Fire Gardy

Given the continuing struggles of the bullpen, I think it’s about time to look back at the one bullpen acquisition we made versus the ones we passed up. At the time, we passed on both Latroy Hawkins and Chad Bradford (to my chagrin), and we picked up Eddie Guardado (also to my chagrin).

Here’s what it looked like at the time:

Hawkins: 23/17 K/BB, 42 H in 41 IP
Bradford: 2.45 ERA, 1.19 WHIP in 40 IP
Guardado: 28/17 K/BB, 38 H in 49 IP

We passed on both Hawkins and Bradford before Eddie showed up on the waiver wire and we pounced.

And what have they done since then?

Hawkins: 19/3 K/BB, 5 H in 13 IP, 0.00 ERA
Bradford: 0.69 ERA in 13 IP
Guardado: 11 H, 5 ER in 3 IP, for a whopping 13.50 ERA and 3.6 WHIP

Now tell me: Aren’t you glad we picked Guardado over Hawkins and Bradford? At the very least, he’s taking the strain off our overworked bullpen, right? Those 3 IP have been pretty valuable — especially since we have to pull him and put in someone else to put out his fire every time. His WHIP is 3.6!!! Are you kidding me?

The stats guys were right about this one.

Well, the mystery of the Disappearing Bullpen Help may have been solved. As recently discussed in the comments over on our last post, Gardenhire claims that he’s looking for a spot to put Mijares into a game, but can’t find one.

Twins manager Ron Gardenhire is trying to find a spot to get a look at lefthander Jose Mijares. The ninth inning last night seemed to be a good time,  but the manager - with memories of several blown leads this season fresh in his mind - didn’t want a situation where Mijares gave up a couple runs and force him to warm up Joe Nathan. “Six runs is not that big of a lead in this league,” he said.

Oh, that’s right. Six runs ahead just isn’t enough of a lead. He might give up a few runs, in which case we’d have to use one of our better relievers who are all overworked. We wouldn’t want to do that. Instead, we’ll just use our better relievers who are all overworked. Problem solved!

So. Six runs ahead is too close. Obviously, Mijares and Humber aren’t coming into a game closer than that. That leaves the only possibility of these young relievers getting any work is if we’re being blown out. And if we’re losing by a lot, it stands to reason that we wouldn’t want to prevent the other team from scoring — oh no, we wouldn’t want to attempt a comeback and actually try to win a game! It’s much more important to just give up and prepare for the next day!

I can understand why Gardy would only want to bring these guys in in a blowout. That’s fine. (At first, until they demonstrate what they can do against big league hitters.) But … I don’t understand why we have to be losing big in order to see what they’ve got. Are we afraid he’ll give up the rare Grand-Slam-and-a-Half?

After being swept in a doubleheader by the red-hot Blue Jays the White Sox sit just one game above the Twins with 18 games to go.  This is a huge morale boost.  The White Sox face Roy Halladay and he is awesome.  Also, Paul Konerko went down with what looked like a serious injury, I usually don’t wish harm upon other players, but the White Sox hardly consist of “players”, more like 25 “satan incarnates” and its OK to wish harm upon satan incarnate.   With Quentin formally out for the season, and Konerko probably done for most of the year, the Twins probably had their best 24 hours all season.  It is important that we just keep focusing on our own games.  I get the feeling that on that road trip (and the tigers series) the team focused too much on what the Sox were doing, and not enough on what the Twins were doing.  As hard as it is to do, its time to put the blinders on.  We have no control over what the White Sox do (until we play them).  They are now relying on Ken Griffey, Jr. to be an impact bat in their lineup, which is something no team should have to do.  The man is old, and I think they were expecting him to pick up some slack for the stretch run, not carry the offense.

