Aaron sort of touched on this today, but I want to slice things a little differently. Some numbers through 82 games:
AVG/OBP/SLG
0.240/0.307/0.311 -- 1,2,7,8,9 hitters for the Twins
0.294/0.361/0.484 -- 3,4,5,6 hitters for the Twins
That comes out to a .618 OPS for the scrubs and an .844 OPS for the studs. That's a huge gap. This is the part that strikes me as especially crazy:
OPS -- lineup spot
0.664 -- #1
0.643 -- #2
0.654 -- #7
0.559 -- #8
0.552 -- #9
0.856 -- #3
0.818 -- #4
0.892 -- #5
0.810 -- #6
The scrubs are clustered from .552 to .664 and the stars are clustered from .810 to .892. League average OPS is .755. At any spot in the lineup, the Twins have seen a good performance or a really bad performance. There's not any middle ground. This is a really pathological kind of offense, and maybe it has something to do with the inconsistency we've seen.
While it is possible that the Big Four could improve, they've been pulling their weight. The key to improving the offense would seem to be replacing a couple of the awful spots in the order with some league average or so production.
Yesterday, after the fourth inning when the Yankees went up 2-1, the Twins sent up Redmond, Rodriguez, Punto, and all I could think is "well, maybe they can inflate his pitch count by taking some pitches". And the sad thing was that I was more or less satisfied with the 14-pitch 1-2-3 inning that resulted.
The trouble is that I don't know, for this year, what the Twins can do about that. Playing Kubel reguarly would help a little, but he's playing more often than not now, and it's not like that's going to solve the problem. The only person they could bring up from the minors is Casilla, and while he might help a little (or he might not), again, that's not really a solution to anything. I don't see that they can trade for offense right now, either. I really don't see that they have much choice but to keep playing the guys they have and hope they improve.
Garza for A-Rod.
Nah. Where would he play?
DH/SS/3b. Platoon with Cirillo and Punto, relieve Bartlett as scheduled on the days after really ugly errors. Super-utility, he can play two infield positions, and see what he can do in LF/CF. Does he want to try 2b?
The trouble is that I don’t know, for this year, what the Twins can do about that.
I think that part of it will work itself out. Take a look at the team's PrOPS by player (rather than lineup spot):
.929 -- Morneau
.826 -- Hunter
.798 -- Mauer
.790 -- Cuddyer
.776 -- Kubel
.767 -- Bartlett
.749 -- Cirillo
.709 -- Ford
.704 -- Redmond
.688 -- Castillo
.677 -- Punto
.658 -- Tyner
By PrOPS, the Twins have 6 above league average hitters on their team. Also, by PrOPS, the Twins' top four (except for Mauer) have seemingly had good luck at the plate, and the rest of the team has seemingly had bad luck (especially Kubel, Bartlett, and Punto.) That sort of explains the big chasm between the top and the bottom in the first half.
For now, given Cirillo's knees, I think you start Punto at 3B, bat him 9th, keep his glove in the game until an important AB comes up, and then PH Cirillo. It would be a sort of offense/defense platoon. And Luis Rodriguez is around if you are really worried about Cirillo's defense or if his knees won't allow him to play in the field.
As far as looking to change the roster, I'm not sure. 3B/DH is where you want to improve (unless you think Kubel is a DH, then you should be looking at 3B or LF.) There are players out there that could do it, but it's always a matter of getting two sides to agree to something, and trade speculation tends to be more work than it is worth.
I think Ryan is only looking for 1 move - and that is to find someone to man 3rd for the next 3-4 years and he's looking for a healthy White to be the proverbial "big bat" pick-up. There will be no rent-a-bat solution for DH other than White. My guess is the future 3rd sacker will be a name everyone rolls their eyes at. And it's no better than 50/50 a deal will even get done. If it does happen - it'll be at the 11th hour. The constituents at the WGOM will not be very happy. There will be much cursing. Somebody's head might explode.
