Teflon

[ATTACH=CONFIG]3618[/ATTACH] The Twins started the 1980 season with a 12-game west coast road trip and didn't open at Metropolitan Stadium until late in April. I was going to college in Minneapolis at the time and when the day of the home opener dawned warm & sunny, there was no mistaking mother nature's intent for me to go to the ballpark and not my Tuesday classes. A buddy of mine had reached a similar conclusion so, seeing as I had the wheels, (a sweet mint green '73 Nova) we hit Zip's Liquor Store for a cooler of cold ones and Clark's Subs for sustenance and cruised down to Met Stadium for a day of tailgating and Twins baseball. Temps were already in the 80's and traffic was heavy as every college student in the Twin Cities and half the state workers had been likewise seduced. We inched the last half-mile down Cedar with our windows cranked down and stereos cranked up. We weren't worrying that it was taking forever to get into the Met parking lot, because, hell, it just felt awesome to sit and bake in the sun in the car for a while. One-by-one, we finally got in, paid our $2 to park and found our way to the grinning Indian sign in the Cleveland section of the lot. Darn racist, we often admitted, but sure easy to spot. We got in line to get tickets ($4 unreserved bleachers behind 3rd base) and went back to the vicinity of the Nova to kibbutz and nosh and quaff. There were already great smells and great sounds and Frisbees everywhere. We opened the trunk, got out the cooler, and set about formally making some toasts. To the weather. The girls in tube tops. Bombo Rivera... It's about this time that the details start getting less distinct. I recall the Twins started their crafty lefty Geoff Zahn. I don't recall the Angels' starter but in looking it up on Baseball Reference see that it was Dave Frost, who had pitched a 10-inning 4-hitter against the Twins a week earlier in Anaheim. No such luck for Frost in the rematch. Roy Smalley hit a 2-run homer in the bottom of the first and Minnesota never trailed after, adding 6 more runs on home runs by Hosken Powell and Ron "Papa Jack" Jackson, a double by Rob Wilfong and base hit by Butch Wynegar. Zahn went the distance, giving up only one run and 6 hits. I would have tacked onto the end of the previous sentence "sending the 36,268 in attendance home happy" but for the fact that the Twins, not envisioning 90-degree weather on the 22nd of April, grossly underestimated the walk-up sales and the beer supply required, exhausting their supply long before satisfying demand. This, of course, led to friction in the cases of the less-than-adequately lubricated fans. At least those who didn't have the foresight to stop at Zip's. I've had memorable, enjoyable, drama-filled games at the Metrodome and Target Field that I wouldn't mind reliving but to be 21 and do April 22nd, 1980 over again, would be my favorite, I think. Postscript: I saw on the box score on Baseball Reference that this game was protested by the Angels. Unless they were miffed by the Twins running out of beer I don't remember why this was. Anyone remember?

The Twins Play the Game the Right Way The Twins were always credited with good fundamentals on defense during their winning seasons. While pitching and injuries were blamed for the horrid season in 2011 and mostly just pitching in 2012, the media was still praising the team for playing the game "the right way" even though the Twins also really stunk on defense. (-55 runs in Zone Total Fielding Runs Above Average for those two years)

