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Thanks Nick and Brock. I'll try that and give the primer another look. I agree, this site looks and functions great. I'm still learning all the little tricks with the editor so, no fault but my own there.

Thanks for offering up free pizza guys! I forgot about the offer until after I wrote my post, as it was just a function of wanting to quantify where were getting beat and having a little time on my hands. But hey, I loves me some Papa Johns so I'll take it if my post qualifies. And if I can figure out how to deal with spacing issues and incorporating tables into a blog post, I will probably chime in again at some point. Not sure why my post turned out with such poor formatting when it was correct in the text editor. It eliminates some spaces I think, for some reason.

I am being fair and reasonable when it comes to Mauer. He has been league average, but has been 7% below the league average 1B. Given his contract, he needs to be have a wRC+ well above 107 if we are going to have a top 5 offense. This isn't to say Joe's bat and his contract will continue to be an albatross. He's a potential HOF'er. He's likely to improve on his numbers this year and next, but we can't expect a +.870 OPS next year either. It's possible, but unless Joe gets some help even a decent season from him won't matter enough. You are correct in stating that it doesn't matter which position produces runs, however, Dozier's production has nothing to do with Mauer or the other corner positions. Poor production from the corners and DH spot is why we haven't been above league average (in offense) since 2010 (when we had Morneau, Cuddyer, Thome, Kubel (in his prime), and Delmon's only decent season). That's plain to see, and yes, they've tried to address it, somewhat half-heartedly, through signing Willingham/Doumit and giving Parmelee and Arcia playing time. But it hasn't worked out very well, and even at the time expecting big things from all those players was far from a sure thing. The pitching staff has been an even bigger issue and mgmt decide to spend most of its money there (and on Joe's contract). So I'm not going to second too much. I thought they should have signed Nelson Cruz or Mike Morse because those deals were so team friendly, but maybe they did and they chose to go elsewhere.

Hey! Lonestar! I could have gone into more detail there, but had to draw the line somewhere. My overall sense is we are slightly below average, when factoring in range and consistency, but not too bad. Not elite, on most days, but not terrible. As for Mauer... He has a wRc+ of 100, so exactly league avg, not great for a 1B but better than our alternatives. Playing through injuries might explain some of that but lots of other players play through stuff too. He's definitely better than what he's showed this season. Also, we don't need to be above avg at every position. But we can't be below average at all the positions that are supposed to be productive either, not if we want to sniff 90 wins. I also agree with other comments that we could see some regression next year from our middle positions. However those guys have definitely earned the right to be penciled in for 2015.

