The Hitters

Yeah, I'm finally getting around to some season wrap-up stuff. It was too depressing at first. Now I may be ready.
I'll start in earnest today by taking a brief look back at the hitters - what they did this year and what to expect next year.

Joe Mauer
Probably still the best all-around catcher in the game. Defensively he's as good as it gets, which is why the Twins are (correctly) resisting the urge to move him to 3B as long as possible.

I'm not ready to suggest he's brittle or injury-prone, but he needs to get to the plate 500 times a season.
My guess is that this 2007 will be the worst year he has for at least 10 years (and it was still pretty good), but if he never does develop into a power hitter the Twins should move him out of the 3-hole and into one of the top two spots in the order.

Mike Redmond
Probably the best backup catcher in the game. He's actually quite similar to Jason Tyner offensively, in that they both hit for a pretty good average, albeit with marginal to bad OBP and SLG%, and they both seem to come up with big hits in tough spots (seem being the key word).

Justin Morneau
Should we worry about his poor second half? The guy was on pace to hit almost 50 homers, and he ended up with 31. Jason Bartlett had a higher SLG in August and September than Morneau did.

The biggest reason for concern is that lefties seem to have figured him out. He'll need to make an adjustment to counter that, or he'll be a .270-30 guy instead of a .300-40 guy.

Defensively he's become quite good, probably as good as any 1B in the league.

Nick Punto
We've been through this. He sucks as an everyday player, he's decent as a utility guy. End of story.

Jason Bartlett
Made a few too many errors on routine plays, but overall he makes more plays than the average shortstop. Didn't hit much in April or September, but was pretty good in between. He'll be the leadoff guy next year, which I'm not convinced is the best place for him (depends on who the CF is probably. Kenny Lofton anyone?).

Needs to be at least a .280/.340 guy, if not .300/.360.

Alexi Casilla
Looked almost ready in April, when he was called up due to injuries. Then after spending most of the year playing every day in Triple-A, was somehow worse when he got called back up. He was so bad that he could lose the 2B job to Nick Punto next spring, and I might actually even support it.

Brian Buscher
Going into 2007 Buscher looked like a guy who would spend most of his career in the minors and would maybe never reach the bigs. But after a big year moving from Double-A to the majors, he's probably the best offensive prospect in the organization.

Defensively he looks pretty bad, but so did Corey Koskie when he first came up. 3B is a position where you can make yourself better without a lot of athleticism.

Buscher doesn't look ready to be an everyday 3B in the majors yet, but he does look like he could be a useful bat for the Twins. He should make the team and provide some offensive depth, with a chance to gradually increase his playing time.

Torii Hunter
The last two years have been two of the best of his career, and after a terrible 2006 season in the field (that nonetheless garnered him another Gold Glove), he was pretty close to his old self in CF this year.

I still think there's an outside chance the Twins resign him, but at this point I'm talking like 20%.
Whether or not the Twins could survive the loss of a guy who hit .287 with 28 homers, 44 doubles, 18 steals and 107 RBIs depends largely on whether or not the rest of the lineup improves. In other words, if Jason Kubel and Michael Cuddyer can each hit in the .280 with 25 homers range, and if they can get a decent 3B, they could probably still be OK with Kenny Lofton or whoever in CF.

Jason Kubel
Much like Michael Cuddyer, he keeps pushing that breakthrough season back a year. I thought for sure it would be in '07, and it kind of was, but far too late.

That's partly Ron Gardenhire's fault for not playing him every day.
Regardless, Kubel was the team's best hitter after the All-Star break, and should be good for at least a .275-20 homer season next year.

Michael Cuddyer
Cuddyer was a little disappointing this year, but he was still pretty good. The problem was that everyone else was so bad, or at least, not as good as in '06 - like Cuddyer.

As mentioned earlier, if Hunter leaves, the Twins need more production out of their corner OF's.
That means 25 homers, not 16.
Also, dude's got a cannon, plays the baggy very well, and takes excellent angles into the gaps.

Jason Tyner
Tyner can hit in the .280-.300 range if his playing time is limited. The more at-bats he gets, the more that average will tumble. That's why there's no way the Twins can even consider him as the starting CF if Hunter leaves. He has zero power and does not get on base very much for a slap hitter.

He is, however, a pretty decent backup OF, because he's sound defensively, runs okay, and can put the ball in play.

Garrett Jones
He's never been a particularly good hitter in the minors, let alone the majors.
But he does have power, something the Twins always lack. There's no way Jones can be a useful starter, however, his power could make him an intriguing pinch-hitter. He showed signs of being able to hang with major league pitching in the season's final weeks. Could give Morneau a day off or two at 1B.

Chris Heintz
Now that Jose Morales has made his major league debut, I don't see how Heintz ever plays another game at the ML level. He's not good enough to be even a 3rd string catcher.

Jose Morales

This was his first year as a catcher, and he hit .311, then got called up to the Twins, went 3 for 3 in his debut, and broke his ankle. He's probably ready to be the No. 3 catcher.

Matt LeCroy
It was good to see you again, Matty. Enjoy Japan. Or perhaps retirement.

Bill Smith: Smartest GM in baseball hsitory

If first impressions are any indication, maybe Bill Smith will be a good GM for the Twins. He's already made me a fan based on one move - the release of Lew Ford.
Yes, Smith risked irking grandmothers and 4th graders all over the upper midwest by unceremoniously dumping the worthless Ford this week. He also canned Josh Rabe, Tommy Watkins and Luis Rodriguez. Watkins may be back, the other three won't.

In regards to Ford, Smith said: "Lew's a good person with a good family, and he's made a lot of good contributions to our ballclub. Unfortunately, he's had a tough couple years."

Notice the lack of bullshit in that comment. Nothing about hoping he could turn it around, or what a 'gamer' he is, or how did the little things, just an honest assessment of his worth: Formerly valuable, now shitty and worthless.

It's nice to see that Smith may actually use performance to evaluate players.

What a novel idea.

There is a God

As of today, the Twins season has ended early, the Vikings are perhaps the worst team in the NFL, the T-Wolves no longer have Kevin Garnett and the Gophers are the worst team in the Big 10.
Torii Hunter and Johan Santana may have played their last games as a Twin, and I have to go finish mowing my lawn.
But none of that can put a damper on my day.

Because Isiah Thomas lost his sexual harassment case.
I don't know if anything could make me happier right now.

I could spend all day reciting reasons why I despise Isiah Thomas, but I still have to go to work this afternoon, and that lawn won't mow itself.

First of all, did you know Isiah Thomas' middle name is Lord?
What the fuck - Lord? No wonder he's such an ego maniacal bastard, his mom convinced him he's a deity.
While his common nickname as a player was Zeke (is that another biblical reference? I don't know but he still sucks), his bio also lists "the baby-faced assassin" as a nickname.

Gay.

The main reason I hate the baby-faced assassin is his career-long penchant for jealousy of players and people better and more successful than him.
In 1985, the baby-faced assassin orchestrated a "freezeout" of rookie Michael Jordan in the All-Star game, because he was jealous of Jordan. MJ took only 9 shots in the game because no one would pass him the ball.
Years later, after Jordan's Bulls kicked the shit out of the Pistons in the Eastern Conference Finals, the Pistons walked off the court of Game 4 (it was a sweep) with 7.9 seconds left, refusing to shake hands with the Bulls.

Jordan got revenge in truly righteous fashion in 1992, when he blocked the baby-faced assassin from being selected for the "Dream Team" the first and most famous NBA Olympic team. John Stockton took his place. The baby-faced assassin complained, but because he's a pussy and a coward, vented most of his frustration toward Stockton instead of Jordan, even though Stockton had nothing to do with it.
So the next time the Jazz played the Pistons, Karl Malone elbowed the baby-faced assassin in the head, requiring 40 stitches.

