Author Archives: Jim Crikket

Let The Trade Rumors Begin: Denard Span

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And so it begins.

This afternoon, the Twins hit the rumor wire as word spread that they were talking to the Washington Nationals about a trade involving centerfielder Denard Span.

Denard Span

At first, I thought this had to be some kind of joke. Certainly Bill Smith wouldn’t be looking at the results of the past two series and think, “We seem to have too much offense on this team right now, especially at the top of the order… there’s no way we have room for Denard Span when he’s ready to return.” Would he? Ken Rosenthal at FOX seems to think so.

Is it possible Smith has looked at Ben Revere’s hitting lately and figured he’s just what a contender needs leading off? Yes, the guy is great to have in the outfield, but he’s almost been the worst looking hitter in the Twins’ batting order lately.

Almost.

The worst, of course, has been shortstop Tsuyoshi Nishioka. I’m 55 years old and I’d be willing to bet I would at least look better swinging lefthanded than Nishi has and I’d have almost as many hits. NONE would be “almost as many” as Nishi’s had lately. In last night’s game wrap-up, I mentioned that if I were the GM, I’d be looking for a shortstop who might sniff at getting a hit occasionally. And therein lies the rub.

The Nationals need a centerfielder and they apparently feel they have an extra middle infielder. Word is, they’re shopping shortstop Ian Desmond and would shift their current second baseman to shortstop in order to make room for a rookie they think is ready to come up to the Big Leagues. (That rookie’s name is Stephen Lombardozzi, by the way… a name that should sound familiar to Twins fans. Yes, he’s the son of THAT Steve Lombardozzi). The Nats also have a couple of right handed relief pitchers that they may be willing to part with.

So… if you got Desmond and a productive reliever for Span, would you make the deal?

Not me.

First of all, if the Twins don’t score more than two runs a game, all the relief pitching in the world won’t help. They need more offense and the most likely way they can get it is to get Span back in the line up and let Revere take over 4th outfielder duties. Second, Desmond’s stats aren’t all that much better, if at all, than Nishioka’s and they certainly are nowhere near Span’s. Rosenthal mentions that Desmond’s .584 OPS is the lowest in the National League… but I guess it’s still better than Nishi’s .544 OPS, right?

I don’t blame the Nationals for wanting to make a deal with Bill Smith. They clearly are fondly recalling the deal they got in return for Matt Capps a year ago and if you’re in their front office, there’s no reason to think you shouldn’t be able to get a favorable return from Bill Smith and the Twins again.

That doesn’t mean Smith has to oblige them.

Ben Revere may be a legitimate full time MLB player some day. Joe Benson could, too. Rene Tosoni has similar potential. Aaron Hicks and Angel Morales? Sure… some day.

Some day, the Twins won’t need Denard Span in their line up. Today is not that day, unless Bill watched the half-assed efforts his guys put forth on the field against the Tigers over the last few games and has decided it’s time to hold a fire sale. In that case, Denard’s name won’t be the only one we see showing up in MLBTradeRumors this week.

– JC

Bert Blyleven – #28 – HOF

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Bert Blyeleven #28 HOF: That’s how Bert will get to sign his autograph for the rest of his life. If you think that’s not a big deal, you’re wrong.

I wrote a post last week in tribute to Blyleven getting his number retired by the Twins, so I won’t duplicate that effort today, but I can’t let the day of Blyleven ‘s induction in to Cooperstown go without a mention.

This has been such a long time coming, with the annual disappointment of coming up short, that it almost seems like today’s induction is anticlimactic. And that’s too bad.

In my post last week, I wrote that I felt Bert had become almost a parody of himself as a result of his broadcasting career. His somewhat corny approach in the booth has endeared himself to legions of Twins fans, young and old, even if his schtick is not universally appreciated by self-appointed “hard core” fans.

