Fire Gardy

Well, leave it to Gardy to screw up the pitching staff as badly as the lineup. Reports are coming out today that he’s planning to use Livan Hernandez as the Opening Day Starter. That’s right. The “ace” of our staff is the fourth best pitcher in the rotation (at best).

Why? you may ask. Why would someone do such a thing. Well, it’s quite simple, really.

“He knows how to pitch; he’s done it,” Gardenhire said. “He’s proven himself in this league, and I think he probably has another level. I think we’ve seen it before, so we’ve kind of learned not to panic.”

It’s a good thing “making starts” is more important than doing well in them. (Livan’s spring stats: 1-1 with an 8.00 ERA in three starts.) And it’s good to know that Gardy values “sucking for a long time” over “performance on the field.” I don’t even see how the two compare.

Livan has made 8 Opening Day starts in his career, with the Marlins, Giants, Expos, and Nationals. I find it difficult to believe that Gardenhire can’t connect the dots here. What do all four of those teams have in common? Do we really want to put Twins on that list of “Most Pathetic Franchises in the League?”

While I don’t think there’s a clear cut option for an Opening Day starter on this team (because Liriano probably won’t be ready), I do think Livan is about the worst option. I’d much rather have Baker, Boof, Slowey, Blackburn, Humber, FunBobby, or my little sister make the first start than Livan Hernandez.

Maybe I’m wrong. But I just get a little more excited about “young guys who look like they might be good” than “old guys who’ve proven they suck by sucking consistently for 10 years.” Gardy clearly disagrees.

Who does Kyle Lohse think he is?  While Scott Boras may be crying collusion, I just think GMs realize signing Lohse to a long term contract isn’t a wise investment. He is inconsistent on the mound, and unstable in the head. Why pay him lots of money for a long time.  Boras is willing to allow Lohse to sit out April, and even May in the hopes teams will get desperate for a healthy starting pitcher and a bidding war will start. I don’t see this happening.  Teams have shown a willingness to hand the ball over to young pitchers from their own system, and try to win with them.  I think Lohse needs to swallow his pride, and accept whatever minor league or 1 year deal he is offered.  He can’t really afford to miss all of spring training, and part of the season.  Roger Clemens could because he was really good (steroids asides, he was a damn fine pitcher). Kyle Lohse is not the Rocket and can’t come in mid season and dominate opposing lineups.  He is a back of the rotation starter, and he needs to realize he isn’t an ace.  His career could take a turn for the worse, if like Keyshawn Johnson who didn’t realize he was actually a possession receiver, he doesn’t wake up.

Friend of FireGardy.com, Grizz, will be making the trek down to spring training in a few days.  I doubt he and his band of merry men will have access to a computer, so I will make attempts to talk to them via telephone and update the site that way.  Also, I will be trying to convice them to take a tire iron to Nick Punto’s head.  Or to Gardy’s for playing him so damn much.

Has anyone else been as disappointed with Brendan Harris as I have.  I mean, I though he was going to be the clear cut starter at second, basically handed the job.  However, he has played like garbage, Punto is still Punto, and Casilla has played very well.  You’d think this would be a no-brainer, give the job to Casilla.  But no.  Gardy will make this hard.  As has been discussed in this space before, Gardy loves guys who can “catch the ball” and everything else is just gravy. No! Baseball has many aspects.  Let’s say we have 3, to keep it simple: hitting, fielding, baserunning.  Punto is well below average at hitting, below average at baserunning, and average (at best) at fielding.  So overall that makes him a below average player.  Is Gardy ignoring two thirds of the game here?  Possibly more if you were to break hitting down into more categories (average, power, eye, etc.).  This is just not good.  I really expected Harris to come in and take the job from day 1, thus making Gardy’s decision for him. He didn’t do this, so now Gardy must actually make a managerial decision, and he isn’t good at that.

Gardenhire has said some dumb, contradictory things in his day, but his comments this spring about the CF/leadoff battle seem to stand out.

