The Knoblauch legacy

We can trace Brian
Duensing's presence on
the Twins roster to
Chuck Knoblauch.

A few years ago I wrote a print column on the "Knoblauch tree," in which I traced the impact on the Twins of their 1989 decision to draft Chuck Knoblauch in the first round.

As detailed in this Grantland piece by Ben Lindbergh, the Twins are still benefiting from that move.

Knoblauch's personal travails notwithstanding, he had an excellent seven-year run in Minnesota: Starting second baseman on the 1991 World Series team, Rookie of the Year that year, four All-Star teams, a cumulative slash line of .304/..391/.416.

The Twins traded him to the Yankees and got back Cristian Guzman, Eric Milton, Brian Buchanan and Danny Mota (and cash). Mota washed out. The others:

• Guzman was the Twins regular shortstop for six years, during which time they won three division titles. Guzy led the league in triples three times, made an All-Star team, slashed .226/.303/.383. 
• Milton spent six years -- or five really, considering an injury that wiped out most of his final season in Minnesota -- in the Twins rotation, racking up a 57-51 record with a 4.76 ERA and one All-Star season.
• Buchanan wasn't so much of a much. The Twins gave the big outfielder 455 plate appearances over three seasons, in which he hit .258 with 16 homers. But he still matters in this saga.

Guzman left as a free agent; under the prevailing rules, the Twins got a third-round draft pick from the Nationals. (Lindbergh's flow chart says it was the Mariners, but that's an error.) That pick turned into Brian Duensing, still a member of the pitching staff. Duensing to date is 37-36 with a 4.12 ERA with the Twins, splitting his time between the rotation (61 starts) and the bullpen (238 relief outings).

Milton was traded to Philadelphia for Nick Punto, Carlos Silva and Bobby Korecky.

• Korecky's still hanging around at age 35; the Blue Jays gave him 3.1 innings last season. He made just 16 appearances with the Twins before they cut him loose. 
• Punto's also still going; he was with Oakland last year as a reserve infielder. In seven years with the Twins he slashed .248/.323/.324 and drove a vocal contingent of the fan base nuts by repeatedly winding up the regular at one of the infield spots. Third base, second base, shortstop. He left as a free agent and hasn't missed the postseason since.
• Silva spent four years in the Twins rotation, compiling a 47-45, 442 mark and averaging more than 190 innings a year.

That's where these guys' contributions end. Korecky was released, and Punto and Silva's departures as free agents did not bring back any compensation picks.

Buchanan was traded to San Diego for a Class A infielder: Jason Bartlett. Bartlett was with the Twins for three partial seasons and one full one, slashing .272/.341/.362 in those four seasons. His belated emergence as the full-time shortstop was a key to the division title run in 2006, in my opinion the best of the Ron Gardenhire teams.

Bartlett was traded to Tampa Bay. Unlike the previous trades listed here, this wasn't a clean, one-player for this package. The Twins included Matt Garza and Eduardo Moran in the trade and got back Delmon Young, Brendan Harris and Jason Pridie.

• Pridie was the outfield equivalent of Korecky; A short, ineffectual stint with the Twins (11 games, six plate appearances), then cut loose. (Like Korecky, he's still playing; he got four at-bats with Colorado in 2014).
• Harris spent three years with the Twins, playing some shortstop and some third base. He hit .252/.309/.360 with more than 1,000 plate appearances.
• Young had one big season in 2010 and three mediocre ones for the Twins, with a combined slash line of .287/.324/.429. 

Harris was included in the notorious J.J. Hardy trade: Hardy and Harris to Baltimore for Jim Hoey and Brett Jacobson. The Twins released Jacobson after the 212 season, he stalled out in Double A for the Twins. Hoey had one lousy season with the Twins and was claimed on waivers by Toronto. So this branch of the Knoblauch tree ends there.

Lester Oliveros might
be the best bet to
keep the tree growing.

Young was traded to Detroit for Lester Oliveros and Cole Nelson. Nelson has been released; the Minnesota native pitched for the independent St. Paul Saints last summer. Oliveros, still only 26, has spent the past two years recovering from Tommy John surgery and is regarded as a serious candidate for the Twins bullpen in 2015.

So that's the Knoblauch tree so far. By Lindbergh's computation, it's the seventh-longest current tree in the majors. The longest is an incredible one: The Mets used a 1967 -- that's right, 1967 -- draft pick on Jon Matlack, and almost a half century later have David Wright to show for it. 

The Phillies and flawed ex-Twins outfielders.

Clete Thomas struck
out 92 times in
322 trips to the plate.

The Phillies seem to have a fascination with flawed outfielders with Twins backgrounds.

Last offseason they traded for Ben Revere and signed free agent Delmon Young.

Young did what he does: Swing at first pitches and play immobile defense. This went so well the Phillies released him in midseason.

