Jump to content
Twins Daily
  • Create Account

Parker Hageman

Owner
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    4,030

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    6

 Content Type 

Profiles

News

Tutorials & Help

Videos

2023 Twins Top Prospects Ranking

2022 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks

Free Agent & Trade Rumors

Guides & Resources

Minnesota Twins Players Project

Forums

Blogs

Events

Store

Downloads

Gallery

Blog Entries posted by Parker Hageman

  1. Parker Hageman
    26 and 39? Oh boy.
    WCCO's Cory Hepola and Parker Hageman discuss the current state of the Minnesota Twins.
    Topics include:
    What are you hoping to see right now? If the Twins stayed 50% more healthy this year - what’s their record right now? Managing a Bullpen? WALK OFF WIN: Are you able to enjoy the moment? What needs to be done for the Twins to compete in 2022? Watch ⬇️
     
     
  2. Parker Hageman

    Let Them Swing How They Want

    By Parker Hageman,


    Get Better Baseball
    Byron Buxton, a father who happens to play center field for the Minnesota Twins, was asked how he approaches working with his young son on his game.
    On the Sports Info Solutions podcast with Mark Simon, Buxton said that he lets his kid hit anyway he wants. 
    “When we go out to hit, before we do anything, he’ll hit like any player he wants to hit like. He wants to hit like Max Kepler or hit like Cody Bellinger. Anybody he wants to hit like, that’s what I let him do,” Buxton says. “For him, he likes Mookie Betts’ leg kick but he likes where Cody Bellinger’s hands are at. I’m not going to make you hit like me or hit like this person because there are days where you might have to back off the plate or open up a little bit. So it’s one of those where I’m literally whatever he wants to do on the diamond, I do whatever he wants to do because that’s what keeps it fun.”
    There are coaches and parents who give relentless instructions until the young hitters conform to some preconceived notion of what a hitter should look like. This presents several problems. This first is that motor learning rarely progresses well from that style of teaching. And what works for one hitter, might not for another. People need to have creativity and freedom to explore movements in order to find optimal ones for them. 
    “I was forever trying a new stance, trying to hit like [Hank] Greenberg or [Jimmy] Foxx or somebody, and then going back to my old way,” Ted Williams wrote in his book, The Science of Hitting. “I recommend that for kids. Experiment. Try what you see that looks good on somebody else.” 
    Read the rest of the post at Get Better Baseball.
  3. Parker Hageman
    Ted Williams wrote in The Science of Hitting that the “slightly upward swing is the ideal path.”
    It took years for Williams’ theories to be embraced but he has largely been vindicated in the modern era: Hitting the ball in the air has proven to be more impactful than driving it into the ground. 
    (If you think otherwise, you can yell at me on Twitter.)
    Understanding a hitter’s swing path is one way to tell if they are capable of getting the ball in the air on a regular basis. 
    Experienced coaches will be able to tell from swings what a hitter’s path is (up, down or level), however, by using a bat sensor from Blast Motion or Diamond Kinetic, you can obtain a metric called attack angle and have certainty of where in the swing path the hitter’s bat is making contact with the ball.
    Certainly you don’t need to invest in the tech but, as this clip below from Driveline Baseball’s hitting trainer John Soteropulos shows, a hitter’s swing can have all three elements in it. With a bat sensor, you can isolate the data point that will tell you if a hitter is swinging uphill, level, or downhill at the moment of contact. 
    If the attack angle number is positive, a hitter is swinging with an upward plane. If a hitter’s attack angle is in the negative range, they are swinging down on the ball. A measurement of zero is a swing that is parallel to the ground. 
    Read the rest of the post at Get Better Baseball.
  4. Parker Hageman

    What I'm Reading

    By Parker Hageman,

    Welcome to this week’s What I’m Reading.
     
    This is a collection of interesting or insightful articles that you might enjoy.
     
    The Brilliance of Brad:
     

    Facing American League-favorite Oakland in the opening round of the 2002 playoffs, the Twins got off to a horrendous start. Radke issued a one-out walk in the first inning to Scott Hatteberg and Pierzynski’s error on Eric Chavez’s two-out single would ultimately lead to two runs scoring. 

    The Twins got a run back in the top of the second inning but more disaster awaited in the bottom half. They allowed a harmless infield pop fly to fall in with two outs, allowing a run to score, then third baseman Corey Koskie booted the next play. 

    “(Radke) was ticked off,” Koskie said. 

    Pierzynski rarely saw Radke get frustrated. That wasn’t the case in Game 1. 

    “He never got mad at anything but he came in and started screaming at us,” Pierzynski said. “’Wait a minute, Brad is mad? We must have really screwed something up.’” 

    Steady as always, Radke found a way to work around it. He retired 10 of the final 13 batters he faced, completing five innings. Though he left with a 5-3 deficit (only one of the runs was earned), Radke set the tone for an all-time Twins comeback. 
    The Porta Potty Park:
     
    Ah, the temporary outdoor stadium that never was.
     

    Minnesotans had been staying away from the Dome in impressive numbers. It had become a cliché for former Twins attendees to say, “It’s not just the losing. We don’t get enough nice summer days to waste them by going inside the Dome.’’ 

    Clouser decided passion could be rekindled by giving the fans a chance to see the Twins play outdoors. 

    Ellerbe Becket was recruited to design a ballpark with bleachers holding 25,000. The grass at Bloomington’s Kelley Farm site would be manicured. Temporary restroom facilities and concession areas would be constructed … this only a handful of Killebrew home runs from where the fans last saw an outdoor home game for the Twins at Met Stadium in 1981. 
    Voit’s Growth As A Hitter:
     

    Health is part of the explanation for Voit’s season, but Pilittere said he’s focused on working more efficiently and in preparation for a game-by-game basis. Instead of taking pregame swings by volume, he’s facing machine pitching that simulates the pitchers the Yankees expect to see on a given night. If the starting pitcher is a slider-heavy left-hander, he’ll take swings in preparation for that. 
    Data-Driven Decisions:
     
    Sam Bornstein, a University of Iowa baseball’s analytics team member, has joined SimpleSabermetric’s Jake Stone to contribute to that website.
     
