As a Twins fan, I can relate.. Happy Easter everyone!
GameChat: TWINS @ Orioles, 6:05 pm
Some good news and some not so good news for Twins fans today. Unfortunately, most of the good news comes from their minor league affiliates, while the bad news involves the health of a member of their Major League rotation… and it’s not even Scott Baker this time.
Rookie Liam Hendriks has been scratched from his scheduled start Sunday in Baltimore due to food poisoning. Anthony Swarzak will step in and take the mound against the O’s in Hendriks’ place Sunday.
On the brighter side, media reports out of Connecticut tell us that Jason Marquis threw 75 pitches in today’s game for AA New Britain. Marquis went six innings, strikingout four hitters, while giving up just one earned run on seven hits, without giving up any walks. Looks like Marquis should be ready to rejoin the Twins after making maybe one more start for the Rock Cats.
Also of note in the minors, super-prospect Miguel Sano jerked a grand slam home run to lead the Beloit Snappers to their first win last night. May it be just one of many in his career with the organization.
Meanwhile, tonight back in Baltimore, the Twins try once again for their own first win of the season. The line up behind lefty Francisco Liriano looks pretty similar to the one that took the field for Friday’s season opener, with the only change being Ben Revere taking Ryan Doumit’s spot in right field. It makes sense to give Doumit the night off, assuming he will be putting on the “tools of ignorance” Sunday to catch Swarzak. – JC
| TWINS |
@ |
ORIOLES |
| Span, CF | Reimold, LF | |
| Carroll, SS | Hardy, SS | |
| Mauer, C | Markakis, RF | |
| Morneau, DH | Jones, Ad, CF | |
| Willingham, LF | Wieters, C | |
| Parmelee, 1B | Reynolds, Ma, 3B | |
| Valencia, 3B | Johnson, N, 1B | |
| Revere, RF | Paulino, R, DH | |
| Casilla, A, 2B | Andino, 2B | |
| _Liriano, P | _Hunter, T, P |
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | R | H | E | |
| Minnesota | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 7 | 2 |
| Baltimore | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | x | 8 | 13 | 1 |
The Twins will win a game eventually, I almost guarantee it.
But at some point, they’re going to have to score more than two runs in a game.
I do hope all the “don’t make Frankie pitch to contact” people are happy with his average of nearly 20 pitches per inning in his four innings of work.
Ah well… go get ’em Sunday, boys!
GameChat – SEASON OPENER! Twins @ Orioles, 2:05 pm
TWINS BASBEALL!!!!!
The time is finally here for baseball in Twins Territory for 2012!
And lest we forget the day (like he’d let us), Happy Birthday to Bert Blyleven. It is becoming near kitsch-level as celebrations go but you have to know he enjoys his birthdays more than most of us so good for him.
At any rate, for all those making predictions about what the first lineup was going to be probably didn’t expect this one. However, I think most of the players are pretty close and I actually like the idea of Doumit in RF instead of DH’ing if we need to move him to catcher for any reason. Do I like the idea that Morneau still prefers to DH right now instead of field a position? Not so much. However! He gets major points from me from being willing to admit that physically he’s still not on par with where he was a couple years ago. His weight alone says that for me and being willing to play and still do things to give his team the best chance they can get says a lot to me about his character and matches my concern about 50/50 with hope that his recovery is on track. That’s way better than where I was last season.
In other news, I haven’t heard any update yet on Scott Baker who left his start yesterday with what appears to be a pretty big setback in his return to health. There does come a point where you start to wonder if health is actually possible for some guys no matter how hard they try to do rehab right. Here’s hoping…
In general though, most of you know I’m an optimist or I would have given up on watching Twins baseball a long time ago! It’s a new season. All that happened last year that crushed my heart is gone away and a new roster and a new season has begun. Go Twins!
