As the legendary Ron Burgundy once said: "Boy, that escalated quickly."

Just days after rumors started swirling about the Twins' interest in Jim Thome, the two sides agreed to a one-year deal worth $1.5 million in guaranteed money and another $750,000 in potential incentives. At that price the signing is an absolute no-brainer move for the Twins and should end any debate about whether he's a worthwhile addition. Now the biggest question revolves around Thome's role, which the Twins insisted yesterday will be fairly minimal.

Bill Smith, Ron Gardenhire, and company really like the notion of having Thome available off the bench as pinch-hitter in the late innings. And they ought to, because the guy topped an .840 OPS last year for the 16th time in 17 seasons. Of course, as long as they're shifting players into unnecessarily limited roles Joe Mauer would probably be an even better pinch-hitter, Denard Span would likely be a fantastic pinch-runner, and Scott Baker would surely fare well as a long reliever.

All of which is a long way of saying that Thome is still far too dangerous offensively to limit him strictly to pinch-hitting duties. Against right-handed pitching he hit .262/.383/.498 last season and .274/.402/.551 over the past three years, which is basically the same as Justin Morneau's production versus righties during that span. Seriously. Morneau hit .272/.379/.526 against righties last season and .293/.385/.529 from 2007-2009, which is at most marginally better than Thome's numbers.

Now, he's 39 years old and has certainly declined from his MVP-caliber peak as a 1.000-OPS monster, so some further slippage can be expected from Thome in 2010, but the notion that he's just another in the line of washed-up veterans to join the Twins via free agency is silly. He's only an emergency option at first base and has always struggled with lefties, but remains a legit middle-of-the-order bat versus righties. So why are the Twins indicating that he'll be used merely as a bench bat? Delmon Young.

By trading Carlos Gomez to the Brewers for J.J. Hardy the Twins committed to Young as their starting left fielder. Certainly giving a 24-year-old everyday playing time is a good idea for his development, but the problem is that Young has done nothing to warrant that many at-bats and has been vastly inferior to Thome against right-handed pitching. In fact, Thome's mediocre-for-him 2009 numbers beat Young's career line versus righties by 66 points of on-base percentage and 102 points of slugging percentage.

That's an awful lot of production to forfeit in the name of aiding the development of a guy who's been an absolutely terrible all-around player through 1,851 plate appearances in the majors, so my hope is that Gardenhire eventually sees the benefit of getting Thome into the lineup regularly against righties, using him at DH while Jason Kubel shifts to left field and Young goes to the bench. That would significantly upgrade the lineup and Young is a horrible defensive left fielder anyway, so there's no big dropoff there.

One of the criticisms that I've seen lobbed at the Thome signing is that he does nothing to address the infield, where right now Nick Punto and Brendan Harris are the projected starters at second and third base. While true, those are separate issues and paying Thome about $1 million beyond the minimum salary can't possibly change their plans that much. If they were going to make a run at Orlando Hudson or Felipe Lopez they still can and if they weren't then at least adding Thome improves them elsewhere.

Another criticism is that Thome adds to what was already an overly left-handed offense. There's some truth to that, yet for all their lefty bats last season the Twins had a higher OPS against lefties (.785) than righties (.768) and even I'm not advising Thome take starts away from Young versus southpaws. Plus, with as few as four lefty starters and zero lefty closers on the AL Central's other four teams the division is a place where a lineup stacked with Denard Span, Mauer, Morneau, Kubel, and Thome can thrive.

Even if they stick to the stated plan of using Thome off the bench he's worth the modest investment, in part because he can still do plenty of damage in a couple hundred at-bats and in part because should Morneau, Kubel, or Michael Cuddyer get hurt the Twins now have a viable replacement. However, the potential is there for Thome to make a much bigger impact if the Twins are willing to give him a sizable chunk of Young's starts versus righties. Give him 350 plate appearances and this can be a great move.

Kelsie Smith of the St. Paul Pioneer Press reports that the Twins have agreed to terms with Jim Thome on an incentive-laden one-year contract. As noted yesterday when the whole thing was merely in rumor stage I'm in favor of bringing in Thome, but I'll have a full breakdown of the move here tomorrow. And if you can't wait until then, I'll be talking Twins (and Thome) at around 7:30 tonight with Joe Anderson on KSTP-1500 radio. Click here to listen online.

Friday morning a rumor was circulating out of Chicago that the Twins were close to signing Jim Thome and when Joe Christensen of the Minneapolis Star Tribune did a bit of digging he surprisingly found that there was actually some fire behind the smoke:

I called a Twins official, expecting to hear that this is totally far-fetched, and turns out they do have real interest in Thome and haven't ruled out their chances of signing him. Probably not today, mind you, but it's getting late in the offseason and the prices for free agents are falling fast. The Twins are bargain hunting, and if Thome were to accept a bench role at a severely reduced price--he made $13 million last year--there could be a match.

Obviously that's a long way from "close to signing," but it's intriguing nonetheless. At first glance you'd think that the 39-year-old Thome would be just another name on the long list of over-the-hill veterans the Twins have brought in via free agency, but there's a big difference: Thome is still a very dangerous hitter. He batted .249/.366/.481 with 23 homers in 434 plate appearances last season, topping an .800 OPS for the 16th time in 17 seasons, and hit .265/.391/.542 during his four years with the White Sox.

