Hey Some Sports Stuff Happened

Some of you who still actually read this blog have noticed I haven't posted in a while.  Mostly because I was driving across the country to Utah with my wife and two idiot kids.  We covered more than 2,500 miles and traveled in Minnesota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, and Utah over the last 15 days, spending nights in 3 different hotel rooms and 2 different condos.  We saw Mount Rushmore, the black hills (freaking gorgeous), a bunch of cool Mountains and stuff, swam in 3 different pools, saw some dinosaurs, a moose, a bunch of antelope, and more cows and horses than you could ever want.  We drove through a true ghost town (like, a bunch of buildings and nobody living there), Deadwood (Billy the Kid died there), went through the world's biggest drug store (Wall Drug in Wall, SD) and a town with a sign advertising population 15.  I drank vodka tonics out of a sports bottle at the pool, boxed wine out of a paper cup in a pitch black hotel room while the kids slept, and snuck beer in the garage at a mormon birthday party. 

Best of all, my kids got to spend time with their grandparents and spent 9 full days with their cousins who are about the same age and whose mom is their mom's sister and best friend and they loved every minute of it.  There were many tears when we left, and my daughter vowed to be pen pals with her cousin while my son wailed "but we can't leave cousin Ike is my best friend!!!!"  I dreaded doing this before we started (even though I knew it was something we should do). Yes, there were moments where it got difficult (like when the bridge in Wyoming was washed out and we had to back track 50 miles, or when the road in Wyoming was washed out and we had to go out of our way by about 130 miles), but the kids held on and were troopers despite a couple 12 hour days in the car and it was a fantastic trip all around.  We will definitely do it again in a few years.  And I'm going to dread every moment leading up to it.

Any way, there was some sports stuff that happened.  Also Wyoming can go right to hell.

-  The big news is that Gopher commit Jarvis Johnson will not be medically cleared to play for the Gophers due to his heart condition.  This on the heels of another commit, Jonathan Nwankwo, not getting clearance to play due to some indeterminate academic issue.  So what the hell is going on here?  This isn't the first time the basketball team has run into issues with the admissions office - recall Djuan Piper or Gaston Diedhiou, just in the last year.  Honestly I'm pretty tired of it.

I get that the University of Minnesota is among the top academic schools in the country - US News ranked it #71 in its Top Academic Universities in the nation list - and that's cool.  I mean, I like seeing the U up there on that list, much better than being someone like UNLV who received a "Rank not Published" because they were so bad.  The problem is, if you want to be an athletically relevant school sometimes you have to bend the rules a bit.  Duke ranks #5, but William Avery, who seemed like a complete dope, got in there because he could ball.  USC ranks #22 and I'm pretty sure O.J. Mayo is a moron.  Georgetown ranks #20 and they let in Kenny Brunner, who ended up trying to kill somebody with a god damn samurai sword.

Look, I'm not an idiot.  If there's a danger to Jarvis, and unacceptable danger, then sure, hold him out, of course.  The kid's safety is paramount here so I'm not necessarily bashing this decision, just the overall state of the admissions department which seems to constantly be at odds with the basketball program.  I know you can't let in some degenerate who can't read, but Nwankwo landed at VCU, which may not have the lofty academic status of the U but it still ranked in the top 200.  Come on already.  The Gopher athletic program will never rise to top tier status if the rest of the University actively works to hold it down.  Admitting some borderline or slightly worse than borderline students who can ball the fuck out isn't going to put a black eye on the school.  This program is cursed, and the tight ass admissions people sure as hell aren't helping.

And, if you'll allow me to be human for a moment, this has to just suck for Jarvis.  The kid just had his dream pulled out from underneath him. Despite the report that he and his family were kind of blindsided by this it doesn't appear at this time that he's looking to transfer.  That makes me think there's some legit shit going on here and not some kind of conspiracy - nobody wants another Hank Gathers situation.  This is really the wrong issue to start railing on the U's admissions department because this one might make sense, it's just the latest in a series of setbacks so it's a little bit of burnout here.  Ugh.  Just sick of it.

-  The Twins started their regression with a 2-9 stretch, but have bounced back with a 3-1 stretch and still sit at 37-31 and second place in the AL Central.  I pretty much expect this kind of thing.  Most likely they'll play around .500 ball the rest of the year and end up staying in contention for a Wild Card berth and things will stay interesting.  I'm pretty excited about that, though it's a negative also.  If the Twins hang around in contention it means guys who should probably be trading this year, especially Trevor Plouffe since his value is probably at an all-time high right now, won't be.  

Hey I like Plouffe, I'm a big fan and my kid has some big giant face thing of his.  But his numbers are better than how he's actually playing and it's unlikely a 29 year old suddenly hit his peak, he's a free agent after this year, and the best prospect in the system other than Buxton is a 3B.  He's prime trade material.  Not to mention Mike Pelfrey, who they better not resign/extend because he is terrible no matter what his fluky ERA is.  

Of course, it's intoxicating to think about the playoffs, too.  If they can just get in, anything can happen.  Who knows how this shakes out, the Twins could end up buyers or sellers, but most likely they'll stand pat and that's probably the right move.  Of course, when you're about to get a pitcher like Ervin Santana back that's as good as making a trade anyway.

Some other Twin things:

-  Byron Buxton is here!  He picked up his third career hit today, but that 2-20 start wasn't exactly encouraging especially since other prospects on his level have produced so far this year (Kris Bryant, Joey Gallo, Carlos Correa).  With all the traveling and stuff I've only seen one of his at-bats and he looked fine (despite striking out) so it's hard to know if he's overmatched right now or if it's just bad luck so far, but we can look into some nerd stats to get an idea.  

First thing that stands out is a BABIP of .143.  Essentially no matter how much a batter may be struggling that is completely non-sustainable (the lowest BABIP for anyone in 2014 was .231 by Brian McCann).  His strikeout rate is a kind of scary 33%, but it's not all that surprising considering he's been around 25% his first year at each level.  His 7.7% line drive rate and 21.4% hard hit rate both suggest he's making terrible contact when he does hit the ball, however, and that's not good.  His swing rate is a little high and his contact rate a little low, but nothing too concerning.  

There's plenty to like here still.  His speed and defense give him value even when his bat might not, and I have to believe his bat will come around simply because he's always hit and also because I have to believe it.  Give him time.  Nothing to panic about.  Right?

-  I'm pretty bummed about Danny Santana.  I know the .405 BABIP pegged him as pretty much an automatic regression candidate, but he had a really good line drive rate so I thought you know, maybe.  But the line drive rate has gone down, the K rate has gone up, and the walk rate has completely disappeared leading to an embarrassing .525 OPS, second worst in the majors among hitters with at least 185 PAs.  Couple that with Eduardo Escobar's hot start and sending him down was pretty much a no brainer.  Escobar's cooled off now, however, and Santana is crushing at Rochester (.370/.412/.543) so he'll be back up, and hopefully he'll be all straightened out.

-  I don't know if anyone has noticed, and by that I mean I think everyone has noticed, but Joe Mauer has been worth -0.5 WAR this season, meaning he's worse than replacement level.  Meaning you take some shlub like Chris Colabello or Chris Parmelee or whoever the equivalent would be right now in AAA and plug him in and he'd give you more than Mauer.  Mauer, who is currently getting paid $23 million to completely suck at an offensively premium position.  His slugging and OPS are both the worst in the American League among first basemen with enough at bats to qualify for the batting title, which means he's playing one of the most traditional power positions without supplying any power (or anything offensively, really).  

