Tag: Rick Anderson

How well did Twins rookies perform in 2011

The Twins finished the 2011 season with a 63-99 mark and lots of folks including the Twins management blamed the clubs poor finish or at least a big part of it on injuries and that is difficult to argue as the team used the DL list 27 times. The Twins often brought up rookies to fill these openings. How did these rookies perform?

This past season the Twins led all of baseball in games played by rookies with 493, followed by the Mets with 442 and the Mariners with 403. On the other end of the spectrum the rookies only played in 57 Brewers and 73 Rangers games and you know where these teams finished. If you look at rookie plate appearances, the Twins postion playing rookies had 1,805, way ahead of the team closest to them, the Mariners who sent 1,484 rookie batters to home plate. These Twins position rookies ranked in the middle of the pack in base on balls percentage at 6.9%, ranked seventh best in strikeout percentage at 18.2%, were in the middle of the pack with a .245 batting average, and if you look at WAR, the Twins number was 1.0 with the Nationals the highest at 5.8 and the Rockies the lowest at -1.6 .

Looking at the Twins rookie pitchers as compared to all of baseball , the team used fewer rookies there than most teams did this past season. Twins rookie pitchers appeared in 124 games putting them 11 fewest and Twins rookies threw 169.2 innings, only the rookie pitchers for the Cardinals, Pirates, Cubs, Giants and Red Sox threw fewer innings. These Twins rookies finished with a 5-14 record with a BB/9 of 4.03 and 5.36 K/9, hardly something to shout about. On the other end of things, rookies threw 545.1 innings for the Royals, 527.1 for the Astros, 489 for the Mariners, and 426 for the Braves. These same Twins rookie pitchers posted an ERA of 5.15 trailing only the Giants at 6.40 and the 6.10 Red Sox. The Twins rookie pitchers did not pitch a lot but when they did pitch, they pitched poorly.

I took a look at the Twins rookies as compared to the rest of the American League rookies over the last 10 years and where the team finished and here is what I found.

Year Rookie plate appearances AL rank Rookie innings pitched AL rank Division finish
2011 1,805 1 169.2 13 5th
2010 631 7 88 12 1st
2009 368 11 306.1 8 1st
2008 1,512 2 491.2 2 2nd
2007 520 8 222.1 9 3rd
2006 305 10 376.1 7 1st
2005 1,238 2 246 6 3rd
2004 1,519 1 95.1 12 1st
2003 426 9 130.1 10 1st
2002 962 4 201 9 1st
AVG 928.6 5.5 232.7 8.8 1.9

I am not sure you can reach any definitive conclusions from these numbers like rookies = trouble but they are still fun to look at. For example, the Twins finished last in 2011 when their rookie position players had more plate appearances than anyone but you compare that with 2004 when their rookie position players again led the league in PA’s but the team finished first.

But one thing that you can take away from this is that Gardy and pitching coach Rick Anderson are not big fans of young rookie pitchers based on the fact that the Twins rookie pitchers have been consisently in the bottom half of the division in innings pitched each year averaging just 232.7 innings and a ranking 9th of 14 teams. Twins rookie pitchers have only finished in the upper half of league innings pitched 3 three times in 10 seasons.

Slowey sent packing

The Twins have traded right-handed pitcher Kevin Slowey to the Colorado Rockies for a player to be named later. The 27-year-old Slowey was a Twins second round pick in 2005 and made his major league debut in Oakland against the A’s on June 1, 2007 in a no decision start.

Slowey has been with the Twins for 5 years and has appeared in 100 games, 90 of them starts and he has a career mark of 39-29 with a 4.66 ERA and a 1.29 WHIP. Slowey has had good control as shown by his 84 bases on ball in 532 innings but he has also given up 84 long balls. Durability however; is not Slowey’s long suit as evidenced by his five trips to the DL in five years and he has never thrown as many as 161 innings in any big league season.

In the spring of 2011 Slowey lost out in the battle for the starting rotation and the Twins moved him to the bullpen. Between April 1st and May 20th Slowey appeared in relief 6 times and had a 4.91 ERA. Slowey complained publicly that he was not suited for the bullpen and that his arm hurt and the Twins sent him out to rehab and then farmed him out to Rochester. Slowey was recalled later in the season and made 8 starts for the Twins and was the losing pitcher each time, giving up 36 runs in 45.2 innings.

But is wasn’t his poor pitching that sent Slowey packing, it was his attitude. The word was that Slowey had a reputation as a “club house lawyer” and that he was convinced that he knew the best way to pitch which did not endear him either to pitching coach Rick Anderson or manager Gardenhire. I don’t know if these reports are true or not but I can tell you that Kevin Slowey was very standoffish whenever I saw him during the past few years during spring training visits and he certainly did not go out of his way to interact with Twins fans.

