twins/mlb
Startribune.com digital sports editor Howard Sinker used to cover the Twins and now shares season tickets with friends in Section 219 of Target Field. He blogs about baseball from the perspective of a long-time fan who loves the game, doesn’t always believe the hype and likes hearing what others think.
Posts about Twins pitching
Section 219: Giving up on Liriano (Finally)
Posted by: Howard Sinker Updated: July 29, 2012 - 12:15 AM
I've written this before, but Francisco Liriano was so incredibly bad during much of his time with the Twins, that people had a tendency to treat a solid six-inning performance as great work. It was only "great" in a participation-medal sort of way. "Good job, Frankie. We know better things are ahead for you." (Even though "we" knew better.)
Things got so silly that some folks talked about whether Liriano's recent spate of acceptable work was due to the fact that he'd started chewing gum on the mound.
C'mon, people.
Many of the comments attached to the news story about the trade are lamenting that the Twins defied conventional wisdom and traded Liriano to a division rival.
Granted, you typically don't want to do that.
This isn't typical.
The Twins got what they could for him and, if Liriano stays with the White Sox after this season, the Twins could face him time after time in seasons to come.
The Twins should welcome those opportunities in the same way that Detroit (6.13 ERA), Cleveland (5.67 ERA) and the White Sox (5.77 ERA) have welcomed the chances to swing at his pitches.
Under the new collective bargaining agreement, the Twins were in a tougher place in terms of getting any significant return for Liriano. This deal makes it clear that, whatever kind words you may hear from the Twins on his departure, management gave up on Liriano and went into addition-by-subtraction mode.
Liriano could have continued an illusion of competence by pitching well in meaningless games in the final two months of the season, causing the fool-me-again crowd to wonder whether this was the time he would turn things around. I'm glad Terry Ryan declined to go there.
Make no mistake: There's heavy lifting to be done to return the Twins to relevance. If addition-by-subtraction is the only arithmetic that gets done between now and next season, Target Field will be an unhappy place.
Section 219: Liriano and a game of chicken for the Twins
Posted by: Howard Sinker Updated: July 24, 2012 - 11:14 AMThis Francisco Liriano thing looks to be playing out quite sloppily. After a series of good to excellent starts -- sometimes people have mistaken good starts for great ones because of Liriano's awful work earlier this season -- he melted down in Chicago on Monday night.
Less than three innings, three home runs, seven runs allowed, no command.
Some people are bemoaning that Liriano pretty much nuked his trade value with Monday's performance.
Not really. There wasn't much trade value before that, in part because of changes in the free-agent compensation rules that are frequently talked about and not always completely understood. And, in another part, because Liriano doesn't exactly bring a track record of quality to market.
The bigger issue for Twins fans is the game of chicken being played by the team.
Here's the deal: In order for the Twins to get draft-choice compensation for Liriano, they would have to offer him a one-year contract for about $12.5 million --the average of baseball's top 125 salaries. Liriano would have to decide whether to accept the deal or look elsewhere, most likely for a multiyear deal.
These are new rules that will be in effect for the first time after this season. Here's the best primer on the rules, from the website mlbtraderumors.com.
Do the Twins want to risk making an offer and having Liriano accept it? Fool me once...
Do Twins fans want to hear that other moves will be limited because the Twins spent $12.5 million to keep Liriano? You can fool some of the people...
There's more that works against the Twins. For one thing, a team trading for him will not be eligible for free-agent compensation. So Liriano would basically be a two-month rental. For another, teams looking at Liriano aren't just looking at his recent success when figuring their offers and counteroffers. You're not going to get a Top 25 minor-league prospect, the way Miami did when it got pitcher Jacob Turner from Detroit on Monday for starting pitcher Anibel Sanchez and second baseman Omar Infante.
Interest in Liriano is one thing; interest at more than a modest price is another. Teams know that starting pitching is the Twins' biggest need to again become competitive, so when they see Liriano being dangled, what conclusions do you think they're making?
So do the Twins shun modest offers for Liriano, and risk offering him $12.5 million after the World Series or losing him without getting anything in return?
Can they afford to trade him and not get much in return, like Seattle did when it sent Ichiro to the Yankees?
Can they afford not to deal him?
It's a messy situation the Twins have created for themselves, one without a good outcome.
What would you do?
Section 219: Trades, free agency and the Twins' checkbook
Posted by: Howard Sinker Updated: July 13, 2012 - 9:03 AMYou're going to read a lot about potential trades in the weeks to come. Some of it will be pretty frivolous, in the sense that even those who generally have keen insights may lose perspective from time to time.
