Justin Morneau and the Twins Offense

Over the last two seasons Justin Morneau has been one of the best run roducers in the American League with 62 HR and 219 RBI. What makes this fact more impressive is that on the surface he has been producing all those runs on a team who does not possess one of the elite AL offenses. It would seem intuitive to conclude that Morneau has to be more efficient in the opportunities that he gets, since the more potent offenses are going to yield more opportunities for hitters in their lineups. While there may be some truth to that way of thinking, it's actually Morneau's ability to go deep that is keeping him on the RBI leaderboard this season, not his performance with runners on base.

A simple way to approximate the chances a hitter gets to drive in baserunners is baserunners per PA, which is shown in the table below for the top 5 AL hitters in Runners Driven In (RDI = RBI-HR).

Player	RDI	BR	BR/PA
M. Ordonez	72	346	0.77
A. Rodriguez	68	356	0.76
V. Guerrero	67	324	0.74
J. Morneau	61	333	0.77
V. Martinez	61	296	0.70

Morneau is in the middle of the pack here, so at first glance it doesn't seem he's suffering from a lack of opportunities. But one of the hallmarks of the Twins offense is its lack of power, so is it reasonable to expect a larger percentage of those runners to be on first base? It turns out that is not the case either. In fact, Morneau has had the most chances with a runner on third (the easiest RDI opportunity) and isn't getting less chances with RISP than any of the top 5. If you've noticed that the number of chances (the numbers in parentheses) don't add up to the number of baserunners in the previous table, I discounted plate appearances in which the hitter was intentionally walked because that doesn't represent an opportunity to drive in any runners. Back to the numbers with RISP, a caveat to that observation is that a larger percentage of those RISP chances come with two outs for Morneau. This is most likely the result of "productive" outs moving runners into scoring position (or "non-productive" outs keeping them there until Morneau comes to bat). What struck me is the fact that Morneau doesn't stand out in driving runners in from third base (more two out situations mean less RBI groundouts or sac flies) and he is merely average bringing runners in from second and first. In general the Twins offense has had difficulties scoring runners from first, as detailed previously here.

Player	from 1st	from 2nd	from 3rd	RISP	% of PARISP w/ 2 out
M. Ordonez	0.09 (171)	0.22 (119)	0.60 (50)	0.33	0.43
A. Rodriguez	0.13 (181)	0.15 (115)	0.50 (54)	0.26	0.41
V. Guerrero	0.12 (150)	0.22 (88)	0.51 (58)	0.34	0.33
J. Morneau	0.08 (151)	0.20 (98)	0.41 (70)	0.29	0.47
V. Martinez	0.07 (159)	0.22 (86)	0.65 (48)	0.37	0.38

While Morneau has performed well in his role, driving in plenty of runs, his place on the RBI leaderboard has come abgout differently than the other hitters. Morneau has been able to remain on this short list mostly due ot his ability to hit HR. Only A-Rod has more home runs in the AL and the highest percentage of RBI from HR. Looking at the runs per HR for these hitters, it could be used as an argument that not enough Twins are getting on base in front of Morneau. If you've been paying attention, you know that Morneau is second in the AL in solo HR (Morneau-16, Carlos Pena-17) not because of a lack of opportunities. He's been able to hit a lot of solo HR to make up for a performance with runners on which isn't quite in line with the other top AL hitters this season.

Player	HR	RBI% from HR	R/HR
M. Ordonez	16	0.28	1.56
A. Rodriguez	35	0.66	1.94
V. Guerrero	14	0.36	2.07
J. Morneau	28	0.49	1.57
V. Martinez	17	0.37	1.71

With all of this considered, Morneau is having another monster year in which he is currently on pace for 43 HR and 137 RBI. Those numbers are impressive enough that the footnote that he's doing it all within a subpar offense needn't be applied. Especially since the surrounding offense is actually giving him a reasonable amount of opportunities to add to those numbers.

Inconsistent Offense?

The Twins just completed a series in which they scored five runs in three games while being swept by the Blue Jays. In my searches for the Series Preview in Blog, I came across this article about the inconsistency of the Jays offense in comparison to some other teams. The Twins were one of the more inconsistent offenses mentioned in the study. The author doesn't delve into cause and effect with his numbers (except for a rough characterization of teams as 'power' or 'speed' reliant offenses), but the short answer has little to do with a reliance on speed in the Twins offense. Rather the Twins offense goes mostly as the 3-6 hitters go. Unfortunately those hitters are the least consistently productive of the Twins regular lineup.

Player	OPS	St. Dev.	High	Low
Mike Redmond	.680	.224	1.173	.343
Jason Tyner	.649	.221	1.026	.266
Jeff Cirillo	.741	.202	1.019	.449
Michael Cuddyer	.923	.184	1.156	.508
Joe Mauer	.849	.182	1.249	.547
Torii Hunter	.901	.174	1.180	.623
Justin Morneau	.949	.160	1.260	.689
Luis Castillo	.702	.156	.901	.372
Jason Bartlett	.666	.155	.867	.247
Nick Punto	.594	.137	.816	.370
Jason Kubel	.709	.120	.919	.512

I looked at the eleven Twins players that have the most plate appearances so far this season. For each player, I divided the 100 games of the 2007 season into 19 ten-game sections (i.e. 1-10, 6-15, 11-20, etc.), calculated the OPS for each section, and then calculated the standard deviation of that data set. I threw out any of those sections where the player had less than 15 plate appearances, which gave the results in the table at the left.

The most inconsistent performers (Tyner, Redmond, Cirillo) are those that don't play as often. The next rung on the inconsistency ladder belongs to Minnesota's "big 4"; Cuddyer, Mauer, Hunter, Morneau. The most consistent are the "little 4"; the regular players with OPS under .800 (Kubel, Bartlett, Punto, Castillo). The biggest surprise to me was Joe Mauer's numbers. It's hard to believe that Mauer is less consistent than Torii Hunter. And, in fact, if you eliminate just the 10 game stretch immediately after he came off the disabled list the standard deviation drops significantly. So I dropped the highest and lowest sections from each players data and recalculated the data.

