* Ron Gardenhire officially announced yesterday that he has Carl Pavano pegged as his Opening Day starter.
This led to some grumbling from fans who rightfully view Francisco Liriano as the superior arm, but I'm not too bothered by the news. It's possible that the Twins see Pavano as a better pitcher, but their decision to start Liriano in Game 1 of the ALDS last year would suggest otherwise.
More likely, this is a respectful nod to the veteran, akin to Gardenhire's decision to give Brad Radke the Opening Day start in 2005 right after Johan Santana won his first Cy Young Award.
It's also worth noting that Scott Baker was originally slated as the Twins' Opening Day starter in 2009 but missed the assignment due to injury (his replacement, coincidentally, was Liriano), so making this announcement six weeks away from the start of the season guarantees nothing.
* Baseball America released their annual ranking of the Top 100 prospects in baseball yesterday, and four players from the Twins organization made the list. Kyle Gibson was ranked 34th, with Aaron Hicks 45th, Miguel Sano 60th and Joe Benson rounding out the list at 100.
These placements fall in line with my Twins' preseason prospect rankings, where I had those four players ranked first, second, third and fifth, respectively. I did place Ben Revere one spot above Benson on my list, but there's certainly a good argument to be made the other way. Benson undoubtedly holds more upside, but Revere -- in my opinion -- has fewer hurdles to clear before making a positive impact in the majors.
* If you haven't already, make sure to swing by Twinkie Town and check out Jesse Lund's interview with Twins assistant GM Rob Antony. Jesse did a great job with the questions, probing Antony about some of the team's more controversial moves of the offseason. While the answers weren't always fully satisfying, there's definitely some good insight to be gleaned about the organization's thought process.
Great work, Jesse.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
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According to Anthony they didn't pursue a starter or a RH bat. Has to make you wonder if these guys have actually watched these 12 straight playoff losses. It's pretty clear by this interview that the front office does not take the playoffs into consideration whatsoever when forming their team. I wonder if this is true for any of the past 10 or so World Series winners. You don't win a Series by accident.
"While the answers weren't always fully satisfying, there's definitely some good insight to be gleaned about the organization's thought process. "
Yeah, that the twins management are bad at their jobs.
"You don't win a Series by accident."
You may not win be accident but you can win with bad teams. The giants squad that won last year was a bad team. They were poorly constructed and had lots of bad players. The problem with this criticism is if a team wins a world series youre going to say the moves they made were genius and if they lose they were lacking something they should have remedied. The giants had juan uribe playing SS and ross gload picking up big hits, they needed a collapse from a bad padres team to just barely make the playoffs out of the worst division in baseball. They were easily the least talented playoff team but they happened to get hot and won. Building a team to win a 5 game series is folly.
lvl5, the Giants had one of the best starting rotations in the playoffs - maybe only the Phillies' was better. Can't imagine how you can call them a bad team - they were certainly better constructed to win in the playoffs than the Twins, so if THEY were bad, I shudder to think what that made us.
As an organization they've focused on drafting starting pitching, and it has paid off. They were also the slowest team in the league in terms of stolen bases. The Giants seem to recognize that starting pitching is everything in the playoffs, and cute things like "speed" don't matter in the playoffs. They might have been older or slower, which must be why you call them bad, but the fact of the matter is the foundation they're built on is the foundation for almost every WS winner during Gardy's tenure: starting pitching.
What is the Twins' blueprint? Soft-tossing RH starters who get blasted in the playoffs? That's what they spend their top draft picks on.
"Building a team to win a 5 game series is folly."
This is my favorite sentiment, and one I hear often, about Twins apologists who refuse to blame the club for our playoff failures. That by improving our starting pitching and balancing our lineup with a strong RH bat, somehow we're somehow going to get worse during the regular season, so we shouldn't worry about the lessons that keep repeating each playoff embarrassment.
Believe it or not, better starting pitching helps both in a 5-game playoff series AND the 162-game regular season. Trust me.