If you look at the Johan Santana situation five years back, people with baseball savvy were writing that the Yankees could perhaps make fans forget some of their struggles by trading Santana for a package that would have included Ian Kennedy, who went 21-4 for Arizona last season, and All-Star Game MVP Melky Cabrera, plus others. Or the suggestion that a Santana deal would yield a star for the Twins. Robinson Cano, maybe, or Jose Reyes.
Instead, there was Carlos Gomez and the others.
And baseball's rules are different now, even from last year, in a way that won't facilitate some of the Twins dealing that's being imagined. Unless a team offers a free agent about $12 million, it won't receive a draft choice as compensation for losing him. So Michael Cuddyer and Jason Kubel wouldn't have fetched compensation based on the deals they were offered and eventually made with other teams.
What does that mean for the Twins as the trading deadlines approach? For one thing, don't expect much of anything for midlevel players.
Will contenders be very interested in Matt Capps when Kansas City's Jonathon Broxton, San Diego's Huston Street and Milwaukee's Francisco Rodriguez should be available now because their current teams won't make an effort to keep them under the new rules? We're dreaming if we imagine significant help coming this way for anyone other than Josh Willingham, Denard Span and Francisco Liriano. Anything else is strictly a salary dump with a body or two thrown in. (Think Delmon Young deal.)
Owing to his performance and contract, Justin Morneau has pretty much fallen into the salary dump category, and I can't imagine another team taking on his $14 million contract for this year and next. The Twins best hope is to hold on to him, hold out hope for improvement and see where he stands at this time in 2013, and again at the end of next season.
So where does that leave the Twins?
Needing to change the way they do business, at least in the short term.
Twins management talks of team payroll being a percentage of its revenues. That's fine, until the credibility -- or perceived credibility -- of the product is threatened. The Twins can talk about their $100 million payroll until Minnie and Paul turn blue, but the fact remains that 23 percent of that payroll is tied up for the next 6 1/2 years in Joe Mauer -- a move that had to be done by the Pohlads.
I have made the case previously that the Mauer contract needs to be considered as a separate item from the rest of the payroll. Kind of like an endowed chair at a college, supported by funds from outside of the regular budget. Ownership simply could not have moved into Target Field in 2010 with the Mauer situation unsettled. (The Angels and Tigers made first-cousin moves in their signings of Albert Pujols and Prince Fielder, paying them for a year or two longer than they are likely to be useful so they can better compete in the present. Better to do this on purpose than by accident -- see Wells, Vernon and Soriano, Alfonso.)
To say that the current and near-future payroll is limited by Mauer's contract is a disservice to anyone who follows the team. (Financial disclosure: I'm in for enough as a season-ticket holder to cover about 2 1/2 innings of Mauer's contract this season. Three innings, I guess, if you count expenditures on beer and the monster yams behind Section 102.) If the Twins need a couple of proven starting pitchers as an anchor for the coming years and a quality middle infielder, then they need to adopt a spend money-to-make money approach as part of becoming a contender.
That's what Wild owner Craig Leopold just did, right?
A total of $27 million comes off the payroll after this season if you assume the departure of Pavano, Liriano, Capps and Scott Baker. (I'll assume the Twins will offer Baker a smaller deal with significant incentives.) After 2013, another $22.5 million comes off the payroll with the Morneau, Nick Blackburn and Tsuyoshi Nishioka contracts expiring.
Should the Twins to commit that total -- $49.5 million, plus some "Mauer money" -- toward the 2013 payroll? Yes, if they want to remain relevant, both in baseball and in the Twin Cities. Ownership can afford it.
The Twins have $43.5 million committed for 2013 to Mauer, Willingham, Span, Ryan Doumit, Glen Perkins and Jamey Carroll. Nobody else on the roster is due for a major salary bump through arbitration.
Terry Ryan has scored well with the Willingham, Doumit and Jared Burton signings and got an infield upgrade with Carroll. The team has done well with its handling of Trevor Plouffe, Scott Diamond and Ben Revere, and is rightly using the remnants of this season to figure out the futures of Brian Dozier and a few others. There are some interesting prospects in the minors and hopes that last month's amateur draft will yield significant pitching help in a few years.
The Twins aren't good right now, but they're interesting -- not like the Twins of the mid- and late-1990s, who were bad and uninteresting.
Despite their record, Ryan's staff is doing pretty well with the mess it was handed -- maybe as well as possible. But to talk about the Twins "improving to .500" next season, or needing a few seasons to become postseason competitive, isn't a discussion that most fans will want to hear. Not when 10 teams make the playoffs.
