Carl Pavano’s hoped-for return to the mound has been delayed until ‘14

Carl Pavano’s hopes for a return to baseball have been stalled until at least next year as he continues to recover from a serious injury that required removal of his spleen, his agent, Dave Pepe, said Thursday.

“Carl will not be physically able to play this year as he recovers from his spleen removal and the complications that followed,’’ Pepe said via text. “His hope is that he can give it a try next year.’‘

Pavano, 37, suffered severe bleeding and internal injuries when he fell while shoveling snow at his Vermont home, he has said. Pavano, the former Twin, Yankee, Indian, Expo and Marlin right-hander, visited three hospitals and dealt with the loss of 6½ liters of blood, he told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. “I’m just lucky to be alive,” he told the Minneapolis newspaper in February.

SB Nation: Arrested Development, MLB, and huge mistakes

I just blue myself.

9) GOB smears Steve Holt (STEVE HOLT!) (Season 2, Ep. 14)

Afraid that George Michael is going to get blown out in the election for class president, Michael hires GOB to produce an attack ad targeting Steve Holt. When Steve Holt’s own campaign video winds up being about growing up without a father and embracing Jesus Christ, GOB realizes his video (which begins with calling Steve Holt a bastard who doesn’t even know who his real father is won’t go over well. This goes to Padres president Tom Garfinkel, who made fun of Zack Greinke’s social anxiety disorder by referring to the movie Rain Man, and simultaneously offending the mentally challenged and those with social anxiety disorders. He has, however, since apologized and behaved like a pretty stand up guy by all accounts, while GOB went on to steal his nephew’s girlfriend. Yes, her.

10) Tobias leaves Lindsey to go to Vegas with Kitty. (Season 3, Ep. 1)

In making his “biggest little mistake,” Tobias abandons his wife and daughter to join the Blue Man Group, but winds up working in Reno at Swallows, a family-style restaurant by day and an anything-goes, pan-sexual bazaar by night. This one is for R.A. Dickey, who must have thought he had hit the jackpot in leaving Queens to become the ace of the up and coming Blue Jays. However, Jose Reyes has been hurt, Mark Buehrle has been ineffective, and Josh Johnson ineffective and hurt. That’s to say nothing about the struggles of Brett Lawrie, Emilio Bonifacio, Brandon Morrow, Maicer Izturis, and Ricky Romero. Dickey hasn’t helped things, with a walk rate almost double what it was last year and a 4.85 ERA. It’s been a lot less tuna melt, and a lot more flipping the cushions in the grind room (where they apparently uncovered a 40-year-old Ramon Ortiz and just decided to use him, probably without autoclaving him first) in Toronto this year.

FanGraphs: Sullivan: Vance Worley and Losing the Magic

Mescaline Mike, to me at the bar. “If you want a real sleeper for your fantasy team this year…think Vance Worley.” #mind-fogging

Vance Worley just got clobbered again, this time by the Braves. There’s no set and certain point at which a start turns into an official clobbering, but looking through Worley’s 2013 game log, I’d say this was the fifth or sixth time he’s been clobbered, in ten games. That’s an ugly ratio, and to make matters worse, recall that Worley was Minnesota’s opening-day starter. The Twins’ de facto ace owns an ERA over 7, with 82 hits allowed in just under 49 innings. His strikeouts are way down and on Wednesday he was chased by a double that followed an Evan Gattis grand slam. Two seasons ago, Worley finished third in the voting for the National League Rookie of the Year.

...There’ve been more swings at strikes, and since Worley throws hittable strikes, there’s been more contact and therefore more hits, at the expense of some strikeouts.

I don’t think this is Worley’s problem on its own. I think this is a symptom, indicative of a bigger problem. Worley’s command, perhaps, is worse than it was. Worley’s catchers, perhaps, aren’t setting up so much on the edges. Or Worley’s act, perhaps, has simply been adjusted to. I don’t know if it’s fair to suggest the league has adjusted to Worley, since he just switched from the NL to the AL, but if a guy relies on deception, then somewhat intuitively it makes sense he could be figured out. Yet Worley’s called strike ability didn’t change between 2011 and 2012, so. It would be weird for an adjustment to happen suddenly, instead of gradually. And as easy as it would be to pin this on Worley ending up in the AL, look at McCarthy up there, and remember that he just made the opposite switch. This, probably, is a complicated issue.

But it ought to be a high priority for the Twins and Worley to figure it out. When Worley’s been at his best, hitters have been caught in between. So far this year, hitters have been a lot more willing to swing, presumably getting better reads of the baseball, and Worley allows far too much contact for that to be a positive. Worley’s strength was throwing strikes that didn’t look to the hitters like strikes. Now they’re looking like strikes. Now they might just be looking like meatballs.

