A warning to the liberal left

via Powerline.

As Powerline states, this doesn’t perfectly apply to those of us who didn’t buy the b.s. that the left was selling.  Still, I’m looking forward to what is coming.

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Sutter’s Accomplishment: Making Keenan a Sympathetic Figure

Iain MacIntyre, in the midst of the revisionists’ accounts of what happened the last two seasons in Calgary, hits the nail on the head with his post at The Sporting News.  When Sutter was asked, a couple of years ago, why he brought Keenan to Calgary, Sutter basically scoffed at the question and quipped that all he wanted to know is if Keenan still wanted to coach.

But in May, Darryl fired Keenan after another first-round playoff flop. He then hired little brother Brent, who bolted from New Jersey for the chance to coach closer to his cattle ranch 90 minutes north of Calgary.

The most remarkable thing Darryl Sutter achieved with Keenan was transforming a coaching pariah into a sympathetic figure.

It wasn’t Keenan who had mismanaged the Flames’ salary cap to the point that a spate of late-season injuries, financial restrictions and a 3-6-0 finish cost the team first place in the Northwest.

Sutter has a far better, and much deeper team to work with this time around.  He has four legitimate top-four defensemen, Olli Jokinen for an entire season, and more of the grit that Keenan loves in guys like Nigel Dawes.  Still, this is the beginning of the end for the Sutters.  When you hire your brother, there are generally only two ways out: you both quit, or you both are fired.  My personal hunch is that Keenan will be redeemed by the results of this brotherly situation.

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Morneau’s “second half slumps” not as bad as you think

As the Minnesota Twins season winds to a close, either barely eeking into the playoffs or barely missing them, there is a lot of discussion about the second-half struggles of Justin Morneau.  This idea has taken on legendary proportions about how Morneau is Harmon Killebrew-like in the first half, and Scott Stahoviak-like in the second half.  I wanted to look at whether this was really the case, and whether Morneau really was significantly worse in the last 81 games than in the first 81.  What I found will surprise many.  I think these numbers speak to two points:

1) Morneau isn’t as bad in the 2nd half as people like to think.  While his power numbers drop off in the 2nd half over the last four years, he’s still a .283 hitter averaging more than 10 HRs, more than 40 runs scored, and more than 50 RBIs in the last 81 Twins games of each of those four seasons.

2) Those numbers include this year, a particularly bad one, and it goes to show that this year was very likely a result of his back injury.

3) The Twins playoff hopes are fairly independent of a slight decline in production from Mauer and Morneau.  Pitching is truly to blame or credit for the ups and downs from year to year, as we’ve seen the gamut run on good and poor years (by their standards) for Mauer and Morneau, and the Twins hopes have not correlated very well.

I provide you with the spreadsheet I put together (numbers as of early in the week).  Just for reference, there is a tab on the spreadsheet (bottom left) that has Mauer’s numbers as well.  While Morneau’s 2nd half production has dropped 18 points and a fair amount of power, Mauer’s decline has been even worse, dropping 33 points and, until this year, completely lacking the power numbers in the first half or second half.  That’s not a commentary on Joe Mauer, but it does provide some perspective.

View the spreadsheet in Google Docs

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Five Twins Fixes Before Target Field Opens

Heading into next season, here are five things that the Twins could do to make their team stronger.

1. Get Mauer some reps at 1B.  Mauer is the kind of hitter that doesn’t come along very often and even if the Twins are determined to have him stay behind the plate to some degree, we need to start decreasing his time back there immediately if he is going to have a long, sustained career.  There simply are no catchers who maintain a huge offensive presence while catching for 12-15 years.  My solution would be to have him catch the 3 best starters he works with and play some 1B and DH the other days.  On top of that, it seems clear that Morneau is going to need a little more rest to maintain his performance over the course of the year.  They are probably going to need to find 10-12 games during the season where he sits, outright, and if Mauer is sufficient at 1B (Cuddyer is NOT) then Morneau can do some DHing as well.  Kubel would be fine to play LF for 50-60 games during the year, so this wouldn’t be at his expense.
2. Sign Pavano.  We started the season with something like Baker, Blackburn, Slowey, Liriano, and Perkins.  Only Baker has pitched well enough and been durable enough to give us hope for next year.  Who knows what we are going to get out of Slowey after the injury?  Blackburn, Perkins, and Liriano have been dreadful, and there’s no reason to expect anything different given their sustained poor performance.
3. Sign an ace.  Maybe a guy like Halladay or Harden is a pipe-dream, but I’m not necessarily talking about a guy like that (though it would greatly improve their chances of winning the division and the championship).  I’m simply talking about a guy who is better and more consistent than their best pitcher (which is probably Baker right now).  This, with #2, would give them a top 3 of Ace, Baker, and Pavano.  That’s a better starting 3 than we’ve had for several seasons, and would give us a good shot at winning the division again.
4. Upgrade something in the infield.  Crede is gone.  You simply can’t have Buscher, Punto, and Casilla in most of your lineups and put any kind of scare into opposing pitchers.  I’m not terribly excited about Orlando Cabrera, but if it’s him or nothing I will take him.
5. Cut your losses with Delmon.  The guy is young, granted, but the organization hates him.  From the players through the coach to upper management, it’s difficult to find someone with a favorable comment about him.  Practically speaking, we have too many strikeouts in the outfield and not enough power.  Cuddyer, with his huge salary, isn’t going anywhere.  Span and Gomez don’t exactly knock the cover off the ball.  If you are going to have a formidable lineup going forward that can compete with the big teams (and not just skirt through the Central), you are going to need to add some offense in the outfield.  We’ve already addressed this a bit in #1, by putting Kubel out there a bit, so it’s mostly important that we get a good right-handed stick who can play 120-130 games in left field, and especially take the games vs. tough lefties.

The Twins will have a short new-stadium-induced honeymoon with their crowd sizes.  The Tigers, however, proved that it also matters what kind of product you put on the field.  Remember their first few season with that bum team?  That says nothing about the worst Toronto crowd ever — the other night against these very Minnesota Twins.  And there’s nothing wrong with the Rogers Centre…

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Oudin is just what the doctor ordered

Melanie Oudin is this year’s darling of the United States Open tennis tournament and it couldn’t have come at a better time.  As CBS, ESPN2, and The Tennis Channel pan across massive, record crowds of tennis fans roaming the Billie Jean King Tennis Center, it is apparent that there is renewed interest in tennis in this country.  Perhaps this is due in part to the increasing number of American contenders in the men’s side of the tournament, but the sustained interest will be without thanks to Andy Roddick, James Blake, Sam Querrey, or Robby Ginepri.  In fact, none of these four hopefuls were the last American man standing in the tournament — it was big John Isner — and yet all of them played a part in being the first group of American men in the history of the tournament to fail to send a member to the quarterfinals.  Still, the USTA and the television rights-holders will take huge comfort in the fact that this darling of the tournament — 17-year-old Melanie Oudin — will still be alive on Thursday to keep her dream, and the dream of so many fans, alive for at least one more match.  Here’s to hoping that the men will be ready to do their part next year.

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Long-term plan for right-field

If I were the Twins, I’d have Mauer catch for a few more seasons, until we can be rid of Cuddyer’s over-the-top salary.  Unless Cuddyer is prepared to sign on at a significant discount, let him go and move Mauer to right field.  At this rate, Mauer is going to be one of the greatest hitters in the history of the game.  There is simply no reason to shave 2-3 years (or more) off of his career by leaving him behind the plate, I don’t care how good of a catcher he is.

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“Twins way” only half right

As the Minnesota Twins were being stymied by another starting pitcher in the midst of a bad year, I heard a few minutes of Dan Gladden and John Gordon discussing the “Twins way.”  They were referring to the philosophy of the franchise, how they handle their minor leaguers, and when they typically give the big-league opportunity to players.  It got me thinking about this “way,” something that seems quite revered by baseball people all across the land, yet hasn’t produced a championship or anything close to one in almost 18 years.  It got me to thinking that only half of this credit is deserved.

When it comes to pitching, it seems the Twins are hailed among the league’s best at finding and developing talent.  I think this credit is mostly deserved, too.  Many of the cast-offs from the Twins teams have even gone on be key players for other teams, even a guy who was as rotten as Kyle Lohse.  I think the Twins focus on finding good talent, and their patience and discipline in allowing these guys to work their way up through system is what brings this about.  The pitchers are able to build some confidence while paying their dues, and they are rarely asked to bypass “Go” in order to fill a need with the big club.  Historically, in this baseball era, it has been hard to find a pitcher under the age of 25 who has had the poise to be a very good to dominant pitcher most nights out.  I think the skill of pitching is as much mental as it is physical, and the experience the Twins organization allows their top pitching talent is something the other clubs should take note of.