Revere did what he does: He hit singles and ran around a lot. The weak throwing arm, the lack of power, the sometimes odd routes ... they're all still problems. He played in just 88 games before breaking his foot.

And now they's signed Clete Thomas, who spent much of the second half of the season in the Twins lineup, to a minor league deal

If one could somehow fuse the respective strengths of Revere and Thomas, the result would be a very good center fielder indeed. Thomas has some power but struggles to make contact; Revere is the opposite. Revere is much faster than Thomas; Thomas makes fewer false starts in the field and has a stronger throwing arm.

But they are who they are.

Ex-Twins' (mis)adventures in free agency

Spring training is less than a month away, and an impressive number of former Twins are either still trying to find teams or have just landed jobs (or, in some cases, opportunities for jobs).

The market is slim for players who had a big role in turning the Twins from a 90-plus win team to a 90-plus loss team, it would appear.

A quick rundown:

Delmon Young is only 27, but the promise has tarnished.

Delmon Young, last seen bopping postseason homers for Detroit, was nevertheless quickly cut loose by the Tigers. He signed Tuesday with Philadelphia for a piddling (in baseball terms) $750,000 plus more than $2 million in bonus clauses, some of which are apparently tied to making weight at six different weigh-ins over the course of the season.

It always amazes me when a major-league athlete in any sport has weight problems. It was one thing back in the day when players worked offseason jobs to make ends meet; today, when being a jock is a full-time, year-round job, getting out of shape to the extent that Young appeared to be last season signals a significant lack of self-discipline and/or interest in his job.

And he's paying for it. The guaranteed money is a mere $50,000 more than Drew Butera signed for. That speaks volumes to how little interest there was in Young.

The Phillies intend him to be their regular right fielder, but the contract structure suggests that he'd do well to avoid his usual lousy start. The Phils don't have a whole lot committed to him.

Kevin Slowey is
on the player union's
pension committee, but
he isn't on anybody's
40-man roster.

Kevin Slowey, last seen going on a minor league disabled list in the Indians organization and never returning, signed a minor-league deal Wednesday with Miami. The Marlins have lots of openings, but Slowey hasn't pitched much, or effectively, the past two years.

The bridges between the Twins and Slowey were well and truly burned in 2011, but I'd still rather have him than Kevin Correia — which speaks less to my diminishing faith in Slowey's ability to pitch than to my conviction that the Correia signing will be a disaster.

Francisco Liriano's deal with Pittsburgh finally became official this week, long after it was reported. The lefthander apparently fractured his right arm in a bathroom fall, and the two sides had to rework the deal to give the Pirates some protection should that injury for some reason be an issue. It shouldn't. The issue, as always with Liriano, will be throwing strikes.

Matt Capps remains unsigned. So does Jon Rauch, whose departure from the Twins predates their collapse. And, of course, Kyle Lohse is still out there for any team willing to pay the penalty, with agent Scott Boras supplying this awkward metaphor to excuse the length of time his client has been dangling:

It doesn't matter what time dinner is when you're the steak.

Well done, Mr. Boras.

Torii Hunter, Delmon Young and the circle of life

Torii Hunter had a career-high .317 batting average
last season, but at age 37 has to be finding the downslope
of a distinguished career.

Torii Hunter and the Detroit Tigers agreed Wednesday on a two-year, $26 million deal for the free agent outfielder, pending a physical.

Five years ago, the Twins let Hunter leave as a free agent, and he signed with Anaheim. The Twins traded for Delmon Young, with the expectation that Young would at least match Hunter's offensive production.

That seemed a reasonable expectation at the time. It didn't work out that way. Young hit .287/.324/.429 for the Twins in 2008-11; for the five years, his slash line was .282/.316/.427. Hunter, meanwhile, hit .286/.352/.462 for Anaheim.

I certainly didn't expect Hunter, in his mid-30s, to outhit Young in his mid-20s. But he did. Plus Hunter was and remains a far superior defensive player. And he's never been arrested and charged with a hate crime. Torii Hunter >>> Delmon Young.

And so it is that, five years after the Twins sought to replace Hunter in their starting lineup with Young, that the Detroit Tigers will replace Young in their starting lineup with Hunter.

Around the division: Detroit Tigers

Delmon Young, erstwhile Minnesota Twin, was probably still circling the bases with his game-tying homer in the final game of the World Series when one of my tweeps opined that he'd just won a multi-year deal that the signing team would regret by the middle of April.

Maybe so. But if so, it won't be with Detroit. David Dombrowski said Tuesday the Tigers would not re-sign Young or closer Jose Valverde.

Delmon Young was 15-for-54 in the postseason, with
three home runs and a .481 slugging percentage.

These are decisions based not on October heroics (Young) or failures (Valverde), but on clear-headed evaluation of the players' abilities — and the ability of the organization to replace them.

