The free-agent market officially opened last week, heralded in by a flurry of important signings that could truly change the game. Or a general malaise, one of the two, I forget which.
Anyone who studies market trends in baseball can tell you that a high volume of deals get done as the windows are are closing, not opening. Deals will get done between now and well into spring training as teams try to patch holes without creating new ones and without taking on an ungodly amount of salary. The same is true with the trade deadline; sure, players get moved early in the season, but the last week of July is lousy with players flying from one team to the other. Perhaps if the windows were smaller there would be more action. GMs bidding like floor traders, elbowing each other out of the way to talk to key agents, eventually a huge fight breaks out in the lobby of the Indianapolis Omni hotel with winning getting the right to sign Jason Bay for too much money.
As much as I’d like to see the Twins go after a pitcher next, the rumblings I’ve heard are that they are still interested in the infield. I certainly can’t blame them, there are puzzles aplenty in there, so with one of the seasons’ hot trade targets already in the fold, let’s check out the other.
Dan Uggla may best be remembered for his 2008 All-Star Game appearance in which he committed three errors and went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts and a GIDP, but that’s certainly a far cry from his usual performance. A career .243/.344/.482 hitter, the soon to be 30 year old second baseman has been largely overshaddowed by his double-play mate, one Hanley Ramirez. Still, Uggla has been an above average hitter in each of the last four seasons, hitting more than 25 home runs every season he’s been in the majors and never posting an OPS below .800. His EqA—a measure of his total offensive contribution, prorated by league difficulty, home park, and opposing pitching—has never dipped below the league average mark of .260, meaning he’s always been an offensive asset irrespective of position. When positional factors are taken into account, he’s worth about the same number of wins as Orlando Hudson, Nelson Cruz, and Aramis Ramirez, not at all a bad company to be in.
Last season, Uggla’s numbers fell off a little bit, dropping from .260/.360/.514 to. 243/.354/.459 due in no small part to a regression in his batting average on balls in play–from .320 in 2008 to .274 last year. That figure was never going to stay that high, so a drop in batting average should have been expected. One thing that bodes well for Uggla is that he kept his on-base percentage at almost the same level even with the drop in BA. His strikeouts were down both in relative (27.6% to 22.5%) and absolute terms (171 to 150) and his walk rate jumped from 12.4% to 13.8%.
One major concern I have about Uggla is his home/road split. His home park is a bit of a launching pad, one of the most hitter friendly in the majors in fact, and Uggla is a bit of a product of that. His home line—.251/.386/.513—is good for an OPS+ 21 points above average, or loosely as good as Matt Kemp and Denard Span were over the full season. His away numbers—.235/.321/.408—turned him into Pedro Feliz or Miguel Cairo, 20 points below average. Over his career, the same split exists, though it’s smaller—just 10 points.
I would be more concerned about that split if it were lower across the board, that is, if his away line was .200/.291/.360, I’d be prepared to pass no matter the price. As it stands, even if his away line becomes his overall stats, he’d still be better than any of the hitters the Twins had batting second last season. Additionally, with the addition of JJ Hardy (who has batted second in the order for almost his entire career), Uggla will probably bat seventh or eighth in the order. His power is legitimate wherever he’s playing, he hit 13 no doubt home runs this season, good for 3rd in the NL.
If the Twins aren’t really in need of a marquee hitter, which since the next hitter they acquire will be their 6th hitter at best, then they need to be looking at defense as much as offense. Uggla’s is…enigmatic.
According to UZR, Uggla’s four full seasons have produced lines of 6.9, -9.3, 1.6, and -10.1; Baseball Prospectus’ FRAA (Fielding Runs Above Average) is a little more stable: 5, -19,-2,-1, at least stable enough to draw conclusions from. Uggla is well above replacement level, but below average overall. While he isn’t the guy who made three errors in the All-Star Game, he’s not making anyone forget Joe Morgan. He was close to Alexi Casilla’s level this year, but he is clearly a much better hitter, and thus has a much higher overall value.
If the Twins do bring in Uggla, it will be with the knowledge that he’s a passable defender at second, but hoping that he hits well enough to justify being in there (and having Nick Punto at third base, another consequence of adding a player at second.)
So what we have is a great offensive player whose production will decline because of a switch to the AL and may decline even more if his home/road splits hold up, and whose defense isn’t going to be there to help cushion the fall. Does that mean the Twins shouldn’t look at Uggla? Not necessarily, but they need to understand that they won’t be getting the player who hit .243/.354/.482, and while he may not fall off precipitously, it’s much more likely that he’ll stay on the low side of his career numbers rather than rebound. This is why the increase in walk rate is so critical—plate discipline isn’t something that varies by league.
If he were a free agent, looking only for money and a place to play, I’d be a lot more eager to acquire him. However, not only will Florida be looking for a good return for their two-time All-Star, Uggla will also be looking for a raise during arbitration. He made $5.35 Million in his first year of arbitration and will almost certainly make 1-2 more this season, which would put the Twins to around $80 Million (assuming, perhaps unfairly, that Uggla is acquired and no one from the 25 man roster heads the other way). I can’t imagine payroll going too much higher than that, and, as I’ve noted before, the Twins need to address their rotation. If they feel they can get Carl Pavano back for 2-3 million plus incentives (unlikely), perhaps they could add both he and Uggla, but if they want to pursue Rich Harden, Ben Sheets, or even (heaven forbid it) Jarrod Washburn, they probably will not have the flexibility to accommodate Uggla’s arbitration raise. As previously noted, removing one or more members from the 25-man roster would change these numbers a bit, but if, say Perkins and Casilla, were heading to South Florida, the money saved wouldn’t cover even the raise Uggla was due, let alone his entire contract.