"lvl5, the Giants had one of the best starting rotations in the playoffs "
One of the best you say? Of the 8 teams the were right up there eh? The phillies had the best pitching in the playoffs and lost. The yankees had the most expensive pitching and they lost. The reds, rangers and rays all had pitching of similar caliber to the giants. They all lost. The claim that pitching wins in the playoffs is so self serving. The team that wins the world series is very likely to have good pitching, that is pitching well, because they just won the world series, that doesnt make it the reason they won. The rangers overpaid for lee to chase pitching and pitching didnt win in the playoffs for them. The phillies tried to assemble the best 3 man pitching staff in history and pitching didnt win in the playoffs for them. The giants had the same pitchers the year before last and missed the playoffs entirely. Theres tons of evidence that stock piling pitching guarantees nothing in the playoffs but the pitching wins in the playoffs theorists just ignore the teams with great pitching that didnt win and focus on the team that won and say that their pitching is what set them apart. Its a weak argument and its so cliche. Id rather have good pitching than not but stockpiling top level pitching is probably the most expensive way to accrue talent and very fickle.
"Believe it or not, better starting pitching helps both in a 5-game playoff series AND the 162-game regular season."
No one denied this was true. But focus on the 162 and not the 5. The better team can be beat in a 5 game series. Making the playoffs consistently is the highest percentage way to win a world series.
My point is not that the best pitching staff every year wins the World Series. That's as silly as saying the Giants were the worse team in the playoffs last year. My point is that in order to win a world series, you need to have very good starting pitching. It's a prerequisite. Again, look at the starting staffs of every WS winner during Gardy's tenure. Every one of them had a better staff than the Twins do now. My point is that the Twins staff is not good enough to win them a World Series, period. This should be ingrained the heads of fans and the front office by now, considering that under Gardy the Twins have, what, 2 playoff wins in 6 seasons in games not started by Santana (and 4 with him. Hmm.)?
"Making the playoffs consistently is the highest percentage way to win a world series."
12 straight losses. 6-21 under Gardy. It aint working, dude.
This should be ingrained the heads of fans and the front office by now, considering that under Gardy the Twins have, what, 2 playoff wins in 6 seasons in games not started by Santana (and 4 with him. Hmm.)?
The Twins made it further in the playoffs with Santana not in the rotation (in '02) than they ever did with him in the rotation.
The Twins' lack of playoff success has always had more to do with their bats going quiet than their pitchers failing to get the job done. I don't know how you can simply ignore that fact in your tirades.
Ed reading between the lines of your 1st post on this subject it would seem that the Twins have been a let down because they didn't go after another starter or a RH bat...but are those really critical areas of need for this team? If you take the current roster and depth chart at face value the lineup isn't as left handed as in years past. RH bats include D. Young, Valencia, Cuddyer while Nishioka and Casilla bring versatility by switch hitting....all of these players are young and have the ability to become better hitters. If they continue to improve they compliment the left handed bats nicely. And aside from overpaying for an aging Vlad Guerrerro or Manny were there really that many intriguing options that would have made the team better? And don't say Hardy or Hudson...be glad they are gone, both were overrated and fragile.
And yes the Twins could use an ace as is the case for the majority of teams in mlb. Do you really think the Royals would have traded Greinke within the division? And in a pretty thin market for starting pitching didn't the Twins sign Pavano, who was considered one of the better options not named Cliff Lee? The Twins are deep at starting pitching 6 guys battling for 5 spots with Gibson waiting in the wings.
lvl 5
6 al central titles in 9 years and haven't finished lower than 3rd since 2000...in fact only 1 losing season since 2000. And you're trying to tell me that twins management is doing a bad job? Do you have any actual facts to back up your opinion? In reality the Twins have been one of the better run organizations over the past decade.
And the Giants were a bad team? Didn't they have one of the best starting rotations in baseball? It's not just about hitting, you know that, right?
lvl 5
The Giants did win the World Series last year and guess what? They did win it with pitching. Saying that winning with pitching is self serving...how? How can that possibly be self serving? You could go with cliche or something along those lines but self serving? If you go that route than isn't every single opinion self serving? You might want to stop posting on blogs....you aren't coming across as well as you think you are.