    In his introductory post, he demonstrates how technology is improving an organization’s player development decisions.
     

    While some may view the introduction of these technologies as bad for the game, that is certainly not the case. These technologies give us a quantifiable method to make data-driven decisions. Using technology to aid in the player development process is a lot like using a calculator on a math exam - without it you may be able to get to the right answer, but with it you can be sure you're making the best decisions possible to get to that answer quicker. This example is directly applicable to today’s game as well. The coaches who have been in the game forever have an immense amount of valuable experience. However, as more and more technology is introduced we are able to rely more on data to make our decisions than previous experiences. 
    Matthew Wolff’s Unorthodox Golf Swing:
     

    He’s a golfer who swings the club like a baseball player. And he’s 18 holes away from defying logic all the way to a historic major championship. 

    {snip} 

    Wolff and DeChambeau are at the vanguard of a generation of golfers who hit the ball far. Really, really far. They worry about the consequences later. 

    “There’s a lot of holes out there that maybe people would try to hit it in the fairway or maybe take the safe play because it is a U.S. Open and they know that pars are a good score, but I don’t really like to think of it that way,” Wolff said Saturday. 

    {snip} 

    Before swinging, Wolff shimmies his hips like he’s readying himself for a dancing number. Then when he draws the clubhead back, he takes it unusually far outside. It sets up for an unusual follow through. But the result is clear: Wolf creates an extraordinary amount of power that few on tour can rival. 
    Here’s a video breakdown of Wolff’s swing. While not necessarily the same, you can see some of the same elements in some baseball swings. For instance, Byron Buxton’s hips and legs using the ground to generate force. It’s amazing to me how much golf as a sport has embraced using technology and breaking convention if the numbers back it up, which feels different when watching baseball broadcasts and hearing announcers lament the “launch angle swing”.
     
    While Wolff is a good story, I would be remiss if I failed to mention that US Open champion Bryson DeChambeau transformed himself into one of the greatest long ball hitters on the tour today -- through science, technology and intent. What’s interesting is that Dechambeau developed his own powerful swing derived from a 45-year-old golf textbook, not unlike one of today’s hitter’s refining their craft using Ted Williams’ seminal book.
     
    Building Mentally Strong Players:
     

    Footballers can tend to mentally rehearse failure daily. They can remember the mistakes and the poor plays in detail. They can learn helplessness in the quiet of their mind. They may need to deliberately shift these inner pictures to their best games, best moments, best plays. 
    This tweet from sports psychologist Dan Abrahams reminded me of something pitching coach Wes Johnson did for Jose Berrios last year.
     
    LAST:
     
    What I'm Listening To (Spotify Rec)
     
    What I'm Listening To (Podcast Rec)
  5. Parker Hageman

    What I'm Reading

    By Parker Hageman,

    Welcome to What I'm Reading. This is a collection of interesting or insightful articles I’ve read this past week.
     
    Behind Nelson Cruz’s Maniacal Preparation:
     
    From his Seattle Mariner days but a reminder of how much work the 40-year-old Cruz puts in to maintain his elite level of play.
     

    Nap time can vary, but it’s daily. 

    “If we play at home, I like to do it after BP,” he said. “If we are on the road, I do it before BP.”
    Post nap will include a dip in the cold tub for about five minutes, followed by some time in the warm tub. 

    Cruz’s on-field workout is another process. He doesn’t walk into the cage and try to bomb homers. There’s a plan to his batting practice, which includes driving the ball to the opposite field. Sure, by the end, he’s launching balls over the fence at distances his teammates only wish they could reach. 

    But he’s become a more complete hitter by showing this discipline in batting practice. Though he rarely plays in the field anymore, Cruz will still take fly balls on most days because he still wants to play in the outfield at some point. He’ll even take ground balls in the infield to keep his body active. 

    “It’s fun for me,” he said. 
    Kansas City Royals Pitching Development Has Changed:
     

    “We’re not going to draft a guy, have them come in and be like, ‘We need to do this, this and this,'” Stetter said. “The biggest thing is, you have to trust your eyes. If a pitch is working, the hitter is going to tell you. The hitter is going to let you know if your stuff is good enough. And if it is, you’re going to keep going with it. And if you get to Double-A and the hitters start hitting it, you’re not getting swings and misses, we’ll know what kind of changes we might make to that pitch to make it better.” 

    {snip} 

    “A lot of times, if you’re having a guy throw a four-seam, and it’s got a two-seam tilt, it might not always add up that he should be throwing all four-seams,” Stetter said. “There’s some stuff with Rapsodo and Edgertronic camera where we can sit there and make a decision on a guy, where, it might be more beneficial if he throws more two-seams, or it might be beneficial that he throws more four-seams. With new technology, you can tailor it to the guy. Certain grips play better to horizontal-breaking sliders.” 
    Joe West Never Missed A Call:
     

    "This is what people don't understand: When an umpire has a bad night, he goes back and looks at it," he said. "There has to be a reason you missed the call. Three ways you can miss a call: lack of concentration, lack of positioning, lack of timing. The Denkinger play at first base [in 1985 when the] Cardinals lost the World Series to the Royals. Don Denkinger overhustled on that play. He took himself out of position to see that play. Is that a bad thing that he hustled? No. But he put himself in the wrong spot. He's one of the best umpires the American League has ever had. He's remembered for that call. That's not fair. There's no batting average for performance for an umpire. They grade you, yes. But when you miss some, you can't go out and hit a homer. You have no recourse to get that back." 
    99-Year-Old Roger Angell On Modern Baseball Statistics:
     

    I think some of the new stats are useful. Good baseball played by Major Leaguers is so far beyond us—it’s the hardest game in the world to play well. And what underlies [the stat revolution] is, I think, a conscious and effective way to get some of this back, to say, “We know better. We know what the batters are doing. They don’t know what they’re doing.” It’s understandable, but it doesn’t add to the joy of the game for me. I’m not very statistical by nature, so I could be wrong about this. And I know a lot of people now use these stats and talk about them with interest. But also, it’s part of the huge alteration of the game itself. People tilting their swings and swinging for homers and striking out in huge numbers. This is a gigantic change in the game. I think home runs are OK, but on the whole, I prefer a triple. 
    Are We Teaching Wrong?

    Mr. Hirsch also takes issue with grade schools’ focus on “skills.” Whether it is imparting “critical thinking skills,” “communication skills” or “problem-solving skills,” he says such instruction is a waste of time in the absence of specific knowledge. He describes the findings of the National Academy of Sciences on the subject of the “domain specificity of human skills.” What this means, he explains in the new book, “is that being good at tennis does not make you good at golf or soccer. You may be a talented person with great hand-eye coordination—and indeed there are native general abilities that can be nurtured in different ways—but being a first-class swimmer will not make a person good at hockey.” 

    He cites the “baseball study,” conducted by researchers at Marquette University in the 1980s, which found that kids who knew more about how baseball was played performed better when answering questions about a text on baseball than those who didn’t understand the game—regardless of their reading level. The conventional response in education circles is that standardized tests are unfair because some kids are exposed to more specific knowledge than others. In Mr. Hirsch’s view that’s precisely why children should be exposed to more content: Educators “simply haven’t faced up to their duty to provide a coherent sequence of knowledge to children.” 
    What I'm Listening To (Spotify Playlist)
     
    What I'm Listening To (Podcast Recommendation)
  6. Parker Hageman
    A friend of mine passed away over the holiday weekend.
     
    We had attended high school together, were distant friends through college, and spent two years as roommates back in the cities after that.
     
    When we lived together, he was attending culinary school and the roommates would have the benefit of eating food that is normally not accessible to broke post-college kids trying to repay student loans. He would concoct four course meals and we were more than happy to be test subjects.
     
    We’d declare it the best thing we’ve ever eaten and he, being his own worst critic, would inform us that it was garbage and would vow to make it better next time.
     
    He modeled himself a bit after Anthony Bourdain. He had a beat up copy of Kitchen Confidential that he constantly implored me to read. I never did.
     
    Eventually the house split up. We went separate ways and saw each other less. Everyone my age or older likely has friendships like that. I had a growing family and he was launching a culinary career that took him to Central America and Alaska for work.
     
    The relationship became just a bi-yearly message to each other on Facebook, randomly sharing a couple inside jokes and stupid obscure pop culture references. We exchanged one just the previous week.
     
    He sent a one-liner: What are we going to do about this hand twin thing?
     
    It came from a Friends episode we watched years ago. He had an ability to bring groups of people together and our house used to host viewing parties during the final seasons. The line, delivered by Joey Tribbiani in the bathroom of a casino, always cracked us up. Sharing innocuous lines like that over the years just let each other know you were thinking about them.
     
    I spent most of Sunday night reflecting on our time. I spoke with another roommate of ours who had moved out of state as well. We shared memories of the years we all lived together.
     
    I realized how much baseball fandom can imprint on our lives.
     
    He once hosted a weekend-long party at his college house in Duluth. It was epic, as the kids would say. Thinking back to the revelry, I also remember slipping away to see Matt Lawton hit two home runs in Cleveland.
     
    Another time he went to visit a girl in New York City. He returned with a small panoramic of the old Yankee Stadium that he got at a secondhand shop because he knew how much I despised the Yankees. I still have that picture and I still hate the Yankees.
     
    His family would host gatherings at their cabin in northern Minnesota. They were amazingly hospitable people. His mom legitimately made the best sloppy joes. When my daughter wasn’t even a year old, he invited us for a low-key weekend of boating and bonfires. On the drive home, as my little girl slept in the back, I listened to Johan Santana’s 17-strikeout performance on the radio.
     
    When the Twins had a weekend series at Wrigley Field, we ran into each other at the Cubby Bear, the bar across the street from the stadium. We took time to share a Cubby Blue Bomb together, update each other on our current lives, and then went back to the separate group of friends we came with into Chicago.
     
    The last time we saw each other in person I was handing off tickets to him before a Twins game.
     
    We met at The Depot Tavern and played catch up. His seats were on one side of the ballpark and ours were on the other. We vowed to meet on the concourse or somewhere after the game but neither of us followed through.
     
    You are not supposed to live with regrets yet we do. I regret not reaching out more, not making an effort to stay connected. I regret not checking in more frequently to hear about his family, fiancee, and other adventures.
     
    Thirty-nine is way too young. You feel like you always have more time: There will be some other opportunity to catch up, there will be some other chance to reconnect, or some other time to say those were amazing memories.
     
    Looking back, I admired how he followed his passion. We were just becoming functioning adults and he already knew that he wanted to run kitchens and make people happy through food. Someone shared a video of him teaching a culinary class in a Facebook remembrance, making the room laugh in doing so. In a way he did become a version of Bourdain, traveling the world and experiencing cuisine in parts unknown.
     
    Maybe now I’ll listen to him and read that book.
  7. Parker Hageman
    The question I’ve received the most the past few months is why was my original Twitter account suspended.
     
    On March 13 I was covering the Twins in Fort Myers on what would be the last normal day before everything in this world went goofy.
     
