Daily Pick

Yesterday I didn’t see any good games. I thought I going against the Twins because of the large number but I didn’t. So I am still 32-33 and +126. The system was 5-2 for a total of 41-27.

There aren’t any good games again. There are many large favorites, more than I have seen and I just can’t make those bets, especially on the Twins. The other problem is that ther is just not enough info on the Chicago game.

Col -118
Bal +110

System Picks

Chicago Sox 77.4% -255
Minnesota 73.2% -360
Houston 69.6% -210
Atlanta 66.3% -190
Colorado 63.4% -118
NY Yankees 56.1% -150
Baltimore 53.0% 110
Florida 51.6% -105

Embarrassing Loss

Garza pitched the best game of his career... at the major league level. And what do the Twins do for him in return? They hack away at a slop-balling lefty who hardly had to work to get the Twins out. It was hard to watch.

Redman never threw a pitch over 85 mph yet somehow the Twins could not hit anything hard off of him. He walked none and only struck out 3 and allowed only 5 hits in his shutout.

Redman has an ERA of 5.47. His DIPS isn't much better at 5.18. He is not a good pitcher.

There is some talk that the Twins are not as good against lefties since they are only 25-25 against them. They hit .289/.348/.433 with an OPS of .781. But against righties they are .287/.349/.427 with an OPS of .776.

There are virtually equally as good aginst both pitchers. Facing a lefty is no excuse. Losing 2-0 to KC is unexcusable.

Daily Pick

Yesterday I went 2-2 and lost 25 units for a total of 32-33 and +126. The system was 8-5 for a total of 36-25.

System Picks

Chicago Sox 71.0% -265
Boston 66.6% 123
Atlanta 59.4% -130
Minnesota 58.7% -210
LA Angels 57.3% -120
LA Dodgers 57.1% -122
Houston 53.6% -220
Florida 50.9% 115

One problem with Boston is injuries, so I am going to make some adjustments.

I am also working on an over under system.

The rotation

The Twins defense is still improving. The Defense Efficiency Rating has improved a great deal since the release of Batista and trade of Castro. On June 27th their DER was .667 and last in the league they have improved to .683 and 24th in the league. It is still not very good but obvious improvement has really helped the pitching staff.


Now the pitching is still the problem. It has improved dramatically since June but now with injuries, trades and bad play the starting rotation is in shambles.

Sanatana is the only constant. He is still the best pitcher in the league.

Radke is hurt and who knows how much he will pitch again. But when he does pitch he has done pretty well in last few months.

Silva is, was and will always be horrible. His ERA is 7.07 and his peripherals are horrible too. He has too many homeruns allowed, is control isn’t as good as it used to be and since he doesn’t strike any one out he gives up too many hits. His Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) which is similar to DIPS is 6.00. So even with a little luck and better defense he still would be a crappy meatballer.

It is time to remove Silva from the rotation. Actually, it was time about 2 months ago. But who do you replace him with?

There are 2 answers. One is Guerrier. He has pitched well in the bullpen and has an ERA of 2.72 and good peripherals with a FIP of 3.71. Both would probably rise if he was a starter but it would still be better than Silva.

Baker is the other choice. He has not pitched well when he has pitched with an ERA of 6.93 but he is FIP is a very manageable 5.23. He does seem to get the ball up too much but at least he has a good amount of strikeouts and very good control. It would be nice to see him pitch consistently now that the Twins have a major league defense.

Also, Liriano may be returning with a few weeks. Then the rotation would be much better. Bonser and Garza are improving after a rough start. Things are not as bad as they seem to be, as long as Silva no longer pitches fort the Twins. He has shown that he doesn’t have the stuff to pitch even with a good defense behind him. Give the young guys a shot to show that they can pitch with a better defense.

My dream rotation is Santana, Liriano, Radke, Bonser and Garza. If all injuries get worse I would go with Santana, Bonzer, Garza, Baker and Guerrier.

My real dream would be a 4 man rotation, but that won’t happen.

Daily Pick

Yesterday I went 2-2 and lost 10 units for a total of 30-31 and +151. The system was also 2-2 for a total of 28-20.

Today's Picks
Boston -125
Colorado +115
Pitt +120
Atl -120


The System
Boston 67.6% -125
Minnesota 66.4% -190
Philadelphia 63.8% -157
Chicago Sox 63.0% -210
Cleveland 59.0% -180
Atlanta 58.8% -120
Houston 58.5% -200
Colorado 58.3% 115
NY Yankees 57.9% -175
Pittsburgh 57.4% 120
Texas 57.0% -160
LA Dodgers 55.4% -140
LA Angels 53.7% -150
St. Louis 52.7% -120

Good weekend

The Twins took 2 out of 3 this weekend in exciting fashion. I missed yesterday's game due to a fantasy football draft. So at least I got to see 2 great games. The bullpen finally blew a game but somehow Eyre came out of nowhere to save the Twins and win the game on Sat. If that keeps up the Twins bullpen will be much improved.

Was the umpire squeezing the Twins pitchers on Sat? Contereras had a strikezone wider than my ass. Yet the Twins would not get those close pitches. Reyes wasn't even close, though, when he walked 2 guys. What a great appearance by Neshek!!!

No more Silva, please.

KC is next.

Daily Pick

Friday I was 2-1 and +153 for a total of 28-29 and +161. The system had a bad day. It was3-5 for a total of 26-18.

My Picks
Milwaukee 105
Toronto -110
Arizona -145
Seattle even

The System:

Milwaukee 60.2% 105
Toronto 60.3% -110
Arizona 72.1% -145
Seattle 53.4% even

Weekend Series for the Wild Card race.

Here are the match-ups for the weekend series in Chicago.