I’m not opposed to Uggla as a player, and for a team like the Cubs, he could make a lot of sense. However, given that Uggla’s arrival would signal not only a jettisoning of a possibly useful player or two in a trade, but also an inability to bring in a high quality pitcher or third baseman, I just don’t see it being the best move for the Twins right now. Should a pitcher join Uggla on his trip north, however, that would change the calculus of this deal substantially.
For years, the BBWAA picks for the Cy Young Awards and MVP were the subject of incredible scorn, especially among the sabermetric community. The 2005 AL Cy Young, for example, saw Bartolo Colon, armed with a 21-8 record, beat Johan Santana despite being subordinate to him in every category besides wins—three wins worse according to Baseball Prospectus’ Wins Above Replacement Player. Every team has their example, every year seems to bring new controversy, but 2009 seems to have been a big step in the right direction.
Zack Greinke netted the AL Cy Young, despite winning just 16 games, the lowest win totals for a Cy Young winner since 1994. There was some controversy over the NL award, but that was a choice among three deserving candidates, someone had to lose.
The BBWAA’s strong year continued Monday with the selection of Joe Mauer as the American League’s Most Valuable Player.
When I wrote about Mauer’s candidacy in mid-August, the primary argument against Mauer was that he didn’t play for a winning team. Had the season ended there, there would have been a big argument over whether Mauer’s superior numbers for a team that finished below .500 and in third place in a comparatively weaker division would be enough to propel him ahead of Mark Teixeira or Derek Jeter, who played a key role on a superior squad.
Fortunately for the Twins, that argument was done in by two months of solid play led by Mauer’s strong close to the season. With friend and fellow All-Star Justin Morneau on the pine, Mauer closed the season with a .391/.449/.652 line in August and .354/.471/.487 in September and a few games in October, simultaneously making the Twins a winning team and showing himself to be a clutch performer.
Philosophical arguments aside, Mauer was nothing short of dominant. He won the slash stat triple crown, boasting the highest batting average (.365), On-base percentage (.444), and slugging percentage (.587) in the AL, with only Albert Pujols’ and Prince Fielder’s slugging percentage preventing him from the major league mark. In the last 70 years, this has only been done nine times. Of those nine, seven were achieved by a first baseman, a left fielder, or a right fielder (hat tip to Ken Funck at Baseball Prospectus). Just twice coming into the season had an up-the-middle player hit anything approaching this well. Add in his 28 home runs, best among catchers, and 19.2% OBI%[percentage of runners on-base ahead of him that he successfully drove in], and it’s easy to see just how big a role he played in the Twins’ success.
But traditional stats can paint false pictures, perhaps advanced metrics will reveal Mauer’s flaw.
It looks as though Ben Zobrist won FanGraphs’ Wins Above Replacement crown at first blush, except that Joe Mauer gets no credit for his defense, since the defensive component of WAR (Ultimate Zone Rating or UZR) doesn’t categorize catchers. Giving Mauer credit for even average defense would push him over the top there.
Baseball Prospectus’ Value over Replacement Player has Mauer just a tick behind Albert Pujols and well ahead of the rest of the field, 20 runs ahead of Jeter and close to double Teixeira’s contribution. Tex chipped in a few more Equivalent Runs, but Mauer’s Equivalent Average was much, much higher. Among position players, Mauer ran away with the AL WARP-1 crown, though he did finish behind Zack Greinke. (To be honest, there’s a debate to be had as to whether Mauer or Greinke was more valuable to his team, a question that just isn’t salient when the players are Mauer and…any other player in the AL.)
When positional considerations are included, Mauer blows away the rest of the field. His contributions in terms of controlling a young pitching staff and adjusting to an uncharacteristically unsettled rotation are just two of the things that make catching uniquely difficult. The fact that other positions don’t have to deal with these issues shouldn’t take away from players like Jeter and Teixeira, but it is something that makes Mauer that much more valuable to his team.
I would love to tell you that this was a close vote, or that there are a lot of things that make this a difficult decision, and if the voters would actually vote for pitchers. Between Mauer and Greinke, I’m inclined to say that Mauer is still the MVP, but I’m certainly willing to hear arguments to the contrary. Irrespective, the voters have made it abundantly clear that a pitcher’s place is not in the MVP voting. In a battle between Joe Mauer and the rest of the position players in the American League, it just isn’t close.
The voters got this one right, continuing their strong showing in 2009, Joe Mauer truly is the American League’s Most Valuable Player
That’s right folks today is this blog’s second birthday. It’s hard to believe how fast two years has gone by, but MVB is still one of the newer Twins blogs out there.
Two years ago I started Twins MVB and was blogging about Torii Hunter’s arrival to the Anaheim Angels and where Johan Santana would land? Last year’s post was Justin Morneau missing out on the MVP award and wondering who would play shortstop and thirdbase? Today is will Joe Mauer win the MVP and, although shortstop is taken care of, we’re still wondering who will play thirdbase?
The game of baseball is ever changing but there are always exciting reasons to follow the game and be a Twins fan. That’s really the best part of blogging about my favorite team. The Twins have a quality club, some truly amazing players (see Joe Mauer winning the MVP tomorrow), and the excitement of a new ballpark.
Over 18,000 people visited Twins MVB in the past year and I want to thank you all. I try to continually improve the blog and I’m always open for suggestions and feedback. I’m excited for another year of running this blog and with the addition of Dan Wade to the team along with Dain TePoel and I there will certainly be good Twins content to read.
