not quite enough to avoid saying, Wait for Next Year.

Twins Preview – 2014

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I can’t think of  a baseball season in which I was less excited about the prospects of “my” team, in this case still the Minnesota Twins. It’s not just that they are universally picked to finish last in their division – with projected losses between 90 and 100 – it’s that there’s no individual player whom I eager to follow. The starters are all players I watched last year without much enthusiasm; perhaps they will be better, but that would just raise their batting averages from .225 to .250. Their only consistent hitter, Joe Mauer, hits a quiet .320, with as often as not a meaningless single resulting in a 1-for-3 box score.

The touted upgrade comes in the pitching rotation, where the Twins added two free-agent starters, Ricky Nolasco and Phil Hughes, to their two free agents from last year, Kevin Correia and Mike Pelfrey. Both can generously be described as journeymen with their potential behind them. Hughes, it is said, pitched particularly well at Target Field for the Yankees last year, but let’s remember whom he was pitching against. I said last year that Glen Perkins was the only Twin not named Mauer (at that time a catcher) who could play for any team in the Majors, and his season justified my view. I was pleasantly surprised by other relievers – Jared Burton, Casey Fien and Caleb Thielbar in particular – but there’s not much they can do if the starters give up five runs and the offense can only muster two.

Are we already putting too much pressure on Byron Buxton, Miguel Sano and Alex Meyer to resurrect the Twins before they play a game?