To Brad Radke! - A 2012 Minnesota Twins Commercial

By The Common Man

The Common Man is very much in a Twinkies kind of mood at the moment, with TwinsFest happening this weekend, and Spring Training getting ever closer.  Plus, Brad Radke promises to be at TwinsFest for the first time (we think) since he retired. 

Radke's career grows to mythic proportions when TCM and Bill discuss it.  He was a good pitcher for a very long time that suffered through a lot of bad teams to ultimately emerge as the stallwart member of the first competitive Minnesota clubs in the 21st Century.  He took the ball almost every turn, and was the pitching version of running back LeRoy Hoard.  If you needed your starter to go 7 innings and give up 3 runs, to win, Brad Radke would go 7 innings and give up three runs.  If you needed your starter to go 7 innings and give up 1 run to win, Brad Radke would go 7 innings and give up 3 runs.  He became the archetype to which every single Twins pitcher since has been compared and evaluated.  And by the time his career ended in 2006, his shoulder was completely shredded (he had pitched 21 starts through immense pain) and he couldn't brush his hair anymore without help.

So it's only fair we commemorate him with his own commercial to celebrate his TwinsFest return, and to celebrate the fact that he could still probably outpitch 3/5 of the Twins rotation.  Here's The Common Man's suggestion:

12 Simple Rules for Surviving TwinsFest 2012

By The Common Man

This weekend, as you might already know, is TwinsFest, the annual autograph party/baseball card show/memorabilia auction/other stuff put on by the local Minnesota nine. Last year, due to the actual collapse of the Metrodome, the Twins were forced to relocate their celebration to a venue that was excessively crowded, confusing, and generally unpleasant for everyone involved. This year, though, with the Teflon baggie back up, the Twins and their fans are for once glad to be headed back to the team’s former home.

The Common Man and Bill will be there on both Saturday and Sunday, with special guest and fan of experiences Carson Cistulli, of FanGraphs and NotGraphs fame. He is pictured, sans his new, unwieldy mustache, to your right. If you see a really tall guy walking around with a really short guy, that’s probably Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito reliving their glory days in Twins. But if you see a marginally tall guy with a marginally short guy arguing about something or cracking themselves up, while the skinny guy pictured to the right looks on bewildered, that’s us. Say hi. (Or conversely, shoot us an email or a message over Twitter, and we’d love to meet you.)

Anyway, a couple years back, The Common Man wrote up his TwinsFest experience, and included a list of rules to help the uninitiated get the most out of their TwinsFest experience. As a public service, TCM thought it was time to update the list to reflect some changes in the rules for the event, and to account for the fact that TCM is a much better writer now. Anyway, here are a dozen simple rules for having a blast at TwinsFest:

Twins Catch a Break With Doumit

By The Common Man

Now this is more like it. In signing Ryan Doumit to a one-year, $3 million contract (as reported by ESPN's Jerry Crasnick), Terry Ryan matches a player's skills with what the Twins need, and does so at a very reasonable price.


Jamey Carroll, as we discussed last week, is a good player at second base, but is probably stretched as a team's everyday shortstop. He's also going to be 38 and is a candidate for regression. The Twins still committed two years and $7 million to him, when it was not clear that the market would pay him that much and there were potentially better shortstop options available.

Apparently, You Can Never Have Too Many Second Basemen

By The Common Man

The Common Man certainly does not begrudge Jamey Carroll for immediately making TCM’s offseason blueprint column obsolete. Nor does he begrudge the 38 year old for accepting the two-year contract for $7 million the Twins offered him. But The Common Man dreads watching Carroll try to earn that money over the next two seasons.


Carroll has had one of the strangest careers in modern memory. He didn’t debut until he was 28 years old and then was a utility player for the next trhee years. He put up a strong season in 136 games for the Rockies in 2006, but was relegated back to a utility gig in 2007. He filled in all over the place for the Indians and the Dodgers over the past four years, getting the most playing time of his career as a 37 year old in 2011. He has strong on-base skills and is a capable defender at second base. And the flexibility he has offered for his employers has been incredibly valuable over the years, even though he’s only started 725 times in 10 seasons.

Best Laid Plans

By The Common Man

Despite the firing of Bill Smith and the triumphant return of Terry Ryan, it seems likely there will be a bunch of hand-wringing around here, between Bill and The Common Man, over the next few months over the Twins’ decisions. That’s all well and good, but it doesn’t seem fair to critique the work that Ryan and his staff will do over the offseason without offering an alternative.


The Common Man did lay out some general priorities in September, as the Twins were eliminated from contention. But now, with a better idea about who is in charge and how much money they have to work with, here are some specific ways for the Twins to prepare for 2012:

Given the payroll commitments already on the books, and the obligations the Twins will have to pay their players in arbitration, Aaron Gleeman estimates the Twins have roughly $81 million spoken for. Given Terry Ryan’s announcement that the payroll would probably dip to around $100 million this year, that leaves the Twins with about $20 million to play with as they try to fill holes in the bullpen, shortstop, corner outfield, and maybe DH.

It’s worth pointing out here that the Twins really aren’t in a place where they can tear down and rebuild. Their best players have had their value compromised by high salaries (Mauer, Morneau) and injury (Mauer, Morneau, Span). And dealing their secondary players, guys like Danny Valencia, Carl Pavano, and Francisco Liriano, are at a low point in their trade value. As such, the Twins are stuck trying to win in 2011, and going forward with the players they have on hand. So who do they target to maximize their chances of winning the division with the money they have left:

OH MY GOD! That's Terry Ryan's music!!!!

By The Common Man

As you may have noticed if you were anywhere near a computer and a Twitter feed over the past 10 minutes, Bill Smith has been fired as the GM of the Minnesota Twins and has been replaced, on an interim basis by former Twins GM Terry Ryan. Wayne Krivsky, who worked in player development under Ryan, is also reportedly headed back to the fold. Speculation, at this point, is that either Assistant GMs Rob Anthony or Mike Radcliffe will be elevated to fill the GM role.

This is a good day to be a Twins fan. Aside from a very brief window in the 2010 offseason, Bill Smith has not been an effective General Manager. As we’ve documented extensively: here, here, here, here, here, and here. It’s unclear what the new GM will bring to the table as far as decision-making processes. But it has to be better than trading Wilson Ramos for Matt Capps, and then hamstringing yourself by giving him $7 million while losing several other effective relievers. And it has to be better than trading JJ Hardy for two unproven and ineffective relievers. And it can’t get worse than standing by the Twins’ medical staff, obsessing over soft-tossing control guys, and refusing to find a competent backup catcher.

Bill Smith’s sins were many. His best moves were undone by the Twins’ constant moves that whittled away their organizational depth. The Common Man doesn’t know what exactly the future holds, but he’s willing to be optimistic about it for the first time in a year.

The 2011 Twins, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Suck

By Bill


I came to an odd realization yesterday, one that will probably mark me as some kind of faux fan or something.

So: the Twins are terrible this year. That's not my realization. I've known that since, like, May. But what I've realized is this: in a very weird way, I'm kind of enjoying it. I've decided that losing, in a highly limited way, is fun.

I do mean very limited. I don't think there's anything fun at all about, say, an 88-loss season, in which your team is out of the race from day one and just pathetically bland and mediocre. And I certainly won't try to tell you that Pirates, Orioles, or Royals fans should be particularly happy with their predicament.

The Twins, though? In the ten seasons preceding this disaster, they've averaged about 89 wins, finishing above .500 in every year save one (2007, when they missed it by two games). They've been about the same team for most of ten years: very good, but far from the best in the league, fighting tooth and nail to near (and, twice, beyond) the very end to secure a playoff spot.

So this, after several months of disappointment and anger and eventually boredom, has become, finally, just kind of a nice break from that. Don't get me wrong -- I'd still much rather they were winning 95 games and the division again, weeks of heartburn and all. But when you're talking about a team that's so uniquely awful (by the franchise's standards) -- such that the question to be answered every day becomes what unique way they're going to find to lose this game, and eventually the results just stop mattering entirely and the only real question remaining is: is this the worst season in team history? -- there's just something kind of refreshing about that.

Thoughts, Links, and Errors

By The Common Man

Forgive The Common Man if his mind is crazy elsewhere lately. As you may know, he is expecting the second child to arrive via stork any day now. As such, TCM is a bit scattered. So what you get are a bunch of random thoughts bound together, sometimes in response to links, with nary a thought to segues and transitions. Enjoy.

Among the names The Uncommon Wife has rejected for our second child, should it be a boy: Henry, Aaron, John (Jack), and Harmon. Admittedly, TCM didn’t do much to disguise that last one, and she caught on. Thus, TCM didn’t bother asking about Roberto.

Aaron Gleeman asks whether this is the worst season in Twins history. The Common Man thinks so, but this is not the worst team in club history. For one thing, the quality of this team should have been much better, but injuries sapped the club of much of its effectiveness. The worst team, as far as TCM can figure is the 1999 club that lost 97 games and tried to pass off LaTroy Hawkins (10-14, 6.66), Mike Lincoln (3-10, 6.84), and Dan Perkins (1-7, 6.54) off as starting pitchers, let Benj Sampson put up an 8.11 ERA in 71 innings, suffered through a 38 OPS+ season from Christian Guzman, and whose lone All Star was Ron Coomer (.263/.307/.424) primarily as a 1B. But while the 2011 Twins team is much better than the horrible band of misfits forced to travel the country together in ’99, their season is a much larger failure, given the level of talent on hand and the expectations surrounding the club.

Fix My Team!: Minnesota Twins Edition

By The Common Man

Last night, the Twins capped off what has been an excrutiating season by losing their fifth game in a row. In the last four, they’ve scored a total of two runs in the last four games, including one run in their last 32 innings, and hit .153/.191/.194 as a team. Mercifully, they’ve also now been officially eliminated from the race for the postseason, allowing us to speculate about where the team has been and where it should go from here.


The most frustrating aspect of 2011 as a Twins fan has undoubtedly been all the injuries. Joe Mauer’s mysterious leg and back problems, Justin Morneau’s lingering concussion and neck issues, Denard Span’s concussion, Tsuyoshi Nishioka’s leg, Michael Cuddyer’s neck and wrist, Jason Kubel’s foot, Delmon Young’s ankle and oblique muscle, Alexi Casilla’s hamstring, Jim Thome’s oblique and quad, Glen Perkins’ oblique muscle, and the arm troubles faced by Scott Baker, Kevin Slowey, Francisco Liriano, Jose Mijares, and Joe Nathan have sapped this club of energy and effectiveness. It has, at times (including last night), left the Twins looking like a AAA club, relying heavily on the contributions of Ben Revere, Trevor Plouffe, Drew Butera, Rene Rivera, Dusty Hughes, Matt Tolbert, Anthony Swarzak, Rene Tosoni, Jason Repko, Steve Holm, Jim Hoey, Phil Dumatrait, and something named Brian Dinkelman, whose name the team apparently be bothered to spell correctly on the lineup card. What’s worse, the Twins have been incredibly slow to put players on the disabled list, classifying their injuries as “day-to-day,” while sacrificing bench depth for weeks at a time.

Should Gardy Go?

By The Common Man

It’s kind of sad watching a delusional leader, whose life’s work is crumbling around him, deny responsibility for the fiasco, contradict the readily apparent reality, and fight with his own people. It’s the kind of out of touch, reactionary, and petty response one would expect only out of the most narcissistic and desperate leaders clinging to their jobs.


The Common Man is referring, of course, to Ron Gardenhire, who in a very leading Q&A with the St. Paul Pioneer Press and ripped his young players over “what he considers a general misunderstanding of baseball fundamentals on the part of his young players…. ‘We’re doing all this stuff so we don’t have to tell them. We shouldn’t have to. They should learn this in the minor leagues.’” In particular over the past several days, the Twins manager has called out Ben Revere, Trevor Plouffe, Danny Valencia, and Alex Burnett.

It’s certainly easy to pinpoint the mistakes of these youngsters. None of the hitters have an OBP over .300 and Burnett’s ERA is just under 6.00. Their performances have not been good, to say the least. However, Gardenhire goes further, questioning the wisdom of Burnett’s pitch selection to Francisco Cervelli (never mind that the pitch was called by Joe Mauer), Plouffe’s baserunning (which was poor) and his defense (which…come on, he’s been asked to play 6 different positions this year, and was never considered a defensive whiz to begin with), and Valencia’s focus and defense.

