The All-Decade Team

Here are my picks for the Twins' All-Decade Team. These are the best individual seasons at each position, min. 500 PA for starters, 180 IP for the rotation, 50 IP for relievers, and 150 PA for bench players - backup C or guys who played multiple positions (because they deserve some love, too!).

Starters

C - Joe Mauer, 2009: .365/.444/.587, 28 HR, 94 R, 96 RBI, 4/5 SB, 8.8 WARP, 170 OPS+
Didn't have to think too hard about that one...

1B - Justin Morneau, 2006: .321/.375/.559, 34 HR, 97 R, 130 RBI, 3/6 SB, 4.4 WARP, 140 OPS+
Maybe he didn't deserve league MVP, but still his best season to date.

2B - Luis Castillo, 2006: .296/.358/.370, 3 HR, 84 R, 46 RBI, 25/36 SB, 2.4 WARP, 91 OPS+
Pretty nice table-setting OBP and a very good .991 fielding %, but otherwise kinda underwhelming. Turns out there was only one season in the decade in which a qualifying MI had an OPS+ over 100...

SS - Christian Guzman, 2001: .302/.337/.477, 10 HR, 80 R, 51 RBI, 25/33 SB, 3.9 WARP, 110 OPS+
...and here it is. Guzman led the AL in 3B and had one of his best defensive seasons, too.

3B - Corey Koskie, 2001: .276/.362/.488, 26 HR, 100 R, 103 RBI, 27/33 SB, 5.9 WARP, 120 OPS+
What a fantastic all-around season - look at the SB! And he played great defense at the hot corner as well. He has never been replaced.

LF - Jacque Jones, 2002: .300/.341/.511, 27 HR, 96 R, 85 RBI, 6/13 SB, 4.2 WARP, 123 OPS+
The SB% was about the worst of his career, and he struck out in over 20% of his PA, but the rest of his game was at its peak.

CF - Torii Hunter, 2002: .289/.334/.524, 29 HR, 89 R, 94 RBI, 23/31 SB, 1.5 WARP, 124 OPS+
All of Hunter's tools were on display, as he set career highs in SLG%, SB and Assists. (The rather low WARP, which comes from Baseball Prospectus, is based on what they rate as a well below average defensive season. UZR does not agree - FanGraphs has his WAR at 4.1.)

RF - Michael Cuddyer, 2006: .284/.362/.504, 24 HR, 102 R, 109 RBI, 6/6 SB, 3.1 WARP, 124 OPS+
It was a tough call between this and last year, but I was swayed by the higher OBP, perfect record on the bases, and slightly better OF defense.

DH - Jason Kubel, 2009: .300/.369/.539, 28 HR, 73 R, 103 RBI, 1/2 SB, 4.0 WARP, 136 OPS+
Even when David Ortiz was on the team, DH was never really a strength until last season.

Bench

C - Mike Redmond, 2006: .341/.365/.413, 0 HR, 20 R, 23 RBI, 0/0 SB, 1.6 WARP, 103 OPS+
A lot of teams would've been thrilled to get production like that out of their starting catcher.

OF - Bobby Kielty, 2002: .291/.405/.484, 13 HR, 71 R, 57 RBI, 4/5 SB, 2.2 WARP, 136 OPS+
He played all 3 OF positions and 1B, and was sure to give you a tough AB as a PH. Too bad he peaked that year at age 25.

IF - Nick Punto, 2006: .290/.352/.373, 1 HR, 73 R, 45 RBI, 17/22 SB, 2.7 WARP, 90 OPS+
That's pretty close to the year Castillo had at 2B. His excellent fielding in 88 games at 3B was one of the keys to the Twins' turnaround that season.

UT - Denny Hocking, 2000: .298/.373/.416, 4 HR, 52 R, 47 RBI, 7/12 SB, 0.9 WARP, 97 OPS+
All that while playing every position except pitcher and catcher.

Rotation

1P - Johan Santana, 2004: 20-6, 2.61 ERA, 228 IP, 265 K, 54 BB, 0.92 WHIP, 8.4 WARP, 182 ERA+
He had 3 great seasons in a row, but this was the one in which he was most unhittable (6.2 H/9, 10.5 K/9).

