Olney’s Positions of Interest
This morning, Buster Olney went over all the teams in the majors and highlighted their positions of interest. For most teams, he focused on what they need to add, or what’s going to be a problem for them (ie, the Yankees are starting Melky Cabrera at CF, and the Red Sox have Varitek at C). But, for the Twins, it was a slightly different story.
Minnesota Twins: Outfield, designated hitter Twins GM Bill Smith broke down the competition for playing time in an e-mail: “We have five established players for three outfield spots and the DH – Michael Cuddyer,Carlos Gomez, Jason Kubel, Denard Span and Delmon Young. They give us depth and versatility … three right-handed hitters and two left-handed hitters, and a combination of speed and power. [Manager Ron Gardenhire] will make the decisions on lineups and positions. It poses a challenge to keep everyone happy and playing, but it also gives us depth in the case of an injury.”This is nothing we haven’t heard (and discussed) before. But I think it’s telling that the team’s biggest “problem” this offseason is that we have a bunch of good players and no extremely pressing needs.
“We have depth in case of injury” is not a problem for the fans to get worked up about.
“We have a handedness-based platoon at third base” is not a problem to get worked up about.
“We’re not going to get offensive production out of our shortstop” is not a problem to get worked up about. (Just about nobody gets offense from SS. Don’t sweat Punto that much as long as he’s holding his own. He doesn’t have to be Joe Mauer to be successful.)
“We have at least five starters who we want in the rotation” is not a problem.
“We’re not wasting money” is not a problem.
So our main problem, according to Olney, is that we have one too many OF/DH players that should be starting, and that we have to trust Gardy’s decision-making. (Based on playing time for Delmon and Kubel, I am very afraid of having to trust Gardy’s decision-making, given that he hates both these guys.)
What about the White Sox?
Chicago White Sox: Starting pitcher The White Sox are counting on Mark Buehrle, John Danks and Gavin Floyd to man three-fifths of their rotation, and they like what they’ve seen out of Bartolo Colon. But they need someone to emerge at the back end.So they’re short a starter and are relying on Bartolo Colon to actually pitch well for a full season. You’re kidding, right? Having 3/5 of a rotation is a pretty significant problem; it wouldn’t be so bad if they had anyone in the high minors, but Danks and Floyd were just harvested and they’ve unloaded all their pitching prospects in the last year or two to acquire Swisher and Quentin. Especially in their home park, they’re going to be struggling with run prevention 2 out of every 5 days.
Or the Tigers?
Detroit Tigers: Starting rotation Tigers GM Dave Dombrowski said recently that he feels good about the depth he has in starting pitchers and could conceivably have so much that he can make a trade. Among those in the running for the No. 4 and No. 5 slots in the rotation: Armando Galarraga, Zach Miner and a supposedly slimmer Dontrelle Willis.Galarraga’s pretty good, but the Tigers and their $120M+ payroll will be relying on Zach Miner and Dontrelle Willis to hold down a spot in their rotation. Is Dave Dombrowski the only person who thinks that’s going to go well (or is, in some sense, considered “depth”)? Or has someone else lost their mind?
Cleveland Indians: Starting pitcher The back end of the Indians’ rotation could be a problem area, but the Indians don’t lack for candidates behind No. 1 starter Cliff Lee and No. 2 starter Fausto Carmona –Aaron Laffey, Jeremy Sowers, Carl Pavano, Anthony Reyes and David Huff are all going to get chances to distinguish themselves in spring training.Behind the top two in their rotation, they have a bunch of spare parts that will be fighting it out. And does anyone really think Cliff Lee is going to win another Cy Young award?
This is why I’m not freaking out. All the other contenders in our division are struggling to find starting pitchers, while we’re pitching-rich. And pitching is hugely important.
Compared to “We only have three starters,” or “We only have four starters,” or “We only have two starters,” well, “We have four outfielders” just doesn’t sound so bad.
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That was some good info to read… I always fail to look more closely at our divisional opponents before the year begins…
How about the Royals?? Or is their “problem” just being the Royals?
I think we also have the best bullpen out of our division as well, the Sox is decent with Jenks at the end of it, but how long can that fatty last?
Olney listed their problem as “not having a second baseman” since Grudzielanek retired; they’re going to try Teahen there. I didn’t list the Royals because I don’t really see them as legitimate competition in the division.
But if I were going to list their problems, I don’t know if I’d START with “no second baseman,” but I certainly wouldn’t STOP there. “Only two starters” fits (Meche and Greinke). Their bullpen is pretty weak behind Soria.
They’re spending money on Jose Guillen and Willie Bloomquist.
Their team OBP last year was .320; that’s amazing. Matt Tolbert’s OBP was .322 … as a team, the Royals hit like our backup utility infielder. And we’re not exactly an OBP-heavy team.
The Indians pen improved. They added Kerry wood, plus i think a few other relievers. Put improving from terrible to below average is still worse than us. Probably.
Good points about the bullpen, guys. For all the hoopla this winter about how desperately we need to add an 8th inning guy, we probably have the strongest pen in the division.
And even with the addition of Wood, the Indians still need to rely on a HUGE bounce back from Betancourt. It’s possible, but I don’t know how likely it is.
I’d say Brian Bannister is a legit starter. He put p decent numbers last season.
I thought Bannister was going to be good last year.
But 113 K vs 58 BB in 182 innings is not great. A 5.76 ERA is NOT great. (For those counting, that’s an ERA+ of just 74.)
His WHIP was 1.495.
I like Bannister, and I think he’s an interesting person. I appreciate that he’s a smart guy who understands and values statistics and tries to use them to make himself a better player.
But he had a terrible, terrible year. And he doesn’t have very good stuff. Or much of a fastball. I wouldn’t be confident that he’ll be able to survive another season in the AL Central.
I remember him being a semi-useful fantasy option for me for a few weeks. Maybe that was two years ago.
His numbers in 2007 were pretty good, and we both figured he’d be good again in 2008. I think he was decent at the start of the year.
He held his opponents to a .616 OPS in April. And his ERA in April was “only” 4.04, which was his best month of the year.
His opponents’ OPS for the other months weren’t so hot: .796, .827, .895, 1.012, .866. Man.
This all goes back to how insane the Twins would be to ever “entertain” the idea of adding Washburn to the rotation and completely spoil the dominate starting 5 we have over the rest of the division…
I hope when Joe C wrote that they “lost their appetite” he meant they threw up when it was mentioned!
Agreed. “lost their appetite” implies we had an appetite for Washburn to begin with. Hopefully we didn’t.
Well apparently we wanted him last summer. The Mariners shot down the deal because they wanted us to give them more prospects in addition to taking a crappy starter and his crappy contract off their hands.
According to JoeC, a Twins official said “they missed their chance.”
So, tragically, the Washburn deal did actually have a chance of happening. Just not this winter.
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