Links for 5/1

What a crazy weekend. After struggling to hit pitchers no one had ever heard of, the Twins put up 19 runs against the Tigers while taking two of three in Detroit. Torii Hunter returned with a vengeance after taking a pitch in the grill (possibly inspiring the team), Carlos Silva picked up his third win by turning in his third quality start, Russ Ortiz notched his fifth consecutive quality start and Jessie Crain gave up a run in each of his two appearances, but won one game and lost the other. And to top it all off, Johan Santana turned in the second best April of his career (only bested by his 2005 numbers).

So where do the Twins stand after an up and down April? Aside from the obvious answer of "Better than last year", there's still a lot up in the air. Last year's 9-15 start also afforded the Twins a chance (as well as forced them) to cut their ineffective veterans and try out the young talent. While they'll have the opportunity to discard Sidney Ponson, Ramon Ortiz and Carlos Silva have more than earned an opportunity to continue pitching. After all, it's hard to cut the two starters who have the best ERA in your rotation. And oddly enough, the only real starter (Ponson doesn't count) that's struggling is Boof!, the only non Johan starter people expected to pitch well. Monsieur Bonser has been up and down all year, and no one is quite sure what's wrong with him, or if we should be worried.

At the plate, the Twins inconsistency continues (and will most likely do so unless Kubel and Ron-DL can add some power to the lineup). Jason Bartlett and Nick Punto have improved, but that was almost guaranteed, considering how poorly they started. The question still remains as to whether they'll get back to their 2006 levels and the answer is an important one--if they aren't both getting on base, the Pirhana offense doesn't work.

Last year, the Twins didn't start to dig themselves out of their early hole until Mid-May. Luckily, we don't have to worry about that this year. That being said, they still need to turn in a solid May, or else they may find themselves in yet another hole.

But for now, it's time for the Quick Links:

• Coffeyville Whirlwind has used the 20th anniversary of the Twins first World Series Championship to take a look back at that miraculous season.
• There are some who think that Joe Mauer would have been the #1 pick in more than one sport.
• "New cars with automatic transmissions are not built with a clutch. New cars with automatic transmissions are now built with a Mike Redmond."
• Will Leitch memorializes Josh Hancock
  
• The Hall of Could Have Been
• Harmon Killebrew takes a look back
  

Gone Fishin'

The end-of-semester crunch is on full time here at Sharkey Manor, so just another brief post today. But I find the Joe Thomas situation with tomorrow’s NFL draft to be an interesting one, and I thought I’d see what people thought about it.

For those that haven’t heard, Wisconsin offensive lineman and super-highly rated prospect Joe Thomas is skipping tomorrow’s NFL draft to go fishing instead. When I first heard this, I thought that was a pretty cool thing to do. It seemed to show how down-to-earth he was—that he didn’t take himself too seriously. After all, the draft is a ridiculous made-for-TV sideshow and his being there or not doesn’t change anything. Why not enjoy a day on the water?

Then I heard that the NFL Network is going to have a camera out on his boat to get his reaction. ...huh? I feel like that changes everything. Does this not reek of a publicity stunt? I suppose I could give him the benefit of the doubt, but this smells awfully fishy, doesn’t it?

Oh wow... I just realized the terrible pun at the end of that sentence. Please forgive me. Somewhere, a writing teacher weeps.

I guess I’m just disappointed, that’s all. I’m already tired of the draft-as-spectacle junk, and for a moment I thought we had a breath of fresh air and perspective. But unfortunately, Thomas is probably just another part of the show.

The Warriors are Our Salvation

“Oh wow.”

With those two words, Steve Nash summed up the first chunk of the NBA playoffs. This was midway through the second quarter of Tuesday night’s thrashing of the hapless Lakers. As Nash was taking the ball up the court, he suddenly unleashed a spot-on alley-oop from forty-five feet to Shawn Marion (who was cutting behind the defense). Experiencing this play in real-time was jarring—one of those double-take moments. The pass was a laser.

The best part was only revealed on replay, however. TNT (whose coverage smokes ABC/ESPN, but that’s another topic entirely) fired up a court-level camera shot of Nash as he was crossing the half-court line. He seems fairly normal at first, then he looks up—and his eyes go wide. I mean, huge, popping-out-of-his-head wide. The replay then very clearly shows Nash saying to himself “Oh wow” just before he unleashes the dish to Marion.

He took the words right out of my mouth.