“Sometimes with young hitters, people say they’re not ready to be a
leadoff hitter — his on-base percentage, whatever,” Gardenhire said,
“but sometimes with young hitters it’s better to get them 500-550
at-bats rather than worry about that on-base percentage, and just let
them play.”

That’s fine … except that getting on base in front of the middle of the order is perhaps the most important thing about being a leadoff hitter. So it doesn’t exactly fall into “whatever” territory. And you don’t use the leadoff spot in the major leagues to develop young, inexperienced hitters. You use it to set the table and generate runs. Young hitters can develop at the major league level in the 7-9 spots, and move up to the higher-pressure, higher-demands leadoff spot once they’ve gained some valuable experience (and, ideally, proven themselves).

Also, I’d like to know when he developed this attitude toward giving promising young hitters consistent at bats in order to develop them properly, and why he continues to refuse to do it with Kubel.

Given that OBP is so important for the leadoff hitter, and that none of the potential center fielders — though fast — have shown any consistent ability to get on base, I’ve been pushing for the possibility of putting Mauer at the top of an unconventional lineup. Basically moving everyone up a slot, giving 50-70 more at bats to each of your best hitters, creating the potential to score more runs and win more games But would Gardenhire be willing to take any kind of risk with the lineup?

“Sometimes you just have to go against the grain a little bit, and
obviously this year we’ll probably end up going against the grain with
a leadoff guy,” Gardenhire said. “The one thing you won’t want to miss
is that first at-bat. We don’t know what’s going to happen with it, and
I’m sure no one else will either.”

Well, he claims he wants to be risky. But his “risk” is to put an inexperienced young hitter at the top of the order; worse, one who has never even had a good OBP in the minor leagues (I can make that statement without even knowing which of the young CFers will get the job — which is pathetic).

While he may think this a risk, it seems much more likely that it’s just stupid. And while he thinks he’s going to make the first at bat of the game exciting, I’d say he’s just being foolhardy.

Today the Twins played the Pirates. I get to listen to it on the radio. I’m going to try to change my format here, splitting it up by player, giving brief reports about each of their performances. I think this will be better than going in chronological order. Also, it’ll be nice to record a little more information about the at bats than statistics can give you. We’ll see how this works.

