Royals Series Preview

Twins 1-3 (2.06 runs scored per game/4.25 runs surrendered per game) | Royals 3-0 (4.03 runs scored per game/1.66 runs surrendered per game)

Up until today, the last time the Twins faced a Royals team with a winning record was August 23rd, 2003. On that day, the Twins found themselves in third place, a half behind the surprising Royals. Johan Santana dominated a line-up that still contained Carlos Beltran, striking out 10 in six innings. The Twins won that game, the final of a three game series at the Dome, and continued a second-half climb that culmenated in the second of four division championships. While the Twins went 46-23 during that stretch on the way to a 90-72 record, the Royals failed to sustain the level of play at the beginning of the season, finishing 32-38 in the second half dropping back to third in the AL Central.

(Perhaps the reversal of fortune could be attributed to career back-up catcher Tom Prince. In 2003, the Twins used the 38-year-old catcher in the first-half of the season and were 44-49 at the all-star break and were 7.5 games behind the Royals. On July 13th, the Twins released the aging catcher and several days later the Royals signed him. Up to the break, the Royals were 51-41, when they picked up Prince, they finished a 32-38, 7 games behind the Twins. Then again, Prince only played 8 games for the Royals which was hardly enough opportunity to appropriately sabotage a baseball team.)

Nearly five years worth of games have been played against Kansas City and they have all been against a sub-.500 opponent. Now, the only players that remains on either roster now is Juan Rincon, Justin Morneau and Michael Cuddyer for the Twins and just David Dejesus for the Royals. Naturally, the season is only four games old, but these Royals have shown signs that they are not quite the doormat that everybody thought they would have been. Sweeping a three game series from the Tigers at Comerica would have been a daunting task on paper before the season started. Detroit was a bit of a shall, lacking Curtis Granderson and having Miguel Cabrera scratched during one game, but the starting pitching, not to mention the bullpen, helped the Royals start undefeated. Zack Greinke and Brian Bannister combined to limit the potentially most potent line-up to only one run in the past two games. Furthermore, the once worthless Royals bullpen that could be counted on to hand over a lead on a moment's notice threw 4 innings of scoreless ball and only walked one batter.

While Kansas city Star's Sam Mellinger outlined plenty of reasons not to get too caught up in this fast start, there seems to be just as many reasons to think that this could be sustainable. Though three games are difficult to mount total optimism, this squad does have the parts to be competitive. After all, players like Alex Gordon, Mark Teahen and Billy Butler are all dangerous hitters - that's not even mentioning what Jose Guillen could conceivably contribute. The bullpen with Joakim Soria and Leo Nunez has legitimate talent that was lacking the previous seasons.

Game #2: Boofda.

Twins 1, Angels 9 (Box Score)

• The critism will focus on his first inning of work where he was roughed up for two of three earned runs, but Boof Bonser threw marginally well throughout his 6 innings of work, good enough for a game score of 46. He gave up 3 earned runs - a 4th on an error - but he still kept his team within striking distance. He was failed both by his offense and in some respects his bullpen (albeit had the offense made it a one or two run game, Brian Bass would never had made an appearance). Revisiting the pitch f/x data, it appeared that Bonser may have been a bit "wound-up" in his 2008 debut. His fastball was cresting between 92-95 among those first twenty pitches, most likely causing the ball to level out instead of creating that tailing movement that induces groundballs (Bonser had a 45% groundball rate last year). As a result, Vlad Guerrero and Garret Anderson traded doubles on similar 95-mph fastballs. "I was all jittery and happy and just letting it ride," Bonser confirmed after the game, adding: "I was just happy to get the first one out of the way. I settled down afterwards and got going." The following inning, Bonser began to throw his fastball around 88 to 92 mph where he found more success. After the first inning and the nerves settled, his fastball was much improved which led to using the slider as the outpitch - 3 out of 4 strikeouts were on his slider.