Nick, we haven't hit well, sure. 1) We faced good pitching. That's what happens in the playoffs. 2) So what should we do about it? You're in the camp of "nothing, just cross our fingers." Fine. 12 straight losses tells me something has to change. 3) Good pitching typically trumps good hitting. 4) In terms of pitchers doing their job, well, Frankie blew a 3-0 lead, Pavano got smacked around, and Duensing didn't get a swinging strike all night. If we would have managed to win one of those, we were looking at Blacky vs. CC. Come on.
Our pitching staff just isn't good enough, period. I think our lineup is good enough, though I'd like another RH bat available because we're top-heavy with lefties. But as the last 12 playoff games have shown, we can't count on our lineup to overcome pitching mismatches night in and night out. Doesn't happen in the playoffs.
Do you honestly think we can win in the playoffs with a 4-man rotation that includes 3 of Pav/Black/Bake/Slowey/Duensing?
"Do you have any actual facts to back up your opinion?"
I dont like the logic that goes into a lot of the stuff they do. They dont make many good decisions about arbitration. Theyd traded for the right to over pay guys like craig monroe and matt capps in arbitration. They unnecessarily bought up arbitration from nick blackburn, scott baker, denard span. They rely heavily on scouting and dont seem to use advanced metrics at all but still admittedly use horrible stats like rib, risp, w-l, and saves to make personal decisions. Few teams in baseball have had more success turning good setup men into successful closers and yet they are dedicating 20 mil in payroll to 2 relievers next year because theyve gotten saves in the past. They do this while spending 4 mil combined on both their far more important middle infielders who are likely to be below average as a pair. Every major trade theyve made recently they've gotten crushed. My list goes on. You attribute the twins recent success to the front office which i guess is possible. I think they were doing things the twins way before the twins most recent run of success and were decidedly terrible. I personally give more credit to players like joe mauer and justin morneau being stars than i do the FO, and I dont think theyre doing a good job maximizing their resources.
"he Giants did win the World Series last year and guess what? They did win it with pitching. Saying that winning with pitching is self serving...how? "
Its self serving because if you wanted to you could have made your pitching wins in the playoffs argument about a ton of teams. If the phillies had won you could say "see they traded for an ace and it led them to a championship, pitching wins in the playoffs". If the rangers had won you could have said "see the rangers traded for an ace and it led to a championship, pitching wins in the playoffs." If the rays had won you could have said "see, the rays spent a lot of high draft choices on pitching and it led to a championship, pitching wins in the playoffs." Its self serving because you have the end of the story written before hand and you're just looking to fill in the name of the team that won with pitching this year. Most good teams have good pitching and that includes the twins. The giants won because they got hot and played really well for a month, not because their pitching was remarkably better than the fields. That's typically how it works.
"You might want to stop posting on blogs....you aren't coming across as well as you think you are."
*gasp* Here I thought i was making populist statements crushing the twins as an organization, taking shots at that loser nick blackburn, and running an extreme anti ERA crusade. Its a blog comment board, aren't differing opinions kind of the point?
"you're just looking to fill in the name of the team that won with pitching this year."
Hmm. So you're saying that every year the World Series winner has a certain caliber of pitching staff, so you can always credit pitching for whichever team wins. Interesting.
"So you're saying that every year the World Series winner has a certain caliber of pitching staff"
And I would include the twins on that list of teams with pitching good enough to win a world series. My point was you are just focusing on pitching aspect because it emphasizes something you believe to be true. The giants scored 6 ER and knocked cliff out before the 4th in a crucial game. The twins scored 6 combined runs against a mediocre yankee pitching staff in 3 games. The twins lost because their bats were ice cold, not because they didnt have the pitching to compete.
"And I would include the twins on that list of teams with pitching good enough to win a world series."