• Pridie
• Easy fly ball to left field to lead off the 3rd inning
• Got a broken bat ground ball up the middle in the 4th, and managed to beat out the throw because it was hit so slowly (it wasn’t much of a hit)
• Mauer  
• Made a good throw to 2nd on a steal attempt in the 1st inning; it would have been an out if Harris had caught it
• Took some strikes, but drew a walk in the 3rd; scored from 1st on Cuddyer’s double (his legs seem okay)
• Cuddyer
• Absolutely crushed a ball to left center field, hitting high off the wall; drove in Mauer from 1st base in the 3rd inning
• Advanced to 3rd base on a wild pitch; this was pretty head’s up baserunning, as the ball didn’t get far from the catcher, but it got just far enough (still sounded risky though)
• Sneaked a lightly hit grounder up the middle for a base hit; the shortstop couldn’t quite handle it (it wasn’t much of a hit)
• Morneau
• Struck out to end the first inning, with a man on base
• Hit a sac fly in the 3rd, on a 3-2 pitch, after fouling several pitches off; he’s still not making solid contact this spring
• Hit a double down the right field line, hitting the chalk and driving in 2 runs in the 4th inning; it was “hit decent” according to the commentators
• Monroe
• Led off the second inning with a rocket line drive that the third baseman got his glove on
• Blasted a solo homer on a line drive over the left field wall in the 3rd inning; the wind was trying to keep it in the park, but he got more than enough of it
• Kubel
• Weak grounder to second base in the 2nd inning
• Followed Monroe’s homer with an even longer home run, this one high and majestic, getting into the “jetstream” and carrying well over the fence
• Buscher
• Worked a 3-1 count, then swung through a breaking ball (clearly thought it would be a fastball); drew a walk on the next pitch, recognizing the offspeed pitch
• Tolbert
• Dropped a popup behind the mound in the first; according to the Pittsburgh commentators, he collided with either Harris or Baker
• Weak popout to the third baseman in foul territory to end the 2nd inning
• Harris
• Dropped Mauer’s throw to second on a steal attempt in the 1st
• Roped a line drive base hit to left field on a 3-2 pitch in the 2nd
• Made a good play on a grounder up the middle in the 2nd inning; had to move a long way to get to the ball, and threw across his body to get the out
• Baker
• Easily worked through the first inning despite an error
• Labored in the second inning; gave up a hard base hit and a walk, before getting a strike out and a ground out to second base to end the inning
• Duensing
• Replaced Baker in the third, and absolutely blew the Pirates away with a 1-2-3 inning
• Gave up a walk followed by a long, looong home run to Adam LaRoche in the 4th inning to end the “shutout bid”
• Followed that by giving up a wind aided home run; it wouldn’t have been a home run except for the wind
• Gave up another walk, then hit a batter on an 0-2 pitch, and walked the following batter load the bases
• That ends his stint, after having been unable to record an out in his second inning of work (3 BB, 1 HBP, 2 HR in an inning — or a whole game — is pretty terrible)
• Rincon
• Replaced Duensing in the 4th, with nobody out and the bases full; say what you will about Rincon, that’s just a crappy way to have to enter the game
• Struck out the first batter he faced, swinging
• Struck out the second batter he faced, swinging
• Gave up a warning track fly ball that Cuddyer corralled in right to end the inning
• I’m pretty sure performances like that are what managers mean when they talk about a “veteran presence on the mound;” great job by Rincon
• Daigle
• Replaced Rincon in the 5th, and got an easy 1-2-3 inning

After a 1-2-3 top of the 5th, the Twins pulled most of the starters, with a 6-3 lead. This is usually the part of spring training games that starts to get les exciting, given that the good players are gone. I probably won’t have many updates from here on in.

I will say that the power display by Monroe and Kubel was good, and Morneau finally made some “decent” contact on his double. Cuddyer made even better contact on his double, and Mauer showed some good speed on the bases.

Harris and Tolbert both looked pretty bad. Buscher didn’t do much today. Duensing went from looking very strong to completely losing it in his second inning.

Today was a mixed bag; hopefully Gardy learns some good lessons from it and it helps him make the correct evaluations.

The Twins played well today, winning two games. 7-2 over the Red Sox and 4-0 over the Blue Jays in split squad action. With so much action today, I thought I’d just give a recap of the day’s notable performances.

