Speed Up the Middle

Things I'm Not Worried About, Part 3

Part 1, Part 2

It's been a low-key offseason for the Twins. That's fine with me - I didn't see any need to tamper too much with a team that won 94 games and finished in the top 5 in the league in scoring and pitching. There will be several new faces in the bullpen; that was inevitable given the FA market for relievers this year. The other major change comes in the middle infield. Those moves were elective.

Last offseason, the Twins traded for JJ Hardy and signed Orlando Hudson to form an elite DP combo. Both had been fairly recent representatives at the All-Star game, and each routinely posted better than average numbers at the plate and in the field. Adding them to the lineup turned what had been a weakness in 2009 into a strength.

After the season, Gardy publicly expressed a desire to improve the team's speed up the middle. There was never any indication that they would try to bring Hudson back - they felt it was time to give Alexi Casilla, a cheaper, faster option, another chance. But it was a surprise when the Twins won the bidding rights to Japanese League batting champ Tsuyoshi Nishioka. It appeared that his acquisition would send Casilla back to a bench role. But the Twins chose instead to deal Hardy to Baltimore for a pair of relief prospects.

That created quite an outcry from Twins fans. After all, Hardy, even in a season weakened by injuries, still managed to outhit the average MLB SS by a little bit, while rating very highly according to the defensive metrics. Nishioka has some good numbers in Japan, but what does that really mean when most NPB position players have been huge disappointments in the States? Casilla has had some flashes of quality play, but has played his way out of jobs in 2007 and 2009. Is he someone we can really count on in 2011? Doesn't entrusting the MI to these two amount to a serious weakening of the team, opening the door for the White Sox to take over the division?

To answer those questions, the last one in particular, I want to get realistic about what the Twins lost in Hudson and Hardy, and what they can expect to get from Nishioka and Casilla in 2011.

What We Lost - Offensively

Hudson has been strangely undervalued over the last couple of seasons, considering he's been playing above-average 2B for that whole time. There seem to be some concerns about his clubhouse presence and, more importantly, his on-field contributions over the course of the season. The Twins found out about that when they saw him hit .243/.311/.340 over the final 4 months of 2010. Here's his overall line was:

.268/.338/.372, 24 2B, 5 3B, 6 HR, 10/13 SB (126 G)

Compare that to the average MLB 2B (per 162 G):

.265/.330/.389, 31 2B, 3 3B, 14 HR, 12/17 SB

And that of all Twins' 2B in 2010:

.261/.329/.379, 32 2B, 7 3B, 10 HR, 12/17 SB

Pretty darn close to exactly average. Add in the fact that all three of his slash lines have diminished over the past couple of seasons, and that 2011 will be his age 33 season, and it's not hard to see why the Twins figured they could do just as well with someone else.

Hardy had a nice little bounce-back season from his horrid 2009 campaign. His BA and OBP were essentially back to the levels of his 2007 season, in which he made the All-Star team. However, he came up 20 HR short of that performance, so his overall line:

.268/.320/.394, 19 2B, 3 3B, 6 HR, 1/2 SB (101 G)

was, as I mentioned earlier, only slightly better than that of all MLB SS (per 162 G):

.262/.319/.374, 29 2B, 4 3B, 10 HR, 13/19 SB

The guys who filled in for Hardy during his frequent injury absences didn't slug as well, but matched his other slash numbers. All Twins SS in 2010 hit:

.268/.321/.371, 30 2B, 4 3B, 7 HR, 4/7 SB

That is also just about exactly average, though clearly lacking in the SB department. Hardy is young enough that he could still produce well-above average numbers in a healthy season. But he struggled so much at Target Field (a Punto-esque .252/.313/.340 with 1 HR) that the Twins had some reason to think that his hitting style wasn't a good fit for their new park. And since he had nothing to offer in terms of threatening speed on the bases, the Twins seemed to feel that everybody would be better off if he went elsewhere.

What We Lost - Defensively

Much of the value assessed to Hudson and Hardy comes from their high rating on defense. Hudson's +12 UZR/150 ranked 3rd among all MLB 2B, and Hardy's +12.8 UZR/150 was the best among players with at least 800 innings at the SS position. That sort of excellence will be nearly impossible to replace. Some caveats, though:

2010 wasn't just the best UZR rating for Hudson in a while - it was actually his first positive rating since 2005. However, according to Total Zone he was just about as good in 2006 and 2009 as he was in 2010: a little above average. And by the measure of Defensive Runs Saved, the only negative year of his career was 2008. DRS liked his 2007 just about as much as 2010.

Hardy's UZR has always been in the black, but 2010's rating was the best it's been for him since his first full season in 2007. Then again, TZ and DRS rated those 2 seasons as average and good, respectively. They were much more excited about Hardy's 2008 season, which UZR rated as merely good.

Depending on the metric of choice, a player's defensive value can really fluctuate. There's a lot of subjectivity involved in assessing which balls hit into a defender's area were playable by the "average" fielder. I wouldn't put any serious stock in any one of them - I think an average plus what you observed with your own eyes over the course of the season is a better method. By that measure, I'm not sure either one of those guys was truly elite on defense, but I'm comfortable in assessing each of them as solidly above average.

So despite losing Hudson and Hardy, the Twins' offense will not lose a beat between 2010-2011 so long as their replacements provide average production. Run prevention will take a step back unless the new guys prove to be plus defenders. Can Casilla and Nishioka deliver that?

What We're Getting - Offensively

Casilla has been maddeningly inconsistent in his short MLB career. He flopped when handed the 2B job after the Twins traded Luis Castillo at the deadline in 2007. He started 2008 in the minors, then took advantage of a depleted MI in May of that year and had a dandy season. Based on that, the 2B job was again his to lose in 2009, and lose it he did, with a wretched season both at the plate and in the field. Relegated to a bench role in 2010 due to being out of options, he put together a solid campaign in limited duty last season.

Add it all up, and you have a .249/.306/.327 hitter through nearly 1100 PA. Some might say that's enough to define his ability, but I'm not so sure. I don't like to include player's first tastes of the big leagues when trying to determine what they're capable of as veteran's in their prime. It tends to understate their abilities. (I also wouldn't want to use Jim Thome's prime years to determine what should be expected of him at age 40.) I think 3-year averages are a pretty fair measure of where a hitter is at this stage of his career. I like 5-year averages even better for guys who have been in the league 6+ years.

In Casilla's case, we'll have to make due with the smaller sample. Throwing out his rotten first 210 PA from 2006-2007 leaves him with a line of .256/.316/.344 over 863 PA. That's close enough to the average SS in BA and OBP, though plenty lacking in power. The lack of power is somewhat offset by fantastically efficient base stealing: he's 24/27 since 2008. Just because he doesn't hit a lot of 2Bs doesn't mean he can't get himself into scoring position by other means.

If that's what Casilla reduces down to, that's not such a bad thing from a #9 hitter. But we can't be sure he actually would produce numbers like that. He's never come anywhere close to them. He's either been a lot better or far worse:

2010 MLB SS: .262/.319/.374, 29 2B, 4 3B, 10 HR, 13/19 SB

Casilla 2007: .222/.256/.259, 5 2B, 1 3B, 0 HR, 11/12 SB (204 PA)

Casilla 2008: .281/.333/.374, 15 2B, 0 3B, 7 HR, 7/9 SB (437 PA)

Casilla 2009: .202/.280/.259, 7 2B, 3 3B, 0 HR, 11/11 SB (256 PA)

Casilla 2010: .276/.331/.395, 7 2B, 4 3B, 1 HR, 6/7 SB (170 PA)

He's yo-yoed between being one of the worst hitters in baseball to being slightly better than average. Truly feast or famine. He's never had a full season's worth of PA, so if that changes we might see more moderate results. For now, I see a young player who has proven in 2 of the last 3 seasons that he's capable of holding his own as a major league MI. Entering his age 26 season, I expect him to deliver that kind of performance again.

Nishioka is a tough guy to track down. I could only find reasonably complete numbers for his NPB career for 2007-2009. I also came across some very incomplete career numbers which happened to contain inaccurate BABIPs. However, by piecing the two together and doing a little forensic algebra (and you wondered when you'd need that in the real world!), I've come up with a pretty accurate picture of his progression as a hitter.

2003: 11 PA, 9 AB, 3 H, 2 BB, 5 TB Age 18

2004: .255/.304/.396, 212 AB, 54 H, 6 HR, 84 TB, 8/8 SB, Age 19

2005: .268/.320/.394, 447 AB, 120 H, 4 HR, 176 TB, 41/50 SB Age 20

He got a cup of coffee with the big club in 2003 just after he turned 19. He played about 1/3 of the season the following year, then more or less stuck for good in 2005 as a 20 year old. In those first 3 up-and-down seasons, in what amounted to just over one full-time season's worth of PA, Nishioka showed promise. His combined line for those 1st 700 or so PA was something like .265/.317/.397. That's good pop for a MI and some prolific base-stealing, but a mediocre BA and low BB rate. Still, for a very young player at what seems to be a more or less AAA level of play, he was holding his own. With his feet sufficiently wet, Nishioka took a step forward in his age 21 season:

2006: .282/.358/.390, 426 AB, 120 H, 4 HR, 166 TB, 33/50 SB Age 21

2007: .300/.366/.393, 559 PA, 148 H, 50 BB, 73 K, 3 HR, 194 TB, 27/40 SB Age 22

Here we see much improved BA and OBP, but a big drop-off in IsoP and SB efficiency. This, to me, represents a change in approach. Whether because a coach got through to him or he simply got acclimated to the league, Nishioka became much more selective at the plate, drawing more walks and getting better pitches to hit. He cut down on his swing, becoming more of a singles hitter when he did put the ball in play. This new, contact-oriented approach, combined with his good (though clearly diminished as he filled out) speed, established a new BABIP baseline well north of .300.

2008: .300/.357/.463, 522 PA, 142 H, 36 BB, 68 K, 13 HR, 219 TB, 18/29 SB Age 23

Another step forward. Nishioka added power to his game without increasing his K%. His BB% fell off a bit, but thanks to fewer SF and more HBP, his OBP only took a modest hit.

2009: .260/.361/.427, 531 PA, 118 H, 67 BB, 76 K, 14 HR, 194 TB, 26/36 SB Age 24

Here's a massive step forward in BB% while maintaining the IsoP and putting up the best SB% in years. Yet the season is a bit of a disappointment thanks to the lowest BA since his rookie year. His K% did tick up a bit, but the real culprit is a .284 BABIP, a huge drop after 3 straight seasons well over .300. Given a typical (for him) BABIP of about .330, his line would have been something like .297/.392/.465. His overall game improved once again - he was just unlucky that year.