Thome hasn't played first base regularly since 2005 and didn't see a single inning defensively in either of the past two seasons, but the fact that he's strictly a designated hitter at this point matters little with Justin Morneau around. His other big flaw is a career-long weakness against left-handed pitching, but while the Twins' lineup is certainly very heavy on lefty bats their OPS against righties (.768) was actually slightly worse than their OPS against lefties (.785) last season. They aren't that unbalanced.

Thome isn't going to help much versus lefties, but he crushed righties to the tune of .274/.402/.551 over the past three seasons, including .262/.383/.498 last year. To put that into some context, consider that Morneau hit .272/.379/.526 against righties last season and .293/.385/.529 from 2007-2009. So yes, he can't play defense or hit lefties, but when facing righties Thome has essentially been as productive as Morneau. If platooned at DH versus righties Thome would be a huge upgrade to the Twins' lineup.

However, that would mean shifting Jason Kubel from DH to left field while benching Delmon Young. Both moves would be just fine with me, because Kubel is no worse than Young defensively and Young platooning against lefties is about as much playing time as his performance has warranted so far, but my guess is that the Twins think differently. In fact, Christensen suggests that if signed Thome would serve merely in "a bench role."

He'd certainly beef up the bench and provide Ron Gardenhire with an interesting late-inning option, but then again so would Joe Mauer if for some odd reason the Twins ceased starting him. In other words, Thome hits right-handed pitching too well not to start against them, particularly when the alternative is Young with his career .317 on-base percentage and .396 slugging percentage versus righties. Thome is a decent bet to top those marks by at least 50 points of OBP and 100 points of SLG.

Right now the Twins will have Young in left field and Kubel at DH against righties, but having Thome at DH, Kubel in left field, and Young on the bench would make them a superior team for those 100 or so games. Whether or not Thome is willing to take a one-year contract for modest money and whether or not the Twins are able to recognize that he shouldn't be limited to a bench role are big questions, but if the answer to both is yes then there's no doubt that Thome would significantly improve the offense.

Despite having an MLB-high eight players eligible for salary arbitration this year the Twins will avoid the process altogether after agreeing to pre-hearing contracts with Carl Pavano, J.J. Hardy, Matt Guerrier, Delmon Young, Francisco Liriano, Jesse Crain, Brendan Harris, and Pat Neshek. The vast majority of arbitration-eligible players never get to a hearing because submitted figures are typically close enough for a compromise near the midpoint and neither side wants to engage in what can be an ugly process.

Pavano is a special case in that he's actually a free agent who accepted the Twins' arbitration offer last month, guaranteeing a return to Minnesota via a one-year deal at a price to be determined later. At the time my prediction was that he'd get "at least $6 million" and he ended up accepting $7 million, so the only surprising aspect is the contract including zero incentives for the oft-injured starter. Essentially the Twins signed him to a one-year, $7 million deal and can offer Pavano arbitration again next winter.

Hardy gets the second-highest salary at $5 million, which was exactly my guess at the time of the trade with Milwaukee. He'll be arbitration eligible again next season and then becomes a free agent. Guerrier gets $3.15 million in his final year before free agency, which is perhaps $500,000 more than expected. Young gets $2.6 million, which is a ton for a player's first crack at arbitration and suggests that he'll be very expensive in 2011 and 2012 whether his production improves or not.

Liriano getting $1.6 million for his first year of arbitration is also steep, whereas Neshek signed for just $625,000 in his first round of eligibility. Crain made $1.75 million in 2009 as part of a three-year, $3.25 million deal signed before he was even arbitration eligible, and he'll earn $2 million in his final season before free agency. And last but not least is Harris, who unlike the other seven arbitration-eligible guys avoided the process by agreeing to a two-year contract worth $3.2 million plus incentives.

Because this is Harris' first season of arbitration eligibility I'm unclear why the Twins would bother with a two-year deal. He was already under team control through 2012 anyway, so like Crain now that his three-year contract has expired Harris will still be arbitration eligible when the two-year pact is finished. Signing him for two years gives the Twins cost certainty, but Harris is hardly a threat to earn a big raise following a breakout and there's room to question whether they should even want him around in 2011.

He's been disappointing offensively and defensively since being included in the Young-for-Matt Garza swap two offseasons ago, hitting .263/.319/.379 in 943 plate appearances while proving to be a liability at shortstop and second base. He's been productive against left-handed pitching with a .303/.360/.425 line over the past three seasons and has a solid glove at third base, but with awful range up the middle and a .257/.313/.387 mark against righties I'm not sure why they needed to lock Harris in for 2011.

In all the Twins committed about $25 million to their eight arbitration-eligible players, raising the overall payroll commitment for 2010 to approximately $90 million. That represents a huge increase over their $65 million payroll last year, but a) with the new ballpark opening in April that was expected, and b) the payroll was already as high as $72 million in 2007. My hope is that there's still enough room to add an infielder for about $5 million since they're apparently willing to waste that much on Jarrod Washburn.

They haven't done much so far this offseason, but last week the Twins made a pair of corresponding bullpen moves by releasing Bobby Keppel and signing Clay Condrey to a one-year contract. Condrey made $650,000 in 2009 and was arbitration eligible for the first time, but the Phillies non-tendered the 34-year-old right-hander last month rather than risk paying him about $1 million. He got $900,000 from the Twins and Keppel, who never deserved a call-up in the first place, signed with a team in Japan.