• Liriano
  • Apparently throwing in the low 90’s, Liriano looked decent in his spring debut. He went 1.2 innings hitting a wall in the second inning after a good first in which he struck out Manny Ramirez on a changeup. They say velocity increases throughout the spring, so don’t worry about his fastball; it’ll speed up. He couldn’t control the slider, which is also unsurprising: the breaking balls are the hardest to get a handle on.
• Gomez
  • He’s clearly giving it his all to win a spot with the big club. He led off the game with a bunt single, and stole second on the next pitch. He later scored on Delmon Young’s RBI base hit. In his second at bat, he failed to move a runner from second to third with a grounder to the right side … instead poking an RBI triple down the right field line. He nearly fell down between second and third. He scored on Punto’s squeeze bunt; he had it beat, but decided to slide anyway for style points.
  • Gomez clearly has a lot of promise, but he’s been making a huge number of mistakes. He needs to learn to turn the corner around the bases without falling down, and when to hit the cutoff man. But his presence on the bases is clearly disruptive. Plus, he’s hilarious.
  • His 2 hits brought his average up to .222.
• Span
  • Went 0-4, bringing his average down to .167. He’s not helping his cause, despite his highly-reported confidence. He did have a steal and a run scored, though.
• Morneau
  • Went 1-3 with a 2 run HR in the first inning. Morneau’s been struggling so far this spring, with just a .235 average. Hopefully he starts seeing the ball a bit better soon.
• Monroe
  • He’s been injured, but connected on a home run on the first pitch he saw today. It looks like he’ll be somewhat valuable for us this year, and has the “comeback” attitude that he needs to have. The only concern I have is that he may steal too many at bats from Kubel.
• Kubel
  • Went 1-4 with 2 RBI and 1 SB. His average is hanging at .231 in his limited action. Gardenhire is continuing to do what he can to keep the bat out of Kubel’s hands, and I still haven’t seen any reason for it.
• Humber
  • After his poor start against Concordia’s aluminum bats, Humber has rebounded nicely. Today he went 2 scoreless innings, giving up only 1 hit while striking out 3. His spring ERA is 0.00.
• Mulvey
  • Continues to pitch well, not allowing a baserunner in his 2 innings, striking out 3. His spring ERA is 2.25. The pitchers we got from the Mets have looked better than expected.
• Blackburn
  • Bailed out Liriano with an excellent 1.1 innings. His spring has been brilliant, and he’s definitely raised his stock.
• Perkins
  • Gave up 2 hits and 1 walk in his 3 scoreless innings, racking up 3 strike outs. He’s been on and off this spring, but this was definitely an “on” performance.
• Buscher
  • Got his first start at first base today, going 1-4 to drop his average to .333. He continues to carry a hot bat this spring, giving Lamb a run for his money for the starting third base job. Regardless, he may prove himself to be another valuable weapon off the bench if Gardy penalizes him for not being washed up yet.
• Young
  • The DelBat is awesome. He went 1-3 today, driving in his 5th RBI of the spring. His average is now .563, and is swinging it like a superstar. It’s beginning to look like no price was too high to get this guy on our team.

For the first few games of Spring Training, things looked bad. The Twins just didn’t look ready to play. But now they are ready to play, and there are a lot of reasons to be excited about this team. The CF battle is entertaining at the very least, Liriano is always electric on the mound, Delmon Young slides in and immediately becomes the best hitter in a surprisingly promising middle of the order, Buscher is showing definite promise, Casilla is playing like the experience he got last year did him good, and Humber/Mulvey have pitched better than their scouting reports indicated.

Perhaps best of all … the Twins have crushed every highly touted East Coast prospect that the Yankees and Red Sox tried to lowball us with. Buchholz, Lester, Kennedy, Chamberlain … have all been rocked by the “lowly” Twins’ offense. Of course it’s still early, but it definitely feels good to make those teams thing they made a mistake by not selling high on their overhyped prospects.

Almost as good as Kasey Kasem’s American Top 40, Aaron Gleeman has been producing a list of the top 40 prospects in the Twins farm system.  He came out with his top 10 this week.  Not surprisingly, it was VERY pitching heavy, as we all know the Twins don’t have much in terms of young hitting talent.  They are starting to amass some in the lower ranks, but not much that is major league ready.  I was happy to see that probably for the first time since Joe Mauer was a prospect, the number 1 prospect in the Twins system was a position player.  Carlos Gomez took the spot this year, which isn’t surprising.  I am very excited about this guy, and blame his terrible numbers with the Mets last year on being rushed through the system and the Mets below average minor league talent developers.  The Mets have really only had two good home grown players in recent memory: David Wright and Jose Reyes.  Three if you count John Maine.  With a half or full season of, well seasoning, Gomez has the opportunity to be a very exciting Jose Reyes type player.  He already has excellent baserunning ability, this is NOT the same thing as speed, and defense.  His OBP has steadily increased over his career at various minor leauge levels, so that is encouraging.  I would say give him a year (or half) in Rochester away from Gardy’s terrible treatment of youngsters, and he will be making us say Torii Who? in no time.