Bert was honored by the Pirates during Spring Training

The amazing thing to me is the way he has turned his reputation around. A fan favorite? This is a guy who flipped fans the bird as a player… more than once… and a guy who walked away from the Pirates for a couple of weeks and demanded to be traded. “Endeared” is probably the last word anyone would have used to describe his relationships with fans and media during his playing days.

Given his personal reputation as a player, it’s not as surprising that it took him so long to get elected to the Hall as it is surprising that he got elected at all. The saying, “Nice guys finish last,” is not applicable to Hall of Fame voting. The voting members of the media are real big on rewarding and penalizing players based on their behavior, as much as their performance. It’s somehow appropriate that Bert is entering the Hall alongside Roberto Alomar. There’s no doubt that Alomar was penalized by the media voters for his “spitting incident” with an umpire, leaving him with a “bad boy” reputation to overcome, as well.

There’s no doubt in my mind that Bert needed to “rehabilitate himself” after his playing career in order to have any shot at the Hall. And he did just that.

I’ve never met the man, personally. I don’t know if the “real” Bert Blyleven is the surly player or the broadcaster that comes across as a guy you’d love to sit in a bar with while you watch and talk baseball. I think perhaps he’s mellowed over the years as a lot of us tend to do. But whatever the case, there’s no doubt in my mind that, absent the rehabilitation of his reputation that the Twins organization has helped him achieve, Bert would not be getting honored today. And that would have been unfortunate.

I’m glad the Twins pushed back the start of today’s game so fans could watch the induction ceremony. It was the right thing to do, because this is a REALLY big deal, folks. In my mind, there is no bigger honor in sports than being elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. It changes lives.

Blyleven wanted this honor. Badly wanted it. He probably wanted it too much, frankly. In fact, if there has been one flaw in Bert’s “character” for the past decade, many people would consider the way he lobbied for HOF votes to be that flaw. It wore on some people. Then again, I can’t say I would have felt any differently in his shoes.

I just hope that his induction in to the Hall doesn’t change Bert going forward. I happen to enjoy his broadcasting style. Yes, he could do a better job of analysis, but I don’t care. He comes across as someone who actually likes the game and the fans and the players. Now that he’s a Hall of Famer, we don’t have to endure that chip on his shoulder that he’s always had about not being elected. And that’s a good thing.

So I hope you all enjoy watching Bert and Roberto being inducted in to the Hall (broadcast, I believe, begins at 12:30 on MLB Network and MLB.com).  It’s a big deal for them and it’s a big deal to those of us who were fans of these players. It will be a long time before another player who spent a significant chunk of his career as a member of the Twins gets this honor, though Jim Thome should be a lock five years after he retires, and we can all share that day with his fans in Cleveland, Philadelphia and Chicago.

But today is Bert’s day and I’m happy for him. Congratulations, Bert.

GameChat – Tigers @ Twins #3, 3:10 FOX

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So Jason Kubel came back Friday and Scott Baker returns today. It’s about time to end this “can’t beat the Tigers” BS, isn’t it, guys?

Everyone else can beat the kitties so there’s no reason to think the Twins shouldn’t be able to.

Brad Penny’s been pitching well lately for the Tigers even if he hasn’t been getting the Wins to show for it. It’s time for Twins hitters to step up. If  they embarrass themselves today like they did last night, it will be in front of a near-national audience on FOX.

TIGERS

@

 TWINS
Dirks, CF Revere, CF
Boesch, LF Casilla, A, 2B
Ordonez, RF Mauer, C
Cabrera, Mi, 1B Cuddyer, 1B
Martinez, V, DH Kubel, DH
Peralta, Jh, SS Valencia, 3B
Guillen, 2B Young, D, LF
Avila, C Plouffe, RF
Kelly, 3B Nishioka, SS
  _Penny, P   _Baker, S, P
  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E
Detroit 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 8 1
Minnesota 1 1 0 2 0 0 0 0 x 4 7 0

That wasn’t exactly the offensive breakout game I’ve been hoping for, but we’re going to just enjoy the win, right?

