Month: June 2008

^{(AP Photo/Tom Olmscheid)}

Completely in the clutches of pro basketball withdrawal, I made my way down to the Dome on Sunday to watch what has become a confoundingly enjoyable 2008 edition of the Minnesota Twins. Actually the prime motivation was catching the galaxy of rising stars on the Arizona Diamondbacks, and receiving what is likely to be my only in-person experience watching 2006 Cy Young Award winner Brandon Webb on the mound. But I walked out of the ballpark remembering why I retain such fondness for the Twins organization, especially their front office (formerly Terry Ryan and now Billy Smith and Mike Radcliffe) and manager Ron Gardenhire and the coaching staff.

The Twins won’t be playing ball deep into October. If they are still contending in August, it will substantially expand upon what has already been the pleasant surprise of their play thus far. Forty wins in 76 games from this crew? How is that possible?

Beats me. The name of the game has always been pitching and defense, yet you might as well draw lots trying to determine the ace of their starting rotation: The vet Livan Hernandez has an ERA over 5, and Scott Baker and Nick Blackburn are generally regarded (by the Twins scouts themselves, if they could be honest with you) as, at best, middle-of-the-rotation pitchers. Slowey? Perkins? Bonser? You see why the Twins rank 10th in the 14-team American League (and 19th out of 30 in all the majors) in earned run average.

And the defense hasn’t helped. Only Arizona, Houston and Texas have yielded as many unearned runs as Minnesota thus far this year. In terms of both errors and fielding percentage, they are among the bottom seven teams in all of baseball.

Ah, so it’s the hitting, eh? Nope, not really. Minnesota ranks 21st among the 30 teams in OPS, due to being 21st in slugging percentage and 18th in on-base percentage. (While we’re at it, here’s a head-scratcher: Even with the pitcher hitting instead of the DH, National League teams are generally the same as their AL counterparts in OPS. The Washington Nats have the worst offense in the majors, but the Blue Jays, Mariners and A’s are right behind them. Ditto, the Rangers and Red Sox are the game’s best mashers, but the Marlins, Cubs and Phillies hit better than the other dozen AL ballclubs.)

So why is this team 40-36?

I’m sorely tempted to wax rhapsodically about how the Twins always "play the game the right way" and thus steal more could-go-either-way contests than they forfeit. And I believe this to be true. The organizational philosophy of this franchise is cautious and conservative. They don’t eat their seed corn by trading cheap young talent for proven commodities and, to get whatever edge their lack of gambles sacrifice, they maximize their available talent and seasoning enough that they rarely unexpectedly beat themselves.

Sunday’s game isn’t a perfect example, but it will do as a fresh and a handy reference. Opposing Webb was Livan Hernandez, who is at least 33 (Cuban defectors frequently shave a few years off their age), has thrown 200 innings every year since 2000, and has watched his WHIP (number of walks and hits yielded per inning pitched) rise each year since 2001, including this season, where he sports an ugly 1.61 WHIP to go with his 5.23 ERA. Put simply, he’s a crafty, durable hurler in the twilight of his career. And it was a hell of a lot of fun watching him go up against the bevy of very talented but mostly callow hitters in the D-backs batting order.

Over and over again, Hernandez would perfectly spot the location of his cutter, rarely varying from its 83-87 miles per hour speed, but almost always appearing as if it was going to land outside the plate to right handed hitters, only to suddenly veer in and catch the outside corner for a back-door strike, a pitch the home plate ump was generous about calling for both hurlers. Two D-backs who were especially vexed by this were Chris Young and Justin Upton, a pair of prodigiously talented outfielders who still have a long way to go to seize their potential. The 25-year old Young, who blasted 27 homers last season yet struck out 141 times and hit just .237 (and batted leadoff for most of the year!), stared at three straight strikes without lifting the bat off his shoulder with two on and one out in the 2nd inning, with strike three being of the back-door vintage just described. Leading off the third inning, the 20-year old Upton (who started his rookie season with a bang but has just 5 hits and 21 strikeouts in his last 18 games) likewise stared at three straight called strikes, the final two via the back door. And in the 4th, again with two on base and only one out, Young again stared at three straight strikes, the final two on the back door. Got that? In their first three plate appearances, Young and Upton had nine straight called strikes. That is a veteran pitcher schoolin’ the young’uns.

