The Yankees had to love watching the Tigers and Twins bloody one another over the course of 13 innings last night knowing that the exhausted victor would have to catch a red-eye to New York to face CC Sabathia in Game 1 of the ALDS this evening. That victor proved to be the Twins, who won on a walk-off single by Alexi Casilla that plated Carlos Gomez in the bottom of the 13th after burning through eight pitchers. That victory was the Twins’ fifth-straight and the 17th in their last 21 games, but it’s worth noting that only one of those wins (the first) came against a team outside their division (the A’s), and that win raised their record at the time to 71-72. The Twins’ comeback was remarkable and capped off by a true classic of a 163rd game, but the Twins are not a good ballclub, they’re just better than the other stiffs and mediocrities that make up the American League Central.
Consider, for example, that the two players who combined for the division winning run hit .229/.287/.337 (Gomez) and .202/.280/.259 (Casilla) on the season. That’s not entirely fair as both have been relegated to the bench and Joe Girardi has announced his intention to start Jose Molina (.217/.292/.268) behind the plate in Game 2 of the ALDS, but I found it striking that the Twins were relying on hitters of such pronounced ineptitude in such a significant situation.
The flip side of Gomez and Casilla is, of course, Joe Mauer, who won the slash-stat triple crown this year and should be the unanimous choice for MVP after hitting .365/.444/.587 as a fine defensive catcher. Right now, Mauer is the best player on either team, but he represents the sole advantage the Twins hold over the Yankees, as the following position-by-position comparison shows. (Note that when dealing with the starting nine, I prefer to do my position-by-position comparisons by batting order position rather than defensive position, as I think it presents a fairer apples-to-apples look at the relative strengths and weaknesses of the two offenses in question.)
Leadoff:
Derek Jeter (.334/.406/.465, 30 SB @ 86%)
Denard Span (.311/.392/.415, 23 SB @ 70%)
This is closer than you might think. Span’s sophomore season looks a lot like the final three months of his rookie campaign (.297/.393/.449) minus some power (though he did lead the league in triples), but it was no match for the Captain in one of his finest campaigns.
2nd:
Johnny Damon (.282/.365/.489, 12 SB @ 100%)
Orlando Cabrera (.284/.316/.389, 13 SB @ 76%)
Cover up the batting averages and this one isn’t close. Damon has 100 pints of slugging over Cabrera, nearly 50 points in on-base percentage and wasn’t thrown out stealing all year. It’s worth noting Damon’s splits, however, as 17 of his career-best-tying 24 homers came at the new Yankee Stadium and his resulting .533 slugging seems to have contributed to a spike in his walk rate in the Bronx (one every 7.4 plate appearances vs. one every 11 PA on the road). Still, even the road Damon is clearly superior to Cabrera at the plate, posting a .284/.349/.446 line.
3rd:
Mark Teixeira (.292/.383/.565)
Joe Mauer (.365/.444/.587)
This was a hot topic a month ago, but what was obvious to many of us then seems to have finally become obvious to all now. Teixeira’s first season in pinstripes was excellent–he led the league in homers (tied with Carlos Peña at 39), RBIs (122), and total bases (344)–but Mauer’s season was historic. The only catcher since the 1880s to have a season rivaling Mauer’s was Mike Piazza in 1997 (.362/.431/.638), and Mauer was by far the best of hitter in the American League in 2009 at any position.
