This is the fifth and final piece of The Yankee U’s 2010 ALDS Preview.

Conclusion

In the first piece, we examined Twins’ ace Francisco Liriano.  After detailing how spectacular Liriano has been this season, and he’s really been quite good, I noted that Liriano is very reliant on his slider, especially when ahead in the count.  The question will be how the Yankees attack him tonight.  Will they be aggressive and try to attack the fastballs that he throws early in the count, or will they be able to work the count and lay off the deadly slider that he throws when he’s up in the count?  The other question is how Liriano will do this series.  Is he fatigued, and will it show?

After examining Liriano from every possible angle we moved on to the rest of the Twins’ rotation in the second piece. We saw that the Twins would be relying on ~4.00 FIP pitcher Carl Pavano in Game 2, and noted two distinct advantages for the Yankees: he’s struggled down the stretch and he pitches to contact.  Beyond Pavano is Game 3 starter Brian Duensing.  While Duensing has been a revelation for the Twins in the past few months, he has several factors working against him: righties hit him well, and he had trouble getting his left shoulder loose in the cold weather.  Finally, we looked at Nick Blackburn.  Blackburn started the season about as bad as any pitcher could, and ended up spending a solid month in AAA.  When he returned he pitched better, but he still didn’t show any ability to strike batters out.  He’s the ultimate pitch to contact type pitcher.  Additionally, we saw that 3.16 ERA in 9 appearances after returning from AAA had come largely against weak-hitting teams.

In the third piece of the series we looked at every batter in the Twins’ starting lineup. The Twins have plenty of offensive strength in Mauer, Young and Thome, and there is upside with Kubel and Cuddyer.  However, there are significant questions about the ability of Span and Hudson to get on base ahead of the heavy hitters, as well as whether Valencia can keep his magic going into October.  Finally, we looked at the bullpen, bench and defense of the Twins in the fourth piece of the series this morning.  The Twins have a good bullpen with plenty of tools and more depth than the Yankees, but lack the type of shutdown reliever that the Yankees have in spades this year.  Their bench is adequate, and they are an overall solid defensive team, albeit one with a few holes.

Prediction

In forming my prediction for this series I’m well aware of the vagaries of a short series.  When you’re dealing with teams as good as the Twins and the Yankees, anything can happen in a 5 game set.  If Sabathia is cold and Andy is rusty, it could be an early exit for the Yankees this year.  Yet, in the course of this series preview I’ve written over 5,500 words in an attempt to best understand the roster that the Twins bring into the playoffs.  The longer I’ve spent analyzing them, the more confident I’ve gotten about the Yankees chances.  Maybe it’s only natural to amplify the faults of the opponent.  Maybe it’s only natural to see more weakness the longer you spend staring at something, turning it over in your head, and taking it apart and putting it back together.  Maybe I just want the Yankees to win.  I can’t say.

What I can say is that I like our starters more than the Twins starters.  I would rather have CC in Game 1 of the ALDS than Liriano.  I’d rather have Andy and Phil than Pavano and Duensing.  I’m certain that I’d rather have CC on short rest than Nick Blackburn. With all the questions surrounding Pettitte’s health and Hughes’ home/road splits, I think the Yankees rotation can get it done in the ALDS.  I’m very happy about the fact that 4 of 5 games will be started by quality left-handed pitchers.  I respect the Twins’ bullpen.  They have a slew of good arms and they’ll probably use them properly.  The two lefties are a particular advantage.  I like our bullpen just as much, though, and I agree with Gleeman that there’s greater upside and shutdown potential in Robertson, Wood, Logan, Chamberlain and Rivera than in the Twins bunch.  I prefer our offense to Minnesota’s.  The Twins have Mauer and Thome and they’re formidable forces to be sure.  But it seems to me that we have more slugging potential, better on-base skill, more speed, more firepower, more patience and more depth in our lineup than Minnesota.  I like that.

Maybe it’s because I love the Yankees and I desperately want them to win.  Maybe it’s because I’ve avoided reading and listening to any playoff preview other than the good stuff done over at Yankeeist and River Ave Blues, thereby avoiding the those that make their living off criticizing New York’s better team.  Maybe it’s because I’m not a bridge-jumper.  But I don’t think that’s it.  I think this team can win without home field advantage.  I think the Yankees are fundamentally better than the Minnesota Twins and for that reason I feel confident with my prediction:

Yankees in 3.

