Thursday Links – Minnesota Twins Spring Training Edition
Spring Training is in full swing down in Fort Myers. The Twins are playing (meaningless) baseball games everyday, often more than a game per day! Although Ron Gardenhire made a point of beginning Major League camp a couple of days early, the Twins are still making blunders and errors on the base paths and out in the field. But not everything is going poorly for the Twins in southern Florida. They have beaten the Tampa Bay Rays on three consecutive occasions, and, despite dropping a couple of games to the Red Sox, they are still in possession of the Mayor’s Cup, which Gardy insists is his for the keeping.
While you are waiting for the Twins to once again take the field against the Rays (this afternoon at 12:05 pm CST) enjoy another edition of the Thursday Links:
A must read site for any Twins fan is John Swol’s Twins Trivia. Not only does Swol possess a great archival knowledge of the Minnesota Twins, but the recaps he does chronicling his visits to the Twins’ Spring Training home, Lee County Sports Complex, are candid and entertaining. Last week, John Swol spent Another Beautiful Day at the Ballpark.
At the end of last week, FanGraphs wrapped up their review of MLB’s TV broadcasting teams. The Minnesota Twins finished in the middle of the pack. Of particular interest to fans is this tidbit of information, “Bert Blyleven — a man who, it must be said, both (a) loves to fart and (b) is zero percent ashamed to admit it.” FanGraphs will be taking on the AM dial later this week as they begin gathering data on the best and worst radio teams.
Looking for more middle-of-the-row rankings for the Minnesota Twins? MLB DepthCharts ranks the Twins 16th in their organizational rankings that combine scores for the 40-man roster, the farm system, management, ownership, and the stadium. If the Twins were still playing in the Homer Dome they’d fall about 10 spots.
What? The Metrodome? Here is a look at the Twins’ plans to build a new stadium and move out of the Metrodome that was published at Baseball Prospectus 7 years ago, when Target Field was just a twinkle in our eyes. As noted in the piece, the Twins were hoping to get out of the Metrodome almost as soon as they were in it, making plans to move as far back as 1991.
Of particular note in this article at Beyond the Boxscore is the graph towards the bottom of the page that displays quite clearly the advantage that American League teams have in making the post season in 2012. Teams in the AL West, for example, are almost 10% more likely to play meaningful October baseball than teams in the NL Central. The statistical analysis does not even factor in the recent success of the Angels and the Rangers, who are early season favorites in the American League.
Compounding the statistical advantage for teams in the AL West is Baseball’s dirty little schedule secret, that gives teams competing for the 1st and 2nd Wild Card spots an unequal playing field.
If a 2nd Wild Card team is not enough to raise your eyebrows, what about the universal adoption of the Designated Hitter in the National League?
It is stuck behind the ESPN Insider pay-wall, but Buster Olney wrote about the Twins being cautiously optimistic in 2012. Buster, like many Twins fans, pins his expectations for the Minnesota Twins squarely on the shoulders of Justin Morneau and Joe Mauer.
Aaron Gleeman continues to send off not only another entry in his Top 40 Twins prospect series, but also 153 pounds in a single year. Pretty impressive stuff for one of the most tenured writers in the Twins’ blogosphere.
Despite what you may have been hearing about Twins prospect Brian Dozier (The Pioneer Press’ Tom Powers is a fantastic writer, that does not mean that he’s infallible. He’s a little too high on Dozier, at least for now.), he just is not yet ready to play shortstop every day for the Minnesota Twins. The Baseball Outsider takes a look beyond Jamey Carroll, Alexi Casilla, and Tsuyoshi Nishioka, to the Middle Infield Prospects.
This image IS Spring Training. Enjoy.
Getting Blanked projects the Twins to win just 80 games in 2012. While 80 wins is a significant improvement over the 63 the Twins had a year ago, a lot of Twins fans are going to be disappointed if the Twins fail to post a winning record. 80 wins is probably a fair assessment, but c’mon, at least give Twins fans something position, would 82-80 have been such a stretch?
In which J.J. Hardy rips the Twins approach to hitting, and Twins hitting coach Joe Vavra tells another side of the story. Hardy would come out of this looking like the bad guy if it was not for the numbers he put up in Baltimore (.801 OPS, 30 HR) just a year after struggling in Minnesota (.714 OPS, 6 HR). Part of that increase is health, part of it is the hitting environment in Baltimore, but there is no denying the surge in power that Hardy saw in 2012.
Nick, over at Top of the 1st, ranks the 5 worst offseasons of the year, and the hometown 9 check in at #2. The Twins’ offseason was not great, but I would not have had them on this list, again, I think they were pretty much a middle of the pack team again. But any time you lose long time fan favorites like Michael Cuddyer, Jason Kubel, and Joe Nathan, AND you cut payroll 15%, fans will not be happy.
The Tenth Inning Stretch posted a list of transactions this past winter involving former Twins, and it is a staggering list to read over. Hard to believe there are former Twins players linked with almost every MLB franchise this past offseason alone.
The Knuckleballs Blog just celebrated their 2nd Knuckle-versasry! Knuckleballs is one of my favorite Twins sites, and to go-to place for Twins Game Chats and rants against the MLB Blackout Rules.
The Marcel projections are out. They project Miguel Cabrera (1) and Prince Fielder (6) to be two of the best hitters in all of Baseball, by wOBA. Look out, American League Central.
With the 2nd pick in the 2012 MLB Draft, the Twins are likely to select a high upside pitcher, hoping to land a potential ace to anchor the rotation for seasons to come (I do not think the Twins or the Astros were ever going to take Lucas Giolito, so it will not affect their draft process, but the top high school pitching prospect has been diagnosed with a sprained UCL, that could ultimately push him out of the 2012 draft into college ball at UCLA). But in case they go another way, The Twins way, and draft a toolsy high school player, check out J.P. Breen’s list of High School Bats to Watch.
NotGraphs calls this Ball Meets Face, which is a pretty humorous graphic of baseballs hitting people in the face. For Twins fan, I propose a more enjoyable game, Name That Twin Getting Hit In The Face.
What effect do college coaches have on college pitchers? And how can that effect be measured accurately?
Umpires > Steroids. Rob Neyer explains.
Bill Parker usually writes over at The Platoon Advantage, but he occasionally fills the pages of Baseball Prospectus, and sometimes he writes one of those articles that BP gives away for free! You are in luck Twins fans, on Wednesday Parker wrote one of those free BP articles, and it was all about the Minnesota Twins! Well, maybe it was more about Parker hoping that the Twins are respectable, but that is what Spring Training is for. To hope, with the help of some analysis, in the face of reality.
The Tenth Inning Stretch is monitoring the Twins’ bullpen battle, and has a very handy color coded chart to help you keep track of who is doing well, and who might be joining the rest of the Minor Leaguers (or worse) later this week.
Jose Canseco – He. Just. Doesn’t. Quit.
Video of the Week: ESPN’s Tim Kurkijan has one of the most recognizable voices among baseball’s media. The Blue Jay’s Arancibia does a SPOT ON impersonation.
__________________
Check out Puckett’s Pond on Facebook
Follow @ERolfPleiss on Twitter