What the Twins are doing wrong

There has been a lot of clamoring about the Twins and their offseason strategy. It hasn’t inspired a lot of confidence, with the bullpen scattering across the country, JJ Hardy being traded for crappy pitching, Jose Morales being traded for crappy pitching (but maybe this means Toby Gardenhire gets a shot in the bigs!… kill me), Orlando Hudson is gone, replaced by the unknown Tsuyoshi Nishioka, recently added from Japan more for his speed than anything else.
The premise for these moves was that the Twins wanted, at Ron Gardenhire’s behest, to add speed. As is typically the case, there is a little bit of common sense in this idea, but it misses the forest for the trees. In a bigger park, or one that plays bigger, as Target Field does, speed does play an important role, but it shouldn’t be a factor in offensive planning, especially if those speedy guys can’t get on base (see: Casilla, Alexi). I’m getting ahead of myself.
The problem with last year’s team, as many saw it, was with the starting pitching and, going forward, would be with the bullpen after the mass exodus. The Twins have done nothing to add to the pitching staff at the major league level, which could be considered a huge problem, or not, if you look at some of the peripheral stats.
The Twins pride themselves on their strike throwing pitchers. It’s a good way to have a stable rotation, because strikethrowers are often more durable and reliable than hard throwers. The thing is, these strike throwers tend to be much more hittable, and by much more hittable, this typically means “fly ball” pitchers, which is the case with players like Scott Baker and Kevin Slowey. They struggled in 2010.
There is a fancy new stat called “fielding independent pitching” or “FIP” which measures the pitcher’s statistics that are controlled only by the pitcher (strikeouts, home runs and walks) and develops an expected ERA based on those numbers. Slowey and Baker pitched in a home park that played big, but the outfielders are rather poor across the board. Bad range, bad instincts not very good gloves. As a result, the actual ERA for both Slowey and Baker was about half a run higher than it should have been!
Now, counter that with Carl Pavano, who actually had the same xFIP (same stat, adjusted for park) as Baker! Pavano, unlike Baker, is NOT a fly ball pitcher, and he was heralded as a stabilizing force at the front of the Twins rotation. Again, for what they did, Baker and Pavano essentially had the same effect, except for where opponents hit the ball. The infield defense last year was enough to keep Pavano’s ERA down to more respectable levels (his ERA was about .3 runs lower than his FIP)
So, what does this mean? Frankly, the Twins were very good last year as is. They have won more games than they did in 2010 5 times in their history, and even then, it was very close. The case could be made that the formula was working and it shouldn’t have been altered at all. I, (and most Twins fans) should have been OK with that. But they didn’t. Instead they weakened an infield defense that bolstered Carl Pavano’s stats (and to a lesser extent Brian Duensing’s) with players who have untested reflexes, gloves and instincts, all of which are more important in the infield than base speed. On offense, speed doesn’t matter much if you can’t get on base, something JJ Hardy could do much more efficiently than Casilla. (Nishioka, for our purposes, I suppose, is a non factor, since Hudson was probably gone regardless).
Where speed could have been effectively injected into the roster was the outfield. As good on offense as Cuddyer and Kubel are, the benefit to Slowey and Baker, and any other strikethrowers the Twins might have in the system, would be just as relevant. So, one option the Twins should have, or still should explore is moving Kubel (again, Delmon Young is the best right handed bat on the team, and the club is rife with lefties, which is why I elect Kubel for trade) to acquire a center fielder. Span can move to right, where he is a better fielder than Cuddyer. Instantly, the pitching rotation is much better, AND with a speedy center fielder, Gardenhire has his speed.
The other option would be to replace Baker or Slowey with a ground ball pitcher. This would have taken advantage of a solid defensive infield, much like Pavano and Duensing did. I think at this point, Brandon Webb is the best option in free agency, despite his injury history.
The moral of the story is this: the Twins could have made cost effective decisions that addressed the “speed” directive while actually improving the team. In the end, however, they did no such thing. They weakened one of the remaining strengths while refusing to address the actual problems with the roster. And that is what the Twins are doing wrong.