2010: .346/.423/.482, 676 PA, 206 H, 80 BB, 71 K, 11 HR, 287 TB, 22/33 SB Age 25

The Wheel of Fortune spun the other way for Nishioka last year. Everything fell in, leaving him with an absurdly high .389 BABIP. His BB% and IsoP slipped back a bit from the career highs he established in 2009, but he was also able to reduce his strikeout rate back to 14.5%. Given a more ordinary .330 BABIP here, his line turns into .295/.379/.431 - revealing 2009 as actually the more impressive season peripherals-wise. Still, that's plenty good production from a MI table-setter.

Nick Nelson downplayed Nishioka's potential in this glass-half-empty post in December. It's certainly fair to mention Kazuo Matsui as a cautionary tale, and just because Nishioka got 200+ hits in a season doesn't mean he's going to be the next Ichiro. However, I found a lot of Nick's comments to be unreasonably negative. To say that, other than 2010, Nishioka's career was "unspectacular" is an insult to the people who sent him to 4 All-Star games and the National team prior to that season. He's clearly exceptionally good for his position and his league. Then Nick suggests that "no one would get excited" about the .287/.361/.427 line Nishioka put up from 2007-2009 if it came from a AAA player. Really? From a SS? In his age 22-24 seasons? Compare the numbers I listed above with what Trevor Plouffe did at the same age for the Red Wings:

.256/.292/.420 Age 22

.260/.313/.407 Age 23

.244/.300/.430 Age 24

If he'd put up Nishioka's numbers, with plus defense for his league, do you think he'd still be behind Matt Tolbert on the depth chart? I doubt he'd have spent 2010 in the minors, or that the Twins ever would have traded for JJ Hardy.

Nick dismisses Nishoka's 2010 as an "outlier" because of the unsustainable BABIP. Okay, but why should that good luck year be dismissed and not the bad luck from 2009? Wasn't that just as much a BABIP outlier from what he'd established the previous 3 seasons? Why disparage him as a .284 career hitter before 2010, when that figure includes not only the unfortunate 2009 but also 700 or so PA while feeling his way as a teenager at his nation's highest level? Why not throw out the ancient history from when he was a kid and just look at everything he's done over the last 4 seasons (the numbers I happen to feel extremely confident are correct)? Then his line is:

.300/.380/.443, 2291 PA, 15.1 K%, 9.9 BB%

Again, if your AAA MI is giving you that, unless you've already got Jeter and Cano, that guy is coming to the Show.

Nishioka has made adjustments throughout his NPB career. He's made himself into a premier player over there, and has earned his shot in the big leagues. It's pretty clear that Japanese power doesn't translate well, but that's not a huge part of his game. He's not an efficient base stealer, but I'm sure he'll get plenty of chances nonetheless. I expect him to be able to at least match what the Twins got from their 2Bs in 2010. In other words, I'll take the over on a .708 OPS and 12 SB.

What We're Getting - Defensively

There's no way to know this, of course. So far Casilla has ranked very poorly defensively across all the metrics. But that's at 2B, and he'll most likely be playing SS in 2011. You might say that someone who has a bad zone rating there won't do any better at the more demanding position. Fair enough, but consider this: there's more than one way to be a plus defender. You can have above-average range, enabling you to get to more balls than the typical guy and converting more chances into outs. Or you can have average range but be very sure-handed, committing fewer than usual errors and, therefore, converting more chances into outs. Or you can do both of those things, as Hudson and Hardy did last year.

Breaking down Casilla's UZR this way, we see that the bulk of his negative assessment as a fielder comes from the error side of things. We've all seen that from him from time to time - a lapse in concentration or sloppy fundamentals. (Interestingly, over 90% of his negative value as a 2B came from 2007 and 2009, when he was also hitting like crap. He took his ABs with him into the field, I guess.) He's only had a negative range component in one year, though. Despite his poor ratings as a 2B, there doesn't appear to be a systemic reason to expect below-average range from him at SS.

He's logged only 233.1 big league innings at that position so far, so the sample size is small enough to really distort attempted projections. But in that brief time, Casilla has been rated somewhere between average and very good at SS. He has the tools, it's his natural position, he's maturing as a player. We should expect him to play SS at least as well as anybody, and he's capable of playing it better than most.

As for Nishioka, the track record for Gold Glove Japanese MI isn't great. However, using Matsui as a comp once again, we see that while he struggled mightily as a SS, he actually rated out well as a 2B, slightly above average for his career. He was 29 when he started playing that position regularly - 3 years older than Nishioka will be on opening day. There may be an adjustment to grass & dirt infields and more aggressive baserunners. But I won't look for Nishioka to do any worse at the keystone than Matsui did. I expect him to rate as an above-average defender at 2B.

Conclusion

Casilla will probably never hit as many HR as he did in 2008 again, especially not at Target Field. There will be some loss of power from the SS spot. But his superior foot speed should enable him to stretch an extra base out of some balls where Hardy would have had to hold up. As he showed in his limited PA in 2010, you don't have to put a bunch of balls over the fence to slug about .400. Casilla should definitely have a higher OBP, way more steals, and score more runs than Hardy did.

Nishioka will have a tough adjustment to make coming to the US. Not just to the quality of play, but to the English submersion, and to being an ocean away from his home. However, he's shown himself to be capable of making adjustments. If his 2009-2010 NPB numbers represent his ceiling, they should translate into at least the sort of numbers Hudson put up last year.

