Your pick.

You may have noticed Jose Bautista when he came to Target field for a weekend series and hit 5 home runs. In fact, I was fortunate enough to be in attendance for his Sunday performance, where he went 3 for 5 with 3 home runs. The first one, he clobbered into the left field seats. And it looked easy. The second home run wasn’t even in the strike zone, but Bautista hooked the inside pitch just inside the left field foul pole.

Digressing for a moment, last year a lot of pundits pointed out that Bautista hit almost all of his home runs to left; he was a dead pull hitter. For good measure, then, Bautista flared his last home run just over the wall in right field. Yes, a flare. Like how Denard Span can get hits by flaring the ball over the shortstops head. Or how a reasonable power hitter like Pat Burrell will hit a flare that makes the left fielder come in a few steps for the out. But Jose Bautista is so locked in right now, and swinging with so much power, his flares are home runs.

The Twins have 6 home runs at Target field this year. Bautista has 5 in three games.

The Twins have hit 18 home runs all season. Bautista has 16, which is ahead of his 2010 pace, when he hit a league leading 54. A 2010 that everyone with sense assumed had to be a fluke to some degree. Most experts in predicting what “Joey Bats” would do for 2011, tried to find a middle ground in not minimizing Bautista’s amazing performance from 2010, but making sure not to jump on board for a repeat. They respectfully predicted a .250 batting average, with good plate discipline and perhaps 30 home runs.

Which is basically taking the average production of Bautista from 2004-August of 2009, and the Bautista from September 2009-2010. The first iteration had a strong sim score with Jim Hickman, who had a journeyman career with the Cubs, Mets and Dodgers in the 60′s and 70′s. Hickman played a couple positions, and displayed above average plate discipline, some power, and a .250 batting average. That was Bautista. Prior to 2010, he had received one season with 600 PA’s. He hit .254/.339/.414 for those 2007 Pirates, similar to his .235/.335/.420 2006, and his .238/.313/.405 2008. He did average 15 home runs during those years, so as a utility player with pop he wasn’t useless. In fact, he probably would have secured major league contracts for years to come.

But then on September 7^th, 2009, Bautista apparently got tired of being a plus bat, minus field utility player. So, working with Blue Jays hitting coach Dwayne Murphy, Bautista began starting his swing earlier. He changed his hand position as well, but mostly he stopped swinging defensively, which was something he tended to do, according to scouts.

I don’t know, of course, but it seems like Bautista’s talent was always there, but he suffered from David Ortiz syndrome. The tragic illness present mostly in parts of Minnesota, Missouri, and Pittsburgh, that causes hitters with great power and great eyes at the plate to, “Hit the ball the other way” and to, “Grind out good at bats even if it means letting a meatball go by on 3-1.” But like Ortiz, Bautista found that loading up and being ready to hit the crap out of the ball, didn’t mean he had to swing. He hit 10 home runs from that point on in 111 at bats.

Then 2010 came along, and Bautista hit 54 homers, adjusting to pitchers as the year wore on and actually being more productive in the second half of the season. Even after pitchers had realized that, hey, this guy hit 24 home runs in the first half, we should probably notice, Bautista hits 30 in the second half in 38 fewer at bats with a better average OPB and SLG. But overall he did hit just .260 and all but one of his home runs went to left field.

Not content to be another Willie McCovey or Mike Schmidt, Bautista has this year decided to be Barry Bonds. Crazy, huh? But as it stands, Bautista’s current 277 OPS+ is better than the record set by Bonds in 2002 of 268. Better than Babe Ruth’s best of 255. Or Ted Williams best of 234, Jeff Bagwell’s 213, Albert Pujols’ 190, or Alex Rodriguez’s 176. Yes Bautista could let his OPS+ drop 100 points and equal A-Rod’s best offensive season ever.

And again, Bautista was considered a utility player prior to 2010. As in, someone who got into the lineup based on defensive versatility, and not offensive production. A guy that doesn’t hit well enough to be a regular player, but who could fill in for enough guys at other positions to get 400 plate appearances during a season. Guys such as Nick Punto, Aaron Miles, and John McDonald fit this mold. Those three players do not just change their swing and become the best hitter in baseball. Except that’s exactly what Jose Bautista has done.

But hey it’s mid-May. He won’t keep this up forever. And surely some team has figured out how to get him out. Surely he has some weakness.

Vs Lefties: .409/.552/1.045

Vs. Righties: .361/.508/.804

Home: .429/.571/1.095

Away: .338/.485/.714

Batting average on balls in play: .333, which is a bit above average, but not exactly Josh Hamilton’s 2010 (Bautista had a BABIP of .233 that year to Hamilton’s .390, all things equal who should have been MVP?)

Day games: .278/.418/.815

Night games: .446/.591/.877

His worst line against any opponent: Against Boston he holds a line of .217/.333/.391 with only one home run.

His best line against an opponent: Against the East leading Rays, Bautista is hitting .750/.846/2.250 with 3 home runs. Yes, that’s a slugging percentage at 2.250, which in layman’s terms means that on any given plate appearance, Bautista will, on average, end up about a quarter of the way between 2^nd and 3^rd base.

Against the Twins, he’s hitting .480/.581/1.360 with seven home runs.

Players go into slumps. What I’m wondering though, is if Bautista slumps mean he goes .250/.400/.500 for a week with two home runs. It remains to be seen, of course, but if Bautista maintains 80% of his current pace throughout the year, we’re in for a season only Ruth and Bonds could ever claim.

Which is pretty ridiculous.

P.S  http://steroids-and-baseball.com/ READ IT.

Quietly, though, some players are really thriving. I am referring to Kubel, Span, Baker, Duensing, and Perkins. Only Duensing enjoyed a quality 2010 season, but like the other four, was a pretty big question mark going into 2011.

But now these past few games have actually been, what’s the word, encouraging? Not that anyone is really hitting, but the team has won three in a row, and this most recent game against Boston was almost, need another word here, exciting?

Trevor Plouffe comes up and homers in his first at bat. Did he get pissed at his poor spring and just start hacking? Maybe, and this is a long shot, he could be a spark plug. He ends up stealing a base, scores three runs, and takes a walk.

Scott Baker pitched a real gem, and now has a 2.97 ERA to go with his usual solid K/BB ratio. He’s still allowing home runs, but not as many hits, and he’s striking out more batters. He says he’s starting to feel healthy, could this be a big year for Bake? If so, he is a legit #2 starter.

Joe Nathan pitched a scoreless 9^th, and has been much more stable since his move out of the closer’s role. A role Matt Capps has handled pretty well.

Most importantly, though, the team scored nine runs against a good team! Does success against a knuckleballer indicate success going forward? Eh, that’s a bit murky. But the fact remains, Liriano threw a no hitter, and the team has won the next two games. And scored nine runs in one. Young should come back soon, Mauer shortly after that (And he is after all, the team’s most stable bat when in the lineup). If Plouffe proves he belongs, and puts up fair power numbers with average defense, Liriano jumps off his performance against Chicago, Nathan and Morneau shake off the rust and become forces again (Not to previous levels, but maybe 80% of those levels), and perhaps Nishioka comes back All of a sudden this is a team to watch for as a bigtime comeback story.

Say what you will of Ron Gardenhire, no manager in the game gets his team on track better after bad stretches.

It’s not a tough division. The Indians are for real, but won’t maintain their current pace. The team with the most talent in the division currently sits behind the Twins in the standings. If the Tigers don’t take off, I would say 85 games could win this division.

A lot of things must go right for the Twins to reach that level. But a ton of things have had to go wrong for them to be where they are right now. Just wouldn’t put it past them, is all I’m saying.

Joe Mauer’s early season mystery injury!!

The aftermath of this slide oughta keep me out 5-7 games at least three times this year.

Looking back, there’s been:

The stress fracture! Some people claimed at the time that a stress fracture isn’t even possible.

The quad pull! An injury I’ve never seen come from anyone else’s quad.

The heel bruise! Seriously! Sprain an ankle, pull a hammy, something that other players can relate to!

And now Bilateral leg weakness!!

Seriously, Joe Mauer would never have to deal with skepticism over his durability if he actually managed to HAVE REAL INJURIES, and not ones that need to be scrupulously diagnosed by a misanthropic TV doctor.

Ive got it! All the Head & Shoulders he uses causes him to become a demon serial murderer every few months! Good thing this unrelated argument with Wilson has allowed me to see the truth.

