Thursday Thoughts

-  So the "big" news of the day in Gopher land is that the Big 10/ACC Challenge match-ups were announced and the Gophers got screwed.  No, it's not Florida State for the 12th time, but they ended up getting slated to go on the road to Wake Forest.  Despite finishing 7th in the league, the Gophers get last season's 11th place Demon Deacons who are probably going to be even worse.  At the same time, the 6th place Hawkeyes get North Carolina, and Illinois and Indiana, who both finished below the Gophers, get much more favorable match-ups in Miami and Pitt, and last place Purdue got a fun match-up in NC State.  This is horseshit.

There are 14 Big Ten teams.  There are 15 ACC teams.  Should be pretty straight forward, although with the realignment I suppose they had some leeway to play with things, but this is bullshit.  No chance in hell Purdue, 12th in the Big Ten, should get NC State, who finished tied for 7th.  If things were fair, horrible shit box Virginia Tech sits out (not Notre Dame) and based on records you get:

Virginia vs. Michigan
Louisville vs. Wisconsin
Syracuse vs. Michigan State
Duke vs.  Nebraska
UNC vs. Ohio State
Pitt vs. Iowa
Clemson vs. Maryland
NC State vs. Minnesota
FSU vs.  Illinois
Miami vs.  Indiana
Wake vs.   Penn State
Georgia Tech vs.  Northwestern
Notre Dame vs.  Purdue
BC vs.  Rutgers

Way better and much more fair.  Fucking NCAA Fascist bastards.  Wake sucks, and they might even be worse next year.  One of their top bench guys is transferring, and they're losing two starters.  It's probably not all bad because their two leading scorers are back and they've got some decent young players, but I'm crabby so I'm bitching because the Gophers clearly got screwed because they're looked at as a bottom tier Big Ten program.  Maybe they are but shit, you don't have to out of your way to fucking remind me.  I need a drink.

-  Going with Knob Creek.

- A little more news that might be of interest to Gopher fans is that Naadir Tharpe is transferring from Kansas.  You may remember Tharpe from blogs such as this one because at one point he was ranked #90 overall and the #20 point guard in the country and all things pointed to him being a Gopher.  If you don't feel like reading back, Tharpe had a two school list of Minnesota and Rutgers and then Rutgers signed Myles Mack so he canceled his official to Rutgers and the Gophers were in the driver's seat.  Then Josiah Turner signed with Arizona (which did not work out well - DUI, kicked off team, transfer, reneg on transfer enter NBA draft, not drafted) which meant Kansas didn't have a point guard in their incoming class so they called Tharpe and about five minutes later, without even a visit, he was a Jayhawk.  Once again, I don't need to be reminded constantly how the Gopher program ranks nationally.  Thanks again, Tum Tum Nairn (who did almost the same thing).

Now, after 3 so so years in which he's made pretty good progress each year (1ppg/1apg to 6ppg/3apg to 9ppg/5apg) he's out.  Kansas is fairly loaded at guard, and Tharpe actually lost his starting spot for a few games, but Tharpe is transferring to be closer to his daughter in Massachusetts (I think) who has been having some health issues.  I would assume BC, UMass, and any of those Rhode Island schools are in play, and who knows, maybe UCONN.  This is a pretty clear case of somebody who deserves a hardship waiver to be immediately eligible.  So he's probably 50/50.  The NCAA is neat.

-  It's been awfully hard to keep up with the Twins this year considering they never seem to play, when they do it's almost always day games, my vpn trick to make mlb.com think I'm in California so I can watch their games on my computer has stopped working, and the pitching staff is once again horrible.  Who could have possibly predicted that trying to upgrade the starters by signing two mediocre or worse starters and resigning a terrible one wouldn't have worked?

The team's starters post an ERA of 6.08, a WHIP of 1.64, a FIP of 4.74, and a xFIP of 4.95, numbers that are second worst, worst, second worst, and worst in the majors and this was coming into the day not even accounting for Pelfrey getting destroyed.   Every single one of those numbers is worse than last year.  Look at this rotation (ERA/FIP/xFIP/WHIP):

• Ricky Nolasco:  6.67/5.36/4.32/1.75
• Phil Hughes:  5.14/3.42/3.72/1.39
• Kevin Correia:  7.33/4.21/5.24/1.67
• Mike Pelfrey:  7.32/8.22/6.87/1.88
• Kyle Gibson: 4.34/3.55/4.79/1.55

As Ian Malcolm once said, "that is one big pile of shit."  Gibson's the only one who has looked halfway decent but his last two outings have been pretty bad and I fear his hot start was mostly fluky.  Hughes has been far and away the second best starter on this team so far.  Phil Hughes!  The good news is most of these guys aren't quite as bad as they've looked since with one exception their FIPs and xFIPS are lower than their ERA, which suggests that either luck or bad defense is making things worse and considering the team's horrendous corner outfielders it could be that, but they aren't suddenly going to get better.  The bad news is that Mike Pelfrey might actually be worse than he's looked.  Worse!  

