Fire Gardy

This post was supposed to be about Justin Morneau hitting two home runs on his birthday.

It was supposed to be about Mauer getting his fifth homer, which he didn’t do last year until July 12.

It was supposed to be about Liriano struggling but battling through command problems to get through 6 innings while giving up only one run.

Instead, it’s about our two new Delmons in the outfield, our new nemesis, and a blown save by Nathan.

Crain pitched the 7th inning, and actually looked pretty good until the Twins’ new nemesis — Brett Gardner — came to the plate and blooped a single down the left field line. Denard Span ran toward it, then slowed down at the last second and didn’t make much of an attempt to field it, just flailing his glove at the ball lamely as it scooted on by him. He then overshot by several feet and bounced against the wall, despite the fact that he was moving slowly to begin with. He Delmoned* Gardner’s single into an inside the park home run. Crain then fell apart, and had to be replaced by Mijares, who barely got out of the inning.

* I like this verb. I’m going to start using it.

It wouldn’t have been so bad … we ended up taking a 4-2 lead into the 9th. But Gardner led off that inning too, and lined a single to right center. Gomez for some reason just slapped the ball as he ran past it, leaving Cuddyer to hunt down the immobile ball sitting near the warning track and get it back into the infield. Gomez had played Gardner’s single into a triple.

Nathan couldn’t get anybody out. We lost the game 5-4 after intentionally walking Robinson Cano (for some reason) so we could face Melky Cabrera. Nathan threw 27 pitches, after having thrown a lot of innings over the past week. He probably needs a couple of days off, so hopefully we can win big a couple of times.*

* Heh. Yeah right.

In case you wanted to know what a game turning against us once we have it in the bag looks like, here’s a picture:

Games like this feel devastating, and seem like they should be right up on the list of painful losses. But all losses are painful, and we’ve pulled out some unlikely wins ourselves over the last few days. That kind of thing tends to even out, and this time it just happened rather quickly. These games will happen. It hurts, but we just have to come out the next day and play better. The team simply can’t afford to get down right now.

Though it’d be nice to start winning in New York.

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To nobody’s surprise, the bullpen has been the team’s biggest weakness this year. This is unusual for a Gardy-Era Twins team, and it is extremely painful to watch the pen waste good starts and acceptable offensive performances. We’re not used to that here in Twins-land, and it sucks. But what can be done about it? Most of the guys who are struggling the most are the same guys who had success for us in the past. Crain used to be an extremely effective reliever; is it possible that he simply hasn’t recovered from his shoulder injuries? Guerrier also used to be very effective, especially while he was transitioning from long reliever to trusted late innings setup guy; but did he get overused last year, and will he be able to bounce back?

Of the two, Crain is much worse right now. In his last two appearances, he has not recorded an out. Single, single, wild pitch, double, done. Home run, walk, done. This is not at all what happens when a viable late inning reliever enters the game. The best thing for Crain right now is to stay out of (major league) games and work on his mechanics, and possibly to get his head on straight. The best thing for the team is to get Crain the hell out of there and only let him back if he demonstrates he can locate his pitches consistently. It’s probably close to the time to discover some sort of “injury” and put him on the DL.* And if it turns out he doesn’t get straightened out, then that’s that. It’s over.

* In honor of Dontrelle Willis returning to the majors to face us tonight, I propose that we put Crain on the DL with “anxiety.” We cannot allow that “injury” to fall by the wayside; we need to keep an AL pitcher out with anxiety at all times. Of course, we could also go the route the Mariners did with Silva or the Yankees did with Wang, and put him on the DL with “he sucks”-itis.

It’s tough to analyze what might be wrong with Guerrier. It doesn’t seem to be his command (12 K vs 3 BB in 18 IP). But he’s give up 12 hits in those 18 innings, and 7 runs. In some outings he can locate the ball and record outs; in others, he just gets shelled. Could it have something to do with the fact that his workload last year was ridiculous and this year, once again, he’s leading the club in relief innings? Guerrier’s biggest problem very well could be that Gardy can’t trust anyone else in the bullpen.* So let’s get to talking about them, shall we?

