Quick Notes: Nov. 21, 2010

Hearty congratulations to Ron Gardenhire for winning the AL Manager of the Year. It was very well deserved and very long overdue. He's always done a great job making my favorite team win more often than they lose.

Now, I hate to pee in his champagne because I honestly believe he deserves the award, but if he wants to ever win it again, he and the team need to solve the riddle of getting out of the first round of the playoffs. I'm not one to blame the manager for the performance of the players, but I do have a feeling there's just something more he could do to lead, guide, encourage, mentor, fire-up, or otherwise push these guys in these situations. Of course winning is a team effort, and the award is supposed to be for regular-season accomplishments, but these first-round faceplants are pretty memorable and voters won't be able to get them out of the backs of their heads.

But, yes, 2010 was a great year for the Twins, thanks in large part to their great manager.

And as a reward, the Twins extended his, and the other coaches', contracts. Yay.

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The Twins another minor-league signing, 1B Jeff Bailey, this week. It seems as if they're concentrating on beefing up the Red Wings sqaud some more. This is good because they had a horrible season last year. The Rochester fans deserve better, and the Twins could use more depth.

The Twins also added a four minor-leaguers to the 40-man roster to protect them from the upcoming Rule 5 draft: RHP David Bromberg, OF Joe Benson, 1B Chris Parmelee, and OF Rene Tosoni.

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Scarf-zilla update: it's done! It's ridiculous, but it's done! It can warm four people at once, but it's done!

Now, for some smaller, more manageable projects.

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I hope you have a fantastic and safe Thanksgiving. I'm really looking forward to enjoying my mother-in-law's cabbage rolls.  

My Super-Secret Blogger Awards Ballot

Seth Stohs invited several Twins bloggers and other media-folks to participate in voting for team “awards” – nothing official; just for fun. He calls it the "SethSpeaks.net Twins Bloggers/Writers/Media Types (SSTBWMT?) Awards". Check out the results here.

When he asked me to participate, I was thrilled. I wanted to take this as seriously as I think real sport writers should take real awards. So I did a bunch of research and made a spread sheet. I chose a mix of advanced and basic stats, weighted them based on the ones I thought were important, and ranked the players. Then, I took a moment to look at the ranking with my heart, and applied a bonus for an intuitive feeling of value, “brownie points” if you will (get it? brownies?), to account for those “intangibles.”

Choosing the right stats to use is probably the most important decision; there are a lot of them and some are useful, some are not. For example, win-loss records are nice for a quick glance of today's matchups and general idea of how a pitcher is doing, but, in my opinion, have no place in awards; there are too many variables and exceptions, and there are too many factors out of a pitcher’s control to be reliable.

I did not factor in defense to my MVP ballot. I believe that taking runs away is almost as valuable as scoring them, but I also believe that great defensive skills should be the norm and not the exception. If someone had wowed me consistently with stellar glovework, I may have added a few browine points, but, honestly, no one really did.

My MVP ballot does not include pitchers for a couple of reasons. First of all, I couldn't figure out a way to convert the super-secret formula for pitchers into the super-secret formula for MVP. More importantly, however, is that since the pitchers get their own award, I didn't think they should be included with the MVP. I know this kind of slaps in the face of the definition of "value" and thereby makes it more about the stats than it probably should, but, hey, it's my ballot.
In order to spare you from your eyes glazing over, I’ll put the details of my super-secret formulas at the bottom of this post, so you can skip it if you’re not interested.

Now, since most advanced stats live on the other side of the neighborhood from me – when I see them, I wave and say “hi,” but I don’t know them terribly well – I had to invite them over and get to know them. I may or may not have chosen the best ones, and all stats are subject to interpretation and controversy, but I think I did all right. At any rate, I had fun and I learned a lot.

Here is my ballot as I gave it to Seth. Be sure to check out his blog to see how all the ballots added up and who “won” this distinguished, if not actual, honor:

Twins MVP (10 points for 1st place vote, 8 points for 2nd place vote, 6 points for 3rd, 5 for 4th, 4 for 5th, etc.)
1.) Mauer
2.) Young
3.) Morneau
4.) Cuddyer
5.) Thome
6.) Kubel
7.) Span
8.) Hudson

Twins Top Pitcher (5 points for 1st, 4 for 2nd, etc.)
1.) Liriano
2.) Pavano
3.) Duensing
4.) Crain
5.) Baker

Twins Top Rookie (5 points for 1st, 3 points for 2nd, 1 point for 3rd) -- Do I really have to pick 3? Can't I just pick Danny three times? ;-)
1.) Valencia
2.) Butera
3.) Manship

My Super-Secret Formula for MVP:
I concocted a “run-responsible” factor (a combo of RBI and runs, minus HR so they don’t get counted twice). I then used a weighted formula of OPS (on-base plus slugging percentage) and that runs-responsible thing. I then factored in plate appearances. I also gave demerits for GIDP (grounding into double plays), because I hate them so much. Cuddy got brownie points for his versatility, which pushed him over Thome by a hair. The fact that Morneau scored so high is a real testament to how valuable he really was -- and could've been. I really, really, really wanted Valencia to make the cut, but he just didn’t have the plate appearances and runs-responsible number to get there; there just weren’t enough brownie points for him.

My Super-Secret Formula for Pitchers:
I used a weighted formula of FIP (fielding independent pitching), WHIP (walks and hits per innings pitched), and WAR (wins above replacement) to figure out who was good at pitching. Additionally, I consider being able to pitch a lot of innings valuable to the team, so I factored in innings pitched. I also applied brownie points, which gave the edge to Crain over Baker. Slowey and Blackburn were next on the list, but their high FIPs kept them off the ballot.

