Archive for April, 2010

Well that was ugly. Good thing I didn’t get to watch due to school. One quick rant before the stats: pinch hitting Joe Mauer for Butera in the 8th inning was as stupid as it gets. Mauer has played a ton so far this year, and to pinch hit him with the bases empty in the 8th down 2 runs was moronic. If they tie the game there he potentially has a lot of innings to catch, and he had to catch one as it is. He’s not in the final year of a 32 million dollar deal anymore, he’s [...]

Nothing too informative here. Obviously with it being so early in the season most of the numbers are going to hover close to zero. However, it is nice to see that JJ Hardy is as good as advertised, and then some. Span being basically average makes sense, as does the +2 number at third base, given Nick Punto’s excellent defense. Orlando Hudson has been exactly average at 2nd, but is dragged down by Alexi Casilla’s -.1. One thing is for sure though: don’t get too used to a positive number out in left field. Next time I’ll have a breakdown [...]

That was pretty gross. One thing I find odd is how much Twins fans climb all over Scott Baker whenever he has a rough start. Is it because he is nominally our ace? It’s not Scott Baker’s fault there was no one better to start on Opening Day. Truth is, I’ve thought Slowey was better than Baker for awhile. Baker is a good to really good pitcher, but he’s no ace. Expecting him to be one all of a sudden is like expecting Nick Punto to be a 20 homer guy. Baker is who he is, a 3.80 to 4.05 [...]

My recap is one sentence long: if this is the real Liriano, or at least some derivative of him, this team has World Champions upside. Best hitter: Jim Thome (.179) Worst hitter: Joe Mauer (-.174) Best pitcher: Francisco Liriano (+.554) “Worst” pitcher: Jon Rauch (+.097) Most important play: Rayburn error (+.179) Contribution by lineup: -.152 Contribution by staff: +.652

Well, not really. But he is leading all of major league baseball in VORP, so at least for this one week, the Mountie is truly the MVP. Here’s a look at the good and the not-so-good: Hitters: 1) Justin Morneau, 14.5. If the Mountie keeps this up, Derek Jeter might get the chance to rob him of the AL MVP. 2) Joe Mauer, 10.8. Man Muscles is only the 18th most-valuable player in baseball right now. What a slacker. 3) Michael Cuddyer, 6.2. Haters keep hatin’, but the VORP, WARP3, wOBA, wRC+, and ISO don’t lie: Michael Cuddyer is pretty [...]

The pitching matchup tomorrow features a pitcher with a 1.29 ERA and one with a 6.95 ERA. If you said Justin Verlander would have a higher ERA than Francisco Liriano, raise your hand. Now, I know ERA isn’t great, but Liriano is kicking Verlander’s ass in tRA as well. Verlander’s walks are up and his strikeouts are down, but he’s still giving up roughly the same amount of line drives he did last year. Liriano’s stuff appears to be at least most of the way back, which gets me even more excited for this year. Wednesday Scott Baker faces off [...]

I disagree with my colleague Fetch; I don’t think this is the normal Blackburn at all (to be fair, he did sort of backtrack on that comment). Sure, the right-hander has probably been more lucky than good thus far in his career, but it looks like something more than just normal regression to the mean is going on.  We’ll examine the pitch f/x data after the jump.

I guess the main thing to take away from this series is that while it is frustrating to not sweep a series, we’re stil on pace to win about 108 games this year, so that’s not too bad. Secondly, while we have been playing great baseball, our last three series have been against the Royals, Indians and Royals. We’ll know much more about this team when we play the Yankees and Rays (although we shouldn’t base our entire knowledge base on these two series). Secondly, Nick Blackburn is starting to worry me. More on him this week. Best hitter: Justin [...]

Yes, the Twins won on a bad call by the second base umpire. No, that’s not the only reason why they won the game. Tons of holier than thou Twins fans are talking about how they don’t want to win that way. Screw them, I’ll win any way we can. By the way, this is the real Nick Blackburn. Maybe not this bad, but get used to it Best Twins hitter: Joe Mauer (+.425) Worst Twins hitter: JJ Hardy (-.296) Best Twins pitcher: Matt Guerrier (+.298) Worst Twins pitcher: Nick Blackburn (-.276) Most important play: Jose Guillen double (-.464) Total [...]

At 12-5, they’re tied with the Rays for the best record in baseball. They’re leading the division by three games. Everything’s coming up Minny! Follow along after the jump to see just how good this team really is.