Chicago Sox 54.7% Radke vs Velazquez
Minnesota 64.9% Santana vs Contreras
Chicago Sox 52.4% Silva vs Buehrle

It doesn’t look to good. But I think the winning percentage increases for the Twins after hearing this news.

Thome (hamstring) was not in the lineup for Thursday afternoon's series finale against the Tigers, and is expected to miss the weekend series against the Twins, the Associated Press reports.

It is nice to see the Sox get an injury for a change, especially to there best player.

I believe if I did the math it would make the Twins the favorites in the other 2 games as well.

The winner of this series will be all alone in first place for the wild card!!!

Go Twins.

Daily Pick

It was a good day I went 5-3 and won 235 units. The system itself was 6-3. The totals are 26-28 and +8. The System has improved to 23-13 since it has been finished.

There are not many good bets today. Boston has the highest chance of winning but the bet is high. So I think I will stay away from that one. The Atlanta game intrigues me. Even though the System picks Atlanta to win I think I am going to take Washington +155.

Was +155
Cle +108
Cin -110


The System’s Picks
Boston 66.8% -170
Cincinnati 57.2% -110
LA Dodgers 56.4% -120
Houston 55.2% -168
Chicago Sox 54.7% -125
Cleveland 54.5% +108
Atlanta 51.6% -175 +155
Florida 50.1% -120

Daily Pick

Ouch!! 0-4 & -275 for a total of 21-25 & minus 217. Not a good day, even the system was off, it was 4-6. But I did notice that it is 9-1 in games it predicts a 60% or better chance of winning. I'll take that.

There are some good bets today.

Today's Picks:
Phi +102
MN even
Det +160
NY -168
Pitt +170
Cin +104
Bos +129. The plus 129 is too much too pass up when I predict a 54% of Bos winning.
Cle -173. Its a large bet but I can't pass up a 62% shot.

The System's Picks

NY Yankees 70.0% -168
Cleveland 61.6% -173
Philadelphia 61.0% 102
Minnesota 60.2% even
Detroit 58.7% 160
Boston 53.6% 129
Cincinnati 53.3% 104
Pittsburgh 52.1% 170
Milwaukee 51.3% -137

Still the wild card favorites

Even after last night and being a 1/2 game behind the Sox, the Twins are favorites to win the wild card. Baseball Prospectus has the Twins at 45% chance to win the wild card and 5% to win the division.

Silva is not a good pitcher

Silva is not a good pitcher. He is not as really as bad as he has shown this year but he was never as good as he was last year. Before this year he had pitched good enough to be a # 4 or 5 starter but he never really had enough “stuff” to be a good pitcher.

He is considered a groundball pitcher. Before this season he was about a 60 % groundball pitcher. He was a groundball pitcher but right on the edge of being average. This year his groundball percentage is 54%, average. For a guy who strikes out less than 3.5 batters per 9 innings that just isn’t going to cut it.

Because he does not strike out a lot of hitter and his groundball % is only average a lot of the batted balls are now fly balls. Fly balls turn into homeruns to the tune of 30 so far this year. That is about 2 homeruns per nine innings.

He is not going to win that way. Last year he won. It seems he did it with a lot of luck. His DIPS last year was a respectable 4.33 but his ERA was an amazing 3.44. He was able to do this because the defense played better behind him and a lot of the balls hit were hit at someone and turned into double plays.

It was obvious that he could not keep that up. And all the good luck/random chance he had last year has now turned against him this year.

His stats as a Twin
.310/.342/.462/.804 2004 ERA 4.21 DIPS 4.48 BIPA .303
.290/.300/.441/.741 2005 ERA 3.44 DIPS 4.33 BIPA .275
.337/.362/.559/.921 2006 ERA 6.70 DIPS 5.5 BIPA .318

This year he is pitching to the equivalent of facing Justin Morneau every at bat.

Daily Pick

I was 2-2 yesterday and +0 for a total of 21-21 +58. It’s a long season.

Today’s Picks
Toronto -110
St. Louis +115
Texas -160
Dodgers -120


THE SYSTEM'S PICKS
Texas 71.2% -160
NY Yankees 63.1%
Houston 60.5% -148
St. Louis 59.7% 115
Atlanta 58.7% -180
Toronto 57.9% -110
LA Dodgers 57.8% -120
Florida 56.5% -140
Chicago Sox 51.6% -110
LA Angels 50.3% -145

Daily Pick

The System is getting better. Yesterday I was 3-0 and +305 for a total of 21-21 and +58 units. It feels good to be on the positive side. The System itself for the day was 4-2 and was correct on its 4 highest percentages. So in non bets it is 13-4.

Today’s Picks:
Toronto -160
Arizona -125
Texas -110
Underdog: KC +135

THE SYSTEM'S PICKS
Toronto 75.7% -160
Arizona 66.5% -125
Texas 61.0% -110
San Diego 60.4% -150
Kansas City 58.9% 135
NY Yankees 57.5% -140
NY Mets 56.7% -145
Minnesota 53.8% -110
Colorado 53.5% 130
Chicago Sox 50.4% 110

Hunter is showing patience at the plate

There has been a lot of talk about Torii Hunter and his inability to add anything to the Twins offensively. I will have to admit that I have been on that band wagon too.

I have been sick and tired of Torii grounding into a double play after swinging at the first pitch he sees or swinging and missing at the slider 2 feet outside.

Part of the problem of relying on what we see is that we don’t see every at bat or every game. So it is important to look at the whole picture when determining if a player is a detriment to the team.

I am not going to look at Torii’s defense on this article. It is obvious that his defense is not at the level it has been in the past. Also, most people I talk to or I read complain about Torii’s prowess with the bat.

It is my belief that mostly people are angry with the fact that he is not contributing offensively while he is eating up a large part of the salary budget. Otherwise I see no other reason to be so angry with him.