• What also needs to be said is that his opponant on the hill, Jon Garland, bested him by tossing 8 innings and scattering 6 hits while walking one. Garland, whose game score was 61, induced groundball outs on 70% of the balls put in play (17 of 24). The Twins, to my recollection, seem offensively futile against groundball pitchers in the past several years. I should check the statistics to see if this supports my memory. Garland, who had a 39% groundball rate last season, is hardly your prototypical groundball pitcher as is the instance of Carlos Silva who had a 47% groundball rate, but Garland throws a good sinker.

• The Michael Cuddyer Ground-Into-Double-Play talley is at 1 in 2008.

Game #1: Livan

Twins 3, Angels 2 (Box Score)

Monday night was Livan Hernandez's 8th opening day start since his career began in 1996. Officially, he is now 4-3 in those starts with one no-decision. He subdued the Angels offensive just enough to allow for the Twins' bats to find a way to score Carlos Gomez. His 7 innings, 7 hits, 2 earned runs and 1 strike out was good enough for a game score of 56, his fourth best opening day performance.

In 1998 Hernandez was tapped to pitch the opener for the Florida Marlins against the Chicago Cubs. Matching up against Hernandez was former Twins Kevin Tapani. Livan threw 5.1 innings, giving up 5 earned runs with 2 strike outs and a walk which amounted to a game score of 32. Fortunately for Hernandez and the Marlins, Tapani threw even worse: the righty couldn't get an out in the 3rd innings and finished with 9 earned runs and a game score of 6. Needless to say, Hernandez was the recipient of offense and luck.

From 2000 to 2002, Hernandez was the opening day starter for the San Francisco Giants. In 2000, Hernandez lost to the Florida Marlins but he pitched marginally well. In 6 innings, Hernandez gave up 9 hits, 3 earned runs, a walk and 5 strike outs for a game score of 42. His Marlin counterpart, Alex Fernandez, nearly duplicated his stats by throwing 7 innings with 8 hits, 3 earned runs, a walk and 5 strike outs (a game score of 55). He was spurned from a no-decision when in the 5th inning both Rich Aurilia and Barry Bonds committed a error a piece scoring future Twin Mike Redmond and Alex Gonzalez, two unearned runs that ultimately made the difference.

The Giants opened up against state rival San Diego Padres and once again had Hernandez as the inaugural pitcher in the 2001 season. Hernandez held the Padres to just 2 earned runs in 7.1 innings with 3 walks and 6 strikeouts for the victory (a game score of 61). His game score could had been substantially better had Alan Embree, who was brought in to face Tony Gwynn with Mark Kotsay on second and Phil Nevin on first, not surrendered a single to the future Hall of Famer that allowed Kotsay to score from second.

The following season the Giants faced the other in-state rival, the Los Angeles Dodgers, where Hernandez was matched-up against Kevin Brown (of the $100 million dollar bust club). Hernandez, for his part, held the Dodgers to 2 runs over 8 innings while striking out 3 and walking 3 for a game score of 66. Brown, meanwhile, only finished 4 innings and surrendered 7 runs including a home run to Barry Bonds.

From 2004 to 2006, Hernandez was the opening day starter for the Montreal Expos/Washington Nationals. In his first opening day appearance for the Les Boys in 2004, Hernandez battled phenom Josh Beckett and the Florida Marlins. For the most part, Hernandez traded innings with Beckett compiling very similar lines. Hernandez went 6 innings, giving up 5 hits, 2 earned runs, 1 walk and struck out 8 for a game score of 61. Beckett, meanwhile, went 7 innings, gave up 4 hits, 1 run and walked 3 while striking out 9, bettering Hernandez's game score with 71. Hop See Choi, the Marlin first baseman, hit a home run in the 2nd inning off of Livan to account for the difference. Though Hernandez was not factored in to the decision, the Expos still lost.

In 2005, relocated to the Nation's capital, Hernandez had the worst opening day start of his career, this time against NL East powerhouse Philadelphia Phillies. Normally an innings-eater, Hernandez did not reach the 5th and gave up 8 hits, 7 earned runs, 2 walks with 4 strike outs and a home run. This amounted to a punitive game score of 22 and Livan was credited for the loss.