In other news, our hometown team has gotten off to an awful start. A 4-8 record and a team slugging percentage under .300. Every player not named Kubel and Span has not stumbled out of the gates, but suffered a collective stroke while standing at the gates, and fallen on their collective faces in a pile of drool and shame.

In Spring Training, it was speculated that Alexi Casilla needed a good start to the season to get a good hold of his shortstop job. But can you really hate on the guy for batting .160 when what he’s been doing has been pretty standard throughout the lineup?

To be fair, most of the guys have gotten their batting averages over .200, which seemed like a novel goal a week ago. But as far as home runs are concerned, we have Valencia, Thome and Span with one apiece. That’s it. Did all the ‘adjusting to Target Field so we’re not going to hit home runs’ talk go to everyone’s head?*

*I do like that Morneau has five doubles, however. His results aren’t there, but his performance is above the threshold where we could say his head injury is causing him problems.

But the offense won’t suck forever. Young and Cuddyer are flawed hitters, but they’re going to OPS at least .780 between them. Not .500. Casilla might be bad, but he’s not OPS .368 bad.

It could be worse, in other words. Span seems to have solved his mechanical problems, and Kubel is avoiding his early season mailaise from years past. Carl Pavano has rebounded very nicely from his opening day massacre. Blackburn has been solid, Duensing hasn’t provided much to be worried about, and Baker hasn’t imploded (Though he hasn’t exactly been encouraging). Liriano is the one to be concerned with. Walking guys like crazy, then trying to not walk guys and getting lit up by Kansas City. It will be interesting, and perhaps pivotal, to see what he does in his next trip.

The bullpen has been pretty decent (Despite managing to blow two saves in one game today), considering it was supposed to be the glaring weak spot on the team. Everyone knows signing Dusty Hughes was dumb, but when he’s non tendered in a few weeks maybe we’ll get to see what Jim Hoey can do.

Now, looking around the league, there are some interesting tidbits to be found:

Well at least the fact that Im always injured hides that fact that I dont have any plate discipline and generate most of my power from playing in extreme hitters parks.

- Josh Hamilton and J.J. Hardy are fragile and should be handled with care. If I were the Rangers, I’d put Hamilton on the 60 DL, and activate him in September. Does past drug abuse contribute to having easily broken bones and easily pulled muscles? Probably not. But he is going to continue to get hurt, I will say that. My theory, not that anyone cares, is that players who get injured a lot are just worse at falling down than other players. Cal Ripken was really good at falling down. J.D. Drew probably isn’t. Jeff Francouer and Melky Cabrera are both really bad Royals players, and probably haven’t done their teams much of a service by being good at falling down and never getting hurt. Bob Sanders of the Indianapolis Colts is terrible at falling down. The man can’t avoid breaking something if you leave him unsupervised for ten minutes.

They say guys who get hurt just play harder than everyone else, they take more risks. I guess that’s probably true with Carlos Gomez. He puts his body in danger like he’s forgotten what gravity is. I seriously worry about him, sometimes. But I’m pretty sure most players play the game hard look at Francouer. Everyone in the game says no one plays harder. And he’s never on the DL. David Wright supposedly plays really hard; he’s rarely hurt.

You know that little kid back in elementary school who wanted to be a stunt man when he grew up? He would jump around doing crazy shit and would never get hurt? That kid grows up to be Randy Johnson, Orlando Cabrera, Jon Garland (Actually Jonny’s finally on the DL this year), Ichiro, Adam Dunn. The kid who’s constantly on crutches from falling off his bed, or landing awkwardly playing hop scotch? He grows up to be Howie Kendrick, or Larry Walker, or Marcus Giles, Chase Utley, Rafael Furcal, Aramis Ramirez.

Freak injuries do happen. A pitcher is going to burn his finger grilling steak this year and miss two starts. But if Howie Kendrick and O-Cab collide and both end up on the ground, I bet you 9 times out of 10, O-Cab wins.

Ya know its true.

The most interesting thing going on so far has been the 10-2 Rockies, and more specifically, Troy Tulowitzki. He’s slugging .909 so far with seven home runs, pretty much carrying the entire offense, similar to his performance last September. At this point, is there a more valuable player in the game? The man hits like a superstar first baseman while playing legitimately gold glove defense at shortstop. Although I’m kind of on the fence about his falling ability…

The Rays and the Red Sox are not playing good ball, but I like the Sox chances to rebound a lot better. They have depth at every position except catcher, and like the Twins, have pretty much every hitter starting out cold. When you have Carl Crawford, Adrian Gonzalez, Kevin Youkilis, Dustin Pedroia, David Ortiz, and J.D. Drew in your lineup on a daily basis, eventually the runs will come. If they, by some crazy circumstance, don’t come, at least you have Jon Lester, Clay Buchholz, Josh Beckett and John Lackey to pick up the slack. And then Jon Papelbon, Daniel Bard and Bobby Jenks for an extra layer of security.

If you’re the Rays, you have good starting pitching, but after that you’re looking at a lot of reliance on B.J Upton and Ben Zobrist to play to the potential they showed in one of their seasons, and Evan Longoria to handle everything else. John Jaso is good when he doesn’t have to be good. Same goes for Dan Johnson and Reid Brignac. Scoring runs is going to be a problem, and Desmond Jennings isn’t going to make it go away. And having Joel Peralta and Kyle Farnsworth holding down the fort isn’t a great idea, either. Jake McGee is a shiny alternative, but if you saw him try to throw breaking balls to Kubel and Valencia today, you’ll agree he’s not a shutdown closer yet.

Wait a minute. Thats Vernon Wells, not zombie Duke Snider... That Greek bastard lied to me.

A few things are going as expected. Namely that the Phillies won’t give up a lot of runs, and that the Rangers have a really deep offense. As far as surprises, I’d say the Orioles are a little better than what they’re given credit for. As I write this they have lost four in a row, but with Zach Britton looking like a potential phenom, and Brian Matusz on the mend, all of a sudden their offseason pickups of Guerrero, Reynolds, Lee and Hardy don’t look so frivolous and prospect blocking. I mean, offensively, where are their holes? Adam Jones still has potential, Markakis = Paul O’Neil?, Brian Roberts can still play, and Wieters might just bust out. Oh, and Luke Scott can OPS .900 without anyone noticing. Who the hell knows?

I also like the Blue Jays. Not much defense, but a powerful offense once their middle of the order guys (Lind, Hill, Encarnacion) start heating up. Yes, I am a Jose Bautista believer. And they have some pitching depth, as well. Not to mention payroll flexibility that was apprehended right out of Tony Reagins’ pocket.

Basically the whole AL East is worth watching, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the Rays were the ones to finish 5th.

Kansas City:

Objects on mound may be smaller than they appear

Now it normally is very foolish to be high on the Royals in any legitimate way. Especially this early in the season. But, and I will emphasize that I place no emphasis on their 6-3 start to the season, this team doesn’t even look that bad. The most impressive thing about them is their bullpen. Joakim Soria at the back is always a wonderful thing. But then look at the supporting cast: Robinson Tejeda, someone with a big arm and great K numbers wherever he’s pitched, now healthy and in the bullpen. I’m bullish on guys who have what is considered to be good stuff, have had spotty but sometimes legitimate success as a starter, and who are put into bullpen roles. He could have a big year. Then you have Tim Collins the 5’7″ lefty, who has had a brilliant minor league career, especially K wise, and who is getting a shot in the bullpen. So far he’s pitched 4+ innings with 7 K’s and hasn’t given up a run. I wouldn’t doubt he’ll take his lumps, but given his minor league track record (329 K’s in 223 innings, 2.26 ERA) I’d say he has a good shot to be a force. Jeremy Jeffress is considered to be the dark horse centerpiece of the Greinke trade. Which means he’s been hurt a lot, but when healthy has put up big K numbers as well. He’s been given a shot in the pen to start out the year and I wouldn’t doubt he succeeds in the low leverage situations he gets put in. Then you have Sean O’Sullivan, a former Angels starting prospect turned mop up KC reliever. Never bet against someone who an organization was formerly high on as a starter, having success as a reliever.

In other words, their pen isn’t relying on Dusty Hughes’ in high leverage situations.