Getting ahead on the scoreboard early was a nice change and Scott Baker looked pretty damn good to me in his first game back from the DL. He only went five innings but they were a really good five shutout innings.

Danny Valencia launched a solo shot and Delmon Young had a nice two-run double. Joe Nathan slammed the door shut and Phil Dumatrait threw a scoreless inning of relief, as well.

Tsuyoshi Nishioka was the only Twins hitter with more than one hit, collecting two singles (though neither figured directly in the scoring). But his biggest contribution was in the field. He ran down three flares in shallow left field, a couple of them very nice plays in critical situations. In addition, Glen Perkins not only pitched a scoreless inning of relief, but struck out Ordonez and Cabrera back-to-back to cap his work. For those performances, Nishi and Perk are our co-BODs today!

Tsuyoshi Nishioka
Glen Perkins

.

GameChat – Tigers @ Twins #2, 7:10pm

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I’m posting “unofficial” line ups below (so they aren’t all linked to the players’ stats) because both Babs and I have plans for the late-afternoon/early-evening and I wanted to get the Chatroll window opened for anyone who wanted to come here to hang out during the game, even if MLB doesn’t yet have the official line ups released.

Another big game with the Tigers tonight and fortunately, Justin Verlander can’t pitch every game for Detroit. The Twins will be facing three more RH starters this series, none of which is half the pitcher Verlander is. So I don’t want to see another night of assbats! Hit the damn ball, gentlemen.

The Twins welcome back Jason Kubel tonight as well and Gardy wasted no time getting him in the line up. I don’t even want to hear about how the Twins have had a better record without Kubel than they had with him… he and Span were the only guys hitting the ball for much of April and May so the lack of wins in those months had a lot more to do with other guys than Koobes. This team is getting deeper again and that’s not a bad thing.

The good news is that ONE of the other teams ahead of the Twins in the AL Central standings will lose tonight. The bad news is that one of them will win. Yes, the BitchSox are in Cleveland for a 3-game series with the ‘Toons starting tonight.

TIGERS

@

 TWINS
Jackson, CF Revere, CF
Raburn, LF Casilla, 2B
Ordonez, RF Mauer, C
Cabrera, DH Cuddyer, 1B
Martinez, 1B Kubel, RF
Peralta, SS Valencia, 3B
Guillen, 2B Thome, DH
Avila, C Young, LF
Betemit, 3B Nishioka, SS
  _Scherzer, P   _Duensing, P
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E
Detroit 1 1 2 0 3 1 0 0 0 8 13 0
Minnesota 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 2 7 0

Talk about taking a dump on the field.

Every once in a while, a baseball team lays such a load of crap on the field that they should be embarrassed… a game where the players should all pitch in and give refunds to every fan who bought a ticket to the game.

Friday was such a game.

The pitching flat out sucked.

The hitting, while it would seem impossible, actually sucked worse.

There is no excuse for not hitting Max F’ing Scherzer any more than what that sorry excuse for a line up did.

Seriously, guys, if you WANT to finish the season playing in another uniform, just man up and say so and I’m sure Bill Smith will try to accommodate you. But if you’re going to wear a Twins uniform, at least show SOME level of effort out there. Performances like this one are a disgrace.

Please… break out the white uniforms or the blue jerseys or, hell, wear pink ones. Because playing the way you did Friday night, you don’t deserve to wear the uniform of Harmon Killebrew. You disgrace his memory with efforts like that.

If that’s the best effort we can expect to see against the Tigers, I’m absolutely fine with Bill Smith trading every. last. one. of you at any time. I don’t ever want to see that load of crap on the field again.

Shame on you. All of you. -JC

ABC’s of Righthanded Relief Options

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There seems to be consensus across Twinsville that a bit of help in the righthanded relief pitching category may be called for. Since the Twins online community rarely reaches anything resembling “consensus” on any subject, this much agreement must mean there’s a real need, right?

I know we keep reading about how Twins GM Bill Smith and his staff are discussing options for addressing the team’s bullpen issues.

