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Minnesota Twins: March 2011

Playing Pepper 2011: Minnesota Twins

Posted on March 10, 2011 at 12:31 PM
Two years ago, I started a series I called Playing Pepper, where I asked questions of bloggers of each major league team about the season to come.  Not only was that informative and entertaining, it led to the spawning of the Baseball Bloggers Alliance.  With spring training coming up, it's time to get back into shape by again playing a little pepper.

Minnesota Twins (94-68, 6 GA and first in the AL Central; lost in the ALDS)

Last year was a big year for the Twins.  They moved outside to a beautiful new open-air stadium and then christened it with a divisional title (that, for the first time in a couple of years, didn't take Game 163) and, while October was shorter than expected, there was still a lot of hope for the future.  It's a long way from the contraction talks and there is no shame in being a Twins fan in baseball today.

What about 2011?  Can they continue to be the class of the division?  Three Minnesota bloggers will let us know.

Around the horn, it's Andrew Kneeland of Twins Target, part of the Bloguin network.  Andrew's got an interesting look at social media and baseball coverage going on so check it out.  Also, you can find him on Facebook and Twitter.  

He'll toss to Wally Fish, who has done a number of different blogs but has now settled at Puckett's Pond on the FanSided network.  Wally's also the MLB Director for FanSided and can be found Tweeting and Facebooking.

Wrapping it up will be Cody Christie.  Like me, Cody doesn't live in the state of his favorite team, as noted by his blog North Dakota Twins Fan.  As with the others, you can also find him over on Twitter.

The guys talk about a main cog returning from Tommy John surgery after the jump, something that would probably perk up the ears of Cardinals fans.
  Continue Reading

Freese-ing Them Out

Posted on March 8, 2011 at 11:45 AM
We've been waiting for David Freese to get into the ballgame.  Apparently, so has he.

On a day where everyone was hitting, perhaps the loudest noise of all for Cardinal fans was the sound of Freese's bat as he stroked two hits and collected three RBI, all without injuring himself.
He also handled his only chance in the field without incident as well, bolstering optimism that the third base conundrum will be less of an issue than we expected.  (Side note: you can see Derrick Goold discussing Freese in this video.)

Even with his strong start, though, the Cardinals aren't going to deviate from the plan.  Freese will sit today when they take on the Boston Red Sox and still alternate days playing and not playing.  Cardinal fans are breathing a little easier today, though, with him finally getting on the field.

Freese wasn't the only one that had a strong day yesterday.  When you win 10-4 over the Twins, I guess that's not too surprising.  Looking at the pitching first, Jake Westbrook went three scoreless innings before stumbling a bit in the fourth.  Still, 3 2/3 innings with just one run allowed is much better than the 50-pitch two inning outing he had in his first shot.  Every pitcher is key this year, of course, but having Westbrook eat innings will be very valuable to a pen that may get used a lot every fifth day.

Lance Lynn didn't have quite the same type of outing this time as he did in his first appearance.  He allowed two earned runs in his two innings, with two walks and a strikeout.  He wasn't helped at all by Colby Rasmus's error in center, dropping a fly ball that might have changed the complexion of the inning.  The Twins announcers were talking about him trying to get people to chase the off-speed stuff and it just wasn't working, as he'd get ahead of batters but not be able to put them away.  I'm sure there was a discussion between him and the pitching coach on that after the game.

Jon Jay, Allen Craig, and Matt Carpenter all wound up with two hits, with both of Jay's being doubles.  Carpenter and Jay also tallied two RBI.  I had no idea that Carpenter was five for eight this spring.  I realize that Dennis makes a strong point urging caution with the results from the spring, with good reason, but it is nice to see the kid having an impact.  If Freese does go down, it could be Carpenter getting the call, especially if Nick Punto isn't going to be available.  (Are you like me?  Have you quickly forgotten Punto is part of this team?)  He'll at least have some confidence that he can compete at the big league level and probably will start out in Memphis, being just a phone call away.

Most fans are more focused on the other Carpenter, however.  Chris Carpenter may have to miss Friday's start, as he felt a twinge in his hamstring going less than full bore during Sunday's session.  However, he went again today and reported no problems, so it may be that he gets back on the mound Friday.  We'll see how the evaluation Wednesday goes.  You know they aren't going to rush him, but he does need a couple of starts to help build up to going deep into games.

The other injury from last week, Mitchell Boggs,  threw at full speed yesterday and reported no problems.  Sounds like that back issue is...wait for it....behind him, though I worry that might be something that flares up during the season.  There will likely be suitable fill-ins at Memphis, though, if it does.