Starting-wise, the tale is a little more grim. Jeff Francis has looked good so far, and he had an underrated 2010, but he’s an average #2/good #3 at best. Luke Hochevar is the ‘ace.’ No comment. Bruce Chen was pretty good last year, KC brought him back, and I wouldn’t doubt he could be a decent fourth starter. He could also remember that he’s Bruce Chen. And then there’s Kyle Davies. Poor, unfortunate Kyle Davies. But at least this year KC has a decent, young bridge to Soria even if the starter only goes 5. A lot will ride on the offense, however.

As for the offense, we have Billy Butler and a bunch of questions. Butler himself has to answer the question of whether he’s gonna be Lyle Overbay or Edgar Martinez. Alex Gordan has looked real good so far, which is encouraging, and there is still a ton of potential in his bat if he can keep his success going. Kila Ka’aihue could be a poor man’s Adam Dunn. The offseason additions of Melky and Frenchie could conceivably be league average, though that is a bit of a stretch. Alcides Escobar is great with the glove, but is he Rey Ordonez or Jose Reyes with the bat? He’s at least better than Tony Pena Jr.

Chris Getz has a little on base ability, Mike Aviles has shown he can actually be a 4-5 win player if everything goes right, and Wilson Betemit could be the second or third best hitter on  the team if given a shot.

Then there’s Mike Moustakas and Eric Hosmer waiting in the wings at triple A.

A flawed team, but a lot of potential for improvement, and an incredible farm system to back it up.

Prediction: Third place. 82-80

Cleveland:

Don't worry Cleveland, I'll give you 13 home runs, 56 RBI and only 3 more shoulder surgeries

Like KC, the Indians have gotten off to a hot start. As of this writing, they have won seven games in a row. But where is this production coming from? Not where you want it to. Orlando Cabrera has started out hot, Asdrubal Cabrera somehow has 3 home runs, fill in Jack Hannahan has an .891 OPS, and Travis Hafner is being his usual tease self. Eventually, this team will realize it’s starting pitching is pretty bad, and that unless Matt LaPorta busts out no one on this team will hit more than 20 home runs. I like the bullpen, however, and almost want to pick Cleveland over Detroit, but no matter how much you want something to be true, sometimes you have to face that it can’t happen.

Prediction: Fifth place. 75-87

Detroit:

I'm pretty sure I beat this guy up in middle school. But I'd still take him over Tolbert.

I really dislike the Tigers. Because you can usually take it to the bank that no one on their team will ever build off a good year. That’s why guys like Ryan Raburn and Brandon Inge and even Justin Verlander tend to fluctuate between serviceable, good and awesome and non tender material. Brennan Boesch is not the answer. Austin Jackson is DEFINITELY not the answer (I’ve never seen a position player succeed with his MAGNITUDE of terrible peripherals). Magglio is already hurt, Jhonny Peralta is just like Raburn and Inge, you don’t know if he’ll OPS .650 or .850. Will Rhymes, Alex Avila? Please. Oh, and Brad Thomas makes this team AGAIN? Yeah it’s cute that he throws left handed, but at some point, don’t you have to accept that there is no better definition of batting practice pitcher in the GAME?

Rick Porcello can’t strike guys out, Brad Penny might have a good first half, but don’t bet on him finishing with an ERA under 4.50. Not away from the NL. Scherzer and Verlander I like at the top, and Valverde and Benoit are a good tandem at the back. And Cabrera and Martinez will dutifully carry most of the offense. But this team is built to underachieve; they always do.

Prediction: 4th place. 77-85

Minnesota:

I am the optimist among optimists. But I also tend to believe in narratives. Anything besides logic for me. In Minnesota, if our team has a good year, dominant year, first place in our conference type year, the next year will be disappointing. Look at the 99 and 2010 Vikings, the 04-05 Wolves, the 07 Twins.

The 2011 Twins. On paper, this is still a good team. Joe Mauer can have as bad an April as he wants, when it’s said and done you’ve got an .860 OPS from your catcher. And if he gets hot for an extended period of time, like during the summers of ’06 and ’09, that might rise to .960. I think Morneau will hit, even if it takes him a minute to get into the groove. Young and Kubel are not without their flaws, but they both hit the ball hard enough that at least one figures to have a good year offensively. Cuddyer probably won’t be as bad as last year. Thome can hopefully hit a few home runs, though I’ll take the under on him getting to 600 this year. Casilla, Tolbert, Hughes, Nishioka when he gets back are all unfortunate options. And then I think about how WE TRADED J.J HARDY FOR UNPROVEN ‘POWER’ BULLPEN ARMS AND THEN TRADED BILLY BULLOCK FOR A 5TH STARTER WE ALREADY HAD UNDER TEAM CONTROL*.

*I would advise Bill Smith to stick to trading with organizations that don’t make intelligent decisions. Which means no Rays, no Braves, no Red Sox, no A’s, and not even the Orioles anymore (Apparently). Just stick to exploiting Seattle, Kansas City, Philadelphia (Oh yes that team is so fucked in 3-5 years), Florida, Houston, the Cubs and the L.A teams.

But if Liriano continues to struggle with his control, Pavano takes a step back, Baker loses that one grain of velocity that determines whether hitters will be late on his fastball or crush it, and Duensing falls into what his FIP and xFIP said he would always do, then we have problems. Because we have Dusty Hughes in our bullpen.

In summary, good offense, questionable starting pitching, average at best bullpen. I would say it’s an 85 win team at this point. And who knows who is going to get hurt.

Prediction: 2nd place. 86-76

Chicago:

You know I hate to do this, but where is there a weakness on this team? Their offense will be good. It might be great. Their starting pitching is deep. It might be really really deep. Their bullpen is great. It might really start to piss me off in about 5 months.

Oh hello, postseason

Carlos Quentin looks good, Konerko can’t fall too far, Dunn is Dunn and definitely not done (If there wasn’t this misguided notion that since Dunn is sarcastic and goofy => he hates baseball, could he see some hall of fame support with 4-5 more good seasons?), Rios is the sort of player I think plays better when his team is contending, Beckham has nowhere to go but up, Danks and Floyd are like poor people’s Smoltz and Glavine, Peavy will come back presumably, Buehrle will likely remain solid, Sale Santos and Thornton are a really good bullpen trio who also serve to keep Jesse Crain in the 6th and 7th innings, where he belongs (As Twins fans know. Nothing worse than an 8th inning Crain-wreck). There are simply too many good players on this team. It would take a rash of injuries for them to not win 90 games, in my estimation.

Prediction: 1st place. 94-68

I feel good about these predictions. My particular biases may have taken 4-5 wins from the Tigers and added them to the Twins and Royals, I will admit.

But despite the staying power of Major League Baseball, and the fact that about 25 teams each year have a legitimate shot at a title (Sorry KC, Pittsburgh, Arizona, Cleveland, and Mets fans), people don’t seem

to get too fired up about it. I only know three or four people who I can have a knowledgeable conversation about baseball with. And that’s making the assumption that I’m capable of a civil conversation about the sport without frothing at the mouth and cursing the Yankees back to the hell from whence they came (That’s a pretty big assumption).

But why the apathy for out nation’s pastime? Ask anyone who doesn’t watch baseball regularly and they say it’s boring. It doesn’t have the intense pressure, hard hits, and breakaway speed of, say, football.

Which is true to an extent. A running back taking over a game is pretty special. A safety knocking the ball out of the hands of a receiver to force a fourth down is kinda awesome. A properly executed two minute drill can be electrifying.

And it’s true that football doesn’t have the downtime of professional baseball (Though I might counter that having two commercial breaks at every change of possession is pretty annoying). But does that really decide the argument? Maybe. Maybe in the day we live in, people don’t have the patience for a sport that takes three hours and doesn’t usually involve players being carried out on stretchers.

In any case, I don’t think either side is fair to the other. Football fans ignore the

#1 Mark against the NFL, Philip Rivers, that cocky bitch

way suspense is built into major league pennant races and playoff games in favor of pointing out how boring it is when a pitcher loses his command with his team behind by seven runs. In May. Baseball fans tend to ignore the genius behind effective play calling and strategy in football, in favor of saying it’s just a bunch of behemoths smashing each other to bits.

So I think it’s prudent to do an evaluation of the pros and cons of each sport, in relation to each other. Because I have the time, and since I picked apart the post of an accomplished blogger yesterday, someone might actually be reading.

What is required of players to succeed:

This is a big sticking point with me. What makes an athlete special is both athletic ability and emotional strength. When I’m watching a sport and a player is lacking in one of those criteria, yet still succeeding, I find this morally absurd and root against said player. God I hated when big fat drunk David Wells pitched a perfect game against the Twins when I was a kid.