Defensively, we're almost certainly going to see a drop-off. Not because Casilla and Nishioka aren't good defenders, but because Hudson and Hardy each had such outstanding seasons in the field last year. But defense can still be a plus for the Twins, and Casilla and Nishioka may be able to improve on the one area in which Hudson and Hardy were lacking last season: turning DPs.

I expect the Twins' new MI combo to provide at least the same production at the plate as their predecessors, while vastly improving upon their performance on the bases. As a result, they will not be a detriment to the offense. Defensively, while perhaps not exceptional, they should also be an asset. The loss of the Hudson and Hardy shouldn't result in a net loss in the overall run differential when all is said and done.

As long as Casilla and Nishioka don't get hurt, that is...

A True Ace

Things I'm Not Worried About, Part 2

The Twins' early exit from the 2010 postseason prompted a lot of fans to jump to conclusions about the reasons they failed to advance (or even win a game). One idea I heard a lot was that the Twins can't compete in the playoffs because they don't have a True Ace, somebody who always shuts down the opposition whenever he gets the ball. (You know, like Cliff Lee was for the Rangers in the World Series. Wait... whoops!)

I have some questions about that supposition. First, is that really a bigger reason the Twins lost than the 8 R they scored in 3 games or the bullpen's inability to put up zeroes? A lot of pitchers will fail to win when the rest of their team performs like that. Second, and more importantly, do the Twins really lack a True Ace? What exactly constitutes a True Ace, anyway?

An Ace is basically a #1 starter, the guy who gets the ball on opening day. Each of the 30 teams has one of those. Of course, some of those guys would be #2 or #3 guys on bigger payroll teams (or #5 on the Phillies). So we're not looking for the best guy on each of the 30 teams, but rather one of the best 30 pitchers in all of baseball.

How do we determine who those guys are? WAR(P) for pitchers is determined in incompatibly different (and flawed) ways depending on which site you reference. Rather than have someone else try to formulate pitcher value for me, I'm more inclined to look for a convergence of desirable qualities: dependability, stuff, command. An ace takes pressure off his teammates by taking his turn every 5th day, pitching deep into the game, limiting baserunners, getting strikeouts and keeping the score close. So I want to find guys who made the top 30 in IP, WHIP, BB/9, K/9 and HR/9.

Cole Hamels came in 30th in IP with 208.2. The 30th best WHIP in the Majors last year was Ian Kennedy's 1.20. Rodrigo Lopez checked in at #30 in BB/9 with 2.52. 30 guys were able to rack up at least 7.68 K/9, ending with Tommy Hanson. And there were 29 guys ahead of Mark Buerhle's 0.73 HR/9.

Anybody who was on all 5 of those lists must be a True Ace, right? Right, but it's an incredibly short list:

Cliff Lee, Felix Hernandez, Adam Wainwright

Any criteria by which Roy Halladay doesn't emerge as a True Ace must be a little flawed. So I'll loosen things up just a bit. How about guys who pitched at least 200 IP, with at least 7.5 K/9, WHIPs under 1.25, BB/9 below 3.0 and HR/9 under 0.9? That got me 4 more names:

Halladay, Roy Oswalt (yikes, that's a good Phillies rotation!), Justin Verlander and Hanson.

Several other very worthy guys just missed in one of the categories: CC Sabathia and Zach Greinke came up a little short with 7.4x K/9, Tim Lincecum and Ubaldo Jiminez had a few too many walks, Dan Haren and Hamels (seriously, Philadelphia!) had HR/9 over 1.0, Josh Johnson and Mat Latos didn't have enough IP. It's still exclusive enough - I'm satisfied that anyone who can meet 4 of the 5 criteria is an Ace, and anybody who can hit all 5 is a True Ace.

The Twins didn't have anyone meet 4 out of 5. Carl Pavano wasn't close in K/9, and just missed with 0.98 HR/9. And Francisco Liriano didn't have enough IP (191.2) and came up just short with a 1.26 WHIP.

About that, though. I followed Liriano particularly closely this season. I made him a high pick for my fantasy team, and I made a bold assertion that he would pitch about as well as Jon Lester in 2010 (Lester hit 4/5 lists). My big takeaway from observing his 2010 is that he gave up an absolutely mind-blowing number of crappy hits. Bloopers just over the IF, slow choppers over the mound, swinging bunts, actual bunts. The number of rallies against him that actually came from a series of well-hit balls was pretty tiny.

His BABIP numbers bear that out. The average BABIP of all Major League pitchers in 2010 was .297. Liriano's was .335. That was 3rd worst in all of baseball among qualified starters. That's some exceptionally bad luck. In spite of that, Liriano still managed to finish 31st in MLB in OPS against, 37th in ERA and 43rd in WHIP. He was elite in a couple of important categories: 5th in K/9 with 9.44 and 4th in HR/9 with 0.42 (he was 1st until his final GS of the season). Do you put any stock in DIPS? (I don't think they give a complete picture, but they're certainly useful.) Liriano was 3rd in FIP (2.66), 2nd in xFIP (3.06) and 3rd in SIERA (3.02).

