Frustration
June 2nd, 2006
One of the things that I try to do when I write my blog is not to make a conscious effort not to write what other people have written about the Twins. Sometimes, I've written things that are pretty close to what other people are saying and I suppose that's unavoidable as there are so many good writers documenting quite a bit about this team. I especially try not to write what Aaron Gleeman writes, even if his thinking has been a heavy influence on me. The reason of course, is simple. If I write what he or anyone else writes, what have I added?
Of course, Gleeman is a fantastic writer, maybe the best single blogger of any team in MLB. That may not be true, but he's certainly in the conversation. His post today touches on something that I've had in my head and haven't been able to articulate about this team. Right now, there are a lot of people, myself included, that have been extremely critical of the Twins. When Baker got sent down, my thoughts were that maybe it would be good for this kid to get away from this club for awhile. One of the things that stuck in my craw was that ScruFi announced in the paper that he was pitching for his job. Sure enough, the kid, who had started just 2 of the last 20 games had a rough outing and got his ticket to busrideville.
I'm of the mind that moves like this should be made and then announced and not vice versa. I suppose this is a minor point, and I'm not going to harp on it. In fact, I'm tempted not to harp on any minor points at all, anymore. Why? Because I believe this team has a fundamental organization problem that needs to be addressed. And until it is addressed, pointing out little problems along the way isn't going to do much good, unless of course, I want to create a file on the ineptitude.
The problem, as I see it, (and I'm not breaking any new ground here, for sure) is that the Twins are just about completely incapable of developing quality MLB caliber position players. Oh sure, there are a couple of guys on the roster today that are examples of guys that came through the system. Torii Hunter is a quality player. Joe Mauer is a superstar in the making who absolutely fell into their lap. Justin Morneau has a lot of potential. Mike Cuddyer has some ability. Other guys, like Jacque Jones, Corey Koskie, and A.J. Pierzynski were also quality MLBers that came through Minneapolis. How many other names can you name that have come through the Twins organization since Terry Ryan became the general manager in 1994? Ryan is coming up on twelve years as general manager for the Twins. How many quality every day players have come through the Twins organization? My answer is: not enough. Of course, the other issue is what happens to these players when they get to Minneapolis. Cover your eyes, folks, it's not pretty.
Sure, the Twins have developed pitchers to great effect and for that they are to be commended. Any good old Twins fan will tell you that many was the year that the upper midwest, for lack of a few good arms, suffered through a miserable summer of losing. The Twins have had good pitching under Terry Ryan.
But, in 2005, the Twins wasted a great collective effort by their staff. This off-season, the Twins' response was one part flat out comedy (Tony Batista) and one part at least decent effort with so far miserable results (Whiffle Bat White). Add in an absolutely ridiculous decision at shortstop, and you have the makings of a subpar offense (again). And when the pitching staff went south you have a trainwreck. The fixes in the off-season were band aids that got wet and fell off. The sore that is the inability to develop positional players -- and stick with them at the MLB level when they struggle -- continues to fester.
Who ever is running this club for C. Montgomery Burns (Smithers?) needs to think long and hard about whether the Twins should continue with Terry Ryan. He's been at the helm for 12 years. He's had some recent success and has shown some real ability. But, maybe Ryan isn't quite the right guy going forward. Or maybe he needs an assistant that can focus on developing major league quality positional players. And somebody upstairs should think about whether they want ScruFi filling out the lineup card every day. And for the love of Jeebus, I'd sure like to see someone in the local media start asking some questions about this front office. I'd like to see an article that says that ScruFi and Ryan are playing for their jobs instead of writing about how Rook is playing for his job tonight. Maybe not that right now, but at least something that says, hey this team's offense is no good and it's not just because the Twins are a small market team. Maybe a lighted fire would do them some good. Because, right now, I'm really frustrated with this team. And that frustration has been brewing for a while. Judging by the voices of people who comment in the blogging community, I'm not the only one.
So, yeah, what Aaron Gleeman said.
Categories: Minnesota Twins
I totally agree with you. The frustration I've felt this season is more than any of the consecutive seasons of losing in the 1990s, just because of the recent success.
Last year wasn't as disappointing, because going into the season we all felt the team was put together well, and, in fact, was the best team that we'd had even after 3 straight division titles. It was frustrating to see the team collapse and the White Sox win the division and the World Series, and of course there were things to criticize, but it was hard to fault the team generally because everyone, including the national media, thought the team could be a World Series contender.
