The Billy Smith Factor

Between Terry Ryan's draft picks and acquisitions in conjunction with Billy Smith's offseason signings, trades and waiver wire pick ups, the Twins have produced nearly 8 games above an average team (The team is playing 78-65, nearly 8 games over .500). The unfortunate part is that while Billy Smith had been playing swap-meet to benefit the club, it has in actuality been his biggest hindrance to securing a playoff position. The collect of players contributed by the former general manager have accounted for nearly 13 wins above what a team full of replacements would provide. Meaning absent Smith's contributions, the team would be closer to 84-59 instead of the 78-65. The players added by Smith attrition approximately 7 of those games, with Carlos Gomez (-2.81), Livan Hernandez (-2.06) and Delmon Young (-1.03) being the main culprits.

What we can tell is this judging from the talent amassed by the Ryan Ragime and the new one: Billy Smith, much like his predecessor, is not savvy at building for short-term success of the organization. Smith's wheeling and dealing was a net loss to the Twins of nearly 7 entire games. This is not unlike Ryan in his past seasons. Last year with Ryan at the helm, the signings of Jeff Cirillo, Sidney Ponson and Ramon Ortiz cost the Twins a little over 2 games in the standings. Factor in the decision to resign Rondell White - which resulted in another loss of -0.64 wpa - Ryan's offseason orchestration cost the team a little over 3 games. These 3 games were not vital to the cause as several other key players (Morneau, Mauer, Hunter, Punto) and the entire pitching staff grossly underperformed from their 2006 version and the 2007 team would have been just 82-80 rather than the actual 79-83. The point is still valid that Bill Smith, like his successor whom he learned under, may have the same skills as Ryan did when building for the short-term.

Admittedly, most of Smith's moves where directed for the long-term. It is obvious that Smith, much like Ryan, is thinking about the stability and sustainability of the organization. First, his offseason trades of Johan Santana to the Mets and Matt Garza, Jason Bartlett and Eduardo Morlan were not projected to be trades to have an immediate impact in the win column. Delmon Young is under the team's control for several more years while Carlos Gomez barely has a year of MLB service and the pitching trio of Philip Humber, Kevin Mulvey and Deolis Guerra are still another year away each from contributing to the big club. Aside from Young and Branden Harris, none of those obtained were really expected to have an immediate impact. Furthermore, the trade deadline passed without the Twins taking a mortgage out on the future. There were plenty of offers made, but the Twins held fast and choose not to part with any more pitching prospects. Clearly a sign that Smith is maintaining the same course as the previous ship's captain.

Plainly, Smith's short-term signings have been disastrous. Craig Monroe (-0.10), Adam Everett (-0.36), Mike Lamb (-0.37), and Livan Hernandez (-2.06) all were largely detrimental to the team's record, deflecting nearly 3 wins away from the team. Even as the team found themselves charging towards a pennant race with a maimed bullpen, Smith's trade of minor league pitcher Mike Hamburger to Texas for Eddie Guardado has yet to produce any fruits (-0.16) while other move that he should have made at the waiver deadline (Chad Bradford) has contributed 0.43 wpa to the American League East leading Tampa Bay Rays. What's more is that only the brief play of Howie Clark (+0.27) and the waiver wire acquisition of Craig Breslow (+0.28) has added to the win column that could be accounted to Smith's general managing.

Terry Ryan - Offense	Acquired	WPA
J. Mauer	Drafted	+3.93
J. Morneau	Drafted	+3.80
J. Kubel	Drafted	+0.70
D. Span	Drafted	+1.03
M. Cuddyer	Drafted	-0.23
B. Buscher	Trade + Developed	+0.41
N. Punto	Trade	-0.41
A. Casilla	Trade + Developed	-1.19
M. Redmond	Free Agent	-1.57
2008 Total:		+6.52

Terry Ryan - Pitching	Acquired	WPA
B. Bonser	Trade + Developed	-1.45
K. Slowey	Drafted	0.78
N. Blackburn	Drafted	0.81
G. Perkins	Drafted	0.95
F. Liriano	Trade + Developed	0.87
S. Baker	Drafted	2.52
J. Rincon	Developed	-0.75
J. Crain	Drafted	-0.62
P. Neshek	Drafted	0.03
M. Guerrier	Trade + Developed	0.41
D. Reyes	Free Agent	0.13
B. Bass	Free Agent	0.05
J. Nathan	Trade	3.38
2008 Total:		+6.24