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I also have the predictions from Moshe and Matt, and I’ll update this post if EJ, Steve S. and Eric post their predictions in the comments.

Moshe: Yankees in 4

Matt: Yankees in 4.

As a part of The Yankee U’s effort to get you prepared for war against the loathesome Twins of Minnesota, I have interviewed the fine fellas over at Twins blog The Bat Shatters.  I highly recommend them for all things Twins, so be sure to bookmark it and add it to your GReader.

TYU: At first glance the rotation of Liriano-Pavano-Duensing-Blackburn doesn’t appear too intimidating.  How confident are you in the ability of the back-end of the rotation to win against the likes of Hughes, Pettitte and Sabathia (on short rest)

This part 4 of 5 of TheYankeeU’s preview of the 2010 American League Division Series.  Part 1 covered Francisco Liriano, part 2 looked at the rest of the Twins’ rotation and part 3 examined the Twins’ lineup

As our preview of the Twins rolls on, today we’re looking at the three remaining components of the 2010 Minnesota Twins: their bullpen, bench and defense.  Beginning with the bullpen, it’s obvious that the Twins have a very deep pen filled with solid options from both the left and the right side.  I’ve prepared a chart that graphs many important statistical components of each reliever: their IP in 2010, their strikeout and walk rates, their ERA, FIP and xFIP, their SIERA and WXRL, their groundball to flyball ratio, their splits versus same-handed batters and their splits against opposite-handed batters.  As an explanation, check out this post for more on SIERA and WXLR.

As you can see, the Twins have a very good bullpen.  Their closer is Matt Capps and is probably their best or second-best reliever. Capps isn’t a strikeout-heavy reliever, but he does a good job limiting the walks and he gets a lot of ground balls.  Behind Capps is Rauch, who almost didn’t make the ALDS roster due to a knee injury.  Rauch had fluid drained from his left knee and then received a cortisone shot, but has pronounced himself healthy and ready to go.  Since his injury is to his left knee though, the one bearing all his weight during his delivery, his effectiveness will be something to watch.  Rauch profiles a lot like Matt Capps, getting a decent amount of strikeouts, limiting the walks, and proving tough on right-handed hitters.  Another right-handed option for the Twins is Jesse Crain, who is probably a bit underrated reliever.  While Crain has a tendency to hand out more free passes than Rauch or Capps, he gets a good amount of strikeouts. The last right-handed option for the Twins is Matt Guerrier, he of the funky sidearm delivery.  Guerrier doesn’t get many strikeouts at all, and his advanced stats suggest he should be a bit lower down on the totem pole for Gardenhire.  Regardless, he is tough on right-handed batters and isn’t a bad option as the 4th right-handed reliever.

The Twins have two great choices from the left side.  First is Jose Mijares, whom you might remember from this glorious moment last year (the fun starts at 0:50, give it a watch, feel the chills and prepare yourself for more this October).  Mijares is very tough on lefties and can get strikeouts and limit the walks.  Used effectively, he is a good LOOGY option for the Twins.  The other left-hander is Brian Fuentes, whom the Twins picked up from the Angels this year. You might remember Fuentes from this glorious moment in the ALCS last year.  Fuentes is equally tough on lefties, and has the highest strikeout rate of any Twins’ reliever.  Again, if he’s used effectively and isn’t brought in to face Alex Rodriguez Fuentes ought to be a fearsome weapon.  All in all, the Twins have a very deep bullpen with a lot of good options.  The one thing they don’t have is a shutdown, dominant reliever option like the Yankees do with David Robertson, Kerry Wood and Mariano Rivera.  As Aaron Gleeman put it, the Yankees may have the advantage in the bullpen despite the Twins’ superior depth:

In terms of top-to-bottom bullpen depth the Twins perhaps have an advantage, but teams can typically rely on just three or four relievers in the playoffs and New York’s foursome of Rivera, Chamberlain, Wood, and Robertson is as good and overpowering as any in baseball.

Next up is the Twins’ bench, which is comprised of five players in the 2010 ALDS:

There’s not a whole lot to get excited about if you’re a Twins fan. Nick Punto has been moved to an infield utility role thanks to the emergence of Danny Valencia at 3B. He plays 2B, SS and 3B and has good defensive scores throughout his entire career at those positions. He has decent enough speed, swiping a combined 31 bags in 2008 and 2009, which means the Twins may use him as a late-inning pinch-runner and defensive substitute.  The other infield option is Matt Tolbert, who has played all four infield positions in the last two years.  He’s not as good as Punto defensively, and doesn’t possess flashy speed, but is versatile.  I imagine that counts for something, but I’m not sure what.

Another bench option can play both the infield and the outfield: Alexi Casilla.  Casilla generally plays in the infield but can play CF in a pinch.  He generally does well on defense, and has decent enough speed.  He doesn’t possess the speed of prospect CF Ben Revere though, meaning that the Twins’ off-the-bench SB options aren’t the strongest.  The other OF substitute is Jason Repko.  Repko’s calling card is his ability to play all three outfield positions, and he’s put up very good UZR scores in limited work in RF for the Twins this year.  As The Bat Shatters noted back in July, Repko is mostly a solid defensive option with decent wheels and is likely to be used as a late-inning defensive replacement for Kubel or Young.  The final bench option is backup catcher Drew Butera.  Butera is best known for being Carl Pavano’s personal catcher, and could see a Game 2 start in this series.  If this happens, Mauer would be moved to DH and Jim Thome would be benched, a significant offensive downgrade for the Twins.  The only plus side to Butera is that he’s known for having a decent enough arm, but this hardly makes up for his offensive futility.

All in all, the Twins’ bench is adequate if unspectacular.  There seem to be two primary quibbles with the way it’s constructed.  By not including Revere, the Twins don’t really have a very good pinch-running option off the bench.  Secondly, Butera’s bat is considered far worse than the other backup catcher Jose Morales.  Yet, since he’s Pavano’s battery-mate he may see some Game 2 action.  Yankees fans can only hope.

Finally, we look to the defensive scores of the Twins’ position players.  By looking at the last three years’ worth of data, it becomes possible to get a more accurate view of their defensive skill.  The Twins have several good defenders.  Hudson has long had a reputation for solid defensive work, and his UZR scores over the last three years indicate that he’s at least average.  Hardy also has a good reputation, and his UZR scores agree.  In center field Denard Span grades out around average, meaning the Twins are solid up the middle defensively.  Finally, Valencia scores well in his first season of work.  The Twins infield, less Cuddyer, is solid defensively.

Unfortunately for Minnesota, they also have several position players with bad defensive reputations.  Cuddyer is primarily a right-fielder and is playing 1B only in the absence of Morneau.  It seems to show.  Delmon Young is simply horrific in the field, and Kubel is equally inept.  As Mike Axisa from River Ave Blues noted yesterday, Kubel has poor range and a bad arm.  Given the size of Target Field, this could be a real liability for the Twins in the ALDS.

This concludes the analysis of the Twins’ bullpen, bench and defense.  Later today we will post an interview with Twins’ blog The Bat Shatters, and then conclude with a final wrap-up and prediction post.

This is part 3 of 5 of TheYankeeU’s preview of the 2010 American League Division Series.  Part 1 covered Francisco Liriano and part 2 covered the rest of the Twins’ rotation.

Now that we’ve spent some quality time with the Twins’ putative top 4 starters, it’s time to take a look at their starting lineup and see how the offense stacks up.

Keep this to a minimum, pl0x.

Batting 1st, CF Denard Span

In 2009 Span put together a decent batting line of .311/.392/.415 and a wOBA of .359 that was probably fueled by some good luck on balls in play (.353).  This year he’s seen sixty points knocked off his BABIP and his line has suffered accordingly: .264/.331/.348 and a .312 wOBA.  It’s hard to know what his true talent level BABIP since he’s only put together about two and a half full seasons of plate appearances, but suffice it to say that Span doesn’t walk very much and he doesn’t hit for much power.  Interestingly, he has a slight reverse platoon split, hitting lefties a bit better over the course of his career than righties.  The one thing that Span is good at is stealing bases.  He swiped 26 bags this year, 3 more than last year, and cut down on his caught stealing mark from 10 to 4 this year.  This is a sign that he’s learning how to better pick his spots.  All things considered, Span is the prototypical leadoff hitter for the types of managers that value speed at the top of the lineup.  I value the ability to get on base, so I’d bat Span 8th or 9th in the lineup.  Needless to say, Yankees pitchers had best not get beaten by Denard Span.