* Except Joe Nathan, of course, who has pitched fewer innings than Guerrier, Ayala, and Dickey. Seriously. Whose idea is it to give the most innings to the least effective pitchers?

Luis Ayala (in)famously signed a $1.3M contract to come to the Twins and lose ballgames for us. So we’re getting what we paid for, in that when he enters the game, we lose. He’s pitched 15.1 innings, and given up 21 hits, 4 walks, and recorded just 10 strike outs. Oh yeah, and 9 runs.* We can’t afford to bring this guy into games any more, which just adds to Guerrier’s workload. Ayala is performing just about exactly as well as he could reasonably be expected to perform (maybe better, actually) … he’s not going to improve, he’s not going to turn any corners. He is what he is: awful. He needs to go as soon as possible. No fake injuries, no DL. Release him.

* Shockingly, he’s only given up 1 homer this year. It really feels like more.

I had high hopes for Breslow coming into the season, based on the fact that he appeared to improve dramatically after we plucked him off waivers from the Indians. Last year he wasn’t used as a lefty specialist, but just as another 1 inning reliever, and it worked to his liking. But after jettisoning Reyes, Gardy needed to fill the “lefty specialist role” in his mental roster, and so Breslow has been thrust into it simply by virtue of the fact that he throws left handed. How has it worked? 10.2 IP, 8 H, 10 BB, 8 K … 9 runs. He’s even worse than Ayala. And look at it this way: he’s already 28 years old, and we only got him because the Cleveland Indians (whose bullpen woes are at least as bad as ours) cut him. He doesn’t have much of a future. I don’t know how long we should stick with this guy. Especially given his facial expressions and body language on the mound — even BEFORE he throws a pitch.

RA Dickey was brought in as a quirky knuckleballing long reliever, and everyone assumed that he could go 5 innings every day if we needed him to. After all, knuckleballers can do that, right? Well, he hasn’t really been able to do it this year. He’s gone over 2 IP in an outing just twice, and never completed 3 IP. He’s had performances of 0.0 IP, 0.1 IP, and 0.2 IP. Worse, he’s given up at least one run in 5 of his 8 relief outings this year. You can’t go 5 innings in long relief if you’re incapable of recording enough outs. His WHIP is over 1.9! He’s giving up 12 H/9! He is Livan Hernandez! His failings here have led to innings for Crain and Guerrier in blowout victories and defeats, which they shouldn’t have to do. Even the long reliever needs more than the theoretical ability to not get tired while throwing a baseball. He needs to be able to get guys out. And Dickey has demonstrated over the years that he’s not very good at that. He probably needs to go.

Jose Mijares showed promise last year when we called him up in September, and developed an entitled attitude that Twins management really does not care for. He put on a bunch of weight over the offseason,* and showed up in spring training out of shape as if he thought he had a spot locked up. After being taught a lesson and sent to the minors, where he was largely ineffective, we had to call him back up because of the unrepentant crappiness of everyone else in the bullpen. He’s actually performed pretty well, with an 11.0 K/9 (the best strikeout rate on the team) against just a 2.5 BB/9. In a recent outing, he gave up a two run homer to Griffey that tied the game; while I wish that hadn’t happened, it’s not beyond the realm of possibility or anything. The worst part about that was the look on Mijares’ face afterwards, as he sat on the bench unsuccessfully trying to hold back tears. You can’t show those emotions when you’re on the field. Mijares is just 24, though, and presumably has a reasonable future with the Twins. He could step into the 8th inning role, and the only fears I have are: a) that Gardy will overuse him a la Guerrier and Neshek, and b) that Gardy will decide to use him as a lefty specialist rather than a far more valuable “real reliever.” I guess I have a third fear … and it’s based on the knowledge that Gardy will definitely do at least one, if not both, of those things.

* Although I have the distinct feeling this was at the request of Gardy, who needed to slot someone into his “ludicrously fat Latino reliever” role.

