Inherited Runners Redux

Back in May, I tried to tell Gardy about JC Romero and inherited runners. But he just didn't want to hear it. A few days later, he dismissed these concerns in an interview with the Star Trib's LaVelle E. Neal:

"He didn't throw the pitch where he wanted it, but he has been throwing the ball fine," Gardenhire said. "I know you guys keep all these mad stats about runners inherited and stuff."

But now, with 102 of 162 games under our belts and the trade deadline looming (presumably Romero is on the market, if anyone wants him), it seems like a fine time to revisit that critical relievers' stat.

Pitcher	IP	IR	RS	IR/S
Crain, J	47.0	29	8	27.5%
Guerrier, M	39.1	14	2	14.3%
Mulholland, T	40.1	17	5	29.4%
Nathan, J	44.2	2	0	0.0%
Rincón, J	46.2	13	2	15.4%
Romero, JC	39.0	29	13	44.8%
Total	257	104	30	28.8%

stats provided by ESPN.com

The staff average excluding Romero, by the way, is 22.7%, which would translate into six or seven fewer runs so far. What that would have done for the team record, who knows? But if runs are like gold, as they say, then Romero's looking like a lousy investment.

And he's not getting any better:

Year	IP	IR	RS	IR/S
1999	10.2	2	0	0.0%
2000	58.2	1	1	100.0%
2001	65.0	1	0	0.0%
2002	81.0	54	10	18.5%
2003	63.0	46	14	30.4%
2004	74.1	45	21	46.7%
2005	39.0	29	13	44.8%
Career	390.2	178	59	33.1%

The longer he sees regular work with runners on, the more poorly he handles it. It looks like they tossed him into the deep end in 2002, and he swam. Since then, they've been unable to forget that fabulous year and unable to remember the horrors that have occurred in the meantime.

Gardy, darling, these aren't "mad stats". These are a trend, and a bad one. Do everyone a favor--put Romero in to start innings, where he thrives, exclusively. He'll be happier, you'll be happier, and we'll be ecstatic.

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Boundless Groundless Optimism

Friday evening. The beginning of a new weekend, the end of a long week. The beginning of a new series for a Twins team that desperately needs a fresh start. Ah, can't you just smell the optimism!

So Mr. Third Base Line and I settled in with a couple of Fuji Apple Chicken Salads from Panera (they're fabulous, try one) and turned on the game. We were promptly treated to four and a half innings of a pitcher's duel. The Twins were holding their own, excellent! (Except that Torii Hunter got injured in the first inning, but it doesn't look season-ending or anything.)

And then we saw something we've never seen before.

Three errors on one play. Try to conceive of that, if you will. Having trouble? Here's a play by play:

Runners on first and second, two away. (Errors with two outs just add insult to injury, don't you think?)
--Johnny Damon singles on a line drive to right fielder Jacque Jones. Bill Mueller scores.
--Jacque Jones (RF) throws to Joe Mauer (C), who lets the ball skip between his legs and bounce toward the dugout. Catching error on Mauer. Tony Graffanino scores.
--Carlos Silva (P) fields the ball in foul territory and throws to Joe Mauer (C). Throw goes wild. Throwing error on Silva.
--Justin Morneau (1B) fields the ball in foul territory and throws to Luis Rodriguez (3B) in a pickoff attempt (Damon caught between 3rd and home). Rodriguez throws to Joe Mauer (C) and hits the runner with the ball. Throwing error on Rodriguez.

I think I just felt my soul shrivel.

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Postscript:
The official scorer did not record an error against Silva, but I stand by the account above--that throw was atrocious.

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Paging Professor Trelawney

One day, we'll look back on this season and laugh.

Well, all right, not laugh, precisely. I expect it will be more a failure to pull out our own hair while making weird little gasping noises in the backs of our throats than an actual laugh. But really, that's almost as good, considering.