Batting 2nd, 2B Orlando Hudson

Hitting behind Span is Orlando Hudson, who is himself in the midst of a down year.  A lifetime .337 wOBA hitter, Hudson is posting a .320 wOBA this year with a batting line of .268/.338/.372.  Hudson’s BABIP is only 0.04 south of his career average, so it seems that Hudson is simply experiencing a power outage.  The result is that he’s been almost exactly replacement level with the bat in 2010.  His HR/FB ratio is slightly down, which may suggest that Target Field is cramping his style, but the fact that Hudson hits so many groundballs has always been a potential liability.  Simply put, the first two batters in the lineup will find it hard to get on base ahead of the real offensive threats that follow.

Batting 3rd, C Joe Mauer

Shockingly (note: not shocking at all), Joe Mauer has been unable to replicate his 20.4% HR/FB ratio this year, but that hasn’t stopped him from putting together a very good year at the plate.  His .373 wOBA represents the second-highest mark for all catchers in baseball with a minimum of 250 plate appearances, and he has continued to get on base (.402 OBP) and hit with power (.469 SLG, .141 ISO).  Mauer has punished right-handed pitching his entire career with an OPS-against of .952 but is far worse against lefties, batting .303/.367/.401.  This could be problematic for the Twins.  Four out of the potential five ALDS games will be started by a left-handed pitcher, and beyond that Mauer will probably be facing either Boone Logan or Mariano Rivera.  The Twins will need Mauer to produce anyway.

Batting 4th, RF Delmon Young

Perennially frustrating prospect Delmon Young finally turned a corner in 2010.  Unfortunately for the Twins he’s finally getting good now that he’s no longer inexpensive, but they still have to be happy with his production. Delmon has never been one to take a walk and has a career OBP of .325.  His best tool is his power, and he’s mashed his way to a .298/.333/.493 line and a .352 wOBA in 2010.  Young hits lefties far better than righties (career OPS of .834 and .729, respectively), a welcome relief given that the 3 and 5 hitters are susceptible to left-handed pitching.  More on this in a minute.

Batting 5th, DH Jim Thome

Easily the best free agent signing of the 2009 offseason, Jim Thome has come up huge for the Twins this season and is only pulling in $1.5M on the year with $750,000 in incentives.  Pardon me for a moment while I silently fume thinking about what could have been had the Yankees signed him.

OK, I’m done.  Thome slugged .627 this year, the highest mark he had since 2002 when he was with the Indians and the second-highest mark of his career.  He’s batting .283 with an on-base percentage of .412 and has a team-high wOBA of .437.  He’s easily been the most potent bat in the Twins lineup this year when he’s been healthy, clubbing 25 home runs in only 340 plate appearances.  He isn’t intimidated in the slightest by the Twins’ pitcher-friendly park, and has been the offensive powerhouse the Twins needed when they lost Justin Morneau.  The only knock on Thome is the one against Mauer: his weakness is left-handed pitching.  Over the course of his career he has an OPS of 1.047 when facing righties.  That number drops to .763 when facing lefties and in 2010 the split is virtually identical.  In this sense, Gardenhire’s lineup construction is strong in the 3-4-5 holes.  Delmon Young isn’t the Twins’ best hitter, but splitting up lefties Mauer and Thome means that Girardi would have to decide whether to use Logan for just Mauer and then bring in a righty to face Young.  This means he’d have to leave the righty in to face Thome.  It might make more sense to leave Logan in to face the 3-4-5 hitters and hope that Delmon Young can’t make them pay.  In this sense Delmon Young – not Mauer or Thome – could become the most important offensive factor for the Twins.

Batting 6th, 1B Michael Cuddyer

Thrust into the starting 1B job when Morneau went down with a concussion, Cuddyer had a bit of a disappointing year.  His batting average and on-base percentage were roughly similar to last year at .271 and .336, respectively, but his slugging percentage dropped a solid hundred points off his 2009 results and 30 points off his career average.  A career .343 wOBA hitter, Cuddyer put up a .329 mark this year with only 14 home runs.  Like Mauer, Cuddyer had posted an rather high HR/FB% of 17.1 in 2009, so the power outage isn’t entirely unexpected given that he’s moved to a home park more hospitable to pitchers.  In fact, he hit three more doubles in 2010 than in 2009, suggesting that he may not have the juice to clear the fences in Target Field.  Like Young, Cuddyer hits left-handed pitchers better than right-handed pitchers, OPSing nearly 100 points better against lefties.