Thank you, Karl Malone. You rule.

Likely the baby-faced assassin's anger towards Stockton was racially motivated. This is the same guy who once said Larry Bird, who for his career averaged 24 points, 10 rebounds and 6 assists per game while shooting 50% from the floor and 89% from the line, was overrated, and would be "just another player" if he was white.
He also reportedly said recently, in regards to Knicks' season ticket holders, "Bitch I don't give a fuck about these white people!"
While it pleases me to picture the baby-faced assassin saying such a thing, it also reminds me how much I hate him.

After he retired, the baby-faced assassin refused to go away. Jealous of the reputation players like Jordan and Magic Johnson had as businessmen, he apparently decided he could use his "winning (read: criminal) smile" and criminal justice degree (yes, he went back to school and got it) from Indiana to become a Fortune 500 tycoon or something.
He became part owner of the Toronto Raptors, but was forced out due to alleged improprieties.

Then came the CBA debacle. To make a very long story very short, the baby-faced assassin bought the whole league, and ran it straight into the ground. It would be hard for a high school sophomore to fuck up a business faster than the baby-faced assassin ruined the CBA.
Rather than try to fix it, he jumped ship to become head coach of the Indiana Pacers.

In between, he actually wrote a book about how to succeed in business.

Seriously.

The guy who took a 65-year old league and killed it in three months, wrote a book about how to be a successful businessman. I can think of a few metaphors that would apply here.

It'd be like:

Bill Janklow writing a book about safe driving.

Nick Punto writing a book about hitting for power.

Brad Childress writing a book about how to create a "kick-ass offense."

My brother writing a book about what constitutes good music.

I could go on.

But the baby-faced assassin's move to Indiana ended up working out for the better, because Bird was soon hired as the team's GM, and guess what was the first thing he did upon taking over?
You guessed it - he shit-canned the B.F.A (getting kind of tired of spelling it out, sorry).

It looked like the B.F.A. might finally be out of the picture by then, but no, the Knicks hired him as GM. He had the highest payroll in the NBA, and one of its greatest coaches in Larry Brown, and yet the Knicks were the worst team in the NBA. He gave a 5-year, $30 million contract to Jerome James, who averaged 2.9 points and 2.2 rebounds a game.

The B.F.A. fired Brown and made himself coach. One of his first acts as coach was to order his players to commit hard fouls in a game against Denver, instigating an unsightly brawl.
But the Knicks finished the year on a 20-17 run, landing the B.F.A. an extension.

So here I was, waiting for something bad to happen to the B.F.A. when - BAM - sexual harassment suit!

You've probably heard many of the sordid details, so let's just skip to the best part - the jury today sided with the accuser, Anucha Browne Sanders.

$11.6 million, baby. Maybe the CBA should join in for some sloppy seconds and see if they can get any $$ from the big bad B.F.A.

Attention New York Knicks: Fire this historic asshole.

Attention NBA: Never give this stupendous prick another job - ever.

Attention Planet Earth: Stay away from this fucker, he's the devil.

The National League is more fun this year

Other than the 8 non-Twins games I attended on my honeymoon this summer, last night's one-game playoff for the NL Wildcard was the first major league game all year I watched from beginning to end that didn't involve the Twins.
And it was worth it. 3-0 Rocks, 5-3 Dads, 6-5, 6-6, then staying that way til the 13th. Dads look ready to win after a two-run homer by Scott Hairston. Trevor Hoffman, he of the 524 career saves! comes on to close the door....and gives up a double, a double, a triple, and a lazer sac fly to blow the save. Rocks win, take the wild card.
I wanted to watch the game because one-game playoffs are awesome and rare. I had a feeling it would be a memorable game, and it was.
And Ramon Ortiz got the win. He's going to the playoffs. We're not.

What a finish in the NL. A monumental collapse for the Mets, the Rockies win 13 of 14 down the stretch to get in, the Phillies come back on the last day, the Cubs are in - this league is definitely more interesting than the AL.

I don't know how much of the playoffs I'll watch. I suppose if I'm not doing anything I'll watch, and I'll definitely be pulling for the Phillies and Rockies. But it's not like I'm going to set aside time to watch. It's tough when you thought your team was gonna be there.

Two Words: Barry Bonds

The San Francisco Giants are ready to cut ties with Barry Lamar Bonds. They used his chase for the HR record to sell tickets, and now they're cutting him loose. It's probably the right move - if your best player is 43 years old, you are a team in turmoil.

But while the easy thing for Bonds to do would be to retire, he is adamant that he won't. You'd think a guy who's spent most of the last few years being dogged by the feds and the media would be looking to get the hell out, HR record in hand, but Bonds says he wants to keep playing.

Obviously, he needs to go to the AL. It's almost unfair watching him try to play LF these days. He just can't do it. He's a DH now.

So where to? Yanks? Red Sox? White Sox? Tigers?

Maybe.

But what better way for new GM Bill Smith to make a splash than to bring in Bonds to hit 3-hole? (I'm assuming Gardy would resist the temptation to play him everyday in LF, a la Rondell White)

Thing is, Bonds needs to be somewhere where the media glare isn't quite as intense. New York, Boston or Chicago would be an absolute nightmare. Maybe Texas or Oakland are a possibility. But why not the Twins?

No, he's not going to hit 70 homers anymore, but the guy, at age 42, has a .483 OBP and a .570 SLG. His OPS+ is 172. That's the best in the NL.

Now, maybe you're one of those Dick Bremer douche bags who thinks the Twins are better off signing "Piranhas", who hustle and star in gay commercials and say nice things to Marney and set an example of how to run the bases for your retarded child, and if that's the case, stop watching baseball.

But, if you think it might be entertaining to watch arguably the greatest player ever bat between Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau, and think it might be more fun to win a World Series than to "battle your tail off" and go 77-85, you will realize it would be awesome to have Barry Bonds on the Twins.

PS - Yeah, I know. He did steroids. They all did. I don't care.
Yeah, I think the record is tainted. Don't care about that either.

Torii's last stand?

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

The Ballad of Nick Punto

As the Philadelphia Phillies 21st round draft pick in 1998(scouted and signed by former big league manager Jim Fregosi), it was somewhat of a longshot for Nick Punto, who played collegiately at Saddleback Community College, to reach the major leagues, but he did so rather quickly.

A strong first impression
In his first full minor league season, at high-A Clearwater, he hit .305 and drew 67 walks in 106 games, good for a .404 OBP. This 106 game stint alone might be the reason Punto is in the big leagues today, because he never came close to repeating those numbers again. But, having made an excellent impression, the Phillies moved him to Double-A Reading in 2000, where he hit .254. He drew 68 walks and stole 33 bases, as well as hitting five homers, still his career high to this day.

The Phillies decided that was good enough to move him to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre in 2001. In 129 games he hit a paltry .229, but the parent club must’ve liked his 68 walks and 33 steals, because they called him up to the big leagues in September. He singled off Bob Scanlon for his first big league hit on Sept. 9, and ended up going 2-for-5 in four games. The Phillies decided he was ready, and he began ‘02 in the majors. But there was really no room for him, and he was demoted back to Scranton, where he had his best year since A-ball, hitting .271 with 76 walks (for a .378 OBP) and stealing 42 bases.

He got called up again in September, and ended the season 1-for-6. He again opened the season with the Phillies in ‘03, but again was sent down before the end of April. He ended up going back and forth a few times, and in 64 games in the bigs (92 at-bats) batted .227 with a .273 OBP. While he had played SS almost exclusively in the minors, he saw time at 2B, 3B and SS for Philadelphia. No doubt the Phillies had been intrigued by Punto’s ability to draw a walk while in the minors, but this 64-game stint was the first sign that, unless Punto showed some ability to handle the bat, major league pitchers weren’t going to walk him often.