The Twins have a stretch of six games (including last night) against the Royals and the O’s, so hopefully we play like we did last night for all six of them.  I still don’t trust the bullpen, but playing weak lineups should allow our starters to get into the 7th inning, thus minimizing how often we have to use worthless Reyes and/or Crain.  I still don’t get why Gardy isn’t using the September call-ups.  Last night for example, we are up by 5, why bring in a terribly overworked Jesse Crain instead of Humber or someone else?  Its a relatively low-leverage situation (I guess five runs isn’t a huge lead) and the Royals have a very weak lineup, perfect for a young pitcher to face. 

The Twins have an off-day before they start that crucial series against the Sox in a few weeks, so hopefully we will use that to our advantage.  Apparently having that off-day at home on Monday helped the team immensely.  It should be a fun next few weeks, Go Twins!

The Twins evidently missed the memo informing them that The RNC Road Trip is over, meaning that they can stop blowing leads late in the game. Over the weekend we blew two more games to the Tigers and let a series victory get away.

Not surprisingly, the two meltdowns were the work of the bullpen, once again. And it was the usual suspects. On Saturday, Reyes and Guerrier each gave up two run homers before Crain and Breslow came in to finish the game. On Sunday, Breslow came in to give up a hit (without recording an out) before Boof came in to give up some runs and Guardado and Nathan finished off the loss.

But both times, I was left confused. For the entire road trip, and for several weeks leading up to it, all we heard about was how much the bullpen has been overworked. They’re so overworked, in fact, that Rick Anderson can’t even take them aside between games to work on stuff and try to fix what’s ailing them. They’re just exhausted from overuse and have been struggling to get the job done any more.

Oh woe is us, for surely there’s nothing to be done about that! Right? Except, of course, for the September 1 call up of Bobby Korecky, Phil Humber, and Jose Mijares. In close games this weekend, Gardy chose to put in overworked and underperforming Reyes/Guerrier/Crain into tough spots in which they have consistently failed all season (and especially lately) rather than try something new, perhaps to inject some life into the team and at the very, very least give the more experienced and talented members of the bullpen some valuable rest. Which would then allow them to stay fresh for the rest of the month (perhaps beyond?) and to — importantly — get some work in between outings with Anderson.

On Saturday, when Reyes came in, my immediate question was “Why does this situation warrant a walk and a hit?” The home run, of course, rendered my fear moot. Then Guerrier followed, as did Crain and Breslow … and I was left wondering what happened to Korecky and Humber. What’s the worst that could possibly happen? We lose the game? Well, what actually happened was worse — we lost the game and the top of our bullpen got even more overworked.

On Sunday, it was more of the same. Why are Boof and Eddie pitching when Korecky and Humber are ready to go? What’s the worst that could happen? We lose the game? Well, that actually happened again.

It’s folly for me to sit here and say that different moves would have worked out differently and we would have won the games. And Gardy’s reasoning for bringing in Reyes and Guerrier was “solid,” in that Granderson and Ordonez hadn’t hit well against them. However, for weeks now, he’s been using that same “solid” reasoning, and Reyes, Guerrier, Crain, Guardado, and Bonser have been failing. Repeatedly, and without signs of stopping. At some point, it must be time to re-evaluate and come up with some different reasoning. The kind that involves giving your bullpen some rest and giving Korecky and Humber some work. The very worst that could happen is that the results stay the same.

But, on this off day, consider this: The last time the Twins had lost a series at home was the beginning of June, immediately before getting swept by the White Sox — followed, of course, by two consecutive months of great baseball that kept us right in the hunt all summer. If (recent) history repeats itself, the Twins will find a way to figure out these problems and get back to their winning ways at exactly the right time.

The point is: Never get too far down. It can turn around in an instant.

Today, Rob Neyer went over his list of potential American League MVP candidates. He’s obviously a big Red Sox guy (he does, after all, work for ESPN … and I think being a Red Sox fan is as helpful to employment there as being a no-power, no-plate-discipline middle infielder is to employment by the Twins).

So his conclusion? Dustin Pedroia!

A-Rod’s not going to win the award, for any number of reasons.

