Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Three Offseason Predictions

Based on things I've seen, things I've heard, or sheer intuition.

1) Kevin Slowey will be traded. 

This is not a move I'd endorse. I've liked Slowey since he was a star prospect obliterating minor-league hitters, and while he hasn't shown us a ton over the past two seasons I think he's going to turn the corner one of these years when he's able to stay healthy. He gave us a glimpse of his potential in 2008, when he posted a 3.99 ERA and 1.15 WHIP over 160 innings, and he's still only 26 years old.

Yet, from talking to folks with a behind-the-scenes perspective, I've never gotten the sense that Slowey is particularly well liked by the Twins. That he was left off the postseason roster this year after winning 13 games during the regular season does nothing to dissuade that notion. It's not that he's a bad guy, just that his personality doesn't seem to fit with this organization. And historically, they tend to get rid of guys like that.

Despite his underwhelming results in the past two seasons, I think Slowey has plenty of trade value. He's a young pitcher with elite command and a dazzling minor-league track record who's entering his first year of arbitration eligibility.

My guess is that the Twins will roll with a rotation consisting of Francisco Liriano, Scott Baker, Nick Blackburn, Brian Duensing and a veteran starter signed from the free agent pool. Top prospect Kyle Gibson would be waiting in the wings should that veteran addition (or any of the other starters) fail, similar to what the Twins did in 2007 when they signed Ramon Ortiz and Sidney Ponson with Slowey and Matt Garza opening the season in Triple-A -- though hopefully they would bring in a more competent veteran this time around.

I hope Slowey's back next year. Unfortunately, I have a hard time envisioning it. But it's just a hunch.

2) Among the team's relief pitchers eligible for free agency, Matt Capps and Jesse Crain will be back. Matt Guerrier, Brian Fuentes, Jon Rauch and Ron Mahay will not.

The Twins have six relievers with contracts expiring this winter and not nearly enough money available to bring them all back, so some decisions will need to be made.

It pains me to predict that Capps will be back, for reasons I explained on Monday. But Bill Smith said when he made the trade that he wouldn't have done it if the reliever was not under team control for 2011, so there's little doubt that the Twins will offer him arbitration and overpay for his services next season.

It's tougher to predict how the rest of the bullpen picture will be sorted out. My guess is that Crain is the only one who stays. Mahay will probably retire while Fuentes and Rauch will likely price themselves out of the Twins' range of interest. Letting Guerrier go would be tough, but the Twins have gotten their use out of him, running him out a league-leading 302 times over the past four years. It's not a good idea to invest much money in a 32-year-old arm with that much wear.

Crain is the only player among the group that was drafted and raised by the Twins, so they likely feel a greater sense of allegiance to him. In addition, he's been a success story for the coaching staff. Last year, when Crain was struggling mid-June, he was sent to the minors to work things out and was a much different pitcher after returning a month later, posting a 2.91 ERA the rest of the way. This year, Crain was again battling through early-season struggles, but some adjustments were made and over the final four months he was one of the league's most reliable relievers.

I think the Twins feel they have a good handle on how to straighten Crain out when he gets out of wack. That, combined with his relative youth, might prompt them to bring him back on a two-year deal.

3) Jim Thome will be back.

I've gone back and forth on this one. Thome is probably going to command a significant raise, as his services will be in much higher demand this winter after an outstanding 2010 campaign. And, while he didn't show his age much this season, he will turn 41 next year and skills can deteriorate quickly at this stage.

But, with all the questions surrounding Morneau, the Twins can hardly afford to lose Thome's power. As popular as he was with the coaches, players and fans, I think the front office will see the risk involved with signing him for $3-4 million as worthwhile. Ideally, Morneau will be back next year and Thome will be able to fill the role he was expected to fill this season -- bench bat and occasional starter. If Morneau can't go, I doubt they'd want Thome to be a full-time DH, but his bat would certainly be nice to have around in that scenario.

45 comments:

CA said...