Coming to Minnesota
Meanwhile in Minnesota, the Twins were becoming frustrated with Cristian Guzman, a highly talented but seemingly lazy shortstop whose development suddenly seemed stunted after a breakout season in 2001. They were also looking to deal some of their veterans to make room for younger, cheaper players. That off-season they sent catcher AJ Pierzynski to the Giants for pitchers Boof Bonser, Francisco Liriano and Joe Nathan, as well as sending Eric Milton to Philadelphia for Carlos Silva and Nick Punto. Silva had been a reliable set-up man in Philly, but the Twins immediately inserted him into their rotation. Punto was advertised primarily as a utility player, and would replace Denny Hocking, who the Twins released after the ‘03 season.

However, manager Ron Gardenhire showed early signs of having an odd appreciation for Punto by suggesting that he could compete for the starting shortstop job. This seemed to be little more than a motivational tactic aimed at Guzman, since Punto had done nothing in his entire career to suggest he was capable of being a full-time player in the majors. As disappointing as Guzman had been, he was still a far better option.

But Punto never really got his chance to light a fire under Guzman, as his penchant for diving headfirst into bases and after ground balls put him on the DL frequently. He actually performed reasonably well when healthy, posting a .253 average and .340 OBP, with a couple of homers, six steals and only one error in 38 games (91 at-bats). Guzman actually did have a slightly better season, hitting .274 with 8 homers, 31 doubles and 84 runs scored, but when the Washington Nationals offered him a 4-year, $26 million contract after the year, the Twins surmised he wasn’t worth that much.

A failure at 2B
While they were right, as Guzman failed miserably in Washington, the Twins horrible infield contributed heavily to their failure to reach the playoffs in 2005. Rookie Jason Bartlett and veteran utility man Juan Castro split time at SS, and neither produced much at the plate. Punto took over at 2B when the Twins grew tired of Luis Rivas, another once-promising talent who regressed after a strong rookie season.

In his first shot at playing regularly in the big leagues, Punto hit .239 with a .301 OBP. He hit four homers and struck out 86 times in 394 at-bats.

This failure prompted the Twins to acquire All-Star and Gold-Glover Luis Castillo in the off-season. The Twins also added veteran slugger Tony Batista to play 3rd in ‘06. Bartlett was expected to get another shot at the SS job, but despite hitting nearly .400 in spring training, he was sent to Triple-A, while Castro, who entered the season with a .271 career OBP, was named the starter. This left Punto and Luis Rodriguez as dual utility players.

The rejuvenation
According to a spring training story in the Star Tribune, Punto was approached by Hall of Famer Rod Carew on the field one day before practice. Carew held a printed copy of Punto’s stats, and had circled in red ink his .301 OBP, 45 runs scored, 36 walks, and 13 of 21 stolen base rate. Carew wanted Punto to know that these numbers were unacceptable, and were the ones he should focus on during the season. There was much rolling of the eyes in Twins nation when this story appeared.

Predictably, Castro and Batista failed, with Castro traded and Batista released in mid-June. Bartlett stepped in at SS and played well, while Punto took over at 3B simply because there wasn’t anyone else.

But apparently Punto had taken Carew’s instruction to heart, because, once given regular playing time, his numbers rose consistently from June through August. He was hitting well over .300 with an OBP in the .370 to .390 range for most of the year, while playing strong defense at 3B. The Twins got hot, in part thanks to the spark provided by Punto and Bartlett, and reached the playoffs.

While Punto had had the year of his life, he also faded sharply in September, and finished the season with a .290 average and .352 OBP. Fine numbers to be sure, but many observers viewed the late slump as evidence that his mid-summer surge was largely a fluke. Unfortunately, for no good reason, Gardenhire declared late in the season that Punto would be the starter again in ‘07 at 3B, effectively ordering GM Terry Ryan not to acquire a new one in the off-season.
As evidence that Ryan didn’t trust Punto, he signed free-agent Jeff Cirillo anyway. Cirillo had always been a strong hitter, particularly against lefties, but at 37, made it clear he could not play every day.

Crashing back to Earth
2007 would prove to be the most frustrating and disappointing season of the Gardenhire era, and Punto, perhaps somewhat unfairly, was at the center of the firestorm all year. He hit .220 in April, and after a decent May, in which he posted a .364 OBP, saw his season devolve into one of the worst in baseball history from an offensive standpoint. He batted .150 in June, .218 in July, and an embarrassing .127 in August, all while playing virtually every day.

Cirillo never got going, landed in Gardy’s doghouse for refusing to play regularly, and was traded to Arizona. Meanwhile Gardenhire continued to defend Punto, primarily for his hustle and defense. And while Punto did make many highlight-reel plays, he committed as many errors as your average 3B, and most statistics that measure a fielders range, admittedly an inexact science, found him to be league average at best. Gardenhire dropped him to the No. 9 spot in the order (he had opened the year hitting second), and asked him to bunt more often, but Punto failed several times to move runners over, popping up bunts or striking out after failed attempts several times.

While these kind of fundamental lapses often land younger or more talented players in Gardenhire’s doghouse (like rookie 3B Brian Buscher, who hit well after a call-up but rarely played because of his shaky glove), the manager strangely continued to defend Punto, who by now had become a pariah among fans, who viewed him as a symbol for everything that was wrong with the team.

By late August, Punto’s average was under .200. As if that weren’t bad enough, his slugging percentage was in the .250 range, on par with many NL pitchers. Punto warmed up some in September, and as of Sept. 20 had his average up to .209, and his OBP to .292. His 54 walks rank fourth on the team behind Joe Mauer, Justin Morneau and Michael Cuddyer.


Another chance?
On Sept. 17, Gardenhire told the Star Tribune that Punto was his choice to open the 2008 season as the starting 2B. The Twins had traded Luis Castillo to make room for rookie Alexi Casilla at the position, but Casilla struggled both physically and mentally, at the plate and in the field.

Gardenhire’s announcement sent many Twins fans into fits of rage, as the idea that a starting job would be handed to a player coming off arguably the worst season in history seemed counterproductive, to put it mildly. Almost on cue, Punto made two glaring mental mistakes the next day, getting hung up between 2nd and 3rd for an out early in the game, then later getting thrown out while trying to stretch a double into a triple leading off an inning.
The irony was thick.

In retrospect, it’s hard to blame Punto for anything that has gone wrong this year. Quite simply, it isn’t his fault that Gardenhire has tried to make him into something he isn’t - a major league regular. Like trying to force a square peg through a round hole, Gardenhire stubbornly kept sending him out there, even though it was apparent to everyone it couldn’t work.

Punto is what he is - a light-hitting infielder with a reliable glove and above average speed. That can be useful to a team, but only if utilized optimally. However, anyone who has watched the Twins with any regularity knows that using players optimally has never been Gardenhire’s strength (see Jacque Jones, Matthew LeCroy, Lew Ford, Shannon Stewart, Jason Kubel, Michael Cuddyer, etc, etc).

But the announcement that Punto opens 2008 with a leg-up on the 2B job should be taken witha grain of salt. What choice does Gardenhire have but to say this? Casilla has been awful, and promising him a job is no way to accelerate his development. It’s clear that this is a motivational tactic to some degree, and it’s one that had to be made.

Quite frankly, as bad as Punto has been, Casilla has probably been worse, all things considered. Right now Punto is the better player, which says alot about the state of the Twins infield. Additonally, Punto is unlikely to be as bad in ‘08 as he was in ‘07, even if he does end up playing every day (which he likely won’t).

However, it also seems unlikely that Punto will ever go back to being the .300 hitter we saw for much of ‘06 (even then he posted an OPS+ of 90, meaning he was 10% below the league average that year in offensive production).

