Cabin Twelve

The Twins lost to the Yankees for the 374th time this year.

Joe Mauer is still miffed about getting left at home during Game 6 of the 1991 World Series.

An interesting look at the defense of the AL playoff teams. Not surprisingly (to me at least), the Twins aren’t that good defensively.

A Yankees fan has projections for the Twins in the ALDS. Seems about right to me. And speaking of projections, it’s never too early to start thinking about next year. The Baseball Think Factory has the ZiPS Projections for the 2010 Twins up already.

Game 163 II was a big hit on Twin Cities TV, with 469,000 local televisions tuning in.

The Ft. Myers Miracle are looking for a fan that was caught on camera on Tuesday. Someone buy me a hat.

The Twins are not “Small Market Champions.” Call them small revenue (for now), if you must. But the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro are is the 13th most populous in the US. And the Twins do very well on television. (Click the image on the right of the post to see all teams ratings on their regional sports network.)

Its not Twins related, but Deadspin ran an excellent 2 part article by Eric Walker, the man ostensibly behind Moneyball (that’s a pretty gross simplification of things, but I’ll leave it at that). Walker comes across sounding a little bitter and I can’t for the life of me figure out why he chose to run this with Deadspin, but its worth taking the time to read. Part I. Part II.

I don’t have anything else to say about game 163 II, except wow. Was it the greatest baseball game in Metrodome history? Hard to rank it above Game 7 of the 1991 World Series, but it was certainly up there.

The AP wrap. And the mlb.com summary, just for kicks.

Fangraphs has the Twins win probability throughout tonight’s game. Wildly fluctuating.

The Twins were the 3rd straight home team to win a tie-breaker. And the second to play in two. And the only team to play in one in back to back seasons. Meanwhile, the Tigers collapse was historic. Joe Mauer was exhilarated, Twins fans are euphoric and pooped, Torii Hunter is rooting for the Twins to beat the Yankees and at least one person says Michael Cuddyer should be the MVP. Also, Miguel Cabrera is sorry.

The fond farewell to baseball at the Mall of America Field at Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, will happily have to wait for at least a few more days. The place won’t die, as Joe Posnanski writes. (Posnanski’s post, along with being generally amusing, also resurrects an old Dan Quisenberry quote about the dome from back in the day. “I don’t think there are any good uses for nuclear weapons but, then, this might be one.”)

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Well well well. An interesting final two games in Detroit. I was going to ignore the actual, you know, games here until the regular season start in 2010, but its kind of hard to ignore what’s gone on the last couple of days. First up, the afternoon tilt in Detroit:

Nate Robertson hit Denard Span in the 3rd, Scott Baker returned the favor in the 4th by hitting Marcus Thames (and went inside on him again in the 5th. Not a huge deal, though I’m sure the tempers were surging, given the import of the series and the intensity of the games. And that brings us to Jose Mijares in the bottom of the 8th. After sailing a pitch behind Adam Everett, both teams were warned. Next inning, Jeremy Bonderman hits the first batter on the first pitch and he’s tossed in a hurry. Delmon is pissed, not at Bonderman, but at Mijares. Watch the video here. The Twins win 8-3 and (barely) keep their playoff hopes alive.

A few quotes from the Twins and some other news after the jump.

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I am currently putting together a database of baseball stats in order to better understand the game fill my brain with absurd baseball trivia. And while I get things going, I’ve been occasionally asking random questions to get myself more comfortable navigating the tons of data available these days. I decided to post the answers to some of these questions and compile them in what I have dubbed, Random Bits of Useless Knowledge.

Here’s another thought that could be interesting, if I expand on it and present it in a more useful fashion. The rate at which the Twins “power” guys (I use that term loosely) hit Fly Balls, Ground Balls, Line Drives and Pop Ups. These are career numbers.

(The first column is the % of batted balls of each type, the second column in the % of total bases (from balls put in play – not walks) the player advanced with each type of hit)

Joe Crede pops up a lot. He also got a large % of his total bases on fly balls, so, you know.

Micheal Cuddyer does pretty well when he gets the ball in the air. So does Jason Kubel. Its too bad you can’t just say “hey, stop hitting the ball on the ground.”

Joe Mauer is really a ground ball guy. And he pops out 2.43% of the time. That’s close to never.

Justin Morneau is our fly ball king. No surprise there.

Delmon Young would probably benefit from getting the ball elevated more than Cuddyer and Kubel.

Joe Mauer became the first catcher to win the American League batting title since … Joe Mauer in 2006. In 2006, Joe Mauer was the first catcher ever to win the AL batting title (and the first catcher to lead the Major Leagues in batting average). Two National League catchers have won the batting title a total of three times (see below).

Catchers that won the National League Batting Title: