The envelope, please

Heading into the last month of the season there are a number of Minnesota Twins who could be in contention for some post-season awards, lets break down the categories….

American League MVP

Justin Morneau: The fact that Justin Morneau could be a two-time MVP by the end of this season speaks to a couple of things, one: Ron Gardenhire is an excellent motivator of talent, and two: Justin Morneau could eventually go down as the greatest Minnesota Twin of all time.

On the first topic, there is now no doubt that whatever talents Justin Morneau possessed in the early part of his career they were being wasted. In his first three years with the Twins (2003 as a call up, 2004 split-time between Rochester and the big league, 2005 full-season at the majors) Morneau hit .247 with 45 home runs, 153 RBI and 115 runs scored in 876 at-bats.

Those numbers in and of themselves are not a problem for a player feeling his way through the major league level, but his 2005 season as a 24-year-old left worlds to be desired - something that the Twins front office and their fans believed they would finally see in 2006. But through 54 games in ‘06 Morneau was hitting only .235 with 11 home runs and 38 RBI in 196 at-bats. He had just completed a three-game road trip in Seattle where he went 1-9 with no RBI’s and the Twins lost two of three to fall to 26-33.

Add those first 54 games of 2006 into his career totals and Morneau was a 26-year-old top prospect who had hit .245 with 56 home runs, 191 RBI and 141 runs in over 1000 at-bats. Then there was the talk between Gardenhire and Morneau in Seattle, and then Morneau turned into Lou Gerhig.

In the next 103 games he would hit .364 with 23 home runs and 92 RBI, he slugged .616, his OPS was 1.030. And since June 8, 2006, Justin Morneau has hit .309 with 75 home runs, 311 RBI, and 238 runs scored in just over 1500 at-bats.

While some will quibble that Morneau’s power numbers are down this year compared to his campaign of ‘06, it is important to note that he is most certainly a better hitter in 2008. He has 21 home runs and 108 RBI through 137 games and will not reach his home run total of 34 from 2006, while he may reach the 130 RBI mark, again. His batting average is down nine points from .321 to .312. But Morneau has become as disciplined a hitter as any Minnesota Twin. His walk total of 67 is the most he has ever taken in his career and his on-base percentage .388 is 13 points higher than ‘06.

If the Twins make the playoffs, in my opinon, he is the American League MVP. If that isn’t the case and it is handed to someone like Carlos Quentin or, moronically, Justin Hamilton, it will be for the sake of novelty and add to the view of idiocy that permeates the BWOA and nothing else.

Wait, did I get to the whole ”Morneau could be the Greatest Twin Ever thing”? No. Well, trust me, it’s possible…stat, stat, Killebrew, stat, Puckett, etc., stat, Carew, stat, stat etc. etc.

Joe Mauer: The case can easily be made that while Justin Morneau is the American League MVP, Joe Mauer is the MVP of this team, not possible you say? It is. While Morneau has the numbers to draw in the national media it is Mauer who has handled an extremely young pitching staff exceptionally, while also chasing his second American League batting title as a catcher, something that had never been done, ever, in the history of baseball, before Mauer did it two years ago. Also his .413 OBP and 73 walks to 44 strikeout ratio is amazing.

Throw into the equation the fact that Slowey, Blackburn, Baker, Perkins and Liriano all have sub-4.00 ERA’s and it speaks volumes for the work that they have done, and to Mauer’s ability to call a game and manage a young staff. As a pitcher gets more confidence they begin to understand and control their game, but right now you rarely see Twins pitchers shaking off Mauer.

Will he win an MVP this year? No. But he’ll get some votes and he deserves as much credit as Morneau for keeping this team in contention.

American League Rookie of the Year

(some credit here to Buster Olney’s chat which made the arguments for these two players more clear to me)

Glen Perkins: Okay, first off I think there is a legitimate argument for Glen Perkins as the rookie of the year. I know that Evan Longoria has been the best rookie so far this year, but he is also injured and it is unclear when he will return or how effective he will be. If Perkins were to go, say, 16-3 this year and finish with an ERA around 3.80, could he win then? I think he would be in the discussion, but would still probably fall short, just because Longoria has been so good for so long that he is, at this point, firmly entrenched in the Rookie of the Year winner’s circle in everyone’s mind.

Still when Justin Verlander won the award in 2006 he went 17-9 with a 3.63 ERA, but he was the best pitcher on that Tigers staff as well, something that Perkins is not.

But I think with a sub-par month from Longoria and a good showing from Perkins things could get more interesting, especially if the Twins are in line to win the division.

Denard Span: Olney wrote today that, “I haven’t seen a better outfielder in baseball this year than him.” Now while Olney doesn’t watch every game he certainly watches every single major highlight for Baseball Tonight, and Span has had the most amazing catches in baseball this year. Not only that but the variety of plays he has made, leaping catches in the right field corner at Fenway, leapin catches in center at Jacobs field, the amazing distance traversed in the running catch in left-center at Jacobs, the diving catch this weekend against Oakland, he has been a highlight film in every aspect in the outfield, couple this with the fact that Span…(oh God I forgot about the leaping catch in Seattle to save a series, the throw from right in the second Seattle series to save another series)… has hit .301 with a .385 on-base percentage and four home runs, 34 RBI and 44 runs scored in 67 games and he has a case to this award - not to mention an America League Gold Glove.

