The (2007) ‘Pen is Mightier

In 2007 manager Ron Gardenhire leaned on his bullpen to pitch 32.6% of the team's total innings. This was below the American League average of 34%. Limiting the use of the bullpen was critical with injuries to Dennys Reyes and Jesse Crain. The 2007 starting rotation provided the Twins with an ample 5.9 innings per start allowing much needed rest to the bullpen. The relievers, in response, provided 469.1 solid innings holding opponents to a .255/.325/.403 batting line as the starters were getting pummeled at a .276/.324/.445 clip. With only 18 of the team’s 83 losses attributed to the second fiddlers, the 2007 relief staff was effective in the later innings in both maintaining leads and the wherewithal to earn 20 victories as well. Below is the bullpen sorted by the percentage of relief innings provided.

2007	inning%	K%	bb%	avg	obp	slg	fip
Guerrier	18%	19.3%	5.9%	.220	.276	.342	3.98
Nathan	15%	27.3%	6.7%	.209	.264	.310	2.73
Neshek	14%	26.6%	9.7%	.183	.266	.325	n/a
Rincon	12%	18.0%	10.3%	.273	.356	.437	5.19
Reyes	6%	15.1%	15.1%	.309	.419	.391	4.68
Crain	3%	14.1%	5.6%	.292	.338	.536	6.19
Twins Relief Avg:	x	19.1%	8.5%	.255	.325	.403	x
League Relief Avg:	x	18.5%	9.9%	.257	.336	.398	x

As you can see, the Twins relief support was across the board slightly better than league average in all categories except slugging. This is attributed to the use of Juan Rincon who Gardenhire used in 12% of the relief innings, only to be torched for a slugging percentage of .437. The top three of the heaviest utilized pitchers, Guerrier, Nathan and Neshek, comprised of 47% of the relief innings and provided much better innings that your average reliever. When those three were on last year, it was like watching an Olympic relay team handing off a baton at a full sprint. Seventh inning Guerrier. Eighth inning Neshek. Nathan in the ninth. They inspired confidence.

The current year has been a different story altogether. The confidence that Twins fans felt with Nathan anchoring the back-end, Neshek in the 8th and a combination of Guerrier and Reyes in the 7th would give the Twins the best chance to win snapped when Neshek's arm did and the bullpen shuffle began. The starting rotation has only been able to supply an average of 5.7 innings per start in the first 66 games of the season. Because of this, Gardenhire has increased the relief staff usage to 36% (214.2) of the total innings (591) which is a sharp contrast to the 33% American League average. This increased reliance on the bullpen exacerbates the existing condition that the staff is depleted. To date, the bullpen has been responsible for nine losses. "We were complaining about having 13 pitchers right now," Gardenhire said, "but we've needed every single one of them."

2008	inning%	K%	bb%	avg	obp	slg	fip
Bass	19%	9.6%	7.5%	.312	.369	.547	6.18
Guerrier	16%	15.1%	10.1%	.262	.342	.383	4.54
Rincon	13%	15.0%	12.0%	.292	.389	.478	5.85
Nathan	12%	26.2%	4.9%	.250	.264	.316	2.54
Crain	12%	16.1%	10.2%	.267	.339	.448	4.84
Reyes	9%	13.9%	7.6%	.268	.333	.380	3.65
Neshek	6%	26.7%	7.1%	.240	.291	.460	n/a
Twins Relief Avg:	x	16.3%	8.8%	.273	.343	.471	x
League Relief Avg:	x	18.8%	10.3%	.249	.331	.383	x

The pitchers that are now compiling 48% of the relief innings (Bass, Guerrier and Rincon) are substantially worse than your league average reliever. Brian Bass’s long relief duties have been riddled with offensive explosions (5.05 era) as he has been summoned to the mound with 31 inherited runs, seven of which have scored (23% IRA%). Bass has progressed since his May 24th Detroit debacle, only allowing three runs in almost ten innings of relief while stranding all nine inherited runners in that time. Unfortunately Bass had been tagged for three extra base hits including two home runs in those ten innings as well an indication that he is not . Juan Rincon’s demise has been well-documented as of late. The Twins blogosphere seems to be echoing the same three letters: DFA. According to Joe Christensen, the Twins have outrighted Rincon to Rochester (SENTIMENTALITY ALERT: with the release of Rincon, it effectively terminates any connection to the 2002 American League Central Champion Twins. Cuddyer, who played 41 games in 2002 in addition to 8 play-off games, is the last refuge). I suggested recently that Rincon should begin to work his slider more frequently now that the velocity on his fastball is decreasing. Instead, Rincon had increasingly thrown the fastball at a great frequency resulting in his .478 slugging percentage. Rincon will undoubtedly opt for free agency instead of accepting the minor league assignment which will allow any team to sign him (and his baggage). Any team that is desperate enough for a right-handed arm should consider getting Rincon to focus on the off-speed pitch.