Hamilton’s fallen off everyone’s radar since the All-Star Game.

Cabrera hasn’t been on anyone’s radar since April. Same for Sizemore, who might actually be having the best season of them all.

It looks to me like there are only three viable candidates: Pedroia, Quentin and Morneau.

Except we’ve got some breaking news: Quentin’s season is probably over. In terms of the MVP, it is over.

Which leaves only Pedroia and Morneau. And with Pedroia’s Red Sox having a significantly better chance of reaching the playoffs than Morneau’s Twins, at this moment Pedroia’s the No. 1 candidate.

Morneau is the only player that he didn’t even bother to offhandedly dismiss, only stating that the Twins are, compared to the vaunted, awesome Red Sox, pretty crappy. But the thing is … I think he underestimates the Twins’ chances of making the playoffs.

Despite having played terribly on the RNC Road Trip, we’re still only a game and a half back. I know everyone’s really down on our chances right now (I know I am), and that 1.5 seems like a whole lot more — but think about it from the White Sox’ perspective. They saw we had this long road trip and it was their chance to put some distance between us and them. We played about as badly as possible during the trip … and we’re still right behind them. I talked to some White Sox fans today (an “advantage” of living in Chicago), and they continue to be terrified of the Twins while at the same time really worried that they couldn’t get more of a lead. And that’s without considering the loss of Quentin. So let’s not call the AL Central race over just yet. We’re not Fox News here.

But secondly, even if the Twins do manage to make it to the playoffs … could Morneau actually be an MVP candidate? Here’s how his numbers stack up against Pedroia:

Morneau: .311/.388/.516, 21 HR, 109 RBI, 40 2B, 85 R, 142 OPS+
Pedroia: .333/.378/.505, 17 HR, 76 RBI, 44 2B, 110 R, 127 OPS+

I don’t see how Pedroia’s numbers get him an MVP over Morneau if both teams make it to the playoffs. They’re quite simply … not as good. The runs and RBI come pretty close to evening out, and are mostly a function of where they bat in the lineup. I’ll take 4 more HR over 4 more 2B. And a higher OBP and SLG lead to an even higher OPS+ than Morneau had in his MVP 2006 season.

I still don’t think Morneau has a great case for MVP, but this season neither does anyone else. And Morneau’s just about our only offensive weapon — the same cannot be said for Pedroia. And there’s still some season left to play, before we get to see the National Media (located in Boston) invent an MVP award for one of their own.

The first step, though, is to make the playoffs. It’s time to right that ship, starting tonight. Go Twins.

Last night Nathan blew another save, and got the loss when he threw a ball past Harris and allowed the tying and winning runs to score, turning a 2-1 lead into a 3-2 walkoff loss.

That’s two walkoff losses in the last three games. Unacceptable.

And it wasted another great start by Liriano, who had yet another chance to pitch us back into first. (By the way, does it seem to anyone else that every time he pitches, we’re 1/2 game out?)

But I don’t want to talk about that today. If you look to the right side of the page, you should see something new: Nick Punto’s stats are displayed in the sidebar.

That’s part of a new program we’ve added to Fire Gardy, called (creatively) the “Fire Gardy Stat Grabber.” It reaches out to Baseball-Reference.com and downloads the stats for a player and displays them on any Wordpress blog. So if you want to put someone’s stats on your own blog, head over to the Fire Gardy Stat Grabber page and download it.

More importantly … I don’t know if we want to just display Punto’s stats. When we opened the doors here at Fire Gardy, my co-founder FunBobby came up with the idea of showing Punto’s stats on the site as a tribute to his still getting playing time despite a lack of ability. The thing is … he’s producing about as well as could be hoped. As you can see, he’s currently got a 100 OPS+, which is more than adequate from a utility infielder.

So! We should probably display some other players on here. Who should go on there? (Major limitation: Hitters only for now.)

Delmon Young? Adam Everett? Denard Span? Carlos Gomez? Torii Hunter?

