The Struggling Twins Hitters

It's kind of funny to me that the Twins nice little run over the last couple weeks has prompted some to act as though the Twins offense suddenly doesn't suck.
Newsflash: The Twins offense sucks.

There are three Twins right now who are producing: Joe Mauer, Justin Morneau and Craig Monroe.

Mauer is actually having an outstanding season, while Morneau has been pretty solid since a slow start. Monroe is on a hot streak, and it's hard to say how much to expect from him as the season progresses.

Brendan Harris got off to a good start, but a recent slump has knocked his numbers near Punto-ville. Carlos Gomez seems to be getting better every day, and it's impossible to be disappointed with what he's done so far, considering how far from ready he was when the season began. Matt Tolbert's numbers will continue to decline the more he plays. Nick Punto has been non-terrible because he hasn't played very much.

Everyone else has been fairly terrible. A blow-by-blow look at the Twins hitters.

*Mauer
Hitting .331 with a .414 OBP entering Wednesday. If he keeps those numbers at that level, I won't complain if he doesn't hit a homer all year. Well, OK, I will, but a .414 OBP is more valuable than most people seem to realize. The guy doesn't make very many outs.
Through 10 games in May he's hitting .424 with a .548 OBP. Also encouraging is that he's hitting .357 against lefties this year, after struggling with southpaws last year.
The problem with Mauer isn't that he doesn't hit for enough power, it's that Ron Gardenhire insists on batting him 3rd. He should be leading off, but even the 2-hole would make more sense.
How's this for a stat: When leading off an inning, Mauer is hitting .450/.560/.650.

*Morneau
Also heating up (.341 in May before Wednesday), he's on pace to fall short of 30 homers, but looks a lot better than the guy that limped to the finish line last year. He's hitting .250 with decent power against lefties, but has only a .265 OBP. That means he can hit lefties when he's not chasing their bad pitches. If Morneau can improve his patience, he can boost his numbers from Fred McGriff territory to Jason Giambi territory (the version from a few years ago).

*Harris
Loved him early, but he's slumped badly of late. He has some pop, but, oddly, has been horrible against lefties (.200/.294/.200). He's hitting .156 in May, and is hitting .129 with RISP. He has been better against power pitchers (.261) than finesse pitchers (.204), which probably explains why he's struggling against lefties. He's hit pretty consistently in the past, so I'm going to keep my fingers crossed that he's just in a slump (you'll hear that again a few more times).

*Adam Everett
He has sucked, but we knew he would. Still, he needs to get his average to at least .240, even if his OBP and SLG numbers are poor. The glove has been pretty good since he came off the DL.

*Mike Lamb
The new whipping boy amongst Twins fans, Lamb has yet to homer, he's shown very little patience, and he appears to be pressing. He's been a little better of late, but it's starting to get far enough into the season that you have to stop calling it a slump and wonder if the guy just isn't going to get it done.
The Twins signed Lamb planning to give him his first shot at an everyday job, but it looks like there's a reason the Astros and Rangers never gave him 500 ABs.
Lamb has been halfway decent against lefties throughout his career, but this year he's 1-for-17. Against righties he's at .267, and more impressively, he's hitting a whopping .435/.407/.609 with RISP.
He's posted a .250 BABIP (average on balls in play), suggesting he's been a little unlucky, too.
Lamb signed a two-year contract, and the Twins top 3B prospects are all a few years away, so the smart play would be to keep playing him, at least against righties, and hope he breaks out of it. The numbers suggest he will.

*Tolbert
I keep waiting for him to fall on his face, and he hasn't, although his numbers have steadily declined since a fast start (he's already down to .274/.312/.356). Tolbert is not an option to be a starter at any position right now, and probably not ever. But he looks capable of carving out a Reboulet-like career as a useful utility guy.
Having said that, he should get plenty of starts at 3B against lefties until Lamb shows he can hit southpaws. Tolbert has hit .320/.346/.400 against lefties this year.

*Punto
It was obvious last year that Punto lost all of his confidence as his nightmare season continued to get worse. But he's been decent this year, hitting .265. Hopefully that's boosted his confidence a little bit. Fans continue to blame Punto for nearly everything that goes wrong with the Twins, but he's done nothing to hurt them this year (though he hasn't really done anything to help them, either).

*Gomez
He's no longer trying to bunt every time up, and it turns out he's a decent hitter (.275). He has a .360 BABIP, so cutting down on the strikeouts would help. He isn't nearly patient enough to bat leadoff, and I'm starting to wonder if, when he gets older, he'll be a guy who can hit in the 2 or 3 hole (which would allow Mauer to bat leadoff). He's been terrible in the OF (he already has more errors than Torii Hunter ever had in a season), but has 16 steals and 3 homers. He'll only get better, so, as mentioned earlier, it's hard to complain. Before the year, I would've put the odds of him posting an OPS above the league average at 1 in 50 (right now his OPS+ is 101).

*Michael Cuddyer
After a sub-par '07, Cuddyer keeps on hitting like a guy who should be batting eighth. Not much power, way too many infield popups. In '06, when Cuddyer had his career year (.284/24 homers/109 RBI) he struck out 130 times. Last year he struck out 107 times, and this year he's struck out 11 times in 80 ABs.
If he's made a conscious effort to make more contact, it's made him less effective.

*Delmon Young
So far, a huge disappointment. To be fair, Torii Hunter was hitting .220 in Double-A when he was Young's age, so it's about five years too early to even think about giving up on the guy.
But his poor start is disappointing nonetheless.
A .299 slugging percentage? .299???? Punto currently has a .347 slugging percentage.
Young's average and OBP have been slowly but steadily climbing of late, but he has to start elevating on some balls. He hits the ball on the ground even more than Mauer. He ranks last in the league in isolated power, and is hitting just .200 against lefties (let's face it, no one on the Twins can hit lefties).
Young has defended himself by saying that he always gets off to slow starts, including last year. True, he was hitting in the .220's at this time a year ago, but had already hit 4 of his 13 homers by now.
Young may end up being a true test of the Twins coaching staff, which is often accused of being unable to develop hitters. They absolutely have to get this guy hitting.

*Monroe
He's revived his life-support career with a recent hot streak. He's supposed to be the righthanded half of a platoon with Jason Kubel, but he's hitting .148 against lefties, and all four of his homers are off righties. That has obviously made Gardy's job more difficult.
One thing we do know is that Monroe's bat speed is still in question. He's hitting .050 against power pitchers, .441 against finesse pitchers (those numbers are consistent with his career splits).

*Kubel
Just when he finally got his chance, he went cold. He's probably getting close to make-or-break time, especially with Monroe hitting well.
But after an 0-for-15 slump, he hit a pinch-homer Tuesday and doubled twice Wednesday.
He has been hitting balls hard, even during his slump, as evidenced by his .242 BABIP (before Wednesday). My guess is Monroe will start to cool off, and Kubel's line drives will start to fall in.

Summary: Way too many Twins hitter are underachieving. But Cuddyer, Kubel, Lamb, Harris and Young all seem capable, if not likely, to make considerable improvements as the year progresses. It's just too bad they're taking so long to get going, because the pitching has overachieved. They could have a 5 or 6 game lead if some of these guys would hit like they're supposed to.