Silva Sucks

The good thing about Silva losing last night is that it tales us 1 step closer to Silva not starting in the playoffs. He will get another start again on Sunday.

I can only hope that he will give up 5 runs again. Maybe then Gardy will realize that Silva does not have what it takes to bett the Yanks.

Baker and Garza both have FIP ERAs much better than Silva's. All have high ERAs but Silva has shown that he is a consistently bad pitcher. Garza is a much better option and if Radke can't start I would even start Baker over Silva. Baker has an ERA of 6.80 but his FIP is 4.99. He pitched more when the Twins had a horrible defense and hasn't had many chances to improve on his ERA since the defense has improved.

Santana, Bonser, Radke, Garza, Baker.

Is Joe Mauer the MVP? Yes!!!

Reasons why Joe Mauer should be the AL MVP:

He is a vital player on a playoff team.

He is 7th in RC per game while playing the most difficult defensive position, catcher.

He is contending for a batting title and will probably win it. Making him the only AL catcher ever to win a batting title.

He is 3rd in the league in OBP but close to the leader.

He is 8th in the league in OPS. And again he did that while playing catcher.

His OPS is nearly .150 points better with runners in scoring position.








Reasons why Joe Mauer should not be the AL MVP:

He is last among MVP contenders in HRs and RBIs.

He may not even be the best player on his team.

He is 18th in total runs created.

Some of his production was at DH, decreasing his value some.

Jeter & Ortiz have higher VORPs than Joe.



But Joe Mauer is my MVP. To put up the numbers he has while playing catcher is spectacular. He really has no weakness. He has some power, hits for average, has patience at the plate, he is a good baserunner and is very good defensively.

I don’t think he will win the MVP because his Triple Crown numbers are low, except for average. But the stats beyond the Triple Crown are very impressive.

Is Jeter the MVP?

Reasons why Derek Jeter should be the AL MVP:

He is the best player on the best team in the league.

He is 8th in RC per game and 3rd in total runs created while playing as a shortstop.

He is contending for a batting title.

He nearly has 100 RBIs, and has done this from the 2nd spot in the lineup.

His OPS is nearly .200 points better with runners in scoring position.

He has great intangibles.







Reasons why Derek Jeter should not be the AL MVP:

He is 16th in OPS, last among all MVP candidates.

He has a lot of talent around him and the team probably still would have made the playoffs without him.

His RBIs are as much a product of his team as it is clutch hitting.

His OPS actually dips a little in Close and Late situations.

He won a Gold Glove last year but at best he is an average defensive shortstop.

Intangibles are highly over-rated. He is a great player but has always been over-rated.

Reasons why Jermaine Dye should not be the AL MVP

Reasons why Jermaine Dye should not be the AL MVP:

He was part of a team that choked down the stretch and is not going to make the playoffs.

He has a high OPS but is only 12th in the league in OBP.

He has high Triple Crown numbers but is not close to leading the league in any of them. Ortiz beats him in HR & RBIs, Morneau beats him in Avg and RBIs.

He is 5th in the league in Runs Created per out which is great but Jeter and Mauer, who play more important defensive roles are right on his heels.

Twin's clinch

The Twins won last night 8-1 and Cleveland beat Chicago 14-1. The magic number is now zero. That means the Twins are in the playoffs, probably as the wildcard team.

I don't think the Twins should do anything too stupid to catch the Tigers. Take it easy and set up your playoff rotation. They will probably have to play the Yankees. That's OK the Twins are as good as the Yankees, but anything can happen ion a short series.

Magic Number

I am pretty busy this week so I will get to the MVP discussion, but not today.

The Twin's magic number is 2 with a week to go. They are 1.5 games behind Detroit and will make it 1 game if they win today.

If they tie Detroit, Detroit wins the division. So the Twins are actually 2.5 games back.

Winning the division would be nice but making the playoffs after the start the Twins had is good enough for me.

Why Jermaine Dye should be MVP.

Reasons why Jermaine Dye should be the AL MVP:

He is on a playoff contending team and is one of the best players on the team.