His walk rate has slipped to a career worst as well, so you can't even point to his OBP (a pedestrian .329, 70 points or so lower than his career number) and say "well, at least he's getting on base."  His "soft contact" percentage is the worst it's ever been, and he's already popped up in the infield twice this year.  You can say that doesn't sound like much, and in some cases it isn't, but from 2011-2014 he only popped up a total of two times - not a misprint.  

I don't know where to go from here.  He's making $23 million per year through 2018 so he's impossible to trade unless you include something extremely premium or pick up a lot of his salary, which is pointless.  The only way he's remotely tradeable is if he ups his production level, which seems unlikely since his 2009 season, the one which got him that big contract, was a complete outlier.  His 28 homers that year were more than double his next best year.  His batting average was nearly 40 points better than his second best year.  His ISO was 60 points higher, his WAR over 2 wins better than any other year in his career, and his HR/FB was almost double any other season.  Just a complete fluke.

At this point, as frequent commenter and long time reader RGHrbek mentioned in the comments, he's blocking Kennys Vargas, who needs at-bats.  He could end up blocking Plouffe or Miguel Sano's move to first, and by taking up one of the 1B/DH spots he's also blocking Josmil Pinto's development.  Seriously, if you could only have two of the three out of Vargas, Mauer, and Plouffe, don't you take Vargas and Plouffe?  Mauer needs to be traded just to free up playing time for the younger dudes, but he's completely untradeable so here we are.  Hopefully he can turn it around and give the team a little average and on base skills if nothing else.  Oh and he's completely horrid defensively too, don't forget.  Neat stuff.

-  If you have kids go see Inside Out.  It was pretty awesome.

Yeah that'll do for now.

Twins Roster Preview - Hitter guys

With the depressing but not terribly surprising news that the Twins sent all the interesting young people back down to the minors and kept a bunch of lame-o veterans on the big league roster, I suppose it's time to turn my thoughts to baseball.  Also, there's a 75% chance I hate the college basketball national champion (actually probably more like 98%) so I'm going to ignore that until it's on TV because of course I'll watch.  Anyway, here's what we're dealing with from the guys who will try to hit the ball this year.

CATCHER:  It'll be Kurt Suzuki and Josmil Pinto once again.  Although it's kind of boring, this is sadly probably the Twins strength given Suzuki's solid season in 2014 and Pinto's possible upside.  The handling of the catcher position last year was bizarre.  Signing Suzuki in case Pinto wasn't ready made sense, but then extending Suzuki and demoting Pinto was the kind of move a contending team would make, and in case you forgot the Twins were not a contending team.  Suzuki's value was likely at an all-time high given his career year and All-Star appearance and moving him at the trade deadline was probably the smart move, but here we are.

Suzuki will of course be the starter again.  Last year he put up a slash line of .288/.345/.383 which smashed his career numbers.  His peripherals suggest some regression but not as much as I had feared, so he should be solid behind the plate again.  He's not horrible defensively either, so the Twins have a legit, competent player.  Neat.  Hopefully he gets traded.  Pinto had a solid minor league track record of hitting and had a splashy debut in 2013, but last season his bat deserted him to the tune of .219/.315/.391 and given that he's a pretty terrible fielder most/all of his value comes from his bat.  He did start hitting once demoted down to AAA last year, and even in struggles he still showed good plate discipline and power when he did make contact so there's probably not too much to worry about.  Other than his path being completely blocked by the stupid 2-year deal given to Suzuki.  Trade him!

INFIELD:  Your guy Joe Mauer will be the first baseman again, which is pretty brutal.  Mauer's line of .277/.361/.371 would be slightly above average for a middle infielder, but that OPS ranked 15th among all first basemen who qualified last season, just a slight tick better than Garrett Jones.  I don't know what's up with Mauer, but an increase in strikeouts coupled with a complete loss of power is fairly terrifying given his salary.  He's stopped hitting fly balls, and the fly balls he does hit don't go anywhere.  I don't know why or what he's doing differently but whatever it is somebody please fix it!

I'm pretty stoked about the middle infield combo of Danny Santana and Brian Dozier, and these guys could be fixtures of the team when it gets good again which it will eventually so shut up.  A lot of Santana's detractors point to his BABIP of .405 and say it's unsustainable, and it is, but I found a neato expected BABIP calculator that takes a players line drive percent and all that other stuff and spits out what the BABIP should be and his came out at .369 last year, so that .405 represents a bit of luck but not this massive amount you'd usually expect from a number north of .400.  I expect him to bat close to .300 again and play a shaky shortstop.

Dozier just signed what could be a steal of a deal at 4/$20, assuring the Twins won't have to shell out big money any time soon if he continues to get better or even stays the same.  Of course they could be stuck with him if he goes back to sucking, but I choose to believe that isn't going to happen.  He doesn't hit for a high average which makes old people sad, but he has good power and great plate discipline, not to mention an above average glove and according to fangraphs base running metric (takes into account both stealing bases and taking an extra base on a hit) he was the 3rd best base runner in the game.  Add all that up, and his hair, and you get one of the best second basemen in all of baseball.  Too many tools for him to breakdown.  He's going to be a nice bargain for the next four years, and probably traded at the deadline in 2018.

Trevor Plouffe will be back at third again, probably for the last time.  With Miguel Sano breathing down his neck and still no indication Sano's going to be anything other than a third baseman this is Plouffe's last chance to prove his value.  Whether he ends up being a trade casualty (probably the best case scenario), is non-tendered in the offseason, or shows enough they want to keep him around and make him an outfielder or something he's probably done at third.  He's had a solid, if mostly unspectacular (other than that one time he was super hot hitting homers) 3-4 year run and has worked hard to go from a terrible fielder to an above average one, all while being a good, not great, hitter.  He's been an important part of a consistent 90-game loser and it's time to start winning.  Not this year, of course, be real, but next year maybe we can think about it.

Backing these nerds up we have the two headed crap factory of Eduardo Escobar and Eduardo Nunez who I still don't know why he was resigned.  Escobar showed a weird flash of power last year with 35 doubles and is a capable defender all over the place so I like having him around.  Nunez is terrible at everything.

Designated Hitter should be a fun spot with Kennys Vargas (who will also back-up at 1B) now here since he can hit the crap out of a baseball.  Vargs knocked out nine dingers and ten doubles in just 234 plate appearances, racking up an isolated power metric that would have put him in the Top 40 in the majors if he had qualified.  Considering he's like 16 years old or something that bodes well for the future.  Assuming more experience helps move his walk and strikeout rates closer to his minor league numbers (a dangerous assumption, to be sure), he could be in for a big year.  He crushed the ball in spring training with 1 HR every 14 ABs and everyone loves to watch fat guys launch baseballs out of the yard so expect him to be a fan favorite.

OUTFIELD:  What a mess.  Aaron Hicks ruined everything, and he's back in the minors again meaning Jordan Schafer, he of the career .621 OPS, will man center, flanked by the immobile Oswaldo Arcia and the ancient Torii Hunter in what is basically guaranteed to be the worst defensive outfield in the majors.  Backing up a bunch of pitchers who don't strike anyone out.  Great plan.

Ok I guess there's some upside.  Arcia is still really young at 24 and he was one of just three players under 24 last year to hit more than 20 home runs.  He still strikes out a ton but at least his power and walk rates got better last year, which is a good sign for future development.  His fielding also improved from "oh my god" to "jeez this guy is terrible", which might be his ceiling.  Hunter has been pretty much the same player the last five years, at least offensively, and if he can do it again and provide "leadership" or whatever he's probably worth having around.  That being said, if you think he's any kind of defensive wizard anymore you're sorely mistaken as he's now well below average even at a corner spot (stupid Father Time!).  That said he can't be any worse than the Willingham/Kubel/Parmelee trio of death that spent time out there last year, so he's got that going for him.

Schafer is the wild card, sort of, mainly because the Twins opted against giving Hicks a third year out of camp (or something radical like bringing Eddie Rosario up ahead of schedule) despite Schafer never really doing much of anything batted ball-wise.  He's fast, bad at hitting, and white so you know he's gritty and full of hustle and heart, but in his 147 plate appearance sample with the Twins last year he managed to hit exactly league average and it was, by far, the most successful stint of his major league career.  Somehow between the Twins and Braves last year he stole 30 bases (in 37 attempts) despite just 240 plate appearances which seems completely insane to me since "getting on base" isn't really in his wheelhouse but clearly he can run, which feels exciting.  He can play a passable CF as well, so I guess it's better than throwing an inanimate carbon rod out there.

Outfield back-ups will include a handful of starts from Escobar, that god damn Nunez, and teeny tiny Shane Robinson who goes by Suga Shane on Twitter.  He'll fit in with the Twins since he's proven he can't hit over 452 career plate appearances.  He's a 30 year old non-prospect who didn't hit in the minors either until he was much older than his competition, but a mediocre Spring Training won him a job over Hicks, though perhaps giving Hicks a regular role at AAA is for the best and I really don't know who else would be better than Robinson since they didn't sign anybody else and let's be honest it probably would have been a former Twin who was well beyond his prime anyway.  Robinson is a good fielder so he'll probably have some value plugging in as a defensive replacement in the late innings when the Twins stumble into a lead.


Overall, looking like a so-so offense.  They'll most likely have above average hitters in 7 of the 9 spots and the other two either have serious bounce back potential (Mauer) or tremendous speed as an asset (Schafer).  The bench is pretty bad unless Pinto bounces back but it's the American League so there probably won't be too much pinch hitting anyway.  Switch hitting Escobar is the only possible lefty swinger off the bench but he's been brutal against righties in his career so yeah, I'd expect a lot of sticking with the main nine guys.  It's a decent offense.  The real problem is the pitching, which I don't have the heart, energy, or ambition to tackle right now.  Later.

The Demise of Joe Mauer

I'm generally not one to panic in the early season.  Rather than overreact to early outlier type trends, I always assume a player will regress to the mean, and although there can be improvements and skills can decay in general I believe I usually believe it's a matter of degrees and anything drastic is usually a fluke.  It's why it took me so long to come around on Brian Dozier and why I haven't panicked about Aaron Hicks yet (though I'm getting there).  But this Joe Mauer thing is.......troubling.  The fact that his offensive dip is coming as he shits to first base - the most premium of premium of offensive positions - just magnifies the issues.  Especially as Justin Morneau soars in Colorado (.312/.356/.556 with 10 dingers).

Despite Ron Gardenhire's assertion that Mauer's the victim of bad luck and "would be hitting .400 if he was playing in Boston" this looks like more than a fluke as there are some really troubling indicators here.  But first let's review his performance.  Mauer's slash line right now is .273/.349/.348.  All of these numbers are career lows.  His OPS of .697 is about .150 below his career mark and is, no joke, just slightly above Nick Punto's career mark.  With just 9 extra base hits this year his ISO is a minuscule .073, which is dead last among first basemen and 11th worst in the majors, ranking above Jason Kubel, a bunch of slap hitters, and the completely dreadful this year Billy Butler.   There's no way around it, this is a truly dreadful year for Mauer so far.

Perhaps the most troubling aspect of this is that there's no clear reason why this is happening.  He's swinging at more pitches out of the zone than usual, but other than that you can't point to anything behind the scenes that's changed all that dramatically, but the results sure have.  His walk rate is down for the second year in a row to a career low (outside his first 35 game season in 2004) while his K rate is up for the fifth straight year and is his career worst.  His strikeout percentage was always in the low teens, but this year has spiked to nearly 20%.  Put it this way - his BB/K ratio this year is 0.59.  His career number is 1.06.  Mauer's seasons usually ended with more walks than strikeouts, but for the second time he's trending ahead in Ks, and this year by a wide amount.

He's clearly having trouble making contact compared to his career norms, and when he does put the ball in play he's not hitting it as well.  His line drive rate is about the same, but he's transferred a ton of fly balls to ground balls.  Although grounders go for hits more often than flys, that's not happening for him and from what I've seen many of those ground balls are very weakly hit.  That, and the removal of many fly balls, has led to the lack of power.  You'd be tempted to call it bad luck, but Mauer's BABIP is still a robust .331 this year, which is down from his career number of .348, but not so down you can simply point to bad luck as why Mauer's struggling this season.

It's maddening because he doesn't seem to have changed his approach much but the results are very different.  Perhaps most troubling is he's made a career out of absolutely punishing fastballs, but this year he's barely above average on them.  He's striking out like crazy and not walking.  When he does make contact it's weak and he's showing Ben Revere levels of power. I really wish you could point to some kind of change in his approach because then we could just assume he'd figure that out and get back to normal and everything would be cool, but that's not the case.  Add it all up and with his move to 1B this year his WAR is 0.0, meaning you could plug any AAA slug into his spot (Chris Parmelee) and you wouldn't lose a thing.  And all for $23 million.

Like I said way back at the beginning of this thing I'm not one to overreact.  Mauer could self correct and hit .380 the rest of the way and it wouldn't surprise me one bit.  There just isn't anything here really that makes that sound extremely likely.  The one thing we can hold too is it's possible he's simply pressing too hard.  The increased swinging at balls out of the zone, the increased strikeouts, and the decreased walks all point to a hitter increasing his aggressiveness, which a lot of the idiots in this town keep saying he needs to do despite the fact that that's not how he got good.  Hopefully he can settle back, relax, and be the patient, reliable hitter he was born to be and has been for whatever like 10 years or something.  But I'm kind of nervous that he's broken.  And I blame you.

Fun With WAR: AL's Best Players by Position at the All-Star Break

Here's a look a the top players by position at the All-Star Break for the American League.  I thought I'd do this mainly as an exercise to see how far off the Twins are at position from the best players.  I'll look at WAR and try and include offensive and defensive tidbits.  For these purposes I'll use Fangraphs.com's WAR calculation and ratings because they're much easier to pull into a report than B-R.

Catcher - Joe Mauer, Twins

The beauty of the catcher position is that there are only 7 that qualify with enough plate appearances for me to rank.  Two of them are actually Twins thanks to Doumit's multi-positional weirdness.  Mauer leads this group with a 3.9 WAR, with Houston's Jason Castro at #2 with a 2.3 WAR.  Carlos Santana is 3rd (1.7 WAR).  The best rated fielder is Matt Wieters with Mauer second.  Wieters threw out 17 of 39 base stealer guys.  Mauer's All-Star backup Salvador Perez had just a 1.4 WAR.

For numbers that people actually understand, Mauer led in hits (113), runs (50), AVG (320), OBP (402) and was .002 behind Castro in slugging at 473.  Blue Jays' catcher JP Arencibia hit 16 homers and Wieters had 44 RBI to lead those categories.    None of them stole more than a couple bases because they have knees like I do, only mine are from sitting on the couch.

First Base - Chris Davis, Orioles

This is a no brainer as Davis is right there with Cabrera for first half MVP.  "Crush" (not sure where I stand on that nickname yet...the beverage is delicious though) produced a 5.1 WAR, giving him a healthy lead over Edwin Encarnacion at #2 (2.7).  James Loney is a surprising #3 on the list with a 2.2 WAR.  Prince Fielder was way down at #11 (0.8) because he gets dinged on his poor defense.  Justin Morneau is #13 with a 0.6 WAR. 

Davis led AL first basemen in hits (108), HR (37), R (70), RBI (93), AVG (315), OBP (392) and SLG (717).  It was a clean sweep for him.  Just sick.  Loney tied him with the .315 average.  Encarnacion (25), Dunn (24) and Mark Trumbo (21) also cleared the 20 homer mark.  The best fielding rating belonged to Mike Napoli (6.2), which seems pretty weird.  Trumbo (4.9), Hosmer (4.7) and Loney (4.0) are also among top defenders.  The worst fielder was Mark Reynolds at (-7.8), with Fielder hot on his tail at -7.7. 

Second Base - Robinson Cano, Yankees

Cano is having another great year and led AL second basemen with a 3.8 WAR.  Dustin Pedroia and Jason Kipnis were right on his heels with 3.7 and 3.4, respectively.  Brian Dozier is 7th (1.5) thanks to his very good defense and base running ratings. Oh, and just to give you an idea how well no-batting-gloves Matt Carpenter is playing for the Cardinals in the NL; he has a 4.3 WAR.

Cano leads in homers (21), RBI (65) and slugging (531).  He's just average in fielding (0.4) and is actually a negative value in baserunning (-0.6).  Pedroia leads in hits (119), average (316), OBP (396), runs (57) and is just behind Omar Infante (5.1) in fielding with 5.0.  Kipnis leads in steals with 21, although somehow Zobrist gets the best base running rating with a 3.6.  Apparently he has a great UBR, which has something to do with how many extra bases he takes.

Third Base - Miguel Cabrera, Tigers (duh)

It's no surprise that last year's Triple Crown winner is on the top of the heap here.  What is amazing though is that he's nearing a second consecutive Triple Crown, which has never been done.  Blockhead Chris Davis is tripping him up right now in the homers and Davis is also right behind Cabrera in RBI.  There are some great AL third basemen this year with Cabrera (6.0 WAR), Evan Longoria (4.4), Josh Donaldson (4.3) and Manny Machado (4.2) at the top of the stack.  Poor Adrian Beltre is 6th despite hitting 316/358/543 with 21 homers.  Trevor Plouffe barely doesn't qualify, but if I lower the plate appearances standards a bit he clocks in at 8th with a 0.4 WAR.
As if you didn't know, Cabrera leads in everything with 365/458/674, 30 homers, 95 RBI and 73 runs.  Only 11 players had at least 30 homers and 95 RBI in all of 2012.  The best fielder is Manny Machado with a whopping +16 runs saved.  Our guy Plouffe is at -6.7, but Cabrera is worst at -11.9.  Miguel laughs at your defensive uber stats.  The best base runner besides utility guy Jayson Nix (2.5) is Kyle Seager (0.9). 

Shortstop - Derek Jeter  Jhonny Peralta, Tigers

Jhonny freaking Peralta is the best we have to offer at shortstop in the AL.  It's a motley crew where Mark Belanger would fit right in.  Peralta is actually hitting really well and providing average defense.  Funny that he's in better shape and playing so well in a contract year.  Peralta has a 2.7 WAR, Yunel Escobar is 2nd with a 2.3, Jed Lowrie is 3rd with a 1.8 and Pedro Florimon is tied with Alexei Ramirez for 4th with a 1.7!  JJ Hardy, who leads AL shortstops in homers (16) and RBI (52) is 6th with a 1.6 WAR because he doesn't walk and has a poor average.

Peralta leads shorstops in average (303) and slugging (447).  He's second to Lowrie (364) in OBP with a 361 mark.  Elvis Andrus leads in runs with 50 and is a +4.8 runs thanks to great base running.  Otherwise, he sucks the big one (0.6 WAR).  Nice signing, Texas.  Nice fantasy trade, WWWWWWWW. 
Florimon is the best fielder with a +9.0 runs; he's also a +2.8 base runner.  The worst fielder is Jed Lowrie (-7.9) and the worst base runner is Asdrubal Cabrera (-2.4).

Left Field - Alex Gordon, Royals

Alex Gordon is second to Mike Trout actually; Gordon has a 2.2 WAR and Kelly Johnson is third with a 1.8.  However, since 2/3 of Trout's games were in CF, we'll cover him there. There's a lot of sucky left fielders out there.  .224 hitting Josh Willingham is 14th with a 0.4 WAR.

Raul Ibanez leads left fielders with 24 homers, 578 slugging and 56 RBI.  Someone get some of that dude's pee ASAP.  Alejandro De Aza has the runs with 54.  Daniel Nava leads with a 288 average and a 374 OBP. Nate McLouth leads in steals with 24.  The best fielding LF is Andy Dirks with a +10.6; the worst is Daniel Nava at -9.5 splitting time between left and right field.  The best base runner is McLouth with a +3.6 runs; Melky Cabrera is the worst wtih a -3.3 tally.  Funny how Melky's numbers have dropped back to where he was at in his Yankee days after getting suspended 50 games for roiding.

Center Field - Mike Trout, Angels

Trout is cranking out another pretty great year; in relative silence because the rest of the Angels have been pretty sucky and Cabrera and Davis have been putting up massive power numbers.  His 5.7 WAR in the first half puts him on pace to exceed his MLB leading 10.0 WAR from last year. Colby Rasmus and Jacoby Ellsbury are tied for second at 3.5, Desmond Jennings and Brett Gardner are tied for fourth at 2.7 and Adam Jones is sixth with a 2.5 WAR.  Aaron Hicks is dead last at 15th with a 0.0 WAR.

Trout leads in AVG (322), OBP (399) and SLG (565).  Adam Jones leads in homers (19), runs (67) and RBI (67).  Ellsbury leads in steals with 36 and also is tops with a base running with a +8.7 runs.  The worst base runner in CF is Lorenzo Cain with a -0.5 runs.  Cain however, is the top fielder with a +11.8; De Aza is last at -7.9.

Right Field - Jose Bautista, Bleu Jays

Joey Bats!  His 3.0 WAR leads right fielders.  Shane Victorino is second with a 2.4 WAR; Zobrist is third with 2.2.  Torii Hunter leads in AVG (315) and OBP (352) unless we count Nava again.  Chris Parmelee isn't last!  He's second to last ahead of JD Martinez.

Nelson Cruz leads in homers (22), RBI (69) and SLG (517).  The only stat Bautista actually leads in is runs (61), but he's close in a number of categories.  The best fielder is Victorino, a converted center fielder, with +14.0; JD Martinez is worst with a -7.1 (again unless we count stone legs Nava).  Drew Stubbs is the best base runner (4.0) and Boom Stick Cruz is last with a -2.6.

