Category: Twins

Nice ballgame, very nice. But enough is enough; when do I get a look at this Corky Miller character? I’m getting anxious, and the Corkster’s not doing the club any good sitting on his kiester sucking sunflower seeds. I don’t understand it, quite honestly. Ron Gardenhire’s usually pretty good about keeping his lads sharp, and if a hotshot prospect like Miller’s not gonna get any at bats with the big club he should be out in Rochester playing every day and keeping his mojo in tune. Better yet, trade the young man to a team that can make the proper use of his services.

That quibble aside, the Twins made a nice little comeback from Monday’s disappointing opener, and it was good to see them rally last night to pick-up their ace. Tonight’s game showed the strength of this team and the priorities of the organization. Carlos Silva looked stronger and sharper than last year, and seems to have gained both a bit of velocity, and confidence. Particularly encouraging was his efficiency. You expect him to get the ground ball outs and the double plays, but the fact that he needed just 68 pitches (49 of them for strikes) to get through his seven innings (and didn’t walk anyone) was most impressive. Composure was not a word anyone would have associated with last year’s version of Silva, but he really looked relaxed and in command out there today. The guy is also an absolute horse, and a ferocious competitor, which are pretty good qualities to have in a third starter.

Equally impressive was the defensive performance of Minnesota’s B-squad line-up. They got an opportunity to flash the leather and demonstrate their versatility. Juan Castro made at least two plays at short that I know Cristian Guzman wouldn’t have made, and Castro made them look easy.

The bottom line is that the Twins took two of three from a much-improved Seattle team, and they did so in both characteristic and uncharacteristic fashion. The bullpen and defense were outstanding. Jason Bartlett showed that, at least for now, the Twins made the right decision. The team got off to a slow start of one sort or another in all three games but hung in there and kept chipping away. They won the series despite lackluster performances from their top two starters –and granted, Santana wasn’t horrific, but his start was still his worst since what seems like the All Star break last year. And Torii Hunter, Lew Ford, Michael Cuddyer, and Shannon Stewart didn’t do much of anything with the bats, but the rest of the team slapped together enough offense to get the job done.

It was just three games, of course, but it certainly looks like it’s pretty much business as usual in Twins Territory. This team’s going to win games with pitching, defense, and fundamentals, and if Gardie can find some key at bats for Corky and the offense manages to get truly untracked they could be pretty special.

Lackluster openers are disproportionately disappointing, particularly when watched indoors on the nicest day of the year so far. At times like these it would be wise for distraught Twins fans to keep in mind former Baltimore manager Earl Weaver’s famous quip: “This ain’t a football game. We do this every day.” Or at least pretty much every day for the next six months, and tomorrow is the first day of the rest of our lives. Who, really, do you want taking the mound on the first day of the rest of your life? If you’re me, you want Johan Santana, and you’ll take comfort in the fact that –God willing, and I’ve no doubt, based on the preseason hosannas our local club has received from the national sporting press, that God is a Twins fan– Santana will go to mound for the Twins more than thirty times. I also have little doubt that Brad Radke won’t again make the mistake of challenging a guy like Richie Sexson with a 3-1 fastball.

Sexson’s two bombs were doubtless great fun to behold for the sold-out crowd at Safeco Field, but the game didn’t produce much in the way of memorable moments for rooters gathered around televisions in Twins Territory. It says something about the generally lackluster performance from the Twins that the moments that stand out most clearly from today’s game were a defensive gem from Luis Rivas, Jason Bartlett’s single to right to score the game’s only run, a nice diving catch by Jacque Jones, and, most strikingly, Joe Mauer’s stolen base and his incredible peg to nail Ichiro on his stolen base attempt.

That the Twins managed only five hits against a crafty geezer –the 56-year-old Jamie Moyer– who has the fastball of the average high school ace is the sort of thing that fans of a gloomy temperament (or those who recall last year’s offensive struggles) could easily interpret as a bad omen. Right now, however, I’d recommend that we all reserve judgement, at least until Wednesday.

I frankly don’t know what to make of all the respect being shown the Twins by baseball’s punditry this spring. It’s certainly odd and, at least as far as I can recall, unprecedented. It’s also a complete surprise, really, and makes me more than a tad bit uneasy. We are, after all, talking about a Twins team that essentially replaced several established –if occasionally disappointing– veterans with younger and almost entirely unproven players, and yet somehow many of the experts are perceiving a club that has improved enough to win the World Series.

Let’s see: the Yankees added Randy Johnson, Carl Pavano, and Jaret Wright (who was 15-8 with a 3.28 ERA last season but who will nonetheless start the year in the New York bullpen); the new-look Twins, meanwhile, feature a rookie shortstop, a 21-year-old catcher who missed most of his rookie season due to a knee injury that continues to be a source of concern, a guy playing third who has bounced all over the field the last several seasons and has yet to deliver on his considerable promise, and a fifth starter who hasn’t been healthy or productive since 9-11. And yet the Twins are suddenly somehow better than the Yankees, a team they haven’t been able to beat for years and that has a payroll almost four times that of their own?

It’s a nice fantasy, and I’ll cling to it, but I also don’t get it. Where the hell did all this Twins-love come from? And how can I make it go away? Picking the Twins to win the World Series should be the job of optimistic and perhaps hopelessly-deluded fans. We don’t need the experts on our side. With the possible exception of professional football and the odd branch of sociology the experts are almost always wrong.

That’s not to say I don’t think this is going to be a very good team. I’m more than happy to go out on a limb and predict they’ll win the Central again. But a World Championship? Good lord, I don’t want to predict that.

We all know that things can go wrong. Things can go very wrong. Look at last year’s Chicago Cubs. Or the Florida Marlins, Royals, Diamondbacks, or Mariners. I don’t think that’s going to be the fate of the 2005 Twins, but an awful lot of things have to go right for them to be better than last year’s team and take another step deeper into the postseason.

I don’t have a whole lot of questions about the Twins’ pitching staff. Santana may not be as dominant as he was last year; Radke could revert to merely average (and still win more games). Joe Nathan might get hurt, struggle with his control, or get knocked around a little more frequently that in ’04. I don’t worry about any of that, though. The team’s pitching is deep, and I think Rick Anderson is the smartest pitching coach in baseball. If Anderson finally gets through to Kyle Lohse and gets him to trust his offspeed stuff and mix in the occasional curveball and changeup with his fastball and slider I really believe Lohse could lead this club in innings pitched and win 16-18 games. Over the off-season I heard umpire Tim Tschida say that Lohse has the best pure stuff of anybody on the staff, a perception that I also heard often last year from visiting scouts. I know that Anderson and Ron Gardenhire both believe that Lohse is capable of being an anchor of the staff.

Joe Mays might be healthy. Carlos Silva might be better, or he might be worse. The bottom line, though, is that the Twins have the luxury of doing a lot of mixing and matching with their staff without much jeopardizing the overall quality. The best case scenario is that we never have to see Scott Baker or any of the other minor league prospects in Minnesota until September, but it’s nice nonetheless to know they’re there.

I don’t, unfortunately, have as much faith in the organization’s approach to developing hitters, and I base this on the team’s offensive performance last year and their relatively poor showing in spring training this season. During today’s opener the team didn’t seem to have a consistent mindset at the plate. They looked tentative or confused, much as they did for most of last season. Even Joe Mauer, who clearly is willing to take pitches, looked uncharacteristically confused when he struck out looking at three straight fastballs from reliever Julio Mateo in the eighth. We’ve all been waiting for several years now –for more than several years, in fact– for this club to break out offensively, and for veterans like Torii Hunter and Jacque Jones, the purported team leaders, to show some consistent production, and this is the year at least one of them has to really step up.

I think it’s ridiculous that someone like Peter Gammons is including Mauer on his list of potential MVP candidates, and I say that as someone who loves Mauer, recognizes his potential, and would like nothing better than to see him deliver on that potential. But for crying out loud, let’s give the kid a chance to stay healthy and rack up some at-bats before we start annointing him as the team’s savior.

I think this is the season that hitting coach Scott Ullger has to start feeling a little heat. He unquestionably has the deepest, most talented core of hitters he’s had to work with during his stint with the team, and he needs to deliver some results or risk surely unwanted comparisons with former pitching coach Dick Such.

Even another Central title isn’t the given it might seem. I think even more interesting than the Twins consensus pick as one of baseball’s best teams is the appearance of the Indians on a number of the pundit’s lists as the AL wild card team. Apparently the perception of the AL Central as the worst division is baseball is rapidly changing. I still think Kansas City and Chicago will be dogs, but you absolutely never know what to expect from the White Sox. I don’t suppose, however, that their new small-ball approach will be much more effective than their old reliance on power.

The Indians will be better, and the only real question is how much better? I’m not going to pretend to have any idea. The Tigers are the team that actually fascinates me a little bit. They’ve got a tremendous manager and coaching staff, a group of young pitchers who look poised to take big steps, and they’ve spent a lot of money (and fairly wisely, as far as baseball spending goes) the last couple years. They were a hard-luck club last year, and better than their final record showed. They were 29 games better than their disastrous 2003 season, and could have been a whole lot better than even that if you consider their 12-27 record in one-run games in ’04. It wouldn’t surprise me to see the Tigers hanging around the top of the division all season, and taking a run at the Twins and Indians if either of them falters.

That’s as far out on a limb as I’m going to go right now. I’ll try to touch briefly on the other divisions the rest of this week.

Corky Miller. Corky Mother-Humping Miller. Get serious. That name, I don’t think I need to tell you, just isn’t going to get it done.

Corky Miller is the name of the grizzled chuckwagon cook in a western round-up.

Corky Miller is the fat, beleaguered first baseman on a little league team in an After School Special.

Corky Miller is the hayseed in the danceline of a Broadway musical.

Corky Miller is an astigmatic junior high school shop teacher.

Corky Miller is the bully with a crewcut in a comic book from the 1950s.

Corky Miller is a Division I women’s basketball coach.

Corky Miller is the host of a cable access Christian children’s television program.

Corky Miller is a ventriloquist’s dummy.

Corky Miller is a golf caddy.

Corky Miller is a gentleman suitor.

Corky Miller is a sidekick, an afterthought, a horse track rube, a meddlesome neighbor, a musclehead with a fake tan.

Corky Miller is not a Major League baseball player. Not in the 21st century, he’s not. He better not be.

It would truly be folly if, as has been rumored, the Twins end up keeping four catchers on their roster (two real catchers, and two imposters) and cutting Michael Restovich loose. I still have a hard time believing that’s going to happen.

It’s all a result of a bizarre set of circumstances, of course, what with the Twins having a surplus at several positions and a dearth of satisfying alternatives at a couple others. I know they feel they need a safety cushion in case Joe Mauer’s knee flares up, but four catchers is both more and in this case less than a safety cushion, when two of those guys (Matthew LeCroy and Corky Miller) would be nothing but last resorts. Miller has done absolutely nothing other than presumably being able to crouch and don the catcher’s gear to deserve a spot on the major league roster, and I don’t see how he’s any kind of an upgrade from last year’s desperate measure, Rob Bowen. If Mauer’s knee truly becomes a concern they’re going to have to do something to address the problem sooner rather than later, and certainly none of the available candidates allows them to do that or (other than LeCroy) is even likely to be here next season.

I think Mauer’s knee will be fine, by the way. I talked to him about it last year on a number of occasions, and I sense this is a case of a 21-year-old kid who’s never had an injury of any sort getting used to the idea that his knee doesn’t feel quite the way it once did. As anyone who’s had knee surgery could tell you –and Mauer’s surgery was a relatively minor procedure, particularly when compared to Jason Kubel’s reconstruction– there are always going to be flare-ups of pain and discomfort, and there may well be additional glitches down the road. But for the time being, at least, it seems to me that the whole idea of being vulnerable is just something he needs to get his head around.

The real problem for Restovich is the insecurity involving the guy at second base, Luis Rivas, who has continued his maddening trend of answering questions with more questions. I don’t know anymore. I’ve tried to be positive about Rivas, and have pointed out his age as a potential cause for optimism. After the spring he’s had that just doesn’t cut it anymore, and how much worse off would the team be with Nick Punto at second? It now seems certain that they’re going to keep the switch-hitting Terry Tiffee as a bat off the bench, but let’s not forget that there’s still always the option of moving Michael Cuddyer over to second –at least from time to time– and starting Tiffee at the corner.

I wonder if the Twins have ever seriously considered cutting Rivas loose? It would certainly make things a lot easier for the time being, and would allow them to keep Restovich, a guy who they’ve invested a great deal of time and money in and who’s never really gotten a shot to show what he can do at the Major League level. Toss in that he’s a Rochester kid, was regarded as a prospect as recently as a couple seasons ago, and has power potential and I can’t for the life of me understand why they’d let him go to free up a spot for someone like Corky Miller. It makes absolutely no sense to me.

You have to admire a guy who does something for as many years as Bob Casey did something, and to its credit (and occasionally to its detriment) the Twins’ organization has always rewarded loyalty. Casey was treated like a local treasure, and his career was allowed to run its course on his own timetable.

The man was the only public address announcer the team ever had, which is truly astonishing considering his by-now legendary and well-documented difficulties pronouncing his way through the dramatis personae (a phrase he would surely have butchered until it sounded like a passable approximation of a Dominican shortstop’s name) of a Major League lineup card. He was also a curmudgeon and a company man through and through.

