Looking back at 2008 (Part one)

Today we begin the process of looking back at what went right for the Minnesota Twins in the 2008 season. This will be a two-part process starting with a five-part look at the triumphs and surprises from the Twins followed by a five-part look at what the Twins need to do to become better for the 2009 season, their last in the Metrodome.

Part one: Starting Pitching or the emergence of a legitimate one-five staff for the next four years for the Minnesota Twins.

Part two: Rookies or the emergence of a legitimate one-two top of the order and a hopeful chance for left and center field from 2009-2015.

Part three: Offensive production from the one through nine or how Nick Punto, Delmon Young, Randy Ruiz, Adam Everett, Brian Buscher and Brendan Harris all contributed to the lineup that scored the third most runs in the American League and had a .305 batting average with runners in scoring position.

Part four: Justin Morneau or how one player can carry a team for five and a half months only to wilt down the stretch and then have every single accomplishment that happened in the previous five and a half months completely forgotten - never mind the fact that the Twins would have had no shot whatsoever at a one-game playoff without the contributions of Morneau in the first place.

Part five: Joe Mauer or how Mauer did something that had never been done in the history of the American League in 2006 and then did it again in 2008 and nobody seems to give a shit.

Part one: Starting Pitching

At the start of the 2008 season the general consensus was that the main limitation for the Twins was their starting rotation. Remember that Livan Hernandez was our opening day starter. Glen Perkins was at Rochester to start the season and Francisco Liriano (after some brief, awful work at the majors) spent the better part of four months there. Nick Blackburn had pitched 11 major league innings in his career; Scott Baker had shown immense potential but had yet to complete a full major league season; and Kevin Slowey had been consistently erratic in his time with the pro club in 2007.

So it should be with great relief and great hope that Twins fans look back at what was, overall, a very successful campaign for Perkins, Liriano, Baker, Blackburn and Slowey. That doesn’t mean that the season was perfect, or that each pitcher has come into his own - Perkins or Blackburn may still find themselves at AAA next season - but what an unexpected surprise.

Nick Blackburn: Blackburn’s 193.3 innings lead the team and his 96 strikeouts to 39 walks was impressive. But Blackburn’s major asset - that he put the ball over the plate - was also his major weakness - he gave up a lot of hits. Blackburn finished the season with a 1.36 WHIP and after having a stellar first-half of the season, going 7-5 with a 3.65 ERA in 118.1 innings, hitters seemed to figure him out in the second half. In 75 innings Blackburn posted a 4.68 ERA while giving up 92 hits and 21 walks (he had given up only 18 in those first 118 innings).

Still, for most Twins fans (and hopefully for Blackburn himself), the lasting image of Nick Blackburn will be two very good pitching performances (for very different reasons) against the Chicago White Sox.

On September 24th with the Twins trailing the Sox by 1.5 games Blackburn threw five innings, giving up eight hits and two earned runs - nothing spectacular, but the Twins scored three runs in the first two innings. That is the key here, Blackburn was not impressive with his command but he found a way to win. Too often fans and commentators and coaches from Venezuela get caught up in the idea that a pitcher should or should not have won a game. The problem with such a contention is that it ignores a larger truth staring them in the face, namely, who won the game. So, who won that game on September 24th, Nick Blackburn did, and it was his biggest game of the season.

That is until six days later, on September 30th when Blackburn took the mound for the one-game playoff with the Sox in the cold, blustery South Side. The Twins may have lost but Blackburn was amazing. I was amazed at how well he pitched, in such adverse circumstances, in such a huge game. It wasn’t just that he was on, but how comfortable and in-control he looked. Blackburn threw four 1-2-3 innings and gave up only four hits in 6.1 innings. Of course one of those hits cost the Twins the game, but it was still a major performance by a pitcher who had struggled down the stretch in the second half. And it should have Blackburn, and Twins fans, feeling like he can be an EXCELLENT number four starter in the years to come.

Glen Perkins: Glen Perkins is a number five starter, and he serve a team well in that role. Perkins posted a 4.41 ERA, the highest of any of the five starters at the end of the season, and his first half/second half splits showed a similar upswing as Blackburn, Perkins gave up two more earned runs, one more walk, three more home runs in 5.2 fewer innings. Still there is something to consider here, last season for the Twins only Johan Santana (219 innings, 3.33 ERA), Carlos Silva (202 innings, 4.19 ERA), and Scott Baker (143.7 innings, 4.26 ERA) had ERA’s under 4.40 while throwing 140+ innings. Perkins threw 151 innings in compiling that 4.41, and at the age of 25 in his first full season in the majors cost the Twins around $390,000 - compared to $8.2 million for Silva and his 6.46 ERA in 2008.

Is Perkins going to be a dominant starting pitcher? Probably not. But can he be a more than adequate and affordable number five pitcher for next few years, absolutely.

Still this spring Perkins is going to be the hunted man by pitchers like Brian Duensing and Anthony Swarzak (who was freaky dominant at Rochester going 5-0 in 7 starts with a 1.80 ERA). But that’s a good thing for the Twins and their fans, if not so much for Perkins.