Final Tally for the Twins:

C:  1st
1B: 13th
2B: 7th
3B: 8th
SS: 4th
LF: 14th
CF: 15th
RF: 14th

Fun with Nerd Stats

I was doing some work in Excel on my data and formulas for player props, and came across some interesting stats that I found interesting.  So look:

-  B.J. Upton is having an absolutely terrible year, and a big reason is pop-ups.  Upton has a major league worst 30.2% in-field fly ball rate with 13 pop-ups in 192 plate appearances, a big reason why his BABIP is so low at just .208.  Upton is also striking out 33.9% of the time, which means 64.1% of his plate appearances end with him having zero chance of getting on base.  So if every Upton ground ball and fly ball managed to find a hole and he hit 1.000 on those, he'd still only be hitting .360.  That's preposterous.  Also from a Twins' perspective Josh Willingham's pop-up rate of 22.4% and K rate of 26.4% are a pretty bad combo too.  He needs to get it together so they can trade him this summer for something halfway decent.

-   There are 8 players who have yet to pop out this year, and they range from slap hitters (Ruben Tejada, Jose Altuve, Howie Kendrick), awesome hitters (Joey Votto, Mike Trout), really shocking guys who you'd think popped out every five minutes (Ryan Howard), guys I've never heard of (Jason Castro), and asians (Shin-Soo Choo). 

-  The following players have more walks than strikeouts so far this year:  Dustin Pedroia, Coco Crisp, Marco Scutaro, and Norichika Aoki.  That is an epically annoying group of players.

-  Ervin Santana (13/13), Dan Haren (12/9), and Kevin Correia (13/12) are all contenders for the Bronson Arroyo Memorial Club of pitchers who give up more homers than walks in a season, but if anyone is a lock to join the group it's got to be Bartolo Colon with 7 homers and 4 walks allowed so far.  It seems he's decided to absolutely not walk anybody this year, and if history holds and he makes around 30 starts he should give up around 20 homers.  At his current walk rate he'll come in under that, but who knows if it will hold?  He's never walked this few batters in his career, but it seems to be working for him so far (3.33 ERA, 3.34 FIP).  Maybe even crazier?  He's only had a single 3-0 count this entire season.

-  Fastest average fastball velocity for any starter is Stephen Strasburg at 95.4 mph with the slowest 81.1 mph by R.A. Dicky (slowest non-gimmick pitcher FB is Barry Zito at 83.4).  Fastest average fastball period goes to Detroit's Bruce Rondon at 99.3 mph (Aroldis Chapman is fourth at 97.1).  Glen Perkins throws the fastest heater of any Twin at 94.5 mph, with the team's hardest throwing starter, Mike Pelfrey, averages 91.8 mph and every single thing I wrote in that last sentence is totally gross.

-  More Twins stuff:

• Best Fastball (by results/value):  Perkins
• Worst Fastball:  Pelfrey
• Best Curve: Ryan Pressly
• Worst Curve: Scott Diamond
• Best Slider: Pressly
• Worst Slider: Perkins
• Best Change-Up: Jared Burton
• Worst Change: Pedro Hernandez
• Casey Fien and Josh Roenicke also have very good cutters, while Vance Worley has one that is completely god awful
• Best Fastball Hitter: Joe Mauer (and it's not even close - he crushes fastballs - runnerup: Eduardo Escobar)
• Best Curveball Hitter:  Mauer (Trevor Plouffe)
• Best Slider Hitter: Josh Willingham (Plouffe)
• Best Change-Up Hitter: Mauer (Oswaldo Arcia)
• Most Aggressive Hitter: Wilkin Ramirez (runner up: Arcia)
• Best Eye:  Brian Dozier (Jamey Carroll)
• Best Baserunner:  Pedro Florimon (Aaron Hicks)
• Worst Baserunner: Plouffe (Chris Parmelee)
• Best Fielder: Justin Morneau (Florimon)
• Worst Fielder: Plouffe (Hicks - advanced stats have his range as terrible, advanced fielding stats still suck)

- Back to Majors in general, Pablo Sandoval, Adam Jones, and Alfonso Soriano are known hackers so it shouldn't be a surprise they're the most aggressive in the majors this year, while Marco Scutaro, Nate McLouth, and Coco Crisp win the most patient award (Hicks is fourth among those who qualify for the batting title).

-  Shin-Soo Choo completely crushes fastballs, Carlos Gomez (Snacks -> hi) kills the curve, while Chris Davis smokes sliders (Willingham is second here) and Evan Longoria owns the change-up (followed by Carlos Gonzalez and Troy Tulowitzki which is notable because all three are on $nake and I's fantasy team).  On the flip side, fastballs confuse Ruben Tejada, John Buck is owned by the curve, Nelson Cruz can't hit a slider, and Matt Wieters is always fooled by a change.

-  Lastly, the best heater in the bigs goes to Cliff Lee (Clayton Kershaw runner-up), best curve to Adam Wainwright (A.J. Burnett) - neither a big surprise, best slider belongs to Yu Darvish (Justin Masterson), best change to Marco Estrada (Cole Hamels), best cutter to Travis Wood (Clay Buchholz), and best splitter (people still throw this?) to Hisashi Iwakuma (Ryan Dempster) and no, not many people throw it.

How to rebuild the Twins

 Although the Twins are pretty much hamstrung and stuck with Joe Mauer for the foreseeable future, that doesn't mean there aren't some moves they could make to try to rebuild quickly - which they'll have to do in order to become contenders again before Mauer is completely out of his prime assuming he isn't already.  Obviously the #1 priority should be the draft, where the Twins have the 2nd overall pick and three picks in the top 40.  I'd like to see them concentrate on high upside, college pitchers who won't have to spend 4-5 years in the minors, and I'd specifically like to see them draft Mark Appel out of Stanford or Kevin Gausman out of LSU with that #2 overall, then look at more pitching with picks 32 and 42.  Pitching-Pitching-Pitching.

Beyond that, there are some trades that need to be made.  Namely:


1.  Justin Morneau.  Contenders like the Marlins (who just sent Gaby Sanchez to the minors), Dodgers (who have crappy no power James Loney), Rangers (great offense with wasteland at 1B) and Blue Jays (who have given up on Adam Lind) all could use the power Morneau would provide at first base and all have the money to handle his contract, if they aren't too wary of his health issues.  Health issues and the big contract might mean his selling price is down, but a package of 3-4 players centered around one high upside prospect at a position of need would be a good move.  The Marlins have 3B Matt Dominguez in AAA and although he's not a great hitter he's supposed to be a plus fielder and let's face it, the Twins are pretty much out of 3B options.  The Rangers are loaded, including the minors, and that might make them willing to move future stud starting pitcher Martin Perez, who would give the Twins their first ace type pitcher since Johan.  The Dodgers system is loaded with starting pitching (with 8 of their top 10 prospects starters), and the Jays have enough young pitching that they could part with a semi-highly regarded pitching prospect or three without hurting their long term outlook.  Morneau is a great trade chip as long as he keeps hitting with power, and he's not going to be around by the time this time turns itself around - they need to use him to get the turnaround started.

2.  Denard Span.  I like Span and he's a quality leadoff hitter, but Ben Revere is a very similar player with less power, less discipline, and better defense, and the former two can develop with more time - time he's not getting.  The Nationals have been sniffing after Span for a couple of years now and were even willing, or close to willing, to give up a real young, real good reliever in Drew Storen last year.  I don't know that you can get a blue-chipper like that anymore, but the Nats are contending and are sorely lacking in the leadoff hitter department so they'd still probably love to have Span.  With all their young pitching maybe you can get a MLB ready, middle of the rotation type guy who is still young like Ross Detwiler.  Given Ramos's injury they need a catcher, so maybe throw-in Doumit and get a prospect back or even whichever second basemen they hate less, Steve Lombardozzi or Danny Espinosa - either would be a better 2b of the future than anything the Twins have right now.

