As it stands, the Minnesota Twins’ odds of making the postseason currently stand around 1%. If you’re an astute student of baseball, mathematics and/or statistics, you might deduce that this is not good. Despite winning three games in a row, the Twins still sit at 20-37, 13.5 games back of the division leading Indians. Their fall from grace has been surprising. Virtually everything that could go wrong has gone wrong for this team. You want the litany? I’ll give you the litany. Their best pitcher, Francisco Liriano, has been horrific all year and has shoulder soreness now; their best player, Joe Mauer, has been on the disabled list for weeks; their star first baseman, Justin Morneau, has struggled out of the gate after missing half of 2010 with a concussion; their former closer, Joe Nathan, isn’t quite right after undergoing Tommy John surgery last spring and lost his job as closer; Delmon Young is hurt; several key prospects have struggled or gotten hurt; they demoted one of their best pitchers to the bullpen after some not-so-private feuding, and he is currently injured; their new second baseman had his leg broken on a slide by Nick Swisher; Jason Kubel is hurt; Jim Thome is hurt; it’s already the first week in June, and they just won their first series.
It’s been bad. Really, at this point, they should be looking to unload some of their assets and rebuild. While some have focused on some of their starting pitchers as trade targets, it might be interesting to key in on reliever Matt Capps as a trade target.
Capps was drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates in the seventh round of the 2002 draft and was a starter until 2005 when the Pirates converted him to the bullpen. Once he became a reliever he moved quickly through Pittsburgh’s system, going from A ball all the way to Triple A in one season, and even earning a September callup to the Pirates that year. Capps pitched a full year out of the Pirates pen in 2006, as a 22 year old, and did quite well. Rather than go through his performance year by year since then, I’ve created a little graph listing some relevant statistics that paint a good picture of the type of pitcher he is. These numbers are current through Friday.
Instead of focusing on fluctuations year to year, it’s probably wiser to take all 369.2 innings he’s thrown as a whole. He has a decent ERA and it’s backed up by strong DIPS numbers. He strikes out around 7 batters per 9 innings, not exactly elite for a reliever, but he doesn’t hand out many free passes at all. His K/BB ratio is excellent. Despite his 2010 mark he isn’t exactly a ground ball pitcher, a trait that would play well in Minnesota but perhaps less well in New York. Capps hasn’t had the best year so far in 2011. He’s blown a few games and his strikeout rate has dipped below 6. But it’s also worth noting that it’s only been 25 innings of work, hardly a meaningful sample size, and that his strand rate is well below what would be reasonable to expect going forward.
Capps is signed this year for $7.15 million and he becomes a free agent at the end of the season. By the time he’s traded he won’t cost the acquiring team more than a few million dollars in salary. The Yankees should kick the tires on him and consider bringing him aboard if the price isn’t too steep. Capps wouldn’t necessarily need to handle high leverage spots – Robertson and Chamberlain are doing fantastically – but he’d be the perfect type of reliever to soak up some of those lower-leverage appearances in which we see Robertson so frequently. Girardi has been good about keeping his guys fresh for October, but it would be nice to give him another quality arm to use in the dog days of the summer.
