A Decade of 360 Degrees
Posted by SBG on Wednesday, May 31st, 2006 at 8:54 pm
Welcome, SBG fans, to the tenth edition of 360 Degrees. This is one game late and doesn’t include the Baker start on Tuesday. I suppose 360 lashes with a wet noodle are in order. For the second consecutive time, the trip includes two starts by one pitcher – this time it’s Brad Radke. Mr. Radke gave us two distinctively different starts, a 2006 version of Radke in an 11-0 drubbing and a nice start in the first game against the Angels, which was all for naught. Let’s not think about how that game turned out. Instead, let’s go to the numbers.
| Trip | IP | R | ER | H | BB | K | HBP | HR | ERA | WHIP | FIP | QS |
| 10 | 28.7 | 15 | 15 | 38 | 8 | 23 | 0 | 3 | 4.71 | 1.60 | 3.27 | 2 |
| 9 | 29.0 | 16 | 13 | 32 | 11 | 32 | 1 | 5 | 4.03 | 1.48 | 3.65 | 2 |
| 8 | 24.3 | 24 | 24 | 35 | 5 | 21 | 1 | 6 | 8.87 | 1.64 | 4.64 | 1 |
| 7 | 31.0 | 15 | 14 | 37 | 9 | 29 | 1 | 4 | 4.06 | 1.48 | 3.23 | 3 |
The starters had lower walks, strikeouts and home runs than last time. Bad idea. More balls put in play means more hits and a higher ERA. Even though the FIP was 0.38 lower than last time, the ERA was up 0.68! As you probably know, I’ve been harping on the defense for quite a while. These five games were atrociously bad, especially when the starters were in. Let’s go to the numbers.
| Trip | BF | BB | K | HBP | HR | ROE | Hits | Def_Eff |
| 10 | 126 | 8 | 23 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 38 | .598 |
| 9 | 125 | 11 | 32 | 1 | 5 | 1 | 32 | .632 |
| 8 | 114 | 5 | 21 | 1 | 6 | 2 | 35 | .633 |
| 7 | 134 | 9 | 29 | 1 | 4 | 3 | 37 | .615 |
Can you believe it? The Twins defense gave the starters a .598 defensive efficiency! That’s historically bad. I mean it was bad before, but now? And this is with Shannon Stewart on the DL. The Twins are atrocious at third and first and not very good up the middle in the infield. I’m not too keen on Cuddyer in right field. This is quite possibly the worst defensive team in most of our lifetimes.
As a staff, the starters allowed opponents to hit .337/.365/.437/.802 with a GPA of .273. The batting average is high, but the slugging percentage is about league average, which indicates that the Twins starters didn’t give up a whole lot of extra base hits. Now by starter.
| Pitcher | AVE | OBP | SLG | OPS | GPA |
| Brad Radke | 0.423 | 0.464 | 0.577 | 1.041 | 0.353 |
| Francisco Liriano | 0.222 | 0.263 | 0.278 | 0.541 | 0.188 |
| Boof “Bail” Bonser | 0.364 | 0.391 | 0.545 | 0.937 | 0.312 |
| Johan Santana | 0.308 | 0.310 | 0.577 | 0.887 | 0.284 |
| Brad Radke | 0.292 | 0.370 | 0.333 | 0.704 | 0.250 |
Once again, Johan Santana was disappointing at least for him. Radke was Jekyl and Hyde. Bonser’s effort was not as good as last time. I think there is a feeling that Bonser has been pitching in trouble most of the time during his two starts and that his trouble would catch up with him. Yet, his FIP for his first two starts is 3.56. Not too shabby. Of course, he has a historically bad defense behind him, so look for his ERA to go up.
The best pitcher this time around is Francisco Liriano. I think that’s not the last time I’m going to say that.
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The batting average/slugging % correlation is the most interesting to me. When defending the potentially historically bad defense, a lot of people point to the number of smashes off the bats of the other teams. But to have such a high BA but only a league-average slugging % shows just how bad our defense is at getting to balls other teams find a way to turn into outs.
Someone at DTFC posted some comparables to Baker's K/9 and some other stats and they were damn good comparables. Of course, he's heading to the bullpen.
I'm surprised the Def_Eff dropped with Stewart, though. Or how such an urgent defense can be so bad...
That .598 is not counting Tuesday's game.... Wow. I don't know the formula, but I wonder if the game's rating is negative.
Obviously, something is required.
I always felt that Cuddy seemed a good 3b that got a lot of errors by getting his glove on balls that could have been hits.
I bet that would settle down Castro who is probably mentally taxed for having to cover 90% of the space between 2nd and 3rd.
Who do you think the Royals would need in trade bait for Minty? Not that I blame Morneau that much, but with this team, you may need to make 1B a defensive position. Morneau can DH.
The Royals of the last few years looked really bad in the field by booting, dropping, and overthrowing, but hey, at least they got to the balls.