I’ll take any suggestions and decide who gets the honor of having their stats displayed on the sidebar. And we can have any number of players over there, there’s no limit.

And now, hopefully we can score some runs today and save a split against the lowly A’s.

As I’m sure everybody knows by now, Instant Replay is now a part of baseball. After the umpires managed to repeatedly find themselves unable to determine whether a ball went over the fence or not (really?), the outcry got loud enough that everyone (except the umpires) wanted to do something to make sure the calls get made correctly. So the umpires grudgingly obliged, and will now go through a ridiculously convoluted and mysterious process to review calls. I have a few problems with Instant Replay as it was implemented.

• The replay will not be shown at the stadium, meaning that the fans, players, and managers will be completely in the dark as to what the umpire may or may not have seen to overturn the call. If there’s a questionable home run call and you’re sitting around for a few minutes wondering what happened, does it fill you with confidence when the umpire appears from behind the curtain and says “Yes, it was a home run after all. Trust me. Oh yeah, game over, you lose.” If you’d seen the video, there’s at least the chance that you could be non-homerish and see that the call was right (or that the umpire is still wrong).
• Replay will be used only at the umpire’s discretion. Managers cannot “challenge” plays (much to the amusing chagrin of Lou Piniella), they can only “request” a review, and the umpires are free to deny this request. Basically, if the umpires think they got the call right, it won’t be reviewed — and the umpires always think they’re right. Is anyone confident now?
• Questioning the decision of the umpire results in summary ejection. Normally I wouldn’t have a problem with this rule — arguing with the results of the review should result in ejection, because it’s pointless and delays the game and they’re obviously not going to review it again and re-reverse a call. But consider it in the context of the previous two bullets: The managers and players haven’t seen the replays, so they don’t know what happened; if questioning the umpires results in summary dismissal, then I’d expect it to happen often when a call goes against a manager and he doesn’t know why. Secondly, the managers can’t “demand” a review, they can only “request;” if they are too forceful, they can be ejected. This is going to be pretty farcical.
• The system relies on its enemies to carry out the plan competently and effectively; the umpires don’t want replay, and it was forced on them. All they have to do to make it a “failure” is to do a bad job: refuse to review questionable calls, refuse to overturn calls that they thought were right on the field, offer no visibility into their decisions, eject players and managers for “arguing” about replay, et cetera. If the umpires don’t buy into the system, there needs to be an authoritative person/committee above them to administer replays and override the dubious authority of the umpires.

Obviously, there are going to be some problems with Instant Replay, and I really hope they’re not too bad, because an anti-Replay backlash could go a long way toward preventing a fix to the true problem: Instant Replay doesn’t go far enough.

When Ryan Howard beats out a grounder with two outs late in a tie game, scoring a run to take the lead — oh wait! The umpire incorrectly called him out so the runner doesn’t score and the Phillies lose. This has clear and immediate implications on the playoffs in the NL East and Wildcard.

AJ Pierzynski stupidly runs from second to third on a grounder to short — after a brief rundown he turns his head, reaches out to slap a defender, and falls over as if he’d been tackled. The umpire calls “obstruction” and awards him third base. Men on first and third with one out is a whole lot different than a man on first with two out — the White Sox won two batters later, which has clear and immediate implications on the playoffs in the AL Central, East and Wildcard.

But the AJ Obstruction Scandal gets even more delicious. The umpire in question was Doug Eddings, who as a general rule does nothing but get calls wrong. (If he’s umpiring, you can be sure that both teams are going to get screwed regularly; the guy just never seems to know what he’s doing.) After the game, Eddings was shown a replay of the play, and he immediately thought he’d made a mistake:

Mike Port, MLB’s vice president of umpiring, told the St. Petersburg Times on Thursday that it was “a missed call” and that in making the split-second decision, Eddings thought he saw runner A.J. Pierzynski “impeded more than he was” by Aybar, the Rays’ third baseman.