Player	OPS	St. Dev.	Adjusted	High	Low
Jeff Cirillo	.741	.202	.175	1.019	.449
Jason Tyner	.649	.221	.164	1.026	.266
Mike Redmond	.680	.224	.163	1.173	.343
Torii Hunter	.901	.174	.156	1.180	.623
Michael Cuddyer	.923	.184	.154	1.156	.508
Justin Morneau	.949	.160	.136	1.260	.689
Luis Castillo	.702	.156	.128	.901	.372
Nick Punto	.594	.137	.122	.816	.370
Jason Bartlett	.666	.155	.117	.867	.247
Joe Mauer	.849	.182	.113	1.249	.547
Jason Kubel	.709	.120	.104	.919	.512

For the most part the trends remain the same. The bench players are the most inconsistent, probably due to the uneven amount of playing time they get during the season. Cuddyer, Hunter, and Morneau remain in the same position. They produce more overall, but their production is less consistent than others in the offense. The biggest movers in this adjustment are Joe Mauer and Jason Bartlett, who both suffered from one below average cross-section (Mauer coming off the DL, Bartlett's first 10 games of '07). Mauer is pretty remarkable. Not only is he able to produce at a high level, he's one of the most consistent hitters in the Twins lineup this season. The other players at the bottom of the table are all of the lighter hitting variety, consistently providing a lower level of offense.

Therein lies the problem with the Twins offense. The top and bottom of the order are consistently producing subpar offensive numbers (OPS of .594 to .709) so they rarely are able to pick up the slack when the middle of the order isn't at its top production. Unfortunately, it seems that the middle of the order this season has been the most unpredictable part of the offense, whether it's availability (Mauer spending significant time on the DL) or just production. If one or two (or sometimes three) of the "big 4" aren't producing, the offense almost completely evaporates. It's also interesting to note that the right-handed component of the "big 4" is the less consistent half. That might be a factor in the Twins struggles against left-handed pitching.

The inconsistency is not the fault of the middle of the order being more or less consistent than the rest of the lineup. In fact, I would predict that most of the high OPS hitters would see more variance than lighter-hitting players. Rather, it is an offense that is constructed to rely on a few people in the lineup to produce the majority of the runs, and when the remainder of the lineup doesn't heat up to cover the downswings of the big bats, the offense is doomed to sputter.

Pleasingly Average Offense with RISP

A recent article in the Hardball Times plotted each of the American League teams with respect to their number of at bats with runners in scoring position (RISP) and their batting average in those situations. Inspection of the plot reveals a couple of things that are obvious and unsurprising:

- Detroit and New York (two of the best team offenses in the AL) are outdistancing the rest of the league in opportunities with RISP.

- Oakland and Chicago (two of the worst team offenses in the AL) are suffering from a lack of opportunities and a failure to capitalize in those occasions.

There are also some surprises to be found. The most surprising thing that caught my attention was that the Twins seemed to be outperforming some potent offenses. They had more ABRISP than Cleveland, Boston, and Texas, while having a better BARISP than New York, Cleveland, and Boston.

Now, as any Twins blogger can tell you, the Twins offense has not been something to be described as potent this season. Rather, they have been maddeningly inconsistent and, at times, depressingly incompetent. Can these two thoughts be reconciled? Can the Twins be performing well with RISP, with plenty of chances, and still be the sometimes putrid product that fans have come to dread?

On Saturday against the Angels, Justin Morneau led off the bottom of the second inning with a double. The Twins hitters would get four plate appearances with RISP as they went single, groundout, strikeout, and popout without scoring a run. They generated lots of plate appearances, even got a hit, but didn’t actually produce any offense. This kind of inning is the reason that the Twins can be where they are on the aforementioned plot without having a similar offense to the other teams in the same area.

Here is a look at top 5 teams in the American League in plate appearances with RISP have performed:

Team	PARISP	BARISP	OPSRISP	PA/HR	PA/XBH
NY Yankees	1132	.274	.772	45.3	14.7
Detroit Tigers	1077	.321	.895	37.1	11.2
Cleveland Indians	1064	.261	.770	35.5	13.6
Boston Red Sox	1063	.270	.807	40.9	12.4
Minnesota Twins	1056	.281	.788	42.2	13.9

Once again, the Twins don’t really stick out here, their OPS is right in the middle, they don’t hit HRs as often as the other teams but the extra base hit frequency isn’t terribly out of line. So, the problem doesn’t look like it is with production with RISP. The story of stranded Justin Morneau that I related at the beginning of this article doesn’t seem to be indicative of the Twins production in general (although it certainly feels like it has happens often).

Moving forward, the top 5 teams in the AL in runs scored and the Twins are shown below, as well as the percentage of their runs that came in plate appearances with RISP. This is not a perfect number, because it will also include batters driving themselves in with homeruns and runners scoring from first, but we’ll tackle that after we take a look at this.

Detroit Tigers	78.5%
Cleveland Indians	74.5%
New York Yankees	77.0%
Boston Red Sox	77.5%
Texas Rangers	75.5%
Minnesota Twins	82.0%

First of all, these are essentially the same teams as before although the Rangers have scored more runs than the Twins (who rank eighth in the AL in R/G). Looking at the percentages we begin to get an idea of where the Twins offense is failing. On average the top 5 offenses in the league are scoring 76.6% of their runs in PARISP. The Twins have a significantly higher percentage than that (82.0%) which indicates that if the Twins don’t have their runners in scoring position they are much less likely to drive in a run than these other teams.

In order to try to approximate the trouble that Minnesota has scoring runners from first, I subtracted all homeruns and any runners that scored from first on homeruns. I did not find a time-efficient way to account for runners scoring from first in 1st and 2nd, 1st and 3rd, and bases loaded situations, so this remains a rough approximation, but it backs up my previous point. The Twins remain the highest percentage on the list, and in fact, have further separated themselves (in the wrong direction) from the average of the other 5 teams (67.9%).

Detroit Tigers	70.6%
Cleveland Indians	64.1%
New York Yankees	69.5%
Boston Red Sox	69.2%
Texas Rangers	66.2%
Minnesota Twins	73.7%

Before we finish, here’s one last point about the Twins not being able to score runners from first at the same rate as the elite offenses of the AL. In situations where there was only a runner on first, the Twins are, unsurprisingly, the least likely to score that runner. Of course there are lots of other situations that aren’t accounted for here, but it’s another point toward the conclusion that the Twins lack of power is all that is holding them back from being among the best offenses in the American League.

Team	R	R/PA
Detroit Tigers	35	19.0
Cleveland Indians	44	16.1
New York Yankees	41	17.5
Boston Red Sox	37	19.5
Texas Rangers	37	16.5
Minnesota Twins	32	21.0

The offense is getting people into scoring position and hitting at a reasonable clip when they get there. However, they haven’t been able to complement that RISP success with a few extra base hits that score runners that are not in scoring position. I’m nowhere near the first to say this, and I’m sure I won’t be the last, but it would very much help the Twins to pick up a powerful bat, either at the trade deadline or in the offseason. In fact, an upgrade in this area is one the few differences betwixt the Twins and the best offenses in the AL.

June Strength of Schedule

Check out the earlier post on strength of schedule for explanations of these numbers.

First up is the AL Central:

AL Central	May Record	May SOS	Expected June SOS	Actual June SOS	Difference	June Record	Expected July SOS
Chicago White Sox	12-14	.473	.439	.472	-33	10-18	.524
Cleveland Indians	19-11	.526	.468	.474	-6	15-13	.488
Detroit Tigers	16-12	.547	.496	.514	-18	16-10	.536
Kansas City Royals	11-17	.543	.504	.511	-7	15-12	.524
Minnesota Twins	13-14	.502	.530	.504	26	15-12	.526

The Tigers continued to win in June, actually improving on their .571 winning percentage of May with a .615 winning percentage in June. They did that despite having the most difficult opponents of the teams in the division. The Tigers won series against the Indians, Mets, Brewers, and Braves. All of those teams were over .500 when the Tigers met them. The Indians played just a touch over .500 against a much easier schedule. The Indians missed opportunities by losing two of three to both Cincinnati and Washington. The surprise of the month was the Kansas City Royals who finished the month of June three games above .500, the highlight being a three game sweep of the Angels.

The Twins, for the most part, kept pace with their divisional opponents, they lost a couple games in the standings to the Tigers, but stayed right with the Indians. The difference in expected SOS and actual SOS comes from the Braves, Mets, and Brewers coming back to earth a bit after hot starts, and the Nationals playing the Twins tougher than one might expect. The Twins can't afford to just keep pace with the Tigers and Indians anymore. They have remained on the perimeter of striking distance for most of the season, but now is the time to make their move.

Coming up, the Tigers have a tough month, with the Angels, A's, Mariners, Indians, and Twins all on their schedule. They have already won 2 of 3 from Cleveland, so it could be more of the same from Detroit. Cleveland has a relatively easy schedule, with series against KC, Chicago, and Texas. However, they also have the aforementioned series with Detroit, along with games against Boston and Minnesota. If Cleveland can beat the teams it is supposed to beat, it should be a pretty straightforward July for the Tribe.

As I have already mentioned, the Twins have a big month. They have division rivals Cleveland and Detroit, in addition to series against Oakland, Los Angeles (of Anaheim), and the Yankees. By the end of the month we should know where the Twins stand in relation to the best teams of the AL Central. They've been keeping the deficit manageable, but now is the time for some big wins against tough opponents.

For completeness, here’s the remainder of the American League:

AL East	May Record	May SOS	Expected June SOS	Actual June SOS	Difference	June Record	Expected July SOS
Baltimore Orioles	15-13	.515	.528	.504	24	8-17	.477
Boston Red Sox	20-8	.519	.504	.522	-18	13-14	.468
New York Yankees	13-15	.514	.532	.440	92	14-11	.480
Tampa Bay Devil Rays	11-15	.469	.505	.478	27	11-17	.535
Toronto Blue Jays	12-16	.515	.506	.444	62	14-13	.530

AL West	May Record	May SOS	Expected June SOS	Actual June SOS	Difference	June Record	Expected July SOS
Los Angeles Angels	18-11	.511	.456	.470	-14	17-9	.492
Oakland Athletics	14-13	.461	.528	.469	59	15-13	.536
Seattle Mariners	16-14	.532	.479	.495	-16	18-9	.505
Texas Rangers	9-20	.479	.502	.555	-53	14-12	.564

One Good Week: Scott Baker

SCOTT BAKER June 26 – July 3
(2 GS, 0-1, 1.20 ERA, 15 IP, 7 H, 2 BB, 12 K)

From the outset, 2007 was an important season for Scott Baker. He had spent portions of the last two years with the Twins (with varying degrees of success), and this season would go a long way toward determining the role Baker would play with the organization in the future. Coming into the 2007 season, he was one of many young pitchers that were vying for a position in the rotation. Well, we all know how spring training turned out; Sidney Ponson and Ramon Ortiz started the season with the major league team while Baker, Matt Garza, and Kevin Slowey began the season in Rochester at AAA. The two veterans were eventually phased out of the rotation while Slowey and Baker were called up as their replacements.

Baker had an impressive debut campaign in 2005 (see table below for numbers) but followed that up with a bit of a disappointing 2006 (again, the table below has numbers to back me up). Meanwhile, despite his struggles last year, Baker dominated AAA in ’06 and ’07 which only reinforced that he had little to prove except at the major league level. On May 19, Baker was called up and delivered an impressive first start against Milwaukee (8.1 IP, 2 ER). In his next 5 starts, Baker posted an ERA of 8.37 with a WHIP of 1.94 while not lasting 6 innings in any of the five starts. The outlook at that point was less than sunny, but Baker turned things around for at least a week with the two starts noted above. In fact, in his last two starts, the only thing more adept at preventing runs than Baker has been the Twins offense. Baker received one run of support in 16 innings of Twins “offense”.

	GS	W-L	IP	ER	H	BB	SO	ERA	WHIP	BAA
2005	9	3-3	52.2	20	47	14	32	3.42	1.16	.240
2006	16	5-8	83.1	59	114	16	62	6.37	1.56	.324
2007	8	2-3	47.0	26	50	11	35	4.98	1.30	.273

The Twins offense is not the subject of this article however. Scott Baker’s recent success is. Looking at his numbers season by season it's obvious that opponents were hitting Baker harder in 2006 than his other seasons (BAA and WHIP higher, BB rate constant), resulting in a much higher ERA. Looking at some other rate stats (another table coming up) it is clear that is the result of Scott's HR/FB returning to a more normal 12.5% from an unsustainably low rate in 2005. Also it seems he was a little bit unlucky as the BABIP of his opponents was significantly higher than normal. Once again the .264 BABIP in 2005 is probably unsustainable for a young pitcher like Baker, as examples Fransisco Liriano and Johan Santana had BABIP of .286 and .273 respectively in 2006. Baker's difficulties arose from the fact that he was allowing a lot of HR due to his high HR/FB and his low GB/FB percentage. Even when the ball stayed in the park, batters were reaching safely (probably due to the higher line drive percentage). This year, so far the BABIP has returned to something closer to normal with a corresponding drop in line drive percentage. The HR/FB ratio has remained a bit of a concern, but the effect of that has been mitigated somewhat by the fact that there have been a lot fewer fly balls in general due to an increase in the GB/FB ratio.

