The word from LaVelle E. Neal of the Star Tribune is that the Twins have, in fact, offered Jarrod Washburn a one year deal worth $5 million.  During the 2008 season, the Twins were rumored to be interested in acquiring Washburn from the Seattle Mariners, but, when the Mariners’ asking price was too high, the Twins backed off.  Now, at least, it seems that Washburn is doing what the Mariners did in 2008:  saving the Twins from themselves.  The bottom line is that, on its face, this is a highly questionable move by a front office that had seemed to be moving in the right direction since the 2009 trade deadline.  The problems with Washburn have been well-documented, but this story worked me into such a lather that I can’t help myself.

Washburn originally started his career with the Angels.  He had a breakout year in 2002, hurling 206 innings while going 18-6 with a 3.15 ERA.  He compiled 139 strikeouts and walked only 59 batters, leading to a 3.71 FIP that suggested that, while he wasn’t quite as good as a 3.15 ERA, it wasn’t a totally ridiculous result of Washburn’s performance.  Unfortunately, other than his very successful 2002 campaign, Washburn has never posted a FIP lower than 4.35, and has a career 4.60 FIP, which means that, all things being equal (fair defense, fair luck, fair home run rate), you can expect Washburn to give you an ERA between 4.40 and 4.80.  Definitely, a club could do worse.

The problem with Washburn is that he is extremely reliant on his defense.  Striking out a modest 5.33 batters per nine innings, Washburn also walks 2.75 batters per nine innings; basically, for every two strikeouts Washburn notches, he shoots himself in the foot with a walk.  Given those ratios, his defense has to be crisp for him to be effective.  Witness the first half of his season last year in Seattle, where, playing in front of one of the best defenses imaginable, Washburn posted a glistening 2.64 ERA.  The importance of defense to Washburn is doubly important because he gives up a hefty amount of line drives (20% of all balls in play) and a fair amount of fly balls (42% of all balls in play).  Basically, almost 2/3 of the time a batter puts a ball in play, it’s in the air and quite possibly hit pretty hard.  Without a good defense, Washburn is going to be very susceptible to having a lot of men on base and possibly giving up a lot of extra base hits.

This isn’t to say he’s worthless.  His career 4.60 FIP is nothing to be ashamed of, especially considering the fact that Washburn routinely throws 150-190 innings.  Also, Seattle shows that, given the right circumstances, he can be very successful.  With someone like Franklin “Death to Flying Things” Gutierrez prowling center field, a team could make the most of Washburn’s talents.  The Twins are not a team like that.  With Carlos Gomez gone to Milwaukee and Denard Span moved to center field, the Twins’ defense in center figures to be a bit worse than it was last year.  Delmon Young and Michael Cuddyer are just plain poor in the corners.  Both have cannons for arms, but neither can cover much ground.  Contrary to what happened in Seattle, Washburn signing on with the Twins would make his weaknesses glaringly apparent.  Factor in the fact that he’s 35 and unlikely to see a sudden improvement in skills, and it’s hard to see why the Twins are making the offer they are.

There are, of course, circumstances that could make the Twins’ interest a bit more understandable.  With a Washburn signing, the Twins would have a glut of potential starters and would seem even more likely to deal one of their arms, perhaps for a third baseman or second baseman.  Absent such a deal (and there has been little indication that such a trade may be imminent), the move just does not make sense.  Neal noted in his initial Washburn post that a Twins official commented that Brian Duensing might be better now than Washburn is.  In that case, offering five million dollars for a pitcher of comparable abilities to an in-house option is just inexplicable.  There have been indications that the Twins don’t want to rely on inexperienced starters in the event that one of their pitchers goes down this year (like Slowey and Perkins did last year, leading to a parade of Anthony Swarzak, Jeff Manship, R.A. Dickey, an ineffective Francisco Liriano, and finally Duensing).  Fair enough, but this reasoning is hard to rationalize when you consider that the Twins really have NO option at third base or second base, depending on where Nick Punto plays.