Eb and Flo http://hall-fame.com/eb_flo.jpg

In looking at average team WAR in the American League over the 11 years of the Gardenhire era, we see consistent yearly offensive values of +19 wins, pitching values of +13 wins, and fielding values of zero. Comparing the Twins’ performances in each of the Gardenhire seasons to those averages gives us a quick picture of the successes or failures each season and how the offensive, pitching, and fielding prowess of the Twins has trended. 2004-2006. Do I need to say it? Johan Santana was one helluva pitcher. He alone tacked on another 10+ wins to the Twins bottom line in each of the years from 2004 to 2006. With Joe Nathan arriving in 2004 to close out games, this may have been the best stretch of pitching in Twins history. Unfortunately, Twins bats were below league average in two of those seasons. The one year they did manage to field an average offense, 2006, the Twins won 96 games. In my biased remembrance, however, I thought the bats were prodigious that year - Mauer and Morneau each with OPS’s over .900, Cuddyer and Hunter combining to drive in 200 runs. Problem was, the rest of the league was equally as prodigious. The Twins scored 801 runs. The league average was 804. One more banger in the lineup instead of the at-bats taken up by Tony Batista or Rondell White or Lew Ford and maybe the 2006 Twins could have done better than a three-and-out vs. Oakland in the playoffs. 2008-2010. Morneau and Mauer continued to punish the ball when healthy and Cuddyer was his usual self, but throw in Jason Kubel emerging in 2008 and 2009 and some Jim Thome mojo in 2010 and this was the best offensive production compared to the rest of the league of the Gardenhire era. 2010 was, in fact, the peak of output for Gardy’s tenure (+24.9 WAR) despite how much Target Field was maligned as being unfriendly to hitters. Of course WAR is a weirdly constrained stat in that it starts with the team’s wins and reverse engineers itself. Offense or pitching can produce some inflated WAR numbers when the team wins despite what the actual run production was. In 2010, the offense scored 781 runs, fewer than in 2006 - but now above a league average that had dropped to 721 runs per team. (Does anyone else think it’s significant that league average runs declined by 10% in 4 years?) Anyway, if it was the Twins’ intention to build toward having their best all-around team for the opening of the new ballpark, they succeeded. Both their pitching and offense were strong in 2009 and 2010 – the only years of the Gardenhire era that both were at such levels simultaneously. 2005. The Gardenhire era’s best fielding team in a WAR-sense (+3.2) and the worse offensive team. (+6.9) Many of the same players can take credit for both accomplishments: Nick Punto, Juan Castro, and Jason Bartlett. This season was a point of departure for the club as, for the next 6 years, the Twins’ defensive WAR trends downward while the offensive WAR trends upward. The defense actually falls below the AL team average in 2008 and doesn’t rise back above until 2012. Coincidentally, Delmon Young’s service with the Twins coincides with the defensive depression from 2008 to 2011 when he posted WAR values in the field of -1.9 in 2008, -1.2 in 2009, -1.9 in 2010, and -0.5 in a half-season in 2011. Considering that defensive WAR is weighted by the relative importance of defensive positions so that corner outfield spots are attributed the least, Young’s numbers are even more staggering. (Staggering also often described his routes to fly balls in LF) 2012. With a modicum of pitching last year, the Twins could have been an okay team. Their offense rebounded nicely from 2011 to produce at league average and their defense improved considerably. Actually, considering the low win total to start the defensive calculation from, a fielding WAR of +2.6 compared to -7.7 the year before is a monumental turnaround. The middle infield defense of Jamey Carroll, Alexi Casilla, and Pedro Florimon were nearly +5 wins in 2012 while the 2011 combination of Nishioka, Tolbert, Plouffe, and Casilla was -2.8. Losing Jason Kubel’s and Delmon Young’s defense in the outfield in favor of Ben Revere and increased Span innings also didn’t hurt. While I thought the 2012 defense was just okay, these comparisons make me think better of it. [ATTACH=CONFIG]3022[/ATTACH]

Originally, I was curious to see how the number of defensive chances handled by outfielders have changed over the years. Using the Lahman database, I summed all putouts, errors, and assists credited among the three outfield positions each season and divided by their sum of innings-played-outs times 27 outs times the 3 positions. This gave me the following trend since 1954 when the data started being available in the Lahman database: [ATTACH=CONFIG]2953[/ATTACH] I saw three trends in this information. The number of chances handled by outfielders per game declined from the mid 50s to the mid 60s. The number of chances handled by outfielders rose steadily from the mid 60s to the mid 70s and then maintained a 20-year plateau. The number of chances handled by outfielders has been declining since the early 90s. In thinking about what could be causing the trends, some occurrence of the following factors seemed likely: expansion in the 60s, changes to the pitching mound in the 60s, the introduction of the DH in the AL in the 70s, the influx of new large multi-sport stadiums in 70s, the emergence of artificial turf in the 70s, the abandonment of large multi-sport stadiums and Astroturf for smaller ballparks and more natural grass in the 90s and 2000s, and expansion in the 90s. I assumed that some Ks in the AL form the pitchers batting would be converted to IF or OF chances and that the multisport stadiums created more opportunities for outfielders than their preceding ballparks due to more foul ground, deeper dimensions, and more balls getting through the infield due to Astroturf. Subsequently, it seemed logical then that as the next wave of ballpark design took over, the outfield numbers would dip again as more and more teams went back to ballparks with natural grass, less foul territory, and generally smaller dimensions. I then wanted to see how the total chances for infielders and catchers reacted over the same period to see if this supported the outfield assumptions. [ATTACH=CONFIG]2954[/ATTACH] The variation in the outfield total chances over the years has been offset by opposite variances in the catchers’ total chances. The two together have been gently climbing, however, with the somewhat shocking result that infielders have seen a steady decline from around 24 total chances per game in the early 80s to nearly 3 fewer per game at present. Situational pitching may be affecting the trends as well. Teams generally carried only 10 pitchers into the 80s meaning starters went longer into games and relievers’ stints were longer, too. The move to larger pitching staffs somewhat increases the likelihood of strikeouts. Will the trend of baseball producing fewer chances for infielders continue to the point where the majority of putouts are eventually K’s or fly balls prompting teams to eventually employ new defensive alignments? (Something like the Thome shift becomes the norm?)