The Suns are a pleasure to watch—this much we all know. Against the Lakers last night they elevated their art to as high a level as I’ve ever seen, throwing up 68 points in the first half on their way to 126. Tasty. They spent the majority of the evening toying with Los Angeles and unleashing the blinding fury of Leandro Barbosa. The NBA is simply more fun with Phoenix around.

Tonight’s games mean even more. The second games of the Denver/San Antonio and Golden State/Dallas series will go a long way towards determining what type of playoffs we’re in for this summer. If Denver and Golden State manage to upset the two favored Texas teams in round one, we will be set up for basketball the likes of which we could only dream of watching San Antonio and Detroit a few years ago: fun!

Game one of the Denver/San Antonio series had an interesting vibe to it: the Nuggets simply seemed like the better team. This was not supposed to happen; the Nuggets are supposed to be the out-of-control squad looking to find itself for next season, while the Spurs are the steady hand looking for another ring. Thankfully for those of us who like to be entertained by our basketball, this was not the case.

The Spurs are boring. Sorry, it’s true. I say this with no malice or ill-will, but simply out of taste. They’ve been here so often that they seem too in-control at all times. Sure, every so often Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili get out and run a little bit, but there never seems to be any joy in their game. Denver gives us just the opposite: two major scorers (Carmelo and Iverson), a guard who looks to push the ball (Steve Blake), Nene emerging as a force on the block, and Marcus Camby sparking the fast break with blocked shots on the defensive end. A Denver overthrow of the San Antonio monolith (which would be helped tremendously by a game two win this evening) would go a long way towards bringing the joy back to playoff-watching.

Golden State is another matter entirely. They don’t start anyone taller than 6-9 (Al Harrington playing “center”). They have a coach (Don Nelson) who lives to push the tempo and run up points. He’s molded this team in his image and released them on the world for all of us to bask in. Their upset of top-seeded Dallas in game one was the most significant aesthetic blow yet struck in these playoffs. The halftime score was 38-38, if my memory serves, but this wasn’t a dry, defensive struggle. It was frantic, frenetic. Shots flying from everywhere. Loose balls. Absurd passes.

Dallas has the “better” team, so Golden State has simply opted to create chaos. The Mavericks are held up as the gold standard for creating a great basketball team: they seem to have all the pieces in place, with everyone playing their perfectly assigned role. The Warriors, on the other hand, simply toss out all the roles. Harrington is their tallest starter, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t going to wander out behind the three-point line. Baron Davis at the point guard is their best post-up, back to the basket player. So what? Dallas was forced in game one to adapt to Golden State’s style (their two centers, Diop and Dampier, barely played), and the Warriors prevailed.

In these game twos, two things can happen. The Texas teams may come out and reassert dominance, smashing Denver and Golden State to pieces. This would be a notable setback, giving the favored teams momentum as they head on the road. The other option is much more exciting: what if Denver and Golden State play it tough again? They don’t necessarily have to win (although that would be fantastic), but they can prove that they belong in these series. Then, friends, we really have something to watch.

I haven’t even touched on the virtues of teams like Houston, Toronto, and Chicago (LUOL DENG!) yet. Suffice it to say, after the putrid regular season, basketball is rising from the ashes. I hope you’re watching.

John Sharkey can be found practicing his crossover at aodshark@gmail.com.

PS: I would be remiss if I did not give a significant hat-tip to the scribes of FreeDarko. If you aren't reading them yet, then you should be.

Deconstructing Norworth

It's been 99 years since Jack Norworth, an established vaudeville performer and songwriter during the heyday of Tin Pan Alley, first penned the lyrics to Take Me Out to the Ballgame while riding on a train to Manhattan. But it was only recently that the good folks at FireJoeMorgan.com got around to giving their unique take on the unofficial anthem of baseball:

Take me out to the ball game…
Well, duh. We’re baseball fans. We’re the people you wrote the song about. We like baseball. Of course we want to go to the ball game. What better way is there to spend time on a fine summer’s day, unless it’s flinging vitriol at baseball writers and announcers who use every day as a new opportunity to display their ignorance of the game they actually get paid to write and talk about. Seriously, a dead person could come up with a more original opening lyric than this. Oh, that’s right; Norworth is a dead person. Never mind.