They're clawing around .500 thanks to an offense that has been putting up a shocking amount of runs ranking fifth in the majors, but man does that ever feel like fool's gold.  Second in the majors in walks (after finishing 7th last season) should hold up and the team likely will keep putting runners on base, but there feels like to much fluky, timely hitting bringing in all those runs especially since they were a bottom six run scoring team last year.  Sam Fuld (who I thought was brought in to be a fifth/sixth outfielder, not an every day starter), Trevor Plouffe, and Chris Colabello are all probably playing way over their heads, and I find it unlikely that Brian Dozier really has the kind of power he's showing so far.  Now Joe Mauer and Aaron Hicks should probably be better than they're showing (can you believe Chris Herrmann pinch hit for Hicks today?  Talk about a career low point) so it could kind of even out a bit, but if this team's going to do anything it's with pitching.  And this pitching sucks.  At least

-  The Kentucky Derby is this weekend, and I'm always big fan and have given you jerks picks each of the last four years.  Four years ago I hit Super Saver and two years ago my wife picked the winner with I'll Have Another, so you know what that means - I'm practically guaranteed to pick the winning horse.

My favorite bet is Intense Holiday at 16/1.  He fits the profile of your typical derby winner - solid year at age 2 with improvement at age 3.  He's also one of the best closers in the field.  If he can stay middle of the pack for most of the race he should be able to make a late charge.  Like this horse a lot.  Also put down on Danza at 9/1 and Medal Count at 25/1.  Danza is coming in hot and is a fast horse, but also has a lot of stamina in his pedigree, could very well be a wire to wire winner.  Medal Count is similar to Danza in that he has a lot of stamina, but similar to Intense Holiday in that his best bet is to win with a late charge because he's not as fast as Danza.  Long shot to win but I'll take a closer with stamina at 25/1.  My kids chose Candy Boy (25/1) because hey, candy, and the wife went with Vicar's in Trouble because "he sounds British."  So there you go.  I'll probably do some kind of trifecta or exacta or something with my three horses and one of the front runners.  Looking to win big this year.

BOATLOADS!

(ended up doing an trifecta box with Danza, Intense Holiday, California Chrome, Commanding Curve, and Wildcat Red)

Is Kevin Correia like, Good?

When the Twins signed free agent starter Kevin Correia to a 2 year, $10 million contract this year there were two distinct reactions from fans - you either got "who?" or "oh please god no tell me you're kidding what why?"  I was in the second group.  Correia had been a distinctly pedestrian pitcher for the Pirates and Padres, rolling up a grand total of 0.3 wins above a replacement level player in the last three years.  After kicking around three organizations going back to 2003 and only once having what might be called a "quality" year, the $10 million seemed to be a bit of a ridiculous outlay for another Nick Blackburn.

That's basically what Correia was, an NL version of Correia.  He doesn't strike people out (less than 5 K/9 each of the last two years), doesn't walk anybody (less than 2.5 BB/9 last two years), throws his fastball right around 90mph, and relies on groundballs to get outs.  Basically your best case scenario was probably 180 innings with an ERA around the mid 4s - certainly not worth $10 million.  However Correia has pitched very well this year, going 7+ innings while giving up 3 or fewer runs in all three of his starts, giving him 3 quality starts and a very nice 2.95 ERA.  So that begs the question, is this luck (same old guy just a hot streak) or is this a brand new Correia?  By the way I honestly don't know, but I suspect it's luck.  Let's find out.

First, let's check out the quickest way to see if he's getting lucky:  BABIP (and I will include links to all the nerd stats, although you should at least be somewhat familiar with most of them by now it's the 21st century grandpa).  This year Correia is at .292 vs. his career number of .294.  This is good news for Correia.  Perhaps he is a better pitcher this year.  Next up, Fielding Independent Pitching (both versions).  This is not as good news.  Correia's ERA (2.95) is significantly better than his FIP (3.92) and xFIP (4.20), which are both more in line with his career numbers.  This suggests that so far this year Correia is pitching very similarly to how he always has, but something is affecting how many runs have actually crossed the plate.