So what’s the hold up? I guess I could understand if Bill decided to wait until this stretch of games against the Indians and Tigers is finished before giving up even a bit of minor league talent in trade, you know… just in case the Twins were going to lose eight straight. Then again, perhaps that bullpen help might make that kind of losing streak less likely.

Maybe it’s just too difficult to identify pitchers who could help the Twins?

In any event, here at Knuckleballs, we’re always trying to help out. So, with a little research (in fact VERY little research), I’ve come up with a list of righthanded relievers for Bill and his buddies to peruse.

The word on the street is that it should be a “buyer’s market” for shoppers in the market for righthanded relievers. With that in mind, I went “shopping”… and to keep it simple, I tried to come up with one option for each letter of the alphabet, looking pretty much only at guys who are currently toiling for teams that are likely “sellers”.

Let me say up front that I was not successful. There are simply no legitimate (or even somewhat less than legitimate) options for righthanded bullpen arms beginning with the letters O, T, V, X or Y. (Hey, I came up with a U and a Z, whaddya want?!) To make up for that, I threw in a few extras for some of the other letters.

No, not all of these pitchers are likely to be available. Some of them are young enough and cheap enough that their current teams will want to hang on to them. Some of them would come with high price tags (either in talent to be exchanged or salary… or both) that the Twins aren’t likely to want to meet. And no, I’m certainly not advocating for all of them.

But with a very few exceptions, you could make a case that these guys would be an improvement over the long line of ugliness that has traipsed to the mound from the Twins bullpen lately. Don’t believe me? Look up the stat lines on these guys and compare them to Alex Burnett and the other righties that Gardy’s tried to get some middle innings out of this season.

(By the way… if it turns out a couple of these guys are lefties, are on the DL, or retired 12 years ago … well… sorry. There were a lot of names to come up with here!)

Let’s begin.

A – Mike Adams SD

B – Grant Balfour OAK or perhaps Matt Belisle COL

C – Tyler Clippard WAS would be nice, but he won’t come cheap. Fortunately, the Nats have another “C”… Todd Coffey

D – Octavio Dotel TOR

E – Marco Estrada WAS

F – Jason Frasor TOR

G – Matt Guerrier LAD (hey, if people seem to want Jon Rauch back, why not Shaggy?)

H – Blake Hawksworth LAD or perhaps Greg Holland KC

I – Jason Isringhausen NYM

J – Jim Johnson BAL

K – Hong-Chih Kuo LAD (yeah I had to REALLY stretch for a K)

L – Matt Lindstrom COL or maybe Wilton Lopez HOU

M – Ryan Mattheus WAS or Mark Melancon HOU or even Edward Mujica FLA

N – Leo Nunez FLA yeah… I know, it’s not gonna happen. Guess we could always get back Pat Neshek SD

Jon Rauch

O –Nada

P – Bobby Parnell NYM

Q – Chad Qualls SD

R – Jon Rauch TOR or, if you just can’t get your head right with that, Fernando Rodriguez HOU

S – Drew Storen WAS or Jeff Samardzija ChC (but we know we’d rather have Joakim Soria KC)

T –Nope

U – Koji Uehara BAL

V –Uhuh

W – Michael Wuertz OAK (a Minnesota boy, I believe) or maybe Blake Wood KC

X –YeahRight

Y – Surprisingly, nobody… seems Cy Young is no longer pitching

Z – Brad Ziegler OAK

So, there ya go Bill… Happy shopping!

– JC

Looking For The Big O

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No… not THAT “Big O”. This is a baseball blog, get your mind out of the gutter!

(Image: Declan Burke)

Although, that said, the Twins and their fans could certainly use a little tension release right now. You can feel the stress building already. All it took was that doubleheader loss on Monday to the ‘Toons and all of a sudden, blood pressures are elevated all over Twinsville.

