Twins Report: April 8 2011

The Twins last year won the Central Division, at 94-68, with great years from Mauer and Morneau (although Morneau played only 81 games), and good years at the bat from Thome and Young. Valencia and Hudson weren't great at bat, but provided enough defence to get their bWAR over 2.0; Young his defence was bad enough to drag his bWAR under 2.0. Span, Kubel, Cuddyer all were basically at replacement level, or a little above.

As for pitching, Liriano, Pavano, and Duensing were good, although Duensing only got in 130.2 innings. Baker, Slowey, and Blackburn were the other main starters. The first two were replacement, while Blackburn basically sucked. Essentially, the 2010 Twins had two excellent and two solid players on offence, and three solid starters.

How will this carry over to 2011? Well, we are 6 games into the season, and the Twins are 2-4. At .500 ball for the rest of the season, they'll end up at 79-81. Over these six games, they've scored 19 runs, and given up 34. This is a rate of 3.17runs scored a game, and 5.67 runs allowed a game. This is a Pythagorean winning percentage of .238, predicting a year's won-lost record of 39-123. They won't be that bad, but still, it's not a good start.

For batters, only Denard Span (.304/.385/.478 in 26 PA) is playing well. Thome is about average (.200/.333/.400 in 12 PA), but he's not playing too much, which is good, for there are fears about his age. Everyone else is off to a terrible start, especially Cuddyer (.105/.150/.105 in 20 PA) and Young (.136/.136/.182 in 22 PA). Only Mauer, Span, and Thome have OBP above the league average of .325, and only Span and Thome have SLG at or above league average of .400. On the bench, Kubel is doing okay, but not providing much punch, at .333/.365/.381 in 22 PA as DH and corner outfielder. They also just lost Nishioka to a broken leg.

For pitchers, Blackburn had a good start, and everybody else (Liriano, Duensing, Baker, and Pavano) sucked. Duensing at least has good peripherals, with a 2.6 BB/9 and a 9.0 SO/9, but that's only one game. The starters are a collective 1-4, with Blackburn's win over the Blue Jays the only win. The bullpen seems okay--Nathan has 2 saves in 2 games, and Capps and Slowey their ERA+ is over 190. Hughes, Mijares, Perkins, and Manship have been terrible.

On the other hand, they've only played two teams, the Blue Jays and the Yankees, both away, and 1-2 in each series. Nothing to panic over; the season is long.