Young for the season hit .267/.296/.411, which isn't acceptable production from a designated hitter, and that outweighs the impressive numbers he's put up in the past two postseasons. Besides, the Tigers have Victor Martinez returning next year from his knee reconstruction, and V-Mart's catching days are almost certainly over. There's no room at the DH inn for Young, and his outfielding "skills" aren't helping him either.

(Martinez is a better hitter than Young, but man, that figures to be a painfully slow relay team in the middle of the Detroit batting order — Miguel Cabrera, Prince Fielder, and Martinez.)

Valverde had a rocky 2012 in general — his ERA rose from 2.24 in 2011 to 3.78 — and he absolutely fell apart in the playoffs (2.2 innings, nine runs, all earned).

The Tigers probably feel that they got away with one here, that Papa Grande was on the brink of collapse all season and finally did so at the end.

Dombrowski spoke of prospect Bruce Rondon as a possible successor in the glory job. The Tigers have certainly been more aggressive about promoting prospects than the Twins are, so it's a genuine possibility.

But I wouldn't be surprised if the Tigers threw more of owner Mike Ilitch's money at a veteran. It just won't be Valverde.

The uncaged Tigers

Phil Coke — who came to the Tigers
as a side piece in a complex trade that
also involved Curtis Granderson, Austin
Jackson, Max Scherzer and Ian Kennedy—
was an unlikely closer in the ALCS.

The lead to the Chicago Tribune's story on the final game of the American League Championship Series had it right — the Yankees got all the attention, the Tigers got all the wins.

So today, let us focus for once on the team in the Old English Ds.

The Tigers have obvious flaws to match their equally obvious strengths. Those flaws, over the course of the long season, left them with just the seventh best record in the AL — behind New York, Oakland, Texas, Baltimore, Anaheim and Tampa Bay — but they had enough to top the league's weakest division.

The strengths were enough, in a short series, to best Oakland. The Tigers have Justin Verlander, who is today the best pitcher on the planet, and Verlander started twice in the five games and won twice.

And the Tigers matched up very well with the Yankees in the second round. The aging Yankees now struggle to hit good fastballs, and the Tigers have built their pitching staff around velocity.

When Detroit closer Jose Valverde cratered, Jim Leyland made do with left-hander Phil Coke. Coke was mediocre in the regular season and untouchable in the ALCS.  This is not unlike Delmon Young, the former Twin: a low-grade regular season and heroics in the ALCS. Young hit .262/.296/.411 for the year, which is woefully inadequate for a corner outfielder turned DH, but he drove in the go-ahead runs in all four games against the Yankees.

The Tigers entered the 2012 season entertaining World Series dreams. For much of the year, it appeared their defensive shortcomings would undermine those ambitions. And now, in mid-October, they clutch the American League title and stand four wins from the big prize.

Delmon Young and postseason home runs

Delmon Young brings his Tuesday home run home.

Delmon Young, he of the career .425 slugging percentage, hit a home run Tuesday in Detroit's 2-1 win over the Yankees.

This gives him seven postseason dingers for the Tigers  — pretty impressive for 17 games, especially for a hitter who, in the regular season, has averaged 9.88 games per home run. A true power hitter, he ain't.

The broadcast crews for these games, be they TBS or Fox, love to tell us how Derek Jeter is the all-time leader in postseason hits, or — in Young's case — that Young is now the Tigers' all-time home run leader in postseason play.

This is misleading blather, because there are so many more postseason games now. The Division Series and the Championship Series do not equal the World Series.

Young (so far) hit his seven homers in 64 at-bats over four series in 2011 and '12. He has't played in a World Series yet, although it sure looks likely this year.

Hank Greenberg, the Hall of Fame first baseman who was a key figure in four World Series teams for the Tigers in the 1930s and 40s, hit five homers in 85 at-bats and 23 games. (Three of those World Series went seven games.) Greenberg's lowest slugging percentage in those four series was .571; he slugged .624 in World Series play, .605 for his career.

Young's power surge in the playoffs the last two Octobers has been essentially inexplicable, and good for him. Greenberg's production in his four World Series is essentially what he did in the regular season.

There's no comparison between the two. Young deserves credit for what he's done, but not at Greenberg's expense. 

Fixing the Detroit "D" relatively simple

Even bad defensive teams make good plays:
Detroit catcher Gerald Laird tags out
Minnesota's Darin Mastroianni.

Last week I posted a piece opining that the biggest reason the Detroit Tigers didn't live up to expectations int the first half was their offense -- that the defense, while bad, wasn't really much worse than expected.

Which hardly means the defense is blameless in the Tigers' struggles to play even .500 ball. As I said last week, the defense appears to have turned one of the American League's better pitching staffs into one of the worst. The offense has been disappointing, and the defense is preventing the pitchers from picking up the slack.

