Teflon

Thanks for all the hard work Tom. Your recaps were a great addition to the this site. Hopefully the Twins give you a few more wins to work with next year.

Even if the Twins were to suddenly reach an Astros-like competence in player development by Tuesday, the front office's derailed build-from-the-draft strategy will take how many more seasons now? For at least two good reasons, the Twins should be doing everything possible to win in 2019 - not 2022. 1 - The AL Central is pure crap at the moment and the Twins get 76 games against it. 2- If ticket sales drop any more, the Twins will start ripping out seats from the upper deck like Cleveland.

Twins biggest off-season need: Replacement season ticket holders.

Unless the MLB equivalent of Steve Kerr is just sitting out there somewhere, replacing Molitor isn't the most pressing concern facing this team. (Or necessarily a concern at all.) This Twins' front office philosophy has looked to emulate an Astros-type model built around a core of high draft picks that the team can control for a number of years. I don't know why this should be lauded as it is definitely the least work and cheapest thing an organization can do. 1. Suck for a number of years. 2. Stockpile a lot of high draft choices 3. Develop them (The only aspect that requires skill or effort) 4 Sit back and control their MLB careers for six years. Unfortunately, the part involving the skill and effort the Twins appear to be reasonably bad at. We've waited long enough, haven't we? More than a manager change, the front office needs a philosophical change. They may have begun to show an admission of these shortcomings with the number of minor league players from other organizations that they've been adding. Additionally, the front office should now be a lot more willing to trade higher-ceiling prospects for lower-ceiling established players. I realize this adds more opportunity to look bad as a GM and requires more deft maneuvering than just sucking, drafting and waiting. Hopefully this front office is as impatient as we are.

In 2010, I was breathing in that new concrete smell at Target Field, staring out at the downtown vista and thinking, 'Wow, this team is really put together well" We had added J.J. Hardy, Orlando Hudson and Jim Thome to an already strong nucleus of Morneau, Mauer, Cuddyer and Span. The pitching staff was effective, if not flashy (outside of Liriano who could still dazzle) and the bullpen of Guerrier, Crain and Duensing kept the Twins in enough games for each of the Twins five starters plus Crain to post 10 or more wins that year. Fast forward to July 7th. 2010 - a day that will live in Twinfamy. Morneau gets kneed in the head and, from that point onward, the bright future and promise of the 2010 Twins comes apart like a truck tire disintegrating after a blowout. Whether from more unforeseen injury (Mauer's concussion and exit from catching) or an inexplicable fixation on Asian free agents, the team's recent history reads like The Fall of the House of Usher. (No, not the singer's crib, the Poe story - read a book!) There have been an isolated pair of fluky competitive years since then, as if the fates of baseball tried to urge the Twins forward by ignoring the usual law of averages for things like batting average with runners in scoring position or by turning a blind eye as some first-year players posted Ruthian BABIPs (before regressing back to the inevitable mean) but even those cosmic nudges couldn't set the Twins franchise back on its once-promising course. Perhaps ending this long strange disappointing trip requires an event of equal and complimentary force to the July 10th, 2010 singularity. I've already witnessed one such event in the Twins past - it occurred on May 8th, 1984 and set the Twins on the path to two World Series. I'm hoping to see another before this Twins baseball depression spans a decade.

Consequences of reducing the pitching staffs would not be immense or mysterious since 95% of baseball history incorporated this. The true unintended consequences are what's occurring in today's game. Teams will mange the reduction in pitching staff size to the least detriment possible so will either impact the appearances with the smallest innings footprints or the least game leverage consequence. (one-hitter-only relief appearances; 3-run-lead save opportunities) The 3+ relievers that it currently takes to complete a game would taper back to something like 2.5 with the added innings burden most likely being an increase in the number of 80 IP middle relievers. Also, the injury increase worry can be addressed by just comparing the 90s and 2000s - when there actually were fewer pitchers used per game - to today. Are less pitchers losing time to the DL today than they were then? Are Tommy John surgeries any less frequent?

The advanced analytics that have led teams to limit pitchers' exposure in games and employ stifling defensive shifts have, in turn, led to batters increasing launch angles in attempts to to maximize their declining contact. While these may be effective measures / counter measures to optimize for wins, they do not optimize for entertainment value. Quite the opposite. At-bats become bloated with more pitches. Fewer at-bats result in the ball being put in play, and so on and so on. It's time for there to be some measures to save baseball from itself. Why not a rule that two infield defenders have to be stationed on each side of 2B at all times? Football mandates 7 men on the line of scrimmage and basketball prohibits defenders camping inside the lane. Why should baseball NOT have positioning rules to maintain similar balances between offense and defense in THEIR games? Baseball has also demonstrated that the ever increasing number of pitchers on a staff has to be limited to something like 10. That would cut down the number of pitching moves managers could make, would force pitchers to pitch to more batters, (could potentially lessen arm injuries as pitchers pace themselves once more), would lead to fewer pitches per at-bat, would remove the worst pitchers in the league, would add more bench batters to negate righty-lefty pitching changes, ultimately lead to more balls put in play - all good things. Restrictions would need to be put in place to keep teams from running an underground railroad of fresh pitchers back and forth to the minors - exposing a player to waivers if he's had more than X number of call-ups and demotions in a year would seem to solve that. These are both simple changes that don't alter the fundamentals of the game a bit. Just the aesthetics. I get that for the 30 GMs and Managers an unwatchable win is a preferred outcome to an entertaining loss - but the capital they need to operate flows through the fans, and if the fans go way - what was the point?

Unfortunately, I have already reached phase one where I am no longer conflicted about upcoming hoop-dee-doos that may conflict with Twins games. Phase two, where I spend more time tracking metro area bear sightings than looking through box scores, follows in short order.

With more pitchers at their disposal, managers pull starters earlier and make more situational pitching substitutions in late innnings. If the number of pitchers is decreased, these numbers also decrease.

...at an average of 3 hours and 16 minutes, they ARE long. The average Twins game wraps up in a not-so-brisk brisk 3 hours and 16 minutes – the longest average game time in the MLB this year. A length of time in which you could individually microwave 245 corn dogs or complete the Boston Marathon AND watch two episodes of Cheers while you rehydrate. This is not to say the Twins are a pokey team. Due to extra innings, they’ve pitched more innings per game than any other team except the Cardinals. Their games have featured more combined plate appearances (79) than any other team except the White Sox. If you were to look at things at a more comparable level, say average time per plate appearance the Twins are only 5 seconds in excess of the MLB average. Of course there are only 14 seconds of variation between the quickest team per plate appearance, Kansas City, and the slowest, the Los Angeles Dodgers – meaning that if every team played at the Royals pace, the average MLB game would still only be ten minutes shorter, 2:55 instead of 3:05. Based on the above figures, pace-of-play rules alone don’t have enough ceiling room to make much of a difference. In order to do that, baseball has to address the two huge trends that are consistently lengthening the games each year. These are: 1. Number of pitches per at-bat. Currently at 3.90, this number was 3.75 in 2000 and 3.61 in 1990. Largely a product of the increasing strikeout rate which is currently 8.25, up from 6.45 in 2000 and 5.67 in 1990. 2. Number of pitching changes per game. Currently at 3.22 (per team), this number was 2.54 in 2000 and 2.02 in 1990. While baseball purists pooh-pooh any notion that the game needs shortening, (“What global warming?”) I doubt those purists actually are enthusiastic about these trends continuing and baseball getting more and more slogged down. While any number of extreme remedies could be imposed - from limiting 3rd strike foul balls to adjusting the strike zone, there is another solution that addresses the trends without fundamentally changing any part of the game play, number of innings or on-field rules - and is actually quite simple to implement. Limit the number of pitchers on the pitching staff. Eleven seems like a nice number. Ten would be better – but I’d settle for twelve for now and work downward over a couple of years. With a shorter bullpen, managers will make fewer pitching substitutions. Of course that also means each pitcher has to throw more innings now, right? What about injuries? Well, if pitchers continue to throw every pitch like it’s the last pitch in the World Series, yes, injuries would increase. If, however, they go back to pacing themselves accordingly (as pitchers used to do in the pre-internet 6 Ks per 9 inning days) they should actually reduce some of the wear and tear. A pitcher pacing himself also leads to the much desired outcomes of making strikeouts less prevalent and lessening the number of pitches thrown per at-bat. Scoring should rise as result, too, and the bulk of persons comprising a team's paid attendance are not averse to scoring. The pitchers teams would give up under this change are, literally, the worst pitchers in the league. The quality of the game should actually be improved by not having them around. (And yes, there will need to be some type of rule to keep teams from running an underground railroad of call-ups and demotions to continually restock the pitching staff with rested arms.) Unless the MLB were to trim total roster size along with this, limiting the pitching staff would also mean another bat or two on the bench. (Gardy could carry that 3rd catcher!) Teams could cover more lefty-righty matchups and make greater use of defensive substitutions. There could be more opportunities for 30-something veterans to stay in the game instead of becoming "special advisers." I’m interested in your feedback. Why is this a bad idea?

Mike Zunino was the third overall pick in the June 2012 draft. The Twins, if you remember, had the second overall pick that year and chose a fella named Buxton. If you could redraft, would you take Zunino over Buxton?

Note: I have Mike Moustakas on my fantasy team, the Tequila Mockingbirds.

The key is not to have runners in scoring position. Just drive them in from first base.

I noticed Lance Lynn is wearing New Balance shoes. Do you think that allows him to find his balance point better? Does anyone make "Downward Plane" shoes? If not, these might be worth a shot.

I dislike both cats and dogs if only for all the lazy and unimaginative minor league teams that simply append a "Cat" or "Dog" at the end of a drab word to come up with a team name. FIsher Cats, Muckdogs, Rock Cats, River Dogs, Hillcats, Sea Dogs, River Cats, Valley Cats, Doggy Cats, etc. I conversely applaud the minor league team that puts some effort into the naming process and comes up with a unique name to grab your attention - the Gwinnett Strippers, for instance.

PS - I promise my negativity will only be of the soft-nosed variety.

The Mariners are 29-20 and in second place in the AL West, 3 games behind the Astros. The Twins, despite being 3 games UNDER .500 are only a game and a half out of first place in the AL Central. I call that relevant baseball. (Thank you, Cleveland!)

6 non-competitive starts out of 8. If the Twins haven't formed an opinion, there can't be too much more they need to see.

I remember reading somewhere that, as a player, Quilici was a Billy Martin favorite. It may have been in the Jim Theilman book about the '65 Twins - but I'm not sure. Martin was the 3B coach on the '65 team and Quilici came up in July that year and ended up starting in the World Series when Jerry Kindall got injured. (The eventual end to Kindall's MLB career - although he went on to be a legendary college coach at Arizona) Quilici would have also played for Billy when Martin managed the team in 1969. Does anyone else recall this?

Question - is the money owed Hughes recouped in some portion by the Twins from insurance if he is injured? Does this then incentivize the team to pitch him until he breaks down again?

One weird stat is that the Twins starting pitchers' batting average against on balls in play is an oddly low .278 while the Twins bullpen's BABIP is an abnomally high .348. Normally this number ends up close to .300 for teams and leagues and nearly all pitchers not named Kershaw or Sherzer. (Last year it was .299 for Twins starters and .296 for Twins relievers) I don't know what to make of that, exactly. If it was attributable to bad alignment on defense - or something controllable like that - it should affect the starters, too, but it hasn't. They seem blessed with some better-than-usual luck. Considering Berrios, Orodizzi and Gibson still all have ERAs under 4 with the battering the Twins have taken, this doesn't seem outside the realm of rational thought. Once the relievers' BABIPs start regressing toward the inevitable .300, things should stabilize - providing thestaff can keep the controllables - HRs and walks - reasonable.

Mauer's unique set of accomplishments puts him in a select group of players. The most comparable player to Joe in the context of these is Larry Walker who also won a triple-slash title, three batting titles, an MVP award and a number of Gold Gloves. Walker finished his career with 2,160 hits and spent a good deal of his career playing in an offensive-skewed ballpark in Colorado, which is why his Hall of Fame voting results have been low. (Although improving as of late) [Obviously the Gold Glove award and MVP did not exist for some or part of these earlier 20th century players.]

Very interesting read - although to me, pitch framing is sort of like turning double plays. It's dependent on an opportunity for it to occur before it can occur - and those opportunities vary depending on the quality of the pitching staff and the mix of home plate umpires involved. (Framing should be adjusted for umpires and pitchers just like hitting stats are adjusted for ballpark and era.)