But what is more impressive than a player who has the size, the quickness, the reactions, the flexibility, but also can outthink opponents and mentally undress them? This is why I think Tiger Woods at his peak may have been the best athlete ever. Golf is a sport governed by mental toughness. A lot of the guys on tour don’t spend any time in the gym, can’t touch their toes, and eat more big macs than protein shakes. But they have the wherewithal to bounce back from a double bogey the way you and I cannot. But Tiger Woods came along and had the body of a swimmer, the strength of a cornerback, AS WELL AS the mental prowess of… I have no idea. Maybe Peyton Manning? He was unprecedented. What little athletic ability golf demanded from its best players, Tiger Woods surpassed tenfold. He wouldn’t wear down because he was in the best physical shape. And his focus wouldn’t wear down because his mind was just as strong as anyone else’s.

So I think Football and Golf fall on opposite ends of the spectrum. In football, you can succeed without any mental ability at certain positions. In golf, you can succeed without any athletic ability. I don’t mean to diminish what NFL players do. It just seems like if you’re big and fast enough, you will succeed in football. That’s what the scouts look for in their draft strategies, and that’s who gets the big contracts. At least for the following positions:

Offensive lineman – There is technique in what they do, of course, but technique doesn’t mean shit if you aren’t 6’4″ and 300 pounds.

Set phasers to KILLFUMBLE

Defensive lineman – Their job is to get to the quarterback or running back and essentially kill them. It doesn’t matter how they do it, but they can’t do it effectively unless they’re really big or really fast. And they have to be at least somewhat big.

Running backs – They too must be fast, and it helps if they’re big, but they must have the added ability to change direction quickly and with deception. So running backs have the added chore of needing to be good… dancers?

Fullbacks – They have to be big, but fast enough to move themselves so that defenders can’t get around them.

Wide Receivers – Being big and fast is paramount at this position, with the added caveat of running routes, and being mentally stable enough to not drop the ball.

Quarterbacks, linebackers, tight ends and defensive backs all need more specific skills, most notably the ability to read defenses/offenses. I think you can see this difference in how many players of each position are selected in the first round of the draft. Since 1980, the most represented position in the first round is defensive linemen (199 picks). The second most is offensive linemen (156 picks). Then defensive backs (148 – Maybe the thinking is that so few excel at this position that the only ones worth having are 1st round talents?). Then running backs (119), then wide receivers (114). Quarterbacks and linebackers, the positions that arguably require the most mental strength and ability to survey and react to surroundings, are the least represented (103 and 74, respectively). My point being that it’s a lot easier to bank on drafting Lenny from Of Mice and Men and molding him into something useful, than to spend a precious draft choice on someone who needs to be smart as WELL as big and fast.

As for baseball players, I think they fit somewhere in the middle of the spectrum between football and golf. I don’t think you need to look past someone like Brad Lidge to come to that conclusion. How does someone go from the the most effective closer in the game to the worst one in a year? Certainly Lidge has the ability; his slider has always been devastating and his fastball still has life. Bu if you lose confidence as a pitcher you. are. fucked. You can’t just steamroll your opponents into submission. You have to play cat and mouse with the hitter. The hitter is trying to force you into a count where you have to give them something to hit, and you’re trying t0 deceive them by changing speeds and locations, or trying to get them to chase something out of the zone. And you can’t play this game without the confidence that you can pull it off.

Shit. I hope this doesn't turn into a recurring thing.

As a hitter, you are hitting a small ball with a round bat. That’s hard enough. But then you have to have good pitch recognition by detecting spin on the ball and subtle changes in arm movement from the pitcher. You have to have a good gauge of what the pitcher is going to come with, whether he’s going to throw a strike or a ball, where the infielders are positioned, what the situation calls for as far as outs and who’s on base and where. If the pitcher has an overpowering fastball, you need to account for that. If he has a good slider, too, you need to be prepared for that, as well. And even if you are great at all of that; recognition, plate discipline, analyzing the situation, you still need bat speed, and leg torque and strong wrists to be able to succeed. And even then you can get unlucky and hit hard smashes to the third baseman over and over until you’re batting .200.

Furthermore, baseball scouts talk a lot about tools. Guys who have power, strong throwing arms, fast legs, quick wrists. But having tools doesn’t equate to success. That’s why so many prospects, previously heralded as the next big thing, flame out (I’m looking at the Mets here; Fernando Martinez and Carlos Gomez, what overhyped jokes). The player must convert those tools into skills in order to succeed. In football, there are a lot of positions where simply having the tools; big body, quick feet, fast legs, are enough to be a star. They may learn some subtleties of the game that allow them to be even better, but once they turn 30 and lose a step, it won’t matter, because they’ll be facing off against someone young, giant, fast and crazy.

Screw this game. I'm opening a restaurant.

And really, for non-kickers football doesn’t really allow for old or small guys to compete. Take Emmitt Smith playing his last season for the Cardinals. It was sad. He was once one of the best running backs the game had ever seen, and here he was playing for Arizona and averaging 3 yards per carry. Sure, quarterbacks can play into their 40′s, and they can be successful. But the quarterback position is a whole different animal. The myriad things you have to account for relies on rock solid mental strength. Which is why Tarvaris Jackson is, and always will be, a terrible quarterback, and Brett Favre had his best season at age 40. Show me a 40 year old defensive lineman, or running back, who still plays at a high level. They are true freak anomalies, if any of them even exist.

Now look at Jamie Moyer. The guy started pitching before I was born. His fastball royally sucks. He’s 47 years old, and attempting to come back from ligament replacement surgery on his pitching elbow. It’s absurd that he doesn’t just retire. But he posted a 3.1 WAR season as a 45 year old, which is over 15M worth of value.

In baseball, there is a distinction often made between pitchers and throwers. Jamie Moyer is a pitcher, he does all the things I mentioned earlier; changes speeds and locations, fools hitters into making weak contact. Basically you can be a pitcher without being a thrower, like Moyer, but you can’t succeed as a thrower alone. Ask Juan Morillo. Haven’t heard of him? Exactly. He could throw 99 but couldn’t pitch to save his life. But he’s probably entertaining for the Japanese baseball fans he now throws in front of.

You know what? I could beat up Jamie Moyer. I could, but I don’t think that could be said for any non-kicker NFL player. I find that really cool. David Eckstein paced his 2002 Angels in WAR and led them to a world series title. I could definitely beat up David Eckstein.

I couldn’t beat up Albert Pujols. He’s like the new Tiger Woods in his combination of physical and mental ability. The media gets on him when he hits too many line outs and his average drops to .301. But then he just comes back and combines his ridiculous reflexes and coordination, strong wrists, powerful legs and bulletproof mind into hitting 5 home runs over the next week. Like coming back from a double bogey.

Which is all a long way of saying, I think baseball requires a more well rounded athlete than football does.

Parity and the way teams operate:

Different teams in baseball have different stances on what skills, or stats, or philosophies, they value. Oakland and Tampa try to exploit market inefficiencies in their evaluation of players, the Yankees try to outspend to remain competitive and to compensate for their farm system, the Twins and Angels have the reputations of focusing more on pitching and defense and baserunning than other teams, the Padres try to lure in pitchers with their expansive home ballpark, while a slugger coming off a down year might be courted by a team like the Diamondbacks or Rangers who have hitter friendly parks and the possible promise of a bounce back, 30 homer season.

Philosophical differences are prevalent in the NFL, as well. The Steelers have been defense first for more than 40 years. Oakland is seen as a place for misfits and castoffs. New England seems to be a place for players who are done with individual accomplishments and want a chance for a ring. Denver, at least until recently, was an assembly line for quality running backs. The Vikings will choke for eternity. I think it’s cool that those things can last for generations in some cases.

Parity is a different subject, however. I think the two sports are somewhat of a wash, really. There are mainstays at the top (The Patriots, the Yankees, the Steelers, the Braves), but there are always teams that come out of nowhere (Last year there were the Chiefs, the Reds, the Bears to an extent, and both pennant winners in the Rangers and Giants). Sure the fans of the Bengals and Browns and Royals and Pirates might have something to say about parity, but they are the exception, and mainly suck due to bad drafting and poor management more than luck and the system working against them.

Which brings us to the salary cap issue. It’s something football fans will point to when arguing for the NFL over MLB. They argue that since every team has the same money to spend, that makes everything fair.

