Silva's option

The Twins have an option to sign Silva to a $4.3 million contract. Don't do it.

Silva is a pitcher who had 1 lucky year 2 years ago. They should have traded him then, when he had value. Any time a non-k pitcher has a good year trade him. He will mostly likely never repeat that season again.

I would take bets that Wang's ERA will be much higher next season, closer to 5 than 4.
Silva is the worst kind of pitcher, a flyball pitcher who can't strike anyone out. There is no reason to keep him on the team.

Even if he has naked pictures of Ryan and Gardy it is not worth keeping him around. Even if he was paid the league minimum I would not keep him.
The combination of young pitchers the Twins have will not perform worse than Silva and will do so at 1/10 th price.

He may be the nicest guy in the world but nice is not a stat that can be measured. And I don't think being nice prevents any runs from being scored.

Also, signing Torii was not the worst thing the Twins could have done. There is no guarantee they could have signed 1 of the quality centerfielders who are available. He is overpaid but would you want to go into next season w/ Tyner and/or Ford as your centerfielder option?

Off season

I won't be posting much during the off season. Only if big news happens and during awards periods.

I may be working on few studies too.

Its over

What an ending. In the words of Bart Simpson it was “craptacular”.

It was a bad ending to a great season. What a season it was. With the wonderful turnaround in June after getting rid of dead weight the Twins ended up winning the division but then were swept in the playoffs.

They couldn’t have looked much worse doing it either.

They played bad defense and made many errors and a huge mental error by Torii.

They played poor offense. They showed no patience at the plate and often got themselves out. It doesn’t show but Morneau did hit the ball very good all series. They only got 1 hit with runners in scoring position in 3 games and hit 4 solo homeruns.

They pitched very good but not quite good enough.

They did not do the “little things” well. And they have done the “little things” well since Gardy began managing this team. They couldn’t bunt when they wanted to and shouldn’t have bunted or stolen at times they did. Castillo was caught stealing in the 1st game and Tori bunted with no out and a runner on second. He was one of the Twins’ hottest hitters down the stretch. He should be the last person bunting when it is so obvious the Twins need to score runs.

Gardy made some poor decisions, mostly with his bullpen. He did not use his best relievers in high leverage situations.

I don’t know if he gets the team ready mentally. Every playoff series the Twins play the Twins look absolutely lost in the field and at the plate. Even the series they won in 2002 they made tons of mistakes. I think this is something that needs to be looked into.

With all of that being said anything can happen in a short series. Even the worst team has a fair chance to beat the best team. So 2 evenly matched teams can easily have a sweep, it happens.

It was still a great and fun season to watch.

Here is to a great run this year and an even better run next year.

Cheers.

Torii

He tries too hard. He had no chance at the ball yesterday and yet he still dives for it and let it get past him. It was a huge mistake. It was unexcusable to take that chance in that situation.

There were 2 outs and a runner on first. He was already playing a very deep outfield so that an extra base hit can be cutoff easier so the runner on first won't score. So it is already iin his head that he should keep any balls hit in frontof him.

In this situation he just needed to stop the ball from getting past him, the out was secondary. It as a huge mental gaff.

If it was a physical mistake it would be easier to swallow. If he was just unable to get to a ball in the gap it would have been easier to understand. But this was dumb.

Then he is up in the next inning. I knew he would try to hard to win the game with 1 swing of the bat. All the pitcher had to do was keep the ball out of the strikezone. Torii swung and missed on all 3 pitces, the last one was 3 feet outside.

Don't try so damn hard. If you are going to try hard at something try to do something with value like try to be patient at the plate.

The Twins have won 3 in a row many times this season and Oakland has lost 3 in a row also. It can happen. The odds are slim but don't give up yet. The Twins have beaten longer odds already this season.

Joke of the day

What do you to do an elephant with 3 balls?

Read comments for the answer.

Relax

It’s just 1 game. Sure it would have been great to the first game, but winning it doesn’t guarantee anything. It was a typical 1 run game where 1 team gets a bloop hit that leads to a run and the other team hits a few balls hard that are outs.

It happens.

People are saying that Zito pitched a great game. There is a fine line between pitching a good game and not hitting well. It is a chicken and egg situation.

Santana actually pitched better than Zito but Oakland took advantage of the bad pitches that Santana made while the Twins flailed away at balls outside the strikezone and missed pitches that should have been hit hard.

The Twins offense failed in this game. The 3-4-5 hitters only got 1 hit and it was a Metrodome triple. It would be easy to blame Gardy for some of his managerial mistakes but it is the offense which really caused the loss.

