Here’s $184 million man Joe Mauer’s new fiancee: bit.ly/vGXqR3

— Jason McIntyre (@TheBigLead) December 12, 2011

JOE MAUER IS ENGAGED. WHEN HE WENT DOWN ON ONE KNEE TO PROPOSE, HE TORE SEVERAL KNEE LIGAMENTS. NO WEDDING DATE SET. #JOEMAUERINJURIES — Not Buster Olney (@TrippingOlney) December 12, 2011

Word from the Mauer engagement is that Joe dropped to a knee while proposing. It was due to bilateral leg weakness & NOT a romantic gesture.

— Parker Hageman (@OverTheBaggy) December 12, 2011

If you like to gamble like Joe Mauer did by getting married, check out Party Poker Italy if you are interesting in playing poker online.

Now that Joe Mauer is engaged, this Trophy Wife major was probably a bad idea. I guess the Mrs. Degree is out to. #nowwhat

— Whittney (@WhittneyBartkey) December 13, 2011

Grandma called with the worst news of the day… Joe Mauer proposed to his girlfriend, Maddie. #hegotthewrongone #hewasmine — Madeline Van House (@mvanhouse) December 13, 2011

I’m fascinated by all the”I’m so depressed because Joe Mauer is engaged” tweets. — Carie Small(@CarieIsSoVery) December 13, 2011

Joe Mauer is engaged; there goes Minnesota’s ‘most eligible bachelor’ bit.ly/rq1dw2

— Jeff Morris (@Jeff_Morris4) December 13, 2011

I can’t believe mauer is taken. My life has no #meaning now

— brianne stamer (@briannicastam2) December 13, 2011

Then, this.

My reaction to the Capps/Ramos trade wasn’t my most thoughtful, reasonable, level-headed moment.  It went something like… “WTF YOU HAVE GOT TO BE SH!++!N& ME!!!  Wilson RAMOS…for a good (but not great reliever), and we had to add a THROW-IN?!?!?  ARRRRGH!”  The move is certainly frustrating when taking the long-view, but in the short term, it’s beneficial.

Capps helps  THIS team THIS year. Ramos wouldn’t help them this year, or any time soon.  That in and of itself takes some of the sting out. While the Twins probably should have gotten more for Ramos, the bottom line is they had very little use for him.  Losing him as a player doesn’t hurt; losing him as an asset does.

Capps certainly makes this team better and helps the bullpen.  In fact, his benefit to the bullpen might be even greater than anticipated.  Many writers are claiming that Capps is simply Jon Rauch with a mid-90′s fastball.  That claim is over-simplified. Capps walks fewer batters and strikes out more batters.  At least this year, he has increased his groundball rate to almost 50%, while Rauch remains a flyball pitcher. Furthermore, while Capps allows a perfectly average percentage of home runs, Rauch has an unsustainably-low home run rate that is bound to regress as the season goes on. The upgrade to Capps over Rauch’s likely regression is large:  Given that Rauch allows so many flyballs in the first place, his regression on home run rate could very well have a large impact on his overall performance. Capps doesn’t look like he’s due for a regression. As far as the closer is concerned, this is an upgrade.

There is also the indirect benefit to the bullpen.  As Aaron Gleeman pointed out back on July 12, one of Rauch’s biggest assets is his durability, and that asset has not been utilized at all since moving to the closer role. Moving Rauch out of the closer role and into a setup role should mean more innings for Rauch and less work for Jesse Crain, Matt Guerrier, and Jose Mijares.  Basically, trading for Capps allows the Twins to inject into their middle-to-late relief core a guy who can be counted on to go for more than one inning frequently.

The benefits of the Capps trade come down to this:  He’s an upgrade in the closer spot over Rauch, and, by moving Rauch into a middle relief/setup role, he gives the Twins a durable arm to spread the workload of getting from the starter to the closer.  That should help this team win this year, and that’s something that a lot of fans have been clamoring for this team to do for a long time:  sacrifice some long-term stability for a chance to put yourself over the top.

Of course, this isn’t THAT big of a move. Part of what makes this move sting so much is that, no more than a month ago, Ramos was rumored to be the centerpiece of a deal for Cliff Lee. The truth is, though, that the Twins just couldn’t have made the kind of offer that Texas did. Justin Smoak is a switch-hitting power hitter who is just about major-league ready and was ranked the 13th best overall prospect in America this last spring.  Ramos was ranked number 58.  Given what the Mariners ended up getting (and almost got) for Lee, it’s clear that a package headlined by Ramos was never going to get that deal done.

Ramos is a very, very good talent, but he hasn’t done the Twins any favors in terms of keeping up his value. After hitting .288/.346/.434 in 126 games for Fort Meyers in 2008, Ramos missed significant playing time in 2009 due to injury, and has struggled mightily at AAA in 2010, batting only .241/.280/.345 while fighting through some minor injuries. His value was probably as low as it could be.

This, though, is where my biggest beef with this trade comes in.  If Ramos’ value was at its lowest, why trade him now? There was certainly no harm in letting him play every day at AAA with the hope that he could increase his trade value. Even with his struggles this year and moderate injury history, a stretch of good play should have gotten the Twins more than one above-average reliever, one who, by the way, was available for basically nothing at the start of the year. Had the Twins exercised a little more foresight and gotten bullpen help at the start of the year, this move would have been unnecessary.

To sum up:  Capps undoubtedly helps the bullpen this year.  I think he’s more of an upgrade at closer than most are assuming. Capps also makes the bullpen deeper and more durable, since his acquisition will move Rauch into a setup role.  However, to get him, the Twins sold as low as they could have on a very good (but maybe not great) prospect.  This is a good move for the 2010 team. It’s a pretty lousy move for the organization as a whole. Grade: C

1. Manager Ron Gardenhire jinxed the team when he used “we’re in first place” as a defense of his managing to reporters.
2. Injuries have made this team only a shell of what it should be.
3. Our defense has gone from strength to liability.
4. Our pitching staff imploded.

I believe it is a domino effect of numbers 2, 3 and 4, although I’m not convinced the mentality underlying number 1 isn’t a part of the mix.

It all started with fluke injuries to both of our middle infielders. While we have decent defensive replacements for J.J. Hardy and Orlando Hudson, having them out of the lineup was disastrous. Combined with a couple of the Twins key middle of the order sluggers (Kubel, Cuddyer) not yet finding their swing that’s the point where the skid began.

In trying to find our stride offense was put on top of the priority list. Even with J.J. and Hudson back in the lineup emphasis has been on offense for the last few weeks. Kubel is in right field to give Thome more at-bats at DH, and Cuddyer has been playing for defensive specialist Nick Punto at third. This has caused our infield defense to be average even on our best nights, even though our middle infield is back in action and our outfield has become even more questionable than it already was.

The problem in sacrificing defense for offense is that it rarely works, especially when you have primarily contact type pitchers. Twins pitching imploded about the time J.J. Hardy and Orlando Hudson went down with injuries, and continues to struggle as we put sub-par defense on the field with Kubel in right and Michael Cuddyer at third. The inconsistency of our pitching staff, as well as the difference between their performance on the road versus at home indicates strongly that a lot of the problem is mental, and greater mental pressure is inevitable when you’re supposed to be pitching to contact with mediocre defense.

Three of our five pitchers are not, and never will be, strikeout pitchers, and at its core this team is built around the philosophy of winning by combining contact pitching with above average defense and a lineup that produces base runners. When they start needing to strike batters out to keep the hits from piling up it’s no wonder opposing teams have been scoring early in games and we’ve been playing from behind. This in turn puts pressure on the hitters, who end up trying to home run our way back into games , press too hard at the plate and hit nothing but fly balls and double play grounders.

It would appear at first glance that the pitching is to blame for the poor results we have been, but baseball is a game of balance and problems with one cog always affects the others. Without addressing this team in a holistic fashion the results will continue to be disappointing.

The frustration of the Milwaukee series was only compounded by the fact that the White Sox and Tigers continue to eat into a division lead that for most of the season has seemed safe.   The Sox have won eleven straight to pull within two games, and the Tigers are 7-3 over their last ten to have closed the gap to a half game. This has led some to act as if the sky is falling over Target Field. Fans, take a deep breath, crack open a beer, smile, chill out, and/or just relax.  There is no reason to panic (at least as far as the division is concerned).

There’s a simple reason not to worry that the Twins are in any danger of actually losing control of the division:  run differential.  A closer look at the standings shows that, while the Twins have outscored their opponents by 46 runs this year, the Tigers have outscored their opponents by only two, and the Sox, owners of that impressive eleven game win streak, have actually been outscored by their opponents by three runs.  Obviously, a season is decided by wins and losses and not by run differential, but run differential can give a good clue as to how well a team can be expected to perform, and this much is clear:  the Sox and Tiger records are well-above their expected performance.

