3/22/09

Spring training weeks 1-4 summary.

Four weeks of spring training are in the books, the team is one game over .500, Mauer seems to need a while to be healthy, and this is how the Twins' players involved in position battles are performing so far. These are the cummulative statistics through week 4 with 12 more games to go (The rankings are by decreasing OPS for position players and by decreasing WHIP for pitchers) :

Position Players:

Outfield Starter Battle:

Gomez .256/.341/.615, 3 HR, 5 BB, 3 SB (39 AB)
Young .325/.357/.550, 2 HR, 1 SB (40 AB)
Cuddyer .297/.325/.541, 1 HR, 2 BB (37 AB)
Span .157/.232/.275, 1 HR, 5 BB, 2 SB (51 AB)

Spot on the Bench vs Rochester Battle:

Buscher .355/.432/.516, 1 HR, 5 BB (31 AB)
Hughes .429/.429/.429, (21 AB)
Tolbert .220/.319/.317, 1HR, 6 BB (41 AB)
Macri .208/.240/.292, 1 BB (24 AB)
Machado .133/.235/.200, 2 SB, 2 BB (15 AB)


Mauer's temporary replacement battle
Butera .400/.455/.400, 1 BB (10 AB)
Morales .200/.188/.200 (15 AB)


Other 25-man roster position player stats:
Casilla .405/.444/.476, 3 BB, 4 SB (42 AB)
Kubel .364/.432/.485, 1 HR, 4 BB (33 AB)
Morneau .286/.348/.524, 1 HR, 2 BB (21 AB)
Harris .333/.444/.400, 5 BB, 1 SB (30 AB)
Punto .313/.353/.438, 1 BB (16 AB)
Redmond .250/.344/.357, 4 BB (28 AB)
Crede .200/.282/.343, 1 HR, 4 BB (35 AB)

Position Player of weeks 1-4:

Carlos Gomez



Honorable mention:, Delmon Young, Jason Kubel, Brian Buscher, Alexi Casilla


Pitchers:

Starter Performance:

Blackburn ERA 0.00, WHIP 0.40, 0 BB, 1 K, 5 IP
Slowey ERA 1.93, WHIP 0.75, 1 BB, 10 K 9.1 IP
Liriano ERA 2.20, WHIP 0.98, 6 BB, 14 K, 16.1 IP
Perkins ERA 2.25, WHIP 1.25, 5 BB, 7 K, 20 IP
Baker ERA 8.25, WHIP 1.80, 2 BB, 14 K, 17.2 IP

Battle for set up man:

Crain 0.00 ERA, WHIP 0.15, 0 BB, 4 K, 6.2 IP
Ayala 0.00 ERA, WHIP 0.33, 0 BB, 1 K, 3 IP
Breslow 1.13 ERA, WHIP 0.50, 1 BB, 11 K, 8 IP

On the bubble; battle for the last 1-2 spots:

Dickey 3.09 ERA, WHIP 1.11, 3 BB, 14 K, 11.2 IP
Humber 5.63, WHIP 1.13, 0 BB, 2 K, 8 IP

Keppel 3.45, WHIP 1.23, 2 BB, 4 K, 7.1 IP
Henn 1.42 ERA, WHIP 1.26, 2 BB, 5 K, 6.1 IP
Duensing 0.90 ERA, WHIP 1.30, 4 BB, 5 K, 10 IP
Jones 2.70 ERA, WHIP 1.40, 3 BB, 5 K, 10 IP

Mijares 12.86 ERA, WHIP 3.00, 9 BB, 6 K, 7 IP

Others in the 25-man Roster:
Nathan 4.50 ERA, WHIP 1.00, 1 BB, 5 K, 6 IP
Guerrier 8.22 ERA, WHIP 1.96, 4 BB, 4 K, 7.2 IP

pitcher of weeks 1-3, spring training:

Jesse Crain




honorable mention: Kevin Slowey, Nick Blackburn, Fransisco Liriano, Craig Breslow, R.A. Dickey

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thrylos,

I'm thinking an opening day lineup of:

Span
Casilla
Gomez
Morneau
Young
Kubel
Crede
Redmond
Punto

I think Span is going to get better before opening day. I expect Cuddyer to ride the bench, like Randy Bush did and come up with the big pinch hits when needed. (yeah, okay, so, I'm expecting the Twins to make a serious run at the Series. Hope springs eternal...)

Regards,

Blake

thrylos98 said...

Blake,

this looks good and I wish Gardy had Gomez higher in the lineup but I am pretty sure that is not happening... Also, you know how Gardy is with his favorites and unfortunately it looks like Delmon might be doing a lot of the sitting down, unless Span continues to sting up the joint.

Anonymous said...

thrylos,

Seems to me the only way Gardy can justify starting Cuddyer ahead of Span is experience.

In looking at the box scores, I can't say that Cuddyer is really lighting it up with the bat.

At least Span is getting a few walks.

Young and Gomez both appear to be on a mission.

If Young continues to light it up with the bat, I just don't see how that offense can be taken out of the lineup, especially with Joe Mauer being down.

With that said, Span has far greater range than Cuddyer. Not like there's a big offensive loss if Cuddyer isn't playing. (based on ST)

-Blake

thrylos98 said...

Blake,

you are preaching to the choir. I wanted this team to try to go with Span LF, Gomez CF and Young RF. Gardy has different views because Young did not play a single inning as a RF this spring, last spring or with the Twins in general. I just don't get it, but that's how is looks like in Gardy's mind...

Anonymous said...

thrylos,

I only mention it, because I know you have a better idea of how players are performing than I do. Better information, as it were. I like to make sure I don't have some mistaken impressions.

Remember, though, Gardy has surprised us in the past. Look at what happened in 2006 when he completely rebuilt the left side of the infield.

One story that intrigued me was the game where Delmon Young was told to pull the ball, and did.

Young is getting a lot of at bats, and it sounds like he's listening.

So, perhaps Gardy and Co. are working to make sure that Delmon has turned the corner in regards to being a the kind of team player they want.

As a side note, I never understood some of the complaints against Delmon when it came to his hitting. Yeah, he swung at the first pitch a lot, but, isn't the tendency for pitchers to throw a first pitch strike? If so, then why give away a strike?

Also, I was watching a Delmon Young at bat last season, and, just before he was to bat, the opposing team went to another pitcher. I clearly remember Delmon going back to the dugout and looking through a bunch of paperwork. It was my impression he was looking through scouting reports for the relief pitcher's tendencies.

-Blake

thrylos98 said...

I really like Delmon. I think that he and Gomez are due for break-through seasons.

Solely based on ST performance it should be Gomez, Delmon and Cuddyer starting with Span off the bench to replace Cuddyer in the late innings and to rest each of them a day or twoa week a piece. That would probably give him about 400-450 PA for the year. Not that bad