Day One of Spring - The Weird, The Laughable and The Laudable

As MLB.tv goes, so does my productivity. On the one hand, my productivity here at Pitcher's Duel spikes. My productivity elsewhere... not so much. And today marks the beginning of that time of year, the most wonderful time of year, in which we have live baseball to watch nearly all the time. Sidenote: Obama, step up and make this some sort of holiday, God forbid if this landed on a weekday and some poor children were stuck in school. Fascist.

For my tribute to National MLB.tv Day, I've tried my hand at some photojournalism (screencaps count, right?) from the first couple hours of LIVE baseball and I shall organize them as such -

The Weird

For you Twins fans out there, I found our former center fielder -

Good luck to Span, he's a great centerfielder and will undoubtedly be an important piece on the best team in baseball, the Nats.

And that's okay, because the Twins have a capable replacement centerfielder. He's speedy, he can hit and he... what? he's on the Phillies? F***jkdasflsjdfkaj

Well, we can look forward to 2014 Twins fans. In the meantime, at least we have it better than the Astros. Here's a drinking game, every time you recognize a name in today's Astros lineup, take a shot.

Completely sober? Lol of course you are! Even their manager hasn't heard of Nate Freiman or Marwin Gonzalez!

While they may suck, at least they look fly. I give my wholehearted approval of these semi-retro spring training jerseys.

Alright guys, Baseball Season is upon us. Let's get down and dirty.

2013 Twins Pitching Projections

Rotation: This is what the rotation could be, because as we know, we really have no idea.  There are so many new additions that it could go either way.  So in no particular order here are our predictions/projections

Twins Opening Day Lineup Predictions

Real games are starting today! Woohoo! Not for the Twins, for that we'll wait until Saturday. However, with the baseball season back in full swing (okay, half swing) Pitcher's Duel is gearing up by writing about what we know best, the Twins. Expect to see our predicted pitching rotation and bullpen either Friday or Saturday and in the meantime, here's our preview of the lineup and bench. Let us know if you agree or disagree in the comments or twitter!

Catcher

Nils’ Prediction: Joe Mauer

         Starting off with a very bold prediction. Mauer will likely take the lion’s share of innings behind the dish with Ryan Doumit, Drew Butera and later in the season Chris Herrmann splitting the remaining the portion. After a 2012 season in which Doumit proved to be an awful defender and Butera continued to be an awful hitter, backup catcher is a more significant issue than it looks.

Andy’s Prediction: Joe Mauer

         Not only does he have the greatest ass in Major League Baseball, he can swing the bat.  Hopefully this year he can catch around 90-100 games as he only caught in 74 last season.  If the Twins ever want to break even on the mega-deal he received, he needs to be behind the plate. 

Make the jump!

And with the 14th overall selection in the 2013 MLB Rule 5 Draft the Diamondbacks Select...

Well, the Rule 5 Draft really isn’t as sexy as the title of this post says.  But, some great players have been selected in the Rule 5 like Johan Santana and Josh Hamilton.  

The Arizona Diamondbacks made a really interesting move (but just one) this offseason and drafted Starling Peralta from the Chicago Cubs.  This move comes as a surprise considering if a player is selected in the Major League phase, he has to spend the entire season on the 25-man roster or else be offered back to his original organization.

A More Honest Way to Evaluate

My goal in writing here at Pitcher’s Duel is to grow as a writer and baseball fan. I probably still won’t be able to write very well, but I will be making an improvement as a fan in 2013. 

One improvement is abandoning per-inning stats such as K/9 or BB/9 in favor of the more telling per-PA stats like K% and BB%. I give 100% credit to Joe Sheehan of Sports Illustrated for illuminating the difference, but it cannot be understated. Per-inning numbers operate under the assumption that each pitcher faces the same amount of batters each inning – or, at least, that is the assumption we make in using these figures. Given a moment’s pause, it’s obvious this assumption is lazy and leaves out a significant chunk of the information.

My Love Affair With Fast Fastballs and Strikeouts...and the Twins

The Twins have changed their philosophy regarding pitching and it seems that they are now targeting power arms.  In this blog I’ll be comparing the fastball velocity of pitchers who started games for the Twins last season (and remain on the team) and the pitchers they acquired in the 2013 offseason.  Like I said, I’m a velocity whore.

The average velocity of the pitchers from last year come courtesy of Brooks Baseball pitch f/x and stats come from Baseball Reference.

Arizona Diamondbacks' Offseason

The Arizona Diamondbacks have had a busy offseason and it has come with some scrutiny from the baseball media.  Here is a rundown of some of the more significant moves made that impact the 25-man roster:

-Traded CF Chris Young to Oakland and received SS Cliff Pennington and RHP Heath Bell

-Traded 3B Ryan Wheeler to Colorado for LHP Matt Reynolds

-Signed FA OF Eric Hinske

-Signed FA 3B Eric Chavez

-Signed FA RHP Brandon McCarthy

-Traded RHP Trevor Bauer, RHP Bryan Shaw and RHP Matt Albers to Cleveland for 1B Lars Anderson, SS Didi Gregorious and LHP Tony Sipp.

-Signed FA OF Cody Ross

-Traded OF Justin Upton and 3B Chris Johnson to Atlanta for 3B Martin Prado, RHP Randall Delgado, RHP Zeke Spruill, SS Nick Ahmed and 3B Brandon Drury