The fact is that he is really having a good year with the bat, almost a career year. If he had not been hurt he would be having a much better year with the bat. Right now he is batting .270/.343/.446. His career averages are .267/.323/.457. He is having a better year than his average year. His BA & SLG are career norms and his OBP is at a career high!!!

He is has been learning patience at the plate. I know I know I am surprised too. He is on pace for a career high of walks.

So he is actually having a better year than normal (offensively). But how is he compared to other centerfielders? He is average. Among all centerfielders with at least 300 at bats, he ranks 14th in OPS and16th in Runs Created per game.

Torii is what he is, an average hitting centerfielder who normally is one of the best defensive centerfielders.

There is a lot of talk of letting him go next year. I think that would be a mistake unless the Twins can get a quality replacement. There are no quality replacements in the organizations right now.

Some people think that Lou Ford is the answer. He hasn’t been a quality hitter in 2 years. And he only had 1 good year. I don’t think he is the answer.

Some say Tyner is the answer. He doesn’t walk and he doesn’t hit extra base hits so to be worthwhile he has to hit about .330. He won’t. He is a career .270 hitter with no patience and no power. But he doesn’t strike out much, so what. Strikeouts have a very small effect on run production compared to other outs.

This year Tyner has been a nice replacement but I don’t think there is anything in his past to show that he can continue to hit .300. There is a reason he is a 29 year old minor leaguer.

He creates about a ½ a run per game less than Torii does.

I’ll take a gimpy Torii over those two any day.

Daily Pick

Ok, now I am finally improving on my picks. Yesterday, The System went 9-2. I did not post all of the picks because I did not think they were all good bets. I will not count that as my running total either. I am going to keep better track of all my picks from now on.

I was 2-1 yesterday and +100. I improved to 18-21 and -247. I think my new adjustments will make for a positve total in the future.

Today’s Picks:
Cin -130
Phi -125
Underdog SD +105

Here are the percentages the System has picked for today.
Cincinnati 63.4%
Philadelphia 63.3%
Atlanta 59.2%
San Diego 57.8%
Toronto 56.1%
Chicago Sox 50.5%

Rincon

His outing wasn't all that great yesterday but we still did win. I think he had a right to be a little angry with the ump after he walked Thome. I think that pitch was more than close it was a strike. Especially since that pitch was a strike the rest of the game.

Did you notice that Rincon has given up only 1 homerun so far this year? He is the only reliever with over 50 innings pitched who has allowed only 1 homerun. It is nice to have that type of pitcher on the staff.

He does it by striking out a fair number of batters and mostly by just keeping the balls from being hit into the air. He has a groundball percentage of 65% this year. That is a very high number and it seems to be mentioned rarely.

If you think it is a fluke, last year he only gave up 2 homeruns all year and he had a 61% GB%.

He tends give up a few too many hits but that happens to a groundball pitcher and as long as he keeps the ball in the park I will take the extra hits and the averge control. I think he is an underappreciated aspect of the Twins.

Nice defense

Twins have earned a split so far. After booting the ball around and misplaying balls and misplaying rundowns yesterday the Twins lost while Radke gave another gutty performance. I don’t think his fastball ever hit 90 and it probably averaged about 84. Yet somehow he continually got the best offense out, too bad his defense failed him.

Somehow 3 players lost a high fly in the dome in the 1st. Then Bartlett makes a great play on a ball in the hole and throws a 1 hopper to Morneau who can’t scoop it.

Later Punto lets a ball go right through his legs that led to another run. Later Punto misplays a rundown which allowed AJ to be safe at first and also allows Thome to score. That is 3 runs that should not have scored.

I hope the Twins got it out of their system.

A couple of AJ notes. Did any of you notice in the 1st inning, during the Punto at bat, he made a bunting motion before the pitch was thrown. Then Punto bunted for a hit.

Did AJ guess correctly or did he read some sign or hear something? I have never seen that before.

Also, did you see AJ touch his nose after AJ scored on the rundown. The Twins have been touching their noses after RBIs this season to indicate that you have to “smell the RBIs”.
For 1 thing AJ didn’t get an RBI. Secondly, I am starting to see why other teams don’t like him. Why would you do that? Classless

Daily Pick

I am getting worse at picking the games. I was 1-5, losing 509. Ouch. The totals are 16-20 and -347. I will keep trying but if it doesn’t improve over the next few weeks I may have to end it, since I obviously don’t know what I am doing.

Let’s try it again.
Favorite: Cle -127
Twins: MN -168
Underdog: Ari +120

New Link

My wife just loves Pat Neshek so I decided to add a link for his blog. It is pretty interesting. Take a look at it sometime. It is nice to see a down to earth ball player.

More 5th Grade humor

The first game today has Wang facing Johnson.

I wonder of Lance Bass is at the game.

Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia

If you are not watching this show, start. It is an effing riot. Its on FX. I know it is on Thursday nights but it may be on Sundays too.

Daily Pick

Another bad day, 1-4 and losing 405 units. I am now 15-14 and only +162.
BB:4-1 UD: 3-2 Twins:3-1 LS: 3-2 +360

I reworked the whole system. I finally have what I am looking for. There are 2 other tweaks I may add in the future but I am still working on those minor aspects of the system.

I have Philly as the biggest favorite of the day, but it is tough to bet 180 to win 100. But I'll do it
Favorites: Philly -180, Cle -165
Best Bets: Dodgers +105, Arizona +110
Underdogs: KC +136. Florida +135

Big weekend for the Twins

This is the biggest weekend of the year for the Twins. They are now 2 back in the Wild Card race and need to take 2 out of 3 to keep pace. If they lose all 3 it isn't over but it won't look good being 5 back.

But if the Twins win they will be 1 game up in the wild card race.