One thing that I found in looking at the Baseball Info Systems defensive metrics on the team is how little the plus-minus and runs saved stats agree with my perception of the Tigers defense. And if these metrics truly reflect reality, the defense can be pretty quickly fixed.

My perception: Of the eight defensive spots, one (Austin Jackson in center field) is well above average, one (Alex Avila at catcher) is about average, and the other six are below average. Ramon Santiago, utility infielder, is the best middle infield glove.

The metrics: Two positions -- second base and right field -- have been dreadful and everybody else is about average. And Santiago, in truth, isn't helping in the middle infield.

First baseman Prince Fielder and third baseman Miguel Cabrera are slightly worse than average defensively by these numbers, and shortstop Jhonny Peralta is slightly better. I would have expected all three to be near the bottom of the league at their respective positions. They aren't. (Watching Fielder butcher a high one-hop throw during the All-Star Game gives me further pause; I doubt I've seen a full-time first baseman who has more difficulty with bounced throws than Fielder. Still, the numbers are what they are.)

Jhonny Peralta probably isn't as bad a shortstop as I think.

Jackson is often touted as a Gold Glove candidate, but the metrics aren't nearly as impressed with him as they are with Denard Span. The Tigers have run through a bunch of second basemen, with Santiago logging the most innings; none have been close to a plus with the glove. And Brendan Bosch has been brutal in right field.

The Tigers opened the season playing Delmon Young every day in left. After his arrest and suspension back in late April, Young was assigned to the DH job, and left field --largely Andy Dirks (now on the DL) and Quintin Berry -- became a defensive plus. (As a group, the non-Young LFs are +9 in plus/minus with seven runs saved; Young is -7 and -5. Berry -- and this is odd for an outfielder with his speed -- is -2, -2.)

Assuming that Berry is not really that poor an outfielder, I think the Tigers could really improve their lineup simply by acquiring a competent full-time second baseman in the coming weeks. Even an average defender who can hit would upgrade the position in two ways. Right now they have poor defense and weak offense there.

Fix second base, and the Tigers are in good position to win the divisional title. Let it continue to fester, and they will continue to struggle.

Late night: Angels 4, Twins 3

C.J. Wilson allowed just six baserunners in 7.1 innings,
but three of them scored.

Box score here

Game story here

Nick Blackburn was pretty good for Nick Blackburn -- three runs in six innings, one of them the result of Josh Willingham losing a ball in the lights -- but C.J. Wilson was better. As he should be; Wilson is simply the better pitcher.

I keep expecting Wilson to get hurt -- his delivery displays what is known in some circles as an "inverted W," which is thought in those circles to put undue strain on the elbow -- but he has survived two full seasons in the rotation plus extended playoff runs.

More significant, perhaps, than the outcome of Monday's game was the mid-game departure of Justin Morneau with wrist soreness. How serious it is, is unknown. Ron Gardenhire said Morneau will fly back to see a hand specialist.

A handful of other points:

*Chris Parmelee got his first start since his beaning. He didn't play against Kansas City, in part because the Royals started a pair of left-handers, and Gardenhire is limiting Parmelee's exposure to southpaws. But he started against Wilson, one of the tougher lefties in the league, in no small part because Joe Mauer finally sat out a game.

Parmelee got hit by a pitch to open the three-run seventh inning rally against Wilson, which is probably a good sign in that it suggests that he's not flinching away from lefties. He did go 0-for-3 against Wilson and lefty reliever Scott Downs.

* Alexi Casilla doubled Parmelee home, and earlier had a single and two steals. He singled with two outs in the ninth. After the game of April 22, he was hitting .227; since then he's 8-for-16 and he's at .300.

* Jared Burton relieved in the eighth and blew through the inning on just nine pitches. He now leads the team in appearances with 11, although there are three others with 10 and another with nine. Gardenhire has generally avoided using his relievers on consecutive days, although Burton did so Sunday-Monday.

Ex-Twins in the news: Luke Hughes, axed by the Twins a bit more than a week ago, played in four games for Oakland and now has been designated for assignment by the A's. He went 1-for-13 and committed three errors, so it's difficult to defend his play there.

Still, Oakland gave him the boot to make room for Brandon Inge, and I see this as going with the the guy they know can't play rather than the guy they think can't play.

* Delmon Young was suspended seven games by MLB for his New York arrest.

The Tigers put Young on the restricted list after the incident, a move apparently forced by the new collective bargaining agreement.. It's definitely different from the way the Tigers handled Miguel Cabrera's drunken arrests (2009 ans 2011). Of course, Cabrera is a star; Young is not.

Notes, quotes and comment

My all-time favorite Brandon Inge photo,
illustrating the virtue of a baggy jersey.

Brandon Inge is 34. The Tigers released him Thursday. His slash line this season (20 AB) is .100/.100/.300. He hit .197 last season. He can't hit any more, possibly because of the big metaphoric fork stuck in him. He's done.