3.  Carl Pavano.  I'd say trade the entire rotation, but I can't really see a team parting with anything other than "cash considerations" for anybody other than Pavano or Liriano, and trading Frankie when his value is at an all time low is probably not the right idea, so that leaves Pavano.  He's not exciting, but he's consistent, a decent big league pitcher, and somebody (or multiple somebodies) are going to be looking for that around the trade deadline (not to mention he's affordable).  All four AL East contenders have worse than average rotations so as that divisional chase heats up they're all going to be trying to outbid each other for pitching help, so depending on who else would be on the block Pavano could be near the top of their wishlists (although I don't know if the Yankees would be willing to bring him back).  He'd bring back less of a return than either Morneau or Span, but getting a mid-tier prospect or even a youngish player who is blocked on one of those teams would be worth looking into.

4.  Matt Capps.  I really don't know if anybody is stupid enough to "pull a Twins" and give up something of value for a shitty closer who has racked up saves in his career more out of opportunity than talent, but if anybody is willing to trade anything they should jump on it.  Same with Glen Perkins or really any other pitcher on the entire team.

Pull all that off, and maybe you're looking at a future of:

C - Mauer
1B - Miguel Sano (I'm guessing this is where he eventually ends up) with Parmalee backing him up
2b - Lombardozzi or Espinosa with Plouffe backing up
3b - Dominguez/Travis Harrison
SS - Levi Michael/Brian Dozier
OF - Revere/Benson/Hicks/Rosario/Arcia/Kepler
 with a rotation starting with Kyle Gibson, Appel/Gausman, and Detwiler with Baker/Diamond/Walters (if either of them is real)/other draft pick pitchers/Wimmers/Hudson Boyd/Madison Boer/Adrian Salcedo also in the mix and Deolis Guerra your top bullpen arm.

I dunno.  And that's not even counting in any other prospects that come back in trade other than Dominguez and the Nats' guys, although even though Dominguez is a 3b which the team sorely needs I'd still take Martin Perez over him if they have that option.

And yeah, I realize I'm just playing fantasy baseball basically, but the team is in the shitter and going nowhere, and you have exactly four tradeable assets so trade them.  None of them are going to be around when this team gets close to contending again, so trade them now while they have value.  Anything.  Just do something this year rather than sitting around with their thumbs up their asses like they did last year.  This is what I'd try to do. 

I think this Joe Mauer contract might have been a bad idea

-  Quick, what's the flukiest home run season in history?  You thought of Brady Anderson's 50 in 1996, right?  Of course, I'm pretty sure everybody did.  He's as out of place on a list of players with 50 homers in a season as most of this blog's readers would be in a book store, and I'm pretty sure he's the first name most people would come up with.  But wait.  Check this out:

These are the home run % (% of PAs the player hit a homer) for Brady Anderson and Joe Mauer by season, with season five obviously both of their big HR year.  I looked at the four seasons prior and three after because that's all Mauer has, and looked at HR % instead of total HRs because Mauer is injured more than your mom.  The two charts look awfully similar, no?

Even more, if you take each players' average HR rate outside of the fluke season, Anderson's was 2.7% (which jumped to 7.3%) and Mauer's was 1.4% (which jumped to 4.6%).  What's that mean?  It means Anderson's season was a fluke by 2.7x his career average, while Mauer's jumped by 3.3x.  So in other words Joe Mauer's big-time season, the one that landed him that $300 million contract or whatever it was, was a bigger HR fluke than Brady Anderson's.  And since the whole point of giving him all that money was based on the idea that he'd be more than just an average hitter, I'm pretty sure it's the worst contract in baseball history other than probably Barry Zito or either of those Rockies' pitchers (Hampton, Neagle) from a few years ago (although depending on how Carl Crawford and Jason Bay finish out they'll probably end up on this tier as well).  

The extra good news is that he hasn't even come close to duplicating any of his other numbers from that year either, but hey hey, he's on pace to set a new career high in walks!

But wait!  There's more.  Here's a list of the highest paid players this year:


1.  A-Rod, $29 million
2.  Johan Santana, $24 million
3.  Joe Mauer, $23 million
4.  Prince Fielder, $23 million
5.  CC Fatbathia, $23 million
6.  Mark Texeira, $23 million
7.  Cliff Lee, $22 million
8.  Vernon Wells, $21 million (Note:  Holy fucking shit)
9.  Miguel Cabrera, $21 million
10.  Adrian Gonzalez, $21 million

And here's a list of the highest paid players last year,

1.  A-Rod, $31 million
2.  Mauer, $23 million
3.  Sabathia, $23 million
4.  Wells, $23 million (jesus christ somebody fucked this one up)
5.  Santana, $23 million
6.  Texeira, $23 million
7.  Cabrera, $20 million
8.  Ryan Howard, $20 million
9.  Roy Halladay, $20 million
10.  Todd Helton, $19 million (lol)

You'll not most of those names are the same.

And here's that same list in WAR order, which is a metric which attempts to give players a value in Wins Above Replacement, which means how many wins that player has given their team over an average AAA player at the same position the last two years combined:

1.  Cliff Lee, 9.5 WAR
2.  Roy Halladay, 9.4 WAR
3.  CC Sabathia, 8.6 WAR
4.  Cabrera, 7.9 WAR
5.  Adrian Gonzalez, 7.6 WAR
6.  Prince Fielder, 4.7 WAR
7.  A-Rod, 4.2 WAR
8.  Texeira, 2.8 WAR
9.  Joe Mauer, 2.5 WAR
10.  Helton, 2.2 WAR
11.  Ryan Howard, 0.8 WAR (hasn't played yet this year)
12.  Johan, 0.6 WAR (missed all of 2011, would be 5.1 using 2010 instead) 
13.  Vernon Wells, -1.1 (this is hilarious)

 So Mauer ranks ahead only of an old as shit guy, one of the worst contracts in the history of baseball (sorry I missed that one but holy shit that Wells contract is/was brutal) and two guys who have missed an entire year. 

I know I should probably be celebrating the Twins' ability to steal the next great pitcher (PJ Walters, yo) however it was again they got him but I started writing this before the game so I'm pretty much stuck in negativity mode.  If you don't like it, you should probably just find a blog that updates more than once a week.

Seriously, I wish we could all go back in time, but I ain't got 1.21 jigawatts of plutonium laying around, you?

Minnesota Twins Season Wrap - Catcher

I've come full circle.  I am now embracing the new Twins.  I raged.  I cried.  I bitched.  I complained about Gardy until I was blue in the face.  I questioned why they went Nishioka over Hardy at the beginning of the year and I continued on that all season long.  I questioned Mauer's heart, Span's head, and Morneau's everything.  I wondering what was going on with management and the training staff, and I couldn't understand why they weren't more aggressive trading off pieces for prospects at the trade deadline.  But I'm done now.

Now it's time to accept the Twins are broken.  Blame at on injuries if you must, for it is convenient and soothing, but the fact of the matter is those who weren't hurt, and the times where the team was intact, were mediocre at best.  It times to move on.  Yes, I'm betting we'll have more Augusts and Septembers of meaningless ball, but if everything goes according to (my) plan, we'll at least be watching players who could be part of the future, rather than the lingering remnants of a disappointing and unfulfilled past.  With that spirit, I am going to do a review/preview of this team by position, starting with catcher. 