Here are early photos from the official Twins Twitter account of the uniform/logo unveiling at the IDS Tower today. This is the Twins press release describing all the changes for 2010. Also, the pro shop online is already updated to start ordering the new jerseys.
My initial thoughts is that I really like the alternate home jerseys. It’s like straight out of 1965 with Harmon Killebrew and Tony Oliva. These white pinstripe uni’s will be worn on Saturday home games as well as the Target Field Home Opener on April 12.
I’m not sure if I’m thrilled about the away uniform yet. It kind of feels like the Washington Nationals current away uniform, but I guess if we’re going retro it should echo similarities to the Nationals. I am happy about the change to the TC cap with the red bill for the away games (see Scott Baker above). The Twins will no longer wear the cap with the plain “M” on it.
The above two pictures are from the Twins pro shop online. You can already get your gear for Target Field today!
What are you initial thoughts on the uniforms? Leave you comment in the comments section.
If this doesn’t get you excited for the season I don’t know what does!
If it feels like we’ve been in this bunker before, we have. Almost every year for the last 3-4 years, either Jarrod Washburn, his agent, or the Twins’ front office makes some noise about the LaCrosse native playing closer to home and fans are forced to duck and cover.
You can forgive fans for being a little gunshy here, as Washburn has almost never been both a) available and b) a good idea. He’s certainly been one or the other at various points in his career, but the Angels had him locked down for the best years of his career, and he’s been fairly available since his long decline began.
Perhaps you can forgive the front office for thinking that these two states have aligned for the first time ever, making Washburn a great pitcher to add and a free agent with ties to the area, but color me skeptical.
2009 was a tale of two seasons for Washburn, his first four months with Seattle and his nightmare eight starts with the Tigers. In Seattle, Washburn was solid. He went 8-6 with a 2.64 ERA and a 1.07 WHIP, both extremely good numbers. He was boasting a career best K/BB and a career low HR/9. Not only were his hits allowed were down, the balls that did fall in weren’t hit particularly hard; his slugging against was a career low .334. As a flyball pitcher who is home run prone, Washburn’s batting average allowed on balls in play has always been below average, but in 2009, it was low even for him, .245 where league average is between .280 and .300. Of the 20 starts he made for the Mariners, 15 of them were Quality Starts.
Seattle knew he’d be a free agent and traded him at his peak value. July was Washburn’s best month, going 4-1, allowing just seven runs, three home runs, striking out 19 and walking just eight. He was AL pitcher of the month, and Detroit snapped him up.
His time in with the Tigers was so bad, you’d think the Mariners dressed up Carlos Silva in Washburn’s uni and tricked the Tigers into taking him. He gave up 11 runs in his first 11 innings, and things hardly improved from there. In his eight starts with the Tigers, Washburn went 1-3 with a 7.33 ERA and a 1.56 WHIP, his K/BB dropped to a career low and his HR/9 climbed to 2.5. His hits per nine jumped to 10.7 and hitters weren’t getting soft contact, they garnered an OPS of .940 against Washburn. Put another way, he turned every hitter he faced into Miguel Cabrera or Ryan Braun. The Tigers thought Washburn was going to be the guy who propelled them into the playoffs, instead, he became an anchor they were unable to overcome.
Without question, some of this has to do with a knee injury he suffered in his first start with the Tigers. It became so painful for him that he was unable to put full weight on his landing leg, according to a Joe Christensen report, which is bad for anyone, but is devastating for a flyballer like Washburn. Pitches that are supposed to dive out of the zone and induce weak contact are going to hang up and become essentially cannon fodder. Now that the knee has been fixed, Washburn should be back to normal, right?
Not so fast cowboy, there’s two other major pieces in play here: outfield defense and park factor.
As noted, Washburn is a flyball pitcher and always has been. Seattle boasted two of the top 11 outfielders in all of baseball in Franklin Gutierrez and Ichiro Suzuki and boasted the highest team UZR in baseball for all fielders and for outfielders. They turned 71% of balls in play into outs and boasted the third best park adjusted defensive efficiency in baseball. That park plays a role too, as Safeco Field ranked 21st in park factor, a clear sign of a pitchers park; it was even lower in home runs allowed.
So, more of Washburn’s flyballs were staying in the park and the defense behind them was turning those balls into outs at a rate better than any team in the majors.
Contrast that with the Tigers’ defense and park and you can see why this would be an issue. The Tigers weren’t bad on defense, eighth best in terms of outfield defense and fifth best in team defense overall. They were 10th best in park adjusted defensive efficiency and turned just a tic under 70% of balls in play into outs. They were the best unit in the AL Central, but still a far cry from the M’s. Comerica park was a fairly even park, 13th in baseball in park factor and 18th in home runs, so hardly a launching pad, but once again, less favorable to a flyballer like Washburn than Seattle was.
So it was a bad move for the Tigers; it would be an abominable move for the Twins.
The Twins were the third worst defensive team in baseball last year, and carried the worst OF in baseball because of Michael Cuddyer’s declining range and Delmon Young’s…everything. That was before they traded away 2008’s best outfield defender Carlos Gomez, take his UZR out of the mix, and the Twins were almost a win worse than the second worst team in outfield defense. They aren’t going to be better this year, and they may well be worse.
If Washburn was coming to the Dome, which played as a launching pad this year–eighth best to hit home runs in–I’d be picketing this move outside the Twins offices. We’ve no idea how Target field will play, though I can tell you that home runs will be hard to come by before May and will be abundant from May to September based on the effects of temperature on ball-flight. However, wind flow and how the dimensions of the park contribute to deep flies becoming home runs and vice versa remain to be seen. Unless it becomes the new PetCo, however, it isn’t going to remotely make up for the poor defense behind him.