He is in the top 10 in the Triple Crown stats. He is 7th in average, 2nd in homeruns and 3rd in RBI’s.

He is 3rd in the league with an OPS of 1.025. He is 2nd in the league with a SLG of .637

He is the best offensive RF in the league and defensively he is a former Gold Glove winner who may have lost a step but still has a great arm.

He has been a quality hitter with runners in scoring position with an OPS of 1.185 and only has a slight drop in close and late situations.

Why Morneau shouldn't be MVP

Con arguments against Justin as the MVP:


1. He is in the top 10 in the Triple Crown stats but he is only 19th in the stat most correlated to scoring runs, OBP

2. Jermaine Dye and ARod have more homeruns than Justin and nearly as many RBIs.

3. Dye has an OPS of 1.020 and Justin’s is .948. And Dye plays a more difficult and important defensive position.

4. Justin may be the best offensive player on his team he arguably is the 3rd most valuable player on the Twins behind Mauer and Santana.

Anther good sports weekend

The Vikes won, Chicago was swept and The Twins took 3 out of 4 to remain 1 game back from Detroit. All in all, a pretty good sports weekend.

The only loss came from a poor Santana start, but the Twins came back in that one, only to lose a close one.

Baker and Silva pitched very well over the weekend. Both had quality starts.

The Twins start a series with Boston tomorrow. The real news is that Detroit plays Chicago tonight.

It’s tough to know who to root for. If Chicago loses the Twins have a better chance of making the playoffs. If Detroit loses the Twins have a better chance of winning the division and getting some home field advantage in the playoffs.

It’s a win-win situation.

Dick was talking about Punto possibly winning a Gold Glove. Usually I think of that as hyperbole but he really made some amazing plays over the weekend. And nothing gets down the line on him. He won’t win it but I think he is the only Twin deserving of a Gold Glove.


On to another topic.

How bad of an announcer is Bill Maas? I am going to start keeping better track of the stupid things the announcers say. I hate it when I know the rules better than the “expert” or I can see the obvious that they don’t understand.

Bill kept saying that Gamble had to have thrown that lateral on his own. No. For one thing I don’t believe any player would just throw the ball away. For another thing the Panthers had a player running back towards the where Gamble was trying to throw it. Punt teams don’t normally do that. Obviously, it was a planned play.

He also thought it was an illegal touch to touch the ball while a player’s feet were in the endzone. What?!?!

Arguments for Morneau as the MVP.

The first player I will examine in the MVP race is Justin Morneau. He has improved so much this and is a big reason the Twins had such a large turnaround since their dismal start. As he heated up the Twins heated up.

Pro arguments for Justin:

1. He has been very durable and has only missed 5 games this season. He has played in over 80 games in a row.

2. He is in the top 10 in the Triple Crown stats. He is 5th in average, 10th in homeruns and 2nd in RBIs.

3. He is the best offensive first baseman in the league. He has the highest VORP (value over replacement player) at 1st, in the league at 52.3. Defensively he does not hurt the team. He is 2nd in Zone rating but last with 8 errors at first but the difference between first and last is only 5 errors. That is a de minimis amount.

4. He is the best offensive player on a playoff team.

5. He has performed adequately in the clutch. He is a better hitter with runners in scoring position and hit about the same in Close & Late situations. Which is difficult to do since batters are facing the teams best pitchers in those situations.

Daily Picks

The picks today have the 1st 80%. I hope that works.

Toronto 80.2% -260
Arizona 68.3% -175
Chicago Sox 61.1% -115
Cincinnati 58.2% -150
NY Mets 57.8% -175
LA Angels 55.6% -130
Minnesota 54.7% -270
Philadelphia 54.5% 120
Washington 50.4% -125

Daily Pick

Yesterday was much better w/ a 9-2 record. But 1 high percentage pick lost.

NY Yankees 68.5% -320
Kansas City 67.6% 110
Minnesota 59.2% -115
Cincinnati 54.1% -125
Colorado 54.0% 170
Philadelphia 52.1% 115

KC, Colorado & Philly all seem to be good bets today.

