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.

I, like everyone else, didn't see the pitching staff being flat out terrible. So, I said in this post

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.

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.

For the record, I didn't like that it was announced that Lohse was "pitching for his job" in the paper, either.

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.

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.

Maybe White should just be made the player-manager. Or just manager.

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.

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?

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.