“Looking back at that occurrence, for the first and last time, it was a missed call,” Port said. “And it was not because Doug Eddings, an umpire with 10 years’ experience and 10 before that in the minor leagues, didn’t know the application of the rule, but just that in the moment in applying the rule, he saw something he thought was more than it turned out to be.”

If only there was something we could do to get calls like that right, so the winners of games — and perhaps the teams in the playoffs — are decided by the play on the field rather than the umpires. Perhaps Instant Replay should apply to more than just boundary calls, but to questionable mistakes made by umpires?

Most of the commentary I’ve heard about this question goes back to “The Human Element.” On Fox’s “Crappy Hour Before the Game Starts” segment on Saturday afternoon, that irritating woman who sits next to Mark Grace said “I’m old fashioned, and I’m all about the Human Element. Why do we need replay at all?” What is the Human Element, and why do people think it’s a good thing?

Umpires make the wrong call, unfairly benefiting one player or team over his opponent, and this is accepted because … ? Status quo? To err is human? Mistakes are acceptable? Since when is minimizing the importance of the players and their feats on the field in favor of decrees by masked bureaucrats an American Tradition?

Bud Selig insists that Instant Replay will never be more than boundary calls, adding that he hates technology and just got a computer last year. Congratulations, Bud, but you’re supposed to be the Commissioner of Major League Baseball, a $7 billion company, not the Commissioner of The Association for Troglodytic Luddite Baseball Fans. Don’t brag about the fact that you’re trying to run the show while being unable to figure out your email program — especially when Eric Hosmer might lose his contract because the Commissioner’s Office was communicating with the Pirates … and apparently are incapable of receiving two phone calls (or emails) at once. Selig doesn’t need to pander to his base of technology-fearing old people — he should probably be trying to popularize the game among a younger demographic that is comfortable with technology and has plenty of disposable income. But I digress — I shouldn’t let Bud Selig’s deliberate and malicious incompetence distract me. This is about baseball. About the integrity of the game. And about the umpires ruining that integrity by consistently making the wrong call.

The calls should be right. Umpires have an increasingly difficult job — parks get bigger, smaller, more unique; players get bigger and faster, they hit and throw harder than ever. An umpire can’t reasonably be expected to have 100% accuracy on a call determined by milliseconds and fractions of an inch — especially when he’s looking at it from hundreds of feet away. If there were some technology that would aid the umpires in making correct calls such that the players determine who wins, how can that possibly be worse than allowing the umpires to stubbornly stick with what has “always worked?”

The Human Element. Stubbornness. Caring more about job security than competence. Why idolize this stupid behavior.

Fix Instant Replay: Make it separate from and above the umpires, and use it for everything.

The Human Element? The players are already human.

(Now someone please print this out so Bud Selig and the rest of The Association for Troglodytic Luddite Baseball Fans — more commonly known as Major League Baseball — can figure out how to “read” it.)

I’m 100% sure I stole that headline from somewhere, but in my defense I haven’t read any of the papers this morning.

That was as close to a must win game as we’ve had all year.  The white sox were playing a terrible team, so you can’t assume they will lose.  Perkins didn’t look great, but he was effective and kept us in the ballgame.  We got some great timely hitting late in the game, which is what has carried this team all year. 

As much as I hate to say it, Gardy did a good job managing towards the end of the game. Granted, most of the moves were fairly obvious, but they all worked out. The two pinch hitters and the two pinch runners.  Also, if one of those moves wasn’t made and you had Kubel in right in the 8th, that throw doesn’t get made, and the game is tied or worse.

The white sox did end up getting pounded, leaving us 1 game back in the AL central (2.5 in the WC) with 28 games to go.  This is an exciting time of year to be a baseball fan. Lets stick it to the A’s this weekend.

It was supposed to be a happy day for Randy Ruiz.