While having a contingent plan for pitchers is nice and all, addressing a gaping hole is a higher priority.   (Note:  I have expressed optimism about Danny Valencia, but I think it’s fair to assume he’s not going to be ready right out of spring training.) There have been ample opportunities to address third base:  Troy Glaus, Placido Polanco, and Mark DeRosa have all signed for extremely reasonable salaries (Glaus signing for a surprisingly low $2.5 million, Polanco getting a nice three-year deal, and DeRosa getting an absolutely fair and reasonable deal from the Giants).  It’s very hard to understand why the Twins would continue to let such reasonably-priced options sign with other clubs and focus instead on paying $5 million for an aging pitcher who might be a nice safety net, but is not absolutely necessary.

Posted in Uncategorized 4 Comments Tags: Jarrod Washburn, Rants

The Twins will tender contracts to all 30 unsigned players on the 40 man roster.  Some of those names aren’t surprising; the Twins clearly weren’t going to give up on Delmon Young after his monster September and the Carlos Gomez trade.  Brendan Harris, despite maybe not being in the manager’s favor, is plenty valuable as a bench bat/utility player.  I’m also not surprised that the Twins are bringing back Matt Guerrier and Francisco Liriano.  What is somewhat surprising, however, is that they tendered Jesse Crain. Crain certainly showed a lot of promise toward the end of last year, but the fact remains that the bullpen is crowded.  The following pitchers certainly have entrenched roles with the club:

Starters:  Scott Baker, Kevin Slowey, Carl Pavano, Nick Blackburn

Relievers:  Joe Nathan, Jose Mijares, Matt Guerrier, Jon Rauch, Jesse Crain

The Twins also have a number of pitchers who certainly have, at one time or another, showed potential to be a big league contributor:

Starters:  Brian Duensing, Anthony Swarzak, Francisco Liriano, Glen Perkins

Relievers:  Pat Neshek, Jeff Manship (not quite sure where to put him.)

And finally, the Twins have Anthony Slama and Rob Delaney in the minors, two pitchers who have put up very solid relief numbers and certainly could be ready to pitch in the big leagues this year.  In all, the Twins have two or three spots to be had amongst 8 pitchers who probably would get a shot with a major league club in the near future (four starters for one spot; four relievers and four starters for two or three bullpen spots).   Consider also that the Twins have stocked up on pitchers from the last draft, and it seems like this club has quite the stash of capable/promising young arms.

After the conclusion of the winter meetings, popular speculation was that the Twins very well could be done making any big moves.  With the Pavano signing, the Hardy trade, arbitration to a number of players, and the looming Joe Mauer extension, the Twins look like they may be taking on a $90+ million payroll next year.  Further, the free agent options are looking expensive; reports are that Adrian Beltre is seeking a 5 year, $65 million contract, and that Mark DeRosa is looking for 3 years at $27 million.  The market also may push Beltre’s and DeRosa’s demands back down to earth.  However, it certainly looks unlikely that the Twins will be offering up the kind of moneythat would push next year’s payroll near $100 million (not that I’d be upset about this).

The speculation here is that the Twins are looking to make a trade.  This isn’t based on some insider tip; it just seems to me that the Twins have such a surplus of young pitching that at least a few arms are expendable.  Given that most teams are always looking for pitching, why wouldn’t the Twins be looking to include these guys in a deal?  Thoughts?

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The word in the Twins’ blogotwittersphere (mainly via LaVelle E. Neal III) is that Carl Pavano will accept the Twins’ offer of arbitration and return with the club next season.  Ed Price of FanHouse.com reports that Pavano could make $7 million or more.  This is not all that surprising given that Pavano is still fighting the stigma of 4 lost years in hell…er…New York and has expressed a desire to return to the Twins.

When the Twins acquired Pavano last year, too many observations focused on his bloated ERA.  Of course, focus on ERA ignores the fact that Pavano had inordinately bad luck pitching in Cleveland as Cleveland’s defensive efficiency was well-below league average.  For his career, Pavano has a 4.44 ERA and a 4.17 FIP; his poor ERA last year undoubtedly has inflated his career total.  He showed down the stretch last year and in the post season that he has good enough stuff to make an impact for the Twins.  The biggest issue of course is his health, but by accepting arbitration and signing a one year contract, this risk is practically neutralized for the Twins.

