Wonder if this includes yesterday’s gripping Trevor Ploof…

But those numbers don’t tell the whole story.

Advanced defensive metrics tell us what our eyes have likely suggested all season—that the Twins’ defense, for the most part, has very limited range.

It’s true that Twins fielders, collectively, don’t make many errors on balls hit to their range radius—but that radius is not very large. And it’s impossible for a fielder to make an error on a ball he can’t get to.

Ultimate Zone Rating ...

The Repko is gone
but he’s not forgotten
This is the story
of a 71 OPS+ (rotten)

Jason Repko lost something in the offseason. He knew it. He felt it.

An outfielder for 14 seasons in professional baseball, including seven seasons spent in the majors, he lost the desire to be on the field every single day.

But he still wanted to feel that way. That’s the thing. He wanted to feel that fire again. So even when no organization offered him an invitation to spring training, he felt like he needed ...

Joe Mauer’s take…

Take it from Joe Mauer, as studious and selective as they come.

It’s different out there.

“The game has evolved,” Mauer said. “This is my 10th year. My first couple years in the league, if you were a sinkerball pitcher, you were a sinkerball pitcher. Now, they throw a sinker, a cutter, a four-seamer. So you’re looking for three fastballs instead of one or two.”

It’s working, and Mauer is the perfect example of how well it’s working.

Entering Monday, Mauer had struck out ...

And you thought the Twins were living under a rock.

Twins general manager Terry Ryan, who signs off on every major baseball decision the organization faces, leans back in his chair recently in the Target Field press dining room and tells a packed table of media that it was “just happenstance” that led to those ground-ball machines landing here.

“If you look at that statistical stuff, historically those guys throw ground balls,” Ryan says. “It’s part of the equation. You could talk to Jack a ...

Just as I was about to play Avant Gardener. I’m having trouble managin’...

Even the Baseball Prospectus annual, a sabermetric publication that in the past tended to dismiss intangibles, acknowledged that while Gardenhire is not “some kind of tactical genius,” he “excels in the clubhouse, where he remains popular and has successfully minimized squabbles among players” and “deserves recognition for that.”

I don’t want to be too hard on the Twins — too often people in baseball ...

Grocery store blues: Bruno mars career by being minor league thief.

OUT OF CASH

It was a perfect fit. Bill Springman, Twins minor league hitting instructor, played with Brunansky from 1978 to ’80 in the Angels farm system, and the two have remained close.

The former minor league teammates revel in tales from their youth. In 1978, when the two were at Idaho Falls, Springman and some other roommates were hungry and out of money. They sent Brunansky to a local grocery store wearing a large ...

The phrase “pitch to contact” has been deleted from the Twins lexicon. It is gone forever.

Like Mikhail Gorbachev’s birthmark in official Soviet Union portraits, it has been expunged. All traces have been removed and no one is allowed to speak of it. As far as anyone is concerned, the phrase, like the birthmark, has dissipated into thin air.

“I’m never saying it again,” Twins pitching coach Rick Anderson said.

“pitching to contact.”  We’ve always been at war with Balls in Play.

  ...Read More...

Not only was Count Matchuki a better DJ…he had a much better pitcher’s name!

By night, in the offseason, he is Mazr the deejay, standing in front of the microphones in the clubs of Seattle. Come baseball season, he is Trevor May, pitching prospect extraordinaire for the Minnesota Twins. He is a hard-throwing right-hander who walks to the mound with just one intention: strike out the hitter.

“That’s kind of my thing,” he said. “It’s like in high school where you try to strike everybody out.” ...Read More...

The Marshalltown Plan: A post -1.4 WAR recovery.

This, Iowa Sports Academy, is where the Marshalltown native and 2005 first-round draft pick comes to work on his swing. It’s where Clement, the forgotten man from a star-studded draft class — one that included Justin Upton, Ryan Zimmerman and Ryan Braun — comes to prepare for the upcoming season.

It’s a season that Clement, thought of by some to be the greatest high school player in state history, considers to be one of his most ...

I was watching some controversial stuff on YouTube about the sandy hooks thing today! It really makes u think and wonder

— Denard Span (@thisisdspan) January 16, 2013

If you don’t know what a Sandy Hook Truther is, take a moment to read Max Read of Gawker’s illuminating look into their strange world. Basically, they are people who believe that the Sandy Hook shooting was actually some kind of elaborate hoax perpretrated by the government, because everything is an elaborate hoax perpetrated by ...

Wells was eligible in 2013. Rogers is eligible in 2014.

[Julio]Franco faced every pitcher on this year’s Hall of Fame ballot. Every … single … one… If that doesn’t impress you, then try this one: Franco also faced every single pitcher on the 2004 ballot, except Bruce Sutter…

Well…seeing that Paul Lo Duca is his 3rd most similar (lab-ears Goldfrank’s Toxicologic).

Looking toward the future and projecting the rest of Mauer’s career, it is easy to think that he will get strong consideration for the Hall of Fame. His health will continue to be something to watch especially since he is close to 6-foot-6 and he has a lot of weight on those precious knees every time that he squats behind the plate. The Twins will continue to use him at other positions as he ages but his ...

