How The Twins May Have Contributed To Jorge López's No Good Very Bad Stretch (EXCLUSIVE)

[Parker Hageman]

Jorge López's half-season with the Twins has people wondering if the team was hustled like some easy-mark Stanford grad on a Sicilian vacation. 

With the Orioles, López was a dominant backend of the bullpen arm, outfitted with an upper 90s sinker and wiffleball movement at the top of the zone. He had some intriguing offspeed stuff, was missing bats, and locking down games. 

The Twins may have thought they could take a pitcher right near the cusp of being elite and make him that much better. However, that initial experiment has backfired. 

What happened?

Pick any stat you want from Jorge López and it was likely substantially worse with the Twins. 

Strikeouts? Down — from 28% with Baltimore to 16% with the Twins. Walk rate? Up — from 9% to 15%. Batting average allowed? Up — it was a clean 174 with Baltimore and grew to a grotesque 314 with the Twins. Hard hit balls? Up — exit velocity of balls over 95 mph went from 30% to 44%.

Star Tribune columnist Patrick Reusse tweeted on September 20 that López "was tremendous and always had excellent stuff… Finally harvested in the bullpen. Twins were dazzled by his 97 mph sinker and proceeded to turn him into a guy constantly behind in the count throwing breaking balls." 

The reality is the Twins kept him consistent in his sinker usage.

"There's been suggestions that we have him throwing more offspeed pitches than in Baltimore," Falvey later refuted to Reusse. "That's not true. He's still throwing a lot of fastballs and with the same velocity."

Which was an accurate statement but also… misleading. 

True, if you look at the overall pitch data of his sinker/two-seam fastball usage (50.3% in Baltimore and 50.9% with the Twins), they are basically the same. It is also true that López maintained that same crisp velocity in both uniforms (97.8 in Baltimore, 97.4 with the Twins). And finally, López threw more pitches while ahead in the count with the Twins than he did with the Orioles (so, no, he wasn’t “constantly behind in the count”). 

Falvey's narrative holds up as long as you only look as far as the total pitch type percentage and velocity. Consider two-strike counts. López used his sinker less frequently with the Twins — it went down from 47% to 40%. Equally as important was how he was using it. Watch this video.

 

If you watched those clips and thought I was trying to hypnotize you by staring at the blobbies, here's what's up: With Baltimore, López threw his sinker at the top of the zone with 2-strikes. With the Twins, it was middle and down. With the Orioles, it was thrown with conviction and intent. In Minnesota, instead of ripping it, it feels like he was guiding it, trying to get the right amount of run and sink. He was trying to blow their doors off. 

Look at how much the performance suffered.

Jorge López Sinker In 2-Strike Counts
	Thrown%	K	Upper 3rd%	Swinging Strike%	BAA
BALT	46.5	26	69.3	16.7	.122
MINN	39.5	3	46.7	2.2	.227

It was not just that the sinker's use was limited with the Twins — he also was throwing more changeups in 2-strike counts. 

With the Orioles, López got a bulk of his strikeouts with his sinker and used his other pitches fairly evenly (sliders 18%, curveballs 14%, and change up 18%). Hitters held a .044 batting average against his non-fastballs with 2-strikes. The Twins had him use the sinker less and all but eliminated the slider from his arsenal in the 2-strike scenarios, throwing more changeups (35%) compared to sliders (4%) and curveballs (15%). Hitters posted a .286 batting average against those pitches.

This is the element that Reusse was referring to, that López was not using his sinker as much and opting for other stuff (“throwing breaking balls”). 

When you look at his sinker's greasy metrics — such as tilt, release point, and movement — you'll find that it was a slightly different shape with the Orioles than it was with the Twins. The axis in which the ball spins out of his hand changed a bit (from 1:32 to 1:48), and his release point was about 2 inches lower (from 70.2 inches to 68.7 inches), and the vertical movement had two more inches of drop (from 8.9 induced vert to 6.7 induced vert). This was a concerted attempt at getting the ball to stay down in the zone. 

