The Twins are 8-23, the worst record in baseball by a large margin, and there’s no doubt that this is a terrible baseball team for the second year in a row.  It’s incredibly disheartening.  Here are all the things that have gone wrong over the last 18 months, in roughly chronological order:

1) Twins trade JJ Hardy and Brendan Harris for two minor league relievers.

2) Twins win the rights to and sign Tsuyoshi Nishioka from Japan for a total of $18 million.  Nishioka hits .226/.278/.249 in 68 games.

3) Twins sign Matt Capps for one year, $7 million.

4) Francisco Liriano shows up to Spring Training out of shape, and is urged by the Twins to “pitch to contact”.

5) Bungled treatment of a wart in the offseason requires foot surgery and keeps Michael Cuddyer out of Spring Training for almost a full month.  He starts the season 3 for 28 (.107/.194/.107) through 9 games.

6) Kevin Slowey and Twins clash over role and injuries.  Is publicly mocked by members of the Twins administration and the broadcast team, is sent to AAA, and eventually is traded for a minor league reliever.

7) Joe Mauer is not properly recovered from offseason knee surgery, but pushes through Spring Training.  Is shut down with leg and back problems after starting the season .235/.289/.265 through 9 games.  Finishes with worst season of his career.

8) As a result of this, and an offseason trade that sent Jose Morales to Colorado, Drew Butera plyas 93 games, has a 24 OPS+.

9) Joe Nathan is installed as closer less than a year after having Tommy John surgery.  His velocity is down and he walks 8 batters in 10 innings while striking out 7.  He loses the closer job to Matt Capps and eventually goes on the DL.  Capps has the lowest strikeout rate of his career, surrenders 10 homers in 65 innings, and blows 6 of 21 save attempts.

10) Justin Morneau plays through his concussion symptoms, hits .225/.281/.338 through June 9 before re-aggravating the problem, and shutting down for two months.  He returns for a month and continues to struggle before being shut down for the year.  Finishes with worst season of his career.

11) Hitting .294/.361/.385, Denard Span suffers a concussion while sliding into home.  He returns after almost two months off, and goes 2 for 35 and is shut down again for another month.

12) Danny Valencia and Delmon Young both play like Danny Valencia and Delmon Young.

13) Brian Duensing and Nick Blackburn pitch like Brian Duensing and Nick Blackburn.

14) Without adequate depth or the means to acquire it, the Twins give a full-season’s worth of plate appearances to the combination of Luke Hughes (.223/.289/.338) and Matt Tolbert (.198/.252/.266).

15) With Matt Tolbert, Michael Cuddyer, and Denard Span injured but not on the disabled list (though Span would soon go on it, and Cuddyer missed 11 days with a neck injury), and Jason Kubel attending to a family emergency, the Twins play most of an August 18 game against the New York Yankees with no bench players because Luke Hughes missed his flight to Minnesota from Rochester because he was sitting at the wrong gate. Joe Mauer has to play right field.  Hughes shows up in time to pinch hit for Drew Butera in the bottom of the 9^th and strikes out swinging.

16) Twins win 15 of 17.  It’s Happening.  Lose next 6.  It’s not.

17) Scott Baker suffers an elbow injury. Starts 8 games after the All Star Break.  Continues to complain of soreness in 2012 Spring Training. MRI and team diagnosis does not catch the need for Tommy John Surgery, which is discovered during a related procedure.  Misses all of 2012.

18) Twins lose 30 of 36 games from August 18 to September 24.

19) Twins sign Jason Marquis for one-year, $3 million. Marquis misses much of Spring Training to be with his daughter, who suffered life-threatening injuries in a bike accident.  Marquis starts 2012 in the minors, is promoted after 2 starts.  Has 6.26 ERA through 5 starts, having struck out 10 batters in 27 innings.

20) Twins sign 38 year old utility man Jamey Carroll for two years, $6.5 million, who hits .218/.312/.264 through 30 games and loses the starting shortstop job to Brian Dozier.