Bad News

The Twins lost 1-0. Morneau made a very dumb baserunning play trying to stretch a single to a double. I did not see it but I am told that it wasn't even close.

The worst news is that Liriano is hurt again. There is some talk of "Tommy John" surgery but we don't know for sure yet.

If it is Tommy John surgery it means he will miss all of next year but will come back as good as or better than before. Otherwise I expect him back next spring. We just don't know yet.

Ths Sox gained a game on the Twins but the Tigers lost. No ground was gained there. The Twins are still at an 80% chance of making the playoffs. So don't lose hope.

Daily Pick

Yesterday was the worst day yet. But don't be afraid to bet on the 70% or greater.

Today's picks.

#2Milwaukee 77.2% -135
Minnesota 74.4% -165
Cleveland 71.9% -210
Colorado 61.7% 127
LA Dodgers 57.4% -173
Baltimore 56.5% -126
San Diego 56.1% -140
Houston 55.4% -138
#1Pittsburgh 54.7% 105
NY Mets 52.6% -105
Atlanta 52.3% -115
Chicago Sox 50.8% 105
Detroit 50.2% -126

MVP RaCE

There has been a lot of talk of the MVP lately. I think the best 4 candidates are Morneau, Mauer, Jeter & Dye. Over the next few days I will talk of each players pros & cons on why they should be considered for MVP.

Some of the players I am leaving off who are also deserving are Ramirez, Ortiz, Hafner & Sizemore. Part of the reason is that they are not on playoff teams. This is something that I don’t really subscribe to, but for the sake of argument I will now. Ortiz is a DH and though Ramirez is a great hitter he plays the OF like he is a DH.

It is hard for me to give the MVP to a DH. I do think Hafner would be deserving of it if Cleveland was in the playoff race and if he hadn’t gotten injured. He has 42 HRs and 117 RBIs and he is hitting 0.308/0.439/0.659/1.097. That is a stellar season.

I am also leaving Santana out of the discussion. Pitchers have their own award and while I think a pitcher can be an MVP he has to be head and shoulders above everyone else. Meaninig Santana would have to have an ERA around 2.00 for me to vote for him for MVP

Daily Pick

The Pick is somewhat time consuming so from now on I will just post the System's picks. At the end of the season I will give a rundown of how the System is doing.

So far if you had bet all of the System's 60% or better picks you would have made money. But under 60% the money losses are large.

Here are today's pick. The Yanks are the highest favorites so far.

NY Yankees 78.1% -250
LA Dodgers 73.5% -155
Cleveland 65.6% -210
Minnesota 61.7% -127
Arizona 59.3% -155
Chicago Sox 59.2% 106
Houston 56.3% -102
Texas 55.5% 125
Florida 55.4% -118
San Diego 52.5% -120
Toronto 52.3% 114

2 wins in 1 night.

The Vikes won and the Twins won. What a great night for sports in MN. Silva pitched another good game. That was good to see, or was it.

There is talk of him being the 3rd pitcher in the playoffs because Gardy said this about Silva "He's got a track record of getting people out.” Does he really?

No. He has a career ERA of 4.34 which is respectable. But that includes a lot of luck last year. That luck has turned on him this year to give him an ERA over 6.

His track record this year is that he can’t get people out. The OPS against him is .930. He makes everyone facing him look like Vlad Guerrero.

Do we want that going into the playoffs? No, unless the Twins face Oakland. I had a theory yesterday that Silva may actually pitch well against Oakland because they are such a patient team. Because he throws strikes he would get ahead of hitters.

I don’t know if that is true but it seemed to be yesterday.

I am still not on the Silva bandwagon but it is good that he is pitching well down the stretch.

The Twins are now 1.5 games out first and have a 1.5 game lead over Chicago in the wild card race. The have over an 80% chance of making the playoffs.

2 Back

The Twins are only 2 out of the division lead. And now Chicago is 1.5 games behind the Twins. Santana is looking great. He is 6-0 w/ a 1.25 ERA in his last 7 games. Things are looking great.