It is becoming apparent that Joe Mauer's future is no longer behind the plate, at least not full-time and I'm betting we'll see a full-time move in the next year or two, whether it is to the outfield or first base I don't know, but it's coming.  Mainly due to his inability to stay on the field, but also, in my opinion, because they need something to explain why the guy they just gave the biggest contract ever to put up a batting line more reminiscent of Danny Valencia than what we're used to seeing from him.  Next year is an absolute monster for Mauer, a huge crossroads year, and his chance to prove that he's worth that contract.

A huge chunk of Mauer's value always came from the fact that he was one of the best hitters in the league at a position where defense is considered the priority, and most team's don't have an issue with letting offense slide.  Catcher's average OPS+ (where 100 is an average batter, higher is better) has historically been around 90, all the way from the 1950s-2000s.  That's the worst of any position player, on par with shortstop.  So when Mauer has a run like he did from 2006-2010 when his aggregate OPS+ was 142, you are in a huge advantage versus most teams.  Even if he hits like that and plays outfield or 1b, you're still holding an advantage against most squads, even if it is diminished somewhat.

So the real question, more important than establishing what position he's going to play, is whether or not Mauer can get back to the hitter we all saw those five years, or if he's now become this slappy Luis Rodriguez type of hitter.  This year was so far removed from what we usually see out of Joe I'm ready to call it a fluke with one caveat that I'll get to later.  His power fell off a cliff, and I don't mean home run power because in that case the 28 HR season was the fluke, but he stopped hitting doubles.  His walk rate went down and his strikeout rate went up.  He hit an absolutely ridiculous amount of groundballs, even for him, and made contact and far fewer of his swings, despite not changing the pitches he was swinging at.  It was a truly bizarre year.

Which is why I'm mostly inclined to dismiss it as an anomaly and expect to see Mauer back hitting in the mid-.300s with his 10 homers, 30 doubles, and a nice OBP.  However, that one caveat I mentioned earlier is his health, and this year has truly been dizzying with the ailments.  From bilateral leg weakness at the start to pneumonia at the end, I don't know if he was ever truly healthy this year.  It's easy enough to question his toughness and his heart when he has to sit out four games with a sore neck, especially when Ezal was back out there within minutes hustling Smokey for money after he fell on that wet floor, but perhaps he wasn't ever healthy.  Perhaps there were some serious health issues more time off at the start of the year was what was needed.  I really don't know, and I don't think anybody else really does either.  Which is why I'm officially giving the $200 million dollar man a pass on this one.  Everybody deserves a second chance.  Let's just hope he's back to normal because the Twins are stuck with him - nobody's trading for that contract - at whatever position he may be.

And what if they do move him?  Who becomes the new catcher?  The only two prospects at the position who were major league ready were shipped off in short-sighted moves by the front office for a reliever who defines average stuff was looked attractive because he had a bunch of shiny saves and a low-A reliever whose strikeout rates dropped each of the last three seasons.  So it's going to be Drew Butera or Rene Rivera?  Gross.

Rivera is a career minor leaguer and Butera is a defensive specialist, and neither can hit.  Both OPS+ at a 13 this year.  13!  Thir-fucking-teen.  That means they don't get hits, they don't get walks, and on the rare occasion they do get a hit it's a single basically every time.

Butera had the worst OPS+ in the league out of any player with at least 230 plate appearances, twice as bad as the Rays' Reid Brignac who was second with a 27.  Rene Rivera had the worst OPS out of any player with at least 100 plate appearances.  Which means that the two worst hitters in all of major league baseball who were given 100 PAs or more were both Twins' catchers.  Of 82 pitchers in the NL with at least 30 plate appearances, 26 of them OPS+ed better than the 13 the two-headed little girl with a bat put-up, and the most astonishing thing of all is that I was astonished it was that few.

Wait, there's more.  Since 1920, Drew Butera put up the 3rd worst OPS+ by any batter with 230 PAs or more.  His .153 average is the fourth worst, and with a little luck he might even be able to get to second (worst is .135 by Ray Oyler in '68).  He also had the 3rd worst OBP.  The good news?  It was only the 20th worst slugging percentage.  He's a hell of a defender, has a great arm, and I think will probably be an excellent coach some day, but he. can. not. hit.  His numbers were only slightly better last year.  This is who he is.  He can't be a starter.

Rivera has hit, a little, in the minors with a career line of .252/.306/.390, which basically projects him as a serviceable triple-AAA catcher, and not, as we saw this year, a major league caliber player.  This means the Twins are stuck.  They need to move Mauer, or at least believe they do, but have hamstrung themselves with no available major league type players who can be an every day catcher.  Jose Morales was no titan for the Rockies this year, but he'd at least be a viable alternative, and I really don't even want to talk about Wilson Ramos.  It was a terribly short-sighted trade at the time and it's just continued to get worst as Ramos continues to hit, hit with power, show a good batting eye, and throw runners out.  Oh yeah, both Morales and Ramos have thrown out a higher percentage of would-be base stealers than Butera.

I don't want to dwell on Ramos, but Aaron Gleeman dug up a little factoid on Ramos's season.  He's currently at an OPS+ of 112 at the age of 23.  The list of catchers with at least 400 PAs in a season to OPS+ over 100 is Mauer, Buster Posey, Jason Kendall, Craig Biggio, Russell Martin, and Ramos.  That's it.  I don't think it's completely overstating it to say that the trade of Ramos, factoring in their return and what's happened with Mauer, may have set the franchise back a few years.  Yes, years.

Since they can't count on Mauer and Butera and Rivera are brutal then what?  Free agent?  The list of potential free agent catchers is underwhelming and mainly full of career back-up types.  The only names on that list I'm remotely interested in are Kelly Shoppach and Ryan Doumit, and they probably won't pay Shoppach, if Tampa even buys him out, and Doumit is oft-injured so who knows.  I don't.

The most realistic scenario has the team heading into next year expecting Mauer to catch half the time and Butera do catch half the time, something that is just incredibly depressing to me.  Remember what I said about being optimistic and heading into next year looking towards the future?  I give up.  Hopefully when I do this rundown on the other positions I'll feel better, but right now I don't even want to think about writing any more about the Twins.

MLB 2011 Mid-Year Check-In, Part 2

Part 1 was yesterday (scroll down, genius) where I talked about the good things so far this year in MLB.  Now here are the bad:



1.  Joe Mauer.  I just recently let lose with a little Mauer diatribe, so instead of simply rehashing what I already said you can read it by clicking here.  Of note:  since I wrote that he's gone 6-17 and raised his average 20 points and, if you can believe this, even hit a double.  That's two bases with one swing.  I couldn't believe it either.

2.  Derek Jeter.  Apparently being "too tired" to play when you're "star" is getting to be an epidemic because Derek Jeter, arguably the biggest "star" in baseball depending on how you want to define that, begged out of tonight's all-star game due to "exhaustion."  I personally don't really care who plays and who doesn't because the whole thing is really kind of stupid, but the most idiotic thing I've heard in a long time came from a caller on the radio today who tried to explain, "You people did nothing but complain that he didn't deserve to be voted into the game, and now, because he's such a class act, he decides not to play so Asdrubel Cabrera can start, and you rip him for that." 