His most recent opening day prior to Monday, Hernandez faced Tom Glavine and the New York Mets. While Hernandez was slightly below average (game score of 42), he did not pitch terribly and kept his team in the game by going 6 innings, scattering 8 hits while being tagged for 3 runs (one David Wright home run) with 4 strike outs and one walk. Nevertheless, Hernandez was the loser in the contest.

What this means is that this small microcosm of opening day starts paints the bigger picture for Hernandez on the whole as a pitcher. In those starts, he has accumulated a winning percentage of .571, better than his overall career winning percentage of .511. Over the course of his 8 opening day starts, Hernandez averaged 5.4 innings, his career average of 6.7 innings per game is obviously better, but he had the propensity to give up more runs in his first start (a 4.73 era opening day versus 4.25 era in his career). When you look at his game score in those starts - the best being 66, the worst being 22 - you will find that through out the season Hernandez will be right in that range. In half of his opening day starts, Hernandez pitched well enough to earn a victory by finishing with a game score over 50. In three of them, he was the winning pitcher with one no-decision. In the other half of his opening day starts, he was below 50, making it increasingly difficult for his team to keep offensive pace. He was fortunate enough to survive one of those games with a win despite a game score of 32. This means that Hernandez needs a good amount of offensive support to propel himself to an above .500 record.

It is no secret that I believe, statistically supported in this theory mind you, that Livan Hernandez will give up a considerable amount of runs for the Twins. Because his velocity is hardly of a major league caliber, he is reliant on both location and speed variations to guide him through his 6-plus innings. In some cases he's pitched well enough to not lose the ball game - often with game scores in the 50s - but others he has detonated the game by tossing games well below 40. Oddly enough, one of the most Homersota columnists in the state, Sid Hartman, also agree that the opener will also be an anomaly from Hernandez rather than the norm saying "You can't expect the kind of pitching every game that Livan Hernandez provided in giving up two runs in seven innings Monday night in a 3-2 victory over the Angels."

Twins Notes (Opening Day Eve)

• Joe C reports that Scott Baker tossed 6 innings of one run ball with 3 strikeouts in the minor league camp. Naturally this is huge considering Baker is expected to be one of the frontline starters and will expect to improve on his 2007 season numbers. The Bill James Gold Mine 2007 took a retrospective look at the Twins. One fact that James highlighted was that Baker rarely threw his slider in 2006 (3%) but in 2007 used it as his secondary pitch (25%) next to his fastball and consequently his ERA decreased by nearly two full runs. A closer examination of his pitches via pitch f/x reveals that his slider had the best WHIFF average of all of his four pitches - a .259 rating (making bats miss 25% of the time). One thing Baker should work on is getting his slider to dart out of the zone. Last season, his slider was thrown in the strike zone 73% of the time (2% better than his fastball). Former Twin Kyle Lohse threw his slider 22% of the time and was in the zone only 66% of the time but accumulated a .333 WHIFF average on his. If Baker is able to start his on the outer half of the plate and have it slide away from the right-handed batter I would assume that his WHIFF average would increase exponentially due to more empty swings.

• Last season the Twins had the most disappointing production from their 9th spot hitters according to the Gold Mine. Nick Punto (73 games), Jason Bartlett (45 games) and Alexi Casilla (20 games) combined to have the lowest OPS in the American League (.582) AND lower than the St Louis Cardinals in the National League that typically employed a pitcher in that spot. This season all indications are that Adam Everett with be the player asked to shore up the tail end of the line up. His 2007 injury-shortened campaign did not offer much improvement as Everett posted a .599 OPS. Those previous three hit .230/.293/.289 combined. Everett did worse when it came to acquiring a base, he hit .232/.281/.318, but was deficient in the on-base category. Everett, however, has a slightly better career average and is capable of saving many more runs with his glove than he creates with his bat.