There’s no real explanation for Gardenhire’s fascination with a guy who is nothing more than a mediocre utility player. Jeff Reboulet and Denny Hocking were both far better players, and never got near the opportunities that Punto has been afforded.

That would seem to be the fundamental difference between Gardenhire and Tom Kelly. Gardenhire oddly tears down his most talented players and staunchly supports the bad ones. With TK, you could either play, or you couldn’t play. The Twins were in far better hands in those days. Nick Punto would never have started for a team managed by Kelly.

Presented without comment

This is a story in today's Star Tribune, in regards to Nick Punto, Alexi Casilla, and next year's starting IF.


By LaVelle E. Neal, III
Star Tribune

When the Twins traded Luis Castillo to the Mets in July, the belief was that prospect Alexi Casilla would step in next season as the starting second baseman.

On Monday, Twins manager Ron Gardenhire let it be known who is his first choice at the position for 2008.

It's Nick Punto, who hasn't let his tremendous defense suffer this year despite one of the worst offensive seasons in recent major league history. Putting Punto at second would enable the Twins to search for a new third baseman this offseason.

"If we were to start right now I would say Nick would have a head up on [Casilla], believe me there," Gardenhire said. "I know what he can do, catch the ball, and make all the plays. So he's got a lead going into spring training, as far as I'm concerned.

"I hope [Punto] comes out and has a good spring. I like him in my lineup, somewhere. He makes things exciting. But he's got to play [well]. Got to come back and rebound, we all know that."

Punto has played most of the season at third base. While he could make a tidy sum selling DVDs on how to field the position, he is batting only .205 with one homer and 23 RBI and is one slump away from being the first full-time major leaguer since Rob Deer in 1991 to bat under .200 in a season.

In fact, Punto is batting .293 in September, raising his average to its highest mark since Aug. 14.

When told of Gardenhire's comments before Monday's 5-4 victory over Texas, Punto, 29, sounded like someone who had just had a heavy burden lifted.

"For him to have the confidence in me, that means a lot, it really does," said Punto, who hit .290 last season. "I'm going to work as hard as I ever have this offseason and come back and have a very successful season next year."

Casilla, 23, has showed a lot of talent in his stints with the Twins, the latest since being called up from Class AAA Rochester on July 31. But he also has made a rash of mistakes, many of them mental. It has fueled a belief that he needs more development time in the minors.

Casilla, batting .241 with 11 stolen bases in 50 games, was on the bench Monday for a second game in a row after arriving to the ballpark late Sunday, although Gardenhire said it was more because Punto has played well lately.

"He's swinging better, shortened his swing," Gardenhire said of Punto. "He's hitting the ball on the ground. Some balls are rolling through that haven't."

The Twins' six homers from third basemen this season are the fewest in the majors. The club is evaluating Brian Buscher as a possibility. Former first-round pick Matt Moses has floundered in the minors and was demoted to Class AA New Britain during the year.

"It would be nice to have another power bat," Punto said.

Gardenhire said the organization will search for a third baseman with some pop during the offseason. The free-agent pool is not deep: Mike Lowell stands out among a handful of possibilities. The Twins might have to part with a couple of their young pitchers in a deal for a third baseman.

But the manager apparently knows who he wants at second.

"I go into next year thinking [Punto] is going to have a very good opportunity to be my starting second baseman if we get a third baseman," Gardenhire said, "That's what I'm looking for. We have talked about getting a third baseman and getting him back to the middle of the field."

The Terry Ryan era ends

Terry Ryan is out, Bill Smith is in as Twins GM. Scouting director Mike Radcliffe and baseball ops assistant Rob Antony are getting promoted to essentially work just underneath Smith. That should improve their ML scouting and development. Hard to say how it will affect their minor league scouting and the draft.

This may sound odd, but when you think about it, Terry Ryan stepping down as the Twins GM is an absolutely fascinating story, more so than even the departure of Kevin Garnett to the T-Wolves.
Everyone understood why KG had to go to Boston. But the Ryan story is a mystery. It could’ve been caused by a confluence of literally dozens of factors, and it could have repercussions that will still be felt 20 years from now.

I’ve ripped on Ryan hard this year, and I stand by all of it. He failed the team this year.
Having said that, my initial reaction to the news was an upset stomach, the feeling that this was merely the initial dropping of the bomb, with the horrible after-effects yet to come.
At Thursdays press conference it seemed that Ryan is simply ready to take on a lesser workload, as he will remain with the team as primarily a scout.
But there could be other factors that played into the decision.
*He feels as though he failed, and needs to step aside and let Smith, his replacement, take a shot.
*He fears that he has so angered Johan Santana, Torii Hunter and others, that the Twins will have a better chance of signing them with someone else doing the negotiating.
*The Pohlads have told him they will not pay Hunter and/or Santana, and Ryan is resigning in protest.
*He lost a power struggle with Ron Gardenhire. It’s a rather poorly kept secret that Gardy and Ryan butt heads regularly. Gardy butted heads with Al Newman and forced him out. Maybe he and Ryan are at odds often enough for Ryan to decide he’s had enough.
*He’s just tired of it. He’s always been the guy taking the bullet for Pohlad’s cheapness, and with the emergence of blogs and talk radio stuff in recent years, he’s taken much more heat from the fans, if not so much from the media. Some of it has been deserved, but I could understand if he’s had enough.

And the potential fallout
*My biggest fear is that Gardy will now have more power. He’s an awful evaluator of talent, and he’s dangerously loyal to bad players who “bust their tails.”
As much as Ryan failed to help the team this year, I was pretty confident that he’d do something to address 3B and LF. With Ryan gone, will Gardy lobby for giving Nick Punto another chance at 3B? Or 2B over Alexi Casilla? Will he be able to bully Smith? Or will Smith do a better job of reigning in Gardy’s lesser impulses?
*Will the team continue to have as much success in developing pitching? The rejuvenation of the franchise that began at the turn of the century came about because of a general change in philosophy to focus on drafting pitching, and Ryan was the driving force behind it. Ryan has struggled to identify valuable veterans, but he’s been more than astute at finding and developing young pitchers.
Ryan convinced teams to give away Santana, Joe Nathan, Francisco Liriano, Carlos Silva, Joe Mays and others essentially for free, and oversaw drafts that have loaded the Twins minor leagues with more pitching than any organization could know what to do with.
*Will Bill Smith make it his top priority to resign Santana and Hunter? It would sure help him make a good first impression with the fans and players.
However I’m afraid to say that I think it’s more likely Ryan is leaving because the team won’t let him sign those two than it is that he’s leaving to improve the chances of signing them.
*With a team on a payroll, erring on the conservative side is often the best way to go. Will Smith be an irresponsible spender? It sounds like he has a rep for being just as, if not more, conservative than Ryan.
On the other hand, Smith billed himself during Thursday’s press conference as an administrator, and made it clear he will lean heavily on his assistants to help in the evaluation process.

In the final analysis, Ryan’s career overall can be termed nothing less than a big success. After spending his first few years trying to keep an aging team afloat, he finally cut his losses, swallowed hard and blew the thing up. He started over, and by the turn of the century, had the organization poised for its longest period of sustained success in team history. With a strong finish, this year’s Twins could post a winning record for the seventh consecutive season. That would’ve seemed unfathomable in the 90s.

But in fairness, the success of the early 2000’s was due in part to the suckiness of the rest of the division. When the rest of the division got better, the Twins also had to.
They did, with the emergence of Santana, Joe Mauer, Justin Morneau, Hunter and others. But if things continue the way they went this year, and Santana, Hunter and Morneau end up elsewhere, it’ll be hard not to look back at the Santana/Morneau era as a missed opportunity, and it would be hard to blame anyone more than Ryan for missing said opportunity.
No, not because the owner was cheap (though he unquestionably is), but because Ryan took the few discretionary funds he had and spent them on Ramon Ortiz, Nick Punto, Rondell White, Sidney Ponson, Tony Batista, Ruben Sierra, etc.