Which is true. But then, isn’t that a little boring? I’ve written at length about this before, so I won’t delve too far into this, but isn’t it more exciting to see the Rangers beat the Yankees in the ALCS knowing they spent 100M less in payroll? As opposed to the Seahawks beating the Saints this past year (Which was a tremendous upset, an under .500 playoff team defeating the defending champions), when they both spent the same. Doesn’t that make it a little less terrific? I suppose I’m overly sentimental about these things; I always prefer David to beat Goliath and not Goliath beating Goliath. But I’m a Twins fan, so can you blame me?

I think when teams have to make do with less money than the big market teams, it forces them to be creative. Which is essentially what Moneyball was all about. And I think that’s a cool part of baseball and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Not even if I was a Pirates fan (I grew up with the mid 90′s Twins, so I can empathize to an extent).

The Role of Random Chance:

This is where I have to give the NFL it’s props. Good teams generally destroy bad teams. It might be because they’re bigger, faster, stronger, trickier, or smarter, but they generally win. A bad call or a freak injury or a mental blunder might turn the tide, but mostly the best team wins. And this usually holds for the playoffs. Most would say the Packers had one of the most talented rosters in football last year. And the Steelers had a great team, too. The Packers won the superbowl and not the Seahawks.

This past October, the Giants WERE the Seahawks. They capitalized on late season collapses by their division rivals, the Padres and the Rockies, and squeaked into the postseason on the strength of their pitching and some nice seasons from Aubrey Huff, Andres Torres and rookie Buster Posey. So like the Seahawks, they had some strong points, and some good players, but were deeply flawed. They didn’t have much of an offense, and still don’t. Returning a similar roster this year, I can almost GUARANTEE the Giants won’t make the postseason in 2011. But baseball is all about bad hops, ground balls with eyes, pitchers who have bad nights, hitters with ill timed slumps and a myriad other things that have little to do with the strength of the team, the wisdom of its coaches or the talent of its players. The Phillies were the best team in the NL. Any three of the AL teams not named the Rangers could have claimed to be the best team in the AL.

When confidence and mental strength is at issue, sometimes the best teams don’t win. Hot and cold streaks take over. To succeed in the MLB playoffs, you need a higher percentage of your players to go on hot streaks than the opposing team. Cody Ross usually is a pretty average player. Doesn’t walk, can hit 20 homers a year and play average defense. But in the playoffs, he got hot. So did Madison Bumgarner, a rookie who had his ups and downs in the regular season. The Giants rode these performances, among plenty of others, straight to a world series title.

As for the Twins, Joe Mauer went cold. So did Jim Thome and Michael Cuddyer and Jason Kubel. Delmon Young was pretty good, hit a triple, but it wasn’t nearly enough. I thought they stacked up pretty well against the Yanks, but they had fewer players get hot and more players go cold. That’s how it goes.

The Packers had a good pass rush, and it caused Roethlisburger to force things and make mistakes. If they played the super bowl 100 times, barring injury, the Packers pass rush would stay good.

Something we all have the same feelings toward?

If the Twins played the Yankees in a 5 game set 100 times, Joe Mauer would probably hit well in 70-75 of them.

The Announcers:

No comment.

Ways to Measure Player Performance:

I’m not well briefed in advanced football statistics. I do know that there are basically no stats that measure what offensive lineman do, which is infuriating to me. How can you know definitively if a player is good if he accumulates no statistics? I suppose that is what scouting is for. But couldn’t there be instances where a lineman is actually performing very well, but looks really bad doing it? Kind’ve like how Rick Ankiel LOOKED really smooth out in center field this past year for the Royals, but in fact had terrible range and was costing his team runs?

Defensive Lineman are celebrated, and paid, for how many sacks they accrue (Stopping the run is important as well, but again, what if they LOOK good at stopping the run, but in fact are terrible at it?). But what about when the pass rusher gets double teamed? What about when he forces the quarterback to make a bad throw?

I bet there are stats for at least some of these things, but with baseball, I KNOW there are stats for just about everything. Defensive stats are getting more accurate, WPA is a great way to measure what a player actually contributes, regardless of his talent or projectability going forward. OPS is flawed but pretty telling of a batter’s effectiveness, while also having been accepted into the mainstream baseball following public. WAR can actually quantify how many wins a player provided. Basically, with baseball we can now pretty accurately measure everything a player does, even if we can’t SEE it. And in football you can hardly see anything outside of what the guy with the ball does.

Further, baseball’s abundance of stats allows for great arguments, because there’s always a way to “prove from the text,” as it were. If someone starts saying Nate McClouth deserved his gold glove, there are tons of stats you can draw from to prove that guy wrong. In football, if someone says Bryant McKinnie is “A beast out there,” you kind of have to take that guy at his word.

Conclusion?

I think this has gone on long enough. Out of the various criteria I’ve drawn from, I can say with confidence that baseball requires a more well rounded athlete than football. I can say that parity in the two sports is pretty even and that a winner in that regard depends on your opinion of salary caps. I can say that there are more easily accessible ways to measure player performance in baseball than football. I can say that in football, the better teams tend to succeed more in the playoffs (The 98 Vikings notwithstanding), as opposed to baseball and its 2010 world champion Giants. So yes, I think baseball is more complex, multi faceted, measurable, requires more skill and is more interesting to follow. But I’m biased and if you’re a football fan and you root for the best team in a given year, it is probably nice to see them win sometimes. And not the 2006 St. Louis Cardinals, yeesh.  Well, maybe I just wasted 3,000 words. You be the judge.

I think Twins bloggers are in a unique position of being obligated to be anti-homers. Because our team is run by homers, managed by a homer, and even the media coverage is a bit homerist. I like it, I think it’s unique and harks back to a time when baseball was about more about mythology than wOBA, and more about the players than the player’s off the field personalities. But I’m old fashioned, and let me be clear that I don’t expect anyone to agree with me.

But since our team has this culture of “Oh yeah Nicky Punto’s been seein the ball better, his wife just had a kid, he’ll be fine, pencil him in,” the bloggers are almost required to remind everyone that Nicky Punto is batting .220 with a .330 BABIP (As a fake example).

The blogger I feel is most skilled at this is Aaron Gleeman. I couldn’t say I like Subway more than Arby’s without him coming up with mathematical proof that I’m just wrong. When the front office makes a move, or Gardenhire flips the lineup, Gleeman will provide statistical evidence for or against the decision, and whether it was prudent from a probability standpoint.

For example, when discussing Liriano’s slider usage, Gleeman points out that he used the pitch far more in 2010 than 2009 (But less than 2006), that it has always been his most effective pitch, and that he can’t know whether or not the increased usage will lead to more risk of health problems down the road.

Gleeman provides substantiated evidence for his claims, and when there is no evidence to provide, he takes a wait and see approach. And this is where Nick Nelson comes in like an Alchemist at a MENSA meeting. His analysis of Justin Morneau’s 2011 prospects:

That the afflictions which haunted him for eight months would suddenly disappear just weeks before the start of the baseball season seems awfully convenient, so it’s entirely possible that they’ve grown more mild and he’s simply decided to start pushing through them a little more than he’s been willing to in the past.

Ideally, Morneau will be completely free of symptoms from the get-go this season, putting the traumatic brain injury behind him without issue. That’s a best case scenario but probably not an entirely realistic one. Given the persistence of the concussion’s lingering after-effects throughout the offseason it’s hard to imagine he won’t at least experience some minor symptoms as he attempts to return to everyday duty.

…Even if he does fully overcome concussion symptoms, we must acknowledge the fact that Morneau is returning from what is likely his longest hiatus from the sport since he began playing it.

…With this being the case, it seemingly would have made sense for the front office to invest in some sort of legitimate backup who could keep Cuddyer, Jason Kubel and Jim Thome in their natural (and most suitable) roles. Unfortunately, it looks like Cuddyer will be Morneau’s sole legitimate backup.

This just doesn’t strike me as responsible analysis. Particularly from a blogger who represents the Twins on ESPN’s sweetspot network. To say that Morneau’s recovery is timed conveniently disregards the fact that he was cleared to play by his doctors. Who, I would think given the Twins financial investment in Morneau, would not let him play unless he really was okay to play. Look at all the media coverage concussions get nowadays. It’s the players who want to play through them; it’s the doctors that are increasingly cracking down and being extra cautious. I haven’t heard anyone from the Twins say Morneau felt serious symptoms since January. Maybe I missed something.