Substituting the league average BABIP into his numbers, it quickly becomes apparent how awesome Liriano was in 2010. He allowed 522 BIP (730 AB - 201 K - 9 HR + 2 SF). A .297 BA for those 522 AB results in 155 H. That's 20 fewer than he actually allowed. Add those together with his 9 HR and 58 BB and his WHIP drops to 1.16, comfortably within the top 30 in that category. But it's actually even better than that, because those 20 fewer hits would have been converted into at least 20 more outs. Assuming no DP, that adds 6.2 IP to bring his season total to 198.1 IP - just 5 outs short of 200. That larger denominator drops his WHIP to 1.12 - good for 12th in baseball.

If you assume that all 20 of those subtracted H were singles (hardly a fair assumption, but let's be conservative), his TB allowed would be reduced to 239. That makes his new SLG% against .327 - 9th overall. His OBP allowed would drop to .290 (14th). His new opponents' OPS would be .617 (9th).

Those adjustments show that Liriano, given ordinary luck, would have been easily one of the the top 30 pitchers in baseball last year, a legitimate Ace. As for his IP total, the only other category in which he comes up just short of True Ace criteria, that can be rather easily accounted for by his position as the Twins' #5 starter at the beginning of the season. There was enough doubt about his ability after 2009 that some were even calling for him to move the bullpen in spring training, particularly after the season-ending injury to Joe Nathan. Had Liriano been given the #1 or #2 spot in the rotation that we now clearly see that he deserved, he would have certainly made at least one more start in 2010, and passed the 200 IP threshold with only 1.2 IP in that 32nd GS.

It would be fair to question at this point whether Liriano really deserves a discount based on his poor BABIP. I'd be the first to admit that DIPS are missing something crucial about pitcher ability. For example, Johan Santana nearly always outperforms his FIP and xFIP (I think this is because he's exceptionally good at getting himself out of jams - as evidenced by his higher than average strand rates). And, for me, Nick Blackburn's summer troubles had less to do with some inevitable regression of BABIP than they did with him simply pitching like ass. Was something like that dogging Liriano last year? Did he deserve to give up all those hits?

Permit me to slice and dice his season. His first 5 GS were stupendous, particularly after the 5 BB grind in his 1st appearance in Chicago. He combined to go 4-0 with 36 IP, 26 H, 6 ER, 0 HR, 13 BB and 36 K while winning the AL Pitcher of the Month award for April despite pitching in just 4 games. His BABIP over that stretch was an only slightly better than league average .289.

From there to the All Star Break, he made 12 starts, totaling 71.1 IP, 81 H, 40 ER, 2 HR, 17 BB and 81 K. Even if you add in his 6 HBP, that's still fewer free passes per 9 IP than in the earlier stretch, and the K/9 is better. Both HR came in the same lousy start in Boston on May 20th. Despite improved peripherals, Liriano's ERA over these 12 GS was more than 3 times worse than his 1st 5 starts, thanks to an absurdly high .391 BABIP, and he went 2-7.

Even so, he delivered QS in 7 of the 12 games. Of the 5 he didn't, 2 (May 20th and July 9th) were bad days - even great pitchers will have a couple of games when they get lit up. The other 3 merit special attention:

• First there was the May 8th game against Baltimore, in which Liriano gave up a season-high 10 H in 6 IP. All of the 5 ER he allowed came with 2 outs. Does he have trouble finishing off innings? Did he lose his focus? See for yourself. Flip through those O's highlights. You only get to see the RBI hits, but notice how their announcers keep saying things like, "Consistent with their other hits in the inning: a dying quail!" and, "...another hit that did not go out of the infield," and "This is a seeing-eye ball here!" Also notice who's playing SS for the Twins: Brendan Harris. This was the 3rd game after JJ Hardy's wrist injury put him on the shelf for several weeks.
• Let's look at June 23rd in Milwaukee. Liriano lasted just 5 IP, but that was only because Gardy elected to lift him for a PH in the top of the 6th. Liriano was at just 77 pitches and surely would have come out for the 6th in an AL park. And, as for the 2 RBI hits he allowed, check them out. One is about a 4-hopper up the middle, and the other is a groundball double past Michael Cuddyer at 3rd, which was subsequently butchered in the LF corner by Delmon Young, allowing Rickie Weeks to score easily from 1B. Neither ball looked like it was particularly squared up by the hitter.
• Liriano's next start was June 28th against the Tigers. The first 6 batters reached on about 15 pitches: a HBP and 5 straight hits (the first of which was a bunt single) led to 4 quick ER. He gave up 2 more hits in the 2nd, including a slow roller to SS that moved the lead runner to 3rd where he could score on the ensuing groundout. A lousy start, yet Liriano lasted into the 7th inning, where he was chased by 2 straight 1st-pitch bunts - one a single, the 2nd a Sac that didn't result in an out when Orlando Hudson dropped Justin Morneau's throw (there's at least one of the 5 outs Liriano needed to get to 200 IP). At the end of the day, Liriano had given up 6 ER on 9 H and 2 BB with 6 K in 6 IP. He wasn't sharp at the beginning of the game, he had a little bad luck, the Tigers were hot. But he still hung around, kept the team in the game (it was 5-4 Tigers when he was pulled) and saved the bullpen until the 7th.

