Notes, quotes and comment

John Ryan Murphy
has had trouble
stopping pitches.

Between Miguel Sano's butchery in right field and John Ryan Murphy's inability to corral Ervin Santana's pitches, the Twins deserved to lose Tuesday's game, and they did.

Sano's problems were expected. Murphy's, less so. Santana was charged with two wild pitches Tuesday, Ryan O'Rourke one, and Murphy was charged with a passed ball. That's four pitches that got away in one game -- and seven in six games caught for Murphy, a truly awful rate.

I predicted earlier that Murphy would eventually take the starting job away from Kurt Suzuki. So far he has neither hit nor caught well enough to push the veteran.

---

Trevor Plouffe was put on the disabled list Tuesday and Jorge Polanco called up. As with Max Kepler, it may not be ideal to have a top prospect sitting on the major league bench, but the Twins don't have an opening on the 40-man roster and aren't going to lop someone to make a temporary move.

As matters stand, Polanco's future with the Twins may be as a utility guy anyway. I don't believe he has the arm for the left side of the infield, and Brian Dozier is rather locked in at second base.

---

Adventures in Baseball Reference sponsorships time: I picked up Byung Ho Park's page about five minutes after his homer into the center field bar on Saturday. Park Bang, baby!

Notes, quotes and comment

Kick, Mule! George Suttles'
Hall of Fame plaque.

Each year I sponsor at least one Baseball Reference page. This year I am retaining the Glen Perkins page. I am also picking up the page of Mule Suttles, a Negro League legend and Hall of Famer.

The Negro Leagues are an intriguing chapter of baseball history. Suttles wasn't as renowned as Josh Gibson or Buck Leonard, but he was one heck of a hitter and he deserves to be remembered.

---

Old friend Justin Morneau was placed on the seven-day concussion disabled list during the weekend. As I understand it, he dove for a ball and came up with what was initially diagnosed as a sprained neck.  A day or so later, the concussion list.

It is his life, his career, his paycheck. But once again -- because this same thought occurred frequently in his final, injury-plagued seasons in Minnesota -- I can't help but wonder if it would be best for him to call it a career. He's 34 now. That's fairly old for a baseball player, but pretty young for a human being, It would be nice if he had a fully functional brain for the rest of his life.

--

Chih-Wei Hu, the Twins' Taiwanese right-handed pitcher who impressed me last summer when I saw him pitch in Cedar Rapids, got bumped up from High A Fort Myers to Triple A Rochester for a spot start Tuesday. It apparently went pretty well.

Hu in Triple-A debut: 6 IP, 2 H, 1 ER, 4 BB, 6 SO. 93 pitches, 55 for strikes. Thielbar on for top of the 7th, Wings up 4-1.

— Rochester Red Wings (@RocRedWings) May 19, 2015

I'll pick a nit here and note that four walks in six innings is not a good rate. (He's walked six all season for the Miracle.) But one run in six innings, as Seth Stohs quickly noted, actually raises Hu's overall ERA for the year. He's been dominating the Florida State League.

Hu's not going to stick with the Red Wings; the Twins are not about to have him skip Double A. He'll return to Fort Myers now. But he's not long for the Florida State League, either. At some point relatively soon, the Twins will have to bump J.O. Berrios from Chattanooga to Rochester, and when that happens Hu is likely to follow in his wake. It's a matter of when -- and who gets bumped at the higher levels to make room for them.

Adventures in Baseball Reference sponsorships

Dedicated readers of this Internet space know that each year I sponsor the Baseball Reference page(s) of one or more Twins or ex-Twins.

The past two years I've sponsored Scott Diamond. With Diamond at this point carrying an ERA above 10 in Triple A, it's not looking good for his return. I haven't decided if I'll abandon him page, but I have picked up Glen Perkins.

Second time, actually, that I've sponsored Perkins' page. I had his page in 2012 and let it lapse after that season.

Adventures in Baseball Reference sponsorships

Scott Diamond,
MFT

Regular readers of this blog know that each year I throw a little cash in the direction of the invaluable Baseball Reference website and sponsor the page(s) of one or more Twin or ex-Twin.

Last year I sponsored the pages of Glen Perkins and Scott Diamond.

I've let the Perkins page go to free agency, but this week I re-upped with Diamond ($45). I may at a later date pick another page to sponsor.

This is the first time I've carried a sponsorship past one year. The first year I did this, I spread a limited budget around (Michael Cuddyer, Gene Larkin, Terry Steinbach). The second year I busted the budget big time and went for Joe Mauer. Last year, Perkins and Diamond.

Diamond has become the first acknowledged MFT -- My Favorite Twin -- in years. The holders of the not-necessarily coveted title have been Bert Blyleven, Roy Smalley, Gary Gaetti, Chuck Knoblauch and Cristian Guzman. Johan Santana was an unacknowledged MFT -- I didn't realize he was MFT until he left.

So unless and until BR decides to price Diamond as if he were indeed a gemstone, I'm likely to stick with him for some time.

My $20 Diamond

It only took two
strong starts to get
me to sponsor
Scott Diamond's
B-R page.

Back in March, when I decided on my Baseball Reference sponsorship choice, I said here: "There are a couple of guys who might make the team I may make a play on if they do."