Looking a little deeper two things immediately stand out:  his LOB% and his HR/FB.   LOB% simply means how many runners reach base against him and then fail to score.  Generally this number will be higher for strikeout pitchers which Correia most assuredly is not, yet so far this year 81.9% of his baserunners have failed to score, which rates as excellent and would have been the second best of any starter last season.  Comparing that to his career mark of 71%, which is slightly below average, and clearly something is happening here.

Similarly, his HR/FB (simply what % of fly balls he allows end up as home runs) is a very solid 8.7% this year, which is above average.  Once again, when we compare that to his career mark of 10.7% we see a pretty drastic difference.  One point you'd like to make here if you were defending Correia would be that Target Field is a tough park to hit home runs at so it wouldn't be out of line to see a low number here and you're right - From 2010-2012 Target Field saw 86 home runs hit the same number of at-bats it would take an average park to see 100.  However in that same time frame Correia pitched at two extreme pitchers parks - PNC in Pittsburgh (74 HR) and Petco in San Diego (78 HR) - so, much like the Karate Kid in My Cousin Vinny, your case doesn't hold water.

Basically Correia is getting zero swings and misses which is resulting in the fewest strikeouts in his career (a laughable 3.4 per 9 right now) and more base runners.  So far he's done a great job "scattering" his hits and avoiding the long ball and that's accounting for the low ERA and quality outings thus far.  It's up to you if you believe that is something he can sustain despite being so much better than his career numbers, particularly when there's nothing here to suggest he's pitching any better than usual and might even be pitching a little bit worse.  Personally?  I'm thinking we're going to see some hard regression to the mean, and it's going to be ugly.

Get used to this, bromigos

Adding this because I find it fascinating, but Starlin Castro has yet to walk this year in 54 at-bats (prior to tonight where he still didn't walk).  Turns out he's tied with Torii Hunter with those 54 ABs for most at-bats this year without a walk.  In fourth place with 42 ABs is your guy Carlos Gomez.  The most interesting thing looking at this list of guys without a walk is that they all suck. Seriously other than Castro and Hunter it's a bunch of crap like Daniel Descalso, Chris Getz, and Brent Lillibridge.  I don't know if you can see this without a subscription but just look at - seriously look, it's terrible.  Know the worst part?  Ron Gardenhire would KILL to have most of these guys on his team.  Don't deny it.

North Correia: A Free Agency Story

The MLB Winter Meetings have ended.  There were a lot of moves made and our Twins were in thick of it by making trades and offers to free agent pitchers for them to turn down.  Then, the totally thinkable happened: an average to below average starting pitcher that literally never misses bats (well, 5.7% of the time he does) signed a two year deal.  Welcome to the North, Correia!

DWG already covered Corriea briefly in his live blog of last night's Gophers/Bison tilt, but it probably should be mentioned again that this wasn't what we were looking for as a first splash in free agency.  Jon Marthaler of Twinkietown is apoplectic about the signing and rightfully so.  The worst part about this is that it's $5MM per year that can't be given to someone else.  As the Twins repeat their mantra of being small budget and having limited money to spend over and over, you'd think they'd be a little more wise and a lot more patient with it.  If someone scoops you at this point in the off-season on Correia, you wish the poor bastards luck and trot out Sammy Deduno instead.  Another thing about Correia is he's not exactly some big-time workhorse.  He's never logged 200 innings, coming closest in 2009 at 198.  He's averaged 157 innings pitched over the past 3 seasons.  Correia throws a 4-seamer 25% of the time at 90 mph, a 2 seamer 21% at 90.6 mph, a slider 24% at 87 mph, a curve 12% at 77 mph and a change 13% at 86mph. You can see that his mix doesn't vary speeds much, so he has to rely on location and movement to be effective.  According to Fangraphs.com his only pitch that was plus from an average runs allowed perspective was the changeup.

Pass the tobacky.

The best part about watching the winter meetings is watching the interviews.  Seeing Charlie Manuel in a suit trying to act like a regular human that doesn't wear leggings and a windbreaker to work was great.  The interview I saw was a day or two before the Revere trade and you could tell he knew it was happening.  They asked him about their hole in center field and he said they were focusing on getting a defensive presence out there.  Manuel was curmudgeonly and loveable.  You know he threw some Red Man in after the interview to take the edge off.