I know of one professional sports player who had concussion symptoms last longer than eight months (I’m sure there are more). That was Corey Koskie. Is that a bad omen? Yes, but I would think Koskie’s case is the exception, not the rule.

Then Nelson grandly speculates that even if Morneau ends up healthy, which is “Not entirely realistic,” he will be terribly rusty because he hasn’t gone this long without baseball since he was in T-ball. I’m not one to talk, but if you make a claim, do some research! Or realize that you’re making a pretty baseless claim. Eight months is a lot, yeah. But that’s what spring training is for. And you didn’t follow Justin Morneau’s childhood. I hope. Morneau has always been a pretty quick starter anyway (.914 Career OPS for April).

Then to say we should have gone on he market for a legitimate backup is ludicrous –

(I’m going to digress here, skip this if you like. You know what’s really annoying? When a big market team loses a key player for a few weeks, not a serious injury, and then immediately ESPN and MLBtradrumors start saying who they should trade for or sign. Like when A-Rod was set to miss the first month of 09 with his hip thing, and all of a sudden trading for Aramis Ramirez made sense? Or sometimes teams actually do these types of transactions, like Ruben Amaro with Luis Castillo just this past week because Chase Utley might miss a month or two. Teams have farm systems for a reason. I call this phenomenon hot stove masturbation. Take some adderall and call up the guy in Triple A for christ sakes.)

–As if the Twins don’t have enough plodding DH types to mix and match with Kubel, Cuddyer, Young and Thome, Nelson is suggesting we go out and what, pick up Garrett Atkins? It’s nice to be cautious with injuries. But this is a tough player who says he’s good to go, who plays the easiest and most replaceable position on th

Two good months and guys predict 30 homers out of me? Shit!

e diamond. I would prefer Cuddyer at 1st as opposed to the outfield. Maybe it isn’t immediately obvious that Cuddyer’s -18.4 UZR/150 is horrendously bad and that stashing him at first can only help poor Baker and Slowey?

I know I’m making too much of this. It’s probably because I really want Morneau to be back and healthy and actually capitalize on his talent and have a great full season (As opposed to a great 3-4 months a year). The guy hits for power, hits for average, and his plate discipline has improved markedly throughout his career. No reason besides freak injuries he can’t hit 35-40 dingers with a 1.000 OPS.

But you know what? We can’t know how Morneau will bounce back. And to articulate a pessimistic projection based on grand speculations of a condition Mr. Nelson knows nothing about is pretty lame. What has Gleeman predicted for Morneau? Nothing that I’ve seen.

And what irks me on a more superficial level is Nelson’s projection of .290/.360/.480 for the first baseman. It’s been six years since Justin’s had an OBP that bad. If he’s going t0 be recovered, he’s going to be recovered. But wait, it gets worse. Nelson’s projection for Delmon Young, he of the 0.8 WAR in 2010? .360 OBP with 30 homers. C’mon.

Media reporter: Heyyy Francisco Liriano is really good and has two arb years left, so hey Twins officials, what of it?

Bill Smith: We’d be open to trading anyone if the right deal came along.

ESPN: OMG YANKS TELL MOFUCKIN MONTERO TO PACK HIS BAGS WE’VE GOT OURSELVES A #2 STARTER!

Twins bloggers: OMG WHY R WE UNDERVALUING F-BOMB HERE R HIS STATS HE’S REALLY GOOD DUH STUPID BILL SMITH.

So it’s really like this:

Media reporter: News please?

Bill Smith: I don’t understand how the media works, so I will give an honest answer.

ESPN: OMG OMG ZOMG

Twins Bloggers: Ooh something to blog about.

Me: Ooh something to criticize other people for.

But many would refute my argument by saying, well then why haven’t we seen a long term extension offer?

My response: Because that doesn’t make any business sense, and if the Twins don’t like to make bad business decisions.

Look, he had really bad shoulder problems in the minors (And he’s already been backed off this spring with shoulder soreness). He had TJ surgery. He’s had bouts of dead arm. He pitched a career high in innings last year. Furthermore, he’s had ONE GOOD FULL SEASON. You do not give out multi year contracts to pitchers with a laundry list of serious injuries and only one good full season on their resume. That is STUPID.

If all goes well, he will improve on his ’10 numbers and win a few more games in ’11. And then cost more money if we were to lock him up.

But at this point he would have a lot more trade value.

And it wouldn’t be completely idiotic to talk long term with him, as something of a more established commodity. Especially with Kubel and Cuddyer potentially coming off the books.

You think Billy Beane regrets not giving Rich Harden an extension after his 2004 season that featured the then 22 year old pitching 189 innings with a 114 ERA+?

And really, if the Royals decided to be like, hey want Mike Moustakas and Mike Montgomery, you wouldn’t listen? My point is that, responsibly, that’s all we should glean from what Joe Christenson vaguely relayed.

It certainly doesn’t mean the Twins are giving up on Liriano. It’s juicy to use that as a hypothesis, as Aaron Gleeman does:

Christensen is one of the best beat reporters in the country and rarely engages in speculation or rumors, so there’s definitely plenty of fire behind the Liriano-related smoke. Tom Pelisserof ESPN1500.com later confirmed Christensen’s report, talking to “baseball sources” who said the Twins are indeed willing to trade Liriano. After reading those two reports my first reaction was that the Twins are severely undervaluing what they have in Liriano.

How do we know the Twins are undervaluing Liriano just because they would be willing to trade him? Are the Twins really naive enough to think that can adequately replace him? Or could all this speculation and the refusal of the Twins to talk long term, as well as Rick Anderson’s report that Liriano didn’t keep up with his offseason conditioning, point to an organizational ploy to keep Liriano motivated?

Just a thought. But I will say, when the season starts, Liriano will be the #2 starter (And should be the #1). If he isn’t, say hello to Desmond Jennings and Jake McGee, your outfielder of the future and bullpen ace, respectively.

Predicting Alex Avila to win the AL ROY

Predicting the Marlins to win the World Series

Predicting the AL MVP being… Milton Bradley

Well we all make mistakes and it is the very nature of making preseason predictions that they appear ridiculous in retrospect.

But I will say, that I predicted Francisco Liriano, that of the ERA approaching 6 in ’09, of dipping velocity, of being a constant health risk, and having serious control problems, to pitch 190 innings and compile a 3.75 ERA.

All told, he ended up with an ERA of 3.62 in 191.2 innings.

So I’ve decided to go at it, again. Here are my major predictions for 2011:

For the AL Rookie of the Year balloting, I have deduced its future winner to be J.P Arencibia of the Toronto Blue Jays. I have this feeling that there is something in the water over there. That hitters are being told to just ‘swing like hell’ and that this mentality is having an effect on some of their players. Positively for Jose Bautista, of course, negatively for Adam Lind and Aaron Hill. Arencibia had like 32 homers in triple A last year. I think, if he plays adequate defense, the Jays have decent pitching (He’ll get credit for handling the pitching staff) and he hits 20 home runs he has a good shot.

My secret hope choice: Any Royals rookie. Possibly Moustakas.

For the NL, I’m debating between Brandon Allen and Freddie Freeman. But predicting a rookie of the year vote is like predicting when your car is going to break down. It could happen at 100,000 miles, or it could throw you a fuckball and break down outside the dealership. You can’t even know what variables you’ll have to contend with, just like you can’t know who even ends up eligible for the award.

Secret hope choice: Don’t care enough.

But MVP voting, there you have a few near certainties. Assuming everyone stays healthy (And for predicting awards, you may as well assume), you pretty much know that Adrian Gonzalez is going to tear up Fenway Park. Hitting in front of Chase Headley is different than in front of Kevin Youkilis or J.D Drew or whoever. And hitting into a lil baby short porch in left field is different than trying to hit a ball over a vast field of wheat/Petco Park.

And you know Miguel Cabrera and Joe Mauer and Evan Longoria will be good. It all depends on circumstances such as,

BABIP, Team performance, number of RBI opportunities.

For these criteria, I give Gonzalez the edge. His BABIP can’t help but go up moving from Petco (Or so I’m led to believe), his team will be very, very good, and he will have many, many RBI opportunies.

Secret hope choice: Vladimir Guerrero. Too much hate about him blocking Nolan Reimold and Felix Pie. They’re not Logan Morrison and Mike Stanton. They’re Nolan Reimold and Felix Pie. Vlad was a childhood favorite of mine, and hopefully he puts together a whole season like his first half last year. Could happen; he’s kind’ve a freak talent.