From the 1st series after the All-Star Break to the 3-game sweep in Chicago that effectively sealed the division title for the Twins, Liriano went 8-0 in 11 GS. His combined line was 71 IP, 60 H, 19 ER, 2 HR, 25 BB, 72 K. His BABIP over that stretch was .304, again reasonably close to the league average. He failed to deliver a QS in just 3 of those 11 GS:

• August 6th in Cleveland. I had a nice rant about this one at the time. Superficially resembled the Tigers game I just described in that he allowed 7 of the first 11 batters to reach, resulting in 4 ER. But it was really more like the Orioles game, because just about all the hits he gave up were on seeing-eye grounders.
• His next start in Chicago featured another 1st inning jam. 4 straight Sox reached after 2 were out, culminating in this impressive RBI single from AJ Pierzynski. He had to battle in the 5th and 6th, and was pulled 1 out shy of a QS. 7 H, 2 BB, 2 HBP, but only 1 run allowed.
• The next was also against Chicago on August 18th. Liriano wasn't very good in this one, allowing 5 ER on 6 H (including the first HR he'd allowed in 3 months, a 3-run jack on the heels of 2 BB) and 4 BB in just 5 IP. The only thing I could say in his defense is that the 5th run came home as a result of consecutive missed GIDP opportunities.

His final 3 GS make their own little section. He lasted just 13.1 IP combined over those 3 games, though the shortest of those was the result of an illness that came on after 3 IP. But what really makes these games stand out is the fact the Liriano allowed 5 HR in them, one more than he'd given up in his previous 28 GS, a span of 178.1 IP. The whole team lost focus after they vanquished the White Sox, and I think he was guilty of that, too. He also was probably worn out after a full season workload that exceeded anything he'd achieved previously, especially if you consider the 48.2 IP he added in winter ball in December and January. Whatever the reason, those last 3 games are so far out of character with the rest of his 2010, I don't think they're terribly indicative of what we can expect from him going forward.

If we add the two stretches in which Liriano was himself and enjoying basically league average BABIP, he went 12-0 over 16 GS (the Twins won 15 of those games). He amassed 107 IP (6.2 IP/GS) with a 2.10 ERA, 1.16 WHIP, 0.2 HR/9, 3.2 BB/9 and 9.1 K/9. Definitely an Ace, and only 3 BB from being a True Ace.

If he can more or less repeat his 2010 peripherals next year, I expect Liriano to deliver those kinds of numbers over 33-34 GS. (That's especially since he won't have any winter ball to extend his workload this time around.) 200+ IP of awesome stuff and command, plus merely ordinary luck on balls in play, should easily land him in the discussion of who's the best pitcher in baseball. And if he should enjoy better than average luck, we could be in store for something very special.

Either way, I'd confidently hand him the ball on opening day, and for the 1st game of the postseason if the Twins should make it there again. Liriano pitched well enough last season to belong among the best in the game. Going into his age 27 season in 2011, what should be his prime, I don't see any reason to expect less from him.

Denard Span

Things I'm Not Worried About Part 1

Over the course of what I hope will be a rather uneventful offseason, I want to try to dispel some of the hysteria around the way the Twins finished the 2010 season. At the start of their final road trip, the Twins were 92-60, tied for the best record in the Majors. Even their lackluster finish couldn't prevent them from claiming the 4th-best record over the full season. A very good team, with very good players. I'm going to argue that several of those players are even better than the average fan seems to realize. Leading off: Denard Span.

I've been a Span booster ever since I first saw him play in the spring of 2008. Nothing about his game was flashy, but he showed solid fundamentals and an approach at the plate that was appropriate for his skill set. But his performance the previous two seasons was underwhelming, as he hit .285/.340/.349 and .267/.323/.355 with a high K rate at the upper levels. So he was sent back to AAA at the start of the season in favor of the much less polished Carlos Gomez. Span blew up to .340/.434/.481 in 40 games with the Red Wings, and eventually took over the Twins' leadoff spot by hitting .294/.387/.432 for the remainder of 2008 and .311/.392/.415 in 2009. Finally having reached his potential, the Twins rewarded him with a 5-year, $16.5M contract.

Then, in 2010, he hit just .264/.331/.348, essentially the same as his 2006-2007 performance in the minors. We've been had! 2008 & 2009 were a fluke - the real Denard Span is the same nobody we saw in the minors all those years!

The hell he is.

Though the slash numbers line up pretty well with his minor league track record, a deeper look shows that Span's offensive game was much closer to what it was in 2009 than 2007. In his younger days he had a poor understanding of the strike zone, with K/BB ratios of about 2/1. Last year, it was about 5/4, essentially the same as his excellent 2009. His distribution of liners, flies and grounders was only slightly different from last year. He hit a few more grounders, but for a guy with his wheels, that's not a bad thing. He cut his rate of IF flies - essentially automatic outs - and reduced his strikeout rate for the 3rd straight season. Those components combine to suggest that he should have been on his way to even better numbers in 2010.

So why didn't it happen? Check out the play made by Toronto SS Alex Gonzalez at the end ofthis highlight package from May 17th. This AB is a pretty good encapsulation of Span's season. He took the 1st pitch for a strike. He fouled off the second. Down 0-2, he made contact with a pitcher's pitch dipping down out of the strike zone. Span was exceptionally good at making contact this year - 11 out of every 12 swings got at least a piece of the ball. In this case, he put the ball in play - with the lowest BB and K rates of his MLB career, he put more balls in play than ever before (in fact, he was 5th in all of MLB in total balls in play). This one resulted in an out, thanks to a highlight-reel catch. At the time, I had this to say about it:

Lately it seems like something like that happens to Span at least once a series. When are those going to start falling in?