Gattis, Freeman lead Braves past Twins 5-4 in 10th

The Braves have a problem: They can’t hold late inning leads because all their non-Kimbrel relievers keep getting hurt.

The Braves have a solution to their problem: More Evan Gattis pinch hit home runs.

Evan Gattis just keeps coming through for the Atlanta Braves.

The rookie hit a two-out, pinch-hit homer in the ninth to send the game to extra innings and Freddie Freeman won it in the 10th, sending the Braves to their fifth straight win, 5-4 over the slumping Minnesota Twins on Tuesday night.

Mackey: Quality of Twins’ defense has garnered mixed reports

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 currently ranks the Twins’ defense dead last due almost entirely to poor range—not surprising with the likes of Josh Willingham, Oswaldo Arcia and Chris Parmelee logging most of the innings in the corner outfield spots, and Trevor Plouffe starting at third base.

Even the speedy Aaron Hicks has referred to a road map on numerous occasions in center field.

Plus/minus metrics haven’t been as pessimistic toward the Twins as UZR, but according to BillJamesOnline.net, Twins fielders rank mid-pack in the American League at -1 run below average.

So, yes, the Twins are catching the ball as Gardenhire says.

They just aren’t finding many baseballs to catch.

Jason Repko loses fire, walks away from baseball

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 to try the Atlantic League. A friend, Brett Tomko, phoned in the offseason, and they played together for York. Repko thought that would help.

Give it some time, he kept telling himself.

Almost a month into the season, Repko knew he had a decision to make.

“I came here hoping to get that feeling back in my heart ... but I had a hard time getting that desire to be here every day,” Repko said Monday, a day after retiring from playing baseball.

...He batted .253 in 24 games and didn’t miss a single one. Even after telling Mason he would retire, he showed up for optional batting practice. He made a sliding catch in the outfield. He threw out a runner at home. He shook his head on strike calls that he believed didn’t go over the plate. And this was all in the last week of his career. The majors weren’t calling him back. Still, he had to go all out.

Before he came to York, he explained why he crashed into walls instead of letting up and allowing the ball to drop—even though he knew catching the ball might mean he would be injured. He had to put everything he had into baseball. He was the answer to that old rock-and-roll refrain, it’s better to burn out than fade away. When that desire was gone, he felt like he too had to leave.

MLB: Castrovince: Strikeout totals rising to historic levels

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 in 19.5 percent of his plate appearances this season, nearly nine percentage points above his career average. And while that data is due, in some measure, to the abnormally cold and cruel April weather conditions the Twins endured, even by Minnesota standards (“I can remember swinging through pitches that I thought were going to break and didn’t break because they were wet,” he said), it’s not all just small-sample stuff. Last year, Mauer struck out at a 13.7-percent clip—still outstanding, by most people’s standards, but nonetheless the highest such full-season mark in Mauer’s career.

“I think there are a lot of things that contribute to that,” Mauer said.

In Mauer’s case, his selectivity can encourage, rather than prevent, some of the strikeouts. He routinely gets himself into deep counts. Since Opening Day 2012, only A.J. Ellis (4.44), Adam Dunn (4.40) and Mike Napoli (4.40) have seen more pitches per plate appearances than Mauer (4.32). And an increasing number of those two-strike counts have led to strike three.

“As you get older, you take a few more chances here and there,” Mauer said. “But I think my approach has stayed relatively the same.”

...In Mauer’s time in the big leagues, evaluators and fans alike have gained a greater appreciation for on-base percentage and all it entails. The value of a selective hitter like Mauer, who not only creates traffic on the bases but makes opposing pitchers reveal their full arsenal and does his part to push starters out of games more quickly, has been heralded.

“It’s about being productive,” he said. “That on-base percentage gets overlooked at times, but it gives us a chance to score runs.”

Minnesota Twins join ‘Moneyball’ era behind mystery man - TwinCities.com

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 little more about it than Twins general manager Terry Ryan me.”
Jack Goin, who has the unwieldy title of manager, major league administration and baseball research for the Twins, is seated across the table from Ryan.

Rosenthal: Let Gardenhire go? That’d be lame

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 lack accountability, so it’s difficult to criticize a club for holding employees responsible. On the other hand, this is all sort of silly. The Twins are foolish to even risk Gardenhire becoming a free agent, particularly when so many managers are entering the final years of contracts.