| Minnesota |
@ |
Baltimore |
| Span, CF | Reimold, LF | |
| Carroll, SS | Hardy, SS | |
| Mauer, C | Markakis, RF | |
| Morneau, DH | Jones, Ad, CF | |
| Willingham, LF | Wieters, C | |
| Doumit, RF | Betemit, DH | |
| Valencia, 3B | Reynolds, Ma, 3B | |
| Parmelee, 1B | Davis, C, 1B | |
| Casilla, A, 2B | Andino, 2B | |
| Pavano, P | Arrieta, P |
|
|
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
R |
H |
E |
| Minnesota |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
2 |
2 |
6 |
0 |
| Baltimore |
2 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
x |
4 |
6 |
0 |
Well that’s certainly not what you want to see on Opening Day for your team. What I will say is that there were some really fun moments within the game and they all seemed to come from the new guys! Doumit, Willingham & Carroll all seemed to be more on par for what regular season baseball should mean than the rest of our guys seemed to have – including Pavano. (we will not forget that fielding lapse, however, Doumit) And the 9th inning finally got the Twins on the board and even some excitement about whether they could get the game back going when the tying runner made it to 1B… and sadly, that’s where it ended. My suggestion for the team is this – if they want to make a come-from-behind victory, they should start BEFORE the 9th inning. Just saying.
In the having-more-fun-than-me category of course was JC & Eric (our newest author) who got together for a mini-gathering of Knuckleballers!
Cheers! And here’s to planning a few more like gatherings this season! See y’all tomorrow!
Great Expectations
With Opening Day upon us, everyone is making their predictions for how this season will unfold. And why not? It’s harmless fun.
But here are a few things I’ve learned over the years about pre-Opening Day prognostications:
- They tend to be based way too much on the previous season. I’m amazed every year by how many people who are supposed to be “experts” about Major League Baseball seem to come up with their predictions apparently by doing nothing more than looking at a team’s record the previous year.
- There’s a lot of “groupspeak” going on. Once a couple of these “experts” render an opinion about a team, that’s the end of the discussion. Everyone else falls in line with that “conventional wisdom.”
- The pre-Opening Day conventional wisdom turns out to be wrong as often as it’s right… and sometimes it’s very wrong.
Don’t believe me? Take a glance at the picks by the ESPN staff (all 45 of them), FOX Sports’ Ken Rosenthal, the Yahoo Sports trio of writers, and just to make sure the computer projections are represented, take a look at a composite of several such projections (James, PECOTA, etc.). That’s an even 50 prognostications you can go back to look at.
Or, if you trust my math skills, I’ll save you the trouble of looking:
- 37 of the 50 picked the Red Sox to win the World Series (the computers didn’t pick a WS champion, but they did project the Sawx to have the best record in baseball). In case you’ve forgotten, Boston collapsed and didn’t make the playoffs. Oops.
- None… zero… picked the Cardinals to win the World Series… or even be in the World Series. Only ESPN’s Doug Glanville, Peter Pascarelli, Bobby Valentine, Dave Winfield, Joe McDonald and Mark Mulder foresaw the Cards to make the post-season. That’s six out of 50 who believed that the eventual NL champion would even play post-season ball.
- But what about their AL Central predictions… and specifically, what did they think the Twins would do? Twelve out of the 50 predicted the Twins would win the Division. Then again, why shouldn’t they? They won the AL Central the previous season, right? So who DID the experts like to claim this Division? Well, for 33 of the 50, that would have been the White Sox. The Tigers, who eventually pretty much lapped the field in the AL Central, were the choice of just five prognostications. Give the computers credit, though, they were the consensus pick of the machines (though the same machines did predict that the Twins would win about 84 games).
All of that considered, why shouldn’t we retain some optimism for our Twins?
Last year’s Opening Day roster was good enough that nearly every media “expert” believed they should at least compete in the AL Central Division. What’s changed? While many don’t believe the rotation is any better, I think that’s just a matter of people having short memories of recent failures. I expect the rotation to be stronger. I also expect the bullpen to be better (there are decent arms on this staff AND a couple of guys in Rochester capable of coming up to help, when necessary).
The bench depth is considerably better. The starting line-up is better, just considering how much healthier Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau are, compared to a year ago. Josh Willingham and Ryan Doumit are at least the equals of Michael Cuddyer and Jason Kubel offensively. Is there reason to question whether young players like Chris Parmelee, Trevor Plouffe and Luke Hughes can perform at Major League levels over the course of a full season? Of course. Then again, they’re bound to be better than Tsuyoshi Nishioka, Drew Butera and Jason Repko.
So, the question I keep asking myself is this: If last April’s roster was expected to win enough games to contend within the AL Central Division, why shouldn’t the expectations for this roster be similar? To my mind, there’s no reason they shouldn’t have similar expectations, last year’s record aside.