I’ll try to be somewhat optimistic that this can be a change for the better. Smith worked under Ryan and his predecessor, Andy McPhail, and will likely continue the basic philosophies that have worked for the team. Maybe he can make a couple significant moves early in his tenure to make a good first impression with the players.
But keep in mind, Ryan’s former assistant, Wayne Krivsky, got the Reds GM job, and by most accounts is off to an awful start there. So there are no guarantees.

And you can look at it this way - when Tom Kelly stepped aside, everyone was shocked, no one understood it, and conspiracy theories abounded.
Gardy replaced him, and despite being a buffoon, the Twins went on to great success.
There's a lot of similarities in this situation, and if the Twins can survive replacing TK with Gardy, they should be able to handle replacing Ryan with Smith.

One thing we know for sure, this will be one of the most important and interesting off-seasons in team history.

Ramble On, Sing my song

*Jason Kubel is up to .269, with 11 homers and 60 RBI. His OPS is approaching 800. His OPS+ has surpassed 100. Since the break, he's hitting .303/.374/.508. That's an OPS of 882, and an OPS+ of 130. That's really good.
And, while everyone has tried to pigeon-hole him as a DH, he's proven himself to be just fine in LF, far better than Jason Tyner or Rondell White.

I thought Kubel's breakout year would be this year, and thanks to a slow start and Ron Gardenhire's refusal to play him every day it hasn't happened.

But I'm pretty confident that Kubel will be one of the Twins best players in 2008.

*Brian Buscher's success between Double-A and Triple-A this year meant that his call-up was certainly well-deserved, and while I was anxious to get a look at him, I wasn't optimistic he was a legit prospect.

While he's been next to awful in the field, he's shown that he can hit major league pitching.
Yeah, it's been just 20 games, but in 50 ABs, he's at .280/.345/.400 and a couple homers. It would be a huge mistake to hand him a starting job next year, and the Twins wouldnt do that even if he was good enough to handle it, but I think he belongs on the '08 team. It'd be nice to have a good bat on the bench for once.

*I've defended Justin Morneau all year, and will continue to do so, but his homer drought is getting ridiculous. 1 HR since July. C'mon. Hit a goddamm dinger wouldja?

*Who else thinks USF could give the Michigan Wolverines a game? Notre Dame, too.

*I watched Blue Chips the other day. Probably the second best basketball movie ever, behind Hoosiers. Nick Nolte is awesome as the grizzled coach and Shaq is actually pretty good as the prized freshman center. Also, JT Walsh usually only shows up in good flicks.

Penny Hardaway, however, is the worst actor/athlete ever. Almost ruins the movie.

*Third best basketball movie ever? Toss up between TeenWolf and White Men Can't Jump. Remember the wise words of the coach in TeenWolf. Never play cards with a guy named after a city.

*Memo to Tiki Barber. Shut the fuck up.

*My votes for this year's baseball award winners:
AL MVP: A-Rod. Duh.
AL CY: CC Sabathia
AL ROY: Reggie Willits
AL MGR: Joe Torre

NL MVP: ummmm....Prince Fielder
NL CY: Brandon Webb
NL ROY: That Tuzolweski guy for the Rockies
NL MGR: Lou Pineilla I guess. Man I hate the Cubs.

*I've discovered that if I drink a ton of Gatorade before bed after a night of drinking, the hangover isnt near as bad. Also helps to brush your teeth before bed and again in the morning. I guess alot of the booze hangs out in your mouth.

*The Vikings are boooooorrrring. I don't get fans that say baseball is boring, but then get all worked up watching the Vikings and Falcons trade 3 and outs for three hours.

*Ok, maybe the Vikes wont be as bad as I thought. But maybe they will. The Falcons suck.

*I can't believe how many hot chicks work at the Argus Leader.

*Can we just assume now that any politician who is publicly opposed to gay rights is gay?

This is the assumption I now automatically make about anyone who says they belong to either party:

If you're a Democrat, you are a whiny pussy who opposes responsibility and personal accountability, and wants to tell other people what to do with their money. In other words, you're a woman.

If you're a Republican, you're a closet homo who wants to tell other people what to do with their penises. Maybe instead of trying to go around taking away everyone's porn and condoms you should try going to a strip club or buying a titty flick from Lodgenet. Good stuff. (I realize some republicans are republicans for fiscal reasons. Not my problem. These are the people ruining your party. If you don't like being painted with this brush than do something about it. Stop giving a forum to these hatemongers).

I think Lewis Black said it best when he said,

"We have the republican party, a party of bad ideas, and the democratic party, a party of no ideas."

*I went 13-3 predicting NFL games in week 1. I'm picking Detroit to beat the Vikes Sunday. If the Vikes win this one, maybe I'll start coming around.

*Do you realize that from the end of the Canaries season until the beginning of the Stampede season there are no sporting events in Sioux Falls, probably the whole state, in which you can purchase beer? No wonder I don't get into college football all that much.

*Go see 3:10 to Yuma. And Superbad. Unless you dont like dick jokes.

But come on, who doesn't like dick jokes?

*John Mayer - horrible. I just like reminding people.

A break from baseball

I just haven't felt up to writing much about the Twins lately. A look around the other Twins blogs on the net shows that I'm not alone.
And, judging by the decrease in traffic around these parts, it's not like people are dying without more analysis of Nick Punto's suckiness.

So I'll offer my take on the Vikings. This isn't a football blog and it never will be. My interest in the NFL seems to deteriorate more and more each year. The more popular the league gets, the more I have a distaste for it.

But while I'm not much of an NFL fan these days, I'm still a Vikings fan.
Here are a few thoughts on the '07 season. I'm not optimistic.

I don't expect the Vikings to be good.
At all.
Of course, nobody in the this era of the NFL is very good, so I guess there's always a chance.
(About this whole parity thing. I really hated how the 49ers and Cowboys won everything back in the day, but it seemed like the league was stronger and the games were better. Now it seems like every team feels like they have a chance going into the season, and thats good, but it seems like the league isn't as good overall. I honestly don't even remember the last time I enjoyed a Vikings game. Too bad I keep watching anyway)

I think the offense will be quite shitty.
For one, Tarvaris Jackson will be worse than Brad Johnson was last year. He will be more mobile and strong armed, but he'll make poorer decisions, and probably be less accurate on short and intermediate routes.

Also while mobile quarterbacks can keep plays alive, they also are prone to frequent fumbles. Taking a sack and punting is better than scrambling for six yards and losing the football.

Adrian Peterson gives the Vikings their first and only dynamic player on offense. But will he stay healthy?
Everyone talks about what a great 1-2 punch he makes with Chester Taylor, but Taylor is overrated to begin with. He controls the ball (and the clock), but, if you take away the one fluke 96-yard run against Seattle, he averaged a measly 3.7 yards per carry. He's basically Mike Alstott.

Bobby Wade and Robert Ferguson could be decent WRs. I think Troy Williamson might snap out of it this year and actually catch some footballs. Sidney Rice might end up being the best WR on the roster.

I think they will miss Jermaine Wiggins.
I don't like the right side of the O-line.
Defensively it will be good to have a healthy Chad Greenway. Ben Leber and EJ Henderson are average.
Erasmus James, Kenechi Udeze, Kevin Williams - what can we expect from those guys?
Will Cedric Griffin survive in the secondary? And how bad will they miss Mike Tomlin? Will teams ever bother to even try to run the ball against them?

Bottom line - I don't think this team is ready. I think Brad Childress deserves some credit for recognizing what a poor job he and his staff did last year in handling the offense and in some cases even the personal relationships with media, players and fans, and taking steps to improve in those areas.

