My Way, The Highway, and Breakfast.
Entry posted by Alex Boxwell in Baseball, Analytics, Twins ·
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Anyone that’s been around baseball recently has heard some variation of “Old School” vs. “New School” baseball. It’s like asking someone to pick between bacon or sausage. Both are good, and you can like one more than the other, but you don’t have to hate someone or the meat over it. Makes no sense. The difference is people identify baseball as a part of who they are and baseball isn’t high in cholesterol.
The “old” vs. the “new” is an incredibly broad generalization that has split baseball fans, coaches, and even players almost directly down the middle. Whether it’s the application of analytics, showing excess emotion on the field, how to swing, how to throw, throwing at guys, and the (ever-present) how you wear your uniform. The issue with all these things is not one act or another but the application of each “school”. Neither camp, believe it or not, is rooted in evil.
Social media has taken these arguments on play styles into everyone’s living room. I have coached baseball and specifically hitters at the travel ball, high school, and collegiate levels. You best bring your boxing gloves if you want to talk about teaching a kid how to hit. If you spend a minute on Twitter, you’ll come across one grey-haired dude or another speaking in absolutes saying swing up (new school) or swing down (old school). The fact of the matter is they are both right and they are both wrong.
As a baseball community, we have regressed into a kindergarten level of thinking where everything is so “black and white”. I’m not sure if it’s laziness or an odd compulsion to never change because “this worked back in my day”. Regardless of the topic, we do each other a great disservice by not taking the time to evaluate things on an individual basis. We want to generalize and then slide something to the left or right, alienating a huge portion of our community that needs us to do better.
Baseball is so beautiful because so much is based on feel and rhythm. For so many great players the game is almost a dance. The game moves slower and it’s such a pleasure to watch. Many guys I have played with fall into this category and think “I need to swing down and be quick”. This is not the result you get at the end but it’s about the feel. If someone pinned these guys in a corner and told them they had to swing uphill or else they’re wrong… you may have been deprived of some of the better talents the game has ever seen. Some examples of “swing down” guys are Barry Bonds, Manny Ramirez, Joe Mauer, and Mike Trout. Nice group of “idiots” that didn’t know how to hit right?
On the other hand, there is a more technical way to teach baseball. There are so many players that have revamped their swings to find more power and reach new potential by elevating the ball more. The biomechanical truth of the swing is that elite hitters have a slight uphill swing, that is a fact. To match the plane of the pitch and open your timing window as a hitter, you must have that slight uphill path. Some people get sensitive about how to achieve this. Some great hitters I’ve heard speak from this more literal approach to hitting are- Ted Williams, J.D. Martinez, Aaron Judge, and Joey Votto. Another phenomenal group of “dummies”.
The fact of the matter is always application. They are both right and wrong equally. You must approach the individual and not be lazy. The same goes for throwing at someone. If someone goes spike up on your star shortstop and that guy gets a fastball off the butt cheek- that’s even Steven. Brush it off and get back to the game (now if that pitch creeps up by the shoulders we start to have problems).
When it comes to players “pimping” homers or pitchers pounding their chests, that’s a simple application of the golden rule- don’t do it if you don’t want someone to do it back. It’s a part of the game that makes it great. If everyone played like robots then it would look like no one cares and if no one cares about winning or their performance, then the World Series wouldn’t matter. No one would watch. If something is too over the top guys look like idiots anyways, isn’t that punishment enough? If someone hits a homer and slides into home plate, they’re going to get eaten alive in the clubhouse. A lot of these things police themselves but we turn them into stories because we don’t see what happens behind closed doors.
The duality of baseball is just another thing that makes the game so unique and so available for everyone. We need to leave sweeping generalizations at the door for this game to reach its potential and its audience. We need electric players like Fernando Tatis Jr. just as much as we need players like Paul Goldschmidt. Both are fantastic talents but some might be more reserved with their emotions on the field, most of the time you get more consistent performance from those who are consistent with their emotions.
Old School vs. New School came into play a ton with the Minnesota Twins last year. Many argued that the decisions came from an iPad and perhaps they did. I truly don’t know or care. What I do know is that the two times through the order cap on Archer and Bundy spoiled a postseason trip. Our bullpen was good in the second half. Sonny Gray and Joe Ryan had more stress put on them than Bartolo Colon’s belt buckle. The best-case scenario this year was five innings from Archer and Bundy, then cashing the pen. What happens to your horses at the top? If they are less than great, they give the ball to a worn-out bullpen. High-end starting pitchers love that...
The statistics don’t lie, the back of the rotation stunk the third time through the order, and that's ok but you must build a pitching staff to match. Either you have swing guys in the bullpen who are available for two-three good innings, or you have to have starting pitchers you trust to go three times through the lineup. We saw the current build of the pitching staff wasn’t sustainable for 162 and we paid for it by coughing up a division crown in the second half.
Analytics don’t lie or tell truths; they are data points and you’re a fool if you don’t look at the data available to you. What seems to be the disconnect is applying these numbers and the forward-thinking to building the roster. We saw that disconnect with the Twins staff last year, you get a jumbled mess and everyone is mad at everyone. To have a great baseball team you need old school and new school. They both are good when applied properly, so you don’t have to pick sides. When someone asks, “bacon or sausage?” you just say yes.
- Karbo, Nick Hanzlik and Doctor Gast
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