I didn't have Scott Diamond in mind when I wrote that. I was thinking Brian Dozier in particular.  I never acted on Dozier. But on Monday morning I had reason to visit Diamond's page and noticed that

• The sponsorship was available and
• It was $20.

I'll take it. You can see it here.

(And, by the way, as of Monday Michael Cuddyer's price was down to $180.)

Adventures in Baseball Reference sponsorships

Glen Perkins,
you're my man on
Baseball Reference
this year.

It's that time of year again, when this blog has to decide what page(s) on Baseball Reference to sponsor.

Two years ago I did three pages: Michael Cuddyer, Terry Steinbach and Gene Larkin. When the prices for those three went up, I let the sponsorships lapse -- and wound up busting my budget for 2011 on Joe Mauer.

That worked about as well for me as it did for the Twins.

I said at the time that I was unlikely to re-up on that one, and when the new price tag ($240) came in an e-mail recently I started looking elsewhere.

I remain baffled by B-R's pricing mechanism. Here are the price tags on a few available Twins/ex-Twins:

• Justin Morneau, $135
• Jamey Carroll, $205
• Jason Kubel, $225
• Matt Capps, $95
• Francisco Liriano, $90
• Carl Pavano, $80
• Alexi Casilla, $50
• Roy Smalley, $30
• Steinbach, $30
• Cuddyer, $550

Five hundred fifty dollars? For Cuddyer? Really?

I went with Glen Perkins at $35. There are a couple of guys who might make the team I may make a play on if they do.

Sponsoring Joe Mauer (adventures in Baseball Reference)

Picking up a long discarded thread of this blog:  Last year I signed up to sponsor Michael Cuddyer, Terry Steinbach and Gene Larkin on Baseball Reference, that invaluable online baseball encyclopedia. When those one-year sponsorships expired this winter, I blanched at the prices for that trio and resolved to look elsewhere.

Joe Mauer's stats
are now sponsored
by this blog.

Things stalled there, largely because I was waiting to see what the price would be for Tsuyoshi Nishioka. B-R had a page for him, with incomplete stats from the Japanese league, but no sponsorship link. I had a couple of fallback notions in mind, but I was basically waiting for Nishi.

I checked on Nishioka on Saturday morning, a few hours after the Twins' first official game of 2011.  No sponsorship link. I checked on Brian Duensing, my primary fallback notion. Taken. Then, for no real reason, as I was pondering alternatives, I clicked on Joe Mauer's link.

Available. Really? I clicked on the sponsorship link, then backed out and took the dog for a walk and myself for a think. Do I really want to spend that much?

I'm not going to tell you what Mauer's price was. Suffice it to say that it far exceeded my $40 budget, far exceeded the January price of the Cuddyer-Steinbach-Larkin trio. I cannot defend my decision to buy the sponsorship on any economical or logical basis. It just felt like the thing to do.

So do it I did. The sponsorship went live on Monday. It is my expectation — resolution — that this is a one-year deal. Even if the Mauer page proves to be a major driver of traffic to this blog, come 2012 I will support B-R at a much lower price point.

But for 2011, I've got Mauer. (And, by the way, Nishioka is now available.)

My form of free agent shopping

Last January I ponied up $40 to sponsor three player pages on Baseball Reference — Michael Cuddyer, Terry Steinbach and Gene Larkin.

Last weekend the curators of that invaluable website sent me an e-mail noting that the sponsorships are about to expire and setting the new prices.  Which total $75 for the same trio: $45 for Cuddyer, $20 for Steinbach, $10 for Larkin.

Michael Cuddyer's page on
Baseball Reference is about
to lose its sponsor — me.

This isn't quite as absurd as paying Matt Guerrier $12 million over the next three years to pitch seventh innings, but it blows my budget out of the water.

So I've started looking for a new set to endow. Now, the budget is not set in stone; I'll go over $40 for the right page. But the Brad Radkes and Frank Violas are taken already, and let's not even talk about Bob Feller or Harmon Killebrew. And Tsuyoshi Nishioka's page isn't yet up for sale.

Last night I had the notion of checking my birthday and seeing if there was a player born on March 26 worth sponsoring. The first name on the list: Eric Hacker, a pitcher the Twins signed early this offseason out of the Giants organization and gave a spot on the 40-man roster. (I could have included him in my bullpen rough draft post earlier this month but didn't.)

His price: $55.

Really. It dents my faith in the rationality of B-R's pricing system, that Cuddyer is priced at $45 and Hacker is $55.

I will have a 2011 presence on Baseball Reference, but it probably won't involve Michael Cuddyer and definitely won't involve Eric Hacker.

I'm sponsoring Michael Cuddyer

Well, kind of.

What I'm really doing is sponsoring Cuddyer's page on Baseball Reference. For the next year, Baseball Outsider's message and link will be on his stat page — and on those of Terry Steinbach and Gene Larkin.

Why those three?

• Cuddyer is the best of the available current Twins — Joe Mauer, Justin Morneau, Denard Span, Joe Nathan, Jason Kubel were already taken.
• Steinbach is the best major league player to emerge from the Free Press circulation area.
• Larkin is a favorite of my wife's — and, of course, as the man who drove in the winning run of Game 7 of the 1991 World Series, a Minnesota Twins legend.
• And, finally, the total ($40) fit my arbitrary budget.

So stop by and visit their numbers sometime.