Francisco Liriano: What to make of The Franchise? After August the numbers look good: 6-1 in 11 starts and 65.2 innings, and a 2.74 ERA with 60 strikeouts to only 19 walks. Still Liriano’s WHIP was 1.20 (compare that to his starts in 2006 when his WHIP was 0.91) and in his last three starts he posted a 7.07 ERA, pitching well in a must-win game against Tampa Bay, and pitching terribly in an absolute must-win game against Kansas City - his last start of the year.

The good news of course is that every talking head who ever knew anything about Tommy John surgery says that pitchers really come into their own in their second-year back, and Liriano showed a desire to reign-in that monstrous pitching motion and throw more change-ups, while also adding the necessary bulk to throw 200+ innings in the majors - Liriano threw 199.1 innings all-told this year.

If the velocity on his fastball rises even moderately in this off-season Liriano should get back towards being a solid number one pitcher. The fact that his change-up has become more effective and his slider, while not being as vicious, still has the lateral movement that made him so feared in ‘06 should make him a more complete pitcher in ‘09 than he was in ‘06 if only a little less explosive.

Scott Baker: My absolute favorite pitcher of 2008. Baker’s 3.45 ERA and 141 strikeouts were tops for the Twins pitching staff, and Baker actually improved in the second-half of the season. Now, that may be due to the fact that Baker missed about a month early on with a groin injury allowing him to throw about 20 fewer innings than Blackburn - and thus maybe miss the mythical Wall that all baseball writers attribute to late-season fatigue in young pitchers  - but I simply think that Baker is a very, very good pitcher.

Baker splits look like this:

1st half:   83 inn./82 hits/13 home runs/15 BB’s/62 K’s/3.47 ERA

2nd half: 89.1 inn./79 hits/7 home runs/28 BB’s/73 K’s/3.43 ERA

What was most impressive for Baker though is after posting a 6.11 ERA in three early August starts, including two terrible performances against the devilish Seattle Mariners, Baker settled down and was absolutely lights out in his last eight starts, going 4-1 with a 2.39 ERA and a 1.13 WHIP. Like Blackburn, Baker stepped up when needed in the last week of the season pitching a beautiful game against Kansas City in the last regular season game of the year before the last regular season game of the year that was added on as a post-script to the season (162+, no excuses). Baker went 7 innings giving up four hits and no runs and while striking out nine, no Royals batter made it past second base.

Regardless of what Liriano does Scott Baker has turned himself into a legitimate top of the order pitcher. In his four seasons at the majors Baker has seen his hits per nine innings fall dramatically, and hits strikeouts per nine rise.

2005 (53.2 innings): 8.05 HP9, 5.37 KP9; 2006 (83.1 innings): 12.31 HP9, 6.70 KP9; 2007 (143.2 innings): 10.15 HP9, 6.39 KP9; 2008 (172.1 innings): 8.41 HP9, 7.36 KP9.

Those are numbers people, and numbers - trust me - do not lie.

Kevin Slowey: If we are looking, categorically, at the information that I have given you in the last 1,000 words, we will see that we have a potential one-two combo (Liriano, Baker), a solid four (Blackburn), and a reliable five (Perkins), and what do we have here in 24-year-old, 3.99 ERA, up-and-down Kevin Slowey, that’s right, a number three.

Games where Slowey pitched 7 innings-plus giving up two or fewer runs: 6

Games where Slowey pitched 5 innings or less giving up four or more runs: 4

This, of course, is the dichotomy of Slowey, he can pitch two complete game shut-outs against two playoff teams (Milwaukee and the White Sox), but he can also pitch three innings against the Sox giving up eight runs on 10 hits. In his last two starts against Tampa Bay and Chicago, Slowey was absolutely tuned-up: 8 innings, 9 earned runs, 6 strike outs, 10.13 ERA. Of course one of those games, technically wasn’t on Slowey because of awful defense and a line-drive off the wrist, but you get the idea.

Slowey is a precision pitcher (123 K’s to only 24 BB’s) and when he is on, he is on, and there is hope, that at 24, his best days are ahead of him. In fact there is more than hope, this was only Slowey’s second season at the majors (he pitched those 66 innings in 2007), and his first with major innings. The fact that Slowey already has the kind of control that major league pitchers would kill for gives him a huge advantage going forwad. Slowey’s upside is far, far higher than his downside, a 3.99 ERA could easily be his high-water mark.

From being an enormous question mark in 2008 to a reliable certainty in 2009 the Twins starting pitching staff is no longer a concern for the team’s success. Slowey, Blackburn and Perkins will enter their second full season with the Twins after carrying out relatively successful campaigns in 2008 which should give them a great deal of confidence. Liriano will enter 2009 knowing two things that he did not in 2008: 1. That he will be in the Twins starting rotation from day one, and 2. That he is healthy and capable of pitching in the major leagues right away. And Scott Baker will come into the league as one of the best young pitchers in baseball entering his prime at 27-years-old.

That is reason enough to be excited for spring training, which is about 145 days away.