2P - Brad Radke, 2004: 11-8, 3.48 ERA, 219.2 IP, 143 K, 26 BB, 1.16 WHIP, 4.8 WARP, 136 ERA+
Career bests in ERA, HR/9 and K/BB, and yet he still got only 11 W. If he'd only been able to stick around for the run support the offense provided in 2008-2009.

3P - Joe Mays, 2001: 17-13, 3.16 ERA, 233.2 IP, 123 K, 64 BB, 1.15 WHIP, 5.6 WARP, 145 ERA+
Alas, the only good year of his career.

4P - Carlos Silva, 2005: 9-8, 3.44 ERA, 188.1 IP, 71 K, 9 BB, 1.17 WHIP, 2.5 WARP, 129 ERA+
If you're going to serve up 1.2 HR/9 while getting only 3.4 K/9, you'd better not walk anybody, and he didn't.

5P - Rick Reed, 2002: 15-7, 3.78 ERA, 188 IP, 121 K, 26 BB, 1.16 WHIP, 2.2 WARP, 118 ERA+
Served up 1.5 HR/9, but led the league with 1.2 BB/9.

Bullpen

CL - Joe Nathan, 2006: 7-0, 1.58 ERA, 68.1 IP, 95 K, 16 BB, 0.79 WHIP, 6.7 WARP, 283 ERA+
Lots of good stuff to choose from, but I'll take the season with career bests in WHIP, K/9 and BB/9.

RHP - Juan Rincon, 2004: 11-6, 2.63 ERA, 82 IP, 106 K, 38 BB, 1.02 WHIP, 3.7 WARP, 180 ERA+
Rincon at his most unhittable, with career bests in H/9 and K/9. Notice that he earned as many wins as Bradke - offense obviously took their time that season.

RHP - LaTroy Hawkins, 2003: 9-3, 1.86 ERA, 77.1 IP, 75 K, 15 BB, 1.09 WHIP, 3.7 WARP, 243 ERA+
Too bad it took the Twins so long to figure out that Hawkins was meant to be a setup man.

RHP - Matt Guerrier, 2007: 2-4, 2.35 ERA, 88 IP, 68 K, 21 BB, 1.05 WHIP, 2.8 WARP, 182 ERA+
Last year was similar, but in 2007 Guerrier gave up 1 fewer HR in almost 12 more IP.

LHP - Eddie Guardado, 2003: 3-5, 2.89 ERA, 65.1 IP, 60 K, 14 BB, 0.98 WHIP, 3.5 WARP, 157 ERA+
The best WHIP and K/BB year of Guardado's long, successful career.

LHP - JC Romero, 2002: 9-2, 1.89 ERA, 81 IP, 76 K, 36 BB, 1.21 WHIP, 3.8 WARP, 236 ERA+
Too many BB (and it got worse from there), but just 3 HR allowed in 81 IP.

LHP - Dennys Reyes, 2006: 5-0, 0.89 ERA, 50.2 IP, 49 K, 15 BB, 0.99 WHIP, 2.5 WARP, 504 ERA+
Held LH batters to .148/.219/.205 with just 3 XBH allowed in 96 PA. But he also got RH batters out that year (.640 OPS against).

Looking over this list, a couple of things strike me. The Twins have been pretty weak at SS for awhile, and have been terrible at 2B since Todd Walker left. They really only had 2 great starting pitchers, Radke for 7 seasons, Santana for 6. They haven't had a good 3B since 2004. Their most consistent areas of strength have been the bullpen and the bench, where, year after year, they got exceptional performances out of youngsters and journeymen. Look at what Redmond, Punto and Reyes gave them in 2006. Look at what they got down the stretch this season from Matt Tolbert, Ron Mahay and Bobby Keppel. Somehow, when the rest of the division is falling apart, the Twins manage to come together. That's a trait I hope they'll take with them into their new ballpark and a new decade.