Ruiz was named the International League Rookie of the Year for his stellar performance at AAA this year, batting .320/.366/.536 with 17 HR, 33 2B, 68 RBI and 58 R in 111 games played. Pretty good numbers … though the concept of a 30 year old winning Rookie of the Year tickles me more than a little.

After finding this out, Ruiz went on to hit his first major league home run, an opposite field line drive. He soaked in the moment while rounding the bases, not showing too much emotion after the home run. (My thought: he was disappointed it was only a solo shot, after Morneau drove in a non-RBI with a double play with men on first and third right before Ruiz batted.)

But Ruiz didn’t get to celebrate much, because the Twins lost again, extending their ill-timed losing streak to four games, and assuring a series loss to the lowly Mariners. Baker claimed he had the best stuff he’s had in a while, though from where I sat it didn’t look like he had much command and the Mariners were belting line drives all over the field. Poor defense and a complete lack of hitting combined to waste Baker’s quality start, and the Twins fell, 3-2, to put a sour taste into the mouth of Ruiz and all of us fans.

I don’t know what to say about this, really. We’ve been barely managing to squeak out victories against the Mariners (when we do even manage to beat them), and when the Mariners go try to play the White Sox the game is over in the second after a 19 home run inning. Every game. Or so. The point is that good teams are supposed to absolutely clobber teams like the Mariners, and the White Sox have been doing a much better job of that than we have.

The Twins are going to have to pull themselves together if they want to avoid falling further than 2 games out of first. This is not the time for a slide.

In the past, I’ve talked about Gardy’s apparent problems in communicating with his players — Liriano and Casilla, in particular, have been the victims of this.

But recently a couple of stories have come to my attention that indicate this could be more of a widespread problem — and not just Gardy’s problem, but a clubhouse problem that could stem from a lack of true leadership.

A store about Mike Lamb:

“The energy level wasn’t what we expected,” Gardenhire said of Lamb. “He’s a veteran, a laid-back guy and we play at a different level. We like to run and do all those kinds of things. … We were just looking for a little different thing. That’s probably why it didn’t work out here.” As for the notion that it was his laid-back attitude that prevented him from sticking with the Twins, Lamb said he was never aware it was an issue. “I mean, if it was a problem, I wish someone would have told me,” Lamb said. “I would have thrown stuff if I needed to.”

Now I’m not a big Lamb Fan. And I think Gardy’s probably right in his assessment — Lamb doesn’t seem to fit on this team, personality- or talent-wise. And I doubt he could have “changed” his energy level if that truly were the only issue. But I don’t see why he’d lie about not being told about it.

Secondly, I recently heard a story about Matt Garza’s arrival in Tampa Bay. Troy Percival came up to him and the conversation went thusly:

Percival: So, are you going to be as much of a jerk here as you were in Minnesota?
Garza: I was a jerk in Minnesota?
Percival: Um, yeah, everybody knows that!
Garza: I had no idea that was my reputation. I wish someone had told me.

This season, Garza has certainly seemed to be a better clubhouse citizen (aside from one altercation with his catcher), but the thing that strikes me most is that both players said the same thing: “I wish someone had told me.”

I don’t know if it’s really Gardy’s responsibility to go up to Lamb and tell him to act like Gomez and stop being such an old guy, and I don’t know how much if would have helped if he’d told Garza to stop being such an asshole (especially given how much of an asshole Garza was). But it’s telling that it wasn’t Joe Maddon that talked to Garza, it was Troy Percival, a veteran player who had taken on the role of clubhouse leader.

Are Mauer and Morneau failing in their duty to back up Gardy with player-leadership? I’d have to say it’s their responsibility to keep the players in line with this sort of thing, at least to the point where the players in question are aware their attitude is a problem. (And Torii Hunter isn’t the missing leader — he was here when Garza was, and Torii’s method of leadership was to call out Joe Mauer for being less than a man for only playing hurt sometimes, rather than point out actual problems, and talked to the media rather than directly to the player. That’s bad leadership, as opposed to the non-leadership exhibited by the M&M boys.)