The pitching matchups look good for the Twins. Tonight is Bonser vs Garcia. My metrics actually show Boof as a very slight favorite. Tommorrow will be Garland vs Radke. I have the Whiteys as a very small, slight favorite in that game.

But on Sunday the match-up really favors the Twins. It is Santana vs Vazquez. Santana is hot right now and my metrics have him as a huge favorite.

2 out of 3 looks very feasible. The first 2 nights are basically coin flips. But if the Twins really have a home field advantage they should easily win 1 of those games.

The average home field advantage is .040, for tht Twins it is much greater so lets see them use some of that Dome magic this weekend.

Make sure to keep an on eye on the Yankees/Red Sox series this weekend (like we will have a choice). They are playing a 5 game series in Boston. I think we should be rooting for a yankees sweep.

Playoffs

The Twins are now the favorites to win the wild card.

Baseball Prospectus has them at a46.5% chance of winning the wild card and a .33% to win the division. Boston is at 9 %, Toronto 1.5% and Chicago is at 40%.

This weekend should tell us more. The Twins face Chicago with Radke, Santana and Boof. 2 out of 3 is very possible.

Daily Pick

I didn't do so well yesterday. I forgot to post my Twins pick which I had picked correctly and I only went 2-4 and lost 285 units. For the season I am 14-10 and +567.
BB:4-1
UD:3-2
Twins:3-1
LS: 3-1 +460


Long Shot
Kansas City Royals +230


Arizona Diamondbacks -140

Toronto Blue Jays -110

Milwaukee Brewers -160

Minnesota Twins -105

RBI or RBIs

Something has been bothering me all season. Maybe it was going on before this season but I never noticed it. When did it become normal to say “he has 100 RBI”?

More than 1 RBI is plural so add the damn “s”.

Shouldn’t it be “RBIs”? Yes it should. It seems that it is OK to say it the first way but I wouldn’t say that it is normal and it really does sound ridiculous. It seems a little bit pretentious to me. Are the people who do this just grammar nuts?

You know the type, always correcting your grammar never lettin’ anything slide.

Do you say “the terrorist had 5 WMD”? No you say “he had 5 WMDs”.


Here is an excerpt from an article on this issue.

"Some abbreviations have embedded plural forms, and there are often inconsistencies in creating the plurals of these words. The speed of an internal combustion engine is measured in "revolutions per minute" or rpm (lower case) and the efficiency of an automobile is reported in "miles per gallon" or mpg (no "-s" endings). On the other hand, baseball players love to accumulate "runs batted in," a statistic that is usually reported as RBIs (although it would not be terribly unusual to hear that someone got 100 RBI last year — and some baseball commentators will talk about "ribbies," too). Also, the U.S. military provides "meals ready to eat" and those rations are usually described as MREs (not MRE). When an abbreviation can be used to refer to a singular thing — a run batted in, a meal ready-to-eat, a prisoner of war — it's surely a good idea to form the plural by adding "s" to the abbreviation: RBIs, MREs, POWs. (Notice that no apostrophe is involved in the formation of these plurals. Whether abbreviations like these are formed with upper- or lower-case letters is a matter of great mystery; only your dictionary editor knows for sure.)"

Liriano

Here is an article from Baseball Prospectus talking about injuries. I would consider it good news. I would feel great if Liriano was ble to pitch next month.

Sometimes bad news can hide good news. While most of the report on Francisco Liriano was gloom and doom, the bottom line of the report was actually good. The Twins are glad that they waited for the MRI, getting a "clear picture" according to my medical source. "It had a signal," he said, indicating a part of the MRI that shows up as "abnormal," "but it was scarring, not an acute tear." In essence, Liriano was tearing apart the weakened portion of his once-injured and healed UCL. The pain he felt caused him to alter his mechanics, leading to cascade injuries, first in his forearm, then in his shoulder. Further tests showed some tendonitis in the shoulder, leading the Twins to put Liriano on a shoulder-strengthening program prior to any throwing program. There's no good timetable for this injury, mostly due to Liriano's reliance on his slider for effectiveness. It's my best guess that he'll be back in early to mid-September, though the Twins' status in the AL Central is going to be a big factor in determining when, or whether, he pitches again this year.

Garza

Garza had a rough outing on Friday. I think we all expected too much from him. I know I expected a lot from him. I never expect this from him: 2 2/3 IP 8 hits 7 runs 2 HR 2 W 2 K. No matter how you look at it, this was a bad start.

Obviously I think we can expect more from him. For 1 thing, who knows what would have happened if Hunter would have made that catch in the first inning? It really looked like it was a very easy catch that Hunter would normally have made. I think it was clear then that his injury is affecting him in the field.

Also, his DIPS ERA is 10.08, still very high but it should come down. 50% of the balls in play were turned in to hits, that will come down which will help him greatly. And his HR/Fly % is 41%. The average is about 12%, so that will come down too. His peripherals for 1 game are bad but they all should improve naturally. There is no way he is this bad.

Plus, it was just 1 game. It really doesn’t tell us too much except that Garza pitched poorly and also had a great deal of bad luck.

Since Garza had such a bad first start I wondered how the first starts of quality pitchers went. So I went back 20 years and looked at the first start of all Cy Young winners since 1985.

Here is what I came up with. The average first start went 5.56 IP allowed 5.32 hits, 2.04 runs, .48 HR, 2.48 BB and 3.88 Ks.For a 9 inning game it equals 8.6 hits allowed, 3.30 ERA, .8 HRs, 4.0 BB and 6.3 Ks. In 25 starts they went 10-5.

For the most part all were pretty good. Eckersley had the best start throwing a shutout and the only complete game. Cone, Glavine and Carpenter had the 3 worst starts. The shortest was 3 innings. Those 3 had a combined 14.00 ERA in their first start. So it is possible to turn it around. Garza may never win a Cy Young award but just because he had a bad first start doesn’t mean he never will. With that being said it was by far the worst start of all the pitchers in this study.

