SETH'S THOUGHTS
Guest Writer:
Al
Bethke
As I wrote yesterday, I am
taking a few days off from the website as I try to regenerate some
energy before Spring Training starts. I am working on a few other
articles to be used in the near future. But I also have to thank all
of you who have e-mailed me the last couple of days. I especially
need to thank a couple of fellow bloggers for offering to help me
out over the next couple of days. So you will be receiving something
new daily.
Today, we have a very
interesting article written for Twins fans. We know the Twins, and
we all have our opinions about what the Twins do and what they
should do. We almost become too close to the situation. Al Bethke
writes a great site,
Al's Ramblings, which is primarily a Milwaukee Brewers site.
Last March, I did a Q&A with Al
where he discussed his site, the Brewers and more. Today for me, and
for the readers, he wrote an interesting piece describing how the
Twins are viewed from the "outside."
WHILE SETH RESTS...
While Seth rests, I will be
taking his place for today. I normally write
Al's Ramblings,
a weblog mostly about the Brewers and baseball, with various
other thoughts and ideas thrown in for good measure. Seth has
agreed to allow me to write a guest column on how an outsider
views the Twins.
I thought this would be interesting, as often times, those who
watch a team every day tend to overestimate their club's talent.
This makes perfect sense, as a fan knows every reserve and
middle reliever on their favorite team, while only the starters
(or a fraction of the starters) on most other teams.
First of all, allow me to say the Twins are in excellent shape,
both for 2005, as well as the future. Topps recently named them
"Organization of the Year", and they seem to be the favorite for
Baseball America's "Top Farm System", an award bestowed on the
Brewers last year. To be honest, it really doesn't matter if the
Twins are #1, #3, or #6...they still have an outstanding
prospect base. Not only do they have several excellent young
players, they also possess nearly unmatched depth...you could
make a list 25-30 players deep, and you still could be naming
young men who will have a nice career in the big leagues. For
many teams, #25 isn't really any better than #50...maybe they'll
be topping out in AAA rather than AA.
One reason the future would appear bright for the Twins is their
division, with the exception of the Indians, are a couple
decades behind the times. The White Sox and Tigers are both
doing their best to maintain mediocrity, spending large amounts
of money on veterans whose best campaigns are half-a-decade
behind them. The Royals chased after a mirage of an 88 win
season, while seeming not to notice they were allowing as many
runs as they were scoring, which is the dictionary definition of
a fluke. Years later, they are still trying to get back to "OK".
Right now, their rotation resembles an early episode of
MacGyver, with the spring of a ball-point pen and duct
tape gamely attempting to hide the fact that it is reminiscent
of an expansion team's starting five.
So, with the strength of their minor leaguers, a solid nucleus,
and one true competitor, I see a continued run of above .500
finishes in the Dome. {Sidenote, what's the current status of
the proposed outdoor stadium in the Twin Cities? I thought
Pawlenty would get this thing done...was I too optimistic?}
Now, do I see the Twins moving on in the playoffs? I spent much
of the prior couple years shaking my head as the Twins kept
running the middle infield of Guzman and Rivas out there, as
they kept building incredible depth at 1B and the OF spots. They
finally cut Guzman (and his propensity to make outs about 70% of
the time) loose, but hang onto Luis like love letters from the
girl that dumped you a decade ago and married your best friend.
This offseason, they went out and signed a poor man's Guzman,
Juan Castro (his career OBP is .288!!), and smart money is on
him to be the Opening Day SS.
In a span of a week, they hung on to Jacque Jones for almost
exactly the same amount of money it would have taken to sign
Corey Koskie. The thing is, Koskie is a good everyday 3B, albeit
a bit injury prone as he gets older, and a very good OBP
man...not to mention the tidbit of fact that the Twins did not
have anyone on hand to replace him. Right now, Mike Cuddyer
would seem to be the frontrunner, but he has not played 3B
everyday in quite some time. Meanwhile, Jones is a decent
everyday CF offensively...but a below average offensive corner
OF, who has never hit LH pitchers. Never. The Twins also have,
on hand mind you, a myriad of possible replacements for Jones,
led by Lew Ford, who looks to be a DH as of today, thus making
Matt LeCroy a part-time player.
Why bring up LeCroy? Because if you take a look at their
numbers, Matt and Jacque have very similar OBP and SLG numbers.
Matt will make about one-third what Jacque will. These are
decisions a small market team like the Twins cannot afford to
botch. The money could have been used much more wisely, either
to keep Koskie, or bring in a true one-year stopgap at SS, or to
improve 2B. Instead, MIN is using the $3 mil for depth
alone...not a good use of their limited funds.
Personally, I might well have kept Koskie, bumping Cuddyer over
to 2B, abolishing Rivas to a team (like the White Sox) that
values speed over OBP. Also, the backstop is a question mark,
with Joe Mauer being the best young C in the game, but coming
back from injury, and not having the "right" build for the
position, I think I would have tried to find a better "what if"
for that spot than Mike Redmond. Granted, Redmond is a decent
backup, and signed for a reasonable amount. However, if you're
not spending $7 million on two players (Jones and Rivas) that
you have replacements in-house for, you may well have had
the resources to set the bar higher (heck, the Crew signed
Damian Miller for about $1 million more per season than
Redmond).
The pitching staff is solid, while not spectacular, though the
plethora of young pitchers the Twins have may change that. That
said, it's tough not to like a team with a top two of Santana
and Radke.
In closing, I think the '05 season will be a happy one for
Twins' fans. 90 wins seem likely, especially with the quality of
divisional opponents they will face 72 times. I just don't see
them matching up well with the other top teams in the AL. While
many of us would be more than satisfied to be part of a 90 win
team, however quickly the exit, I think most Twins' fans won't
consider that, and will not be considered a successful Summer at
all.
Thank you very much again to
Al Bethke. I would encourage all Twins and baseball fans to
check out Al's
Ramblings and be sure to bookmark it too! If you have any
questions for me, or for Al,
send me an e-mail.
A COUPLE OF SETH THOUGHTS
-
ESPN is doing a number of
articles naming the best player in the major leagues at doing
things from bunting to base running.
Torii Hunter was named the Most Exciting Baserunner. It
is interesting that the article was written by Phil Rogers!
Rogers, of course, is from Chicago, and the reason Hunter gets
this award is for taking out Jamie Burke! He seems to
have forgotten about how many times Torii stole second before
the pitcher even pitched the ball.
-
Along those same
lines, Alan Schwarz
writes a great article calling Brad Radke
baseball's best control pitcher.
-
The Baseball
Savant posted
his Toronto Blue Jays preview. I had to share a very
interesting line from the Corey Koskie section. "It’s
sort of interesting in a way because last season the Twins were
talking of Koskie having a “strained sternum” which is odd
because the sternum is a bone. How does a bone strain? You got
me, but Koskie also had problems with his hamstring."
I wrote The Savant and
said "maybe he broke his hamstring."
-
Larry Mahnken is one of the best bloggers out there. He
is one of the writers at
The Hardball Times.
He also writes the
Replacement Level
Yankees Weblog, which is incredible. Early Monday
morning,
Larry's apartment burned down. As he wrote on his site,
he is "currently homeless", left with only the clothes on his
back. If you go to
his website,
there is a "Paypal Donate" link on the top left corner of the
site. If you would like to donate to Larry at this time, I am
sure he would greatly appreciate it!
-
Tuesday, January 25, 2005: 1:15
p.m. - The Twins today
signed left-handed pitcher CJ Nitkowski to a minor league
contract. You may remember that last May, CJ
did a Q&A for me on this site. Check it out here. Not sure
what his chances are to make the team right away. We know that JC
Romero and Terry Mulholland will make the team out of
camp. If Mulholland has to be the 5th starter again (ouch!), but
then maybe Nitkowski could figure into that 2nd lefty of the bullpen
role.
Have a great day! If you have any questions, comments, or ideas for future
articles, please
e-mail me. I am still checking my e-mail frequently.
Tuesday, January 25, 2005:
Midnight - I have
decided to use up some vacation time. I've got plenty of days to use
up, but I have used very few days off from this website. So, I am
planning on taking a few days off just to rejuvenate myself! It is
really needed at this point. Most of the free agents have signed.
Carlos Delgado and Magglio Ordonez are the big names
still out there. Twins fans who can, please be sure to go to Twins
Fest this weekend. I would love to if it weren't a 6 1/2 hour drive
down there.
My mind is pretty much blank.
I'll be watching some TV (American Idol, The Bachelorette, Joey, The
Apprentice and more) and movies and doing things that I haven't done
much of in the year and a half that I have been writing. In that
time, I will also be working on a few bigger articles/projects
because I just have not had the energy to try to come up with
something every day. I hope to put together a bunch of articles that
I will be able to post soon. I know that I will be working on my
team-by-team, position-by-position fantasy baseball articles. Last
year, that was a 13 part project. I have a couple of other articles
in mind too. But then I also need your help to come up with more
ideas. So please
e-mail me and let me know what you think. Other bloggers,
let me know what you think, or if you would like to do a Q&A or
something. People who read here daily, I really am sorry. I hope you
understand.
Until then, I will be reading
the other Twins blogs and would encourage you to as well:
Aaron's Baseball Blog
Twins Geek
Stick and Ball Guy
Dickie Thon Fan Forum
Twins Chatter
Batgirl
The Baseball Boys
The Bad Twin
Will's World
Will's Organization Big
Board
Nickel Curve
Lay It On the Line
The 7th Angel
Twin Killings
Twins Junkie