Well we'll never agree on that then. For fun I challenge you to find a World Series winner during the Gardy era to have a worse staff than the Twins. I don't think there's anyone close.
"because it emphasizes something you believe to be true."
Yes, I like to back up my opinions with facts. Busted.
"The twins lost because their bats were ice cold, not because they didnt have the pitching to compete."
They also gave up 17 runs. You don't win a World Series giving up 6 runs/game. Sorry, doesn't happen.
Look I fully admit our hitters went cold last year (partly because they faced very good pitching). But 2 of our 3 starters got blatantly outpitched; Liriano was a wash but blew a 3-0 lead. Our pitchers weren't awful, but they weren't better than the guy they were facing.
So there's blame to go around. But what do we do about it? If you want to go the "don't change anything, just cross your fingers and pray", that's fine. I'm of the opinion that to put themselves in a better position to overcome the hitting outages that have plagued the team for, I don't know, 15 straight playoff games, we need starters who can bail out our hitters every know and then. It's a lot of pressure for our hitters to have to score 7 runs a game to win, isn't it?
""because it emphasizes something you believe to be true."
Yes, I like to back up my opinions with facts. Busted."
First of all, what did you bust? Second, my point was that youre not looking at the full picture because youre looking to prove your point, not that you couldnt support your claim that lots of world series teams have good pitching. Most world series champs have elite hitting too. The yankees, the phillies, the red sox all had great offenses in the last decade but you seem to dismiss offense with the sentiment that the only way to win playoff games is pitching
"we need starters who can bail out our hitters every know and then."
It sounds like you want pitchers that can win 2-1 games consistently because the twins havent hit at all their last 3 playoff appearances.
My point is that lots of teams try to stockpile good pitching and most dont win the world series. Just saying pitching wins in the playoffs doesnt make it a sound formula for success. Good pitching is exceptionally expensive to obtain, and in a short series great pitching can lose. The best way to win in the playoffs is to field the best possible complete team and hope to play well. The twins havent lost 12 in a row because there is something systematically wrong with there team. The twins just havent played well in the playoffs.
Fair points. Of course the most complete teams are the best, hitting matters too, etc. Here's my problem though:
"The twins havent lost 12 in a row because there is something systematically wrong with there team. The twins just havent played well in the playoffs."
How many losses in a row before you think there is something systematically wrong? 15? 18? I think there is something systematically wrong. I think the Twins insistence on spending high draft picks on mid-rotation control guys hurts them in the playoffs. I think the Twins' approach to babying their starters in the minors hurts them both in the reg season (as pitchers wear down) and in the postseason (5 or 6 innings tops). I think the fact that their hitters sleepwalk their way through the playoffs isn't a coincidence. I think the fact that the ONLY constant through the dismal playoff appearances is Gardy is not a coincidence. I think the fact that the team plays with little to no passion in the playoffs indicates a systematic problem with the organization.
You can only blame bad luck so long. And I believe the window to win a World Series for this club is narrow - we can't afford to keep saying, well, shucks, we didn't play well, maybe next year. Because there won't be a "next playoffs" forever. You have to capitalize when you get the chance. So get a Cliff Lee at the deadline. Ask around in the offseason - how "untouchable" is Greinke? Who's going to be available this deadline?
Okay Nick, I promise I'm done with my "tirades" til at least the regular season.
I don't mean to silence you, Ed. It's just that you've been tooting this horn for a long time and I continue to fundamentally disagree with your premise. I think you're allowing your frustration with the team's playoff results lead you draw a lot of connections that are awfully difficult to support with any kind of evidence.
Your premise that the Twins are hopelessly overmatched in October year in and year out might have some validity if they were repeatedly getting blown out, but many of these games are close losses and in many cases the Twins have carried a lead into the late innings. Quite often it has been the bullpen -- a staple of their regular season success -- that has failed the Twins in the playoffs.