Answer: never.

Look at the liner that ended Span's dreadful 2 for 30 west coast trip from the 1st week of June (about 2:00 into the game summary). How about this play by Gabe Kapler from July 3rd?Span hit a ball on August 3rd that was ruled a FC because it forced Jose Morales at 2nd even though it hit the turf in RF. Span's 0 for 4 on August 24th included a lineout to the pitcher and a sliding catch of another liner to CF.

Those are just the ones I mentioned specifically in the blog. My impression from observing the Twins this year was that Span's season was a litany of bad luck at the dish. And the numbers bear that out. Here are the components of his BA (ground balls, fly balls, line drives and bunts) from each of his big league seasons and compared to the league as a whole (2008/2009/2010/2010 MLB totals):

GB: .257/.287/.223/.235

FB: .343/.257.205/.219

LD: .655/.763/.677/.724

BU: .300/.667/.214/.388

In 2008 he was really unlucky on liners but made up for it with good luck on flies. In 2009 he was lucky across the board. 2010 was just the opposite. The liners were unfortunate, but not the real problem. After all, everybody whacks a few bullets right at defenders over the course of the year. Had Span enjoyed league average luck on his line drives, it would have been worth just 5 more base hits. The regression to slightly below average on fly balls isn't a big deal either - he was due for that.

What really jumps out is the poor performance on grounders and bunts. Speedy guys like Span should always have a higher BA on grounders than the league as a whole. That's because the play that gets Jason Kubel by half a step is going to be too late to get Span. So to see a BA on grounders below the league average shows that not only did fewer than expected balls off Span's bat trickle into the OF, he beat out fewer IF hits than we would expect someone with his wheels would.

All those below average pieces led to a BABIP collapse in 2010. In his first 2 big league seasons, he hit .339 and .353 on balls in play - not outlandish for someone with his speed, but probably a little on the high side, especially in 2009. But even in his underwhelming minor league seasons, his BABIPs were .330 and .322. In 2010, his BABIP dropped to .294, by far a career low.

What would have happened if Span had enjoyed the BABIPs he'd put up in the minors? Let's split the difference between 2006 & 2007 and give him a .326 BABIP. He put 564 balls in play in 2010 (PA - K - BB - HBP - HR). A .326 BABIP would have given him 184 H, 18 more than he had. For the season, 22% of his H went for extra bases. That gives him 4 more XBH - let's call them 3 doubles and a triple. The higher BABIP then gives him 23 extra total bases for the season. Leaving his BB and HBP numbers the same, his line with his minor league luck would be:

.293/.357/.385, 27 2B, 11 3B, 3 HR

That's down a bit from his first 2 seasons, but would anybody really be complaining about it? Particularly in a year in which the average MLB leadoff man hit .264/.329/.382? We'd love to see more walks, but .357 still would have been the 3rd-highest OBP among qualified CF in the Majors. Just for having a more or less ordinary year with BABIP. If he'd had the good fortune he'd had in 2009, the line would have been something like this:

.316/.378/.415, 29 2B, 12 3B, 3 HR

Not quite as many BB or HR, but more H and XBH. Overall, it's basically the same season he had in 2009. That would have easily led all qualified CF in OBP, and placed around 6th in OPS right next to Chris Young, Curtis Granderson and Alex Rios. (His actual 2010 OPS placed him 3rd from the bottom among regular CFs.) 2009 was lucky. 2010 was unlucky. But Span was mostly the same hitter in each campaign.

Why the drop in HR? Need I say more than... Target Field? Span hit 3 HR on the road this year, the same number he hit on the road in 2009. But where the Metrodome had been good to him, yielding 7 HR in 437 AB, Target Field was stingy. Other than the unofficial exhibition blast that christened the new stadium at the end of spring training, Span wasn't able to get a ball out of his home park in 304 AB. He'll probably get a couple at home each year going forward, but we may never see his total HRs approaching double digits as we did in his 1st 2 years.

That's OK, because Span isn't paid to hit the ball out of the park. His job is to get on base. I think that's the biggest reason a lot of smart people are on his case right now. Span's BB rate has declined in each of the past 2 seasons, down to 8.5% of his PA in 2010. That's about half of what Jim Thome did. Patience is slump-proof, and a double-digit BB rate would have kept Span's OBP in the upper .340s at minimum. Where did the BB go?

So far, Span has reached in 100% of his career PA that ended with a 3-0 count. He always takes there. In 2008, a little under 2% of his PA resulted in 4-pitch BB. In 2009, it was a little over 2.1%. For all Major League hitters last season it was 2.1%, but only 9 of Span's 705 PA resulted in 4 straight out of the zone - not quite 1.3%. That has nothing to do with him - it's all about the opposing pitchers. Had they thrown ball 4 there at the normal rate, the rate he'd basically seen in his first 2 seasons, he would have had 15 BB in those situations. I'll assume that he eventually would have walked in about half of those PA anyway, so the net would have been 3 extra BB.