This is the type of deal the Twins old guard used to make. A veteran player, from the area no less, wants to play for the Twins in the twilight of his career, if this were 2006, he’d already be in uniform. Bill Smith has shown himself to be savvier than that and it would behoove him greatly to avoid this deal, no matter how enticing it may seem. In keeping the Tigers from making the playoffs last year, Washburn helped the Twins more than he ever could actually playing for the team.
If it feels like we’ve been in this bunker before, we have. Almost every year for the last 3-4 years, either Jarrod Washburn, his agent, or the Twins’ front office makes some noise about the LaCrosse native playing closer to home and fans are forced to duck and cover.
You can forgive fans for being a little gunshy here, as Washburn has almost never been both a) available and b) a good idea. He’s certainly been one or the other at various points in his career, but the Angels had him locked down for the best years of his career, and he’s been fairly available since his long decline began.
Perhaps you can forgive the front office for thinking that these two states have aligned for the first time ever, making Washburn a great pitcher to add and a free agent with ties to the area, but color me skeptical.
2009 was a tale of two seasons for Washburn, his first four months with Seattle and his nightmare eight starts with the Tigers. In Seattle, Washburn was solid. He went 8-6 with 2.64 ERA and 1.07 WHIP, both extremely good numbers. He was boasting a career best K/BB and a career low HR/9. Not only were his hits allowed were down, the balls that did fall in weren’t hit particularly hard; his slugging against was a career low .334. As a flyball pitcher who is home run prone, Washburn’s batting average allowed on balls in play has always been below average, but in 2009, it was low even for him, .245 where league average is between .280 and .300. Of the 20 starts he made for the Mariners, 15 of them were Quality Starts.
Seattle knew he’d be a free agent and traded him at his peak value. July was Washburn’s best month, going 4-1, allowing just seven runs, three home runs, striking out 19 and walking just eight. He was AL pitcher of the month, and Detroit snapped him up.
His time in with the Tigers was so bad, you’d think the Mariners dressed up Carlos Silva in Washburn’s uni and tricked the Tigers into taking him. He gave up 11 runs in his first 11 innings, and things hardly improved from there. In his eight starts with the Tigers, Washburn went 1-3 with a 7.33 ERA and a 1.56 WHIP, his K/BB dropped to a career low and his HR/9 climbed to 2.5. His hits per nine jumped to 10.7 and hitters weren’t getting soft contact, they garnered an OPS of .940 against Washburn. Put another way, he turned every hitter he faced into Miguel Cabrera or Ryan Braun. The Tigers thought Washburn was going to be the guy who propelled them into the playoffs, instead, he became an anchor they were unable to overcome.
Without question, some of this has to do with a knee injury he suffered in his first start with the Tigers. It became so painful for him that he was unable to put full weight on his landing leg, according to a Joe Christensen report, which is bad for anyone, but is devastating for a flyballer like Washburn. Pitches that are supposed to dive out of the zone and induce weak contact are going to hang up and become essentially cannon fodder. Now that the knee has been fixed, Washburn should be back to normal, right?
Not so fast cowboy, there’s two other major pieces in play here. The first is outfield defense.
As noted, Washburn is a flyball pitcher and always has been. Seattle boasted two of the top 11 outfielders in all of baseball in Franklin Gutierrez and Ichiro Suzuki and boasted the highest team UZR in baseball for all fielders and for outfielders. They turned 71% of balls in play into outs and boasted the third best park adjusted defensive efficiency in baseball. That park plays a role too, as Safeco Field ranked 21st in park factor, a clear sign of a pitchers park; it was even lower in home runs allowed.
So, more of Washburn’s flyballs were staying in the park and the defense behind them was turning those balls into outs at a rate better than any team in the majors.
Contrast that with the Tigers’ defense and park and you can see why this would be an issue. The Tigers weren’t bad on defense, eighth best in terms of outfield defense and fifth best in team defense overall. They were 10th best in park adjusted defensive efficiency and turned just a tic under 70% of balls in play into outs. They were the best unit in the AL Central, but still a far cry from the M’s. Comerica park was a fairly even park, 13th in baseball in park factor and 18th in home runs, so hardly a launching pad, but once again, less favorable to a flyballer like Washburn than Seattle was.
So it was a bad move for the Tigers; it would be an abominable move for the Twins.
The Twins were the third worst defensive team in baseball last year, and carried the worst OF in baseball because of Michael Cuddyer’s declining range and Delmon Young’s…everything. That was before they traded away 2008’s best outfield defender Carlos Gomez, take his UZR out of the mix, and the Twins were almost a win worse than the second worst team in outfield defense. They aren’t going to be better this year, and they may well be worse.
If Washburn was coming to the Dome, which played as a launching pad this year–eighth best to hit home runs in–I’d be picketing this move outside the Twins offices. We’ve no idea how Target field will play, though I can tell you that home runs will be hard to come by before May and will be abundant from May to September based on the effects of temperature on ball-flight. However, wind flow and how the dimensions of the park contribute to deep flies becoming home runs and vice versa remain to be seen. Unless it becomes the new PetCo, however, it isn’t going to remotely make up for the poor defense behind him.
This is the type of deal the Twins old guard used to make. A veteran player, from the area no less, wants to play for the Twins in the twilight of his career, if this were 2006, he’d already be in uniform. Bill Smith has shown himself to be savvier than that and it would behoove him greatly to avoid this deal, no matter how enticing it may seem.