Take me out with the crowd.
We’re not the only baseball fans in this city or this country, you know. They’ve been playing this game for several generations now, since back before the Civil War, and there are rumors going around that it just might become very popular some day, sort of a National Pastime even. Of course, that could be one of those urban myths like albino alligators in the New York City sewers or Dice-K’s gyroball. So unless the game’s being played in Washington, D.C. or Kansas City, we would pretty much expect to be there with a crowd.

Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack…
Cripes, how many times do we have to cover this same ground? We’ve said it a bazillion times before. There are already peanuts in Cracker Jack. You don’t need to buy peanuts and Cracker Jack – BECAUSE CRACKER JACK ALREADY HAS PEANUTS IN IT! Give the vendors a break, already. They work hard schlepping up and down those steps for minimum wage so you can stuff your face with fatty overpriced junk that clogs your arteries and dimples your butt like a golf ball. And it wouldn’t hurt to carry a little spare change of your own when you head to the ballpark, you know. Self-reliance is a really endearing trait.

I don't care if I never get back.
Maybe you don’t care, but some of us do. We have lives and families. We have responsibilities. We work for insurance companies and whatnot. We have to find new ways to screw people out of their claims and raise premiums without drawing the attention of regulatory agencies or we don’t get paid. But instead we have to listen to you going on and on about you. Because just like Manny and Barry, it’s always all about you, isn’t it? On second thought, we don’t care if you never get back, either.

Let me root, root, root for the home team...
Oh, I see. Because the home team is the only team with good baseball players. Right. Have you checked the PECOTA rankings of the visiting team’s outfield this year? Or the Range Factors of their middle infielders? How about the WHIP of their starting pitchers or the FIP of their bullpen? The OPS, Isolated Power, and Win Shares of the 3-7 hitters? Because maybe there might be some players on the other teams worth rooting for just because they happen to be very good baseball players, even if they work for teams in different zip codes. We always expected rank homerism from Phil Rizzuto, but as intelligent, thoughtful baseball aficionados we should be well past that ourselves by now, shouldn’t we?

If they don't win it's a shame.
Look, this really isn’t prefrontal lobe surgery here. Even the best teams lose 50 games or more every year, and about half of those are at home. Sure, it’s a shame, but sabermetrics clearly show that no team has ever won all of its home games, even the Yankees, even in a strike-shortened season, and the probabilities against it happening are astronomical. They’re roughly the same as Sidney Ponson pitching a perfect game. Never happened, never will. Some days you get the bear and some days, well, the bear gets you. Get over it.

For it's one, two, three strikes, you're out…
Unless they’ve completely rewritten the rules of baseball in the last century-and-a-half, three strikes always equal an out, unless the catcher drops the ball on strike three with first base open, in which case the batter must be put out by a fielder in possession of the ball tagging him before he achieves first base or by a fielder possessing the ball tagging first base before the batter achieves it in order to record an out. Man, this just gets so damn old after a while. Did this clown ever actually play the game of baseball? Did he ever actually watch a game of baseball? Because this stuff should be as obvious as the ignorance that spews from the mouth of Joe Morgan like Linda Blair pea soup vomit on a nightly basis.

At the old ball game.
Yes, we get it. They’ve been playing baseball for many, many years. It’s a game with a lot of tradition and a long history. It’s a game that has stood the test of time. We get it, we really do. It’s a game that can even survive the soul-killing, endless repetition of a trite, hackneyed song like this one for nearly a century and be none the worse for wear. In fact, people don’t even sing this whole song because they don’t know the rest of the lyrics, just that God-awful refrain that they keep bleating over and over again like sheep in the slaughterhouse chutes. The rest of it is so bad that brain synapses melt down when you try to sing it. If this song were really any good, why did Norworth rewrite the lyrics nineteen years after it was first published? Why did he change the protagonist’s name from Katie Casey to Nelly Kelly? That’s pretty radical revisionism. I mean, the People’s Republic of China could learn a thing or two from this guy. Hey, Norworth! We’ve got your old ball game right here, you pitiful vaudeville hack.

This entry posted by Twayn, who can be bothered at twayn77@yahoo.com.

Links for April 23rd

It’s hard to be unhappy with the Twins performance this year when you consider that last year they were sitting at 7-11, the exact opposite of this year’s record. And how can you complain when the team is in first place in the division, tied with Baltimore (Who knew the Orioles had recovered so well from their opening series sweep?) for the second best record in the American League? Of course, dropping two of three to the Royals, including a wasted Ramon Ortiz’ consecutive quality start, (a missed opportunity considering their May schedule) really makes it hard to get into a celebratory mood.

