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This is going to be my first ever blog on this site and I want to continue blogging about the Twins this season, I will have to say I have had one other blog and it was really fun to do, I want this one to last and I am going to have fun with it. What really got me wanting to do this was a bet that I made with a friend, and I really started looking at baseball prospectus for about 3 hours and I could have gone on and on, as baseball prospectus is really addicting. First off I have to preface this blog as saying I do like making prop bets, I shouldn't say like, I love making prop bets, and I love betting on about anything. I bet my friend on a plus minus Twins vs Brewers over under on wins, and I get the Twins at + 10. According to baseballprospectus I am a dog by 4 wins, I am a homer so I took that bad side of this bet, but I wanted to look at the twins this season over last years 99 loss season. I read this article,(http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=16164) thanks to a friend and I really had to think about what people are saying about the Twins, and how laughable they will be? Really, they have had 1 bad year in the 10 years, they won the central division in '02, '03, '04, '06, '09 and '10, and I don't think many of the "experts" picked the Twins to win the division in many of those years. I am not saying that the Twins will make the playoffs, or even be .500, but I wanted to make some arguments for the Twins. I put some stats together thanks to baseball prospectus. I really wanted to look at the Twins 94 win season vs. what happened last year, and what we have going forward to 2012. As of March 8th, I am putting the Twins at 81 wins, which is 10 games over what baseball prospectus puts them. As I am updated this blog I do see the new lines from Intertops Sportsbook having the Twins o/u at 73.5 games, I am betting the over, also another bet I am definitely taking is the Astros under 63.5. I am putting the Rangers and Phillies in the World Series. But anyway back to why I have the Twins at 81 wins, and why I think the Twins are not going to be as bad as what everyone is saying.

Here is the lineup they put on the field in 2010

Span

Hudson

Mauer

Morneau

Cuddyer

Kubel

Young

Valencia

Punto

Here is the lineup they will put on the field in 2012

Span

Carroll

Mauer

Morneau

Willingham

Valencia

Doumit

Revere

Casilla

Here is the pitching rotation they had in 2010

Liriano

Pavano

Baker

Blackburn

Slowey

Here is what the rotation will be in 2012

Pavano

Liriano

Baker

Blackburn

???

OK, so OBVIOUSLY health is the biggest issue the Twins have. If Liriano can't pitch well, we downgrade our entire rotation by a mile, Pavano is not a #1, and Baker is not a #2, (unless he shows what he did last year before he got injured) and the list goes on. On the other side, the lineup if Morneau isn't healthy they are a well below average lineup and really makes the Mauer signing pretty bad because his value is at catcher, there is no other catcher that does what Mauer does, which makes the signing correct, if he plays another position there is no way he gets signed for what he signed for. I am going to look at this lineup compared to 2010 stats for the most part.

Span 1.8 WARP (2010)

Carroll 3.3 WARP (2011)

Mauer 5.0 WARP (2010)

Morneau 3.6 WARP (2010)

Willingham 3.5 WARP (2011)

Doumit 1.3 WARP (2011)

Valencia 1.4 WARP

Revere .1 WARP (2011)

Casilla 2.1 WARP (2011)

Rotation

Carl Pavano 1.4 WARP (2011)

Fransisco Liriano .5 WARP (2011) 3.3 (2010)

Scott Baker 2.1 WARP (2011)

Nick Blackburn .4 WARP (2011)

Jason Marquis .3 WARP (2011)

Relief

Matt Capps -.3 WARP (2011)

Glen Perkins .8 WARP (2011)

Alex Burnett -.4 WARP (2011)

Brian Duensing 1.0 WARP (2011)

Anthony Swarzak .7 WARP (2011)

Matt Maloney (NA)

I want to put that in perspective vs a random team, and I am going to choose the Brewers because I have a bet against that team.

Rickie Weeks 3.1 WARP (2011)

Nyjer Morgan 2.8 WARP (2011)

Ryan Braun 6.6 WARP (2011)

Aramis Ramirez 2.6 WARP (2011)

Mat Gamel -.4 WARP (2011)

Alex Gonzalez 1.6 WARP (2011)

Jonothan Lucroy 1.4 WARP (2011)

Carlos Gomez 1.4 WARP (2011)

Rotation

Yovani Gallardo 3.4 WARP (2011)

Zack Greinke 3.3 WARP (2011)

Shaun Marcum 2.9 WARP (2011)

Randy Wolf 1.4 WARP (2011)

Chris Narveson 1.6 WARP (2011)

Relief

John Axford 1.6 WARP(2011)

Francisco Rodriguez .6 WARP (2011)

Kameron Loe .4 WARP (2011)

Tim Dillard .2 WARP (2011)

Brandon Kintzler .3 WARP (2012 projected)

Marco Estrada -.1 WARP (2012 projected)

Jose Veras .1 WARP (2011)

Zach Braddock .1 WARP (2011)

Looking at those makes a good case that the Brewers would win more games based on the pitching rotation. The Brewers really have a good rotation. They aren't that deep as far as relief goes, I think they are a bit behind the Twins, but I can't find any glaring differences, and Relief is hard to find specific stats on.

The Minnesota Twins were the worst defensive team in the Major Leagues, they also had Delmon Young in left field, they had Michael Cuddyer play almost every position, they had their starting shortstop go down due to injury in the first week of the year, they had Morneau out and had a platoon at first, Valencia isn't a great defensive 3rd baseme, since Span was injured they had to platoon in the outfield, and when you have Delmon in left Revere had to cover even more space and help shade that way more. You start this year at upgraded defensively at almost every position. Let's say that Morneau is healthy for argument sake. These are the upgrades you are making by position, C-upgrade, 1B, upgrade, 2B we will say even, SS, upgrade, 3B same, LF huge upgrade, Center, upgrade due to having Delmon out, RF downgrade.

IF, and of course it is a big if, but there isn't anything you can do to predict injuries, but looking at the 2010 94 win team and comparing to the 2011 99 loss team, there is a better than a 8 win difference as baseball prospectus projects.