An AL Central preview (Twins Target)

Super blogger Aaron Gleeman has a new URL (AG)

A look at who the Twins backup catcher will be (Twins Centric)

An open letter to Joesus (Curve for a Strike)

A look at WPA (BtB)

Looking at Marlins lefty Andrew Miller (Marlin Maniac)

Our Royals blog has a sweet new layout. That jerk. (KoK)

A look at Padres lefty Cory Luebke (Chicken Friars)

Who: Wilson Ramos

Position: Catcher

How Acquired: Minor league Free Agent

Highest Level Reached in 2009: AA

What’s not to like about Ramos? He has had one professional season under a .340 OBP, and his worst season was a 120 wRC+. Ramos is in every top 100 prospect, and for good reason. Ramos has raw power that scouts rave about, but it hasn’t translated into game power yet as the catcher’s career high in ISO is just .149.

Ramos has had uncharacteristically high BABIP’s (for catchers anyways, given their generally slow speed). He has generally hovered around the .340 mark. After a couple of low line drive rates in the first two years of his career, Ramos’s LD% have been 21%, 16% and 18% the last three years.

Although his offense generally gets all the publicity, Ramos has been good defensively as well. In each of the last three seasons, the catcher has thrown out at least 40% of base stealers.

Ramos’s walk rates are very low, which for me is a huge red flag. His strikeout rates have traditionally been very high, around 20%, although last year that was cut almost in half. Given that a lot of his season was lost to injury, who knows if that will continue or it was just a sample size anomaly.

Walk rate red flag aside, Ramos is a tremendous prospect and one who could either bring great return in a trade, or allow Joe Mauer to move to a position better showcasing his bat.

Well, once again it’s not Joe Mauer, but it’s nice to see that Denard Span will be a Twin for awhile, according to Star-Trib writer Joe Christensen. The deal will be for five years, which covers his controlled seasons, as well as an option for a 6th year. The salary breakdown, courtesy of Twins Now:

10: 750k

11: 1M

12: 3M

13: 4.75M

14: 6.5M

And then 2015 features a 9 million dollar option with a 500k buyout.

Although he struggled with his plate discipline in the minors, Span has found it in the majors, posting .387 and .392 OBPs the past two seasons. He has been worth nearly 7 wins over the past two years, and it should only get better now that Span will have the opportunity to play Centerfield full time. I think UZR has been underrating him out there a bit, given that he was one of the best defensive corner outfielders, and yet below average in center. His throwing arm isn’t great, but now that he is the full time guy in center I think he’ll have a chance to put up some stellar defensive numbers.

In all, this is a good deal for the twins. Span likely would have made more than 13 million in his three years of arbitration, plus the Twins buy out a free agent year. Span will put up somewhere between 35-45 million worth of production in the three years he should have spent in arbitration (assuming he stays somewhat near his current level of production) and will be paid not even half that. Nice job by Bill Smith and company.

And, as this must always be mentioned, Joe Mauer is probably happy with it as well.

Repeat after me: The worst part about losing Joe Nathan for the season isn’t losing Joe Nathan for the season.

Confused yet?

Nathan would have been worth ~2 wins this year. His past three years were 2.2, 2.1 and 1.9 so we can say that with a pretty high degree of certainty. His likely replacements, Jon Rauch or Matt Guerrier, are worth roughly 1 and .5 wins apiece. Rauch has had better strikeout numbers (except for last year) so it would probably be best to put him in the middle innings to give him more high leverage situations, then give Guerrier the opportunity to get 3 outs with nobody on base. Replacing Nathan with a lesser pitcher might cost them as much as a win (although I don’t think it would even be that high when you factor in Nathan’s likely decline anyways) so that is not the problem.

The problem is farther down the depth chart. Now all of a sudden every reliever gets bumped up a spot. Guerrier closes, Mijares and Rauch will get roughly the same innings leverage wise, but now Jesse Crain gets higher leveraged innings, etc. What happens when Clay Condrey comes in with 2 runners on and 1 out? You can see where problems arise from having to use your 7th reliever as your 6th reliever, and so on.