This year has been brutal. Going into the year we threw 2/9 of the lineup into the wood chipper with Batista and Castro when we could have had Koskie and Bartlett and we knew the lineup was terrible last year. Unpredictably, the pitching stunk. Predictably, the team is not competing. And, rather than realizing the mistake and at least putting Castro on the bench, we're about 1/3 of the way through the season, not in the playoff race, and still choosing to play a 35 year old no-hit veteran over a young guy in AAA that's hitting .300 and might have a future with the team.
The Twins got shut out again last night. And yet, Castro stays in the lineup. I'm not quite sure what to do with Batista, as there's not really a good replacement for him, but of course I'd like to see Cuddyer back there. I've had the feeling he was a lot better at third than he's been in the outfield. Otherwise, L-Rod, while another weak hitting utility infielder, could at least field.
However, neither of that is going to happen. You heard Bert and Dick last night gushing about how Tony Batista has been just as good as predicted (yeah, terrible), and how his range hasn't been good but he's still sure handed (looks like hes blown a lot of routine grounders right at him to me). Plus, TR and Gardy know all the criticism of Batista and they're not going to bow down to the internet bloggers. Same thing with Castro.
It's hard to really care about the team when it stinks and rather making obvious moves for improvement, they continue to go with the same failed lineup that got us here.
It is usually much easier to find something new to talk/write about when covering a losing team (one just has to listen to sports talk radio to learn that the phone lines typically go dead when things are going well for a the local teams).
This Twins team has created a new challenge by stubbornly making the same mistakes over and over again. There are only so many adjectives one can use to describe how bad the decision making has been before it sounds redundant.
For years I marveled at the fact that the Twins continued to play Denny Hocking. Ultimately, I decided that he must have compromising photos of TK and/or TR with farm animals.
Now that Hocking has given up his hapless career and is trying to move into the booth, I've decided that he has passed those pictures along. I've also decided that he gave the pictures to the guys he knew from his playing days (i.e., the deserving "veterans"). That is the only explanation for what is going on.
Dicta
SBG, Aaron just got sent down. He wasn't writing with enough urgency.
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/aarongleeman/114922314146148878/#194363
You've been promoted, m'boy. You've got one post to show some urgency and production. Go.
The thing is, in organizations it usually takes a crisis to force change. Usually, leadership and management are either blindsided by some unforseen event or they are deaf and blind to small, but seismic changes around them, until they are swallowed whole by some problem. The problem can sometimes be compounded by prior success and especially when managment mis-interprets the core reasons for the success.
In the case of the Twins, one of the primary issues they are in such deep trouble is they simply do not seem to see themselves in crisis. They felt the year was an anolmoly and not part of a trend. Even this year, they tend to communicate they feel more snake-bit than having any serious problems. This is not a problem that a managerial change alone will solve. In fact, it could compound the problem.
To his credit, Ryan has built a solid corporate culture in his own image which is a hard-working, earnest and stable core of baseball people. But I fear this is a place where one might not want to tell the emporer he has no clothes.
One of my main beefs is that Ryan in large part has been spared, until lately of any significant criticism. Even in the glory years (glory years?) you could say his unwillingless to go to Pohlad to "break the bank" for that one big bat may have cost the team its chance this decade to win a championship.
The stability and deep-seated organizational philosophies can be a strength and I'd rather see that than a flavor of the month strategy and a constand rotation of managers and coaches. And for that reason, I don't think they need to blow up the machine and start-over.
They do need an infusion of talent in both the front office, scouting and the managerial staffs. They need to rip up the current 1 year and 5 year strategic plans and start over. Ryan needs a ying to his yang - someone who can openly challenge him, yet who can learn from his experience, and he should be planning for his succession.
The stability and deep-seated organizational philosophies can be a strength and I’d rather see that than a flavor of the month strategy and a constand rotation of managers and coaches. And for that reason, I don’t think they need to blow up the machine and start-over.
They do need an infusion of talent in both the front office, scouting and the managerial staffs. They need to rip up the current 1 year and 5 year strategic plans and start over. Ryan needs a ying to his yang - someone who can openly challenge him, yet who can learn from his experience, and he should be planning for his succession.
I don't know if you noticed, but Reusse is travelling with the club this road trip, or at least he wrote the game story last night and he was the one who reported that it was Wooten coming up, based on quotes from the manager. I wonder if ole Patrick isn't about to light the fire. I'm hoping he does. Maybe a little slash and cut from Mr. Reusse can make things a little uncomfortable in the front office and affect a little change.
Yes, I've heard PR on 1500 give a few nuggets.
Here's the problem: I think the current (Twins) administration is as safe as Kevin McHale is with Glen Taylor in terms of whether or not they would cave to either fan dissention or media critisism. Ryan, as long as Carl and familiy are around can likely stay as long as he wants. Gardenhire is probably the most vulnerable but I would be totally suprised if any move would be made in-season. After this road trip, if they go 3 and 7 and are totally buried we should get some hints of where they are headed. Maybe the Tiffee decision is the sign of a chasm between Ron G. and Terry R. with Gardenhire's "deserves" quote in the STRIB. I'll defend Gardenhire in that with White and Batista he liklely had no choice but to play these guys enough to see what was there and that White has defied all logic with his lack of power and consitency. I won't even hang him totally with Bartlett - because it is clear from the Tiffee move, if Ryan felt Bartlett belonged, he'd "deserve" to be on the roster.
Maybe Jim Pohlad has different ideas, but we won't know until Carl passes and he's got the keys.
Yes, the more time that passes, the more I'm inclined to look at Terry Ryan more critically. I'm even willing to give the manager the benefit of the doubt on Batista based on some of his comments in spring training ("they tell me he's going to hit"). No blame for anybody on White -- there was no indication that he'd play like this.
Ryan has to take the entirety of the blame for the offense this season.
The pitching implosion was not predictable, and it seems to be resolving itself. However, everyone knew after last year that the offense was the problem. Ryan "addressed" that by adding two veterans. That's right, White and Batista were our offensive saviors. Laughable isn't it. He did this because giving the young guys a shot last year (all at once and in the heart of the order, I might add, but that was last year's mistake) did not work and he was unable to trade for a big bat with a big salary.
The problem was, TR brought in crappy veterans. OK, White's suckitude was unpredictable, but Batista's entirely was. They compounded the error of handing Batista thid base by playing another veteran, Castro, over the more talented youngster. Suddenly, one third of your lineup is utterly useless, resulting in no offensive improvement and a very distinct defensive regression.
Ryan could have had Koskie and Bartlett in the lineup every day, but he went with the other two guys. With 1/3 of the season gone, the results are indisputably in, those were two terrible decisions. Signing White, while reasonable at the time, has undeniably turned into another huge mistake by Ryan - it was not a bad decision at the time, but it has become one.
In short, the only three big decisions relating to the every day position players that Ryan made in the off-season, have all proved to have been disastrously wrong. Can he intellectually accept that? Can he come to terms with that, let alone acknowledge it and start to remedy it? He is clearly not yet ready to do that.
He admitted that last year's mistake was relying on the youngsters too much. Now, his reliance on veterans has backfired. He must just think that his luck is bad, but it is not. He was unlucky with White, but he made obvious-to-all-at-the-time terrible decisions with Batista vs. Koskie and Castro vs. Bartlett. The Batista decision cannot be remedied, that ship has sailed. The best that can be done is playing a decent defensive player there and pinch hit Batista, for whatever that is worth.
Bartlett, however, can be called up at any time, but that does not seem likely at this point. How much longer that situation persists will tell us how deep Mr. Ryan is in denial about the utter failure of his every move (and non-move) in the off-season (except, of course, signing Dennys Reyes!). The longer he holds out hope that things will turn around and that he will be vindicated, the more of the season will go to waste.
Apologies for the length of the rant, but this Twins offense belongs to Ryan and no one else.
He had four major decisions, with second base being the fourth. I'd say he scored well there.
People will point to the back-to-back-to-back titles as a defense for Gardy and Ryan. And yes, those were very good accomplishments. But the way the team has withered in the presence of strong teams within the division taints the quality those titles more and more for me.
Ultimately, the inability to give up on the team as currently constructed could lead to another "dark period" for Twins baseball.
At the current pace, the team still will not know if Bartlett can cut it as a ML-quality SS despite running Juan freaking Castro out there on a daily basis.
This year, I still want to know about the "open competitions" for the RF and SS job in Spring Training. Cuddyer has re-won RF by, well, hitting like he did during Spring Training but Castro's kept SS despite, well, hitting like he did during Spring Training while the youngster got on base at a .500 clip and is hitting over .300 at AAA again.
You're absolutely right about the staleness within the organization.
I'll still watch this team on TV but I still haven't paid to go to a game this season and frankly, don't care to spend my money to watch the left side of the infield stink it up.
Re: Castillo.