Finally, that brings us to Nathan, and what will be the overall point of this article (what, you didn’t think there’d be one?). Nathan has thrown just 12 IP, and given up all of 2 runs (both on solo homers). He remains one of the elite relievers in the game, which is an extremely valuable asset to have. Unfortunately, like most other “Closers,” he is being misused because of his manager’s insistence on pandering to the “save” statistic. It is unacceptable that Nathan sits on the bench while Crain and Ayala lose the game in the 8th inning; Nathan should come into the 8th in those situations to save the game when it’s needed, rather than wait in the hopes that we can use the best reliever on the team to get 3 outs with a 3 run lead and call it a “save” as if there’s something magical about those last three outs.

And this, of course, is the point. Everyone has been ingrained to believe that the members of a bullpen need “roles” in order to perform their duty. That for some reason relievers sit out there in the bullpen NOT ready to pitch, and if you bring them in at the wrong time they’ll get confused. That you need to keep your best reliever as The Closer who doesn’t pitch unless it’s easy. That you need a crappy former 7th starter out there who you can throw out there in blowouts and call him The Long Reliever. That you need a Fat Latino. That you need at least one, and preferably two Lefty Specialists. That you need A Seventh Inning Guy, and also An Eighth Inning Guy. With this old fashioned LaRussian bullpen configuration, you too can be like every other manager in baseball over the last 25 years!

The thing is, relievers are a notoriously unpredictable bunch. Some are consistently good over the course of years, like Mariano Rivera and Joe Nathan. Others have a good year or two and disappear, like Pat Neshek and a thousand other guys you saw at one point and have forgotten because it turned out they were nobodies. Others have a good year or two and then linger on, ineffective but trying to recapture past glory — think Crain and Guerrier. But you can’t predict who’s going to be which kind, and you also can’t predict who’s going to be good in any given year. So, despite the fact that the best thing to do is give the jobs to minor leaguers and retreads, and to pitch them based on rest and matchups and leverage (rather than preset roles) … what teams instead want to do is trade prospects for relievers, or spend millions of dollars on the free agent market, and then give them all roles as if LaRussa was unquestionably correct, and then hope they get lucky that year. And it is just luck, for the most part.

Steven Goldman of Baseball Prospectus points out:

So what is a general manager to do if he wants to end up with the Phillies ‘08 bullpen and not the Mets ‘08 bullpen? Prayer might help—that, and a gambler’s mentality. For though the instability at the top of the reliever corps is great, the pitchers that move onto the list have to come from somewhere. Quite often, they come from the minor leagues, be they prospects or journeymen. This means that a GM’s best option is often also his cheapest option. When we examined the top reliever ranks in 2006, we found that from 1975 through 2005 on average the top 50 contained only 20 pitchers who had thrown more than 10 innings in the majors the previous year. This particular form of turnover seems to have slowed in recent years, with only one-fifth of the list yielding to pitchers who, through injury, inexperience, or ineffectiveness, were largely absent from the major leagues the year before.

So why not throw away the LaRussian bullpen, and dispose of the precious roles? One way to look at it is that this is exactly what Joe Maddon of the Rays did in 2008, and his bullpen was a huge strength of that team.

Personally, I don’t really care for that kind of hero-worship. (I just led off with it because if you believe in blindly trusting LaRussa, maybe you’ll be convinced by an exhortation to blindly trust Maddon.) The I prefer to look at this is that it frees you from sticking to a rigid method of using your bullpen, and allows you to use pitchers in situations that they are either a) most likely to succeed in, or b) most needed in. Sure, sometimes you’ll bring in the best reliever with a lead in the 9th; but sometimes you’ll have a 3 run lead and you can go with someone else. Sometimes you will have already used the best reliever in the 7th or 8th with men on base, and need to go with someone else to start the 9th.* Even if the second or third best reliever blows the game in the 9th (which is not likely since ALL relievers, overall, convert over 90% of “save situations,” so the value of having a truly elite closer is, in reality, minimal), you can rest easy in the knowledge that you probably wouldn’t have even HAD a save situation in the first place if Luis Ayala had come in to face a good hitter with men on base — they would have scored and we would have lost with Nathan sitting down. And then we’d have to let Nathan into a game with a wider margin and absolutely no leverage, just to let him get his work in.