Right-hander Mike Pelfrey has agreed to a one-year contract with the Minnesota Twins with a base salary of $4 million and the potential to earn another $1.5 million in incentives, a major league source told ESPNNewYork.com.

The deal is pending a physical.

...Despite typically facing a one-year recovery time from the ligament-replacement surgery, Pelfrey, 28, recently expressed confidence he would be ready for a normal workload during spring training. He already has been facing batters at his ...

We got the centerfielder right here, the name is Ben Revere, and here’s a guy who says if the Roster’s clear, can do, can do…

The Phillies will not leave the Winter Meetings empty handed.

Multiple sources confirmed to MLB.com this morning the Phillies have acquired outfielder Ben Revere in a trade with the Minnesota Twins. CBS’ Danny Knobler reported Vance Worley is part of the trade.

Revere hit .294 with 13 doubles, six triples, 32 RBIs, 40 stolen bases and 70 runs scored in 511 ...

Meyer is a real prospect, Span is a good player.  That’s how trades work.

The Nationals ended their long-standing search for a center fielder and leadoff hitter at the high cost of their top pitching prospect, acquiring Denard Span from the Minnesota Twins for right-handed flamethrower Alex Meyer.

The deal sets up the rest of their offseason, with the Nationals now more likely to move on from free agent first baseman Adam LaRoche while moving Michael Morse to first base and Bryce Harper to a ...

Souring quickly on Niko Goodrum…

1. Miguel Sano, 3b
2. Byron Buxton, of
3. Oswaldo Arcia, of
4. Kyle Gibson, rhp
5. Aaron Hicks, of
6. J.O. Berrios, rhp
7. Eddie Rosario, 2b/of
8. Max Kepler, of
9. Daniel Santana, ss/2b
10. Luke Bard, rhp

In the first year of baseball’s new draft system, Minnesota had the largest signing pool for the first 10 rounds at $12.4 million and spent nearly half of that on its top pick, outfielder Byron Buxton. The No. 2 overall selection got the largest ...

Rooting for superstars is a no-brainer. As often as not, though, your favorite player emerges not from a pile of year-end awards, but from somewhere a little more special. We asked our bloggers to talk about their cult favorite players.
...
Ask a Tigers fan who their favorite “cult” player is and you’ll get a variety of answers — depending on their age and preferred type of player, of course. Some love Jim Walewander, so much so that he becomes their namesake on the Internet.

Jeez, ...

OH NO, EXPO!

Last season, Orlando Cabrera batted .238 with the Indians and Giants, posting a 61 OPS+. The season before that, he posted a 76 OPS+. The season before that, he posted an 85 OPS+. Orlando Cabrera has been declining, and just turned 37 years old. As a free agent, Cabrera didn’t drum up much interest, which I’m guessing is why he’s intending to hang ‘em up. Enrique Rojas:

  “Orlando Cabrera to retire from baseball, he said in Colombia radio station. Thanks for memories!”

Cabrera ...

Game on!

The Tigers could end up seeing a lot of Joel Zumaya this year after all. It’ll just be in a different uniform, albeit an awfully familiar one.

After throwing for teams in December and holding out for a roster spot and the right situation, Zumaya has agreed to terms with the Minnesota Twins, the reliever told MLB.com. The two sides spent Saturday putting together a deal that could pay him anywhere from $800,000 to $1.7 million if he reaches incentives.

A Twins official would ...

Bartolo Colon has agreed to a deal with an unknown club reports Bob Nightengale of USA Today (on Twitter). The right-hander wouldn’t divulge the team because he has not yet passed his physical.

Pretty sure it’s either the All-Stars or the Champs.

Morris, who was the face of the Detroit Tigers’ pitching staff for the entirety of the eighties before spending the early nineties hopping between the Twins, Blue Jays, and Indians, has every right to be thrilled at the news. And the rest of us, especially those who were too young to see him pitch, have every right to ask…why Jack Morris? Why now?

To answer that question, I decide to watch the most famous performance of his career, the game that proved once and for all that he was a true ace ...

Let’s ask Erardi!...okay, maybe not.

I was watching the Hall of Fame announcement show on the MLB Network on Monday–congratulations to a very deserving Barry Larkin–and something Peter Gammons said as an aside in a discussion of Bernie Williams’ suitability for the Hall of Fame stuck with me: “He wasn’t as good as Kirby Puckett,” the Great Gammo almost muttered, as they cut to a commercial break.

I haven’t been able to put that comment out of my mind, because I’m not certain ...

32. Cliff Lee declines to run out his own grounder

I’m a firm opponent of the designated hitter rule, because just as I love to watch a punter try to scoop up a bad snap and try to throw it, or see a 7’1” center with no range try to chuck up a last-second three, I love watching pitchers hit.

Never will I come closer to seeing what it would be like if someone with my skill set tried to perform on a professional level. I mean, how nuts is this: in the National League, five to 10 percent of ...

Marquis de Target Field?