• Jim Souhan's preview of the Twins 2008 line-up states that it is filled promise, especially with Cuddyer, Morneau and Young manning the heart of the order. Souhan has long been the target of being labeled as "shecky" with drawn out analogies comparing pitching rotations to Butterball Turkeys and the like. Recently, the Strib columnist has seemingly been attending SABR meetings, mixing in the occasionally reference to "on-base percentage" and his desire to move Mauer to the top of the order. This sort of writing I fully support, despite the fact that I think the notion of Mauer batting first is too "on-base percentage" centric. Mauer does not have the base-running prowess to obtain the run production success that is required of the lead-off spot. Souhan has been drawing the conclusion that people on base equals more opportunities to score runs and those with higher on-base percentages should be positioned at the top of the order where they are likelier to receive more at-bats and therefore produce more runs. This is the sort of systematic logic I prefer when presenting an argument for augmenting a line-up.

• On the other hand, Souhan still attempts to pass off baseless statements without so much as doing a simple check with Baseball-Reference. In the same article mentioned above, Souhan wrote "Morneau is the Twins' best clean-up hitter since Harmon Killebrew". While in the literary sense, comparing Morneau to Harmon Killebrew is acceptable - both known for their long home runs - and your tune-in, tune-out fans would appreciate the likening that allows for easy mental imagery of two fine sluggers, however it should be noted that a more appropriate comparison would have been "since Corey Koskie" or "since Kent Hrbek". Morneau, in his 943 plate appearances batting clean-up, has accumulated an OPS of .799 while Killebrew in his 4,880 plate appearance at clean-up in his career posted a .890 OPS, a seemingly insurmountable difference. Meanwhile, Hrbek in his 4,388 plate appearances at clean-up had an OPS of .864 a closer comparable but yet a wide margin of difference. Lastly, Corey Koskie had just several more 4th spot plate appearances (1,176) than Morneau at this juncture in his career but had amassed an OPS of .820. The hope since locking Morneau up to a long term contract, he would some day usurp both Hrbek and Koskie as the most productive clean-up hitter in the Twins history. Killebrew is a long shot.

• In another Twins preview Souhan began by saying that the 2002 Twins won the division in spite of Doug Mientkiewicz batting third, which is the partial truth. Again, Souie, a simple fact-check with Baseball-Reference would suffice. Koskie batted in the third hole in 66 games, Mientkiewicz did so in only 64 - a small discrepancy but a discrepancy nonetheless. The lefty tandem was also some what successful. Mientkiewicz, who posted a .757 OPS total that season, at a .722 OPS in 286 plate appearances in the third spot. Koskie, meanwhile, had a slightly better season batting third. His season OPS was .815 but he was only a .746 OPS hitter in 275 plate appearances batting third still more productive than Mientkiewicz.

• Unfortunately we will not be graced with a knuckleballer's presence at the Dome unless he is on the visiting team. La Velle reports that the Mariners have sent minor league catcher Jair Fernandez in return for the rights to R.A. Dickey, who had a solid spring in the Mariners camp. The 20-year-old Fernandez played in the Midwest League (A) last season for the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers. In 169 plate appearances he hit .260/.337/.377 with 2 home runs and an isolated power average of .117.

Twins Notes (3.20.08)

• Stats Blog recently analyzed the potential break-out players in 2008, 25-and-under, based upon increase in slugging percentage. Prince Fielder had the largest increase of slugging of 135 between 2006 (.483) and 2007 (.618), his second consecutive year with that honor. The 6th overall on the list was Jason Kubel, who increased his slugging percentage 64 points from 2006 (.386) to 2007 (.450). Kubel, a favorite to have a big season based both on his second-half performance in 2007, his peripheral stats and now slugging track record, has had a very strong spring posting a .250/.341/.417 in 36 at-bats with 2 home runs but most importantly 5 walks and only 2 strike outs. "Jason Kubel will be in there every once in a while [italics added]. We have a new baseball team out there. The good thing about it is these guys are game-on. They are all playing pretty good. We have been mixing in a lot of people." Gardenhire said, which echoed previous sentiments he relayed earlier in the month. "Kubel proved he can hit the second half [of 2007]," Gardenhire told columnist Patrick Ruesse, "I've decided that with him what you see is what you're going to get. He's going to be that speed. And when he turns it up a notch, we don't notice. It's not that much of a notch." Although all indications suggest that Kubel is a strong candidate to have a break-out season, his manager is the only one who is seemingly not convinced.

