Willihammer

This is a TV promo, and this is your last chance to strap yourself in.
 
Because the next time your favorite team takes the field, the team's ace is going to be taking the mound. The guy on your team people from other states know.
 
The ace. The guy who can throw fireballs and baseballs that dart about like butterflies and baseballs that start at the batter's eye line and auger ten feet underground.
 
He's the guy who looks like his giant streetlight poster, and is actually taller than he appears on the Jumbotron.
 
Every damn time he takes the field he gets a win, a standing ovation, and his own montage of strikeouts on TV. He hauls his team to the playoffs.
 
Playoffs. He makes them exist.
 
How long till we have one on OUR side?

This kid just won the Gatorade Player of the Year
 
6 2 LHP that touches 94
 
He is 10-0 with a 0.20 ERA and 145 strikeouts in 68 1/3 innings this season. At the plate, Gore is hitting a team-best .482 with 17 extra-base hits and 27 RBI.
 
Who else has won the award?
 
7: RHP Rick Porcello (West Orange, N.J.)
2006: LHP/1B Clayton Kershaw (Dallas)
2005: SS/3B Justin Upton (Chesapeake, Va.)
2004: RHP/SS Mark Rogers (Topsham, Maine)
2003: OF Chris Lubanski (Collegeville, Pa.)
2002: RHP/SS Zack Greinke (Apopka, Fla.)
 
Remember the name Mackenzie Gore
 
Could go as high as 3, but most likely in top 10

I stumbled into a free ticket to the Red Sox game against the Pirates on Thursday. It was a makeup game and a guy seated near me also said he'd gotten his tickets free from someone. (He also insisted that Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City is new, so our conversation was not illuminating for me. Only USAFChief is entitled to consider Kauffman "new".)
 
I anticipated that attendance might be sparse - April games tend to be attended in the low 30,000s rather than the high 30,000s anyway, and a makeup game had to give many people problems. Here is a view toward the rightfield bleachers minutes before 2 pm game time:
 

 
But here are those bleachers later in the game, so I guess people did finally show up on this sunny but seasonable (50 degree) April afternoon:
 

 
My seats were not in the bleachers as I had been told, but rather the first base grandstand high in the lower deck, meaning it was shady, as you can tell, and therefore cold. Here's Tessie the Green Monster, said to be the little sister of Wally the Green Monster, posing with a young fan or three:
 

 
The game itself wasn't very dramatic until the 8th - a walk and a homer in the top of the first off of starter Eduardo Rodriguez was a downer...

 
... while Pirates starter Chad Kuhl pitched mostly effectively:
 

 
The Red Sox' first run in the second was fairly routine, arising from a pair of clean doubles leading to no chance for defensive prowess - if the triple is said to be the most exciting play in baseball, doubles can be among the least interesting ways to score a run. The Pirates got an insurance run in the sixth, again started by a double but this time with a less routine end-result due to a throwing error by the catcher to third base on an ensuing strikeout-and-steal.
 
Still, it was a quiet game, one that had me wondering if I would stick it out for all 9 innings. However, for the 8th inning I finally moved over to the RF seats which were starting to empty again, to get some sun, and that coincided with Sweet Caroline and then the rally against the Pirates bullpen that erased the 3-1 deficit. I am not a big fan of Hanley Ramirez
 

 
but I have to admit the guy is money at the plate and the bases were loaded for him when he (notice a trend?) doubled. (Not on the above pitch. ) This cleared the bases, but not in the way the fans hoped, as the runner from first, Mookie Betts, almost made it home safely but was called out via replay. So the score was only tied. But that merely meant that, after an instant walk to Mitch Moreland to try to set up a double play, Bogaerts could single home Ramirez (who had advanced on the earlier throw) for the eventual game-winner. Closer Craig Kimbrel allowed a leadoff single, but a flyout, caught-stealing, and groundout snuffed that small threat, and the Fenway Faithful went home happy.
 
So, this was a game with a very slow leadup, which my non-American or non-baseball friends probably would not appreciate, to a brief but highly satisfying resolution, to which I'm sure those same friends would say "that's it???" I'm glad I got to go.

Last June, Phil Hughes took a liner off the knee.
 
Because we have this kind of information now, MLB.com mentioned that the liner had left J.T. Realmuto's bat at 106 miles per hour. That's a little more than 155 feet per second, and Hughes' follow-through put him maybe 56 or 57 feet from where Realmuto made contact. In other words, Hughes had approximately one-third of a second to protect himself. The average blink of an eye takes 100 to 400 milliseconds. In this case, the cliche is correct: Hughes literally had the blink of an eye to react.
 
At the moment of contact, Hughes was balanced on his left foot, following through, with his glove tucked behind himself as part of his natural rotation. All he could manage, in that one-third of a second, was try to get his right leg in front of his left, a Sophie's Choice of a defensive mechanism made with an athlete's instinct to get something - anything - with a little more padding in front of the ball. As fast as his reaction was, it wasn't enough; the liner caught him on the inside of his left kneecap, knocking him to the ground in agony.
 
Testing revealed that the line drive had broken Hughes' femur, ruling him out for two months. Less than three weeks later, though, Hughes was discovered to have thoracic outlet syndrome, requiring surgery and ending his season; it's the rare upper-body condition, rather than the Realmuto liner, that will be remembered for cutting short Hughes' 2016 season.
 
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Phillip Hughes - yes, sometimes called Phil - had the same Australian verve that had been the making of so many other cricketers that had scaled the Down Under heights before him. He'd grown up in the country, learning to slash everything to his off side (in baseball terms: the opposite field) because he batted left-handed and, well, the house was on that side of the field. The kids that break the windows in the house don't get to bat very much, and Hughes very much wanted to bat.
 
By the time he'd broken into the New South Wales first team, he could hop away from any bowling to give himself room to fend it off, tennis backhand-style, away to the off side. It never won him prizes for technique, nor style, but it saw him break into Test cricket by the time he was 20 years old. That year, he became the youngest man to score two centuries in the same match, successfully thwarting South Africa's fast bowlers on the way to 115 and 160 in Durban. One Australian magazine put him on the cover under the headline "Little Don," referring to Don Bradman, the greatest batsman of all time.
 
The longer he played on, though, opposition teams began to work him out. The preferred strategy, for the opposition, was to simply bowl directly at him - to make him pull the ball, in other words. In cricket, this is a legitimate technique. Bowl directly at the batsmen's legs, and you cramp his style; you make him either turn the ball behind himself, or risk getting hit on the leg pads and potentially be called out by the umpire. For someone like Hughes, consistently backing up to give himself the room to whack the ball away from himself, this was bad enough.
 
Some bowlers, though, prefer to cut out the constant search for the batsman's legs, and instead bowl a "bouncer" - a euphemistic term for the ball that whizzes directly at the chest, or head. The technique is still the same, as a batsman; there's no place to put the ball but behind yourself. From the bowler's point of view, the bouncer has the side benefit of being completely terrifying. Imagine baseball, if throwing at the batter's head was considered not only acceptable but a legitimate strategy - that, rather than charging the mound throwing haymakers, the accepted response was to dust yourself off, even if you've just taken a ball off your collarbone at 90 mph.
 
Hughes was in and out of Australia's Test team for the next few years. For every big innings, he had another two or three ugly matches, and in November 2014 he was just fighting to get another chance. His last Test had come in July 2013, against England. Now playing for South Australia, he was rounding into form against his former team, New South Wales.
 
He'd scored 63 runs in almost three and a half hours of batting, on his way to another century - potentially the one that'd get him the call-up to the Australia squad again. NSW had peppered him, as teams always did, with bouncers. Sean Abbott was bowling, following the plan. His fourth ball of the over jumped up, a little more than Hughes was expecting, and caught the young batsman in the side of the neck.
 
Hughes wobbled, for one second, then collapsed to the ground.
 
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I think a lot about the 2014 World Cup final, Germany versus Argentina, not for Mario Gotze's extra-time winner, but for a moment in the first half. German midfielder Christoph Kramer was involved in a collision with an Argentina defender that momentarily knocked Kramer senseless. Despite the obvious head injury, Kramer played for 14 more minutes before being substituted; later, referee Nicola Rizzoli said that Kramer had come up to him and asked repeatedly, "Ref, is this the final?"
 
In that moment of the collision, my wife - who is not a sports fan, but was being forced to watch the game by her ridiculous husband - had reacted almost excitedly, along the lines of WHOA LOOK AT THAT. Being Brain Injury Woke like so many "good" sports fans, I chastised her for her apparent celebration. Her response has had me thinking for the last three years.
 
"Don't get mad at me," she said. "You're the one that watches this stuff, not me."
 
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Here is what I am responsible for. I watch football non-stop in the fall, CTE be damned. I've never turned the channel during a hockey fight, even though bare-knuckle brawling is abhorrent on its own. I watch rugby despite the occasional skull fractures; I follow soccer closely despite the mounting evidence that heading the ball is leading to long-term brain injury for the participants. This is to say nothing of the countless non-brain injuries caused by these sports and all the others; in terms of human damage, I am only slightly above the ancient scoreboard-watchers who checked to see whether the Romans or the Lions were ahead.
 
Here is how I make myself feel better:
I do not watch mixed martial arts.
I refer to concussions as "brain injuries."
I make fun of people who say that Joe Mauer needs to "toughen up."

This is all I can say to reassure myself: If I stop watching, it won't make a bit of difference. I am a free rider. This isn't my fault, right? It's all of our fault, right? I'm only a very small part of this, right? People would make their choice to play these games whether or not I wear a jersey and plan my day around the games, right?
 
Please say yes.
 
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If you go down the list of popular sports, baseball is among the most blameless. Compared to football or hockey or rugby or any other contact-mandatory sport, baseball practically promotes old age. Career-ending injuries in baseball usually involve arm ligaments. Broken bones are rare. There is enough finesse and fine motor control involved in the game that the dark side of other sports- horse tranquilizers at halftime to kill the pain, and that sort of thing - are blessedly absent.
 
And yet, Corey Koskie. Look at Joe Mauer's stats pre-concussion and post-concussion, and try to tell me that a concussion won't be the thing that keeps Minnesota's greatest hitter out of the Hall of Fame. Pretending that baseball doesn't have its own dark side - of drugs, and steroids, and all of the things that we don't talk about because the grass is green and the beer is cold and baseball is fun to play - is to ignore reality.
 
To say nothing of Phil Hughes, or Brandon McCarthy, or of every single player at every level of baseball that stands in a batter's box or on a pitcher's mound, as the fastballs get faster and the line drives come back harder.
 
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We remember Ray Chapman, the answer to the macabre trivia question "Who is the only man to die as the result of an injury received during an MLB game?" Batting at twilight, against submariner Carl Mays, Chapman simply didn't see the dirty, scuffed-up ball that hit him; Babe Ruth, playing right field, said the crack of ball against skull was audible even that far away. The popular shortstop collapsed, blood streaming from his ear, and had to be carried off the field; he died later that night. His wife gave birth to their first daughter six months later.
 