I've always thought it was slightly odd that Slowey never got a deal comparable to the Baker or (especially) Blackburn contracts. I think your hunch on his situation could very well be correct.

What about Kubel? He has an option that is probably slightly (though not outrageously) overpriced, and is kind of redundant if Thome is on the roster. They're both lefty DH types, and although Kubel can play the field he's limited there. If Morneau is healthy, Cuddyer would presumably move back to RF, so there'd be less playing time to go around anyway. As much as I like Kubel, it might be reasonable if the Twins didn't want to devote a roster spot and $5.25MM to him.

Karlee said...

I thought Slowey would be traded until I heard the news about Blackburn and Baker. Now I highly doubt they'll do that. They need to keep him around.

And I think Neshek will be gone.

Anonymous said...

Remember how hard you dickrode Melky Cabrera a few years back. Well he's avaiable now?

Ed Bast said...

Blackburn, Slowey, Baker, Duensing, Gibson, Wimmers....good lord the Twins have so many of this identical brand of pitcher: throw low 90s, don't walk guys, don't strike out guys, have weak off-speed stuff, be conditioned themselves to throwing no more than 100 pitches, be conditioned to a shorter minor league season, have arm/elbow problems in August/Sept of a major league season, end up with a .500 record and an ERA north of 4, and (if applicable) become playoff liabilities or be left off the roster altogether.

For the love of God, trade some of them. With the exception of Duensing they're interchangeable. Not a single one of them will help the Twins win a playoff series. Trade a couple of them for someone who will.

The Twins spending $20 mil on "closers", which I agree they're going to do out of stubbornness, is utterly ridiculous.

Anonymous said...

There is a Pioneer Press article speculating we put together a package centered around Delmon Young for Zack Greinke.

Why in the world would we trade Young?

We won't part with prospects (Aaron Hicks) whom we have NO IDEA if they will ever help our team, but we will give up on 112 RBI?

Anonymous said...

Correction-

speculating that we SHOULD put together a Young-for-Greinke package, not that we will, have, or have even considered it

Nick N. said...

What about Kubel? He has an option that is probably slightly (though not outrageously) overpriced, and is kind of redundant if Thome is on the roster.

This probably deserves its own blog entry. In short, I don't consider legitimate power hitters to every be redundant on this team. Thome and Kubel combined to hit 46 of the Twins' 142 home runs this year.

Remember how hard you dickrode Melky Cabrera a few years back. Well he's avaiable now?

Think he'd be a great fourth OF pick-up at the right price.

There is a Pioneer Press article speculating we put together a package centered around Delmon Young for Zack Greinke.

That's not happening. Young has one year of arbitration remaining after this season, and then he's liable to get very expensive. The Royals aren't going to be trading Greinke for a package built around a guy they'll be able to keep for one year.

Ian said...

I'd be ok in moving Slowey, I've never liked him. Maybe Hicks/Slowey/prospect and see if that can get another arm (Grienke) or RH bat (Rasmus if the Cards are really interested in trading him).

And to Ed - Gibson should be a better pitcher than both Slowey and Baker. BA midseason prospect list had him #22.

Ed Bast said...

Nick, I agree, a lot of folks seem split on Kubel. He is a relatively cheap option that'll get you 20 HR, and the Twins need some power. Then again he's absolutely miserable in the postseason, to the extent that he's pretty much a combination of Butera's offense and Delmon's defense out there. Kind of torn on this one.

Anonymous said...

Scott Baker's k/9 last season was 7.82 which was very good. For some perspective, that k rate is better than cj wilsons, tommy hunters, cc sabathia's, phil hughes's, andy pettitte's, AJ burnetts, and Matt cain's.

Im also certain you have very little intimate knowledge about gibson and wimmers stuff ed, but they missed plenty of bats in the minor leagues, especially when you take into count their experience levels. I speaking more about gibson than wimmers because wimmers only pitched like 15 innings (struck out like 20).

Ed Bast said...