	K/9	GB/FB	LD%	HR/FB	BABIP
2005	5.5	0.83	23.8%	7.1%	.264
2006	6.7	0.72	29.5%	12.5%	.355
2007	6.7	1.18	23.4%	13.7%	.305

In Baker's last two starts he has accumulated a WPA of +0.502 compared to -0.857 in his previous 5 starts. He has kept the ball in the park (1 HR in 15 IP, 7.7% HR/FB) while inducing a good amount of ground balls (1.23 GB/FB ratio). Couple that with a slight kick in strikeout rate (7.2 K/9) and you have an extremely effective starting pitcher on your hands. Baker has certainly gotten a bit lucky in these starts, evidenced by the .167 BABIP this week. While that is not always going to be the case, the hope is that going forward from here the Twins offense will give Scott a little more breathing room, so that even with the inevitable increase in BABIP and HR/FB, the increased frequency of ground balls and strikeouts will be enough to increase the likelihood of success in Baker's starts this season.

The Levale Speigner Report

Here are the lines over their last four starts of two starting pitchers who recently faced the Twins.

Starter 1: 14.1 IP, 23 R, 30 H, 8 SO, 7 BB, 14.44 ERA, .423 BAA, 1.045 OPS
Starter 2: 26.1 IP, 5 R, 17 H, 15 SO, 9 BB, 1.71 ERA, .177 BAA, .533 OPS

Now, here are the lines for those same two starters in their starts against the Twins.

Starter 1: 6 IP, 1 R, 2 H, BB, 3 SO
Starter 2: 7 IP, 6 R, 7 H, BB, 2 SO

Starter 1 is Levale Speigner, a rule 5 draft pick who had four extremely rocky starts before shutting down the Twins on Saturday. Starter 2 is John Lackey, who has been one of the better starting pitchers in the American League over the last two seasons (ERA+ 2005 - 122, 2006 - 123). Lackey has pitched very well thus far, but the Twins were able to get to him and avoid a sweep in Los Angeles last Wednesday. Anecdotally, this has seemed to be a pattern for the Twins this season. Whenever they face a struggling pitcher (probably young, especially left-handed) they seem to have enormous struggles putting up any kind of offense. I know it's easy to remember getting only 2 hits off of a pitcher like Speigner, but if Minnesota had knocked out 7 or 8 hits in five innings and put some runs on the board, the game would have been quickly forgotten. Do the Twins actually struggle more against below average pitchers? Or is this a case of selective memory making a problem seem worse than it actually is?

To investigate that question, I looked at the opposing starting pitchers in the 63 games the Twins have played so far this year (through Wed.). For each pitcher I sampled the five starts before their outing against the Twins to get as good of an idea as possible of how they were doing around the time of their outing. Early in the season obviously there wouldn't be five starts beforehand, so I used any starts before the Twins outing, then complemented with starts directly after the outing versus the Twins to get to five total starts. I calculated FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching) as well as the more conventional ERA statistic for the 5 starts. Then I calculated runs per nine innings and WHIP for the start against the Twins. (Note: Virgil Vazquez (Det.) only has one start on the season, and it came against the Twins. I have placed him in the highest FIP/ERA category when it came time to place him) The American League average for these four stats are FIP and ERA - 4.40, R/G - 4.71, WHIP - 1.39.

First, I split things up by pitchers who were above or below league average in their 5 surrounding starts.

Surrounding FIP	Avg. FIP	R/9 v. Twins	WHIP v. Twins
below 4.40	3.78	4.36	1.26
above 4.40	5.27	4.99	1.44
Surrounding ERA	Avg. ERA	R/9 v. Twins	WHIP v. Twins
below 4.40	3.11	4.44	1.33
above 4.40	6.36	4.96	1.40

That table seems to indicate that the Twins are pretty much following the expected trend, they're hitting the "worse" pitchers harder by both measures than the pitchers who had enjoyed more recent success. However, it is true that with both FIP and ERA, the runs produced by the Twins were above the levels previously observed in the more successful pitchers and below the levels of the less successful hurlers. Not quite the pronounced effect as my frustration would lead me to believe, but it's a start.

Breaking it down further:

Surrounding FIP	Starts	Avg. FIP	R/9 v. Twins	WHIP v. Twins
below 3.80	12	3.18	4.29	1.38
3.80 - 4.40	16	4.18	4.40	1.19
4.40 - 5.10	15	4.72	5.66	1.49
5.10 - 6.00	13	5.36	4.44	1.35
above 6.00	7	6.90	4.69	1.54

Again we see that the Twins outperform against the tougher pitchers while not hitting the struggling pitchers as hard as one might predict. Overall, FIP seems to be a better indicator of future success against the Twins than ERA (shown in the table below):

Surrounding ERA	Starts	Avg. ERA	R/9 v. Twins	WHIP v. Twins
below 3.00	14	2.39	5.38	1.48
3.00 - 4.40	16	3.76	3.71	1.21
4.40 - 5.25	10	4.84	3.44	1.24
5.25 - 6.50	10	5.74	6.54	1.61
above 6.50	13	8.77	5.20	1.39

The first thing that jumps out is that the Twins are killing pitchers with an ERA under 3.00, so that backs up one part of the hypothesis. Although, taking these numbers with those of the previous table, it may be that the pitchers with the low ERA who have benefited from fielding help (and thus have a higher FIP) may be regressing to the mean a bit and inflating the numbers in the first row of this table. Also, the pitchers with the highest ERA outperformed their previous track record against the Twins, so there may be something to the perception after all. Note that the WHIP for the 6.50+ ERA category is lower than that of the below 3.00 ERA. However, the average pitchers (ERA from 3.00-5.25) seem to give the Twins the most trouble.

Overall, it seems that the data backs up the idea that the Twins struggle more than they should against pitchers who haven't been having success. On the converse side, they don't seem to be struggling with the most successful pitchers. It's certainly an odd quirk, and I don't know if it would hold up over a larger sample size, but it's certainly interesting to see some numbers to back up my perception.

I'll try to keep the database up to date and check in periodically with updates throughout the year. So you've got that to look forward to.

Monthly Strength of Schedule

The month of May was a tale of two different teams for the Twins. They began the month by losing their first 5 series to Tampa Bay, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, and Cleveland. But this was followed by winning their final 4 series of the month against Milwaukee, Toronto, Texas, and Chicago. Of the teams that the Twins played in May, only the Devil Rays and Rangers entered the month with records under .500, so the fact that the Twins managed to rebound after a difficult start could be interpreted as a positive sign. But was it the Twins turning it around, or did they hit a stretch of teams cooling off after good starts? I wanted to see how the Twins opponents so far this season stacked up against the other teams in the division and the American League. So I tried to look at the relative strengths of schedule for those teams. The strength of schedule (SOS) for a team each month was calculated using the opponent's records for that month in games not against the team in question. (Thus, Seattle had an overall 10-10 record in April, but a 10-7 record was used for the calculation of Minnesota's SOS due to the Twins sweep of Seattle). These records were then weighted by the number of games played against that opponent (so KC's record counted more for MN in April, due to the 5 games played against the Royals). I also looked at whether the actual strength of schedule for May corresponded to what on would have predicted looking at the records at the end of April. Expected SOS for a month was calculated using the records of the upcoming opponents through the first of the month in question. Again the records were weighted by the number of games against each opponent.

First up is the AL Central:

AL Central	April Record	April SOS	Expected May SOS	Actual May SOS	Difference	May Record	Expected June SOS
Chicago White Sox	12-11	.526	.473	.473	0	12-14	.439
Cleveland Indians	14-8	.504	.511	.526	-15	19-11	.468
Detroit Tigers	14-11	.477	.511	.547	-36	16-12	.496
Kansas City Royals	8-18	.528	.508	.543	-35	11-17	.504
Minnesota Twins	14-11	.451	.544	.502	42	13-14	.530

At the end of April, the Twins had faced the easiest schedule of the division and had managed to more or less keep pace with the frontrunners. But at this point the data set wasn’t very large, so it’s difficult to draw too many meaningful conclusions. Moving on into May, we start to get an appreciable amount of data. At the beginning of May the Twins looked to have the hardest road ahead, and though they finished the month with a record below .500 it wasn’t because of the level of their competition. In fact, only the White Sox had an easier schedule for the month. The Twins were the only team in the division whose opponents regressed in May. This is mostly due to the Twins series against the Brewers (16-9 in April, 14-15 in May), and the Blue Jays (13-12 in April, 12-16 in May). The Indians and Tigers just kept on rolling even though they both had challenging schedules for the month. That seems to bode well for those teams, if they can continue to win even against opponents who are playing well; chances are they will be around the top of the division at the end of the season. Unfortunately, the news isn’t as good for the Twins and White Sox, who both struggled to stay around .500 despite having easier schedules. Going forward, once again it looks like the Twins are going to be facing the opponents who have had the most success thus far in 2007. It looks like it will be tough to make up ground on the Indians especially this month, but as May showed, there is always the chance that the teams who got off to a hot start in the first two months (and drove up Minnesota’s expected strength of schedule) could cool off and become easy wins for the Twins.

For completeness, here’s the remainder of the American League:

AL East	April Record	April SOS	Expected May SOS	Actual May SOS	Difference	May Record	Expected June SOS
Baltimore Orioles	12-14	.498	.499	.515	-16	15-13	.528
Boston Red Sox	16-8	.469	.517	.519	-2	20-8	.504
New York Yankees	9-14	.530	.523	.514	9	13-15	.532
Tampa Bay Devil Rays	11-14	.492	.497	.469	28	11-15	.505
Toronto Blue Jays	13-12	.491	.494	.515	-21	12-16	.506

AL West	April Record	April SOS	Expected May SOS	Actual May SOS	Difference	May Record	Expected June SOS
Los Angeles Angels	15-11	.515	.482	.511	-29	18-11	.456
Oakland Athletics	12-13	.479	.457	.461	-4	14-13	.528
Seattle Mariners	10-10	.488	.480	.532	-52	16-14	.479
Texas Rangers	10-15	.527	.499	.479	20	9-20	.502

After the lowest SOS in the league in April, the Twins had the highest expected SOS in May in the league and were beneficiaries of the largest difference betwixt expected and actual SOS. As we look ahead to June, the Twins are the only AL Central team whose expected SOS is in the top half of the American League (they are second only to the Yankees). This month, if it follows these predictions will tell us a lot about where the Twins will settle in the divisional race, if they can remain within striking distance while playing quality opponents, a little optimism could be warranted. If not, at least this Slowey kid looks pretty good.

A Look Back: Recent Twins Draft History, Part II

With the Major League Baseball Amateur Draft on the horizon, this is the second of two articles looking at the Twins' most recent drafts. The first part looked at the first round picks of the last fifteen years and how they are faring (or have fared) in professional baseball. This week I will look at the Twins minor leagues and how the draft has been used to stock the Twins system.

In the last five years the Twins have drafted 59 players in the first ten rounds. Of those 59, 45 are currently playing (or on rosters) within the Twins organization (76%). Breaking these picks down by position shows the Twins love of young arms. 30 pitchers, 4 catchers, 6 first basemen, 6 second basemen/shortstops, 3 third basemen, and 10 outfielders were taken. This pitching fixation peaked in 2004 when 11 of the 14 players taken in the first ten rounds were pitchers. Sorting the draft picks by current level in the minors gives the data shown in the chart below:

Not surprisingly, the recent draft picks populate the low echelons of the minors. All in all it seems to be an orderly progression through the minors. Except when it comes to pitching.

Level (# of top picks)
Major Leagues (5) - Slowey, Baker, Crain, Neshek, Perkins
Rochester, AAA (6) - 3 pitchers
New Britain, AA (7) - 6 pitchers
Fort Myers, A (10) - 4 pitchers
Beloit, A (10) - 2 pitchers

If the Twins draft and sign a pitcher early in the draft, chances are they will be progressing more rapidly through the system than the other positions. From the 60 picks of our data set, the only prospects to reach the majors are pitchers, and of the four non-pitchers closest to the bigs (Span, Moses, Deeds, Plouffe), barring injury at the major league level, none have a realistic shot at significant major league experience this year. Is this evidence that the Twins scouting staff is significantly better at evaluating pitching talent than hitting prospects? Or is this just another effect of the fact that you will always need good pitching? I want to go with the second option, but the Twins farm system doesn't seem to be producing quality hitters where the major league club has its biggest holes. Even from that previous list of the four highly drafted prospects closest to the majors, I wouldn't characterize any of them as a legitimate major league bat at this point.

Other interesting notes are that none of the 2002 draft class are populating the minor leagues at a level lower than AAA. Apparently you have 3 or 4 seasons to prove yourself or you're out. That means things don't look good for David Shinskie (Ft. Myers, drafted '03) or Johnny Woodard (Beloit, drafted '03). I don't know for sure the rules about service time and minor league free agency, but I'm pretty sure that plays a role in this.

Of course, the draft is about more than just the top few picks. The Twins current farm system is littered with players drafted by the Twins in rounds after the tenth. 93 players in the system from the A level to the major league club were originally drafted by the Twins, including 17 who were signed as undrafted free agents. Over half of those 93 are at the A level (either Beloit or Fort Myers), where nearly the entire rosters are made of recent Twins picks. The full distribution is shown below.

Level (# of draft picks)
Major League (14) - Cuddyer, Hunter, Kubel, Mauer, Miller, Morneau, Slowey, 4 pitchers mentioned above, and 3 undrafted free agents (DePaula, Rincon, Rodriguez)
Rochester, AAA (11) - 1 undrafted free agent
New Britain, AA (18) - 5 undrafted free agents
Fort Myers, A (22) - 3 undrafted free agents
Beloit, A (28) - 5 undrafted free agents

Again, it's notable that players drafted before '02 are not a significant presence in the minors. This is probably a good thing for the organization, as career minor leaguers do very little to help the success of the major league club.

Throughout the system, the Twins draft picks are used as the main source of players for every level. Of course there are those picks that will fall by the wayside on their progression from the lower levels to the top levels, but the Twins have shown the ability to keep enough of their draft picks around so that they form a nucleus around which the upper levels of the organization are built. For an organization with financial restrictions like Minnesota, this an important skill that has no doubt fueled the recent success of the franchise.

This is not a look forward at what kind of draft the Twins are looking to have this year, but through these looks back we can see that the Twins have relied on their draft to provide a large part of their talent pool in the recent history. Thus, it is easy to conclude that many Twins fans will have a vested interest in the results of the upcoming draft.

A Look Back: Recent Twins Draft History, Part I

With the Major League Baseball Amateur Draft on the horizon, this is the first of two articles looking at the Twins' most recent drafts. This part looks at the first round picks of the last fifteen years and how they are faring (or have fared) in professional baseball. Next week I will look at the Twins minor leagues and how the draft has been used to stock the Twins system.

In the last 15 years, the Twins have drafted 22 players (including the supplemental first round). Of those 22, they have signed 20 of them (91%). They have drafted 9 pitchers, although recently there has been a larger focus at that position as five of the last eight first round picks have been pitchers. 4 outfielders and 3 catchers have also been drafted in the first round by the Twins.

Ten of these players have already made their major league debut with the Minnesota Twins, while eight more remain in the farm system awaiting their chance. That leaves two players (B. J. Garbe '99 and Ryan Mills '98) who never made it to the major league level after being drafted in the first round by the Twins. Incidentally, The Twins current roster (and disabled list) contains four of their first round picks (Hunter, Cuddyer, Mauer, and Perkins).

Of the ten players who have made it to the bigs, Matt Garza and Adam Johnson were the fastest, reaching the majors in their second season in the Twins organization. The average time from draft to debut was 3.8 years for those ten picks.

To satisfy all your curiosity, here are some words and numbers about each of the Twins first round draft picks in the last 15 years:

	2006 - Chris Parmelee - (20th overall - OF) currently with Beloit (A) Parmelee turned heads with his fast start last year. He hit 8 home runs in 45 games last year at the Rookie level before a late promotion to Beloit. Overall he hit .273/.369/.500 last year which resulted in his being listed as the #94 prospect in Baseball America's top 100 prospects of 2007. So far this year, he's hit .226/.305/.374 at Beloit with two home runs. Some eyebrows have been raised by his high strikeout total (38 SO in 115 AB) but he's only 19 years old, so he's still got plenty of time to develop. His mix of patience and power are the attributes that lead to the Twins selecting him in the first round.
	2005 - Matt Garza - (25th overall - P) currently with Rochester (AAA) - 1 ML season Garza's unbelievably fast rise through the farm system last year caught a lot of attention, and he was ranked #21 in Baseball America's top 100 prospects of 2007. He began last season with Fort Myers and pitched his way to promotions to New Britain and then Rochester, and finally, Minnesota. In nine starts with the Twins, Garza pitched 50 innings, allowing 32 earned runs (5.76 ERA) while striking out 6.8 per nine innings. He began the 2007 season at Rochester and is currently boasting a 3.86 ERA with 8.4 K/9 through his first nine starts. It's only a matter of time until Garza dons a Twins uniform again.
	2005 - Henry Sanchez - (39th overall - 1B) currently with Elizabethton (Rookie), 3rd minor league season Sanchez was drafted out of high school and spent some time at Beloit last year. That stint, combined with his time in rookie ball gives a career line of .211/.274/.351 coming into this year. Sanchez is currently recovering from an injury, and so I couldn't find any stats from this season. It doesn't seem like he's on the fast track right now, but only time will tell.
	2004 - Trevor Plouffe - (20th overall - SS) currently with New Britain (AA), 4th minor league season Drafted out of high school as the first of 5 first-round picks for the Twins in 2004, Plouffe has spent the last two seasons at A level before his promotion this year. In the previous three seasons he has hit .244/.321/.353. So far this season, Plouffe has hit .250/.306/.402 with the uptick in power due mostly to an increased number of doubles (11 2B out of 33 hits). Plouffe's defense has also been improved according to scouts, which adds to the overall optimistic picture for this prospect.
	2004 - Glen Perkins - (22nd overall - P) currently with Minnesota Twins, 2nd ML season After being drafted from the University of Minnesota, Perkins made his debut in the stretch run for the Twins last season and was called up early this season, where he stayed until a recent injury put him on the disabled list. In those two stints, Perkins has 16 appearances, all out of the bullpen, with an ERA of 3.38, a 1.19 WHIP, and 6.75 K/9. In the minors, Perkins moved quickly, never spending more than one year at any level. He started 60 games while posting an ERA of 3.36, a 1.24 WHIP, and 9.63 K/9
	2004 - Kyle Waldrop - (25th overall - P) currently with New Britain (AA), 4th minor league season Waldrop was recently promoted to New Britain after getting off to a good start this year. In eight starts, he averaged 5.5 IP, had an ERA of 2.86 while striking out 41 in 44 innings. His first start at AA also looked good, as Waldrop allowed one earned run in seven innings. Since signing with the Twins, he has spent a year at rookie ball, followed by two years split betwixt Beloit and Fort Myers at the A level. In his minor league career, Waldrop has an ERA of 3.83, a WHIP of 1.21, while maintaining a SO/BB ratio of 4 to 1 and striking out 6.3 batters per 9 innings.
	2004 - Matthew Fox - (35th overall - P) currently with Beloit (A), 3rd minor league season Originally drafted, but not signed, in 2001 by the Arizona Diamondbacks, Fox attended the University of Central Florida before being drafted by the Twins. 2007 represents his first season above rookie level due to a injury to his labrum which took his 2005 season. He's only appeared in one game thus far this year as he spent time at extended spring training, but he did pitch a scoreless inning in that appearance.
	2004 - Jay Rainville - (39th overall - P) currently with Fort Myers (A), 3rd minor league season Jay Rainville was drafted out of high school and began with one season at the rookie level, followed by parts of a season with Beloit and Fort Myers. In those two seasons, his ERA was 3.06 and his WHIP was 1.20. He would miss the entire 2006 season with an arm injury before returning this year where he left off, at Fort Myers. Rainville has eight starts this season for the Miracle, he has a 3.22 ERA in those starts with a 1.27 WHIP while averaging 4.5 IP/start.
	2003 - Matt Moses - (21st overall - 3B) currently with Rochester (AAA), 5th minor league season The Twins drafted Moses out of high school, and he spent a little more than a season at each level through the Twins system hitting .261/.323/.402 over the last four seasons. This is his first year at AAA, and he's hitting .244/.264/.341. On a positive note Moses posted his highest home run total last season at New Britain (15, 31.6 AB/HR) which is a good sign for one of the Twins power hitting prospects.
	2002 - Denard Span - (20th overall - OF) currently with Rochester (AAA), 5th minor league season Span has long been tagged as Torii Hunter's successor in centerfield for the Twins. Due to Mr. Hunter, Span hasn't progressed to the majors as quickly as others on this list, but in his four previous seasons in the minors (none above AA), he has hit .288/.359/.346 while stealing 76 bases in about 1600 plate appearances. In his first season at AAA this year, Span is hitting .226/.282/.299 with 10 stolen bases.
	2001 - Joe Mauer - (1st pick overall - C) currently with Minnesota Twins, 4th ML season, .323/.403/.472 Mauer started the season with the Twins in 2004 after the departure of A. J. Pierzynski. Unfortunately, due to injury, he would only appear in 35 games that year. Since then, Mauer has become a hitting machine, he won the batting title last season and posted a career high average (.347) and OBP (.446). Last year, Mauer won numerous accolades, including the Silver Slugger Award, an All-Star selection, and he garnered enough votes to place 6th in the AL MVP race. Mauer is currently on the disabled list with a leg injury but prior to that was still hitting well (.353/.446/.480).
	2000 - Adam Johnson - (2nd overall - P) 2 major league seasons, 10.25 ERA, 2.05 WHIP Johson shot through the minor leagues, reaching the Majors after short stops at A, AA, and AAA in 2001. He would appear in seven games for the major league club including four starts, posting an 8.28 ERA and a 1.8 WHIP. After spending 2002 at AAA, Johnson made another brief appearance with the Twins in 2003, appearing in two games, pitching 1.1 innings and allowing eight runs. After another season in the minors, Johnson was released by Twins in 2005 and signed by the Oakland A's. After a couple of seasons in the Oakland farm system, Johnson is out of professional baseball.
	1999 - B. J. Garbe - (5th overall - OF) 6 minor league seasons Garbe was drafted out of high school by the Twins and spent two years each at the A and AA levels of the Twins organization. He hit .218/.298/.294 in those four seasons before he was traded in 2004 for Pat Borders. Garbe spent time in the Mariners and Marlins farm systems until 2006, but I couldn't find a current team for him this season.
	1998 - Ryan Mills - (6th overall - P) 7 minor league seasons Mills was originally drafted by the Yankees in the 13th round of the 1995 draft, but instead attended Arizona State University until the Twins drafted him in the first round. Mills would spend about two years at each level of the minors (as a starter at A and AA; and in the bullpen at AAA) but didn't excel at any of them, as he posted a record of 17-40 with an ERA of 5.79 and a WHIP of 1.73 while walking 5.9 batters per nine innings. After 2004, the Twins released Mills and he hasn't resurfaced anywhere else that I can find.
	1997 - Michael Cuddyer - (9th overall - SS/1B/2B/3B/OF) currently with Minnesota Twins, 7th ML season, .269/.341/.454 Cuddyer had his breakout year last year when he hit 41 doubles and 24 home runs with a .284/.362/.504 line. It's probably not coincidental that last season marked the first time Cuddyer played more than 95 games at any one position (142 games in right field). He made his debut in 2001, but spent significant time in the minors each of the next three seasons.
	1997 - Matt LeCroy - (50th overall - C) currently with Rochester (AAA) - 7 ML seasons The Mets drafted LeCroy initially in 1994, but he went to Clemson University instead for three seasons before the Twins drafted him. LeCroy made his debut with the Twins in 2000 and played six seasons with the Twins before he was granted free agency after the 2005 season. In those six seasons, LeCroy hit .275/.346/.460 with the Twins while averaging about 240 plate appearances per year. His best year was 2003 (coincidentally the year he got the most at-bats) when he hit 17 home runs while posting a line of .287/.342/.490. After a year in Washington, LeCroy returned to the Twins in the off-season as a free agent and is currently hitting .197/.256/.291 at AAA Rochester.
	1996 - Travis Lee - (2nd overall - 1B - did not sign) 9 year ML career, .256/.337/.408
	1995 - Mark Redman - (13th overall - P) currently with Atlanta Braves, 9th ML season Redman spent time with the Twins in three seasons from 1999 to 2001. However, the only consistent action he saw was in 2000, when he started 24 games and posted an ERA of 4.76, 7.0 K/9, and a 1.41 WHIP, which was good enough to place him 6th in the AL Rookie of the Year voting. Those numbers only differ from his career numbers in the frequency of strikeouts (5.5 career K/9, 4.75 ERA, 1.42 WHIP). He was traded to the Detroit Tigers at the deadline of the next year for Todd Jones. After leaving the Twins, Redman has been named an All-Star once ('06 with Kansas City) and won a World Series ('03 with Florida).
	1994 - Todd Walker - (8th overall - 2B) currently with Oakland Athletics, 12th ML season Walker made his debut with the Twins in 1996 and spent four seasons with the Twins, including a spectacular 1998 season where he posted career highs in BA (.316), OBP (.372) and OPS+ (119). In his Twins tenure, he hit .285/.341/.413 which corresponds with his career line of .289/.348/.435. He was traded to Colorado for another Todd, Todd Sears, in July of 2000.
	1993 - Torii Hunter - (20th overall - OF) currently with Minnesota Twins, 11th ML season, .271/.324/.469 Hunter has patrolled center field for the Twins for the better part of the last nine seasons. In that time, his best performance to date was the 2002 season when he hit .289/.334/.524, won a start in the All-Star game, and came in 6th in the AL MVP voting. This year Hunter is demolishing all those numbers hitting an astronomical .318/.353/.611 so far. Hunter has also won six Gold Gloves and has been widely regarded as one of the best defensive centerfielders in the game.
	1993 - Jason Varitek - (21st overall - C - did not sign) currently with Boston Red Sox, 11th ML season, .269/.349/.449 2-time All-Star ('03, '05), Silver Slugger (2005), World Series (2004)
	1992 - Dan Serafini - (26th overall - P) six major league seasons Serafini had a six year career in the major leagues starting with three seasons with the Twins from 1996 to 1998 before his contract was purchased by the Chicago Cubs. With the Twins Serafini appeared in 35 games and for a couple stretches filled in as a starter. He started 14 games, posting a 5.45 ERA while averaging 5.1 innings per start with a 1.57 WHIP and 4.7 K/9 in those games. Overall with the Twins, Serafini posted a 5.88 ERA and a 1.67 WHIP.

Enormous thanks to TwinsCards.com, which is where I found all these images.

[UPDATE:] The Braves have cut Mark Redman ('95). Adjust all relevant stats accordingly.

On Assignment: Brewers 6, Twins 5

As I lounged about this weekend, an urgent message suddenly appeared in my inbox from the headquarters of the Minnesota Sports Guys conglomerate. I was chosen to attend a Twins game this weekend at Miller Park. Despite the fact that Ramon Ortiz would be pitching, and that I would be wading into hostile territory with which I was not familiar (my first visit to Miller Park), I felt duty-bound to do my best. Following is my report. (Keep in mind, I am not a professional picture taker, I'm barely an amateur, so there's not much and it may not be high quality, but I'll try to fill in with witty commentary where appropriate)

Yep, that's the place. We (me and my wife) exited off the freeway and were pretty much right by the front gate, which we thought boded well. After another 20 minutes of driving we reached our parking spot and made the long trek back toward the field (which is essentially in the middle of an enormous parking lot).

Also, you may notice that the roof was closed. No outdoor baseball for us.

We found our seats pretty easily (after procuring some cheesy fries in a helmet). This was the view from section 430 (the MNSG budget apparently isn't all that large). The place was pretty well packed with a reasonable representation of Twins fans. And I should point out that the Brewers fans that I met were very well behaved, before and after the game (I probably would have ranted about them if they weren't, so I have to give them credit).

In the above picture, the Brewers had just walked Jason Bartlett to get to Ramon Ortiz in the big 4-run fourth.

At this point my wife pointed out that TC, the Twins mascot, was in attendance, hanging out with Bernie Brewer on the infamous slide. (Emphasis mine, there were no giant purple arrows at the game). Shortly after this half inning finished, Bernie and TC disappeared from the slide and TC wasn't seen again. In an interesting parallel, the Brewers outscored the Twins 6 to 1 for the remainder of the game. Perhaps Bernie took matters into his own hands? I know the Twins policy is not to negotiate for hostages, but it had to be weighing on their minds.

Ramon Ortiz plots his next big inning (alternatively, he frets about the plight of TC).

It wouldn't be Milwaukee without a Sausage Race. Here they come, around the homeplate area, I had the bratwurst in a friendly wager with my wife (that's him in the green hat at the back of the pack. grrrrrrr)

It was Sunday, so it was a relay (as anyone who's witnessed a sausage race knows). The "little weenies" ran the last leg and the bratwurst made a valiant comeback to finish second. Unfortunately the wife's pick, the polish, won easily, so I lost that bet (and no, I won't tell you what the wager was, it's not important).

I had a picture of Ramon Ortiz, and here's a picture of Pat Neshek. I didn't get a picture of Dennys Reyes because I was covering my eyes in horror the whole time he was on the field. He trotted in from the bullpen and I was desperately trying to convince myself that Juan Rincon had become a lefty. But Dennys laughed at my pitiful attempts to deny him as he coughed up a run to give the Brewers the lead.

Neshek was awesome, after getting two outs on two pitches in the 7th, my wife predicted three strikeouts on 9 pitches in the 8th. She was pretty close, Neshek got two strikeouts and a pop-up on 10 pitches. Between this and the polish sausage thing (plus she got the attendance game right, too) I was getting a little freaked out.

Damn.

I had a good time, I always enjoy a baseball game, and this one was close enough to be entertaining throughout. I got to give Cuddyer a standing ovation for his home run, and I got to curse the offense for failing to capitalize on a leadoff double in a tie game. The whole range of emotions in one afternoon. I really felt the Twins should have pulled this one out, but I can be content with 2 of 3 on the road in a series. That's it from me, I'm off to sharpen my photojournalism skills. Thanks for reading!

PS - Corey, who do I contact about reimbursement for the bratwurst and cheese curds?