Daily Pick

Yesterday I went 2-2, but I still won 32 units. Season totals are now 12-6 for a total of +852.
BB: 4-1
UD:3-1
Twins: 2-1
LS: 2-1 +280

Today's Picks:
Underdog: Sea +160
Favorite: StL -135
Favorite: Hou -200
Pitt -110
Bos -110
Long Shot: Bal +180

More MVP discussion

Here is a good article on the MVP Race. I still think Joe Mauer is the best candidate because he plays the most demanding position.

Daily Pick

Yesterday was a good day again. I made some tweaks in my system and look a little more in depth at some things. And I will probably make some more changes in the system later. I am going to test 1 theory for a while before I do.

I was 3-1 yesterday, winning 220 units. My only loss was on a longshot. It wasn't that great of a bet but the line made it very appealing.

The current totals are: +820 units and 10-4.
BB: 3-1
UD: 3-1
Twins: 2-1
LS: 2-1 +280

Today's Picks:
Underdog: Cle +170
Ari +132
Sea +125
StL -165

daily pick

I didn’t do so well on last Thursday, but I did win my longshot bet again. For the day I was 1-3. Days like that happen. I lost 133 units. I am tweaking some of the numbers and stats I use today. Not because I finally lost but just because no system is perfect.

My totals are as follows. +600 units and 7-3.
BB: 2-1
UD: 2-1
Twins: 2-1
LS: 2-0 +380

Today’s Picks
Best Bet: LA Dodgers -140
Underdog: Cubs +120
Favorite: Yankees -155

Longshot: KC +205, KC has some favorably matchups according to my system. +205 is too much to pass up in this situation.

Radke

Brad really did a number on Toronto yesterday. The Twins really need that.

He will never be a hall of famer but he has generally been a fairly consistent starter for the Twins. For that he is under appreciated. This year he started out so bad that you knew he had to improve some, but I never thought he would get this good again. He has been the saving grace for the Twins this season.

Even though Radke hasn't been the twins best pitcher he may their most important pitcher. He has come through and stopped some losing streaks this year and is doing it will pitching with extreme pain.

Tommorrow we start a tough series against the red hot Indians. They may well be the unluckiest team in baseball agin this year. So I don't expect a sweep and winning 2 of 3 will also be tough.


The Twins are 2.5 games back right now and Chicago is playing KC:(

Joe Mauer for MVP

At this point Joe Mauer is the AL MVP.

He is 3rd in VORP (Value over Repacement Player) behind Hafner and Vernon Wells. He is slightly ahead of Jeter, Manny, Ortiz and Thome and he is way ahead of Morneau.

VORP is good stat to determine how good a player is, offensively (and at the Major League Level), compared to other players at the same position. For example, even though Thome is having a better year offensively than Mauer he should be compared to how much better he is than other DH’s. Mauer is at an important defensive position while Thome doesn’t even play defense. Thome is about as good offensively as 2 or 3 other DHs. He doesn’t really stand out against Hafner and Ortiz.

So it is better to look at a player compared to others at his position before comparing him to all other players.

Mauer leads the league in OBP and is 5th in the league in Runs Created per game. He is nearly as good as any player in the league offensively.

But Mauer plays a prime defensive position and he plays it better than nearly all other catchers in the league. According to BaseballProspectus.com he has saved more runs, defensively, than any other MVP candidate. He really is the only one who adds anything defensively and he does so while playing the hardest position to play.

But Ortiz is the best clutch hitter in baseball, shouldn’t he be MVP? Well for one thing I don’t believe that clutch hitting is something a player controls much. I do think there is something to it but not nearly as much as most people think. This is waht studies on clutch hitting have shown.

This year Ortiz is hitting great in Close & Late situations with an OPS of 1.264, but Mauer is no slouch at .980. And with runners in scoring position Mauer is slightly better with an OPS of 1.060 and Ortiz is at 1.033, very close.

So yes Ortiz may be the better clutch hitter. But do we base it solely on clutch hitting? If so then Gary Matthes Jr should be MVP.


When you look at the big picture and look past the RBI’s of DH’s and firstbasemen who do not add anything to the team defensively it is easy to see why Mauer is the choice, at this time, for AL MVP.

Daily Pick

Yesterday I was 3-0 again and earned 403 units. I am now 6-0. I now have earned a total of 733 units.
BB: 2-0
UD: 2-0
Twins: 2-0
LS: 1-0

Today’s picks:

Favorite: Twins -123
Best Bet: Colorado +103
Underdog: Seattle +140

Longshot: KC +190

Alone in 1st place

The Twins are currently alone in 1st place for the wild card, a 1/2 game ahead of the White Sox and 1.5 games ahead of Boston.

In another good game, the Twins pulled it out after a dramatic homerun by Morneau in the 8th. It was his 30th and the last time any Twin did that was in 1987. He could hit 40.

My plan of being patient against Zumaya did not pay off tonight. Cuddyer was patient and struckout looking and Morneau hit a first pitch fastball, that was outside the strikezone, for the game winning homerun.

It is great to see the Twins playing well as they come home to face the Bluejays. They will face Lilly tonight. I will be at the game.

It will be my first trip to the Dome in 2 years. I didn't want to see Silva pitch but at least the Twins are facing Lilly. It is a good match-up for the Twins.

I don't know if I will make any more posts until Monday. I will be at Deacon's Lodge for a weekend of bacchanalia for a good friend’s bachelor party.

My 5th grade sense of humor

I just noticed the names on the Yankees roster. Do not read any further if you are easily offended or would like to ever have any respect for me again.

The Yankees (I said yankee), have players named Small, Wang, Long, Johnson (Big Unit) & ARod.