The offensive talent is an entirely different story, and this is the one epic failure of the “Twins way.”  Take a look around the league, at the offensive super-stars, and you will have a hard time finding one who broke into the league full-time anytime after his 25th birthday.  The game’s greatest current player, Albert Pujols, broke into the league (and won the NL Rookie of the Year Award) when he was 21 years old.  Alex Rodriguez was also 21 when he played his first full season in Major League Baseball, and he hit almost .360 with 36 HRs, nearly becoming the youngest AL MVP ever.  Derek Jeter was just shy of 22 when he became the Yankees’ starting shortstop, batting .314 with over 100 runs and 78 RBIs.  Even in looking at some of the best talent to wear the Twins’ uniform in the last 20 years, Puckett, Hrbek, Knoblauch, Mauer, and Morneau all had very brief minor league stints.  The fact of the matter is that top-notch talent just can’t afford to play at or below their level for several of their prime years and, yes, the early 20s are some of the prime years of a major league hitter.  The only way top offensive talent has become MLB stars is to be thrust into a league above them only to let them learn to sink or swim.  Do some of the players sink?  Of course.  Some recover and make their mark their second time up.  Others fall by the wayside.  And still others hit the ground running and never look back.  Regardless, the clubs learn in a hurry who can make it and who cannot.

Quite often you’ll look around the league and find a guy batting .385 for the last month with 7 or 8 home runs and think, “Where did that guy come from?”  Compared to other teams, we aren’t saying that enough about the Minnesota Twins.  It’s about time they learn to give these offensive guys a shot early on in their careers.  Forget about whether they played ball at A, AA, and AAA.  If they tore up the league, get ‘em up to the bigs to find out what they are made of.  They can start with Chris Parmalee, who currently has 14 HRs in a league where home runs aren’t all that plentiful.  Please, get him up here before he is past his prime.  It’s time to forget about signing the Credes, the Batistas, the Rondells, the Everetts, and the Lambs.  The sample size is now large enough to show that we are just as well promoting from within.

As for the pitchers, just keep on keeping on.

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Something stinks…and I think it’s Sutter B.S.

I’m calling B.S.  Maybe the media won’t, but they are populist, anyway.  Keep in mind that shortly after the Flames burned out in the first round of the playoffs (one could say they burned out toward the end of the regular season, when they were befallen to injury), it was the fans who were the voice of reason.  It was the fans that pointed out that Darryl Sutter was the real issue here, putting his team behind the 8-ball when it came to the salary cap.  It was Darryl Sutter grabbing another high-priced forward at the deadline instead of shoring up the defense he so loves to complain about well after the fact.  It was Darryl Sutter who ignored that he had an entirely unproven backup goaltender on an otherwise (as he believes) Stanley Cup caliber hockey club, yet it’s the same Darryl Sutter who is now complaining that Mikka Kiprusoff played too much (as if Darryl couldn’t have made a “suggestion” to the coach for whom he was the boss).  The fans — yes, the fans have been the ones to point this out.  All the while the media simply worked and worked and worked at getting Mike Keenan fired.  It didn’t work…

…that is until, AHA, very convenient, Brent Sutter went waaaaaaaaaa, waaaaaaaaaaa, crying like a baby and saying he was homesick and missed his family.  Then all of a sudden Keenan (who Darryl was quoted as saying only a year previous, “Mike’s an elite coach.  There are only a handful of them in the league.  Mike’s not going anywhere”) was expendable as a guy who “didn’t get enough” from his star players, played Kiprusoff “way too much,” and didn’t bring about a “defensive philosophy” (when in the world has Mike Keenan ever been the defensive answer to a team’s woes??????).

Darryl and Brent are both full of, quite frankly, B.S.  Yes, with a capital “B” and a capital “S.”  This had nothing to do with Mike Keenan, and everything to do with a) deflecting the blame that Darryl was getting from the fans, yet the media had overlooked to that point and b) a chance to take one last crack at this Flames experiment with their brother.  I can only hope that Calgary will be decimated with injuries come playoff time again so that Darryl can make excuses for his brother.  I can only hope that their lack of a backup goalie kills them so that Kiprusoff has to play the last 40 games just to try to slip into the playoffs.  I can only hope they try to tackle the upcoming season with the poor defensive corps they had (other than Regehr and Phaneuf) so that Darryl and Brent can scratch their heads at their golden defensive philosophy gone wrong.  Lastly, I can only hope that some other team realizes the job Keenan did in Calgary and gives him another chance.  Surely it’ll be someone who realizes that Keenan is not known for his sytematic teaching of the game, nor for his innovative defensive philosophy, but because he’s a winner and because even though the media likes to hint otherwise, just about every one of Keenan’s stops has been as successful or moreso than the person he succeeded as well as the one who succeeded him.