I take your point, Beau, but honestly, that was about the easiest decision in the world, such that it barely ranks as a decision. To trade two A-Ball pitchers, only one of which was a real prospect - and even that as just a bullpen guy - that was a no-brainer.
Obviously there was leg-work involved and negotiating etc. but still, pretty easy decision to make once Florida started the fire-sale. What is galling is that Toronto offered and even easier deal on Koskie, with financial compensation as well, and Ryan turned it down, for still unfathomable reasons.
Rondell White was also a good decision for this offense. There was no way to predict this sort of utter collapse from White. Whether you're looking at his career numbers (.286/.339/.464), 2005 numbers (.313/.347/.489), or PECOTA projection (.286/.332/.449), there were plenty of reasons to expect White to become a decent contributor on this offense, and practically no reasons to expect him to become the least valuable hitter in all of baseball. Sometimes good decisions just don't turn out right.
Sometimes good decisions just don’t turn out right.
That's part of the frustration. I forgot about the Castillo deal when I wrote this. That was a good deal, although it has its downsides with his injury history.
The Rondell White situation is a shame. The key thing is not to let him get to 400 PAs. That cannot happen, unless he hits a ton in his next 100 PAs.
As ubelmann says, White looked like a good decision at the time, and in fact was a good decision at the time and everyone judged it as such accordingly. However, time has revealed that the results of that decision have been unpredictably bad. That makes it, with hindsight, a bad decision, regardless of its merits at the time.
This is the same as people saying that invading Iraq was a good decision at the time, given the information the government had (or at least claimed to have had). However, objectively, it has turned out to be really quite a bad decision for all involved. Results have revealed what appeared to be a good decision (to some at least) to be really a bad decision.
Ryan can say that White's disastrous year was unpredictable, and, unlike with invading Iraq, we would all agree; however, his decision has still turned out to be a bad one. This happens with decisions, some turn out well and some do not. My point earlier, was that three of Ryan's four off-season decisions have turned out to be bad. Not good work. That one seemed good at the time, but became bad, is slightly mitigating but not much; that two were obviously bad from the beginning, is very damning.
If given a major project goal at work (say a sales target), and you implement four strategies/methods/programs to achieve that goal, and three are miserable failures, such that the goal is not reached, I don't know about you, but my job would be on the line, frankly, even if one of the failures was seen by my colleagues/bosses as a sure fire success.
This is the same as people saying that invading Iraq was a good decision at the time...
Let's just say I'm going to completely ignore everything you said about war, where people's lives are at stake, as 1) baseball decisions are not nearly as important as military decisions and 2) bringing an emotionally-charged subject like the situation in Iraq into the discussion is not going to help keep this a rational discussion about baseball.
If given a major project goal at work (say a sales target), and you implement four strategies/methods/programs to achieve that goal, and three are miserable failures, such that the goal is not reached, I don’t know about you, but my job would be on the line, frankly, even if one of the failures was seen by my colleagues/bosses as a sure fire success.
Then your bosses are morons. If they think you were making good decisions, and unforeseen circumstances prevented those decisions from being successful--so unforeseen that no one could have reasonably predicted them--then there's no reason they should believe they could find someone to do your job better than you could have. Their decision on whether or not to keep you should depend on whether or not they think someone else could have done the job better, and that means whether or not someone else could have made better decisions at the same time that you made the decisions.
The Rondell White situation is a shame. The key thing is not to let him get to 400 PAs. That cannot happen, unless he hits a ton in his next 100 PAs.
Yeah, while it was a reasonable decision during the offseason to sign White, we now have more information about him. I'm really at a loss to say what the heck happened to him, but after two months, zero home runs, and only a modestly improving batting average, he's clearly not the hitter he used to be. At this point, I think we should just cut Rondell when Stewart gets back so that we can keep Kubel in the lineup every day, so Kubel can gain experience which could prove to be valuable next season.
I thought twice about using Iraq as an example, for the very reasons you suggest, ubelmann, but I thought what the heck and I carefully chose my language. Of course baseball as a comparison to war is ridiculous but a lot of idiots compare sports to warfare in far more offensive and moronic ways all the time (e.g. KG is always talking about guns and battles etc., and I hate that crap, although I love KG as a player). I was not talking about war, I was talking about decision-making, using an example everyone would be aware of. Plus, I don't think I said anything controversial or offensive re: Iraq, although one could try to read it that way, if so inclined.
