He sucks. We must have him.

Dave Cameron spent yesterday afternoon highlighting Alexi Casilla's suckitude at Fangraphs.com writing "Casilla has driven Minnesota's management nuts with his sloppy plays, his lack of fundamentals, and his general underachievement" and adding "his OPS by month has declined every single month since last May, where he went from great to good to okay to really bad to miserable to holy crap we've seen enough."  In other words, garbage.   

He finishes by insinuating that Casilla's time in Minnesota is probably over and that the second baseman could stand to have a change of scenery.  Understandable, considering Casilla's mental lapses may have reached the room of Gardenhire's dog house that was previously reserved for the likes of Kyle Lohse and JC Romero - a pair that found a one-way ticket out of the Humphrey Terminal at the earliest convenience.  If the Twins are currently convincing themselves that Casilla is not a long-term answer at second - be it because of talent or attitude or irreconcilable managerial differences - then if they can get something useful in return, I'm game.  But who would want to acquire a player like Casilla with his offensive statistics in a complete freefall and has more cringe-worthy mental lapses than Miss South Carolina?  According to Cameron at his mothership website USSMariner.com, Seattle does!  Cameron urges the Mariners' general manager to contact Bill Smith to inquiry what it would take to land Casilla. 

In Cameron's vision, the Mariners offer their starting shortstop, Yuniesky Betancourt, who is in jeopardy of losing his starting job to Ronny Cedeno for Casilla.  "Yuniesky", of course, is Spanish for "Swing".  The Mariners' have gone weary of Betancourt's overzealous approach to the plate, averaging just 3.1 balls per plate appearance (If you thought Delmon Young chased bad pitches, Betancourt has swung at 44 percent of all balls thrown outside the zone).  So far in 105 plate appearances in 2009 Betancourt has drawn just one walk.  For better or worse, the Twins place less emphasis on drawing walks system-wide so this information might not be a deterrent, but it should. 

 

True, Betancourt displays some of the characteristics that the Twins crave (not striking out, tons of contact, speed) and Cameron adds "[t]he things that he fails at - drawing walks, working counts, living up to his defensive reputation - are the things that the Twins value less than anyone else in baseball. Betancourt and the Twins are a match made in heaven. He’s their kind of player. No other organization in the game will see as much value in Yuni as the Twins."  But do the Twins really need help at short defensively?  By most metrics, Nick Punto is far superior of a gloveman than Betancourt.  According to the UZR/150, Betancourt is a -27.5, third worst in the game, while Punto is 11, the fifth best in the game. 

 

The proposal gets worse as Cameron suggest that the Twins add reliever Jose Mijares to even the deal.  Yes, ADD.  If trading one young, expensive out-machine for a young, inexpensive out-machine isn't objectionable enough, Cameron recommends that Smith toss in Mijares, arguably the best relief option in the 'pen, to "even the deal".  Outside of swimming in a sea of swine flu-infected medical waste, there is nothing less appealing than adding Yuniesky Betancourt at the expense of Casilla and (especially) Mijares. 

 

Cameron's thesis is sound - Casilla should be traded if he is indeed destined for Gardenhire's version of playing time purgatory - however what the Twins do not need more of is free-swingers in the lineup. 

Casilla out; Tolbert in.

The Twins demoted second baseman Alexi Casilla to Triple-A Rochester recalling Matt Tolbert to assume his roster spot reports the Star Tribune.   The move is not all too surprising, though it does contradict recent comments by manager Ron Gardenhire who just this past weekend stated that he did not wish to "ship [Casilla] to somebody else because he was not hitting right now." 

 

This about-face was most likely incited by Casilla's defensive shortcoming in recent games. His offensive woes followed him on to the field, too.  Following a play in which Casilla did not throw home on a cut on Tuesday night, allowing Tigers catcher Gerald Laird score, Justin Morneau told reporters after the 9-0 whitewashing "A lot of them are mental mistakes that don't show up as errors, like not thinking to throw the ball home. Not thinking of the play ahead of time before it happens."  Gardenhire can stand idly by while a player struggles at the plate, but when those struggles are carried on to the field, it is time for adjustments. 

 

Casilla's continued failure in a vital spot in the batting order amplified his struggles.  After making 13 valuable sacrifice hits last year, Casilla has yet to prove that he can even lay a bunt down.  On Monday, his lack of hustle ended up as a Tigers' double play. Up until this point, Casilla was 14-for-84 (.167) with just two extra base hits on the year.  At the plate, his discipline appeared lacking in the first month.  His chase rate for pitches outside of the zone was up to 34 percent, well above his 25 percent a year ago (and the league-average of 24 percent).  Because of his poor pitch selection, his contact suffered, resulting in more infield pop flies. 

 

Tolbert provides above-average versatile defense, giving Gardenhire another utility infielder that can support Brendan Harris and Nick Punto at the middle infield positions.  At the plate, Tolbert is a prototypical line drive hitter with a smattering of power.  Seven of his 25 hits at Rochester this far have gone for extra bases. After an injury sidelined him in May, Tolbert returned in September to go 10-for-30 (.333) with three triples in 11 games. 

 

With the left-handed Mark Hendrickson on the mound for the Orioles tonight, the Twins will likely use Harris at second base and in Casilla's spot in the order.

OtB Twins Notes (05.04.09)

Joe Christensen says the Twins sent catcher Jose Morales to Rochester after they activated Jesse Crain from the 15-day DL.  Morales has been a decent contributor in Joe Mauer's absence, hitting .349/.391/.419 going into Sunday's game but allowed 13 of 14 would-be base stealers to gain an extra base.  There will be some dissension regarding demoting what happens to be the third-best hitter on the team to the minors, but Morales's average was unsustainable (he possesses a highly-inflated .405 batting average on balls in play) and was bound to watch his numbers drop like the stock market as his plate appearances increased.  With the 38-year-old Mike Redmond on the last year of his contract and unlikely to return to the team as a player in 2010, it is nice to know there is someone in Triple-A that is a capable catching caddy for Mauer's days off.    

 

After getting an MRI performed on his shoulder last Wednesday, catcher Mike Redmond told reporters that "they found a Bud Light in there."  Phil Miller tells us that the backup catcher's quip pleased the people over at Anheuser-Busch, enjoying the free promotion in a tough economy (the quote wound up in both Twin Cities papers and twinsbaseball.com), that the company is rumored to have supplied Redmond with a few bottles for personal consumption.   

 

The Twins decision to send reliever Juan Morillo to the minors was a sound one.  Though his potential upside is certainly intriguing -- getting comparisons ranging from Detroit's Joel Zumaya to Durham's Nuke Laroosh --his walk rate flirts with the "pitching while blindfolded" territory.  Even with Rick Anderson working with Morillo in bullpen sessions, Morillo's type of repair would have been too consuming for Anderson to correct during the season.  Still, if nothing else, Morillo's 100.3-mph pitch in April was the fastest recorded in the season's opening month.

 

Ron Gardenhire reiterated that he has no immediate designs on sending Alexi Casilla back to Rochester for more work after beginning the season.   "We're [25] games into the season. I think you start one way, you give it a little bit here. We have to get Lexi to play better, not just ship him to somebody else because he's not hitting right now," the manager told Joe Christensen.  His Sunday benching aside, Casilla stung several line drive outs on Saturday night from the left-side of the plate, an indication that he might be beginning to zero in on the ball better.  Matt Tolbert, a potential replacement for Casilla at Triple-A, is struggling at the plate as well, hitting 18-for-84 (.214) with a .290 on-base percentage.     

 

In the aftermath of Boston's Jacoby Ellsbury's steal of home off of New York's Andy Pettite  (and Royals' catcher Miguel Olivo's botched attempt on Saturday night), Dom Amore revisits 1969 and the master of home stealing, Rod Carew, and his seven swipes of the plate that season.  It was rookie manager Billy Martin's idea in the spring to exploit both Carew's speed and the league's indifference to pitching from the stretch with a runner on third.  Martin and Carew would run the drill over and over, timing a pitcher's wind-up as Carew would break for home.  Carew would go 7-for-9 in his quest of stealing home but a leg injury would keep him from getting more.       