Condrey's path to the majors was a unique one. Undrafted after playing college ball at McNeese State, Condrey was 22 years old and working as an electrician in Texas when his father suggested he attend a tryout advertised in the local newspaper. He was impressive enough to earn a call-back and received offers from 11 teams following his second throwing session, opting to sign with San Diego for a $500 bonus being offered by former Padres scout and current Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein.

Condrey made his big-league debut as a 26-year-old in 2002 and spent parts of two seasons with the Padres, posting a 5.49 ERA in 61 innings split between the rotation and bullpen. Traded to the Phillies in the spring of 2004, he spent the next two seasons at Triple-A before making it back to the majors in early 2006. In both 2006 and 2007 he frequently went back and forth from Triple-A to Philadelphia while being dropped from the 40-man roster and going unclaimed on waivers several times.

His first full season in the majors came in 2008, at age 32, and he also stuck with the Phillies for all of last year, although Condrey spent most of the second half on the disabled list with a strained oblique. Strictly a reliever in parts of four seasons in Philadelphia, he appeared in 161 games with a 3.45 ERA, .290 opponents' batting average, and 102-to-58 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 190 innings. While the ERA is nice, a .290 opponents' batting average and just 102 strikeouts in 190 innings are hardly stellar.

With that said, Condrey's walk rate is misleadingly high because 16 of 58 free passes were intentional, and he's a sinker-slider pitcher who allowed just 17 homers in 827 plate appearances and induced a ground ball on 51.3 percent of his balls in play. Not only would that have been the highest ground-ball rate on the Twins last year, Keppel was the only pitcher on the staff above even 47 percent. And unlike Keppel, Condrey throws strikes and has a history of big-league success.

Condrey has a 4.43 career xFIP, including marks of 4.02, 4.81, 4.37, and 4.01 in the past four seasons, which would make him a serviceable middle reliever. Given that modest upside and the fact that he's 34 years old I'm not sure the Twins really needed to sign Condrey, because if Pat Neshek comes back healthy the bullpen was already going to be plenty crowded and they also have prospects like Anthony Slama and Robert Delaney waiting in the wings for an opportunity.

On the other hand the price is right, Condrey is definitely a capable middle reliever, and going to spring training with too many useful bullpen arms is usually a nice problem to have. Assuming a 12-man staff the bullpen locks are Condrey, Joe Nathan, Jon Rauch, Matt Guerrier, Jose Mijares, and Jesse Crain, seemingly leaving one spot for a healthy Neshek or the loser of a fifth-starter competition. That's a very solid group, particularly if Neshek comes back with anything resembling his previous effectiveness.

Between the holidays and magazine-making hibernation I've been a bad blogger lately, so while things get back to normal in this space here's my attempt to catch up on some Twins stuff I've neglected ...

Mike Redmond made it clear that he planned to keep playing at age 39 despite the Twins making no effort to re-sign their longtime backup catcher and sure enough he found a new home with the Indians. After trading Victor Martinez and Kelly Shoppach the Indians are slated to go with Lou Marson as their starting catcher, so Redmond will mentor the 24-year-old rookie while likely seeing a bit more playing time than he got with the Twins when Joe Mauer was healthy.

Jose Morales' presence was behind the Twins' willingness to let Redmond leave as a free agent and that was a sound decision, but now Morales will be sidelined for 6-8 weeks following surgery to repair a strained tendon in his right wrist. Opening Day is still about three months away, so barring setbacks Morales should have enough time to enter the season as Mauer's new backup, but any recovery delays may lead to Drew Butera spending some time on the roster and he's hit .214/.296/.316 in the minors.

Speaking of 39-year-old former Twins, Eddie Guardado will try for an 18th season in the majors after signing a minor-league deal with the Nationals. Guardado barely managed more strikeouts than walks for the Rangers last season and hasn't had an xFIP below 5.00 since 2006, but he certainly picked the right bullpen to eek out one more year. As always, MLB.com provided an amusing, team-approved spin on the signing:

The Nationals continue to be busy this offseason, and they are set to sign left-hander Eddie Guardado, according to a baseball source. Terms of the deal have not been disclosed. The Nationals have been interested in Guardado, 39, since the Winter Meetings. According to the source, team scouts told general manager Mike Rizzo that Guardado would be a big help to the club. Rizzo was unavailable for comment.

If they ever make a sequel to All the President's Men about a 39-year-old reliever inking a minor-league deal with a 100-loss team, the MLB.com story can serve as the source material and Bill Ladson can be this generation's Woodward and Bernstein. Just to recap: An unnamed "baseball source" revealed that "team scouts" informed a general manager a player "would be a big help to the club" and then the GM "was unavailable for comment." Guardadogate, perhaps? "Get out your notebook. There's more."

Like every year since 1998 the Baseball Writers Association of America failed to elect Bert Blyleven to the Hall of Fame, but the big difference this time is that with 74.2 percent of the vote he's a near-lock to crack the 75-percent barrier for induction on the next ballot. In the past I've been a strong supporter of his candidacy and continue to believe he's a clear Hall of Famer, but you won't see me stumping on his behalf because a) the BBWAA has turned me off to anything they vote on, and b) Blyleven is a hypocrite.

When it comes to evaluating his own performance Blyleven is quick to turn the attention away from his win-loss record, choosing instead to quote strikeout-to-walk ratio, WHIP, or even adjusted ERA+ while noting that his teams often failed to provide decent run support. And he's absolutely correct to do so. Unfortunately in his role as Twins television announcer when it comes to evaluating any other pitcher's performance he's just as quick to focus on wins and losses while ignoring all that other stuff.

Asked last week how Francisco Liriano has looked pitching winter ball in the Dominican Republic, Ron Gardenhire said:

I just got a report that he's throwing the living fire out of the ball down in the Dominican. He threw eight innings the other day, and his fastball was 92 to 94 [miles per hour] and his slider was filthy.

Liriano has indeed been impressive in the Dominican Republic, starting seven times with a minuscule ERA and 41-to-4 strikeout-to-walk ratio. However, when it comes to passing along third-hand reports about Liriano's velocity Gardenhire isn't exactly a trustworthy source. Two winters ago, as Liriano was making his way back from Tommy John elbow surgery, Gardenhire shared the following report on his throwing sessions at the Twins' academy in the Dominican Republic:

He's letting it fly. He threw two innings at the academy and they said he was averaging 93 [miles per hour] and throwing it up to 96. Free and easy.

If you replace "letting it fly" and "free and easy" with "throwing the living fire out of the ball" and "filthy" it's basically the same quote. In reality Liriano arrived at spring training throwing in the high-80s and was the furthest thing from "letting it fly" or "free and easy," at which point third-hand reports relayed to the media by Gardenhire ceased having any credibility. This time the glowing reports are paired with some data, so perhaps the 2010 version will prove more accurate than the 2008 version, but I'm skeptical.

BizOfBaseball.com's Maury Brown compiled payroll data from 2000-2009 and found that the Twins ranked 25th in spending for the decade. Given that fact a .533 winning percentage and five playoff trips during that time is plenty impressive, although less so when you consider that the other four teams in the AL Central ranked 14th, 17th, 19th, and 26th in 2000-2009 payroll. For the decade the Twins' payroll was 33 percent below average and about $1.3 billion (yes, billion) lower than the top-ranked Yankees.

At the winter meetings last month the Twins reportedly offered Glen Perkins to the Padres for Kevin Kouzmanoff, who was traded to the A's over the weekend for Scott Hairston and Aaron Cunningham. I'm far from a huge Kouzmanoff fan, but he's certainly worth more than just Perkins at this point and the Padres ended up getting a better return from the A's. In writing about the Kouzmanoff trade and Perkins' future with the Twins, LaVelle E. Neal III of the Minneapolis Star Tribune opined:

To the Twins' credit, they didn't add more. Perkins and Kouzmanoff are similar players in that they are still looking for their breakthrough season. Suggestions that the Twins should have added Alexi Casilla to the deal are crazy.

Neal's paragraph consists of 38 words and I disagree with all of them. Kouzmanoff is a more valuable player than Perkins and the Twins have more use for a third baseman than a fifth starter, so why they deserve "credit" for not adding more to the offer is beyond me. In particular, the notion that it would be "crazy" to package Alexi Casilla with Perkins is ... well, crazy. Casilla will turn 26 years old this season and has hit .244/.301/.314 through 243 games in the majors after batting .278/.352/.350 at Triple-A.

He's not a great defender or base-stealer, and aside from a 50-game stretch in 2008 there's nothing to suggest that his bat will be starting caliber. If the Twins thought dealing Perkins for Kouzmanoff made sense they should almost certainly have been willing to toss in Casilla, who has no clear role for 2010 and dwindling upside. Of course, Neal apparently doesn't think much of Kouzmanoff if he equates him to Perkins as "similar players in that they are still looking for their breakthrough season."

In reality Perkins has a 4.73 ERA and arm problems have limited him to just 281.2 career innings while Kouzmanoff has already been a solidly above-average starting third baseman for three full seasons in the majors and has hit .285/.327/.474 away from pitcher-friendly Petco Park. Not only is he better than and in no way similar to Perkins, there's a reasonable shot that Kouzmanoff has already accumulated more value than Perkins and Casilla will combine for in their entire careers. But hey, maybe I'm crazy.

Whether or not the Twins end up trading Perkins, my hope is that they trust the in-house candidates for the final rotation spot rather than wasting money on Jarrod Washburn, who reportedly turned down their $5 million offer recently. Washburn is an overrated 35-year-old coming off knee surgery and they'd be far better off investing in an infielder while letting their various younger, cheaper fifth-starter options battle for the job. Shouldn't they have learned something from Livan Hernandez and Ramon Ortiz?

I'm at the Beckett Media offices in Dallas putting the finishing touches on Rotoworld's annual baseball magazine, so in my absence here's a special treat. The following is an excerpt about Tom Kelly from friend of AG.com Chris Jaffe's new book, "Evaluating Baseball's Managers, 1876-2008." Not only is he a really nice guy, Jaffe has done a tremendous amount of work analyzing managers throughout history and if you enjoy his take on the Twins' former skipper the whole book is a must-read. Enjoy ...