The Delightful Departure of Delmon Young

By The Common Man

Around 2:00 yesterday afternoon, The Common Man suddenly felt about 200 lbs. lighter, like a gigantic weight had been lifted off his shoulders. That weight, Delmon Young, was traded by the Twins to the division rival Detroit Tigers for a minor league pitcher and a player to be named later. Who are these mysterious young men? Literally, it doesn’t matter.  As TCM wrote in July, he'd have welcomed a bucket of balls in return for jettisoning Delmon.

Ok, maybe it does a little bit. The one player we know the Twins got, Cole Nelson, is a Minnesota native and, according to Kevin Goldstein, should only be viewed as a reliever going forward, due to his lack of a second plus pitch. He’s probably not anyone to keep a close eye on going forward. (Update: the Twins are reporting that the second player they've acquired is 23 year old reliever Lester Oliveros, who Kevin Goldstein describes as a "Smallish right-hander...[who] has two plus pitches...and some think he could get to Detroit as early as this year if he throws more strikes."  TCM's reaction? Mmm...strikeouts.  This trade keeps looking better.)

But that’s fine. The trade of Delmon Young is the quintissential “Great trade! Who’d we get?” deal, given that Delmon is a bad player who costs his team runs on both the offensive and defensive side of the ball. Unloading him is addition by subtraction, allowing the Twins to give Ben Revere the playing time he needs, at a position where he can succeed, to develop into a valuable regular for 2012, 2013, and beyond. It also removes the temptation to keep Delmon around this offseason (though he was obviously a non-tender candidate), removing one obstacle to potentially keeping either Michael Cuddyer or Jason Kubel around. The Twins simply had too many playable outfielders, and moving Young allows them to jettison the worst of them and to not have to pay the remainder of his contract.

5 Reasons to be Optimistic About the Twins in 2012

By The Common Man

The Common Man took in the final game of the Twins’ weekend series against the White Sox yesterday, from the comfort/searing heat of the leftfield corner of Target Field. It turns out that watching the Twins lose 7-0 to their biggest rivals to complete a three-game series sweep is a great way to abandon all hope for the 2011 season, so TCM is ready to move on.


By amazing coincidence (or excellent stalking), TCM discovered that the one and only Mr. Horrorpants, writer of The Cedar Falls Hoose-Cows, an online baseball-related murder-mystery novel, and hilarious Twins fan worthy of your time and effort on Twitter, was seated across the aisle. Over beers, Horrorpants (that’s obviously not his real name, but The Common Man challenges you to demonstrate that it’s not infinitely more awesome than any given name could possibly be) opined 2012 didn’t look to good for the Twins either.

TCM is a sucker, however, and ever-hopeful, and so he immediately began to argue that it’s too early to write off 2012 just yet. Here’s why:

The Astronomically Unlikely ERA of Pitchers From New Ulm, Minnesota

By The Common Man

With the last out of last night’s Twins win, our giveaway here at The Platoon Advantage came to an end. As a refresher, in honor of Bill’s move to rural Southwest Minnesota, we asked the question: “What is the combined ERA of every pitcher who was ever born, died, or buried in New Ulm, Minnesota?”


The hard part, undoubtedly, was identifying the pitchers who hailed from this small town. If you go to Baseball Reference.com, you’ll find a player bio page, that allows you to see every player who was born, died, and buried in each state. After clicking on Minnesota, you can sort the results by city. As it turns out, there is one player buried in New Ulm, though he was a position player. No former MLBers have died there either. Of the six players who were born there (a remarkable number, given the town is just 13,000 people strong today, two of them are pitchers. They are Doc Hamann and Fred Bruckbauer.

In all of baseball history, there are 21 pitchers who were inserted into games and never recorded an out in their entire MLB career. Two of those players are Doc Hamann and Fred Bruckbauer. What are the odds? Probably astronomical.

Great Giveaway For Twins Fans

By The Common Man

How German is New Ulm? There's a
monument to this Germanic dude who
fought the Romans.