Everyone wants to know who’s to blame. Scott Baker for not giving the team enough advance notice that his elbow remained sore? The bullpen for giving up a few runs? Anthony Swarzak and Scott Diamond for not shutting down the Tribe hitters? Or do we just fall back on the “first rule of leadership” and declare it to all be Gardy’s fault?

For me, it’s “none of the above”. I’m looking straight at the Twins’ hitters and I’m concerned that we aren’t seeing the offense we’re going to need to see to keep the momentum that’s been built up over the past several weeks.

During the first half of July, leading up to the AllStar Break, the Twins won seven of 10 games. During that stretch, they outscored opponents 60-45, which thankfully makes doing the math easy. They averaged 6 runs each game. In fact, there were only two games in which they scored fewer than five runs (and they won one of those games).

After the break, it looked like the Twins would pick up right where they left off, beating the Royals 8-4 on Thursday. In the five games since that night, however, the assbats have apparently returned.

In the past five games, Twins hitters have a combined .231 batting average and an on-base percentage of just .272. That’s not good. But what’s even worse is that they have hit just .121 with runners in scoring position. Looking at that, it’s hardly a surprise that the Twins have not put up five runs on the board in any of those five games. Given that Joe Mauer seems to be coming back to form and hitting the ball well, I’m afraid to even look at what happens to those stats if you pull his numbers out.

Almost everything I’ve read lately has been about the state of the Twins’ pitching. The closer situation. Possible trade targets for bullpen help. Whether Slowey should be brought back to the rotation. How seriously is Baker hurt? Should Gibson get his shot? That’s all fine, friends, go ahead and fret about the bullpen and by all means, worry about Scott Baker’s elbow and the inconsistency of the rest of the rotation.

But the guys with the sticks need to start doing their jobs again or nothing else will matter.

– JC

GameChat – Royals @ Twins #4, 1:10pm

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It’s hard not to look forward to the next eight games in seven days against the ‘Toons and Tigers, but the Twins need to focus on not letting today’s game against the Royals slip away. It’s important to win this series, too.

It sounds like it’s going to be another hot one at Target Field, so let’s hope everyone stays hydrated and comes out of this game healthy… and with another win!

ROYALS

@

 TWINS
Getz, 2B   Revere, CF
Cabrera, Me, CF   Casilla, A, 2B
Gordon, LF   Mauer, C
Butler, DH   Cuddyer, 1B
Hosmer, 1B   Thome, DH
Francoeur, RF   Young, D, LF
Betemit, 3B   Valencia, 3B
Treanor, C   Plouffe, RF
Escobar, A, SS   Nishioka, SS
  _Paulino, F, P     _Duensing, P

 

 

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

R

H

E
Kansas City

1

0

0

0

0

0

2

0

0

3

7

1
Minnesota

1

0

0

0

0

3

0

0

x

4

8

1

 

Wow.. what a game! Starting at the end because we WON and that puts us 5 games back in the division (serious progress) Nathan got his 2nd Save in his third straight appearance in a solid and decisive way. It was a thing of beauty and for that he gets a tall frosty adult beverage of his choice to cut the heat.

Of course, the REAL story of the game was Jim Thome hitting the longest HR in Target Field so far – estimated at 490 ft – which gave him HR #596. It’s good to see him start to get to his rhythmn back. It’s even better when he drives in three runs in the process and gives us the win!  So for that, Jim Thome is today’s BOD!

 

 

As post-game news goes, Twins made several moves before tomorrow’s double-header & not all of them for good reasons.

  1. Scott Baker has been put on the DL with a strained flexor muscle in his right arm – this is retroactive to July 7th.
  2. Matt Tolbert was optioned back to Rochester.
  3. Scott Diamond’s contract was picked up and he’ll come up to start tomorrow night’s game.
  4. Chuck James is also being called back up to add a fresh arm to the bullpen.

Don’t forget that there is a makeup game at 12:10 tomorrow before the regularly scheduled 7:10 game and that will likely still have extremely high temperatures & humidity which will make the double-header a real challenge for both teams. Hopefully, they won’t have have to deal with any serious storms in the process.