Batting 7th, RF Jason Kubel

Behind Cuddyer is one of the more disappointing members of the 2010 Twins, Jason Kubel.  After what many viewed as a breakout season in 2009 (.300/.369/.539 with 28 home runs and a .383 wOBA) Kubel took a giant step backwards in 2010 when he hit .249/.323/.426 with 21 home runs and a .326 wOBA.  One of the biggest differences between the two years was the wild swing in BABIP year over year.  Unlike Cuddyer, Kubel hit 12 fewer doubles in 2010 in addition to his 7 fewer home runs.  In 2010 Kubel is still showing a normal platoon split and is hitting righties better than lefties, but he isn’t punishing righties like he did in 2009.  In 2009 he slugged .617 against righties; this year that number has dropped to .427.  For what it’s worth, and these types of metrics can be tricky, Kubel isn’t hitting fastballs the same way he has in the past.  Fangraphs’ Pitch Type Values’ chart shows a giant dropoff in his performance against fastballs.  Yet one has to imagine that some of the blame should go to Target Field, not just batted ball regression and struggles against fastballs.  Target Field is death to balls hit to center and right-center, and Texas Leaguers shows that that’s where Kubel’s been sending them:

Poor Kubel.  He must hate the new digs.

Batting 8th, 3B Danny Valencia

Batting eighth is the Twins’ rookie surprise, Danny Valencia.  On Fangraphs a month ago Joe Pawlikowski covered Valencia’s case for the Rookie of the Year award, and argued persuasively for his inclusion into the conversation.   Valencia’s great performance (.311/.351/.448) earned him the starting 3B job for the Twins, pushing Nick Punto to a utility role. As you’ve no doubt heard any time his name is brought up, Valencia is in a bit over his head from a BABIP perspective.  His .345 mark is fairly high for someone with a normal-looking batted ball profile.  Given a relatively low walk rate, it may not be smart money to wager on Valencia replicating his performance in 2011.  Of course, there’s no reason to say that he won’t keep up his torrid pace in the next three to five games.  Equally, there’s no reason to say that he won’t be subject to an instant and harsh regression.  As Matt Klaassen wrote on Fangraphs yesterday, 2010 is not a constant:

Given roughly the same playing time in 2010 as in 2009, a player’s 2010 performance is obviously more relevant. But just as we shouldn’t expect a player to repeat his 2010 performance in 2011, we shouldn’t expect him to duplicate his 2010 performance in the 2010 playoffs. Regression to the mean isn’t a process a player goes through over the winter, but is an essential part of how a player’s “true talent” is estimated at any point in time. When Zack Greinke was not projected to repeat 2009′s 2.16 ERA in 2010, it wasn’t on the basis of him becoming less talented, but rather that he was quite unlikely to have been a true talent 2.16 ERA pitcher in the first place — he was an very talented player who nonetheless was likely pitching “over his head” during 2009. Ryan Hanigan has hit well this season, especially for a catcher, but he’s probably not going to hit for a .368 wOBA in 2011. For the same reasons (past performance, regression to the mean, etc.), he probably isn’t a .368 wOBA true-talent hitter right now, either.

Whether Valencia can keep the magic going into the 2010 playoffs is anyone’s guess.  Regression may not wait til 2011.

Batting 9th, SS J.J. Hardy

Bringing up the rear is shortstop J.J. Hardy, the player the Twins received in exchange for Carlos Gomez in the offseason.  Going into the 2010 season, Hardy was a candidate for a rebound given that his disastrous 2009 campaign was marked by a .260 BABIP that appeared to be the root cause of his struggles. In 2010 his BABIP rebounded back to normal levels, but Hardy wasn’t able to find the power that distinguished him in 2007 and 2008 in Milwaukee.  On the year, he hit a meager .268/.320/.394 with a .313 wOBA and only 6 home runs.  Hardy hits the ball pretty equally to all fields so he doesn’t appear to be a victim of Target Field like Kubel.  The fact remains that this has been another disappointing year for Hardy, and given his low walk rate Hardy’s offensive value disappears pretty quickly if he can’t hit with power.

This concludes the analysis of the Twins lineup.  Tomorrow we’ll take a look at the Twins’ bullpen, bench and defense before wrapping things up and making a prediction.

This is part 2 of 5 of TheYankeeU’s preview of the 2010 American League Division Series.  Part 1 covered the Twins’ ace Francisco Liriano.