Our Minnesota Twins enter today with a record of 54-65, tied for 12th in the AL with Boston, and bringing up the rear in the AL Central. The Forums and Blogs could fill volumes about what has transpired, what should have happened, and where we can go from here. However, I'd like to take a more quantitative approach and look at the team versus the rest of the league to see what we can deduce about the team and where they are losing the most ground. Based on this data, I'll comment a bit on what this means going forward. Here's the your 2014 Minnesota Twins in a nutshell (through 8.13.2014): Win-Loss Record: 54-65 Pythagorean Win-Loss Record: 56-65 W/L Rank in AL: T-12/15 Payroll: $84,912,500 (11th/15 in AL) Hitters and Fielding AL Runs Scored Rank: 8th/15 Weighted Runs Created (wRC+) by Position (100 = league average, definition): Position: Twins, AL, and Diff. C: 108, 94, +14 1B: 90, 107, -17 2B: 115, 91, +24 SS: 97, 85, +12 3B: 94, 99, -5 LF: 91, 102, -11 CF: 114, 103, +11 RF: 86, 98, -12 DH: 88, 102, -14 All Pos: 97, 99, -2 Runs/G: 4.20, 4.23, -0.03 Fielding%: 0.985, 0.984, +0.001 Pitching AL Runs Against Rank: 12th/15 Starters: Twins, AL, and Diff. Starters ERA: 4.97, 3.99, +0.98 QS Ratio: 44%, 51%, -7% xFIP: 4.20, 3.91, +0.29 K/9 & BB/9: 6.0 & 2.5, 7.3 & 2.8, -1.3 & -0.3 BABIP: 0.319, 0.299, +0.020 Bullpen: Twins, AL, and Diff. Bullpen ERA: 3.28, 3.63, -0.35 xFIP: 4.04, 3.75, +0.29 K/9 & BB/9: 6.9 & 2.7, 8.3 & 3.3, -1.4 & -0.6 BABIP: 0.291, 0.292, -0.001 W/L in Relief: 17-13, 18-17, - Total ERA: 4.35, 3.86, +0.49 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- So what can we say about these numbers? The starting pitching has largely failed this team. Currently the starters' ERA is nearly a full run above the league average. The offense has been excellent from "up-the-middle" positions but production from the corner positions (and DH) lags far behind the rest of the league. Let's dig a bit further, starting with the hitters. The most obvious thing is that Joe Mauer has really hurt this team since moving to 1B. It's hard to overstate this enough. He accounts for 27% of the payroll and the team is trailing the league average 1B by 17 wRC+. Hopefully this will change, and he's been hot recently since returning from the DL but these numbers look back, not forward. We could look at a variety of hitting metrics here, but wRC+ is a good one that incorporates overall hitting contribution. If not for Kurt Suzuki's unexpected, above-average play it would look even worse. What else? Traditionally, offensive production comes from the corners and the DH. We are significantly lacking at four of these five positions (but still below average at all five). Injuries to Willingham have hurt. Arcia has been banged up but has largely been a bust this year (injuries haven't helped). Still I'm glad he's getting a chance to play despite his struggles. Rather than use the DH as a position to stash a defensively-limited, stud hitter, they have again used it as a position to plug in whomever Gardy wanted in the lineup that day that he didn't have room for. A DH by committee usually isn't a good sign, certainly not if you're "saving" it to rest the legs of a below average 1B or feature below average hitters at every corner position. The Twins have been pleasantly surprising up the middle, getting above average production from Suzuki, Santana, Dozier, and Escobar (and Fuld, essentially). These guys have largely offset poor production from "power" positions allowing us to rank in the middle of the pack in runs scored overall. Which brings us to the pitchers. This is where the Twins are losing the most ground to their competition. More specifically, it's the starting pitching. Despite good seasons from Phil Hughes and Kyle Gibson, the rest of the rotation has been way below average. Our starters have been a little unlucky as evidenced by their xFIP and BABIP, but still, they strike out less batters, get taken out sooner, and provide fewer QS (quality starts) than other staffs. The bullpen has actually been better than the league average. However, further analysis suggests they may be getting somewhat lucky. Like the starters they strike out fewer hitters, but have a much lower BABIP and their ERA is well below what would be expected from their FIP. They've also managed a better record that the rest of the league; however, this is more likely a by-product of poor starting pitching performances (i.e. less opportunity to blow leads and more opportunity to vulture come-from-behind wins). What does this mean going forward? The first order of business is to decide what 2015 will be about. Will they attempt to win the division or use it as a "transition" year? In any case, the rest of 2014 must allow the team to assess what pieces can contribute at SP and the "power" positions. Finally, I think it would be wise to consider the bullpen. There's a good chance they'll regress. It falls off tremendously after Perkins. If they are to compete for the division, let alone in the postseason, they really need two or three above average arms in the pen. Right now there aren't any complementary bullpen arms who are (well) above average. Personally, we should have relatively low expectations for 2015. The Twins will likely be trying to assess the same issues next year. In my opinion, the best we can hope for is to find one to three players who can be fixtures at power positions (Sano, Vargas, Arcia). Unfortunately, they don't have any power prospects in the upper levels beyond the aforementioned guys. On the staff, Nolasco has to improve, obviously, but they also need to fill in two other positions (assuming nobody gets hurt, which never happens with pitchers right?). Maybe Meyer and May can do that, but it's asking a lot to go 2-for-2 with top pitching prospects out of the gate (health issues aside). And the bullpen... they need to find two or three upgrades there as well. Maybe Stephen Pryor, the art school phenom or Nick Burdi? Do all that, stay health... and we can win the division next year. But as you can see, the odds do not look good by expecting minimal injuries and getting production upgrades from all those positions. As good as the farm system is, they are still a few years away. The best thing this team can do would be to deposit the money it saves from shedding contracts in the bank and wait until 2016 (or the trade deadline in 2015 if things are going better than expected). In the meantime, try out the rookies (Vargas, Sano, Buxton, Pinto) and take flyers on some AAAA players. Remember, Jose Bautista, Chris Davis, Nelson Cruz, Brandon Moss, Chris Davis, Dallas Keuchel, Colin McHugh, and Tyson Ross were all picked up for next to nothing. If they can find one or two of these guys it could set us up for 2016 to sign a few vets and compete. The Twins can offer playing time at several positions after this year if we don't lock ourselves into expensive veterans with limited upside in 2015, which will probably be another rebuilding year. *All stats come from Baseball Reference and FanGraphs. Note: I apologize for the lack of formatting in the data, I realize it makes the data much harder to read. I made several attempts to align the data to make it easier to read but it would always get reset by the blog editor prior to publishing. If anybody knows how to construct/import tables in TD's blogging application, feel free to PM me.

Great recap. Thanks Eric!!

I really enjoyed the Winter Meltdown event and am looking forward to the pub crawl. I'd probably try to make more online hangout sessions but having two young kids makes carving out evening time while being at home essentially impossible. Overall, if there were more events I would try to make them, but I understand its tough cause most of us have day jobs and busy schedules. Another option might be to encourage (allow?) users to set up (unofficial) mini-events of their own… like “heading to a Twins game on 8/20, drinks before at Masons, notify by 8/13 and we’ll get a block of tickets” or “Twins watching party at BW3 in Burnsville on 8/20… post if you’re interested, first round is on TD! ” I think a fantasy league next year might be fun, probably have to run it through Yahoo or something but still, could be fun. I have an idea for an Armchair GM type of game too, but don’t have the programming skills or time to commit to it. I think that could be really fun though, since the majority of the forum posts probably have to do with roster construction. Thinking bigger, maybe this could be developed into a platform with other possibilities beyond TD. How about a more identifiable logo to use as a signaling device? Put put them on hats (with your nickname?), or shirts, or stickers, or other stuff so people who frequent the site can identify other Twins nerds. Might need to expand the store but it’s an idea. One of my favorite shirts is from a BYTO post that compared Nick Punto to a washed shirt. It was so brilliant, I had to get it, just wish I could remember who wrote it. How about a good old fashioned membership drive? Not like the kind NPR has, but something to recruit new users/readers. Encourage users to invite friends (facebook makes that easy). The Gameday publication could do that, though that is a huge undertaking in itself. Would the Twins let you hang posters at Target Field (for a price?). I’m sure we could crowdsource some clever designs. A map of TD users? Depends on people’s level of comfort with privacy, but it could make ride shares to events/games easier. If you can’t tell I’m throwing spaghetti at the wall here. But maybe something will stick. That’s all I can think of for now. Overall the site is awesome.

He didn't execute the bunt when we needed him to but I thought his swings looked pretty good last night, plus he can flat out fly. Wow. But yeah, if Santana is playing CF, where does he play? Anyway, I think he can be a pretty good 4th/5th OF and pinch runner. Way better than Mastroianni, maybe as good as Fuld, we'll see.

I think it also points out just how poor the front office has been at signing free agents, something you don't need a terrific table like this to tell you. The other clubs who spent relatively close to the same was OAK, Toronto, KC, and Tampa Bay. I might buy the explanation that for much of this time the Twins were trapped in stadium resembling a plastic grocery bag, so they weren't going to get a deal on FA's. Course Oakland's Coliseum is no palace either, but hey, it's CA. But that said, the A's and the Rays got nearly twice as much WAR out of their free agents as the Twins, while spending a similar amount. It's black and white, TR and BS have been dreadful in terms of spending the owner's money wisely. Why on earth wouldn't ownership make TR head of scouting (or some such title) and install a new GM to handle FA analysis/signing? Instead they bring him back and installed one of "his guys" as GM after he retired? So weird.