You're ranting about the Twins' weakness in the rotation, but to me that clearly represents the club's biggest strength entering the 2011 season. They have a pitcher who could legitimately be one of the most dominant aces in the league, they signed arguably the second-best free agent starter, they have two quality mid-rotation guys who will perform much better if healthy, and they have one of the game's best SP prospects in AAA. As much as you complain about strike-throwers and finesse pitchers, hasn't Cliff Lee -- who is exactly that -- been one of the most dominant postseason hurlers in recent memory?
I know you're frustrated with the playoff results. We all are. But it's not as unthinkable as you make it out to be that these bad results aren't due to incompetence on the part of the coaching staff or front office. Often the Twins have been forced to go on the road to open these series; often they've been playing against elite offenses; often they've had huge payroll (and talent) disadvantages against their opponents. The breaks just haven't gone their way.
You say I don't have any evidence to backup my claims, yet you say:
"Often the Twins have been forced to go on the road to open these series; often they've been playing against elite offenses; often they've had huge payroll (and talent) disadvantages against their opponents. "
You know as well as I do that homefield means very little in the playoffs. Plus 2 of the last 3have been at home. So that's neither true nor relevant.
The payroll excuse is so tired, I won't address it other than to say that plenty of teams with talent/$ "disadvantages" have managed to beat the bid bad Yankees, including last year's Rangers team with a $55 mil payroll. Time to retire this excuse.
"The breaks just haven't gone their way."
This statement drives me nuts. What does this mean? What breaks haven't gone their way? It's not all about luck. This is an even lazier excuse than the payroll. It's so empty. Please explain to me what this means. You post a detailed statistical analysis of Denard Span, but when it comes to the Twins palyoffs you ignore all of this and blame it solely on "the breaks." Can't understand it for the life of me.
I know, the Twins are a cute little club. Doesn't mean we have to find excuses for each and every playoff embarrassment.
The payroll excuse is so tired, I won't address it other than to say that plenty of teams with talent/$ "disadvantages" have managed to beat the bid bad Yankees, including last year's Rangers team with a $55 mil payroll. Time to retire this excuse.
Just because the Yankees don't always beat teams with lower payrolls and less talent does not mean they don't have an inherent advantage over them. Baseball is a fickle game. Which leads us to our next point:
This statement drives me nuts. What does this mean? What breaks haven't gone their way?
There's a lot of randomness in this sport. Sometimes outcomes can be decided by the way the ball bounces, or by big hits from bad players, or momentary lapses in judgment. We're looking at a sample size of less than 30 games. The Twins have had similarly ugly regular-season stretches over the years and we haven't had people calling for the manager to be fired or for wholesale changes in team composition.
The reason that statement drives you nuts is because it derives you of someone to pin the blame on, but there isn't always someone to blame. The Twins have had good teams and they've been beaten by other good teams -- usually better teams. It's a shame but it has no bearing on how they'll perform in the future.
It's funny, you never hear the Yankees, for example, blame "bad bounces" and "big hits by bad players" after they lose in the playoffs. It takes a Twins fan to look at 12 straight losses and chalk it solely up to luck. This is the way the Twins themselves operate, and it trickles down to the fans. The twins are this cute little club who can't possibly compete with the rest of the big bad league, so we can't expect to do much of anything. We won't change the way we do things because nothing is wrong; it's just bad luck, plus remember we're just the lowly Twins.
I love what Carl Pavano said the other day in the Pioneer Press:
"I don't think we accomplished much," Pavano said of the 2010 season. "We won the division, but two years in a row we got swept in three games. We didn't accomplish anything."
Thank god. Why is Pavano, with the team for a year and a half, the first member of this organization to acknowledge this? Why can't our supposed leaders take this stance? Why can't Joe Mauer say or act like he's tired of losing to the Yankees? Why do we have to see photos of the manager and owners laughing at Yankee Stadium after yet another sweep?
Is it because Pavano has actually won something before?
Pavano is my new favorite Twin.
Yeah, I'm sure Pavano's the only one bothered by being humiliated on a national stage after working all season to get there. Mauer and Co. probably weren't even trying.
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