* The common refrain here is that “closers aren’t as good when it’s not a save situation.” This is most likely a case of seeing something happen once or twice and ascribing it to be related to a previously held belief. IE, a confirmation bias. The real question is: in a high pressure situation, like men on base and the middle of the order up, would you rather have your best reliever on the mound, or your fourth best? Does it matter whether it’s the 8th or 9th inning? Why?

The fact that it’s somehow considered a good idea to keep The Closer on the bench during a close loss so that you can save him for the next day when he gets an inning in a blowout “just to get his work in” is laughable at best, and is the clearest sign that something about this absurd status quo needs to change.

Will Gardy start making changes to the way he uses the bullpen? Almost certainly not.

Should he? I think so, absolutely.

Anyhow, why worry? What could happen? Nathan doesn’t get saves because he’s creating save situations for other pitchers rather than not getting saves because the rest of the bullpen is blowing the lead before he gets the chance?

It’s not like the bullpen could actually be worse than it is now. At least TRY to change something in the hopes that it can work better.

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Clete Thomas should know better than to try and rob Joe Mauer twice in one game.  In an unusual display of power so far, Mauer has blasted 4 homers so far this season.  Which is excellent. 

The Mauer and Crede homers gave Kevin Slowey a nice lead to work with for most of his 6 innings.  He only gave up the one run but struggled.  He seemingly couldn’t get the leadoff man out.  Slowey threw 98 pitches in 6 innings, so everyone knew Gardy wasn’t going to let him out there for the 7th.  Instead he brought in Jesse Crain because he hadn’t given up a homer all year, the only pitcher to accomplish that feat.  Well apparently he got lonely in that club so he served one up to someone named Jeff Larish.  He also threw 11 pitches, only 4 were for strikes.  FOUR!  What the hell is that?

As was the case in the weekend series, the Twins drew lots of walks.  7 in this game.  The only people who didn’t draw a walk were Span (which is a surprise), Young (which isn’t) and Crede.  Cred had a homer and Span had two hits, so its OK.  

Mauer had another superhuman game.  Was 2-3 with a homer (almost 2) 2 RBI, 1 run, and a walk.  His average now sits at an even 500.  Looks as if he got his revenge on the Tigers for playing poorly against them last week.

Outside of Crain the bullpen look fine.  Mijares got some big outs, as did Guerrier.  Nathan looked excellent as always while pitching a perfect ninth.

One criticism is I would like for us to cut down on strikeouts while we increase our walk totals.  The team struck out a total of 8 times, including 2 each by Span and Tolbert.

Tonight we face the man formally known as D-Train.  Hopefully we can tee off on him early and often.  He was on the DL with “anxiety” problems.  Translate that as inability to get anyone out.   Hopefully Harris is in the lineup tonight.  Dick and Bert interviewed him from the dugout last night and I commend him for not wanting to go Kyle Lohse on people while losing playing time to Punto, Casilla and Tolbert. 

Is anyone else frustrated that Gardy has turned Gomez into nothing more than a late inning defensive replacement for Young?  I like Delmon more than most people, probably more than anyone (here is a piece by intelligent firegardy.com reader thrylos98.)  Gomez has too much damn potential to be rotting away on a bench to get at most 4 at bats a week.

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After the offense awoke on Friday and Saturday, producing 20 runs on the back of 7 homers, including back-to-back shots by Mauer and Morneau on consecutive nights, the bats took a bit of a break on Sunday. Frustratingly, they only took said break with runners on base, as the Twins wasted numerous scoring opportunities in Sunday’s series finale against the Mariners.

And the bullpen decided to demonstrate why you can’t afford to waste those opportunities, in the course of also wasting a brillian start by Blackburn (7 IP, 5 H, 1 BB, 6 K, 0 R).