It’s fine to keep expectations in check. There remain concerns with the health of key players like Morneau and Scott Baker. Denard Span still speaks of occasional lingering concussion issues. But from top to bottom, I like the looks of this roster much more than I expected to.
The Tigers are still the smart-money choice to win the AL Central Division and, outside of the White Sox, perhaps, the rest of the division could be better than last year, as well. But I fully expect the Twins to be contending at mid-season. If that turns out to be the case, we’ll find out whether ownership is willing to step up and make a deal or two, even if it means nudging the payroll a bit closer to last year’s level.
No team has ever made the playoffs a year after losing 99 games. Then again, few 99-game losers had as many health issues contribute to their lousy season as the Twins had a year ago, nor have others likely had two former MVPs (both still 30 years old or younger) returning from injury the following season.
Am I expecting greatness out of this Twins team? No, of course not. I’m not expecting more than I expected going in to last season. Then again, I’m not expecting a lot less, either.
My point is… there is reason for hope. And hope is really all that fans of any team have this time of year, because no matter how good the experts say your favorite team is, there are no guarantees. Just ask Red Sox fans.
– JC
Just a passing thought… stolen.
Twins Predictions
Real live baseball (in America) begins tonight, before ramping up on Thursday, leading to the Twins’ opener on Friday in Baltimore. With opening ceremonies in mind, here are the Knuckleballs Twins Predictions for 2012:
Pitcher of the Year: Scott Baker (minor early season DL stint not-withstanding) Baker was the best of a bad Twins pitching staff in 2011, despite missing chunks of the season on the Disabled List. I couldn’t tell you why I think he’s going to be healthy and productive this year (which already seems like a bad idea), but I think he will be great. Jim Crikket thinks that Francisco Liriano will be the best pitcher of the year. His spring numbers were very positive, he limited his walks and earned plenty of strike outs. Unfortunately, if you look back just a little farther to his Winter numbers, they’re terrible. Let’s hope the recent results tell more of a story for 2012.
Hitter of the Year: Justin Morneau “Morneau is swinging like I haven’s seen him swing in a couple of years. Vicious cuts.” – Jim Crikket Again, these are only Spring Training at bats, but ever since Morneau flipped the switch and hit two home runs in a game a couple weeks ago he’s been a man on fire. Moving into the DH position and focusing solely on hitting seems to be working for Morneau. Success in 2012 will help distance Morneau from his 2010 concussion and he could be playing first base everyday by the All-Star Break.
Defender of the Year: I wanted to select Alexi Casilla as the defender of the year, hoping against hope that he will remain focused, healthy, and attentive at second base and play more than 100 games for the first time in his career. Jim wanted to go with Denard Span, because for the Twins to succeed in 2012 Span is going to need to cover huge amounts of ground in the left field and right field gaps (gaps which are now wide open with the move to put Josh Willingham and some combination of Trevor Plouffe and Ryan Doumit in the corners).
Rookie of the Year: Chris Parmelee/Liam Hendriks If Parmelee continues to hit like he did last September and this Spring he’ll be a top choice for the Twins’ best rookie. The other candidate, who made the 25 man roster and will open the season in the starting rotation is Liam Hendriks. Hendriks was probably slated to come up after 5-10 AAA starts, but because Scott Baker and Jason Marquis are not ready to start the season Hendriks gets a chance to showcase his skills earlier than anticipated. If he keeps his spot in the rotation when both Baker and Marquis are back you’ll know he’s pitching well and on track to steal a Rookie of the Year award from Parmelee.
Most Valuable Player: Justin Morneau The engine that makes the Twins go is Joe Mauer, but Mauer is even better with a healthy Justin Morneau hitting behind him, forcing pitchers to attack Mauer allowing him to hit doubles all over spacious Target Field and driving in runs for the Twins. If Morneau comes back and is indeed the hitter of the year, selecting him as the MVP will be as much about what he does as an individual, as what he does in the lineup to help those around him.
Comeback Player of the Year: Francisco Liriano Obviously Justin Morneau is a candidate here if he hits well and helps the team succeed, but after a horrendous 2011, if Liriano returns to his 2010 form he’s one of the best players in baseball. If Morneau and Liriano are both All-Stars, this team will be lucky to two potential comeback players on their squad.