    I awoke at the Twins Daily-rented AirBnB, and immediately checked Twitter on my phone as I am wont to do in case I missed something earth shattering in the six hours since I last peeked in.
     

     
     
    Account suspended, it read.
     
    I couldn’t pull down the stream to get that satisfying no-clip-scissor-ride-through-wrapping-paper when refreshing a completely new set of tweets on my feed. I couldn’t get that dopamine rush of seeing that someone liked or retweeted some content I had created. I simply got nothing.
     
    I flipped over to my Gmail and found this.
     

     
    It was a DMCA takedown notice -- removal of video content in which the music was copyrighted, in this case, the song “Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now” by Starship and owned by Sony Entertainment Group.
     
    Jfc.
     
    I had just moved up my flight to make sure I wasn’t stranded on America’s sweaty jockstrap of an isthmus and now my main portal of information to the outside world was cut.
     
    How did this happen?
     
    I had started by making Vines --a defunct application that featured seven second video clips that loops-- with game highlights set to Starship’s 1987 hit song. It was a nod to the World Series winning team. The bit became somewhat of a localized hit. Soon, people would tweet at me after big victories, asking for their nightly montage.
     
    When the Twins fell flat on their face in 2016, I created a longer lowlight version and it took off. It was a blooper reel set to perfect music for the occasion. A surprising amount of people would thank me for posting them. People affiliated with the team would even reach out. It became an annual tradition.
     
    I didn’t get anything out of it other than smug, self-satisfaction that I had contributed just a little bit of joy to this awful, awful world. Now I was being accused of pirating Starship’s music (ok), using it inappropriately (whatever), and had violated Twitter’s rules (yap).
     
    While covering the Twins in Florida this spring, I read Stephen Witt’s illuminating book on the music industry, How Music Got Free. It documents the rise of mp3s, Napster, iTunes, and VEVO from the 1980s through today. It reads like the Moneyball of music. Highly recommended.
     
    It also helped me understand how we got to the point of suspending accounts like mine.
     
    Long ago, in the 1990s, a music executive named Doug Morris was printing money by selling CDs based on one or two hit songs surrounded by unlistenable garbage. Because we could not wait to listen to “Mmmbop” on the radio, we’d slap down $17 to listen to an entire album of dreck.
     
    But then Napster showed up and saved us. While illegal, it gave the world a better business model than what Morris was providing.
     
    When iTunes and the iPod finally killed CDs, Morris discovered the rising popularity of YouTube and how his grandkids were watching music videos on that site. He then created VEVO, bought a giant catalogue of the music, and in 2007 he sent his lawyers to takedown any videos created using VEVO-owned music.
     
    If you posted a video of yourself baking a cake set to 50 Cent's "In Da Club", it was ripped down. No more sampling the goods. If you wanted to hear a song, you either had to pay or listen on a revenue-generating platform.
     
    Morris is now the chairman of Sony Entertainment Group. The same outfit that owns the rights to Starship’s song. So you can see how that company would aggressively protect its property.
     
    Twitter does not want to run afoul of music’s law dogs like the RIAA or the IFPI -- the enforcement arms of the record companies -- and has a policy that prevents users from posting videos with non-licensed music in it. They even assist in the flagging of potential violators.
     
    But it is not always consistent.
     
    After The Last Dance aired, an account on Twitter was spawned that showed Michael Jordan rocking out to more contemporary tunes. That account has over 52,000 followers and no takedowns or suspensions.
     
    You’ve probably seen numerous videos showing crushing sports moments set to one of the worst songs of all time, Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On”.
     
    One account, @TitanicTD, who affixed the song on top of NFL and college football touchdown highlights, was suspended in early 2020. Perhaps not surprisingly, Celine’s ballad is also property of Sony Entertainment Group.
     
    While I understood the general rules and risks, I had considered my use of the song protected under the Fair Use guidelines on Twitter.
     
    I used a portion of the song, not reposted the entirety. There was no monetary gain for the video, it was non-commercial. I wasn’t attempting to claim ownership.
     
    In my mind I was giving life to a lifeless song that was over thirty years old. If I had the ability to access Spotify’s data, I would bet since I began posting the tribute videos, that song’s streaming numbers on the music app probably jumped by the tens. (THE TENS!)
     
    The Fair Use act is definitely something that is difficult to argue as it is almost completely subjective and open for interpretation. For some reason I figured Twitter would understand my position. At the very least, I figured they would ask me to delete the video, not suspend my account for months.
     
    And there is some legal context for it.
     
    In 2008 Universal Music Group, then headed by the aforementioned Morris, issued a DMCA takedown to YouTube for the video of a
    . 
    The 13-month-old’s mother and video’s creator, Stephanie Lenz, responded to YouTube citing Fair Use and YouTube reinstated the video. Lenz then sued Universal for misrepresentation under the DMCA, hoping to set a precedent against companies going after videos like hers. Ultimately the courts ruled in Lenz’s favor but as the case ascended to higher courts, the two parties eventually settled when the Supreme Court declined to hear the case.
     
    Lenz’s video remains posted on YouTube. But even now Twitter users regularly receive DMCA takedowns for videos where music is inadvertently captured in the background at events or weddings. Two months after my suspension, the Star Tribune’s Michael Rand had one of his tweets flagged.
     

    https://twitter.com/RandBall/status/1260942572572246016

     
    Twitter, however, is cowing to the International Federation of Phonographic Industry (IFPI) and has been aggressively botting users’ feeds to find anything that can be construed as stolen music. According to one article, Twitter’s system has failed to decipher between which music videos are Fair Use and which are actual copyright violations. And numerous users, like Randball above, in early 2020 received temporary suspensions over perceived violations.
     