Tom Kelly

W/L Record: 1,140-1,244 (.478)

Managed:

Full Seasons: Minnesota 1987-2001

Majority in: (none)

Minority of: Minnesota 1986

Birnbaum Database: +75 runs

Individual Hitters: -107 runs

Individual Pitchers: -249 runs

Pythagenpat Difference: +96 runs

Team Offense: +80 runs

Team Defense: +255 runs

Team Characteristics: By most metrics, his teams had outstanding defenses. (Defensive Efficiency Ratio finds them average, but that could be a park effect). His offenses centered on contact hitters who slapped out singles. He had little use for power hitters, and even less for bunts or the hit and run. His pitching staffs based their game on control.

Several years ago, ESPN.com columnist Rob Neyer invented the Beane Count in honor of Oakland A’s GM Billy Beane’s teams, which excelled at walks and home runs on both sides of the game. Tom Kelly’s Twins took a different approach to baseball, eschewing the things that brought success to Oakland’s early twenty-first century clubs. When the Tendencies Database gets a hold of the Beane Count’s four categories (all adjusted per plate appearances or innings pitched), these are baseball’s most anti-Beane Count managers:

Least Interest in Beane Count

Tom Kelly 4.907

Burt Shotton 4.533

Jimmy Dykes 4.529

Fred Hutchinson 4.516

Jimmy McAleer 4.505

Kelly wins in a rout. Actually, that understates his tendencies because Kelly’s pitching staffs were terrific at avoiding walks. With the remaining three components, Kelly scores nearly well enough (4.320) to crack the above list.

He was content to punt homers with Minnesota. After 1987, no Twin ever hit 30 homers in a season for Kelly, while baseball’s other teams had 342 different 30-home run performances from 1988-2001. In only two of his fifteen seasons in Minnesota did the Twins hit more home runs than they allowed, both times by the narrowest of margins (151 to 146 in 1988, and 140 to 139 in 1991). From 1987-2001, Tom Kelly’s Twins allowed 2,612 homers while blasting 1,902, which amounts to a home run differential of nearly -47 per season.

For context, fewer than 130 teams (out of 2,500+) in baseball history have been -47 or worse in a season. Kelly’s -710 homer differential is the worst in baseball history. Only one other manager (Jimmy Dykes) is below -400. Here are the worst single season homer differentials in baseball history:

Year Team HR Dif. Manager

1996 MIN -115 HR Tom Kelly

1999 MIN -103 HR Tom Kelly

2000 MIN -96 HR Tom Kelly

1995 MIN -90 HR Tom Kelly

2006 KCR -89 HR Buddy Bell

2000 KCR -89 HR Tony Muser

A clear pattern exists. Please note 1995 was not a full season due to a labor stoppage.

Those homer differentials reflect not only the available talent, but also Kelly’s coaching tendencies. Former Twins’ prospect David Ortiz once gave an interview explaining why his power erupted when he came to the Red Sox. He noted that in the minors his plate approach focused on hitting for power but when he came to Minnesota, they wanted him to shorten up his swing and approach the game the way everyone else on the team did. Thus a man with a pair of 30 home run seasons in the minors hit only one every nine games with the Twins. Upon arrival in Boston they let him go back to his old ways, and his homers, walks, and strikeouts all rose.

That story reveals the downside to Tom Kelly’s managing, as he could be too inflexible for his (or the team’s) own good. While Kelly was the worst manager for the David Ortizes of the world, he was not a net negative on the job. Kelly had a losing record in his career, but that was due to Minnesota’s rosters. In the Birnbaum Database his score of +78 runs seems merely decent, but when circumstances are accounted for, he rises up.

To compare: Kelly had +78 runs in 2,384 games with a .478 winning percentage while John McNamara scored at –174 runs in 2,415 games and a .484 winning percentage. The cigar-smoking Kelly had won four minor league manager of the year titles before getting his shot at the big league level.

Kelly punted Beane Count stats because his frame of reference centered on balls in play. The Twins were a difficult team to fan under Kelly. For example, from 1990-93 the squad struck out 795 times per year. Other AL teams averaged over 900 whiffs per season during this span. Several players had their strikeout rates drop under Kelly. These improvements were consistent, though rarely dramatic. Gary Gaetti, Greg Gagne, and Corey Koskie were free swingers in their careers, yet none fanned quite as regularly under Kelly as they did away from him. The tendency was especially noteworthy with Kent Hrbek. The burly first baseman routinely had 80-90 whiffs a year, but once Kelly arrived he never had more than 60.

A man who fanned more than once every seven at bats spent the rest of his career going down that way only one in nine times. Even Paul Molitor, who ended his 21-year career under Kelly, had his best single season strikeout rate under Kelly. From 1987-2001, no Twin struck out more than 130 times for him. The other AL teams had it happen to them on 112 occasions. Kelly’s Twins made contact and legged out hits. In the Tendencies Database, Kelly had a higher score with batting average than Joe McCarthy (0.730 to 0.737).

With his kind of player, Kelly could be quite effective. Brian Harper was Kelly’s kind of player. A back up journeyman catcher, Harper underwhelmed baseball by combining substandard defense with an inability to slug or work the count. Kelly focused on what Harper could do – put the ball in play – and made him Minnesota’s starting catcher. From 1988-93, in what should have been Harper’s declining years, he developed into one of the game’s best-hitting catchers, posting a .306 batting average while fanning once every twenty at bats.

However, it would be wrong to consider Tom Kelly a smallball manager. He had no interest in the hit and run, for example. While a manager like Casey Stengel instinctively monitored the game to avoid possible double play situations, Kelly stoically resigned himself to double plays as a cost of doing business. In the 1990s, only thirteen teams hit into 150 double plays. Kelly managed five of them, and his 1999 Twins had 149. In 1996, the Twins grounded into 172, the second highest total in baseball history. As a result, double plays hurt Kelly more than any other manager in history. If you take team DP and GIDP, and give them the Mauch adjustments, here are the worst career double play differentials:

Worst Double Play Differentials

Tom Kelly -278 double plays

Mayo Smith -222 double plays

Joe Torre -210 double plays

Mel Ott -189 double plays

Bruce Bochy -184 double plays

Kelly possesses a sizable lead.

When it came to run prevention, Kelly was a practitioner of the classic Comiskey philosophy of throwing strikes and playing sound defense. At the end of his career, he had one of the greatest defensive outfields of all-time with the “Soul Patrol” of Torii Hunter, Jacque Jones, and Matt Lawton. The same squad had Gold Glover Doug Mientkiewicz at first. Ten of Kelly’s teams were in the top four in fielding percentage. Twice they led the league in Fielding Win Shares, and were runner up two other times.

A manager can get away with minimizing the Beane Count approach by maximizing his team’s quality on balls in play. Even more than defense, though, control pitching typified Kelly’s squads. Ten times they were in the top four in the AL in fewest walks per nine innings. The league averaged 3.5BB/9IP, but Kelly’s Twins stayed under that every year except 1995. In the two dozen times someone threw at least 200 innings for him, nine times the hurler allowed less than two walks every nine innings.

This combination of solid defense with splendid control pitching allowed Kelly to minimize the importance of hurlers who blew opponents away. None of Kelly’s starting pitchers ever struck out 200 batters in a season; rather unusual for a late twentieth-century manager. Only one-third of the pitchers who qualified for an ERA title under his watch struck out batters at a superior rate to the league as a whole. This fits into the philosophy pioneered by Comiskey and perfected by McKechnie: defense plus control equals less need for power pitching. Brad Radke was the ultimate Tom Kelly pitcher. He never struck fear in anyone’s heart but he was durable and had great control. In 2001 he walked 1.04BB/9IP, the second lowest total by an American League pitcher since Walter Johnson.

With his lack of interest in the long ball and offensive walks, Kelly appeared to be a man from another era as the game’s power numbers surged in the 1990s. Apparently Kelly thought so, because he voluntarily retired after 2001, despite only being 51 years old. In all baseball history, only one other person with at least 2,000 games managed who never served as a player-manager left at such a young age – Frank Selee, a century earlier. And that was not voluntary, Selee was dying.

GREGORY CHRISTOPHER GAGNE | SS | 1983-1992 | CAREER STATS
 
   G       PA      AVG      OBP      SLG     OPS+    WARP     WS
1140     3695     .249     .292     .385      83     21.1     88

About a week into the 1982 season the cost-cutting Twins traded starting shortstop Roy Smalley to the Yankees for All-Star setup man Ron Davis, Paul Boris, and a 20-year-old prospect named Greg Gagne. Davis was considered the big name coming back to Minnesota, but he flopped in the closer role while Gagne ended up being the real find as Smalley's eventual replacement. He spent 1982 hitting poorly at Double-A, but the former fifth-round pick from Massachusetts bounced back at Triple-A in 1983.

Gagne batted .255/.323/.462 with 17 homers in 119 games there as a 21-year-old and also got his first tastes of the big leagues with a brief stint in June as an injury replacement and a September call-up. He went just 3-for-27 (.111) and found himself at Triple-A again in 1984. Gagne put together another strong season there, hitting .280/.374/.441 with nine homers in 70 games, but didn't make it back to Minnesota until rosters expanded in September and merely sat on the bench once he got there.

Tired of trotting out guys like Ron Washington, Houston Jimenez, and Lenny Faedo, the Twins turned to the 23-year-old Gagne as their starting shortstop in 1985. He hit just .225/.279/.317 with two homers in 114 games as a rookie and missed time with injuries in May and August. In his absence the Twins turned to Smalley, who had come back in a trade that offseason. Back problems forced Smalley to be a designated hitter in 1986 and the Twins went with Gagne on a full-time basis at shortstop.

He came up with a solid sophomore campaign, hitting .250/.301/.398 with 12 homers in 156 games to rank 11th among all major-league shortstops in Value Over Replacement Player. In the second-to-last game of the season, Gagne hit inside-the-park homers in each of his first two at-bats against Chicago starter Floyd Bannister, and then smacked a triple off reliever Gene Nelson in his third at-bat to come 90 feet short of an all-time record.

After committing an AL-worst 26 errors in 1986, Gagne had a team record 47-game errorless streak in 1987. He also hit .265/.310/.430 with 10 homers in 137 games as the Twins defeated the Tigers in the ALCS and beat the Cardinals in the World Series. Gagne hit just .229 in 12 postseason games, but had three homers and four doubles, drove in six runs, scored 10 times, and delivered a sixth-inning single that drove Tom Brunansky in as the go-ahead run in Game 7 of the World Series.