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Following Phillip Hughes's death, there were some in cricket that called for the "bouncer" to be banned entirely. There have been rules in place since the 1930s, limiting the number of fielders that can stand behind the batsman - thus reducing the benefit of bowling at the batsman's body. After the West Indies and Australian teams of the 1970s and 1980s used repeated bouncers to scare the daylights out of opposing batsmen, the International Cricket Council limited them to two per over, or two out of every six deliveries.
This limited the potential carnage, but it didn't end it. Some of the best batsmen in history - Brian Lara, Justin Langer, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Ricky Ponting, and on and on - have been bloodied, or knocked unconscious and hospitalized, by bouncers that they simply could not avoid. Skill has nothing to do with it; to bat is to accept the risk of the next ball being the one that kills you.
 
The bouncer hasn't been banned, of course. Australia's plan of attack against India, in the Test series that just concluded, included bowling bouncer after bouncer at the Indian batsmen, trying to put them off their games.
 
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It's Opening Day for the Twins, and I'm excited about the season, of course I am. Not about the Twins' chances, necessarily, but about the return of baseball - nightly games, and listening on the radio while I drive somewhere, and reading the game score in the paper, and catching a couple of innings on TV before going to bed.
 
My attention helps sell advertising; that advertising funds baseball; players put themselves at physical risk as a result. This is as true in baseball as it is in any other sport.
 
Phil Hughes is back in the Twins' starting rotation.
 
I would like to ignore all of this.

Thursday morning in Fort Myers, I resolved to take some pictures for once. Arrival was a little after 9, in time again for calisthenics (shown, left). Either that, or the prospects were being put to work erecting a new fence.
 
Fellow TD moderator USAFChief arrived shortly after this, and we shared a great day soaking up all that Twins spring training offers at the back fields.
 
After the players were warmed up, instruction began. Sometimes they do a lot of standing and listening at spring training, in this case to coach Ivan Arteaga (only his white-clad shoulder is visible in this shot):
 

 
We moved to the fields in the far back. Fielding practice ...
 

 
... was followed by every position player's favorite activity, batting practice. This day, it was decided to divide the hitters into two teams for a bit of artificial competition. The players opted for Americanos ...
 

 
versus Latinos:
 

 
The hitters judged for each other, regarding "outs" and "hits", and there was more good-natured joshing than I recall at most Twins on-field activities. Good idea, it turns out. (I failed to notice which team won, sorry.)
 
Drills ended early because the two minor league games were scheduled for 11:00. Chief and I visited the team shop, both downstairs and up, and while inside Hammond we took a look at the upstairs environment. An interestingly different view of activities on the major league batting practice field was available from this vantage point:
 

 
We noticed that the minor league games had started, so we sauntered hustled over to the back fields again. When we got to the AA game, guess Hu had dropped in to pay a visit?
 

 
Yep, Chih-Wei Hu, traded in 2015 for ..., well, it will be less contentious and painful if I don't go into that again, here. Hu turned out not to get a very friendly welcome from Twins bats, as you will infer from how he is backing up home in the above photo. However, later in the game he did saw off the bat of Twins prospect Cristian Castro (who reached base anyway on the play):
 

 
I like this shot of Tom Belza taking a swing. Sometimes it must seem to the prospects that the major league field is only one long home run away.
 

 
Over on the AAA field, you Gotta love this Rays prospect, whose first name is Cade by the way:
 

 
And here, Daniel Palka demonstrates that he's not some punch-and-judy hitter, with that high kick. Reminds me of the old saying: "When you're going well, it's a timing mechanism. When you're in a slump, it's a hitch in your swing."
 

 
Here, Karim Kevin Garcia [thank you Seth] goes out to talk with Mason Melotakis, and Melo apparently gives HIM the encouragement.
 

 
And here, Reynaldo Rodriguez is checked at home plate by a trainer after taking a very painful shot to the lower leg on a foul ball. He did not look very steady as he was helped off the field, either. Owie.
 

Today the big league club was on the road, and I did not follow them, returning to my haunts at CenturyLink Sports Complex.
 
It was a bit of an abbreviated day on the back fields for me, as I didn't arrive until 11, and the players had already departed for their lunchtime break because the games were slated for noon. And then that noon start meant the game was over well before 3:00. Fellow TD moderator ChiTownTwinsFan joined me to watch the Cedar Rapids single-A squad (or at least the momentary roster bearing that designation - with Gentleman Tommy Watkins guiding them) play their counterparts from the Baltimore Orioles farm system. There was a high-A Fort Myers squad playing their game 30 or 40 yards to the west, but I never got around to even taking a look-see.
 
I failed to do my homework, and discovered as I strolled in that Stephen Gonsalves (no single-A player now, of course) was warming up and slated to start, making this to my knowledge his first "official" action since being sidelined with a bum shoulder March 8. I heard scuttlebutt as the game started that he would pitch only one inning, and that's exactly what played out. He struck out the first two batters, gave up a sharp double to right field, then got another strikeout for the third out. Some people call that striking out the side; I don't, sorry. But it was a satisfactory inning, I'm sure, and if he doesn't report pain then it will have been a very good start indeed.
 
Here, take a look at this photo: does anyone know what this grip is, with Stephen's pinky flared up like he's drinking tea with the Queen? Looks kind of like a circle change or a palm ball, but is the pinky important to that or not? It wasn't evident to me in real-time, but I did notice when I looked through the photos after dropping the film off at Walgreens and picking up the prints.*
 

 

 
The game moved fast, not solely because of the lack of TV advertising, but because it was a low-scoring affair until the very end. The Twins broke through in the bottom of the first inning with a run, and it stayed 1-0 until they tacked on an insurance run in the 8th. Unfortunately, they should have bought more insurance: 22-year old relief prospect Logan Lombana coughed up three or four runs in the top of the ninth, after beginning with two quiet putouts.
 
Three or four, you say? Yeah. A few years ago, I learned a new notation, when keeping a scoresheet of a game: "WW". Ever heard of that one? Have I mentioned it before? It stands for: Wasn't Watching. Well, there were several of those in my scoresheet today. I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to keep the lineups straight, which meant that several times I looked at the field and asked "how'd he get on base?" and not every time did someone within earshot admit to knowing. I now know that in a Spring game, you can't even assume there will be 9-man batting orders. Unless I suddenly forgot how to count, I believe both teams cycled through 10 batters in this game. Even "better" for record-keeping, in that climactic ninth inning, I swear Baltimore skipped a batter. This way lies Madness! If I simply overlooked him, then he was part of the two-out parade on the bases and it's four runs; otherwise, three. We lost either 4-2 or 3-2, so either way no extra innings needed to be played (or, more probably, dispensed with because, you know, "Spring Training").
 
Yesterday I just jotted down impressions of the game I watched. I'm not sure my scoresheet today gives me any better picture of this one.
 
OK, here is something I am sure about: Ben Rortvedt is the real deal on defense. He gunned down two would-be base stealers. I'm too lazy a photographer to wait long enough to capture a shot of that, but here he is in typical posture to receive a strike - looks like good form, also making life easy for Blue behind him, to this untrained observer.
 

 
Contrast that with this somewhat less graceful and confident stance by Orioles counterpart Ronald Soto (sorry to pick on you, Ron, especially because it's not quite an apples-to-apples comparison):
 

 
On top of that, I would also venture to say Ben has the "good face" that old-school scouting mavens such as Terry Ryan prize:
 

 
As for other impressions of our young Twins: outfielders Aaron Whitefield and Casey Scoggins both showed good speed on the bases and in the field. I'm sorry to report that T.J. White bollixed a couple of plays at third base, although he did do well going back on a popup (and he did drive in that run in the first inning). On the pitching side of the ledger, Eduardo del Rosario (not to be mistaken for a similarly-named outfielder in the Twins' employ) pitched innings 2 through 6 and gave up a few baserunners but nothing too serious, as the shutout continued. Domenick Carlini wriggled out of trouble after allowing two baserunners to start the seventh, and Alex Robinson pitched a clean eighth. As mentioned, Lombana pitched an untidy ninth, unable to secure that final out quickly and allowing five (or six?) baserunners before he could finally shut the door. One overall impression was that Gentleman Tommy in the dugout had all the pitchers focusing on holding every second-base runner (which involves the catcher, of course).
 
As the game drew to a close, a few fans in the small grandstand were discussing housing arrangements for the Cedar Rapids players this summer. A relative of Caleb Hamilton, who plays infield, was collecting some phone numbers from CR folks in attendance who are involved in the hosting program. Very cool networking, although it's unfortunate if the players and families feel in the dark about what to expect, since the team goes through the same process every year and the players are the ones who are new at it.
 
As usual, the area cleared quickly once the game was over, with the fans shuffling to their cars and the visiting players walking briskly to their buses. The Twins players headed over to their training complex building. And me, I headed to Rib City nearby, for a belated lunch.
 
* Just kidding - I embraced the digital revolution in photography a few weeks or months ago, I forget exactly when.

On Wednesday, November 30, 2016 the Twins announced the signing of free agent catcher Jason Castro to a 3-year, $24.5MM contract. It was a move that was widely attributed to the members of the Twins’ new front office comfort with advanced analytics. Jason Castro is widely regarded as very good defensive catcher due in large part to his ability to frame pitches and steal strikes for his pitchers. In 2016 Castro ranked third in all of baseball in Baseball Prospectus’ Framing Runs statistic, with +16.3. Kurt Suzuki, the Twins primary catcher in 2016, ranked 92nd at -6.8. Suzuki’s main backup, Juan Centeno, ranked 97th with -9.7.
 
Castro is a roughly average offensive catcher. He put together a 88 wRC+ in 2016, which ranked 17th among catchers with at least 250 PAs, via Fangraphs. For reference, the league average wRC+ for catchers in 2016 was 87. But, he got a $24.5MM contract primarily because of his framing and the Twins are expecting him to make an impact on their pitching staff.
 
So where might the Twins pitchers benefit from better framing? Let’s look at the Twins pitchers (that are still with the organization in 2017) that threw at least 50 innings in 2016, sorted by innings pitched:
 


 
Using this list of pitchers, we can utilize Fangraphs' excellent heatmaps tool to explore each pitcher’s distribution of pitches around the strike zone. For example, here is Kyle Gibson’s 2016 pitch% heatmap, which displays the percentage of pitches thrown to each particular segment in and around the strike zone (shown from the pitcher’s perspective). The rulebook defined strike zone is outlined in black.
 


 
There are not many surprises here, as we can see Gibson most often pitches down in the zone, and to his arm side. This is likely driven in large part to the high number of 2-seam sinking fastballs he throws (27.2% of total pitches in 2016, per PITCHf/x data available on Fangraphs).
 
What this data also lets us do, is explore each pitcher’s propensity for pitching to the edges of the strike zone. Let’s assume much of the benefit of pitch framing occurs at the edges of the strike zone, where pitches are less definitively a ball or a strike to the eyes of the umpire. By focusing on the edges of the zone we can identify which Twins pitchers might benefit most from better framing.
 