This afternoon the Twins faced the Reds, and Glen Perkins got the start. He gave up one run in his 2 innings, walking two batters.

Daigle and Day were both touched up for multiple runs in their outings; Day’s was especially bad, as it came in the eighth inning and surrendered the lead. Humber, Bass, and Gomez had scoreless performances.

The hitting was more suspect than the 8-6 final score suggests. Gomez, Mauer, Morneau, and Young each had only one hit; Lamb went 0-3. The best hitter on the day was Ruiz, who went 2-4 with a HR (in the 9th inning, off a nobody minor leaguer). Worse, Morneau grounded into yet another double play (he hits into at least one every time he’s in the lineup). He’ll need to figure that out if he’s going to bat cleanup.

The Twins were winning 4-3 before Day gave up a 3 run homer to make it 6-4. Ruiz tied it with a 2 run shot in the 9th, and the teams elected to play extra innings. Basak ended the game with a 2 run homer in the bottom of the 10th.

Any time you come back in the late innings of a spring training game, it doesn’t mean as much. (By the same token, the Reds came back in the late innings too; I think these two clubs just don’t have very deep farm systems right now.) That said, a win is a win, and we’re up to 2-3 on the (fake) season.

Today’s game isn’t televised, so I have to listen to it on the radio. Worse, I’m not getting the Twins’ feed, so I have to listen to the Boston commentators. I’ll be updating this with my thoughts as the game progresses. We’ll see how this works, and maybe I can do it sometimes during the season.

Randy Keisler got the start today. I’m interested in learning why the Twins even have him in camp. He’s 32 years old and has never been good. I’m sure they have their reasons. I just want to know what they are. Non-roster invitees are pretty cheap, and easy to come by — they’re probably just trying to see what he can do. Still, I’d rather see Perkins, Blackburn, Mulvey, and the rest of the young guys get the starts (and innings) in Spring Training.

He shut down the Red Sox pretty effectively in the first inning though, giving up just one hit (a solid liner over the shortstop). Other than that, the Sox didn’t make good contact against him.

Gomez led off with a bloop single. He’s finally got his first hit as a Twin. He quickly followed it with a steal — on the first pitch by the left handed Lester. The catcher had no chance to get him out. The Boston commentator was very impressed by his speed. After Mauer drew a walk, Gomez took third on a wild pitch that got about five feet behind the catcher. On the next pitch, Delmon Young drew a walk — perhaps his prediction of drawing 50 walks if he bats in front of Morneau will turn out to be accurate. Morneau drove in Gomez with a weak bases loaded double play to the shortstop. He’s definitely going to need to take advantage of bases loaded, no out situations; he may have been pressing to do too much.

In the top of the second, Keisler gave up a walk, followed by a solid double to left-center that scored a run to tie it at 1-1. He must have been rattled by that, because he proceeded to walk the next two batters to load the bases. Gardy stormed angrily from the dugout and quickly yanked Keisler from the game. The commentator joked that Keisler’s tenure with the Twins organization might be close to an end. Given the organizational hatred for walks, I have to think they’re probably right. Blackburn replaced Keisler.

Blackburn’s first batter hit an easy grounder to second base, with the infield back. Casilla deemed that he didn’t have a shot at a double play … and fired the ball to the plate. Mauer stretched like a first baseman and we got the force out. Pretty gutsy play by Casilla, but if it works, do it.

The next batter hit a sharp grounder past third base, scoring two more runs. Delmon Young fielded it and fired to second, getting the hitter out as he tried to stretch it to a double. When we have Young/Gomez/Cuddyer in the outfield, teams are going to have to learn that they just can’t advance to the next base. That ended the inning, but it’s now 3-1.

Garrett Jones had men on first and second with no outs, and topped a weak grounder to the first baseman. A poor play by Casey allowed everyone to be safe, but I don’t like that hit. Morneau did that so often last year; stats guys see that stuff and think “his BABIP is too low, that’ll regress to the mean and he’ll get better,” but I find it difficult to believe that a weak grounder to first will slip through very often. I think these left handed power hitters just have to stay back, be patient, and try to make better contact. (Not all contact is the same, which is the problem I have with simply looking at BABIP.)