Gibson's K rate in AAA was around 5 per 9, I believe. That's not going to go up in the majors. Small sample size, sure, but that translates to, what, Blackburn-esque?

A lot of people seem to think Baker is a lot better than he is. Let's remember, he's been given every chance you could ask for as an opening day, #1 starter for this ballclub. He barely made the postseason roster this year, and was passed up as a potential starter for a 2nd year kid with about 20 career starts and a guy who for a good stretch of the season was the worst starter in the majors.

Scott Baker is not the answer folks.

Anonymous said...

thank you ed. a lot of people love scott baker for his k/9 and k/bb ratios. check out his similarity scores on baseball reference you will see that he is very similiar to a bunch of crappy pitchers from the height of the steroid era. there are a couple good pitchers mixed in, but it looks much more hit than miss. every once in a while he will give you a good start or even 2 in a row, but most of the time he is adam eaton and boof bonser.

Anonymous said...

Kyle gibson only pitched 15 inning at AAA. He also started the year in A+ and moved up 2 levels within the season, which is pretty rare to do in the upper levels of the minors. If you think the season gibson had indicates a blackburnesque pitcher, you dont know what talking about. Gibson is a very good pitching prospect.

"Blackburn, Slowey, Baker, Duensing, Gibson, Wimmers....good lord the Twins have so many of this identical brand of pitcher: throw low 90s, don't walk guys, don't strike out guys" This is what you said. Scott baker strikes guys out and is a much more competent than you believe he is. But you put way too much emphasis in nonsense not related actual play.

Anonymous said...

"He barely made the postseason roster this year, and was passed up as a potential starter for a 2nd year kid with about 20 career starts and a guy who for a good stretch of the season was the worst starter in the majors."

This had more to do with the health of his elbow than if he's a good pitcher or not.

Ed Bast said...

I thought Gibson's innings total was much higher at AAA than that, if that's the case then it's certainly too small a sample size to judge from. We'll have to wait and see I guess.

Okay, you got me, I guess Baker apparently has a nice k/9 ratio. I was more going off of watching him pitch over his entire professional career, in which he has been given every opportunity to be a top-line guy and has failed every single time. For every good start he has he seems to follow with a really terrible one.

Since you seem to want to evaluate players solely on 1 season of a particular stat, I'll mention that Justin Vargas, Justin Masterson, Doug Fister, and Gio Gonzales all had higher WARs than Scott Baker this year.

Ed Bast said...

"This had more to do with the health of his elbow than if he's a good pitcher or not."

Blackburn had elbow surgery after the season too. It had a lot to do with how good Scott Baker isn't.

Anonymous said...

"Blackburn had elbow surgery after the season too. It had a lot to do with how good Scott Baker isn't."

Cuddyer had knee surgery after this year and is planning on playing next year. While Mauer sat out after his knee surgery when he first started in the majors. By your reasoning that make Cuddyer better than Mauer?

Anonymous said...

"Since you seem to want to evaluate players solely on 1 season of a particular stat" Thats not true. I believe the rule of thumb is last three years with more weight to the most recent, but with most things there are way too many exceptions for that rule to be particularly worthwhile. I generally look for largest relevant sample size I can(that is of course ambiguous too). I listed baker and others 2010 k/9 just to add some perspective to the number not to say anything profound about it. Do i think baker has a higher capacity to strike guys out that CC, probably not, but i do think baker strikes out batters at a very good rate.

Anonymous said...

Here's another prediction:

Ben Revere is on the roster and one of Young/Span/Kubel/Cuddyer is gone by opening day.

And for all those who love stats the odds for each of the four being gone is inversely proportional to the number of D's in their first and last names.

Anonymous said...

You must hate stat hate stats to think revere would be an upgrade over any of those players next year.

Ed Bast said...

"Cuddyer had knee surgery after this year and is planning on playing next year. While Mauer sat out after his knee surgery when he first started in the majors. By your reasoning that make Cuddyer better than Mauer?"

