Article: Above and Beyond: Creatively Improving Run Prevention

[Parker Hageman]

Derek Falvey has inherited an organization that allowed the most runs in the American League. Hopefully he is a person who enjoys a good challenge.

 

The Twins hired Falvey, in part, because he was analytically inclined and also carried a reputation as a pitching hawk while with Cleveland, two significant deficiencies of the previous regime. Although Jack Goin has done a good job establishing the analytics department it seemed obvious that the growth of that department was handcuffed by budgets and the prior leadership’s skeptical view toward the data. With Falvey in charge, he might be able to give Goin’s team the necessary support to take full advantage of the science of baseball.

 

Falvey’s vision for his team may already include something similar to what these two clubs have been doing. However, in terms of improving run prevention, both short-term and long-term, the Twins may want to consider creating at least two new positions.

***This is an excerpt of one of several features from the Twins Daily Offseason Handbook. To read this and more, be sure to download your FREE Twins Daily Offseason Handbook now.***

Boston's Pitching Guru

At the end of the 2015 season, the Boston Red Sox added a new position for former major league pitcher Brian Bannister in the front office.

 

Already a member of the team’s scouting department, his acute insight into pitching analytics prompted Boston to give Bannister the title of Director of Pitching Analysis and Development. Bannister’s new job, as described by Red Sox team president Dave Dombrowski, was to develop pitching through an "analytical approach" using the power of PitchF/X and Trackman to improve arm angles, pitch types, spin rates and more. Essentially, Bannister would process the science and deliver it to the organization’s pitching coaches who could distribute it to players in easier to swallow bites.

 

The overall goal would be to fully exploit a pitcher’s talent. One of Bannister’s early successes includes turning around left-handed hurler Rich Hill. Hill was pitching for the independent Long Island Ducks in 2015 when Bannister made a scouting visit. Bannister knew Hill’s curveball had one of the highest spin rates in all of baseball, making it a very tough pitch to barrel, and yet Hill often opted to throw other pitches in situations where his best offering would suffice. So Bannister dropped some pitching knowledge on Hill. He told him to throw his curveball more. He told him to increase the spin on his fastball. Since the conversation with Bannister, Hill has made 24 starts with Boston, Oakland and Los Angeles, striking out 165 over 139.1 innings of work. You'll note that he's the top starting pitcher in this Handbook's free agency section.

 

“It was so refreshing, talking about shaping pitches, shaping the breaking ball. We talked about other pitchers — Zack Greinke, Clayton Kershaw — specifically about how they can shape their different breaking balls that they throw,” Hill told the Boston Globe’s Alex Speier in February. “All of those things took me from four pitches to maybe 12. It was like I had 12 pitches because of changing speeds, changing shapes, changing locations.”

 

It is not hard to envision a pitcher like Tyler Duffey benefiting from that kind of insight. Duffey’s curveball can be a monster pitch at times but he struggles to locate his two types of fastballs consistently thanks to a lowered arm slot. Having a person in the front office focused on identifying issues and isolating strengths could help Duffey reach his ceiling more quickly.

 

Bannister’s methods and pitching knowledge were so well received by the pitchers that the team requested that he join the coaching staff for the remainder of the 2016 season in order to better communicate with the major league roster.

 

While right-hander Rick Porcello doesn’t credit Bannister with his career-best season, the tall sinkerballer said that in addition to Red Sox pitching coach Carl Willis, Bannister's presence has helped provide concrete insight beyond the mental aspects of the mound. When he feels like he is in a funk and doesn’t get the right movement on his sinker, Porcello told the Boston Herald that Bannister’s ability to recall data on arm angles and spin rates to quickly diagnose what is going wrong assisted in keeping him from falling into a prolonged slump. That’s something Bannister said he emphasizes -- not only getting pitchers to their ceiling but sustaining as well. Someone like Kyle Gibson, who has had flashes of brilliance but has had consistency evade him, could follow in similar footsteps.

 

Though the Twins do not have a Brian Bannister in the front office, they do have the foundation in place to capture the necessary data that can lead to swift player development improvements. Across their minor league affiliates -- with the exception of Elizabethton and the Gulf Coast League Twins -- the organization has installed Trackman systems, the very same 3D Doppler hardware that feeds MLB’s StatCast with speed, spin and launch angles.

 

Ensuring that a person or a team of people in similar roles to how the Red Sox employed Bannister, constantly dissecting and disseminating that information throughout the organization, could rapidly improve the pitching program.

 

Chicago's Defensive Coordinator

Often found perched high above the field in the press box, looming over the game like a football defensive coordinator, is the Chicago Cubs’ Director of Run Prevention, Tommy Hottovy.

 

***To read the rest of this feature and more, be sure to download your FREE Twins Daily Offseason Handbook now.***

 

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[mikelink45]

Nice article.  It keeps coming back to the minors - lots of great prospects, but are we getting the maximum out of the system.

[HitInAPinch]

Tyler Duffey could greatly benefit from a guy like Bannister.  I'm hoping the relative silence from Derek Falvey is because he's working on building up an organization that can help the Twins take the advantage of "science of baseball".

[Parker Hageman]

 

Tyler Duffey could greatly benefit from a guy like Bannister.  I'm hoping the relative silence from Derek Falvey is because he's working on building up an organization that can help the Twins take the advantage of "science of baseball".

 

Duffey is another guy who should benefit from that type of analytics as well as Castro behind the plate. That being said, he still needs to locate that fastball better. 

[Doomtints]

Great stuff.

 

The Twins *must* improve defensively.  We talk all the time about pitching and catching, but the Twins defense is atrocious.  It won't matter who is pitching if the Twins defense remains the same.

[Mike Sixel]

Really well written!

[Linus]

I like the idea of having someone with an analytics background focusing solely on pitching. Certainly would be the biggest bang for the buck.

[jay]

Having heard Glen Perkins talk about analytics, I had always pictured him in a role like Bannister's some day. I'm sure I wasn't the only one?

 

Didn't the Twins have another pitcher who was known for being into the analytics? I'm drawing a blank...