Can you ever bet against Albert Pujols to win the NL MVP? Not rationally, but for fun, I will do so. I’ll go with Jason Heyward. I think he would have had MVP numbers last year had he not gotten hurt. The Braves have a decent team, he plays great defense, and will know the league a bit better (And yes correspondingly the league will know him better, but I think when you’re dealing with freaky natural athletes like Pujols or Mauer or Cabrera, and I’ll include Heyward just because his OBP was .390 in his rookie season at age 20, you give the advantage of familiarity to the freak, and not the control group).

Secret hope choice: Justin Upton. Hope he contends. Wouldn’t it be nice to see an Upton brother do something interesting.

For the AL Cy Young, I think it’s hard to bet against King Felix. So I won’t. Not with Cliff Lee and Roy Halladay being Phillies. Though I do hope someone like Brett Anderson or Brandon Morrow makes it interesting.

Secret hope choice: Morrow. If he realizes his full potential, even for just one season, the Jays look quite a bit better. And then if Aaron Hill gets his BABIP out of the toilet (He will), Adam Lind finds a middle ground between ’09 and ’10 (Wouldn’t bet against it), Snider takes any sort of step forward (Seems likely) and Bautista realizes it takes more than one ridiculous season to earn a long term contract from a GM who isn’t affiliated with the LA Angels in any way shape or form (Crapshoot), we could see the Jays contend a little.

The NL Cy Young will probably be a Philly. We all know this to be true. I think Halladay is a superior pitcher to Lee. Honestly I think Lee has gotten overrated due to his K/BB ratio and playoff performances. But let us not forget, he’s never been super hard to get hits off of, he’s never been super great at limiting home runs, and he has thrown two rather poor World Series starts in the last two years. The K/BB ratio gets all the statheads salivating, and the playoff record gets all the fairweather fans on the wagon. But a rational person knows that Lee is an average #1 or a really good #2 starter, particularly considering he’s getting up in years.

Halladay, on the other hand, took the NL out back last year and got it pregnant with Cy Young awards. His ERA+ was 165, compared to Lee’s 130, he had tons of strikeouts, complete games, walked negative four batters. Just dominated all the way through while Lee was serving up home run after home run in Texas.

Also, Halladay is a surefire Hall of Famer. Lee has had one great season. So has Jose Bautista. And Ben Zobrist. Just saying.

Secret hope choice: Roy Oswalt. The man has been better than I tend to think about him. And I think about him as a poor man’s Nolan Ryan. Except Oswalt doesn’t walk half the guys he faces like Ryan did, and his career ERA+ is among the best in MLB history, look it up. He also had a great year last year, posting the best strikeout rate of his career. And this from a guy we all thought was in decline a year ago. He also has never won a Cy, so wouldn’t it just be lovely if he were to outshine his slightly more heralded teammates this year?

Now for the divisions. We all know the Twins will take the central, although Adam Dunn and Victor Martinez will dial up the difficulty. But everyone underachieves for the Tigers, and, well… yeah the Sox look pretty good. Good lineup, good rotation, good bullpen. I’m just banking on the Twins overachieving, which is never a bad bet.

The East will go to the Red Sox. They can’t have as many injuries as last year. Ridiculous lineup, smartly constructed roster, great rotation, ridiculous bullpen. Versus the Yankees with Russel (I’m too tired to hit) Martin at catcher, declining A-Rod and Jeter, and a shitty back end of the rotation. And the Rays, who no longer possess a lineup or a bullpen. Honestly the Jays could sneak into second place this year.

The West will go to Texas. I can’t jump on the Oakland bandwagon. Because the Oakland bandwagon is usually creaky and spends half its time on the 60 day DL. And Adrian Beltre doesn’t hurt, even in his “I’m not playing for a contract” form (Seriously though, what a fucking bastard, only playing well in contract years, he owes every Mariner ticket holder a personal apology). The Angels and the M’s will suuck, by the way.

The NL Central will return to the Cardinals, because last year was fluky bad, and the Reds are not for real. Joey Votto is, but they are not. Holliday, Rasmus, Wainwright, Carpenter, and first baseman will not screw up like last year again. And they get to beat up on the Cubs, Pirates and Astros all the time. The Brewers will be better, I see them getting almost 90 wins and maybe getting the Wild Card. Prince, Braun and Greinke make up some good star power.

The East is for the Phillies. Too much pitching, even if there isn’t a bullpen to match, or any concept of cost efficiency in the mind of Ruben Amaro. The Braves will be good, too. I think Heyward will take a leap forward this year, barring another nagging injury, Freddie Freeman looks legitimate, and Chipper Jones has one more glory year in him before he completely flames out in 2012. And Tommy Hanson is way better than he was last year, I feel.

And the West has to fall in favor of the Rox. Not that you can really predict the NL West, but the Giants will not overachieve so much, nor will they be so fortunate on the injury front again. Aubrey Huff is just not good in odd numbered years, Mark DeRosa is probably done, someone out of Cain, Lincecum and Sanchez will get hurt, and Andres Torres, while really good last year, will not ever be that good again.

The Rockies have an amazing shortstop, a true ace, a really good closer, a ridiculous, if not quite as good as he was in 2010, center fielder, and some guys in Ian Stewart and Dexter Fowler that can probably still bust out, in their own ways. Maybe 30 HRs for Stewart and a .300 average for Fowler. Jhoulys Chacin, in addition, put up some really good numbers last year and is a quality #2. They still have a soft bullpen and soft back end of the rotation though. That’s the feeling I get with the Rockies, that their pitching is soft. The Reds give off that impression, too, as does the Phillies bullpen and the Rays lineup.

And the World Series will be between the Yankees and the Braves and the Braves will win in six games.

This is meant to be sarcastic. Could you tell? I have been vocal about blogger elitism, or rather the blogger tendency to make their claims with finality, and presenting only statistical evidence that supports their case, and absolutely no semblance of a counter claim, or recognition of human elements of the game.

Let’s pick on Umpbump.com for a minute. Now you know Umpbump for their irreverent style; they can be clever in the way they take the game out of context, having a long line of posts about UFH (Unfortunate facial hair) and the like. What is truly unfortunate is that the writer’s for this site very often phone in their content. Let me qualify:

Nick Kapur writes an article about the Dodgers signing of Matt Guerrier. He hates the signing, as would I. After all, Guerrier is getting up in years, has poor peripherals, weak stuff, and a ton of mileage on his arm.  You go to fangraphs and find that Guerrier is indeed 32 years old. Hmm sounds old. In addition, you find that he has thrown 461.2 innings since 2005. That’s a lot of innings. And then you note that his FIP hasn’t ever been below 3.91. Last year it was 4.23. Seems high for someone getting a 3 year deal huh? And then you can scroll down to more advanced statistics. You can find Guerrier’s average fastball velocity! Oh dear, 90.6 MPH, that’s not too fast.

Kapur focuses on WAR, though. WAR is a good statistic; it can quantify a player’s value fairly effectively. However, in the case of middle relievers, they don’t really pitch enough to accumulate a lot of WAR (Unless they are truly elite). Kapur points out that Guerrier has been worth .2 WAR over the past three seasons, and that means that his production could easily be replaced by any old triple A reliever, or waiver wire pickup. There’s a little bit of gnome logic here. Step one: Note that some of his statistics are a tad underwhelming. Step Two: … Step Three: AWAY WITH HIM.

Baseball analysis will forever be riddled with the debate between results and the prediction of future results. That players should be evaluated by what they’ve done vs. being evaluated by what they should have/will do.

Kapur obviously subscribes to the second, more predictive side of the coin. Which is absolutely legitimate. All things being equal, he’ll probably be right more than half the time in terms of his evaluations of players.

But that side completely ignores the human element of the game, as well as the reality of the marketplace. Because in spite of his mediocre fastball, hittability, and consistently poor peripherals, Matt Guerrier continues to amass results. Is it his goat-like facial hair? Who knows! But what is a pitcher’s job again? To limit runs. His ERA’s the past six years: 3.39, 3.36, 2.35, 5.19, 2.36, 3.17 (Oh and his total WAR from those seasons, excluding 2008, is 2.1. It was .9 in his 2007 season, which is pretty damn good. See how cherry picking can make almost any argument true?). Yes, middle relieving is a fickle industry, but this man has done his job at an elite level for 5 of the 6 years he’s been with the Twins, which is a pretty good ratio.

And yes, Ned Colletti has made some poor decisions, you’re right, Mr. Kapur. But I think he and his staff may have noticed that Matt Guerrier has limited runs better than almost any other middle reliever over the past six years. If he hadn’t given Guerrier three years, you don’t think someone else would have? This is real money, not hypothetical money. You don’t give out millions of dollars based on what someone is predicted to do, you give it out based on what they have done. That isn’t likely to change any time soon, Mr. Kapur, so your argument is essentially that you’re mad that athletes get paid too much.

Now, will Matt Guerrier succeed in L.A? He might, and he might not. Dodger stadium is a big park, and Matt’s a bit of a fly ball pitcher. But I’m fairly certain that the Dodger brass will be pretty happy with the deal if they get three years of 3.50 ERA ball. I’m also fairly certain they won’t give a shit what his FIP is during those years.

Oh, right. Everyone already flew the coop immediately after Curtis Granderson’s double in game 1. It really is too bad, the way the playoffs have gone recently. Because the more the Twins lose, the less confidence they have, the more confidence other teams have in playing them in the postseason, and the faith of the fanbase diminishes even more.

This was supposed to be the year. This was the year we were prepared to make a run. The whole season seemed tilted that way. The division was never out of reach and in the end was won rather easily. We had a real shortstop, a real second baseman, almost a real left fielder even. It was a strange season around the league as well. The Rangers and Reds came out of somewhere and nowhere, respectively, the Padres competed without an offense for 5 months, there were 2.9 perfect games, pitching was up and hitting was down (To what degree of amazing that is is entirely subjective). Justin Morneau and Joe Nathan were out, Jim Thome was back in a tremendous way. This season was full of weird. And in my sentimental view, that would seem to imply, cosmically, that this was the year the Twins took down the Yankees and dispelled their reputation as playoff/Yankee chokers.

But there was one constant from seasons past, despite all the roster turnover and seemingly good karma, and that was failure in the ALDS. Certainly it was soul crushing to see our guys fold to those bastard Yankees again. But I’m reminded of a passage from Tim O’Brien’s book, The Things they Carried. The book is about war stories and the myths surrounding them and partly O’Brien’s experience in Viet Nam. You may have had to read it in high school. Anyway there’s this passage where a guy in the protagonist regiment, Rat Kiley, sees his best friend blown to pieces. The guy steps on a land mine, and is immediately lifted into the tree tops, light surrounding him, and he ascends into a mosaic of sunlight and blossoms. It is undeniably beautiful, and yet the harsh reality is, of course, that a man’s life was just lost. Rat Kiley goes and brutally, slowly, and gruesomely murders a baby water buffalo as an act of attrition. No one does anything, they just watch this baby animal slowly die in the most revolting fashion possible.

The way the Yankees win is they put landmines underneath our players. We’re blown to bits and there’s nothing we can do to stop the onslaught. The Yankees know they’re going to win, even if they’re behind. And I can’t deny the beauty in the way they do it. Leadoff guy draws a walk. You know it’s about to happen. Next guy doubles. The confidence they exude at this point is stunning. It could be Bret Gardner, it could be Mark Texiera. You know they won’t choke. You know if they’re behind, they’re going to tie it up at any moment. You know if they have a 1 run lead, it’s about to become a 2-3 run lead. They have a mission and they have all the belief in the world that they can accomplish it.**

**The only way, and we saw this in May or June in the final game of a 3 game set between the teams, that the Twins can overcome this is through various x factors. This usually means called strike threes. The only way the Yankee hitters won’t do exactly what they need to do is if they take called strike three. And it probably has to be a bad call. When Jon Rauch struck out Texiera with the winning run on base in May, it was a questionable call, but Texiera didn’t swing, and if he doesn’t swing he can’t achieve his objective. If the Twins ever want to overcome this profound defeatist mentality against the Yanks, they will need help from home plate umpires.

Now the way the Twins lose, that is the baby water buffalo. It’s sad, and it’s pathetic, and you know all the water buffalo wants is to survive this torment. But it can’t, and everyone knows it. It might be able to stand for a moment (Hudson’s homer in game 2, Valencia’s bases loaded walk in game 1) but its nose is about to get shot off by a rifle.

This is the beauty and savagery of the sport. What other game could have ‘curses’ that actually have the ability to mentally effect generation after generation of players such as the Cubs and until recently the Sox teams? Is the Twins ineptitude against New York at curse level yet? I don’t know, but this is beyond the realm of statistical analysis. This is a deep seeded loss of all belief and hope. This is me going up to bat for my 5th grade team against the hulk of a pitcher playing for the best team in the league. He’s just struck out our best hitter easily, he hasn’t given up a hit. I know what’s going to happen. I better hope he walks me, because I do not have the belief I can make a base hit happen without a fielding error.

I remember a class discussion about the water buffalo passage. One girl was appalled by the passage, couldn’t even read it, it stirred up too much awful imagery and despair for her. But that a passage of a book, or the playing of a game, can arouse such emotion in a person, is a testament to the true beauty of the book/game. The way the Yankees mentally undress the Twins is profound. The only other sport where that can exist is golf, but that is individual, this is an entire organization being mentally picked apart.

Our pitchers know they have to pretty much spin a perfect game. And by perfect I don’t mean that they go 9 innings, allowing no hits or walks. I mean they can’t make any mistakes. Pitching against a lineup that is brimming with confidence and belief, knowing they have a tremendous mental advantage, requires perfection in location. Liriano managed for a while, but in the end a player who in a given season can’t hit .200 off lefties, showed him the door. Carl Pavano is wonderful at deceiving batters and being a masterful pitcher, if not someone who possesses great talent anymore. He managed for a while, but in the end he made a couple mistakes, when he needed to make zero. Brian Duensing may very well have pitched as well as he is capable. He’s a great competitor, he really gets pumped up. But he isn’t Greg Maddux. He will make several mistakes per game. He never had a chance.

And it was one of the obnoxious TBS announcers who said it. It takes a great pitching performance to get a team out of ‘cursed’ situation like this one. One masterful shutout by Liriano and all bets are off; none of this applies anymore, or at least, not as much. Other teams have gotten this against the Yankees in the playoffs. The Angels were great at it for a while. We got it in ’03 and ’04 from Johan Santana, a man with such a combination of talent and craftiness that no curse could apply to him. But we also had a lot of tough breaks in game 2′s those years. Plus Joe Nathan is far too fidgety and and unsure of himself to handle a curse.

And now, to all you fair weather fans, who now think the Twins are chokers, bums, great in the regular season but crappy in the playoffs. Your solutions are as follows:

-Revamp the lineup, they’re chokers

-Fire Gardy, he can’t get the team ready for the playoffs

The lineup was revamped. That doesn’t matter, clearly.

No manager in baseball creates better clubhouse chemistry than Ron Gardenhire. The team would never have made the postseason the past two years without him. Being able to overcome notable and devastating injuries and to fire up the team for amazing stretch runs, that is Gardy’s strength. But when the postseason arrives, it’s not on him anymore. It’s up to the players. Managers don’t matter in small sample sizes like the postseason. Because there can always be a Brooks Conrad situation where 3 terrible errors screw the whole series up. Errors caused by by the psychological aspect of the game. The beauty and the ugliness of the game. The humanness of the game.

I suppose the point I’m trying to make, in the most roundabout way, is that teams in the midst of curses, or semi curses, or the beginnings of curses, need their fans more than ever. It’s easy to be a pessimist because that way your heart doesn’t get broken. When the team fails, you can lean back in your chair and say, told ya so. But that does nothing to help the team succeed, and get over this funk. It only puts more pressure on them to in back their Reusse-esque fans. And that can only hurt their ability to get out of this funk.

Hey fine, jump off the wagon and go cheer on Randy Moss. This Twins team will be good again next year. Gardy will make sure they don’t underachieve. But if they play the Yankees in the postseason, it will take a minor miracle for the team to prevail. If the Twins are to succeed in the playoffs in the future, at least one of these things need to happen.

1) Several amazing pitching performances.

2) Not playing the Yankees

3) Really fortunate umpiring

All real fans can do is wait and see if this happens. It will happen eventually, but hopefully it won’t take 86 years. It might. But if that’s what it takes I’ll be the happiest 106 year old in history.