Of the three, Matt Guerrier has been the most disappointing. Guerrier’s innings volume in 2007 is derivative of his use as a long-reliever in the beginning months of the seasons. He was so successful in that role that he was the natural choice to graduate to a 7th inning man. In April 2007, Guerrier was averaging 1.5 innings per outing. By the end of the season Guerrier was averaging about one inning per outing as his role was changed to short right-handed relief when Jesse Crain was disabled for the season and Neshek was shut down in September. What helped Guerrier were his breaking balls that were set up by a very good 92 mph fastball. Both his curveball (80 mph) and slider (86 mph) had high-rates of swing and misses (.348 and .364 WHIFF rates, respectively) and therefore led to his best strikeout rate of his career (19.3%). Guerrier’s emergence brought fortitude to an otherwise unstable bullpen. This season in his set-up role, Guerrier has accumulated seven holds but has been hit harder and has let more base runners on (10.0% bb%, .342 obp) then he had in his previous season. These erratic tendencies has made Guerrier less than the sure-thing set-up man that made Pat Neshek so valuable. The only difference in Guerrier’s pitch selection is that he is leaning slightly more on his fastball (58% vs. 55%) this season at the expense of his curveball (13% vs. 17%). This is notable because Guerrier's curve is much more likely to obtain a miss (nearly 35% of the time) than his fastball (18%).

Assuming that Boof Bonser, Brian Bass and Craig Breslow will shoulder some of the innings that were left for Rincon, the Twins will now be using a mixture of Reyes, Crain and Guerrier to bridge the starts from their 5.7 innings to Joe Nathan in the ninth. Things could be far worse. Dennys Reyes will continued to be asked to retire the left-handed slugger like Texas's Josh Hamilton or Cleveland's Grady Sizemore in late inning situations. As was the case last night when Reyes elevated a slider to Sizemore who redirected the pitch to the right field bleachers, the results may vary. So far this season, Reyes has inherited 26 runners allowing eight of them to score (30% IRA%). Reyes's numbers from his 2006 season when he posted a 0.89 era (2.92 fip) have changed in the past two seasons. In that season, Reyes essentially threw two pitches, a fastball (58%, 90.1 mph) and a slider (35%, 84.8 mph). This not only rendered left-handed hitters grossly ineffective (.148/.219/.205) but also the right-handed counterparts (.244/.299/.344) those two pitches helped Reyes get groundballs on nearly 73% of balls in play. This season, Reyes has been the same two pitch pitcher but has increased the amount of use of his slider from the 35% in 2006 to 47% of the time in 2008. Although left-handed opponents are still finding Reyes difficult to solve (.200/.250/.289) but right-handed hitters are crushing him (.385/.467/.538). In 2006, Reyes used the fastball exclusively against the right-handers (66% of the time). This season, right-handers are getting far fewer fastballs (43%) and are evidently hitting the off-speed offerings more. The 2008 version of Reyes isn't nearly as satisfying as the 2006 edition. "He's got more stuff that I don't know about. He changes arm angles, maybe spins it a little more, things like that. He's using a split-finger as a changeup a little bit this year," pitching coach Rick Anderson said. "He sees the same guys, so he's always adding things."