Something stinks…and I know it’s the Sutter brothers and their B.S.

Update: The Bleacher Report is as cynical as I am.

Keep in mind that the Devils’ season ended on April 28th. It took Brent over 40 days to consider his resignation, but only three to jump back in. His deliberation reached a relatively quick end when Mike Keenan was fired on May 23rd.

The dates just don’t add up. He took a very long time to decide about his future (understandable, even though it put the Devils in a very difficult position right before the draft and free agency), then reconsidered only three days later.

Update 2: I am not always a huge fan of Scott Burnside, but I give him credit for being one of the few mainstreamers who gets it:

Last time we checked, the Flames had to play 82 regular-season games, the same as Brent’s old team, the New Jersey Devils. And last time we checked, half of the Flames’ games were on the road, the same number of games away from home as the Devils. And last time we checked our trusty map (not to mention calling colleagues in Calgary), Red Deer, where Brent farms and owns a much-loved junior team, is still about a 90-minute drive from Calgary.

All of which makes us more than a little suspicious of Brent’s motives given that the main reason he waffled on returning to coach the Devils in 2009-10 was that he missed being home and looking after his junior team.

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Regehr didn’t likely end Mike Keenan’s career

Michael Farber writes that Robyn Regehr’s comments about Mike Keenan’s prime being in the 80s and 90s may have effectively ended Keenan’s career. The comments hinged on the fact that Keenan isn’t an Xs and Os guy but trying to make a living in an Xs and Os world.

Keenan has butted heads with players throughout a career that started in the 1984 in Philadelphia — Detroit’s Chris Chelios said last week that Keenan seemed to relish their confrontations in Chicago — but never has he been so calmly and totally damned by a player of Regehr’s stature, one who had no axe to grind.

Admittedly, these are very sharp words.  In fact, they are words that that will not bode well for Regehr as his career continues along.  Whereas these kinds of things can be over-looked in baseball, and even accepted in basketball and football, there is a certain respect left in hockey for the coaches and managers.  There is a brotherhood among NHL coaches, even to the point of having the brother of the firer defend the firee (see Brent Sutter’s comments about Mike Keenan).  General managers and coaches across the league will take note of such a comment and, as good of a defenseman as Regehr is, if a decision boils down to a coin flip, this will be the reason Regehr finds himself on the outside looking in.  I digress.

The problem with this idea is that there are a ton of Xs and Os guys in the coaching world.  There are Xs and Os guys in the TV booth.  There are Xs and Os guys at home, on the couch, watching the Xs and Os guys on TV and behind the bench.  There are not a lot of good motivators — guys who can still get it done.  There are not a lot of guys who can make a very good team great.  Mike Keenan has done that, he can do it again, and that’s why there will always be a demand for Mike Keenan.

It wasn’t that long ago that NHL teams were wooing Scotty Bowman and looking for his services as a coach (as well as a GM).  Scotty Bowman was notorious for not even being on the ice at practices.  Keenan has built himself in this image, and he has never been regarded as a great tactician in terms of the on-ice systems.  Rather, he has been a great manager of the bench — something so difficult for a coach to achieve, yet something that never goes away.

Every year only one team gets to win the Stanley Cup.  Along with that, there are always 5 or 6 teams that feel they were “right there.”  Those are the teams to look for as possibilities for Keenan’s next stop.  He’s only going to be there for 2-3 years, anyway, and there’s no reason he can’t grab one of those Xs and Os guys from another bench, a TV studio, or a couch near you.  If anyone’s career was hurt by those comments, it was Robyn Regehr’s.

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“He’s an elite coach”

Roughly one year ago…

General manager Darryl Sutter, who coached the team to the Stanley Cup final in 2004, did not second-guess Keenan’s decision to give Kiprusoff the hook.

“He’s an elite coach and there’s only a handful of them,” Sutter said. “He’s our coach absolutely.”

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