By the way, the Twins are paying Hernandez $5 million this season. With his 8 wins, it is already a pretty good deal, and removes some of the stain of the Twins horrible signings of broken-down vets Ramon Ortiz and Sidney Ponson last year (although like a bad penny Ponson keeps showing up and making trouble for himself and whatever ballclub he is with–currently the Yankees, a match made is Hades). By contrast, last year’s younger, and then-better, version of Hernandez, Carlos Silva, parlayed a slightly-above-mediocre season of innings-eating ground balls and pinpoint control into a whopping 4-year, $48 million signing with the Seattle Mariners. This is the sort of colossal mistake the cautious, conservative Twins never make (well, except for Joe Mays). As Hernandez was scattering nine hits and allowing Arizona only one earned run (and three overall) in 7 innings, Silva was getting shellacked versus Atlanta, yielding three homers among nine hits in only four innings work and suffering his 9th loss in 12 decisions (Hernandez is 8-4).

Meanwhile, Webb didn’t have his best stuff–after winning his first nine decisions, yesterday’s 5-to-3 loss put him at 11-4–but it seemed sufficient as he faced just two hitters over the minimum in four shutout innings. Webb is very much the type of pitcher the Twins organization prefers; someone with great command of location who puts the ball in play but, like Greg Maddux, rarely allows hitters to get comfortable or put the fat part of the bat on the ball. He’s never struck out 200 in a season despite eclipsing 200 innings each of the last four seasons, and yielded just 12 homers in 236 innings last year. What makes him particularly effective is that his hardest stuff breaks as sharply as the rest of his arsenal–when he’s on his game, his sinker seems to weigh a ton, creating a surfeit of routine ground balls.

Yesterday he was undone by one inning, when the Twins pounced and scored 5 in the 5th. After a sharp single to left by Jason Kubel, Delmon Young lofted a routine fly ball into left…except that nothing is ever routine in the blasphemy that is Metrodome baseball, especially fly balls up in that off-white roof during a day game. D-backs manager Bob Melvin pulled the sort of dumb manuver that I (perhaps too charitably) don’t imagine Gardenhire ever doing, which is putting first baseman Conor Jackson–who had played the outfield just five times this season, or one-tenth what he’s logged at first–out in the vast expanse of the Dome’s left field acreage in conditions that were optimal for even seasoned outfielders to lose a ball in the roof. If Melvin wanted Jackson’s bat in the lineup (and the steady youngster, who is light years more mature at the plate than Young or Upton, went 3-for-4), he had the rare luxury (for an NL manager) of the DH in this interleague contest in an AL ballpark. In any event, Jackson raced back to the left field fence and had no idea the ball would land harmlessly 25 ya
rds in front of him, giving Young a gift double and putting runners on second and third with no out. That brought up Brian Buscher, a 27-year old scrub described by the 2008 Baseball Prospectus this way: "He’s not a prospect, and even a bench role is unlikely after the Twins’ winter additions." But with one of those additions, Mike Lamb from Houston, being a early-season bust, Buscher was getting his licks, and stroked a single to center to knock in two. Another winter addition, Brendan Harris from Tampa Bay, singled to left to put runners on first and second with still nobody out. Another winter addition, Carlos Gomez from the Mets as the key piece in the Johan Santana deal, then laid down a beautiful bunt even as the D-backs were expecting it and defending it well, sacrificing the runners over to second and third with one down. And that’s when Alexi Casilla, who inexplicably found himself in Gardy’s doghouse last year but has been a marvelous spark in the lineup as part of a go-go tandem with the fleet Gomez at the top of the order, stroked the inning’s second two-run single. And that was the ballgame. A little luck off Melvin’s dumb strategizing, and then a pair of unheralded Twins practicing what the organization preaches; not trying to do too much at the plate (which is what currently bedevils both Young and Upton), just getting good wood on Webb’s veering pitches, providing great at-bats sandwiched around Gomez’s superb bunt, which was highlighted in Gardy’s postgame comments.

That kind of steady approach to hitting is why the Twins are 6th in runs despite being 21st in OPS. But even more enjoyable for me has been the team’s fielding prowess over the years. Yes, the last couple have been an aberration in that regard, and have pissed Gardenhire off more than once, but yesterday, except for Delmon Young in left field, they were a team of beauty, never moreso than two back-to-back plays in the top of the 5th, when Arizona was already up 3-0 and threatening to expand their lead. The inning began with another of Arizona’s solid prospects, shortstop Stephen Drew, singling to right, a result echoed by 2b-utility man Augie Ojeda, putting two runners on with nobody out. Two pitches later, the inning was over. The first was a missed bunt by Orlando Hudson, followed by catcher Joe Mauer alertly firing what Gardenhire described as a "pellet" down to second base to pick off Drew, who strayed too far assuming the bunt would happen. The next pitch was a grounder to Justin Morneau at first and the big slugger and vastly underrated fielder turned in what remains one of the prettiest plays in all of baseball, the 3-6-3 double play.