Bryant and I talked this week about the fact that Span, along with Mauer, Morneau and Nathan has been intricate to every success that the Twins have had this season. His work in the lead-off spot has been exemplary and shored up a glaring weakness when Gomez proved incapable and Casilla went on the disabled list along with Cuddyer, of course.

In fact, listening to Cuddyer this week on the radio it was obvious that he is terrified of Span’s abilities in the outfield. He said something along the lines of, “You get injured and suddenly everyone forgets about the 90 RBI and the 20 home runs that I have been putting up…” which is true, it takes a special player to make fans completely forget about Cuddyer, Span is special. Luckily for Cuddyer, Delmon Young and Carlos Gomez have a lot of work to do to become complete players, so he’ll be back in right eventually, and Span will be all over the place, presumably, making play after play. 

On a general note about Span and Perkins, it is important to note that while Longoria has been amazing and Alexi Ramirez has proved himself to be a great 45-year-old shortstop, no team has needed their rookies more than the Twins have. Without the work of Span and Perkins and Buscher and even Gomez this team is not where it is today. They have been professional and sturdy (minus Gomez at the plate at times) when everyone…everyone…everyone thought they would falter. Their work will, in some way, be noticed this off-season when the Rookie of the Year award is handed out, they may not finish first, but Perkins and Span could both easily finish in the top-five.

American League Cy Young

Scott Baker: I was completely unaware of Scott Baker’s claim to the American League Cy Young Award until Bryant pointed out a few things on the podacast this week. A few things that I will reiterate here for our readers.

Bryant began with a simple discussion about how many great starts Baker has had that were blown because of a complete lack of offense - which is absolutely true. Baker has six starts where he has either lost or gotten a no-decision while giving up two or fewer runs in at least seven innings of work, they are:

August 21 (LA Angels): 8 innings, 4 hits, 1 run, 6 K’s, no decision

August 10 (KC Royals): 7 innings, 7 hits, 2 runs, 7 K’s, no decision

July 20 (Texas Rangers): 8 innings, 2 hits, 1 run, 8 K’s, loss

July 7 (Boston Red Sox): 7 innings, 5 hits, 0 runs, 7 K’s, no decision

June 10 (Cleveland Ind.): 7 innings, 8 hits, 1 run, 1 K, loss

April 20 (Cleveland Ind.): 7 innings, 5 hits, 1 run, 8 K’s, no decision

Bryant pointed out that every single one of those games should be victories for Baker. So you take away two of his losses, you throw on six more wins and his record is all of a sudden 14-2.

Bryant will tell you that when you look at things that way, Baker should at least be in the discussion for the Cy Young. I of course countered that his 3.66 ERA is not impressive enough to even have him in the discussion when a number of pitchers have 15+ wins and a sub-3.00 ERA.

But then I realized that all you have to do is think outside of the box, like Bryant, and all of a sudden Baker’s Cy Young credentials become more clear. For example:

Lets just imagine that Baker, who has given up 57 runs this year - all of them earned, had instead only given up 40 earned runs because the defense committed some errors behind him (which could obviously, easily happen in any given game in time).

All of a sudden Baker is 14-2 with a 2.56 ERA on a team that has a chance to win the AL Central.

In fact lets take it one step further - just to bolster Bryant’s arguments on this case - imagine that Baker, instead of giving up 32 walks (many of which had to have come on 3-2 counts) had walked only 20 and struck out 12 more batters. That would mean that Baker would be 14-2 with a 2.56 ERA only 20 walks and 126 strikeouts in 140 innings, impressive.

Not to mention that most likely - in some kind of reality - Baker actually did pitch a perfect game last year against the Royals, one of only 18 in Major League Baseball history, which has to count for something. With the increased media attention from that perfect game, Baker is emerging as a legitimate Cy Young candidate and one of the best pitchers in the game.

Lets look at it again, for Bryant’s sake.

Scott Baker’s case for the 2008 theoretical Cy Young award (theoretical meaning that if we allow ourselves to shift stats and reality at will to bolster our case):

14-2

2.56 ERA

20 walks

126 strikeouts

A perfect game in late 2007 that got the media’s attention that he was one of the best pitchers in baseball.

A commercial contract with Nike.

His dating of Mischa Barton and the tabloid speculation on their prospective child.

Yes, welcome to the theoretical 2008 baseball season, where Scott Baker is a Cy Young candidate and the Twins are going to win the division! Oh fancy, oh fancy, yeah don’t you know the Minnesota Twins don’t suck and are in first place in September, fancy, fancy, what have you, what have you, what an imaginary dream world we all live in…there’s marshmallow clouds and chocolate rain and the Twins are going to win the division!!!! Give me a break, none of that could possibly be true.

Wait, what?