I am sorry for posting this, yet I still did. What is wrong with me?

Gardy in the 9th

Can anyone figure out why gardy had Morneau hold the runner on in the 9th inning?

I still can't figure out why it was done. It was 4-2 with 2 outs and a runner on 1st at the time. So he wasn't the tying runner at the time.

I thought to myself, why are you doing this Gardy? Then realized that the chances of a ball being hit there were pretty slim.

1 minute later, d'oh. A chopper was hit to the right side.

I still don't know if Justin could have made a play on it though.But why hold him on? If you are doing it just to guard the line then just guard the line.

PotD

Pick of the day results 3-0, for a total of +330 units. Good so far but it’s a long season.
BB: 1-0
UD: 1-0
Twins: 1-0

Today’s picks.

Underdog: Texas +113

Best Bet: Yankees -115

Longshot of the day:

KC +190

I am not picking the Twins game. No numbers jump out at me. It should be lower scoring than expected. But if I had to pick I would take the Twins -125.

Finally

Finally, the Twins win in Detroit. It was beginning to seem impossible. But the pulled it out in exciting fashion. Radke really pitched well. His change-up really had most of the hitters fooled.

He was really helped by bad baserunning/managing in the 4th inning. Why do you send Ordonez home on that play? It didn’t even take a great throw to get the out. Tyner was charging in to make the catch, so he had his momentum going towards home. Then Ordonez tagged and looked back as he started running home!!! Result, out by five feet.

Thank you, Magglio.

It was nice to see the Twins be more patient during the last 2 games against Rodney and Zumaya. It didn’t pay of on Monday but it helped get 1 run in the win on Tuesday. The Twins barely averaged 2 pitches per plate appearance against these 2 wild throwers. That was inexcusable last weekend in the Dome. The last 2 days they have been more patient with 4 pitches per plate appearance, its nice to see some improvement.

Its not that I want the Twins to just wait to walk, but don't swing a bad pitches or pitcher's pitches.

The White Sox just won and Boston lost. The wild card standings are:

Chi -
Min .5 GB
Bos 1 GB

Garza Promoted

Matt Garza the pitching phenom in AAA has been called up to the big club.

I think we can a expect good things from him. He has a great ERA on all levels, from A to AAA, this year.

The best thing about him is that he is a high strikeout pitcher with good control. In 135 innings of minor league ball this year he has given up only 6 homeruns, 32 walks and has 154 strikeouts.

I don't know if he is a groundball pitcher or not but so far he hasn't been susceptible to the long ball.

I am still an optimist.

I still think the Twins can win the wild card. I am feeling better than I was this morning. I think I just needed time to adjust to the situation of losing again to the Tigers and hearing about an injured Liriano.

The Twins still have Santana, an improved Radke, and hopefully Garza will be pitching soon. The pitching isn't that bad. Silva still can win some and maybe Guerrier can start. If not, Baker is still a viable starter. He has the ability he just needs some consistency now.

The offense is still doing great on most nights, so between a patchwork rotation and an improved offense the Twins can still play with the big boys.

Chicago and Boston still have great offenses but their pitching is not nearly as good as the Twins, even with Liriano out.

So as bad as it is for the Twins, the other teams have fleas too.

New Feature, Picks of the day

I am going to start making a pick of the day using the Bodog.com basbeall line. I want to see how I would do picking games, based on my incredible knowledge of baseball:)

This is something I have never done before but have contemplated for a while. I am basing my guesses on many statistics and observations. But none of it has been tested so far. It could be a complete failure. I'll give it a couple weeks to play out.

Todays games:

Twins +120

Best bet: Mets -160

Underdog: White Sox +110

What does this mean?

If the number is positive that team is the underdog. You must bet 100 to win that number. For example I am betting 100 to win 120 on the Twins.

If the number is negative that team is the favorite. You must bet that number to win 100. For example I am betting 160 to win 100 on the Mets.

Bad news

I don't want to talk about the Twins or Liriano.

Twins could easily be 4 to 5 up in the Wild Card.

Jason Bartlett now has approximately the same number of innings played as Juan Castro did before her was traded. My goal now is to try to determine how man runs the left side of the infield cost the Twins, offensively and defensively. I will look at some offensive and defensive statistics of Castro and Batista compared to their replacements, Bartlett and Punto.

On the face of it, it is easy to see the differences offensively. Batista hit .236/.303/.388, Castro hit .231/.258/.308 and the replacements have hit much better with Punto .308/.399/.408 and Bartlett .377/.443/.497. Those are drastic improvements.

Punto has an OPS over 100 points higher than Batista, and Bartlett has an OPS nearly 400 points higher. The most important stat of OBP is the real difference maker. Punto’s is 100 points higher and Bartlett’s is an amazing 200 points higher.

The differences are profound and amazing.

Runs Created is a real good stat to use to determine the real world value of the players. Punto has an RC/27 outs of 6.5, Bartlett 8.4, Batista 3.8, and Castro 2.1. This means that a lineup of all Castro’s will average 2.1 runs per game.

Then I divide that number by 9, to get the amount of runs 1 player adds to the lineup then I multiply it times 50 to get the amount of runs each player added to the team in that 50 game stretch. Then I get the difference to compare the two players.

In 50 games Bartlett created 35 more runs than Castro. Punto created 15 more runs than Batista. That means, with all things being equal, the Twins lost 5 wins by playing an old left side of the infield that has shown throughout their careers that they could not hit. It isn’t a surprise to anyone how poor those 2 were offensively. Yet Gardy threw them out there to cost the Twins 5 wins.

Now it is tough to assume that Punto would be as good as he is and that Bartlett would be hitting the ball as well as he is, but like I said already, everyone knew the abilities of Castro and Batista.

Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that Bartlett would not have done as well as he is now if he had been on the squad all year. I think that is a fair assumption. So maybe Bartlett would have only offered 75% of the value he has given the Twins so far. That is still a 24 run difference. That is a 2 win difference between Bartlett and Castro. That is a lot over 50 games. So even if Bartlett had only played at 75% of his current level the Twins would still have 4 more wins. Even if Bartlett played as an average shortstop he would have added 15 more runs.

What about defensively? That is tough to measure. By watching the twins we all have seen a difference in the ranges on the left side of the infield. Also the Twin’s Defense Efficiency Rating (DER) has improved dramatically since it was one of the worst all time at the beginning of the season. So anecdotally the Twins defense has improved. It is just hard to prove statistically.

I looked at defensive stats from BaseballProspectus.com. They rank the replacements at nearly the same level as the previous players. I really can’t agree with that. So I looked at each player’s zone rating which is also an imperfect stat. But I think it is the best one in this situation.

Both Bartlett and Punto have zone ratings of about .050 higher than the player they replaced. I determined this to be approximately 31 extra singles allowed by the old infield. This is about 14 runs. This is 1 more win lost by the Twins.


If Bartlett had played the entire season at his current level rather than Castro the run differential between Castro and Bartlett would have been about 42 runs, 4 wins. If Bartlett would have fallen off or just played at 75% of his current production it would have been a run differential of about 29 runs, 3 wins.

The run differential between Batista and Punto is 22 runs and 2 wins.

In conclusion, it is in my best estimation that the Twins lost 5 to 6 wins during the 1st 50 games of the season using the Castro/Batista experiment. At worst it cost the Twins 3 wins, at best it cost them 7 wins, in only 50 games.

The hardest part of this is that it was predicted by most of us before the season started.

Patience is a virtue

This weekend the twins took 36 walks in a 4 game sweep of KC. That is 9 walks per game. I love to see the twins walking more. It means they are not swinging at bad pitches and they are not making outs.

If only they could have shown this much patience last weekend against the Tigers. I wonder if they were so aggressive because they were anxious or because they all thought they had to make the big hit all series long.

As I previously noted the Twins were very aggressive against their bullpen which has shown a tendency to walk some batters. This weekend they showed great patience and it paid off. Obviously it was against a far inferior pitching staff.

Did Joe Varva, the hitting coach, tell them to be more patient after watching the last week of baseball or did KC just force their patience by having no control? I believe it is combination of both.

Lets hope the can keep it up.

Also, did anyone see the fan gone wild in the 5th inning on Friday? I wonder if she received any beads for her flash of the camera.

Johan

Santana is pitching tonight and everybody is bit nervous on how he has been pitching lately, including me. So I decided to look into and see how he has really been pitching since his hot June.

In the month of July he is 3-1 with a 4.74 ERA. That is not very good, in fact, it is about average. We have grown to expect more out of Johan these past few years.

The good thing is that really hasn’t been that bad. His DIPS is about 3.70 which still isn’t great but very respectable. Remember DIPS is a way to figure out his ERA based on the things a pitcher can control, like strikeout, walks and homeruns. He does not have much effect on other batted balls or so the theory goes.

The main thing that is hurting him is that his homerun rate has gone up a great deal. This will improve as will his control which has been good but not great. Sometimes a pitcher just has bad stretch and in this case he has a bad stretch which is also unlucky.

Also, all of the teams he faced in July with the exception of Kansas City have good power on their team and therefore when he makes a mistake it has a better chance to give up a homerun.

I think the turnaround starts tonight and he will pitch better the rest of the season. I know, I am not really going out on a limb.

4 man rotation

This is a reprint from a month ago. I am very busy today and I think this needs to be said again.

The fifth start should be Bradsisco Santaniano. The Twins should move to a four man rotation and use their best three starters to fill that hole at the fifth spot in the rotation.

There is no reason this can’t be done.OK there are many reasons. One is that Terry Ryan said last week on the radio that “four man rotations have been tried and they have failed.” I thought about this and did not recall the last time it was tried but I thought it was funny that he said it failed.

In the last century of baseball weren’t the majority of years spent by most teams using a four man rotation? Yes. Did it work? Yes. Nobody can tell me that there weren’t any good pitching staffs in last century. I also don’t remember arms falling off.

There is a great article on four man rotations in the book Baseball Between the Numbers. It was put out by Baseball Prospectus. I will be using most of their data and arguments to support my discussion on the Twins use of a four man rotation.

A good quote from the book is “Throwing is not dangerous to a pitcher’s arm. Throwing while tired is dangerous to a pitcher’s arm.” One thing we need to remember is that every pitcher has a different level of fatigue and it is difficult to remember. For some pitchers it may be that they fatigue at 80 pitches and other it may be 140 pitches.

The main argument is that pitchers aren’t tired after three days of rest so why not let them pitch. If it means that a pitcher pitches less per start so be it. It will be more beneficial to the team. But the data shows that most pitched just as long into the game on five man or a four man rotation.

Pitch counts can be helpful in guarding against injuries. It is most important for a pitcher not to pitch when he is tired. That is when his mechanics worsen and he becomes more susceptible to injuries. Pitching on three days rest does not increase the injury chances.

Another argument against using a four man rotation is that a pitcher is less effective on three days rest. This is not true. BP looked at all starters since 1972 who have had at least 8 starts on three and four days rest each.

It was a statistical wash. Their ERA was slightly better on three days rest, walk rates and strikeout rates were nominally worse. The only stat that had changed dramatically at all was the homerun rate. It actually improved 4%. That was the biggest change. So in fact, pitchers were slightly better on three days rest than four.

