Archive for October, 2010

Adam Rubin had an interesting article on the Mets’ payroll situation and the bad contracts they might like to get off the books by swapping them.  He did a thorough job analyzing the bad contracts from every team in the league, though I think he might have missed the Twins’ worst contracts. That’s a pretty easy thing to do though, because compared to other teams with a similar payroll, the Twins don’t really have a lot of bad contracts on the books.  Bill Smith has actually done a pretty good job managing payroll, so even his worst signings are actually [...]

I am planning to delve much deeper into the best and worst teams in franchise history, but for now, here is the offense in graphical form: I used batting WAR because it makes it easy to quickly compare lineups of different eras, though it’s hardly the definitive measure of an offense. A few other notes, after the jump.

The last ballot to be awarded this awards season is the Stan Musial award aka the AL MVP. I am honored to be tasked with filling out one of the Twins chapter ballots for the award and, since I didn’t get started until the day before the due date, no further preamble is necessary: 1. Josh Hamilton, OF, Texas Hamilton put up an astounding 182 wRC+ on his way to an 8 fWAR season for the AL Champs. His .411 OBP set a new career high, as did  a.274 ISO. The only knock on Hamilton is that he did have [...]

Giving the season a Dylan rundown: The team as a whole, Together Through Life: It’s not bad, but we had come to expect so much more out of the artist (and the team, for that matter) at this point. Dylan had experienced a career renaissance later in life, releasing a trio of albums in Time Out of Mind, Love and Theft, and Modern Times that rivaled any of his early stuff. Had this record been released right after Under the Red Sky, for example, it would have gotten a more favorable reception from fans and critics. The Twins assembled their [...]

Because there isn’t much else to write about right now, I made a graph comparing Justin Morneau to some of the other great first basemen in franchise history : (click to embiggen) Since the talent pool of first basemen has historically been kind of thin, I went all the way back to the Senators years. As you can see, Justin has been pretty good, but he’s no Harmon Killebrew. Well, at least not until now. Here’s hoping the Mountie has a full recovery.

The Goose Gossage award (reliever of the year) has been announced, and I have to say I am pretty disappointed. It seems that the BBA voters valued saves and ERA, the same nonsense that the BBWAA values. As you can see, I was the only person to give Matt Thornton a first place vote. The press release is after the jump:

Nobody in the starting rotation actually tossed a no hitter or a perfect game or anything like that, but these were almost as good: 1) Scott Baker, June 16th (boxscore), game score of 84: Baker pitched seven innings of two-hit ball, striking out twelve and allowing just one walk.  Of course, Baker got shelled in his very next start, surrendering five runs on nine hits in six innings against the Brewers.  And that, in a nutshell, is Scott Baker. 2) Carl Pavano, June 20th (boxscore), game score of 84: Pavano out-dueled Roy Halladay, scattering four hits and surrendering one run over nine [...]

Both Scott Baker and Nick Blackburn are having minor surgery to clean out some “loose particles” removed from their elbows. It sounds like this is pretty routine and pretty mundane, so nothing to worry about. In much much much more important matters, Carl Pavano is up for one of the most prestigious awards around. That being the Mustached American of the year. So go and vote all the time. All the time.

POSEY, FELIZ WIN TWO-MAN RACES FOR WILLIE MAYS AWARD The battle for the Willie Mays Award, given by the Baseball Bloggers Alliance to the top rookie in each division, turned out to be a two-man affair in both leagues, with Texas Rangers closer Neftali Feliz and San Francisco Giants catcher Buster Posey finishing solidly ahead of their closest competition, Detroit Tigers outfielder Austin Jackson and Atlanta Braves outfielder Jason Heyward, respectively. Feliz posted a 2.73 ERA and a 0.88 WHIP while tallying 40 saves and helping Texas into the postseason for the first time since 1999.  Feliz only blew three save opportunities [...]

The Yankees, for what seems like the millionth time in ten years, made quick work of the Twins in the postseason.  Pitching was certainly part of the problem, as the Yankees slugged .514 against the starting rotation and the bullpen, but a lackluster offense might have been an even bigger problem.  The Twins as a whole batted .216/.280/.330/.610 in the ALDS, and it isn’t really hard to see why (well, besides the obvious problem with making too much out of data accumulated over such a small sample size, of course).  The lineup, as we will explore in greater depth after [...]