For dramatic effect, here is a picture of what “snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory” looks like:

With a 2 run lead in the 8th inning, Gardy took a look at the one of the only two stats managers are allowed to adhere to,* and took Blackburn out given that he’d thrown 99 pitches through 7 innings.

* Managers are allowed to look at “pitch count,” and remove the starter at 100 pitches regardless of any other consideration. They are also allowed to look at “saves,” and keep the closer — ie, best reliever — on the bench in a close game when the rest of the bullpen is failing rapidly and losing the game. Despite the fact that both of these things often lead to losing baseball games, managers are not allowed to change their behavior. Gardy is one of the many blind offenders.

Despite the obviousness of the fact that the Twins’ best bet to win games is to have the starter go eight scoreless and then bring in Nathan, Gardy decided to flip a 100-sided die in the hopes that a 13 came up — in other words, he went to the bullpen hoping for the 1-in-100 chance that they didn’t blow it.

Unfortunately, Mijares gave up a Home Run Sponsored By Subway* to Ken Griffey Jr, who has now his two of his three home runs on the season against left handed pitchers at the Metrodome. While I personally find that both interesting and depressing, Mijares looked like he just considered it depressing. He spent the rest of the game by himself on the bench looking like he was unsuccessfully trying to hold back tears.

* Griffey’s homer went into that hole that says “Win $25000 from Subway” that’s been hanging over the baggy for years. It has always been unclear a) who wins the money, a.1) why it would be important to multi-millionaire baseball players to win $25K, a.2) how it might be decided who else might get the money, b) whether the winnings are awarded in cash or in sandwiches. Unfortunately, none of these questions were answered, because after he did it, Subway clarified that these questions are unimportant because it only applies if a Twins player hits in the hole. Which everyone knows will never happen.

By the way, why is Jesse Crain trying to best himself every time out? And by “best himself” I mean “suck even worse than last time, somehow.” He came in, faced three batters, and gave up two line drives, a wild pitch, and a blast off the top of the baggie (which was about as close to a home run as Morneau’s earlier in the game).

After that, the Twins looked pretty dejected. Especially Craig Breslow, who really didn’t look like he wanted to be in the game while he was sucking in the ninth. The one thing I have to say to him is this: Don’t worry Craig, we don’t want you in the game either.

This story could have ended with a story about a thrilling comeback victory, except Brendan Harris grounded out with the bases loaded after Morrow lost his command in the ninth. But that failure isn’t nearly as bad as the bullpen’s.

What can possibly be done about these relievers?

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I could talk about last night’s disaster. I could talk about how Slowey looked terrible, couldn’t locate any of his pitches, and was effectively throwing batting practice. I could talk about how that game probably should have been called due to rain, but they inexplicably started it up again to try to speed through the fifth and make it official (it worked).

But I won’t. Those things are just daily trivialities, and I know nobody’s happy with the way the team is looking right now.

What I am going to talk about is Justin Morneau. Yeah, sure, he’s hitting well and his numbers are big and pretty, which kind of negates my theory that his eyes aren’t quite back yet. Except … let’s go ahead and get some numbers from Dave Cameron:

Justin Morneau will not wait for you to throw him a strike.

Morneau is a very good hitter in the midst of another very good year. He’s the classic left-handed power hitter, driving in runs in bunches in the middle of the order. He’s the kind of hitter that pitchers don’t want to make a mistake to, and are usually willing to put on first base with a base on balls. Only, Morneau won’t let them. He’s drawn just seven walks this year, and it’s not because pitchers are challenging him – he swung at a staggering 51.2% of pitches outside the strike zone last week, the highest mark in the league. His O-Swing% for the season stands at 37.8%, meaning that he’s swinging at nearly two of every five balls that a pitcher throws. I’m not one to critique the work of a guy with a .404 wOBA, but patience is a virtue, Justin.

When Cameron actually has data to back him up, he seems a little less biased.

Look, I know his base numbers are good. Even one level down, his numbers are good. But you’re not going to draw that many walks swinging at 50% of the pitches outside of the strike zone. And you’re not encouraging pitchers to actually put one over the plate. They’re better off nibbling and missing, with the knowledge that Morneau will still swing at it.