Gagne had three fairly mediocre years from 1988-1990, and then hit .265/.310/.395 as the Twins once again won the World Series in 1991. This time Gagne hit just .195 in 12 postseason games and had just one homer, but it was a big one. With the Twins clinging to a 1-0 lead in the fifth inning of Game 1 against Atlanta, Gagne launched a three-run homer off Charlie Leibrandt that provided all the breathing room Jack Morris needed in a 5-2 win.

Gagne became a free agent after batting .246/.280/.346 in 1992 and signed a three-year contract with Kansas City. He gave the Royals three solid years and then finished up his 15-year career with two seasons in the NL playing for the Dodgers. Gagne retired at 35 years old and was a starting shortstop in the major leagues from the moment the Twins handed him the job in 1985 to the moment he hung up the spikes in 1997, logging nearly 15,000 innings at the position.

Researching these rankings has changed my opinion of Gagne's career more than any other Twins player. My only real memories of him in a Twins uniform were from 1991 and 1992, and my primary experience seeing him play came after he departed as a free agent. By that point Gagne was on the downside of his career and shortstops were starting to put up numbers that made his .249/.292/.385 line with the Twins look pathetic.

However, take a closer look back at Gagne's decade in Minnesota and you'll discover a player who was more valuable than his paltry .677 OPS suggests. Perhaps the biggest key to seeing Gagne's value is in understanding the difference between baseball today and baseball in the 1980s. Not only is offense in general up significantly since then, players like Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter, Miguel Tejada, and Nomar Garciaparra revolutionized the way we look at shortstops.

Meanwhile, during Gagne's time with the Twins the average shortstop hit a measly .252/.309/.346. For comparison, since 2000 the average MLB shortstop has hit .270/.325/.400. That may not seem like a huge difference, but it is. For overall offensive production, that's a gap of about 10 percent. If you take Gagne's career numbers with the Twins and add 10 percent to them, and you get something along the lines of .275/.320/.425. Jimmy Rollins is a career .274/.330/.439 hitter.

He still doesn't exactly light up a stat sheet, but those adjusted numbers are a lot more palatable. And then you have his defense, which was excellent regardless of era. He never won a Gold Glove, as Alan Trammell and Tony Fernandez dominated the award in the 1980s, but Gagne is generally considered the best defensive shortstop in Twins history and Baseball Prospectus rates him as eight runs above average per 150 games in Minnesota (more advanced metrics aren't really available that far back).

Despite the speed and athleticism that gave him range defensively Gagne was a horrible base-stealer. Historically bad, in fact. He was 79-for-134 (59 percent) for the Twins and no one else in team history with 50 steals is under 60 percent. And he was even worse after leaving, stealing 29 bags while being thrown out 41 times, including going 10-for-27 in 1994. Seriously. Overall he was 108-for-204, which at 53 percent is the second-worst rate ever among players who attempted 200 steals, behind Lou Gehrig.

TOP 25 ALL-TIME MINNESOTA TWINS RANKS:
 
Triples             35      9th
Games             1140     11th
Steals              79     12th
Doubles            183     14th
Hits               844     16th
Runs               452     16th
Total Bases       1304     16th
Extra-Base Hits    287     17th
Times On Base     1060     24th

MATTHEW LAWTON III | LF/CF/RF | 1995-2001 | CAREER STATS
 
   G       PA      AVG      OBP      SLG     OPS+    WARP     WS
 771     3150     .277     .379     .428     107     23.3     87

Drafted in the 13th round out of Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College just four months before the Twins' run to the World Series in 1991, Matt Lawton advanced slowly but surely up the minor-league ladder. After posting .400 on-base percentages in back-to-back seasons at Single-A and then batting .269/.361/.434 in 114 games at Double-A in 1995, Lawton made his major-league debut pinch-hitting for Pat Meares in a loss to the Tigers on September 5, 1995.

He struck out against Mike Christopher, but picked up his first hit against submarining southpaw Mike Myers the next day and ended up starting quite a bit down the stretch. Lawton hit .317/.414/.467 in 21 games as a 23-year-old and smacked his first homer against 245-game winner Dennis Martinez and the Indians on September 28, 1995, which turned out to be a key date in team history because Martinez hit Kirby Puckett with a pitch in the first inning and the Hall of Famer never played again.

Lawton began 1996 as the everyday right fielder, but was sent down to Triple-A after hitting just .205 in April. He returned in late June, but was sent back to Salt Lake with a .231 batting average in mid-July. After batting .297/.377/.481 in 53 total games at Triple-A, Lawton was called up again in early August and this time stayed for the rest of the year. He finished with a .258/.339/.365 hitting line in 79 games, batting .294 over the final two months of the season to earn the team's confidence heading into 1997.

With his days in the minors behind him for good, Lawton split time between all three outfield spots in 1997 and hit .248/.366/.415 in 142 games. It was a modest season even for a 25-year-old, but along with Paul Molitor and Chuck Knoblauch he was one of only three Twins regulars with an adjusted OPS+ above league average. As you might expect from a team with that little offense and a 5.02 ERA, the Twins finished 68-94 for their most losses since 1982.