But I'm still not sold on him being a capable coach.
He took over a 9-7 team with lots of talent. If they go 6-10 again, or worse, does he deserve another year. Why couldn't he have tried to improve the 9-7 club? Why did he have to start all over and force us to watch this garbage?

Zim's 2007 NFC North Predicted Standings
1. Chicago 10-6
2. Green Bay 7-9
3. Detroit 6-10
4. Vikes 5-11

Some other Vikes predictions

Sports Illustrated Preview: 6-10

Jim Souhan, Strib: 7-9

Pat Reusse, Strib: 9-7

Newt, skolvikes.blogspot.com: NFC North Division Champs

Shut up, Johan

Johan Santana will not win the Cy Young award this year, thanks in part to the fact that he is 0-5 against the 1st place team in the division, the Cleveland Indians. He pitched crappy against them again Monday, as the Twins fell back to 69-69.
Santana is 14-11, with a 3.15 ERA and 203 Ks in 194 innings. He's been outstanding to be sure, but this is shaping up to be the least impressive year of his career since joining the rotation.
That's all fine and good. Even if he's been a little down this year, Santana is not one of the reasons the Twins will be watching the playoffs on TV this year.

Having said that, I would like to tell Johan to shut the hell up.
For the second straight start, Johan pretty much knocked his own team out of the game early. Last time he gave up four runs in the 1st inning, this time he gave up a run in each of the first three (a Jason Bartlett error contributed to one of them, but so did his own leadoff walk). Yes, the Twins struggled to score runs, but Johan flat out failed to pitch like an ace in his last two starts.
Yet he blatantly threw his teammates under the bus in his postgame comments both times. Rather than take any responsibility whatsoever for leaving pitches up in the zone and walking too many hitters, Johan says, essentially, it's not my fault, I did my part, we lose as a team, and the rest of the team isn't measuring up.
For one it's only half true, and for another, it doesn't do any good to say those things anyway.
Johan has been victim of poor run support pretty much his whole career, so I sympathize on some level, but dude, shut the fuck up.
Blaming the Twins for not scoring against CC Sabathia when you gave up 8 runs in 12 innings in your last two starts just makes you look like a dick. How 'bout giving some credit to Sabathia for doing to the Twins what you, as a 2-time Cy Young award winner, should've done to Cleveland.

*There's a firestorm brewing over a Jim Souhan column in the Strib suggesting that its time to move Joe Mauer to 3B. Gardy and Mauer are all pissed about it, especially the suggestion that Mauer should make a better effort to play through pain.
I'm not for Mauer moving out from behind the plate yet, but it's pretty obvious it's gonna happen eventually.
Souhan does point out that players like Mike Sweeney, Craig Biggio and Todd Zeile all went on to improved offensive numbers when they moved out from behind the plate, but Gardy also points out that none of those players were as good behind the dish as Mauer is.

*Would've been pretty cool if Scott Baker had finished that perfect game. Either way, the dude's been pretty good lately. Kinda like I said he would all year long.

*Nick Blackburn got called up and threw a scoreless inning Monday. He made it from Double-A to the majors this year, the latest quick-rising pitching prospect the Twins have raised. I wonder if they're ever going to trade one of them.

*If the reason Gardy keeps playing Nick Punto, Jason Tyner and Rondell White is because the team hasn't been officially, mathematically elminated from the playoff race, then he's a total, blithering idiot.
Seriously, there's no reason not to give Brian Buscher a long look, not to mention giving Jason Kubel as many ABs as possible. Wouldn't mind seeing Denard Span and Matt Tolbert, too.

Bringing the pain

(You can see Rondell White's enthusiasm for the game in this photo: "Ain't no motherfuckin' way I'm playing 162 of these motherfuckers")

Today I will highlight all that went wrong for the Twins this year. If you're a Circle-me-Bert-sign holding, Lew Ford-loving, Dick Bremer-kool aid-drinking, Piranha T-shirt-wearing weenie who thinks everything written about the Twins should be a bed-time story about how they hustle and play hard and have a small payroll, you might want to avert your eyes. This is gonna get ugly.

Terry Ryan got right to work in fucking this team up.
He picked up the option on Carlos Silva. Seemed questionable at the time, but worked out okay. But then he resigned Lew Ford, Rondell White and Nick Punto. Those three moves alone should probably have called his sanity into question. But it didnt end there.

Ramon Ortiz was signed to a 1 year $3.1 million deal and guaranteed a spot in the rotation.
Sidney Ponson was signed to a 1 year, $1 million deal, and while the public was told he had to earn a spot in the rotation, it was clear he had the team had every intention of making him the 5th starter from the day he signed.

The only move made that wasn't terrible was the signing of 3B Jeff Cirillo, and that turned out to be somewhhat disappointing. There was no real insurance for Punto and White's totally predictable fall.

It's possible the Twins could've survived these moves had they been corrected, or if the rest of the team overachieved, two things that happened in 2006, allowing the team to recover from similar preseason mistakes.

But the Twins are still at this moment running Punto out to 3B every day, even as he threatens some of the most historically bad hitting performances of all time. Meanwhile countless cheap and serviceable hitters changed teams without the Twins getting in on any of it, except for ridding themselves of two infielders (Cirillo and Luis Castillo) who actually had some value.

Again, Ryan comes off as looking woefully inept on this front.

But not all the blame can go to the front office.
Some players didn't live up.
Injuries certainly have played a factor, but Joe Mauer has had a flat-out disappointing year. .294 with 5 homers is good, but with the rest of the lineup what it is, the Twins clearly need more from him.

Yes, he's still one of the top hitting catchers around, but just because he plays a position where less offense is expected doesn't let him off the hook. The Twins didnt draft him No. 1 overall to hit .294 with 5 homers, no matter how pretty his OBP is.

Michael Cuddyer, like Mauer, has been a minor disappointment. His line of .277/.355/.442 is more in line for a 7 hitter, not a cleanup hitter.

I could write for an hour about all the ways Punto has hurt the team offensively, but that's the Twins' fault for expecting a mediocre utility player to be anything more than a terrible everyday player.

I'll admit, I expected Rondell White to be decent this year. Maybe 350-400 at-bats, a .280 average with 12 homers. Never should've brought him back. Fool me once, shame on...well you know.

I also really thought Jason Kubel would have big year, something along the lines of .280-20 homers. He might be closer if Gardy would commit to playing him every day, but regardless of who's at fault, he's been a disappointment.

Juan Rincon's steroids wore off, and now he's terrible.
Dennys Reyes has been effective when healthy, but since he's been hurt a lot, he hasn't been able to recreate last year.

Overuse probably has something to do with it, but Pat Neshek has been getting roughed up of late.

Jason Bartlett and Luis Castillo were maybe a little less effective than last year, but not enough for them to accept any blame for what has happened. Same goes for Johan Santana. Same goes for Justin Morneau. Morneau's average has dropped to .284 from last years .321, and he has hit only 1 homer in the last month, but I dont think you can complain about 29 HRs, 95 RBI and a .527 SLG with another month still to go. Plus his defense has continued to improve. Mike Redmond did a serviceable job of subbing for Mauer when he was hurt.

There are only three players on the entire Twins roster who performed better than I expected they would this year: Torii Hunter, the team's MVP this year, Carlos Silva and Matt Guerrier. I guess you could include Scott Baker and Matt Garza, but I'm honestly not that surprised by the success those two have had.

Last year, with the whole Tony Batista-Juan Castro thing, I just figured Terry Ryan had a bad year. My feeling that he's one of the top GMs in baseball did not change.

But after this year, I'm not so sure. He was in charge of a team with enough talent that competing in the AL Central was a very reasonable expectation. But not only did he fail to improve it, he actually made it worse. He simply failed at his job this year, miserably.

I'm optimistic that he knows this, and has plans in store to make up for it in '08. We'll see.

It was pretty much over, hopefully now it's like, really over

I hope you weren't enough of a sap to fall for the Twins latest "threat" to get back into the AL Central race.
I wasn't.
They won five in a row because the Orioles are the worst team in baseball right now. Once they had to play a real major league baseball team, the Twins once again showed their true colors.
If the Indians were to split their remaining 30 games 15-15, the Twins would have to go 24-5 to win the division.
It's over.

Considering the overall significance of the moment, and all that had happened in the first 132 games and 8 innings, I think Nick Punto's failed bunt in the 9th might be the most significant at-bat for the Twins since AJ Pierzynski's homer off Billy Koch.
It symbolized everything that is wrong with this team, everything that has gone wrong this year.
He's hitting .196, he's terrible, he has no business in the lineup in the first place, but there he is with a chance to contribute by completing a very simple task - get down a bunt. Something your average high school player can do.
And he failed. Again. It's beyond the point of benching Punto for the good of the team, he should be benched for his own good. If Gardy cares about these guys as much as he says he does, he should take Punto out of the lineup to save him from further embarrassing himself. There's a very good chance that this will go down as the worst offensive season by a player in ML history.

*Johan Santana's 4-run, two-homer 1st inning should disqualify him from the Cy Young award. I still think he's the best starter in the game, but he leads the league in homers allowed, and its not like he's just giving up a single, solo homer a game. It's been more than that, and Santana, with an 0-4 record against the 1st place team in the division, hasn't exactly stepped up when the team needed him this year.

*Carmen Cali in the 8th, in a one-run game? Seriously?

*Jason Bartlett leads the Twins in slugging percentage since the All-Star break (.518).

*Joe Mauer is hitting .274 with a .364 slugging percentage since the break. And he's out with hamstring problems again.

*Michael Cuddyer has very quietly failed to repeat last years numbers. He hasn't been bad, but he's hit like a No. 7 hitter, not a cleanup hitter.

*Jason Tyner is on fire. This is the high point of his career.

*Rondell, if you're really going to retire, would you please bring Punto with you. And Lew Ford. And Ron Gardenhire.

Rot in Hell...but rot in prison first

Every time I look at my dogs, I think of Ron Mexico, er, Mike Vick, and what a complete piece of shit waste of sperm he is.

Then I think about how he's going to spend the next year to year and a half tossing gangsta salads and giving hummers for cigarettes, and I don't feel so bad.

A year to 18 months doesn't seem long enough to me, because anyone capable of committing such atrocities is, in my opinion, a danger to society, not just a danger to dogs.

But he probably won't ever play in the NFL again, which probably means he'll find his way back to jail again someday after he gets out.

I mean he is related to Marcus Vick, after all.

Their dad, Michael Boddie, a former army vet who sired Mr. Mexico at age 17, must've been one hell of a dad.

(P.S. - If you don't know anything about the 'Ron Mexico' incident, or the exploits of Marcus Vick, look them up for some entertainment)

Forget the offense, how 'bout the pitching

The Twins have scored a major league worst 112 runs in 35 games since the All-Star break, an average of 3.2 runs a game. The Yankees have scored 271 runs since the break.

One more time for those of you who read slow.
NYY - 271 runs since All-Star break.
MIN - 112 runs since All-Star break.

The Twins should probably be something like 10-25 in those 35 games, but they are actually a respectable 17-18. Just this weekend, they took 2 of 3 from Texas while scoring three runs in the whole series.

The reason has been the starting pitching, Boof Bonser notwithstanding.

Johan Santana's near perfect outing Sunday lowered his ERA to 2.88, while he has posted 191 K's and allowed just 138 hits in 175 innings. He's only won 13 games, but if he can get to 17, and keeps his other numbers steady, he can still win another Cy Young award.

Matt Garza has a 2.05 ERA in 7 starts, and I think he's very close to being an elite starter already. He's probably the No. 2 starter, a potential All-Star.
Meanwhile Scott Baker has been better than even I would've thought possible, and I've been one of the only people defending him. Baker is 6-5 with a 4.53 ERA, and has 73 Ks in 99 innings, in which he's allowed 103 hits.
It'll be interesting to see if Baker remains a part of the Twins long-term plans with so many other young pitchers looking to make their mark. The way he's been going, it'd be tough to leave Baker out of the picture.
Even Carlos Silva has been good this year, with a 4.17 ERA in 25 starts.
The weakest link has been the only guy anyone liked besides Johan before the year, Boof Bonser.
0-8 in his last 12 starts, Bonser's ERA is now at 4.93. He's allowed 165 hits and 53 walks in 144 innings, for an alarming WHIP of 1.51.
The Strib reported this weekend that the team has acknowledged talking to Boof about losing some weight. He's currently at about 260, and the fact that he is always good for the first 3 or 4 innings then runs into trouble certainly suggests stamina could be a problem.
Whether or not that works remains to be seen, but I think Bonser will have a good career, possibly as a closer or set-up man, if he doesn't get it together as a starter.
Really, 4.93 isn't terrible for a guy in his first full major league season. He'll be fine.

The problem the Twins are running into is too many starters.
Looking at their minor league system, there are endless possibilities for the rotation.
Santana
Silva
Bonser
Garza
Baker
Kevin Slowey
Glen Perkins
Nick Blackburn
Francisco Liriano
Jeff Manship
Yohan Pino
Oswaldo Sosa
Anthony Swarzak
Brian Duensing

Seriously, all of these guys are going to pitch in the majors, and all of them could be very good.
Someone is going to have to either be traded or moved to the bullpen.

They should be creative here.
It sounds like the Twins are going to try to correct Juan Rincon rather than get rid of him after this year. With a sudden lack of depth in the bullpen, I guess they might as well, but I'm not optimistic he's salvageable.
Jesse Crain's injuries are quite serious, and I'm not optimistic about him either.

So there will likely be openings in the 'pen.
Silva says he wants to come back, so I say bring him back and stick him in the pen.
I'd probably trade Joe Nathan for some offense, make Liriano or Bonser the closer.
It'll be interesting to see what they do, but either way, they're in very good shape, and while they're still lacking offense in their minor league system, it's better to be overloaded with pitching, I think.

*Roadrunners season over
Despite finishing 3-7 in league play during the regular season, the Renner Roadrunners amateur team, boldly, courageously, brilliantly managed by a terrific .264 hitter named Matt Zimmer, played to the second to last day of the season, finishing in the Class A final four.
We faced elimination in district play, and three times in the state tournament, and kept winning to keep playing.
But our luck ran out Saturday, as we were eliminated by eventual runner-up Brookings.
Playing the state tournament at the Birdcage was a lot of fun. It was a great year, the most fun I've had in amateur ball in a long time.
For the first time in my life, I'm sad the season is over. Usually by this time, I'm ready for it to end. As I write this, I already can't wait for next year. We'll be back in the hunt.

No, Jason Tyner isn't a good player (and a trade)

People, you really have to get it out of your head that batting average is a good way to judge a player.
There's nothing wrong with hitting .300, certainly, and even a .279 average, like the one Jason Tyner carries, can, in the proper context, be decent.
The proper context being like, 25 homers or 100 walks or something.

Jason Tyner is a .279 hitter with no power who draws few walks. He makes an out about 67 percent of the time, and when he does get on base, it's a single or walk 90 percent of the time. Again, getting on base is getting on base, but a guy who can hit a gap or clear a fence once in awhile, say Jason Kubel, is more valuable even if his average is lower.
I will admit to being something of a stat nerd and subscriber to sabermetrics, so you'll have to bear with me as I drop some nerd-knowledge on you.
Tyner's OPS+ this year is 82. For his career it's 62 (really bad). The best OPS+ he's ever had was 98.