21) Francisco Liriano continues to fall apart, posting 9.45 ERA through 6 starts with 19 BB in 27 innings.

22) Nick Blackburn pitches like Nick Blackburn.

23) Liam Hendriks proves unready to pitch in the majors. Gives up 18 runs in 18 IP, with 9 strikeouts and 5 homers allowed.

24) Luke Hughes makes the team again. Goes 2 for 10 and is DFAed.

25) Chris Parmelee, who has no experience at AAA and is a career .266/.355/.436 hitter in the minor leagues, is given the 1B job on the basis of a strong September in 2011 and 2012 Spring Training.  He hits .203/.263/.297 through 80 PAs, has not started last three games.

26) Ben Revere starts 2012 in the Majors, but only starts 3 of 6 games and is sent to AAA.  Recalled 12 days later, he goes 3 for 7 with a walk, a double, and 2 runs scored in back to back games. Is promptly returned to AAA.  Is currently hitting .309/.351/.324 with 6 stolen bases.

27) Instead, the Twins play a combination of Trevor Plouffe (.149/.298/.234) and waiver wire pickup Clete Thomas (.143/.172/.286 with 16 Ks in 29 PAs).
3B and PH Sean Burroughs gets 18 plate appearances in 22 games. Goes 2 for 17 with a walk. Plays in the field three times.  During this time, the Twins are carrying 13 pitchers and 3 bench players.  Is DFAed.

28) Drew Butera is back, baby.

29) Justin Morneau starts hot, hitting .267/.353/.578 with 4 homers (as many as he hit in all of 2011) through 12 games.  But he injures his wrist in Tampa, and proceeds to hit .172/.250/.276 through the next 8 games without a day off. At some point, complains that wrist is hurting.  Is sent back to Minnesota for an MRI on April 30.  MRI shows “no structural damage” according to team doctors, and Morneau rejoins the team.  Morneau stays on the bench for another four days before the team puts him on the Disabled List, essentially choosing to play with a 1 or 2 man bench the whole time.

30) The Twins lose 23 of their first 31 games.

31) May 10, Jason Marquis, Ryan Doumit, and Trevor Plouffe allow an Edwin Encarcion pop up at home plate to plop to the ground, untouched, between them, allowing Yunel Escobar to score from second base; thus perfectly encapsulating the last 18 months.  See it above, as .gif'ed by @CheapSeatChron.  It is ruled a single.

DID YOU KNOW? While the world has obsessed over Matt Kemp's awesomeness and Albert Pujols' terribleness and Jamie Moyer's oldness and Bryce Harper's youngness, professional baseball has also been played by at least like fifty other people! It's a thing I'd forgotten for a while, what with those things, and the unmitigated disaster that has been the Twins' season, and real-life stuff. So last night, I spent a little time poking around Baseball-Reference and Baseball Prospectus, and I learned a number of things I didn't know that, as far as I can tell, nobody outside of these players' teams' own markets is talking about. Here are six of them:

1. I'd say Jake Peavy is back, except he's probably never been this good.

The top three MLB leaders in rWAR, through yesterday are all pitchers: Jered Weaver (who, perhaps, shouldn't count because he's gotten to make three of his seven starts against the Twins) at 2.3, Stephen Strasburg at 2.4, and Peavy at 2.5. It's not quite as overwhelming by WARP or fWAR, but Peavy's second among pitchers in both. He's put up a 1.99 ERA through 45.1 innings in his first six starts, he's done it largely against good offenses, and he's more or less earned it, with a 2.22 FIP. 

Peavy was a very good pitcher at his peak, back in the middle of the last decade, but probably wasn't quite as good as the crazily forgiving Pecto Park made him look. He led the league in ERA twice, but never in Adjusted ERA+, and he won the Cy Young Award in 2007, but finished just fifth among pitchers in rWAR. He's never been nearly as effective over a full season as he has been through these first six starts -- that 2.22 FIP would be his career lowest by more than half a run. 

