Do you Agree?
Posted by SBG on Monday, November 28th, 2005 at 2:04 pm
Terry Ryan:
"A lot of people don't talk about our defense, but that contributed every bit as much as our offense in our inability to win games and close games," he said. "I'm just as concerned about our defense as our offense."
For that reason, Ryan isn't focusing solely on offense to improve his club before next season. He's seriously looking for defensive help, too.
"That's what I'm trying to figure out," he said. "We did not play good defense this year."
Ryan wouldn't be specific, but it wasn't just the infield he believes was inadequate.
"It was everything," he said. "We didn't hit the cut-off men, we didn't throw to the right bases. There are a lot of areas that are of concern. We didn't play good baseball in many areas."
Catching, Ryan conceded, was not a concern.
"It's a club thing, not individuals," Ryan said. "Our overall defense was not up to our standards. Yeah, we lost a lot of one-run games, and yeah, you can attribute that to a lack of situational hitting or execution of bunts or not getting people in from third base with one out. But as much as that's responsible to the offensive side, I attribute a lot of that to our lack of defensive ability."
I've posted in the past that the numbers show that the Twins had one of the best defenses in the majors. Further, the Twins had the absolute worst offense in the majors.
Ryan states that if only we'd have better bunting or "situational hitting" he attributes a lot of one run losses to a "lack of defensive ability."
Friends, it couldn't possibly have a lot to do with an inability to score runs overall. Nope, couldn't be that. And the Twins' record must have been atrocious in one-run games as compared to their overall record. Right? Because otherwise they wouldn't be complaining so much about one run losses. The Twins were 27-30 in one run games -- not that much worse than their 83-79 record over all. Consider, though, that the Twins lost 2-1 eleven times. Eleven! I suppose "defense" was the major factor in those games. The Twins scored 2 or fewer runs 47 times. This isn't a lack of "situational hitting." It is a lack of offensive talent or proper coaching, or both.
Maybe the Twins threw to the wrong base from time to time. Maybe they dropped a few balls. But, as I have written before, they had the fourth best defensive efficiency in the American League. The Twins had very good pitching. And the team statistical numbers have shown that the Twins had good to very good defense. There's no escaping the one huge hole. The Twins had the worst offense in the major leagues. Period.
Sometimes I feel like a broken record, writing (or perhaps I've just been thinking it) the same thing over and over. But, I'll say it one more time. The major consideration this off-season has to be on offense. The defense is fine and a slight dropoff in defense for an improved offense would be a fantastic trade-off.
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You're right. Yes, the Twins outfielders generally don't hit their cut-off men, but that's hardly a unique problem in the game today. And this article goes a long way towards explaining how a good evaluator of talent like Terry Ryan could struggle to put together a decent offense through all the years he's been in charge.
I hate it when people talk about one-run games as being some sort of barometer for how good a team is. Of course a good team will do well in one-run games, but if they're truly good (and not just lucky) they'll also do well in 2-run games, 3-run games...
The number of runs you score is almost entirely independent of the runs you give up. When you point to situational hitting, you might as well point to hitting in general. A good hitter should hit well both in "clutch" and "non-clutch" situations. A hitter who hits well in one of these situations should tend to also hit well in the other. A player who hits poorly in one, likely hits poorly in all situations.
This whole thing seems like a cop out on Terry Ryan's part and a premature excuse for the fact that the Twins won't be opening up their wallets for a big name free agent for yet another off season.
If TR would step back a touch, he might see that the perceived poor execution on defense could be attributed in part to the manager and coaches. How about checking out the managerial free agents for an upgrade at manager??
Moss hopes TR is not inventing his own Moneyball theme -- valuing defense at the expense of offense. That would create an even bigger disaster than already exists.
The one-run loss issue is a red herring. It would take a marginal differential of two runs (either scoring two more, scoring one and preventing one, or preventing two) to turn those into wins. The way things were, the Twins already overtaxed the pitching staff by playing extra innings and rarely playing with a cushion. There is no doubt that the offense was the entire problem, at least on the field.
Best part? Of the 10 1-2 games I could find, the Twins had 8 errors. Yeah, that is probably why they lost all those games. Oh wait, the Twins only gave up 2 unearned runs in those 10 games, with 8 errors.
But of course, Cuddyer had an error in that first 1-2 game in April. No unearned runs, but he certainly has to improve. I'm guessing this is all another smoke screen to keep Cuddyer down and possibly rip on Ford. What a disconnect.
Here's a poorly formatted version of the data I found for those games.
date - opponent - errors - players - ER
04-17 - Cleveland - 1 - Cuddyer - 2 ER
05-01 - LAA - 1 - Morneau - 2 ER
07-06 - LAA - 1 - Rodriguez - 2 ER
07-17 - LAA - 0 - Nobody - 2 ER
07-23 - Detroit - 0 - Nobody - 2 ER
08-01 - Oakland - 1 - Tiffee - 2 ER
08-25 - Chicago A - 0 - Nobody - 2 ER
08-28 - Texas - 1 - Mauer - 1 ER
09-16 - Chicago A - 1 - Crain - 2 ER
09-18 - Chicago A - 2 - Ford, Punto - 1 ER
This is a perfect excuse for the Twins and Carl Pohlad NOT to have to spend more money. Defensive players are not any where near as expensive to acquire as offensive players. Good call TR. Maybe you should listen to SBG.
Anyone who followed the Twins last year knows that our feeble offence was the overwhelming reason for not winning more games. It's going to be a long season next year if Terry Ryan thinks upgrading the defense will win us the division. That being said, I have to agree that our defense wasn't great in 05 (at least by the Twins standards). You have to remember that defense isn't just about not committing errors but also about being in the right spot at the right time and making smart plays. Every game I went to last year, and many I saw on TV, featured defensive blunders that weren't recorded as errors but that would make any little league coach mad. So while I agree the offense has to be their number one concern, improving the defense will also be a welcome sight for me.