Billy Smith - Offense	Acquired	WPA
H. Clark	Free Agent	+0.27
R. Ruiz	Free Agent	-0.06
C. Monroe	Trade (waiver)	-0.10
B. Harris	Trade	-0.25
A. Everett	Free Agent	-0.36
M. Lamb	Free Agent	-0.37
D. Young	Trade	-1.03
C. Gomez	Trade	-2.81
2008 Total:		-4.71

Billy Smith - Pitching	Acquired	WPA
L. Hernandez	Free agent	-2.06
C. Breslow	Waiver	+0.28
E. Guardado	Trade (waiver)	-0.16
2008 Total:		-1.94

2008 Team Total:

78-65

+7.68

Let's play make-believe here for a moment and assume Rays general manager did not want to trade Delmon Young, Brendan Harris or Jason Pridie for Matt Garza, Jason Bartlett or Eduardo Morlan. Try to imagine that there were absolutely no takers on the market for Johan Santana since he, Ben Sheets and C.C. Sabathia were all impending free agents after the 2008 season and nobody was willing to meet what most believed were ransom demands for the southpaw. Visualize for a moment that the Twins retained Torii Hunter for a humongous fee and then pretend that instead of Kyle Lohse being stood up during the hotstove it was Carlos Silva - whom the Twins kept on in 2008 for the same one-year contract St Louis granted Lohse. If those possibilities were not far fetched enough here's where the truth is stretch quite a bit. This scenario would then project that each player that in reality had left the team would still continue their same level of contribution towards winning, therefore, even though it is a given that Carlos Silva would be backed up by a much better defense that the one he currently plays with in Seattle, he still maintains his -2.96 wpa towards the Twins. Likewise, we would assume that the players that did sign or were traded to the Twins maintained their exact same level of production.

Billy Smith - Traded Away/DFA	New Team	WPA
J. Santana	Mets	+3.26
J. Bartlett	Rays	-1.88
M. Garza	Rays	+1.27
T. Hunter	Angels	+0.58
C. Silva	Mariners	-2.96
2008 Total:		+0.27

- The retention of Carlos Silva would mean that Livan Hernandez was never acquired. Silva, however, would prove to be even more detrimental to the team as the difference between Hernandez's -2.06 and Silva's -2.96 would still have been a net loss of -0.90 to the +7.68 wpa total.

- Keeping Santana would thereby mean the Twins would probably have stashed someone young in AAA Rochester - most likely Nick Blackburn . My natural assumption tends to be Blackburn as he was the least experienced professionally among the remaining members of the rotation. Subtract Blackburn's +0.85 from Santana's +3.26 and the Twins would have grabbed an extra 2.41 wins in addition to the team's +7.68 wpa total.

- Having Matt Garza in the rotation would send Glen Perkins to the bullpen (this maneuver would also eliminate Brian Bass from the roster as well) or possibly Rochester. Garza's contribution of +1.27 would be reduced to +0.32 to the +7.68 total when you factor in Perkins's current +0.95 to the positive side of the ledger. There is some debate about what Perkins would contribute had he been placed in the bullpen minus the Brian Bass, most likely a positive one however, that kind of extrapolation is beyond me. Because this is my fantasy and my simplification, let's assume Bass's +0.05 as the long man.

- To this point in the calculations, the team would have added almost 2 victories by not signing Hernandez and keeping Santana and Garza - a total of +9.51.

- Simply swapping Jason Bartlett for Adam Everett is unfair. Both have been hurt at various points in the seasons but Everett has missed much more playing time. Still, instead of Everett's -0.36, pretend that the team was stuck with Bartlett's atrocious -1.88. This would cost the team -1.52 at the shortstop position.

- Because Santana was not traded and Torii Hunter resigned, Carlos Gomez never existed outside of Flushing, New York for Twins fans. Opposed to Go-Go's blackhole of -2.96 wpa, fans were treated to a positive +0.58 at center field. Rather than being 3 games in the hole, the Twins would have added +3.54 games back into in the win column.

- Assuming that Denard Span impressed the Twins enough during spring training to enter camp as a left fielder in the stead of Delmon Young, the Twins would have gained (+1.03) exactly what they lost (-1.03) from the Rays left fielder, which would give the team a positive net of +2.06.

- The absences of Brendan Harris would have placed a significant strain of Nick Punto and Alexi Casilla. This is a more complicated trade off. Therefore I would believe that his playing time would be absorbed between the two switch-hitters, both whom would have been marginally worse than Harris offensively. Double Harris's -0.25 to -0.50 to Casilla's total. So instead of -1.19, Casilla now contributed -1.69.

- Lastly because the Twins had a new-found faith in internal candidate Brian Buscher, Mike Lamb was never signed. Credit the Twins an additional +0.77.

- Through all of the batters' contributions, the Twins would have scratched out +13.86 over the +7.68 current total - a near seven win difference if someone hogtied Billy Smith throughout the offseason.

Bizarro 2008 Team Total:

85-58

+13.86

Was He The Right One?

	age	innings	earned runs	fip	pLI	wpa
E. Guardado	37	2.1	5	2.67	1.17	-0.19
L. Hawkins	35	11	0	0.83	0.90	0.93
C. Bradford	33	9.2	1	3.82	2.16	0.21

The Twins decided due to internal scouting reports not to place a waiver claim on Chad Bradford and instead allowed him to funnel past the team on the waiver wire only to be nabbed by the AL East leading Tampa Bay Rays. Every Ray fan owes Bill Smith a debt of gratitude for that. Since his relocation to Tampa on August 7th for a player to be named later, the Rays have gone 16-6. And that has very much to do with Bradford. Bradford has been used in 12 games, mostly in very high leverage situations (as indicated by his 2.16 pLI). A heavy groundball oriented pitcher thanks to his nearly underarmed motion with a career groundball rate of 64.4%, Bradford went from a team whose defense converted a very low amount of balls in play into outs (.684 DER) to the American League leader (.708 DER). Would Bradford have contributed the same amount of success to the Twins? The answer is probably not. Because Bradford puts the ball in play so frequently he would be reliant on a Twins defense that has been even worse than the Orioles in converting outs (.682 DER).

In my analysis of the Hawk prior to the trade deadline, I suspected that he would be a serviceable addition to any bullpen but that any team that acquires him should anticipate a wide veriety of results. Houston, however, has only found one: success. When the Astros signed Latroy Hawkins after he was designated for free agency by the New York Yankees, there were several eyebrows raised in the baseball community. After all, general manager Ed Wade and his team were 50-57 staring up at a 13.5 game deficient to the division leading Chicago Cubs why invest in an 8th inning guy? Since adding Hawkins, the Astros have the best records in all of baseball going 24-9 in that stretch. For his part, Hawkins has yet to surrender a run and has struck out 43% of the 37 batters faced in his 14 appearances. Unlike Bradford who has been counting on the seven guys behind him to accumulate outs, Hawkins has blown away the National League opponents. What has changed besides venue and fewer match-ups against the strong lineups in the American League East? The Astros have coaxed Hawkins into using his curveball more frequently (15.2%), throwing it slightly less than his slider (18.2%). Yes, it is a small sampling, but even his fastball has more zip on average down south. While with the Yankees, Hawkins was topping out at 92.5 since the move his fastball is hitting 94 on average.

As the Rays and Astros bask in their new found bullpen saviors, the Twins have scratched their heads in wonderment about what went wrong with Eddie. In his short tenure with the club, the Twins have gone 3-5 since the August 25th trade with the Rangers. So far, Guardado has detracted from the team, subtracting 0.19 in their win probability in those 4 appearances. This should not be a surprise to anyone. The 37 year old lefty has been on and off a gurney for the better half of three seasons. When studying his trends last month, it was obvious that his arm my not have the life to pitch an entire season without wear. In August his batting average on balls in play went from .216 in July to .423. Since the swap with the Rangers, Guardado has witness that BABIP spike to .668 thanks to an absurdly high line drive rate. Though just pitching in 4 games and facing a small sample of 16 batters opponents have hit 9 line drives hit off him. This is an indication that he is possibly pitching with a tired arm that is resulting in balls up in the zone.

Notebook Dump (9.3.08)

Game: Twinks 5, Jays 7

Box Score

Post-Game Wrap

Glen Perkins Report Card

Record: 77-51, tied, 1st place

Streak: 1 loss

The Quote: "It's my job to come in and keep us ahead, not put them ahead. This is a game we should have won. Just happens that we didn't win. We know where we're at [in the standings] so every game is big." - Boof Bonser

The Bullpen:

TWINS	% of innings pitched	era	wins	losses
April	35.4%	3.54	4	4
May	35.0%	3.94	6	3
June	34.3%	3.27	6	3
July	29.7%	5.21	3	2
August	30.3%	4.13	2	8

AL AVERAGE	% of innings pitched	era	wins	losses
April	34%	4.14	54	58
May	32.1%	3.43	50	53
June	33.4%	3.74	60	56
July	34.6%	4.29	53	49
August	34.8%	4.45	56	62

1) Ever since the Twins released Livan Hernandez, the bullpen has absorbed fewer innings. The defense for acquiring a veteran arm was to relieve the bullpen of work yet since jettisoning Livan, the Twins have needed to go to the bullpen less. Yet the Twins were forced to go to their bullpen more in the first half of the season - more frequently than the major league average.

2) So, did early overusage wear out the bullpen? Much scrutiny and ballyhoo is paid to the starters and their pitch counts, yet they often get five days to recover. Their maintanance is that like of a marathon runner. Relievers on the other hand are the game's sprinterd, asked to stay vigilant and ready at a moment's notice. Is the early season overuse weardown the arms? Guerrier was shut down last year. Crain was sawed open and repaired. Reyes missed a good portion of the season. Now Guardado, who has had history of injuries, is thrown into the mix. Do they have enough gas to get through September?

3) And does the added innings come at the expense of young starters? Neither Blackburn nor Perkins have worked this many innings in their professional careers. Blackburn's walk rate spiked in August and Perkins has had trouble perservering through the middle innings. Are these signs of tiring arms? What about Francisco Liriano who spent all of last season in rehab? His arm appears fresh since his retooling in Rochester but how much more does he have.

A New Market

Ever since he lambasted the results of the Home Run derby, saying that Josh Hamilton had 'paid for the tux, limo and corsage but Justin Morneau kissed the girl' after the Canadian slugger had bested the feelgood story at Yankee Stadium, I have loathed Rick Reilly. It was a disgusting display of pandering from a columnist who would like you to believe that he is a crusader for justice. Yet his latest article on ESPN.com is intriguing - a look at a crop of 30 year olds that have put up solid minor league numbers but in their prime years, the mid-20s, they were passed in depth charts by guys on PEDs or were buried in the minors as aging veterans prolonged their careers with HGH. Reilly highlights two minor league veterans in 30 year old Mitch Jones (Dodgers organization) and 29 year old Shawn Garrett (Mariner organization). Neither, however, have solid career numbers. Jones, a corner infielder, has had 3,949 minor league bats and has hit 200 home runs while batting .250/.334/.497. The 200 home runs is seemingly the basis for inclusion on a major league roster. The power is certainly there, as indicative of his .320 isolated power average. Garrett, on the other hand, has less of a compelling argument. Reilly cites Garrett's 2004 stint with the Colorado Springs Sky Sox (a Rockies AAA affiliate) when he hit .371. What isn't reported is that the .371 batting average was compiled in just 125 plate appearances. His career line is .291/.345/.449 in 11 minor league seasons.

Reilly is on to something that he didn't even intend. To some, these are scrap-heap players but in reality, this is the new emerging market. As the league's power numbers begin to regress to the mean as the number of 'roided sluggers and HGH'ed veterans diminishes, the 27-32 year old minor leaguers veterans will continue their consistant output. For a relatively inexpensive contract and an invite to spring training, these formerly overlooked sluggers could be obtained as a part-time designated hitter/pinch hitter. Ryan Ludwick, with the St Louis Cardinals, is a perfect example of this. After experiencing brief snippets of play with Texas and Cleveland, the 29 year old Ludwick is having a career year with the Cardinals batting .303/.378/.599 with 32 home runs in 456 at bats. Ludwick's .270/.345/.501 minor league career numbers are strikingly similar to those of Mitch Jones. In addition to being the second-highest win contributor on the Cardinals team (2.49 wpa), the team is paying Ludwick less than $500,000 for his efforts.

There are plenty of other Ryan Ludwick types ready for an opportunity. Take John Lindsey for example. In 13 minor league seasons, Lindsey has managed to hit .278/.342/.459 with 156 home runs split between the Rockies, Mariners, Padres and Dodgers organizations but has been stuck behind James Loney and Nomar Garciaparra the past two years. Another to consider is the right-handed batting first baseman Val Pascucci, who is 28 years old and has played with the Expos, Marlins, Phillies and now the Mets organizations, has hit .278/.392/.494 with 174 home runs in his 8 minor league seasons. Pascucci would have to make an unlikely vault over Carlos Delgado. The Brewers have used Joe Dillon in various capacities in the last two seasons before sending him back to triple-AAA Nashville. In his 26 year old season in 2002 while in the Twins organization, Dillon split time between double-AA and triple-AAA where he hit .257/.356/.401 with 9 home runs in 362 at bats. In his 10 seasons in the minors, Dillon has hit .294/.379/.518 with 156 home runs. The 29 year old Tagg Bozied has batted .278/.349/.502 in his 7 minor league seasons while launching 117 home runs and reducing his strike out rate to 15%, down from 18%. Pawtucket's left-handed batting Chris Carter, who is currently being blocked by David Ortiz and Kevin Youkilis in Boston, has been a career .308/.383/.518 with 110 home runs and will be 26 years old next year and, more importantly, a minor league free agent. These are just some of the examples of undervalued talent that have provided a solid minor league pedigree.

The Twins were willing to sink money and a minor leaguer for a player like Craig Monroe just to address the need for a right-handed bat. Any of the above minor leaguers (outside of Chris Carter) could have adequately filled that role at a fraction of the cost. Reilly might be on to something.

Notebook Dump (08.27.08)

Game: Twinks 6, Marinerds 5

Box Score

Post-Game Wrap

Record: 75-58, 2nd place, 1 game back

Streak: 1 win

The Quote: "[Twins outfielder Carlos] Gomez ran that ball down in left-center earlier, and then Span threw our guy out, and it's athleticism. They can run, they can throw -- that's what got them here, their athleticism -- and they're making a name for themselves out there." - Mariners manager, Jim Riggleman

The Inning:

In the bottom of the seventh Twin killer Raul Ibanez tagged a 92-mph fastball that was left up in the zone for his 21st home run of the year. As a background, the left-handed hitting Ibanez has absolutely crushed same-sided pitching, batting .319/.387/.513 against them in 181 plate appearances equal, if not better, than his right-sided opposition (.293/.359/.501). Conversely, in his limited venture past the 6th inning, Glen Perkins has seen little success. In innings 1 through 3, opponents were hitting .277/.328/.417 in 256 plate appearances. The middle portion of the game, innings 4-6, 225 batters have combined to hit .284/.318/.441. In 10 games this season, Gardenhire has allowed Perkins to continue into the 7th inning. The results have been less than good. Facing 54 batters under those circumstances Perkins has suffered through a .354/.396/.646 batting line. If these trends weren't reason enough to second-guess, his pitch count should have been factored in as well. From pitches 75-100 Perkins has surrendered the majority of his home runs, 8 or half of his total, while having opponents treat him like batting practice, slugging .578 as the game wears on. True, Perkins had retired the previous two batters yet both Ichiro (.270/.326/.325 vs. lhp) and Yuniesky Betancourt (.250/.262/.363) are not capable of doing damage against left-handed pitching. With a 3-3 tie, Gardenhire opted to continue on with Perkins even as he encroached on 97 pitches.

Now with a 4-3 lead, staring down a sweep at the hands of the last-place Mariners, the Twins needed to mount on last rally. Thankfully, Jim Riggleman was compliant and inserted Sean Green into the game. Green, born in Louisville, Kentucky and attended the local University of Louisville, was selected in the 12th round of the 2000 draft by the Colorado Rockies. In the winter of 2004, the Colorado Rockies sent Green to Seattle for Aaron (Big Country) Taylor, a relief pitcher of equal value but two years Green's elder. Taylor, after 21.3 innings with the Mariners, never saw Coors Field with the Rockies nor did he pitch a minor league inning in 2005 or beyond. Green, on the other hand, has made over 150 appearances with the Mariners, accumulating 166.3 innings with 122-78 strike outs-to-walks and a career 3.90 era. The right-handed reliever has seen his deployment change from mop-up (0.47 pLI in 2006) to an 8th inning guy (1.20 pLI in 2008). His 89 mph fastball is complimented by his 76 mph slider. In terms of splits, Green has fared much better with the righties (.217/.296/.268) than the lefties (.257/.367/.367). Morneau has hit right handed pitchers with a .314/.409/.531 clip. Beyond Green, Riggleman had little option in his relief staff. The only lefty remaining in the bullpen was Ceser Jimenez who had been punished by left-handed batters as well (.348/.400/.478). "Out left-handers just haven't been getting left-handers out," Riggleman said when asked after the game why he didn't bring Jimenez in to face Moreanu. "If the left-on-left thing worked, then I would have brought in Jimenez to face Morneau. But the Twins wear out left-handers." Had he had the option, Riggleman would have used Brandon Marrow who had been an effective 8th inning guy and was sent back to AAA Tacoma to retrain his arm in preparation to start. Marrow had tossed 36.7 with 47 strikeouts and 15 walks with a 1.47 era.

Green worked outside to Morneau then worked a strike past him to even the count 1-1. On his third pitch Green used a 90-mph sinker that Morneau crushed on a line to left-center for a his 36th double of the year. This brought Randy Ruiz to the plate. Ruiz had failed to advance a runner from second the night before in the Twins loss. After a first pitch ball, Ruiz fouled off two pitches - both fastballs. The fourth, Green presented Ruiz with a 77 mph curveball which Ruiz laced to left field. 10 feet to the right or left, the ball would have found the third baseman or shortstop and had the same results as the night before. This one made its way to Ibanez in left field.

Gardenhire made his first move of the afternoon, pinch running Adam Everett for the stout Randy Ruiz. Meanwhile another left-handed batter, Jason Kubel, strode to the plate. Since the beginning of the month of August, Kubel has had 7 extra base hits and batted .301/.346/.493. For the record, his third straight batter Green started with a ball. Trying to work Kubel in, Green fell behind 2-1 when he threw a 90 mph fastball up and in on Kubel. Kubel smashed the ball to Ichiro in right scoring Morneau from third to tie the game and moving Everett to 3rd as he pulled in second with his 15th double of the year. The game now knotted at 4 a piece and no outs with runners on second and third, Gardenhire went to his bench for the second time, replacing Kubel with Carlos Gomez. In response to questioning the use of Green Riggleman said, "I just didn't see the point. I felt the eighth inning should belong to Sean Green and that's the way it went.''

Green coaxed a grounder out of Delmon Young to first base to obtain the initial out of the inning without succumbing to another run. Gardenhire reached down for his third maneuver, recalling Branden Harris for Brian Buscher. As expected, Riggleman responded with Jimenez. To his credit, Riggleman made a wise decision: Buscher has been baffled by lefties, hitting just .100/.129/.100. Gardenhire admitted after the game that he was not aware that Jimenez was warming up. "Their lefty was hiding in a corner over there," Gardenhire said. Jimenez introduced himself to Buscher with an 80 mph changeup low and away that Buscher drove to left-center, emptying the bases.

"We had talked and said, 'If a lefty gives you something out and over the plate, you can't go deep in the count, just go after it and hit it,'" Gardenhire said. "Buscher put a good swing on it, and that was huge."

The Links:

- Not surprising to those who know what a LOOGY is, Dennys Reyes leads the majors in most one-pitch appearances. To date, he has thrown 530 pitches in 60 appearances. To this end each pitch has cost the Twins roughly $1,886. Not a bad way to make a living.

- Judd Spicer's Secretary of Labor is Justin Morneau. Nice.

- TwinsGeek takes a look at the bullpen using the BaseballProspectus statistic, Average Runs Prevented.

- Randy Ruiz, not only making his presence know at the tender age of 30 with the big club, swooped up the International League Rookie of the Year honors. He had the fourth highest qualifying OPS in the league with a .902 ops. In his limited time with the Twins (44 plate appearances) his hit .318/.362/.432 and his first major league home run. "I've waited my whole life to be here, and to have a moment like that was special," Ruiz said of his game-tying solo home run in the sixth. "This year has been unbelievable. Winning Rookie of the Year in the International League at 30 years old and then getting called up here, I'm thinking, 'Wow.' Stuff happens for a reason, and the man upstairs says this is my time to shine, so I'm happy." The front office also thinks highly of Ruiz. "Here's a guy who, when we were talking to him in the offseason, his agent said 'The dollars are important, but he really wants an invite to big-league camp, because he's never had one,'' said Minnesota Twins general manager Bill Smith, in town to scout the Red Wings. "That shocked us, given his history. It's outstanding that he won (the award).''

- The Beloit Snappers will not be making an appearance in the Midwest League postseason thanks to an extra inning loss to the Kane County Cougars. To add more pressure, Twins advisor Terry Ryan was in attendance scouting the Twins low-A talent. “You are kidding yourself if it doesn't make a difference to you because you want to impress,” said prospect Marc Dolenc. “As a minor leaguer, you are always trying to get better and with Terry Ryan here, you want to show that you have ability.” Even though they didn't make the postseason, the Snappers Ben Revere was named the league's MVP after batting nearly .400 for most of the season and finishing .379/.433/.497.

- When the Royals signed Jose Guillen to a 3-year, $30-million dollar contract, they did so under the premise that he would replicate his 2007 season with the Mariners, one in which he hit 23 home runs and batted .290/.353/.460 in 593 plate appearances. What the Royals front office did not take into consideration was that he posted a .330 batting average on balls in play - well above the American League average of .305. What else wasn't considered was that his line drive rate of 16% was below the MLB average of 19% as well. So far in 2008, he's basically put the ball in play the exact same, yet has witnessed a huge dip in his batting average on balls in play to .276 - below the AL average of .300. This season he's hitting .249/.285/.426 with 17 home runs, which frustrates a notable amount of fans, bemoaning his lack of on-base skills. This isn't surprising considering that his walk rate has never been good (a career 5.0% walk rate) so his .353 on-base percentage in 2007 was built around his inflated amount of hits. When the groundballs stopped leaking through, the on-base percentage dropped to a lowly .285. If you gamble $10 million dollars a year on a 32-year-old outfielder that his grounders will continue to bleed through, you're gonna get burnt. On top of his poor numbers he has been vocal in a negative way saying things like “We stink right now. Nothing is going right, and we’re not doing anything right," causing clubhouse problems. As if that wasn't classy enough, Guillen had to be restrained from attacking a fan in the Kauffman Field stands for heckling him. General Manager Dayton Moore was furious with Guillen saying "It doesn't matter what a fan says -- you've got to respond in a way that's professional and the best response is no response, most of the time." Field manager Trey Hillman used quite possibly the ultimate excuse replying "I was actually in the toilet so I didn't see it. Managers do have to use the restroom so I picked a bad time. I found out about it a half-inning later and we talked about it briefly and there's no sense commenting on it."

- Gotta hand it to Joe Pos for finding the new team to hate in the playoffs: the Chicago Cubs. After reading the article, I found that the criteria to hate this team seems to be, according to Joe Pos, 1) you are from the Southside of Chicago, 2) you are from St. Louis, 3) you are from Milwaukee. Geography is the determining factor? There maybe a hint at payroll in the article what with the star-studded lineup, yet at $118 million they are the 7th highest payroll in the major leagues - succeeded by the team from the Southside team (5th) and the LAA Angels (6th), both playoff caliber teams. So why hate the Cubs? Because they have an obnoxious victory song? Or is it because they are steamrolling teams with their .621 winning percentage - the best in baseball?

Know Thy Enemy:

- B-R.com Oakland A's Page

- The Drumbeat (SF Gate)

- Chin Music (Contra Costa Times)

- Athletic Nation