Decade

Everybody's starting to put together Best of the 2000's stories at the major sports websites. I'd been oblivious to this milestone (having a baby will do that to you), but now that I've been reminded, I can reflect on the what the Twins have accomplished over the last ten years.

This has been the the franchise's most successful decade since the '60's, by just about any standard. They had a .532 winning percentage, the best since it was .540 in the '60's (I'm not including 1960, the last season in Washington). They won the division 5 times, and finished 2nd twice. Their players won 2 MVPs, 3 batting titles, 2 Cy Youngs and 3 strikeout titles. They drew over 2 million in attendance 5 times, a feat that had been achieved just 6 times in franchise history prior to this decade, and they came within 100,000 of that mark 3 other times. They channeled that popularity into a new ballpark, which promises to draw even more fans over the first few years of the teens.

To think that all of that success could have been erased before it had a chance to develop. Thank goodness for that judge who held up the contraction plans of the 2002 offseason. I don't know what I would have done with myself all these years without the Twins to obsess over.

My favorite team of the decade has to be the 2006 squad. They sleep-walked through the first 58 games, starting 25-33. Then three wonderful things happened at roughly the same time: Gardy and Terry Ryan finally chucked the plodding veterans and turned loose the piranhas, Justin Morneau got his head together, and Francisco Liriano got his pitch-count up to full game length. Before we knew it, that team had unleashed the most extraordinary stretch of winning baseball we'll probably ever see: 71-33 for the remainder of the season, including a 21-2 run in June. Everybody they plugged into the lineup seemed to be locked in: Mike Redmond, Jason Tyner, Josh Rabe, Pat Neshek, Glen Perkins. They had the Cy Young, the MVP, the Batting Champ, and would have surely had the Rookie of the Year had Liriano survived the season. Their run differential (+118) was the best of any Twins team this decade, as was their 96-66 record.

There were a lot of moments of elation that stick out for me. Some of my favorite memories:

Torii Hunter's HR-robbing catch off Barry Bonds in the All-Star game in Milwaukee. I had a friend from DC call me up in the ensuing commercial break to gush about how awesome our guy was. That catch alerted the rest of the country to the fact that, for the first time since Chuck Knoblauch was dealt, the Twins had some people worth watching again.

AJ Pierzynski's 2-run HR in the top of the 9th of Game 5 of the 2002 LDS off Billy Koch. I was going to be able to attend games 1 & 2 of the LCS if the Twins won. That HR turned a tense 2-1 lead into a 4-1 lead, and felt to me like the clincher. Luckily, the Twins added one more run in that frame, as the bottom of the 9th was far too exciting, and the final score was 5-4. Still, as AJ's drive smacked off the wall above the yellow line in RF, I slapped the floor with excitement. A great feeling.

Hunter's diving catch to end a 3-game sweep over the White Sox in Chicago in early August of 2004. Hunter had also plowed over the Sox' catcher to score a run earlier in the series. Everybody, especially Ozzie Guillen, knew after that series that the Twins were going to win the division.

Liriano spoiling Roger Clemens' un-retirement in 2006. All anybody in the sports media could talk about was the Rocket. But those of us who'd been following Liriano's progress over the previous few weeks had a suspicion that our guy was going to be the better pitcher that night.

Denard Span's 3B off of Bobby Jenks to score Carlos Gomez, tying the score in the bottom of the 8th in the final week of the 2008 regular season. I like that play more than Alexi Casilla's game-winner a couple of innings later. It completed a comeback from a huge early deficit, putting all the momentum behind the Twins. But most of all, it showed why the Twins were more fun to watch: 2 young players with plus-plus speed flying around the bases while the Sox' fielders were too plodding to cut off a grounder over 1B. The exuberance of Gomez' unnecessary head-first slide across the plate, of Span pumping his fist at the Twins' dugout - infectious, thrilling.

Casilla's walk-off single to win game 163 with the Tigers. Gomez again, sailing around the bases and diving into home far ahead of the throw. What a release after nearly 4 hours of back and forth. Like the 1991 World Series all over again.

Next time I'll have my picks for the Twins' All-Decade Team.