A good portion of this piece will call back to point two of my Off-Season Plan , please refer back if you missed it!
With the Twins limping along behind the Tigers and the White Sox hot on their heels, with the Sept. 1 deadline for playoff rosters bearing down on them, news came that the Twins had claimed Rich Harden on waivers from the Cubs and were going to make a serious attempt to acquire him in hopes that he would bolster the rotation for a title run. Blogs fired up, the Twitter stream was all abuzz, and we waited with bated breath to hear if he of the glass arm would be heading to the Twin Cities.
In fact, Harden may never have been claimed by the Twins, many reports said an NL team had claimed him, meaning that his name never would have reached Bill Smith. True or not, the point was moot in the end, the Twins got fantastic production from Brian Duensing, a good turn or two from Jeff Manship, and better-than-expected work from Carl Pavano. Harden might have given the Twins a different look, but he wouldn’t have been the difference between a playoff run and a long offseason; they did just fine without him.
I was fairly ambivalent about the trade when it was proposed, feeling that Harden wasn’t the key missing piece and that the Twins could be tricked into giving up too much for him if they believed he was the difference between a deep run and October golf.
Now that Harden is a free agent, worries about exaggerated value can be allayed to a large extent; all that’s at stake for the Twins now is money. This is not to say that throwing a bag o’ cash at Harden is a risk-free proposition, but the Twins were likely to try to resign Harden had they acquired him earlier, meaning that those costs are pretty much fixed and the variable is who they would have had to give up to get Harden before season’s end.
The book on Harden has been pretty well written despite the fact that he’s just 28 years old. When he’s healthy, he’s electric. He’s got three good pitches: A fastball that averages 92 MPH, a changeup around 84, and a splitter that mimics his change. He threw a slider during his days in Oakland, but the Cubs had him stop throwing it, as well as his wicked split, in an effort to reduce the strain on his elbow.
That’s the rub with Harden you know, he’s made of glass. He’s never thrown 200 innings, heck, he’s thrown 150 or more just once. Forget 20-game winner, whoever signs Harden will be hoping he makes 20 starts per season for them. The Cubs managed to hold onto him for 1.5 years, getting 38 starts out of him during that time. He went on the DL just once this season with a back strain, though a mechanical flaw necessitated an early end to his season, though with the Cubs well out of the race by September, it’s hard to gauge how serious that injury was.
He’s never had surgery, though he’s had injuries to his back, oblique, UCL, and shoulder, the last of which kept him out of the WBC, but did not cause him to miss any time. So he’s had a grab bag of injuries, which is both good and bad. On the one hand, it means a harder task for the training staff in terms of keeping everything from top to bottom in playing shape, but on the other, it means there isn’t one nagging injury that’s kept him out for all this time. That’s always good news, but especially for pitchers. That Harden hasn’t spent weeks and months on the DL with consistent elbow or shoulder trouble gives me hope that he can remain healthy over a longer period of time.
Additionally, any injury for Harden is going to be magnified because of his history. His 51 starts over the last two seasons is more than any Twins starter except for Nick Blackburn and Scott Baker, so it isn’t as though he’s been missing tons of time recently, it’s more a case of the time he has missed being exaggerated due to his years of nine and four starts in 2006 and 2007 respectively.
This may seem like damning with faint praise (“he isn’t THAT injury prone”), but if so, it’s only because the upside is so obvious.
This video, taken against the Phillies in 2008, shows what Harden is capable of. Need I remind you, this is the same Phillies team that would go on to win the World Series, and Harden makes them look bad. Worse than bad. The Twins, as I have said before, need a guy who can miss bats and get hitters out on his own—Harden can do just that.
Even after the Cubs took away his out pitch, a decision the Twins can make for themselves, Harden struck out nearly 11 hitters per nine, though his walk rate did reach 4.28 per nine. Nevertheless, as he came to rely on the strikeout less and less, Harden lowered his LD percent, raised his GB percent, and raised his IFFB percent (pop-up rate, more or less). His Stuff rating of 30, provided by Baseball Prospectus, ranks him as the 10th best starter in the majors last season, three times better than league average. His QERA, the pound-for-pound best predictive pitching stat available right now, was 3.57, 15th best among pitchers who threw at least 130 innings.
But his more traditional metrics seem to tell a different story: 9-9, 4.09 ERA, 1.34 WHIP, and a Support Neutral Winning Percentage of .488 (what percentage of Harden’s starts were winnable assuming normalized offensive production, bullpen support, and team defense) are all fine numbers but nothing to crow about. So what causes the breakdown from his great peripherals to very mediocre actual performance?
Two major factors lead him down the primrose path. First, his HR/FB rate was astronomically high, 15-percent, which lead to a HR/9 of 1.47. If that doesn’t strike you as really high, think of it this way—for every six flyballs Harden gave up, one left the park and they were leaving once or twice a game. Some of that is park related, he gave up 1/3 more HR at Wrigley than he did on the road and was generally hit harder there, and some of it is luck. According to Hit Tracker Online, Harden gave up only three No Doubt home runs, meaning that he wasn’t getting blasted so much as getting really unlucky. In any case, outside of the Friendly Confines his rates should normalize and that major Achilles’ heel will be a significantly smaller issue. Second, his BABIP was 20 points over his career and league average (both about .280). BABIP is one of the quintessential luck based metrics, so expecting that to regress to around .280 isn’t much of a leap of faith at all.
Two more factors will determine whether or not Harden becomes a Twin and how he would do if acquired.
