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The first days of school are right around the corner for many tykes in Twins Territory, so to help you with that summer reading you neglected, here's some more notes about that local best-seller: The Minnesota Twins Chapter 4: Post-All-Star Break to End of August Plot Summary: While the doldrums in Chapter 3 appeared foreboding, the climactic triumph of Glen Perkins and Brian Dozier's march to the All-Star Game (and accompanying 6-1 stretch) offered a great deal of hope to Twins fans. As I wrote then In many ways, those obstacles and conflicts are part of Chapter 4's great unraveling.... On a Summer Vacation style trip to Oakland and Los Angeles, Glen Perkins' save streak came to an abrupt end. Home series against the Yankees and Mariners didn't help matters and a swift sweep at the hands of the Blue Jays at the start of August left many people questioning whether or not the whole season was doomed. It didn't help that the Twins' attempts to bolster their squad were...underwhelming, as very few kids clutch their "Kevin Jepsen" or "Neal Cotts" trading cards. Sure enough many people targeted the bullpen as a disappointment, and the starters didn't help matters by following the struggles in Toronto by spending a weekend in Cleveland where no starter got through 4 innings. Meanwhile, in the line-up, Dozier's daunting numbers have slipped, dropping forty points in On-Base Percentage, and one-hundred points in Slugging Percentage, right when (as the pitching shows) his bat would be quite valuable. An eleven run outburst against the Rangers helped them in the Wild Card, but by the time the Twins hit New York for another series agains the Yankees the rival Royals' division lead had stretched to 12 games. After (yet another) sweep in the Bronx, that lead was 14, and even the wild card seemed out of reach. Particularly when the two All-Stars were so far from the heroes they seemed to be just months before. Or so it would have been, if another hero had not emerged over Chapter 4. Twins' fans hearts have begun to pitter-pat in a way they haven't since the days of "Baby Jesus", fittingly thanks to an Angel...or rather, an Ángel. Miguel Ángel Sanó. The burgeoning power and satisfying patience offset a strike-out happy debut, and once joined with his fellow rookie sensation Byron Buxton, Sano helped carry the Twins to a staggering 8-2 run to close out the month, with all the wins coming against fellow playoff contenders in Baltimore, Tampa Bay and Houston. http://sports.cbsimg.net/images/visual/whatshot/miguel-sano-7715.jpg Do it again Miguel! So despite the doom and gloom that pervades chapter four, again the authors' of the Twins season offer reasons to hope entering the next thrilling chapter. Main Character Development: We've mentioned the falls of both Perkins and Dozier and the plot summary referenced the rise of Sanó, but baseball seasons' don't just develop the obvious protagonists, they develop everyone. Consider Eduardo Escobar: this was a player who seemed for all the world to be an tossed-in trading chip on an insignificant deal during the middle of a lost year. A player so insignificant, that our review of the trade focused more on a poem about the departing Francisco Liriano than any reflection on who was coming over. Three years later, while the man he was traded for has been solid on the mound, Escobar has become something of a cult figure in Twins Territory, occupying a space once reserved for Nick Punto or Gene Larkin. He has out-hit Pedro Florimon, out-fielded Danny Santana, and out-everythinged potential trade bait to become the starting short stop on a play-off contender. That's a heck of a return for three months of poor performing Francisco Liriano. If you want a less optimistic development consider Ervin Santana: At the end of Chapter 3, Santana twirled a fine game against the division leading Royals, with eight strikeouts in eight innings, leaving the K deprived Twins fans eager to #SmellBaseball (and in many cases, learn what hashtags really meant). He seemed to be a bright spot on the dispiriting West Coast road trip and then spent a six game stretch allowing an average of 5 runs per start and winning exactly zero of those games. High hopes were dashed, and the cheers turned to questions about whether we had been bamboozled by steroid inflated numbers, just like Joe was hoodwinked by Samantha's 200 texts on Bachelor in Paradise (don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about). Perhaps his 10 Strikeout performance will redeem him...or perhaps he's a pineapple. http://cdn.abclocal.go.com/content/creativecontent/images/cms/936960_1280x720.jpg Pictured: The Bachelor in Paradise equivalent of Terry Ryan holding Ervin Santana. Key Quote/Stat Explained +tOPS in High Leverage At Bats +tOPS is a way to tell if a player is performing better or worse than they normally do. 100 is average, so any thing above that is good for a hitter (and bad for a pitcher), anything below 100 is bad for a hitter (and, obviously, good for a pitcher). Leverage is a means of measuring how any individual at bat can affect the outcome of the game. If a pitcher can get an out in a high leverage situation (like, say, the bases loaded with no outs and a one run lead) that's a little more important than a low leverage situation (like, say, facing the number nine-hitter with two out, nobody on, and a ten-run lead). Right at the end of Chapter 3 the Twins turned Trevor May into a relief pitcher, and while it hasn't been as narratively satisfying as some other characters' arcs, it is instructive in this situation. After all, May has pitched a lot this season, in all kinds of situations as both a starter and a reliever. In low leverage situations, he's performed like he usually does (tOPS = 104). In medium (or average) leverage situations he's performed like he usually does (tOPS = 108). In high leverage situations he has been significantly better (tOPS = 74). Those numbers are all still about average by league standards, but it suggests that Trevor May can be quite good right when the Twins need him to be (no matter which role he's pitching in). Literary Terms to Impress English Majors: If the 2015 Twins are a mystery to you, as they are to most fans, then you're ready to find out exactly what this year has been a Red Herring and what isn't. http://sweets.seriouseats.com/images/2011/10/20111028swedishfish.jpg The 2015 Twins plot points Many hard core mystery fans know to expect red herrings, or misleading clues in the course of their story, say when a suspect is called "a bad, bad man" by a trustworthy source right when the detectives are looking for a "bad, bad man". Naive readers may assume, the "bad, bad man" is the villain, trained readers know that there's something else a foot. So the best writers (or those who like messing with readers the most) enjoy piling red herring on top of red herring until you have a veritable smorgasbord of deceptive head fakes, winks, nods and suggestions leaving everyone totally bewildered. So, if you're trying to figure out your team's identity and you're perpetually bombarded by mediocrity, then brilliance, then ineptitude, you know you've got a Red Herring, you just don't know which one. The same goes for players: is Glen Perkins the shut down closer of your dreams, or an injured work horse? Is Brian Dozier an MVP candidate, or a great head of hair and a winning smile? Is Ervin Santana a disaster or a diamond? Is Neal Cotts another Bargain Bin retread, or just what the doctor ordered? The climactic chapter of the Twins' season is yet to come, all will be revealed, and all the herrings will be eaten.

Again, I've been derelict in my duty--though I was out of the country and away from reliable internets for a while there. Still were back with another nerdy English-Class style recap of the last month (plus) in Twins Territory Chapter 3: June to the All-Star Break Plot Summary: So great was the joy among fans after a shockingly strong June, that the Twins could, to many eyes, have appeared better than they actually were. So it was only slightly surprising that the team stumbled badly in June. The slide began by dropping two out of three to the Brewers (who had not been terribly impressive) at Target Field. Then the rival Royals ended the Twins' time atop the Central with a sweep (culminating in Torii Hunter's freak out) and the doldrums continued as they dropped two out of three to the Rangers, but in an effort either to stop the slide or to hold on to their quavering place in the attention of local fans the Twins called up the first of their dynamic prospects: Byron Buxton. Buxton's arrival accompanied the only Twins win in Texas, and despite two losses in St. Louis, his thrilling play and daring speed were on fine display as the team returned to the Twin Cities in excellent form evening the score against the Cardinals, several close games against the Cubs and a crushing of the White Sox. Sadly, a slide against the White Sox also crushed a bone in Buxton's thumb, and he was removed from the lineup as suddenly as he appeared. Efforts to repeat the magic on a return trip to Milwaukee by calling up another touted prospect in Alex Meyer were unsuccessful. The National League again thwarted the Twins' momentum as the Brewers and Reds squeezed the home town 9 to a paltry 4-8 record against the bottom 3 teams in the NL Central. Meyer was duly demoted and again things looked grim. The Twins went to the prospect well a third time and called up Miguel Sano for their visit to Kansas City. As a pure hitter, Sano trumped even the heralded Buxton, and his 11 game hit-streak coincided with the Twins sudden offensive rejuvenation as they finished the first half of the season on a 8-3 run, good enough to put them in 2nd place in the division and 2nd place in the entire American League. Main Character Development: The true climax of this chapter was the All-Star Game and the two Twins players who went, recognized as being among the best of the best (the 90th percentile of players in the major leagues). First and foremost, the acknowledged top closer in the league: Glen Perkins. Perkins broader acclaim was all the more note worthy for where he had come from: failed starter, unhappy demoted pitcher, after thought set-up reliever, and, as of now, owner of the best Save streak in Twins history (28 in a row). Most impressively, in this chapter of the season he faced 45 batters and allowed only 6 of them to reach base (a .133 OBP against). http://m.mlb.com/assets/images/0/3/0/136574030/cuts/MIN_1280_u7wgta3x_9w7px72h.jpg Perkins was joined in Cincinatti by second baseman Brian Dozier who was initially left off of the roster. That snub may have been the best thing for him. It begat a voting campaign (No Bull, Vote Dozier); it got his name mentioned consistently in the national press and on cable tv, and it aligned perfectly with an outburst of timely hitting including two walk-off home runs and another in the All-Star Game itself that captured a great many eyeballs across the country and began a genuine grumbling campaign that he might be the league MVP (assuming he both kept it up and found some way of getting Mike Trout to fall into a temporal vortex). What was once a cute photoshop on this blog is now a common talking point (so much so that at a wedding I attended last weekend, both the bride and my grandmother could be found discussing him). As Perkins and Dozier rise as protagonists, it will be interesting to see what obstacles and conflicts are thrown in their way to create dramatic tension for the rest of the season. Key Quote/Stat Explained: Pythagorean Winning Percentage: .528 As any fan can tell you, occasionally the better team loses. Unlucky bounces, dumb umpire calls, a slight stumble on a soggy infield, all of it can turn the game when you least expect it. So there's the Pythagorean Winning percentage, in which the square of the hypotenuse of a right tri...wait, no...that's Pythagorus' Triangle Theorem...when he was brought forward to the present by Doctors Bill S. Prescott and Theodore Logan to watch baseball and party on dude, he (and Bill James) developed an equation to measure how many games a team should win based on both their runs scored and their runs allowed. http://classicalwisdom.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/pythagoras.jpg To wit: via baseball Reference Basically dividing the (approximate) square of a team's runs scored, by the (approximate) square of their runs scored PLUS the (approximate) square of their runs allowed should yield an average result. So while many Twins fans are dancing joyously at the fact that the Twins have the second best record in the American League, our Pythagorean Winning Percentage can show whether we are really lucky, a little lucky, or even unlucky to be where we are. The Twins Pythagorean Winning Percentage is .528 (or 52.8%); their real world winning percentage is .551 (or 55.1%), so they've only been about 2.3% luckier than their run total would suggest. So they are actually a solid team with the chance to get better (unlike the White Sox who are below 500 and still 8% luckier than they ought to be). The one down side is the Twins have a lower Pythagorean Winning Percentage than 8 other teams, including three currently outside of the playoff hunt: the Orioles (7% unlucky), the Blue Jays (8% unlucky) and the Athletics (9.8% unlucky). If those teams see their records normalize a bit, and the Twins drop even a percent in their luck, people dreaming of the playoffs can put a pin in it. Literary Term to Impress English Majors: Writers throughout history have relied on a simple belief: everything's better in threes. Hence "The Rule of Three". Things are funnier, easier to remember, generally more meaningful if you combine things in threes: three volume novels; three act plays; three little pigs; three bears; I came, I saw, I conquered; stop, drop, and roll; a priest, a minister, and a rabbi It doesn't just take three things to fit the rule of three, they should be thematically connected and structured in such a way as to make meaning. So take the Twins June/July call ups: Buxton/Meyer/Sano. Buxton comes first, and excites the fan base, we need him and he looks pretty good but it's over early due to the thumb injury. Meyer comes second, the fan base is a little less excited, but there's enough mention of his pedigree, status and dominance as a reliever in AAA to make him enticing, and it's over very quickly when he gets hammered by big league bats. Sano comes last, and while he's long been one of the two big names in the Twins' system, the structure is set up to make at least a few fans regard another call-up skeptically. So his offensive outburst with power and patience seems like a pleasant surprise, even though he has always looked capable of this. Obviously, I don't think the Twins intended Buxton and Meyer to have such unpleasant endings to their Major League debuts, but if there was some sort of magical script-writing in all of this, it would be a pretty great use of the Rule of Three.

In an effort to get back in the swing of writing about the Twins consistently, I'm going back to an old well: Cliff-Notes. After all, I end up checking the cliff notes of everything book I teach for plagiarism, I figure this is just getting ahead of the curve. (For the start on cliff-notes I made before September crushed my baseball loving soul click here) With that, let's start looking at Volume 2 of the Twins' Cliff Notes Chapter 1: "April" Plot Summary: With the traditional exposition of some vague optimism and pledges to change, the Twins opened the season with a crushingly grim display of flaccid and ineffective play culminating in a cascade of boos during the home opener. Faced with trying times, the Twins responded with muted resolve. They continued down the pre-ordained path, changing players only when forced by injuries rather than performance. New leader Paul Molitor remained enigmatic, occasionally catering to long standing pleas from fans (eg. for platooning, against myopic use of closers), but frequently maintaining longstanding habits (eg. valuing experience over upside, offering limited knowledge of advanced statistics). The players themselves were similarly nonplussed. The biggest news seemed to be that heroic Joe Mauer had grown a beard. Phil Hughes pitched well but failed to win enough games to earn the undying affection of the faithful. Returning favorites such as Torii Hunter, Glen Perkins and Brian Dozier were solid but not sensational. Promising prospects such as Danny Santana and Kennys Vargas regressed. New team members like Blaine Boyer and Shane Robinson did not win any fans or burn any bridges. At the very end of the month a silver lining emerged, the Twins beat their rival White Sox handily. They beat the White Sox best pitcher (Chris Sale) emphatically. And in the eyes of fans throughout Twins Territory a small glimmer shone as if to say, "well, at least there was that" http://stmedia.startribune.com/images/883*549/08-584722%202TWIN050115.jpg Main Character Development: With so much affirming of the way things have been (from Terry Ryan to Joe Mauer to Phil Hughes) and too little to develop a complete assessment on new people (Molitor, Boyer, Robinson), the greatest development came from an unlikely source. Trevor Plouffe was not terribly impressive, but he was, also, not terrible. His consistent growth into a consistent presence has been satisfying, not sensational, but satisfying. His defense is competent, his pitch selection is solid and his willingness to meet league wide standards is gratifying. For a man whose errant throws and questionable swing choices led many to beat their heads against their coffee tables at home and their seat mates at the stadium, this is impressive growth. He has, in effect, completed the same transformation as Neville Longbottom does in the first four Harry Potter books: from punchline to consistent presence. This is the first significant step on the road to heroism, whether it happens with us or with another team is a matter for Chapter 4 (July/the Trading Deadline) http://media23.onsugar.com/files/2011/07/28/2/301/3019466/0e6c50e05413f3b1_Neville-before-and-after/i/Matthew-Lewis-Pictures.jpg Trevor Plouffe as a rookie (L), and in two years ® Key Quote/Stat Explained: SO/BB v.s. W-L. Phil Hughes' Strike out to Walk Ratio in April was 13, that's two K's better than his record setting 2014. Yet over that time his record was an underwhelming 0-4. While these bloggers are often preaching to the choir, it doesn't take much to acknowledge that Hughes pitched far better than his record would suggest and that, popular though they are among lay-fans, a pitchers' record has very little to do with their over all performance. Literary Term to Impress English Majors: If you've ever willingly hung around self-important pseudo intellectuals you've heard people talk about how cliche certain things can be. Basically criticizing anything so overused and overdone that it loses all meaning: like how inspiring teams begin from humble beginnings or how self-important pseudo-intellectuals always call things "cliche". http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/darkandstormy_5013.jpg The Twins opening a season with a run of terrible play was certainly cliche for a team with four straight 90 loss seasons, the baseball equivalent of starting a novel with the line: "it was a dark and stormy night". But a cliche can have power if, instead of following the familiar pattern (team grows, learns and overcomes the odds to win), it inverts things (refusing to change, continuing to struggle, willingly accepting mediocre play to gain the ultimate rewards of change--either in personnel or in management). So, yes, the Twins played cliche ball in April, which means they've got us exactly where they want us.

Chs. 4-5: July and August The fledgling, flickering hope alive in the hearts of the Twins and their fans at the end of June was doused with the frigid realization of inadequacy. The pivotal moment established by the previous chapters' foreshadowing was for the "All-Star Game" to be held in the middle of July. http://www2.pictures.zimbio.com/gi/Kurt+Suzuki+85th+MLB+Star+Game+m2g5VjqmdOnl.jpg Yay! The Party's Over!! In hosting the party, the Twins had their moment to seize relevance and prominence, to rise up to a stature and status which has so frequently seemed out of their reach. When they threw the doors open to their guests they were confronted with the truth that they cannot hope to compete with the shining stars of the baseball firmament. Like Tom Buchanan in The Great Gatsby or the Narrator in Proust's In Search of Lost Time the Twins are party-goers without an ounce of composure or self-reliance. Hidden away in a corner of their stadium until the final moments, they emerge just in time to see the celebration end. Yet when everyone leaves, the team collapses into a disheartened funk. Pulling themselves out of the doldrums to win just 3 of the next 10 games, leaving their fans disappointed and the team itself broken. But, in a cruel twist of fate, the team is not allowed to creep back into anonymity, awaiting another spring and fresh start. Instead they are subjected to an extended August road trip, through the repeated self-flagellation of sporadic hitting and consistently implosive pitching. Moments of triumph (including an outburst of 32 runs against a vaunted Tigers team) are tempered by the now blatantly inverted hierarchy of the team's past glory, as former fools and patsies the Kansas City Royals repeatedly batter the squad. Character Development Kendrys Morales/Sam Fuld/Kevin Correia/Josh Willingham--These chapters are often paired together because they feature the departures of four previously significant characters. Each of these characters was fraught with contradictions that are both enticing to some readers and maddening to others (witness the previously mentioned Morales and his dualism: i.e. symbol of contender status/presence on a losing team). Tellingly, when each character exits the team clubhouse these moments aren't regarded with celebration, despair, or even much surprise. Instead they appear to be the annual sacrifices to whatever deity drives Twins' Baseball operations: a constant memento mori for their teammates and a simple transaction to their fans. http://cache1.asset-cache.net/gc/453420426-kennys-vargas-and-danny-santana-of-the-gettyimages.jpg?v=1&c=IWSAsset&k=2&d=GkZZ8bf5zL1ZiijUmxa7Qbr3ZJ4V4kmpG%2Bmu7qkubMtcEetrC9464mFqVoA11h8k Bam-Bam & Dan-San Kennys Vargas/Danny Santana--While all the fixation on veterans around the trade deadline, and in the departure gates of the Minnesota airports serves to bring a glowering gloom over everyone, two of the most prominent replacements offer hope and opportunity. Kennys Vargas and Danny Santana (substituting in for Kendrys Morales/Sam Fuld respectively) also feature prominently in this volume's awareness of cultural differences, shifting the clubhouse away from non-descript veteran white guys to young latino players, a mirroring of the nation's demographics as a whole. Trevor May--While Vargas and Santana emerge as options within the line-up, May is an intriguing study in the cyclical nature of expectations and reactions. Prior to the expulsion of Correia, a great many fans were clamoring for May's ascendency to the major league roster. Upon his arrival, May sputters, gags, and behaves precisely as you would expect an uncertain young man to behave. In his (admittedly small) sample of performance, he appears to be every bit the mockable man that the aforementioned Correia was, providing the clearest link between this team and the second section of TS Eliot's "Portrait of a Lady"--from which the title came. Kurt Suzuki--The other figure with the clearest gain from these two months is new catcher Kurt Suzuki. One of the two Twins to attend the aforementioned awkward all-star party, Suzuki parlayed his early success to fondness from fans and a long term contract. However, these moments of growth and personal victory are balanced by the knowledge that many other longer-term Twins signing (including the recently departed Willingham) have collapsed. Key Quotes/Stats Explained Cumulative WAR for Morales/Fuld/Correia/Willingham-- 1.1 Cumulative WAR for Vargas/Santana/May/Schafer-- 2.7 WAR (or Wins Above Replacement) is often the go to quote/stat for fans to trot out, yet the creation of the number is a rather complicated and differ depending on which equation (or translation of the equation you cite). Generally speaking, things that positions players do to create runs (including drawing walks, getting various kinds of hits, and stealing bases) are multiplied by their relative weight or importance (home runs matter more than singles, etc.) and adjusted in relationship to their position on the field (with center fielders/short stops getting greater credit than first basemen and DHs). Those positive numbers are compared to the average player in the league to create a viable means of judging one player against another. [Meanwhile pitchers are judged almost entirely on preventing runs, largely through runs allowed during their innings pitched]. While the best players might have a +8 WAR, the average starter would be around 2, while the average bench player would be between 0 and 1.9 Within these chapters the Twins removed four players from consistent play and gave their time to four others. The four who left totaled 1.1 (though Kendrys Morales' -0.7 pulled that down significantly), while the four who stepped up totaled 2.7 (again undermined by Trevor May's -0.9). The broad take away is that, even though it does not translate into immediate results in the "win column", this shift is for the best for the Twins and their team. However, the net gain amongst hitters (+2.5) fails to compensate for the net loss from Correia to May (-0.7). Literary Term to Impress your Teacher/Attractive English Major Friend: http://cmclaughlin658.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/url1.jpeg Mmm...that's a good pastiche Our recent literary and cultural history has leaned heavily on satire and parody. The Daily Show uses satire to deliver a pointed critique on common styles of tv news programs. The "Scary Movie" franchise uses parody to expand on cliches and tropes in horror movies to the point of making them explode in absurdity. But the Twins' use neither of these, preferring instead to use pastiche, which again uses styles and habits of others, but does so for the purpose of honoring and complimenting the initial creator, rather than mocking them. Like TS Eliot--whose "Portrait of a Lady" poem builds off of Henry James, Christopher Marlowe and Jules Lafourge--these chapters of the Twins' 2014 season pay homage to the wealth of talented athletes who played on the field during the all-star game, and the restarted franchises who regained their talent through creative destruction.