Lucky Guesses

As everyone makes their picks for playoff teams and division finishes, I want to ruminate a bit on the most important quality of a champion:

Luck.

I'd like to be able to say that having good players and coaches matters more. Certainly, having great players and wise managing decisions improves a team's odds of success. But playing well isn't enough. The best team does not necessarily win the championship. Just ask the 2006 Mets and Tigers. The champion is the team that plays well enough at the right time and gets the breaks.

Example: The Red Sox were the best team in baseball last year by a lot of measures. Yet they were nearly beaten by the Indians. In the 7th game of the series, a ball hit just fair over 3rd base caromed off the wall into no-man's land in short left field. With speedy Kenny Lofton on second base, the Sox were helpless to stop him from coming home with the tying run. But he didn't come home, because the 3rd base coach inexplicably held him up. The Indians stranded him there, and the Sox went on to pad the lead and win the game.

How would that game have been different if Lofton had scored there? What a huge momentum change and emotional lift for the Indians! But the Sox didn't have to face it, not because they did something right, but because the Indians screwed up. Lucky.

Example: On their march to the post-season, the Indians had an incredible succession of breaks, culminating in a plague of insects descending on the Yankees in game 2 of the Divisional Series. Another break you may not be aware of: while Scott Baker was pitching his near-perfect game at the end of August, I was in Chicago for a friend's wedding. The White Sox-Indians game was on in the pizza joint where we had dinner. Trailing 5-2 in the bottom of the 8th, the Indians had runners at the corners with 2 outs. The batter hit a lazy two-hopper to short - inning over, say hello to Bobby Jenks in the 9th! Except that the second hop hit some sort of divot on the infield dirt and bounced about ten feet to the right. The SS, who was in the correct fielding position for a normal bounce, could do nothing to prevent the ball from rolling into left field. A run scored, the inning extended, and the Indians would rally to take the lead and win the game.

I give the Indians credit for making that extra out count and stringing a couple more good ABs together when they had the opportunity. They were a very good team last year, and should be again in 2008. But the White Sox deserved to be out of that inning with a 3-run lead to hand to their closer. The only reason the Indians had the opportunity to be so good that night: luck.

The Rockies, as well as they played last September, needed a dicey call by the home plate ump to make the playoffs. The White Sox got their own dicey plate-ump call in the 2005 ALCS. The 2006 Cardinals were perhaps the weakest team to ever win the World Series. How lucky were they that the Tigers' pitchers threw the ball all over the infield? That Granderson slipped and fell in center field? As for the magnificent 2006 Twins: when Nick Punto is hitting .290 and Dennys Reyes has a 0.89 ERA, things are probably falling your way.

Predictions about pennant races may be based on reputation and past performance of players, or more scientific methods like PECOTA or Pythagorean scoring. Those metrics are usually close, but in the cases where they're off, dumb luck is the biggest reason. Crazy things happen in the course of a baseball game that have nothing to do with the ability and performance of the players. There is no way to predict which teams will benefit, and which will be harmed.

I made some projections about numbers I expect the Twins players to put up. Over the course of a long season and career, one can make reasonably educated guesses about an expected statistical performance. But when it comes to predicting wins and losses, the numbers don't tell the whole story. It's not just how many runs you score, but when you score them. That's how Seattle and Arizona could be way over .500 despite allowing about as many runs as they put up.

So when I'm asked who I think will win in 2008, I feel like what I'm really being asked is, "Who do I think will be luckiest this year?"

(Shrug) Why not Tampa?

If I Were Bill Smith...

The past few days, I've laid out a lot of options for how the Twins could proceed over the next few years. I want to see the team strike the right balance between on-field success (winning) and off-field success (making money). While winning consistently is a good way to sell tickets, it's no guarantee of sellouts, as the Twins and A's showed throughout the first half of the decade. If you don't sell out, eventually you have to dump your star players. It seems to me that dumping your star players is the reason you don't sell out. It's the combination of wins and stars that gives you the attendance records and the payroll increases every year.

For that reason, I would have offered Hunter 5 years. I think he'll still be a contributor at 37, and he would have continued to be appreciated by the fans as the face of the franchise, they would have taken pride in his remaining a Twin. I wouldn't have offered him $18 million/year, of course (good luck with that, Angels). $10-12 million in the last two years of the deal would have been OK, though. His performance on the field wouldn't have been worth it, but his value to the franchise would have made up for it.

Minnesota sports fans have seen Randy Moss and Kevin Garnett leave in recent years in underwhelming trades. This year, the Vikes had trouble selling out some early season games (hopefully they're over that hump now), and the T-Wolves' attendance is in decline. Not only weren't they winning, but who are the players? Who are we cheering for? To lose Santana now for anything less than All-Star caliber players would surely send the Twins' steadily growing attendance the other way.

With that in mind, here's where the Twins stand as of tonight (salaries in millions):

CF - Tyner (about $1)
3B - Harris (about $0.4)
C - Mauer ($6.25)
LF - Cuddyer (about $6)
1B - Morneau (about $7)
RF - Young (about $0.4)
DH - Kubel (about $1)
2B - Punto ($2.4)
SS - Casilla (about $0.4)

C - Redmond ($0.95)
C - Morales (about $0.4)
OF - Monroe ($3.82)
3B - Buscher (about $0.4)

1P - Santana ($13.25)
2P - Baker (about $0.4)
3P - Liriano (about $0.4)
4P - Slowey (about $0.4)
5P - Bonser (about $0.4)

CL - Nathan ($6)
RP - Neshek (about $0.4)
RP - Guerrier (about $1)
RP - Reyes ($1)
RP - Crain ($1.05)
RP - Perkins (about $0.4)

The total, with one spot left to fill, is about $56 million, well short of last year's $71 million, let alone the $78 million or so they can afford. The contract deadline for arbitration eligibles is tomorrow, so let's get spending!