Time for today's approval ratings.  We start off with the closer of the Redbirds, Ryan Franklin.  Franklin has never been the strongest of statistical candidates and he has his detractors as well.  That said, he's gotten the job more times than not, which will bring some warm and fuzzy feelings to a fan base.  Last year, he polled at a 69.7% clip, with his late season 2009 collapse still fresh in people's minds.

After another year of pitching the ninth, this year Franklin moves up to 72.8%.  Some people thought that he "doesn't have what it takes anymore" while others rated him much more highly.  For the record, I gave him an 86, because he has been fairly reliable, plus I gave him bonus points for his Twitter presence.

Dave Duncan is our management person of the day.  While his good friend Tony La Russa could be considered the lightening rod for this organization, Duncan tends to miss out on a lot of stuff thrown Tony's way.  Last year, he was marked at 87%, making him one of the highest non-players surveyed.

Duncan makes it three years in a row with rising stock as he gets a 87.9% from this year's polled Cardinal fans.  Duncan was considered "as good as it gets" but one did note he always looked like he was at a funeral in the dugout.  To complete the record, he got a 94 from me.

Our media member for the day is the Cat, Jim Hayes, from Fox Sports MW.  Jim typically does pieces for the pregame show, as well as interviews of the players before the game.  He will also join the guys in the booth during the third inning to talk about different aspects.  Fair disclosure: I met Jim as part of the FSMW tour last year and, while I liked him before, that time spent probably helped push to his 95% rating from me.

Hayes seems to be a love-him-or-hate-him kind of figure, as he wound up with a respectable 76.1%, but there was a lot of deviation in the scores, as there were a few 100s and a few in the 50-60 range.  He was termed "a clown" by one while another one loved his inside jokes with the players and announcers.  I've had this discussion on Twitter before, so I know he doesn't suit everyone's taste, but I think he enlivens the broadcast notably.

Cards are on KMOX again today, taking on the Red Sox.  Jaime Garcia will be on the mound looking to continue where he left off last time out.

The Name of the Game Is Pitching

Posted on March 7, 2011 at 12:00 PM
Three different games, three interesting pitching lines.  Granted, one of them was interesting in the car-wreck sort of way, but it may have a lot of bearing on the 2011 Cardinals.

First up was Kyle Lohse on Friday.  Lohse has the potential to make or break this rotation, at least to some degree.  If he's strong, he's an overqualified fourth starter.  If he's off, a rotation missing Adam Wainwright gets a whole lot weaker.  Strength prevailed on Friday, as he only gave up one run in three innings of play.  More importantly, his command was strong. Thirty strikes to only 11 balls in his outing and he struck out Brett Wallace with a changeup to end his outing.  He seems to be getting his full array of pitches back and if he can regularly control them, he should be closer to the 2008 version of Lohse than the subsequent ones, though to be fair he started 2009 off strong as well until the injuries started coming into play. 

Some aren't going to believe it until they see it, though, and it's tough to argue with that mindset.  The team's been burned on Lohse a couple of times and they've overpaid him during that stretch.  A team that has to watch their expenses like the Cardinals really needs to get their money's worth out of Lohse this year.

Then it was Kyle McClellan's turn on Saturday.  I lauded Lance Lynn for coming out when the pressure was on and throwing a wonderful outing.  McClellan didn't rest on his projected laurels, though.  He also went three innings, allowing no runs and just a couple of hits.  McClellan seems to really want to start and is making sure no one takes that slot away from him.  If Lynn, McClellan and Brandon Dickson continue to pitch like this, it could be a very fun spring.

The Cardinals only managed one run off of Houston after scoring 10 on them the day before.  It took Colby Rasmus reaching on a Wallace error and coming around on singles by Albert Pujols and Matt Holliday to win this one.  Also interesting to note that all the starters went at least eight innings in this game (save McClellan, of course).  Seems a bit early in spring for that to be happening--would think there were still enough player that the team needed to evaluate for Pujols to get his third or fourth at-bat.  Still over three weeks left in the spring.

Sunday's results weren't nearly as good for the Cards, as they fell 7-2.  The biggest reason why was that Jason Motte allowed five runs in his inning of work.  Dathan, who came out of the bullpen to relieve a sick Bill Ivie last night on Gateway To Baseball Heaven, and I speculated that Motte was just working on some of his offspeed pitches, trying to get something else consistently working.  That doesn't seem to be the case, as he was out there "just chucking."