We'll look back, and we won't render ourselves follicly challenged, and we'll say:

Hey, it wasn't all bad. April was fun. Also part of June. And that bit in September, remember that? That was excellent. And then we took the money we'd been saving for playoff tickets and we went to San Antonio in October and saw Sea World and the Alamo and when we accidentally left the tourist areas we even witnessed evolution in action. It was all very educational, and the scar's nearly gone, really.

Besides, that was the year Justin Morneau and Joe Mauer finally got their first full seasons in the majors, and look at them now. They needed that experience. It's kind of like prison, I think--once you've been there, you'll do whatever it takes not to go back. Except they didn't do anything wrong, of course, unless getting drafted counts.

Carlos Silva really matured that year, too. Oh, and wasn't it Jesse Crain's rookie season? I think it was. He's really something now, isn't he? I wish we hadn't traded him for Juan Gonzales in the offseason. That was the beginning of the end, my friends, not 2005!

That was the year we finally got rid of Luis Rivas, too. Remember him? Adequate glove, hit like the Queen Mother...post-embalming? Wonder where he is now. Actually, wait, no I don't.

Besides, no one remembers the 2005 Twins anymore. You say "2005" to a baseball fan, and all anyone talks about is how George Steinbrenner went into that irreversible coma due to an apoplectic fit after Derek Jeter's uniform pants ripped up the back seam on a play and the whole world got an eyeful of his lucky, lacy red thong. (And Jeter's much happier in San Francisco, so all's well that ends well.)

No, upon reflection, 2005 wasn't so bad. I mean, hey--at least we weren't the Royals!

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Notes from the Soul-Sucking Cubicle

She was doing nine to life

working for The Company.

--the Levellers, "Outside/Inside"

Hello. My name is Peon, and I work for The Company.

I joined The Company in 1996, when it was small, and casual, and friendly. It has grown quite a bit since then, and become much like other companies. It has also grown a second face. Recently, one face looked very sad and apologetic when it informed us that money was very, very scarce and as a result they were going to have to lay off 10% of the technology peons. The other face was busy making toasts at the corporate managing director conference in Hawaii. Who knew it was cheaper to meet at a Hawaiian resort than in your own headquarters? Perhaps we should re-think our lease.

In the last few years, The Company has been pursuing a program called "Associate Engagement". "Associate" is a nicer word for peon, and "Engagement" basically means a peon's emotional investment in his/her job and in The Company itself. You see, there was a big nationwide study a few years ago that indicated a high level of "engagement" among workers resulted in greater job satisfaction and higher productivity.

So The Company, being duly concerned about its peons' happiness productivity, implemented an annual Associate Engagement Survey to gauge the level of contentment among its worker bees and presumably to try to fix areas of dissatisfaction. This survey is given every fall, usually in late September or early October.

The first few times, after the results of the survey came in around the new year, The Company would exclaim over the questions which received poor ratings, and the issues would be hashed and rehashed ad nauseum for the next six months. The Company would build new informational websites for our benefit, set up anonymous call centers where we could report problems, and gather all our managers together for a conference in a tropical paradise to try to puzzle out why those of us left behind in the swirling snows of Minnesota weren't beaming with pride to work for such a fine and caring organization.

Last year, they gave up on those tactics, and took the much simpler approach of releasing the next survey's questions to management several months before the survey and instructing them to discuss these questions with their team. By "discuss", of course, they meant "prime the peons to rate everything a 5 out of 5".

So our managers give us the questions one by one, and ask us to air any reasons we might have for rating that question less than a five. And then they explain to us, very gently, why our problems aren't really what the question is about, so of course we can't in good conscience consider trifling little difficulties like layoffs when faced with the survey.

I'm going to let you in on a little secret they don't think we're bright enough to have figured out. They don't actually give a rip if we're happy or productive--they just want us to say we're happy and productive on their little survey so they can show the survey results to their investors as proof that not only is their money safe with The Company, but they should invest even more.