Umm, no, I don't think you are following me. My point is that both Blackburn and Baker had elbow problems at the end of the year, so don't blame Bake's crappiness and failure to make the ALDS rotation on that. That the team went with Blackburn over Baker in the playoff rotation says a lot about Baker's crappiness, since Blackburn was the crappiest pitcher in the league for a lot of the year.

I don't know where the Cuddy and Mauer stuff came from. I was talking about 2 of our similarly crappy pitchers.

Matt said...

Forget about Baker's K numbers.
He's always worked high in the zone (why, I have no freakin clue) with low 90's stuff and a decent slider.
That will miss some bats early in games, but as hitter's eye levels adjust and the combination of his fast ball losing a mph or two, that "up in the zone" fast ball gets CRUSHED! Throw in a meatball slider as he realizes this and over-relies on the slider, and another pitch, CRUSHED.
Look at his ERA splits from the start of games to the end, and you'd see he gets progressively worse as the game goes along. He gave up WAY too many homers this year.
Sorry guys, Baker is a 5th starter or bullpen arm, at best. Time for the Twins to find a new opening day guy.

Anonymous said...

"Look at his ERA splits from the start of games to the end, and you'd see he gets progressively worse as the game goes along. " This is true about the majority of pitchers, but really thanks for that meaningful blyleven like break down of scott baker. Next perhaps a breakdown of kubel and his upper cut swing? Bakers biggest weakness is obviously his fly ball tendencies but theres nothing that extreme about the numbers. He gives up a lot of FB and is on the high end of the hr/fb spectrum, but there are plenty of pitchers with similar rate that have lower eras. Wade davis, matt garza, phil hughes, shaun marcum all have similar gb% and fb/hr. The real problem with bakers era was the absurd, unsustainable babip he posted this year. Just like 09 liriano was no where near as bad as his era would lead you to believe, 2010 baker was better than his era and has the best chance of any of the twins starters of getting a lot better results next year.

Matt said...

^^^ Kind of a snide comment, no?
Dude, did you know his name was Timothy? I bet Bert does...

O.H. Lee said...

Elite command? Your kidding right? It wasn't even near as good as his teamate pavano's last year. Right now it's a click above league average which is why his tits get lit out so often.

I'd be all for trading him because I dont think he's healthy. At one time he did have elite command but hasn't for three years now. Chances are he never regains it because his survival in the major depends on it because he does not have an out pitch.

Anonymous said...

"The real problem with bakers era was the absurd, unsustainable babip he posted this year."

he sustained it for a full year, that means it is not unsustainable. he was throwing too many pitches over the middle. a high babip is not unsustainable when you do that. if you make good pitches and your babip is high, then it is probably unsustainable. that was not the 2010 scott baker. he was not unlucky.

Anonymous said...

Scott Baker has a career 304 babip and before last year a consistent near elite whip. Perhaps scott bakers problems were pitching up or throwing the ball right down the middle despite his strikeout and ground ball rates significantly increasing this past season.

Matt said...

What the stat heads do is assume things, based on a normal distribution, which will in turn assumes that things will go back to the mean.
In essence, this means you're assuming Baker's babip and hr/fb ratios will return toward the normal.
Too bad you actually have to see him pitch to make a valid point.
The ball was up, and over the middle, for much of the season. When Baker makes a mistake, it get's crushed. Pull up his 0-2 count numbers, stat geeks, and tell me he got unlucky.
Oh, and the Bert thing... Ok, so you think Bert's stupid. He does watch over 150 games a year from start to finish, and pitched 20-odd big league seasons. Oh but that's right, advanced statistics are a better indication of a player's value vs. the opinion of someone who's viewed him pitch hundreds of times.
You got me, I give.

Ed Bast said...

Baker throws more 0-2 meatballs than any pitcher I've probably ever seen. This is why the BABIP argument is pretty silly - there's much more to BABIP than just luck, as most stat heads seem to think. If you're pitching poorly, i.e. leaving pitches up in the zone (another Baker specialty), you are going to have a high BABIP.