Such an outcome still seems far-fetched, given Gardenhire’s popularity in the Twin Cities. But know this: If the Twins allowed Gardenhire to depart, he’d probably be unemployed for about 10 minutes. And they’d probably spend 10 years trying to find another like him.

Twins’ Brunansky can’t walk away from 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 coat. They stuffed the coat with food as Brunansky walked the aisles.

“He was packed like a mule,” Springman says. “He went up to the counter and bought a stick of gum.”

Springman and Brunansky say they all returned to the store and paid the bill once they received their checks from the Angels. That’s their story, and they’re sticking to it.

...Brunansky has been successful in a Twins uniform before, being selected as an All-Star and helping them win a World Series, and manager Ron Gardenhire believes that being in that uniform once again will do wonders for a Twins team expecting a lot from its offense in 2013.

“There was never a doubt about his ability to teach,” Gardenhire says. “He loves the game, always loved the game. Loved talking about the game. Players that love talking baseball, staying around after games, he was one of them. Those are guys that are good teachers because they love to talk baseball and they think about the game. It is easy to see why he is successful.”

Tom Powers: Twins remove ‘pitch to contact’ from official vocabulary

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.

Tom Powers: Minnesota Twins may have hardest-throwing deejay in baseball

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.”

...After his workout at Hammond Stadium, May planned to head back to his room and morph back into Mazr.

“I’ll be out of here about 12:30 today and I’ll have 10 hours before I’m in bed, so there’s not much to do,” he said. “I have been producing a little bit down here because it is fun. I’ve got my computer with me. It’s just off-the-field stuff. I don’t do it much doing the season.

“In the offseason I work with a group of guys that put on events. They do a monthly thing and I help them out when I’m home. I mix on turntables and play, opening for bigger guys.”

It’s a hobby that emanated from offseason boredom.

“I play electronic music, house,” he said. “I’ve always really liked house. We get bored at the end of the season. I saw a little toy, a turntable thing. I mess around with it. In the offseason you have so much free time. I got more and more into it, and I met some guys in Philly who taught me some stuff.”

Marshalltown’s Jeff Clement has unfinished business in majors

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 important. It’s a season that could be one of his final chances to turn around his once promising career.

“I feel like there’s a lot of unfinished business left in my career,” Clement said. “I’m 29 now. I’m obviously not getting any younger.”

...“I think every season from here on out, I need to get the job done,” Clement said. “I need to play well or it’s time to go back to school or start looking for a job.”

He isn’t ready to give up, though. The same is true for his supporters in Marshalltown.

“I could be walking in the building in the summer, and if he had a good night the night before, a couple of custodians are going to say, ‘Hey, he did real well last night, didn’t he?’ ” Hanson said. “They’re watching the games and following it.”

...This could be his last shot to show them.

“You need to get it done at my age or you’re done playing,” Clement said. “It’s a good challenge and it’s something I look forward to this season.

Those Goddamn Sandy Hook Truthers Got Their Hooks In Denard Span

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 the government in the eyes of these crazies. YouTube videos alleging such a hoax have been popping up all over the internet, poisoning the minds of people like Washington Nationals center fielder Denard Span.

Pay no attention, Span.

Posnanski: Candidates That Are Just Shy of Being HOF-worthy

[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…

Christie: Is Joe Mauer a lock for the HOF?

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 tie to greatness is his ability to be a catcher.

When some try to name the best catcher in the history of the game, Johnny Bench usually tops most lists. Yogi Berra, Carlton Fisk, and others are also thought of highly. These men racked up a lot of innings behind the plate and it doesn’t look like Mauer will be a full-time catcher for the rest of his career. These men were solid as catchers in a gritty era of baseball.

Bench played 17 seasons and caught close to 14,500 innings, Bera caught over 12,000 innings, and Fisk racked up 18.500 innings. Mauer currently sits at 7,224 innings as a catcher and he has averaged 858.2 innings per season. Last season, he logged a little over 600 frames at catcher, which were the fewest he had in a season that he played over 100 games. If this trend continues, it could take away some of his votes when it comes to election time.

At this point, it doesn’t seem like Mauer would be a lock for the Hall of Fame. It will likely take multiple more seasons at his current rate of production for him to be a lock. Twins fans will get to watch Mauer on every step of his journey and hopefully that path will lead him to the gates of Cooperstown.

Orlando Cabrera To Retire From Baseball

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 had a long career that’ll be difficult to forget. He debuted with the Expos in 1997, and remained there until the giant Nomar Garciaparra three-way trade in 2004. That year, with the Red Sox, Cabrera won a World Series. He wound up with the Angels, earning the unfortunate nickname “The Wizard of O.C.”, and then he wound up with the White Sox, and the A’s, and the Twins, and the Reds, and the Indians, and the Giants ... He remained a shortstop to the end, and collected 2,055 hits. He will always be remembered as a pest. An absolute pest.