I could admire their sheer nerve and Machiavellian lack of conscience if they weren't so ham-handed about it. A little subtlety would go a very long way. It might even be worth a 3.

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Crossroads

So. Here we are.

Halfway, plus a bit, through the season, over eleven games behind first in the divison, and hanging on to a first-place wild card tie by our fingernails after two solid months of slipping down the standings. We've got an excellent pitching staff and an offense so wilted no pitching staff could possibly compensate.

We also have three paths open to us. Now is the time to choose.

1. Sit Tight
Hope for the best with what we've got. Lock down the roster, take some extra BP, and pray for a quick and thorough end to The Slump. Trust the current players and staff to suddenly figure out what they've been doing wrong all year. The chances of this method working sufficiently to see us into the postseason are approximately nil, but would preserve what many believe to be a lineup capable of contending in future.

2. Roll the Dice
Make a trade, or two, or three. Inject new blood into the team. Make staffing changes. Take risks that would have been unthinkable three months ago. Spend some money if necessary, just get some hitters to back up our pitching staff. Make an all-out run for the wild card. This might actually work, but could also diminish our chances in following seasons.

3. Build for Tomorrow
Withdraw with dignity. Release players and/or make trades for prospects purely to open up roster spots. Bring up hot prospects and give them some major league experience. Use their successes to light a fire under the veterans. Focus on future seasons, and take any improvement in the current situation as a bonus. Chances of immediate success (such as winning the wild card) are slim to none, but the risks are also minimal.

---

Now, dear readers--weigh in. Which option do you pick? I'll write a column in a few days about the relative popularity of each option.

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Twins News

Organizational brain cramp averted!

DETROIT -- Twins first baseman Justin Morneau is staying put.
Early this week, manager Ron Gardenhire had entertained thoughts of sending the struggling slugger to Triple-A Rochester as part of a pending roster move Saturday.
On Friday, Gardenhire decided against the drastic move.
"We're not going to mess with Morneau," Gardenhire said. "[Hitting coach] Scotty [Ullger] thinks that he's getting closer. We're going to eliminate [Morneau] from the process."

Organizational brain cramp pending:

A second roster move will come after Sunday's game, when Baker has likely returned to Rochester. The club originally contemplated calling up another pitcher but might now consider a hitter instead.
Should a pitcher be summoned from Rochester, hard-throwing reliever Travis Bowyer would be a deserving candidate for his first big league callup. Bowyer has a 1.71 ERA in 39 games with 19 saves. If a position player is sought, switch-hitter Terry Tiffee could get the nod in what would be his fourth recall of the season.

@#&%! How many times do I have to say it, Gardy?
BARTLETT! BARTLETT! BARTLETT!

And finally:

Reliever Juan Rincon's grievance hearing for his 10-day steroids suspension has been set for Tuesday in New York while the club is in town. Rincon was disciplined in May for testing positive to a banned performance-enhancing substance, but has maintained his innocence.

Good luck, Juan.

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More Open Letters

To: Johan Santana, c/o Minnesota Twins

Dear Johan,

Listen, I know you've been busy and all, so I'll keep this short. This whole thing you're having with the lack of control and the not striking people out, and the walks and stuff? I was just thinking, maybe since you're not doing so great you might want to stop shaking your catcher off all the darn time? 'Cause it's just barely possible that he could have better ideas than you do right now. Just a thought.

All the best,
TBL

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To: Jason Bartlett, c/o Rochester Red Wings

Dear Jason,

Hi! Long time, no correspond. I assume you're too tired after all those hits every day to send your loyal blogger an email. That's okay, I'd much rather have the hits! Of course, I had thought you and your hits would be here in Minnesota by now, but every organization has its stupid moments, right? Keep it up, they'll pull their heads out of their asses someday soon.

Adoringly,
TBL

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To: George Steinbrenner, c/o Eighth Circle of Hell

Dear George,

Nice starting rotation.

Muahahahahahahahahahahaha!

Sincerely,
TBL

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