Upon Harden’s return to the AL, he’ll be instantly under assault. As of 2007, pitchers moving from the NL to the AL saw their ERA rise by about .75 runs, which would push Harden near 5.00 if he repeats last year’s performance (as indicated above, I’m confident he’ll be better). There will be a battle waged for Harden’s stats as his skill-based metrics will rise due to overall league difficulty, but his luck-based metrics will regress back to their mean. Its enough to keep Harden in the NL, especially if he wants a short-term deal to rebuild some value.
That value piece is what may ultimately keep Harden from opening the season at Target Field. Speculation has Harden’s value ranging from seven million per season for a one-year deal (while this was originally said in the context of an AL team, I have to believe Harden will remain in the NL if the idea is to raise his value for next off-season) to $10 Million per year. I’m reticent to recommend a deal on the upper range of that because, as much as I believe he’ll be healthy going forward, there is a greater than normal chance that he won’t be.
If the Twins are deciding between three years $30 million and four years $33 million, I’d take the second deal. At 28, Harden has a number of good years ahead of him before his stuff will begin to decline, so adding the extra year or two doesn’t push the Twins into the “why in the world do we even have this guy on the roster” zone. He’d be 32 when a four year deal expired, hardly headed for Social Security checks. That four-year $33 million deal looks like a pretty fair one to me. I’d be willing to go a little higher, but the lack of good starting pitching in this market isn’t a good reason to overpay to the extreme.
So Harden makes sense for someone, but why should it be the Twins.
Simply put, they can afford the risk. In a market where you can make the argument that Randy Wolf is the second best arm available, acquiring Harden and his inherent risks isn’t that much different than bringing in one of the midlevel vets, hoping for the best and preparing for the worst. The difference is that there’s a really good chance that Harden actually reaches his expected value, whereas Daniel Cabrera and Rich Hill are pretty much locks NOT to reach their potential.
If they bring in Harden and he does well, their rotation shapes up thusly: Harden, Baker, Slowey, Blackburn, Perkins/Bonser/Liriano/Duensing. That’s a good rotation, Slowey could be the best No. 3 in baseball in that case, and a playoff set of Harden/Baker/Slowey with Blackburn keeping anyone from short rest is formidable to be sure. If it doesn’t work out, the Twins are left with: Baker, Slowey, Blackburn, Harden, (fifth pitcher du jour) and if he’s injured, two of those arms come into play.
If the Twins don’t sign Harden, it wouldn’t surprise me at all to see them re-sign late season acquisition Carl Pavano, who I like fine, but who doesn’t have the ceiling he used to. If Pavano is brought in, he’s probably the Twins’ third or fourth starter, depending on Nick Blackburn’s performance, leaving the Twins with a rotation of Baker, Slowey, Pavano, Blackburn, Spare Arm No. 5 at best. Pavano is no iron man himself, so it’s likely he’d find himself on the trainers table and miss a start or two, which, of course, is no different than if Harden or even Roy Halladay were there instead. While having to throw two of the Twins’ chattel arms isn’t ideal, those players are better than those most teams have in that position. A start or two from Glen Perkins never killed anyone, and the Twins are likely to have a better option available to them in Liriano or Swarzak.
Carl Pavano makes the Twins better by keeping Glen Perkins off the field, and that’s no small improvement, but he is another guy who is going to put the ball in play a lot, get a small handful of strikeouts and generally be a decent but not great pitcher. Rich Harden is a strikeout arm who can improve the team being a really good pitcher AND keeping a bad pitcher off the field. Pavano isn’t signing for no money, and given the talent discrepancy between the two, the Twins would be wise to spend the extra money and get themselves a pitcher who gives hitters a very different look from the one they saw the day before and the one they’re likely to see the day after.
Harden is not a mortal lock for a Cy Young award, he’s not a sure ace, he’s not even a lock to make 20 starts. However, he is an incredibly talented pitcher when he’s healthy and he’s the type of arm the Twins sorely needed last year. You don’t get many chances to add guys in free agency who were striking out more than a batter an inning who don’t have some glaring question mark, and Harden’s (his health) can be mitigated. Getting him away from the hitter’s paradise that is Wrigley Field circa June and July will help keep his HR rates low and will allow him to be more aggressive, which should help him keep his walks in check.
Harden’s talent is too good to pass up when the Twins sorely need someone with his skill set and have pieces available to mitigate his downside. He may not be the one piece standing between them and a parade down Hennepin Ave., but there is no doubt in my mind that he improves the team more than any other pitcher realistically available to the Twins.
As a young boy who was slowly falling in love with the game of baseball I found myself really focused on my favorite players and the stars of the game. For me it was always Kirby Puckett and Ken Griffey Jr. I never strayed away from the Twins as my favorite team, but there were phases of Frank Thomas, Cal Ripken Jr., Jeff Bagwell, and Darin Erstad (yes, Darin Erstad).
Today I continue my unwavering love for the Minnesota Twins but don’t find myself as enamored with specific players like I used to. Even our own players. Of course I love Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau, Denard Span is really growing on me, and I’ve liked Kevin Slowey since I spoke with him last March. Yet if the Twins made a trade involving these players that made the team better at the end of the day I would not suffer much sadness or frustration (except Mauer because there is no trade that makes the Twins better with Mauer leaving).
I’d like to think this is because in my older, wiser age I am more committed to the team than the individual player. Perhaps, it’s because I moved out of my baseball card trading days which were dominated by collecting certain All-Stars and having the best players. Or did I lose my trust in players because of the steroids scandal that left many of the stars of my childhood tainted?
