In the vast baseball landscape dominated by the big market teams like New York, Boston, and Los Angeles, it’s very easy to forget about the Minnesota Twins and what they’ve accomplished. Hampered by a shoestring budget in a market that isn’t exactly what you’d call paradise, the Twins are the team that everyone forgets about, quietly making smart move after smart move and in the process becoming a mainstay of the powerful teams in the American League. Indeed, despite a payroll that ranks among the lowest year after year, the Twins have made the playoffs five times since 2000, a feat that is only matched by four other teams on the Junior Circuit. How do they do it? What’s their secret that no one else seems to know? In truth, there is no secret to the Twins’ success except for having a keen eye for talent and spending money judicially, as evidenced by the moves for J.J. Hardy and Orlando Hudson.
The trade for J.J. Hardy like many moves by the Twins was both unassuming and brilliant. Traded in early November while everyone was worried with the World Series, the Twins swapped their talented but inconsistent center fielder Carlos Gomez in exchange for the former All-Star shortstop. Some of you may remember that Gomez was the centerpiece of the Johan Santana trade with the Mets a few years back, and while it is clear the 24 year old centerfielder has talent, Carlos has considerable work to do before he can be considered a major league hitter. Indeed, Carlos’s first two years for Minnesota have been nothing short of atrocious, hitting a measly .258/.296/.360 in 2008 and the next year he hit even worse, hitting an embarrassing .229/.287/.337; that’s an OPS+ of 64! He’s not even close to being an okay hitter! Now this isn’t to say Gomez has been totally worthless, somewhat making up for his lack of run production with some above average run prevention, posting a UZR/150 of 16.1 and 10.00 the last two seasons, but he still leaves a lot to be desired. All of these factors considered, it is in fact pretty remarkable that the Brewers would be willing to give up a guy like Hardy when it’s so evident how flawed Gomez is as a player.
In return for the talented Gomez Milwaukee traded former All-Star J.J. Hardy, a similarly talented, but more established talent. Still only 26, the young shortstop has put up some gaudy offensive stats that most teams would kill for, hitting 51 home runs between 2007-8 and posting a pretty impressive .284/.343/.478 batting line in that time. Numbers like these got Hardy recognized quickly that he was one of the emerging power hitters of the National League. But Hardy’s bat doesn’t tell the whole story as to how valuable he has been, because he’s been one of the better defensive shortstops as well. Hardy’s UZR/150 for 2007-8 were above average and at times spectacular, posting numbers as high as 16.7 and averaging around 11.5. In sum, combining a great bat with gold glove caliber defense, Hardy established himself as one of the more valuable and irreplaceable young players in all of baseball by the summer of 2008. For a point of reference, Fangraphs.com put Hardy’s 2008 value as an astounding $22.6 million, or five wins above a replacement player; the guy is no joke.
Now of course this is not the whole story with Hardy, and the most recent numbers aren’t nearly as kind to the young shortstop. Coming off an All-Star year there were a lot of expectations on Hardy, but for some reason or another expectations were not met. For the year Hardy hit a rather pedestrian .229/.302/.357, with an OPS+ 76 that eventually earned him a demotion to AAA for the remainder of the season. To be sure, there is no way to sugarcoat Hardy’s disappointing season, but there are a lot of reasons to suggest that he still can be valuable and at best return to form this year. For one, J.J. at 26 is still relatively young and still has time before he hits his prime. For another, Hardy’s BABIP was .241, an extraordinarily low number that suggests that a lot of his misfortune could possibly be the product of bad luck. Finally, Hardy is at the very least still an above average defender, posting a UZR/150 of 8.6 last year, the same number he had the season before. None of these factors ensure that Hardy will go back to hitting 26 home runs and playing gold glove defense, but they are at the very least encouraging.
To be sure, it seems that the Twins here made a move that can only improve their team for 2010 and beyond. Even when J.J. Hardy was at his worst last season he still was a better hitter than Gomez has ever been, along with comparable defense at a more demanding defensive position, how can they lose? It’s a move that makes a lot of sense for the Twins and is consistent with their long history of being a smart organization. Even when they make mistakes, like they did with Gomez, the Twins appear to be properly equipped to handle it thanks to great scouting and an eye for the numbers like the ones I showed you here in order to make something out of nothing. Of course it’s entirely possible that a talented athlete like Carlos Gomez will finally “figure it out” and become a major league hitter and prove the Twins to be foolish, but as the numbers suggest there isn’t a lot of hope for that happening when the guy can’t get on freaking base. In short, the Twins know this better than most teams do, which is why they seem to be able to grab talent out of thin air and continue to be one of the more successful franchises in baseball.
Part Two of my take on the Twins will hopefully be up tomorrow, assuming I get my reading done at a reasonable time.
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