Over at the indispensable baseball-reference.com, one can easily access a handy, under-used statistic called “Pythagorean Win/Loss,” which calculates “expected” winning percentage by virtue of run differential. I won’t bore you with the technicalities, but the idea is simple enough:  by comparing the runs scored against total runs allowed and scored, one can estimate a team’s record. Generally, by season’s end, the Pythagorean W/L matches a team’s actual record pretty closely.  Consider the Twins’, Tigers’, and Sox’s Pythagorean W/L records (or “expected records”):

Twins:  41-31 (40-32 actual)

Tigers:  36-35 (39-32 actual)

White Sox:  35-36 (37-34 actual)

These differences don’t look all that significant, but the point is to realize how far off the Tigers and Sox are already playing.  A two-three game differential over 71 games is a 4.5-7 game differential over the course of a full season.   The takeaway is that, if the teams keep scoring runs and allowing runs at roughly the rate they have been, it’s likely that the Sox and Tigers won’t be able to keep up their current winning percentage and will regress toward their expected winning percentage (about .500). The Twins, for their part, may increase their’s, albeit slightly. (Of course, they could increase it by a LOT if they make a trade for a certain record-pace pitcher.)

Expected W/L certainly isn’t perfect. The 2002 Twins are an example of an extreme outlier, finishing 8 games above their expected W/L (86-75 Expected/94-67 Actual).  It’s probably worth considering, though, that the 2002 Twins were the squad that actually earned the franchise reputation for doing the little things right; perhaps this allowed them to steal an inordinate number of games with smart, scrappy play. That squad also played in an extremely weak division, which might have made it easier for them to outrun their expected win/loss for a full season. Because neither the Tigers nor the Sox are particularly adept at “the small things,” and given that the division is certainly stronger than, say, 2002, I wouldn’t bet on them to maintain their pace.

So, in sum, don’t panic. It’s a long season. The Twins really should be just fine.

(Oh, and please go get Cliff Lee.  Thanks guys.)

“We could watch video and I could show you probably 25 balls that he’s lined out.  I guarantee, most hitters, you might see 10. Mauer you’d see 25, maybe 30 balls where he’s lined out. Rockets hit at people. It all evens out; that’s what they say. Well, let me tell you, right now, Joe’s got about two weeks of base hits (coming) to even out.”

Anecdotally, this seemed entirely plausible to me, just judging from my own observations.  As it turns out, the numbers do, in fact, back up Gardenhire’s claim. Over Mauer’s career, he has hit just under 23% of all balls in play as line drives. According to The Hardball Times, line drives typically fall in for base hits around 75% of the time – easily the highest percentage among line drives, fly balls and ground balls.  For his career, Mauer’s batting average on all balls hit in play is .342. This year, so far, Mauer is posting a ridiculous line drive percentage of 27.3%, but his average on all balls in play has dropped to .327.  So, despite stinging the ball at a ridiculously high rate – much higher than his career percentage – Mauer is seeing fewer batted balls go for hits.  Gardenhire is right: Mauer is simply smashing the ball right at people  at an absurdly frustrating rate.

Whether or not this means that we’re due to see “two weeks of base hits” is another matter.  Defenses may be playing Mauer differently than in the past, meaning they’re in better position to handle his line drives. Furthermore, it’s rare that a player can sustain a 27% line drive rate. We may see Mauer’s line drive rate drop and his average on balls in play remain rather constant as a result. However, if he can keep hitting the ball as well as he has, there’s no doubt we’ll see that batting average and slugging percentage spike.

Clutch hitting is not just about the ninth inning and it is not about home runs, it is about key moments that come in every game when you have a chance to leverage the circumstances to your advantage.  This means taking advantage of mistakes by your opponents, it means racking up the pitch count by fouling off pitches in the third inning, and it means not hitting into double plays every time you get the chance.  The problem is not sitting Mauer, the problem is not rookie strikeouts, and I don’t believe the problem is even a third baseman hitting .218.  The problem is a lack of putting games away when given the chance.

I don’t know if it’s coming from the management or just their own heads, but the middle of the lineup seems convinced that their sole job at the plate is to send the ball into orbit.  Over the past several years the constant statement that the Twins were a “small-ball” club was a poorly veiled excuse for lousy front office management.  When you have actual hitters on your team, which I still believe we do, small ball is good fundamental baseball.  Friday night’s game is a prime example – 15 runs, and not a single home run.