The Final Countdown: 70 Games

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When we started this “Final Countdown” series, the Twins had 100 games remaining in their regular season schedule.

Our premise is simple… The Cleveland Indians will not win the AL Central Division Championship. That honor, from the outset of the season, has been predestined to go to the Tigers, the White Sox, or the Twins. Based on that reality, we created the REAL AL Central Standings, measuring how the Twins were doing against the BitchSox and Tigers only.

With 100 games left, the Twins trailed the Tigers by 10 games, meaning they would need to gain an average of 1 game on the leader in the REAL AL Central Standings every 10 games in order to catch up by game 162.

So here we are with 70 games left… let’s check in and see how our guys are doing.

TWINS GAMES REMAINING: 70

TEAM RECORD GB
Tigers 49-45 –
BitchSox 46-48 3
TWINS 43-49 5

Not bad. They would need to be no more than 7 games behind the leader to be on track and after Saturday evening’s games, they trail the Tigers by 5 games and the BitchSox by 3.

The next 10 games will certainly be interesting, as they lead us up to the non-waiver trade deadline. Keep up the good work, guys!

– JC

Happy Bert-day To You!

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Today is the day the Twins retire Bert Blyleven’s number 28. Blyleven will join Harmon Killebrew, Tony Oliva, Rod Carew, Kirby Puckett, and Kent Hrbek in being so honored. It’s somewhat amazing to realize Bert played with all of the others. He virtually bridged the gap between  the early glory days of “Tony, Killer and Carew” and the group headed by Puck and Hrbie that brought the franchise back in to relevance almost two decades later.

Bert Blyleven

Blyleven is just five years my senior, so I remember well both of his terms with the Twins (1970-76 and 1985-88), not to mention the period in between when he toiled for the Rangers, Pirates and Indians.

Of course, in those days, you didn’t get to watch every MLB game played on TV or a computer. There were no sports bars to go watch games on satellite. If you didn’t live in a “home market”, you saw the Game of the Week on Saturdays and that was it, at least until the Superstation days that brought the Cubs and Braves to a national audience.

So when I watched a baseball game, I REALLY watched the game. I particularly watched pitchers, since that was what I was… or at least saw myself as being (my coaches didn’t always seem to concur).

Watching Blyleven was amazing, to me. Specifically, that curveball made my jaw drop. I couldn’t imagine trying to hit that thing.

Of course, his talent wasn’t all there was to like about Blyleven. Even in days before the internet, there were stories about his practical jokes. I swear, if you were a team mate of his and your game was on the Game of the Week (and he wasn’t pitching that day), you really had to expect to have your shoelaces set ablaze or something equally absurd AND to have the whole thing broadcast to a national audience.

I even liked when he demonstrated a distaste for reporters.

Of course, it’s quite possible that his open disdain for the media at times went a long way toward assuring he would have to wait longer to be elected to the Hall of Fame than he otherwise may have had to wait.

Dick and Bert at Spring Training 2011

Sometimes I think Bert’s work as a broadcaster has come close to almost creating a caricature of himself. I think a lot of us have grown weary of the “circle me Bert” routine, perhaps even Bert, himself. But there is clearly still a significant segment of the fan base that eats the corniness up and playing to the broader fan base is a big part of a home-team broadcaster’s job these days. Even his infamous F-bomb broadcast a few years ago did nothing but make him more popular with the fans. He really does seem like “one of us”.

His broadcast gig has ingrained himself even deeper in to the fabric of the Minnesota Twins. Despite spending less than half of his service time as a Twin, it’s the organization that he is… and likely always will be… most closely associated with.

And it’s right that it should be so. There’s no doubt in my mind that his #28 should be retired by the Twins. In fact, I’ve always felt it should have been done long ago.

So, Bert, congratulations on the honor the Twins bestow on you today and congratulations on your election in to the Hall of Fame. I’m looking forward to hearing your acceptance speech from Cooperstown.

Don’t F*** it up.

-JC