Then look for Punto to compete openly with Alexi Casilla for 2nd base next year, with Punto, winning the spot initially do the his "veteran-ess" but he will lose his grip on the position again by mid-season. My best guess is that Punto will at some point come out of this slump this season enough to reinforce Terry Ryan's opionion that Punto is a valuable part of the Twins' roster. His resurgence will coincide with the time when the Twins are officially eliminated from the WC race with about 3 weeks left in the season.
this whole post is an argument in favor of moving the 3-6 hitters up to the 2-5 slots. It's not just OPS.
OBP by batting order
1 338
2 316
3 390
4 344
5 360
6 348
7 303
8 279
9 285
I know it's not much. To date, the 2-hitters have gotten 35 more PAs than the 6-hitters in 83 games. Exchanging the 2- and 6-hitters works out to about ONE extra safety, net, for the balance of the season. Moving the 3-6 hitters up one slot each instead would increase that effect slightly, but no more than to a 2 safety net.
but I'd still feel better about it.
this whole post is an argument in favor of moving the 3-6 hitters up to the 2-5 slots.
I wouldn't exactly say that. Lineup effects aren't simple, and no one has really shown they matter much at all, except that you can construct lineups that are unrealistically stupid that are pretty bad. (For instance, it would hurt the team if Gardy set the order in reverse order of goodness, hitting Morneau 9th and Punto 1st.)
This also depends on how you feel about the particular 1-6 hitters going forward, as opposed to what the lineup slots have done so far this season.
Castillo's OBP thus far this season is .342 and his PrOBP is .342, so it would seem as though he hasn't been lucky or unlucky so far this year. ZiPS forecasted Castillo at a .361 OBP. If you think he can regress to where his career suggests he should be, then maybe he becomes an asset at the top of the order again, but it seems like he's going to need his own training staff pretty soon. I'm not optimistic about his health improving, so I'd say his OBP will be around .340-.345 going forward.
In that vein, let's look at the 1-6 hitters in terms of their OBP, PrOBP, and ZiPS forecasted OBP:
.342, .342, .361 -- Castillo
.337, .373, .346 -- Bartlett
.391, .382, .398 -- Mauer
.365, .359, .348 -- Cuddyer
.356, .368, .355 -- Morneau
.339, .319, .329 -- Hunter
Taking the mean of the three numbers as a quick-and-dirty estimate of each player's performance going forward gives us the following second-half OBP for each hitter:
.348 -- Castillo
.352 -- Bartlett
.390 -- Mauer
.357 -- Cuddyer
.360 -- Morneau
.329 -- Hunter
Over the course of a full 162 game season, each the Nth spot in the order tends to get about 18 PA more than the (N+1)th spot. So that becomes 9 PA over 81 games. Moving 3-6 up one spot each would then give the following change over the balance of the season, in terms of extra times reaching base.
0 -- Castillo (doesn't change)
3.51 -- Mauer
3.21 -- Cuddyer
3.24 -- Morneau
2.96 -- Hunter
-12.67 -- Bartlett
0.248 -- Total
Rounding to the nearest integer, that gives you a grand total of zero extra outs over the course of the season, largely since Bartlett looks to get on base more often than Hunter. Additionally, you're taking away 12-13 times for the middle of the lineup to drive in Bartlett.
If Bartlett continues to hit as he has been, he's just fine at #2.
yah, like I said. Probably doesn't really matter. but would make me feel better.
I've been a proponent of having Bartlett at the top (1 or 2) of the order for 2 years, so you are preaching to the choir, Ubes.
Bartlett's 2007 OBP splits by batting order slot: .333 (1st, 9 PA); .391 (2nd, 69 PA); .389 (8th, 36 PA); .302 (9th, 162 PA).
for whatever reason, Bart stank as the 9 hitter (231/302/286). But in his 16 games of batting 2nd, he's been an All Star-caliber hitter (311/391/443). Nobody expects THAT to continue, but one can hope that his truth is closer to the latter line than to the former.