The Twins currently lead the major leagues in walks issued. This is something the Twins have preached in their system for years, and is attributable to the successful run the Twins have been on for nearly a decade. Twins pitchers are constantly around the plate, meaning they’re going to get hit hard from time to time if the pitchers aren’t locating (like today). However, over the course of a season, the Twins will face plenty of lineups (Cleveland, Kansas City, Chicago) that can’t take advantage of the meatballs Twins pitchers can be prone to throw. This is part of the reason why our guys have been able to win a relatively weak division five times in the last eight years.

Where this tendency really gets exposed is in the playoffs. When the Twins get matched up against teams with deep lineups like the Yankees, (by the way, Howard Sinker’s nickname for A-Rod, Cheater McSmug, is awesome) their pitchers have problems because they can’t get swings and misses, and consequently, strikeouts. Yankees pitchers struck out the Twins 34 times last postseason, while Twins pitchers struck out the Yankees only 22 times (13 of which came in Game 3).  It is much easier to get out of a jam as a pitcher when you can reach back for that little extra and get a key strikeout.

This year the Twins have two starters who are coming in above the league average for percentage of pitches resulting in a swing and a miss (Liriano and Baker). By comparison, last season the Bronx Bombers had every starter at or above the league average in the same statistical category (except for Pettitte, who checked in one percentage point below). Point is, the Twins are going to have to come up with some dominating pitching performances in the playoffs, if they make it there. Whether The Franchise and Shaky Bakey can produce those types of outings remains to be seen.

By the way, here’s a look at the top horses for each of the championship teams in the past decade.

2009 New York Yankees – C.C. Sabathia, A.J. Burnett, Andy Pettitte

2008 Philadelphia Phillies – Cole Hamels

2007 Boston Red Sox – Josh Beckett, Curt Schilling

2006 St. Louis Cardinals – Chris Carpenter

2005 Chicago White Sox – Mark Buerhle, Jon Garland, Freddy Garcia, Jose Contreras

2004 Boston Red Sox – Curt Schilling, Pedro Martinez

2003 Florida Marlins- Brad Penny, Josh Beckett

2002 Anaheim Angels – John Lackey

2001 Arizona Diamondbacks- Curt Schilling, Randy Johnson

2000 New York Yankees – Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte

1999- New York Yankees- Roger Clemens, Orlando Hernandez

What can we learn from this? To win a championship, you must have someone who can shut down an opposing lineup. Most of these guys are power pitchers, and all of them can strike opponents out.

It seems like I have spent the last several months doing nothing but defending Nick Punto everywhere I go.  Not that I think he’s A-Rod or anything, but even on larger market team the roles and expectations of certain players has to be taken into account.  This goes far beyond whether Punto should be riding the bench but speaks to the importance of different members of the team doing the things that they were signed to do.  I personally think this year he is finally in the right role – a bottom of the order guy starting primarily for his defense.  Thursday’s loss to Baltimore is a prime example of this.  Carl Pavano pitched a solid game, the top of the order got on base and the big bats failed to drive them in.  There is simply no excuse for a team with this caliber of hitting to load the bases twice and fail to score a single run.

For me, the loss to Baltimore may have come at the perfect time.  It’s often easy to let the euphoria of something like a series sweep of perhaps the only legitimate divisional threat make me lose sight of the Twins ability to choke at the plate just when it seems like they can’t be stopped.  I don’t want to turn this into one of those juvenile rants about firing Gardenhire and I know it’s very early in the season, but I do feel something needs to be done to address the consistent mental issues that seem to haunt the Twins year after year, not because Gardy or the front office guys can’t do anything right but because they seem to be so close to getting it exactly right.

The last couple of years I have chalked up the lack of clutch hitting and mental mistakes to a vacuum of veteran leadership in the clubhouse, but when it’s Jim Thome whiffing at the plate with the bases loaded that theory goes out the window, not to mention the core of our order (Cuddyer, Kubel, etc.) can hardly be considered green anymore.  Losing games 2-0 in April and May won’t kill you, at least not this year in the AL Central, but when that kind of thing becomes a part of a team’s DNA you can’t expect it to simply disappear in the post season.  I’m not sure what the answer is, but if this team is going to make the jump from a scrappy underdog overachiever to a true championship threat it’s going to take more than Mauer and Morneau being consistently awesome.  It’s going to take the middle of the order guys that are on this team more for their bats than their defense coming through when it counts.