 

In an otherwise minor transaction, the Twins traded Double-A New Britain outfielder Joe Gaetti to the Texas Rangers for a player-to-be-named-later.  Gaetti, the son of Twins great Gary Gaetti, has proven that he has tons of pop but does not play any position particularly well (he got his mother's defensive gene).  At the time of the trade, the 27-year-old Gaetti was hitting just .179 (5-for-36) with a brutal 14/1 K/BB ratio which makes it hard to provide roster space to an aging prospect that is no longer hitting.

  

Former Twin fan favorite Lew Ford has resurfaced with the Long Island Ducks of the Independent Atlantic League after being released by the Colorado Rockies following spring training reports Newday's Cody Derespina.  To add insult to injury, after being released by the Rockies Ford accepted the Ducks' offer in April and loaded his truck up to drive from Florida only to have the vehicle breakdown en route.  "His truck broke down in some podunk town and they wanted to charge him an arm and a leg for it and now he's got to have [the truck] shipped," Former MLB catcher and current Duck manager Gary Carter said. "So I'm sure he's got a lot of things on his mind, and once that works its way out, he'll get back to basics and play." Ford was a big contributor on the 2004 Twins team and batted .299/.381/.446 (.827 OPS) with 15 home runs and 72 RBIs while stealing 20 bases as a 27-year-old.  His plate discipline eroded quickly in the next several seasons as his walk rate dropped from 10.2 percent in 2004 to 7.6 percent in 2005 to 6.3 percent in 2006 and with it, his on-base percentage slid from .381 in 2004 to .287 in 2006 making his inevitable breakup an easy decision.   

 

Twins pitching prospect Bobby Lanigan is having a super start to the 2009 season in Low-A Beloit, not allowing a run in 11 consecutive innings.  In four starts, Lanigan is 2-0 in 22 innings with a 3.68 ERA while maintaining a 21/5 K/BB ratio and a 54 percent groundball rate.  Drafted in the third round in 2008, Lanigan, a Staten Island, NY-native, has had a rough transition after losing his father late last year. Jay Price of the Staten Island Advance has a must read article on how the Lanigan's are coping in the patriarch's absence. 

 

He does not throw 100-mph like Morillo, but last year's first round draft pick Shooter Hunt is having the same type of control problems but at Low-A Beloit.  Hunt added six more walks and two wild pitches to his numbers in his most recent start bringing his total to 29 walks in 14 2/3 innings of work.  Left-handed batters seem to be giving the right-handed Hunt the most problems as he has walked 11 of them and struck out just three.

 

Former Twin and current Tampa Bay Ray Matt Garza took a crack at the decision to construct an outdoor stadium in Minnesota.  After going 1-10 with a 5.91 ERA in 13 career starts at the Dome, Garza wished the facility a fond farewell but questioned the choice of not having a roof.  "Not one of the smartest moves I've seen in baseball." Garza told the St Petersburg Times, "Just weather-wise, it will be great in June, July and August, but into September, April, May it's going to be horrible. And if they get into the postseason, it's even worse. Usually you build a park to benefit your team, the home team. But that's just going to hurt, because they're going to have to pitch more in the cold than anyone else."

 

Speaking of the Rays, apparently with the new Target Field opening up in a few months, the Twins are unwilling to invest any more money into the Metrodome.  In spite of renaming their team the "Rays" more than a year ago and taking every opportunity to reiterate the image makeover, the Twins still have a sign place above the visitor's clubhouse that reads "Tampa Bay Devil Rays" on the name plate.  On the last game, the visiting team placed white tape over "Devil" to drive the point home.
 

Award Context: Frank Viola's 1988 Cy Young

When the Twins drafted left-handed pitcher Frank Viola in the second round in 1981, they passed on a handful of future stars in Tony Gwynn, Sid Fernandez and David Cone.  Viola may owe his draft slot to the proliferation of cable television.  In May of 1981, Viola's college career at St. John's University was punctuated by an epic 12-inning battle against the Yale Bulldogs in which Yale's Ron Darling carried a no-hitter to the 11th inning but eventually lost in the 12th.  The game was televised on a then-fledgling cable network known as ESPN which broadcasted Viola out-dueling Darling, who was rated as the nation's top collegiate pitcher. 