Pavano is an effective if unspectacular pitcher.  Last year he struck out 6.64 batters per nine innings while walking only 1.76 batters per nine for a very solid 3.77 K/BB ratio.  On a club that has many flyball-prone pitchers, Pavano actually induces many more ground balls than flyballs, which keeps his home run totals reasonable despite having a rather hefty 10% of all flyballs leave the park.  Perhaps most importantly, he pitched nearly 200 innings and did not show any signs of injury problems, other than slight fatigue as he approached 200 innings.  In short, if the Twins get what they’re hoping for, they’ll probably get 180-200 innings of of 3.9-4.5 ERA pitching with about 20 or so home runs surrendered, good control and a modest strikeout rate.  Pavano should be helped by the addition of JJ Hardy at short more than most Twins pitchers due to his high groundball/flyball ratio.

So far, so good for the Twins this offseason.  They’ve unclogged the outfield jam, upgraded at shortstop, and signed a quality veteran pitcher. Getting a quality “ace” caliber pitcher would be ideal, but at this point it’s probably more reasonable for fans to hope for an Adrian Beltre, Felipe Lopez or Orlando Hudson signing.  (Of course, I won’t fault anyone for dreaming of a trade for Josh Johnson.)  As I’ve stated, my preference is Hudson; his solid OBP would probably be more valuable to the Twins than most, given that he’d undoubtedly be hitting between OBP machine Denard Span and in front of one of the top hitters in the American League, Joe Mauer.

In short, the Pavano signing is a good, solid, but unexciting move for the Twins.  They solidify their rotation with a quality arm at a marginal risk for next year. Yet to be done:  acquire a second or third baseman, sign Mauer, and see if there is a big splash to be made.

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Matthew Pouliot of the excellent Circling the Bases baseball blog is reporting a list of type A free agents, and whether they’ve been offered arbitration or not.  Of significant interest to Twins fans should be the fact that neither Placido Polanco nor Orlando Hudson were offered arbitration, meaning the Twins will not be forced to forfeit a draft pick if they sign either player.  The preference here would be for the Twins to go after Hudson and his excellent ability to get on base; this would give the Twins a legitimate option to bat second in the batting order in front of AL MVP Joe Mauer.  Polanco wouldn’t be a bad pickup by any means, however.  Where Hudson would bring an offensive table setter with average-to-subpar defense, Polanco would bring less offensive abilities but more defensive value, based on their numbers last year.  Either option would go a long way toward solidifying the infield and rounding out the batting order.  The Twins should get on it immediately.

Posted in Uncategorized No Comments Tags: Orlando Hudson, Placido Polanco

Various sources are reporting that Joe Mauer has been named MVP of the American League, receiving 27 of 28 possible first place votes.  The other first-place vote went to Miguel Cabrera of Detroit.  Mark Teixera finished second, with teammate Derek Jeter third; Cabrera finished fourth.  Really, this award is no surprise.  Mauer led the AL in average, OBP and SLG.  No one since George Brett in 1980 has done that, and Mauer did it playing elite defense at the most premium defensive position.  Some arguments were made that the MVP should not go to someone who missed the first month of the season, but it’s worth noting that Mauer still played in an exceptional number of games for a catcher, as he played in 138 of his 141 games while not on the disabled list (granted, some of those at DH).  In short, Mauer was magnificent.  He put on an offensive performance for the ages, was the best player in baseball (at least this side of Albert Pujols), and was an iron man even considering the time he missed in April.  Thankfully, the Twins managed to sneak into the playoffs, which aptly illustrated how valuable Mauer is; without him, the Twins would not have even been sniffing the playoffs.  That value would be the same on the Yankees or the Royals, but it was plainly apparent given the Twins’ fortunes this year.  Congratulations, Joe Mauer.  We were all pulling for you.

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