Gardy may have had a hand in that though. The key spot in the 1st was when Punto swung at some bad pitches and made an out when he should have walked. And Castillo was caught stealing.

Zito was all over the place. Stealing there was not a high percentage play. Gardy said Luis has the “green light” and thought that Zito would throw a curve in that spot. Gardy should have given him the red light when he saw that Zito did not have command of his pitches.

The Twins should have been more patient. Zito had walked 99 men in during the season. That is second in the league and twice as many as Santana. You know this going into the game so show some damn patience. Too many Twins swung at bad pitches in hitter’s counts. Causing the Twins to either make and out or getting another strike.

At one point in the game 50% of Zito’s pitches were balls. The Twins should have drawn 6 walks that game. That is the hitter’s fault and maybe the coaching staff’s fault. That is when the coaches should get on the hitters to be more patient. 43% of his pitches were balls. And many of the strikes were balls too.

1 more mistake was not bringing in Nathan in the 9th. The game is 2-1 and this is the most important inning of the game. It has to stay close to have a chance. Since it is a home game Nathan will not get a chance to get a save so it is important now to pitch him in high leverage situations. With Thomas up and a close game there is no other more important spot in the game. Bring in Nathan.

I like Crain but he is not the same pitcher as Nathan. Neshek would have been a good choice also, even for 1 batter.

The good thing Gardy did was to put his best lineup out there. It was very good that he had White and Nevin in the lineup.

All is not over for the Twins. Oakland really has a miserable offense against righthanders and if they pitch more carefully to Thomas, i.e. no more off speed stuff high and inside, the Twins should be fine.

Thomas is there only threat, don’t let him beat you. If the count is 3-1 don’t pitch a strike.

Pitching Matchups

Pitching matchups, games 3 and 4 still have a question about who is pitching.

Santana vs Zito:
Santana is the best pitcher in baseball, but the A’s are a 1run better against lefties than righties. I do think it is still a good matchup for Johan. I believe his control will work against the A’s.
The Twins are slightly worse against lefties but Zito has a FIP 1 run higher than his ERA. He really did not pitch that well this season. Also, he is an extreme flyball pitcher while the Twins are an extreme groundball hitting team. This favors the Twins.

Huge edge to the Twins.

Bonser vs Loaiza:
Bonser has pitched much better down the stretch. His FIP is about 4.5. The A’s are much worse against righthanders and if Boof can keep the ball down and in the strikezone he should do well.
Loaiza has also pitched much better after the all-star break and he has a respectable FIP of 4.17. But the Twins do better against righthanders than the A’s do.

Edge Twins.

Harden v Radke:
Both pitchers have been injured this season so it is difficult to know how good they both are. Both have similar stats and pitched better after the all star break. Harden is probably the better pitcher but again the Twins have a better offense against righties than Oakland does.
Since both will be watched carefully from the dugout the Twins may have the edge because of t heir better and deeper bullpen.

Slight Edge Twins

Haren v Silva:
As above the Haren is the better pitcher but the Twins have a better offense. Haren has a much better FIP than Silva and Silva really is bad. But I think Silva matches up well against Oakland because he is always around the strikezone. His stats are slightly better against Oakland this year.

Slight Edge Oakland

AL Preview

The system has the Twins as big favorite tommorrow. It has them w/ a nearly 70% chance of winning.

If the Twins were playing NewYork it would be the Yankees at a 52% favorite.

I think winning the division will pay off.

The Yankees are only 56% over Detroit.

I have the Twins at a 23% chance of sweeping, 53% chance of winning in 4 and 67% in 5 games.

I have the Yankees at a 23% chance of sweeping, 52% chance of winning in 4 and 56% in 5 games.

Detroit has a decent chance of beating the Yankees!!!

These numbers are based upon the pitching probables on ESPN.com.

Central Division champs

It is the latest ever that a team has taken over first place without being in first place at any point in the season.

It was a truly amazing turn of events. The Twins were down 12 games at one point in the season with 2 teams ahead of them. Then they take 1 of 3 on a weekend series while the Tigers are playing the last place team, unbelievably!!!

I didn't see much of the Twins this weekend, I was out of town at a wedding. So I can't say too much about the games specifically.

The Twins will be playing the A's in the day games this week. We get screwed because NY gets all of th enight games. Couldn't they mix it up a bit?

Oh, Mauer also became the first Catcher ever to lead the league in batting!!!