• Speaking of increase in power, over at Lookout Landing, they discovered (thanks to the new Fangraphs charts) that relief pitcher Matt Guerrier had the 6th highest increase of miles per hour on his fastball since 2005 at 2.0%. Not surprisingly, he experienced a proliferation in use as he provided confidence in a bullpen that was reeling with the loss of Jesse Crain and Dennys Reyes in 2007. Along with his fastball, his strikeout rate increased from 12% to 19% from 2006 to 2007. He finished with 14 holds -- one less than Pat Neshek and tied with Juan Rincon. With Crain and Reyes healthy for 2008, Guerrier's role is undefined after giving up as many runs as he has thrown innings this spring (7) and has seen them littered with hits (11) but he also missed four days this spring due to "family issues". Guerrier was listed at one of the potential internal replacements for Joe Nathan as the closer. "With his big breaking ball," Gardenhire said, "as a starter he'd get through two times through the lineup. But now you put him in the pen and let him go through the lineup once, and he eats them up." Guerrier proved to be reasonably effective in late & close situations, especially compared to Rincon (124 plate appearances, .274/.331/.434 versus 96 plate appearances, .298/.372/.452), Guerrier was vastly inferior to Neshek who posted a .135/.220/.262 line in 126 plate appearances. Though the increase in usage in the "late & close" situation suggest that Guerrier may have the make-up to be a closer, Neshek is still the clear choice to be the heir apparent.

• Then again, Joe Nathan is pretty confident that a deal with the Twins is imminent. "They had a good meeting and it seems like both sides are heading in the right direction," said Nathan. "From the way my agent is talking, this thing looks closer to getting done." Nathan, who was second only to Boston's Jonathon Papelbon in save conversion (90.2% to 92.5%), and is deserving of a long-term contract. Unlike various closers with gaudy save numbers Nathan has consistently secure games that have a differential of 2 runs or less while some closers obtain saves with a 3 or 4 run cushion (Cleveland's Joe Borowski and Detroit's Todd Jones come to mind). In spite of his dominance, he hasn't been nearly as unhittable in "late & close" situations as Neshek was in 2007. Nathan, in 199 plate appearances in situations that quantified as "late & close" by Baseball-Reference.com, had a batting line of .219/.284/.331. As mentioned before, Neshek posted a .135/.220/.262 in 126 plate appearances. Though I wouldn't mind a Neshek/Nathan combo in the 8th and 9th, if Nathan is traded mid-season, the Twins are in good hands with the hometown hero.

• While the starting rotation has as much resolve as the plot of Lost, several unexpected pitchers are throwing themselves into the race. Brian Bass certainly has done everything possible to earn a spot. In 10.2 innings this spring, Bass has compiled 8 strike outs, walked only 2 and has had a 1.74 era. "He's put himself in a good situation here to be one of our options, to be one of the guys on our staff," Gardenhire said. "It will probably go right down to the end until we have to make a decision. We like him a lot [but] it's just going to be what is the best fit." Bass re-emerged with the stuff that once made him a prospect in the Royals organization in 2007 and led the organization in greatest increase in strikeout rate from the previous season among Twins minor league prospects (from 11% in 2006 to 19% in 2007). As previously stated, the final spots in the rotation/bullpen have yet to be defined, but the most common names circulating among the Twins writers are Blackburn, Humber and Perkins. Bass has not been granted the opportunity to start in spite of his 2007 performance and early spring dominance while the aforementioned three have all had at least one start a piece. The unfortunate situation for Bass (or more appropriately the Twins) is that he is out of options and will either have to be placed on the team or risked being sent through the waivers before being reassigned to Rochester -- a risky venture considering his most recent numbers and the eternal search for pitching. An argument could have been presented to retain Bass and never sign Livan Hernandez, however, Bass could not contributed that "veteran leadership" that a 33-year-old could supply.