Expected Record: The Marcel projections peg the Twins for just a 70-92 record, relying heavily on the Twins’ 2011 results as a predictor of 2012 success (and a heavy dose of regression to the mean). Even if Joe Mauer’s Cindarella Spring Training Clock strikes midnight and he turns in another injury plagued 2012, simply trading Drew Butera for Ryan Doumit means turning a -1.2 WAR into a 1.2 WAR, 2.4 additional wins, and that’s not even factoring in upgraded seasons the Twins are likely to receive from Denard Span, Alexi Casilla, Jamey Carroll (vs. Tsuyoshi Nishioka), Danny Valencia, and at least half of the Twins’ pitching staff. Assuming then that the 70-92 record is the worst that the Twins could do in 2012, what is a reasonable expectation for the Home 9? My best guess, 82-80, Jim Crikket is more optimistic, suggesting even 86-76 for the Twins. Either way, the Twins are going to be competitive, entertaining and might even be relevant in September. Will any of this come to pass? I don’t know, but we’ve got 162 games to find out. Bring on the baseball!
Things Ben Revere is Unlikely to Do
Yesterday, during the Twins’ Spring Training loss to the Red Sox at JetBlue Park, Ben Revere threw out a runner at the plate from left field. Well, kind of. Jacoby Ellsbury tripled and the ball bounced away from Valencia at third into shallow left field. Ellsbury, thinking the ball had skipped into an area void of defenders, took off for home. Revere, racing in from left, scooped up the ball and threw a rocket to home plate, catching Ellsbury by three or four steps. If you’re scoring at home, that’s an outfield assist.
While Spring Training stats do not count, Revere throwing a runner out, from anywhere, is a note worthy occurrence, given his weak throwing arm and previous performance (3 assists in 2011, and none of those, as far as I can remember, involved throwing a runner out at home plate).
With that in mind, here is a list of things Ben Revere is unlikely to do in 2012:
1. Throw out a Runner at Home Plate. As mentioned above, Revere’s arm is weak (4/100 per Fangraphs), and if he is not playing every day, his chances of even being in the right situation are limited, at best.
2. Hit a home run. While Revere has shown that he can occasionally hit a home run (or 2), he has never hit a home run in the Major Leagues, and has just 5 home runs in his entire Minor League Career (with a career high of 2 at Single-A Fort Myers). While Revere might eventually hit a ball over the outfield fence, his speed could allow him to stretch a triple into an inside-the-park home run, thus ending his HR drought. However, Revere only hit 5 triples in 2011, despite his speed, and might not have enough at bats to even match that total in 2012.
3. Have an on base percentage above .335. While he will never hit for power, Revere’s Minor League numbers indicate that he has great on base skills, posting a career .385 OPB, though he has never played a full season at AAA. Revere’s biggest asset is his speed, and as a 4th outfielder, he will have plenty of opportunities to showcase his defensive tools, but for the team to put that speed to use offensively Revere will need to get to first base. If he is not playing regularly, Revere may struggle to find a rhythm, having never been used consistently as a reserve. While Revere posted a .310 OBP in 2011, that number was helped significantly by a late season push that saw Revere hit .311/.342/.368 in September and October. If Revere wants to be the Twins’ leadoff hitter and centerfielder of the future, he’ll need to come close to Denard Span‘s career OBP of .361.
4. Says something interesting on Twitter. While Ben Revere (@BenRevere9) has almost 3 times as many Twitter followers as fellow Minnesota Twin, Glen Perkins (@Glen_Perkins), he rarely, if ever, says anything noteworthy. The most exciting thing he’s tweeted in the past 30 days is this. Really, Ben Revere? Trading in the Statue of Liberty for Tim Tebow Tebowing? Meanwhile, Glen Perkins has not only spent Spring Training on a quest to hold and photograph himself holding sharks, he also interacts with fans and other Twitter users on a regular basis. Definitely worth a follow.
What else might Ben Revere not do in 2012? Steal 40 bases? Run a marathon? Eat 50 In and Out burgers? Who knows!
A Spring Training Tale of Two Sites
I really like having the Red Sox being just down the road a bit from where the Twins train. Sunday, I was able to spend the morning watching the Twins’ minor leaguers play intrasquad games (low A vs. high A on one field, AAA vs. AA on another field and “rookie” teams on yet a third field) and then drive 15 minutes east to watch the Twins take on the Red Sox at the Saux brand new JetBlue Park in the afternoon.