For this analysis, I focused explicitly on the strike zone segments just inside and just outside the rulebook strike zone, which are the areas between the gold lines in the graphic below:
 


 
Using the pitch data in these sections, I calculated a metric for each Twins pitcher labeled "Total Edge%". These data points are summarized in the table below and show us the percentage of pitches thrown on the edge, or just off the edge of the strike zone, by each Twins pitcher in 2016:
 


 
What we can see is the Twins starting pitchers seemed to pitch toward the edges of the strike zone more than the league average and more than their reliever teammates in 2016, with the exception of Brandon Kintzler. Ervin Santana is approximately at league average, which was 44.7%. Kyle Gibson is significantly above, at almost 49%. Jose Berrios, Phil Hughes, and Hector Santiago are all up around 47%. So, as a starting point, we can assert that Gibson, Berrios, Hughes, and Santiago are the primary candidates to benefit from better framing.
 
But how do they fare in getting called strikes around the edges of the zone?
 
Using the same heatmaps tool, we are also able to visualize each pitcher’s called strike percentage (cStrike%), in each segment of the strike zone. Here is Gibson’s for 2016:
 


 
As we would expect, pitches located in the middle of the zone are nearly always called a strike, evidenced by the bright red boxes and rates at or near 100%. As before, our interest is just on and just off the edge of the strike zone, which I again outline in gold. Here, we see more variation, with the called strike percentage ranging from as high as 88% in the zone to Gibson’s arm side, to as low as 27% inside the zone up and to his glove side. We also see, pitches just off the strike zone are called strikes at a much lower percentage than pitches just in the zone, as you would expect. But, we need a reference point. How do the Twins compare against the rest of baseball?
 
Using this data, I calculated two additional metrics, labelled as "In-Zone Edge cStrike%" and "Out-Zone Edge cStrike%", which delineate the called strike percentage on the edge and in the zone, and on the edge and out of the zone. Focusing on these strike zone segments, I calculated the called strike percentage for each Twins pitcher. Also included are the MLB averages for each metric.
 


 
What we see above, is that 6 of the 10 Twins pitchers to throw 50 innings last season had a lower than league average called strike rate on pitches on the edge and inside the legal strike zone. Ryan Pressly and Jose Berrios appear to be the most impacted, with called strike rates significantly less than the league average of 64.9%, at 52.8% and 57.5% respectively.
 
But what about just off the edge?
 


 
When we focus on the segments just off the strike zone we see this same trend play out, but even more significantly. The visual above shows that 8 of the 10 Twins hurlers had lower than league average called strike rates on pitches just off the strike zone. This indicates that they were not getting many strikes stolen in their favor. In most cases for the Twins, the difference from league average is quite significant. Berrios, Michael Tonkin, Pressly, Taylor Rogers, and Santiago each have rates right around half the league average of 10.4%. The net result, when we add up the In-Zone and Out-Zone Edge cStrike% for Total Edge cStrike%, is that 7 of the 10 Twins pitchers studied had called strikes rates around the edges of the strike zone that were decidedly less than league average.
 
Now, this probably isn’t all that surprising intuitively. We know the Twins as a whole did not pitch well last year (29th in ERA, 27th in FIP, per Fangraphs), and we know the Twins catchers did not rate well as pitch framers. Kurt Suzuki and Juan Centeno combined to catch nearly 86% of the Twins defensive innings last season. But for as bad as the team pitched, it is also clear the pitchers were not getting much help from their catchers.
 
But how many pitches are we talking about here? If we assume a league average called strike rate on the edges of the strike zone (which was 36.1% in 2016) for the Twins, we can estimate an additional number of pitches that would be called strikes. This is what we find:
 


 
By this analysis, it seems that Jose Berrios, Ryan Pressly, and Ervin Santana would benefit the most from better pitch framing, with each gaining roughly 20 additional called strikes over the course of the season.
 
But how much does a pitch being called a ball, instead of a strike, actually matter?
 
Let’s look at the major league batting average by count in a plate appearance. The data in the table below is from a 2014 Grantland article written by Joe Lemire, and calculates the batting average for plate appearances ending on specific counts. For example, the batting average on plate appearances ending on the 0-1 pitch is .321. The data fluctuates slightly year to year, but in any given season, you’ll find a table that generally looks like this:
 


 
By this measure, the value of a strike, depending on the count is quite significant. In a 1-1 count, for example, if the next pitch is called a strike, making the count 1-2, the batter’s expected batting average drops from .319 to .164. Similarly, if the pitch is a ball, making the count 2-1, the batter’s expected average increases to .327. That’s a .163 swing in expected batting average.
 
Others have approached this differently by trying to calculate the expected outcomes by the result of the at bat that reaches each count. So, for example, what is the expected outcome for all plate appearances that reached an 0-1 count, regardless of whether it was the 0-1 pitch that the outcome of the plate appearance was created? Different approaches aside, we find a similar result according to a revisit of the idea by Matt Hartzell published on RO Baseball in 2016:
 


 
 


 
While the differences here are not quite as steep as before, we still see the swings matter. Batting average after a 1-2 count is .178, where after a 2-1 count it is .247. That’s still a .069 swing in batting average. We also have added on-base percentage, and see the trend holds. OBP after a 2-1 count in 2016 was .383, versus just .229 after a 1-2 count.
 
So, all of this helps us show the Twins have a pitch framing problem and pitch framing matters because getting more pitches called strikes leads to less runners on base.
 
But can Jason Castro fix it?
 
To try to find out, let’s look at the Houston Astros, Castro’s former employer. Using the same methodology as with the Twins pitchers, I again calculated the cStrike% on the edges of the strike zone for the all Astros pitchers that threw more than 50 IP in 2016. What we find is pretty telling:
 


 
Of the 12 Astros to throw more than 50 IP, only one, Michael Feliz, had a lower than league average called strike rate around the edge of the strike zone. But even he was roughly league average (36.06% compared to league average of 36.11%). The rest of the pitchers studied were above league average, and in most cases, quite comfortably so. Six of them are clustered close together right around 41.0%.
 
Now, to be fair, not all of this is directly attributable to Castro. These are different, and arguably, better pitchers. And Castro didn’t catch every pitch thrown (he caught 61.9% of the Astros defensive innings in 2016). But the difference is stark and by this rough measure, it seems Jason Castro will make a positive impact for the Twins pitchers.
 
To the Twins credit, they recognized they had a weakness, and they used the free agent market to acquire a player they hope can help address it.

1. Pitch Clock
I used to be anti-pitch clock, like a lot of people. "Baseball doesn't have a clock!" I exclaimed, stupidly forgetting the day that I saw Freddy Garcia average (estimating here) fourteen hours between pitches. By the end of the third inning of the first pitch-clocked game I saw, I was a convert, and you will be too.
 
It moves the game along. I now support the shortest pitch clock possible, as well as a between-innings clock, and also support giving the umpire a BB gun to shoot people who don't comply.
 
2. Eliminating Mound Visits
Baseball is the only sport that allows coaches, managers, and other players to call unlimited timeouts. This is because every other sport realized that, given this unchecked power, everyone would routinely abuse it. Somehow, baseball sat through Joe Torre's managerial career without once thinking, "You know, we're kind of tired of watching him trudge out to the mound at 0.03 mph, twelve times a game."
 
Give each team three timeouts, or one, or whatever, but otherwise let the pitch clock rules stand.
 
3. Limiting Pitching Changes
There are about eighteen different ways of doing this. Among them:
Require pitchers to face a certain number of batters
Allow teams to make only a certain number of mid-inning pitching changes per game
Require that pitching changes take place during a timeout (see item #2)
Limit or eliminate the warmup throws that the reliever gets when he reaches the mound.
Require bullpen cars that travel at least 45 mph
Put Tony La Russa in prison

Whatever it takes. Again, no other sport takes five minutes to make a substitution. Let's get it together, baseball.
 
4. Ten seconds to call for replays, no managers involved
I mean, nothing beats watching a manager stand on the second step of the dugout, staring at the guy who's on the phone with the upstairs replay coordinator, who is watching TV to decide whether or not a challenge is a good thing, right?
 
This was never the point of replay; the point was to eliminate the truly awful decision, the one where you know immediately that the umpire (usually Phil Cuzzi) is a moron. We don't need managers and video coordinators involved in that.
 
Plus: watching players make challenges is hilarious because they're always wrong. Every team will have at least two players that cannot believe that they are ever out, and will challenge every call and waste their team's replay challenges, and we will all get to laugh at them.
 
5. Expand the Strike Zone
I'm a little tired of the fooling with a strike zone; I legitimately cannot tell you what the rule actually is, these days. The high strike / low strike / whatever probably won't change the game that much; it'll just change the pitcher's aiming point. That said, I do think that anything that promotes swinging the bat is probably a decent thing.
 
6. Bunt Foul, You're Out
Here's a solution: don't bunt.
 
7. Limit Pickoff Throws
I don't think this is a terrible idea, but it seems like it's pretty far down the list of the things that are slowing down games.
 
4,893. Automatic Intentional Walks
I mean, it's fine? We've saved ourselves six seconds a week? That's great?
 
63,852: Seven-inning Games
Yes, after 120 years, let's change the length of the game. That's a great idea.
 
1,890,293,298: Ties
I mean, I guess we could shorten the games by introducing ties. You finish the ninth inning tied, the hell with it, we'll try again tomorrow. This is a terrible idea, but at least we're not deliberately altering how the game is played, we're just introducing an outcome to the game that hasn't previously been used unless it's spring training or Bud Selig is involved in the decision-making.
 
1,890,293,299: Everyone Starts With A 1-1 Count
1,890,293,300: Starting the 10th Inning With A Runner On Second
Now you're just being stupid.

According to sources, Twins general manager Terry Ryan is getting more and more tired of having to dress up as former Indians executive Derek Falvey every morning at spring training, and is considering other options. Ryan, 63, hatched the deception last year as the Twins slid to the worst season in franchise history, but reportedly is tired of the extra work that the disguise involves.
 
Friends say that Ryan now grouses throughout his daily two-hour makeup session, which transforms him into a reasonable facsimile of Falvey, who until recently served as the general manager in Cleveland, where his partnership with manager Terry Francona helped return the woebegone franchise to the World Series in 2016. Ryan is also increasingly worried about the potential legal ramifications of kidnapping Falvey, former Rangers executive Thad Levine, and Minnesota director of baseball research Jack Goin, locking the three in a basement, and hiring actors to portray the latter two.
 
"Terry just wonders if he's doing the right thing here, what with the three counts of felony kidnapping he'll no doubt face," said a source. "Plus, the disguise is really starting to irritate his skin, especially the hairpiece."
 
Sources say that Twins president Dave St. Peter okayed the scheme midway through the 2016 season, allowing Ryan and company to keep control of the Twins' dealings for future seasons, while portraying a changing front office to disgruntled fans. St. Peter and others have been concerned about Ryan's offseason dealings, which were so Ryan-like as to raise questions from a fanbase that has long been used to the GM's over-cautious, cheap strategies.
 
Insiders say that Ryan is considering hiring a third actor to portray Falvey, while officially returning to the team as a "special advisor," thus removing the need for the morning disguise routine. Ryan has also toyed with the idea of "outing" himself by awarding a roster spot to a terrible veteran pitcher at the expense of a prospect, but - after signing Hector Santiago, Matt Belisle, and Ryan Vogelsong - is unsure how much more he could do.
 
"He's just getting tired," said the source. "If he signs Jason Bartlett again, then you'll know - he wants people to find him out. Until then, he'll have to keep going with the ruse."

It's no secret that the biggest position of need for the Twins is the pitching staff. Sadly, this is a very weak free agent pitching class, and with arms like Santana, Hughes and Gibson still around and reports out that the Twins won't be adding payroll this offseason there doesn't look to be much in the way of room for additions anyway. Looks to be a bleak 2017 led by another dismal performance by the pitching staff. Or is it? What if the first step on the journey to fixing the pitching is a step backwards, as in behind the plate?
 
Let's start by looking at what Twins catchers from 2015 have done in their careers:
 
http://i.imgur.com/emwUkcB.png
 
It's pretty clear that Twins catchers have done their pitchers no favors. Both Centeno and Suzuki continued their career trends of being sub par, if not awful pitch framers. It might seem like a trait that would have minimal impact, but some quick research into the effectiveness of hitters based on count quickly shows the drastic effect stealing a strike or giving one away can have.
 
http://i.imgur.com/oEkxOXv.png
 
There's a lot of numbers there, but take particular note of the BA and SLG as the count progresses and you can see the value framing can bring. For instance, After a 1-0 count, hitters hit .271/.382/.457 last year, while after an 0-1 count, hitters hit .223/.266/.352. That's roughly a 20% increase in production based on whether the first pitch gets called a ball or a strike. That's where the value of pitch framing comes from. Putting your pitchers in more favorable counts by stealing strikes and not hurting them by giving them away. When you figure that Suzuki and Centeno were two of the worst pitch framers in the majors this year, and certainly haven't been good throughout their careers, you start to wonder just how much of an effect this may have had on the Twins results.
 
 
The Twins got their offseason started by signing catcher Jason Castro. Castro's 3yr/$24mil contract is directly tied to his ability as a pitch framer.
 
http://i.imgur.com/gNEYE4A.png
 
Over the past three seasons, Baseball Prospectus has rated him as a plus pitch framer. Since 2014, he's been one of the best framers in the league, and when you take the abysmal framing the Twins were getting from Suzuki/Centeno and bring in a genuine plus behind the plate, the potential for some significant improvements without even touching the pitching staff suddenly becomes plausible.
 
The Catch:
 
Castro's problem though is pretty offensive splits. Against RHP, Castro hits a respectable .247/.328/.424. But against LHP, that plummets to a .190/.249/.287. So any value Castro brings defensively will be largely offset when the opposing pitcher is a southpaw. So ideally, you'd want to platoon Castro with a catcher who can hit LHP, and also brings good defensive value.
 
 
***DISCLAIMER***
 
I'm about to say something that may have you questioning my qualifications to write even a personal blog comment on this, so for the sake of objectivity, I'm going to remove names.
 
***DISCLAIMER***
 
Player A actually fits the mold quite well. As the graph below shows, Player A has graded out as a superb pitch framer in the minors, and in limited time in the majors, has been a plus framer.
 
http://i.imgur.com/rfrSKie.png
 
He has hit LHP to the tune of .253/.301/.390. Nothing to write home about, but for the lesser half of a L/R catching platoon, certainly serviceable. So who is this masked man? John Ryan Murphy. I know, I know, I know. 2015 was awful and just made you question how he ever made it to the major leagues. But looking past a small sample, we see the yin to Castro's yang. The right handed bat that can hold his own against LHP and not cost your pitcher strikes.
 
Can it be enough to make a meaningful difference? That's what we'll see. The Twins rotation had the worst ERA in the AL by over half a run. The rotation won't be fixed in one move. Jason Castro is not a silver bullet. But this signing embodies a departure from a way of thinking that was often times behind the times.

The hot stove season is just around the corner, and the GM Meetings have kicked off down in Arizona. As the offseason rolls on, we'll quickly get closer and closer to free agent signings taking place at a rapid pace. I don't believe there's too many names the Twins should be in on (see here), but Jason Castro is one I really like.
 
Now I can understand why a catcher with a less than exciting hit tool might have Minnesota Twins fans down, but there's plenty more to the puzzle here. It's true that Castro owns just a .660 OPS since 2014, and that he's averaged just 12 homers per year in that span. Since 2014 however, Kurt Suzuki has just a .680 OPS and has hit a total of 16 homers. Comparing the offensive production is really splitting hairs though, the play here is on the defensive side of the field.
 
When looking at both Suzuki and Castro, you couldn't possibly find two more polar opposites. Suzuki has averaged throwing out just 19.6% of would be base stealers. Over the past three years, the league average in that statistic is 29.3%. On the flip side, Castro has caught 27.3% of would be base stealers in that same span. It's not just the arm that separates Castro though. Actually, it's the glove the really puts weight behind what the Twins are looking to do here.
 
Per StatCorner, Jason Castro was the 5th best catcher in all of baseball in 2016 when it came to generating extra strikes for his pitchers. Conversely, only 19 catchers were worse than Suzuki, and the second worst catcher in all of baseball when it came to pitch framing, was his backup Juan Centeno.
 
When behind the plate for the Astros, Jason Castro grabbed strikes outside of the zone 8.3% of the time, while allowing pitches in the zone to be called balls just 11.8% of the time (6th best among qualified catchers). Suzuki generated strikes out of the zone just 7.1% of the time while allowing should be strikes to be called balls 14.6% of the time. Understandably so, Centeno was even worse at 4.1% and 17.0% respectively.
 
It was apparent at multiple points during the 2016 Major League Baseball season that Juan Centeno had no business being behind the plate in a major league game. While Kurt Suzuki was once a respectable veteran, his presence alone is now his value to the roster as his on field performance has deteriorated to below replacement levels.
 
So, Jason Castro is a defensive stalwart, why do the Twins want to bring him in? The long and short of it is that Minnesota needs to fix its pitching problem, and focusing on the mound is expensive.
 
Right now, the Twins have a handful of arms that can at least be counted on to start games in 2017. There's at least eight realistic starting options at Paul Molitor's disposal, and they all provide a different level of projected output. Getting more out of them, prior to moving on or looking elsewhere, can realistically be accomplished by stacking the deck in their favor. A catcher that will steal them strikes, as well as ensure they are properly called, all while controlling the running game, is something the Twins haven't had since Joe Mauer was behind the dish.
 
The marriage between the Twins and Castro seems to make a lot of sense at least from the Minnesota lens. With just John Ryan Murphy and Mitch Garver as big league options, a true starter is again a need. I'd prefer to see Garver get a shot to prove himself in a backup capacity over Murphy after how each of their 2016 seasons went, but neither are capable of being the guy out of the gate. Castro is just 29 years old, and would be able to shore up the position nicely on a three year deal.
 
At this point, talks seem preliminary, and Castro will likely have multiple suitors. It works in Minnesota's favor that the Orioles didn't extend Matt Wieters a qualifying offer, and that Wilson Ramos should be game ready by May. Derek Falvey and Thad Levine can look past those two names and try to tempt the former Houston backstop with a multi year offer somewhere between $20-25 million. If it works out, the Twins would be addressing their catcher issue, but it would be through the eyes of a pitching focus.
 
Rather than spending on pitching that isn't there, this is absolutely the way you'd hope the Twins franchise address one of their largest issues.
 
For more from Off The Baggy, click here. Follow @tlschwerz

It's been a unconventional season for the Minnesota Twins second basemen. While the club raced out to the worst record in the major leagues, it was Brian Dozier that was struggling right along with the majority of the group. Typically know to fade down the stretch, Dozier's bat didn't seem to ever make the transition to games that counted. Now he's turned a massive corner, but there's more to the narrative than the offensive production.
 
Trying to overstate just how bad Dozier was for the Twins out of the gate it probably a fools errand. He was batting .191 to end the season's first month, and in the lead up to his eventual benching following the May 22nd game, he was batting a dismal .199/.284/.318. Paul Molitor sat Dozier down for the next two games, the final of which he made a late inning appearance in. There were calls for him to head back to Rochester (although never realistic), and patience had grown thin. It was there though that Dozier appeared to have turned a corner.
 
Returning to the Twins lineup in his normal role on May 25, Dozier has since started all 60 of the games he's played in. Across that time, he's slashed .296/.367/.587 with 16 doubles, three triples, and 15 homers. With an OPS of .954 over the past two months, Dozier has been one of the Twins and baseball's most impressive hitters.
 
Lost in all of the offensive production is just how drastic the disciplinary change Dozier has made at the plate has been. A season ago, Dozier set the Minnesota Twins single season record for strikeouts with 148. He'd never fanned more than 129 times in a season, and his 61 walks in 2015 were a significant drop-off from the 89 totaled just a season prior. This year though, Dozier has turned a corner in both departments. Through 105 games (playing in 100) Dozier has struck out on 73 occasions while walking 41 times. That puts him on pace to fan just 113 times (a career best), and draw 63 walks.
 
The change in plate discipline has lent itself to a heightened level of productivity for the Twins second basemen. He's currently enjoying a career best .257 batting average while producing an .817 OPS, another career mark. Even with his troublesome mark, Dozier's improvements are evident in the numbers supporting the output. He's swinging and missing just 7.7% of the time (down from 9.0% in 2015), and he's chasing out of the zone just 27.7% of the time (just off of his 27.6% career mark set in 2014).
 
At his core, Brian Dozier has an always will be a dead pull hitter. He sells out to generate power, and he's made a career out of it. In 2016, he's generating a career best 29.9% hard hit rate, while using the middle of the field 32.2% of the time (his highest since 2013). Although his spray chart is essentially a reflection of his career output, the ability to wait pitchers out, not swing and miss, and get his pitch has translated into a resurgence that could not have been predicted.
 
I've been all over the place trying to figure Dozier out this season. The numbers early said to wait it out, while I wondered if his approach had become an all out sellout, and that he might be cooked. As the dust begins to settle though, it appeared all Dozier needed was for his approach to translate into results.
 
Expecting a career .242 hitter to continue plugging away at a near .300 pace might be a tough ask. Right now though, Dozier has produced a 2.6 fWAR to lead the Twins, and is on pace to turn in his second best season as a big leaguer (behind only his All Star season).
 
Should Dozier continue to show a greater plate discipline, he'll find himself with plenty of opportunities to get his pitch, and you can bet he'll deposit it into the left field bleachers more often than not. The production numbers have been great for the Twins two-bagger, but it's also been fun to see a big leaguer make the adjustment to dictate at bats, and force pitchers to make mistakes.
 
For more from Off The Baggy, click here. Follow @tlschwerz

In the wake of MySpace founder Tom Anderson’s offer to pay for Tim Lincecum to return to the Giants, other celebrities have been similarly urging their hometown nines to make moves, and offering to foot the bill. We, at Twins Daily, have intercepted one such offer:
 




 
Seems legit.

http://www.clevescene.com/images/blogimages/2009/04/29/1241034084-tiant.jpg
 
1968 was a pinnacle of pitching in the Major Leagues. Denny McLain won 31 games for the Tigers and Bob Gibson compiled a legendary 1.12 ERA for the Cardinals while throwing 13 shutouts. Easy to miss when browsing through the performances from that year was a Cleveland pitcher who went 21-9 with a 1.60 ERA, 264 strikeouts and only 152 hits allowed in 258 innings. When seen today, those numbers could easily be mistaken for something from the back of a Sandy Koufax baseball card - but those impressive pitching results didn’t belong to a Brooklyn-born lefty but a Cuban born right-hander named Luis Tiant.
 