Sure, he’s good enough that maybe he’ll make contact and poke a single to opposite field. It’ll keep his batting average up.

But most pitchers will accept an opposite field single from the big slugger, if it means not having to risk putting a fastball over the plate and possibly getting burned.

I don’t know if Morneau’s strike zone control problems are related to his vision, or if he’s trying to do too much, or if he’s just decided he doesn’t want to be in the batter’s box too long, or what. But as long as he’s flailing at the ball like Delmon Young, his Morneau-like stats are not sustainable.

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According to LEN3 the Twins are expected to make a roster move before today’s game.  It seemed as though everyone in the clubhouse expressed their displeasure with Casilla’s mistakes over the last two games. 

If you do the simple math in the above summary of Neal’s post, you will understand that the Twins will probably send Casilla to AAA.  This is probably for the best.  Not only has he been a black hole at the plate, but he has been bringing those at bats into the field and making terrible mental errors, some of which are actual errors in the boxscore.

The obvious choice to replace him on the roster is Matt Tolbert.  While I don’t necessarily agree that this is the best choice, everyone knows Gardy loves him some Tolbert so he will be the first guy up when we need an infielder. Hopefully Harris gets most (or ideally all) of the starts at second until Casilla proves he is a major league starter.  Something he really hasn’t shown since his wrist injury last summer.  As much as I hate to say it, Casilla is forcing me to draw comparisons to Luis Rivas.  Very talented, but just can’t seem to put the pieces together for more than a few games at a time.  We (sirsean in particular) have always been strong supporters of Casilla, but if he is going to play like a goddamn idiot out there, its hard to say he should be in the lineup everyday. 

As long as we are booking flights from Rochester to Baltimore and vice versa, can we please send Luis Ayala away?  There are several capable relievers in AAA (Delaney, Slama to name a few) that I would rather have in there than Ayala.  The Ayala signing didn’t get as much flak as the Ponson-esque signings did in the past, but it is very similar.  We signed a pitcher who is a crappy veteran to shore up the bullpen, when we had a few capable young arms in the organization already.  We have done the same thing with our starting rotation in the past, but I would argue this is just as bad since the bullpen was our biggest weakness last season.   So using a repair method that never worked on other parts of our team is a pretty silly way to solve a problem.  However, I doubt they will move Ayala. Although I have heard rumblings that Gardy has been discussing Slama with Wild Bill.  Bringing up a power pitcher who can strike people out is obviously and improvement over Luis Ayala.  Hell, I might be an improvement over Ayala.  At least I’m left handed.

What are you thoughts on Casilla, and any other roster moves we should make as we start the second month of the season?

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I honestly didn’t think we had a very good chance to win that game last night.  That is until the 7th inning when we slammed the door.  The Tigers are built to hit a lot of homers, so a one run lead is basically nothing against them. That is why it was so important we kept hitting the ball and didn’t just take that first run of the 7th to the bank.

I thought it was questionable to bring Liriano back out for the 8th.  Everyone knew he was going to be pulled if he got into trouble, and our relievers have shown they are worse than normal when coming in with runners on.  So why not send Guerrier out there to start the 8th?  I guess it doesn’t matter since we won the game, but I hope this doesn’t become a pattern. 

It looks as though Crede and Cuddyer have finally decided to start hitting the ball.  Its about time some of those second-class citizen right handers started carrying their weight on this team.

Um, Casilla needs to be smacked around for that play in the first.  What in God’s name was he thinking?  That was a heads up play by Jackson, but Casilla needs to be fined and/or benched for that play.  How much longer is Gardy going to use Casilla as the starter at second and bat him second?  He has to be close to giving both of those spots to Harris.  He is basically a black hole between our 4 best hitters.  Can you imagine if we had Harris and his 300 + average batting second everyday?  Much better than Casilla and his terrible-ness.

