MLB Analysis: Lessons Learned from the 2007 Minnesota Twins

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.

Catchers get hurt at rates far exceeding those of other position players.  It’s not a new lesson; Bill James noted it over 20 years ago.

That truth was pounded home for Twins fans this year when Joe Mauer, Mike Redmond, and Jose Morales all wound up on the shelf before the season came to a close.

Some players are so important offensively that their absences from the lineup will cause tremendous losses in run production. Those players shouldn’t catch.

Joe Mauer is one of those players. Joe Mauer shouldn’t be catching for the Twins.

The Law of Supply and Demand Is a Law

The Twins had a shortage of hitting this year but a surplus of pitching.  The surplus of pitching could have easily been used to address the shortage of hitting on the open market.

But Terry Ryan never pulled the trigger.

Ryan is gone now, replaced by Bill Smith.  I hope Smith has a basic understanding of economic principles and utilizes them to the Twins' advantage.

There's a shortage of good arms on the market right now, and it would only take a few above-average bats to put the Twins in the 2008 AL Central race.

Treat the DH Position as a Roster Spot

There are two schools of thought when it comes to the designated hitter.

The traditional view holds that you find a specialized designated hitter to fill the role—think Edgar Martinez or David Ortiz.

Lately, it's become fashionable to not use a roster spot on a DH, but rather to use the DH as a way to give a day off to whichever regular starter might need it.

Both views have merit. If you don’t carry a dedicated DH, you can have an extra position player or pitcher on the roster. But watching the Twins' struggles at DH this season convinced me the classic approach is the way to go.

Look at the 2007 Boston Red Sox.

During the World Series, there was constant discussion about what the Sox were going to do with David Ortiz when the games moved to Colorado. Boston’s problem was that they had more good hitters than they had spots to play them—but no one mentioned the fact that the Rockies slotted their DH in the No. 9 spot in the order in the first two games.

The Red Sox had the better problem. In the American League, the DH needs to be taken seriously, because it does make a difference.

One team, one season, and more lessons learned than could be fit into a single column.

I hope to learn more from other Bleacher Report members in the days and weeks to come.

After all, there is no offseason for sports pundits.

*Changed to address computational error by author