Another overlooked problem is this will certainly require the Twins to use 12 pitchers, and I can envision them using 13 for parts of the year. This means less opportunities for Alexi Casilla to run for Jason Kubel, or Jim Thome to pinch hit for Punto. Although Nathan himself isn’t irreplaceable, his impact on the team very well could be. The ramifications of him being out for the year probably won’t cost the team the division, but it could cost as many as four wins. And, given that the central has been close (much closer than I’ve predicted) in the past couple years, I guess it is possible that Joe Nathan going down could result in the Twins not winning the Central.

Which is why the Twins should go sign John Smoltz. Without a job yet he will likely come cheap, and he has closed before so he will be able to step right in and do so this season. His 6+ ERA last year was unsightly, but he still managed to strike out almost a batter per inning while keeping his walk rate around 2 per 9, in line with his career numbers. In the bullpen, Smoltz’s stuff can play up for the 20ish pitches he will throw and he will more than likely strikeout around a batter per inning. His low groundball rate won’t be as big of a problem when he gets to start his own inning either. His fastball was below average last year, but pitching out of the bullpen should fix some of that, and it will make his legendary slider, which was plenty effective last year, even more effective. Signing Smoltz could save the season. No pun intended.

Who: Kyle Gibson

Position: RHP

How Acquired: 2009 Draft, 1st round (22nd overall)

Highest Level Reached in 2009: N/A

Kyle Gibson was ranked as high as a top 5 selection in last year’s draft by Baseball America before a stress reaction in his forearm sidelined him and caused him to plummet to the 22nd pick. Credit the Twins for doing the medical diligence on Gibson and taking a risk with the 22nd pick, which is right where you should be taking risks in a draft.

Gibson, when healthy profiles as probably a #2 starter. He uses mostly a two seamer and has a couple good breaking balls. On a recent Baseball America podcast, Jim Callis said (and I’m paraphrasing) that he’d take Gibson over Rangers prospect Tanner Scheppers because Gibson has two offspeed pitches that were among the best in the recent draft. Because of his height and frame, Gibson is able to create angles really well. It will be interesting to see if his stuff keeps playing up throughout his professional career, or if it stagnates.

I have Gibson 5 in my rankings because of two things. 1. The injury risk (granted elbows are better than shoulders) and 2. lack of ceiling. A #2 pitcher is very valuable, but Gibson might only have the pure stuff to be a #3. We shall see.

source: Yardbarker

The Twins defeated the Orioles 5-0 today thanks to the work of Kevin Slowey and newly rich Nick Blackburn. Slowey threw three scoreless innings, which were followed by three scoreless by Blackburn. Each pitcher struck out two and walked one.

At the plate the Twins were led by Michael Cuddyer, who went 2 for 3 with 2 RBI. Ben Revere, who you will eventually see in my prospect rankings, went 3-5 with a triple.

Brian Matusz got the loss for Baltimore, tossing 2.2 innings, giving up 2 runs on 3 hits. Although he did strikeout 6 hitters.

The Twins are back at it tomorrow vs. St Louis.

Later today I’ll unveil my next prospect.

Nick Blackburn pitches vs. the Mariners last year. via Yardbarker

The Twins have announced that they have inked RHP Nick Blackburn to a 4 year contract worth 14 million dollars. This includes an 8 million option for 2014.

Blackburn has really beat the odds to become a solid major league pitcher. A former Twins #1 prospect from Baseball America, Blackburn has put up ERAs of 4.05 and 4.03 the last two years.

He has done this despite FIPs of 4.40 and 4.37 the pas two years, mainly because Blackburn doesn’t strike anyone out (career 4.43 K/9). Fortunately, Blackburn doesn’t walk anyone either, and with an improved infield defense, Blackburn should be better this year. Fangraphs did a post last year on how Blackburn doesn’t miss many bats, but then again, that’s probably a big reason why he has been able to pitch 398 innings over the past two years.

In any event, it’s nice to see the Twins front office starting to pay the money to keep their young players around.

Although the Twins lost 9-3, there were some good signs in today’s spring training game. Francisco Liriano went two innings, giving up 1 hit and walking 1, but striking out 3 batters.

Ben Revere got his first start of the Spring, and the prospect went 0-4 with 2 strikeouts.

Danny Valencia went 1-1 with an RBI and a run scored.

The big news however was Joe Nathan. The closer left in the 3rd with tightness in his elbow. If you remember, Nathan had surgery after the year last year on that same elbow. The trade Nathan tribe (of which I am a member) certainly will be crowing today, although this isn’t a very good reason to be doing so.

The Twins have split squad action tomorrow.