 

SINKER LOCATION (ORIOLES VS TWINS)

It cannot be said with absolute certainty because no one has publicly acknowledged this, but the Twins have encouraged Jorge to adjust his sinker. The working theory is that by throwing it down in the zone, he can pair it better with his changeup (a solid pitch in its own right). Like the sinker, López slightly altered his changeup at release (different spin axis, lower release, etc.) and induced more horizontal run and drop. Those results were positive.

CHANGEUP LOCATION (ORIOLES VS TWINS) 

 

Jorge López Changeup

	Thrown%	Swing%	K	Zone%	Swinging Strike %
BALT	15	43.5	6	31	14
MINN	17	42.1	9	24	24

In short, López’s changeup benefitted from the modification of his sinker whereas his sinker’s performance -- his prime pitch with the O’s – suffered. 

Plenty of what López is going through stems from the tough lessons the Twins learned in the Ryan Pressly trade. Notoriously Presley was traded to the Astros and was told to spin it. Spin it good. He did and went from a pitcher with excellent stuff to a lights-out All-Star closer. 

"It was a very hard lesson and very discouraging for us," Assistant General Manager Daniel Adler said in October 2018. "On the other hand, in some ways, it was a really strong teachable moment for us. … In some ways, I think it makes it easier to go to the next player."

To ensure they never fail to communicate information like that again, the Twins built a strong bridge that extends from the player development system into the clubhouse. Knowledge discovered in the front office is integrated into the day-to-day. Pitchers acquired – no matter how much success they are having at their previous stop – will receive information to optimize them, be it through an arsenal change, mechanical tweak, or something else. 

Kenta Maeda. Chris Paddack. Matt Shoemaker. Sonny Gray. Jharel Cotton. Nobody is a finished product. 

With the Twins, Jorge López has gone down the same path to middling results. The changeup seems much improved and could be an excellent weapon. On the other hand, they may have come at the expense of his sinker's performance – especially in those 2-strike situations. 

There appear to be crossroads ahead. López will be part of the 2023 bullpen, but what will his approach be? Will he continue to lean into the sinker/changeup mix, hoping to perfect that combination by next season? Or will he return to throwing moving heat at the top of the zone?

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[RJA]

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.  It seems like the Twins should remember this old adage.

[jdgoin]

Nice work @Parker Hageman. There is a lot to unpack here. I'll start with the changing of Lopez. The Lopez & Pressly situations while similar, seem to be very different as well. As I recall, HOU never asked Press to change the shape of either of his breaking pitches. They wanted him to throw his CB more often & with confidence. Your analysis of Lopez it seems like they tried to change his SI & CH to pair up "more efficiently" & alter his release point to do so. For a reliever in season, one of those is difficult, let alone all three. MIN has also lost their "Fixer" when Wes Johnson left. This has always been my biggest thing when someone wants to acquire a pitcher based on pitch data. Who do we/they have who can fix it? It's a hard mental adjustment for a guy. 

[Parker Hageman]

16 hours ago, jdgoin said:

MIN has also lost their "Fixer" when Wes Johnson left. This has always been my biggest thing when someone wants to acquire a pitcher based on pitch data. Who do we/they have who can fix it? It's a hard mental adjustment for a guy. 

@jdgoin one of the more significant losses in this regard was jeremy hefner. there were multiple players and front office people that said he was the best bridge between the data/analytics/biomechanics side and the players. some even said more so than wes.

[jdgoin]

13 minutes ago, Parker Hageman said:

@jdgoin one of the more significant losses in this regard was jeremy hefner. there were multiple players and front office people that said he was the best bridge between the data/analytics/biomechanics side and the players. some even said more so than wes.

I would believe that. Hef is smart. He had an easy way about him. ML experience. You could tell from the first interview he had ceiling if he stayed with it. He had just retired a few months earlier. I wanted to hire him in Arizona when the Mets hired him.

[jdgoin]

But also in this case Hef was in NY by now.

[I Never Bet On Sports]

Great article and analysis. Twins have work to do. One set of stats here doesn't add up to me. What am I missing? How can opponents have a .122 BAA in two strike counts when he threw his sinker (which he threw 46.5% of the time in this situation) in Baltimore but also have a .044 overall average in two strike counts when he threw anything but his fastball in Baltimore? Was it supposed to be .144? If he did't get a hit on any other pitch including his fastball his overall 2 strike average would have to be at least .056(.122*46.5%= .056)