I feel very good about the Twins chances of winning the division and feel even better about making the playoffs in any way. But we must remember the Twins are closer to Chicago, and dropping out of the playoffs than they are to winning the division.

I still like their chances. Before yesterdays game Baseball Prospectus had the Twins with an 11% chance of winning the division and a total of a 67% chance of making the playoffs. Those numbers have gone up since yesterday. The Tigers are still have an 87% chance of making the playoffs. But it is dropping.

The Twins face Oakland this week and Liriano will return on Wednesday. But Silva is still in the rotation. Here are the matchups.
Mon. 11 Silva (8-13) Blanton (15-10)
Tue. 12 Guerrier (0-0) Saarloos (7-7)
Wed. 13 Liriano (12-3) Haren (13-11)


Then we face Cleveland. They are playing better and are still a good team, though they just lost their best hitter in Hafner.

Do you realize that there are only 6 series left?

Daily Pick

Saturday I went 2-3 and was -50 units. So I am 37-39 and +50. The system was 6-8 for a total of 57-43.

Daily Pick
LAD +112
MN +113
And betting against the system (only slightly) and taking Cle +130


The System

Colorado 60.4% -131
Arizona 56.1% -101
LA Dodgers 55.5% 112
Minnesota 53.8% 113
Philadelphia 51.3% 104
Chicago Sox 50.9% -140 Cle +130

Detroit Series

Tonight: Justin Verlander (15-7, 3.27) vs. Scott Baker (4-7, 6.55)
Friday: Wilfredo Ledezma (2-2, 2.38) vs. Matt Garza (1-4, 5.88)
Saturday: Nate Robertson (12-11, 3.93) vs. Boof Bonser (4-5, 4.83)
Sunday: Jeremy Bonderman (11-7, 4.02) vs. Johan Santana (17-5, 2.84)

The System picks for the series areas follows:
Minnesota 53.8%
Minnesota 59.2%
Minnesota 56.2%
Minnesota 53.9%

I have the Twins as the favorite for every game. With their best chance on Friday night. A sweep would be great but 3 out of 4 is very doable. A split is probable but would be disappointing.

The match-up that surprises me is the first one. But you have to remember that my system looks way beyond ERA in picking its winners. This is a good test of the System.

Silva pitched great.

Pat Neshek finally blew a save and had a bad outing. It wasted a fine performance by Silva who threw six shutout innings. How the Rays only managed 1 hit off of Silva I’ll never know. This is the same Silva who has been horrible all year who just pitched the best game of the year. I guess even a blind squirrel finds a nut sometimes.

I guess this will give Gardy reason to start Silva the rest of the season, no matter how bad he stinks over his next few starts.

The bullpen finally blew a game. That happens to the best of them. But Neshek has now given up 5 homeruns. That is quite a bit for a guy who has only pitched 27 innings. The good news is that he has a homerun per flyball rate of 21 %. That is the highest on the Twins.

The normal rate is about 12%. Over time this stat tends to equalize towards 12%. So it could be that he has been getting a little unlucky up to this point. It should improve. Even with all of those homeruns he has still pitched well with an ERA of 2.33. But his peripherals give him a FIP of 3.79. But his XFIP is a very respectable 2.61. XFIP equalizes his normal peripherals with the fact that he has given an inordinate amount of HR/F.

The amazing thing is that the Twins only scored 2 runs off of Hammel. He now has a 5.61 ERA and a FIP of 5.77. On the face of it he has not pitched well. But after a Garza like first start he has improved and pitched OK since then. So 2 runs is bad but he seems to be a better pitcher than his stats show.

There is a big 4 game series this weekend against Detroit starting tonight with Verlander vs Baker.

Don’t miss it.

Bad umpiring part II

That looked like a homerun last night by Cuddy. He was robbed. It ended up not making a difference in the game but it does hurt his stats.

The biggest problem is that the umpires missed a fairly easy call. The kid was in the stands with his glove head high and tried catching a ball that hit his glove and popped out and fell back onto the field. It looked to be an easy homerun call. No, the umps blew another easy one.