Liriano was good.  He was a little sloppy early when issuing 3 walks, but he was able to strike enough guys out to strand those runners.  Giving up a homer to Cabrera is not big deal as everyone has done it at some point.

I hope Young takes notes from Crede and Cuddyer and starts to hit the ball consistently.  I don’t think he is in danger of losing much playing time since Gardy has basically forgotten Gomez exists, so Young will be getting most of the starts in LF for the foreseeable future.

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Today the Twins activated Mauer from the 15 day DL and assigned Juan Morillo to Rochester.  LEN3 mentions nothing of Morillo having to clear waivers for this move, I was under the impression that he had to. 

This is a decent move.  If Gardy was willing to let Morillo pitch in blowout games to hone his control, I would say we should have kept him.  Since this is not the case, at least he will get a lot of work in down in Rochester with the Cliburns, which never hurt anyone.

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FSN has been running a promo or something related to an all Metrodome team.  This would be comprised of players who played for the Twins while they were in the dome.  Bert Blyleven, for example, technically would be eligible, but his best Twins years were pre-1982.  So, I will unveil the unofficial firegardy.com Metrodome team.  Note: nowhere will you find Nick Punto or Michael Cuddyer. Just sayin.

Starting Pitchers  (I’m going to pick three): Johan Santana, Frank Viola, Scott Erickson.  The first two are obvious choices as they won CY Young awards with the Twins, and were both pretty dominant.  I picked Erickson because he was instrumental in the 91 World Series, he threw a no-hitter at the dome, and sported a sweet mullet.

Catcher: Joe Mauer.  He is probably the best catcher the Twins have ever had.  He only has played a few years in the Dome, and some might think Brian Harper is a better choice since he won a World Series.  Mauer has two batting titles, finished pretty high in MVP voting, has a Gold Glove, and is still only 26. 

First Base: Gotta go with Hrbek here.  Two championships, and a pretty solid career top to bottom. Good defender at first, great hitter.  His career average is 282, his career OPS+ is 128.  All very good.

Second Base: Chuck Knoblauch.  Rookie of the year, gold glove caliber secondbase (before we traded him), excellent leadoff man.  He provided a great spark for that 91 team.  Too bad every Twins team he was on sucked, outside of 91 of course.

Thirdbase: Gary Gaetti.  The Rat provided power at the hot corner that the Twins have yet to replicate.  He had back to back 30 homer years in 86 and 87.  One of only two Dome era Twins players to do that, Justin Morneau being the other.

Shortstop: Greg Gagne. While not an huge offensive threat (what shortstop was in this era, Ripken maybe) Gagne was on both World Series teams.  He also hit two inside the park homers in one game at the dome in 1986. So that’s cool.  Gagne left the team on bad terms in 92 when we paid Puckett a huge contract and were unable to afford what Gagne thought he was worth.  Oh well, he was a great shortstop to have when we had him.

Outfield: Kirby Puckett, Torii Hunter, Dan Gladden.  This is a tougher one.  The first two are obvious.  For the third you could make a case for several players, including Tom Brunansky, or Shane Mack.  As usual, the mullet is  the tie-breaker.

Bullpen: (I’m going with two) Rick Aguilera and Jeff Reardon.  These are two pretty obvious choices as they were the closers for the 91 and 87 teams.  Reardon only played for the Twins for three years, but in those years he had save totals of 31-42-31.  He had an ERA+ of 164 in 1988, that is very good.  Aguilera stepped in to replace Reardon and the bullpen didn’t skip a beat. His ERA+ of 182 in 1991 basically meant if we got to the ninth, we were going to win.  From 1990-94 he had save totals of: 32-42-41-34-23.   He was then traded to Boston midway through 1995.  But came back in 1996 with moderate success.  Those teams were pretty bad so it is hard to expect much out of a closer on a terrible team.

I’m going to forego bench players. 

As you may have noticed there are a lot of players from good Twins teams.  When the Twins were bad, they obviously didn’t have many good players.  I WANTED to pick Scott Stahoviak and Ron Coomer, but I just couldn’t. 

What is your “All Dome Team”?

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