I mentioned Delmon Young, the prize in the atypically gutsy trade Smith made shortly after taking over for Ryan in the off-season, shipping hot pitching prospect Matt Garza to Tampa to secure the services of the 22-year old Young, an equally hot, and in fact slightly more proven, prospect. But Young has gotten off to a shaky start. For one thing he has one measly home run, disappointing those who, based on his track record in pro ball, felt he would increase, perhaps even double, the 13 homers he hit in his first full season in the majors last year. As Young has struggled, Gardy has occasionally sat him down, probably to get a breather, but for someone who played literally every day for Tampa last year, the time off may have psychologically done more harm than good. Whatever the case, Young had a miserable day in the field on Sunday. In the second inning he got a lousy jump on a ball Jackson hit, turning a flyout into a single. Two batters later, he again moved like his feet were in cement, this time on a foul fly that fell harmlessly on the turf instead of his glove, presaging a second single. Instead of being out of the inning, Hernandez had only one out and two on, thanks to what looked like Young’s lack of hustle. Certainly the normally affable Twins fans have not embraced him–after he allowed a single to go under his glove in the fourth, a two-base error that essentially cost the team two runs, Young received a smattering of boos. In the clubhouse after the game, Gardy minimized the gaping error and defended the two indolent flies in the second, properly noting that the ball came off the end of the bat on a full swing on the first.

In today’s Strib, columnist Jim Souhan–who, like his colleague Pat Reusse, loves baseball foremost, is very knowledeable about the intricacies of the game and is well sourced in the Twins organization–wrote a provocative piece claiming that in lieu of Minnesota’s surprising performance thus far (which finds them just a game and a half out of first place less than two weeks before the 4th of July), they need to rely more on the homegrown talent and deemphasize the players they acquired via trade during the off-season. Unquestionably the two most controversial suggestions Souhan made were giving Denard Span some of Young’s innings in the outfield, and likewise installing utility guy Nick Punto as the shortstop more often at the expense of Brendan Harris.

I respectfully think Souhan is off his rocker. Span at his best is just the third coming of Gomez and Casilla–he has no pop and no real prospect for acquiring any. Whatever his current doldrums, Delmon Young is almost universally regarded by a plethora of fine scouts–including the ace crew that culls talent for the Twins–as a potentially potent superstar at the plate. At the age of 22, with less than 80 games under his belt for the Twins, the last thing they want to do is cut his time and further prey on his confidence. Remember, there were whispers about Young’s lack of cordiality in Tampa Bay’s clubhouse last year, something Young did a great job of deflecting as the subject arose during spring training. But now that Tampa Bay has enjoyed a resurgence (surgence? they’ve never surged before) and seem to play as a happy tight-knit unit, and now that Garza has begun to pitch very well after his own dicey start, Young is going to be putting more and more pressure on himself to produce. What is required now is a long long long rope. It is not as if the Twins really are going anywhere important this season–and if you seriously think they outlast not only the White Sox but both the underproducing Tigers and Indians, you’re drinking tainted kool aid. No, regardless of what the standings say, this is a rebuilding year, and the way to rebuild is to make sure your future cornerstones are properly planted. Delmon Young is supposed to be a cornerstone. If he isn’t, then Bill Smith may be in over his head trying to replace Ryan. But the only way we’ll find out is if we let Young settle in and not poison his confidence with the specter of Denard Span, of all people. And as for the Nick Punto infatuation, we’ve all been there and done that, haven’t we? Remember the piranhas? Nick Punto is a great late-inning defensive replacement and good to get the guys at second, short and third a needed day off on occasion. But he is not a major league hitter–or, better put, not a hitter for a legit major league ballclub. Brendan Harris made a nice over the shoulder grab on a pop up in short left on Sunday and seems more comfortable at short, where he played for Tampa Bay last year, than at second, where he started the season and where Casilla has now put down a formidable marker.

Besides, anyone stupid enough to dive into first base–as Punto is wont to do to "impress" us with his little-ball hustle (ask Matt Tolbert and his damaged thumb how that works out)–deserves to stay out of the batter’s box as much as possible. Punto’s dreadful career OPS of .629 is just icing on the cake.