Bill’s probably going to be out of the rotation for the rest of this week, since he and his family are moving from bustling Chicago to sleepy hamlet New Ulm, MN today. Bill’s excited for the new start, but will be understandably preoccupied. For a city of just 13,000 people, New Ulm is actually a fairly interesting place. It’s probably the most German city in the world outside of, you know, Germany. And may very well have a higher percentage of Germans living there than even some of Germany’s larger cities at this point. The Bavarian culture is visible everywhere, from the architecture to the menus, which are often written in both English and German. Crazy.


New Ulm is also the birthplace for what seems like a large number of baseball players, given its relative size, although only two have had more than 20 plate appearances. So, to celebrate Bill’s big move, we’re going to run another giveaway here on The Platoon Advantage.

If you’ve been following various Twins blogs over the last week, you may have noticed that A&E Home Video has released the entire 1991 World Series on DVD, complete with both the TV broadcast and the Twins radio broadcast (for those of you, like The Common Man, who could use a good Herb Carneal fix), and a DVD celebrating the Twins' championship season. The Common Man got his own review copy, and the good people at A&E Home Entertainment were kind enough to promise another set to a winner of TCM’s choosing.

The Common Man is making his way through Game 1 as we speak, and it’s still exciting to watch Jack Morris wiggle out of trouble and Greg Gagne hit a big homerun off Charlie Liebrandt. It’s also strange to remember a time when Tim McCarver wasn’t annoying or crazy. And Jack Buck is, of course, the epitome of excellence doing the play-by-play. Relive the thrill of Kirby’s Game 6, Morris’ Game 7, and of Brian Harper’s excellent mustache/mullet combo (available in all 7 games!). It’s well worth your time and your money, and will help get you through the Twins-less postseason this year, since you can just pop in a DVD and pretend.

And wouldn’t you rather watch Greg Gagne and Dan Gladden than Tsuyoshi Nishioka and Delmon Young anyway? Isn’t the baby-faced Chuck Knoblauch better than Matt Tolbert? And isn’t Scott Erickson more fun to watch than Nick Blackburn? You know it’s true. So, please, even if you don’t win these DVDs on TPA, head to A&E home video to purchase them. You can also go to twinsbaseball.com to buy the 1987 World Series on DVD, as well as Twins tickets or other merchandise.

OK, so here’s how the contest is going to work:

Step 1: Answer a trivia question correctly by emailing the answer to The Common Man before the end of the Twins game tomorrow night (Wednesday) at the email address listed on the sidebar to the right.

Step 2: From the correct answers we receive, we will choose a winner at random on Thursday.

Got it? Cool. The question is:

What is the combined ERA of every pitcher who was ever born, died, or buried in New Ulm, Minnesota? Be sure to show your work!

Good luck!

Twins Need to Regroup and Reload For 2012

It took 20 runs on 27 hits, with three errors on defense and four walks allowed to beat into The Common Man that it’s time for the Twins to write off 2011. This is a Twins team that has a core of players that could, potentially, go on a run and become a factor in a very poor AL Central. But the fact remains that the Twins are seven games back and looking up at three teams, at least two of which are probably actually better than they are in terms of true talent.


It’s nice to get Jason Kubel back. And Denard Span will be a nice addition to the lineup when he’s fully recovered from his concussion. And even Justin Morneau might be able to come back before the year is done. But the fact remains that none of them are going to be able to pitch out of the bullpen and none of them are going to be able to stabilize a starting rotation that has proven to be a huge disappointment. Baseball Prospectus gives Minnesota a 3.2% chance to make the postseason, while CoolStandings gives them just a 1.1% shot. It’s time to face the fact that this Twins team probably is not good enough, as it’s currently constructed, to come back this year.

In light of that sad reality, it’s important for the Twins to maximize the value they can still get out of this season by engaging in a limited firesale. Not everybody has to go, but the following players absolutely should.