One more issue: The Twin Cities pro sports landscape has changed markedly and at a lightning pace. The Wild just spent megabucks on Zach Parise and Ryan Suter; the Timberwolves are again interesting and relevant, and the Vikings are getting their new stadium. So continued atrophy, or running in place, could easily land the Twins as No. 4 among the four major pro teams in the Twin Cities -- status as darning as being at the bottom of the weakest division in the American League.
Twins ownership needs to trust Ryan's baseball skills by being willing to go more-in financially.
Otherwise they'll risk people saying: "No, I don't want your Twins tickets. I'm going to see the Lynx."
Section 219: My sorta-deep thoughts on Francisco Liriano
Posted by: Howard Sinker Updated: June 21, 2012 - 9:03 AMTrade him.
Get something that may turn out pretty well for the Twins down the road. If it doesn't, I won't hold current management responsible for what prior management should have done.
Trade him.
The Twins shouldn't take his five post-bullpen-exile starts, all against teams that range from not very good (Pittsburgh) to really, really bad (the Cubs), as anything more than a(nother) indication of what Francisco Liriano will do from time to time -- amid the lengthy, maddening stretches that make him a sucker bet for the long term.
Trade him.
And thank Denard Span for this quite-nice catch that kept us from talking (yet again) about how one bad inning ruined another Liriano start.
Trade him.
And show that video of Denard's catch while you're at it, Terry Ryan.
Trade him.
Three words on Sorta-Deep Thoughts: Worst commercials ever. Bert Blyleven and the singing lottery animals is Gone with the Wind by comparison. (I've been looking for a way to work that into a blog post.)
Trade him.
Anyone want to argue the opposing view? Liriano? Span? Commercials? All opinions welcome.
Section 219: Hope amid trouble (and trouble amid hope)
Posted by: Howard Sinker Updated: June 18, 2012 - 8:18 AMThese last half-dozen games have been a reminder of how the Twins will typically fare when they play teams that don't stink.
I figured I'd be as direct as possible there, if only because (judging by some of the comments from my last post) some people think the Twins are merely a quick fix away from contending for something.
Philadelphia and Milwaukee are by no means excellent teams. Both are a half-dozen games under .500 in their National League division. If you need more, here goes: In the dozen games on either side of beating the Twins 2 out of 3, the Phillies have lost 11 of them. The Brewers came here and won 2 out of 3 after getting swept by Kansas City.
Friends, even with fine play from a number of parties -- both expected and unexpected -- the Twins are still under repair from allowing their infrastructure to crumble. Their handling of Ben Revere and Trevor Plouffe, against a backdrop of skeptics, appears to be paying off. Even with the strikeouts, I would rather have Josh Willingham's numbers than Michael Cuddyer's. Scott Diamond's success is a stroke of unexpected good fortune. Brian Dozier should be better for playing his way through struggles. And the Glen Perkins/Jared Burton combo in the bullpen deserves more leads to hold.
The Joe Mauer paragraph: Yes, if someone offered me a No. 1 catcher with a .415 on-base percentage, I would take him and pay him a lot even if I knew he was leading the league by grounding into 14 double plays. I would encourage him to take a rip at more first-pitch fastballs, but maybe that's just me. I might harbor some frustration that he's not on pace to hit 20 home runs, but I'd try to keep that frustration at the same level as my frustration over not winning the Powerball.
The Justin Morneau paragraph: I'm really happy that Morneau is fit enough to be an everyday player and he makes the infield better as first base. I'm glad that he's mashing the ball against right-handed pitchers (a .393 on-base percentage and a .607 slugging percentage). I'm also concerned that his Adam Dunn-in-2011 numbers against lefties -- six hits and two walks in 66 plate appearances -- are collateral damage from his collection of injuries. How he figures into the Twins figure, in the next couple of months or the next couple of years, is a question that I can't answer with any certainty. Given his production and his place on the payroll, I assume the Twins would consider the right offer from a contender, even if Terry Ryan and the others can't say that out loud.
The Denard Span/Matt Capps/Francisco Liriano/Jamey Carroll/Ryan Doumit and more paragraph: Like it or not, those guys (and others) should be available for the right offer. The Twins have traded bit players in the past for substantial help. They need to do it again.
The Twins need to sell at the trading deadline and be aggressive players in the free agent market. I promise, they are not a tweak or two away from anything, and I promise that the front office knows that. After three years, selling the ballpark experience of Target Field will ring hollower against a backdrop of close-to-100 loss seasons.
Now on pace to lose about 97 games, the Twins should already recognize they need to stem the tide of fans drifting from buying tickets to watching from the sofa -- or doing something else entirely.
They can ride oversized yams, meat balls and craft beers only so far.
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