I can’t seem to put my finger on it at the moment, but I’m curious if anyone else feels the same way? This revelation came to me last week with the Twins announcement to trade Carlos Gomez for JJ Hardy. For the past two years there were moments when I got caught up in the Gomez craze and thougtht, “Hey, this kid could be something special or at least he’s electrifying to watch.” I never went as far to purchase that Gomez t-shirt, but I had high hopes for the kid. However, when the trade was announced I never looked back at Carlos crossing the border into Wisconsin. I was excited to have a player like Hardy and truly believed the team was better that evening than it was the day before.
The presence of baseball heroes and stars is essential for the game, especially in terms of marketing. Yeah the longball helped revitalize baseball in the late 90’s, but it was really the chase between two lovable characters like Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa (who by the way is becoming white) that filled stadiums across America. There are many exciting young players in the game today that catch my attention. Those worth being mentioned include Hanley Ramirez, Tim Lincecum, Grady Sizemore, Zach Greinke, Justin Upton, Albert Pujols, and of course our own Joe Mauer.
However, I’m happy to be invested in the team concept and knowing that although a player like Joe Mauer could someday (GASP!) leave the team, at least the Minnesota Twins will still be there. Well, at least until contraction rolls around again.
In both my 2009 postmortem and my 2010 offseason recap I laid out two key points. First, the Twins need to accurately deduce what things actually hurt them this year and address them. Second, that thing they needed to address was infield defense.
Congratulations to Bill Smith for absolutely nailing this one.
J.J. Hardy was the player I most wanted the Twins to add. He’s a plus defender, historically a decent hitter, and being traded at the absolute bottom of his value. Seriously, at no point could the Twins have gotten him for less than they did now.
It shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that the Twins made an attempt to get Hardy, what surprises me is a) that they were able to do it before the Red Sox outbid them and b) they were able to acquire him without giving up pitching. Speculation had Hardy’s price set somewhere around the Kevin Slowey range, which turned out to be much more than the Brewers would receive.
My first inclination is that this was an outstanding deal. Upon reflection, I’ve tempered my opinion a little, but am still quite pleased with this move if only for this reason: Smith accurately gauged what the Twins needed and got the best player available who fits that need. I see the deal pretty much in the Twins favor, but perhaps a little fairer than previously thought.
Received: J.J. Hardy
The 27-year old righty is one of the best defensive shortstops in major league baseball. Over the last three years he has posted the highest combined UZR at the position with a combination of excellent range and good decision-making leading to few errors. That fact alone made this a smart addition for the Twins, but Hardy is no Adam Everett, he can swing the stick a little as well.
Hardy was an All-Star in 2007 when he hit .277/.323/.463 with 26 HR and 30 2B, but he was even better in 2008 when he hit .283/.343/.478 with 24 HR and 31 2B. If he had continued that production (3.1 and 5.9 wins respectively), I promise you that no matter how good Alcides Escobar seemed to be, Hardy wouldn’t have been moved for someone as enigmatic as Carlos Gomez, if he was moved at all. But 2009 was a down year, and by down I mean “demoted to AAA midseason” down.
Hardy will readily admit that 2009 was bad, and it was: .229/.302/.357 with 11 HR and 16 2B, a 3% increase in K-rate, and a decrease in Line Drive rate all contributed to a year that was extremely disappointing both for Hardy and for the Brewers. Aside from the ups-and-downs that every player experiences, there is reason to believe that Hardy will rebound.
First, his BABIP (a good indicator of how lucky a hitter was) fell 42 points from an above average .306 to a well-below average .264. It should rise to or near his career rate of .280, which is about league average. Second, his walk rate rose to a near career high meaning that while Hardy was hitting a lot less, he was still getting on base at a passable rate. If his BA recovers at all and he maintains this walk rate, his OBP will rise fairly quickly.
One thing that has remained constant is his power, his career ISO of .166 is well above what would get from any of the players currently on the roster at his position and isn’t likely to be a mirage created by Miller Park. Hardy hit a little better with home cooking, but not in such a way as to indicate that he’ll suffer greatly from the switch. Add in that Miller Park was the fourth friendliest pitchers park and any worries there should be allayed.
If Hardy gets close to his 2007/2008 levels, the Twins will have stolen this deal. If he hits, as I suspect he will, something like .270/.320/.400 with around 20 HR and 20+ 2B while playing Gold Glove defense, that will still be a considerable upgrade over anything the Twins have had at that position in a long time.
Hardy may well be a long term answer, if the Twins are pleased with his 2010 contribution, a two or three year deal wouldn’t surprise me one bit. It’s worth noting that he is due a raise during arbitration, but as John noted in the video, he isn’t going to trot out his ‘09 numbers and expect to rake it in. You can’t get something for nothing these days, so let’s see what the Twins gave up.
Sent: Carlos Gomez
Well, Carlos Gomez’s future potential, because the Brewers weren’t buying his past or present. Gomez is an elite defender, that is an unassailable fact. He was more than a two win player this year based solely on his defense (literally, solely on his D, he was an offensive black hole), but for every moment he looked like he might have it together at the plate, there were three spent with head in hands. He’s the fastest player in the league but he got five bunt hits this year because defenses figured out that that was the only way he’d gotten on base in 2008. He had nearly three times as many strikeouts as walks, and a net of seven steals (14 SB with 7 CS). For a player of his speed, that’s downright awful.
What the Twins gave up and what the Brewers get may be two different things. Gomez did not look like he was getting better in the Twins organization and was well on the way toward getting the same reputation Delmon Young had for being difficult to coach, something that might change with a new coaching staff. Gomez’s OBP ought to rise if the Brewers bat him eighth, if for no other reason than he’ll be batting ahead of some of the few hitters worse than he. His opponents in the NL will almost certainly help to raise his OBP as well, though the pitchers he will face in the NL Central will be better than those he saw in the AL Central, so those factors may even out.