The Terry Ryan interview on MLB network that occurred just after the two trades was also great.  Terry Ryan looks like a turtle.  An angry, angry turtle.  I should have recorded it because I can't find it online.  Essentially, he said what we've all been thinking and saying for the last year or two.  The Twins have some depth in the outfield and are sorely in need of pitching.  He went on to mention that they've had a number of offers out to pitchers but they couldn't give away the money. Sadly, now we know he did give some cash away to Correia.  After seeing this interview it makes me lean even more towards thinking this was a panic move.

Also of note was that he listed Hicks, Benson and Mastroianni in that order when asked how they'll fill centerfield.  Spring training will be interesting from this standpoint as a stand out performance could land any of the three the job.  I suspect we'll see Mastroianni there to start and as DWG pointed out, he was at least somewhat useful in under 200 ABs last season.  Hicks, 23, had a lot of success last season in AA.  He's a good defender in centerfield with a big arm.  He has power and speed on the basepaths.  His strikeouts are a tad high, but he also walks at a good rate, so he projects to a top of the order type.  Benson was injured much of last year with the dreaded hamate bone injury (that's the tiny bone at the base of the ring finger in the palm of your hand where hitters often hold the knob of the bat).  He also had a knee cleanup in August.  He hit like crap, but I'm willing to give him a pass due to injury issues.  He's 25 in March, so it's possible he makes the team as a reserve outfielder with Mastroianni starting and Hicks in AAA at the beginning at least.  Then when they suck and Hicks is tearing up AAA, they can make a move.

Hamate

 
Ryan also indicated that they are probably done subtracting for the time being and would prefer to add via free agency rather than trade.  He indicated that he thought the team could compete as-is and when asked about starting pitching he mentioned Worley, Diamond and Liam Hendriks.  He also said they have guys like Nick Blackburn and Brian Duensing as depth.  At which point I yelled "Oh, come on!" at the tv. This was of course before we got the Correian Barbeque.  Your Twins rotation right now looks something like this:

THE PAIN

#4a Scott Diamond
#4b Vance Worley
#5a Liam Hendriks
#5b Kevin Correia
And then the clusterflap for the last spot: Kyle Gibson, Cole DeVries, Nick freaking Blackburn and Sammy Deduno.

If Gibson starts in AAA there's a legit chance that with Gibson, Meyer and May the Rochester Redwings will have a better staff than the Twins.  The hope is of course that there's one more signing coming in for the Twins.  They still have some money under their self-imposed cap, so they just need to get some sucker to agree to sign on the dotted line.

Starters that are still out there:

Shaun Marcum is still kicking around.  He doesn't throw hard and is kind of old (31 in two days), so maybe the Twins have interest.  He's a better pitcher than Correia, but that likely means he'd cost more too.  He's the chick at the bar that used to be pretty hot, and is probably still worth a roll.

Ryan Dempster is also out there and rumors indicate the Twins made an offer.  He's already declined a two year/$25 million offer from the Red Sox because his old ass wants a three year deal.  He's 36 in March and definitely on the decline, so if he's asking that much it's a definite no-go.  Similar to Marcum, he's an older chick at the dive bar that really isn't all that hot but has big boobs at least.

Edwin Jackson is still out there!  He still wants a multi-year deal and I'd still give it to him.  (just like last year)  He had probably his best year yet last season for the Nats when they gave him a one year, $12MM deal.  He is reported to want a 4 or 5 year deal, probably in the 50-60MM range.  Big bucks and we hate that.  The dream scenario here is that Edwin hangs around until the zero hour and is forced to make bad decisions like he's at the bar until close and all of the cool franchises have already left with their pitchers and the Twins have been bellied up to the bar all night making kissy faces at him and he just goes for it. 

Jair Jurrjens is available and has a fun name.  The Twins reportedly are after him as well.  He's just 26, but is coming off a brutal, Blackburnesque season.  He is a former all-star though and could be a cheap, short term signing.  He's the newly single chick at the bar that kind of let herself go because she was depressed and stuff, but now she's got a gym member ship and stuff and who knows what could happen?

Brett Myers is crazy and seems to just be drawing interest from the Orioles and Twins for the most part.  He's the crazy chick that bites and scratches but mostly in a fun way.

Joe Saunders...made an offer already, meh.  Lefty and still better than Corriea.  He's the chick with the lazy eye.

Frankie Liriano also already offered.  WTF?  I think any other team in the league would be a better fit.  I mean, how many chances does he need to prove he can't turn it aroun in Minnesota?  He's the on again, off again girlfriend that cheats on you all of the time.

LOL Brett Myers