Jeff Johnson from The Gazette in Cedar Rapids interviewed Twins Minor League Director Brad Steil.

 

I've admittedly always been a big fan of his and know he's really smart. I think he could be a GM candidate down the road, if he would like. But I thought this was a very good interview. Talked some about players, but Jeff asked some other questions.

 

For instance, he asked about the Trackman system and what the Twins do with that information. Here's a snippet of that: 

 

 

We go through it all up in Minnesota. It’s just another way to monitor our guys, how they are pitching. You can use that as a baseline if somebody gets hurt and are coming back. We have TrakMan down in Fort Myers, too … It’s another evaluation tool. You can use it for coaching as well.

 

I thought his response on defensive shifts and how they can be employed in the lower levels was very good...

 

I also thought a comment he made about pitcher would be something that Twins fans would be excited about. I had heard it from talking to some players in the past, but there is a shift.

 

 

I think we’ve improved some things over the last few years. In terms of pitching, one of the things we’ve really focused on is teaching our guys how to strike people out. Last year, I think we were second or third in strikeout percentage in the minor leagues as a whole. This year, we were first or second for quite awhile, though we’ve fallen down to maybe fifth or sixth.

 

There is more on both of the topics I shared quotes on, but also a lot on Nick Gordon, Tanner English and more.

I hope that  this development of getting strikeouts starts to show up soon!!

Why wouldn't they share the Trackman data with players?

 

 

Why wouldn't they share the Trackman data with players?

 

At the lower levels, it is your coaches' job to teach good mechanics and technique. You don't want your players to self diagnose problems when they haven't yet established good habits. You may end up with players who won't listen to their coaches and become set in their ways. There is also the matter of smaller sample sizes for the newer players.