Regardless, my main point is not that signing White has been bad for the Twins, as i have said repeatedly sometimes these decisions go badly in unforeseable ways, which is what the White situation is. My larger point was that Ryan only gave himself 2 chances at being right - White and Castillo, so he's at 50% with those and that is fine - but his other two decisions were clearly bad from the jump - Castro never had a chance of becoming a good everyday shortstop, and Batista had say a 20% chance of working out at third.
Essentially, Ryan stacked the odds against himself by making two clearly bad decisions. That combined with two bits of bad luck (White + pitching problems) and now the Twins are in a real hole. A boss would be wise to look at those two bad decisions and then the good decision that turned bad would just be another millstone. I doubt most employers are enlightened as you, ubelmann, in looking past good decisions that go unforseeably bad - sometimes a scapegoat is needed.
I am not sure Ryan will be willing to cut White. The Twins are still publicly very supportive of him, and keep saying how nice a guy and great a teammate he is. I foresee the line becoming, "we do not consider contract performance clauses in determining who plays how much." Which is generally a good policy as you don't want to screw with player's performance bonuses etc. But this has to be an exception, right? Where a player is so horribly underperforming and the only requirement is number of at bats. I think White's salary next year is real money, several million, right? Ryan cannot want that to vest to the player White currently appears to be.
Perhaps this is a good thing. Maybe it will precipitate Ryan making some real changes, once his hand is forced by White approaching the at-bat threshold, because cutting White is tantamount to admitting the season is over and the playoffs are out of reach, isn't it?
My larger point was that Ryan only gave himself 2 chances at being right - White and Castillo, so he’s at 50% with those and that is fine - but his other two decisions were clearly bad from the jump - Castro never had a chance of becoming a good everyday shortstop, and Batista had say a 20% chance of working out at third.
If you want to say that 2 out of 4 isn't good enough, that's fine by me. My point was just that the decision to sign Rondell shouldn't really be held against him.
I doubt most employers are enlightened as you, ubelmann, in looking past good decisions that go unforseeably bad - sometimes a scapegoat is needed.
You're right that in a lot of cases, employers will take the easy way out, find a scapegoat and get rid of him. (For an example, I believe that sometime recently the NBA's Eastern Conference saw a head coaching change with each team in a 1-year period.) I think the better, more difficult option, is to explain to whoever needs to be appeased (customers, other employees, etc.) why you think the decision-maker was the victim of circumstance and deserves another chance.
I will say that I'm a lot less high on Terry Ryan than I was before spring training. He's done some good things, but they're looking pretty far back in the rear view mirror at this point.
The Twins are still publicly very supportive of him, and keep saying how nice a guy and great a teammate he is.
Maybe White should just be made the player-manager. Or just manager.
TR is at heart, I believe, a frugal man. The sort that haunts flea markets and garage sales on Saturdays, searching for bargain prices on worn or damaged goods that might still be serviceable if just given some time and attention. Pohlad gives TR free reign, since he, too, is a frugal man at heart, and trusts in TR's frugality. Unfortunately, using this approach to acquiring veterans has turned the Twins into something like a baseball version of the Island of Misfit Toys.
Re: White.
I won't hold signing him against TR, since most people (including me) felt the club was getting a good hitter at a reasonable price, whose only serious downside was the typical amount of time he'd miss due to injuries. I think the only thing wrong with acquiring him is that he and Castillo were pretty much the extent of TR's plan to fix the AL's worst offense. He should've been thinking bigger and more creatively, and he deserves to be held accountable for that failure.
He also should be accountable for how he handles the White situation and other setbacks now. OK, White has been a tremendous disappointment. That's done. So what has TR learned from it, and where does he go from here? What's the contingency plan for when White (and others) gets hurt or doesn't work out? TR has a chance now to make corrections that get the club headed in the right direction again, or he can keep going back to the same stuff that hasn't worked for at least a year. So far, the way management has handled the team's setbacks, by and large, has not been encouraging.
For starters, let me say that I appreciate your attempt to be high-minded here, but I'm not really buying it. Specifically this comment:
I’m of the mind that moves like this should be made and then announced and not vice versa. I suppose this is a minor point, and I’m not going to harp on it.
The problem? Back on May 11th, after a very similar game (starting pitcher suggested that if he doesn't have a good outing, he's out of the rotation), this was the comment:
Lohse was pitching for his job on Wednesday and apparently, he kept his job. For now.
So no, I don't buy that you think moves like this should be made and then announced in general - I think you belive moves like this should be made and not announced when they involve players you like. When it's someone you don't care for, the announcement puts a "lighted fire" under somebody's ass, which you're all for.
But as you said, you didn't harp on the point, so maybe I'm being unfair by pointing it out.