I think that Terry Ryan was smart this month in saying publicly that Slowey was in his starting rotation plans for 2012 regardless if that was true or not. Personally I think that Slowey had burned too many bridges and Ryan was just trying to get as much as he could for Slowey. I sure would have liked the Twins to do better than a PTBNL for trading Slowey to the Rockies who had also expressed interest in Slowey last summer at the trade deadline. At least the Twins will get something versus just non-tendering him. The rumor has it that the Rockies are looking to move 3B/2B Ian Stewart who has been a disappointment in Colorado and that they were looking to get a couple of minor league pitchers in return. You would think the Twins would have very little to lose to have swung a deal that included Slowey for the 26-year-old left-handed hitting Stewart with good pop in his bat even if the Twins had to kick in something to sweeten the pot. It will be interesting to see what Slowey can do in the National league in Colorado.

UPDATE December 9 – The Twins announced yesterday that they have acquired right-handed pitcher Daniel Turpen from the Rockies as the player to be named later in the Kevin Slowey trade.

Watching Liriano

March 4, 2011 – I checked out Francisco Liriano’s first start of the spring on Field 3 this morning against a collection of Tampa Rays minor leaguers in a “B” game that started at 10 AM local time. I got there just as the Twins took the field and Liriano was throwing his warm up pitches. The first thing I noticed was that there was a very nice crowd already assembled to watch Liriano. The Twins keep denying that Liriano is being shopped but by my count there were at least 20 scouts there representing everyone from the Yankees to the Marlins and a lot of teams in between. There were 5 or 6 radar guns at the ready each time Liriano threw a pitch and Liriano threw 36 pitches in his first stint on the mound in a ST game. Francisco was wild and gave up 3 hits, a couple of walks and hit a batter and catcher Drew Butera went out to the mound calm his pitcher down several times. After his two innings were up pitching coach Rick Anderson pulled him aside and he talked and Liriano nodded and listened for several minutes and then Gardy joined in and he had a few comments for Francisco too. It did not appear to be an intense session, more of a “this is your first time out and maybe you can do this a bit better but all in all we are satisfied” type of a chat. I don’t know what was said for a fact because I am not a lip reader but I am just guessing based on what I saw of the body language of both Anderson and Liriano. I am sure that Francisco was disappointed in his outing and Anderson and Gardenhire were just trying to boost his morale. The big young right hander Deolis Guerra followed Liriano on the mound and he got beat around a bit, I know that Guerra is very young but he has been in organized ball since 2006 and he throws in the low 90’s regularly but he has to learn how to pitch, all he ever seems to do is throw it as hard as he can and hope that the batter misses it. Guerra is all the Twins have left from the Johan Santana trade but to me it looks like that trade will turn out to be a total bust for Minnesota. After Guerra left the game, another big righty David Bromberg took to the hill for the Twins and he too got hit around a bit. I left after 6 innings so I do not know what the final score of the game turned out to be, I had other fish to catch.

Questions everywhere

February 23, 2011 – I checked on the Twins on Monday and I stayed for about 1.5 hours but I walked away kind of bored. The position players still had not reported and the pitchers and catchers were going through their early spring routines. A few minor leaguers were taking some infield practice with TK, nothing extraordinary going on anywhere. Nishioka was as normal to this point, out on a field by himself, doing a little (and I mean little) running if you don’t count his side-kicks who apparently are his translator, nutritionist, and work-out guru. Everyone was looking for Justin Morneau and he was nowhere to be seen but he did eventually hold a news conference later in the day.

The Twins have so many questions as spring training begins, more questions than Alex Trebek has on Jeopardy. What questions? Let me list a few of them for you that come to mind right off the bat, not necessarily in order of importance. 2011 will be an interesting season at the ballpark, you can bet your bippy on it.

  •  Will Justin Morneau be able to come back from his concussion?
  • Can Joe Nathan become the same closer he was before he had TJ surgery?
  • Joe Mauer hasn’t even caught a bullpen session and he already has knee issues.
  • How will Francisco Liriano react to the trade rumors? He is not exactly a Rock of Gibraltar to begin with.
  • Can Alexi Casilla hold down a full-time middle infield spot?
  • Can Tsuyoshi Nishioka play in the majors this season and hold down a middle infield job?
  • Can Danny Valencia improve on his 2010 season without his head getting too big?
  • Can Denard Span bounce back from a poor 2010 season?
  • Can Rick Anderson make silk out of a sows ear in the bullpen?
  • Can Delmon Young repeat his breakout season?
  • Can Jim Thome last another season before his back gives out for the final time?
  • Can Jason Kubel bounce back and play the way he is capable of playing?
  • Will any Twins pitcher show some backbone and make some of those opposing batters dance in the batter’s box once in a blue moon?
  • When are the Twins batters going to quit crying that it is too hard to hit home runs at Target Field?
  • Last year the back drop at Target Field was repainted, after the season the trees have been or will soon be removed. What will Twins batters ask for next? A roof to keep the sun out of their eyes?
  • Who didn’t measure up last year in Gardy’s eyes? Scott Ullger as his third base coach or Steve Liddle as his bench coach? They swapped jobs going into 2011.
  • Can Glenn Perkins and Pat Neshek stay out of Gardy’s doghouse this year? I think they each have one strike left before they are sent packing.
  • Will Gardy actually let his players steal some bases this year?
  • Can the Twins ever get over the “Yankee” hump?