The Twinkies, while still nominally in the AL Central and wild card races, lost 1-0 today, wasting an excellent pitching performance by Matt Garza, and once again exhibiting silence with their bats. Thats' what happens when you go an entire season without getting any appreciable offense from the left field, third base, and DH spots.
But with Liriano coming back next year, and the prospects getting older, and certified genius Terry Ryan still in charge, things should get better next season and into the future, right?
Uh, maybe not, according to a Hardball Times piece this week by Jacob Jackson:
In the current baseball economy, all the large and mid-market teams have closed the Moneyball information gap completely, just within the last few years. Every GM has a pretty good idea what on-base percentage and good defense are actually worth, or they've smartly hired someone to study those things for them. The big "undervalued commodity" windows have been closed, which was inevitable.For the Twins, alas, that's already happening, and there's been no championship with this current crop. So what can they do? Make sure Joe Mauer plays his whole career with the team, and ditto for Morneau. Develop some more position players to go with the seemingly endless pipeline of pitchers. And either re-sign Johan Santana, or trade him this offseason for a huge haul. They're finally getting the stadium; having a contender in 2010 would be nice, too.The Twins and A's have taken a step back, in small part because the Royals and Devil Rays are now very well operated, too. The same types of little-known bargain players the A's built their reputation on are now spread fairly equally amongst half a dozen savvy, small-market clubs (owners weren't going to be giving GM jobs to old buddies and their family friends forever, given how much money is at stake in this business). Now, the only way for a truly small-market team to make the playoffs is to have a great crop of position and pitching prospects arrive on the scene almost simultaneously.
UPDATE: Bad as all that Twins news is, this is much, much worse.
Posted by Stephen Silver at August 9, 2007 10:01 PMIf neither Ryan nor Gardenhire can figure out how to get a DH, 3B, or LF with more skill than a kid on the Hopkins High Varsity Squad into the lineup, all the great prospect timing in the world won't help.
I never liked Gardenhire, but now I'm even losing respect for Ryan.
Posted by: Jeremy at August 10, 2007 01:16 AM