The way in which he's doing it is a bit odd. Peavy's strikeouts are down by almost two per nine (to a still-very-good 7.74) compared to his peak, even though his pitch selection and velocity has stayed about the same, and strikeouts league-wide have consistently gone up since then. He's made up for it by more than halving his walk rate from that period, to a 1.19 rate that's currently third in the AL, and his 6.5 K/BB rate is best in the AL. The one warning sign is that another big part of how he's doing it is by permitting just 2 home runs to date, despite having the highest fly ball percentage in baseball to date (min. 30 IP). He plays his home games in an especially homer-friendly park, so if that continues, you have to expect a lot more balls to leave the yard. But for now, he's clearly healthy, and he's been outstanding.

The Common Man will cop to being more than a little obsessed with how badly the Twins are playing right now.  It’s like a car accident that TCM just can’t look away from.  The central trouble, as TCM mentioned earlier this week, is the team’s abysmal pitching, specifically the entire staff’s inability to strike anyone out.
But looking at the Twins’ horrendous start, TCM was compelled to wonder whether it could possibly get worse.  How bad can a pitching staff be?  To answer that, The Common Man went back and looked at every club who allowed at least 20% more run than the league average since 1903 to understand teh upper limits of pitching badness.  If you want to see the complete list of teams in spreadsheet form, click here.  Meanwhile, here are the ten worst pitching staffs of all time, based on the numbers TCM looked at:

If you know anything about The Common Man, you know that he likes to suspect people of things without evidence.  Earlier today, the execrable Jon Heyman, who we’ve lambasted in these parts before, essentially called Andy Pettitte a perjurer, despite ample evidence that Pettitte is not guilty of perjury.

So, The Common Man felt it was important to find things to suspect Jon Heyman of, despite the fact that evidence may or may not exist to definitively prove he was not involved.  But The Common Man could not do it alone, and so he created a hashtag on Twitter, #CrimesOfJonHeyman and invited you to contribute your ideas.  You can check The Common Man’s Twitter feed to see his contributions specifically, but here are the best of what you suspect Jon Heyman of:

And we're back! Today's topic, in recognition of Magic Johnson saving L.A. from the terrible clutches of Frank McCourt: "If you could own one team, but had to take its current GM and manager with it, which one would it be and why?"

Here's what we had to say:

Earlier today, Cincinnati Reds beat reporter John Fay tweeted "Today is birthday of both starting pitchers: Bailey is 26; Dempster 35." I looked through baseball-reference and found that this is the first time since 1918 when game logs became available that this has ever happened. In honor of this, let's look at the five best pitching performances by pitchers on their birthday. I will be using game score since this is extremely easy to do. 

5: Doug Drabek (33rd birthday), July 25th, 1995 - Game Score: 90

This was tied for the best performance of Drabek's career. He had another 90 score game in 1992 with the exact same line: Nine innings pitched, nine strikeouts, three hits, no runs, no walks. Hideo Nomo, the opposing pitcher, was chased out of the game after four innings. Raul Mondesi had the only extra-base hit against Drabek with a double in the first.

Tied-3: Marcelino Lopez (23rd birthday), September 23rd, 1966 - Game Score: 91

This was also the most well-pitched game of Lopez's eight year career. He went nine innings, gave up three hits, two walks and no runs, while striking out twelve. He gave up both a double and a triple, but not much else.

Tied-3: Ron Guidry (27th birthday), August 28th, 1977 - Game Score: 91

This was only the third best game of Guidry's career. He had a 92 score game in 1984 and a 95 score game in 1978. However, nine innings, two hits (including a triple), no runs, no walks and eight strikeouts is nothing to scoff at.

2: Vincente Palacios (31st birthday), July 19th, 1994 - Game Score: 92

Palacios had by far the best game of his career on his birthday in 1994. His second best game was an 84 score performance in 1991. But on one special day, he went nine innings, gave up only one hit, one walk and no runs and struck out eight batters. That one hit was a single in the third inning. The late Darryl Kile was the opposing starter.