Free Agents

I like Marcus Giles for his defense and power at second base. Coming off two down years, he should be willing to take a 1-year deal for something around $5 million. Even his awful 2007 was better than Punto's. Sign him and send Punto to the bench, where his glove and base-running can make a difference late in games.

Let's go ahead and sign Carlos Silva to that 4-year, $40 million contract. He's only had one bad year, otherwise he's been totally solid. We'll plan on trading him later in 2008, of course, whenever it's most advantageous. But meanwhile, we'll get an innings-eater who, with a little run support, could have easliy been a 16-18 game winner last year. Boof can test out his conditioning in Rochester.

If the bells have finally stopped ringing, bring Koskie to camp. Not much to lose, huge potential upside if he returns to form, in terms of production, defense, and PR.

Trades
I have a lot of strategic reasons for liking Kemp. He should be similar to Cuddyer defensively and power-wise, but hit 30-50 points higher. I see him as a band-aid in CF until Span or Pridie is ready. After that, he's an option to send to LF when we're ready to move Cuddyer. I'm not sure Nick Blackburn's stock will ever be higher - the Dodgers might be enticed to make this trade one-to-one. Of course, if they'd take Boof and somebody else, I'd be OK with that, too. Tyner moves to the bench, where his glove, pesky bat, and base-running can make a difference late in games.

Contracts
Give Santana a 5-year, $105 million extension with a $7 million signing bonus. That will get his 2008 salary over $20 million, making him the highest-paid starting pitcher in the league, and the second-highest paid player overall (at the moment), a number befitting his stature. I bet he'd take it.

Give Morneau 4 years, $45 million, with a $15 million option for a fifth year. He's ready to start hitting 40 homers a year in 2008.

Give Cuddyer 3 years, $23 million, with a $10 million option for a fourth year. We'll likely trade him at some point in the life of this contract.

Give Kubel 4 years, $18 million, with a $10 million option for a fifth year. He's ready to blow up - we should lock him up while he's relatively cheap.

Give Guerrier 2 years, $2 million.

Give Nathan a 3-year, $36 million extension. We'll likely be trading him at some point in 2008 as well.

Giles, Silva, and Santana's signing bonus get us up to $78 million - the fans can be secure that we won't be outspent by KC, and that Pohlad's not pocketing any more money. Can we compete? Here's the revised roster, with the production I'd expect from each player (BA, OPS, HR for position players, ERA, WHIP for pitchers):

CF - Kemp (.320, .850, 20)
3B - Harris (.280, .750, 12)
C - Mauer (.320, .850, 12)
LF - Cuddyer (.280, .825, 20)
1B - Morneau (.300, .900, 40)
RF - Young (.300, .800, 16)
DH - Kubel (.290, .825, 20)
2B - Giles (.265, .750, 12)
SS - Casilla (.270, .700, 3)

C - Redmond (.300, .700, 1)
C - Morales (.280, .750, 5)
OF - Tyner (.280, .675, 1!)
OF - Monroe (.270, .800, 10)
IF - Punto (.250, .640, 1)

1P - Santana (3.00, 1.00)
2P - Silva (4.20, 1.30)
3P - Liriano (3.50, 1.10)
4P - Baker (4.20, 1.20)
5P - Slowey (4.25, 1.25)

CL - Nathan (2.00, 1.00)
RP - Neshek (2.00, 1.00)
RP - Guerrier (3.00, 1.20)
RP - Reyes (3.50, 1.50)
RP - Crain (4.00, 1.30)
RP - Perkins (3.50, 1.20)

The guys in this bunch who really played to their potential in 2007 were Silva, Nathan, Neshek, Guerrier, Perkins (when he was around), Kemp, Redmond, Tyner, Kubel in the second half, and maybe Harris (not a lot of data on him yet). In most cases I expect their numbers to be about the same or slightly lower. Monroe's numbers are based on his appearances against lefties, the only pitchers he'll be facing in 2008. Everyone else has it in them to improve upon last year, and I've tried to come up with numbers around their career average, or between 2006 and 2007.

Not too bad - get a lead after 6 or 7 and things should go well. This lineup should produce a lot more runs than the 2007 team, while the pitchers are capable of putting up a team ERA as good or slightly better. Span, Pridie, Buscher, Tolbert, and Bonser are all waiting at AAA when someone goes down. Hunter is the only player of any importance to the fans who isn't back, and he and Rondell White have been replaced by two of the most promising young hitters in the Majors. Keep those season ticket sales coming! If we can't keep up with Cleveland and Detroit by the end of July, we can deal Silva and/or Nathan, even Cuddyer, for some major returns, since the receiving teams will be getting high-value players under long-term contracts - no rent-a-players from us! A lot depends on whether guys can bounce back from their troubles of 2007, but hopefully, they'll all be motivated to do so. They should be able to get us back over .500, at least.

Next: How these moves can start the Twins on the road to success through 2010.