That's really not what you want to hear about the guy that may take over the closing role at some point this year if Ryan Franklin struggles at all.  Motte's had enough times in the past where he's been lit up that he's got to know he can't just rely on smoking things past batters. I remember a quote I read a long time back, "These are major league hitters.  Eventually, they'd time bullets."

Like to think this kind of outing was a wake-up call for Motte.  If nothing else, he's gotten a value lesson on throwing rather than pitching.

The Cardinals only put up two against the Marlins a one run game the night before.  Very hard to get a feel for anything this early in the spring, of course, but you'd hate to think that the stop and start, feast and famine offensive threat was returning again this year.  That was one of the things Lance Berkman was supposed to help stop, keeping the lineup turning over.

Of course, he actually has to be in the ballgame.  He did play DH the last couple of days, which means he should have impacted the offense still, but he continues to be nursing different aches and pains.  Will these things work out as he gets back into actual playing shape?  I know he worked out a lot this offseason and got his weight down and everything, but there's a difference between working out and actually playing.  Hopefully he'll be back out in the outfield very soon.

If he's not, maybe Tyler Greene will be.  Greene started in center yesterday against Florida and that has to only add to his chances of making the team.  This is a day after he made a nice play in the hole at short against Houston.  If he's not the main utility guy come March 31, it'd be a huge shock.  Once he gets acclimated to the majors, he could be a pretty potent threat off the bench.

There was a public declaration early in the weekend that David Freese would start Sunday. It may not be surprising to you to know that he actually didn't, because Saturday he fouled a ball off his foot in batting practice.  This would be a warning sign that things were descending into parody, into the "you-can't-make-this-stuff-up" realm, but thankfully he's in the lineup for today's game against Minnesota.  Unless a bat slips out of someone's hands and conks him in the back after he drinks JoBu's rum.

Ryan Franklin turned 38 this weekend and, despite his earlier thoughts about retiring at the end of this year, he's not slowing down.  I don't think Franklin's a Cardinal next year--a successful season probably puts him out of the budget-conscious team's range, a less than successful one and they won't want him back--but he's been much more effective in the closer role than I ever thought.  I expected a big letdown last year and it really never game.  Plus, if you aren't following him on Twitter, you really should.  He's good about at least responding to just about any Tweet directed at him.

Chris Carpenter threw off a mound this weekend, missing his start on Sunday due to that hamstring injury.  He is still feeling it right now and couldn't go full bore in his bullpen session, but it apparently is getting better.  I don't know if he'll miss another start or not, but if so that might be more of an opportunity for the staff to see Lynn or Dickson.  

Interesting story about Allen Craig working on getting the inside pitch.  He worked with Mark McGwire this offseason and so far, the spring results are positive.  I think Craig is one of the more intriguing possibilities for this team this year, what with being able to move around some or be a pinch hitter with pop.  We'll see if he can keep this going through the spring and then into the season.

The first cuts of the spring were made, and Zack Cox and Shelby Miller were sent out.  This isn't a big surprise, being that neither of them were going to make the team, but I thought it was interesting in Miller's case because he stuck around so long in spring last year, getting 3-4 outings.  This year, he threw two scoreless innings, while Cox had a very good game in Berkman's stead last week.  We could see them again--it's not that far from major league camp if they need someone to fill in on a split-squad game or so--but a little bit of the luster leaves camp with them.

Before I get into today's Cardinal Approval Ratings, a quick link.  Chris Jaffe has written another interesting article with a Cardinal tie-in.  This time, it's about managerial milestones that are coming up in 2011.  Obviously, when those words are bandied about, Tony La Russa tends to make the list.

OK, approval ratings.  As those that voted (this year, 62 different entries, though not all voted for every person) know, this year they are broken up into three groups: Players, Management, and Media.  Every day between now and when I get them done (sometime next week), I'll reveal the voting on one of each of the groups.  I want to note that a couple of the voters used descriptions instead of numbers for their vote.  I have translated those into numeric values using my best judgement.

Today's player is Chris Carpenter.  Last year, Carp rated the third highest among polled players, coming in at 93.6%.  He then went out and had a slightly-less-than-standard Carpenter year, but stayed healthy for the whole season.

This year, Carpenter scores a 86.9% from all 62 voters.  I personally ranked him pretty high (94), but I would expect that there was a little recognition that he wasn't the Cy Young guy he was in the past.  At least one commenter was not impressed with his personality, saying that Carpenter "comes across arrogant, whiny, hot-headed and entitled."  One man's arrogant is another man's focused, so your mileage may vary.

