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Perspective on the Twins from the NW

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The Twins' Awful, Unrepeatable 2nd Half

At the All-Star break, the Twins were in decent shape, just 6 games under .500 and on pace to finish with a win total in the mid-70s that would have demonstrated clear progress in their rebuilding efforts. But they faltered out of the gate in the 2nd half, dropping 9 of 13 to finish July (the first 10 of which were at home). Now 11 under .500 and 11 games out of 1st place, it was time to sell the veterans and turn to youth. Out with Kendrys Morales, Josh Willingham, Kevin Correia and Matt Guerri
James Richter

James Richter

2

Give me an average starter

How many Twins starting pitchers do you have confidence in? For me, the list begins and ends with Scott Diamond. How sad is that?   Check this out: Through Sunday's games, the average AL starter gives his team just under 6 IP/GS with a 4.33 ERA. The Twins have gotten just 5 1/3 IP/GS with a 6.18 ERA. With league average starting pitching, the Twins would have allowed 41 fewer ER in 34.1 more IP. That reduced workload on the bullpen (3.58 ERA) saves another 14 ER, for a total of 55 fewer RA. The
James Richter

James Richter

1

Think the Twins suck? You shoulda seen ‘em in 2006!

Through 25 games:   [TABLE=width: 500, align: center] Year W L GB RS RA Diff BA OBP SLG ERA WHIP HR/9 2006 9 16 9.0 99 156 -57 .251 .309 .366 6.35 1.64 1.56 2012 7 18 7.5 90 139 -49 .246 .312 .362 5.61 1.41 1.59 [/TABLE]   Nearly identical offensive performances - the 9 extra runs the 2006 team had were due to some combination of more HR and fewer GIDP. The pitching was even worse back then. As tough as last week’s series in Anaheim was to swallow, how about the sweep the ’06 team suffered
James Richter

James Richter

8

It's the Pitching. But, C'mon...

In my last post, I investigated whether the offense was really as bad as it has looked so far. I discovered that, since the Home Opener, the Twins have been swinging the bats well enough to average about 5 runs/game. They have been held back by an extremely low BA with RISP and high rate of HIDP, each of which is likely to revert to the mean over a large enough sample. Once that happens, we should be left with an above-average offense for 2012-2013.   The news is not so good on the run preventio
James Richter

James Richter

1

It's Not the Offense

If I’d told you before the season started that, 20 games in, Denard Span would have a .386 OBP, Joe Mauer would be hitting .329 and Justin Morneau would have an IsoP of .236, plus newcomer Josh Willingham would have a 1.114 OPS, what would you have expected the Twins’ record to be? Better than 5-15, I hope. There are a lot of reasons why it is that poor, and some of them are not easily solved, but I don’t believe the offense is one of them.   Ultimately, it’s about scoring runs, and the numbers
James Richter

James Richter

2

Joe Mays, Francisco Liriano and Ricky Bobby

On April 16th, 2000, I went to the Dome to see the Twins take on the Orioles. Joe Mays vs. Sidney Ponson - what an auspicious pitching matchup that was! Mays took the mound and proceeded to lose the game with dizzying speed. Homer, single, double, 2-run single, groundout, 2-run homer. 6 batters and 20 pitches into the game, he’d allowed 5 ER on 5 H.   Undoubtedly, someone was up in the bullpen. Perhaps there were some derisive cheers when TK walked out to the mound. After all, this was even wors
James Richter

James Richter

4

Baseline: How bad are the 2012 Twins?

It's easy to be down on the Twins' prospects for this year. 2011 was in many ways their worst season ever, and the offseason moves by Terry Ryan didn't do much more than maintain the talent level they started with last April. So we must be headed for another dreadful season, right? Not so fast.   The Twins allowed 804 runs last year. Their pitching staff was last in the Majors in K/9, 29th in ERA and 29th in WHIP. But they were also last in BABIP, suggesting that things might bounce better for
James Richter

James Richter

4
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