When Castro took control of Cuba, Luis was a 19-year old playing in the Mexican League. Being outside the country when the island was seized meant he could continue his career in baseball but also meant that he would not be able to return to his homeland or see his family again for many years.
 
Tiant was signed by the Indians organization and pitched in the minors until 1964 when his 15-1 record for the Portland Beavers of the Pacific Coast League made it clear that the 23-year-old Tiant was ready for the big leagues. (Tommy John and Sudden Sam McDowell were also on that Portland pitching staff and would join Tiant with the Indians that year) Luis pitched in 19 games for Cleveland in the second half of the 1964 season making 16 starts and going 10-4.
 
Over the next three seasons with Cleveland, Tiant was only 35-31 but led the American League in shutouts in 1966 and in strikeouts per 9 in 1967. In 1968, it all came together for Tiant. After a slow start to the season (1-2) Tiant shut out the next four opponents in succession, including a three-hitter against the Twins on May 19th. By the end of June, he was 12-5.
 
The first start for Luis in July would be at home against Jim Merritt and the Twins. Merrit would be tough that day, limiting the Tribe to no runs and only 4 hits over 9 innings. Tiant, however, was masterful that day. He kept the Twins off the scoreboard for 9 innings as well, striking out 16.
 
In the 10th, Rich Reese led off with a double to right for the Twins and Frank Quilici sacrificed him to third, reaching first base safely on a fielder’s choice. Tiant struck out the next batter, catcher Johnny Roseboro. Twins manager Cal Ermer sent in Rich Rollins to pinch hit for shortstop Jackie Hernandez. Tiant struck out Rollins. Jim Merritt, the pitcher, was due up next and Ermer chose not to pinch hit. Merritt had been impossible to solve for Cleveland that day and Ermer wanted to have him for the 10th. Tiant struck out Merritt. Tiant had come up with three strikeouts in the tenth to keep a shutout in order after having a runner at third with no outs.
 
Merrit took the mound for the bottom of the 10th. Indians left fielder Lou Johnson led off with a single and took second on shortstop Cesar Tovar’s miscue on the play. (Tovar had played at third base all day and had just moved to short after Ermer pinch hit Rollins for Hernandez.) The next batter for Cleveland was catcher Joe Azcue who singled in Johnson to win the game. Tiant had a 10-inning shutout with 19 strikeouts.
 
Luis continued to pitch great through July, improving his record to 17-6. August was a different story, Tiant struggled. He lost three starts and pitched in three no-decisions. After pitching a complete game on August 10th, he made 5 consecutive early exits, the last three all being less than 6-inning efforts.
 
On September 9th, Luis Tiant took the mound at Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington looking for his 20th win. He would once again match up against Jim Merritt. Minnesota got on the scoreboard early as thirdbaseman Graig Nettles homered in the bottom of the first. That would be all the scoring for the Twins, however, as Tiant only surrendered four more hits and struck out 16. Cleveland had no problems with Merritt this time around and won handily, 6-1.
 
After picking up his 20th win, Tiant was shelved by the Indians for 12 days before making a two-inning relief appearance against the Angels. Following that, Tiant made one last start on September 25th. It was a gem – a 3-0 blanking of the Yankees in the Bronx although barely 5,000 were on hand to see it. Tiant held the Yankees to a single hit that afternoon (Mickey Mantle) and struck out 11.
 
In looking back on Luis Tiant’s 1968 season, he led the American League in ERA, shutouts, and fewest hits per 9 innings. He was third in strikeouts behind his Portland/Cleveland teammate Sam McDowell and the Tigers’ Denny McLain. (Denny McLain took home both the Cy Young and MVP awards.) When applying newer metrics, Tiant was clearly the best starting pitcher his league, however, leading the AL in Adjusted Pitching Wins, Base-Out Runs Saved, Win Probability Added, and Fielding Independent Pitching.

Originally published at The Tenth Inning Stretch
----
 
You can find the introductory segment in this series, including my criteria for eligibility to be a prospect and the list of the 2015 top 40 players who graduated as prospects or are not in the system, here. Here is my 2015 Twins off-season top 40 prospects list (summary of 1-40) for reference.
 
Without further ado, here is the 2016 countdown of prospects, with their ranking in the 2015 list in parenthesis :
 
40. Emmanuel Morel (--)
DOB: 5/4/1997; Age: 18
Positions: SS/2B
Bats: R, Throws: R
Height: 5'10", Weight: 150 lbs
Acquired: International Free Agent 4/8/2013
Professional Experience: 2; Highest level: Rookie/DSL (2014, 2015)
 
Every season in this prospect list, I include prospects who are traditionally bypassed by many (because they have not played games in the US) and ended up picked up by the mainstream media a season or two afterwards. Last season it was Jermaine Palacios at 36; This season is Emmanuel Morel at 40, who has already 2 professional seasons under his belt before his 19th birthday. In 2015 he alternated games between the 2 middle infield positions with 17 year old Yeltsin Encarnacion for the Dominican Summer League Twins. In a league dominated by pitchers he hit .282/.428/.370 (.798 OPS), had 51 singles, 6 doubles, 5 triples in 230 plate appearances. He struck out 43 times and walked 46 times. He also stole 24 bases in 35 attempts. In other words, he reached base 43% of the time, walking more than striking out, he attempted a stole base in about 41% of his opportunities and he was successful 69% of the time. This is pretty impressive at any level of professional ball at any age in the twenty first century. You cannot teach plate selectivity and you have to have the guts to be aggressive. If Morel continues those traits when he will cross the Tropic of Cancer, and he shows signs of reliability with the glove, the Twins will have another good middle infield prospect from Latin America in their pipeline.
 
Likely 2016 path: Will start the season in Extended Spring Training, get used to live in the US in the Twins' Fort Myers Complex and join the Gulf Coast League Twins when they start playing games after the 2016 draft
 
Ceiling/Floor: Too early to tell
 
39. Trey Cabbage (--)
 
 
DOB: 5/3/1997; Age: 18
Positions: SS/3B/LF/RF
Bats: L, Throws: R
Height: 6' 3", Weight: 190 lbs
Acquired: 4th Round Draft Pick 2015
Professional Experience: 1; Highest level: Rookie/GCL (2015)
 
Trey Cabbage was the Twins' fourth round draft pick in the past draft from Grainger (TN) High School and is a day older from the number 40 prospect, Emmanuel Morel. Mostly a shortstop in High School, he moved all over the field in his first pro season with the Gulf Coast League. He was projected to play third base, but it will still be a work in progress, because his first try in the position (6 errors in 21 games) was not as smooth as hoped. His transition to the wooden bat has been painful as well, hitting .252/.302/.269 with only 2 doubles as extra base hits, 7 walks and 37 strikeouts in 129 PAs. Stole one base and was caught 5 times. A small sample size ray of hope: He hit He hit .350/.435/.350 overall in 20 ABs against LHPs and finished the season .321/.310/.321 in 28 August ABs. The transition to the wooden bat is not a small feat for an 18 year old and Cabbage does get the benefit of the double. Will likely work several positions in the low minor leagues to find a position that he is a good fit defensively. Before the draft he was touted as one of the "sweetest" left hand swings, since you know who, but still have to see this. Cabbage was a multi-sport player (Football and Basketball) and also pitched in High School, and some focus and taking time off this winter might help him a lot.
 
Likely 2016 path: Starting in Extended Spring Training and focusing of figuring out which position might be the best fit for him and then playing there in the GCL.
 
 
 
 
 
 
38. Travis Blankenhorn (--)
DOB: 8/3/1996; Age: 19
Positions: 3B/1B
Bats: L, Throws: R
Height: 6' 1", Weight: 195 lbs
Acquired: 3th Round Draft Pick 2015
Professional Experience: 1; Highest level: Rookie/Elizabethton (2015)
 
Travis Blakenhorn, was drafted in the third round of the 2015 draft from Pottstown (PA) High School, and like Trey Cabbage, is a left hitting third baseman who started the season and his professional career in the GCL. Unlike Cabbage he has some success with the bat, .245/.362/.408, 4 doubles, 2 triples, 7 walks and 11 strikeouts in 58 PAs, allowing the Twins to move him up a level at Elizabethton in the middle of July. In Elizabethton, he started on fire hitting .321/.387/.482 for July, and then leveled off, ending up the season in the Appalachian League hitting .243/.306/.326 with 3 doubles, 3 HRs, 11 BBs and 32 Ks in 158 PAs. Was effectively neutralized by LHP (.172/.250/.310,) but, again, the transition from aluminum to wood is not an easy one. Blakenhorn projects as a power hitter and he flashed some. Has a solid powerful build that would allow him to play at either infield corner, but his strong arm has him a better fit at third or at a corner outfield position. Blakenhorn picked up some Alex Gordon comparisons, but that is a bit of reaching at this point. Fellow Twins' prospects, Travis Harrison and the gentleman whose profile follows, might be better comparables for now...
 
Likely 2016 path: Starting at Extended Spring Training, then the starting third baseman in Elizabethton as soon as Appalachian League play starts in June.
 
 
37. Niko Goodrum (--)
 
DOB: 2/28/1992; Age: 23
Positions: 3B/SS/CF
Bats: S, Throws: R
Height: 6' 3", Weight: 198 lbs
Acquired: 2nd Round Draft Pick 2010
Professional Experience: 6; Highest level: AA (2015)
 
I have to admit, Niko Goodrum frustrates me. Has a ton of potential and never put it together in six professional seasons. As a matter of fact, he has been in an out in my top 40 prospect list for the last 3 years. Why is he in again? In a second, bit of history first: Niko Goodrum was drafted 71nd overall in the 2010 draft (a spot after Braves', and now Angels', Andrelton Simmons who has 4 seasons in the majors and a couple gold gloves.) That was the Alex Wimmers draft. Goodrum's career slash line is .244/.337/.357 and he has not been deviating by more that 0.30 or so in any of its components in his six seasons as a pro (other than his short first season of .414 OPS.) In other words he has been pretty average, or below average, at any level, which does not a good prospect make. So why is he back here again? Three reasons:

When he moved to Chatanooga in the middle of the season, he improved his approach as a hitter. He hit .244/.332/.392 with 6 doubles, 5 triples, 5 HRs, 28 BBs, and 51 K in 238 PAs, in a league where .700 OPS is the average.
Sustained improvement in base running and base stealing and considerable jump in power: Goodrum stole 20, 35 and 29 bases the last 3 seasons. He was 18 for 22 in Chatanooga this season. In addition, he hit a career high 9 HRs, more than doubling his previous best (4).
He might have actually found a position he can play and be above average. He was drafted as a shortstop, and played most of his first 3 seasons there very erratically. He was transferred to third base the last 3 seasons with similar results. However, Doug Mientkiewitz and serendipity (not many OFs in the organization) had him at Centerfield for 15 games, in which he was a good centerfielder and better with the bat when played there. Maybe the game slowed down enough at OF for him.

So there is enough potential and intrigue to believer that Niko Goodrum might actually make a major league centerfielder some day, if the Twins continue using him there, which they should. So Goodrum makes the list as an outfielder.
 
