I don't blog about Sports too often, but my favorite baseball team has been playing some crazy games lately so here is my attempt at Twins analysis. In the offseason this year the Twins lost 5 important players (Johan Santana, Carlos Silva, Torii Hunter, Jason Bartlett, and Matt Garza). Of those five three were starting pitchers. In the Majors if you don't have good to great starting pitching you will have trouble winning even if your offense is loaded (insert either Detroit Tigers or New York Yankees here).
Santana bolted for NYC to the Mets in one of the biggest trades in Twins History. Silva signed a wicked fat contract with Seattle and the 'chief' bolted for the Pacific NW. Garza was traded as part of a deal to the Tampa Bay Rays and has been a bright spot in their resurgence to places they've never been (in first place and above .500 in May!). The Twins allowed these starting pitchers to go because they obviously knew that the cupboard wasn't bare. The Twins organization was confident in their young starting pitching that they had (even though many fans had their doubts).
The Twins just went 5-1 on a current road trip in Detroit and Kansas City. The worst pitching on the road trip was done by John "Boof" Bonser and the old vet Livian Hernandez. Here is what the Twins young starters did on the road trip
- Kevin Slowey (24 years old) 2-0, 15 in/pitched, 1 ER - Season ERA 3.38
- Nick Blackburn (26 yrs old) ND, 8.1 in/pitched, 2 ER - Season ERA 3.39
- Glenn Perkins (25 years old) 1-0, 7.2 in/pitched, 1 ER - Season ERA 2.77
- Scott Baker (27 yrs old) - on 15 day DL, but is 2-0 - Season ERA 4.09
- Johan Santana - 6-3 w/ a 3.41 ERA ($16.9 million/year)
- Matt Garza - 4-1 w/ a 3,78 ERA ($404,000/year)
- Carlos Silva - 3-4 w/ a 5.14ERA ($8.25 million/year)
5 comments:
I absolutely despise the Twins with every inch of flesh in my body... Speaking of young pitching.. Jon Lester, Dice-K, Jonathon Papelbon, Josh Beckett, Clay Buchholz... All 27 or younger except Beckett by a couple days.. But man do I loathe the Twins :)
Mr. Heltzel....I hate to respond with making my point and case stronger. The point of the post was to show how the Twins use their heads when throwing money to pitchers. The 5 pitchers you stated make a little over $20 million combined (take out Beckett and Dice-K and it becomes way less), while the 5 pitchers (+ I'll add in Pat Neshek, our best young arm in the 'pen to correspond to Papelbon)...those Twins make a combined $2 million. That is an $18 million difference. In the standings as of 5/31/08 that corresponds to 5 fewer wins for the Twins, both squads are in second place in the division, and I might add that the Twins took 3 of 4 from the Sox recently. The Sox are actually my second favorite team in the big leagues, but they do do business pretty much like the hated Yankees.
As far as comparing our young pitchers the Twins and Red Sox players here that we are comparing share another difference.
Each Twin that I talked about including now Neshek was developed and drafted by the Twins organization.
The Sox on the other hand optained Beckett who was drafted and groomed by the Florida Marlins and Dice-K who was groomed in another country.
Okay.. so I look a little/a lot foolish... And now I can't make an argument since their your second favorite team... Good call there at least.. My case was, well, I cannot stand the sight of the twins... thinkin about it though, these two teams have a ton of young talent.. could also compare centerfielders gomez and ellsbury.. yikes
when you gonna get some vikings post in here
Wow... what a great baseball mind!
Post a Comment