Must Go:

Michael Cuddyer

Cuddy is the Twins most tradable asset at this point. He’s at .296/.371/.466 for the year with 14 homers. He’s a gen-u-ine, certified All Star. He also at least appears to be flexible enough on defense to make him a possibility for a number of teams. He’s also a free agent at the end of 2011, making him an ideal rental player for teams with long-term payroll concerns. With the glut of outfielders the Twins currently have on their roster and coming up through the minors, Cuddyer is very expendable. He also might be the second best bat available on the market, behind Carlos Beltran. The trouble, of course, is that the Twins have publically said they’re not interested in dealing him, and that they actually would like to re-sign him this offseason (undoubtedly to a huge contract that Cuddyer won’t be worth). Trading him now might interfere with those plans (yes, please).

The Giants have shown a lot of interest, though they could be using that as leverage to drop the price on Carlos Beltran. The Phillies or the Pirates may also want an outfield bat who they can use for their stretch runs. Or, and here’s a crazy thought, perhaps the Brewers might want to use him at 3B.

No Honor Among Thieves

By The Common Man

It’s no secret that Joe Mauer has struggled mightily in 2011. After hitting just .235/.289/.265 through his first nine games, Mauer went on the DL with mysterious leg and knee problems, which lasted until mid-June. He’s improved in the month that he’s been back, .270/.356/.315, but has been nowhere near himself. His GB/FB ratio is through the room at 1.78, and his extra-base hit percentage is down to 3.6% (his career numbers, respectively are 1.03 and 8.2%). Joe has, indeed, been a singles hitter in the first year of his eight-year contract extension.


Twins fans are (somewhat understandably) frustrated by their native son’s performance, and have begun booing Joe on occasion. Their frustration was given stupid, stupid voice through the following article, which TCM found via Baseball Think Factory, that suggests that Drew Butera has actually been more valuable to the Twins in 2011:

“No matter how you slice it, though, Mauer has hit one home run at Target Field as a $23 million a year player, and Drew Butera, one of the worst hitters in the major leagues, just tied him for home runs hit in the home park.

I anxiously embrace the great qualities we have with Mauer as a Twin, but no way, absolutely no way, should he make as much money as he does and not be able to hit the ball out of the park on a somewhat regular basis. The Boy Wonder's health issues have taken precedent over the highest-paid single hitter's lack of pop, but it remains a somewhat troubling part of the equation for the Twins. The guy gets home run money and he doesn't hit home runs. When the Twins gave him a contract that will keep him with the franchise, they did the right thing. But that doesn't mean he's not stealing money.”

The Twins Collapse: in which I sort of defend Bill Smith, who is a terrible GM

By Bill


Over at Baseball Prospectus yesterday, my friend Jay Jaffe (maybe I should put "friend" in quotes, as in, Facebook "friends," but anyway, we have actually met, and I like him) put up a piece on how the Twins went from division contenders to one of the worst teams in baseball. It's a very good piece, and certainly does a good job of identifying most of the major issues, including this depressing gem:

[T]he Twins have gotten just a .150/.186/.224 line from Drew Butera, who has started 31 of the team's games; his .157 True Average is the majors' lowest among players with at least 100 plate appearances. Throw in Rene Rivera, Steve Holm, and the minimal production from a weakened Mauer, and Twins catchers have combined to hit .178/.229/.252—far inferior to Livan Hernandez's career mark (.221/.231/.297)—while stinking at a level roughly one win below replacement level.

Yikes. Anyway, Jay's premise is that in addition to a lot of bad luck, Bill Smith and the Twins basically made five mistakes that helped turn a team that was 34-24 a year ago this morning into the 23-38 one you see today:

• They mishandled Joe Mauer and had no backup plan in place. As indicated in the quote above, it's bad enough that Mauer has been able to play just nine games so far this season (and with no success to speak of), but even worse that they're stuck with the worst hitter in the major leagues in Butera and a couple backups who aren't really any better.
   
• They messed up the middle infield. They traded J.J. Hardy for nothing and let Orlando Hudson walk, trusting in Alexi Casilla and bringing in Tsuyoshi Nishioka. Nishioka was forced to play second rather than his more comfortable short, which led to a devastating injury that's kept him out since game seven and forced them to play replacement players like Matt Tolbert and Luke Hughes in his place.
• They resigned Carl Pavano to a two-year deal and counted on him to anchor the rotation.
• They have all sorts of other rotation problems.
• They put together an offense with a serious lack of big bats.

I encourage you (as always) to RTFA, but there's a summary of the issues for you.

And I do think that Jay has identified most of the major issues with the team. Those five things and the bullpen (which he mentions toward the end) are pretty much the six things that have plagued the Twins most this year. (You could also argue that those six things pretty much encapsulate all that there is to baseball, but that's just how bad the Twins have been.)

But (and I can't believe I'm about to defend Billy Smith here) I don't think the front office is to blame for nearly as much of their struggles as Jay seems to think they are. A healthy portion, no doubt -- I think Smith, with a lot of urging from Gardenhire, took this team from a good one to a mediocre one -- but not as much as all this. Here's how I see the Twins' collapse breaking down, first the mostly-mistakes and then the mostly-luck factors, in order of importance within each category:

Quick Hits and Links

By The Common Man

The Common Man is tired after he stayed up late last night, putting together a Trade Tree that you should really check out.  It starts with the first amateur draft in 1965, runs through two division titles 20 years later, and three Hall of Famers.  TCM is also working on a big project with Bill today that should start rolling out later this week (we hope), so here are a bunch of links that are heartily endorsed by The Common Man:

Good news for Twins fans, as ESPN prospect and draft guru Keith Law really likes the team's first three picks (sorry, Insider only) after the first day.  The Twins got the best-looking college middle infielder, Levi Michael, with their first pick.  A big bat in Travis Harrison, a 3B who may need to move to 1B.  And Hudson Boyd, a big high-school kid who already looks like a right-handed Bobo Newsom, who throws hard.

Dayn Perry reminds us that there are other ways to take out the catcher than Scott Cousins body-block.  For instance, Ty Cobb preferred the flying kung-fu jumpkick to the groin.  Which might be effective.  We should see more of this.

The Slowey Train Out of Town

By The Common Man

In early March, amid the rumors that the Twins were looking to move Francisco Liriano, The Common Man wrote this:

“The Twins remain an organization driven by emotion. They lack the ability to keep dissatisfaction in-house (a problem they’ve had since Tom Kelly was managing, actually), and actively seem to antagonize and marginalize talented players. They also overreact to perceived needs and slights without considering alternatives that do not fit with their preconceived notions of what players should be and what roles they can fill. The Twins are, in short, not rational or logical actors. You cannot count of them to make reasonable and sound decisions in the face of high emotion and mounting pressure."

Well, they held on to Liriano, in spite of The Common Man’s concerns that they would trade him for pennies on the dollar. That decision, which The Common Man would have been elated about at the time, has not turned out well thusfar. Liriano is 3-5 with a 5.73 ERA. His strikeouts are way down and his walks are way, way up. He’s allowing more flyballs than he did last year, has seen his fastball velocity dip, and is not throwing his slider as often. The Twins clearly monkeyed with his head during Spring Training and the early part of 2011, telling their only strikeout pitcher that it was important for him to “pitch to contact.” But it’s difficult to tell how much of his struggles are based on this tinkering. Indeed, there is evidence that Liriano may be hiding an injury or have changed his mechanics. The Twins have recently backed off their coaching and encouraged Liriano to just pitch however he wants, and the results have been mixed. It’s unclear what the exact problem is at this point or how it’s going to be resolved.

The one thing that is apparent, however, is that the Twins could not help criticizing, tweaking, and tinkering with him for much of this season because they were dissatisfied with how he did not fit into the “Twins mold.” They cannot leave well enough alone when it runs counter to their organizational sensibilities.  They continue to be base coaching and personnel decisions not on evidence, but on gut feelings, personal animosities, and irrationality. Take Exhibit B: Kevin Slowey.

Harmon Killebrew Roundup

By Bill


I initially wanted to come up with some clever new angle on Harmon Killebrew this morning, but really, I already kind of said my piece over on Getting Blanked the other day. I read an awful lot about him yesterday, though, and I wanted to share with you some of the best of all the Killebrew writing from the last couple days:

Jim Caple: Harmon Killebrew was a treasure
Caple covered the Twins for years, before moving on to Seattle and then to ESPN, and I think what makes this my very favorite of all the pieces I've seen today is that he's writing from personal knowledge, but doesn't get wrapped up in his own personal experiences with the man, instead using that knowledge to color the more wide-ranging discussion about the man and his life.