    Over the next few weeks I sent multiple emails to the Twitter copyright department, Twitter itself, and even to Greame Grant, IFPI’s Director of Anti-Piracy. I explained myself, my motivations and said I would never do something so egregious as providing their client with free advertisement again. The only thing I didn’t do was drive to the nearest rural casino to catch Starship on tour and beg the band for forgiveness.
     
    I did not receive one response beside the form email Twitter sends out encouraging violators to reach out to the copyright submitter -- in this case IFPI -- in hopes of getting them to retract the takedown request.
     
    So that’s what happened to my Twitter account.
     
    I was frustrated at the platform. The lack of response. The lack of consistency in punishment. I didn’t want to come back, not until my original account was freed. I did not want to give Twitter the satisfaction of having to rebrand and regrow. Since joining that hot steaming mess in June 2009 I have built a good following, a good brand and even better contacts (one of the worst parts about being suspended is that you cannot access your DMs or followers lists).
     
    That’s why I didn’t start tweeting from a new account right away.
     
    Plus, you know…[gestures everywhere]...this.
     
    Truthfully, given the state of the country and the on-going battle with the coronavirus, I don’t have the utmost confidence that baseball will actually be played come the end of the month. That being said, since the game is moving forward for now and there is some honest-to-goodness baseball happening at Target Field, I’ve come out of the shadows from my other account.
     
    I’m ready to talk about baseball again.
  8. Parker Hageman
    Brian Dozier was on MLB Network yesterday and the Twins' second baseman -- in the midst of a 25-game hitting streak, by the way -- and demonstrating the changes he made in order to go from a puncher of a middle infielder to a a second base capable of bopping 40 home runs.
     
    If you are a player, coach, instructor or just a fan curious to know the thought process behind Dozier's development, you have to watch this.
     




     
    The overall segment could have gone smoother (or shorter) if Mark DeRosa did not keep interrupting or interjecting his thoughts and allow Dozier to talk. When Dozier did get to explain his methods, he shared one of the most critical parts about the swing: Hands are the enemy of the swing.
     
    "Hands just hold the bat," Dozier tells DeRosa, which is something that the Orioles' Chris Davis told him. It's not the hands or arms that generate the power, it's the firing of his hips that drives the ball. Watch the clip of Gary Player explaining this exact phenomenon on the golf course This is definitely a truism in golf, where Dozier finally had his eureka moment, but it certainly applies to the baseball swing as well.
     




  9. Parker Hageman
    By now, you are probably sick of hearing the words “launch angle”. I assure you, you are not alone.
     
    On a recent spring training broadcast, Twins radio announcer Dan Gladden noted that more teams are “teaching launch angles” but the practice has been out for several years. However, you know if Gladden is talking about it then the concept has certainly gone mainstream.
     
    This is how baseball works: Several teams find an advantage in something different – be it infield shifts, outfield shifts, catchers with superior receiving skills, or having hitters focus on lifting the baseball – and, if that works, other teams quickly saturate that edge until it is simply the norm. Consider this, infield shifts are now commonplace across the board. This was once a practice that only a handful of forward-thinking teams would use sparingly. Eventually, even Ron Gardenhire started instituting the shift. Think about that. According to Fangraphs, in the 2008 season there were just 2,350 plate appearances where a traditional infield shift was used. This past season, the shift was used in 28,072 plate appearances. Everyone is getting shifted to some degree. If you show a tendency to hit a ground ball to a certain location, odds are a team will choke that space into nothingness. In 2017 hitters who put the ball on the ground had a batting average of .241. Meanwhile, hitters who put the ball in the air as a fly ball hit .251.
     
    Why is a higher launch angle so vital as well as such a wedge topic? In a recent Twin Cities Business article, Minnesota Twins’ Director of Analytics, Daniel Adler, put it succinctly. “The uppercut swing is like the three-point shot in the NBA,” he said. “When they go in, you get 50 percent more points. Fly-ball-based hits become home runs, which justify [a swing that gives up the opportunity for] ground-ball-based hits.”
     
    It is impossible to defend the long ball. More long balls is better. Ipso facto, it is beneficial to have your hitters hit more long balls. (And that’s even before you consider MLB has introduced a juiced ball to the game.)
     
    In short, there’s so much more value to be had by putting the ball in the air versus putting it on the ground – even with the added risk of striking out. Teams are beginning to understand that. At the same time, baseball purists may argue that they don’t care to see contact sacrificed in the name of offense. Some would prefer to see a well-placed grounder through the right side of the infield to move a runner up a base.
     
    While this may hinder some fans viewing experience, the game is clearly trending that direction. Given that more teams have observed this value and have more players, like Justin Turner and Josh Donaldson touting its merits to teammates, it’s no surprise to see the concepts are catching on with others. Turner’s teammate catcher Yasmani Grandal spent the offseason trying to gain more lift.
     
    "If I just took 50 ground balls out of the equation, that could give me the opportunity to be great in this game," he told the LA Times. Grandal has already shown some power so why would he risk more strikeouts for more fly balls? “[Y]ou still come to the conclusion that you're still not the best in the game," he said, "so why not try to make a change to hopefully be the best?”
     
    Grandal is not alone. The Braves’ Christian Colon has been working on it. Mets center field Juan Lagares spent the offseason working on increasing his launch angle. The entire Nationals team is jumping on board.
     
    On the other end of the spectrum you have guys like Cleveland’s Jason Kipnis and the Twins’ Max Kepler. Kipnis recently hit a ton of home runs in a spring game and was asked if he changed anything. "If you ever hear me say the words, 'launch angle' or anything like that, I'm lying right to your face," Kipnis told reporters. "That's not anything I've ever worked on or cared about. I work on hitting the ball hard where it's pitched and staying balanced and on time.”
     