Crain is the question mark. His fastball, one that was reaching 94.3 on average prior to the surgery, is still effective at 93.7. The curveball, when thrown (only 12% of his total), has a big break with a decent change in speed (77 mph) to keep hitters off-balance. Though his month of May was littered with walks (12.3% bb%), his month of June so far has seen a much more controlled Crain (7.6% bb%). In 2006 the Twins assumed that Crain was going to be a solid sixth/seventh inning set-up man interchangeable with the fading Juan Rincon but after last year's shoulder surgery it was a mystery as to what Crain would be able to provide. The Twins management obvious have confidence in him. When asked his preference to replace the injured Neshek Ron Gardenhire said "I think Crain is my first choice. We'll go with match-ups, where we're at and what guys have done against other teams. I think we'll go Crain and Matt Guerrier, and then we'll probably use [left-hander Dennys] Reyes to get some of those lefties out in those innings. I think that with his stuff, he can absolutely handle it. Using that breaking ball like you saw last night -- that curveball, that back-door breaking ball -- his fastball is good enough, obviously. He's throwing it well."

Notebook Dump (6.11.08)

Game: Indians 1, Twinks 0

Box Score

Record: 31-34, 2^nd, 6.5 back

Streak: Lost six

* Two days after I highlighted the fact that the Twins had been their own worst enemies on the basepaths, Carlos Gomez and Matt Macri made two fatal base-running gaffs. Macri was caught stealing in a pick-off by Sabathia after leading off the third with a bunt single thus thwarting any attempt at the rally. However, Gomez's fubar was possible more of a problem for the Twins considering the implications of Gomez on base without any outs. In the first, Gomez singled on a grounder through the third base/shortstop hole and Alexi Casilla followed that with a perfectly executed bunt single past the girthy CC Sabathia and slow-footed Ryan Garko at first. According to BillJamesOnline.net, Gomez is currently ninth in the majors with 66 runs scored when leading off the inning. When he reaches base leading off an inning, the Twins score approximately 1.69 runs that inning.

With the two speedsters on base with no outs, the Twins seemed to be guaranteed at least that amount. Another reason to anticipate runs was that Joe Mauer has been just as effective against left-handed pitchers as he had against the right. For the season, Mauer has been hitting .364/.394/.485 against lefties in 71 plate appearances. Sabathia, meanwhile, has been hit fairly well by his left-handed batting counterparts, being hit at a .255/.305/.459 clip. Mauer took three pitches, leading to a 1-2 count and sized up the fourth (a 93.7 mph fastball) that was thrown low and on the outer-half of the plate. The ball projected off of Mauer’s bat on a line that was consistent with the positioning of Indians left fielder Ben Francisco. On FSN, Bert Blyleven began to rant about Joe has failed to “pull” that pitch to successfully advance the runners. Reviewing the swing on TiVo and judging from the pitch f/x data from GameDay, it would seem that there was nothing that Joe could have done with the pitch aside from a) letting it be called strike three, b) fouling it off or c) attempting to pull the ball that would have been a turned over for a grounder to second and a possible double-play ball. But, as sharply hit as it was, Mauer failed to move the runners up and in the process became the first of twenty-seven precious outs.

This brought up Justin Morneau. For his career, Morneau had been ineffective against Sabathia. In 46 plate appearances against the Cleveland hurler from Vallejo, California the Canadian masher had accumulated just six hits (2 of which were doubles) and produced a small .167/.279/.306 batting line. Sabathia approached Morneau the same way as he did Mauer. He busted him away with fastballs and sliders. On the 1-2 pitch, Sabathia released a 94 mph fastball that was a tad up in the zone and covered more plate than he would have liked. Morneau drove the pitch towards the left-center gap at Progressive Field. Replays would show Gomez dancing off second trying to visualize where the Morneau shot would land. Gomez’s instincts must have told him that the ball was destined for sod because after the momentary pause he was off like a blaze and had already rounded third when the ball came to rest in the fleet-footed Ben Francisco’s glove. The problem, of course, was the Gomez failed to recognize that even if he stood perfectly still at second, he still had enough speed to score had the ball found grass. In 12 opportunities this year to go from 2^nd to home, Gomez had done so 10 times. All he had to do was wait to see it bounce.

"He thought for sure it was in the gap and he put his head down," Gardenhire said. "But you've got to watch the ball. Obviously, he got too excited there. You have to slow the game down a bit. But it's a young man mistake."

"I saw the outfielders play deep, and I thought the ball is going down hard," Gomez said. "He hit it low, and ... I looked at the ball -- I didn't think [Francisco] had a chance."

Unfortunately for Gomez, that one run was the difference. After that inning, Sabathia cruised, shutting down the Twins for the duration of the game.