It was great getting to watch fellow Iowan B.J Hermsen take the mound to start for the high A club against the lineup likely to be fielded by the Beloit Snappers, including uber-prospects Miguel Sano and Eddie Rosario. Hermsen struck out both Rosario and Sano in the first inning, but Sano did get a measure of revenge with a double off of Hermsen later on, leading to a run.
I also spent some time watching the older minor leaguers, where prospect Max Kepler and his AA team mates were taking on a AAA team filled with a number of players, such as Drew Butera, Mike Holliman and Casey Fien who were still in the Major League clubhouse up until just a few days ago.
I really didn’t pay attention to the scores and I didn’t stick around to see the games to their completion, but it was a lot of fun not only watching both games, but watching far more important observers, like General Manager Terry Ryan, who was also turning his attention back and forth between the fields.
The game with the Red Sox wasn’t so interesting, but it was good to see Chris Parmelee celebrate the news that he’s made the Big League roster to start the season by giving the Twins a brief 1-0 lead over the Sox with a towering home run to right field. Carl Pavano cruised through five innings of work before he started getting knocked around a bit in the sixth. Alex Burnett didn’t fare nearly as well in relief.
I thought I’d share a few pictures of the game, as well as a few I took of the new ballpark itself. In case you weren’t aware, JetBlue Park was built with the same dimensions as Fenway Park, right down to a “green monster” in left field.
Sunday Morning Comic Relief
Hee! We’re almost there folks!
Another Saturday In The Park(s)
Busy day in Fort Myers on Saturday. This is supposed to be a vacation, for crying out loud!
This is a subject for another day, but there’s been a lot of tweeting lately between traditional media types that cover the Twins and various bloggers, myself included. Some of it has been interesting, some of it somewhat disappointing, but the crux of the discussion revolves around the value of “access” that the reporters have. Today was a perfect example of a situation where a blogger (that would be me) benefited from the access that a beat reporter (in this case, LaVelle E. Neal III of the Strib) has to sources within the Twins organization.
Neal tweeted late Friday that Scott Baker would be pitching in a minor league game on Saturday morning over at the Red Sox home, JetBlue Park. Thanks to that alert, I headed out for JetBlue instead of Hammond Stadium this morning. It seemed like a good opportunity to (a) get a glimpse at the Red Sox’ new digs on the east side of Fort Myers, and (b) see what kind of arm Baker has at this point.
I saw all that and then some.
It turned out that Baker wasn’t the only Big Leaguer scheduled to play in that game. Jon Lester took to the mound for the Red Sox AAA team, while David Ortiz, Kevin Youkilis, Jarrod Saltalamacchia (yes, I had to look up the spelling) and former Twin Nick Punto all opted to stick around and face Baker rather than make the bus trip up to Port Charlotte to face the Rays in Boston’s scheduled Big League game.
Baker gave up one run on a solo HR to Sox prospect Will Middlebrooks, but otherwise got through four innings of work relatively unscathed. Lester definitely was throwing harder than Baker was and the Twins announced later in the day that Baker would open the season on the 15-day Disabled List, retroactive to his last Big League game on March 27.
The regularly scheduled game in the afternoon against the Pirates saw another offensive blowout by the Twins who have been scoring runs in bunches lately. Anthony Swarzak gave the Twins six solid innings on the mound and Denard Span racked up four hits for the Twins as they bludgeoned the Pirates, 15-3. Span, Joe Mauer, Justin Morneau, Danny Valencia and Trevor Plouffe (who played 2B… so much for him being strictly an outfielder, huh?) all doubled. Ryan Doumit and Brian Dozier homered for the Twins. (I have to confess, I missed the Doumit HR… I was standing in line for a beer with fellow Twins blogger Topper Anton of Curve for a Strike when Doumit connected in the 3rd inning.)
But you can read all the reports of the game provided by the reporters who get paid the big bucks to provide that information. What we offer here at Knuckleballs is photographic enhancement of the Spring Training experience. With that in mind, feast your eyes on the following:
Finally, I leave you with this…
And they say Chuck Knoblauch has gone in to seclusion and won’t make appearances at Twins games…
Sunday, I’m hoping to hang out on the minor league fields in the morning before heading down Daniels Parkway to JetBlue Park for the Twins and Red Sox game in the afternoon. Things are starting to wind up here in Fort Myers… it’s time to start getting excited for Opening Day!
– JC