And multiple sources say that the Twins are interested in signing him,apparently with the notion of demoting Danny Valencia and going to a platoon of Inge and Sean Burroughs.

It's a silly idea. If valid, it is also a damning indication how far Valencia has sunk in the esteem of the Twins decision makers.

---

Delmon Young and the Detroit Tigers arrived in New York on Thursday evening and the former Twins outfielder wasted little time in, well, getting wasted.

And arrested. And charged.

He's not, obviously, the Twins problem anymore. I am, however, curious if the Twins ever saw any indication of a drinking problem during his time with them.

---

The Washington Nationals announced Friday that Bryce Harper, age 19, will make his major league debut Saturday. Harper hasn't been tearing it up in Triple A, so this is a bit of a surprise. It's been a while since a teenager played in the majors; Harper will be two years younger than any other player in the majors.

I don't expect him to stick all season, because financially it makes more sense for the Nats to hold back his service time. It's cheaper to let him develop in the minors, and as I noted, he hasn't been knocking the door down.

---

Yankees general manager Brian Cashman on the season-ending surgery for trade acquistion Michael Pineda:

Our fans are right to be upset about this. I'm devastated by it. I just hope everyone understands that every move I make is to improve this club, not hurt it.

Dissecting the Bill Smith era: The Delmon Young trade

Delmon Young hit some
big home runs for Detroit in
the postseason.

When: Aug. 15, 2011
What: In a waiver deal, the Twins sent outfielder Delmon Young to the Detroit Tigers for right-handed pitcher Lester Oliveros and left-handed pitcher Cole Nelson.
Value: Young had 10 total win shares in 2011; he had 0.1 WAR with the Twins and -0.1 with the Tigers. Oliveros had 1 win share for the season, 0.1 WAR with the Twins. Nelson, a Minnesota native, spent the season in high-A ball.
Twins motivation: They dumped a veteran they weren't planning to retain for two young pitchers (Oliveros is 23, Nelson 22).

This deal was the white flag, the moment at which the Twins conceded that they were not making a run at another AL Central title. This was the first -- and last -- time Bill Smith traded away a veteran for prospects in mid season; his previous in-season trades had gone the other way.

Young had a bizarre season. He displayed almost no power with the Twins (slugging percentage .357), with four homers in more than 300 at-bats, but the defensive metrics depicted an excellent left fielder. He hammered eight regular season homers in less than 170 at-bats with Detroit, and the metrics paint him as a disaster in the outfield there. The Baseball Reference version of wins above replacement actually has him playing better for the Twins than with the Tigers.

So brutal was Young in the outfield with Detroit that by season's end there was speculation that the Tigers would non-tender him (which is what the Twins would likely have done had they not traded him). That didn't happen, perhaps because Young bashed another five homers during the Tigers' two playoff rounds. (He and the Tigers reached an agreement on Tuesday, avoiding an arbitration hearing, for $6.75 million.)

One interesting aspect of this trade is that Jim Leyland installed Young in the No. 3 spot in the batting order, right in front of MVP candidate Miguel Cabrera. Even in 2010, in what appeared to be a breakout season, Young seldom got out of the bottom half of Ron Gardenhire's lineups.

Oliveros is in the mix for a bullpen role in 2012; like many Tigers prospects, he throws hard with uncertain control. (Baseball America says his is the best fastball in the Twins organization.) Nelson is another power arm, albeit further from the majors.

Dissecting the Bill Smith era: The Young-Garza trade

Almost all of Delmon
Young's value with the
Twins came in 2010.

When: Nov. 28, 2007
What: The Twins sent RHP Matt Garza, SS Jason Bartlett and RHP Eduardo Morlan to Tampa Bay for RF Delmon Young, INF Brendan Harris and OF Jason Pridie.
Values: Garza has earned 44 win shares and 11.9 WAR (wins above replacement) since the trade; Bartlett 64 WS and 13.9 WAR; Morlan has yet to play in the majors. Young has earned 52 WS, 1.3 WAR; Harris 19 WS, -0.2 WAR; Pridie 4 WS, 0.3 WAR. The three players Tampa Bay received have earned 108 win shares and 25.8 wins above replacement since the trade; the three players the Twins got earned 75 WS, 1.4 WAR. None of the six remain with the same team.
Twins motivation: Plugging outfield holes.

When Bill Smith inherited the general manager's job in September 2007, he faced two large and obvious issues: The pending free agency of Torii Hunter and Johan Santana's walk year.

Connected to the Hunter issue was that the 2007 Twins had a gaping hole in left field. Since it was quite obvious that the Twins were not about to meet Hunter's price, Smith was looking at two vacancies in the 2008 outfield.

Young was an intriguing trade target -- young, strong, he had hit .288 and driven in 90-plus runs as a 21-year-old in 2007. He appeared fully capable of living up to his status as the No. 1 overall pick in 2003.