BABIP is a fairly worthless stat in my mind. It can mean almost totally opposite things - you're getting unlucky, or you're getting exactly what you deserve. You need to look at far more than this to determine how a pitcher performed.

Anonymous said...

ed bast, you should start a blog. i would love to read a blog that doesn't state that a player is unlucky every time he sucks.

Anonymous said...

Yeah stat geeks, get on the whole 2 strike thing. Us men who prefer watching out baseball have better things to do.

"If you're pitching poorly, i.e. leaving pitches up in the zone (another Baker specialty), you are going to have a high BABIP. " I assume you believe that his babip would be high because leaving the ball up should lead to more line drives and flyballs? An increased line drive rate would indicate a higher babip, but bakers 2010 babip wasnt any higher than he career norm. As for fly balls, those historically, including flyballs that leave the ball park, have been converted into outs at a higher rate than ground balls because its a lot easier to get a cheap hit on the ground than it is through the air. So fly balls typically arent the root cause of an inflated babip.

As for making fun of bert, i have no doubt he knows a lot about pitching and baseball in general. However, his analysis is almost always way to simple, and exclusively qualitative. These types assessments tend to be devoid of perspective and oversimplified to the point that they ignore more important root causes.

Dead Last said...

"My point is that both Blackburn and Baker had elbow problems at the end of the year, so don't blame Bake's failure to make the ALDS rotation on that.... I don't know where the Cuddy and Mauer stuff came from."

The Cuddy Mauer comparison was just to point out that just because an injury is in the same body part doesn't mean that it's the same injury. If one recovers faster than the other and can be put on the playoff roster while the other can't it says nothing about their pitching ability.

Anonymous said...

they were both on the playoff roster.

Anonymous said...

What’s up with Slowey’s personality that makes the Twins not like him? He seems like a decent young guy. I agree with Ed tho, many Twins pitchers are interchangeable, and nothing special. Trade a few for an ace. And don’t be picking on Bert. He makes some bone-headed comments sometimes, in my house we do laugh at him and mock him sometimes, but his analysis of pitching is pretty square. In fact I like Dick-n-Bert as Robby Inc calls them, and I never realized how much I like them until I had to listen to the TBS announcers for the playoffs. Grrrrrrrr…..

Anonymous said...

ernie johnson and ron darling are terrible. so are buck and mccarver.

Matt said...

Gawd, McCarver's command of the English language is atrocious.
One of the anons stated Baker's babip was "unsustainably high" and another one stated it was "near career norms." Well? My take is that there is no such thing as unsustainably high. Theorizing that babip is on a normal distribution (thus, Bakers will regress back toward league average) is sound, but not really for a guy who throws down the middle on 0-2 counts. Trust stats, but trust your brain/eyes more, ok? That's all I've been trying to say here.
I think Baker would be a good bullpen arm. Maybe to replace Matty G? He can strike guys out while fresh, won't walk many, and hitters won't have time to adjust to the high pitches. His biggest challenge there would be keeping it in the park (had a high HR rate in 170 innings despite moving to a spacious ballpark, not good).
Just speculation...

Anonymous said...

His career babip is 303 is was like 335 last year. And of course theres an unsustainable babips exist. What if scott baker had a 1.000 babip. You think someone is capable of pitching so poorly they never get a batter to hit a ball at someone. Obviously not. Its debatable what the sustainable level is but not that it exists.

"Trust stats, but trust your brain/eyes more, ok?" No. The eye test is a poor way to way to analyze sports because its perspectiveless and easily deceived. If you watch baseball certain things are going to stand out as memorable. Stuff like dives, homeruns, complete games etc. Its only natural to add more weight to those events, but those things arent special over a season of baseball or necessarily important at all. And it seems the eyes are hyperbolic as well. You see scott baker give up some 2 out hr's and automatically its he gives up more 2 out hr than anyone in baseball. You havent watched other teams pitchers over a meaningful sample size, you have no idea what other pitchers do. Trust appropriate stats with large sample sizes over anything your eyes tell you. Im convinced the reason some people dislike scott baker is familiarity and hyperbole. He is right now the second best starting pitcher on the twins roster, and while he probably no more than a slightly above average solid major league pitcher, but he is certainly better than a 5th starter, bullpen arm

Ed Bast said...

