Expectations For New Pitching Coach Garvin Alston

Ah, 3.84 instead of 3.89. I stand corrected. Brag away, Jose.

All I was saying is that his ERA wasn't below 4.00 simply because of the defense.  He was legitimately good.

  In the world of Falvey and Levine, can you imagine how qualified Mr. Alston must be?    I'm excited to learn more about him, and one has the sense that there is a philosophy (throw strikes) and a method (no one method) that he excels at imparting, both from a statistical and psychological perspective. (noted: all but the sabermetric portion of that is true of every pitching coach ever hired)

Watching all the fine pitching coaches become available, and then not be signed by the Twins..... but Alston is.... well........ all one can do is "wait and see". Some were interviewed, but either passed on the Falvey pitch, or just had a better option. I can't really like it, because how do you like someone you have never heard of and don't know? I guess one can pretend, and convince themselves.... but all I can do is wait and see. That's all we all can do now.

If they were so fine in an evolving game why are they available?

 “Not one philosophy,” he said. “It is the ability to adjust to the actual pitcher and knowing what their strengths are.”
 

This seems like the organizational tenet for it's major league coaching hires. I seem to recall Rowson sying something very simlar upon his hire, but you know, for batters. 

I expect the Twins will throw fewer change ups.

They ranked 8th in change up frequency and 23rd in change up effectiveness. That 23rd is only that high because Santiago had one of the most effective change ups in baseball at 7.2 runs above average. The rest of the team was -14.3. Kyle Gibson was the only other starter with a positive change up.

I expect them to help pitchers make their best pitch even better. Tyler Duffey entered in 2015 with an effective fastball and curve ball. My impression from reading reports is that there was a lot of emphasis in Duffey developing his change up. Would it have been better if he put in that energy towards making his promising curve ball better?

Ryan Pressly had one of the better curve balls in the league. Can he improve it further? Is he throwing it enough?

They need to work pitchers and make their best pitches better.

One of the interesting takeaways from the divisional championship series was Houston finding the Yankees were a great fastball hitting team, but a horrible curveball hitting team.  McCullers was reported to have thrown 24 consecutive curveballs in game 7 to the Yankees. 

This is what the Twins should be doing.

He should have been starting game 163 at Yankee Stadium. He was the team's best starter the last two months.

He was?  Based on what? I'd say Santana was.

Anyway in Gibson's last three starts, he had one quality start, gave up 11 ER in only 16 2/3 IP to include his last start where he gave up 3 ER, threw 87 pitches, and didn't make it out of the 4th.  

And in 3 of the 11 starts he had in the last 2 months, he didn't make it out of the 5th three times.

This is the guy you think should have started our playoff game (not a game 163)?  Yeah, no.

If they were so fine in an evolving game why are they available?

That's what you get out of my comment? Oh, let's see. Why do people switch jobs? They get fired. Disagreements with the people who don't play, but run the team and are newly hired. The Manager is no longer with the team..... a good chance to rejoin a managerial team that has has success in the past...... for change sake.... because they wanted to do something different....... because the Cubs' job is available........... give me a break. I said wait and see. If they aren't fine, tell me why they aren't. Why are they available. Why will players be available as free agents? Lots of reasons. And many will still be quite fine in an evolving game. Why are Managers fired that win 90+ games a year? Because they are not the power. And the power gets to do what they want, until an owner fires them.

Priority number 1... fix Kyle Gibson.

 I think I heard Gibson say "Bite Me" all the way out here in LA.

The guy who was pitching the best since the trade deadline, who was keeping the ball on the ground and striking guys out as opposed to the aging vet who's wheels were clearly falling off, extremely HR prone against a HR happy team in a HR happy park and who was coasting along based on a reputation gained from success found only in the early months and which every statistic showed and later proved was unsustainable? Yeah, yeah.

In the last two months, Santana's ERA and FIP were better than Gibson's. They gave up the same amount of HR, though Gibson had 10 less innings.

In August, Gibson's HR/FB rate was 14.3%, Santana's was 8.7%

In September/October, Gibson's HR/FB rate was 18.5%, Santana's was 7.5%

Yeah, Santana's early start was unsustainable, everything pointed that out, but he was still better than Gibson in the last two months.

Alston wants to continue down that path for improvement. “First,” he told reporters,  “one of the biggest things I teach is commanding the zone with the fastball.”

 

Truth is, opponents had success against the staff’s fastballs. According to BaseballSavant.com, teams posted a .363 wOBA against heaters. That was the 8^th highest in MLB. (Oakland, Alston’s team, was worst, by the way.) But the question that I have is, was the Twins’ lack of success with the fastball more a product of poor command or lower velo? On one hand, they averaged 91.7 – one of the lowest in the game – but on the other hand, the Cubs had the lowest average fastball velocity and were one of the more successful teams when they used their fastball (and the Cubs threw their fastball more than any teams outside of the Brewers). What’s more is that some teams are going away from being fastball-first teams.

 

In the end, the position is more about relationship building and communication over ideology. People can identify flaws, it’s being able to work with the pitchers to correct them that is important. 

There certainly must be something more convincing that is seen in his (Alston's) results than this. Surely. I hope. Must be. Work with me baby... work with me.

 “Not one philosophy,” he said. “It is the ability to adjust to the actual pitcher and knowing what their strengths are.”
 

Management LOVES to hear stuff like this during the hiring process. They don't like it so much after one is hired, however. Hopefully he can quickly speak to how he is working with (and evaluating) every pitcher to improve, lest his tenure will be short. This advice goes for all of us.  

Keep in mind he was the bullpen coach for the A's, not the pitching coach.

Stop rubbing his history, or lack of it, in, please. I am talking myself into being hopeful!