Every year, each MLB team offers fans numerous opportunities to learn more about the game of baseball.
I’ll be focusing on the Twins, but budding analysts will find plenty of lessons wherever they look.
My proposal to members of the Bleacher Report MLB Community: Study your own favorite teams, and share the results on the network.
I'll kick things off with the view from the Twin Cities...
One Hitter Does Matter
The Minnesota Twins were a few games over .500 before the trading deadline this year.
Their record wasn’t anything impressive, but there was plenty of season yet to play. Instead of looking to upgrade the offense, though, GM Terry Ryan traded Luis Castillo to the Mets for a couple of minor leaguers.
Big mistake.
Castillo was the leadoff man for the Twins. While he wasn’t a great hitter, he had good on-base numbers and ran well.
The Twins offense was far from robust, and Castillo was one of the only reliable producers on the club. After the Twins traded Castillo, the team went into a tailspin and ended the season below .500.
All told, the move probably cost the Twins 5 wins*.
Ryan should have learned his lesson here six years ago. In 2001, the Twins were in the middle of a battle for the division title despite a questionable offense. To address injuries on the pitching staff, Ryan traded away Matt Lawton, the club's top on-base guy, for a veteran hurler.
The Twins played well below the .500 mark for the rest of the season.
It’s clear to me that one hitter does matter. If you have a team struggling to score runs, the last thing you want to do is dismantle the parts of the offense that work.
The Twins lineup is never going to be so solid that it can afford the loss of any key piece. Small market rosters are inherently fragile—which means special care needs to be taken in finding and keeping talented hitters.
Guys in the Bullpen Need Protection Too
Starting pitchers are huge investments—hence pitch counts for starters to protect their arms.
But protecting bullpen arms is no less important.
Pat Neshek nearly made the All-Star Game this year before being shut down for the last month of season with arm problems. While it’s impossible to tell what exactly caused the problems, it’s clear to me Neshek was overused.
Neshek made a number of appearances in which the game had already been more or less decided. Good relief pitchers should only be used when the game is on the line.
The arm problems may have still appeared even if Neshek were used properly—but at least the Twins could have gotten more high-leverage innings out of him.
Catchers Get Hurt
All players get hurt. Some players get hurt more often than others.
4 comments Last one added about 1 year ago — Leave a Comment
Anonymous about 1 year ago
You claim to be a Bill James disciple but in this article you indicate that Luis Castillo's 2nd half trade cost the Twins 10 wins. Was this a joke you inserted, because I missed it. Alex Rodriguez was the best player in Major League Baseball in 2007 and he probably gave the Yankees roughly 10 wins over a minor league replacement in a full season, but you think that Castillo's .301/.362/.359 (in 50 games!) he put up with the Mets would have given the Twins 10 extra wins in that 50 game span? You really think that an above average second baseman's production in a 50-game span can give .500 team a 40% boost??
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Marty Andrade about 1 year ago
My point was there is a critical mass in creating a viable offense. I didn't use win shares or WPA to come to the "10 games" conclusion. All I did was take the winning percentage of the Twins before trading Castillo and apply it to the full 162 game season then I subtracted that number of wins from the number of wins the team actually had.
I rechecked my math and the number ten is wrong, it should be 5 wins, not ten. (I think the "10" number came from earlier in the season when there was an argument amongst Twins fans about how much the Ortiz/Ponson signings hurt the Twins; I was writing this column at 3am last night). The text above will be changed to reflect the mistake.
Can I say for certain the removal of Castillo was causal? Of course not. But, from the evidence I have before me I think it's safe to say one hitter can have an impact on his offense above and beyond his OPS+.
In other words, the "straw that broke the camel's back" does exist.
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Anonymous about 1 year ago
So, you are trying to say that Terry Ryan, by trading Luis Castillo, had the following effect on these players:
Mauer OPS + by Month: 142, 70 (injured, 4 games), 82, 100, (Castillo then traded), 79, 96
Morneau: 138, 175, 97, 169, (Castillo Trade). 62, 71
Cuddyer: 113, 156, 105, 109, (Castillo trade), 88, 91
Hunter: 134, 112, 96, 82, (Castillo Trade), 118 (nice), 60
And these pitchers had their late season swoon's because they missed Castillo's bat and glove?
OPS+ Against by Month (higher is bad):
Santana: 102, 110, 73, 85, (Trade), 125, 107
Bonser: 127, 81, 133, 103, 104, 183
(Silva's numbers are significantly better over the last two months)
I understand the point about being on-base and creating runs for your teammates and the so called "straw argument", and Alexi Casilla's .256 OBP this year was atrocious, and his numbers are even worse after the trade. But it means that over 50 games, Castillo was on-base (in an inferior offensive league) about 20-30 times more, probably once every other game, maybe once every 1.5 games at best. There is simply no way those fewer times on base (which is certainly statistically significant) is the driver for the Twins offensive swoon in the last two months. Maybe its because guys who had excellent years in 2006 just happened to play much more poorly after the trade independent of his absence. Maybe it had something to do with key members of the bullpen getting hurt. Maybe it had to do with having a terrible 3B and DH (a point you made correctly) all season long. Maybe it was because a young pitching staff never truly jelled. But I doubt highly it had much to do with Luis Castillo's "tremendous" ability to improve his teammates.
Castillo had 6 win shares with the Mets in 2007, so he added roughly 2 wins in his time there, which isn't bad. Lets just not overstate the case here. The Twins were bad after the trade for many, many other reasons than a bad 2B.
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Marty Andrade about 1 year ago
The Twins did poorly in August despite having their best month ERA wise and having a team OPS only slightly below their average up to that point yet they still were below .500 for the month. Before Castillo left Mauer had missed a month due to injury, Sidney Ponson and Ramon Ortiz crapped on 17 starts (I think) and Jason Tyner was splitting duties at DH with Jeff Cirillo. The Twins had similiar problems before Castillo left and after. (Slow starts for Kubel and Bartlett just to pile on)
I'm not trying to overstate my case, the method used was crude. I'm certainly not trying to say Castillo "improved" the players around him by his presence and "leadership." I think there's something statistical to it.
In fact, I would have ignored the issue completely were it not for the fact the exact same thing happened in 2001. At one point the Twins were 5 games up on their division rivals yet ended the season 8.5 games back after going into a 25-31 tailspin at the end of the year after Ryan traded away Matt Lawton.
Think of it this way, create a team with zero run producing ability, 9 guys who never hit. Give them a great pitching staff, one that only allows 1 run per game. That team won't score any runs and will never win.
Then, add one player who can hit singles but that's it. That player gets on base yet there is still no runs scored because no one drives him in and he doesn't have anyone to drive in. So, despite the addition of a player with an OPS an infinite percentage greater than any other player on the roster there is no increase in runs scored. You can add another hitter or two and finally start scoring runs. The interactions of players will create runs (and wins) above what their OPS would predict thanks to a minor increase in scoring potential.
That's an extreme example but I think my point is clear, at one point the team goes from never winning a game to possibly winning a majority of their games. If you graphed out that teams' winning percentage versus OPS there'd be one spot where a huge jump in OPS created no wins and another spot where a huge jump in wins was created by a slight jump in OPS.
It can happen in theory and it looks to me like it occasionally happens in the real game.
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