It angers me that 4 men could not have seen that. It wasn't even close.

The worst part is that because the umps blew the call the kid was thrown out for reaching over the railing. The kid was hosed worse than Cuddy.

Daily Pick

Yesterday I went 2-2 and was -5 units. So I am 35-36 and +103. The system was 6-5 for a total of 51-35.

Mets -134
TB +105
Min +150
Cubs +135
KC +145

The System
NY Mets 71.7% -134
Toronto 69.7% -165
Tampa Bay 65.5% 105
Milwaukee 60.5% -126
Minnesota 59.5% 150
San Diego 59.5% -185
Chicago Cubs 58.8% 135
Philadelphia 56.6% -135
Kansas City 55.3% 145
Oakland 55.3% -185
Texas 54.6% -117
Detroit 53.3% -165
LA Dodgers 52.7% -175
Arizona 52.4% -120

Bad umpires

Umpires make a lot of mistakes and miss a lot of close calls and make bad calls in the strikezone. It affects both teams and I can live with it. Some calls are often so close it is difficult to determine the correct call with instant replay. It makes easy to understand why they might miss calls.

What I can't stand is when the umpire decides to become a disruption in the game. If a player is annoyed or shows him up it is not the umpires job to follow him to the dugout and start a confrontation. The ump should be doing his best to diffuse the situation. The umps are not the stars, I am not at a game to watch a damn ump. I am there to see the players he just threw out of the game.

I want some accountability.


Did anyone see the 1st base ump in the Hou/Mil game last night? Tim Timmons basically made himself part of the game. I am tired of umps like that. I think he is the same ump who blew a call at third and ended up ejecting Punto & Gardy.

They have union so it is difficult to fine/suspend them, but we fine the players and they have a union too.

There has to be some accountability with umpires too. Fines and suspension are fair when they initiate the conflict or follow a player and egg him on. Umps like Timmons should be fined and suspended often. He seems to have a chip on his shoulder the size of my ass. It needs to be removed.

Nevin Trade

The Twins traded for Phil Nevin. He is a 35 year old right hander who plays first on the corner outfield positions, though none of them well. But it doesn’t really matter since he will be playing DH.

DH is by far the Twin’s weakest position. Here is the line for the Twin’s DH’s .263/.310/.364 OPS .674 RC/g is 3.55. Seattle is the only team nearly as bad with their DH’s creating 3.82 runs per game.

All the DH position needs to do is hit and it should hit better than most other positions in the lineup. Yet with the Twins even their SS and catchers hit better then their DH. It is a big reason why they are a ½ game behind right now.

Nevin is a good late season fix. He is not the hitter he once was but he has some pop in his bat. Nevin’s career .271/.343/.474 and an OPS of .817.

This year he is doing OK. He is hitting .245/.321/.456 with an OPS of .777. The OPS is 100 points higher than their DH’s are doing now. That is quite an improvement. Also, his RC/G is 4.71. It is over a run higher than the Twins are doing now.

It may be too little too late though. Since he will be only playing, at most, 30 more games his addition won’t make much of a difference. He is projected to create about 5 more runs than the current DH’s which is about a ½ a win.

Still it is a good trade for the Twins. He is a much needed player for the weakest position on their team.

Daily Pick

Yesterday I went 1-1. I am learning which games are better picks than others. I should not have bet on Baltimore yesterday just because they were a 110 underdog number, I had them as a very slight favorite and 110 is not that large of a bet. So I am 33-34 and +108. The system was 4-3 for a total of 45-30.

Daily Pick
Mil -135
Det -135
Bal +110
Cle +130

System Picks

Chicago Sox 65.9% -180
LA Dodgers 65.2% -160
Milwaukee 64.9% -135
NY Yankees 63.0% -175
St. Louis 62.6% -230
Detroit 59.4% -135
Baltimore 56.7% 110
Philadelphia 56.6% -140
San Diego 55.5% -125
Cleveland 54.8% 130
Arizona 52.5% -120
Houston 51.9% 105
Tampa Bay 51.6% -110