Are Minnesota Baseball Fans Generally Stupid?

Why yes, yes they are.

If the Vikings had signed Chuck Foreman to be their running back this year because of Adrian Peterson's legal difficulties, fans would have revolted. You see, football fans have an easier time spotting aging players who can no longer help their teams win.

But baseball fans, in general, do not possess that discernment. Part of the problem is that superstar players don't always lose ALL of their abilities at once. An aging superstar who can hit could be signed by an AL team as the regular DH, and excel at that position for several seasons. I LIKE that aspect of baseball. I was one of the fans who cheered Jim Thome in Minnesota. And rightfully so.

But the brain trust in charge of the Twins didn't allow Thome any real time in the field on defense. Why? Because he was horribly old and decrepit.

What's my point in all of this? Torii Hunter can no longer play the DEFENSIVE part of the game effectively. Because of that he will cause the Twins to lose more games this year than he will help us to win. The whole reason for fielding a team is not to put more fans in the seats at any cost. The purpose is to put a winning team on the field which will then, as a result, draw fans.

Smoke and mirrors only last so long. A new stadium, signing players past their prime who are local legends, while giving other local boys for more money than they're worth MIGHT give the Twins more fans in the short run, but in the LONG RUN the franchise will die out. Every year, management should either be building toward a future winner, or at least start the rebuilding process, doing what's best in the long run.

Greater baseball minds are starting to see the value of metrics. It helps GMs and managers ***and fans*** see WHY certain players are no longer worth pursuing. A couple of days ago I showed you one of the reasons why the Twins pitchers were so bad. Defensive metrics showed that the Twins corner outfielders were really poor. Today I'm going to go into a bit more detail.

Oswadlo Arcia was the third WORST right fielder in baseball last year. He literally cost us games just by playing in right field. Metrics show us that. It's not just his fielding percentage as metrics are much more specific than that. It's where he stands, how fast he is, how he reacts to (and judges) batted balls, and other major aspects of being an outfielder, that you can't always see. Metrics do this and they do them quite well. And Twins management has ALL OF THESE METRICS AVAILABLE TO THEM. There are math geeks that make a wonderful living on compiling these statistics.

So what bothers me about the choice of the Twins putting an ancient Torii Hunter (replacing Arcia) in right field this year? Torii was THE WORST RIGHT FIELDER IN ALL OF BASEBALL LAST YEAR according to those metrics.

That means the Twins have actually signed, at a cost of over 10 million dollars, one of two men who were WORSE at fielding their position than Arcia.

Yesterday Pioneer Press sportswriter Mike Berardino asked the Twins about that. Torii Hunter, who has always thought little of these metrics called Berandino "a prick" for asking.

Yes, Torii Hunter always keeping it classy.

Winning teams like Oakland, San Francisco, and KC are relying on these metrics more and more because they KNOW it's the only financially feasible way for small and mid-market teams to compete.  It's not magic. It's math. And teams that use it are becoming winners.

There's a reason that the Twins have been going downhill steadily for the last several seasons and it's not just our pitching. We have a team rooted in the past. We have players rooted in the past. We have management rooted in the past. AND if you're one of those fans who still says "Well, I like Molitor as manager, " or "I like that the Twins signed Torii Hunter again," you are a FAN that's rooted in the past. We won't win as long as that mindset exists in the fan base and team.

Torii Hunter's bat speed will be the next thing to go so I'm predicting far more strikeouts this season. Yes, he will have some game winning RBI, he'll make an occasional sparkling catch or  great throw, but he'll not excel at his job.

And we will lose more games with him than without him.

It's math.

Did I mention that Hunter insisted on a full "no-trade" clause and that the Twins stupidly gave it him? We won't even be able to trade him in the middle of the season once we realize our error.

Make no mistake about it, Hunter is in this for himself, knowing the Twins were the only club in baseball stupid enough to agree to that type of contact with an aging player.