The first management subject is the principal owner, Bill DeWitt Jr.  The man that signs the checks always stands out in the fanbase's mind, and yet five people did not rate him in the poll.  Last year, he received an 83% mark, but after a year where the team didn't make the playoffs and then were embroiled in Pujols negotiations that were unfulfilled, that marked slid to 71%, a three-year low.  (Fair disclosure: I put him down at 91.  You'll find I'm a fairly easy grader.)  Comments included that he's "consistently failed to field a competitive team" (which I strongly disagree with) and he "will score higher when he signs Pujols."

Our media member for the day is Post-Dispatch writer Derrick Goold.  Derrick's never been rated in these polls before, but he's regularly posting on his Bird Land blog as well as writing stories and interacting on Twitter.  I'm guessing media members are a little more interesting to us bloggers than some other fans, since there were only 47 ratings on him.  Those that did rate him, though, had a generally positive impression, as he tallied a 87.8% mark.  Interesting how people are perceived, though.  One commenter said that he "willing to tell Cards fans what they don't want to hear," while another indicated he was unwilling to step on any toes.  (BTW, my score for him: 90.)

A couple of Playing Peppers in the hopper for today, so be sure to check back on those!




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Heroes
Matt Holliday (5)
Matt Carpenter (4)
Rafael Furcal (4)
Carlos Beltran (3)
Jon Jay (3)
Kyle Lohse (3)
Lance Lynn (3)
Yadier Molina (3)
David Freese (2)
Jaime Garcia (2)
Adam Wainwright (2)
Lance Berkman (1)
Allen Craig (1)
Shane Robinson (1)
Fernando Salas (1)
Jake Westbrook (1)

2011 Top Hero: Lance Berkman (24)
2010 Top Heroes: Matt Holliday and Albert Pujols (24)
2009 Top Hero: Albert Pujols (28)
2008 Top Hero: Albert Pujols (25)

Goats
Matt Holliday (4)
Carlos Beltran (3)
David Freese (3)
Jaime Garcia (3)
Marc Rzepczynski (3)
Adam Wainwright (3)
Rafael Furcal (2)
Tyler Greene (2)
Jason Motte (2)
J.C. Romero (2)
Fernando Salas (2)
Mitchell Boggs (1)
Matt Carpenter (1)
Tony Cruz (1)
Daniel Descalso (1)
Jon Jay (1)
Erik Komatsu (1)
Kyle Lohse (1)
Victor Marte (1)
Eduardo Sanchez (1)
Jake Westbrook (1)

2011 Top Goat: Ryan Theriot (12)
2010 Top Goat: Brendan Ryan (14)
2009 Top Goats: Rick Ankiel and Todd Wellemeyer (13)
2008 Top Goat: Troy Glaus (13)

2012 Happy Flights
Happy Flights: 7
Happy Flight Opportunities: 12
Happy Flight %: 58%

Through 5/20

    Cardinal Nation Approval Ratings (March 2012)
    Adam Wainwright 91.9% (down 2.8%)
    Chris Carpenter 90.1% (up 3.2%)
    Lance Berkman 88.6%
    Tony La Russa 88.2% (up 17.4%)
    Yadier Molina 87.4% (up 3.7%)
    Matt Holliday 87.3% (down 3.8%)
    David Freese 85.5%
    John Mozeliak 85.4% (up 13.3%)
    Mike Shannon 85.3% (up 0.4%)
    Jose Oquendo 84.7%
    Derrick Goold 82.8% (down 5.0%)
    Mark McGwire 82.6% (up 20.1%)
    John Rooney 81.5% (down 2.8%)
    Mike Matheny 81.1%
    Bill DeWitt 79.8% (up 8.8%)
    United Cardinal Bloggers 78.9%
    Skip Schumaker 73.3% (up 9.2%)
    Jim Hayes 71.9% (down 4.2%)
    Jon Jay 71.1%
    B.J. Rains 69.5% (down 0.9%)
    Kyle Lohse 68.9% (up 13.8%)
    Dan McLaughlin 68.0%
    Joe Strauss 67.7% (up 10.2%)
    Ricky Horton 67.5% (down 1.6%)
    Al Hrabosky 66.4% (up 3.2%)
    Albert Pujols 54.9% (down 45.5%)
    Colby Rasmus 46.5% (down 35.3%)

    2011
    Dave Duncan 87.9% (up 0.9%)
    Matthew Leach 85.5%
    Pop Warner 76.7%
    Ryan Franklin 72.8% (up 3.1%)
    John Vuch 68.9%
    Jeff Luhnow 66.4%
    Dan Lozano 58.7%

    2009
    Rick Ankiel 83.9%
    Chris Duncan 69.1%


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