Lester’s day is done after walking Casilla to force a run in. That’s 4 walks and 5 runs in 1+ innings of work for Lester. The commentator said that Lester’s “biggest problem in his career has been throwing strikes,” which may be a big reason the Twins didn’t rate him as highly as the Red Sox in their Johan negotiations.

Delmon Young crushed an RBI base hit to right field. He hit it so hard that Casilla wasn’t able to score from second. That’s promising … if he can hit those such that they’re not directly at the outfielders, he’ll be getting a lot of extra base hits this year.

Jones made a diving catch in RF after completely misjudging a fly ball. He was extremely fortunate to be able to make that adjustment. It looks like he’s still not really an outfielder.

Rincon got through an easy 1-2-3 fourth inning. I like that.

Mauer led off the 4th with a base hit off Papelbon; he was then lifted for pinch runner Butera. This is the worst (and, in some cases, best) thing about Spring Training. By the end of the game, you’re not watching major league baseball any more.

Delmon Young followed with a strikeout on a pitch out of the zone. He definitely needs to work on his plate discipline.

Duensing looked good in his first inning of work; after giving up a leadoff bunt single (on which he was knocked down in a collision with the runner), he got a fly out to Gomez (or Pridie, the commentators are confused about who’s playing right now) and then proceeded to blow away Drew with a high fastball and get Casey to ground out to first.

His second inning wasn’t nearly as good. He gave up a single, then a walk, then a hard ground ball that hit him. He left the bases loaded with one out. He’ll have to make some adjustments after that inning; he completely lost his command, throwing 5 straight balls at one point. He left with an injury … hopefully it’s not too bad. I’m not getting any information about where the ball hit him.

Cali replaced him and promptly walked the first two batters he faced, forcing in a pair of runs. I haven’t been impressed by anything I’ve seen of this guy. Fortunately, he managed to stem the damage and prevent any further runs from scoring.

Mulvey replaced Cali and got through a quick 7th inning before giving up a leadoff home run in the 8th to tie the game at 6. It was a line drive homer to a backup catcher who’s never shown much power in the minors. He struggled mightily in that second inning of work, unable to get outs. It wasn’t all his fault; an error aided the enemy’s cause. But good pitchers can get around that. By the time the inning ended, we were losing 7-6.

Deolis Guerra came in to pitch the 9th. He gave up a couple of hits, but got out of the inning unscathed, including a strikeout. The worst thing to say about it is that the two hits were solid, but that’s getting nitpicky.

Despite the final outcome, and the increasing sloppiness as it progressed, this was actually a promising game. While the starters were in, the offense looked effective. The Mauer-Young-Morneau part of the lineup proved to be dangerous (although Morneau didn’t actually hold up his end of the bargain), and the hitters showed a lot of patience and drew plenty of walks. Blackburn, Rincon, and Guerra all pitched well. Adding Kubel and Cuddyer to the lineup and keeping the entire offense in there for the whole game will obviously make a big difference. Delmon got to show off his arm, and Gomez gave us a taste of what his speed can do when he gets on base.

The team actually did something today, which is definitely a step in the right direction. However, tomorrow’s game takes on increased significance; if we lose, the Red Sox will have already clinched the Mayor’s Cup, and it’s only the first weekend of Spring Training. The way I see it, we simply cannot allow that to happen. I’ll be hoping for the best lineup we can put on the field … although it’s probably not likely given that we’re facing Tim Wakefield.

That’s it for my post today … it grew pretty long! I’ll see if I can change my update pattern next time, to post only the most salient bits of information. I think the play-by-play stuff will get much less important once the games are actually televised, so I’ll probably try to nix that. And I expect that insights will be easier to glean from the game when I don’t have to listen to it on the radio.