Game 119: Evil Empire vs. Twins
Posted by ubelmann on Tuesday, August 12th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
Mussina vs. Blackburn
2008 Twins Starters and Mike Mussina by xFIP:
3.60 -- Mussina
3.92 -- Baker
4.16 -- Slowey
4.25 -- AL avg. xFIP
4.40 -- Blackburn
4.44 -- Estimated AL avg. xFIP for starters
4.46 -- Boof!
4.75 -- Livan
4.92 -- Perkins
5.80 -- Liriano*
Misc. Stat:
4.43 ERA -- AL starters
3.88 ERA -- AL relievers
*Obviously, small sample size caveats apply here.
[SBG: Yesterday, I did a little Player A-Player B comparison, comparing Captain Fantastic to Delmon Young. Don't think I didn't enjoy that. Today, we're going to do another comparison.
Player A -- .317/.375/.564, 156 OPS+
Player B -- .307/.390/.579, 148 OPS+
Obviously, we're talking about two enormous studs here. So, let's add some counting stats.
| Player | AB | R | H | 2B | HR | RBI |
| A | 7683 | 1406 | 2434 | 414 | 442 | 1432 |
| B | 7715 | 1574 | 2365 | 420 | 544 | 1573 |
If you are paying attention at all, you probably know who player B is. That's A-Rod. Let's add another player, player C.
| Player | AB | R | H | 2B | HR | RBI |
| A | 7683 | 1406 | 2434 | 414 | 442 | 1432 |
| C | 7847 | 1600 | 2407 | 429 | 553 | 1598 |
Player C is A-Rod at the end of this, his 32 year old season, projecting this year's production for the rest of the season. That should give you a little hint about who A is or, more accurately, when A was. Player A is Hank Aaron after his 32 year old season. Aaron got a very young start, like A-Rod. And, he had an extremely long and superlative career. A lot can happen, but at this point, A-Rod is right there in his gross rate stats and ahead of him in most counting stats.
Hank Aaron has the 755 home runs, but he's also third in hits (3,771), 4th in runs (tied with Ruth, 2174), 10th in doubles (624) and first in RBI (2297). A-Rod has nine more years on his contract, which means he's signed through his 41 year old season. Aaron did play his 42 year old season, but he didn't do much. With a little luck, he'll pass Aaron in all of those categories and become the greatest counting stats monster, ever.]
Mauer sitting with a stiff neck.
Did you get the feeling on that last road trip that Mauer was a little worn out? He just didn't look very sharp behind the plate.
He's noticeably slipped behind the plate and at the plate. He's probably overdue for some R&R -- Twins have been leaning on him a tad too heavily this year.
Folks at Joe C's blog are ripping Everett and Punto for their hitting and want Harris in the game. With Blackburn and his somewhat ground ball tendencies on the mound, I guess I'd rather not have Harris' glove on the field. But Damon and Giambi are back in the lineup for the Yanks tonight, so Blackburn's going to face some better hitting than Perkins did last night.
the lesson is: people are never happy
That, or the strib commenters aren't actually people.
Are you disrespecting Justin Christian??
Johnny Damon is...
The Twins' offense has been fine... the defense has been anything but. I'd much rather address an area of weakness than relative strength. Until further notice, I'd live with Everett and Punto (dropping Punto in the order) hoping that Everett's arm comes around and Casilla gets healthy quick.
I guess they haven't noticed that the last three run-scoring hits that have left the infield for the Twins are all by Everett.
Make that the last four.
Hmmm. Blyleven just asserted that Livan Hernandez was signed to be the ace of this team... "but he's no longer with the team."
You know, I wouldn't mind all this talk of "small ball" and "the Twins' way" if it was just the Twins PR department trying to put a good face on the fact that the Twins don't have much power. My problem with it is that I think the Twins front office has come to believe its own hype, and actually believes that somehow the Twins are morally superior to the other teams by trying to win with singles and sacrifice bunts, rather than cheating by hitting the ball over the fence all the time.
I think it's part fueled by a desire to remind people that there is more than one way to have a winning team (and win a championship -- the 2002 Angels should give this team some hope) -- people are understandably enamored with power hitters and power teams but the bottom line is about scoring runs, not hitting home runs, and the Twins have been a very good offensive club this year.
I'm OK with their message as long as they're emphasizing that the Twins' methods are pretty dang effective, not necessarily "better baseball."
Little things. Intangibles. Value investing. *Scribble*. Got it.
yuck
Got that out of the way. In a hurry.
Blackburn doesn't give up a lot of dingers... still not a good way to get this one rolling.
Nice comeback against Captain Arrogance.
BoSox 10 to 2 in the 3rd over Tex - ha. This is the point in the game where they would put me in.
Their starter gave up 10 runs in the first inning -- and Ron Washington left him in. Not a bad call, actually... your ExWP% is in the toilet already, might as well not burn out the whole pen in the opener of a series on the road and have your chances of winning the other two games take a big hit as well.
Zero outs, 2 on. Zoinks. This is the baseball equivalent of Will Ferrell in a hot tub eating a turkey leg.
It has to be so frustrating for a pitcher to make a good pitch, have the batter just barely get his bat on the ball, and have it go for a hit.
I don't know why because I've seen him play enough, but I'm always a little surprised by Abreu's speed. He's no Gomez, but he moves pretty well.
A strike 'em out-throw 'em out will take care of that.
Considering what happened the last time he faced Abreu at home, he was prolly OK with it.
I smell a .... Metal hater!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LOL!
That strange scent is called "soap."
I haven't been around for a game log in quite a while--what happened to the scoreboard that used to be here?
After SBG went to the new format it proved to be a bit of a resource hog. Eliminated to reduce 500 Errors.
it dissapeared when WGOM 2.0 rolled out
Pity. As we move into the pennant races, it would've come in handy.
Wow... you just... don't.... run... on Blackburn.
Redmond looking like a pretty good way to go so far...
I still get a kick out of the Checker commercial: "And if there's a BALL GAME on the radio, then WE'RE listening to the BALL GAME!" Words to live by, there.
BEER!
Does anyone have the name of Span's Lasik doctor? I'd like to send him a thank-you gift.
Way better than a leadoff HR. Spantastic.
Twins need to do a little intimidating of their own
(there is no doubt that Andrew knows the All Blacks)
Neither of those last two strikes to Punto looked like strikes to me.
Punto...when was the last time he reached base?
jeesh
Hey, I know I'm a biased Twins fan. But strike three to Nick Punto was not a strike. Poor Nick can't catch a break right now.
Gordo: Just the fourth time in twelve tries that Span has been caught stealing.
Um...if those numbers are right, that's not very good.
67 percent isn't bad. You don't want to be lower than that.
and 8 for 12 == 2 for 3 < < 75 pct.
HEH! No fair correcting your math.
and I think your 75 pct rate was more on target for the break-even pt anyway.
2 out of 3 ain't bad.
M'eatloaf
I think 2/3 success rate is about a break-even point, anything above that is adding value... he's right at that threshold now.
Impossible to discern much meaning from 12 tries though.
I don't particularly disagree with any of that. My point was that Gordo was making it sound like it's something really good that Span has only been caught stealing four times in twelve tries, when in fact, it's nothing special at all.
Neyer sez 75 pct.
Having one rate for all steals is oversimplifying the problem to the point of it not being a useful measure when you're talking about 12 steals. The breakeven rate varies a lot with the game situation.
You just... don't... run... on Molina.
Correction. Worse than a leadoff HR. Bad Span.
I think Punto's at-bat is another Gameday Moment.
Agreed... anyone have a screenshot?
Strike 3 to Punto looked eerily similar to Ball 2 to Morneaux.
naw, Morneau's was a tad further outside, but Punto was shafted.
Ask, and ye shall receive.
WGOM Anagram FunHouse
Xavier Nady == Vineyard Ax, or A Yard Vixen.
I need a Yard Vixen. Of course, first, I'd need a yard...
If I had a yard vixen, I'd hand it a vinyard ax and put it to work. The yard could use it.
You could have my yard.. One of the reasons I'm never around for game logs is that any night I don't have a meeting, I have to be out doing yard work in--mowing, raking pine needles, picking up pine cones, etc. When I moved in six weeks ago, this yard was a mess. It looked like no one had done anything with it in years. After six weeks of hard work, we've managed to bring it up to where it looks almost passable if you drive by and don't look too closely, but we're going to have to stay on top of it.
Just did Google-Yard on JeffA backyard - Yikes!!
Just kidding, BTW.
Nice 3-6 DP. That's a play that's not as easy as the Twins just made it look.
At this rate, there will be 18 runners thrown out on the basepaths in this game. I'm pretty sure that's some kind of record.
A night of Lamb at 1B makes you appreciate how good a fielder Morneau is, huh?
Man, Lamb really ticked me off in that Royals game.... OK, I reluctantly admit it's not his fault he's short for a 1B and couldn't handle Everett's skyball... but not covering 1st on that infield grounder to Baker was absolutely unpardonable.
Lamb is one of the shittiest fielders in baseball. He was as bad as Batista over at 3B, but without the pot belly and loud mouth, it wasn't as obvious. Morneau is simply a bad fielder.
Not real crazy about landing at the top of the page after commenting. What happened to that electronic bookmark "dealy"?
SBG needs to rectify this.
I second that
Agreed. Nice to have the edit link back, though.
I dont have an edit link
I end up where I left off about 9 times out of 10, with the 1 putting me at the top.Just realized you said after commenting, not after refreshing. I had a long day of online compliance "courses" and am apparently not reading things properly.
Que-bel!
Punto since August 1st: .128/.227/.256 with 11 Ks. ugh.
Delmon Young: the master of placement.
Despite a strike zone roughly the size and shape of Kentucky, the Twins are hitting Mussina tonight. Would be a good night not to give away any more outs on the basepaths.
Now that's the morally correct way to score a run. Although it would've been better if there'd been a bunt involved.
how about a bunt go foul, then a sac fly