    Kepler echoed Kipnis’s thoughts. “For me it’s not about launch angle,” Kepler said. “It’s about getting my bat head in the zone as early as possible. I used to enter straight down. Now I’m just trying to enter more on a level path, but I’ve still got my hands going a similar route.”
     
    While they don’t have to care about launch angle, launch angle is happening whether they care or not. Launch angle is like velocity, it’s always happening (unless, of course, you swing and miss).
     
    Then there is the confused Justin Upton. In a recent interview with Fangraphs, Upton said “I don’t try to hit the ball in the air. To be brutally honest with you, I’ve never in my career tried to hit the ball in the air. I’ve always tried to hit line drives, and if you just miss a line drive it becomes a deep fly ball.”
     
    This is where the misunderstanding comes in. Most people hear about increasing launch angles and fly ball revolution and assume it means taking a home run derby g-hack. Getting the ball in the air is not just about deep fly balls. It’s about keeping it off the ground. Line drives, by the way, are hit in the air. Don’t you want to hit more line drives? Despite his argument to the contrary, Justin Upton is very much trying to hit the ball in the air.
     
    Here’s the dirty secret: You don’t necessarily have to have an uppercut swing in order to increase your launch angle. Yes, long flies equal power but long line drives are just as potent. Getting the ball in the air is about the point of contact, both on the ball and where in relation to the plate. For Turner, who was trying to hit few ground balls, he was focused on where he was hitting the ball.
     
    “If you hit down on the ball and hit the top of the ball, you’re still hitting a ground ball. If you hit the center of the ball, the margin of error is so tiny to create backspin, you have to really, really good to do that. That’s where this new swing plane comes in. This loftier swing plane makes it a lot easier to hit the bottom of the ball,” Turner said.
     




     
    The second part is about being able to add lift is where the contact in relationship to the plate. Turner said he was trying to attack the ball – catching it out front, in the parlance -- rather than letting it travel deep. When you let it travel too much, the contact point often results in ground balls. Over the last two years, Joe Mauer has had a 4.3 degree launch angle – one of the lowest in the game. Part of that is due to his approach of letting the ball travel in the zone before making late contact. For Mauer, that is by design. He’s trying to shoot the ball the other way or up the middle. He rarely pulls the ball because of this.
     

    https://twitter.com/ParkerHageman/status/968666007580573696

     
    Twins’ Derek Falvey recently discussed hitting with the Star Tribune and he brought up a key aspect about training – the notion of internal versus external cueing. External cueing is the practice of telling a hitter to swing with an uppercut to hit the ball in the air more versus internal cueing which sets up various practice methods in order to a hitter to incorporate those methods on their own. For instance, what the Rays recently did by placing screens across the infield is a form of internal cueing. Hitters will have to adjust their swing to achieve the desired results of adding lift. A person has a better chance of success if you provide them with activities that will force the person to accomplish the intended goal – just like how Kris Bryant’s father had him aim for targets up on the top of the batting cage in order to create an uppercut swing path.
     
    These practices lead to more balls in the air and thus a higher launch angle. An uppercut swing will certainly led to more bottom ball contact but it isn’t a prerequisite. Hitters can be trained without even knowing they are training.
     
    Bottom line: Hit it in the air.
  10. Parker Hageman
    Here's a great piece of advice from a professional player for pitchers trying to learn or coaches trying to teach players to throw a better two-seam fastball.
     
    Houston Astros' pitcher Lance McCullers Jr, who recently diced the Twins lineup in spring training action, has incorporated a new grip on his two-seam fastball that is giving him (so far anyways) superior movement over his two-seamer a year ago. I mean, just watch this unfair action he dumped on the poor, unsuspecting Ehire Adrianza.
     




     
    That's some filth flarn filth.
     
    Fortunately for us, McCullers created a video breakdown of what he is doing differently when he grips the ball.
     




     
    The essential takeaway is that (1) McCullers is now tucking his thumb under the ball and (2) placing his index finger on the seam move and using that to generate the push, helping create the spin necessary to dive back across the zone. In short, McCullers is trying to achieve laminar flow to create the nasty movement we see above. For further background on this concept, be sure to watch Cleveland's Trevor Bauer
    .  
    McCullers was asked on Twitter if pitchers are constantly tinkering with their grips throughout the season.
     
    "As easy as that would seem, we only get so many throws in season to work on our stuff," McCullers responded. "That time is usually trying to improve on what you already know. Trying a new grip and pitch takes time and reps only the offseason can really provide."
     
    For more pitching insight, be sure to follow Pitching Ninja on Twitter.
  11. Parker Hageman

    A Painful Lesson

    By Parker Hageman,

    ** NOTE: This was originally published at my Over The Baggy blog in April 2011 following Tsuyoshi Nishioka's unfortunate injure at the second base bag at the legs of Nick Swisher. With Jung Ho Kang's recent injury and CJ Nitkowski's post at FOX Sports about the subject, I felt like there was some additional information that pertains to this incident. Enjoy**
     
     
     
    In just over a week of regular season games, it became clear that Tsuyoshi Nishioka had a slow learning curve when it came to the nuances of baseball on this side of the Pacific.
     
     
    Coming over from Chiba Lotte Marines, Nishioka was lauded for his eye at the plate, racking up numerous walks and an impressive on-base percentage to go along with it. Yet, we had not been privy to this discerning eye rather one that does not seem quite calibrated. After all, in 26 plate appearance he has struck out eight times - going down looking whopping six. Most fans knee-jerkingly want to deem Nishioka overmatched by Major League Baseball’s superior firepower without considering that Japan’s strike zone, while vertically larger, is typically narrower than the one we have over here.
     
    Although he had the ability to hash out the details of the stateside strike zone without the threat of bodily injury, he was not afforded the same luxury when discovering the realities of the American basepaths.
     