Loyalty breeds loyalty, I guess, but this last quality was always the most frustrating from a purely personal standpoint. I chatted with Casey behind the batting cage on dozens –perhaps hundreds– of occasions over the years, and he was a master of gruff small talk. He was always happy to talk about his kids and his grandchildren, but grew wary whenever the subject turned to him and his career. It wasn’t about him, he’d say, and that was always the end of that discussion.

The year the Twins inducted Casey into their Hall of Fame, I stalked the poor man for weeks, trying to get him to agree to a profile, but he would have none of it. That remains my one big frustration from the years I’ve spent around the team. I’ve always been attracted to what I think of as baseball’s lifers, the folks like Casey who’ve spent so much of their lives wrapped up in the routines of the ballpark.

A guy surely builds up a pretty impressive trove of stories over more than forty years in any job, but Casey had a truly unique job, and he was clearly a unique character. I also knew from my small talk with him that he’d had another life as well, before he settled in behind the PA microphone for the Twins. Some of those details have come to light in the various obituaries and tributes of the last couple days –Casey’s World War II service, his PA stints with the Lakers and Millers– but I always wanted to know more. I was curious about the guy, and determined to break down his cranky reserve.

Casey, though, wasn’t going to get hooked into telling any tales out of school –those were his words– and he also wasn’t about to leave school until he was forced out kicking and screaming or carried out in a box. He pretty much got his way in the end, and good for him.

All the same, I still wish I’d gotten those stories out of him. And there’s no doubt it won’t ever be quite the same without him duck-walking around the Dome and serving up his regular assortment of head-scratchers and belly laughs.

If you go beyond the Twins’ so-so 8-11 record in Florida and scrutinize what they’ve actually done in those games, you might be tempted to forecast a rather alarming repeat of what made the team so maddening for much of the 2004 season.

Look at the runs scored and runs allowed numbers for the AL Central teams this spring:

Detroit: 125 RS/97 RA

Chicago : 122 RS/112 RA

Cleveland: 132 RS/107 RA

Minnesota: 77 RS/76 RA

Kansas City: 99 RS/105 RA

I doubt that it means a damn thing, but you see an awful lot of high scoring games in spring training, and seventy-seven runs seems pretty shocking. I guess if you want to take the glass-is-half-empty approach, you could be alarmed that the Twins have scored at least 25% fewer runs than every other team in the division. And the glass-is-half-full folks can always take comfort in those pitching numbers. All around, though, the math looks pretty damn familiar.

Finally, here’s a little spring training trivia: Gary Gaetti set the club record with ten spring homeruns in 1983. So far this year the entire team has hit ten homers in nineteen games.

As I say, I’m sure it’s nothing. I’m sure it doesn’t mean a damn thing. I wouldn’t even give it another thought. I’m sorry, in fact, I even brought it up.

Surprises and disasters large and small could still be looming in the final week of spring training, but right now it looks like the Twins opening day line-up will look like this:

Shannon Stewart
Jason Bartlett
Joe Mauer
Justin Morneau
Torii Hunter
Lew Ford
Jacque Jones
Michael Cuddyer
Luis Rivas

With Ford, Jones, and Cuddyer in the sixth, seventh, and eighth spots that suddenly looks (at least potentially) like a pretty powerful lineup; certainly the most promising batting order Ron Gardenhire has been able to throw out there in the last couple years. I don’t even mind Ford batting sixth, particularly following Morneau and Hunter. It’s almost perfect, in fact; he’ll have the chance to keep rallies alive, move guys around the bases, or work with a clean slate. The only wild cards, really, are Cuddyer and Bartlett, but I would think that the second slot should be a nice way for the kid to break into the major leagues, and Cuddyer shouldn’t feel a whole lot of pressure batting eigthth. I think they’ll both be fine.

Then, of course, there’s Rivas, but isn’t it nice to know that if Luis once again sucks eggs the Twins have options? In that eventuality even one of the utility guys (Punto, for instance) would be an upgrade, and there’s always the option of pushing Cuddyer back over to second and installing Terry Tiffee –who’s gotten a good, long look in Florida, and has been decent– or one of the other spare parts at third.

That’s a damn good question, really. Most Major League players would tell you that they think spring training is much too long –does it really take nearly six weeks and thirty games to get a team ready for the season?

I seriously doubt it, but as long as they’re playing the games you’d like to think the results mean something, in terms of both individual and team performance, and at least anecdotally I can say that I think what happens in Florida and Arizona is a decent barometer for the season ahead.