Zumaya agrees to deal with Twins

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 neither confirm nor deny the deal to MLB.com, but said they’ve been in negotiations since December.

Zumaya weighed what he called “good offers” from three other clubs,  but the Twins included guaranteed money rather than a minor-league deal with a Spring Training invite. If he’s healthy, they’ll bring him to the same mound at Target Field where he last threw a Major League pitch. He fractured his elbow throwing for the Tigers against the Twins on June 28, 2010.

MLB Trade Rumors: Bartolo Colon Agrees to Sign With Unknown Team

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.

BBPro:  Heartburn Hardball - Jack Morris in Motion

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 and a true winner.

....

The Twins will win 1-0 in the bottom of the 10th, winning the second World Series title in franchise history and solidifying Jack Morris’s place in baseball history.

And when it’s over, I will be more convinced than ever that Jack Morris is not a Hall of Fame pitcher.

Goldman: Bernie Williams vs. Kirby Puckett

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 why Gammons is so sure. Both were excellent hitters with very different skills who nonetheless arrived at similar results. Puckett was short and stout, Williams long and lithe. Puckett reaped a huge benefit from his Metrodome home park, hitting .344/.388/.521 at home, .291/.331/.430 on the road. Williams was about the same hitter everywhere. Both were Gold Glove center fielders who won several of the defensive awards with their bats. Both won a single batting title. Puckett led the AL in hits four times; Williams walked too much to compete in that department.

Career-wise, Williams looks a little worse overall, but that’s because his peak isn’t quite so high and his career is a little longer. Due to glaucoma, Puckett’s career came to an abrupt end, depriving him of a decline phase, whereas Williams got to play until he was no longer useful. If you consider both through their age-35 seasons, it’s a virtual tie: Williams had hit .301/.388/.488 in 1804 games, while Puckett hit .318/.360/.477 in 1783 games.

The Greatest Animated Sports .GIFs of 2011

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 all at-bats are taken by men who, by everyone’s admission, are profoundly bad at it! It’s Dada performance art, and the ubiquity of such comical nonsense—over the course of a game, a season, and the history of baseball—is unrivaled by anything in any other sport.

This GIF features a delightful bonus: the catcher starts jogging to the dugout well before the play ends. It’s beautiful.

Jason Marquis, Twins agree on deal

Marquis de Target Field?

Mackey: Don’t laugh, but healthy Mauer, Morneau vault offense near top ?

Leapin’ Lavillenie’s! Good luck with that.

- The team run total projection was derived by using David Smyth’s base runs estimator formula—a formula that is generally accurate within 10-15 runs.

...- The biggest reason for the jump in runs, besides health, would be due to a massive injection of on-base percentage—specifically with Carroll and Willingham. Mauer and Morneau are on-base machines as well, when healthy.

- If any of these players performs better or worse than the numbers listed, the overall run total of the team will obviously be affected. In other words, if Morneau struggles like he did last season, all bets are off—and 771 runs could turn into 720 or fewer, and so on.

- Plate appearances for each player were rough estimates, and they may be optimistic in the cases of Span, Mauer and Morneau.

- It’s highly likely the Twins will use more than the 13 batters listed. In that case, the additional players will cut into the playing time of those listed above (Drew Butera and Joe Benson, for instance). Those additional players may or may not affect the overall end run total.

Scoring 771 runs would have ranked the Twins fourth in baseball last season behind the Red Sox (875), Yankees (867), Rangers (855) and Tigers (787).

But what are the chances Mauer and Morneau are healthy and productive for six months?

Kubel, D-backs reach two-year deal

Heyman says 2 years, $15 million. That is one expensive pinch hitter!

The D-backs have agreed to terms with free-agent outfielder Jason Kubel on a two-year contract with an option, a baseball source confirmed Monday.

The move is somewhat surprising in that the D-backs had not been linked in any rumors to Kubel, nor had they been rumored to be in the market for an outfielder.

Kubel, 29, hit .273 with 12 home runs and 58 RBIs for the Twins in 2011. He was originally drafted by Minnesota in the 12th round of the 2000 First-Year Player Draft…

Over his career, Kubel has split his time between the outfield corners. With the D-backs, it would appear that he would become the starting left fielder with Gerardo Parra being shifted to a fourth outfield position, or used in a trade to acquire another position of need.