Comments on: Defensive Indifference

By: SoCalTwinsfan

SoCalTwinsfan — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 03:02:05 +0000

The Twins went from terrible defensively last year to pretty good in the second half. They started the season with Mike Lamb at third and Brendan Harris at second (by far his worst position) and Adam Everett was playing shortstop with an injured arm and could barely make routine throws. Delmon Young plays left field like he’s wearing roller skates and Michael Cuddyer is pretty much a statue in right (although he does have the best RF arm east of Seattle). The Twins dumped Lamb and Everett and stuck Harris at third (his best position) in a platoon with Brian Buscher (bad defensively but still an upgrade from Lamb) and put Nick Punto at SS and promoted Denard Span and Alexi Casilla. Both had to learn new positions in the big leagues but showed a lot of improvement over the season.

Now the Twins have added Joe Crede third, so the left side should be light years ahead of where they began last season with Lamb and Everett. How good the OF is will depend on how often Young and Cuddyer are both out there. If the OFs are rotated evenly, then the excellence of Carlos Gomez and Span should be able to cancel out the crappiness of Young and Cuddyer to make it an average OF. The infield should be above average (depending on the health of Crede) and Joe Mauer is a Gold Glover, so the defense should be easily above average in 2009.

By: Kris M

Kris M — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 01:03:03 +0000

WOW! So much Coco … so little time… Coco played for Cleveland and he is a good glove man. As to his arm, it is bad but not the worst. The worst arm i ever saw was Oscar Gamble’s. Frank Duffy was the cutoff man. Anything hit to Gamble in leftfield, Duff would run full speed to get as close as he could, and then he would relay the throw, a. if Gamble could get the ball to him and b. if the play was not already over.

By: DHRjericho

DHRjericho — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 18:02:23 +0000

G Young @ 29

As a Boise resident I know of two hotels that offer Valet services (The Grove and Hotel 43) and my guess is that The Grove offers concierge services. Hey we even have an Urban Outfitters and a Cheesecake Factory.

I wish I’d had known that Joe was coming to Boise because I would have insisted that he go to Goldies for breakfast (which is across the street from the Grove and 2 blocks from Hotel 43)where i’m assuming he stayed.

By: Tony B

Tony B — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 21:21:33 +0000

Gas cap issue:
Hyundai Accent – driver’s side, release inside, detachable cap
Saturn Ion – passenger’s side, no release, cap linked to car

When the wife and I shuffle cars, this results in temporary insanity at the gas station.*

Both have indicators on the dash, but they’re so inconspicuous it’s like Where’s Waldo? to find them.

So either pick a side or make the indicators larger.

*And why is it that I am the one always filling up the cars? She’s excellent at switching cars and leaving me with the one running on fumes.

By: Mark W.

Mark W. — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 20:46:04 +0000

Thomas #83: You are correct about Coco Crisp getting to many fly balls that others wouldn’t reach so that is certainly a plus. However, when he is charging a single and needs to hold the baserunner at second or throw out a runner at third or home it’s a whole different story. Same with him catching a fly and needing to hold a baserunner from taking the next base following the catch. It’s just sad…

Still, if Coca had been in leftfield in the bottom of the 9th inning at Atlanta’s Fulton County Stadium on Oct. 15, 1992 he probably could have done as well as Barry Bonds did when Mr. Bonds six-hopped (am I being generous here?) his peg to the plate in hopes of keeping that breathtaking speedster Sid Bream from scoring and thus winning the NL pennant for the ATLBravos. (BTW, by my math little Coco would have been 12, almost 13 years of age that day. Yeh, he could have done just as well or better than Barroid that evening!)

By: Vin

Vin — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 20:37:35 +0000

I meant “do you think older people”…..oops.

By: Vin

Vin — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 20:37:01 +0000

Re: commenter above…interesting, ’cause my grandmother’s Oldsmobile – the only American car I’ve driven extensively – has a passenger side gas tank (unrelated: Do you older people have any appreciation of how ironic their tendency to drive Oldsmobiles is? I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone under 60 who had an Oldsmobile). I used to drive an old Volvo with a driver’s-side tank, and the Camry I have now is driver’s side, too (though the car was likely made in the USA). Small sample, I know, but just sayin’ – I’ve always thought the passenger-side gas tank was an American car thing.

By: JeffSol

JeffSol — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 16:45:20 +0000

From my informal surveys, it seems to me that in addition to the arrow for the gas cap, generally Made in USA = driver’s side (this includes Honda, for example) and Made in Europe = Passenger side. Not sure if this is really consistent, but it has been on all of mine and my family’s cars for several years.

#52, your argument about the relative worth of pitching and defense seems to be missing the point. I tend to think that pitching is more important, but saying they are equal (the logical conclusion if offense = 50%, pitching = defense + 50% and defense = 25) doesn;t imply that the difference between a great SS and a great pitcher is equal. I timplies that the difference in a great team defense (SS + C + 2b + CF…) is qual to the difference between a great pitcher and a poor one. Not sure that’s so, but it doesn;t seem outside the realm of reasonability.

By: Thomas

Thomas — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 14:24:37 +0000

Just got around to reading this, so if someone else posted it, sorry. Probably doesn’t matter because noone’s reading this anyway.

Coco’s arm is next to useless, I’ll grant you that. But with Coco it seems that he simply gets to and catches every ball hit from left-center to right-center. Since he catches EVERYTHING, he doesn’t have to worry about throwing the ball in trying to nail a runner. He’s already gotten the hitter out and forced the runner back to the bag.

This was especially true in 2007. If the ball left the infield, there was a good chance Coco was gonna catch it. He fell off just slightly in 2008, but I doubt I’ll see anyone with that kind of range for a long time.

By: Mike

Mike — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 14:18:34 +0000

The Twins have gotten worse and worse on D the longer Gardy has been in charge. That might be a coincidence (it is possible that the players of this Twins’ era just aren’t that goo), or it might not. I’d say the don’t run the bases as well either, but I have no statistics to back that up.