Is Pitching REALLY the Problem?

Like a lot of other Twins fans I've been quick to blame the Twins win-loss record on lousy starting pitching, but the more someone digs into the problem you start to see a bigger problem with the Twins as a whole that you may not have seen before. What if the problem ISN'T so much pitching as less than average defensive players?

At first glance, you see that the Twins fielding percentage wasn't that bad this year, but fielding percentage doesn't tell the whole story of how good or bad a defense is, especially when you're talking defensive outfielders. Their speed and arm strength comes as into play as much  their gaffes, or lack there of, while playing in big open spaces.

How many times, in previous seasons did we see guys like Gomez, Span, and Revere making incredible catches in center field taking away sure hits and ending opposing teams' rallies in a heartbeat? How many times have you seen a great throw nail a speedy runner trying to score from second base? How many times have we seen that in that the last couple of seasons?

In other words how many times have we seen a Twins outfielder on SportsCenter highlights with web gems, plays of the week, or the nightly highlight reel?

The correct answer? Far less than previous seasons. But don't take my word for it, someone else has already done the math.

Let's start at the beginning:

It really shouldn't be that difficult to improve the Twins outfield defense. They spent much of 2014 with Josh Willingham or Jason Kubel in left field, Oswaldo Arcia or Chris Colabello in right and a shortstop (Danny Santana) in center.

By Baseball Info System's DRS metric -- DRS meaning "defensive runs saved" -- the Twins were next to last in all of baseball. Only Cleveland's fielders gave more runs to the opposition.

The Twins team DRS was -67, meaning they were 67 runs worse than MLB average. Most of that is traced to the corner outfielders. Left field was -25, right field was -23. (The pitchers and catchers were also notable problems; the pitchers were -13, the catchers -10. Those four positions account for -71 runs, so the other five combined scored a bit better than average.)

The Twins gave up 777 runs last season, Give them league average defense, at least by DRS, and that drops to 710 -- still worse than average, but fewer than they scored themselves.

So was the Twins pitching staff part of the problem? Absolutely. But the poor outfielders made a bad situation far worse. Those 67 "extra" runs the defense gave up translate to as many as six  losses for the Twins. Which means they would have had six more wins with same exact pitching staff last season had they had just "average" outfielders. That's a 12 game swing in the standings.

To put it another way, if everything else were equal, both KC and San Francisco would not have made the playoffs last year with our outfielders. Their pitching would not have been good enough to make up for their lack of defensive prowess.

Baseball IS a team sport. Sometimes bad pitching just points to a bigger problem. For the Twins that bigger problem is guys who can't play their position well. Better pitching will merely disguise that problem. But its still going to be there until we get better fielders.