 

By signing with the Twins, Viola ensured himself a rapid rise to the big leagues.  The Minnesota Twins were in the midst of one of the largest purging cycles in their franchise history and owner Calvin Griffith had traded or declined to re-sign marquee players (such as Rod Carew and Larry Hisle) drawing the ire of the local fan base and averaging less then 10,000 in attendance at Metropolitan Stadium.  Griffith, for all of his notorious penny-pinching ways, had an explanation for his spending habits.   ''Money isn't the answer for ballplayers,'' Griffith told reporters, ''You need competition, incentive, instead of giving them all that money for doing this and doing that. Buying things only hurts them.''

 

After being drafted in June of 1981, Viola was in Minnesota by June 1982.  From then through 1986, Viola would go 63-64 with a 4.38 ERA, striking out 5.7 batters per nine innings.  In 1987, the 27-year-old lefty turned a corner.  He and the veteran Bert Blyleven headlined a rotation that was filled out with also-rans in Les Straker, Mike Smithson and Joe Niekro, finishing the year with a 17-10 record in 36 starts, throwing 251 2/3 innings, striking out 197 while walking 66.   Outside of his career-best 2.90 ERA, which was second in the American League only to Toronto's Jimmy Key who possessed a 2.75 ERA, his numbers were underwhelming.  Boston's Roger Clemens would runaway with Cy Young that year but Viola's performance in the post-season, particularly the World Series against the heavily-favored Cardinals (2-1, 3.72 ERA, 16/4 K/BB), would earn him the Series MVP honors and would gain the reputation of an elite pitcher. 

 

Expectations were high coming off their first World Series victory in team history and the Twins signed Viola to a two-year, $2.9 million contract, hoping he would build upon his 1987 numbers.  For the most part, Viola continued to produce where the previous season left off.  After losing his first start of the year, Viola would go 9-0 with a 2.20 ERA in the next twelve on his way to a 24-7 record.  As opposed to the prior season in which Viola received less then league average offensive support (4.38 R/G), the Twins lineup provided him with a healthy dose of scoring (5.46 R/G) and as such Viola's win total would increase from 17 to 24.  The Twins would slink away from contention in the AL West, falling behind the division-leading Oakland A's by 11 games in early June only to come within three games in July before falling back to second place with a double-digit deficit to overcome and remaining there for the conclusion of the season. 

 

Viola's Major League-leading win total (24) and AL-leading winning percentage (.774) would help elect him the 1988 Cy Young Award winner but in terms of sheer dominance he was far from the most qualified candidate.  To be sure, wins are a tough sell to the sabermetric community, like trying convince a gearhead that a car's performance correlates with the size of the tail-fins.  Aside from victories, Viola was not the leader in the most significant pitching categories, and in some instances, he failed to crack the top ten list:

 

• Viola finished 3rd in ERA (2.64) behind teammate Allan Anderson (2.44) and the Brewers' Teddy Higuera (2.45).
• He was 5th in WHIP (1.13) once again behind Higuera (0.99) and Clemens (1.06).
• He was 8th in K/9 (6.8) well behind Clemens (9.9).    
• Viola was 3rd in strikeouts (193) far behind Clemens (291).
• He did not finish in the top ten for complete games, led by Clemens and Oakland's Dave Stewart (14).
• He did not finish in the top ten of Hits/9 (8.3) while Clemens finished 6th (7.39) and Higuera finished 2nd (6.65).
• Viola was tied for 8th in shutouts (2), again well behind Clemens (8). 
• He was 3rd in K/BB (3.57) but a far cry from Clemens's totals (4.69).

 

An argument could be made that Viola was not the best pitcher in the American League in 1988.  Roger Clemens demonstrated that he was the more dominating of the two, finishing ahead of him in everything but victories and ERA (two statistics that have less to do with the pitcher then it does with the team surrounding him).  In addition to that, Clemens maintained an opponent OPS of .590 versus Viola's .642.  Viola's reign at the top of the American League would also be short-lived.  He would start the 1989 season 8-12 with a 3.79 ERA and would be sent at the trade deadline to the New York Mets for Rick Aguilera, David West, Tim Drummond, Jack Savage and Kevin Tapani. 