I know what your'e thinking. You have no idea what OPS+ means.
An OPS+ of 100 is average. So a guy with a 119 OPS+ is 19 percent better than average. A guy at 79 is 21 percent below average.
Again, Jason Tyner, 82 this year (18 percent below average) 62 for his career (38 percent below average).

If you still think Jason Tyner should be anything more than a pinch-hitter, this, stolen from AaronGleeman.com, should do it.

"Even with an improved approach at the plate, Tyner's complete lack of secondary skills make him one of the rare hitters who can avoid having significant value even when batting .300. Despite a .271 career batting average (including an even .300 with the Twins), Tyner's OPS is just .624. When compared to the league average, that ranks as the second-worst OPS of any outfielder with at least 1,250 plate appearances in the past 50 years:

                      PLAYER     LEAGUE      DIFF
Peter Bergeron         .612       .786      -.175
JASON TYNER            .624       .765      -.141
Doug Dascenzo          .590       .715      -.125
David Hulse            .644       .763      -.120
Darren Lewis           .645       .764      -.116
Eric Owens             .664       .780      -.116
Brian Hunter           .660       .773      -.113
Adrian Brown           .666       .779      -.113
Chuck Carr             .649       .760      -.112
Milt Cuyler            .631       .739      -.109

What's amazing is that Tyner's .271 batting average is the highest of anyone on the above list and four of the other nine hitters batted .250 or worse (including Peter Bergeron at .226). In other words, not only is he incredibly unproductive, Tyner is the epitome of an "empty batting average." Tyner hasn't lost much speed yet and possesses just enough range defensively to be passable in center field, which makes him at best a "textbook" fifth outfielder."

It's nothing personal. I kinda like the guy, too. He's better than Lew Ford. He's a decent pinch-hitter because he makes contact. But DH'ing him is embarrassing, and giving him regular at-bats is well, lame. He is, the above numbers prove, a historically unproductive offensive player.

*The Twins traded Ramon Oritz to Colorado for IF Matt Macri.
Macri, stunningly, appears to be a decent prospect, someone the Rockies liked. He can play 2b, ss and 3b, and was hitting .298 at Double-A before a callup to Triple-A where he went 6-for-9 before the trade. He's probably already a better player than Nick Punto.
I wouldn't count on him being an all-star or anything, but he appears to be a guy who can help at the major league level.
The fact that the Twins got a better return for a failed 5th starter-turned-mop-up reliever than they did for an all-star and gold glove 2B shows how desperate the Twins were to simply clear space so Alexi Casilla could begin training on the job at 2b.
The signing of Ortiz wouldn't have bothered me had it been cheap, like the Sidney Ponson deal, but for $3.1 million I hated it. I predicted before the year he would go 13-11 with a 4.86 ERA, and was only that optimistic based on his strong spring. It looked like he was on his way after a strong start in April, but he started getting hammered and the Twins gave him a quick hook, banishing him to the mopup role in the pen.
Another failed experiment from Terry Ryan, but the acquisition of Macri allows him to save face somewhat.

You Get What You Deserve

With all the throwing things at the TV, gnashing of teeth and calling for the jobs of Ron Gardenhire and Terry Ryan, one thing is clear.
This team is ill-equipped to compete in any division, so acting surprised at this point doesn't make any sense.

I don't know why exactly, but Ryan clearly made the decision that he didn't think he needed any offensive help before the season, that they could win with what they had.
When that proved to be wrong, he still had plenty of time to make adjustments, as Detroit and Cleveland faltered, but he did nothing. His decision to trade Luis Castillo, waive Jeff Cirillo and add nothing is/was clearly a white flag.

People are shouting about how they don't want to watch this team anymore, and I don't blame them. But folks, this isn't about guys failing to meet standards, it's about a team failing to provide itself with any Plan B options once their tenuous Plan A options predictably failed.

I thought Nick Punto might be bad this year, but by bad I was thinking along the lines of .240, not .200 with an inability to even lay down a sac bunt. He is without a doubt the worst everyday player in the major leagues. And this one is hard to blame on Terry Ryan, since Gardy was in such a hurry to proclaim Punto his 3B at the end of last year.
Most real baseball fans refused to embrace the whole 'piranhas' thing last year even when the players it pertained to were playing well. The reason? We knew it was bullshit. We were right.

Dumping Castillo was the right thing to do, because these last two months of playing time will probably prove invaluable to Alexi Casilla as he prepares to play every day next season.
If he's healthy, Jason Kubel needs to play every single inning the rest of the way.
This team is not going to win, so playing Punto, Rondell White or Jason Tyner is a complete waste of time. If Brian Buscher comes back, play him every day. Call up Matt Tolbert and Denard Span, and get them some PT, too.

At least that might be worth watching. Pretending you're still in the race, and thinking the best way to stay there is by playing Punto, White and Tyner, is a fucking joke, and no one is laughing.

Takin' the weekend off

*Seriously, if someone had shown this picture to Terry Ryan or Ron Gardenhire, maybe they never would've let him open the season as the starting 3B.

*You all knew, like I did, that the Twins 11-run burst on Wednesday was a total fluke, and that was proven when they were shutout by KC's Kyle Davies on Thursday.
At this point, I don't care if the Twins are a half-game out, the way they're playing right now, talking pennant race is a joke.
I just hope they're able to stay above the .500 mark and extend their club record streak of consecutive winning seasons to 7.

But I won't be watching this weekend. That's because me and the Roadrunners leave Friday for Yankton to compete in the Class A state amateur baseball tournament.
We are 11-11, but I think most people look at us as a dark horse, as we've underachieved all year. We've got a chance, but the Class A field is loaded this year. And we've got some injuries.
But we made it, so we might as well try to win the thing.
Wish us luck.

Not even this picture can cheer me up

Why do I keep falling for this shit?
A couple 3-2 wins and everyone (including me, I admit) starts going "We're only 4 1/2 games back! We're gonna do it again, just like last year! Here we come!"

Uhh, no.
The Twins pitching is good. Maybe even great.
Their offense blows dog.
This team can't make the playoffs. Not with a Texas-League lineup.

71 runs since the All-Star break, which is 14 fewer than any other team.
Just because the Twins have two elite offensive players (Justin Morneau and Torii Hunter) and two good ones (Michael Cuddyer and Joe Mauer) doesn't mean they can score runs consistently. Especially since those four are all slumping now anyway.

The rest of the lineup is poop. Runny, smelly poop.

One new bat isn't gonna do it. I am actually starting to think not making a deal was the right move. It probably would've been a waste.

It's '05 all over again. They're gonna finish 84-78. If they keep pitching.

A long weekend but a good one

It was quite a weekend.
First there was the bridge collapse. It just didn't seem right to go on a blog and bitch about the Twins in light of that tragedy, so TwinsTown stayed quiet.
Saturday I was at United Bowl III for work. I'm only marginally entertained by Storm games usually, but this was one of the best football games I've ever seen. It was just amazing. I couldn't believe how loud the Arena got. It was an incredible atmosphere. A lot of fun.
And Sunday, the Roadrunners were winning a pair of elimination games to land the final bid to the Class A state amateur baseball tournament.
We had lost seven of eight, and entered the day needing to win two to punch our ticket, which we did. We even beat the regular season league champion on their home field in the clincher. Cool.

So that's why it's been quiet here for a few days, and also why this entry will be short.
I'm just too damn tired. Exhausted. I know that the Twins are miraculously 4 1/2 games out of first. The Twins are still not that good of a team. But at the moment, neither are Cleveland or Detroit, so here we are.

Scott Baker. 3.13 ERA last nine starts. Told ya he'd be good.