Garza was also a first-round draft pick with intriguing talent. The Twins had a surplus of young starting pitchers and a shortage of usable outfielders; Garza and Young were the obvious cornerstones of the trade.

Brendan Harris washed out as
a second baseman early in 2008
and spent his Twins tenure
shuffling between third base,
shortstop and the bench.

But Young was not only a former first pick but somewhat more accomplished in the majors already. The Rays needed something more -- and that something more turned the trade in their favor.

I have always believed, reading between the lines, that Ron Gardenhire was never sold on Bartlett as his shortstop. He was reluctant to play Bartlett and only installed him in the lineup in 2006 when then-GM Terry Ryan gave him no choice by dealing away veteran Juan Castro. In 2007, Bartlett committed a string of costly early-inning errors down the stretch that helped bury the Twins' final chances of getting back into the race.

It was the exchange of shortstops -- Bartlett for Harris -- that made this a plus trade for Tampa Bay. Garza for Young is even enough to justify given the needs of the Twins at the time; Pridie and Morlan are essentially irrelevant. But Harris' defensive deficiencies -- which were evident in the defensive metrics at the time -- kept him from becoming a regular with the Twins. And the Twins haven't had a 100-game shortstop season since dumping Bartlett.

Neither Young nor Garza have so far truly lived up to expectations. Both were traded within the past year, and there are reports that the Cubs are shopping Garza around.

Still more on Delmon Young

Delmon Young launches his sixth-inning homer.

Delmon Young seems to have taken over this blog, but then, he's taken over the postseason for Detroit.

The erstwhile Twins outfielder hit two more home runs Thursday for Detroit,  helping keep the Tigers alive in the ALCS. He now has five homers in the Tigers' 10 postseason games — one more than he hit for the Twins before being traded in August.

There's a notion going around that this hot streak "proves" that the Twins shouldn't have traded him. I think it "proves" only what we knew — that Young has more power than he showed with the Twins this year, which isn't saying much. A slugging percentage around .400 and an on-base percentage around .300 isn't good for any major league hitter, much less a corner outfielder who had trouble in the field —and that's what Young has done in four of his five full major league seasons, the exception being 2010.

As a Twins fan, it doesn't bother me that Young hit three homers against the Yankees and two more against Texas. The more the merrier. And as a Twins fan, it will not bother me if the Tigers decide to wrap him up with a big-dollar, long-term contract.

Maybe Jim Leyland can get more out of him than Ron Gardenhire did. If so, more power to him. My sense is that Young is never going to live up to the expectations that accompany the No. 1 overall pick.

Revisiting Delmon's defense

Defense has never been one of
Delmon Young's strong suits.

The Detroit Tigers held a 2-0 lead into the sixth inning on Wednesday. Then, with a man on first, Ian Kinsler knocked a ball down the left field line, and Delmon Young had difficulty corralling it.

That Young is given to travails in the field is no revelation to Twins fans. He has always looked awkward in the outfield, and the advanced metrics have generally agreed.

But this was a weird season for Young, at least according to Baseball Info System's twin measurements of defense, plus-minus and runs saved.

I posted a comment just nine games into the season about Young's suddenly strong scores. At that point, BIS had Young as +4 in plus-minus, +3 in runs saved — astoundingly good given how incompetent he had been in the past on those scales. And I doubted that he could maintain it.

Those numbers actually improved slightly while he was with the Twins, to +5 in plus-minus, +4 in runs saved in 75 games in left field.

Then he was traded to Detroit. And in the 40 games Young played for the Tigers, he was -11 in plus-minus, -8 in runs saved. For the season in total, he was -6 in plus-minus, -4 in runs saved — which is far superior than his previous scores.

I have, frankly, a difficult time seeing why he would be a clearly above-average defensive left fielder for one team and revert to abysmal as soon as he was traded.

The reactivation of Delmon Young

Delmon Young hit
three homers in the
ALDS. He hit four
for the Twins before
he was traded to
Detroit in August.

This suggests that the Twins have no monopoly on dubious medical decisons.

The Tigers left Delmon Young off the second round roster because of his strained oblique. But then Magglio Ordonez broke his ankle — rebroke it, actually — and the Tigers exercised their option to replace Mags in mid series (which takes him out for the World Series, which is pretty obvious anyway.)

And they replaced him with ... Delmon Young.

I can't think of anybody who played effectively with a troubled oblique. Such injuries usually take weeks of rest. Young has had about four days.

Options were clearly scarce for the Tigers.

Three great Game Fives

Wake me up before you Go-Go: The Brewers charge the field to celebrate
as Carlos Gomez slides home with the winning run Friday.

Three of the division series went to a fifth game; all three were excellent contests. All were one-run affairs; one went extra innings.

Fox may not be happy that the Yankees and Phillies have been eliminated; the News Corp bean counters may dread the possibility of a Detroit-Milwaukee World Series. But these results pleased me, not least because of the roles certain recent members of the Twins played in those games.