Sorry to hear of his passing. Strange indeed how he talked about the very scenario of his motorcycle accident and death on his last radio show.

And I would respectfully contend that Greinke is only consistent when he isn't being inconsistent. (Compare his 2009 to his 2010 or his ERA's ballooning over 5.00 in both July and August this year) I do see the advantage of having a Verlander or a Sabathia but to put Greinke on that plateau is being overly generous, especially considering pitchers V and S are both all-out gamers while Greinke has a history of being a less-than-uplifting teammate and emotionally fragile. He will get paid (overpaid) big dollars by somebody, but in the Twins case, it would cripple their ability to address other roster deficiencies.

Greinke has never won more than 16 games in a season. For the same money they'd end up paying a year for Greinke, the Twins could sign two competent 12-14 game winners.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]2592[/ATTACH] As reported in the Detroit Free Press, Tigers' GM Dave Dombrowski (who I occasionally confuse with this guy or this guy) announced that the Tigers weren't planning to bring back American League Championship Series MVP Delmon Young next season. Young, playing out a 1-year 6.75 million dollar contract, hit .267/.296/.411 in 151 games for the Tigers in 2012 with 18 HR, 74 RBI and a 20/112 walks-to-strikeouts rate. He began the season as Detroit's starting left fielder but was soon swapped with Andy Dirks and moved to DH limiting his defensive "exposure" to only 31 games. Delmon negated some of his lackluster performance over the regular season by putting together his best stretch of baseball in the postseason. Young went 6 for 17 with a pair of homeruns and 6 RBI in the ALCS and 5 for 14 with another homeun in the World Series. I'm assuming that Dombrowski and the Tigers saw beyond Young's one atypical week and a half of October hitting and instead saw a player who at only 27 can no longer can play defense and who produced worse offensive results over the 25 weeks of the regular season than the proverbial "replacement player." (-1.2 WAR) I'm assuming that unlike a lot of casual fans, the Tigers front office has not forgotten about this little incident, either. Who is the real Delmon Young? Is he a much-talented player that squandered what could have been a great career through indifference and an unstable temperament - or a vastly overrated prospect that couldn't live up to unrealistic expectations? (And what lies ahead for Delmon?)

[ATTACH=CONFIG]2259[/ATTACH] My Twins season ticket renewal package arrived today in the mail. As per usual it's a beautiful and oversized PR masterpiece "dedicated to the greatness of our season ticket holders." In an attempt to come up with a theme to convince us to once again fill the seats at Target Field, the Twins are appealing to our loyalty for 2013. "There will be ups," the packet says. "There will be downs... Yet at the end of the day, the uniform remains." Many of us will be considering in the next few weeks whether this rather major investment is one we want to make again in 2013. The Twins are banking on us (literally) to choose to re-up, but indications are that a pair of sub-70 win seasons have quickly cooled our infatuations. But to what extent? In looking back at the history of the enormous wave of baseball-only ballpark construction that began with new Comiskey Park in 1991 and beautiful Camden Yards in Baltimore the next year, the question is just how quickly the novelty wears off of these new ballparks and when we might start seeing attendance levels more directly tied to the on-field product. To answer this, I looked at the average attendance per game in the first season that each new park was open and used this as a baseline to index the subsequent attendances for the next 10 years of each park. If a team drew 40,000 per game the first year and 32,000 the next year, for example, that would be an index of 80. Excluding Target Field, the average attendance index for all new ballparks opened since 1991 (20 total) goes in this sequence: 1st year - 100 (obviously), then 91, 87, 87, 88, 86, 85, 87, 81, 75. Since this includes teams that have both played well initially in their new parks like Cleveland and Atlanta as well as those that played poorly like Pittsburgh and Detroit, the effects of wins and losses are somewhat countered. I think it's safe to say that about 10-15 percent of the fan base at a new stadium will erode in the first couple of years unless the team plays great. We've seen that pattern repeated at Target Field as the Twins index based on per-game attendance has been 100 in 2010, 98 last year and 88 in the games played this year. Looking ahead, I tried to identify the teams and ballparks opened previously that had the best similarities in their first three year attendance trends to the Twins and came up with Atlanta, Cincinnati, Houston, and San Diego as the most similar. While they all played slightly better baseball than the Twins, they seemed to be consisitent enough from year-to-year in wins and losses that I trust their attendances to be indicative of their fans' levels of interest as the ballpark stops being a novelty. Their trends tended to mirror the overall average for the first 4 or five years, but then dipped farther below the rest around year 6. I look for the Twins to be more like this group. 2013 and 2014 should continue to see crowds of 80% to 85% of capacity eventually dropping and leveling out another 5% to 10% lower, assuming the Twins don't do something crazy like winning 100 games. The attendance indices for the first 10 years of each ballpark along with their number of wins is shown in the chart below. Some data for ballparks that opened in the 90s is affected by the strike of 94 and 95. I noted these figures in red. [ATTACH=CONFIG]2260[/ATTACH]