The team continued to struggle in 1998, going 70-92, but Lawton had his first big year. Playing mostly right field and also filling in as the center fielder when Otis Nixon had his jaw broken by Felix Martinez, he batted .278/.387/.478 with 21 homers, 36 doubles, 86 walks, and 16 steals in 152 games. Lawton won team MVP honors and led the Twins in nearly every offensive category, including homers, RBIs, runs, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, walks, and total bases.

Lawton got off to a slow start in 1999 and was batting just .262/.345/.406 when he was hit in the face by a Dennys Reyes pitch on June 8. A fractured eye socket sent him to the disabled list for over a month. He returned in mid-July and continued to get on base at a good clip through the end of the year, but his power disappeared. Lawton hit five homers with a .406 slugging percentage prior to the injury, but had just two homers and a pitiful .299 slugging percentage after returning.

Lawton came back strong in 2000, bouncing back from what could have been a very serious injury to put together arguably his best season. He hit .305/.405/.460 with 13 homers, 44 doubles, 91 walks, and 23 steals in 156 games, making his first All-Star team and winning his second team MVP. The team continued to stink, winning just 69 games, but unlike several of the Twins' token "All-Stars" from that period of losing Lawton was actually somewhat deserving with a .330 first-half batting average.

That season showed Lawton at his absolute best--taking a ridiculous number of pitches, working long counts, drawing walks in bunches, lacing singles and doubles all over the Metrodome from that goofy batting stance, and stealing bases at an efficient rate. He did just about everything that a hitter could possibly do besides provide big-time power, and even batted .294 against left-handers and .326 with runners on base.

After eight straight losing seasons the Twins got off to a 14-3 start in 2001, and carried a 55-32 record and five-game division lead over the Indians into the All-Star break. After winning the first game of the second half the Twins promptly went in the tank, losing 13 of the next 17 to fall into a tie with Cleveland atop the AL Central. On July 30, with the division slipping away, the Twins traded Lawton to the Mets for veteran right-handed starter Rick Reed.

It was a controversial move at the time, in part because Reed was a 36-year-old former replacement player making $7 million and in part because Lawton was the best hitter on a team that was fairly short on offense to begin with. Lawton was hitting .293/.396/.439 at the time of the trade, while Reed was 8-6 with a 3.48 ERA in New York. After the deal Brian Buchanan and Dustan Mohr replaced Lawton in right field, Reed went 4-6 with a 5.19 ERA in 12 starts, and the Twins went 25-32 to fall out of contention.

It wasn't so much that picking up a good starting pitcher was a bad move (although certainly you could argue about Reed being the right guy), but rather that in order to get Reed the Twins had to take from an area that was far from a strength. That's typically not how contending teams bolster themselves for a stretch run and there was speculation that general manager Terry Ryan intended to swing a second deal for a hitter like Dmitri Young or Shannon Stewart to replace Lawton, but that fell through.

Reed went 15-7 with a 3.78 ERA in 2002 as the Twins made the playoffs for the first time since 1991, and then was a mess in 2003 thanks to back problems. Meanwhile, Lawton hit just .246/.352/.366 for the Mets in 2001 and was dealt to Cleveland for Roberto Alomar that winter. He spent three mediocre years there while struggling through shoulder injuries and then bounced around with four teams over his final two seasons while hitting .253/.353/.389 and being suspended 10 games for steroid use.

Lawton's strengths were drawing walks, hitting doubles, getting on base, and running efficiently, which are all skills that tend to be overlooked and have seemingly caused his Twins career to be underrated. He was very productive in Minnesota, putting together three very good years and another solid season before his 30th birthday, and his name is plastered all over the team leaderboards. Here's something that I wrote about Lawton back in 2003 that seems appropriate to quote now:

I always had a soft spot for "Matty Law" and I'm not sure why. I guess he was just a very solid all-around player who had a lot of nice moments as a Twin. Lawton and Brad Radke were sort of like the bridge from the Kirby Puckett/Chuck Knoblauch Twins to the current group.

And as any Twins fan who grew up in the 1990s can tell you, it was an awfully long bridge.

TOP 25 ALL-TIME MINNESOTA TWINS RANKS:
 
On-Base %         .379      5th
Steals              96      8th
Walks              408      9th
OPS               .807     17th
Times On Base     1195     17th
Doubles            163     18th
Runs               423     19th
RBIs               384     20th
Extra-Base Hits    248     20th
Total Bases       1144     23rd
Homers              72     24th
Adjusted OPS+      107     24th
Hits               739     25th

My apologies for the lack of content here over the past two weeks, but I'm still very busy putting together the annual Rotoworld baseball magazine, which is due at the printer next week. Plus, the Twins haven't done a whole lot worth writing about recently, so you haven't really missed much. I mostly just wanted to check in so that everyone knows I'm still alive. In fact, yesterday was my 27th birthday. I celebrated by waking up early for absolutely no reason and then covering meaningless NFL games for Rotoworld.

Life in the fast lane, no doubt. Oh, and here's a fun fact: I was 19 years old when this blog launched in August of 2002. I'm not sure whether doing this for eight years is more commendable or mockable, but either way it's been a lot of fun and I'll get back to pumping out new stuff once the Twins do something notable or we put the magazine to bed, whichever comes first. In the meantime, here's a picture of two of my birthday gifts that perfectly sums up how people think of me when shopping:


Not sure why I picked a light switch for the background, but surely there's some artistic explanation that scholars will debate when studying my photography centuries from now.