Oddly, a lot of sabrmetric geeks I know don’t like the Win Probability Added (WPA) statistic. I don’t want to speak for them as to why, but the comment I hear that drives me the craziest is something like “All you have to do is see that Erik Komatsu was more valuable then Ben Revere to understand that it is worthless.” It drive me crazy because 15 years ago, I would hear the same question from baseball traditionalists when I’d suggest that an on-base machine like Bobby Abreu was more ...
2007 was a rare poor season for the Twins in the first decade of the 21st Century. They finished under .500 and in 3rd place. A long-time Minnesota Twin was heading for free agency after the season as well. Torii Hunter was likely the fourth or fifth best player on the team at this point, behind Joe Mauer, Justin Morneau, Johan Santana and possibly Joe Nathan (I think Hunter was better). In addition, he was 31 years old and slipping defensively from a great centerfielder to an aging centerfielder ...
Updated 09-25-2012 at 08:36 AM by Brad Swanson
In last night's loss to the New York Yankees, Matt Capps made his return to the field after missing almost the entire second half of the season. It was the first action for Capps after not appearing in a game since the middle of July. The season has been injury plagued for the 29-year old relief pitcher and his time with the Twins has been full of plenty of ups-and-downs. Fans seem to hold a grudge against Capps for his poor play in the last couple of years but ...
On Sunday night, it was Glen Perkins who got the final three outs in the tenth inning to record the save in game two of a double-header sweep of the Detroit Tigers in Comerica Park. However, with a tied score in the bottom of the ninth, Jared Burton came into the game to face the Tigers 3, 4 and 5 hitters. Burton got MVP-candidate Miguel Cabrera to pop out for the first out. He then made Prince Fielder look silly, striking him out. Finally, he got Delmon Young ...
Over the weekend, the Twins got a first-hand look at one of the front-runners for the American League Most Valuable Player Award. Miguel Cabrera is trying his best to be the first Triple Crown winner in the American League since Carl Yastrzemski won it back in 1967. There are other deserving candidates in the American League and it looks like the main competition for Cabrera will come in the form of standout rookie Mike Trout. The debate has been swirling over ...
During the first half of the season, Jamey Carroll seemed to be showing his age. By the All-Star break, he was hitting .234 with a brutal .597 OPS, and he had long since lost his job as the team's starting shortstop. He was certainly making his two-year, $6.5 million contract look like a poor investment. Since the break, Carroll has looked more like the player the Twins thought they were getting. After finishing 2-for-5 in the nightcap of yesterday's doubleheader, ...
Aaron sips a pink libation. John begs their listeners to take a quick survery for recruiting sponsors. Then they chat about whether Sam Deduno belong, whether the Twins can and should re-sign Scott Baker, how one characterizes the starting pitching market, Liam Hendriks first "W," the MLB television deal and what it means for the Twins payroll, the switch from Beloit to Cedar Rapids, and honors bestowed by Baseball America on some Twins prospects. Then they answer mailbag about the Minnesota ...
I have had the honor of watching the Detroit Tigers play 23 innings in about the last 24 hours. Wait, honor is the wrong word. What is the opposite of honor? The Tigers are brutal. I know their record is much, much, much better than the Twins' record, but they are brutal. They have 3 great starting pitchers: Verlander, Fister and Scherzer (who can be pretty hit or miss). They have three great hitters: Cabrera, Fielder, and Jackson. They have one player who is regularly in the lineup that ...
This is the story by Joe Christensen: http://www.startribune.com/sports/tw...170887251.html
Leadership Being a leader can be a pain in the ass. One can subscribe to this term as an added amount of pressure that makes the execution of one’s tasks or job much more difficult. It is not a job for the majority of us. The Twins’ lack a leader who is a player. Maybe all Free Agent efforts need to be put in that basket, whether it be a pitcher of position player. The Twin’s need good starting pitching, much like a severely stricken diabetic needs dialysis. That does ...
I'm sitting here watching Samuel Deduno regress before my very eyes. In a way, it is sad because it would be fun for a 29 year old journeyman pitcher to suddenly harness the talent that he obviously has and become a dominant starter. The reality is that this rarely happens and while Deduno's results were good in his first couple months, the underlying stats did not support his success. He still walks way too many batters and doesn't strike enough batters out to mask it. He is starting to give ...
Miguel Sano steps into the box. He is just a huge man. The game is tied at 1 and the opposing pitcher is locked in, but Sano already has 3 hits, including a double that hit the top of the fence. The pitcher has been working him away, and Sano is taking what he is getting, driving all three hits to right-center. He really has become a good all-around hitter in this league. The pitcher deviates from the game plan for just one pitch, comes inside, and Sano absolutely launches it to the seats in ...
The Cedar Rapids Kernels held a press conference Wednesday to introduce their new Major League affiliate, the Minnesota Twins. It was actually more of a public introduction to which the press was invited, but that was certainly the right approach by the Kernels. Affiliation changes are big deals in the local communities and when your organization hasn’t had a change in 20 years, it’s an even bigger deal. ...
A couple of milestones happened for the Twins during the past week. The team won a series against the Indians but as part of that series, Josh Willingham crushed his 35 home run of the season and Liam Hendriks picked up his first victory at the big league level. These might not seem like very important numbers but the story behind those numbers gives a little bit more meaning to these milestones. For Willingham, he became the first Twins player to hit 35 home runs since Harmon Killebrew ...
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