Seriously, dumbass?  I'm sorry and I know you love him, but captain intangiibles isn't a shining greek god of virtue and I don't care how many barbecues he invites his teammates too or how often he has Robinson Cano sleep over at his house and they tag-team Minka Kelly.  Look, I get it - he's a decent looking, non-threatening dude who plays the game well, isn't overly cocky, doesn't show up opponents, and bangs lots of chicks.  But there's a guy like him on every team except the fucking evil White Sox, and nobody knows what he (they) are like off the field.  Jeter could very well be a serial killer rapist arsonist litterbug for all we know, but because that shit I wrote earlier plus he plays in the biggest market for the most famous team and people can't stop making love to excuses for anything he does.

It's like that dude who caught Jeter's 3,000th hit and gave it away for some autographed shit and box seats.  Noble?  Moral?  How the hell is that noble or moral when the guy has over $100k in debt?  You owe it to yourself to get your life in order (and yes I know it's student loans not credit card bills, which kind of makes this more depressing) with your once in a lifetime lottery winning baseball and you toss it away to make an empty gesture to a guy who will make more this year than you'll make in ten lifetimes, will bring in nearly $300 million total by the time his career his over in just salary (not counting endorsements) and likely wouldn't cross the street to piss on your face if it was about to be run over by a car?  Guess what?  He's already forgotten about you.  And that $100k you owe?  That's what he makes in a day.

You know how they say that the lottery is really just a tax on stupidity?  Well, it's now being reported that this guy might have to pay something like $14k in taxes on the "gifts" he got from the Yankees.  Now that's really a tax on stupidity. 

3.  Florida Marlins.  The Marlins were looking like they were going to be a very nice story this year.  Smallest payroll on the team at $35 million, a team that had to trade Dan freaking Uggla because he was too expensive, and suddenly they ripped out of the box with a 30-20 start, and behind Josh Johnson were looking like a nice NL East sleeper team.  Then Johnson got hurt, they couldn't sustain their early momentum, they lost 19 out of 20, Hanley Ramirez proved he's more lazy than leader, they fired their manager, and are now 43-48 and 14 games out of first (and it's only that good thanks to a 5-game winning streak going into the break).  Now all they're good for is laughing at any highlights of their home games because there are about 16 people there.

4.  The entire Twins' bullpen.  Honest to god, is it really that hard to have one guy who you can trust to get three outs?  Perkins is the only full-time reliever with an ERA under 4.40 and if you trust him you're dumber that got into my van the other night.  Cappsie's WHIP looks respectable, but unfortunately it's accompanied by one of the worst HR allowed rates on the team and he seems to be on a rapidly accelerating slide from mediocre to pathetic.  Nathan can be excused, at least mostly, but there's no real reason for Jose Mijares to be putting up career worst numbers (he has more walks than strikeouts for christ's sake) and Phil Dumatrait and Alex Burnett may as well just put the ball on a tee.  And if anybody does pitch well (Chuck James and Anthony Slama have thrown 7 combined innings of 1-hit ball) they're immediately shipped out.  I mean is it time to make Anthony Swarzak your #1 set-up guy now?  Has it really come to this? 

5.  Adam Dunn.  Another guy I've talked about here before, but it's impossible to ignore how bad he's been.  Dunn has always done three things:  strike out like crazy, walk constantly, and hit a ton of home runs.  Well this year he's striking out at an all-time high rate, walking far less than normal (second lowest of his career), and is well on pace to hit the fewest homers he's ever had in a season.  Even the hits he always got accidentally aren't falling this year, and he's also hitting nearly 100 points below his career mark at just .160.  He's on pace for just 15 homers with 204 strikeouts, which would be the fewest home runs (by 9) by a batter with 180 or more Ks.  His .160 would be the worst batting average by a player with over 180 Ks by 38 points, and his (on pace for) 59 RBI would be the lowest ever by 11.  We are talking a truly, epically, pathetically putrid season, and the Sox just signed him for four years and $56 million.  Awesome.  

6.  Royals starting pitching.  Kansas City seems to be going the right way on the offensive side of the ball - Hosmer looks good, Butler is solid, Gordon seems to be figuring it out, and they got all those other prospects on the way.  On the hill, however, they have some of the worst arms in history, and that's why they couldn't sustain their semi-hot start.  Three of the five worst WHIPs among starting pitchers with at least 50 innings belong to Royals:  Kyle Davies (1.92), Sean O'Sullivan (1.78), and Danny Duffy (1.64).  Duffy, at least, is clearly part of their future (assuming he develops) but if that's the strategy then retreads who suck like Jeff Francis and Bruce Chen don't make much sense either.   

7.  Twins' injuries.  You guys ever wonder what's going on with the Twins and how many games they miss due to injury?  Doesn't it seem pretty ridiculous, like something must be wrong?  Morneau missed the entire second half of last year with a concussion and Denard Span is chasing his games missed record.  Meanwhile 1-2 weeks seems pretty standard.  Mauer has missed 2-months this year with some bizarre, mysterious injuries and it's not the first time he's done that.  Then you have Kubel, who has now missed a month and a half with an injured foot, and is expected to miss another 1-2 weeks post all-streak, and I'm pretty sure Delmon Young has missed a couple weeks on two separate occasions this year - once due to being cold and once due to being tired.  I just don't get it, man.  Either this team has the worst trainers in the world or is the biggest collection of babies outside of a lactation convention.

8.  Ubaldo Jimenez.  It's always kind of tough to trust one-year wonders, especially starting pitchers, and Ubaldo is showing you why.  After maybe one of the most impressive first halves of a season in recent baseball history he started to fade late last year and has continued that slide right into a mediocre, irrelevant, mid-rotation pitcher.  His numbers this year (4.14 ERA/1.30 WHIP) are nearly identical to Carl Pavano's (albeit with far more Ks and BBs).  This from the same dude who finished 3rd last year NL Cy Young voting, so consider if Johan Santana was here in his prime and suddenly turned into Carl Pavano.  You know, like Scott Erickson.

9.  Jim Riggleman.  I dig this because it's one of the most awesome examples of someone not nearly understanding how much value and leverage (or lack thereof) they actually have.  He's always been a terrible manager (career:  662-824) with just two winning seasons and one playoff appearance out of 10 tries.  He was signed as the Nationals manager, and appropriate match of awful to awful, and in this, the third year of his contract, he managed to get them to win 11 of 12 games and was pushing for management to sign off on his extension for next year (despite their overall record of 27-36 before that streak).  Management, wisely, chose not to do so at that point and so Riggleman resigned.  Full on jackassery, all the way around. 

10.  Clay Buchholz.  If you're sitting there still waiting for Buchholz to put it all together and become the stud he's seemed destined to become, get in line.  I swear I've drafted this hippie every year in fantasy baseball, and every year he turns out to be as brittle as Ralph Sampson's confidence.  Last year he looked like he might finally have done it, making 28 starts and registering a 2.33 ERA (2nd in the league), but after a rough start this year where he was allowing homers at a Matt Cappsian rate he's once again out with a back injury.  He's supposed to be ready soon after the break, but for those of us who have followed his career way too closely we know that's a dirty lie.


Finally, this is where I'd tell you to expect Grandslam to come in with his British Open preview at some point this week but I just asked him if he was going to do one and he said, "No, the Open is stupid played on stupid courses and you can't predict anything."

Nice expert.  As such, I'll at least try to get up some thoughts on this Wednesday night, but I have a pretty big work function that's expected to go from 6-10pm (at the earliest) so the odds aren't great.  I promise I'll try.  Unlike most of the Twins.