The issue this year is perhaps clouded from a Minnesota standpoint by the fact that there are very few roster spots open on the team, and so Ron Gardenhire and his coaches are giving extended looks to a bunch of guys who are competing for those final jobs. There has also been the problem of injuries –concerns with Mauer’s knee, Morneau’s gingerly comeback from his brutal winter, and Nick Punto’s slow return, not to mention the various aggravations with the pitching staff.

Consider, though, the Twins’ spring training records in their two championship years –1987 and 1991– and in each of the last three seasons. They were 14-10 in ’87, and 21-10 in ’91. Last spring they were 20-11, the best mark in the AL, and they also had winning records in ’03 (19-13) and ’02 (18-14-1). So far this spring the Twins are 7-11 through Saturday, and have been scuffling to score runs. Their homerun production has been virtually non-existent, and the only offensive players who’ve really been tearing it up have been Matthew LeCroy, Jason Bartlett, Juan Castro, Todd Dunwoody, and Jason Tyner (the latter two are non-roster invitees). Luis Rivas has been terrible (.148 BA), which may be an indication that four hitting coaches (Rod Carew, Paul Molitor, Tony Oliva, and Scott Ullger) are not necessarily better than one.

Things have been a little more encouraging on the pitching side, even though Kyle Lohse and Brad Radke have struggled a bit, and J.C. Romero and J.D Durbin have imploded (they combined for eight strikeouts and sixteen walks before Durbin was sent to the minor league camp). The good news is that Joe Mays has been remarkably sharp (1.29 ERA in four games), Johan Santana, Joe Nathan, and Juan Rincon have pretty much picked up where they left off (well, in Rincon’s case, not necessarily where he literally left off), and Scott Baker has shown that he may in fact be the real real deal (0.00 ERA in eight innings pitched, with four hits, seven strikouts, and no walks).

We all know that the American League Central hasn’t exactly been a powerhouse division the last several seasons, but for an idea of just how deep Minnesota’s organization is, and how creative the front office and field staff have been when it comes to adjusting on the fly, it’s sort of interesting and instructive to look at the roster of the 2002 team. That season, of course, the Twins went 94-67 and won the first of their three straight division titles.

Here are the guys who were on the roster of the club in 2002 who are no longer with the team:

Brian Buchanan
Casey Blake
Cristian Guzman
Denny Hocking
Bobby Kielty
Corey Koskie
Doug Mientkiewicz
Dustan Mohr
David Ortiz (twenty homeruns)
A.J. Pierzynski (.300 BA)
Tom Prince
Jack Cressend
Tony Fiore (10-3, 3.16 ERA)
Eddie Guardado (45 saves)
LaTroy Hawkins (6-0, 2.13 ERA)
Mike Jackson
Matt Kinney
Eric Milton (13-9, 4.94 ERA)
Rick Reed (15-7, 3.78 ERA)
Bob Wells

That’s half a rotation, almost a complete bullpen, six starters (if you count the outfield rotation of Mohr/Kielty/Buchanan), and the primary utility guy off the bench. Yet despite turning over those twenty roster spots in under three years, the Twins will once again open the season as favorites to repeat in the Central, and they’ve managed to almost completely reassemble their team without making any substantial alterations in their budget. Which tells you about all you need to know about why the organization is seen as such a model around the league.

Maybe the team’s brass feels there needs to be some lingering sense of drama in the Twins spring training camp, given how few positions are really up in the air. I don’t know how else to explain why they haven’t just handed the starting shortstop job to Jason Bartlett.

What exactly is the competition? Slick-fielding free agent acquisition Juan Castro –who is thirty-two years old and a career .226 hitter (with a .269 on base percentage)– has five errors already this spring. Nick Punto, who has hit .237 in just 194 Major League at bats and whose real value (presuming he ever gets healthy) is probably as a utility player, has been a no show so far, and is proving to be as reliable as Tommy “The Trainer’s Table” Herr. I’m not quite sure how a guy who never plays seems to have acquired a reputation as such a hard-nosed player.

I don’t know diddly about Augie Ojeda, really, but I do like his name. That said, he’s thirty, and an even worse hitter than Castro or Punto (.219 hitter in 178 ML games).

I realize the Twins have always emphasized defense, and have some concerns about Bartlett in that regard, but, seriously, come on, the guy is twenty-five, knows how to get on base, and has hit pretty much everywhere he’s ever played. Not to mention he tore up the Arizona Fall League, and the scouting reports indicate that his defense isn’t the serious concern it’s being made out to be. He’ll be fine, and the Twins are paying Castro a million dollars a year as insurance and to make the occasional appearance as a late-inning defensive replacement.

Bartlett’s got nothing more to prove at Rochester, where he hit .331 with a .415 OBP last season. The job should be his, and I have to believe it is.