SportsDystopia

This week’s meeting between the Chicago White Sox and Minnesota Twins has recieved considerably less attention in the media than it should have, given that it is the only head-to-head meeting between playoff contenders this week.  The media has preferred to cast it’s eye on the ups and downs of the Milwaukee Brewers and New York Mets, waiting breathlessly to see which organization will endure it’s 2nd straight hideous September collapse.  It’s understandable, as it’s a much easier headline.  But the Sox/Twins showdown represents more than just two teams fighting for the AL’s last playoff opening.  For one thing, it’s baseball’s two best minds, Ron Gardenhire and Ozzie Guillen head-to-head in what has quietly been one of the game’s best rivalries for several years now.  For another, it represents a missed opportunity to ask the question of why these two teams are here, fighting for this playoff spot, when the pre-season favorites in Detroit and Cleveland are nowhere to be seen.

It might surprise you to learn that the White Sox have the 5th highest payroll in baseball this year, at 121 million, even more than the crosstown rival Cubs who are percieved as the city’s big spending team. (Though that will soon change, as Carlos Zambrano’s and Alfonso Soriano’s big deals are both back-loaded)  Historically, however, the White Sox have been a spendthrift organization, and their 6 players making over 10 million this year (Jim Thome, Mark Buehrle, Paul Konerko, Javier Vazquez, Orlando Cabrera and Jose Contreras) have ultimately not had as much to do with their success as Ozzie’s ability to fit his pieces into a winner.  Though GM Kenny Williams has made some shrewd moves and pickups in his tenure, most notably Carlos Quentin and Bobby Jenks, the Sox do not have a clear organizational philosophy, something that could hurt them down the road.

Then there’s the Twins.

They are baseball’s best organization, and no one else is even close.  The only other team in the last decade to have the patience to stick to an overall philosophy in the same way is Oakland.  But while Billy Beane gets the headlines for his trades that keep the A’s organization stocked with talent, those trades have often come at the expense of the on-field product.  Beane’s philosophy is of course well known, detailed in the book Moneyball.  He believes in the Bill James philosophy of On-Base Percentage, opposes the stolen base and bunting for fear of an out, and will never hire a manager that doesn’t stick to the script.  Ultimately, he doesn’t believe in situational baseball, he believes in percentages, which, even when the A’s have been successful in the past decade, has led to playoff ousters against teams led by managers capable of applying situational baseball, most notably Joe Torre’s Yankees and Ron Gardenhire’s Twins.  This year, the A’s have baseball’s worst offense, and prospects aren’t good that next year will be much better.

Meanwhile, Minnesota’s organizational philosophy consists of 3 things: Speed, defense, and pitchers that don’t walk people.  They believe in manufacturing runs the old school way with bunting and stolen bases, the opposite of Billy Beane’s moneyball, and Ron Gardenhire is the best manager in the game at playing exactly that type of baseball.  The Twins year after year are the most fundamentally sound club in the game.  And while other teams struggle with inconsistent young pitchers, the Twins have success, because from day one, their pitchers are taught to pitch inside the zone. 

Witness what they’ve done this year, with a rotation consisting of rookies Nick Blackburn and Glen Perkins, 2nd year Kevin Slowey, 4th year Scott Baker, and Francisco Liriano, who like Baker debuted in 2005, but missed all of last year following Tommy John surgery.  Given the eye-popping success Liriano has had with the Twins when healthy, it’s easy to forget he was not a highly regarded prospect before he came to the organization, a throw-in part of the trade that sent AJ Pierzynski to San Francisco.

The Twins opening day payroll this year was 62 Million, ranking them 24th in the Majors.  It amazes me that while other clubs like the Blue Jays have been willing to emulate Oakland’s philosophy with limited success, not one of the small-market teams has tried to follow the road-map to build a yearly contender that the Twins have shown to be eminently readable. 

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