    This past winter, when asked if he had any advice for his incoming countryman based on his experience assimilating to the American game, Kaz Matsui offered some words of wisdom for Nishioka including:
     
    With just a handful of middle infielders making the conversion from Nippon Professional Baseball to the major leagues, it has been a slow process for those players to embrace the type of play necessary to compete with the vigorous effort shared by their major league counterparts around second base: “Be careful about getting spiked during double plays”
     
    At TheBaseballCodes.com, a website dedicated to many spoken and unspoken rules of the game, the authors discussed the differences of the style between the two countries on the basepaths. Former major leaguer and ex-Yakult Swallow second baseman, Rex Hudler, said of his tenure in Japan’s Central League in 1993 that:
     
     
    To be sure, this non-aggressive behavior has been practiced for generations in Japan. It had been an element missing from their game for so long that, back in 1987, the Tokyo Giants sent a handful of their prized prospects to workout with the then-low A Miami Marlins in order to indoctrinate them in the ways of “hard-nosed” baseball. More specifically, they were sent to learn how to go into second base with their “spikes” up. Seeing has the “hard-nosed” movement just began to take roots in the early 1990s in Japan, it is easy to see why, as middle infielders began to transition from the Far East to the United States, most were not adequately prepared for the intensity that is shown on this side of the globe.
     
    “They didn’t come after me on double plays. They didn’t like to break up double plays. They weren’t real physical in their game. I was a physical guy, I liked contact. I had to ask the Americans on the other teams to come get me. I said, ‘come on, let’s make it fun, let’s make it exciting.’ ”
     
    In another instance cited at TheBaseballCodes.com, according to Rod Allen*, the color commentator for the Tigers at Fox Sports Detroit, referenced another second baseman that came over to the White Sox in 2005:
     
    *Allen, who also played in Japan himself, is remembered for one of the
    , another practice not observed overseas. 
     
    While Iguchi never suffered a serious injury like Nishioka’s, he was sent sprawling several times including one that resulted in a deep knee bruise courtesy of Oakland’s Scott Hatteberg in 2005. However, another celebrated Japanese infielder, Akinori Iwamura, a third baseman for most of his career with the Yakult Swallows, was badly injured in a brush up at second.
     
    Unlike Iguchi or Matsui, Iwamura’s initial introduction allowed him to maintain his original position of third base in 2007 but was soon pressed off of the hot corner when prospect Evan Longoria was deemed ready. The Rays moved Iwamura around the diamond to second where, with the exception of a dust-up with the Yankees’ Shelley Duncan in spring training, he handled himself quite well. In 2009 however, Iwamura would suffer a very similar injury to Nishioka in the very same manner.
     
    While playing a series against the Marlins, in the bottom of the eighth inning Florida’s Wes Helms bounced a check-swing double-play ball to Rays pitcher Dan Wheeler. Wheeler fielded the ball and spun to second to feed the covering Iwamura. Iwamura received the throw on the base but then planted his front foot out in front of the bag to make the relay throw to first. Instead of completing the throw, the Marlins’ Chris Coghlan came in hard to the exposed Iwamura and wiped the infield dirt with him.
     
     

     
     
    The play resulted in a torn knee ligament for Iwamura and he was sidelined for the majority of the 2009 season. The following year, Iwamura never really regained his pre-injury abilities and wound up hitting just .173/.285/.250 in 229 plate appearances split between Pittsburgh and Oakland. Because of his unfamiliarity for needing to bail out quickly when turning the double play, Iwamura likely accelerated his way out of major league baseball.
     
    In addition to not only lacking the awareness to have a quick release, there is another element contributing to Nishioka’s unfortunate injury at second.
     
    As a shortstop, Nishioka was in the process of transition back to a position he had not played since 2005. This was a similar plight shared by his predecessor Kaz Matsui. When the Mets decided that Matsui’s defense at short was not up to snuff for the major league level, they switch him over to second base. Of course, while some might think that simply moving 50 paces to your left is an easy task, Matsui had some issues:
     
    That description sounds awfully familiar to what transpired in the Bronx on Thursday afternoon.
     
    In revisiting the clip, the footage clearly shows that Nishioka’s focus is on the baseball and not the whereabouts of the incoming Swisher:
     
     

     
     
    So for Nishioka, in just his sixth game at second base in seven years, he had to relearn the situational awareness that comes with the territory. Whereas when he was playing shortstop, the play happened before his eyes. Similar to a quarterback being rushed by a blind-side blitz, here we see a prime example of someone who is not entirely cognizant of the unfolding events.
     
    With these cases in mind, it can easily be concluded that because Japanese players do not grow up in a baseball culture that is taught to be vigilant of some two-hundred and ten pound individual bearing down on you, they seem to have a harder time adapting to the position – particularly the middle infield. This is exacerbated when accounting for the fact that they receive little on-the-job training at the minor league level.
     
    As much as it was likely stressed in Florida to Nishioka regarding the league’s ability to go gung-ho into the keystone, there really is no way of conveying this message (even more so when considering the language barrier) until a player is actually experiencing it. And for a player like Nishioka, he had to learn the lesson the hard way.
  17. Parker Hageman
    The Indians’ David Murphy should send the Minnesota Twins’ front office and coaching staff a bottle of champagne. After all, the struggling left-handed outfielder hast just six doubles this season but two of those came courtesy of the Twins when they have infielders positioned in the outfield.
     
    While the 2014 Twins infield numbers have flourished, the outfield has languished.
     
    The Twins’ outfield was a defensive liability last year. In 2013, they posted an unsightly -35.3 UZR as an outfield unit. Of course, if you solely relied on the broadcast of the games, you would have likely heard that the Twins outfield had a .991 fielding percentage, 4th best in the game. In short, last year’s outfield was very good...if the ball was hit directly at them. But overall they converted a lowly 84.4% of all outfield flies into outs -- a rate that was 29 out of 30 MLB teams.
     
    With the knowledge that the team had issues in this department, the Twins front office did little to address that particular need in the offseason. Naturally, starting pitching took a precedence. Yet little preparations were made to provide any safety nets. In fact, the only outfield addition this past year, Jason Kubel, provided questionable defense in corner outfield spots at his best.
     
    There was a method to this madness. The Twins had Josh Willingham locked in. They had to find out if Aaron Hicks could manage center field and if Oswaldo Arcia could claim right field. Beyond that, heading into camp, there was some depth (some depth in the same way there is some water in the desert). Kubel could take over for either Willingham or Arcia if necessary. Alex Presley had played a decent center field and Darin Mastroianni was certainly capable as well. But what is clear now -- as much as it seemed obvious even then -- is that there was a razor thin margin for error. Would Willingham, a much maligned player coming off knee surgery, survive an entire year? Hicks had little track record to suggest he was going to capture the position, which could be the same thing about Arcia.
     
    At the very least, in the case with Hicks and Arcia, the Twins deserve credit for wanting to see the kids play. The problem is that they purchased a very ****ty insurance policy. When it came time to make the final roster decisions, the leadership including the manager decided that Jason Bartlett would be a super utility-type -- a move that was necessitated just as much by the lack of confidence in Pedro Florimon as anything -- which came at the expense of Presley, an actual outfielder, who would be claimed by the Houston Astros.
     
    In terms of that final roster spot, Twins assistant GM Rob Antony had stated that the decision was influenced by the manager.
     
    “When you get down to the tail-end of your roster, I think the manager sort of has to determine how he’s using different guys and it doesn’t make much sense to fill out a roster any other way than how he’s going to use them,” said Antony shortly after the final roster was announced in spring training.
     
    As camp wound down, Bartlett saw more time in different outfield positions. After one afternoon in right field, manager Ron Gardenhire levied his thoughts on Bartlett’s performance.
     
    “He hasn’t played much out there, he’s just an athlete,” Gardenhire said in March when asked what his thoughts were on Bartlett in the outfield. “He actually ran the ball down great today -- the one ball in the corner, he just got too close to the wall. He’s had no practice in right field and balls in the corner. None whatsoever. He’s just taken balls off the bat. He got some great jumps on a few balls out there. Right field is the toughest out here. You can’t hardly see the ball out there -- everybody will tell you the same thing. I thought he did pretty damn good out there. To tell you the truth I was pleasantly surprised.”
     
    Gardenhire went on to say that Bartlett would be receiving plenty of outfield practice, alongside Chris Colabello and Eduardo Escobar, once the season began. The notion, however, that Bartlett would be needed almost immediately in the outfield did not seem to cross his mind. Additionally, the front office said that Bartlett would be available in emergency situations to fill in for Hicks but that Mastroianni would be a phone call away in Rochester.
     
    The emergency situations arose in Cleveland just six games into the season when left fielder Josh Willingham was destroyed by a Justin Masterson fastball. With Jason Kubel in right field and Oswaldo Arcia out because of an injury, Bartlett was pressed into left field duty.
     
    In the sixth inning, the Indians began to pick on Barlett. First it was Lonnie Chisenhall getting a bonus base because of Bartlett’s play, then Jason Kipnis landing a single in short left field and finally, David Murphy’s first gift double:
     

    http://i.imgur.com/7Ahbebc.gif

    In both instances, the likelihood of actually making the play was remote. According to Inside Edge’s fielding data available at Fangraphs, the IE video scouts suggested that the initial double allowed to Chisenhall had a 40-60% chance of being converted into an out. Murphy’s bloop, on the other hand, received a near 0% chance of being caught. The issue came in Bartlett’s approach -- the attempted dive rather than play it safe and get behind the play and limit Murphy to a one-base hit rather than move into scoring position. His hustle was admirable but his inexperience was on display.
     


    Source: FanGraphs


    This outing resulted in Bartlett’s eventual retirement after he sprained his ankle and opted not to continue through the rehab process.
     
    When the Twins returned to Cleveland, they were once again left with a short bench thanks to a pair of concussions to Aaron Hicks and Sam Fuld. With depth being a significant issue, Gardenhire decided to use Escobar in left field. Despite the vote of confidence from his manager after the game, it became apparent during the game that his inexperience -- like not knowing exactly how to read a warning track -- came into play. In that case, Inside Edge’s video scouts said Asdrubal Cabrera’s double was a play that should have been made 90-100% of the time. It essentially cost the Twins that game.
     


    Source: FanGraphs


    The next afternoon, still short of outfielders, Gardenhire promoted Escobar to center field action. This is where David Murphy received his second double from the Twins:
     

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

    Undoubtedly a tough read. Line drives that are smoked straight at an outfielder have the tendency of being difficult to read. As of posting, Inside Edge’s data from that game has not been uploaded to Fangraphs.com so there’s not baseline as to what professional video scouts feel about that particular play. That said, a player like Hicks or Fuld who has a history of seeing those types of plays would be able to get a better jump and route than Escobar did.
     
    Through Monday night, the Twins have had infielders in the outfield for 45.2 innings (or 4.6% of the total innings). Of those innings, the players involved have a combined 64 innings of professional outfield experience between them (Danny Santana did have 15 games in center in 2011 with Beloit). While a small sampling, that still is too large. Clearly health-related issues have forced several of these decisions but those were born from the inability to properly build -- or in the case of losing Presley and Mastroianni, manage -- outfield depth in the system. It was the offseason gamble, not the final decision to keep Bartlett on the 25-man roster, that caused so many issues are that resonating today.
     
    You are welcome, David Murphy.
×
×
  • Create New...