When Carlos Gomez was perched on second base in the bottom of the 10th inning in Milwaukee on Friday night, I flashed back to Game 163 in 2009 — a stirring game in the Dome. Remember? It was Go-Go who carried home the winning run that night.

Among Nick Punto's crisp defensive
plays was this tag on Chase Utley
on a stolen base attempt.

And it was Go-Go who brought the run home on Friday for the Brewers. Good for him. I continue to believe that Gomez will thrive if he lands on a team that can put him in center field and at the bottom of the lineup. He hasn't found that team yet. Maybe he never will.

Also on Friday, Nick Punto played a sparkling game at second base for St. Louis. Punto missed a lot of time with injuries this season, so even if the Twins had kept him, he probably wouldn't have been the reliable Plan B for the infield that he was for so many seasons for Ron Gardenhire. The Twins didn't adequately replace him.

And, of course, Delmon Young on Thursday hit his third home run of the series as the Detroit Tigers knocked off the Yankees. At this writing, I don't know if Young, who strained his oblique Thursday, will be available for the ALCS against Texas.

The Rangers figure to have three lefties in their rotation, so Detroit would be better off with Young in the lineup — if he can swing the bat freely. He missed a month for the Twins with an oblique strain this summer, so I suspect he's not going to be useful in the coming series.

Most disappointing Twins

Joe Mauer's lost season was, at least in the eyes of USA Today,
not as disappointing as the seasons of Pedro Alvarez,
Jason Hayward or Brian Matusz. Really.

USA Today on Thursday printed a list of the 10 most disappointing players of the 2011 season. (The link is to a slideshow.) Incredibly, none of the paper's 10 are Twins, and I therefore regard the list as fatally flawed. None of the 10 had good seasons, none lived up to expectations, but ... I'm much closer to being a Joe Mauer apologist than critic, but he has to be one of the top two or three disappointments in all of MLB.

The Twins 2011 season -- only seven games to go -- has been so dismal that one can make a Top 10 disappointments list for the team that would stack up pretty well to the USA Today list.

10) Danny Valencia: Lower in every percentage from last season, and a brutal season in the field by the defensive metrics. He leads the team in RBIs, but WAR (Wins Above Replacement) says he's easily replaceable.

9) Denard Span: Was the team's best player until his concussion. Since then, he's either been out of action or completely ineffective -- so ineffective that he now has the lowest batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage of his career.

8) Brian Duensing: 5-1, 2.73 as a starter in 2009; 7-2, 3.05 as a starter in 2010; 9-13, 5.29 this year.

As difficult a season as Matt Capps
has had, he's not nearly the most
disappointing Twin of 2011.

7) Matt Capps: Didn't thrive in the closers role, and his strikeout rate dropped sharply this year.

6) Justin Morneau: He's not ranked higher because nobody was really sure what to expect from him in his return from 2010's concussion. As we wind up 2011, nobody can be sure what to expect from him in his return from 2011's concussiion.

5) Kevin Slowey: As a starter, he was always flawed by a lack of durability, but he was still generally effective. Shifting him to the bullpen this spring didn't work, and the failure brought on an avalanche of other problems. He's been in the rotation in September, and that isn't going well either.

4) Delmon Young: The Tigers apparently are delighted with Young, but he followed last season's 21 homers, 112 RBIs and .294 batting average with 4, 32 and .266 before the Twins dumped him -- and a lower slugging percentage than Alexi Casilla.

3) Tsuyoshi Nishioka: Even discounting his stellar 2010 season in Japan, it seemed reasonable to expect him to provide league-average play at second base. He broke a leg in the first week of the season, played shaky defense at both second and short, and didn't hit at all.

Far too many walks for Francisco
Liriano this season to maintain
2010's success.

2) Francisco Liriano: Yes, he had a no-hitter. He also went from 14-9, 3.63 to 9-9, 4.77 -- which understates how poorly he pitched.

1) Joe Mauer: Career lows in virtually every category, excluding his 2003 rookie season -- and even then he had better slash stats. His absence behind the plate, I believe, played some unmeasurable part in the decay of the pitching staff.

Completing the Young trade

The player to be named was named Tuesday: Lester Oliveros, right-handed reliever who had a brief stint in the majors earlier this year but has spent most of the season in the minors. He's 23, has good strikeout rates in the minors and some command issues. The Twins saw him twice during his call-up, July 22 and 23.

As a member of the Tigers' 40-man roster, he had to go through waivers before he could be sent to the Twins.

Oliveros entered the season ranked by Baseball America as the Tigers' 17th best prospect; Cole Nelson, the lefty in the deal, was listed as No. 30.

Basically, the Twins added to their bullpen inventory with this trade. They didn't clear a spot on the 40-man roster, because Oliveros replaces Young on the 40.