Yesterday I took the long route towards analyzing and breaking down the Twins’ Game 1 starter for the American League Division Series, Francisco Liriano.  Today I’m looking at the rest of the rotation for the Twins in the ALDS: Carl Pavano, Brian Duensing and Nick Blackburn.

Game 2 starter: Carl Pavano

Unlike Liriano, I’m not going to discuss the circumstances that led Pavano to Game 2 of the ALDS for the Minnesota Twins, as doing so would fill me with murderous rage.  Instead, I’ll focus directly on his 2010 campaign.  Pavano has thrown an astounding 221 innings in 2010, a number that represents his career high.  For what it’s worth, Pavano threw 199.1 innings in 2009.  The last time he combined for that many innings back-to-back was in 2003 and 2004, right before he signed the disastrous contract with the Yankees.  On the year Pavano has a 3.75 ERA and a 1.20 WHIP.  Unlike LIriano, his strikeout rate of 4.8 per nine innings is abysmal, but he does manage to limit the walks with a 1.5 BB/9 rate.  This leaves him with a 3.16 K/BB ratio, just shy of Liriano’s 3.47 mark.  Yet his K/BB ratio is formed out of an entirely different statistical profile.  Liriano averages high strikeouts and a fairly low walk total, while Pavano has a low amount of strikeouts and a microscopic walk rate.

Despite the fact that Pavano isn’t much of a strikeout pitcher, he still registers a FIP close to his ERA at 4.02.  His xFIP is nearly identical to his FIP at 4.01. Pavano features a nearly identical repetoire to Liriano, although it’s not nearly as good.  He throws a fastball, slider and changeup, relying heavily on the fastball.  Unlike Liriano, Pavano prefers to go to his changeup as his put-away pitch.  According to Texas Leaguers he relies heavily on the changeup on 0-2 and 1-2 to try to get batters to strikeout.  On 3-2 he’s more reliant on the slider, but also throws the changeup with great regularity.

The Yankees faced Pavano last year in Game 3 of the ALDS, and he pitched as well as anyone could have expected – going 7 innings, allowing 5 hits, 2 runs and no walks and striking out 9.  The runs came on a home run to Alex Rodriguez, and Pavano was simply outdueled by Pettitte and the Twins dropped the game and the series to the Yankees.  The positive sign for the Yankees this time around is that Pavano has faltered a bit in August and September. His ERA since the start of August is 4.85, with the Rays, the White Sox, the Tigers and the Rangers all hitting him well. While he closed the season on a high mark against Toronto, it’s worth noting that his good performances in the second half came largely against weak hitting teams: Baltimore, Kansas City, Cleveland, Oakland and Seattle.  The Yankees are no Kansas City, so hopefully they can hit Pavano early and often.

Game 3 Starter: Brian Duensing

The Twins’ Game 3 starter in the ALDS is lefty Brian Duensing, who was the Game 1 starter in the 2009 ALDS against CC Sabathia.  After opening the year in the bullpen, Duensing moved to the rotation in late July and proved to be a valuable weapon for the Twins down the stretch.  In 14 games, Duensing threw 87.2 innings and posted an ERA of 3.08, striking out 51, walking 23, allowing 8 HR, good for a FIP of around 4.00.

Since returning to the rotation, Duensing has relied most heavily on his fastball.  According to Texas Leaguers he’s thrown a sinker 34% of the time and a straight fastball 21% of the time. After that he leans heavily on his changeup and mixes in a slider infrequently (around 15% usage). His repetoire allows him to generate a lot of groundballs (FG has him at 53% on the year), and he’s also notably tougher on lefties than righties.  Of the 11 home runs Duensing has yielded in 2010, 10 of them have come off the bats of right-handed hitters.  Righties OPS .751 against him this year, compared to .457 OPS-against when facing lefties. As such, one has to imagine Marcus Thames will see some playoff action in Game 3.

One final note about Brian Duensing is the state of his left shoulder.  In his final start of the year he gave up 4 runs in 5 innings to the Blue Jays, and after the game manager Ron Gardenhire said that Duensing had some shoulder discomfort: “Duensing left with a little bit of a sore arm…I think it’s muscular. I think everything’s going to be fine, but it’s something we’ll definitely have to look into, and we’ll let you know more as we find out more.”  According to Duensing it wasn’t so much pain as tightness, due in part to the cold weather: “It’s not necessarily sore, it was tight…I think the cold weather had a little bit to do with it. It just took me a little while longer to warm up before the game.”

Weather.com indicates that the low temperature on Saturday in the Bronx will be 46 degrees, and the game will be starting at 8:30 pm.

Game 4 Starter: Nick Blackburn

Robert Nicholas Blackburn is the Twins’ game 4 starter.  This is an unfortunate turn for the Twins since it indicates how poorly things have gone with Scott Baker and Kevin Slowey this season.  After receiving a rather generous contract extension this offseason (4 years, $14M), Nick Blackburn promptly turned into the worst-case iteration of a pitcher of his type.  In his first 19 appearances on the year he threw 104 innings of 6.66 ERA and averaged an OPS-against of 0.943.  Nick Blackburn essentially turned lineups facing him into a bunch of Troy Tulowitzskis and Matt Hollidays.  The Twins banished him to Triple A, and when he returned a month later he looked more like the Blackburn of 2009, throwing 57 innings of 3.16 ERA ball in 9 appearances (8 starts, 1 relief appearance).

Yet, it’d be foolish to pronounce Blackburn cured.  His first outing against Texas was decent enough, but his next outings were against the following teams: Seattle, Texas, Cleveland, Oakland, Cleveland, Kansas City and Toronto.  Like Duensing, Blackburn has seen some weak opposition in the last few months of the season.  It’s true that his 3.95 FIP over that time is impressive, but it remains to be seen whether Blackburn can succeed against more patient and better-hitting lineups.

Conclusion

In Pavano, Duensing and Blackburn the Twins have three guys who are in many ways the polar opposite of Francisco Liriano.  They don’t throw particularly hard and they don’t strike many guys out.  Like Liriano, they’re good at limiting the free passes, but they all pitch to contact and rely on the Twins’ overall solid defense to convert the balls in play into outs.  As good as these pitchers have been, though, one has to wonder if the pitch to contact strategy could come back to bite them in a short series.  If the Yankees are able to have patient at-bats and get free passes, they may be able to put up runs in a hurry.  And if the Yankees start the series by beating Francisco Liriano, the Twins may find it getting late early again this postseason.

This is Part 1 of 5 of TheYankeeU’s preview of the 2010 American League Division Series.

Photo courtesy of daylife.com and the Associated Press

Without doubt, the Twins’ best hope to finally get over the hump and beat the Yankees in the playoffs rests in large part on the young shoulders of Francisco Liriano.  With Carl Pavano, Brian Duensing and Nick Blackburn scheduled to start Games 2 through 4, Liriano represents the Twins’ most dominant pitcher and best chance to shut down the potent Yankee offense.  This very fact represents a sort of triumph for Liriano, who has had quite the rollercoaster of a career so far.  In 2006 he was one of baseball’s hottest young commodities, a hard-throwing slider-chucking lefty who combined with Johan Santana to form one of the best one-two punches in all of baseball.  Unfortunately for the Twins, Liriano went down like Frazier towards the end of the 2006 season and needed Tommy John surgery.  He was out through the 2007 season and when he returned in 2008 he was not the same Liriano of old, flashing a few signs of brilliance but still struggling with command and hittability.  In 2009 he began the season as a starter but struggled, posting a 5.80 ERA over 127 innings before getting moved to the bullpen.  No one knew what to expect from Liriano heading into this year.  The 2006 campaign was long gone, and it seemed reasonable to question if he would ever revert back to his old form.  To their credit, the Twins gave him a chance to start in the rotation.  After a mediocre first outing he quickly turned into one of the best pitchers in the American League.  In his next three outings he didn’t surrender a single run, racking up 23 scoreless innings, striking out 24 and walking only 5.  Liriano was back.

The start of the season proved to be no mirage.  In 2010 Francisco Liriano has proven to be the ace that the Twins were hoping they had.  He’s racked up 6.0 fWAR, good for 4th in the American League behind Cliff Lee, Felix Hernandez and Justin Verlander, and he’s accumulated 4.6 bWAR, good for 10th in the AL.   He’s done this over a mere 191.2 innings pitched, giving up 184 hits, 77 earned runs, 58 walks and 201 strikeouts.  His strikeout rate is 9.44 per nine innings, second in the American League amongst qualified pitchers and trailing only Boston ace Jon Lester (9.74). He bests Lester in the walk rate though, and his 2.72 BB/9 gives him a strikeout to walk ratio of 3.47, 5th best in the American League and superior to fellow aces Felix Hernandez, Zack Greinke and Justin Verlander.

Beyond the basic stats is an interesting case of batted ball data.  Liriano’s batting average on balls in play is a sky-high 0.340, which is 2nd in the AL only to James Shields.  This goes a long way to explain the split between his ERA, which is 3.62, and his FIP, which is 2.66.  In fact, the 0.96 difference between the ERA and the FIP is the highest of any qualified American League pitcher.  Meanwhile, Liriano has the lowest home run rate of any qualified AL pitcher with 0.42 home runs per nine innings.  Consequently his xFIP (which normalizes the home run rate, among other things) sits at 3.06, closer to his ERA.  Liriano surrendered only two home runs in the first half of the season, and then surrendered none in July and only 1 in August, before giving up 6 in September.  Of those September home runs, two were at home against the Royals and the Athletics, one was in Detroit and the final three came in his last start of the year at home against the homer-happy Blue Jays.

Liriano is primarily a fastball-slider pitcher, and he relies heavily on his slider.  In 2010 he threw his slider around 32% of the time, his fastball around 48%, and his changeup around 19% according to Texas Leaguers.  When he has batters down 0-1, he’s more reliant on his fastball and his changeup than his slider, but that changes significantly if he goes to 0-2.  At 0-2 he throws his slider 57% of the time.  When the count is 1-2 it’s the same pattern: he throws the slider 55% of the time.  When batters are ahead in the count, though, it’s a different story.  At 1-0 he throws his fastball 56% of the time, his changeup at a 24% rate and his slider only around 15% of the time.  This pattern becomes more pronounced if he falls behind 2-0: he goes to the fastball at a 71% rate. If the at-bat goes to 3-0 this percentage jumps to 85% and is similarly reliant on the fastball in 3-1 counts (68%).   If the at-bat goes to 2-1 he’s more varied in his approach, throwing a fastball 49%, a slider 31% and a changeup 15% of the time, nearly in line with his season averages.  However, if he’s even in the count at 2-2 or at 3-2, he reverts back to the slider usage, using it 60% on 2-2 and 75% on 3-2.  Obvious pitcher is obvious: Liriano uses the fastball early in the count or when behind to the batter, and throws slider after slider when up in the count and to try to get a strikeout.  Obvious or not, it works.  When Liriano is ahead 0-1, batters OPS a mere .557 against him.  When the count goes to 0-2, that number falls to an incredible .413.  In fact, 76 of the 147 plate appearances against Liriano that have gone 0-2 have ended in strikeout, or around 52%, some 10% better than league average.  A mere 6 of those PAs have ended in walks.  There is a simple reason why hitters can’t take advantage of this predictable pattern: his slider is excellent.  In fact, Fangraphs’ Pitch Type Value metric rates it the best slider in baseball in 2010, no surprise to anyone who has watched hitters chase the pitch down in the dirt.

Accordingly, Kevin Long and the Yankee hitters have their work cut out for them as they try to figure out an approach for Francisco Liriano.  Do you lay off the more hittable fastballs early in the count in order to lengthen the at-bat and elevate Liriano’s pitch count, knowing that the more potent slider is coming later in the at-bat?  Are you able to recognize that the slider is coming on the pitcher counts and lay off of it as it spins out of the zone?  Or do you recognize that Liriano is stingy with the walk and try to imitate the 2010 Derek Jeter: attacking the early fastballs and hoping to get good results?

Whatever they do, they’ll be dealing with a pitcher not accustomed to high pitch counts in 2010.  He’s thrown over 110 pitches only 3 times in 2010, on April 27, May 2 and 5/26.  He averages 97 pitches per start, and that number jumps to 99 if you remove his illness-shortened outing on September 24 against Detroit.  His last six starts have seen low pitch counts: 104, 95, 103, 81, 58 and 91.  This could prove to be an advantage for the Yankees.  The Twins clearly tapered his workload down the stretch, which bodes well for his future but leaves in question his stamina in October in a season in which his workload is at a career-high. Liriano helps himself by limiting walks and getting tons of groundballs (54%), but dealing with the Yankee A-lineup in the playoffs may be a horse of a different color.  If the Twins have designs on getting past the Yankees and making it to the American League Championship Series, they’ll need Liriano to shake off his recent struggles and perform at peak levels.  Opposing him will be CC Sabathia, not too shabby of a pitcher himself.