Burnt Toast (MN Twins)

As most readers know, this is principally a political/current affairs blog, but sometimes I am struck by the need to vent my spleen about something even more important. Yes, you are right, baseball, that sweet game played in the warm, sultry glow of mother Sun.

This year my local team, the Minnesota Twins were expected to contend not only for supremacy in their division, but also potentially, maybe, hopefully for the American League crown and a chance to play in the World Series.

I had my doubts, their starting pitching staff boasted a veteran who'd been pretty hitable earlier in his career, a Twin's homegrown veteran who'd been pushed to the bullpen last year, another who ranged from lightning in a bottle goodness to being unable to find the strike-zone, and lastly an as yet unproven lefty who seemed effective, but only over a very short last half of last year. Still, with the mighty lineup they were going to put on the field, along with their typically stellar defense, these Twins, with a little luck, might even have the stuff of legend.

Or.. so it was supposed to be.

Instead, the lineup suffered injury after injury, the closer of the future turned into the straightball hit for a homerun of the present, and the pitching staff, well, it turned out to be worse than feared, not better than advertized. At least the defense.... has been subpar by league standards and WAYY below what the Twins prize.

Anyone paying attention to this team closely could see the toaster was on and the bread was browning in the middle of July, today's events mearly point out that the team which was supposed to be fun to watch instead resembles something closer to that which you'd scrap off your knife before buttering your breakfast.

This team suffered injury to be sure, but it's Achilles heal in fact was a cobbled-together pitching staff of has-beens and wanna-be's. There isn't a reliable starter among the crowd with perhaps the exception of Scott Baker, and HE was demoted for floundering last year.. and this year.. he's hurt, again. Now they are going to trade Jason Kubel, already traded Delmon Young (for a song), and likely will outright release Jim Thome (one of my all-time favorite players, but I hope he goes someplace to win a championship, he deserves it, he's a class guy). These trades will occur on top of other recently poor trades (J.J. Hardy, and acquiring Young in the first place). This team which so often has found diamonds in the rough by trading veterans, has had the reverse-King-Lear thing going on for three years. Nearly every trade made has hurt, not helped.

Further puzzling, this team which for years lacked a solid left-handed home run hitter, now has the reverse problem (inadequate right-handed power to balance Mauer, Morneau and (for now) Jason Kubel). It lacked it so much it traded a B calibre shortstop and the only hard thrower in the organization (Jason Bartlett and Matt Garza) for Delmon Young, which flopped when Young turned out to be both bad in the field and have a poor attitude, preferring to slap the ball to right than yank it over the fence in left. It lacked it so much it gave a nice, dependable utility guy with some pop (Michael Cuddyer) $14M a year to try to do his impression of Vlad Guererro or Harmon Killabrew. I like Cuddyer, I want him to stay, but he's overpaid for someone to hit .285, 20 homers and 80 RBI in right...and so the team which couldn't find a way to protect it's too many righties in the decade of the 90's, now can't find a decent way to protect the lefties in the lineup.... by the way, the Twins in the 90's finished last, A LOT.

Baseball lesson sidenote - right-handed pitchers get out righthanded batters much better than they get out lefties (normally), the same is true for left handed pitchers - and of course the inverse is true as well, right handed batters hit lefties MUCH better than they hight righties (though they generally have to do OK against righties or they can't play - e.g. Delmon Young), and the axiom of baseball is this, lefty hitters don't hit lefty pitchers, hardly at all. Consequently, when the Twins bat Span (Lefty), Casilla (Switch), Mauer (L), Morneau (L), and Kubel (L) as they have done with routine, late in the game other managers this year have found it easy to deal with the "fearsome" lineup (when it was healthy), by simply bringing in a left-handed reliever for that stretch, then a righty to face Cuddyer (R), Valencia(R), Repko/Plouffe(R), and Nishioka (R). Two innings of easily managed baseball. It's not the key reason for failures, but it has made an offense which was already hurting due to injury, anemic in late innings. It's called the lefty-righty switch (or playing the odds), and while I really think Gardenhire is a good motivater, he seems oblivious to this easily manipulated hole.

The Twins are going to lose Kubel, a talented left-handed slugger, Joe Nathan (their current closer), Thome (their only serious batt off the bench), Matt Capps (a guy they traded a promising catcher for), probably Cuddyer. That leaves them with a team of Span (cf), Repko (lf), Revere (rf), Morneau (1b), Nishioka (who is hitting .210) (2b), Casilla (ss), Valencia (3b - hitting 240), and Mauer. There are only three good major league hitters in that group and two other passingly ok hitters (Revere and Casilla). Their starters right now are Pavano, Baker, Blackburn (burn being the operative word), Duensing (who will be demoted to the pen), and Liriano. Given the fact that Blackburn and Duensing won't be starters next year, this leaves the Twins two starters short, and a weak bullpen other than Glen Perkins.Frankly, this team's deficiencies are so striking, and they have so little help left them in the minors AND they pretty clearly won't pay for starting pitching, that I think the Twins of '11 are about to repeat the track record of the Twins of post -'91. Which is truly sad. This community helped to build a beautiful ballpark, and the owners, I believe, tried to put a decent team on the field, one which was pitching short (a bit), but still should have been fun to watch. Instead, due to injury, poor trades, a bit of poor management.. it is a team in free-fall. It's no longer time to ask whether you smell something burning, but rather it's time to ask where's the bacon?