****

 

Speaking of left-handed Twins pitchers, Seth Stohs will be hosting a podcast that will have Glen Perkins as a guest tonight.  Go to MNGameDay.com tonight at 10 PM for the live chat. 

Repairing the Twins lineup.

Through the first 20 games, the Minnesota Twins share the dubious honor of having the American League's least productive offense with the Kansas City Royals (4.05 R/G).  While there are numerous sources for this dip in production, ranging from Joe Mauer’s absence to the lethargy of the right-handed bats, there appears to be an easily identifiable and correctable modification to the lineup that would improve the offense: remove Alexi Casilla from the number two spot.

 

As I alluded to yesterday, Bill James’s research shows that a bunched lineup (a lineup constructed with the best hitters grouped together) is the most optimal alignment of the talent.  Taking it one step further, James noted in his 1986 Abstract that the correlation of run production and the position in the batting order is strongest to that of the number two hitter.  The 2009 Twins have a .515 OPS out of this slot (thanks to Brendan Harris).  Only the lowly Royals have less production with their .499 OPS from their two hitters.  The two most potent offenses, Texas and Toronto, also share the highest two spot production with .951 and .867 OPS respectively. 

 

Under the current structure, the Twins are sending Denard Span (.737 OPS but a robust .378 OBP), Casilla (.456 OPS), Justin Morneau (.868 OPS) and Jason Kubel (.941 OPS) in sequence to the plate.  Casilla stands out as the weak link.  For a two hitter, Casilla has demonstrated borderline plate discipline.  He exercises the highest chase percentage among qualifying second baseman (39 percent out of zone swings) resulting in a high quantity of groundballs.  His 64 percent of worm-burners on balls in play is a league-leader and nearly half of his pop flies (46 percent infield/fly ball) are not even leaving the infield area (also the highest total in MLB).  Speed has been his saving grace as he has legged out three infield hits to keep his batting average above .150. 

 

Among other things, Casilla has been an absolute out-machine.  His .456 OPS is lowest in the American League among those with a minimum of 60 plate appearances and behind only the Giants’ immortal Emmanuel Burriss (.433 OPS) and the Padres’ Brian Giles (.454 OPS) in all of baseball.  This productivity is reminiscent of Nick Punto’s appalling 2007 season – except Punto managed to maintain a .566 OPS through the first 20 games of that season but the Twins scored just 4.60 R/G.   By the end of May, Punto and his sub-.600 OPS were booted down to the eighth and ninth positions in the order but by then it was too late for the Twins as the team would finish 63-67.

 

In 2008, when Casilla hit .313/.351/.424 in 273 plate appearances through July 28^th, it caught most people by surprise.  At three seasons at the Triple-A level, Casilla had hit .257/.344/.316 in 532 PAs, not lending an indication that he was capable of slugging above .400.  Following an injury in July Casilla’s batting line reverted to.225/.302/.289 in 164 PAs after his return to the lineup in August.  Most people convinced themselves that Casilla’s abilities were closer to his first portion of the season rather than the latter.  In truth, his actual production probably lies in-between the two samplings. 

 

The options for Gardenhire are limited.  When the Twins face a left-handed pitcher, Brendan Harris is a decent solution (career .792 OPS versus LHP), but Harris’s defense at second is a downgrade from Casilla.  Catcher Jose Morales is another candidate for the two-spot as his .839 OPS is currently third on the team while hitting line drives 35 percent of the time. 

 

These both are short-term answers to a long-term problem however.  Harris is a streaky hitter and Morales's produrct is sure to curtail as his line drive rate regresses back to the norm.  The definitive remedy lies on the man returning on May 1^st.  Inserting the career .856 OPS hitter in Joe Mauer into the second slot ensures additional at-bats for the team’s best hitter and provides a continuation of the four best hitters on the Twins’ roster.