Gomez is an exciting player to watch, and from a fan’s standpoint, I’m not thrilled that he won’t be on the team any more. However, any type of logical analysis shows him to be a piece that needed to improve to be valuable. The Twins traded him before another bad season depressed his value, and that appears to be a smart decision. He may well improve with the Brewers, but it’s important to see that the Twins may not have ever had that player available to them.
Verdict: Fortuna Fortibus Favet* and Bill Smith certainly is brave. Fortune Favors the Brave
Smith went out and got exactly what the Twins needed while giving up a player who is one or two seasons at his current production from being a major disappointment. This isn’t cut and dry for the Twins, there’s a chance that Hardy had another down year, in which case this because a swap of defense and decent power for defense and underutilized speed, which is probably a coinflip. Nevertheless, Hardy was probably the best player available at the position and Smith didn’t give up a King’s ransom to get him, so there’s a lot to be said for that.
Aftermath:
Point Four of my offseason plan now fufilled, the Twins have a chance to really focus on how they want to construct their team next season. In all likelihood, Hardy will bat second based on his preferences and Gardy’s tendencies, meaning that the Twins lineup currently has its top 2/3rds set.
Denard Span – CF
J.J. Hardy – SS
Joe Mauer – C
Justin Morneau – 1B
Michael Cuddyer – RF
Jason Kubel – DH
——————
Delmon Young or LF Du Jour (Martin? Tosoni?)
Nick Punto, Joe Crede, Danny Valencia, or other 3B
Alexi Casilla, Nick Punto, or other 2B
This leaves a fair amount of questions, but ones to which the answers seem to be internal. If the Twins go out and get someone like a Felipe Lopez or Mark DeRosa (both are type-B free agents), that improves the team, but isn’t as critical as it was this time last year. I think adding one more position player wouldn’t be a bad idea, but adding a filler player is permissible at this point as long as they can get on base at a decent clip. Hardy may well provide some power, but if his numbers stay down, he’ll look like a healthier Joe Crede. Any players added now should be bottom of the order hitters who can get the lineup flipped around to Span, Hardy, Mauer, the way Pedro Feliz and Carlos Ruiz did for the Phillies in the NLCS.
What this should do is free up the brass to work on the pitching staff. There are choices to be made there not only in terms of who they can add, but in terms of who they want to keep. With Boof Bonser and Pat Neshek coming back from injury, the Twins have a very full staff, some of whom are probably more valuable as trade fodder than as pitchable arms.
SP – Scott Baker
SP – Kevin Slowey
SP – Nick Blackburn
SP – Brian Duensing
SP – Francisco Liriano
RP – Glen Perkins
RP – Jon Rauch
RP – Joe Nathan
RP – Matt Guerrier
RP – Jose Mijares
RP – Jesse Crain
RP – Pat Neshek
RP – Boof Bonser
It’s a decent staff, largely because the Twins have jettisoned the less desirable pieces—Bobby Keppel, Sean Henn, R.A. Dickey—that made the bully so suspect for part of the year. There are other arms to make decisions about, including Jeff Manship, Jason Jones, and Juan Morillo, but none of them present a huge upgrade over the guys already penciled in. All this is to say that this is where the Twins’ focus should be going forward. As I’ve noted previous, I’d really like to see Rich Harden brought in for reasons I’ll defend soon enough, but Carl Pavano could likely be had for much less and would improve the staff by giving them five starters about which there aren’t serious outstanding issues. Liriano may not be so far gone as to be unretrievable, and I think he could be valuable in the long run, but I’m not thrilled with the idea of having to count on on him to deliver a fifth of the Twins’ starts for the year.
Whatever the Twins decide to do in terms of non-tendering, outright releasing, trading and signing, it seems like most of it will happen on the run prevention side of things. Aside from the talent added, that’s the biggest upside to this move—the Twins added Hardy early enough in the offseason that Smith can go into the winter meetings and beyond knowing exactly what holes he needs to fill and with a good idea of how much money he has to play with.
Ultimately, I like this deal a lot and I think it makes the Twins a substantially better team going into next season. Exactly how much better they’ll be depends on what else the Twins’ FO does and how well Hardy produces, but they are certainly off to a great start.
Really big news today out of Minneapolis for the Twins. Hear John Meyer, the Twins MVB, and his opinions on this big trade. Also, make sure to leave your opinions on this move? Are you going to miss Carlos Gomez? Are you happy to have a player like JJ Hardy?
* Note – when I said they’d have extra money to sign a 2B or SS, I meant 2B or 3B, my bad.
I also want to wish Carlos Gomez best of luck in Milwaukee. He was certainly an entertaining player in Minneapolis, but this move really made sense for the team. It did however make me think of his Twins debut on Opening Day in 2008. I nabbed this video from way up in the upper deck GA seats. Gomez stole two bases on that first day and it’s hard to argue that everything else was pretty much downhill after that. (Other than the cycle against the White Sox in 2008)
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I’m not sure if I’m thrilled about the away uniform yet. It kind of feels like the Washington Nationals current away uniform, but I guess if we’re going retro it should echo similarities to the Nationals. I am happy about the change to the TC cap with the red bill for the away games (see Scott Baker above). The Twins will no longer wear the cap with the plain “M” on it.
The above two pictures are from the Twins pro shop online. You can already get your gear for Target Field today!