That leaves him about 8-10 BB short relative to 2009. Span is partially to blame for the decline, of course. Compare his full count PA between 2009 and 2010:

2009: 94 PA, 34 BB, 19 K, .225 BABIP (10 for 41)

2010: 92 PA, 26 BB, 14 K, .115 BABIP (6 for 52)

Clearly, there's some more horrendous luck there - the guy had BABIPs over .300 in every other 2-strike count. But there's a huge shift in general outcomes as well: upwards of 56% of his 2009 PAs in this situation resulted in a BB or K; in 2010 that dropped to 43.5%. As with his overall game, he made a lot more contact with the count full than he had previously. That could be the pitchers throwing him more strikes. But I think it's more likely a reflection of a change in approach. Instead of taking that two-seamer under the hands for ball 4 or strike 3 (depending on the umpire), Span put that pitch in play, and almost always made an out.

Is it better to put the ball in play in that situation? Depends. If there's no one on base, I think he might as well take the close pitches and try to work the walk. If there's a RISP with 2 outs and Matt Tolbert on deck, I'd rather have him take a hack and see what happens. Generally, he probably should only put a ball in play about half the time there, far less than he did in 2010.

During the season, there was a report that Span had become more aggressive because opposing pitchers were giving him more 1st-pitch strikes than before. That seems to be true, as his 1st strike percentage went up by about 1 point. But I wouldn't say it was necessarily because he was seeing more early strikes than usual. The proportion of 1-0 counts to 0-1 counts remained basically identical between 2009 and 2010. However, when you swing at the first pitch, it's always a strike, whatever the umpire might have called it. Excluding sacrifices, Span put the first pitch in play just 8.3% of the time in 2009, but that jumped to 11.2% last year. That alone can account for the increase in first-pitch strikes Span saw in 2010. He also saw about a 14% increase in ABs that ended on the 1st or 2nd pitch compared to 2009.

According to FanGraphs, Span actually saw 2% fewer pitches within the strike zone this past season overall. But the counts he found himself in were about the same as the year before, because he swung at more pitches outside the zone. And he made more contact outside the zone. And things tended not to go well when he made contact this year. For all the extra contact, he hit a significantly lower percentage of foul balls, about 9% below his first 2 seasons and the league average. That got me thinking: how many of those 2009 choppers to Jerry White in the coaches' box turned into choppers to Paul Konerko at the bag in 2010? Enough to ruin his ground ball BABIP? The difference in position of the ball in the hitting zone at the point of contact is minute, but the impact on the BA is huge.

So why did Span really get so much more aggressive? I go back to the Gonzalez play I cited above. If I noticed how often he was being robbed, it must have been on Span's mind, too. Maybe he thought those almost-hits would be going off the bat just enough harder if he weren't trying to protect with 2 strikes. Can't let them get to 2 strikes, gotta swing earlier.

That approach worked, at first. At the end of that Toronto series, Span was batting only .259, but he had a .359 OBP thanks to 24 BB in his first 39 games. Beginning with the Boston series the next day, he finished the month by hitting safely in 11 of the last 12 games, going 22 for 49 (.449), but with just 2 BB. His luck ran out on the west coast trip, as he began June with just 1 H in his first 6 games. And, since he was hacking at everything, he drew just one BB to go with it.

So Span has some things he can work on over the winter and spring. He should cut his 1st-pitch swings back down under 20%, and try to sustain the patience he has leading off the game in more of his subsequent PAs. He should be encouraged to keep taking the borderline pitches, especially with nobody in scoring position. If his overriding mentality is always to take 2 strikes, I don't think he can go wrong. He's great at making contact - he shouldn't be afraid to be behind in the count.

On the bases, Span set a career high with 26 SB in 2010 even though his attempts/SB opportunities was the lowest of any of his 3 MLB seasons. He had never been an efficient base-stealer in his earlier seasons, a frustrating deficiency for someone with such impressive speed. He hadn't had a full-season SB% above 69% since rookie ball, generally resulting in net SB in the low teens. 2010 was a breakout in this regard, as he officially succeeded in 86.7% of his attempts, resulting in 22 net SB.

That improved efficiency was tarnished by a high number pickoffs. Span was picked off in about 3% of his SB opportunities. The league average is 0.8%. Since only 2 of the 9 PO resulted in CS (meaning that Span was CS by catchers only twice all season), we have to assume that 7 of them came in situations in which he wasn't actually planning on stealing. Laziness? Lack of focus? I don't have an answer. It seemed like a lot of the pickoffs came in a cluster in the middle of the summer. It could have been a slump, just like pitchers and hitters go through. Whatever the reason, this is an area he will have to clean up next season.

In the field, it's easy to remember the far too frequent balls that dropped harmlessly between Span and one of the corner OF. That's a combination of passiveness and poor communication that he should be able to correct for 2011. He also failed to hold onto an exasperating number of balls at the fringes of his range, balls that he reached with long runs, slides, stretches and dives, but that fell to the outfield grass despite touching leather. Some of that was luck again, but if I were him, I'd ask to get some extra reps on those types of plays in spring training.

In spite of those shortcomings, many of the new defensive metrics ranked Span as an above-average CF. Baseball Prospectus' new system has him as one of the very best defensive CF in 2010. He'll never have a great arm, but his quickness and accuracy with his throws minimizes that weakness. With some continued work with the coaches, he could elevate himself to a universally recognized asset in the OF.

As his luck normalizes, and his excellent approach from 2008-2009 is reinforced, and he makes incremental improvements in his focus on the basepaths and assertiveness in the OF, Span will see excellent results in all facets of his game. He has the determination to work out the things he can control. The wheel of fortune will take care of the rest. I expect Span's 2011 to place solidly within the upper tier of CF/leadoff men in the majors. He's certainly nothing to worry about.