The more significant issue I have with your analysis is that you seem to be suggesting that, had the Twins entered 2006 with a better plan, they would have been right in the thick of the race. Dump Lohse in spring training and start with Liriano in the rotation. Nail Castro to the bench and give Bartlett the everyday shortstop job. Sign Koskie or Mike Lowell or somebody other than Tony Batista to play third. I'm not really buying that either, after looking at the numbers. Consider:
Detroit 36-19 272 runs scored 208 runs allowed
Chicago 33-21 298 runs scored 240 runs allowed
Indians 27-27 308 runs scored 277 runs allowed
Twins 25-29 248 runs scored 282 runs allowed
In order for the Twins to be among or atop the AL Central, they'd need to have an improved offense and defense, to the tune of nearly a run a game in each case. (A .9 runs per game improvement in both offense and defense, over 54 games, would give the Twins about 300 runs scored and about 240 runs allowed, almost right where the Sox are.)
How likely is that? Consider that the improvement the Twins made from the first to the second half of 2003, when they went from seemingly listless to winning the division going away, was less than .7 runs per game of an improvement on offense (431 runs in 93 games in the first half to 370 runs in 69 games in the second half) and less than .8 runs per game of an improvement on defense (466 runs in 93 games in the first half to 292 runs in 69 games in the second). In 2003, the offensive improvement was driven by the Stewart trade, plus significant second half improvements by Mientkiewicz (.296/819 to .305/871) and Pierzynski (.297/809 to .332/842), while the defensive improvement came from the addition of Santana to the rotation and significant second-half improvements by Kenny Rogers (7-5, 4.89 to 6-3, 4.17), Kyle Lohse (6-8, 4.78 to 8-3, 4.38), and Brad Radke (5-9. 5.49 to 9-1, 3.24). If you can honestly say a different set of free agents would have provided a bigger boost than the across-the-board improvements from the first to the second half of 2003, more power to you. I don't see it, though.
The Twins have even been pretty danged lucky to be where they are right now - they're 8-3 in one-run games (after finishing a bit below .500 in those contests last year), and 3-1 in extra-inning games. A bit less good fortune, and the Twins record would be even lower than it is now.
I'm certainly no great fan of Gardenhire - he's shown far too much love of the sacrifice for an AL manager (though he does seem to be better about it this season), and though he seemed personable enough when things were going well, since things started going south in 2005 he seems to occasionally fall back to a CYA position rather than a 'we're all in this together' position. But before you rip Ryan too badly, give him a chance to show you what can be done with the 2007 roster, now that the stadium issue is finally resolved and the Twins will be opening up a huge chunk of payroll with expiring contracts.
This season is pretty much a lost cause, though I doubt anybody in the organization will admit it until August, if only for form's sake.
So no, I don’t buy that you think moves like this should be made and then announced in general - I think you belive moves like this should be made and not announced when they involve players you like. When it’s someone you don’t care for, the announcement puts a “lighted fire” under somebody’s ass, which you’re all for.
For the record, I didn't like that it was announced that Lohse was "pitching for his job" in the paper, either.
I also have said repeatedly that I never thought the pitching staff would ever go south like it did. My prediction before the season was that I thought the pitching staff would be right where it was last year and that the offense would sit well below league average. The net result would be about an 87 win team. Good, but not good enough to win.
I, like everyone else, didn't see the pitching staff being flat out terrible. So, I said in this post
I'm sorry if you misunderstood, but I am not criticizing the roster that goes out and pitches at all here. Further, like you, I want to see the eyes focused on 2007. I am pointing at a systematic failure to develop major league hitters. And every day that Batista and Castro are penciled into the lineup is one day where an opportunity to work on the 2007 roster is wasted because we aren't finding out about our young guys, you know, guys who could be playing here in the future. Like the guy I said I wouldn't talk about again.
I, like everyone else, didn’t see the pitching staff being flat out terrible.
and
My prediction before the season was that I thought the pitching staff would be right where it was last year...
In many regards, the pitching has been exactly where it was last year, and I think categorizing it as flat out terrible is unfair to the pitchers, who only get to field one of the 9 positions in the field. As a Twinkie Town newbie, captnhawaii, points out, the Twins' DIPS ERA has been just slightly worse than last year, and it ranks 7th in baseball, just like it did last year. Without checking, this matches my immpression that scoring has been up slightly league-wide so far this season.
But at any rate, I'm singing the same tune, maybe even more than before--it's not the pitching, it's the defense.