My Super-Secret Formula for Rookies:
Ok, I gotta admit, I have no formula here. I mean, really, Valencia should get some League ROY love – not enough to win, but a few votes. Butera gets second, because he’s been in there all season, valiantly being Carl Pavano’s personal catcher. Manship gets the third spot because he’s the only eligible rookie left who I thought helped somewhat.

A Horde of Hardware

Photo from StarTribune.com

An Army of Awards
An Aurora of Accolades
A Dray of Decorations
An Eyrar of Endowments
A Pack of Presentations
A Troop of Trophies

Yup, those are all for our Joe Mauer.

So far this off-season, he's received his third batting title, his second Gold Glove, and his first MVP.

I can't even get my head wrapped around how amazing all this is. It really is a ton of fun to have such a special player on my favorite team.

Now...let's hope the off-season fun continues for him with the Twins offering him a dazzle of dollars and a yoke of years in a satisfactory contract extension.

Oh, and if you haven't seen his press conference, check it out. I love how smiley he was -- he really was happy. I also love how he said he was speechless, and then rambled on and on. And, of course, Sid made him artfully dance around the "are you a Twin for the future" question.

And, by the way, this post would not be possible without thesaurus.com and the "collective noun" entry of Wikipedia.

Catching Up on Yesterday's News...

...and the day-before's, and today's.

I'm sure everyone's already heard that Pat-Pat will be out all of 2009. Damn!

And that's all I have to say about that.

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The other day, Tim Lincecum won the NL Cy Young award. I was lucky enough to see him pitch when I visited San Francisco in August. The program I bought had a feature article on him. His delivery is very different than other pitchers, but not like Pat Neshek. He uses his whole body to generate his power -- not just his arm. And he looks like he's about 14 years old. Besides, he's on my cool name roster. If you don't know him, here's a picture I took of him:

From San Francisco Giants

Isn't he cute? (Yes, about thirty seconds after I took this picture, I switched to a seat that didn't have a big-ass railing in my view.)

Congratulations Tim, and congratulations Giants fans.

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Yesterday, Joe Maddon and Lou Piniella were named Managers of the Year.

Poor Gardy. Always a bridesmaid, never a bride. (I know, I know, it's a awful cliché, but I can't really think of a better metaphor.)

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Other things that made me smile:

• Gardenhire gets 2-year extension from Twins


• Joe Mauer, Justin Morneau win Silver Slugger Awards (although the e-mail I got from the Twins said they won Golden Slugger Awards...sheesh, is it too much to ask to -- I don't know -- proofread?)

I'll Cross My Eyes Too If It'll Help

Hey, there really is something going on in the baseball world...not much, but something. Allow me to summarize:

• Congratulations to Evan Longoria and Geovany Soto on your Rookie of the Year awards. Tell me, is it as much of an honor when it's been obvious for the last three months that you were going to get it? Did it feel a little like Rookie-elect of the Year until today? (I am pleased that Denard Span and Nick Blackburn received a few votes -- small reward, I know, but it's better than indigestion.)
• It's all but official that the Colorado Rockies will trade Matt Holliday to the Oakland A's. Um, what? Wait, that can't be true. Oakland makes ugly ball players (e.g. Nick Swisher, Jason Kendall, Bobby Kielty [in his Syndrome-hair days]). Matt is much too adorable to fit in there. I worry that the ugliness will take root. I mean, c'mon, they have white shoes, fercryinoutloud. *shudder* Oh well, if Huston Street can retain his stunning good-looks, there's hope for Matt, too.
• So now that the Rockies are short an adorable outfielder, they'll be looking for another. That means the chances they'd want Michael Cuddyer for Garrett Atkins just bumped up a couple notches. *crossing fingers this doesn't happen*
• According to Joe C., Pat-Pat had a setback in his rehab. Dang! *crossing toes this won't be a big deal*

Double-oh 8, Free Agent Man

Hi again. I meant to post sooner than this, but I've been busy. But I'm here now.

So I still have opinions bouncing around in my head, and I'd better get them out before things change and all that head-bouncing is wasted.

This time: Little Nicky Punto, Free Agent Man

Of the Twins free agents (Punto, Adam Everett, Dennys Reyes, and Eddie Guardado), Nicky is probably the only one who has a decent chance of being re-signed. Also, his future probably generates the most interest from Twins fans. Reyes may be more valuable as far as rankings, but I don't know of many fans who will shed tears if he signs elsewhere -- I think Jose Mijares or Craig Breslow can help heal that pain. But Nicky has something way more important to fans than rankings...he's got charm. And I know of a lot of fans who adore him, including me.

Whether the Twins re-sign him, however, appears to depend largely on him. It's not likely that the Twins will offer him a huge contract. If they decide to keep him, it'll be as a utility player and late-inning-defensive-replacement guy -- a good fit for him in my opinion. However, if he feels he wants to be a starter, it's going to have to be somewhere else.

Personally, I think he should re-sign with the Twins if they give him a palatable offer. He fits so nicely into the organization -- he's athletic, he's good defensively, and he's a "team-first" guy. He pretty much embodies "The Twins Way."

There is one teensy little thing I think he needs to work on: I noticed my super-cool Twins wall calendar (which must've been printed in about February of 2007 because it features Luis Castillo) listed his weight at 174 -- a good weight for a little guy. However, the Twins official web site now lists him at 195. Wow, dude, twenty pounds is a lot of extra heft on a 5'8" frame. And where did all that poundage come from? If this keeps up, we may have to drop the "Little" from Little Nicky Punto. Chunky Nicky Punto doesn't have the same ring to it. I'm not saying...I'm just saying.

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Hey! Congrats to Joey Mauer for his shiny new Gold Glove. It's very well deserved (unlike some others).