A pitcher who puts a larger proportion of his baserunners on via walks compared to hits should strand a higher percentage than pitchers who's ratio is more skewed to hits since walks only advance runners a base at a time. I made this observation in another post and was skoffed at. Explain to me the fault in this logic.

By 2014 we probably also would have gotten him to convert those bombs he hits into opposite-field doinks, instead.

Blackburn's and Nishioka's bad performances are significantly more chronic than just a "rough spell at your job" to use your analogy. To put it in more accurate terms of those real world jobs, If the Twins were Allstate Insurance, Blackburn would be the salesman with the lowest sales totals for the last two years - not in the company - but in the entire insurance industry. If Nishioka waited tables at Applebees's he would try to hit on your wife, mess up your dinner order and then spill your tray of dishes on the way out from the kitchen. Employers don't hesitate to dismiss those kinds of employees rather quickly. The main thing keeping the Twins from acting sooner was the financial obligation to both.

Nice piece Cody.

In Sunday's game versus the Royals, in the bottom of the 2nd, Mauer uncharacteristically jumped on Bruce Chen's first pitch to him in the 2nd inning, sending a deep shot to straight-away CF that was caught at the track. In Mauer's remaining at-bats, the KC pitchers went to 2-0 counts in all three, not coming in with any first-pitch strikes. To me, it seemed similar to showing bunt to get the third baseman to play in farther. You're not going to bunt all the time, but you still show it sometimes to keep them guessing. I don't know if that was actually Joe's intent or if the first pitch from Chen was just unavoidably fat. Either way, it worked well for Joe in his subsequent at-bats. Of course on Friday, Mauer hit a double and a triple after first TAKING two strikes in each at-bat so it really didn't matter how the Royals started him off, I guess. His first pitch swinging percent this year is 10% which is higher than it's been since 2008. To put that in some context, however, Justin Morneau has sung at 33% of the first pitches he's seen over his career and was swinging at 43% this year. Joe has typically driven in around 18% of the batters on base when he bats. The league average is around 15%. This year Joe is driving in 20% (12 of 59) so the impression than he is leaving more men on base is false. Maybe his fails are in more dramatic situations causing the fans to perceive them more dramatically, I don't know.

No surprise. The novelty factor only lasts two years with a new ballpark. Then attendance goes back to being mostly influenced on competitiveness. The Brewers dropped from 2.8 million their first year in Miller Park to 1.7 in their third with a 68-94 record, the Pirates dropped from 2.4 million to 1.6 by their third season (75-87) at PNC, the New York Mets dropped from 3.2 million to 2.4 million by their third year (77-85) and the Tigers dropped from 2.4 million to 1.5 million by their third season in Comerica (55-106) to cite a handful of similar situations.

Pavano is probably gone either way. It would only make sense for the Twins keep him beyond the trading deadline if they were in a pennant race. Otherwise, he's a great back of the rotation add-on for some team in need. Doumit could go if there is another Buster Posey-like situation where a top-level team loses a starting catcher and the Twins could get some desperation value in return - but we wouldn't get enough back otherwise to justify the revisions to the organizational catching plans. (I'm assuming we have organizational catching plans.)

Fun to think about. You're optimistic the Twins will resign Morneau in 2014, I see. Unless he takes a pay cut, his age and likely salary ($10 million+?) would make that an uncharacteristic signing by the Twins considering their past history with players at that stage like Torii and Cuddyer. I'd more expect Mauer to fill in at 1B/DH and still catch some. The Twins also still have an option on Span in 2015, who will only be 31, so I would think it's likely he's still in the outfield somewhere. What about the pitching staff?