"He is right now the second best starting pitcher on the twins roster....but he is certainly better than a 5th starter, bullpen arm."

Your confidence in your opinion is admirable. However, by dint of the Twins leaving him out of the 4-man playoff rotation and placing him in the bullpen, it would appear that the people who get paid to make such decisions view him as precisely a 5th starter, bullpen arm.

So those of us who are able to recognize Bake's crappiness aren't exactly alone.

Anonymous said...

Ed, while i think you claims about how the twins feel about baker are almost completely bogus for a lot of reason, the biggest being that i think they left him off the starting rotation in the playoffs because he was coming off the disabled list, and that that twins on a lot of occasions have shown they think of baker as one of their better starter, but for now lets ignore all that. Arent the people that agree with you the same people youve been saying since they were eliminated from that playoffs arent capable of fielding a team that can compete in the playoffs? The same management that you think allows its players to become too soft? I have no problem being opposed to ron gardenhire and the twins management because when it comes to baseball analysis i dont think theres a less evolved team in baseball than the twins. They have high ranking executives that dont know the FIP stands for. I dont care if you dont like advanced metrics if you have a good rationale, but not even being aware of them is unbelievable to me. Im pretty sure baker wont be the twins 5th stater next year but even if it is, it doesnt mean the twins are right.

USAFChief said...

anon: As for fly balls, those historically, including flyballs that leave the ball park, have been converted into outs at a higher rate than ground balls

I'm no expert or anything, but in my experience balls that leave the ball park are 'converted into outs' at a rate of zero.

Anonymous said...

Thats true, i was talking about all flyballs including homeruns. Obviously homeruns arent turned into outs more.

Ed Bast said...

On paper, the 2010 Twins were more than capable of advancing. Unfortunately, their organizational philosophy is centered around winning the Central, they don't have a manager capable of instilling confidence in his players, and their players don't seem overly passionate or competitive.

What's the one thing that could potentially overcome some or all of this? An ace pitcher. Scott Baker is not an ace pitcher. My calling out Baker's crappiness falls in line with my overall feelings toward the club: under Gardy, they are never going to be playing their best in the playoffs, or believe their best will even be good enough.

So, get an ace who can single-handedly give you some momentum in the playoffs, and hope to god the rest of the team responds, because we are stuck with most of these guys.

Matt said...

One more and then I'll leave this one...
I could argue back at you that making predictions based on stats, "advanced" or otherwise, can cloud judgement. You're ASSUMING that these stats are outliers and will return to the mean, based on the THEORY that these stats, when graphed, fall into a normal distribution.
I mean, it's made you think that Baker is the 2nd best pitcher on the club, when anyone who's actually watched him pitched knows that he's gutless out there and lacks any kind of consistency; that he gets rattled when things get rough and runners get on.
He'll strike out 10 Indians one night, and give up three Mariner's home runs the next. How in sam hill does that make him 2nd best?
Stats, advanced or otherwise, are a useful tool. But relying on them too heavily will skew your viewpoint and make you believe things that aren't true; like Baker is a good pitcher who should be a key piece in a MLB rotation. No where in your argument have you commented on his actual pitching, just the numbers.

Anonymous said...

The assumption of a normal distribution is academic. It doesnt assume anything special about the data, its just a construct to determine an average. The relevancy of that average is determined by the fit and distribution of the data within the curve. Scott bakers batted ball data, ld/gb/fb, and track record suggest and expected babip lower than 335.

"No where in your argument have you commented on his actual pitching, just the numbers." Id say the numbers have a lot more to do with his pitching than saying hes soft, gutless, scared, etc. Those are opinions. And i believe i said that i only think baker is a slightly above average solid pitcher, not that he was great.

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