"They put the bat on the ball pretty good early and then they made a base-running mistake," said Sabathia, "From there, I tried to attack them. I didn't think about the score. I just wanted to keep it close, whatever that means, and give us a chance to win."

Stealer's Wheels (Offensive Edition)

In Dayn Perry's exploratory book "Winners: How Good Baseball Teams Become Great Ones", Perry attempts to quantify and explain what elements playoff teams in the modern era all shared in common. The chapters are divided into areas such as "the Slugger", "the Ace", "the Middle Reliever" and so on. In chapter six Perry tackles the value of having a base stealer on the roster. Baseball researchers dating back to George Lindsey to Pete Palmer to John Thorn have applied the run value of the stolen base and also the runs lost when a would-be stealer is thrown out. At Tangotiger.net, the researchers there have updated the formula and released their findings that a stolen base results in 0.185 runs. Conversely, being caught stealing costs the team 0.46 runs as the out recorded is much worse than the added base. In order to reap dividends, a player or team needs to have a success rate of greater than 72% in order to have a gain in runs, anything less than 72% is detrimental to a team. Likewise, a catcher (and the pitching staff as well) needs to be successful 29% of the time in throwing runners out to avoid having opponents score additional runs.

Based on that model, Perry identified the top ten all-time teams based on their net runs via stolen bases. The 1985 St Louis Cardinals, who had Vince Coleman (110), Willie McGee (56), Andy Van Slyke (34), Ozzie Smith (31) and Tommy Herr (31) had what is regarded as one of the speediest teams on the basepaths. Thanks to the quick astroturf at the old Busch Stadium, the Cardinals were able to swipe 314 bases and being caught just 96 times leading to 17.8 net runs. The 1985 Cardinals finished 101-61, just three games ahead of the New York Mets. Those 17.8 runs could have meant the difference of three games to the Cardinals resulting in clinching the NL East championship title. Oddly enough, the Cardinals who had used their speed to project themselves into the playoffs, only attempted to steal just five times in the seven game World Series against cross-state rival Kansas City. Royals catcher Jim Sundberg threw out two Cardinals as well. (During the regular season, Sandberg had thrown out 29.2% of potential base runners - a significant deduction from his 1984 season with the Texas Rangers when he threw out 50% of would-be stealers). The 2002 Minnesota Twins, on the other hand, were the second worst base-stealers ever. The team that led the organization back into the playoffs for the first time since 1991 were not particularly adept at pilfering the extra base. Torii Hunter led the team with 23 steals (8 times caught) while Cristian Guzman, Corey Koskie and Jacque Jones were all thrown out more times than they were successful. In total, the team stole 79 bases and were caught 62 times costing them 14.7 runs. Since the Twins won the Central by 13 games, the net loss was moot.

This is all relevant to the 2008 Twins because one of the team's biggest attributes, speed, has also been to this point, a hindrance. In 2007 during his short tenure with the New York Mets Carlos Gomez stole 12 bases in 15 attempts (an 80% success rate). This 90-foot gamble netted Gomez and the Mets an additional 0.84 runs. In the offseason when the Twins targeted the speedy outfielder there were optimistic estimates that Gomez could steal 50-75 bases as soon as this year - a threshold that hasn't been crossed since former Twins Chuck Knoblauch stole 62 bases in 1997. Those 62 bases were a Twins record (fourth best in the franchise dating back to Washington). Knoblauch, who would go on to steal 407 career bases (a 77% success rate), gave the Twins an additional 6.87 runs that season. To be sure, stealing 62 bases added just 7 runs. Through his first 57 games in 1997, Knoblauch had obtained 27 bases by means of thievery while being erased just twice (93% success rate). Gomez hasn't been nearly as fortunate. In his first 57 games over a decade later, Gomez has swiped just 17 bases and has been thrown out seven times (70% success rate). While Gomez still have over 100 games to steal 45 more bases, the rate of which he is being caught is alarming. Over the past 15 games, Gomez has been successful once in his five attempts. At times it doesn't appear that Gomez is analyzing his opportunity at all. Nevertheless, his 17 total bases stolen places him in the top ten of base stealers:

Player	Team	SB	CS	SB%
Ellsbury	BOS	28	3	90.3%
Suzuki	SEA	26	2	92.9%
Upton	TB	20	6	76.9%
Roberts	BAL	18	5	78.3%
Gomez	MIN	17	7	70.8%
Kinsler	TEX	17	0	100%
Crawford	TB	16	4	80.0%
Gathright	KC	16	2	88.9%
Sizemore	CLE	15	2	88.2%
Rios	TOR	14	4	77.8%

However, if we were to rank the players on the runs which the stolen bases/caught stealing led to we see a different picture all together:

Player	Team	SB	CS	SB%	Runs +/-
Suzuki	SEA	26	2	92.9%	3.9
Ellsbury	BOS	28	3	90.3%	3.8
Kinsler	TEX	17	0	100%	3.1
Gathright	KC	16	2	88.9%	2.1
Sizemore	CLE	15	2	88.2%	1.9
Crawford	TB	16	4	80.0%	1.2
Roberts	BAL	18	5	78.3%	1.0
Upton	TB	20	6	76.9%	0.9
Rios	TOR	14	4	88.2%	0.8
Gomez	MIN	17	7	70.8%	-0.1

Gomez, thanks to his league leading seven caught stealing, has actually costing the Twins (even the same fraction that it is) runs. When we look further into the numbers, is evident that the Dome's surface aids Gomez. Part of Gomez's problem is his inability to accept that he is not a good of a base stealer on grass as he is on turf. While playing at the Dome, Gomez had stole 11 bases in 13 attempts, a 84% success rate. On the road, Gomez has been successful only five times out of ten attempts, a 50% success rate. This is a stark contrast to the remainder of the team. At home the Twins have stolen 25 bases and have been caught 10 times (71% success rate). On the road, the Twins have 20 stolen bases and been caught stealing eight times (71% success rate). As a whole, the Twins are currently ranked fourth among the American League franchises with 45 stolen bases:

Team	SB	CS	SB%
TB	69	23	75%
BOS	58	12	82%
LAA	49	17	74%
MIN	45	18	71%
SEA	44	11	80%
BAL	43	20	68%
TOR	43	21	67%
KC	36	20	64%
CLE	33	10	76%
TEX	33	8	80%

Like the analysis above, the application of the stolen base formula shows a different picture. The efficient and sabermetrically influenced Boston Red Sox have used their speed at the appropriate times resulting in a 82% success rate. This basepath prowess has provided the Red Sox with 5.2 additional runs (a drop in the bucket considering their 332 runs scored). Seattle, which is having a hard time finding runs with an average of 4.03 per game (second lowest in the AL), has benefited from running at opportune moments adding 3.0 runs. Tampa Bay, who were originally topping the list with 69 stolen bases, have added runs (2.1) through the sheer volume of attempts, stealing at 75% success rate while running 92 times, but fell to fourth on the list. The Twins have dropped from fourth to seventh as their 71% stolen base rate has led to zero runs.

Team	SB	CS	SB%	Runs +/-
BOS	58	12	82%	5.2
SEA	44	11	80%	3.0
TEX	33	8	80%	2.4
TB	69	23	75%	2.1
CLE	33	10	76%	1.5
LAA	49	17	74%	1.3
MIN	45	18	71%	0.0
BAL	43	20	68%	-1.2
TOR	43	21	67%	-1.2
KC	36	20	64%	-2.5

As this bizarre American League Central season wears on, it is apparent that the Twins are going to need to retain every run that they could possibly obtain. Like the 1985 Cardinals who had overcome the powerful New York Mets by three games in the NL East, the Twins may be in a dogfight with the White Sox come fall. It is one thing to have the necessary components such as speed, but it is another thing to use it in a way that hurts the bottom-line. The White Sox, by the way, are debted -1.2 runs due to their basepath adventures. Limiting Gomez on the basepaths to unleash his speed more frequently at home rather than on the road would provide a positive net runs gained.

Notebook Dump (6.8.08)

Game: White Sox 11, Twinks 2

Box Score

Record: 31-31, 2nd place, 4.5 behind Sox

Streak: 3 losses

*.643/.706/1.786 - Joe Crede's batting line the past four games. In addition to going 9-for-14, Crede has had 6 extra base hits including 5 home runs and a double with 10 runs driven in. "Whatever we're doing is not working," catcher Mike Redmond said. "It's the same way we've pitched him in the past. This year he seems really locked on and locked in. ... It seems like everything he hits right now is a home run, a big hit or hit hard. We're definitely going to have to make some adjustments for him." One of those adjustments could have been pitching around him with one out and runners on second and third. Sending Crede to first base would have set up the double play ball and would have brought up the nine hitter in Alexi Ramirez. To be sure, Hernandez's pitch was diving below the knees when Crede reached down and pulled it towards the Twins left field bullpen.

* 51 - Hernandez is now third in the American League with 11 home runs surrendered as well as first in earned runs (51) and hits allowed (124). In fact, Hernandez is on pace to over take Phil Niekro's record of 311 hits set in 1979 while pitching for the Atlanta Braves. "Always in my whole career, I have a lot of hits," Hernandez said. "That's the way I pitch. I'm not a strikeout pitcher. I give up a lot of hits every year. It's not something new for me." This is true. Hernandez has led the league in hits allowed in 2007, 2005, 2001, 2000 and 1998. In his past five starts dating back to his May 17th start in Colorado, Hernandez is averaging a game score of 28 - well below that of a quality start. In those 28.2 innings of work, opponents are batting .416/.425/.592.

* Just Enough/Lucky - Hittrackeronline.com, the cerebral home run tracking database that generates accurate "true distance" of home runs then categorizes them into three types (No-Doubts, Plenty and Just Enough/Lucky). Essentially, a No-Doubt would have been a home run at any park and Plenty would have been at most. Just Enough/Lucky considers other factors such as wind assisted, power alleys, etc that may have aided a home run. The website says that the home runs that came on at-bat #258 for Delmon Young traveled a distance of 375 feet from home plate and almost scrapped the backside of the US Cellular wall on the way back down - categorized as Just Enough/Lucky. Even so, it was nice to see that this pitched was pulled to the left-center power alley. We could be on the cusp of seeing more pitches pulled by Delmon Young.

Juan Gone?

In his previous five outings prior to Tuesday's, Rincon had worked 7.2 innings and given up five earned runs while walking five and striking out four. In two of those outings the Twins brought Rincon in with three runners on base, all of which scored under Rincon's watch. Instead of entering games in which the victory hangs in the balance, the Twins are now forced to cherry-pick situations that Rincon has a high probability of success and the Twins have a minimal risk of losing. On May 19th against Texas, the Twins and Rangers were deadlocked at six a piece with the bottom half of the order coming to the plate in the top of the 11th. Rincon retired rookie Brandon Boggs (92 pa, .262/.319/.369 vs RHP) on a popped bunt but then gave up a double to Frank Catalanotto followed by walks to Saltalamacchi and Vazquez. With the bases now loaded and the game on the line, Gardenhire replaced Rincon with rookie Bobby Korecky who rescued the Twins by getting Kinsler to pop out to center and striking out Michael Young. That outing was followed by appearances in the 1-10 loss to Texas, the 3-19 game against the Tigers and the improbable 9-8 win against the Royals (although Rincon was used when the game was 3-6). On May 31st against the Yankees, Rincon send the sixth (Giambi, .907 ops), seventh (Cano, .597 ops) and eighth (Molina, .548 ops) batters down 1-2-3 in the top of the 11th, but ultimately lost the game in the 12th after getting Cabrera to ground out then gave up three straight singles to Damon, Jeter and Abreu. Brian Bass had to retire Giambi to end the inning.

"By no means are we giving up on him," Twins pitching coach Rick Anderson said. "We're just trying to find situations for him to have success and hope he builds off of that." The Twins are not quite giving up on him, but he has certainly been downgraded. On Tuesday, Juan Rincon was summoned to retire the Orioles less-than-formidable seventh (Ramon Hernandez, .625 ops), eighth (Adam Jones, .661 ops) and ninth (Freddie Bynum, .530 ops) batters with the Twins down by two entering the seventh inning. This non-critical task was the evident confidence builder. Hernandez had been struggling against right-handed pitchers this season, hitting .211/.245/.368 in 144 plate appearances. Likewise, Jones was having similar problems, hitting .233/.270/.344, while Bynum was a foregone conclusion (.211/.262/.281). Rincon, with all of his faults on the season, had handled right-handed batters well. Right-handed opponents were hitting only .204/.328/.278 off of him. The lead would be safe and the Twins, who have gotten quite good at scoring in the late innings, would scratch out two more runs off of the Orioles bullpen. Bing, bang, boom. Rincon, on queue, surrendered a double to right to Hernandez, followed that by launching a ball to the backstop then gave up a single back through the box to Jones to score Hernandez who had moved up to third on the wild pitch. Gardenhire emerged from the dugout, gave the left-arm double-tap - signaling the newly acquired Craig Breslow in from the bullpen - and just like that, Rincon's night was over. The next day, Rincon told reporters "I feel I've just had tough luck. This is a tough time. What do you want me to say? I've been working hard for it, but it's just not working. I'm working as hard as you can work. I definitely don't want to be in this spot, but things are not working and it hasn't been because of a lack of effort or a lack of commitment."

Gardenhire has come to Rincon's defense saying that his velocity has been the same but his location has been up in the zone. Evidence at Fangraphs suggests otherwise. According to their statistics, Rincon has had a steadily declining fastball and slider - his two weapons of choice. In 2005 Rincon, then 26-years-old, pitched 77 innings and struck out nearly 27% of batters faced. His fastball was averaging 94.1 mph and his slider was averaging 87.1 mph. In 2006 through 2008, both his velocity and strikeouts dropped noticeably. In 2006 Rincon's fastball was registering 93 and the slider was at 86.9 while his strikeout rate dropped to 20.6%. In 2007 his fastball was the same (93) but he had lost a bit on his slider (86.0) along with his strikeout rate (18% k%). This season, contrary to the manager's insistence, Rincon has had several more miles per hour shaved off both pitches. The radar gun is only averaging 91.0 mph on his fastball and his slider is at 84.4 mph. Along with the lowered velocity came a lower strikeout rate, just 15%. As the chart below will indicate, these numbers are seemingly correlated to his performance (as gauged by the Fielding Independent metric):

	FBv	SLv	K%	BB%	FIP
2005	94.1	87.1	26.3%	9.4%	2.63
2006	93.0	86.1	20.6%	7.6%	2.89
2007	93.0	86.0	18.0%	10.3%	5.19
2008	91.0	84.4	15.7%	13.0%	4.69

Studying his pitch usage dating back to 2004 on BillJamesOnline.net, we find that there is small, if any change in the balance of his fastball/slider combination. On occasion an addition of a pitch may lead to greater success. Sometimes eliminating one will do the trick (as was the case when Joe Nathan was traded from the Giants and he all but ditched his curveball). Rincon, however, has been a two-trick pony since his major league inception. In 2004, he used his fastball 54% of the time and his slider 27%. Four seasons later, Rincon is still implementing the same two basic pitches, leaning more on his fastball (66%) over his slider (31%), but his pitches aren't getting to the batter as quickly as they once did.

Even though his pitch selection remains fairly consistent, one difference between the years has been the way he has pitched to left-handed batters. In 2004, the season in which he accumulated 102 strikeouts in 82 innings, Rincon was dominating left-handed batting, more so even than the right-handed opponents. In 189 plate appearances, righties hit .206/.285/.285 with a 27.7% strikeout rate. Lefties, on the other hand, were batting just .148/.239/.238 with a 39% strikeout rate in 138 plate appearances. The 2004 pitch data is incomplete and has numerous holes (17% of his pitches went uncharted), but it appeared that he was throwing fewer fastballs (56%) and more sliders (25%) to left-handed batters than he will in subsequent seasons:

vs. LHB	FB%	SL%	AVG	OBP	SLG	K%
2005	62%	23%	.218	.318	.269	27.7%
2006	70%	26%	.222	.283	.239	20.9%
2007	74%	23%	.313	.402	.513	18.1%
2008	79%	18%	.333	.429	.476	14.1%

As you will note, as Rincon's fastball velocity decreases from 2005-2008, his reliance on the pitch increases along with opponent's batting averages. Note too, that with the decline in sliders thrown, has directly correlated with his declining strikeout rate (minus the usage spike in 2006, but he threw more fastballs than the season before). As a player that finds his status of remaining a Minnesota Twins in serious jeopardy, it might be time to resurrect the formula in which Rincon originally obtained success. With Pat Neshek out for the season and Jesse Crain still rebuilding from his season off, Rincon was expected to be a vital part of the bullpen. These adjustments are necessary to avoid Rincon and his $2.47 million being thrown out the Dome's revolving doors.