It doesn’t help that there are question marks about when Rondell White and Luis Castillo will be able to return and how effective they will be. Or that Ron Gardenhire wants a third catcher (a natural result of Redmond being among the nine best bats available, due to White and Jeff Cirillo's injuries). Then there's the fact that we Twins' fans have been spoiled the last few years, and are thus a little freaked out by Joe Nathan's performance so far. And Anthony Swarzak, one of the Twins' best pitching prospects, is going to be out for fifty days for violating the league's drug policy (recreational, not performance).

And yet, the Twins are coming home in first place, something they could not say the entirety of last year. So life, while complicated, is good. And now, onto the Quick Links:

• Jesse Lund of Twinkietown has a look at Alexi Casilla, aka L'il Luis.
  
• "It takes two to tango and two to mambo/But you can do it all with just one Bombo"
• So any talk of resigning Torii might be moot, since there's the possibility he'll be ineligible for three years. At least he'll take Mike Sweetney with him.
• Brian Meehan of the Oregonian tells the story of how Pat Neshak became "Sideshow Pat". And Jonah Keri of ESPN.com has an interview with the submariner from Brooklyn Park
  
• If there's one reason to lament the advent of contacts and Lasik, it's the effect it's had on baseball players' eye wear.
  
• Finally, if you're looking for information on who the Vikings' are going to be taking in the NFL draft on Sunday, make sure to stop by the Ragnarok for player previews and other draft day discussions.
  

Power and Inconsistency

The offensive show the Twins have put on in their series against the Mariners has the Twins’ in the middle of an offensive upspring after a slow start to the season. And when the Piranhas are biting, Mauer and Morneau are emulating the original M&M boys and Cuddyer and Hunter have broken out their boom sticks, the Twins’ offense seems unstoppable. And yet, despite that aura, just like last year, the offensive can quickly lose it’s potency, something the team demonstrated when it started out the season by scoring only 23 runs in their first seven games.

So what’s the problem? Why were the Twins the only team in the top half of the Majors in runs scored to have an equal number of games where they scored between four and seven runs and where they scored three or less? Counting the three Twins’ playoff games, they had a bad offensive game (less than three runs) more often than they had a good offensive game (between 4-7 runs). There were eleven teams that scored three or less runs in more games than the Twins. Not one of them finished better than 18^th in runs scored.

Those teams all had a lot of offensive issues, unlike the Twins, who lead the Majors in batting average, were eighth in on base percentage and were seventeenth in slugging, all respectable showings. And seventeenth isn’t that bad when you consider that the offense depended on four players with sub .400 slugging percentages. The effect of those players, however, becomes clearer when you look at isolated power, a metric for power that factors out singles.

And in isolated power, the Twins’ true offensive deficiency becomes clear. As a team, they had all the power of the computer nerds ruining baseball, finishing in second to last, with an isolated power of .138, ahead of only the Pirates. Not at all surprising considering how many at bats the homerless Jason Tyner received (not to mention Punto, Castillo and Bartlett).

Therein lies the Twins’ problem and the source of their inconsistency, both this year and last year. Intuitively, it makes sense, as well. Without power, runs are harder to come by, as a team needs to hit more singles it score than it would doubles or home runs. So when the Twins were stringing together single after single and consequently are leading the league in average, they were eighth in runs scored. This year, with Punto and Bartlett starting slowly, they’re only ninth in average and consequently, fifteenth in runs.

That drop demonstrates the danger in an offense that relies too much on batting average due to its lack of power. If the Twins can’t duplicate their team average of 2006, their offense of 2007 is going to be worse. And how likely is it that Joe Mauer is going to once again hit for an average few catchers have ever obtained? Or that Nick Punto is going to duplicate a year where his average was 34 points higher than his career mark? The same type of questions can be asked about Justin Morneau, Jason Tyner and Jason Bartlett.

All of this goes to show that the problem with Piranhas as predators is that it takes the entire school to strip all the meat off. If only one or two are biting, then they only inflict flesh wounds. And if the Twins’ Piranhas aren’t able to duplicate their 2006 averages, then the little bites that they do take out of opposing pitchers will be too infrequent to do any real damage. At that point, the offense will go from “inconsistent” to “awful”, if those bites are infrequent enough. If you have any trouble remembering what that’s like, just think back to 2005, when the Twins were last in Isolated Power, 23^rd in average and 25^th in average. And then start praying that all the Piranhas continue biting.