But what about pitcher that only pitched on three days rest rarely, less than 8 starts in a season. Again it was a statistical wash. But ERA was slightly up.One more objection is that the pitchers will tire at the end of the season, again this wrong. The data shows another statistical wash.The other objection might be that pitchers won’t be able to adjust to the change. Why not? They adjust all of the time. Some starters become relievers or vice verse. They change when they move from the minors to the majors. It happens all of the time.

The last time it was tried it failed. Bob Boone tried it with KC in 1995. It started great but by the end of the season all of the pitchers did indeed get much worse. Maybe this is what Ryan was talking about. So it can fail. But it has work for a century before that. And, most importantly, Boone had his pitchers hit very high pitch counts, sometimes as many 145 pitches.

That is why it failed. Not because of the three days rest. If they were in a five man rotation the chances of these pitchers getting worse as the season went on was just as bad after so many high pitch counts.

So there is no real reason not to have a four man rotation. Then what are the benefits?

First, the worst starter is not pitching in as many games and the best pitchers are now eating up those innings. This will save a great deal of runs in a season.

And there is now an extra roster spot for another hitter.

So how will this affect the Twins? It would give the Twins another 3-5 wins. I base this on three different things. I looked the three pitchers who would take the place of the 5th pitcher, they are Liriano, Santana & Radke. Then I looked at the 5th starter, Silva. I looked at the amount of runs they would give up in 12 games as a guess on how many runs they would give up in that time.


I looked at it three different ways. 1st I looked at total runs against average, 2nd ERA and 3rd I used their FIP. The last way is kind of a guess of how they will pitch the rest of the season.

If all pitchers performed just the same in the 2nd half of the season the amount of runs saved by using Runs Against would be 50 runs. That is five more wins!!! If you just used ERA the four man rotation would save the Twins 44 runs. That is four more wins. If you looked at FIP it would save the Twins about 26 runs. That is about 2-3 wins.

There is no reason to avoid the change to a four man rotation. You would think that an old-school guy like Gardy would want to do this since it is old-school. I will hope they try it but I believe that I have a better chance of passing the Bar exam.

So if at the end of the year we miss the playoffs by three-five games you will know why.

Big Trade for Yankees

Baseball Prosepectus figured the odds of the Twins making the playoffs at about 20%. This is based upon their current record, upcoming schedule and educated projections. They ran a simulation a million times and have the Twins averaging 91 wins this season. Good, but not good enough.

The trade for Abreu boosted the Yankees chances over 14%. He is a heck of a player.

That is a bigger increase than any other scenario ran by the simualtion. Higher than even if the Twins had acquired Lee or Soriano.

20% isn't bad. It is much better than the 4% chance the Twins had at the beginning of June.

Maybe the two Sox can start choking.

Liriano scratched!!!

Liriano is having some pain and will not start tommorrow. He should miss only 1 start. Boof will probably be back to start tommorrow.

Here is the link. Let's hope it isn't more serious.

Baker

Baker improved on 1 thing tonight. He had a groundball percentage of 80% for the game. That is nice. But even though that improved he still had a very rough outing.

I really thought he would pitch much better than Silva. All of his periphials were better except his high flyball rate which turned into a lot of homeruns. I surmised about a week ago that if he started getting groundballs that he would not give up as many homeruns and would therefore be a better pitcher.

So far I am wrong. But tonight was a small sample size.

It looks good for tommorrow though. Liriano is pitching.

Punto may be the best 3rd baseman in the AL

An argument can be made that Punto is the best third baseman in the league so far. There are many good candidates and Punto is definitely in the top 5 in the AL so far this year.

Nick doesn’t have the power numbers of other third baseman but he is still having a great year with the bat .320/.399/.423. He has 0 homeruns and only 26 RBIs which is last among the top 15 AL 3rd baseman. But he is first in the league in the single most important offensive stat, OBP. He leads all third baseman in OBP. Meaning he makes less outs per plate appearance than any other third baseman. Giving the Twins a better chance to score because there are more runners on base because of Punto and because he is making less outs, rallies will continue longer because of Nick.

He also leads the league in Runs Created per 27 outs. He is ahead of Glaus and Arod who are also 2 of the better third baseman in the league. They have many more homeruns than Punto but not as high of an OBP.

He is criticized for not hitting homeruns because he plays third base. Third base is historically considered a position for sluggers. But it really should be just a position for offense over defense, unlike second and short where defense is more important than offense.

It shouldn’t matter where he plays as long as he is creating runs. Do you really want a slugging third baseman like Inge who has 20 homeruns but because of his low OBP he is creating 2 runs less per 27 outs than Punto. Do you really want a slugger at third just because it is traditional?

If you do then you probably think Colon deserved the Cy Young last year and you believe that Beckett deserves it so far this year.

It doesn’t matter how you create runs as long as you do in fact create them. Punto is doing a great job of creating runs, better than anyone in the AL.

His numbers this year are not far off of an average season for Boggs. I believe Boggs was a pretty good third baseman. An average season for Boggs is .328/.415/.443. Punto’s numbers this year are pretty close to Boggs’ 3rd season of .325/.407/.416. Not bad for Punto.

Krukie

Last night on Baseball Tonight the three analyst gave their opinion of who would win the AL wild card.

Buster Olney picked the twins because of their great pitching. That is a good point.

Phillips picked the White Sox because their pitching will eventually improve and it can't be as bad as it is now and their offense is the best in the league. I think that is another good point.

Kruk then said that it will be the Yankees or Red Sox, with the other team winning the division. Why? Because they have been there before. Yes, that is why they will make the playoffs. It isn't that the Yankess have improved pitching or that their offense is even better now with Abreu. It is because they have been there before.

I think the White Sox and Twins have been there before too. If I remember correctly the White Sox made the playoffs last year and actually won the World Series. And the previous 3 years the Twins made the playoffs too.

Based on Kruk's logic they all will tie for the wild card. That will be very exciting.