Likely 2016 path: Depending on where Byron Buxton ends up, likely the starting Centerfielder for Chatanooga.
 
36. Kuo Hua Lo (--)
DOB: 10/28/1992; Age: 23
Positions: RHP
Bats: R, Throws: R
Height: 5' 10", Weight: 195 lbs
Acquired: International Free Agent 6/10/2011
Professional Experience: 4; Highest level: Rookie/Elizabethton (2013-2015)
 
Lo was signed by the Twins as an International Free Agent from Taiwan at age 18, 4 seasons ago and has shown steady improvement to be regarded as a top 40 prospect, with a near breakout 2015 season. He pitched 31.3 innings with a 1.44 ERA (2.75 FIP) allowing 15 hits, 8 walks (0.734 WHIP) and had 43 strikeouts (12.4 K/9 and 36.4 K%) and was the primary closer for Elizabethton. On the downside he was a year and a tad older than the league average, his BABIP was .213, and he was threepeating Elizabethton, but BABIP does not affect the strikeouts, he made the transition from Taiwan to the US as a teenager and that 36.4% K is impressive at any level, making me think that he actually got "it". What is "it"? A second above average pitch. Lo has had an above average to plus fastball with good downward movement, which can reach 94 mph or so, but the rest of his repertoire was hit and miss. Reports out of Elizabethton have him throwing a "filthy" off-speed pitch, which sounds like an above average change up or slurve, but regardless, it is apparently effective. Still have to see it in person, so I reserve judgement, but there is a lot of potential there to worth inclusion in this list.
 
Likely 2016 path: Cedar Rapids Kernels' bullpen and co-closer
 
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5152/7098789651_02fb66b359_z.jpg

A short blurb from 1909 that ran on page 4 of the Princeton Union of Princeton Minn:
 

________________________


 

."To show that Japan is making rapid



progress. in. the. American. game. of



baseball. it is only necessary to state



that. in. Tokio. alone. seven.. umpires



have. already. been. trampled. in. the



dust for alleged crooked decisions." .


 

________________________


 
Source: The Princeton Union. Princeton, Minn. October 7, 1909, p. 4.
Link: http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83016758/1909-10-07/ed-1/seq-4/#date1=10%2F06%2F1909&sort=state&date2=10%2F07%2F1909&searchType=advanced&language=&sequence=0&index=46&words=baseball&proxdistance=5&rows=50&ortext=baseball&proxtext=&phrasetext=&andtext=&dateFilterType=range&page=2

Special jetBlue Edition!
 
We took a break from Hammond Stadium for a day, and visited the Red Sox spring facilities for a game.
 

 
Before we went inside, we wandered in their minor league area. I was initially annoyed, because we went in what I thought to be an obvious direction but were stopped by one of the senile highly experienced hard of hearing stadium personnel, and directed toward the other side of the complex. At first I was thinking it looked like a wild goose chase (or snipe hunt) and there was to be no access to minor leaguers at all. But it turned out to be just a long walk, and it's about as free (once you pay parking of course) and open as at the Twins facilities. Here is a typical view, with fields on either side.
 

 
We walked further, essentially circling around almost to where we were denied entrance. This ended at a No Man's Land separating the major league practice field from the clubhouses. Well, "some" Men and their families were apparently allowed access, probably wealthy fans who had paid some kind of premium to rub elbows with luminaries like Brock Holt. Oh well, next lifetime. We contented ourselves watching pitchers take batting practice, specifically working on their bunting, specifically working on overcoming their instinct to flinch (as I interpreted some of their reactions to facing a pitching machine and having to expose fingers and thumbs). Turns out the BoSox open their season in a National League park, so it figures. Here are manager John Farrell and coach Torey Lovullo overseeing matters.
 

 
Here we happened to meet up with John Bonnes, and TD member eLee612. We chatted a bit, as drills concluded, then headed toward the main ballpark entrance.
 
When inside, you have your starting lineups.
 

 
Someone in the Game Thread asked whether the park has a Green Monster. Here is their equivalent of it, but it has seating (within, and on top) for fans.
 

 
We were seated in Reserved Lawn seating. Here is yours truly and Mrs Ashburyjohn in a typical tourist pose that dozens of other tourists replicated on their respective cameras.
 

 
So. The game. John Bonnes wrote up a good summary here so there is little value in my repeating much the same.
 
Escobar homered in the second, and in the fourth also drove in Plouffe on a sac fly after Arcia had driven in Hunter. Fryer drove in Arcia in the seventh with a single after the latter had tripled to right. I can't bring photos that illustrate any of this. Instead, I will offer you an unfair and cherry-picked reason why Shane Robinson would not be on the team if I had any say:
 

 
I jotted down typical pitch speeds from the radar gun display. Here is Tommy Milone throwing either an 87 MPH changeup or his 81 MPH fastball - I can't tell the difference, and I'm not sure the batters really can either.
 

 
Here is Tim Stauffer throwing something from his similar 88 MPH (or slower) arsenal:
 

 
 
On the Twins, a really good fastball is the true change of pace. Here is Mark Hamburger throwing what might be his 85 MPH slider (guessing from his fingers) - big as a beachball don't you think? - to the Red Sox' on-deck hitter. No, not really that far off the plate, but Mark was pretty wild at times, but effective, with his mostly 95 MPH fastball.
 

 
 
And finally, here is young prospect Jake Reed throwing a 95 MPH fastball to Allen Craig, the batter he did retire (on a popup). I put my camera away in time to not capture the pitch resulting in second batter Rusney Castillo's home run off the wall in left that ended the game in the 10th inning, 5-4.
 

I have followed the Twins since they moved to Minnesota from DC. In the early days, the Twins excelled in hitting home runs. They had plenty of power at many positions led by perennial home run king Harmon Killebrew, who led the league in homers six times. However, since Mr. Nixon said "I am not a crook" (and Harmon declined), the Twins have had a severe power shortage. In the forty-plus years since 1973, the Twins have outhomered their opponents in only three seasons and by narrow margins.
 
The 2014 Twins scored a lot of runs, but would have been an elite offensive club if they had hit more long balls. What is exciting is the promise that in the future they will have the players to turn around games with one swing. Oswaldo Arcia hit 20 homers in just 400 plate appearances last season. If his homer rate stays unchanged, he would hit 30 in a full season with 600+ PAs. Kennys Vargas hit nine homers in an extended trial late in the season. Again, with full-time plate appearances, that total should be in the mid-twenties for a full season. Add top prospect Miguel Sano, who homered 35 times in less than 500 PAs in his last minor league season (in pitcher-friendly and homer-averse leagues), and the Twins have a prospective middle of the order cluster that could easily hit 90 or more homers. Sano, Arcia and Vargas are all young and would figure to increase their power numbers.
 
I haven't mentioned yet the Twins leader in home runs the last two years--Brian Dozier. He brings significantly above average power to a position that the Twins traditionally have filled with slap hitters (his last two seasons both set records for home runs by a Twins second baseman). Beyond that, current Twins backup catcher Josmil Pinto would also profile to hit a lot of homers with full-time plate appearances.
 
Whenever Sano arrives, the Twins would figure to have above-average home run production. I expect that the Twins will close the gap in long balls next year and perhaps out-homer their oppontents for the first time in more than a decade. An increase in power might cover regression in other areas.

The signing of Torii Hunter has brought off-the-field issues back to the fore for the Twins. Part of the reason for signing Hunter has been for clubhouse leadership, mentoring of young players, and also bring back fans to the park. Hunter's pros and cons in these areas have been analyzed more than the break on Phil Hughes' spike curve.
 
I weighed in on several threads saying that it wasn't possible to measure if there would be any effect and I doubted there would be much effect anyway. This commentary does bring up questions about the Twins' clubhouse and whether a lack of leadership has been at the root of the Twins' struggles for the last four years.
 
I am of the opinion that talent and winning are much more a component than whether Torii Hunter or Kirby Puckett are a positive clubhouse influence. I think that some of the guys who have been looked at as clubhouse leaders are more likely just the gregarious guys who give good quotes to the media.
 
The Twins have had a succession of nice guys who are accessible such as Dozier, Cuddyer, Hunter and Puckett. I don't know if all of them were truly leaders or just media darlings. Guys like Joe Mauer have never been vocal, but they might be leaders just as well. To me, it is still much more about talent than it is about attitude.

After the inaugural season at Target field, the Twins brass made the fateful decision to remove the 14 black spruce trees from centerfield. When viewed in retrospect, this decision, it seems clear, has placed a curse on the franchise. Consider:
The Twins won 58% of their games in the first season in which they called Target Field their home, including a whopping 65% of the games they played at home in the great outdoors, with a piney backdrop.
Since felling the trees, the team has won 41% of their games over the past four years, and only 40% of the games at the treeless Target Field.
If the Twins had won 53 home games in 2011 (like they did in 2010), they would have come in second in their division. 53 home wins in 2014 would put the Twins tied with Oakland for the Wild Card. 53 home wins in 2012 would have won them the AL Central Division.
There is more to the #CurseOfTheTrees:
After uprooting the trees in January, 2011, the impact was almost immediately felt: Michael Cuddyer developed problematic warts on his feet within 2 months, Joe Mauer was diagnosed with bilateral leg weakness by April, and the Twins biggest ever international signee, Japanese star Tsuyoshi Nishioka, broke his leg in his sixth game in MLB - the day before the Twins were to play their first game in Target field without the trees. Morneau couldn't get back on track from his 2010 concussion all year, (including needing neck surgery by June) and by the end of the 2011, top pitching prospect Kyle Gibson was going under the knife for Tommy John.
More recently, the #CurseOfTheTrees has extended its limbs back down to the minor league system, causing it's two uber prospects to have largely lost seasons immediately after rising to the tops of the prospect lists; Sano undergoing Tommy John surgery (highly unusual for a position player) and Byron Buxton injuring and reinjuring his wrist before getting his season cut short in August from a head-on collision and concussion in his first game at Double A.
The misery hasn't end with the Twins who stayed within the organization. By the end of 2014, former Twins regulars had gone on to great success away from the treeless expanses of Target Field these past four years: winning batting titles in 2013 and 2014, multiple gold gloves, a 2012 Cy Young award (and a Top 10 finish in 2013), and a 2012 postseason MVP trophy. The trees were undoubtedly the root of the Twins firing a GM for the first time in countless years, and a manager for the first time in decades.
The Twins have to bring the trees back. When the trees are back in place, the team will quickly become (re)accustomed to hitting with the backdrop, giving them an advantage over their opponents. And instead of counting on a wayward Twins employee to turn the air conditioning on to the home team's advantage, the Twins fans can turn on their mini fans towards centerfield when the opponents bat. It will be like basketball fans trying to throw off opposing foul shooters.
 
Let's end the curse. #BBTT Bring 'em back.

It was about a week ago where the Minnesota Twins AFL team, the Salt River Rafters, clinched their spot in League Championship game, but they still had a few games left to play before that.
 
Eddie Rosario entered the season’s final week with a chance at a batting title, and two relief pitching prospects had yet to allow a run in a league play. How would they finish?
 
Let’s check out what happened in week 6!
 
Byron Buxton – Did not play.
 
Buxton had surgery on his fractured finger three weeks ago, and is expected to be ready to go for Spring Training.
 
Final AFL totals: 13 games, .263/.311/.298, 2 2B’s, 6 RBI, 4 BB, 12 K’s, 5 SB (6 attempts)
 
Eddie Rosario – 3 games, 2-13 (.154), 1 RBI, 1 BB, 2 K’s.
 
Rosario admittedly let the pressure of winning the League’s batting title affect him in the season’s final days, and the results showed. He had just two hits in thirteen at-bats, which resulted in a final batting average of .330 to finish second in the race.
 
Of course, it didn’t matter much two days later, as Rosario had his best game of a fantastic overall AFL season in the League Championship game.
 
Final AFL totals: 24 games, .330/.345/.410, 4 2B’s, 2 3B’s, 18 RBI, 5 BB, 19 K’s, 10 SB (14 attempts).
 
 
Max Kepler – 3 games, 7-14 (.500), 4 R’s, 2B, 3B, 1 RBI, 1 K.
 
Kepler had a strong final three games, racking up multiple hits in each contest to raise his average to .307 to finish the season.
 
In Monday’s 8-4 win he was 2-4 and scored two runs. The next night he was 2-5 with a run scored, double, and an RBI in a 4-4 eleven inning tie. Then in his final game of the week, Wednesday’s 4-5 loss, he was 3-5 with a run scored and a triple.
 
Final AFL totals: 18 games, .307/.366/.440, 4 2B’s, 3 3B’s, 7 RBI, 6 BB, 14K’s, 3 SB (3 attempts)
 
 
Taylor Rogers – 1 game, 1 IP, 0 H’s, 0 BB, 0 K’s.
 
Rogers made a single appearance in the final week of the AFL regular season, making the start in Tuesday’s 4-4 eleven inning tie.
 
He pitched two innings, and needed just twenty-two pitches, fourteen of which went for strikes.
 
In the first, Peoria’s leadoff man, top prospect Francisco Lindor, pushed a ground ball through the infield, but was nailed at second base while trying to stretch it into a double. Rogers struck out the next batter and induce a ground ball to end the inning 1-2-3.
 
In the second inning, Rogers again set the Javelina’s hitters down in order, inducing two easy ground ball outs and a fly out.
 
Final AFL totals: 3 appearances, 2 starts, 5.2 IP, 1.59 ERA, 4 H’s, 1 ER, 2 BB, 4 K’s, .211 BAA.
 
Jason Adam – 1 game, 1 IP, 5 R’s (2 ER), 4 H’s, 1 BB, 1 K. 18.00 ERA.
 
Adam also made a single appearance on the week, and after a rough start to his AFL season had gone five consecutive appearances without allowing a run. That streak ended in Thursday’s 8-5 loss, as Adam was charged with the Blown Save and Loss after coming into the game in relief of top prospect Archie Bradley in the third inning.
 
He was summoned with two outs after Bradley allowed Scottsdale to close an early game lead of 4-0 to 4-3. Adam got the final out, but would run into trouble of his own in the fourth.
 
He walked the leadoff man and surrendered the tying and go-ahead run after an RBI triple and sacrifice fly to the next two hitters. A throwing error and two consecutive singles would load the bases, before Adam picked up the second out of the inning by striking out Josh Bell for the innings second out. But an RBI single and the second error of the inning would end his night and AFL season on a sour note.
 
Final AFL totals: 10 appearances, 1-1, 13.1 IP, 5.40 ERA, 23 H’s, 8 ER’s, 6 BB, 7 K’s, .371 BAA
 
Zack Jones – 2 games, 2 IP, 0 ER, 1 H, 5 BB, 2 K’s, 1 Hold (6). 0.00 ERA.
 
Jones’ first appearance of the final week came during Monday’s victory, where he picked up his sixth AFL Hold while making it interesting in the eighth inning. He walked two batters and hit another with a pitch to load the bases, recording two outs before he was taken out of the game.
 
In Thursday’s 8-5 loss, he relieved Adam in the bottom of the fourth inning, and walked his first hitter to load the bases before escaping by inducing and foul pop up. In the fifth, the bases would again be loaded against him after a single and two walks, but a strikeout of Dante Bichette Jr. would preserve his 0.00 ERA in AFL League play, despite his odd overall numbers.
 
Final AFL totals: 11 appearances, 11.1 IP, 0.00 ERA, 7 H’s, 0 R’s, 12 BB, 11 K’s, .171 BAA.
 
Jake Reed – 1 game, 1 IP, 1 ER, 2 H’s, 1 BB, 1 K. 9.00 ERA.
 
Reed made his only appearance of the week before the AFL championship game in Tuesday’s tie game. He gave up his first earned run of the AFL season, and only his second ER in 43.2 innings during his professional debut season.
 
He was charged with a Blown Save after entering the game to start the top of the eighth. He surrendered a leadoff double and a walk before striking out Patrick Leonard for the first out, but a ground ball single up the middle to Justin O’Connor would bring in the run. The final two outs were recorded on plays during the next two at-bats, so he did limit the damage.
 
Final AFL totals: 10 appearances 12.2 IP, 0.71 ERA, 10 H’s, 1 R, 3 BB, 10 K’s, .213 BAA.
 
Notes/Links:
 
-Overall, Twins prospects fared very well in the Arizona Fall League.
-The Salt River Rafters won the AFL League Championship on Saturday, after defeating the Peoria Javelina’s 14-7 in Scottsdale.
-Rosario and Kepler combined to bat .333 with 1 2B, 1 3B, 4 R’s, 2 RBI, 1 BB, and 3 K’s during the week.
-Twins pitchers compiled a 5.09 ERA in 5.3 IP, allowing 3 ER’s on 8 H’s and 7 BB’s, while striking out 5 on the week.

At the All-Star break, the Twins were in decent shape, just 6 games under .500 and on pace to finish with a win total in the mid-70s that would have demonstrated clear progress in their rebuilding efforts. But they faltered out of the gate in the 2nd half, dropping 9 of 13 to finish July (the first 10 of which were at home). Now 11 under .500 and 11 games out of 1st place, it was time to sell the veterans and turn to youth. Out with Kendrys Morales, Josh Willingham, Kevin Correia and Matt Guerrier, in with Kennys Vargas, Jordan Schafer, Trevor May, and Ryan Pressly.
 
The newly reconstituted roster quickly descended into the most wretched stretch of the season, going 14-27 from the beginning of August through mid-September, outraging the fanbase, and promptly costing Gardy his job at season’s end. But I’m OK with beginning 2015 with about 80% of the players who were on the field for those last 2 months, and you should be, too! Here’s why:
 
The Offense was better
 
After a surprisingly high-scoring April (fueled by a sky-high OBP) the pendulum swung the other way in May. The average of those 2 months corresponded pretty well with the .690-ish team OPS the Twins put up in June & July. Through the first 2/3 of the season, the offense averaged a tick over 4 R/G. But in the final 55 games, they exploded for 280 R, increasing the per-game average by over a run. Over a full season, 90% of that scoring rate would have produced the #4 offense in baseball. And 90% of the extremely good BABIP the Twins put up over those final 2 months would be more or less the league average.
 
There will certainly be regression from some players (most notable Santana). But there were several positions that provided below average production in the final months, too. Not only did Suzuki’s All-Star 1st half not carry over, but his second half results were beneath his modest career averages. Mauer, though much better than he was in the spring, was still well short of his career average OPS of .860 or so. Dozier continued to get on base, but didn’t sustain the HR and SB pace he established over the early part of the season. (That the baserunners accumulated nearly as many SB (49) in 68 2nd half games as they did in 94 1st half games (50) with little contribution from Dozier is an indication of how much more baserunning can be a weapon for the Twins next year.)
 
All told, when I look at the rates the hitters put up in August & September, I’d expect a lot less (upwards of .100 OPS) from Santana, a bit less from Plouffe, Schafer, & Escobar, about the same from Arcia & Vargas, a bit more from Dozier & Hicks, and a quite a bit more (upwards of .050 OPS) from Mauer & the catchers (especially with Pinto getting the PAs that were going to Fryer). A repeat of 2014’s 714 RS seems like a pretty safe floor for this offense.
 
The Starting Pitching was better
 
Seriously:
 
1st Half: 5.8 K/9, 2.4 BB/9, 8.7% HR/FB, .319 BABIP, 4.86 ERA, 4.21 xFIP
2nd Half: 7.2 K/9, 2.4 BB/9 9.8% HR/FB, .333 BABIP, 5.35 ERA, 3.89 xFIP
 
And the prospects for 2015 are even better than that. 25 rather horrendous 2nd half starts were made by pitchers who will not be starting games for the Twins next year: Kevin Correia (4 GS, 4.79 xFIP), Anthony Swarzak (4, 4.86), Yohan Pino (6, 4.02 – he deserved better), Kris Johnson (1, 4.57), Logan Darnell (4, 3.38 – but so many HRs), weirdly awful Tommy Milone (5, 5.27) and MLB debut Trevor May (1, 16.10(!)). It’s possible that Darnell could see some spot starts next year, though I’d expect him to be well down the depth chart. Whatever was going on with Milone in August, it was unprecedented in nearly 80 prior career GS. Should he be asked to start in 2015 I’d expect to see that guy (4.22 xFIP) rather than the doppelganger who made such a poor 1st impression in MN.
 
The Twins quietly finished the season with an effective front 4: Phil Hughes (13, 3.20), Kyle Gibson (13, 3.76), Ricky Nolasco (9, 3.71) and not-making-his-MLB-debut May (8, 3.77). Each of those xFIPs was league average or better, and Hughes can afford a ton of regression in his walk rate before he would fall below that standard. Gibson’s growth should be expected of a high-pedigree prospect with 25+ career GS under his belt, and post-DL Nolasco was essentially the guy they signed to the biggest FA contract in team history.
 
That the starters’ ERA for the most part drastically overshot their xFIP is the result of a complex cocktail whose ingredients include bad luck on balls in play, bad defense, bad pitching with men on base, and bad work from a bullpen that failed to strand inherited runners. Of those factors, the pitching with men on is the only thing they can really control, and should be a matter of focus for them as they prepare for next season.
 
The Bullpen sucked!
 
As I alluded to above, the bullpen didn’t do the starters any favors. They couldn’t strand runners, couldn’t protect leads, couldn’t consistently get the outs they were brought in to get. They were last in the Majors in 2nd half K/9 by a large margin, and as a group were below replacement level. I believe a league average relief squad would have netted the Twins at least 5 additional wins in 2014, and lessened a lot of the hysteria related to 4 straight 90+ loss seasons.
 
So why am I OK with that performance? Because it’s a failure that is very unlikely to be repeated. Relievers are the most fungible asset in baseball, as demonstrated by the Twins scooping up Casey Fien and Jared Burton off the scrap heap before the 2012 season. Even elite FA relievers with extensive track records cost much less per season and demand shorter-term contracts than starters and position players. The Twins have already declined Burton’s services for 2015, and I expect them to pass on Brian Duensing and Anthony Swarzak, too. That trio combined to allow 21 inherited runners to score just in the awful ¼ season from August 1st to mid-September. Replacing them with average or better relievers will make a huge difference.
 
Some of those replacements might already be under team control. AAA Rochester’s bullpen was excellent all season. Michael Tonkin and Aaron Thompson were pretty effective in their September call-ups, and Lester Oliveros completed the season with 5 straight scoreless appearances totaling 5.2 IP, 5 K, 1 H and 1 BB. And, close behind them, the upper minors are loaded with high-velocity arms that could find their way onto the team by the 2nd half of 2015: Nick Burdi, Zach Jones, Jake Reed… The days of the Twins bringing up the rear in bullpen K% may already be behind us.
 
Better Luck Next Year
 
The Twins allowed a very poor BABIP for the 2nd consecutive year in 2014, and it will take some improvements to the defense (especially the OF) to get that back into the average range. But that OF defense was similarly bad in both 2013 & 2014, and yet the BABIP was a few points worse last year. All of the negative difference came in the 2nd half, when the pitchers suffered a .328 BABIP despite having 2 of Schafer, Santana and Hicks in the OF most of the time. Certainly, there was some very bad pitching after the All-Star break. There was also a lot of OK to good pitching with some very bad luck.
 
Look back through some of the game logs in which the Twins allowed huge crooked numbers. In many cases those innings were prolonged by one or more IF or bunt hits. I can never fault a pitcher for giving up a hit because he induced a batter to hit a GB too slowly, or in the perfect spot. It’s maddening, but those results are fairly random, and the wheel tends to swing back the other way as time goes on. The group we saw in August & September, given average luck on their balls in play, might have erased their 17 run deficit and finished with an even or better run differential over those 2 months.
 
And there’s one other wild swing of luck we need to consider – when the runs were scored. Over the 1st 4 months of the season, the Twins’ record corresponded perfectly with their Pythagorean record – the estimated winning % derived from the total scores of their games. The total scores they produced after the trade deadline should have been good for a 26-29 record, but instead came up well short at 22-33. Isolate it further by separating the final 14 games of the season and you find that the Twins’ entire shortfall in expected wins occurred within that disastrous 41-game stretch from August 1st-September 13th.
 
The most obvious place this shows up is in games decided by 1 run. Within this late-summer stretch, the Twins were 1-8 in 1-run games. In the other ¾ of the season, they were 20-16. Had they continued to win those closest games at the same rate as they had been doing, they would have gone 5-4 in those 9 games. There’s your 4 extra wins. Losing very close games is not an unexpected byproduct of having everybody in the bullpen fail at the same time.
 
Focus on the Finish
 
A lot of people had understandably stopped paying attention to the Twins by mid-September, when things finally stabilized. The offense continued to score about 5 R/G. The pitching - excepting 13 dreadful spot start IP from Swarzak – put up a 3.70 ERA and 1.18 WHIP. Half of those 14 games came against a very productive Tigers lineup that was fighting for playoff position.
 
We saw that some of these guys can be pretty good. May had 2 quality starts and a 20/3 K/BB ratio. Nolasco also went 2/3 in quality starts with a 16/4 K/BB ratio. Vargas broke out of his early-September slump by re-adding walks to his game – 8 BB in the final week, where he’d had just 4 in the previous 7! Dozier rediscovered his power, Mauer got his average back over .300.
 
For me, much of the fans’ sour impression of the Twins comes from the terrible results of that awful late-summer run. There was plenty of bad baseball there, to be sure. There was also a lot of absurdly bad luck, and several performances that are unlikely to be repeated – whether because of changing personnel, better health, or the maturation of young players. When you think about what the Twins need to do to improve in 2015, remember those caveats, and build from the final days of September instead of the first days of August.

The 2014 season was a breakout year for Brian Dozier. He seemed to be maturing as a hitter right before the eyes of Twins fans. He combined power and speed to be the first Twins player in a decade to record a 20 HR-20 steal season. However, there was more behind his season than the numbers that will appear on the back of next year's trading card.
 
Dozier finished third in all of baseball in the amount of pitches seen in 2014. The only American League player to finish ahead of him was the presumed MVP Mike Trout. He saw 115 more pitches than the next closest man on the list and Dozier was the only member of the Twins to finish in the top 40 in the entire American League.
 
Only one other Twins player has finished in the top 10 in pitches seen since 2002. Joe Mauer barely squeaked into the 10th spot in the 2012 season by finishing seven pitches ahead of the Brewers Rickie Weeks. Mauer actually saw more pitches per plate appearance that season (4.32 P/PA) than Dozier did in 2014 (4.18 P/PA).
 
So what was Dozier able to accomplish with all of these extra pitches?
 
By seasons end, Dozier had accumulated the third most in walks (89 base on balls) in the American League. He recorded six more walks than Trout who finished ahead of him in pitches seen. Carlos Santana finished one spot behind Dozier in the pitches seen standings but he was able to draw 24 more walks. Jose Bautista finished in 10th place in pitches seen and he drew 104 walks.
 
All of these extra pitches seen resulted in more walks and Dozier ended up scoring the second most runs in the American League. He was only three runs scored behind Trout and he was 11 ahead of a third place tie between Bautista and Miguel Cabrera.
 
Many of the extra at-bats Dozier was able to accumulate in 2014 were because of his placement near the top of the Twins batting order. In only five of his 155 games started, he didn't bat out of the lead-off or number two spot in the batting order. It will be interesting to see if new manager Paul Molitor continues to utilize Dozier near the top of the line-up.
 
 
It would be great to see Dozier make some strides to increase some of his other offense numbers. He's a career .241 hitter but he got on base over 34% of the time last year. If he can continue to see a ton of pitches, drawing walks and scoring runs, there is no reason to think Dozier won't continue to master the art of seeing pitches.
 
For more from Cody Christie make sure to follow him on Twitter @NoDakTwinsFan and to read his other work at http://www.NoDakTwinsFan.com

I was watching the excellent ESPN 30-for-30 feature on the Earthquake Series of 1989 and in recalling various players on that Oakland A’s team, was again struck by how far off the charts Terry Steinbach’s 1996 was from any other season in his career at the advanced-for-baseball age of 34. Steinbach slugged 35 homeruns that season after never hitting more than 16 before or after. His 34 homeruns as a catcher (the other was as a pinch hitter) was the highest total for a catcher at that time in the American League. It was surpassed by Ivan Rodriguez (35) in 1999 which is the current record.
 
In all of baseball history, only two other players over age 30 put up career high homeruns exceeding 30 in a season which more than doubled any other season homerun total in their careers.
 
Brady Anderson – hit 50 homeruns in 1996 at age 32. The next highest HR total for Brady in a season was 24.
 
George Crowe – hit 31 homeruns in 1957 at age 36. The next highest HR total for George in a season was 15.
 
Crowe hit his 31 homeruns in the only season he ever topped 400 at-bats so is easily explainable. Brady Anderson and Steinbach, not so. While steroid rumors have always surrounded Anderson’s aberrant 1996, Steinbach’s similarly aberrant 1996 has remained unquestioned as far as I can tell from Google searches despite the Oakland clubhouse of 1996 also being the home to McGwire, Canseco and Giambi.
 
So how exactly does a 34 year-old catcher who never hit more than 16 homeruns before or since become the all-time single season league leader in homeruns at his position? In looking for explanations, I thought of the following:
 
Renovation to the Oakland Coliseum
 
In 1995-1996 the Oakland Coliseum was renovated to enclose the previously open outfield with a massive steep double-decked grandstand for Raiders football. (”Mt. Davis”) Prior to that, the stadium had a symmetrical curved outfield fence with dimension of 330 down the lines, 375 to the alleys, and 400 to center field. With the construction, the configuration of the outfield changed to a peaked diamond shape that kept the same foul line and center field dimensions but was constrained to shorter dimensions in the alleys.
 
A’s fans have also written that there was previously a breeze that cooled the ballpark on hot day games that disappeared once Mount Davis was erected. This suggests that batters no longer had to deal with wind blowing in. Shorter power alleys and more favorable wind conditions could have helped Steinbach’s power numbers, right?
 
Steinbach hit a home run every 38 at-bats at home in 1994, every 21 at-bats in 1995, and every 16 at-bats in 1996, while the rest of the A’s hit homers every 36 at-bats in 1994, every 30 at-bats in 1995, and every 24 at-bats in 1996 – so the park (or the team) was trending upward. Unfortunately for the ballpark theory Steinbach’s rates on the road were a homer every 36 at-bats in 1994, every 36 in 1995, and every 13 at-bats in 1996, meaning his homerun rate increased 32% at home in '96 but increased 164% on the road! Not the ballpark.
 
The Strike of 1994-1995
 
Steinbach lost at-bats that would have affected his overall homerun totals in 1994 and 1995. The 1994 season was wiped out after 117 games and the 1995 season started late and was limited to 145 games. Perhaps his aberrant 1996 power wouldn’t be as glaring in comparison if his two previous seasons had been completed. Projecting his production in those seasons to 1996 at-bat levels produces only 14 homeruns in 1994 (compared to 11 actual) and 19 instead of 15 in 1995. (For some reason the jump from 19 to 35 seems less staggering even though it’s still semi-staggering – especially given Steinbach’s age. Joe Mauer had his aberrant HR season at age 26, by the way.)
Sold his Soul?
 
With the lack of a better explanation, it’s possible Steinbach negotiated some kind of deal with Lucifer in exchange for his 1996 season. How else could you explain how following the greatest season of his career and one of the top seasons ever for an American League catcher, he inexplicably took two-thirds of his previous salary to join a moribund team Twins team that lost 90 games every season for the rest of his career.

It’s an honor when an MLB player is recognized as the best offensive or defensive player at his position by his league but it’s an even greater honor when he’s recognized as both. Greater, but not all that rare, it seems. Since the Silver Slugger award originated in 1980, the two awards have been given simultaneously to players a total of 172 times or about 5 times per season out of the 17 possible occurrences.
 
The first players to be awarded the combo platter* were Keith Hernandez, Willie Wilson, Mike Schmidt, Andre Dawson and Cecil Cooper in 1980. The first Twins player to earn the pair of awards together was Kirby Puckett in 1986. (Kirby went on to do it four more times.) The last Twin was Joe Mauer in 2010, the last of three consecutive seasons he did so. Only one other Twins player won a Silver Slugger and Gold Glove in the same season - Chuck Knoblauch in 1997.
Ken Griffey Jr., Barry Bonds, and Ivan Rodriguez each won the pair of awards seven times– the highest totals in the 33 years that both have been awarded.
 
Mike Hampton in 2003 is the only pitcher to win the pair together. Hampton actually has FIVE Silver Slugger awards, the same as Mauer, if you’re counting. (Mark Portugal even has a Silver Slugger award, Joe!)
 
Inexplicably, there have been 16 occurrences of players being recognized as both their league’s outstanding offensive and defensive player at their position in a season in which they failed to reach the All-Star game. This actually happened to Matt Williams twice – in 1993 and 1997 – and most recently to Chase Headley and Adam LaRoche in 2012. This has never happened to a Yankee, however.
* - No, I did not have a combo platter for lunch today. Egg salad, avocado, some sprouts and pepperoncini on a croissant. A little watermelon on the side.