Gone Young

Delmon Young went from hitting eighth for a fourth-place
team to hitting third for a first-pace team.

So many aspects to Monday's Delmon Young deal.  Let's start at the beginning.

The first trade: Bill Smith, the Twins general manager, takes a lot of Internet grief for trading for Young to begin with. He gets none from this corner, because I liked the trade — or at least the Young for Matt Garza portion — when it happened.

Remember: The Twins had just finished a disappointing 2007 season. Torii Hunter was going to leave as a free agent, Michael Cuddyer had had a mildly disappointing year and the rest of the outfield had done nothing. Young had a pretty solid rookie season and was just 21.

The problem I had with the trade was the Jason Bartlett for Brendan Harris exchange, and I was and am inclined to blame that more on Ron Gardenhire, who never seemed to buy Bartlett as a shortstop.

None of the six players involved in that trade are still with their acquiring team. Young hasn't become a star as anticipated, but neither has Garza. Garza and Young have had their moments, but consistency has eluded them.

The return: We don't fully know the return on this trade, because there's a player to be named involved.
What we do know is that Detroit accepted Young's contract, so the Twins save about $1.3 million there (which is probably more than sufficient to absorb any budget issues involved in signing draft picks Monday).

And they got Cole Nelson, a left-handed pitcher from Edina (native son bonus) whose numbers in High A ball this year aren't impressive.

But: He's 6-foot-7 and throws hard (Baseball America says he touches 95 with the fastball). He has, BA says, difficulty repeating his delivery (not uncommon for raw guys of that size) and that leads to control problems, and he's pitched much better since being shifted to the bullpen.

The odds are always against Class A relief pitchers making it in the majors, but there are worse players to take a chance on than a big lefty with velocity.

Young's future: He probably didn't have much of one with the Twins. I couldn't see the Twins keeping all three of their opening collection of corner outfielders (Young, Cuddyer and Jason Kubel) past this season. One, yes, two maybe, but not all three, not with Cuddyer and Kubel free-agent eligible and Young due a raise in arbitration.

Had Young remained through this season, the Twins were likely to non-tender him this winter, and he would leave for nothing.

Detroit sees him differently. Magglio Ordonez has been useless this season. The Tigers look at Young and figure: Even in a down year, he's more productive than Mags; even with arbitration this winter, he's cheaper than Mags; even with his awkwardness in the field, he's no real defensive downgrade from Mags.

For the Twins, Young was frustrating and excess. For the Tigers, he's fresh and an upgrade. And more than a two-month rental. He'll be there next season too.

The Twins future outfield: Figures to be very left-handed. Pencil Ben Revere in at left field and Denard Span in center. Assume the Twins re-sign one of the Cuddyer/Kubel pair but not both; that guy will split time between right field and either DH (Kubel) or first base (Cuddyer).

If it's Kubel, the Twins will have an all left-handed hitting outfield — and with Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau inhabiting the middle of the lineup, the team will overly lefty. Which is a reason for Cuddyer to be a higher priority than Kubel.

Big news day: Jim Thome, Delmon Young, draftees signed

Jim Thome's 600th career homer was his 11th of the
season, and his fourth off a left-handed pitcher.

News item: Jim Thome hit his 600th home run Monday night.

Comment: The milestone feels devalued in the wake of the Steroids Era, but 600 taters is a lot of mashing.

This may sound a bit cynical, but now that Thome's gotten No. 600, I expect the Twins to move him in a waiver deal. 

Thome would, I'm sure, like another chance to win a World Series, and that clearly isn't happening in Minnesota this year. There are probably contenders willing to take on the rest of his salary. Heck, somebody was willing to take on Delmon Young's ... but that's another item.

I doubt Thome will slide through waivers all the way to the Phillies, but that's a team that might be particularly interested in adding a left-handed pinch-hitter who could DH in the World Series.

Delmon Young in the Olde English D. His brother
Dmitri starred for the Tigers about a decade ago.

News item: The Twins traded Delmon Young to Detroit for Cole Nelson and a player to be named.

Comment: I expect to say more about this trade and its ramifications in a separate post. For now, this point: As disappointing as Young was in Minnesota, he's going to be a regular for the Tigers.

Jim Leyland said he's already told Magglio Ordonez that the regular outfield the rest of the way will be Young, Austin Jackson and Brendan Boesch.

Levi Michael is officially part of the Twins system.

News item: The Twins signed their Big Three draftees — first rounder Levi Michael and sandwich picks Travis Harrison and Hudson Boyd — for a total of $3.18 million, which is about $730,000 above the "slots" recommended by the commissioner's office.

Comment: Baseball America reported that almost half the first-rounders were officially unsigned 10 minutes before the deadline. When all was said and done, only one first-rounder went unsigned, that being the Blue Jays pick. 

This last-minute scramble is silly.