Sweepish in Seattle

Have you ever noticed what fantastic wallpaper Dick Bremer and Bert Blyleven make, not to mention cohorts Marney Gellner, Ron Coomer, and Anthony LaPanta? They'll go through a game running through inside jokes, rambling about random statistics, and showing the odd bout of omniscience -- and very rarely does anything they say make you stop and contemplate. Maybe that's how a baseball game should be, especially one starting at 5:40pm, just about the same time the kids are fussing, dinner is on the stove, and the dog needs a walk.

Thursday's 6-5 win over Seattle was no different. At one point Bert guffawed over how if he was Latin American it would stink because they would review his birth certificate and he would miss a couple of birthdays -- there was a joke about birthday boy Dennys Reyes in there somewhere as well. Later, Dick sounded a bit silly applauding Luis Castillo's brilliance as a leadoff hitter this season -- with 4 walks in 56 plate appearances, a .321 OBP and OPS around .600, I tend not to agree. Finally, Bert and Marney chimed in about Michael Cuddyer struggling to see in right field, only to see him lose one in the sun about six innings later.

But amongst all of that Tom-foolery, a fine telecast of an important Twins' victory, one statistic repeated by each member of the team nearly got by me... and then, once I thought about it, the fact shocked me as much as any I had heard in awhile:

This three game sweep by Minnesota at Seattle was the first since 1996.

Like I said, not much to think about except... 1996? This 1996? Go ahead and think back 11 years, if you dared to even flip on channel nine and watch Twins' games at that point. We're talking Jeff Reboulet, Rich Becker and the lovely Scott Stahoviak, people. It frankly shocked the system to think that team swept anyone on the road. But the Mariners? We're talking about a defending AL West Champion team in 1996 that had four probable HALL OF FAMERS on it -- Griffey, A-Rod, the Big Unit, and Edgar Martinez.

So, how exactly did that happen (besides being in the middle of a six-game M's losing streak that all but killed their hopes for a repeat division title)? Wouldn't it be fun to find out?

Well, in game one, on August 9, the 55-59 Twins were coming off of a three game sweep of the California Angels (break up those '96 Twins!) in Anah... erm... Los Ang... at Angels' Stadium. The Twins sent Scott Aldred to the mound against Bob Wolcott (like I said, noooooo one was watching this one). Despite Griffey, Jr. hitting a two run shot before the second out of the game was even recorded, the Twins rallied for six in the fourth off of RBI hits from Gregg Myers and Marty Cordova and a three run home run from Pat Meares. Bizarrely, the last pitcher for each team, Randy Johnson for the Mariners and Frankie Rodriguez for the Twins, were career starters to that point -- Rodriguez even earned a save in the 6-5 Twins' win, his first in a season where he started 33 games. Even more bizarrely? The box score shows the weather as 68 degrees with a two MPH wind blowing "out to centerfield." The game was in the Kingdome.

The next day the Twins won 10-4 in a complete laugher. Scott Klingenbeck went 5 2/3 for the Twins' win, while the home team roughed up Sterling Hitchcock for six runs in three innings. All told, Tom Kelly's squad raked 18 hits, including four more from Pat Meares and three each from erstwhile heroes Dave Hollins and Matt Walbeck... what a squad!

Finally, in the Sunday finale, the Twins got a virtuoso pitching performance from Brad Radke. He went eight complete, scattering eight hits for three runs in true Radke fashion... not so common for Brad, he struck out eight batters, including Alex Rodriguez three times! Maybe he should've saved it for the 2003 & 2004 playoffs. Oh well. The Twins won the game 6-3, with Marty Cordova driving in a pair and Frankie Rodriguez getting his second and last save not only of the series, but of his Twins' career. He would go on to pitch 206+ innings that season -- go figure.

So, the next time Bert and Dick try to slip a little factoid past -- give yourself a chance to reminisce... or better yet, do a little internet research and pull up some memories you didn't even know you had. If the result is anything like it was for me, you'll never be more thankful that you're a fan of this proud 2007 Twins' team and the largest collection of "superstars" the franchise has likely ever boasted. Sorry, Coom-Dog.

Cory Caouette is a lawyer living in San Diego who frequently ignores his 10-month old daughter when Johan is pitching.