Return Of The Swing?

For any player there is no guarantee that he can maintain a torrid pace set in the first month of the season -- particularly for a player that has sustained various leg injuries and is on the wrong side of 30. Plus, just this spring Mauer admitted that he had troubles even seeing the ball, a problem he hoped to combat by wearing sunglasses during day games. When it comes to brain injuries, there is no protocol for recovery. That said, there are some indicators that Mauer is capable of continuing at this rate.

Take a look at his stats between his first 23 games of last year versus this season:

At first blush, the raw totals from the first 23 games of Mauer’s 2015 and 2016 season do not look *that* much different. The higher slugging percentage this season is buttressed by the one home run he smacked back on April 7th in the opening series but outside of that, he has had the same number of extra-base hits. He also had collected more hits last year, and, hey look, more ribbies!

The bad news is that if Mauer follows last year’s blueprint, the remainder of the season will be very disappointing. After all, from May 2nd until the end of the season, his numbers plummeted dramatically: Over his final 135 games the concussion survivor hit just .258/.330/.337 with 98 strikeouts and 55 walks. What’s to say that 2016 Mauer won’t follow the same downward spiral?

The good news is that while the raw stats are comparable, the process has been substantially better in 2016. The most critical difference being the regained zone discipline that has escaped him in recent seasons. When comparing the two Aprils, Mauer has 8 additional walks and the 5 fewer strikeouts, both significant drivers behind why he has one of the best on-base percentages in baseball right now. At this point last year he expanded the strike zone at a very high rate (by his standards) and swung through plenty of pitches both outside and inside of the strike zone (again, by his standards).

Not only are these some of the best rates of his career, they are actually better than his pre-concussion marks. One possible explanation for this improvement has been the use of Nike’s discontinued SPARQ Vapor strobe sunglasses for training purposes. As the Pioneer Press’s Mike Berardino wrote recently, Mauer has incorporated the goggles into his regular tee work and front toss routine beginning at the Twins complex this spring.

As shown in the clip below, the goggles alternate between transparent and opaque set at various speeds, conditioning the user to focus on the target. According to Stephen Mitroff, a Duke University neuroscientist, studies suggest that users of the goggles have shown “improvements in anticipatory timing: being able to predict when a moving object is going to be at a certain spot.” That might apply to, say, a pitched baseball.

http://i.imgur.com/EOHcDJ6.gif

Could Mauer’s remarkable rebound be a product of working with training goggles? It’s possible. It is also possible that enough time has passed and he has simply healed enough from the concussion. Or a little of both. Either way, the end result is a substantial increase in the number of walks taken and a reduction in strikeouts.

How about the pitches that he puts into play? According to Fangraphs.com, Mauer’s hard hit ball percentage is now close to 40% after hovering at 30% the last two seasons (and compared to a 25% hard-hit rate in April 2015). Not only is he seeing the ball better but he is hammering it when he swings.

When the seasons started in 2015, the focus for Joe Mauer was pulling the ball. The Twins and hitting coach Tom Brunansky dedicated their time so that their new first baseman would yank pitches to the space in right field that defenses had vacated in recent years in response to Mauer’s inside-out swing.

““We’re basically retraining his body about how it’s supposed to pull the ball the right way,” Brunansky told the Pioneer Press’s Mike Berardino.

“Pulling the ball the right way” has been a catchphrase of Brunansky’s and a tenet in his overall hitting philosophy. While he stresses maintaining balanced plate coverage (such as shooting the pitch on the outer-third the other way), pulling the ball the right way means jumping on a pitch out front on the inner-third. When Max Kepler had his breakout season in 2015, he credited Brunansky and Chattanooga Lookouts hitting coach, Chad Allen, for getting him in position to pull the ball with more authority.

In spite of the fact that the practice of pulling the ball was against the grain for his swing, like the good Minnesotan that he is, Mauer set out to add that element to his repertoire. Following some initial fanfare in spring training including several home runs to right field, the Twins felt like he was on the cusp of a breakthrough. However, once the season started, the results changed. Through the season’s first two weeks in 2015 he pulled almost half of all the balls he put into play (46%) in a very un-Mauer-like fashion. In that time the results were fine...if by “fine” I mean a .282 average with little power to show for the effort. He would conclude the month with four doubles in five games and then proceed to nosedive.

It was a noble experiment, to be sure: Teams had adjusted to Mauer’s opposite field and grounder up-the-middle tendencies which left a vast swath of real estate near the right field foul pole unattended. In theory, if Mauer could turn on a few more pitches, he would have plenty of uncontested hits. It just didn’t work. The focus on pulling the ball and trying to drive may have led to more of those wild swings and pressing on pitches that the Mauer of old would have spit on.

This season, however, Mauer stuck to the program that made him one of the game’s best hitters -- going the other way with the ball. While teams took away the left field corner from him in recent seasons, Mauer’s hits the other way have been well-placed line drives that cozy into the area between the shifting infielders and outfielders.

Watching Joe Mauer regain the on-base presence and stinging the ball with gumption has been a treat. On the other hand, watching him constantly stranded on the bases has been a disappointment.

Mauer is holding up his end of the bargain by being a near omnipresent baserunner while the bats behind him in the order have failed to convert. Whether it is Miguel Sano contributing more as a cleanup hitter or Trevor Plouffe returning to provide professional at-bats behind Mauer, the Twins need someone else to match Mauer’s output. Failing to do so is leaving money on the table.