1: Warren Spahn (30th birthday), April 23rd, 1951 - Game Score: 99

The best birthday performance was completed by none other than The Invincible One himself, hall of famer Warren Spahn. This was only his fourth best game score, as he had three games of at least 100. This is also the only game in the top five which the pitcher lost. His large score is due to the large amount of points accumulated for pitching in late innings. He gave up 10 hits, walked two and struck out eight over 15 and two thirds innings and 184(!) pitches. 

Twins beat writer Joe Christiansen wrote briefly about a pretty amazing statistic in his Twins Notes column today, as Twins outfielder Clete Thomas has struck out 14 times in his last 17 plate appearances.  That’s just crazy.  And its hilarious when juxtaposed with the Twins' pitching staff's aversion to the K.  Overall, Thomas has 16 strikeouts in 29 plate appearances this year.  That’s 57.7% of Thomas’s trips to the plate.

That’s a lot of strikeouts.  How much?  Here’s a chart of ten worst K% marks posted by batters with more than 20 plate appearances since 1901:

If you’re a Twins fan, and The Common Man most definitely is a Twins fan, then before the season started you probably thought to yourself, “If Mauer, Morneau, and Span are all healthy, this team will probably be pretty ok.”  After all, the Twins finished with 99 losses thanks in large part to getting just 3.2 rWAR from the combined three.  A full and productive season from the trio would presumably earn at least an extra six, and perhaps as many as twelve wins.

And there’s no doubt that the three are delivering in 2012.  Despite what the misguided boos of Twins fans might have you believe, Mauer has been vintage Mauer, hitting .325/.419/.438, including .400/.455/.650 with runners in scoring position (ruining the narratives of Twins fans who want to blame him for not driving every single runner in).  Span has shaken off the effects of last year’s concussion and hit .337/.387/.430.  And while Morneau’s .236/.321/.472 is off from what Twins fans would have hoped from him, his four homers are encouraging given how debilitated he has seemed over the last year and a half.   And all of that doesn’t even account for Josh Willingham, .353/.457/.706, who has been amazing.

No, the problem for the 2012 Twins is not with the hitters, but with the pitchers. 

On Wednesday, my favorite team, the Oakland A's, played a game against the Chicago White Sox. Because the A's have a TV deal that isn't even worth speaking about, the game was only broadcast on White Sox TV. This meant nothing to me in terms of being able to watch the game because I have MLB.tv one way or the other. What it meant is that instead of Glen Kuiper and Ray Fosse, a colorful, charismatic, and chemistry-laden, if not entirely stat-friendly, announcing team, I had to pass the three hours listening to Steve Stone and Ken "Hawk" Harrelson.

As one does, I took to Twitter to complain about this, mainly because of two plays. First, the A's turned a really pretty double play somewhere in the middle of the game, with Jemile Weeks (at second) not giving Cliff Pennington (at short) a very good feed, causing Pennington to essentially have to catch the ball, pirouette away from the bag, and make a strong throw to first to complete it. I don't know what the standards for Web Gems are these days, but it was a pretty compensation by Pennington for a mediocre throw from Weeks, an athletic play, one surely worthy of comment even by the announcers for the Chicago team. And from Hawk? Nothing.

Brandon Belt and Domonic Brown are two young and talented players who are not getting consistent playing time with their major league team. As such, many people have decided they need to be freed. Before these two, Kila Ka'aihue was another player who needed to be freed from the clutches of a wretched team. Which players preceded these three? If Twitter and the blogosphere were around since 1978 (the year the Baseball Prospectus age data for AAA begins), which players would be saber #Free darlings? 

The concept is exactly the same as it was in my Minor League K/BB series. I find players who were at most 25 years old, had at least 150 PAs in AAA and find how good their walk and strikeout rates were. I left the data split by year and filtered out any results where the player struck out more than one standard deviation more than the average.

Basically, this is the top 10 list for players in AAA who were 25 or younger, walked a lot and didn't strike out a lot: